A Basket of Trouble (16 page)

She described the fight between Gil and Pedro. She included

Gil’s drinking, Jorge’s statement about him not doing his work,

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and Gil’s name-calling of Pedro. But she left out his statement

about Vargas’s and Kyle’s smuggling operation.

She felt guilty holding that back, but she wanted to protect Pe-

dro and his family. The potential harm to Charley was just a fine, but that to Pedro and his family was destitution. Besides, she figured that if ICE asked to see Charley’s records, he would tell her.

Then she could tell Charley about Pedro. Hopefully it would never come to that, but if it did, Charley could get rid of Pedro before ICE did their inspection. Since Pedro would no longer be a current employee, Charley wouldn’t have to pay the fine.

But what if Gil spills the beans when he’s fired? Or what if he
thinks Pedro told on him and goes after Pedro?

“I don’t want Gil blaming any of his co-workers for ratting on

him,” Claire said. “So be sure to tell him that it was me who told you about his drinking.”

Charley stood and looked out the small office window at the

barn, drumming his fingers on his thigh as he thought.

Finally he turned to Claire. “Thanks for telling me. I knew Gil

drank, but I thought he had it under control. And I’d sensed some tension between Gil and almost everyone else except Hank, but I

didn’t know the cause. I guess I will have to fire him.”

He plopped back down in his chair. “We’re short-handed as it

is without Kyle, which is why I’m so far behind on this blasted paperwork. I’ve had to go out on more trail rides myself. Frankly, I enjoy them a lot more than pushing a pen around.” He gave Claire

a wry smile.

She returned the smile. “You’re a natural horseman, Charley.

I saw how much you were enjoying working with Jorge on Gun-

powder. Have you advertised for Kyle’s position?” Claire wondered 128

if he was trying to make do with fewer employees to save on ex-

penses.

Charley nodded. “But no takers yet. Thank God for Hank. He

stepped right into Kyle’s lead trail guide position and has the tourists eating out of his hands, especially the women. But I’ll still have two wrangler positions to fill.”

“You could wait to fire Gil.”

“Nope, not after what you told me. I don’t want him on the

property, especially around the customers.”

Claire stood. “I’m sorry to be adding to your troubles.”

Jessica opened the door while Claire was still speaking. “What

troubles?”

“I’m going to have to fire Gil,” Charley answered. “Claire saw

him drinking and picking a fight with one of the other wranglers.”

Jessica looked from Charley to Claire and back again. “How

come she’s so much more perceptive than you?”

Oh, God!

Charley’s neck reddened. “I’ve been a little busy lately, if you

haven’t noticed.” When Jessica opened her mouth again, he held

up a hand. “I’ll take care of it. Pronto.”

He ushered Claire out of his office and onto the porch, where

Brittany stood waiting for her.

Claire put a hand on his arm. “Good luck, Charley.”

He nodded and pushed his cowboy hat down on his head.

With a grim face, he strode off for the barn.

Brittany gave Claire a quizzical look.

“Don’t ask,” Claire said. “You know, I’ve got a hankering for a

nice thick chocolate shake. There’s a Diary Queen on the way to

your house, if I’m not mistaken. Want to join me?”

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“Sure, but make mine vanilla.”

The two of them got in Claire’s car. While Claire drove to the

DQ, she and Brittany chatted about their clients that day. Claire figured she would try to find out some more about Brittany’s

strained relationship with her mother.

“Does your mother often drive you to and from the stable?”

“We have two cars,” Brittany said. “A nice one for Mom but the

other one’s a clunker and I have to share it with my brother. So, yeah, she has to drop me off or pick me up a lot.”

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. Some-

thing 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?”

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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.”

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“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 Brit-

tany’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.

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“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 work-

ing 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 too

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,” Brit-

tany 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?”

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“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?

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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 ‘in-

terference’ 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 crest-ing a rise, she could see Gardner’s Stables. The flashing lights came 135

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 policeman 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 park-

ing 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 work-

ing 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.

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“It’s horrible.” Jessica clutched an empty coffee mug like it was going to spontaneously combust. “When Charley and I drove in