The Lure

by S. W. Hubbard

  Oddly enough, he thought Estelle would like Beth—her artistic bent, her independence. Maybe the idea that Estelle would approve was part of the attraction. How weird was that, picking a girlfriend that you thought your dead wife would like? A shrink would have a field day.

  Frank sighed and put the truck into gear. He was too old for this game.

  Chapter 18

  “Any luck?”

  “No. I’ve been going back through my old contacts, but so far all of them have changed their minds about giving up their babies.”

  “I’m doing a little better. I have another couple for Mary Pat’s baby.”

  “Great! Then we can use that money to pay off the Braithwaites.”

  “It won’t be enough. They’re only paying $20,000.”

  “Twenty thousand! That’s less than the Finns would’ve paid.”

  “Don’t remind me. But I don’t have time to shop around for a better prospect. We’ve got to get that baby placed. It’s making me nervous leaving her where she is.”

  “You can say that again. When should I bring her?”

  “They want to see her tomorrow. Then it will take them a few days to come up with the cash.”

  “Good. I need the money.”

  “You don’t get any of this money if you don’t find another baby for the Braithwaites. Get busy.”

  “Where have you been?” Earl looked about ready to burst when Frank got back to the office. “I worked my way through the whole list of newspapers you left for me. Boy, they’ve been running that ad all over the place—Saranac Lake, AuSable Forks, Willsboro, Schroon Lake.”

  “Always the exact same ad?”

  “The words are the same, but there’s three different email addresses they use. The one we tried this morning, and two others.”

  “Are the ads still running now?”

  Earl shook his head. “The most recent one was August fifteenth.”

  Frank flopped down in his chair. Less than a month ago. That meant Sheltering Arms could still be actively recruiting. How could he flush them out?

  “All right, Earl, let’s brainstorm here.” This was a code word that meant that Frank would think aloud and Earl would not interrupt with any remarks about how unworkable the ideas were.

  “Say we send our message from ‘Brandy’ to those other two email addresses in the ads, and one of them actually goes through. Then what? Eventually, they’re going to want to set up a face-to-face meeting. Who are we going to send? We can’t involve a teenage girl in a police sting operation.”

  “A woman cop?” Earl knew his role as straight man: throw out the obvious solutions for Frank to shoot down.

  “The only female trooper under Meyerson’s command is Pauline Phelps.” Frank and Earl both snickered. Pauline was a terrific cop and a hell of a nice person, but she was built like a Giants linebacker. Passing her off as a girl in trouble would never fly.

  “Maybe Lt. Meyerson could find us someone from another barracks,” Earl suggested.

  Frank scowled. “That would be ideal, except that he’s under tremendous pressure right now with this Nathan Golding investigation. He won’t want to bother with trying to set that up, especially since we’re still not sure those ads are placed by Sheltering Arms.”

  Frank stood up and began to pace. “How about this? What if we come at it from the buyer side? Go to some of those independent adoption chat rooms that the Finns mentioned and those bulletin boards you found and post messages saying we’re a couple looking to adopt a healthy white infant. We’ll drop hints that we’ve got money and we’re willing to pay to make it happen fast. Then we’ll see if Sheltering Arms contacts us.”

  “But we’ll still need someone for the sting.”

  “That’s the beauty of it. We can use any middle aged male cop to pose as the prospective adoptive father.”

  “What if they don’t contact us?” Earl asked.

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” Frank sat down in front of his computer. Long periods of thinking were interspersed with short, rapid burst of typing. He hit the print command and handed the sheet to earl.

  “Here. Post these messages. I’m going to do the afternoon patrol.”

