Horse Thief

by Bonnie Bryant

  Suddenly she realized something. Kurt’s explanation meant that a huge problem still remained. The theft was still unsolved because now his strange behavior was completely explained. Not only that, but they still had four suspects left! She winced as she remembered Phil’s strange behavior and his unexplained wealth. Maybe they had five suspects left!

  Stevie went to find Carole and Lisa. She bumped into them in the stable aisle as they were looking for her.

  Carole grabbed her by the arm. “We were just looking for you.”

  Stevie nodded. “I have some news for you, too. Emergency Saddle Club meeting—right now!”

  The three girls went into the tack room, which was still empty. Carole started talking in a rush. “I have a new theory about how to solve the crime! I know a way to eliminate almost all of our suspects!”

  “Wait!” Stevie interrupted her, in her usual impulsive fashion. “I can definitely eliminate at least one of the subjects.” She told them what Kurt had said.

  “Poor Kurt,” said Lisa when Stevie was finished. “Imagine being forced to do something you hate—although I can’t imagine being scared of horses.”

  Carole had listened to Stevie in silence. As Stevie’s story sank in, she looked up, her eyes shining. “So Kurt is out as a suspect,” she said slowly.

  “I couldn’t doubt his story,” said Stevie. “I couldn’t believe,” she added, giggling, “how totally sincere someone could be about hating horses!”

  “Then I know exactly who the thief is,” Carole said excitedly. She leaned forward and began telling Lisa and Stevie her theory.

  * * *

  A FEW MINUTES later, the three girls emerged from the tack room. They quickly searched the stable and then the indoor ring.

  Mo was standing in the ring, feeding Indy an apple. When The Saddle Club saw her, they walked up to her and said hello.

  “Hey,” Stevie said eagerly. “We need your help, Mo. We know who stole the money, and we want to set a trap for the thief!”

  Mo’s eyes sparkled. “What great news!” she said. “I’ll do anything to help.”

  Carole grabbed her arm and began pulling her toward the stable. “Come this way,” she said.

  “The trap is in the tack room,” Lisa whispered to Mo.

  Mo allowed herself to be dragged to the tack room. Along the way, she excitedly asked questions.

  “Celeste and Howard did it, didn’t they? They’re always up to something,” Mo said.

  “You’ll see,” Carole replied enigmatically.

  Mo stopped suddenly, a look of horror on her face. “Oh, no, it’s not your friend Denise, is it?” she asked. “She’s so nice. But then again, I did see her counting all that money.”

  “It’s not Denise,” Stevie said. She pulled Mo’s sleeve to get her moving again. The four girls entered the stable and walked toward the tack room.

  “Well, that’s a relief,” said Mo. “I really like her. I guess Veronica really had it in for your boyfriend, right? She took the money to get her revenge, huh?”

  Stevie shrugged. “Veronica always has it in for one of us,” she said cheerfully. “But money is one thing she doesn’t need.”

  “C’mon, you guys,” Mo said impatiently. “Who did it? How are we going to trap the thief?”

  “Shhh,” whispered Carole. She looked around nervously. “Mustn’t talk here. Not safe.”

  “Yes, we have to make sure the trap works perfectly and the thief suspects nothing,” added Stevie.

  When they entered the tack room, the group first made sure that no one else was there. Then Stevie carefully shut the door behind her. She swung around to face Mo. “The trap has worked,” she said. “We know everything, Mo. You took the money!”

  Mo gasped. “Wh-Wh-What are you talking about?” she stammered, turning pale underneath her freckles. “How could you say such a thing?”

  Carole stepped forward. She had a stem expression on her face. “We’ve all been doing a little investigating.” she said. “We knew we needed to clear Phil’s name and to get that money back to Max. We realized that the thief had to be someone who saw Max hide the money on that shelf.”

  “And then we eliminated suspects, one by one,” said Lisa.

  “We knew it couldn’t be one of us,” said Stevie. “And we knew it couldn’t be Phil, either.”

  “Then we found out more about Denise and Kurt,” said Lisa.

