by Kathi Daley
“Italy?”
“I’d like us to go to visit my nona. I know that you are busy with the wedding now, but maybe in the fall. If we can find someone to watch the animals, that is.”
Italy in the fall. That sounded magical.
“Run and grab us jackets,” Tony said. “I’ll put the leftovers away before we go. I can wash the dishes when we get back.”
By the time I returned with the jackets, the food was stored and the dogs were ready to go out.
“I remember you said your nona lived in a small village in Northern Italy,” I said as we walked. “Are there hotels in her village?”
“No, but Nona would never allow us to stay in a hotel anyway. She has a guest room.”
“And she won’t mind us staying in the guest room together?”
Tony laughed. “Not at all. As long as she approves of you as the bearer of her great-grandchildren, she’ll be pushing us together.”
I coughed. “Great-grandchildren? We are just going for a visit?”
Tony squeezed my hand. “We are just going for a visit, but Nona is the sort to make a judgment about people upon first meeting them.”
“That sounds intimidating.”
“Don’t worry; she is going to love you. How could she not?”
“Have you brought other girls to meet her?” I found myself asking.
“Never, which is why Nona will realize right away that you are special. I don’t want you to worry about her liking you. I promise, she will love you just as I do. She is, after all, an excellent judge of character.”
Suddenly, a romantic trip to Italy felt more like an interview for the job of Tony’s wife and the mother of Nona’s great-grandchildren. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
“I’ll have to see if I can get time off work.” I found myself backing away from the idea.
“We have months to work out the details. I just wanted to open a dialogue. I know you will love Italy. The scenery, the food, the simple yet traditional way of life. And if you want to extend our trip, we could visit Rome as well. I want to show you the world of my roots.”
“It does sound wonderful. Let’s get through Mike and Bree’s wedding and then talk about it again. I’m not sure I can take on another source of stress right now.”
The sky was beginning to darken, so Tony clicked on his flashlight. “Have they worked out the details for the wedding?”
“I’m not sure. I did suggest having the ceremony itself here under the stars followed by a dinner made by you on Friday if they wanted to focus on the reception on Saturday. I don’t know if that is what they will decide to do. I suppose I should have asked you first.”
“There was no need to ask. I am always happy to do what I can for any member of your family. They don’t want to be married on the same day as the reception?”
I explained the very real problems created by trying to give Bree her fantasy of being married under the stars in June.
“That’s probably going to be a problem anywhere given the fact that it gets dark so late during the summer. If Mike and Bree decide to have the ceremony here at the lake, I will make them a feast fit for royalty. How many people do you think they’ll want to invite?”
“I know they will want the family to be there, which would include Mom, Aunt Ruthie, Ruthie’s son Johnnie and his family, Ruthie’s daughter Lisa and her family, Bree’s mom and sister, and the two of us. Frank is going to be Mike’s best man, so he’ll be there too. Beyond that, I’m not sure.”
“We’ll make a Friday ceremony special if that’s what they choose to do. But if they decide to forget about the solstice and do it all on Saturday, that will be special as well. Every bride should have her perfect day.”
“It looks like there is a car in your drive,” I said as we rounded the last corner that led back to the house.
“I see.”
“I don’t recognize it. Do you?”
“No.” Tony glanced at the car and frowned. “Head in the back door with the dogs. I’ll go see who it is and what they want.”
I called the dogs to follow me. Titan especially clearly wanted to follow Tony, but he told him to stay with me and he obeyed. The dogs and I slipped through the kitchen door, and then I headed toward the front of the house. I hoped I would be able to hear what was being said through the door, but no one was talking loud enough, and they hadn’t approached the house from the driveway. After a few minutes, I saw two men get back into the car and drive off, and Tony returned to the house.
“Who was it?” I asked. “What did they want?”
“They said they were with the CIA. They had ID, but I had an odd feeling about their authenticity.”
“You think the ID was fake?”
“Maybe.”
“What’d they want?”
“They know we have been looking for your dad and they asked if we had a lead on his whereabouts.”
“What did you tell them?”
“That we had stopped looking and didn’t know where he was. They said they had intel that he was in Montana as recently as a few days ago and asked if he tried to contact you. I told them he hadn’t.”
“So if the men are from the CIA and they’re looking for my dad, that must mean that isn’t who he’s working for.”
“It would seem not if they are, in fact, CIA, which, as I’ve said, I am less than sure about.”
“If they are CIA, do you think the CIA is watching us watching Dad?”
“I think that would be exactly what they are doing.”
“Which is another reason to stop looking. We still don’t know why my dad faked his death or even whether he is a good guy or a bad guy, but I do know that if those men are after him, I don’t want to be the one to lead them to him. Turn off your tracking program. I knew after our trip to the lake that it might be time to let Dad fade away, as he clearly wants to do. This convinces me even more that letting go of my search for my dad is the right thing to do.”
