Ettie Smith Amish Mysteries Box Set 2

by Samantha Price

  “I would prefer he stay here today. I’ll have two men sitting in a patrol car all day.”

  “Is the baby still in danger?” Ettie asked handing Kelly a plate of scrambled eggs and toast.

  “We can’t be certain about anything until we find out exactly what happened with Lemonis. We need to find his accomplices.”

  “What if he didn’t have any?”

  “He would’ve had someone in on it with him—at least one and maybe two others. It’s too big a thing for someone to pull off on their own.”

  When Jeremiah left, Ettie sat down at the table with Kelly and Elsa-May.

  “Have you had any sleep?” Ettie asked Kelly.

  “I’ve had a couple of hours. That’ll be enough. I might grab a couple more during the day. I prefer to see this through. When the warrant comes through, which should be just after nine, we’re going to go directly to his house and take his car.”

  “Are the cold case people still working with you?”

  “They are, and they bring with them some excellent detectives.” Kelly spooned a large forkful of scrambled egg into his mouth. “Although, I remain the head detective on the case.”

  “That’s good. I hope some peace will come to the Cohens soon.”

  “So do I,” Kelly said. “Thank you for breakfast. This will keep me going and I’m hoping we get some major breakthroughs today.”

  Some time after Kelly had left, Jeremiah delivered Ava back to the door.

  “Ava, have you come to help us with Luke?”

  “I certainly have. I know it can be tiring looking after a young baby and I thought you might appreciate some help.” Ava giggled. “And I was so disappointed when Jeremiah told me that I wouldn’t be looking after him today.”

  When Ava came further into the house, Ettie closed the front door behind her. “Did Jeremiah tell you everything that happened last night?”

  “Jah, he did. It was terrible what that man did to himself. And it must’ve given you such a fright when he came into the house like that.”

  Ettie heard a car drive up and stop outside her house. She looked out to see a police car and another car stopped behind it. “What’s going on now?”

  “What is it, Ettie?” Ava asked.

  “Police! And a woman is getting out of the car behind them.”

  Elsa-May nudged Ettie out of the way. “It looks like a social worker.”

  “Come to take Luke?” Ettie’s jaw fell open. “Kelly said he’d give us time.”

  “I’d say our time has run out,” Elsa-May said, staring out the window.

  “Stop it!” Ava said to Snowy who was pawing at her leg.

  Ettie answered the door. “Are you looking for me?”

  “We’re here to take the baby. Are you Ettie Smith?”

  “I am.”

  “Detective Kelly didn’t have time to come here and tell you himself and he said to apologize for that. This is Mrs. Watkins, a social worker. She’ll take the baby with her.”

  Elsa-May leaned forward. “Detective Kelly said he wasn't going to call the social worker just yet. He promised to give us a little bit of time looking after him.”

  “Mrs. Cohen has requested her baby be returned to her and Mr. Cohen.”

  Ettie gasped and looked at Elsa-May. Why couldn’t she have come there and taken him back herself?

  Elsa-May pushed herself up off the couch and stood next to Ettie. “Does she get him back just like that? She left him alone and it could’ve rained on him. What if she leaves him somewhere again?”

  The social worker said, “When something like this happens, our aim is to have the mother take the baby back. Then we monitor them closely, and she’ll have ongoing counseling.”

  “Will she still be charged?” Elsa-May asked the officer.

  He nodded. “There are charges pending. Now, the baby?” The officer looked at each of the three ladies in turn.

  “I'll fetch him,” Ava said, walking toward the bedroom.

  “I do hope Mrs. Cohen makes a full recovery. It can't be easy for her after what happened. I'm sure what she did was with the very best intentions,” Ettie said, hoping her words would calm Elsa-May.

  “Don’t be concerned. We’ll be watching her closely,” the social worker assured her.

  Ettie nodded. “That's good.”

  Ava came to the door with the baby and told the social worker Luke's routine.

  “Shouldn’t you be writing this down?” Elsa-May asked the social worker.

