Saddled With Trouble (22 page)

Michaela picked up the ingredients she needed for the tart at the grocery store and thought about grabbing something to make for dinner, but didn’t have the energy to cook for herself. And a microwave dinner didn’t sound appealing. Before loading her groceries in the truck she called over to the China Lion down the street. She ordered some Kung pao chicken and an egg roll. That would do.

When she walked into the restaurant the smells of ginger, garlic, and red pepper spice assailed her senses. Her stomach growled. Mmm. Good choice. The place didn’t look to be too busy, which meant her order probably wouldn’t take long. She walked up to the hostess booth and gave her name. The petite Chinese woman said, “One minute, please. I see if food ready.” She nodded politely and disappeared behind a red drape.

Michaela heard someone call her name and saw Sam sitting alone in one of the booths. He motioned her over. “Hi,” she said. “How are you?”

He motioned at the spread of food in front of him. “Not too good. I eat even more when I’m upset. You know . . .” He shook his head. “Can’t believe Bean would do this. Good man. A little slow, you know, but good. Just snapped in the head. Dunno. Don’t understand, but it’s terrible. Found out when we got back from the feed store, me and Dwayne. Bad dream, I tell you.”

“
More like a nightmare. I can’t believe it. Do you really think Bean had the capacity to kill my uncle and then himself?”

“
Dunno. Looks that way. That’s what Mrs. Bancroft tell us. Who knows what goes on in the mind of a man? Maybe Bean be more of a thinker than we all figure. Maybe he have some anger stuff going on and Lou make him angry.”

“
Maybe.” But it sure didn’t sit well with Michaela. Bean might have been slow and even a bit odd . . . but angry? No. He was too kidlike to be
that
angry. However, she
had
been wrong about people before. Hell, look at what she’d been married to. “Where’s Dwayne?”

“
He back home. I eat. He don’t eat when he upset. It be that way since we were kids. I can’t help myself though. He real tore about all of this with Bean and Lou. Real sad and like all of us, mixed up ’bout it. Sit down.” He sipped his beer. “Want one?”

“
No. I ordered takeout. It should be ready in a minute. Uh, I hate to sound like a mother, but Sam, should you be drinking beer and eating like that with your diabetes?”

“
Probably not. But I can handle it. Know how to take care of myself since I was a kid.”

“
You’ve been a diabetic since then?”

“
Nah, been taking care of myself since I was a kid.”

“
Didn’t you live with Dwayne’s family growing up?”

“
You got that one backward. He come to live with us when he was like fourteen, I think. Can’t remember. My
makuakane
and
makuahine
— my dad and mom— always love him, you know. His parents drown in a boating accident off Oahu. Sad story. Dwayne come to live with us, but he fit right in. My family always love him.”

“
I thought you said that you’ve been taking care of yourself since you were a kid.” She was starting to think that Sam had had too much to drink. “Sounds to me like you had a very loving family.”

“
Oh you know, all us kids grow up on the islands take care of ourselves. We learn from Mother Nature, you know. Just a figure of speech is all. Me taking care of myself, just the way it was, and Dwayne, too. We have a lot of fun together back on the island.”

“
That’s really sad about Dwayne’s parents. I had no idea.” It did explain why she noticed that sad, faraway look in Dwayne’s eyes at times.

“
Yeah, bad stuff. Tough.”

“
But both of you are close with your parents?”

“
Sure. Yeah. I want to go back home now, open a restaurant. Or go
somewhere
. Need to get off the mainland. Too crazy here.”

“
It does feel crazy right now, that’s for sure. I had no idea that you wanted to own a restaurant.”

“
Oh sure. Been my dream for a long time now.” He rubbed his thumb and middle finger together. “Need cash though, you know. I want more than a restaurant. Want to run a luau, or hotel, you know, think big. I almost went back a few years ago, had a buddy with an opportunity to open a place on Maui and we was gonna have us the best luau around.”

