3 A Basket of Trouble

by Beth Groundwater

  Claire maneuvered into the drive-through lane. She ordered their shakes then turned to Brittany. “Did your mother pick you up after the grand opening was over?”

  Brittany looked down at her hands in her lap. “You mean the night Kyle was killed? Why do you want to know that?”

  Claire couldn’t very well tell Brittany that she was wondering if Nancy Schwartz may have had reason—and an opportunity—to kill Kyle. “Maybe your mother saw something that evening. Something she may not even realize is important.”

  Brittany thought for a moment. “Could be. After I got in the car, Mom said she had to use the restroom. She got out and went in one of the port-a-potties while I waited.”

  And the port-a-potties were hidden from view of the parking lot. Claire inched the car forward in the drive-through line. “Was she gone long?”

  With a shrug, Brittany said, “I wasn’t paying much attention. I was listening to my iPod. She may have gone to the barn looking for Jorge, but I know he’d already left.”

  “Why would she be looking for Jorge?”

  Brittany grinned at Claire. “They’re seeing each other. Mom and Dad got divorced when I was twelve. She met Jorge the first week I started working here when she came to pick me up, and I guess they hit it off. They both love horses. That’s kind of what drove Dad off, I think. He wants nothing to do with horses.”

  Now that’s interesting. Claire inched her car forward again, then she had a thought. “I’m surprised your Mom used the port-a-potty rather than the bathroom in the trailer.”

  “Charley and Jessica had already left and locked it up.”

  Claire frowned. This didn’t seem like Charley and Jessica. “They should have stuck around until you left.”

  “They were going to, but I could see how pooped they were. And Gil and Kyle were still there, so it wasn’t like I was all alone. I told them to go ahead, since Mom would be coming soon anyway.”

  Claire had reached the server window. She handed Brittany her shake and took a sip of her own. Ugh, strawberry. She hated fruity shakes.

  She handed it back to the server. “I asked for chocolate and this is strawberry.”

  While the server went to fix the order, Brittany reached for her purse. Claire stayed her hand. “This is on me.”

  “Thanks.” Brittany took a slurp of her shake. “Mine’s right.”

  “Good.” Now, where were we? “Okay, so you explained why your mom didn’t go in the trailer.”

  “Mom wouldn’t have gone in there anyway. She tries to avoid seeing Charley and Jessica when she picks me up and drops me off.” Brittany looked askance at Claire. “She and Jessica don’t really get along.”

  “I know your mother runs a hippotherapy nonprofit, too,” Claire said. “Jessica tells me that there are plenty of clients for both charities, but your mom doesn’t seem to share that point of view.”

  Brittany sighed. “It’s a part of her control complex. Anything she has a hand in, she has to own one hundred percent.” She cracked a smile at Claire. “She must not have learned the lesson about sharing in kindergarten.”

  The server returned with another shake, and Claire took a sample sip. It was chocolate heaven, just what she needed after a stressful day. She paid for the shakes and drove off.

  “I hope your mom doesn’t have the same control attitude about you. What did she think of you dating Kyle?”

  Brittany rolled her eyes. “It’s like she hates everyone I date. She doesn’t like Vince, either. She keeps saying I could do better, that I should look for some guy who can set me up in style. But I’m not looking to get married. I just want to have some fun.”

  “I agree. You’re too young to be settling down.” Claire thought the same thing about her own daughter, who was close to Brittany’s age, but Judy had fallen head-over-heels in love and planned to marry her sweetheart in a year.

  “And if I point out to Mom that she’s dating Jorge, she just blows up, says that’s not the same thing. I guess she’s already been ‘set up in style’ by my Dad.” Brittany sneered while she made quote marks in the air with her fingers. “I wish I could move out, but I’m stuck at home until I graduate and get a real job. I hate Mom trying to control everything about my life.”

  “Is that why you volunteer for Jessica’s nonprofit instead of hers?” Claire turned into the entrance to Brittany’s neighborhood.

