Death by Equine by Annette Dashofy (read this if txt) 📗

“I didn’t say that.”

“What are the other possibilities?”

She removed the filled tube, placed one finger at the injection site, and extracted the needle, holding pressure. “Anthrax. Equine Encephalitis, Equine Influenza...”

Tony’s eyes widened. “Those are contagious, aren’t they? I mean, to humans?”

She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Yep. Of the choices, EIA is probably preferable. At least as far as we humans are concerned. None of it’s good for them.” She released the pressure on the spot where the needle had gone in and stroked the gray’s neck. One of the reasons she’d always wanted to be a veterinarian was so she could do something to help sick and injured animals. Except this time she was powerless. There was no cure. No medication. Only one way out. And it sucked.

Tony tugged a red bandana from his hip pocket and wiped a gleam of sweat from his bald head. “Christ,” he muttered. “What can we do? How do we stop it from spreading?”

“Quarantine.”

“I know that. Anything else?”

Jessie nodded to Emerick who slipped the halter off the horse and clipped the stall webbing to the eyehook in the doorway.

“Do all the barns have those zappers?” Jessie pointed to the blue lights enclosed in a pitted chrome wire cage hanging from the ceiling. As if on cue, a hapless horsefly flew toward the light and the thing emitted a zzzttt. A small spark flashed where the fly had been.

“I don’t know. I doubt it.”

“Flying insect control is the most we can do. Make sure each barn has a zapper or two. Or three. Close in this barn—both sides—as much as you can. That one too,” she said, pointing to the adjacent stable. “Same thing up in Barn K, where Neil used to stall him.”

Tony shrunk another inch. “But that’s just about impossible.”

“You close them in during the winter, don’t you?”

“Well, sure. But trainers take weeks to get the sheets of plywood and such nailed up in the fall.”

“In this case, better make it hours. Make sure the manure piles are kept cleaned up and cordon off the area around the exterior of the barns.”

“How far?”

“Preferably two hundred yards—”

“Two hundred yards?”

Jessie understood how much space that entailed. “For now at least, take it out to the stables above and below both barns.”

He rammed the bandana back in his pocket. “I’ll get right on it.” He turned toward Emerick and regained his normal stature, pointing one stubby finger at the trainer’s face. “You. I never gave you permission to move a horse down here.”

Jessie noticed Emerick dropped the superiority pretense in the face of the man who could ship his entire stable to a less well-maintained barn. Or cut the number of stalls he could use. Under different circumstances, the sight of diminutive Tony Rizzo successfully dressing down tall, obnoxious Neil Emerick would have brought her immense pleasure. Today, it only made her sad.

Word was getting out. By the time Jessie, Emerick, and Tony arrived at Barn K, a crowd had gathered on the road in front of the stable. They gazed in, worried expressions on their faces. The one face conspicuously absent was Sherry’s, and for once, Jessie would have appreciated her presence. Jessie had a whole barn full of horses that needed to have blood drawn. She could use an assistant right about now. The possibility that Sherry had broken into Jessie’s house was the least of her concerns.

HAVING COMPLETED THE sad task of drawing blood from every horse in Neil Emerick’s barn, Jessie sat in her office, resting her head on her arms folded on top of the desk. Sherry had failed to return, leaving Jessie to manage the entire job alone. To make a bad situation worse, she’d been forced to contend with at least half a dozen owners ranting about her insistence that no horse be allowed to leave the barn. Like rats leaving a sinking ship, they wanted to get their horses out. She heard promises that they would take their animals home and keep them there for the duration. She refused to budge.

At least there had been no panic. So far. Most palpable was the resentment aimed at her, as if this were all her fault. With a moan, she sat up and rubbed her eyes. If they were as red as they felt, she must be a frightening sight.

Even if she’d spoken up the minute she learned about Doc’s shortcuts with the Coggins tests, nothing would’ve changed. The gray would still be sick. The others would still be in danger. But if she had said something sooner, she wouldn’t be burdened with the sense that, in keeping quiet, she had somehow contributed to this disaster.

A soft knock came at the door. Milt stuck his head in before she had a chance to say anything.

“Hey, darlin’. I hear you’re up to your ass in alligators.”

She smiled in spite of herself. “Come in, Milt.”

After closing the door behind him, he sank into the sofa. “Where are your kitty cats?”

Jessie pointed toward her feet. Both Molly and the tabby had curled up together under the desk for a nap.

Milt crossed one ankle over the other knee. “What’s the deal with Emerick’s stable? I heard rumors you suspect Swamp Fever.”

“You heard right. I hope I’m wrong, but the symptoms are all there.”

“Are you really thinking of quarantining all of Riverview?”

“If any of the horses test positive for EIA virus, it may mean shutting down the entire track.”

“For how long?”

“It depends on a lot of things. First, we have to do blood tests on every horse on the property. The feds will be involved—”

“The feds?”

“United States Department of Agriculture. I’ve already called and alerted them we may have an outbreak. I’ll let them know what the initial tests show. They’ll decide where we go from there.”

“When will you get the tests back?”

“At least twenty-four hours, but I’ll bet it won’t be until the first of the week. No one wants to work in a lab on a