Saddled with Murder

by Eileen Brady

  I continued the theme. “I’ve told him over and over that’s not what happened, but it’s stuck in his head now. He’s already confessed to me, and to the chief, and probably to his family lawyer. Let’s try to keep him from doing it again.”

  Cindy agreed. “I’d rather Pinky get counseling, not become someone’s statistic.”

  We all understood. The murder of Raeleen Lassitor had produced too many suspects. First the local detectives, then the FBI, investigated Pinky, then Devin, and then every enemy of LARN came under scrutiny. Before the day was over, we heard that new DNA evidence found on the body had turned the investigation in yet another unexpected direction—a direction that once again involved me.

  * * *

  Luke brought the animal hospital the bad news along with takeout from the diner for the staff. With his contacts at the Oak Falls Police Department, he’d heard almost immediately that DNA found on Raeleen’s coat and a glove matched someone living in Oak Falls.

  The surprise suspect? Ashley Kaminsky, the owner of Maple Grove Farm.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” I said, pushing away my plate. The idea that Ashley, owner of the mustang, Lobo, might be a killer stunned me. “Why is her DNA in the system?”

  “Federal database and a genealogy company, my dear. Law enforcement’s new best friend.” He stacked some papers together on my desk to make room for his paper plate.

  “I don’t believe it.”

  Luke picked up an egg roll. “What you believe or don’t believe doesn’t matter. They’re evidence-gathering as we speak.”

  With my own egg roll I countered his claim. “Have they got a motive?”

  “Raeleen opposed the wild horse adoption program and told Ashley she was going to look for evidence of neglect. She threatened to file a complaint against her and send Lobo back.”

  “The neglect part is bull. I’ve been to Maple Grove Farm multiple times. Ashley takes wonderful care of her pets. Plus, Lobo is just now beginning to feel comfortable in his new home. To disrupt him again with an uncertain fate in front of him is simply cruel. I thought Raeleen loved animals?”

  “That’s the sad part. She did. But her activism backfired in some cases. She never learned from her mistakes, always blamed someone else. When I was on the police force, we had a few run-ins with her.”

  While I ate, I went back over my own run-in with Raeleen and the look of absolute rage on her face. What if Devin was innocent, as he now claimed? I wondered if a disgruntled local decided to take advantage of the “deadly wish” theory and stop her once and for all.

  A tempting scenario, but it didn’t cover how Ashley’s DNA came into the picture. Reluctant to believe my friend was involved, I decided to take a deeper look at Maple Grove Farm and Lobo.

  * * *

  I didn’t anticipate it, but an opportunity presented itself later that day, when I realized Mari and I were driving right past the farm after one of our house calls. I took a chance and had Mari text Ashley from the base of the driveway. The doors immediately swung open, and as we came up the hill, I saw my client waiting anxiously outside for us. Her normally calm face betrayed her. She appeared worried, very worried.

  “The police were just here,” she began without any prompting on our part.

  I put my hand on her shoulder and guided her inside. Her knee buckled for a moment even with the brace on. “Do you want to talk about it?” I asked, concerned for her privacy.

  “You bet I do. They seem to think I have something to do with Raeleen Lassitor’s death. Are they crazy? First, I’d never kill anyone. And second, does it look like I’m going anywhere with this brace on?”

  We all sat down at the kitchen table, and Mari asked if she’d like her to make some tea.

  I got right to it. “When was your injury?” Her menagerie of rescue animals padded into the kitchen, looking for attention and possibly some treats. The older one, Tommy, pushed his nose into her hand.

  “Tuesday night,” she replied. “I just went through this with the cops. Around nine in the evening the dogs started to bark. I was worried the coyotes were visiting us again, so I went out with my paint gun to scare them off.”

  “That’s a novel idea,” Mari observed. Ashley handed us both cups of steaming hot tea.