Chapter 9
Friday, March 22
It had been two days since I’d made the decision to stop tracking my dad, and in that time, I’d questioned myself at least a hundred times. I knew it was probably the best thing to do if our tracking Dad might lead someone else to him, but not having had the opportunity to confront him to ask the questions that had been churning in my gut for all these years left me feeling unsatisfied. I knew that the smartest thing I could do was to focus on something else, so I checked in with Mike to see if he had any updates on the murder case.
“Good morning, Tess, Tilly. You’re here early today,” Frank greeted us.
“I changed things up today.” I slipped my mailbag off my shoulder as Tilly went over to greet Leonard, who’d come running down the hall when he heard us come in. “Any news about Brick Brannigan’s murder?”
“I’m not sure what Mike has already told you, so you might want to check with him. He’s in his office.”
“I’m right here,” Mike said, stepping into the room from the hallway.
“It’s been a couple of days since we chatted, and I was curious if you ever found either the handwritten letter or the contents of the second large envelope. Or the contents of the box you found, for that matter.”
“So far, we’ve had no luck with any of those things. Without knowing what was in the box or the second large envelope, it is hard to know if we’ve come across the items contained within and just aren’t aware of it. As for the letter with the handwritten address, we’ve looked for it, but so far, no go.”
“I wonder what Brick did with the letter if you’ve searched the bar and his home,” I said.
“Maybe Brick tossed or burned it,” Frank suggested.
“It didn’t look as if he tossed or destroyed a single piece of correspondence he received since he bought the bar,” I responded. “There were envelopes, junk mail, and old letters everywhere.”
“Maybe the envelope you are looking for contained damning information and Brick des
troyed it to keep anyone from reading it.”
“Maybe,” I acknowledged.
“What about the postmark being from Iowa?” Frank asked.
“Useless,” Mike said. “At least without more information.”
I nodded. “We can use the postmark to backtrack to the city of origin, but unless someone from the post office remembers who posted the box, which I highly doubt, I agree the postmark is useless. Has anyone looked inside the pockets of Brick’s jacket? I assume it was hanging in the bar?”
“His pockets were empty,” Mike confirmed.
“What about his truck? Has anyone looked between the seats, in the glove box, or on the floor?”
Mike glanced at Frank. “You searched the truck.”
“I was looking for a smoking gun, not a letter.”
“We should take another look,” I said.
“I’ll do it,” Frank offered.
“What about the identity of the four samples that Brick had tested? Did you ever get anyone from Genocom to provide you with names to go with the letters on the reports?”
Mike nodded. “Yes and no. I did finally make my way far enough up the hierarchy to speak to someone with the authority to give me the information I need. I even got this person to agree to provide me with what I requested.”
“And?” I asked.
“And names were never provided. Brick sent in four samples: L, B, S, and A. That was the way he labeled them. He asked them to provide as much information as possible for each sample, and it seems he paid them a boatload of money for it.”
“And they did it without names or permission from those involved?”
“Apparently.”
“It sounds like maybe our theory fits that Brick had possession of someone’s DNA but no one to compare it to. Still, I’m not sure how we are supposed to match the DNA with actual people.”
“I agree that we aren’t going to figure this out without more information,” Mike said.
“My gut tells me that Brick had DNA from a crime scene. All the secrecy doesn’t make a lot of sense if he was simply looking for a long-lost relative. Maybe we can go back and look at unsolved crimes in the area over the past five years or so,” I suggested.
“The DNA sample would give us the hair and eye color if we knew how to read the darn thing,” Frank said. “We should be able to figure out sex and nationality as well.”
“The report was thirty pages long. I bet there is additional information beyond that that will help us create a visual of the individuals,” I said. “What we need is a forensic scientist. Maybe there is someone at the crime lab who can help you, or someone from the lab can refer you to a specialist in this area.”
“I’ll check,” Mike said.
I glanced at Frank. “I need to start my route. Call my cell if you find the letter in the truck. I’ll see if Tony has time to help you track down cold cases. I have a feeling that one of those cases is going to connect with subject K.”
My next stop was Grandma Hattie’s Bakeshop, where I was gifted with a bag of hot-from-the-oven oatmeal cookies. By the time I made it to Hap’s store, I was buzzing right along. It wasn’t until I left Cartwright’s Furniture that I took a minute to check my phone messages. There was one from Tony, asking me to call him.
“Hey, what’s up?” I asked when he picked up.
“I spoke to Gwendolyn O’Malley. I told her the story of Elizabeth and Patrick, and she said she would like to meet Elizabeth and Jennifer Anne.”
“I thought she lived in New York.”
“She does. But she is in Seattle as part of a book tour and could arrange to spend time with them if I am able to get them there. My buddy with the jet can take us to Seattle tomorrow if we want, but I wasn’t sure how you wanted me to proceed.”
I paused to consider the situation. I supposed if we had the right Patrick, Gwendolyn was Jennifer Anne’s great-aunt. It made sense that she might want to have the opportunity to speak with a woman claiming to have born her dead brother’s child face-to-face. “I’m sure I can get someone to cover for me with the dog training session tomorrow. I’ll call Jennifer Anne to see what she wants to do. I’ll call you back as soon as I speak to her.”