  “Then I figured it out,” Carole said proudly. “Stevie found a bit of black yarn on the shelf. The thief was someone who needed black yarn for their horse’s mane. That eliminated Celeste, Howard, and Veronica as suspects. None of their horses have black manes! Gold Rush is a palomino, and Ghost and Danny are both gray. Only you and Kurt have bay horses with black manes and tails, and we’ve just ruled out Kurt. That leaves you, Mo. You’re the thief!”

  Mo looked as if she were about to protest her innocence again, but then her expression became sly and cunning. Suddenly she no longer seemed like the friendly girl they had met just several hours before. If they had had any doubt about her guilt, her expression now confirmed it. “What about your boyfriend, Phil?” she asked Stevie. “He rides a bay gelding, too. Your little theory doesn’t prove anything.”

  “Phil would never steal money,” replied Stevie. “He’s known Max for too long, and we know Phil too well. Give it up, Mo. We know you did it.”

  Mo’s face crumpled, and her eyes filled with tears. She began sobbing. “I needed that money!” she wailed. “You don’t understand! My family doesn’t understand me. I have no friends.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” Lisa asked.

  “I decided to run away from home last night,” Mo said. “I knew I could get a head start if I left from here, since it’s so far from home. But I needed money. When I saw how much was in the envelope and the jar, I didn’t stop to think. I just took it!”

  Carole, Lisa, and Stevie were disconcerted. Mo sounded so desperate. What was going on in her life? How badly did she need that money?

  “Maybe running away isn’t the answer,” Lisa said.

  “What do you know?” Mo asked. Her tone was so bitter that Stevie felt a pang. She knew by looking at Carole and Lisa that the initial anger and triumph behind their accusations were fading and that they were all starting to worry about what could be so terribly wrong with Mo’s life.

  Just then the door from Max’s office opened and Kurt walked in. Mo took advantage of the open door to scurry away before they could stop her. She was in such a hurry that she collided with Kurt, nearly knocking him over. “Hey, where’s the fire?” he said, irritated.

  “Let her go,” Stevie said. “We should tell Max what happened and let him handle it.” She then looked at Kurt, who, to her complete shock, was grinning happily. They had all gotten used to Kurt’s dour expression. He looked weird with a big smile plastered on his face.

  “Hey, good news,” he announced. “I did it! I convinced my parents to let me quit riding!”

  The girls were silent for a second; then Carole spoke. “Uh, congratulations?” she said in a doubtful tone. Stevie added her own lukewarm support.

  Lisa smiled at Kurt. “We’re really happy for you,” she explained. “We’re just having a little trouble understanding how someone could hate riding. But now you can do what you want, and that’s terrific.”

  Gruffly Kurt said, “Well, listen, I’ve already explained myself to Stevie, so I’m not going to go through it again. I’m sorry I was such a jerk to you this morning. I really didn’t know how I was going to go through with the rally. But Max helped me out, and I feel loads better.” The girls could tell that he was uncomfortable talking about it, so they didn’t press for details. Kurt jerked a thumb in the direction in which Mo had vanished. “What’s wrong with Mo? Is she acting up again?”

  The girls exchanged glances. “What do you mean, again?” asked Stevie.

  “She’s a real problem at Mendenhall,” Kurt replied. “She’s always
lying, teasing other people, and generally causing serious trouble. She’s been kicked out of too many riding lessons to count.”

  Although Carole, Lisa, and Stevie had witnessed for themselves how devious Mo could be, they were still shocked at Kurt’s news. “So Celeste didn’t arrange for Howard to injure her main rival and put her in the hospital for weeks?” Stevie asked.

  “What?” asked Kurt, startled. The Saddle Club filled him in on the story Mo had told them.

  “Well, Celeste is kind of ruthless,” chuckled Kurt. “And she does treat Howard like her personal servant. But she pretty much keeps to herself. That thing with Mo’s tack was really payback for something Mo did to her last week. When Celeste was practicing, Mo blew up a brown paper bag and popped it. Gold Rush almost bolted and threw Celeste, but she’s such a good rider, she managed to calm him down.”