“
Sounds nice.”

“
Yeah well, didn’t work out. Maybe now, I go home and find a job in a restaurant and try and work my way up. Being here for a while make me think I could go back and open a Mexican place. I make good tacos. I like them, too. Maybe Chinese.” He smiled. “Like I say, I love food.” He laughed and ordered another beer.

Sam was a talker, and since he was rambling on, she decided to do some more fishing. He might have answers to some of her questions related to the deaths, or on her theories about the breeding program and the lawsuits. “Hey Sam, did you know my ex-husband, Brad, very well when he worked for my uncle?”

He took a swig of his beer. “That guy? What a jerk.”

“
I know.”

“
Not just to you. He boss everyone around the ranch when he can, when Lou not around. He make Dwayne so pissed. Only one who like him was Bean, but that guy like everyone. Too bad he didn’t take out your ex instead, huh?”

Michaela nodded, not exactly knowing how to respond to that. “Did Brad do a decent job at the ranch? I mean, when he was working.”

“
What? Handling the breeding?” He shrugged. “S’pose so. What’s so hard? He gotta help the stud do his thing to collect the . . .”

She held up a hand. Might as well go for the jugular and see what Sam thought of her theory. “I know. He collected the semen. I guess what I’m getting at is, do you think Brad could have been involved in selling breedings to horse owners for a cheaper stud fees than Loco’s, and substituting another horse’s DNA in place of Loco’s?”

“
Semen? Sure. Don’t think it would be too hard. Get into where the containers were and make a switch, yeah, not too hard. You know I even tol’ Lou and Dwayne that with an animal like Loco on the place, we need better security. Horse worth $125,000, and his stud fees alone are $3,500, who knows someone figure out a way to work it? Charge what, even half that and supplement the sperm, well, you send out say even one sample a day during breeding season and you could make some nice cash. I know Lou had a security company out not long ago after I talk to him, make him see he got a lot of money tied up in those animals. I know he planned to get some cameras set up around the place and some alarms real soon. Lou be too old-fashioned for too long. He still livin’, well,
was
livin’ in the dark ages. Bad people out there. Take your money. Steal your horse. You don’t know. Just don’t know.”

She leaned into the table. “So, you
do
think it could have been possible for someone to be running this type of scam, and now the owners of these mares have caught on, and they’ve started suing the ranch.” She sighed.

“
It could have happened. Like I say, bad people out there. I don’t know.” He moved the food around on his plate. “You know, Dwayne mention to me something about Lou being sued by some people in Ohio. Dwayne think Lou just having memory trouble and accidentally shipped the wrong stuff out.”

Michaela nodded as the hostess set her takeout down. “But you don’t?”

“
Like I say, don’t know what to think. Crazy stuff.”

“
Wow, this could just be the beginning, then. If this were really happening, there could be hundreds of foals out there that aren’t really Loco’s, and owners will find out when they go to register them with the AQHA. This might only be the first batch of lawsuits. Not good.” She shook her head as the reality of how severe this situation could be dawned on her. “We haven’t even come into this year’s foaling season. Oh, God. Wait until this batch of folks want to register their foals, if there is another group that was duped like the people who already filed lawsuits. It could be
a lot
of money.”

“
Anything possible.” Sam took a bite of his egg roll.

“
The AQHA has not found a match for those foals and all of Lou’s studs are DNA typed and on file with AQHA.”

“
Yeah, tough. I
do
think there something fishy, too. Don’t know what, but it don’t smell right to me.”

“
Can I ask you something else?”

“
Shoot.”

“
Do you think my ex could have been involved with this kind of a scam?”

“
Your ex is one strange duck. He don’t have the full deck, you know.” He tapped the side of his head. “He know a lot about the animal and he a good lyin’ man.”

“
I know. Thanks. Look, I better let you get back to your dinner.”

“
Anytime I can help.” He downed the rest of his beer.