  “Yeah. I like helping people and being around horses, but I knew I couldn’t stand working for my mom.”

  Claire tried to envision what it would be like to have Judy working for her. Nope, it wouldn’t work. They would be butting heads in a day.

  “You know,” she said to Brittany, “I don’t think there are very many young women who would work well with their mothers. I think you’ve got to make that break first, stand on your own two feet to get some distance, then maybe it would work.”

  “I wish my mom was as smart as you.” Brittany pointed to the next street on the left. “Turn there.”

  Claire laughed. “I’m not that smart. I’ve had my share of fights with my own daughter. I finally figured out that I had to let her make her own mistakes, though.”

  Soon after she turned onto Brittany’s street, a brown Buick passed them going the other way.

  “Honk your horn!” Brittany yelled. “That’s my mom.” She started rolling down her window.

  Claire laid on the horn, and Nancy Schwartz stopped her car.

  “Mom,” Brittany yelled out her window and waved her arm.

  Nancy Schwartz backed up until she was opposite Claire’s stopped car. She pushed the button to roll down the passenger side window.

  “I thought you were at a meeting so I got a ride home,” Brittany said to her.

  She peered at Brittany and Claire with an annoyed expression on her face. “I finished early, and I figured I’d pick you up. Why didn’t you call me?”

  “I’m sorry.” Brittany gave a feeble shrug. “We stopped to get shakes and got to talking.”

  “And you ruined your dinner, too.”

  Brittany gave her mother a look of disgust. “It’s just a shake.”

  Nancy exhaled. “What am I going to do with you?” She shook her head and started backing up into her driveway.

  “Nothing,” Brittany mumbled. “Absolutely nothing.”

  Brittany quietly thanked Claire for the ride and got out of the car. She strode up to her house, giving her mother’s car a wide berth. She pushed through the front door into the house, letting the door slam behind her with a loud bang.

  As Claire drove away, she thought, wow, the woman really is controlling if she’s monitoring the eating habits of her grown daughter. How far would someone like that go to discredit a business rival—or to get rid of an unsuitable suitor for her daughter?

  ten:

  death returns

  Claire drove to Charley’s stable on Wednesday morning. She hadn’t planned to be there again. In fact she thought she should give Charley some space, given how touchy he was about her “interference” in his business. But she needed to pick up some items from Jessica to put in the horseback riding theme basket she was constructing for the silent auction on Saturday. She wished she had remembered to get them Tuesday, but the trouble with Gil had pushed all other thoughts out of her mind.

  While stopped at a traffic light, Claire watched dark clouds boiling over the ramparts of the Front Range. An uncommon morning thunderstorm was in the works. She hoped to be back home before the clouds dropped their load, and possibly hail.

  Flashing red and blue lights tinted the gray sky. Puzzled, Claire looked for the source once she started moving again. After cresting a rise, she could see Gardner’s Stables. The flashing lights came from a police car and an ambulance sitting in the parking lot. Her stomach lurched as a sick sense of déjà vu hit her.

  A policema
n at the entrance to the parking lot stopped her from turning in.

  She rolled down her window. “What’s going on?”

  “This is a crime scene, ma’am. We’re not letting anyone into the area.”

  “What crime? Is everyone okay?”

  “Sorry, I can’t say.”

  “Look, I’m the sister of the owner. I need to know if they’re okay. If I park on the road, can I walk around the crime scene tape to get to the business office?”

  “Yes, ma’am. But stay away from the crime scene.”

  Claire parked and hurried over uneven ground covered with weeds and prickly yucca, making a wide circuit around the parking lot. She had to focus on her path, but checking on Charley and Jessica was foremost in her mind. Once she reached the trailer, she was relieved to see them standing on the porch, watching the activity in the lot. Charley had his arm around Jessica’s shoulders in a protective gesture. Jessica’s shoulders were hunched as if she were chilled.

