Gotcha Detective Agency Mystery Box Set

by Jamie Lee Scott

  “It’s not like I’m going to ride. We’re going to talk to her.” She pressed the button on her phone, checking for something. “Full disclosure?”

  “Oh, great, now what?” Between her and Skinner, the surprises just kept coming.

  “I know Pam from when I was riding. It’s a small world, you know?” She looked at me sideways.

  “Is there going to be a conflict of interest in this case? Do I need you to back out?” I asked.

  “No, I really don’t think so, and the moment I’ll be more of a liability than an asset, I’ll let you know. You know I’d never jeopardize a case. I have no personal stake in this; I just know some of the players.”

  “That may even help.” This disclosure was a good thing.

  “Wait until you see the place. It’s a nice ranch.” Cortnie stared out the window. “Sometimes I wish I’d stuck with riding, but it was a lifestyle I couldn’t afford at the time. Heck, I can’t afford it now. And if I can’t afford to play to win, I’m not going to play.”

  I’m pretty sure she was Charles’ long lost sister, separated before they knew about each other. I liked the way she thought. I only wanted winning attitudes on my team. I didn’t always have that attitude, but being around it sure did put me back straight. Charles usually straightened me out in a hurry, but lately he couldn’t depend much on me, and I couldn’t depend on him. Thank goodness Nick and I were in a good place. I didn’t need him for strength, because I’d found a way from the inside, but it was nice to know he had my back. I smiled at the thought. I couldn’t wait for the day to be over, so we could climb in bed and cuddle.

  Back to the matter at hand. I navigated the winding roads of Hecker Pass and eventually came to the driveway of the ranch we were looking for. Pamela Brown’s Magnolia Ranch.

  Holy green acres, I could consider moving to the country for half a second if I could afford this place. I’d say, other than the brown grass due to our wonderful drought, this looked more like Kentucky than California. The four-rail fence ran parallel to the highway, with a black iron gate at the driveway. We stopped at the gate and pushed a button that allowed us access without having to alert anyone we’d arrived. I assumed the gate was mostly to keep the horses in, not people out.

  The brown fence ran along both sides of a gravel drive. The ground must have had some sort of oil sprayed on it because no dust kicked up behind us as I drove at a snail’s pace toward the main house.

  I could see a car near the house, but no one in sight. I steered toward the barn and parked in the area marked with parking space lines. The entire front entry to the barn was brick inlay, and I could hear horses, but I didn’t see any.

  “I thought Skinner said he called, and that she was waiting for us?” I said.

  “Maybe she’s on the other side of the property. It goes up and over the hill, about two hundred acres, I think.” Cortnie got out of my car and shut the door.

  I got out, too, and looked around the immaculate farm. “How does a person keep a place like this so clean?”

  “Lots of stable hands. But I don’t think Pam has that much help. At least, not anymore.” Cortnie started toward the barn when we heard tires on the gravel behind us.

  The pickup coming up behind us didn’t travel quite as slowly as I did. It came flying up on us, as though the driver was trying to catch us in the act of something.

  The driver jumped out of the pickup, nearly before she had the vehicle in park and the engine turned off.

  “Can I help you with something?” she snapped, not at all welcoming.

  She was a tiny thing, maybe five two and not an ounce over a hundred pounds, if that, with long blonde hair that had been restrained in a braid that hung over her shoulder. From the looks of it, she did her own barn chores, because she wore faded and stained jeans, with scuffed leather boots and a threadbare white tee. She looked harried and sweaty, like she’d been interrupted while performing some sort of labor intensive chore.

  We both looked at her, but said nothing.

  "Can I help you ladies?" she repeated, a bit more abrasively this time. She looked at us more closely. "Cortnie? Little Cortnie Criss?" She came forward and hugged Cortnie like they were long lost friends.

  Cortnie hugged her back. “Pammy.”

  “Little girl, you have gone and got all growed up.” She held Cortnie at arm’s length.

  I felt like the odd man out. “Hi, I’m Mimi Capurro.”

