Saddled with Trouble

by Michele Scott

  Along with trying to make ends meet, Ben started going to Gamblers Anonymous, which seemed to work. Eventually life settled back to normal in the Bancroft household.

  Then, the bug bit Ben again when he’d been invited by some of his pals from the American Quarter Horse Association to the races at Los Alamitos. He hadn’t told his wife about it. It was only months later when he was knee-deep in trouble again, and they couldn’t afford Michaela’s tuition, that he’d copped to his problem. Michaela had to take out a student loan and get two jobs to get through school. This time, Janie insisted he get help. They refinanced the ranch, took out all the equity, sent him to some high-priced rehabilitation center in Washington. He came home, went to meetings, and as far as Michaela knew hadn’t been involved with his vice since then—over a dozen years ago.

  She’d have to talk to her dad because she didn’t want this weighing on her mother, or herself, for that matter.

  The other thing twisting itself in her mind as she drove over to her uncle’s ranch was Davis, and his line of questioning with her mom. He was obviously looking into her theory of Brad seeking revenge, and considering Brad a suspect. But she wondered if there was more to it.

  It was a disturbing thought, but it still crossed her mind: Davis likely considered her a suspect, too. After all, she’d been the one to find her uncle’s body. Her earlier feelings of warmth toward Davis dissipated some, realizing he was probably not being the nice guy to her because he was simply a nice guy. She was pretty sure it was a tactic to extract information from her, and it had worked.

  TWELVE

  PULLING INTO UNCLE LOU’S PLACE FELT DIFFERENT. It would never be the same again. It was as if his death darkened every corner of the ranch, for this morning nothing looked as green as it always did, or as bright. Even the smells were somehow different when she climbed out of her truck.

  Usually there would be plenty of activity going on right about now, with Uncle Lou either in the arena working a horse or fixing something around the ranch. Horses being groomed, at least one in the wash rack after a morning workout, as well as a couple of horses going through their paces on the hot-walker. Not this morning, Her uncle’s presence was definitely gone. The sadness filtered back into Michaela’s heart and gripped it in a vise. Would she ever again laugh over a joke she and her uncle had shared? Or would this ache remain? How did people overcome death? Sure, it happened every day. People went on with their lives. They had no choice. But how? Now it was her turn to figure out how the process worked. The first thing she realized that morning was that there truly was no way to be prepared.

  She tapped on the front door then let herself into the house. She went into the kitchen where she saw Dwayne Yamaguchi standing over Cynthia, who sat at the table looking as lost as Michaela felt. Dwayne’s hand rested on her shoulder. He squeezed it as he swung around and spotted Michaela.

  “Good morning,” he said. He had dark Asian good looks with a blend of his native Hawaii thrown in. There was a scar underneath his right eye from what Michaela had heard was a barroom fight in which Dwayne hadn’t fared well. He also sported a tattoo of a Polynesian dancer on his left shoulder. Dwayne was known to have been a bit of a womanizer and partier back in the day. But a bit of age and the horses he worked with seemed to have grounded him, as he spent most of his time working with them instead of drinking and carousing.

  Michaela couldn’t help wonder if the slight pain she noticed at times in Dwayne’s eyes had something to do with the hula dancer on his arm.

  “Hi,” Michaela said, and walked over to Cynthia.

  Dwayne moved away and went into the kitchen. “I’ll get you a cup of coffee.” He walked around the counter to get the carafe and pour their drinks.

  Michaela sat down at the table and took Cynthia’s hand. “How are you?”

  Cynthia glanced up with her large brown eyes. “I don’t know. I feel numb, like this isn’t real.”

  “I know. I really do.” They sat in silence for a moment.

  Dwayne brought the coffee over to them. “I’ve gotta go out to the barn and check on a few things. Sam is out looking over one of the yearlings. Say he may want to buy one, ship it back to Hawaii for working the cows. Thinks he’s ready to go on home now. Lou’s death shook him up. When you’re ready to head out, Michaela, why don’t you come find me?”

  “Sure.” He obviously wanted to talk to her but she wasn’t sure why. She turned back to Cyn. “You know, if you don’t want to stay here, you can come and stay with me. Or, if you want, I can come over here. I hate the idea of your being alone.”

  Cynthia nodded. “Thank you, but I belong here and the police have been by. An officer stood guard last night, and then Dwayne came back. I think I’ll be fine.”

  “Sure, okay, but when Dwayne heads back out to Vegas, I can come over.”

  “Dwayne says that Bean can stay here and take care of the animals.”

