Chapter 16
“It’s clear!” came a shout from the front of the house, and Pedro led the way down the hall toward the sound. They walked in the kitchen to see Agent Gregory walk through the back door ahead of a woman, both of them carrying grocery bags.
“This is Agent Lela Smith,” Yvonne said as she made her gun disappear as soon as it appeared. Myrna started forward and held out her hand.
“Myrna Trenton, and this is Pedro Alvarez.”
“Like Yvonne said, I’m Agent Smith, but you can call me Lela.”
Myrna nodded and started emptying the groceries and put them away. Pedro helped her, while Lela folded the bags after they were empty.
“Is there any more on the theory we discussed?”
“It might not be that,” Yvonne said as she fixed herself a cup of coffee from the pot Pedro had made.
“Oh? Do you have another theory?”
“Yes, we’ll still look into the automotive aspect, but Pedro had a question.”
“Which is?”
“Why would a patrol officer take a horse trailer from this property. And not the actual horse?”
“What, that’s odd.”
“Yes, we all know that Gus Godwin stole Sally, Myrna’s horse, and Myrna took her back and left.
She’s safe now, and no one will get to her, but why steal the horse to begin with.
As we discussed in our theory, the person Myrna replaced was sending auto parts to the Godwin’s.
He retired, and Myrna took over. Within months, Randy seeks her out, and it takes months to get her to agree to go out with him.
Did he do it to see if she knew what was happening at her job, to make sure she didn’t know what was going on, or was it about Sally all along? ”
“Sally?” Lela asked with a frown. “Who’s Sally?”
“My horse, the one Gus Godwin stole, and I went to his property to retrieve her. I rode her out of there, and Pedro found me along the road.” She looked around and nodded.
“I was heading toward Fool’s Gold, that’s where my cousin lives.
He’s the county sheriff down there.” She saw their faces and continued, “I rode Sally at night, and stayed hidden during the day. I’ve been where I have been for almost five weeks now. ”
“What type of horse is Sally?”
“I think she’s just an everyday horse.”
“I think she’s a racehorse,” Pedro said at the same time.
Lela shook her head. “I don’t understand, what’s the significance of either one of them?”
“If Sally is an everyday horse, then nothing.”
“But, if she’s a racehorse, there is a significant difference.
If she is, and has the proper bloodline, then they could have sold her for millions of dollars.
” He turned to Myrna. “Cocoa’s real name is Chocolate Champion, and on his debut ride, he won, Faith was his jockey, I was his trainer.
He went all the way to the Triple Crown, he alone earned damn near ten million dollars from that race. ”
“Holy shit, that much?”
“Yes, however, the owner thought Faith should use a crop on him, beating him to run faster, she refused, he fired her, and the next year, he, Cocoa, came in third. The year after that, he came in fifth. That owner sold him, and after that, his racing career wasn’t ever as good again.”
“Why?”
“In my opinion, it was because the owners never listened to the trainers, and the trainers didn’t listen to the jockey.
If you don’t have cohesiveness between the horse, jockey, trainers, and owners, then you don’t have a good race.
I was able to purchase Cocoa from a disillusioned owner that thought he could bring him back to his glory.
They didn’t take into consideration that he was older than when he raced at the age of three.
I bought him because I want to breed him, and train his babies, then sell them to owners who care for their horses, and not the glory said horses can give them. ”
The six of them stood there looking lost in their own thoughts when Lela spoke.
“Myrna, where did you get Sally?” Everyone turned to look at her with frowns, but she only shrugged.
“My friend. I used to work with her.”
“Okay, how did the sale come about?” Lela asked, and went over to her laptop bag and pulled out a pad of paper and pen.
She went back to the kitchen table, and all the other agents went for their own paper while Pedro made another pot of coffee.
Myrna set out the sandwiches she had made earlier that day, and they all settled in for a brainstorming session.
“Tell us about your friend,” Robert said gently. “Tell us everything you can remember.”
“Okay,” Myrna drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. She cradled the fresh cup of coffee in her hands and stared at a spot on the table as she talked.
“I met Mary years ago. I’ve been at my job for thirty years. I was hired as a picker.” She looked up, saw their confusion, and explained what she had done at work before getting promoted. She didn’t see censure in their expressions, and relaxed.
