The Michaela Bancroft Mysteries 1-3 (6 page)

She wiped her tears away and finished off the wine. Time to head back out and check on Leo. She urged Cocoa to come along with her.

At the barn, Michaela peered in on the horses before going to get another bucket of bran for Leo. She unlocked the tack room door and stopped. Leaning against the frame was the pitchfork she used for changing straw. She gasped when she saw it, her mind flashing back to Lou, the broken-off pitchfork sticking out of his back. It was like a stab in her heart. The tightness in her stomach came back and she felt woozy, her thoughts spinning with the memory.

Her stallion Rocky whinnied and brought her back to reality. Thank God.
Don't think about that, not now
.
Stay focused. Do what you need to do
. She went inside the tack and feed room. Scents of grain, saddle soap, and leather wafted through the air, and she breathed them in. She opened the can where she kept the bran.
Dammit.
Empty. She'd made a mental note earlier when she and Ethan had given Leo some, to go down to the feed store and get another bag of it. Maybe there was some in the trailer.

"Come on, Cocoa." Her dog stood her ground. The hair on Cocoa's neck rose as she seemed fixated on something at the other end of the breezeway. "You are such a silly old girl," Michaela told her. At times Cocoa could behave like an old woman who has had too much gin— brave and stupid, as if she needed to pick a fight with someone. "It's probably a rabbit. Let's go. C'mon." Cocoa growled. "For God's sake, come on." She patted the side of her leg, and the dog finally fell in line as they walked over to the garage, where she'd parked the horse trailer. She found a half a bag of bran up in the storage area. Good. She'd drag it over to the barn in the morning. For now she scooped out a half a bucket's worth and walked back to the barn.

She poured it into Leo's feeder and watched him eat. After he finished she took him for a short walk. She headed back to the tack room to get the blankets out and put them on the horses for the evening.

At the door of the tack room, she stopped. Something was wrong here. She stepped back. Her pulse raced and her heart beat madly against her chest as she realized that the pitchfork, which had been there only an hour earlier, was now gone.

THE BARN SPUN IN A MIXTURE OF BROWNS AND beiges. Michaela braced herself against the tack room door and tried to regain her composure. Think,
think.
Her hands shaking, she reached for the phone and started to dial 911, but what the hell would she say?
"My pitchfork has been moved?"
Maybe she could tell them someone broke into her place.
No.
That wasn't necessarily true, but someone
had
moved the pitchfork. She hung up the phone, yelled for Cocoa who dragged herself in, closed and locked the tack room door, then dialed the number to the police station and asked for Detective Davis. When she told him what had happened, he assured her he'd be right over, and to stay put. She hung up the phone and waited, looking at Cocoa, and for a brief moment she wished she had a Doberman instead of a Lab. Especially when she thought she heard something. There it was again.
Shit.
Someone was walking down the breezeway. One of the horses whinnied. Michaela looked around for a weapon. Nothing. Shit, shit, shit. Oh jeez, whoever was there was probably here to, to...

"Mick, are you in here?"

She threw open the tack room door and yelled, "Dammit, Ethan, don't you ever do that to me again!"

He stopped. "What are you carrying on about?"

"The pitchfork... and then walking down the breezeway. What were you thinking? Are you trying to scare me?" She trembled and her face burned. Here she'd gone and called the cops, and it had only been Ethan all along.

"The pitch... Girl, I have no earthly idea what you're talking about. What have you been smoking? I just got here. And since when did bumps in the barn ever put the hairs up on the back of your neck?"

She glared at him. "What do you mean you just got here?"

He looked at his watch. "Uh, well, pretty much just that. I pulled up a few minutes ago. I was coming to check on Leo, the next thing I know you're going psycho chick on me." He put an arm around her. "You okay? I'm sorry, dumb question. Of course you're not okay. You're shaking like a leaf, kid. What is going on?"

She told him what had happened.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes I'm sure. I know what I saw." She backed away and studied him for a second. "You don't believe me."

"No, it's not that. I think you've had a real difficult day and our minds can play all sorts of tricks on us when we're dealing with stressful events."

