Kelly said to McDonald, “Have you come across him before?”
“He was in the file as someone who was questioned, but he had an alibi. We’ll take a closer look at him and his alibi.”
“Good. Thank you, Mrs. Smith and… everyone.”
Ettie felt a weight off her shoulders. She wasn’t in trouble like she thought she might be.
McDonald jumped to his feet. “Excuse me. I need to call someone to get onto things right away.” He strode out of the room and made a call from the hallway.
When McDonald came back into the room, Kelly said he’d be in touch with all of them and then both detectives left.
“Well, we shouldn’t hold you up any longer,” Ettie said to Mrs. Cohen.
“I’m not doing anything important. Ava, shall we go up and see if Luc's awake yet?”
“Yes, I’d love to have another hold of him if I could.”
“We might wait here, if that’s okay,” Elsa-May said. “We’re too old to go running up and down stairs. Once a day is enough.”
Mrs. Cohen smiled. “Why don’t you go through to the kitchen and I’ll have Jill bring you a cup of hot tea if you’re not in a hurry?”
“Sounds good to me,” Elsa-May said.
“The kitchen is down the hall and to the right.”
Ettie nodded hoping that tea would be accompanied by cake or at least cookies—she was starving and it was a little past their regular time for the midday meal. “I would like to see Luc again, but I do feel a little faint.”
“As soon as we leave here we’ll get something to eat somewhere.”
It was a rare occasion that Ettie and Elsa-May were thinking along the same lines.
When they heard a car, Ettie looked out the window. “The gates opened by themselves so this might be Mr. Cohen.” When the car drove into a four-car garage next to the house, they knew it was Mr. Cohen.
“Has he come home for lunch I wonder?” Elsa-May said.
“He might work at home some of the time; many people do.”
They watched the man leave the garage and walk through the doors of the kitchen. He was a small portly bald man—nothing like Ettie had envisioned Mrs. Cohen being married to.
“Hello?” he said as he closed the sliding door behind him.
“Hello, are you Mr. Cohen?”
“I am,” he said looking slightly amused.
Ettie introduced herself and Elsa-May to him and let him know how they knew Mrs. Cohen.
“Your wife is upstairs showing the baby to one of our friends.”
“You’re the ladies Genevieve left our baby with?”
“We are.”
“I don’t know how I can thank you for taking such good care of him.”
“It was our pleasure to look after him.” Elsa-May smiled.
“We did the best we could,” Ettie said.
“My wife has been under tremendous pressure—we both have. I’ve got my company to keep me busy, but my wife has no distractions and she constantly dwells on the past.”
“It would be something difficult to forget. I can’t imagine going through something like that,” Ettie said.
He nodded.
Jill appeared. “Tea, Mr. Cohen?”
“Will you join me, ladies?”
“Yes we will, thank you.”
He handed his briefcase to Jill. “Put this away for me first would you?”
“Yes, Mr. Cohen.” Jill disappeared with his briefcase while Mr. Cohen sat down at the table with Ettie and Elsa-May.
“There’s been a development that you might not know about,” Ettie said.
“Well, it might be a long shot—or a tiny piece of a large puzzle. I’d hardly call it a development yet, Ettie.”
He stared at them. “What is it?”
“One of your gardeners from years ago was implicated in another kidnapping.”
“The police questioned him at the time, but he had an alibi,” Elsa-May added.
“They questioned him about my first son going missing?”
“Yes, when they were questioning everyone. Detective Kelly said that they questioned all your past and current employees.” Ettie nibbled on her thumbnail wondered if Kelly had said that or if she’d heard it from someone else.
He sprang to his feet. “I’m going to call Kelly right now and get the facts. He said he’d keep me up to date with everything.”
“It’s only just happened,” Ettie said, hoping he’d change his mind about calling Detective Kelly.
Mr. Cohen ignored Ettie’s comment and pulled his phone out of his pocket and paced up and down while talking to Kelly.