“Mary started four years after I did.”
“Last name?” Robert asked.
“Oh, when she started working there, she was Mary Thomas. Three years later, she got engaged, and married Mark Griffin. I was a bridesmaid in her wedding.”
“Stop,” Lela said when it looked like Myrna was going to continue. She shook her head at her fellow agents. “Do you have a photo of the bride and groom.”
Myrna frowned, then turned to the other agents. “When you brought my things to me, did you bring any photo albums?”
“No, we just got the papers that Manchester told us about, why?”
Myrna held up her hand and left the room, she came back carrying a thick green album. After settling back down, she flipped through them, and stopped to point. Pedro was the one to lean in first, then turned the album with Myrna’s finger still on the photo.
“That’s Mary, that’s Mark.” She didn’t question the agents as they pulled their phones and snapped pictures, and it was Agent Gregory that excused himself and went outside.
He returned in minutes. “I sent the photo back to the office to get facial recognition and see if anyone has a record.” He looked at Myrna with a shrug. “Sorry.”
“No need, it won’t do you any good for Mary.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Mary died, that’s how I got Sally. See, Mary got Sally a year before she came to work with me, she met Mark two years after that, and they married within a year.
When Mary got sick, she asked me if I would take Sally.
She told me that Mark hated the horse, and would complain every time Mary spent time with her. ”
“Do you think he was jealous of the horse?” Pedro asked.
Myrna frowned, started to deny it, then sat back with a huff. “Yeah, now that you mention it, yeah, I overheard some of their conversations and he told her that it was him or the horse. But, when Mary told him that he had to make a choice also, he slapped her.”
“What choice did Mark have to make?”
“If she had to give up her horse, then he had to give up his boys’ night. Which toward the end Mary confessed was six nights a week. She told me that she suspected he was cheating on her at these boys’ nights, because he would come home reeking of someone else’s perfume.”
Agent Gregory sent a text, and nodded to her. “Continue.”
“Mary got sick, no one knew why.”
“Sick how?” Yvonne asked with her pen poised above the paper.
“Stomach issues. She couldn’t keep anything down, then her hair started falling out. Oh, and she was extremely weak. She came here at the beginning of her sickness with a lawyer.”
“Why?” Pedro asked.
“She asked me to take Sally because she didn’t trust Mark with her. It’s all in the paperwork I left with Cole, oh, and my cousin has a copy of everything, but I paid her one dollar for Sally, and I got the horse, and all her equipment. It wasn’t much back then, and I’ve since added to it.”
“Was the trailer included in the sale of Sally and her things?” Yvonne asked.
“No, she didn’t have one, one of her friends brought everything to me.
She did all of this when Mark was away on a business trip.
He never said a word when she stopped going to the barn she boarded Sally.
However, he did continue with his boys’ nights.
Less than a year after I bought Sally, Mary was gone. ”
“Was she cremated?” Robert asked softly. Everyone looked at him with wide eyes, and it was Pedro who questioned him.
“Why would you ask something like that?”
“Because if she wasn’t, then we may be able to get a court order to exhume her body, and test to see if she was poisoned. Did she have stomach problems before?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“Let me make a call,” Yvonne said, and pulled her phone there, she didn’t even bother masking the call. She even put it on speaker.
“Lakewood County Morgue,” came a pleasant voice.
“Is Dr. Jud Wilson available?”
“Let me see,” the voice said, and they heard music and looked at her when it was rock and roll.
Yvonne grinned at them, “Don’t ask, Jud has a sick sense of humor.”
“Yo, it’s Doc Wilson.”
“Jud, it’s Yvonne,” she said, and grinned when he swore.
“Shit, I was supposed to come to your house for a BBQ. I’m sorry, I got backed up here.”
“Don’t worry about it, I was out of town anyway. I have a question for you.”
“What’s that?”
“How long have you been the coroner for Lakewood County?”
“Ten years.”
Yvonne nodded, and took notes. “Hold on a second,” she said, then looked at Myrna. “How long ago did Mary die?”
“Six years, give or take a couple of months.”
“Okay, Jud, how far back do your records go?”