  The three girls looked at each other. Mo’s story about Celeste and Howard was true—only Mo was the culprit and Celeste was the victim!

  Then they told Kurt how they had discovered that Mo was the thief. “We were totally taken in by her,” Carole said ruefully.

  “Yeah,” said Stevie. “She even told us that you and your two brothers were in trouble with the law and that you had to report to a probation officer once a week.”

  Kurt looked insulted. “I don’t have any brothers and I’ve never even gotten detention at school,” he said.

  Stevie shook her head. “Wow,” she said. “That was some snow job she did on us.”

  Lisa agreed. “And to think we wanted her to join Pine Hollow! She made us think she wanted to switch stables so badly because of Celeste.”

  “Not to mention the fact that she tried to incriminate Denise,” put in Carole. “How mean can someone get?”

  “Pretty mean,” said Stevie. “I bet that she was the one who sabotaged Howard’s stirrup. I just assumed that Celeste had done it because we knew how determined she was to win the rally and because I saw her coming out of the indoor ring around that time. But Mo was in there, too.”

  Kurt nodded. “It was definitely Mo. She’s pulled that stunt on a couple of riders at Mendenhall. And the only reason she wants to switch stables so badly is that the owner is finally at the end of his patience. He’s kept her on for so long because Mo’s parents have begged him to, and because Mo takes really good care of Indy. But lately she’s started to put a lot of riders and horses in danger.”

  Lisa suddenly remembered what Mo had told them about her problems. “Maybe she had a good reason for taking that money,” she said. “She told us how desperate she was to run away. Maybe things are really bad at home for her right now and she’s acting out her frustration at the stable.”

  Kurt shook his head. “That doesn’t explain everything,” he said. “My parents know Mo’s parents. They’re in the process of getting a divorce, and I know Mo is taking it hard. But they’re also two really nice people. They’re trying to make things as fair as possible for Mo, and the two of them have been spending tons of time with her. I don’t know everything,” he added, “but I know that whatever is going on with Mo’s life, it’s not enough to make her act the way she’s been acting. She’s put a lot of us at Mendenhall in real danger, and now this.”

  “I have a hunch that the owner of Mendenhall is about to get a really good reason to bar Mo from that stable—permanently,” Stevie said grimly.

  After saying good-bye to Kurt, the three girls hurried off to find Max and tell him they had solved the mystery.

  “I’M SO TIRED,” groaned Stevie, leaning against her broom. She had just finished sweeping the tack room floor.

  “Amen,” agreed Carole, who was polishing tack. “But you can’t be tired, Stevie. You’ve got an anniversary dinner ahead of you.”

  Stevie flopped down on a bench. For the last hour, ever since the rally had ended, the two girls had been working hard to clean up the stable and take care of their horses. “I’ve had all the excitement I can take,” she said. “I thought the rally was going to be the main event today. Then comes the dinner. Then the theft. Then the investigation. I need a break!”

  “Don’t forget about winning the blue ribbon in the second round and placing second overall in the dressage rally,” Carole reminded Stevie. “That was pretty amazing, especially after everything that happened today.”

  “You guys didn’t do so badly, either,” replied Stevie, grinning. Carole had won a blue ribbon for the first round and had placed third in the overall competition. Lisa had won a red ribbon in the third round and had placed sixth for the overall rally.

  “So Celeste ended up winning the whole competition after all,” mused Carole.

  “She really is a terrific rider,” Stevie said grudgingly. “But just wait until next time! If the next rally is crime-free, she doesn’t stand a chance against us!”

  Carole laughed. They finished cleaning and organizing the tack room and went to find Lisa.

  Lisa was in Prancer’s stall, finishing her grooming. “Hey,” she said when she saw them. “I still can’t figure out what’s wrong with this horse. She keeps nipping me and she won’t stand still. It’s taken three times as long as usual to groom her.”

  “I forgot about Prancer,” said Stevie. “With everything that’s happened today, Prancer’s weirdness just slipped my mind.”

  “I know what you mean,” said Lisa. “I was just thinking how I really liked Mo at first. I still can’t believe that she could be so sneaky. Telling us all those lies, and we believed her!”