  Frank cruised past the high school in time for the end of the football game, idling by the rear parking lot to discourage lead-footed departures by both players and fans. Then he swung by the lumberyard to give the owner, Clyde Stevenson, an opportunity to see his tax dollars at work. Crossing over Stony Brook on the new bridge, he drove along Route 12 with no particular destination in mind. Homes and businesses were mixed together here: a small engine shop that repaired chain saws and ATVs, an old Victorian homestead, a new vinyl-sided ranch house. And on the right, the Rock Slide, a store that sold hiking, camping and rock-climbing equipment. From the Adirondack chairs on the wrap-around porch, customers could admire the view of the Verona Range while snacking on trail mix and Snapple from the juice bar.

  The store had reported a break-in last month, in which some expensive climbing equipment had been stolen. Frank had spent several hours with the owner, showing him ways to improve security. Deciding to check if the fellow had followed his suggestions, Frank pulled in and parked near the back door of the store, where the burglars had jimmied a flimsy lock.

  Frank was pleased to see that the owner had installed a new metal door with a heavy deadbolt. He continued around the perimeter of the building, noting with satisfaction the new floodlights and the shrubbery that had been trimmed back from the windows. He turned the corner of the building and came along the side of the porch. There, sitting on two adjacent chairs, were Stephen Galloway and a young blonde woman. Their backs were to him and he could only see their faces in profile as they leaned toward each other past the high-backed chairs. He couldn’t make out their words, but they seemed to be discussing something intently. Perhaps this was the California girlfriend, come east for a visit. Either that, or Galloway was on the prowl for a new local amusement.

  Frank watched them for a while, not sure why he was so interested. Then the young woman stood up, and he could see she was much younger than Galloway. She stepped down off the porch and headed for a pick-up with New York plates, turning when she got there to offer the doctor a half-hearted wave. Then, she heaved herself with some difficulty into the driver’s seat. She was hugely pregnant.

  Frank decided to find out what the pregnant girl’s story was before he confronted Galloway. He took down the license plate number of her truck, and traced it when he returned to the office. The vehicle was registered to a John Sarens in the town of Willsboro. He tried several times to call the Sarens’s home, but each time the phone rang endlessly.

  Finally, he gave up. It was dark and he was hungry. Earl was long gone. He’d drive up to Willsboro first thing in the morning, and catch the family at home since it was Sunday. To make sure he was on the road early, he decided to leave his truck at the office and drive the patrol car home.

  Circling the deserted green, he headed toward his snug little house on the bank of Stony Brook. A half-mile away from the center of town, a pick-up truck pulled out in front of him. One of its taillights was burned out. Frank didn’t like to write a ticket for this offense—it was possible the driver didn’t even know it had happened. He figured he’d do the guy a favor and pull him over to let him know—it would save the driver the trouble of being ticketed by a less magnanimous state trooper somewhere else.

  He put his lights on and gave the guy a minute to notice. The truck made no effort to pull over, but the road was narrow here. Frank gave him a while longer. The road widened, but still the truck didn’t stop. Frank let out one whoop of the siren, the “yes, I really do mean you” warning.

  Instead of slowing, the truck sped up. Now, what the hell was this about? Frank accelerated, and the truck shot further ahead.

  Frank threw on the sirens—this guy would pull over, or he’d know the reason why. He probably had an open beer in the truck, or a few joint
s—Frank watched to see if anything flew out the window. It was hard to tell in the dark, but the fellow seemed to be hunched over the wheel, intent on his driving. They had been climbing a hill, and as the two vehicles crested it, the truck shot ahead on the long, straight descent, getting up to eighty.

  What in God’s name did this guy think he was doing? He must really have something to hide to drive at that speed on these dark mountain roads. Frank radioed the state police for assistance, and kept up the pursuit, although he refused to risk going that fast here. The truck’s taillights disappeared from view around a bend at the base of the hill. As Frank reached the bottom he heard it, even over the siren: a sickeningly loud thump, the crunching of metal, the shattering of glass.

  He came around the turn and found the truck flattened against a large outcropping of rock that jutted out almost to the edge of the road. The hood was compressed all the way into the passenger compartment. The driver, whoever he was, was clearly dead.