“
Be careful, Sam. Go easy on the beers. Do you need a ride home? I owe you.”

“
Nah. I’m fine. I don’t live far. I walked over and if I have to, I can call Dwayne.”

She left Sam to eat and drink his sorrows away. So, Sam thought that Brad was more than capable of deceit. Duh! But was the man she was once married to also capable of stealing money, then murdering her uncle and now killing Bean and making it look like a suicide? She was beginning to think that Brad was capable of anything.

TWENTY-SIX

MICHAELA MADE A QUICK STOP AT THE BARN TO feed the horses. Even though she had food on the brain she tried to give each horse down the aisle some special attention with love pats. Most of them nudged her hand away and tossed their heads. Even Leo had no interest in making nice. She was late, so she couldn’t blame them in the least. “I see how it is,” she sang out, tossing flakes of hay onto her wheelbarrow to make her rounds. “All you guys want is your chow. What am I? Chopped liver?”

Finished, she went on up to the house to reheat her dinner. While she nuked it she played her messages. One was from her mom just checking up on her, another from Ethan with basically the same message. The last caught her interest: “Hello. This is a message for Michaela Bancroft. My name is Henry Stein and I’m an attorney with Goldbloom, Richards, and Stein. Please call me at your earliest convenience. It’s in regard to your uncle’s estate.” Michaela jotted down the number. She tried to call, but no one was there. It was after hours. She’d try back tomorrow. Wonder what the attorney wanted?

The microwave buzzed. Ah yes. Food! She pretty much shoveled the Chinese food into her mouth, except for half the egg roll, which she shared with Cocoa, who was acting a bit neglected. She tossed the ball for her a few times and watched as her old dog jiggled across the family room to retrieve it, until finally deciding she’d had her fill. Game over, Michaela knew it was time to get to baking. As much as she didn’t want to get up and make the tart, she’d promised her mom, so after cleaning up she went to work. She’d forgotten how therapeutic baking could be. No wonder when Mom was stressed-out she cooked and baked everything from one of Julia Child’s cookbooks.

Putting the finishing touches on the pear tart, she wondered what was going on with Camden and if she’d show up back at the house. They needed to talk. Michaela was setting the tart in the oven just as the phone rang. It was Joe. “Hey, Mick, I got something for you.”

“
So soon?”

“
What can I say? I got a cousin who’s got a friend whose sister works as a nurse for that Dr. Verconti.”

“
You sure do have a lot of cousins.”

“
I know. Lots of aunts and uncles, too. You know, we’re a good Catholic family. So, anyway, word is this Verconti is a pill pusher, you know. Hands out the Xanax, Prozac, Vicodin, and your uncle’s Ativan like candy. Your uncle never did come in to see him.”

“
What?”

“
According to the nurse, he called saying he was feeling all jittery and stuff, having panic attacks. The doc prescribed Ativan with a few refills.”

“
Was there anything she said about how he heard about the doctor?”

“
I thought of that, too. Nuthin’.”

“
Weird.”

“
I got something else for you, too. This one is bigger.”

“
What do you mean?”

“
You’re right that there is some type of breeding scheme that’s been going on and I think I found out who’s behind it.” Michaela sat down at the kitchen counter, knowing Joe was about to tell him that he found out it was Brad. She sighed. “Well, I called up the owners of the mares and played like I was an investigator for the AQHA, and asked if they remembered if it was Lou Bancroft they spoke to and who sold them the breedings.”

“
Yeah?” she asked with baited breath.

“
They mostly said that he was the one, except two of them gave me a different name.”

“
Whose name did they give?”

“
That horse trainer of your uncle’s— Dwayne Yamiguchi.”

Michaela about dropped the phone. “No.”

“
Yep. That’s what they said. Told me that Dwayne was the one who sold them the breeding for a discount. They sent the check to Lou rather than making it out to the ranch, which they thought was odd, but Dwayne apparently told them that was because Lou was changing the name of his business.”