  The social worker raised her thin eyebrows. “Oh yes. I'll just get my notebook out of the car. If you don’t mind waiting.”

  “We’ll wait right here,” Ava said.

  “Before we hand the baby over, can we see some form of identification?” Ettie asked the officer.

  The officer whipped his badge out of his pocket and showed them.

  “You don't mind if we make a phone call to Detective Kelly to verify you being here?” Elsa-May asked.

  “Not at all,” he said.

  Ettie took the mobile phone that Crowley had loaned them for emergencies and then looked through her address book. When she found Kelly's personal mobile number, she dialed it.

  “Crowley, what can I do for you?” Detective Kelly answered.

  “It's not Crowley. It’s Ettie Smith. Crowley loaned us his phone in case of emergencies.”

  “Is there anything wrong?”

  “There might be if you didn't send an officer and a social worker to our house.”

  “I did, Mrs. Smith, and I didn't have time to let you know in person, and I apologize for that. I should’ve, under the circumstances but it’s been hard to get away from the station. Mr. and Mrs. Cohen want their baby back, and we had to get the social workers involved. I know you’ve got concerns and so do we, that’s why they’ll be carefully monitoring mother and baby.”

  “Okay, thank you, Detective Kelly. We’re handing the baby over right now.”

  “Very good, Mrs. Smith. I do thank you for your help and I will keep you informed of any updates.”

  “Thank you.” Ettie pressed the ‘end call’ button, and then turned the phone off and placed it back in the drawer of the bureau where they had been keeping it.

  When the social worker and the police officer drove away with Luke, Ava burst into tears. “I'm sorry for sniveling like this. It’s just that I grew attached to him.”

  “Why don’t we go into the kitchen,” Ettie said. “I'll make you a nice cup of hot tea.”

  “Denke, Ettie. I thought I'd be able to have all day with him and now he's gone.”

  “I understand. We’ll all miss him.”

  “While you two drink tea, I'll take Snowy for a walk.”

  “You do that, Elsa-May,” Ettie said with her arm around a sobbing Ava as she guided her to the kitchen.

  Chapter 13

  Twenty minutes later, when Elsa-May walked back through the door with Snowy, she had two large pumpkins in her arms.

  Ettie looked up from her seated position in the kitchen. “Pumpkins!”

  “Where did they come from?” Ava asked.

  “From the man next door. He often gives us fruit or vegetables when he has too many.”

  “I guess it's pumpkin pie and pumpkin soup for dinner?” Elsa-May asked.

  “That sounds nice,” Ettie said. “Why don't you and Jeremiah stay here for dinner, Ava?”

  “You don't mind?”

  “Of course, not. We'd love you to join us.”

  “Well that will save me cooking, and I asked Jeremiah to pick me up when he finishes work, which would be about six or six thirty.”

  “Sounds perfect. I’ll have dinner ready and waiting,” Ettie said.

  “I don't think I've ever made pumpkin pie,” Ava said.

  “You can help me then and that way you'll learn.”

  Ettie tried her best to take Ava’s mind off the baby and what kind of life he’d have. She’d certainly grown attached to Luke in a short space of tim
e.

  When Jeremiah came to collect Ava that evening, they had dinner and then dessert.

  Just as Ava and Jeremiah were about to leave, Crowley came to the door.

  “Come in,” Elsa-May said to Crowley.

  After he’d greeted everyone, he sat down in one of their wooden chairs next to Jeremiah and Ava, who were already seated. “Ah, you’ve had them fixed.” He hit the side of the chair.

  “Yes, didn’t we tell you that?” Elsa-May replied. “Jeremiah fixed them.”

  Crowley managed a smile in Jeremiah’s direction.

  “What’s wrong?” Ettie asked from the couch.

  He looked up at Elsa-May who was still standing. “Sit down, Elsa-May, I’ve got an update.”

  “You don’t look too happy,” Ettie said.

  “Is Luke all right?” Ava asked.