  “What’s going on?” Claire climbed up the porch steps and stood next to them. She craned her neck to see the police working in the lot. Two patrol officers were systematically searching the pavement, and a third was taking photos. A police technician was on her knees next to a parked car, collecting evidence off the asphalt surface and bagging it. Detective Wilson stood nearby, studying the scene and writing in his notebook.

  “It’s horrible.” Jessica clutched an empty coffee mug like it was going to spontaneously combust. “When Charley and I drove in this morning, Gil’s car was in the lot. He’s never here early. He just seemed to be sitting in the car with the windows open. So, Charley went over to talk to him. But …” She teared up and put a hand to her mouth.

  “He’s dead,” Charley said flatly. “Shot through the head.”

  Claire sucked in a breath.

  “When I came around the driver’s side,” he continued, “I could see blood all over his head and on the car door. I refused to let Jessica get anywhere near the car.”

  Jessica shuddered. “I’m glad. I don’t think I could handle it. Did you see him when you came up?”

  “No,” Claire said. “The ambulance blocked my view, thank God.” The ambulance’s two EMTs were also silently watching the scene while one stowed equipment back into the rear of their vehicle.

  “You have experience, at least,” Jessica said. “You’ve seen someone shot before. I’ll probably have nightmares, even though I didn’t get close.” She put a hand to her stomach.

  “It’s not something you ever get used to.” Claire’s own gut clenched at the memories.

  Charley looked up at the leaden sky. “Damn, I feel so guilty.”

  “Guilty!” Flabbergasted, Claire turned to him. “Why do you feel guilty?”

  He focused his heavy gaze on Claire. “Because I fired him last night. There was a note on the passenger seat, though I couldn’t read it. He had a gun in his right hand. It looks like he shot himself.”

  “Oh, Charley, I’m so sorry. And it was because of what I told you that you fired him.” A shudder ran through Claire. She chafed her arms. “Gil sure didn’t seem like someone who would commit suicide.”

  Frankly, it seemed more likely that he would have shot Charley. With that thought, Claire enveloped Charley in a fierce hug.

  “Whoa,” he said. “That was a surprise attack.”

  Claire released him and swallowed hard. “I’m just glad you’re okay, that he didn’t go after you.”

  “Oh my.” Jessica pinned a wide-eyed gaze on Charley. “I didn’t even think of that.”

  Claire looked over at Detective Wilson. He returned her gaze, as if he had been watching them for a while, then gave her a brief wave, almost a salute.

  After she returned the greeting, he shouted, “Stick around,” before going back to work.

  She looked at Charley. “Has he talked to you?”

  “Yes, he interviewed each of us when he arrived, but he said he’d want to talk to us again after he studied the crime scene.”

  The coroner’s vehicle drove into the parking lot, and Detective Wilson walked over to talk to the forensic investigator. She was the same woman who had come for Kyle’s body. Claire watched in silence with Jessica and Charley. After the EMTs talked to the forensic investigator, they left in their empty ambulance.

  Detective Wilson talked to an officer next. Charley told Claire the man was the first one to respond to their 911 call. After that, Wilson talked to the photographer and forensic technician then walked carefully around the car while taking notes. The forensic investigator examined Gil’s body. They all worked mostly in silence, except for short exchanges with each other that Claire couldn’t hear.

  Finally Jessica looked at her watch and sighed. “It’s almost nine thirty. I need to reschedule my meeting with the hotel event director. Guess I’d better cancel the ten-thirty ride, too. We don’t want customers seeing this.”

  Charley gave a solemn nod. “Tell them it’s because of the weather, that it looks like it’s going to pour.”

  “Good idea.” Jessica went inside.

  Wilson put on latex gloves, opened the passenger door of Gil’s car, and lifted a piece of paper off the passenger seat. He sealed it in a plastic bag, then straightened and read it. When he finished, he glanced up at the trailer and studied the note again. He gave the bag to the forensic technician, talked again to the forensic investigator and trudged up the path to the trailer.

  “Was that a suicide note?” Charley asked as Wilson neared.