  Her voice chilled a bit, but wasn’t cold. “I know that now. Skinner called.” She looked at Cortnie. “Look, I don’t want no trouble. Bucky has already made my life hell. I ain’t even going to rodeos no more, least for a bit. So, I guess I know what I can help you with.”

  She looked at her watch, then at the house.

  “Are we catching you at a bad time?” Cortnie asked, not seeming too concerned, but putting on a good show.

  “I was just in town, I needed to get some groceries. But, I have time. Like I said, Skinner called, said something about some trouble with Bucky.” She pushed up her sleeves, looked at her watch again, then back to her pickup.

  “That’s what we came to talk about,” Cortnie said. “We need to know a bit about what he’s like, what he did to you, and if he could really do what Skinner’s accusing him of.”

  “I’m not sure what Skinner’s got up his sleeve, but I’ll tell you the truth from my end. It came out in court, so it’s all on public documents.” She waved a hand. “Let’s go in the office.”

  We walked into the horse barn that was open and airy, the walls lined in a lacquered knotty pine, with charcoal gray bars lining the tops of the stalls. I didn’t see any horses in the stalls, but I could hear the rustling of straw down the aisle. Pam slid open the first stall door and revealed a fully furnished office.

  “Please, sit down,” she said, as she went around the desk and sat in her chair, putting her dirty work boots on the desk and leaning back. “So, you already know who I am, and I know a bit about you, but what you want to know is what I was doing in business with Bucky Cox.”

  Cortnie sat in a plush club chair upholstered in brown fabric with gray horseshoes, and I sat in a matching chair next to her. The office screamed country and western, and had a saddle rack in the corner, which held the type of saddle Skinner had described earlier as a trophy saddle, only this one was for NBHA barrel racer. I think the year read 2011, but I couldn’t see for sure because it was partially obscured by a Navajo blanket. The smell of horse sweat mingled with hay, manure, and something I couldn’t quite place. It wasn’t unpleasant, but I didn’t want the smell transferring onto me.

  I decided to take over this questioning. “Skinner says Bucky is a shady character, and he doesn’t do anything that doesn’t benefit him over the person he’s doing business with.”

  Pam’s chuckle held a bit of mirth. “I wish I’d know that before I sold him my horse. Or rather, I thought I’d sold the horse to his wife, but in the long run, we became business partners.”

  Cortnie leaned forward. “So how did that deal go down?”

  “Bucky’s wife, Rayna, had been out of barrel racing for about a decade, then she decided she wanted back in. She wanted back in on top, not on the bottom. She was, after all, a world champion’s wife. They’d been looking around, and they came to me about my good horse, Mojo. I’d been winning a bunch on him, but I had to take some time off because of some family issues. The thought of selling him killed me, but I didn’t want him to go to waste sittin’ here on the farm.”

  “So your deal was with Rayna?” I asked.

  “At first, I was dealing with Rayna. I thought everything was well and good, but I shoulda known. I’d heard stories about some of Bucky’s deals. Rayna wanted to ride him, maybe try him at a few rodeos first, make sure they got along. I wasn’t so sure, so I made them pay for an insurance policy on him, and then they could lease him for three months. I wasn’t giving them a year on the horse, so they could run him into the ground and give me back a c
rippled horse.”

  Cortnie nodded her head. “But you sold Mojo to them, right?”

  “In the end. But it was a partnership deal, so I’d have first right of refusal to purchase him back if they ever decided to sell him.” She leaned back in her chair, looking exhausted.

  I asked, “So how did that work out?”

  “The auction is tomorrow.”

  . “Auction?” Cortnie said.

  “Yep, Mojo is going up for auction.” She slid her boots off the desk and leaned forward, putting her elbows where her boots had been. “I’m not even sure I should show up to the auction to see my own horse being sold.”

  Cortnie sounded incredulous. “Mojo is being sold at a horse auction?”

  “No, Mojo is being sold at Bucky’s place. The only horse being sold is Mojo. Court ordered.” She put her head in her hands and rubbed her forehead. “Rayna and Bucky have dragged my name through the dirt on this one. They’ve made it seem like I’m the worst person in the world.”