  Crowley nodded. “The baby’s fine. Kelly told me the baby was returned to his mother and father. Anyway, I stopped in at the station to see what they’d found out so far. When the kidnapping was being investigated years ago, I was at the station, but it wasn’t my case, and then it was taken over by the FBI.”

  “Yes, we know all that. What do you know that’s new?” Elsa-May asked.

  “That’s the problem. So far they’ve turned up nothing. Kelly’s got a team on it, going through Lemonis' phone and his computer. They haven’t found a single solitary thing to link him to the kidnapping of the Cohen baby.”

  “Would he have another phone like you do?” Ettie asked.

  “If he did have one, he’s thrown it away or hidden it. They’ve contacted all the service providers—phone companies—and there are no other phones in his name. At this stage of the game, it looks like all his secrets might have died with him. It’s a real blow to the case. Now we could very well have nothing, unless one of the evidence technicians finds something from his apartment, but so far there’s nothing.”

  “That would be a real disappointment to Genevieve Cohen.”

  “Yes. Anyway, Kelly asked me to stop by and keep you informed. He’ll have patrol cars going by your house for the next few nights just to keep an eye on the place.”

  “I’m sure that’s not necessary. Shouldn’t they be patrolling the Cohen household?”

  “Mrs. Cohen and the house are being watched closely in case there is another kidnap attempt.”

  “So you do think the man came here with the intention to take the baby?” Elsa-May asked.

  “He asked you for the baby. And that’s the only reason we have for assuming he had something to do with the Cohen kidnapping.”

  Elsa-May stared into space.

  “What are you thinking, Elsa-May?” Ettie asked.

  “What if he didn't have anything to do with it?”

  “Then why did he kill himself?” Ettie asked her sister. “And why did he come here asking for the baby pretending to be his father?”

  “Kelly told us that many people don’t need a good reason to do away with themselves. What if he thought the kidnapping was going to be pinned on him and no one would believe his innocence. Detective Crowley, you said once that there are many innocent people in jail—that the system often gets things wrong.”

  Crowley raised his eyebrows. “Elsa-May could be right. Someone could’ve paid him money to say he was the father and collect the baby and that was as far as it went. To prove his innocence, he might have had to point the finger at the guilty people. He might have feared them even more than he feared death.”

  “It’s a possibility, but where does that leave things? And, if he wasn’t guilty of the first kidnapping, what possible reason would he have to turn up on our doorstep demanding the baby?” Ettie asked.

  “Didn’t you hear what Crowley just said? He said that someone could’ve paid him to get the baby and say he was the father. Like the man they found taking the money in the first kidnapping, he might not have known anything,” Elsa-May said.

  Ettie nodded. “I see.”

  “It’s a very different thing—collecting money and taking a baby,” Crowley said. “But I think it has to be considered.”

  “Hasn’t it been a short amount of time to go through his phone and his computer? I thought that would take days and days.”

  “There is a team of people working on it. If there’s a good lead, they should’ve come across it quicker than that. The man had only been out of jail for eight weeks. So they would’ve only had eight weeks' worth of telephone data and emails to go through.”

  “What was the length of the term he was imprisoned for?” Ava asked.

  “Three years.”

  “So was he out of jail at the time of the kidnapping of their first child?” Ava inquired.

  “He was, yes.”

  “Would you like a slice of pumpkin pie?” Elsa-May asked Crowley.

  His face lighted up. “I’d love some. I’ve missed your cooking.”

  “Ettie made it.”

  He chuckled. “Your cooking is good too, Ettie. More than good.”

  Jeremiah stood up. “We should go, Ava.” He touched Ava on her arm and she stood, too.

  “I might stop over tomorrow and see how things are going,” Ava said.

  After they both left and Elsa-May was cutting the pie, Ettie leaned over toward Crowley. “Was there anything you couldn’t tell us in front of them?”

  He shook his head. “No. It’s a huge disappointment and a frustration that we can no longer ask Lemonis questions. I mean ‘they,’ since I’m now retired. Even though I’m retired, cases like this still pull me in. I’m sure the Cohens will want to find where their baby is so they can lay him to rest properly.”

