Simpatico's Gift Page 3

  He sat back on his heels, letting his gloved hands rest on Simpatico. His mind drifted to earlier times. Silence hung while Aubrey let him have his moment.

  After a while he resumed his work, and said, “Everyone thought Elizabeth was crazy to pay so much for Lady in Linen.”

  “She knew what she was doing,” Aubrey said, as held back a fold of skin.

  “Over a year of studying pedigrees, talking to agents, going to sales — she knew what she was doing, all right.”

  “She was creating a dynasty.”

  “The reign of Simpatico,” Emily said.

  Kent had almost forgotten she was there, and her voice startled him. “That’s right, Em.”

  Kent puddled through slippery coils of intestine.

  Aubrey held out a specimen bottle, and Kent turned to deposit a piece of tissue in it. In the process, his elbow brushed the curve of her breast. She didn’t pull away.

  In the revolting environment of that moment, the touch strengthened both of them. She was the one person with whom he shared his innermost feelings. Secretly, he wrestled with the wisdom of asking her to commit. He wanted to, for sure, but sometimes he questioned whether she preferred her own space. One thing he did know for sure, Aubrey was a beacon of light for him and Emily.

  “Remember how he was?” Aubrey said. “The way those beautiful black legs unfolded when he was born. From the first time he lifted his head out of the straw he was different from the rest. His eyes. It was like he could see right through you.”

  “Back then he was just Lady in Linen’s colt. Didn’t even have a name.”

  “Count on Elizabeth, the master of weird names, to come up with Simpatico,” Emily said. “I had to look it up.”

  “It was perfect for him,” Aubrey said, as she continued to hold out jar after jar, some empty and some containing formalin, for Kent to drop in sugar-cube size pieces of liver, kidney, muscle, brain, stomach contents, and everything else.

  “Winner of eleven major stakes, Horse of the Year twice, and retired healthy with earnings over a million. Good thing he transmitted his genes to his offspring.”

  “Thank God. Hopefully he packed it all in Hubris.”

  They had been at it just over an hour and a half when Kent stood, peeled off his gloves, and laid them on the tray stacked with specimens. He wiped the sweat off his brow with his forearm. Then he blew out a sad sigh.

  “Done,” he said.

  He let his eyes drift over Simpatico’s remains — one last slow-take of what was once his favorite patient, even more than that — his friend. His eyes burned.

  “Goddammit,” he said, as he arranged the tarp to hide the body. “This may be the last time I actually see this, but I guarantee, I’ll see it in my mind every time I close my eyes for a long time to come.”

  He heard a soft sniffle and looked over to see Emily, head down, crying, her tears dripping into the straw.

  His heart went out to his daughter as he stepped over to her, and he extended his hand to help her stand.

  “I know you are scared at the thought of not having Simpatico around anymore,” he said, as he wrapped her in a hug. “We all are. He was so important. But we’ll get through this. I promise.”

  He shifted so they were face to face, and wiped a tear from her cheek. “You believe me, right?”

  She nodded weakly. Then sniffed again, collecting herself.

  To reset her mind, Kent said, “Would you take the instruments out to the truck and rinse them off? Leave the samples. I want to handle them myself.” He turned to include Aubrey. “I’m going to get cleaned up. How about I meet you ladies in the office.”

  When Emily was gone, he said to Aubrey in a soft tone, “Riesling,”

  “What?” Aubrey said, caught off guard.

  “We had a bottle of Riesling, not Chardonnay, that time we celebrated Lady in Linen’s pregnancy.”

  Aubrey squeezed his arm and smiled. “You know, things like that are the reason I keep you around.”

  He walked toward the washroom. His legs felt weak, tingly from kneeling too long.

  He stood six-feet even and weighed one-eighty, just as he had in college. Even so, these signs of age bothered him. He reminded himself again that he was going to have to get on a regular exercise program. But that would have to wait. In the next few weeks, maybe months, he was going to have his hands full dealing with the many ramifications of New York losing its top Thoroughbred stallion. Worse yet, in the next five minutes, he had to figure a way to tell the folks waiting in VinChaRo’s office that he had no idea what killed their horse.