  “Thanks. Anyway, it wasn’t coyotes. Someone had sneaked onto the property. I found the barn door open. Lobo was all riled up, snorting and kicking the side of the stall. Anyway, as I was shutting the door a figure ran across the field off to the right and climbed over the fence. When I followed, I slipped in the mud and fell.”

  “Did you go to the emergency room?”

  “No,” she confessed. “I limped back home. Took a shower to get the muck off, downed a few ibuprofens, and put an ice pack on it. Originally, I suspected one of the neighbor kids. I’ve found the oldest one in there before making out with his girlfriend.”

  “So you went to the emergency room…?”

  “The following day because when I got up in the morning my knee had swollen so much I couldn’t bend it. The orthopedist said I have trauma to the joint and a partial tear of my lateral collateral ligament, which should heal if I stop reinjuring it.” An expression of pain appeared when one of the dogs accidentally banged into her brace. “Ouch.”

  Mari distracted the dogs while I created a barrier from two spare chairs. “Leave a thick towel or pillow here by your chair to cushion your knee. Believe me, it will come in handy with all your critters around.”

  Her story of someone being in the barn interested me. “Were you able to recognize who you saw running away? Could it have been a woman?”

  Puzzled, she asked, “Why would a woman be in my barn?”

  Why, indeed. Maybe snooping around and checking on Lobo’s stall and exercise area. That might account for the hay and Ashley’s DNA found on Raeleen. “I notice you have security gates at the base of the driveway. Do you have any cameras?”

  “Loads of them. Problem is they shorted out in the last big storm. Honestly, I haven’t gotten around to fixing them. The ones in the barn work, though. Separate circuits. The police took all that video as evidence. Actually, it’s the dogs that sounded the alarm.”

  “Best alarms ever.” With no other questions to ask, I focused on the other reason I came here. “Do you mind if I say hello to Lobo?”

  “Sure,” Ashley said. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to stay here.” Her hand rubbed the skin above her brace. “Text me when you’re ready to leave.”

  Mari and I headed for the barn, but my assistant stopped halfway there. “You go ahead. I’m going to run back and see if she wants us to do anything else for her. My cell service is bad in the barn.”

  “If you don’t mind,” I said.

  Alone I continued on to the barn while Mari went back into the house. The door squeaked a bit as I pulled the handle toward me. Familiar farm smells wafted out, odors of animals and hay and earth. A pair of dim lights lit a pathway in front of the stalls. I realized this is what an intruder would see, even more if they had a flashlight. What might they be after?

  Were these motion detector lights? Probably not. You wouldn’t want them going off all night whenever any of the animals moved. What about the barn camera videos the police took? I made a note to ask her.

  Just to the right of the entrance was the tack room/office that Ashley used for her husbandry documents, crop reports, medical records, and supply orders. I’d sat opposite her in that room while generating a rabies certificate for one of her dogs. There were photos of a younger Ashley at an agility trial and with her arm around a calf at the state fair. Nothing of particular interest caught my eye, certainly nothing to implicate anyone in any wrongdoing. High up in the corner was a camera focused on the desk.

  A creak of the hinge warned me that Mari most likely had returned.

  “I’m in here,” I tol
d her. Light flooded the inside of the barn.

  “I threw the main switch,” she said. “Everyone’s been fed and watered. Ashley did want us to check Lobo’s left front hoof. He had a stone wedged in it the other night, but today when she turned him out in the field, he appeared perfectly fine. The farrier is coming next week to check his shoe.”

  “Okay.” As always, I approached the mustang slowly. He backed away only to reconsider when I stood still at the front of his stall. Mari came up next to me with a lead, which I snapped onto his halter. A few sugar cubes from my pocket convinced him everything was fine.

  We brought him out into the hall so I could check his hoof. From experience I knew what it was like to be pinned against a wall by a thousand-pound horse, so there was no way I would examine him in the stall. With good hoof manners I checked his shoe, even running my finger along the inside for any small pebbles, but nothing seemed amiss.