  Chapter 19

  The cleanup of the accident, the removal of the body, and the notification of the family took almost until midnight. When Frank finally fell into bed, his body yearned for sleep, but his mind raced. The driver of the truck had been one Dean Jacobson, nineteen years old, who lived with his grandfather in Verona and worked sporadically as a gas station attendant, chairlift operator, and golf course maintenance man. What could have made the young man run like that when Frank tried to pull him over? He had no criminal record, but his grandfather, although distraught, had seemed oddly unsurprised by the news of his grandson’s death.

  “He’s been acting funny lately—just hasn’t been himself,” the older man had said when Frank broke the news. But he couldn’t or wouldn’t speculate on what the problem might be. He just kept shaking his head and sighing.

  Frank wouldn’t know anything to relieve his guilt until the state police picked apart what was left of the truck, and the corner delivered the autopsy report. Finally, he sank into an uneasy sleep.

  Soon after the sun awakened him, Frank headed out to the Sarens's home in Willsboro. The woman who answered the door looked a lot like the house itself—a little run-down, but trying to keep up appearances.

  “I’m Frank Bennett from the Trout Run Police Department. I’m looking for a young woman—maybe your daughter—who drives a brown pick-up, license plate number 63-48A.”

  Her face lost its small glimmer of welcome. “Why? What’s she done?”

  “Not a thing,” Frank reassured her. “I just need to talk to her. She might be able to help me with an investigation.”

  “It’s that no-good boyfriend of hers, isn’t it? I warned her he was nothing but trouble, but she wouldn’t listen. Now look at her.”

  “Who’s there, Shelly?” a deep voice bellowed from inside the house.

  “Just someone who needs directions,” she shouted back. “You can find Diane at the bait shop—she helps out over there,” she whispered to Frank. “Her dad don’t want her driving our truck except to work—tell her to be more careful.”

  Diane Sarens was easy enough to spot—the only pregnant teenager in a room full of fishing rods, flies and coolers full of live bait. She sat at a table in the back, tying flies, her fingers still nimble even if her body was too unwieldy to move. Frank dropped into a chair beside her.

  She glanced up. “Hi. You need something special? A cocky knight, a dry blobby?”

  “No, I’m not much of a fly fisherman. I don’t like getting wet.”

  She smiled slightly and returned to her work, looping her thin, pale hair behind her ear.

  “When is your baby due?”

  Instinctively, her hand dropped down and cradled her belly. “Soon.”

  “I saw you over in Trout Run on Saturday. At the Rock Slide.”

  She looked at Frank quizzically. It seemed to register now that he was a cop.

  “Yeah, so? My friend works there.”

  “You weren’t talking to a friend when I saw you. You were talking to Dr. Galloway, out on the porch. Is he treating you? Providing pre-natal care?”

  Her eyes darted around the room. “Why?”

  “Diane, you may have heard that a girl in Trout Run died giving birth to her baby outside the hospital. No one knew she was pregnant.”

  “Well, everyone sure knows that I am.”

  “She made a plan to give her baby up for adoption, but it wasn’t a legal adoption agency. I think someone at the Cascade Clinic might have helped her, and taken the baby. Has anyone approached you about giving your baby up for adoption?”

  Diane’s eyes widened. She pushed back from her worktable so abruptly that it tipped right into Frank’s lap, sending nippers, forceps, feathers and fur scattering into every nook and cranny of the shop.

  “Hey!” someone shouted from the front of the store.

  By the time Frank got him free, Diane had run out the door and was peeling out of the parking lot.

  Chapter 20

  Frank sat at his desk on Monday morning creating a whirlpool in his coffee with a swizzle stick. He’d screwed up the encounter with Diane Sarens—the girl would never talk to him now. Belatedly, he’d called Trudy Massinay for help. He should have thought of that before he went blasting off to Willsboro to scare the poor kid out of her wits. Trudy had promised to try to approach her, but she’d warned Frank there was not much she could do if the girl turned down her help.