  “We all liked her,” Carole said. “Maybe we liked her because we thought Celeste, Howard, and Kurt were so awful at first. And maybe I liked her because Starlight and Indy look so much alike. And actually, Celeste and Howard really didn’t improve, even after we found out about Mo!”

  “What happened to Mo after we told Max?” asked Lisa.

  Stevie looked grim. “I just ran into Max,” she told them. “Mo did get kicked out of Mendenhall. Her parents were at the rally today, and they’re really upset by this latest incident. They’ve already got Mo going to therapy, but now they’re enrolling her in a program that deals with troubled kids. The program lasts three months. Apparently they can visit her once a week, but otherwise Mo’s going to go through an intensive period of counseling and activities. The program is run on a farm, and Mo can ride horses and help take care of the animals there. Horses, and animals in general, seem to be the only thing that works for her.”

  “I’m glad Max agreed not to press charges,” Lisa said softly. “Even if Mo is a troublemaker, clearly she needs a lot of help.”

  Just then Phil stuck his head into the stall. The girls noticed that he was carrying the picnic hamper. “Are you talking about me again?” he said, grinning. “I just can’t seem to help being the center of attention!”

  “Oh, please,” answered Stevie, smiling fondly at him. “Get over yourself, will you?”

  Phil pretended to look wounded. “I was just coming to tell you,” he told Stevie, “that it’s starting to drizzle outside.”

  “So much for our beautiful day! I can’t believe it’s raining again,” complained Stevie.

  “Don’t worry, I’ve rearranged everything,” Phil said. “I’ve cleared a nice, cozy spot for our picnic in the hayloft. You can join me there at your leisure.”

  “We were just talking about the theft,” Carole informed him. “You interrupted a very important discussion.”

  Phil groaned. “I am so sick of talking about today,” he complained. “So what if Mo is a thief? Her crime was amateur, a totally clumsy job.”

  “Oh, and you’re the expert?” Stevie asked sarcastically, forgetting that, for a while, that had actually been her main worry.

  “Well, I’ve pulled off a couple of schemes in my time,” Phil boasted. “Nothing criminal, though. As a matter of fact, I managed to hatch a little plot this week. I made up that whole story about saving money so that I could buy Teddy some extra-special feed. I was really saving up for a
fancy dinner tonight. And you never suspected a thing!”

  Stevie was touched. “Really?” she asked excitedly. “Are we going out tonight?”

  “But then you kept dreaming about that bridle,” Phil continued proudly. “So I checked the price of it in one of the catalogs from Max’s office. Then I caught up with your parents at lunchtime and they agreed to chip in half the cost. They said to tell you it’s an early Christmas gift for you.”

  Stevie threw her arms around Phil and gave him a big hug. “That’s why you were in Max’s office—to look at catalogs!” she said happily.

  Phil grinned. “Yeah, and that’s why I couldn’t tell you the reason. Hey,” he said suddenly with a worried frown, “you didn’t think I was guilty of stealing that money, did you?”

  Stevie gazed at him adoringly. “Not for a second,” she told him. She knew that a little fib, under these circumstances, was okay.

  “But here’s the bad news,” said Phil. “Now that I’m getting you the bridle, I can’t buy you dinner tonight. So it really is a picnic in the hayloft—with sandwiches and potato chips. Nothing glamorous.”

  “I think those sandwiches will taste like the finest French cuisine to Stevie right about now,” Carole joked, looking at Stevie’s face.

  Stevie’s eyes were shining. She was thinking about how hard Phil had worked to surprise her. She also couldn’t help thinking about the new bridle she was getting in a few weeks! She and Phil said good-bye to Carole and Lisa and climbed up the ladder to the hayloft.

  The hayloft smelled dusty-sweet. Phil had cleared a large space and spread out a blanket for their picnic. “I brought candles, but I don’t think we should light them here,” he said. “We might set the hay on fire.”

  “It doesn’t matter one bit,” Stevie assured him. As they sat down and began unpacking the picnic basket, they heard a loud scurrying sound.

  Stevie jumped to her feet. “What was that?” she asked, startled.