A Basket of Trouble (14 page)

“Hello, Lily.”

Tina studied the fliers in Claire’s hands. “What’s hippother-

apy?”

109

“It’s the use of horses in various kinds of therapy, such as physical or occupational,” Jessica answered. “I’m a licensed occupa-

tional therapist, and I run a hippotherapy nonprofit. We’re here to leave some of these fliers at the center.”

“May I have one?” Tina asked.

“I guess so. Hopefully Mrs. Franklin won’t mind.” Jessica

handed her one. “Your daughter has spastic cerebral palsy, right?”

“Yes, from birth,” the mother replied with a sigh. “And it just

seems to slowly get worse.”

“Hippotheraphy can help with muscle control and flexibility,”

Jessica said. “Such as Lily’s scissored legs here. I’ve had CP clients start a session with their knees pulled up almost to their chest and end it with them hanging loose on either side of the horse.” She

smiled at Lily. “Would you like to try riding a horse, Lily?”

Lily’s mouth opened into a grimaced approximation of a smile,

and she jerked her head forward in a nod.

Tina looked at the brochure in her hand then at Jessica. “But

how safe is it? How would Lily stay on a horse?”

“Oh, I would sit in the saddle right behind Lily and hold her

in place, help her guide the horse with her hands. So, it’s perfectly safe. Why don’t you take that brochure with you to her next doctor’s appointment and ask her doctor about it?”

“Okay, I’ll do that.”

Claire noticed that Lily’s gaze followed her mother’s actions

as Tina stuffed the flier in her purse. Lily was definitely interested and hopefully could convey that to her mother.

At that point, the receptionist said, “Mrs. Gardner, the director is coming out now to talk to you.”

110

“Nice to meet you both,” Claire said to Tina and Lily as she

stood with Jessica.

Jessica gently took Lily’s hand. “I hope to see you soon, Lily.”

A short round woman bustled out of the door behind the re-

ceptionist. Claire would have said the woman looked like Twee-

dledee or his brother Tweedledum if she were a man. The woman

looked around. “Jessica Gardner?”

“That’s me.” Jessica held out her hand. “Nice to meet you in

person, Mrs. Franklin.”

“Oh, call me Amy, please.” The woman shook her hand.

After introducing Claire, Jessica said to Amy, “As we discussed

on the phone, I’d like to display my brochures in your waiting

room. I even have this display case to put them in.” She held up a clear plastic container sized to hold about fifty of the trifold fliers and dropped some fliers into it.

Amy nodded. “That’s fine with me.”

“And this is a free invitation to our fundraiser event this com-

ing Saturday. We’ll have drinks and desserts at the Marriott, and a silent auction. My sister-in-law here is even donating one of her spectacular gift baskets to the auction.”

“Actually two,” Claire said, eliciting a look of pleased surprise from Jessica. “One with a horseback riding theme for the riders

who come, and one with a family game night theme for the non-

riders.”

Amy looked up from the invitation. “Sounds like fun. Can I

bring my husband?”

“Sure! And, I’d like to make one more request,” Jessica contin-

ued. “If it’s okay with you, I’d like to give all of the service providers who work for you this more detailed packet. It explains the 111

benefits of hippotherapy for different types of childhood disabilities. And I’d like to give you some more of the fliers for them to keep in their offices. That way, if the providers see a particular client that they think would benefit from hippotherapy, they could

hand them one of our fliers.”

Amy pursed her lips. “I’ll have to think about that. While we

like to let our clients know about all of the available services in the area, I don’t like to recommend any particular one over another.”

“There’s only one other hippotherapy nonprofit in the area

that I know of,” Jessica said, “and I’m sure the need is greater than the two of us can handle. I would have no problem with you recommending both. The other one is run by Nancy Schwartz.” She

turned to Claire. “Brittany’s mother.”

Claire raised her eyebrows in surprise. She was about to ask

why Brittany was volunteering for Jessica rather than her own

mother when a woman walked in the glass doors. Of medium

height, she was middle-aged with gray-white streaks in her blond

hair.