“Back to when this office opened. At first, they were stored in the basement, but after what happened up in Denver when a water main broke and they lost almost everything, I pushed hard to get them digitized. Files from day one up until eight years ago are all digitized. Why?”
“I’m going on a hunch, but do you know if a Mary Griffin came through your office about six years ago?” Yvonne paused and looked at the items Myrna was pointing at in her photo album. She nodded as she read the information off to the person on the phone.
“When do you need this information?”
“Yesterday.”
“Of course you do,” he said with a chuckle. “Do I have to tell you that you might have to get a warrant?”
“Working on it,” she looked at Gregory, and he nodded as he rose and left the kitchen.
“Is there anything in particular that I’m looking for?”
“I’ve just learned that Mary never, ever had stomach problems until she had marital problems.”
“Shit, so it might have been a homicide, and it could have been ruled accidental.”
“Correct, I’m working on a warrant, but I’d like you to gather all the information you have, and keep it safe until that warrant comes through.”
“I understand. Now, let me ask the next question. How are you?”
“I’m good, we’ll talk later. Love you.”
“Love you, too,” he said, and they hung up. Her agents looked at her like they didn’t know her, and she sighed.
“Jud is my twin brother. He’s also the head coroner, and as you heard, he’s been there for ten years. He might have even done the autopsy himself. If there was one. If not, or if she was cremated, then we might be screwed.”
“I don’t understand why you’re going in this direction,” Myrna said as she rose and refilled all the coffee cups. They paused when Gregory returned.
“The office is working on it,” he said, and reached for one of the sandwiches.
“I’m going in this direction to rule out foul play in Mary’s death.
When you said Mark told her it was the horse or him, and he slapped her when she told him to stop the boys’ nights, it made me wonder if he was cheating, and he wanted to be with his side piece, but didn’t want to lose anything if he divorced Mary.
What’s to say that there wasn’t a hefty life insurance policy with his name on it as a beneficiary? ”
“Shit, like those TV shows?”
“Yes, it happens more than you may think.” They sat there in silence trying to wrap their head about the direction their investigation took. It wasn’t anything Myrna thought.
“Question,” Lela said as she looked up from her notes. When everyone turned to her, she nodded once. “You said your cousin has a copy of all the papers from the sale of Sally. May I ask why?”
“Oh, Jim is my only living blood relative. I wanted him to have a copy in case anything happened to me, then he could take Sally for his children or grandchildren. It’s in my will, and he has a copy of that also.”
“Okay, very smart, now who is Jim?”
“Sheriff Jim Faulkner.”
“Ah, okay, now I understand. Another question, and this one is for my co-workers.”
“What’s that?”
“How do we get our hands on a copy of everything now, so we can go over it with a fine-tooth comb? If Sheriff Faulkner has one, and one was left with the guy named Cole, how do we get a copy of it?”
They all looked at each other, and Myrna spoke first, “What if I call Jim and have him bring what he has here? He wasn’t in on the meeting we all had with you guys, but maybe you can fill him in. I know he’s busy with his job, and I don’t want to worry him.”
“We could do that, or I could call Manchester to see if he can’t send me a copy. Myrna, reach out to your cousin and see what he says. I’m not saying that he has to bring the physical copy here, but maybe he could e-mail a copy to you, and if you have a printer, you can print it off.”
“Or…” Pedro said as everyone started to clean up their notes.
He waited until he had everyone’s attention.
“I’m not telling you what to do, but I would feel better if Myrna had a lawyer.
” He held up his hand. “I know she’s not in trouble, I know she’s a victim as well as a cooperating witness.
However, I would feel better about her having a lawyer.
” He turned to Myrna and took her hand in his. “Do you have a lawyer?”
“No, and I used Mary’s when she came to me to sell me Sally.”
“I know someone we might be able to use.”
“Who?”
“Either Jason Black, or Ilsa Miller, they work for Erin.”
“Call them,” Yvonne said, and turned to Lela with a grin.
“Wait until I tell you about that set-up. I want to be Erin when I grow up.” The people that knew Erin laughed, and Yvonne told Lela what they had encountered while Myrna and Pedro excused themselves to go outside and talk.
They didn’t see that both male agents had slipped out behind them to keep watch over them.