  “You think he’s dead?”

  “It’s unlikely they’ll find him alive. That’s what happens, unfortunately, when kidnappers don’t get their money.”

  Ettie shook her head. “Who could kill an innocent baby?”

  “These people aren’t wired the same as you and me.”

  “Who’s not?” Elsa-May came out of the kitchen with a plate of pie and handed it to Crowley.

  “Thank you, Elsa-May. Ettie was just asking about the baby who was kidnapped four years ago. I said he would be dead and she found it hard to believe someone could harm an innocent child, but I’m afraid awful things do happen.”

  Elsa-May sat heavily in her chair. “That’s worse than awful. I don’t like to think about it.”

  “The Cohens had to come to terms with it, but knowing that his remains are out there somewhere would be a strange feeling. They’ll feel a sense of peace if we can at least find out what happened to him. Finding his remains would be the best outcome.”

  “It’s not looking likely that you’ll find out, though, is it? There are no other leads?”

  “What about the people Lemonis was in prison with?”

  “That’s being looked into, but there are many people that he would’ve come in contact with, so it’s a slow process.”

  “I do hope they’ll find some kind of clue amongst his things,” Ettie said biting the end of a fingernail.

  Crowley had a mouthful of pumpkin pie so could only nod in agreement. “It’s certainly a mystery,” he said once he’d swallowed.

  Once Crowley left, Ettie said goodnight to Elsa-May and went to her bedroom. In her room, she saw that the baby basket was still on top of her dresser. It was the same baby basket that his mother had left him in on their doorstep.

  Ettie untied her prayer kapp and tossed it on her nightstand, hoping that young Luke would be okay. Had his mother simply made an error in judgment? What she did was not the actions of a sane woman. And what did Mr. Cohen think of suddenly finding out he was a father for a second time? He must’ve adjusted well to demand the baby back unexpectedly like that.

  Ettie unwound the braids that kept her hair in place under her kapp and then she brushed out her gray hair. Once she changed into her nightgown, she slipped between the covers. Had anyone asked any questions of Mr. Cohen? What if he were somehow involv
ed? Was it an elaborate plot to hide money from the IRS? No money was taken, though. But maybe he’d planned that it was to have been and he hadn’t meant for his baby to be harmed.

  “Nee, if he’d had any involvement he would’ve seen that his baby was returned.”

  Elsa-May stuck her head through Ettie’s door. “Did you say something?”

  “I was just thinking out loud.”

  “You can’t ‘think’ out loud, Ettie, that’s called talking.”

  Ettie giggled. “I was thinking and then talking—to myself.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Nee.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Elsa-May said.

  “I’m just worried about Luke.”

  “We can pray for Luke and his family.”

  “Jah, I’ll be doing that. And praying that they’ll find out what happened to their first baby.”

  Elsa-May shuddered and leaned against the door. “It’s so awful thinking about things like that.”

  “It must be dreadful for the Cohens, not knowing what became of Langley. It’s been four years already. Now the only person the police have found that might know something about him has gone.”

  “Not ‘might know,’ Ettie, he would know something about it. If he wasn’t directly involved, he would know who told him to come here to get the baby.”

  “I suppose that’s right.”

  Elsa-May sighed heavily. “We’ll just have to wait and hope that they find some evidence soon.”

  Ettie pulled her covers up higher.

  “I’m off to bed as soon as I clean those last dishes.”

  “Sorry, I completely forgot about them.”

  “I’ll do them; I’m not ready to go to sleep yet,” Elsa-May said.

  “Good night.”

  Elsa-May turned away and waved a hand in the air as she left the room.

  Ettie didn’t like to admit it, but she couldn’t help feeling scared about intruders coming into her home after the fright Lemonis had given her. Part of her wondered if Elsa-May felt the same and that’s why she was staying up later than normal. To give voice to her fears would’ve made her feel a whole lot worse, so she pulled the covers over her head and prayed in the darkness.