Chapter Fourteen
We had a long break before our next client. Presumably a real trainer would have spent that time making notes, studying horses, and coming up with plans. There was no way I was doing any of that. I planned to spend my time doing something far more effective: more snooping.
Daylight wasn’t always the best time for creeping around.
People were more likely to see me and question anything suspicious.
On the other hand, Jessica had prepared a great undercover identity for me that I could use to poke around under the guise of getting to know the farm better.
More than that, it meant all the farm residents were out undertaking their daily business, leaving properties often untended.
With Joel now planning a funeral, I expected he would be home but that didn’t deter me. I needed to get closer to him, especially as he had the number one motive for killing Jessica: he’d been cheating with her sister.
Just how badly did he want his wife out of the way?
Was it enough to want her dead?
Jessica had already told me that Joel was the person who would benefit most from her death, which gave him an enormous motive.
As the surviving partner, he got the farm, the money…
and if he were careful about it and wanted to, after a decent period of time, he and Yvette could pretend they’d formed a romantic attachment.
I didn’t know what percentage of widows got together with their deceased partner’s siblings but since studies had been conducted on it, it couldn’t be an insignificant number.
While some people would see that kind of romantic entanglement as strange, others would see the transference of affections as natural.
Perhaps they’d even be delighted at the new burst of romance breathing life into the bereaved.
Yvette could step into her sister’s shoes easily.
Did that mean she coveted her sister’s life enough to kill her?
That pushed her to number two on my suspect list.
Another huge motive loomed in front of me.
What if it wasn’t Joel or Yvette alone? Could they have conspired to kill Jessica together?
Garrett had yet to call with any evidence to the contrary so as far as I was concerned, that meant I had to consider Jessica’s accident a possible homicide, and the faster I got to the truth the better.
Working in my favor was that no one seemed to think her death was suspicious…
yet. That meant a killer could get sloppy, which would give me an advantage while I investigated.
“I want to find out two things: was the damage to the back protector deliberate, and I want to see the nasty letter Jessica mentioned. It might have more clues than she realized,” I explained. “Let’s stroll casually towards the farmhouse. If she didn’t get rid of it, perhaps we can find it.”
“Okay,” said Lily, taking a giant stride forward, then another.
I rushed to catch her. “Casually,” I said.
“I am casual.”
“You look like you’re pretending the floor is molten lava.”
Lily sidestepped horse poop and raised her eyebrows.
“Walk normally and keep an eye out for Joel or Yvette. They’re the only people I can think of who are likely to be at the house.”
“I brought my lock picking kit just in case,” said Lily brightly. “The locks on his doors looked standard, unlike the fancy keypads on the cabins, so I think I can get us in pretty quick.”
“Good thinking. If he’s out, we’ll take a look around and get out of there before anyone suspects a thing,” I said, catching sight of Yvette from the corner of my eye.
She led a beautiful dark bay towards a mounting block and as we watched, she hopped up the steps and slung her leg over the horse’s back.
“How long do you think she’ll be on her ride? ”
“At least half an hour, maybe longer.”
“Good.” By the time we’d crossed the yard, we’d seen Harvey, several of the stable hands and a couple of Lily’s horsey acquaintances, but no sign of Joel Casey.
That wasn’t unusual. I figured he might be home, making arrangements for Jessica or dealing with the daily running of a business where the animals couldn’t be put on the back burner.
“The plan,” I decided as we turned onto the farmhouse path, “is we see if we can spot Joel inside. If we can’t see him, we’ll knock and see if he answers.
If the house looks empty, we’ll gain entry. If he’s there, we’ll bail.”
“We could lure him out? I could call and make up a ruse. I’ll put on an accent so he won’t know it’s me. I haven’t tried my Russian accent in a while but I think I can nail it.”
“Hold that thought,” I said as we reached the garden gate.
Joel walked across the living room, phone pressed to his ear, talking intently, and disappeared from view. A moment later, the front door banged shut.
I motioned to Lily to follow and we sprinted to the side of the house, then, our backs to the wall, we darted to the front, reaching the corner just in time to see Joel get into his car, fire the engine, and drive off the property.
As soon as he’d disappeared from view, we headed towards the door. I tried the handle. Locked. All the windows were closed. “Let’s check around back,” I said.
We retraced our footsteps and I tried the sliding doors — locked — then the side door where Harvey had walked. This time, when I tried the handle, the door popped open.
“We’re in,” I said, turning to smile in satisfaction at Lily.
“Damn it,” said Lily, scowling.
“You really wanted to pick the lock?”
“You bet I did!”
“Sorry.”
“Maybe you could close the door, and it’ll lock automatically, and then I can pick the lock.”
“No time. We don’t know when Joel will return. You can pick the lock at the cabin.”
“It’s a keypad lock.”
“The French doors then. Where does a person keep a back protector?” I asked, looking around the mudroom we’d stepped into.
The small room was wood-paneled and painted an earthy green.
Brass hooks held coats and jackets and a wall-to-wall bench was topped with a green-and-cream-checkered cushioned pad.
Underneath was a neat row of shoes, men’s and women’s.
Riding boots occupied a plastic shoe tray, specks of dried mud caking the surface.
A straw basket held an odd assortment of items. The room smelled of horse and lavender.
I looked around for the source of the lavender then up where several dried bushels were suspended from the roof.
“I feel like it should be in here,” I decided. “You take that side, and I’ll take…”
“Found it!” said Lily triumphantly, before I’d even rummaged through the first rack of jackets. “Actually, I found three body protectors. Two were hung up and one was in this straw basket.”