  “Is he responsible enough?” Michaela couldn’t help asking. Bean was good with the animals, but could he do the entire job? He was such a naïve man. She recalled with anger how Brad had taken advantage of Bean when he’d worked for Lou. He’d “befriended” Bean, out of what Michaela had come to believe was for self-centered reasons. She figured that he used Bean to cover for him when he left the ranch to rendezvous with Kirsten, and that he also had him do much of the work Brad was supposed to do around the ranch. She found Bean in tears one afternoon when she’d stopped by to bring Brad lunch, and Bean told her that Brad had gone to the feed store for some supplies. She should’ve known then. When she asked why the tears, Bean had explained to her that he didn’t think he could get all the chores done, because Brad had given him some new ones and he couldn’t remember all of them. Boy, had she ever wound up with a jerk!

  “I think he is. I know he has some problems, but he’s conscientious and he loves the animals. He may not always show up for work on time, but you and I both know it’s not going to kill the horses if they get fed an hour later than normal. Bean is loyal. Besides, there’s no one else to do it right now, until Dwayne gets back. I’m not up to it, and you have your own place to take care of. I’ll be fine.”

  “What about Sam? Can’t he stay?”

  “He probably could. But you know those two, they’re peas in a pod and Sam is such a help to Dwayne when they’re out on the road. It’ll work out.”

  “Okay, but don’t hesitate to ask. I don’t mind helping around here.”

  Cynthia nodded. She stood and walked to the bay window that overlooked their patio and pool. She sighed. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”

  Michaela followed her into Uncle Lou’s office. Cynthia went behind his desk and opened a drawer, pulling out a file. She handed it to Michaela. “Take a look.”

  She opened it. “What is this? Lawsuits?” Cynthia nodded. She glanced over the paperwork. “What’s going on?”

  “That is exactly what I asked Lou the night before he died when he showed them to me. There are six of them, all pertaining to the artificial insemination program. All of those people in the lawsuits are claiming that the foals born to their mares are not Loco’s. They have DNA evidence to prove Loco is not the father.”

  “What? They’re saying that Lou substituted another stallion’s sperm to breed to their mares?”

  “Yes. But it’s worse than that. Lou has no recollection of ever sending product to any of these people.”

  “Then their claims are bogus.”

  Cynthia shook her head. “I don’t think so. They all have signed breeding contracts. That’s Lou’s signature on the bottom of each, and look, the attorney included photocopies of the back of the checks. That’s my husband’s handwriting. The odd thing, though, is that Loco’s stud fee is $3,500.00 and those checks are each for two grand.”

  “A bit of a deal.” Michaela studied the papers. Cynthia was right. It did look as if Lou had signed the contracts with these people, as well as the back of the checks. “I don’t understand
.”

  “Neither do I. Lou swears he doesn’t remember signing any of this stuff. And he claimed that he’d never given anyone that type of deal. I wanted to believe him, but how could I? The other part of it is that I can’t trace the money to any one of our checking accounts. The numbers on the deposits don’t match up. I can’t even find a bank that they went into.”

  Michaela studied the photocopy of the back of one check to see if it listed the name of the bank where the deposits were made. It didn’t, but it did have the bank’s routing number and indicated that the deposits were made in Los Angeles. “We need to find out which bank uses this routing number here.” Michaela pointed to the number. “Once you can find that out, we can locate the bank and branch where the account was open and maybe go from there.”

  “How do I do that?” Cynthia asked.

  “Did you talk to Summer MacTavish about this? Is she still handling the books for the business?”

  “She is, but Lou limited her responsibilities somewhat after she left Ethan. You know how he feels when somebody hurts someone he cares about.”

  “I do know that. What did he stop having her do?”

  “Well, he told her that he’d take over running the books on the breeding program. He only left her in charge of accounts receivable and payroll. I haven’t had a chance to speak to her yet, because like I said I just discovered all of this within the last forty-eight hours. But it’s driving me crazy because I have no idea where these checks were deposited. I’m afraid to say anything to the police, because what if it’s true? What if Lou was defrauding these people?”

  “You think Uncle Lou would hide money from you and steal from people?” The words coming from Cynthia sounded completely incredulous.

  “No. Not really. It sickens me to think about and now we can’t figure it out together. The only other explanation that might make sense is that Lou was having memory problems.”

  “He was?”

  “I noticed it about a month ago, and then when he showed me these papers the other night, he said that he’d been to see his doctor, because he felt like he was losing his mind. He was practically in tears.”

