“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 shewas 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 herphone 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?”