We checked the hanging pair together, reassured that they all appeared to be in good condition from the seams to the buckles.
Almost as soon as I’d squatted to examine the one in the basket, the problem became clear.
The protector was very light weight, with a zip-up front and a pleated collar.
The back had a smear of dried mud and straw across the back, like someone had landed on it, and the cable was frayed close to the body seam, almost imperceptible, but as I ran my fingers over it, I could feel the break in the material.
“I wonder if this happened when she fell off,” I said. “Maybe the force snapped the cable.”
“They’re stronger than that,” said Lily. “Plus, the canister would deploy the extra protection and it feels fully charged.”
“Yeah, Jessica said the protector didn’t work.” I peered closer at the cable. “Can you use your phone’s flashlight to shine on this bit?”
Lily turned the flashlight on and with a bit of maneuvering I got a good look. “I don’t think this is just frayed,” I said, frowning. “It looks like it is but the wires inside are cleanly separated. I think it’s been cut.”
“That would explain why the protector didn’t deploy. It’s not even attached to the canister.”
“It looks like it is though,” I said, turning the cable. “The cable fits just behind this seam so unless you took the time to take a closer look at it, it appears fine. Jessica must have grabbed it and put it on, assuming it was fine.”
“She could have been horribly hurt.”
“I think that was the idea. I need Garrett to examine this. It’s very suspicious.”
“Can we take it with us?”
“No. That would be obviously tampering with evidence.”
I hung the back protector on a hook and opened the door into the hallway, peeking my head around but since the door didn’t have any glass, I didn’t have a clear view of the driveway beyond.
As I stepped forwards, the front door began to open.
I hurried backwards, narrowly avoiding a collision with Lily, and shut the door carefully so it didn’t make a noise.
“He’s home,” I said, pointing to the exterior door. “I didn’t hear the car. We need to go.”
“What about the letter?” whispered Lily.
“We’ll have to come back another time.” The hallway door popped open and I crouched down, making to push it closed again when Yvette, not Joel, walked past the door, oblivious to us.
I stilled, momentarily confused. What was she doing here?
She was supposed to be out on a ride. Perhaps we’d got it wrong or perhaps she’d changed her mind.
I pushed my forefinger to my lips and held the door open a crack.
Yvette was rummaging through the console table.
She sighed and pushed the drawer closed, then headed into the living room.
The sound of gravel crunching made me still. “Did you hear that?” I asked.
“Yeah. Definitely a car.”
Yvette rounded the corner, holding something small and cream-colored in her hand, perhaps an envelope or a notepad, and headed for the back of the house, disappearing from view. The rear door slid open and closed. A moment later, the front door opened.
Lily opened the external door carefully and peeked outside.
She motioned to wait before indicating the coast was clear and stepping out.
Footsteps came closer to the mudroom and a floorboard squeaked.
I rushed out the external door and pulled it shut behind me, quickly shuffling to the side of the door where we wouldn’t be seen.
“Yvette went that way,” said Lily, pointing to the back. “Why didn’t she wait for Joel?”
“He threatened her. Maybe she didn’t want him to see her.
” Or see whatever she had in her hand. We crept towards the back of the house and I had just stepped out, intending to check if we could take a shortcut across the garden or needed to take the long way when I found myself looking directly into Joel’s eyes as he stood on the porch.
“What are you doing?” he asked, stepping closer, frowning.
“Me?”
He looked behind me to where Lily stooped. She dropped fully to the ground, adjusting her shoelaces. “Both of you,” he said.
“Us? Well, we were, uh, just coming back to check on you,” I said.
“Why didn’t you come to the front door?”
“We did, but no one was home, so we were heading back to the yard when I tripped and took a moment to get upright,” I lied. “Then I heard a car.”
“Oh,” he said. “That was probably me. I just got home. I had to run an errand.”
“Is there anything we can do to help?” asked Lily. “We figured it must be really tough to keep running the farm when your thoughts must be elsewhere.”
He nodded, and I realized his eyes were dark and smudgy like he hadn’t been sleeping properly.
“No, I don’t think so. I’ve started making the arrangements for Jessica’s funeral.
We’ll hold the service as soon as her body is released.
Hopefully, in the next few days. You’re welcome to come, of course. Jessica spoke highly of you.”
“We’ll be there,” I said as we walked around to the porch steps. “Did you find out what happened yet?”
Joel dropped into a chair on the deck and looked out over the yard, so silent that I wondered if he’d forgotten about us.
Then he said, “The detective that came out to notify me hasn’t called.
I should call him. I should call our car insurance too.
And the caterers for the wake. And the flowers and…
I’ve never planned a funeral before. The funeral firm said they can do it all if I tell them what I want and I don’t know what I want. ”
“Do you have any one to help you with that? Are your family coming?”
“My brother and his wife will fly in for the funeral. My parents will drive over. They’re not far.”
I noticed he didn’t include Yvette. “What about any friends? Do you have anyone closer who can stay with you?” I asked, feeling increasingly uncomfortable at Joel’s discomfort.
“A couple of buddies have called. No one really knows what to say. I don’t know what to tell them. Jess would. She was good at this stuff. Organizing, and knowing what to say.”
“I’m sure everyone understands,” said Lily. “They don’t expect you to be yourself for a while.”
“I’m not even sure who I am anymore,” he said, folding his hands over his face and beginning to softly cry.