  When he entered the office, Elizabeth, Aubrey, and Emily were sitting on the couch. Charles was again behind his desk. Burton Bush leaned into the corner. They all held looks of anticipation, except Burton, who stared blankly down at Ninja. His red hair scattered from his head in all directions. It was the reason why the other farm hands called him “The Burning Bush.”

  Kent stepped toward a chair three feet in front of Burton. Ninja considered that too close and emitted a soft growl until Burton changed it to a yelp by thumping the dog’s ribs with the side of his foot.

  “Don’t kick the dog,” Kent said, and gave Burton a look that registered his anger. “It doesn’t help anything.”

  Kent refocused on the crowd. He raised his hands at his sides, palms up. “I wasn’t able to determine what killed him,” he said. “I did as complete an autopsy as possible and couldn’t find anything.” His frustration was palpable.

  “What about any injuries?” someone asked.

  “He does have a fractured left scapula just above the shoulder and quite a few cuts and bruises around his head. None of that had much swelling or hemorrhage, so I’m thinking they were from him slamming around the stall. They weren’t what killed him.

  “Can you tell what time it happened?”

  “Based on lividity, I’d guess he’s been dead for close to eight hours. It’s about ten o’clock now, so I’d put the time of death at soon after the two o’clock check.”

  When no one could come up with any more questions, Kent said, ”I’m taking a bunch of blood and tissue samples back to the diagnostic lab. With a little bit of luck, they will be able to tell us something.” He paused, tried to think of something else to add but couldn’t, so he finished with, “I’m very sorry, Elizabeth.”

  “Yes. Well, we all are,” Elizabeth said. “We’ll just have to wait and see.” She sounded exhausted.

  “I’ll put a rush on everything, of course,” he said, and then he had another thought. “Did you talk to the insurance company, yet?”

  “They’ll be sending some papers and I’ll need a statement from you. They were very nice about it. They didn’t see any reason to prolong things after you made your examination. As far as they are concerned, we can dispose of the body as we see fit.” She glanced at her son. “Charles and Burton will bury him on the ridge.”

  In the beginning days of VinChaRo, Elizabeth and her husband, Ward, had designated a farm cemetery in a grove of sugar maples on the ridge behind the mansion. Each grave was marked with a granite boulder. A brass plate bearing the horse’s name, age, racing record, or any other information they felt worthy of mention, was secured to the rock. Kent had always thought it was a wonderful tribute to VinChaRo Thoroughbreds and an honorable final resting spot for them. Still, it was too early for Simpatico.

  “I’ll get a marker plate made up,” Charles said.

  Elizabeth nodded in acceptance of the offer. Charles was the middle of Elizabeth and Ward’s children. Their first was Vincent, who, after graduating from the Air Force Academy, had perished in a bombing raid over Laos. Their third was Rosemary, who never showed much interest in the farm. She pursued a life as cellist in the New York City Philharmonic. It was from the names of the three children that they had derived the farm name — VinCha
Ro. Charles was the heir apparent.

  Kent pushed himself to his feet. “I’ll plan on taking a walk up to the ridge when you’ve got the plaque mounted. I’d like to see it.” He glanced at Emily. “Probably we all would.”

  After the group broke up, Kent circled back around to fine Aubrey, who had slipped out early. He found her in a quiet section of the barn half-heartedly grooming Hubris.

  When she saw him approaching, she set down her brush. “It doesn’t seem possible that the absence of one horse could make this huge barn feel so empty.”

  “Not knowing is a bitch,” he said.

  “You got that right. I want to be the first to hear anything.”

  “You will be. I promise.”

  The second Kent and Emily were back in the truck with doors slammed for their departure, Emily began bombarding her father with questions.

  “Doc, what do you really think?”

  “You heard everything I said.”

  “I mean, if you had to guess.”