  Sweet Potato next door gave a soft whinny, probably wondering where her sugar cube was. Mari obliged while I brought Lobo back in and rewarded him. We texted Ashley that all was well and then secured the animals for the night.

  One final look around revealed nothing. If Raeleen had snuck in, what did she have in mind?

  After turning off the overhead lights, and leaving on the nightlights, we walked outside and closed the thick wooden doors. A crescent moon shone its pale light on the red painted barn, which turned pearl gray in the glow. Snow crunched under our boots on our way back to the truck. Ashley texted us to have a safe journey home. The field Raeleen had fled through revealed nothing as we drove by nor did the silent surrounding woods.

  Why did I feel I had missed something?

  * * *

  Once in my apartment I checked YouTube. The number swam before my eyes. Could it be? Could 315,000 people have viewed it? One comment caught my attention as I scrolled through them. They claimed to have heard another voice after Pinky said Raeleen Lassitor. A ghostly voice.

  I didn’t think so.

  But I was about to find out.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  That viewer on YouTube was right. But it wasn’t no ghost.

  A frame-by-frame viewing of the video picked up our former intern Greta muttering “Good” after I wished Raeleen Lassitor away.

  My eyes stung from staring at the screen. Did this count as evidence that Greta hated the victim? Not sure, I called Luke.

  The noise in the background sounded like a store of some kind. “You must have read my mind. I’m at Raeleen’s last workplace, buying groceries and asking a bunch of questions.” He lowered his voice. “A few days before she died Raeleen told a coworker that she was going to help rehome some of the kittens that hang out at the market’s dumpster. It was super hush-hush because she’s gotten into trouble with management for feeding them.”

  “Was she working with a group that does feral cat capture and release?” I assumed Raeleen would be well aware of all the local animal groups, since she was vice president of LARN. Some dedicated volunteers work for several animal rescue groups at a time.

  “No, just her. Something’s off about this, though, because the coworker said Raeleen was hinting about starting her own animal rights group and being the CEO.”

  What? That didn’t make sense. Why split from a successful group to start your own—especially with no money? Raeleen didn’t have a dime.

  “Did they remember anything else?”

  “No such luck.” Even before Luke continued, I felt his frustration. “Raeleen always had one scheme or another going, she told me. Half the time, the coworker didn’t even listen.”

  * * *

  Back in my apartment we talked about the three deaths and how my video had gone viral. In my email were two new proposals from lawyer J.D. and his psychic client giving me a twenty-four-hour deadline to accept their offer. It now came with a bonus.

  “You don’t think J.D. would kill Raeleen just to complete the wish, do you?”

  “That sounds unlikely,” Luke answered, “but I wouldn’t rule anything out. I know the police are frustrated. The more time that goes by after a murder with no arrest, the less likely the killer will be caught.”

  I don’t know why but my mind circled back to the wish. All I wanted to prove was the wish wasn’t at the heart of this mess.

  Luke spent a moment reading the YouTube viewer reviews. “Some of these comments are out to lunch. I don’t know how law enforcement would deal with them. Here’s one person who swears they heard the devil speak in the background.”

  The devil? “That’s one I must have missed. What did old Satan say?”

  “Die.”

  * * *

  It was déjà vu all over again when Chief Garcia made an appearance at my apartment, this one preceded by a text from Luke and definitely not official. Cindy, my receptionist and his sister-in-law, rode shotgun.

  Thanks to Cindy’s presence, the chief was on his best behavior.

  Four of us now sat around my kitchen table swilling tea and munching on baked goods. We’d cued up the video for the chief to see, only to find he had his own copy, thanks to Cindy.

  “First of all, let me say that I don’t believe in all this supernatural nonsense, but there are a lot of people who do.”

  “More than you think,” Cindy said.

  “What I believe,” he continued “is that a criminal may be using your wish to justify the murder of one or more of our victims.”

  I couldn’t believe what he was saying.

