Ashland, Oregon
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Detective Winston Radhauser sat upright in bed. What was that? A gunshot? Thunder? A car backfiring? Or was he in the middle of a bad dream? The clock read 12:15 a.m. Less than a second later, a high-pitched whinny, nearly a scream, echoed through the still air. The searing, intense noise scattered Radhauser’s senses. The sound of a horse in pain. His mind jumped back to their barn fire a few years ago. Ameer, his stallion, on his hind legs, kicking at his stall door.
In a panic, Radhauser leaped from the bed and pulled on his clothes.
Gracie sat up too, rubbing her eyes, her long, dark hair tousled and falling over the shoulders of her yellow nightgown. “What was that?”
“I don’t know. I’m going to check the barn.”
She jumped out of bed, then hurried to the closet, yanked on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt over her nightgown, and pulled her hair into a ponytail. She'd slipped into her shoes and was ready to go before Radhauser could put on his socks.
“Stay here until I see what’s going on,” he said, still worried he’d heard a gunshot. The horse whinnied again.
“Are you serious?” Gracie said, then hurried toward the mudroom, Radhauser at her heels. He pulled on his cowboy boots and grabbed his gun from the locked cabinet.
“I’m going with you.” She opened the door.
He blinked from the sudden brightness of the motion light as they ran through the rain across the drenched deck and down the driveway. There was almost no moon, and the darkness seemed to dissolve all around them. As they neared the barn, all four lights posted on the corners of the barn came on. Radhauser took a quick look around. There was no one in sight.
He pulled open the barn’s double doors and flipped on the overhead lights. The surrounding air filled with the scent of the cedar sawdust they used to bed the stalls, the grassy aroma of alfalfa bales and sweet feed laced with molasses. But tonight, the smells weren’t comforting. Other horses in the barn were restless, pacing, and tossing their heads, ears laid back. High whinnies continued to come from Ameer’s stall. As soon as their eyes adjusted to the light, they raced toward the disturbing sounds.
Radhauser flung open the stall door. Ameer lay on the ground, his coat covered with blood and cedar shavings. He knelt beside his stallion. Ameer’s ears were back and flicking nervously, his eyes wide and terrified. Radhauser rubbed his neck. Gracie took one look and said, “I’ll get some towels, gauze and bandages from the first aid cabinet.”
“You’re going to be okay, buddy.” Radhauser ran his hands over Ameer’s body, attempting to find the source of the blood. Finally, he discovered a bullet wound in his right shoulder—the upper part of the stallion’s front leg. He took off his belt and made a tourniquet.
Gracie reappeared and handed him some towels.
“Call Tom Parkinson. Tell him it’s an emergency. Gunshot wound to the right shoulder.” Radhauser used the towels to put pressure on the horse’s wound.
“Gunshot? Oh my God,” she said. “Who’d want to hurt Ameer?” She hurried to the barn phone and called the vet.
Radhauser’s thoughts hurtled in another direction.
Katelyn, the Hungarian teenager they’d rescued from a child pornography and prostitution ring, was to testify in the Portland murder trial of scumbag, Clyde Stilinski, in only a few days. She had witnessed Stilinski murder thirteen-year-old Ava Cartwright. Ava was kidnapped in Ashland on her tenth birthday—a cold case Radhauser had been obsessed with for years. Katelyn’s testimony was crucial to the prosecution. But she was also wounded.
She came to the US from an orphanage in Hungary to live with her cousin, but the cousin failed to show up at the airport, and the phone number Katelyn had for her was out of service. Stilinski was there, looking for his opportunity. He promised to take her under his wing, feed her, and help her find employment and a place to live. Instead, he locked her in a cage, sold her for prostitution and punished her severely whenever she’d tried to escape.
Radhauser’s heart pounded. Had there been more than one gunshot and he’d slept through the first one? What if it was Katelyn they were after, and shooting Ameer was merely a decoy? Why hadn’t he thought her life might be in danger?
Gracie returned and knelt beside Radhauser.
“Keep pressure on this for me,” he said. “I want to check on Katelyn.”
Gracie turned and looked into his eyes. “I tried to check on her when I called the vet. Her door was locked.” Something frightening passed between them. An acknowledgement of things too terrible to speak.
Radhauser bolted toward the barn office they’d turned into a bedroom for Katelyn. He tapped on the door. No answer. He turned the knob with a wrist too heavy to be his own. Thank God Katelyn had locked the door. He took a deep breath, grabbed the spare key from the hook in the tack room, opened the door, and flipped on the light.
His eyes teared when he spotted Katelyn in her pajamas, huddled on the floor in the back corner of the room, her head in her hands, a puddle of urine beneath her.