Elsa-May leaned over to her sister, and whispered, “Nice work, Ettie. If Kelly wasn’t mad at us before, he will be now.”
Ettie shrank down further in her seat while Jill came back into the kitchen and filled up the electric kettle.
When Mr. Cohen hung up the phone, Ava and Mrs. Cohen appeared with the baby in Mrs. Cohen’s arms.
“There he is,” Mr. Cohen said as he took hold of the baby.
In her heart, Ettie knew that Mr. Cohen couldn’t have had anything to do with the disappearance of his first baby four years ago, and she was ashamed of herself for recently thinking otherwise.
Mrs. Cohen introduced Ava to her husband and then asked Jill to heat Luc's bottle. Ettie felt a little sorry for Jill who appeared to have to do everything around the place.
While Mr. Cohen fed the baby his bottle, they sat around the kitchen table eating smoked salmon sandwiches on soft white bread with the crusts cut off, and small round tasty cheese cookies.
“Do you mind if I hold the baby before we go?” Ava asked before she gave an embarrassed giggle. “I love babies and can’t wait to have one of my own.”
Before Mr. or Mrs. Cohen could answer her question, Mr. Cohen’s cell phone sounded and without saying anything, he handed the baby with his bottle to Ava before he stood.
Ettie guessed it was Kelly on the phone by the concerned look on his face. “Very good. Be sure to call me back and let me know what happens.” He ended the call and sat down. “That was the detective. He said that man who used to do the gardening for us was in the same jail at the same time as Victor Lemonis was in jail. He said he’s going to pick him up and then they’ll question him and take things from there.” He turned to his wife. “He said depending on how things go, you might have to make a positive ID on him.”
“Me? No. I don’t want to do that. I’ve already told him that’s the man who worked for us.”
Mr. Cohen shrugged. “I guess we have to do whatever they say.”
Mrs. Cohen’s face grew dark and angry like a storm cloud ready to release a lightening strike. “Look what happened last time you trusted the police.”
Mr. Cohen remained silent, but his face went beet red.
Ettie said, “Well, we should be going now. We’ve taken up enough of your time.”
Elsa-May pushed herself to her feet. “At least now they’ll be sure to check on his alibi again.”
“Bye, little man,” Ava said softly to the baby before she handed Luc back to Mrs. Cohen.
“Thank you once again ladies—all of you. We owe you a great deal. If there’s anything we can ever do for you, please let us know,” Mr. Cohen said rising to his feet. “I’ll walk you out.”
“Well that was awkward,” Elsa-May said once they were outside the gates.
“At least we got fed,” Ettie said.
“And again, we forgot to ask for them to call a taxi. We’ll have to walk up to the shops again.”
“It’s not that far,” Ettie said.
“The man didn’t seem very nice to his wife,” Ava said.
“I thought he was okay,” Ettie said.
“They’ve both been under a lot of pressure since the baby was kidnapped. And what his wife did, hiding the fact that they’d had another baby, would’ve been like Mr. Cohen losing another baby all over again. Imagine if he hadn’t found out for ten years and
he would’ve lost all those years. Even though he said he didn’t want another one, he obviously didn’t mean it—look at him now. He adores that baby.”
“Seems so, Elsa-May,” Ettie agreed.
“What do we do now?” Ava asked.
“All we can do is go home and wait,” Elsa-May said. “Wait, and pray that Detective Kelly and Detective McDonald uncover the truth.”
“I do hope they keep a better watch on the man when they put him in the cell. We don’t want to lose another man who knows something about the kidnapping,” Ava said.
“I’m sure they will, Ava,” Elsa-May said.
“And there is something else we could do,” Ava said.
“What’s that?” Ettie asked.
“We could find out more about Nerida Flower.”
“And how would we do that?” Elsa-May asked.
“We follow her and see where she goes.”
“How? We don’t have a car.”
“I could see if my friend, Lydia, will drive us. She’s between jobs at the moment. We could offer to pay her for her time and that would be cheaper than a taxi.”