  Kent face folded into a baffled look. “I don’t know, Em. There’re a lot of possibilities.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, at first I was thinking colic, but I should have seen evidence of that during the autopsy. So, the next thing that comes to mind is some kind of a stroke. Or, horses can have acute heart failure, a lot like a heart attack. That’s a possibility. Both are really hard to diagnose during an autopsy. The tissue samples may help us, though.”

  Lucinda hung her head over into the front seat. Her eyes half closed as Emily stroked her velvety ears.

  “It’s weird,” Emily said. “He hasn’t been sick. I mean, at least no one thought he was. You just gave him a check-up before breeding season, and he was fine. Right?”

  “Yep. I gave him a complete physical. Granted, that doesn’t show everything, but he seemed healthy as a horse.”

  Emily didn’t acknowledge his weak pun, so he went on.

  “His blood work was fine, too. The whole idea of doing all that is to try to anticipate problems. Obviously, it doesn’t always work.”

  Kent turned and watched the rural scenery pass by for a long moment. Finally, he said, “I’m still thinking colic is high on the list, even though I didn’t find any sign of it. I could have missed it. Colic fits. It’s common. It can come on without warning. You’ve seen enough cases. You know how violent they get when the pain in their belly becomes unbearable. There is no question in my mind that Simpatico was violent. At least at the end.”

  “Do you really think the diagnostic lab can tell what happened?”

  “I’m counting on it. Dr. Holmes is the best of the best. If anybody can figure it out, he can.”

  After VinChaRo, Kent and Emily visited several farms and examined horses with garden-variety coughs, lameness, and skin problems. They checked a few mares for breeding soundness and made out shipping papers for a colt sold to a racing syndicate in California.

  As they climbed back into the truck, Kent checked his watch. “It’s noon already. Let’s stop in Mattson for lunch. Want to?”

  “Good with me,” Emily said. ”I’m starved.”

  Mattson was a tiny hamlet, not much more than a four corners where, a century ago, there had been a gristmill. Not much remained. However, it did have one outstanding feature — their favorite place to eat lunch — the Mattson Cemetery.

  He guided his truck into the cemetery through a break in the stone fence, and wound his way between ancient trees shading the tombstones. A thick mat of myrtle kept the grass at bay without mowing. The headstones were mostly simple gray rectangles, weathered to illegibility, and tilting in all directions — cozy and secluded, perfect for a picnic.

  He pulled to a stop on the circular lane that wound through the headstones, and opened the door to let Lucinda out for a run. Kent and Emily each picked a marker with enough grass around it for a good seat cushion, and just the right tilt to serve as a comfortable backrest, and sat. As they had done many spring days before, they spread the lunches Margaret had prepared for them onto their laps.

  For a while they ate in silence, content to watch Lucinda chase a fat gray squirrel away from whatever he was burying under one of the maples.

  Finally Emily said, “It’s going to hurt the program.”

  It took Kent a second to refocus on Simpatico.

  “Yeah, well, the New York Bred Program is not built on one horse.”

  She gave Kent her I’m-not-buying-it look. “He was our most important stallion.”

  “The others will have to pick up the slack.”

  “Which ones?”

  Kent crumpled an empty potato chip bag. “Well, off the top of my head, Cedar Cut’s got Charter Oak and there’s Solar Wind at Keuka View. They’re both super stallions.”

  “What about VinChaRo?”

  “Hubris moves to the number one slot now.”

  “Think he can do it?”

  “He’s Simpatico’s son, he packs Simpatico’s genes. He’ll do fine.”

  “His first crop of foals is just getting to the track now. We don’t really know.”

  “Yeah, but those that have raced have won big. It’s looking like he’s got what it takes to be a great stallion.”

  Lucinda wandered back and flopped down next to Kent.

  “Hubris is the man now.”

  CHAPTER 5

  It was after five o’clock when Kent, Emily, and Lucinda made it back to the Compassion Veterinary Center, the mega animal hospital that was Kent’s pride and joy.