  Michaela took a deep breath, feeling like all the air had been sucked from her lungs. This was unbelievable. Could that have been why he didn’t sound like himself the other night? “Are you talking something like Alzheimer’s or senility?”

  “I have no idea. I’m hoping his doctor will speak to me about it. I’m the one now who will have to deal with these suits, and they’re asking for over a million dollars in damages, claiming that the foals they expected from Loco’s bloodline could have profited them greatly.”

  “You think that any of these people who filed these suits could be responsible for Uncle Lou’s murder?”

  Cynthia shrugged. “It’s a crazy world. After looking over all of this, and wondering what was going on with him, I don’t know what to think. But they’re all located in Ohio. So, if someone from this core group of people is behind it, they would have had to hire someone, and that really doesn’t make a lot of sense, because with Lou gone a lawsuit such as this can become even more convoluted.” Michaela put the papers back inside the folder. “I hate to ask you this because I know you’re in pain, too, but would you mind taking these papers with you and seeing if you can’t find out where the checks were deposited? And, what’s going on? I don’t think I have the strength right now.”

  Michaela hesitated for a minute. She wasn’t sure she wanted to get herself involved in any of this. Seeing the sorrow in Cynthia’s eyes and the grief tightening her face, she said, “I’ll see what I can find out.”

  “Thank you.”

  “What about Dwayne? Doesn’t he handle some of the AI transactions, or Sam?”

  “No, not really. They’re involved in the training and that’s pretty much it. It’s mainly been Lou. Of course they’ve helped at times. Everyone has, even me. And Ethan has also helped out when he was here. Lou was about ready to start looking for some more help, and then he received the lawsuits and thought he better wait until things were cleared up. But no one else handled the paperwork. Lou was the breeding manager, after all. I mentioned this all to Dwayne this morning and he was as floored about it as I was.”

  “Maybe these lawsuits do have something to do with his murder. Or maybe not. Say this is true. I mean . . . I can’t believe that it could be, because Uncle Lou was so ethical in everything he did. But if by some chance there was a mix-up with the DNA?”

  “I don’t think that’s likely. We’re dealing in large amounts of cash. People want to be assured of protection in case this exact thing were to happen. I’m sure you’re aware that the American Quarter Horse Association maintains DNA samples of all the stallions involved in AI, and for the foals to be registered they also have to be DNA typed, if they’re bred via AI. And, the claim is the DNA doesn’t match. The plaintiffs have all contacted the AQHA and they’re backing these people, saying that their claims are valid. I think they could even force us to shut down the operation.”

  Michaela frowned. She didn’t have a clue what to make of any of it. “Do you know if the owners know who the real stallion is to these foals? There were three other studs here at the time these people would have received the product and had their mares inseminated, weren’t there?” It could be as simple, albeit, a horrific mixup if one of the other stallion’s sperm was sent out to the mares’ owners. Loco’s fees were some of the more expensive stud fees out there. The other stallions on the ranch were all of excellent breeding, but they weren’t Loco, and Michaela could not blame any of the owners for being upset over such a mixup. People wanted to get what they paid for.

  “The documents are claiming that there is an ongoing investigation. They also say that in the breeding reports Lou had to file that none of these mares were included. This was supposedly how the owners were first alerted there might be a problem, when they discovered they couldn’t register their foals because there was no breeding report on file with their mares’ names.”

  “So, the plaintiffs here have not named the stallion they believe to be the stud horse of these foals?”

  Cynthia shook her head. “You know, it may not even be a stud registered with the AQHA. It could be some random horse. I don’t know. At this point I think the AQHA is still trying to track the DNA. I fear that on top of everything, we will lose our business and I’ll have to pay all of these damages.”

  “Did Uncle Lou indicate anyone who he thought would intentionally switch containers to be shipped to the mares’ owners?”

  She sighed. “He did mention Brad. Brad was working here at the time and knew how the program worked.”

  “But why? Why would he do that, and how would he get a hold of contracts and checks?”

  Cynthia shrugged. “Maybe it’s as simple as Brad was being plain mean. We all know he’s proven himself not to be the most upstanding individual. Maybe he wanted to sabotage Lou, you know, make sure he ruined Lou’s reputation. And once this gets out, my husband’s memory will be forever tainted in the horse world.”

  “I won’t let that happen. I don’t believe Lou could have done anything to hurt anyone. Not intentionally. I’ll help you figure this out.” Michaela sighed, trying to wrap her mind around all of this. “What about Bean? I know that everything is on a numbering system as far as which stud’s sperm is which in the freezer, that kind of thing, and you keep records, but could Bean have somehow gotten things mixed up?”