  “Why haven’t you spoken up and told your side of the story?” If someone dragged my name through the muck, I’d drag them right along with me, and Bucky seemed to have a lot to drag along.

  Pam sat up. “Are you kidding me? Bucky is the beloved politician and Rayna just went to the National Finals on Mojo. She won the circuit finals. They are the king and queen, and I’m just the idiot that jumped in bed with them. I’m the stupid mistress who should have known better. Well, I know better now.”

  “What were the details? I mean, why is Mojo up for auction? Why couldn’t you just buy back your half?” Cortnie asked. She spoke in a low, calm voice, trying to bring Pam down, so we could get the story before she flipped out and we got thrown out.

  “Bucky and Rayna made a ton of money with Mojo, and the deal wasn’t fifty-fifty. It was eighty-twenty. I really wanted them to own the horse, because I knew he was NFR quality, and they knew how to get him there. The contract Bucky drew up pretty much made us a limited liability corporation, an LLC. So, in any business, the income and expenses are split. I paid my part of Mojo’s expenses: feed, vet bills, gas, the stuff Rayna’s sponsorships didn’t cover. My part was twenty percent, right? And in return, I was entitled to twenty percent of the income, from sponsorships, winnings, and the rest. Only, I was paying one hundred percent of the bills, because they were coming to my address while Rayna was on the road. Bucky kept saying, ‘Send me a bill, I’ll cut you a check’, only I sent him several invoices and he never paid a single bill.”

  “How do you bill your own company?”

  “I was sending the bill to Bucky, and I should have been sending the bill to the LLC. It was a mess, and I had to get an attorney to get it all worked out. The bills were coming to the LLC, and I was paying them out of my pocket, because Bucky and Rayna weren’t putting the winnings in the LLC account.”

  “Okay.”

  “Anyway, after two years of paying all of the bills, I told them I was done. I wanted to buy him back. Well, of course, she’d been winning a bunch on him, and was in the middle of an NFR campaign, so no way were they going to sell him back to me. The next step was to ask nicely for them to pay their portion of the bills, and give me an itemized statement of his winnings and sponsorships, so I could see what my portion of the income from the company should be. You see, Bucky had his accountant doing the taxes, so the LLC never saw a profit, but I was never paid a penny, either.”

  This Bucky was clever. I should have Charles take a look at this man’s books. Then again, it’s too late now, since the court had already had its say, but this story definitely told me that Bucky was in it for himself, and let the partner beware.

  “So, short story long, sorry about that. I asked them to buy me out. I wanted my expenses, and my portion of Mojo’s winnings from the years that we were ‘in business’ together.” She used air quotes to emphasize in business. “Plus, what I thought was a fair market price for my twenty percent of Mojo.”

  “Do you mind sharing what that was?”

  “You can look anywhere on social media. Rayna and Bucky tried to be the martyr in this, when all I wanted was what was my fair share, according to the contract Bucky drew up.”

  Okay, so she wasn’t going to share the number.

  “And now the whole thing was dragged through the court, because the LLC had to be dissolved, which means a selling of the assets, which in this case is Mojo.” A tear rolled down her cheek.

  “Is that so bad?” I asked.

  “I can’t buy him back, and neither can they. It’s part of the court order.”

  I said, “Oh.”

  Skinner was right, Bucky was a snake.

  “And Bucky gets away with it again.” Pam stood and came around the desk. “So did you hear what you needed to hear? I got milk in the truck, and I’d better get that stuff in the house.”

  She was ready to dismiss us.

  Cortnie said, “What about Skinner?”

  Pam put an arm around her, “You watch out for old Skinner, honey. Those two old birds traveled together for many years, and birds of a feather, as they say.”

  “Anything in particular? I thought Skinner seemed like a nice guy,” I said.

  “Skinner’s a nice guy alright, loyal as the day is long, just don’t turn your back on him. Ask his wife about that.”

  I frowned. He seemed to love his wife when he spoke of her in my office this morning. “He spoke fondly of her.”

  “Of course he should, after all that woman’s put up with over the years. And how would you feel, knowing all these years that you were second choice?”

