Saddled with Trouble

by Michele Scott

  Michaela finally made it off the couch and into the shower she hadn’t taken all evening. Then, finding Camden sound asleep on the sofa, Cocoa curled up on the floor next to her. Michaela decided to leave the two of them there, covering Camden with a blanket and patting her old dog on her head a good night. As she settled into bed, exhausted, her phone rang. She looked at the clock on her nightstand: a little after eleven. Her stomach sank. What if it was Brad or Kirsten and they’d seen her and Camden? No, caller ID said that it was her uncle.

  “Hi, Uncle Lou.”

  “Hi. I didn’t hear back from you tonight. Did you get my message? I thought I’d better check in and make sure you’re okay.”

  “I’m fine. I did get your message. Sorry. I was a little busy.”

  “No problem, sweet pea. I was only concerned because I know that you’ve had some rough times this past year.”

  “Thanks. But I’m fine. Really. In fact, I’m doing, uh, really well.” She loved the way he’d called her sweet pea ever since she could remember. Her father always called her pumpkin, and that made her feel good, too, but Daddy also knew how to spank and send her to her room, or ground her when she needed it. She loved him for his sense of fairness. But Uncle Lou was the spoiler. He’d never had any kids of his own, so spoiling Michaela was one of his favorite things. “You want to grab breakfast in the morning with me, right?”

  “I do. There are some things I need to talk about with you.” He cleared his throat.

  “Uncle Lou? Are you okay? You sound . . . I don’t know. Tired?”

  “I’m fine. Working a lot, that’s all. I’m having a hard time unwinding these days for some reason. I’m getting old, and riding the animals every day is starting to wear on me.”

  “You are not getting old,” she said. “Sixty-one is a spring chicken.”

  They both laughed. “I don’t know about that. I’m feeling like a cooked goose. You get to bed now, and I’ll see you about seven-thirty over at The Dakota House.”

  “Ooh, sounds good.” Her stomach rumbled just thinking about the yummy breakfasts The Dakota House specialized in, especially considering that all she’d had tonight was a liquid diet. “I can’t wait. Sleep well.”

  “You too, sweet pea.”

  Michaela hung up the phone. Something in Uncle Lou’s voice bothered her. What was it? The sound of exhaustion? At first she thought maybe that was it, but, no. Resignation? Maybe. Defeat? Yeah, it did sound like that, but about what? She yawned. Whatever was eating at Uncle Lou, she resolved to get to the bottom of it tomorrow over a ham and cheese omelet.

  THREE

  THE NEXT DAY MICHAELA ROSE EARLY AND HANDLED all of her morning chores before going to meet her uncle for breakfast. She suffered a bit of a headache from last night’s fun, but it didn’t take long to wear off as she went about feeding the horses and cleaning out the stalls.

  Leo came up and nudged her while she changed his bedding, replacing the day-old shavings that had begun to smell like urine with fresh ones that made the air smell like sawdust. “Hi, you,” she said. “What’s wrong? You’re not hungry this morning? You want to play?” She rubbed him on top of his forelock—the piece of mane hanging between his ears and down onto his face. He was such a beautiful animal—bay in color, a dark reddish brown with jet-black stockings going up past his knees, and an almost black mane and tail. He had a smidge of a star, almost like a crescent moon on his face, and his large brown eyes reflected an intelligence Michaela knew was indicative of a winner.

  Leo turned back toward his food. She finished up his stall, and went into the office to see what was on tap for the day, after breakfast with Uncle Lou. It looked as if the vet was scheduled to come out and do some routine checks. She wondered if it would be Ethan or his partner. Had Ethan returned from his rafting trip? He’d suddenly taken off over two weeks ago without telling her he was leaving, and she’d been angry with him for it since. Ethan had been staying at her uncle Lou’s place for a few months because his fiancé, Summer MacTavish, had broken off their engagement the night before their wedding. After Ethan left on his sudden trip, Michaela’s mother mentioned to her that she’d heard he and Lou had had an argument. Michaela asked her uncle about it, but he wouldn’t say much, just that they’d had a difference of opinion. It had bugged her since her mother had told her, and she planned to ask him about it if he was back today. She couldn’t help but wonder if the argument had been over Summer herself, because Summer was Uncle Lou’s accountant. And frankly, Michaela was a bit surprised that Lou had kept Summer working for him. Especially considering the way Summer left Ethan. Lou had been close with Ethan since Ethan was a kid, and Michaela figured that it probably hurt her friend that the man who really had been the closest thing to a father Ethan had ever known had kept Summer on.

  After doing her chores she checked the clock: past seven. Time to go and meet her uncle. Camden wasn’t on the couch when she went back inside to change. She must have moved in the middle of the night and made her way to her bed. She decided not to bother her. Camden drank twice as much than Michaela had last night and would probably feel much more the worse for wear this morning.