“I guess we could do that, but do you think we should’ve told Kelly that her last name is the same as a suspected kidnapper's?” Elsa-May asked.
“That’s it, Elsa-May! We tell Kelly that tomorrow morning, early. Then Kelly will question her immediately because he gets onto things quickly. And then if that man—Kel—is a relative of hers, she might go to see him to tip him off that they’re onto him.”
“I like it,” Elsa-May said.
Ettie turned to Ava. “Do you remember your friend’s phone number?”
“I’ll call directory services and get her home number. She lives with her parents and I’m certain she’ll be home.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Elsa-May said, “but you mustn’t tell your friend what it’s all about.”
Ava nodded. “I won’t.”
Chapter 18
Ettie and Elsa-May waited near the public phone while Ava made the call to her friend to see if she would be able to drive them around the following day.
The sisters overheard Ava's side of the conversation.
“It sounds like her friend is agreeing.”
“It certainly does sound that way,” Ettie agreed with her sister. “Ava was right; a taxi would’ve cost us a fortune.”
“There is every possibility that Nerida Flower won't leave the house all day especially since she's been sick.”
“Well, if she is a relation to Kel Flower there is every possibility that she’ll try to contact him.”
“That's what we're hoping.”
Ava hung up the phone. “She said she’d do it, and she's going to pick us up from your place at eight o'clock in the morning. She said that's very early for her because, since she's been out of a job, she hasn't been waking up till eleven or twelve.”
“Humph, that’s the waste of a day,” Elsa-May said.
Ettie agreed, “Half the day would be gone.”
“She's agreed to do it and I said we’d pay her gasoline costs.”
“That’s only fair,” Ettie said.
“We’ll pay her for her time too,” Elsa-May said.
“Nee, Elsa-May, there's really no need. She's not doing anything else and she's happy to do it.”
“Okay.” Elsa-May nodded.
“Are you going to tell Jeremiah what we’re doing tomorrow?” Ettie asked.
“Not unless he asks me, which he probably won’t. I'll have him bring me over early in the morning before he starts work.”
“Good idea,” Ettie said.
“Now we should call for a taxi to get home.” Elsa-May stepped toward the pay phone.
The sisters had the taxi driver take Ava to her place before they were delivered home. When Ettie and Elsa-May walked through their front door, Snowy came bounding towards them.
Elsa-May leaned down and lifted Snowy up, but he was wriggling too much, so she had to put him down again. “I'll guess I'll have to take him for a walk to use up some of his energy.”
Ettie stood looking around the house with her hands on her hips. “And while you're doing that, I'll clean up. Look at this place; it's a mess! I haven't seen it like this since I don't know when.”
“We've had a lot going on, we’ve had the baby, then Jeremiah staying here, and Ava coming ‘round. Crowley and Kelly have been coming here at all different times, too, so we haven't had time to think—let alone clean the house.”
“I know, but I feel irritated when the house is messy. I'm going to clean it up right now.”
“I'll help when I get back,” Elsa-May said as she clipped the leash onto Snowy’s collar. “I'm going to cook chicken and roasted vegetables for dinner, and while that’s cooking, I'll help you clean up.”
“Gut! That's my favorite.” Ettie walked into her bedroom and pulled the sheets off the bed.
Now there were loads of sheets to wash. There were the sheets she'd pulled off the bed so Jeremiah could have fresh sheets—the ones she’d been using—and then there were Jeremiah's sheets that he’d used. That was two pairs of sheets, top and bottom sheets, and four pillowcases since Jeremiah and she liked to sleep with two pillows each.
With the intermittent rain, she wondered when the sheets would ever dry. Back when she lived on her farm, her husband had made her a wet-weather line by the barn—she’d hang the washing under cover when it was raining and the wind would dry it.
With the small house she now shared with her older sister, there was nowhere to dry the clothes in the wet weather. Sometimes they’d used a portable clothes rack and dried things in front of the fire, but it looked so unsightly.