I decided to continue my route and wait to make the call until I got to Sisters’ Diner, where I could grab a cup of coffee while I took my break. I called the cell number Jennifer Anne had given me, and luckily, she picked up right away. I shared the news about the article written by the woman we believed to be Patrick’s sister, as well as her desire to meet Jennifer Anne and her grandmother. She wasn’t certain how Elizabeth would react, so she told me she would speak to her and call me back within the hour.
“I spoke to Mike earlier,” my mom said, sliding into the booth across from me. “He said that you had suggested to Bree that she might want to have the wedding ceremony the day before the reception.”
I picked up the coffee cup Mom had brought me and took a sip. “Bree is still struggling with the whole vows-under-the-stars thing. I just don’t see how they can do that and have the big catered reception with a live band that Mike wants. By having a family-only ceremony on Friday and the reception with all their friends on Saturday, they can both get what they want.”
“I will admit that when Mike first shared the idea, I wasn’t a fan of dividing the two parts, but the more I think about it, the more sense it makes. We can talk about it some more on Sunday when you all come for dinner. I’m planning to do a pot roast, which is Mike’s favorite, so he should be in an amiable mood.”
“I’m looking forward to it. There is a possibility I may be out of town tomorrow.” I explained about the missing fiancé Tony and I were helping to track down.
“You are going to fly to Seattle for the day?” Mom asked.
“That’s the plan, if Jennifer Anne’s grandmother agrees to it,” I said.
“On a private jet?”
I nodded. “The jet belongs to a friend of Tony’s. I won’t know for sure if we are making the trip until I hear back from the granddaughter, but I wanted to let you know that I could be out of town if it all comes together.”
“I can’t imagine someone you love simply disappearing from your life without an explanation. It must be the worst kind of torture.”
I thought about my dad, and the fact that he had basically done that exact thing, although as far as Mom knew, he had died rather than disappeared. “I’m sure that Elizabeth has had to deal with all sorts of emotions relating to the uncertainty of it all.” I stood up and slipped on my mailbag. Tilly slid out from under the table. “Thanks for the coffee. I really need to get going if I want to stay on time today. I’ll text you tomorrow if we do end up going to Seattle.”
After I left my mom’s restaurant, I continued on down the block. I’d already dropped off the mail at the police station when I was there that morning, but I decided to pop in to see if Frank had found the letter we’d been looking for as long as I was in the vicinity.
“Hey, Frank. I was passing by and wanted to see if you found the letter that went with the handwritten address.”
“I didn’t, but I did find something interesting in the cargo area of Brick’s truck. It didn’t stand out as relevant when I looked through the truck in the first place, but now that we know about the DNA testing, it jumped right out at me.”
“And what was that?”
“Empty vials. They were in a tackle box with some lures and hooks, so I assumed they were meant to take samples of water, although I have no idea why Brick would be sampling water. Now I have to wonder if they were for collecting DNA.”
“Why would Brick keep vials in a tackle box?” I asked.
“It seems as good a place as any. A tackle box would keep the glass vials from breaking and it’s easy to carry. Plus, everyone knows that Brick liked to fish, so no one would question his having the box with him.”
I frowned. “Somehow, the idea that Brick was carrying around vials to use for DNA samples doesn’t see
m right. Still, I guess he would need a way of sending whatever samples he did collect to Genocom without destroying them. I wonder exactly what he sent. Saliva? Cigarette butts? Maybe chewing gum that had been recently abandoned? This whole thing is so odd.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Do you know if Mike was able to find someone to read the reports Genocom sent?”
“He spoke to someone on the phone. I think he plans to scan the reports into a file and email them to whoever he spoke to. Maybe we’ll find a clue once someone who knows what they are looking at takes a peek.”
“I hope so.” I picked up my bag. “I need to run. Text me if you find anything new. The longer this case goes unresolved, the more curious I become.”
“Yeah, it’s a complicated one, that’s for sure.”
Tilly and I continued down the street toward the Book Boutique. From what my mother had said, it sounded as if Mike and Bree had been discussing the wedding. Maybe they’d come to a decision. It would be nice to have the details of time and place decided once and for all. Looking back, I’d thought the biggest issues were going to be the food selection and the band they’d hire, but I guess I should have known there would be challenges every step of the way.
“Hey, Bree,” I greeted my best friend.
“Oh good, I hoped you’d be by early today.”
Tilly trotted over to say hi to Bree while I took off my bag. “What’s up?”
“Mike and I talked about everything, and he is very much in favor of the idea of a smaller ceremony with just the family and then a large reception with all our friends the following evening. I called The Lakehouse and they do have an opening on Saturday, so it is an option. When I told Mike, he said that not only would it solve our conflict between the band and the ceremony under the stars I want, but he feels that having the ceremony over with would allow him to relax and enjoy the reception.”
Uh-oh. Having the ceremony over with? Bree didn’t look mad, but it seemed like the sort of comment that would make her mad. She seemed happy and was smiling, though, so I let it pass. “That’s great. So, do you want to have the ceremony at Tony’s by the lake, weather permitting?”