  “Ouch,” Cortnie said, as we walked out of the barn office. “What does that mean? Because it sounds like maybe Skinner was in love with someone else.”

  “There’s no ‘was’ about it. He’s still in love with someone else. He just can’t have her, because she chose…”

  The light flashed clear as day. Cortnie exclaimed, “Bucky!”

  Pam grinned ear to ear. “You got it, babe. Skinner fell for the chick the first time he met her, hook, line, and sinker. Rayna was nothing more than a buckle bunny back then. Fine, she was more than that. She could ride, but she wasn’t a barrel racer. Skinner taught her how to ride barrel horses, moved her to Salinas, promised her the world. Then Bucky swooped in and swept that fickle bitch right off her feet. She left Skinner faster than a rope from a breakaway string. Bucky and all his charm were too much to resist, but she sure did keep Skinner close.”

  “So that’s why Skinner and Bucky stayed partners for so many years,” Cortnie said, pondering the team roping partnership.

  “Oh, they tried to split the sheets a few times, but they won too much money together. Skinner wanted Rayna back so bad, he roped better when he was with Bucky. Hell, they both roped better together.” Pam’s body shook as she laughed, then she got serious. “Those three were made for each other. And don’t think Rayna is a saint. You don’t wallow in mud without gettin’ a little on you.”

  “Or a lot,” I said.

  “I’d love to stay and see some of your horses.” Cortnie looked around the mostly empty barn.

  “Not much to look at. We’ve sold off most of them. It’s been a rough few years. The pastures aren’t growing. Irrigation is out of the question, and hay is $16 a bale. I’ve kept my stallion and a few mares, but we aren’t even breeding.”

  Pam’s skin turned pale as she looked around the pristine barn. Barely a piece of straw out of place. An occasional snort from a complacent horse, but otherwise quiet.

  “I’m sorry. I was just telling Mimi I miss rodeo, but it’s not a sport I can afford at the moment. Now I know I really can’t afford it.” She turned and gave Pam a hug. “We’d better head out. It was good to see you again, Pam.”

  “You, too. I hope you nail that bastard for whatever it’s worth. But don’t be surprised if you end up bringing your client down along with him.” Pam wiggled her brows.

  “Any chance you get Mojo back?” Cortnie
asked.

  “It’s a done deal. The best I can hope for is that the new owner takes good care of him.” She walked us back to the car.

  “Thanks for telling your story. Sorry for your loss,” I said, as I shook her hand.

  I walked over to her Ford F350 diesel pickup and got a closer look. The extended cab pickup looked sharp with the midnight blue metallic paint and tinted windows. I looked in the passenger window. The interior was spotless, with dark blue leather upholstery. “Now that’s a badass looking truck.”

  She laughed. “Thanks. It’s a fuel hog, but it’ll pull a gooseneck trailer real nice.”

  I peered in the bed of the truck to get a better look at the trailer hitch. The bed of the truck didn’t even have so much as a piece of straw. Pam was quite a meticulous woman.

  She stood near the back of her pickup as I got in my Land Rover and shut the door.

  Cortnie said, “Bucky’s place?”

  “Sure,” I said, then asked, “Where do you think she puts her groceries in that truck?”

  “I don’t know, why?” Cortnie asked.

  “She said she’d been at the grocery store, and I didn’t see any bags in her pickup. That’s all.”

  Cortnie eyed me. “How close did you look? Because they could have been on the floor in the back seat. That would have been difficult to see without opening the doors.”

  I had to give her that one.

  * * *

  We drove back across Highway 101 and over to Pesante Road into what was still considered Salinas, but I would call it Prunedale, and Charles would call it Prunetucky. Pesante Road was a winding sucker, and our destination was toward the end.

  You couldn’t miss the Cox farm, with the political campaign signs everywhere, and Bucky’s smiling face with his too white, perfect teeth. In person, his teeth weren’t that white, or that perfect. Photoshop! But who really cared, because the general public would likely never get close enough to see the difference, and they’d probably never see the first subtle lie in Bucky’s lexicon of lies.