A Basket of Trouble (17 page)

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 ve-

hicle.

“You have experience, at least,” Jessica said. “You’ve seen some-

one 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.”

137

“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 awhile, then gave her a brief wave, almost a salute.

After she returned the greeting, he shouted, “Stick around,” be-

fore going back to work.

She looked at Charley and Jessica. “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 foren-

sic investigator examined Gil’s body. They all worked mostly in

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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 some 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.”

139

Wilson cocked his head at Claire, and she explained what she

had overheard in the barn. Then Charley described his own con-

versation 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?”

140

“He said Mendoza had threatened to tell you about his drink-

ing 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 sui-

cide?”

“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 Char-

ley, 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?”

141

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 re-

membered 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 Gun-

powder’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.”

“I’ll have to talk to the coroner,” Wilson said. “See if that’s a reasonable scenario for the abrasions on Mendoza’s palms.”

He stood, turned off his recorder and pocketed it. “If that’s

so, and ballistics matches the bullet that the forensic investigator thinks is still in Kaplan’s head to his gun, then he’s given us a gift.

The gift of both solving the Mendoza murder case and getting

rid of the killer. A nice package all tied up with a pretty bow.” He smiled wryly at Claire. “Much like one of your gift baskets.”

“Getting back to some semblance of normality here would be

great, but our reputation’s going to get worse before it gets better once word of another death gets out.” Charley set down his coffee mug and rubbed his face. Lines of worry and fatigue etched his

brow. “I still feel guilty for firing Gil.”

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Wilson put a hand on his shoulder. “I may have helped nail

the lid on his coffin, too. Given that Kaplan was the last person to see Mendoza, I was pushing him—hard. I’d asked him to come in

today for another interview. Hell, that’s probably what made him

decide to do himself in.”

A flash lit up the Western sky, followed almost immediately by

a loud boom. All three of them flinched.

“With that final note, I’ll head out.” Wilson walked off the

porch into the rain.

As Claire watched him go, she fervently hoped that the ballis-

tics test and the coroner backed up Wilson’s conclusions. If not, they would have not just one, but two unsolved murders on their

hands—and on Charley’s property.

———

An hour later, Claire looked out the trailer window. The heavy

rain that had swept off the mountains had slowed to a drizzle.

After stowing Gil’s body in the coroner’s van, Detective Wilson

and most of the investigative team had left soon after the deluge started. One patrol officer remained, stationed in the parking lot to watch over Gil’s car until a city tow truck came to take the car to the police impound lot.

Wilson had said the tow trucks usually respond quickly to crime

scenes, but there had been a multi-car crash on Powers Boulevard

involving city vehicles. Charley had promised to keep his employees and customers away from the parking lot and the drooping police

tape staked around it while they waited. The officer had just come in the office for a restroom break and asked Charley to watch Gil’s car 143

while he did. The way the man was mincing his steps told Claire he had wanted as long as humanly possible before taking a break.

She stood and picked up her purse and a plastic sack. It held

Jessica’s contributions to the horseback riding gift basket, including a certificate for a buy-one-get-one trail ride. Charley had

originally planned to donate a free trail ride for two, but with the negative effect of the recent events on his business, he had asked Jessica to change it. This was yet another reason for Claire to

worry about her little brother—who nowadays stood five inches

taller than she.

She waved goodbye to Jessica, who was on the phone, and

stepped out onto the porch, where Charley stood watching Gil’s

car. “Looks like I can head home now.”

Charley looking up at the gray clouds. “Depressing day, huh? I

can’t see how things could get any worse.”

Just then a faded red Honda pulled into the lot. Something

about the vehicle seemed familiar to Claire. While she stared at

it, a short middle-aged man with wispy brown hair got out. He

walked over to the police tape surrounding Gil’s car.

“Marvin Bradshaw!” Claire spit out the name and trotted

down the porch steps.

Charley followed her. “Who?”

“A reporter from the
Gazette
,” Claire shot over her shoulder.

Bradshaw raised the police tape and stepped under it.

“Hey,” Charley yelled. “Get away from that!”

Startled, Bradshaw jerked, dropping a small camera onto the

wet asphalt. “Shit!”

He bent down. His fingers scrabbled to pick up the camera

while he kept glancing at Claire and Charley’s approach. He was

144

able to pocket the camera and slip back outside the police tape before the two of them arrived.

Claire was huffing from exertion and indignation. “I’ve got a

bone to pick with you,” she said to Bradshaw, swiping a drop of

rain off the end of her nose.

Recognition dawned in his widening eyes. “What are you doing

here?”

“No,” Charley said. “What are
you
doing here?”

Bradshaw dug a card out of the pocket of his rain jacket and

handed it to Charley. “I’m a reporter from the
Gazette
. I know who she is.” He jerked his thumb at Claire. “But who are you?”

“Charley Gardner,” Charley answered. “Her brother and the

owner of this property.”

“How do you do?” Bradshaw held out a hand. When Charley

didn’t shake it, he let his arm drop. “So, what happened here?”

“Don’t say a word, Charley.” Claire advanced on the reporter,