  Wilson put a foot on the first step and nodded at Claire before returning his gaze to Charley. “Before I answer that question I’d like to ask a few more of my own, and I’ll be recording your answers.” He took out a small tape recorder and pressed the record button. “Tell me again when the last time was that you saw Gil Kaplan.”

  “Yesterday, just before we closed up for the day. That’s when I fired him, and probably caused him to do this. He left in a huff shortly after six, and I left soon after that.”

  “Why’d you fire him?”

  “Claire told me about a fight he’d gotten into with another staff member.”

  Wilson cocked his head at Claire, and she explained what she had overheard in the barn. Then Charley described his own conversation with Jorge after that. Jorge had reluctantly confirmed that he had seen Gil drinking and picking on Pedro.

  When Charley got to his conversation with Gil, Wilson asked him to try to remember the exchange word-for-word, or as closely as possible. While they talked, Wilson moved up to the porch and the three of them settled into chairs. As Charley finished up, Claire went inside to fetch coffee mugs and a pot and poured a round for them all.

  Wilson took a sip of coffee and gave a nod of thanks to Claire. “Did anyone stay after closing last night, who might have seen Kaplan return?”

  “No,” Charley said. “I was the last to leave. So, he … did it last night?”

  “The forensic investigator gave me a rough estimate that he’s been dead for six to ten hours.”

  Charley nodded. “Did he blame me in the note?”

  “I think you’ll be surprised by what the note said,” Wilson said. “Kaplan wasn’t suicidal because you fired him, but because he blamed himself for Kyle Mendoza’s death.”

  Claire sat bolt-upright, sloshing coffee on her jeans. “What? So he was the one who hit Kyle in the head with a hammer and threw it in the manure dumpster?”

  Wilson nodded. “So the note says.”

  “Christ!” Charley shook his head and leaned forward. “Did he say why?”

  “He said Mendoza had threatened to tell you about his drinking and slacking off. The two of them got into an argument, and it got physical.”

  “Given what I saw between Pedro and him,” Claire said, “I could easily see that happening. But why would Gil commit suicide?�
�

  “The note said he couldn’t live with being not only a drunk and a slacker but also a murderer.” Wilson glanced at the bloodied car then at Charley. “Does that fit with his personality?”

  Charley shrugged. “Offhand, I’d say no, but the man wasn’t very forthcoming with me.”

  Gil committing suicide was also hard for Claire to imagine, but … “Maybe Gil’s outward anger was covering up an inward self-loathing.”

  Tapping his pen on his notepad, Wilson said, “That’s possible.”

  Charley took off his hat and scratched his head. “Then after Kyle was killed, Claire told me about Gil a few days later, and I fired him. Come to think of it, he was pretty quiet through it all, didn’t say much. I thought he’d blow his top.”

  It sounded like Gil hadn’t said anything about Pedro to Charley, which relieved Claire. “So Gil dragged Kyle into Gunpowder’s stall after he hit him?”

  “That’s one thing that doesn’t make sense.” Wilson paused and rubbed his chin. “In the note, Gil said he left Kyle lying in the aisle between the stalls.”

  “So we’re to assume Kyle regained consciousness but was still groggy?” Claire asked. “Then he stumbled into Gunpowder’s stall, spooking the horse?”

  Before Wilson could respond, rain splattered on the ground and the porch roof above them. The people working the crime scene stopped to retrieve slickers from their vehicles. A gust of wind frothed up dust from the yard and sent the new trees whipping against their restraints.

  Claire shielded her eyes from the wind-borne grit and turned her back to the gale. Something nagged at her brain, then she remembered the coroner’s results. “But what about the evidence of dragging on Kyle’s palms?”

  Wilson peered at Charley. “Do you have a phone in the barn?”

  “Yeah, in the tack room,” Charley said. “Nowhere near Gunpowder’s stall. Do you think Kyle woke up confused and tried to drag himself to a phone, scuffing up his hands that way? Maybe he was so disoriented he mistook Gunpowder’s stall for the tack room.”