The woman’s mouth narrowed into a thin line when she saw

Jessica. “So you beat me here.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Jessica said brightly, “Hello,

Nancy,” then turned to Amy Franklin. “This is the woman I men-

tioned, Nancy Schwartz, who runs the other hippotherapy non-

profit in the area.”

Speak of the devil.
Claire wondered at the timing of Nancy’s visit. Had she somehow found out about Jessica’s planned visit

and decided to time hers accordingly?

While Nancy and Amy shook hands and exchanged how-dos,

Claire noted the resemblance between Nancy’s features and her

112

daughter Brittany’s. Though, Nancy carried about twenty-five

more pounds on her frame.

Nancy handed Amy a stack of business cards. “As I promised

yesterday, here are some more cards for my nonprofit. I hope Jes-

sica hasn’t been saying unkind things about me,” she said with an unnatural laugh.

“Of course not,” Amy replied. “In fact, her planned visit is why

I called you to ask for more cards. I thought I should have information about both of your nonprofits available to our clients.”

Nancy eyed the fliers and packets in Jessica’s hands. She pulled

one of Jessica’s fliers out of the plastic holder. “I didn’t bring fancy paperwork like she did, but I have fliers, too.”

The way she said it made Claire doubt that she really did, and

that she had planned to just leave the business cards. But Claire was sure Nancy would print up some fliers right away—after

studying Jessica’s, that is.

A look of annoyance passed over Jessica’s face, but she quickly

masked it with a brilliant smile that she focused on Amy. “So,

problem solved. Your providers could pass out both fliers to clients they think would benefit from hippotherapy.”

“I guess that would be fair,” Amy said.

“How many information packets would you like?”

“Six should do it.”

When Jessica passed the packets to Amy, Nancy eyed them, like

she wished she could take one of those, too. “How sweet of you

to promote hippotherapy for both of us, Jessica,” she said with a voice that dripped honey. “Especially since you have so much to

deal with right now. I heard about the Mendozas’ lawsuit.” She

tsked.

113

“What lawsuit?” Amy asked.

Nancy turned to Amy. “A man was killed by a horse at her sta-

ble, and his family is suing them.”

Amy’s eyes widened. “Oh, my.”

“That man was not killed by a horse,” Claire said quickly. “He

was murdered by a person.”

“Oh my,” After echoing Amy, Nancy cocked an eyebrow at her,

then peered at Jessica. “Aren’t you scared that you may have a killer working for you?”

“Now wait just a God damn minute,” Jessica said hotly. “There’s

no proof that any of our staff killed Kyle. And none of this has

anything to do with the quality and safety of the hippotherapy we provide.”

“Then why did the Mendozas pull their other son out of your

program?” Nancy shot back.

“It was an emotional response,” Jessica said, “as was the lawsuit.

I’m sure they’ll drop the suit and be back once they find out what really happened.”

Claire sure hoped so. But in the meantime, Amy had stiffened

and backed away. She looked nervously at the people in her wait-

ing room, who were watching the scene in the lobby with fascina-

tion.

Thrusting the packets at Jessica, Amy said, “I’m going to have

to ask you all to leave. Now. You’re upsetting my clients and I refuse to get in the middle of this.”

Jessica’s shoulders sagged. “But—”

Amy held up her hands, palms out. “You can both set up an

appointment with me in two weeks and make your pitches. I’ll de-

cide what I’m going to do then. And I don’t want either of you

114

putting fliers in our waiting room until after I say you can.” She turned on her heel and beat a hasty retreat.

“Well, Nancy,” Jessica said bitterly, “you just lost a referral

source for both of us.”

“Not for me,” Nancy replied with a triumphant smile. “I’ll be

back in two weeks. We’ll see if you’re still in business by then.” She, too, turned on her heel and sailed out of the glass entrance doors.

“What is with that woman?” Claire asked, hands on her hips.

“She’s upset about me moving here and competing with her,

though I keep telling her there are plenty of potential clients for the two of us,” Jessica replied with a sigh. “And Brittany volunteering to work with me just made it worse. Some of the bitterness between those two has rubbed off on me, I guess. You know, typical

mother-daughter stuff.”