  He was tempted to go see Galloway again, but what would he gain? There was no crime in talking to a pregnant girl, and Galloway would claim it was an innocent encounter. And what did this latest development do to his theory that Galloway’s was the mystery signature on the card in Mary Pat’s car? He couldn’t be both the baby’s father and the link to Sheltering Arms, could he? Frank sighed and gulped down his coffee. He’d better just wait and see what Trudy turned up.

  “Up to all hours hitting the books?” Frank asked as Earl slunk to his desk at nine-thirty. Here was a distraction to take his mind off his problems.

  “Uh, yeah,” Earl cast a nervous glance over his shoulder. “Sorry I’m late.”

  Frank waited until Earl started filing reports before launching his next salvo. “I guess I’ve been replaced.”

  “Huh?”

  “I hear you have a new study coach.”

  Earl turned the shade of the sugar maple blazing outside their window. This was too much fun to stop. “All you get from me is a beer when you answer all the questions right. What does Melanie give you?”

  “I happened to run into her at the Trail’s End and she asked me some of my questions. What’s the big deal?” Earl shut the file drawer hard enough to bring down a shower of leaves from the terminally ill philodendron on top of the cabinet.

  “Happened to run into her?” Frank grinned. “I thought you hated the food there.”

  “I thought you hated it, too. But I hear they practically had to sweep you out the door on Saturday when you had lunch with Beth Abercrombie.”

  Frank’s grin faded. He might have known that Nick Reilly, the bartender at the Trail’s End, was a conduit through which information flowed in two directions.

  “That was business,” he snapped.

  A little smile played on Earl’s lips as he booted up his computer. “I think Beth’s kind of pretty… for an older person.”

  Frank knew when he’d been bested. “I have someone to see. I’ll be back in an hour.”

  An older person! What the hell was that supposed to mean? Frank gunned the engine of the patrol car and rolled out of the parking lot toward Harkness Road. He’d been meaning to talk to Doug Penniman again—this might be the perfect time.

  No doubt everyone in town was getting a kick out of the show—almost as funny as watching Grandpa put the moves on a blue-haired lady at the nursing home. Well, if he couldn’t have one lunch with Beth without setting tongues wagging, how was it that no one noticed who was screwing around with Mary Pat?

  Obviously, because she never went out anywher
e with him. That made Anita’s theory that Mary Pat’s lover was married look more likely. And Doug Penniman’s schedule meshed perfectly with Mary Pat’s—they both had some afternoons free, while Judy and Billy were reliably out of the way.

  As he approached the Pennimans’ house, he could see Doug’s truck parked out front. He rang the bell, but no one answered. Probably Doug was asleep. Too bad—he leaned on the bell again.

  A bleary-eyed Doug answered the door and stood staring at Frank as if he couldn’t quite place him.

  “Sorry to bother you.” Frank made little effort at sincerity and stepped into the house before Doug had time to react. “There’s something more I have to ask you about.”

  “Okay.” Doug rubbed his eyes. “Want some coffee?”

  “I never say no to that offer.” Frank followed Doug back to the cheerless kitchen, where the breakfast dishes still sat on the table. The red light glowed on the half-full coffee pot. Pushing aside a bowl with a few soggy flakes in a puddle of milk, Doug presented Frank with a cup of stale coffee.

  “Excuse me for mentioning this, but things between you and Judy seem a little,” Frank cleared his throat, “strained.”

  Doug shrugged. “All married couples have their ups and downs.”

  Frank stirred steadily, trying to break up the clots of sour milk that had risen to the surface of his coffee. “When things are down, it helps to have someone who’s a good listener.”

  Doug suddenly took a great interest in cleaning up the kitchen. He rose and began pushing dishes into the sink with a clatter. “I keep my business to myself.”

  Frank watched Doug work. The place wasn’t really dirty, just cluttered with yesterday’s newspaper and piles of unopened mail. He noticed one pane of the large window that overlooked the backyard was broken, with a piece of cardboard inserted to keep out the cold air.