"Bullshit! It isn't stress. It wasn't my mind playing tricks on me.
That pitchfork was moved.
It was right here"— she smacked the wall—"and now it's not."

"Look, I apologize. I believe you, okay? And, because of that, I'm not letting you stay here alone."

"I'm not alone. I've got Camden."

He shook his head. "She'll do you a helluva lot a good now, won't she? What's she going to do if some maniac comes through your door? Throw a pair of stilettos at him?"

Michaela couldn't help but smile. He had a point. "I got Cocoa here."

"Uh-huh. You'd have better luck with your margarita-drinking, high-heeled, society-wannabe pal at your side than that old girl."

"That's not nice."

He shrugged.

"I don't need you staying here. You'd drive me crazy and Camden would drive you crazy and the next thing you know we'll all be snapping at each other. Not a good idea."

"Stubborn and foolish. That's the way you've always been."

"Look who's talking."

"I'll stay out here in the tack room, keep an eye on the colt, and if any trouble happens to come your way, I'll be within screaming distance. Just be sure to do one of those horror film-types, you know, a Fay Wray scream, and that way I'll know you're not joking."

She had to admit that having Ethan close by would be a comfort. No. She wavered for a second. She'd learned the hard way that men were not dependable. But, Ethan was different. They'd known each other since before they could each ride a bike, much less a horse. Was he really different, though? He was the same man— supposedly her closest pal— who'd taken off less than a month ago on a river-rafting trip without telling her or calling her while away. What had he been up to, alone on that trip?

"You can't sleep in the tack room. It's not exactly comfortable."

"In case you hadn't noticed, I don't need a five-star hotel. I just slept on the ground in a pitched tent for weeks, Mick. I think a cot in the tack room would suffice. Besides, half the time I'm woken up in the middle of the night to take calls."

She started to reply, but the sound of a car door closing sounded outside the barn. Detective Davis entered the breezeway. "Ms. Bancroft?"

"Hello, Detective."

He walked toward them. "Good evening, Mr. Slater."

Michaela glanced at Ethan. Davis must've already spoken with him. Was he a suspect?

Ethan nodded. "Evening." He turned to Michaela. "I'm going to grab a few things, and I'll be back."

"Don't worry about it. You needn't come back. We'll be fine."

"Stubborn." He shook a finger at her. "I
will
be back. If for nothing other than to make sure Leo is doing okay."

"Where is your stuff anyway?" Michaela asked, curious about where Ethan had been staying since he'd returned.

He hesitated. "Summer's place."

Before she could respond, Ethan hurried out.
Summer's
place? His ex-fiancé? The same Summer who stood him up at the altar a few months ago? The one he'd been loyal to and had even gotten her the job at Uncle Lou's as his accountant? Oh boy, did they have something to discuss when he returned! She'd surely give him a piece of her mind.

"Ms. Bancroft," Davis said. "Do you want to tell me what happened here?"

"It's okay, you can call me Michaela. Why don't we go on into the house?" She rubbed her arms. "I'm cold. I can fix us some tea or coffee."

"That would be fine. But before we do that, you said something about a pitchfork being in one place and then not being there later?"

"That's right. Follow me." She led him to the tack room. "I needed to go over to the horse trailer and see if I had any more bran for my colt, and when I came back the pitchfork, which had been right here, was gone. I did notice my dog seemed to be bothered by something outside the barn. I figured it was a rabbit."

"But the dog didn't bark?"

"No."

Davis nodded. "Okay. Why don't you show me around and we'll see if anything else looks out of place. Let's retrace your path as far as when you first came in to the tack room and spotted the pitchfork."

"Sure." She walked him through everything from the moment she'd entered the barn.

"You've got quite a crew here." He nodded down the aisle of stalls at the horses. The more curious ones peeked their heads out at the newcomer.

"They're my life. Keep me sane. Horses are good for the soul, you know." She'd remembered Uncle Lou often telling her those exact words from the time she was a child. He'd been right. "They're constant. There for you. Always."

"I can see that."

"Do you ride?"

"Me?" He laughed. "Hardly. Once, actually."

"Where was that?"