“Oh, I know.” Claire looked back toward the waiting room and

saw Tina slipping Jessica’s flier out of her purse and dropping it into a trash can. She looped her arm in Jessica’s and pulled her toward the door so she wouldn’t see. “Let’s get out of here.”

This damn murder was tainting not only Charley’s trail-riding

business, but also Jessica’s nonprofit. The sooner the killer was dis-covered and put in jail, the better. Claire decided that a visit to Detective Wilson was called for. But in the meantime …

Claire opened the center’s front door. “C’mon, sis, I’ll treat you to an iced caramel latte while we figure out your next move.”

———

After completing her basket deliveries, Claire drove to see Detective Wilson. Knowing she would need to soften him up first, she

rehearsed her opening while following a policeman into the detec-

115

tives’ pen at the Gold Hill police station in downtown Colorado

Springs. She glanced around to see if she recognized any of the

people she had embarrassed herself in front of during her last visit.

A few detectives sat at some of the dozen desks in the large

room but none raised their heads to look at her. They were busy

typing on computer keyboards, reading case files or talking on

telephones. Claire breathed a sigh of relief, then wrinkled her

nose. Someone had recently burned a bag of microwave popcorn

and the acrid odor lingered in the large room.

When she reached Detective Wilson’s desk, he rose and shook

her hand, though he didn’t smile.

“Thanks for agreeing to meet with me,” Claire said as she sat

in his visitor’s chair. “Kyle’s murder is really hurting both Charley’s business and Jessica’s hippotherapy nonprofit. I know you’re working hard on the case and doing everything you can, but I

found out a few things that I thought might be helpful.” When

Wilson opened his mouth to speak, she held out a hand. “And no, I didn’t endanger myself by snooping around.”

He shot her a skeptical look then opened his notebook. “Okay,

shoot.”

“First is information about the Schwartzes, Brittany and her

mother, Nancy. While volunteering with Brittany, I brought up her relationship with Vince Donahue.” She told Wilson about his jealous reaction to Brittany dating Kyle, ending with, “That sounds

like a legitimate motive for murder to me.”

Wilson gave a shrug. “Could be. Depends on how enamored he

was with Miss Schwartz and if he’s got a violent personality. And in addition to motive, we need means and opportunity.”

“So are you going to interview him to find that out?”

116

He scowled at her. “Are you trying to tell me how to do my

job?”

Claire realized she had pushed too hard and backpedaled.

“Sorry. I got carried away and shouldn’t have said that. But there’s something else you need to know. Jessica and I had a run-in with

Brittany’s mother this morning.”

She told Wilson about the confrontation. “Do you think Nancy

Schwartz could be jealous enough of Jessica’s competing non-

profit, and that her daughter was working for Jessica, that she

killed Kyle Mendoza to give Jessica’s work a bad name?”

“That’s pretty far-fetched.” Wilson tapped his pen on the page

he had filled with scribbled notes. “I’d suspect her more if she had something against Mendoza personally, some reason she didn’t

want him seeing her daughter, for instance. Anything else?”

Claire had to trust that he would interview Nancy Schwartz,

too. She shifted in her seat. This next bit would be tricky. “On Friday, you asked Charley about the phone numbers from Mexico in

Kyle’s cell phone. I found out something about those, but I prom-

ised not to tell you who gave me the information.” She told him

about Oscar Vargas and his smuggling gang and Kyle arranging

for jobs for two illegal immigrants at the Monument stable.

Wilson leaned back in his chair and stared at her. “And you

won’t tell me your source. You know, even though you’re telling

me this, I’ve got to suspect that since Mendoza worked for your

brother, he’s involved somehow.”

“No, I know for a fact that he isn’t,” Claire said firmly. “After you left Friday, I asked Charley if he hired illegals. He was upset I asked. He knows the law and checks the documentation of all his

hires. He’d never knowingly hire an illegal immigrant.”

117

“And I know for a fact that you’re his sister,” Wilson shot back.