  She beat Uncle Lou to The Dakota House and ordered a cup of coffee. The place smelled so good—a mixture of cinnamon, coffee, and bacon filled the air. She melted back into the vinyl booth and watched people come and go from the restaurant, which was decorated with various Indian

  “artifacts.” Twenty minutes later she started to fidget as there was no sign of her uncle. It wasn’t like him to keep her, or anyone for that matter, waiting.

  She dialed his cell phone. It went straight to voice mail. She called the house phone. No answer, only a machine. She waited another fifteen minutes and tried again. Same thing. This was just plain screwy. She paid for her coffee and decided to drive over to her uncle’s place to see what was up. He couldn’t have forgotten. But maybe he’d simply slept in after his late night. It wasn’t like him, but that tone in his voice last night hadn’t sounded like him either. Had he been drinking? No. He hadn’t come off like that. Granted, he liked a drink in the evening, but he was not known to booze it up.

  A few minutes later she pulled into the luxury-style Diamond Bar Z, Lou and Cynthia’s ranch. There wasn’t much activity. Usually Dwayne, their assistant trainer, or Dwayne’s cousin Sam, who also helped train, would be out working horses, and their ranch hand Bean—his nickname, because he was as skinny and lanky as a green bean—might be around. That was doubtful though, as Bean was notorious for being late. He was a bit slow. As a kid he’d fallen off a horse onto a rock and suffered a brain injury. Lou had taken him in years ago and given him a job.

  Lou’s truck was there. Cynthia’s Mercedes wasn’t. Strange. The big truck and trailer were both gone. Then Michaela remembered that Dwayne and Sam were probably hauling horses out to Vegas for the National Finals Rodeo. If she remembered correctly Uncle Lou said they were planning on pulling out for the rodeo yesterday, around noon. Dwayne competed in calf roping. Her uncle used to be involved in team roping, but with age had slowed down and now busied himself with the training and his responsibilities as the breeding manager. Michaela had made plans to trek over and see the rodeo over the weekend. Dwayne had given her free tickets, which were hard to come by, and Camden, who was going with her, had some connections at The Bellagio, so they were set with a nice room at a great rate. Michaela liked to watch the events; her friend liked to watch the cowboys. It was sure to be an entertaining weekend.

  She got out of the truck and was greeted by her uncle’s golden retriever, Barn Dog. “Hey, boy. Where is everyone?” She patted the dog, which licked her hand. “Some help you are.” She laughed. “What’s this? Paint?” She probed Barn Dog’s fur near his collar. Maybe creosote. Lou used it to keep some of the horses from chewing on the wood pasture fence.

  She headed toward the barn expecting to find her uncle there. Maybe one of the horses was sick. “Uncle Lou?” Her voice echoed through the bre
ezeway. No Lou, but she did get a few whinnies as horses popped their heads out. None of them were eating. She looked at her watch. After eight. They hadn’t been fed? Lou always fed them. Even though he had hired help, it was something he’d done for years. “Lou? It’s me, Mickey.”

  She heard Loco pawing the ground in the last stall. Uncle Lou kept his multichampion cutting stallion a few stalls away from the other animals. Although a good stallion, he was still a stud, and he did have a mind of his own. A gorgeous blue roan in color, Loco came from great bloodlines and had earned almost almost three hundred thousand dollars in winnings. The horse was truly her uncle’s joy in life.

  “Hi, big guy,” she said as she approached the stall. He lifted his head and snorted, his eyes wild. “Hey. What’s wrong?” He was acting really off. His coat gleamed with sweat. And . . . what was that smell? Not horse sweat, but rather coppery. What the hell was that? She wrinkled up her nose. Was one of the mares in season? She doubted it. Lou knew better than to keep a mare in season in the same corridor as the stud. “Loco, what is . . .” Her voice faded as she peered into his stall. She stumbled back and grabbed hold of the stall’s bars to keep from falling. Bile burned her throat. She swallowed hard and blinked several times. “No, no, no!”

  The latch on Loco’s door was undone; she whipped it open. The stallion bolted past her and out of the breezeway. She ran over to her uncle, who lay facedown in the straw—impaled on a broken pitchfork sticking through his back. She lifted his hand—cold. Her own hands shook uncontrollably as she dropped his to the ground. A scream caught in the back of her throat. She gasped and fell into the straw, pushing herself away from Lou. She brought her hands to her face, her voice catching up with her anguish as her horrified scream echoed through the breezeway.

  FOUR

  UNCLE LOU WAS DEAD. MICHAELA’S HANDS hadn’t stopped shaking over the last hour since finding him, and the trembling had spread through her body. Even though the morning sun hit her face, she’d never felt so cold in her life. Would she ever be warm again? Would her stomach, all knotted, ever stop feeling like she wanted to throw up? Doubtful, after what she’d seen. She figured that her eyes were red and swollen from crying so hard.