He stopped for a minute and shoved his hands in his pockets, kind of looking away from her. "Uh, Barbados."

"Barbados?"

"Yeah. One of those expeditions, you know, trail rides."

"But in Barbados?"

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "My... honeymoon. I was on my honeymoon."

"Oh, right. Honeymoon. How nice."

They walked outside and headed toward the horse trailer about fifty feet away. Michaela squinted her eyes as they neared, then gasped. "Do you see that?" She reached out to touch the pitchfork leaning against the horse trailer, its metal spikes shining reflectively from a beam of light showering down off the top of the barn.

Davis grabbed her hand. "No. Don't touch it. I need to have it dusted for fingerprints."

"Sorry." She pulled her hand away and for some odd reason felt heat rise to her face, obviously angry over her faux pas. Or was it? For a brief second she couldn't help feel Davis's grip sending something electric through her. She took a step back, suddenly a bit dizzy. Her feelings had nothing to do with Davis, she reassured herself. Instead, it was the realization that somebody had been on her property and had either been playing a cruel joke on her, or had intentionally planned to do her harm. Yeah, that's all it was.

Michaela sat down on the step. The sadness she'd felt earlier still lingered, but now shared space with an overwhelming sense of fear.

"You okay?" Davis asked, pulling a pair of latex gloves out of his coat pocket.

"Tired. That's all." Michaela noticed, as he slid the gloves over his hands, that he wasn't wearing a wedding ring. Huh? What about that honeymoon in Barbados... ? Lord! What was wrong with her? Why in the world did she care if this guy was married or not? He was the detective on her uncle's murder case, for heaven's sakes, and now he was checking out a threat on her property.

He bent down next to the pitchfork and picked up a wrapper, holding it up to the light.

"What is it?" Michaela asked.

"A wrapper for chewing tobacco," he replied.

"Chewing tobacco?"

"Yep." He took another small plastic bag from his coat pocket and placed the wrapper in it

"Anyone you know around here chew tobacco?"

"No."

"Maybe Dr. Slater?"

"Definitely not." She stood up.

"Okay. I'll take it with me, too. Doubt it will tell us much, but you never know."

"So where do you think it might have come from?"

She shook her head. "That I don't know. It makes sense that whoever moved the pitchfork might have been the one to leave the tobacco wrapper. But that doesn't seem too smart to throw it down."

"No." He sighed. "But it could have dropped out of someone's pocket and they might not have seen it."

"Makes sense." Michaela felt a shiver run down her spine with the repeat thought that someone might have been watching her from outside the barn while she fed and took care of the horses, waiting for a deliberate moment to do something to spook her. Or, what if that person had planned to do something more than spook her, but had gotten scared when Ethan pulled in? She didn't like this at all. "Do you think whoever was trying to frighten me— which, I assume, is what someone was trying to do— could also be my uncle's murderer?"

"I don't know. But can you think of anyone you and your uncle knew that might have some type of, uh... well, is there anyone out there who might want to get even with you for something?

She sighed and nodded."Maybe I do. Let me pour you that cup of tea. This might take a while."

MICHAELA HADN'T THOUGHT ABOUT IT UNTIL Detective Davis mentioned the possibility of revenge. And, it clicked that maybe there
was
one person out there who wanted to get even with both her and Uncle Lou. The thing was, she knew how this might sound, because she knew exactly how it sounded to herself— not good.

Davis sat at her kitchen table sipping his tea. Camden still wasn't home. Where the heck was she? Must still be out with Kevin Tanner. Hadn't she told her last night they were spending the day together? Looked like day had turned into night. Camden sure was spending a lot of time with him lately.

She sat down across from Davis. He twisted the mug back and forth between his hands. "Good tea."

"Thanks." She took a sip and it warmed her insides. "Here." She opened the top of the cookie jar that sat on the table. "They're not homemade— Oreos. Kind of a vice for me."

He smiled. It was a nice, warm smile. Comforting. "I have a sweet tooth, too. I better not, though. Ms. Bancroft, you said that there was someone who might have something against you and your uncle."

"Please, like I said, you can call me Michaela," she interrupted.

"Okay, Michaela, who are you thinking of?"