Ettie threw the sheets inside the gas-powered washing machine and closed the lid. She’d get to it tomorrow. Out of the linen cupboard, she pulled another pair of fresh sheets and made up her bed.
“That looks much better,” she said standing back and looking at the made bed. Her eyes went to the floor. The next thing she had to do was run a broom over the entire house. With this rain and people coming in and out of the house, there was no point washing the floor just yet, but it certainly needed a good going over with the broom.
Just when she was sweeping up the collected dirt with a dustpan and brush, Elsa-May arrived home.
“Finished cleaning yet?” she asked as she bent down and set Snowy free. Snowy ran directly to Ettie sending the dustpan and all the dirt flying.
“Elsa-May!” Ettie yelled. “Your dog!”
Elsa-May leaned down, picked him up and put him outside. “No need to be like that. You were the one who wanted me to get the dog.”
“I didn't know he’d be so annoying.”
“I told you; dogs are a lot of hard work. You just have to learn to have more patience like me.”
Elsa-May’s comment made Ettie laugh. Ettie swept up the scattered dirt. “At least lock the dog door?”
“Certainly.” Elsa-May leaned down and clipped the lock on the door. “Now I'll put the dinner on and then I'll help you. We’ll get this place spic and span in no time.”
“Denke. That would be good; it would make me feel so much better.” Once Ettie tipped the dirt into the trashcan, she moistened a rag and dusted everything in the living room. When that was done, she moved on to their small bathroom and started scrubbing.
It was fifteen minutes later that that Elsa-May came out of the kitchen. “All’s under control in the kitchen for the moment. Where would you like me to start, Ettie?”
“The windows. I think you can start cleaning the inside of the windows. They haven't been done for a while. I noticed the front ones are dirty.”
Ettie passed Elsa-May one of the rags that she had poured methylated spirits on, and then passed her the bottle. “Here use this; this is the best.” A few minutes later, Ettie was lost in her own world thinking about her old days on the farm when Elsa-May called to her.
“Ettie!”
“What?”
; “It's Crowley; he's getting out of his car now.”
“I'm coming,” Ettie yelled back. She threw the rags into the bathtub and washed her hands.
Elsa-May was standing at the door waiting for him, and Ettie came and stood behind her.
“Hello, ladies,” he said smiling.
“Do you have good news for us?” Elsa-May asked.
“Come inside,” Ettie said worried the neighbors would overhear something. It was bad enough that the neighbors had probably seen police cars there the last couple of days and nights. None of them had said anything, but Ettie knew they would have noticed and been wondering what was going on.
When Crowley was seated, Elsa-May said, “Have you heard the latest from Kelly?”
Crowley nodded. “I was just over there. There’s been a break in the case. They found George Cousins and it's thanks to both of you.”
“Has he confessed?” Elsa-May asked.
Crowley shook his head. “Not yet, but it's only a matter of time before he does.”
“Do you have any evidence on him? I know he was in jail at the same time as Lemonis and that he used to be Mrs. Cohen’s gardener, but that doesn’t make him guilty.” Ettie stared at Crowley.
“It’s all of that combined, Ettie. It's a huge coincidence. If it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it's usually a duck.”
“We’re looking for a kidnapper, not a duck. Do you mean if he doesn’t confess he can’t be arrested?” Elsa-May asked.
He sighed. “You two are hard work. I’m sure Kelly’s got something up his sleeve. You ladies don’t need to concern yourselves.”
“If Lemonis wasn't involved maybe Cousins isn't involved either. Who does that leave, if that is the case?” Ettie asked.
Elsa-May said, “Did you ever check into Mrs. Cohen’s credit card records?
“I did, and you know what I found?”
Elsa-May shook her head.
He formed his thumb and forefinger into an ‘O.’ “A big nothing. What made you think there would be something in her credit card details?”
“I asked you that,” Ettie said.
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