  This could not be happening. It could not be true. Why would someone do this?

  She wiped the tears from her face and watched from the porch as more police pulled into the ranch. After she’d made the 911 call, a cruiser showed up, and within minutes was followed by detectives. A CSI team was now there, and the coroner was on the way. All sorts of people swarmed the property, taking photos, collecting evidence.

  She’d been instructed by one of the officers to wait on the porch; someone would be over to speak with her. The poor horses in the barn were going nuts with all the commotion. Their whinnies resounded across the ranch, and they had to be starving. Michaela cringed listening to their distress, rested her face in her palms and sobbed. Again, the thoughts of who could’ve done something like this—and, furthermore, why?—raced through her mind.

  “Miss Bancroft, would you like some coffee?”

  Michaela looked up and squinted, blinded by the sunlight, to see one of the officers standing over her. He held out a foam cup. She took it from him, nearly spilling it, wrapping both hands around it to try and stop them from shaking.

  The cop sat down next to her. “I’m Detective Jude Davis. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  She nodded.

  He pulled out a small notepad and pen from inside his tweed sports jacket. “Your call came in around quarter after eight this morning. What time would you say you got here?”

  “About five minutes before that.”

  “Did you notice anything unusual?”

  “I noticed it was quiet.” She set the coffee next to her on the step and took a tissue from her pocket. “I’m sorry,” she said and sniffled, trying hard to keep from crying again.

  “I understand. You say it was quiet.” The sunlight caught his blue eyes, causing him to squint. He took a pair of sunglasses from his pocket. “Can you tell me what you mean by that?”

  “Yes . . .” She paused. “Okay.” She was having a difficult time finding words. This wasn’t a conversation she could accept, much less even believe she was part of. “Usually in the morning there’s a lot of activity with animals being fed. Sometimes my uncle might be on the tractor cutting grass or in the arena working with a horse.”

  “That’s not what you found this morning?”

  “No.”

  “What brought you here in the first place?” He raked his hand through his wavy blond hair.

  She explained what led up to her finding Uncle Lou.

  “Do you know anything yet? What happened?” she asked, as he continued writing in his notepad.

  “We don’t.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t believe it. I don’t know why . . .” She raised her soggy tissue. He pulled a clean one from his khaki slacks. She tried to force a smile, but instead broke down again. She realized Cynthia was not there and through her sobs she asked, “Do you know where his wife is?”

  “Yes. We were able to locate her at the gym. She’s on her way back here now.”

  “God, poor Cyn.”

  “You were close with your aunt and uncle?”

  “I see them all the time. I’m usually over once a week for dinner. I help Cynthia prepare it and my folks join us, too. Uncle Lou stops by my place quite a bit.” Michaela took a hasty sip from the coffee.

  “And his wife . . . Cynthia? I take it since you don’t refer to her as your aunt that she is a second wife?”

  “Yes. They’ve been married for several years now. My aunt Rose died over ten years ago from breast cancer and my uncle met Cynthia a year or so later.”

  “Uh-huh. Were they having any problems that you knew about?”

  “Oh, no. Cyn loved my uncle, and he worshiped her.”

  “Is this Mrs. Bancroft? Your aunt, or I mean, Cynthia?” He pulled a small photo inside a small plastic bag, marked EVIDENCE

  “Yes, it is. Where did you get that picture?”

  “It was in your uncle’s wallet, which we found in the corner of the stall near him.”

  “Oh.” Michaela didn’t know what else to say. “Do you know if there is anything missing? Maybe someone was trying to rob him and it went bad?”

  “I can’t determine that as of yet. I’m not certain what all he carried in his wallet. I can say it does look fairly intact, though. There was some cash and credit cards. We won’t rule out anything, though.”

  She nodded. It would be difficult to believe that someone would try and rob Uncle Lou while working on his ranch. A random robbery didn’t fit well for her either, and she could sense that Detective Davis reflected that thought.

  “She’s much younger than your uncle, isn’t she? Your aunt? Cynthia Bancroft.”

  Michaela hesitated before answering. She could see where Detective Davis might be headed with this line of questioning, but he had it all wrong. Cyn really did love Uncle Lou. Sure, her own family had wondered when Lou had introduced all of them to her and learned that she was twenty-five years younger, but over time it was easy to see that she loved him dearly, that she was good-hearted and down to earth. “Yes, that’s true. She’s only a few years older than me. Why? What does that have to do with anything?” She set her cup down and crossed her arms.

  “Ms. Bancroft, I have a job to do. I have to ask these questions. I know the timing isn’t great, but it’s necessary.”