  “So far Devin’s alibi is holding up. Oh, and your friend Ashley is no longer a suspect. She turned over a video from her barn camera, which showed Raeleen sneaking in wearing the same coat she was killed in. The hay fragments, partial DNA evidence—it all was passive, picked up in the barn when she was snooping around.”

  “Did Rae steal anything?”

  He hesitated for a moment before telling us. “We have her on the barn camera taking pictures of certain documents. The phone footage is being analyzed, as well as the contents of her desk at LARN.”

  “The plot thickens,” said Cindy trying to lighten the mood.

  “That means we’re back to square one.” Our police chief did not sound happy.

  “Maybe all three deaths are murders,” Luke proposed. “Or two out of three. Definitely one is.”

  The chief scratched his head. “I certainly think any of those scenarios are possible, but my office has its hands tied. Between the FBI and our friends in Kingston, we’ve been squeezed out. We know for sure someone murdered Raeleen. A ghost didn’t pop up and shoot her. As for Eloise and Frank, with no evidence to the contrary, it’s hard to prove their deaths weren’t accidents. All evidence indicates that. Of course, when a member of the public starts asking questions…”

  “Like Babs did,” I added.

  “Then we have to take another look.” Something was bothering Chief Garcia, a stickler for detail. We soon learned what. “That New York City pathologist should’ve factored in weather conditions up here before he published his opinion. A sudden wind gust would account for his findings. Those things can knock you off your feet.”

  “Tell them what you told me,” Cindy told her brother-in-law.

  Decidedly uncomfortable, he said, “Speaking off the record, I wouldn’t be opposed to some fact-gathering by other interested parties.”

  I spoke up. “What if Luke and I and Cindy try one last time to find connections between Raeleen, Eloise, and Frank? Unofficially, of course.”

  “Anything you find out would be appreciated. There’s no way I can justify my officers pursing a murder investigation into Frank’s or Eloise’s death with absolutely no evidence.”

  “Right away I can tell you one connection,” Cindy said. “Raeleen hated Eloise for breeding bulldogs.”

  Luke added, “I can check for nuisance lawsuits i
n small claims court filed by Frank. He had a shotgun approach targeting multiple individuals or corporations or both.”

  That made me recall my conversation with Judy. “Frank had at least two lawsuits pending against Judy’s Place. She wasn’t the only one in town he was suing.”

  Chief Garcia cleared his throat. “To be completely transparent here, Frank also was suing me personally and the Oak Falls Police Department.”

  “Wait,” I said. “Wouldn’t that be a conflict of interest—you and your office investigating his death?”

  “In retrospect, yes.”

  Luke spoke up. “Like I said, someone like Frank often filed multiple lawsuits in small claims court, where there are minimal legal fees. I’d like to know what specific case he had in front of the judge the morning of his death—the case he hired an outside lawyer for, instead of representing himself.”

  “That’s something I do know,” the chief said. “It was a weird one. He’s suing some psychic who told him he didn’t have long to live. He claimed psychological trauma. If he won, he intended to piggy-back that verdict into a whole slew of others to the tune of five hundred thousand dollars or more.”

  “Wow.” Cindy obviously didn’t know everything.

  “Who was the defendant?” asked Luke.

  “A woman named Delphina.”

  * * *

  Since transparency now ruled, I had to confess everything, from going with Mari to Delphina for a reading, to the odd meeting with Athenina and her lawyer/agent J.D., along with their monetary propositions. The chief appeared nonplussed. Since he’d spent twenty-five years as a police officer, few things surprised him.

  “Let me say,” I began, “Delphina seems much too careful to make this kind of mistake with Frank. Maybe he misinterpreted what she said?”

  “I believe she emailed him a copy of their session,” Chief Garcia answered. “That’s part of the evidence provided.”

  Luke returned with a fresh pot of tea and the last of the sweets he’d brought. “I’m afraid psychics, tarot card readers, and mediums all have disclaimers that their work is for entertainment purposes only.” He poured Cindy and me fresh cups. “That’s Law School 101, guys.”