  He had broken ground on the CVC a few years back, soon after he and Aubrey met, and she had pulled him out of his dark period. They were in the intensive care unit at the Cornell University vet school at the time, watching Lucinda recover from a gunshot wound, when the idea struck him. Right then and there, he pledged to rebuild his tiny, outdated animal clinic into a state-of-the-art veterinary medical center. Jefferson’s cosmetic manufacturer, who was eager to show her gratitude for all he had done to save her business, pledged a pile of money. Aubrey reached back to her former life as an actress and picked the pockets of her wealthy Hollywood friends. And even the animal rights group, Freedom of Animals Movement, which had brought Aubrey to Jefferson in the first place, made a huge donation. The project had consumed Kent, but the outcome was spectacular.

  Today his satisfaction was tempered. Today, neither he nor the CVC had been able to help Simpatico.

  He scanned the client parking area. It was jammed with cars. “Looks like office hours are in full swing.”

  The frenetic activity level within confirmed his suspicion. Half a dozen doctors quick stepped in and out of exam rooms. As many technicians shuttled samples to the lab, and reported back with results. Canine toenails clattered on the quarry tile floor as owners were dragged behind huffing, tugging dogs. Cat owners clunked over-size carriers into door jams and cabinets as they worked their way in and out of the reception area.

  Just then a pair of gangly teenage boys came down the hall carrying a stretcher with a huge Basset Hound on it. One was Aubrey’s son, Barry, and the other was his best friend, Nathan.

  “Hi, fellas. What you got there?” Kent asked, as he made room for them to pass.

  “HBC,” Barry said, not breaking stride. “Just arrived. We’re hoping it’s a fractured pelvis, not his back.”

  Kent’s cringed. Hit by cars were never good, but better a pelvis than a back.

  “You guys are getting to be quite the diagnosticians. All your hard work is paying off.”

  Both boys beamed.

  “Maybe,” Barry said,” but we’re going to let the real doctors say for sure.”

  “Probably smart.”

  “Very smart,” Emily said, teasing the boys.

  Barry’s eyebrows rose in a look of false indignation. “Hey, Em, we’ve got this pla
ce ticking like a Swiss watch.”

  Emily’s glanced around. “Yep. Run-of-the-mill chaos.”

  Lucinda pushed her shoulder against Kent’s leg to keep from being run over.

  “Afternoon, Sally,” Kent said to his hospital director, when she caught up to him. “Looks like the ship’s on an even keel?”

  Sally’s short-cropped hair was mussed. Her Irish cheeks glowed. She bent and gave Lucinda a pat on the head. “Busy. Very busy. But I’m not complaining.”

  “Just the way we like it. Right?”

  “Keeps the bills paid.” Then the freckles merged across her forehead. “Anyway, what happened at VinChaRo?”

  Kent told her how they found Simpatico, about the autopsy and what little they knew at this point. Already it seemed he’d repeated the story a hundred times. And, already he hated the empty words he put together to really say nothing. He ended with a shrug that signaled she would have to wait for the pathology report like everyone else.

  “You might as well tell the rest of the staff,” he said. “They’re going to find out anyway, and maybe we can keep the rumors down.” Then he had another thought. “And, we’ll probably be getting a lot of phone calls about it, so remind everyone that all requests for information go to you or me.”

  “I’ll tell Kathy. She’s handling the phones now.” Sally disappeared down the hall.

  Kent and Emily weaved their way through the building to the diagnostic lab where they unloaded the specimens to a technician who began inventorying them in. After guarding them all day, Kent was relieved to pass them on.

  As Emily handed each item to the tech, she studied their contents. There were pieces of heart, lung, liver, spleen, kidney, intestine, and muscle clinging to the inside of zip-lock bags like thawing dinner. There were samples of blood, stomach contents, urine, and joint fluid in glass vials and tubes.

  “It’s gross to do this to Simpatico,” she said, giving her father a guilty look.

  “I agree,” Kent said. “But we need to know why he died.”

  “Who died?” Peter Murphy, the CVC’s head equine surgeon, asked as he entered, and pulled himself to a seat on the lab counter.