Angel Sleuth

by Lesley A. Diehl

  “Didn’t mean to cut in on your territory.”

  “You didn’t. She can decide who she wants to ride with. We’ll let her make up her own mind. How about it?” Mac shifted his eyes to her.

  “Thanks all the same, Hiram, but I have a previous engagement with Mac. So sorry.” She practically ran to Mac’s side.

  “Next time…” A growl crept into Hiram’s voice.

  “I doubt there’ll be a next time,” Mac growled back.

  Mac opened the driver’s door for her, shoving her across the seat and getting into the car himself. He threw the cigarette out the window and spun gravel as they shot off down the driveway.

  Mac was silent for a long time, and she knew he wasn’t concentrating on his driving.

  “The car,” Mary Jane said. “It’s my friend’s. She’ll need it tomorrow. And I need a ride back to the hotel.

  “I’ll take care of all that. Don’t worry.”

  “How did you know where I was?” she asked.

  “I was a detective and a good one. You think I can’t find someone if I want to?”

  “And you wanted to?”

  “I wanted to say good night and realized you hadn’t given me the name of your hotel, but I found it.”

  She wanted to ask how, but he interrupted her before she could speak.

  “That’s not the point. I got your friend to awaken Jeremy. Actually he wasn’t asleep. You may think you had him fooled, but he was worried about you. Did you forget he knew about your “date” with Hiram? Kaitlin had mentioned only two men in her life in front of Jeremy and neither of them inspired any kind of warm feelings in the kid. You should have taken a cue from him. You could have gotten yourself killed.”

  Mac pulled into Kaitlin’s drive.

  “I like you, Mary Jane, but I can’t trust you. I think we may need to cool this relationship for a while.” He looked into her eyes for a long moment, then reached over and opened the car door. “We leave early tomorrow. We’ll pick up the car and you can return to Albany. I’ll let you explain all of this to Kaitlin.”

  Just what she did not want to do. If Mac’s reaction were any kind of indication of what her nighttime work had accomplished, she could only imagine what Kaitlin would say.

  “Call Jeremy. He’ll want to say goodnight to his mom.”

  Mary Jane stood on the porch steps and watched Mac back down the driveway and leave. Something told her he wouldn’t be too far away.

  She flipped the porch light off and tiptoed up to her room. Explanations could wait for the morning.

  * * *

  Kaitlin wanted to say many things, but with Mac there in the morning, she could only whisper her frustration in Mary Jane’s ear.

  “What are you doing? You’re supposed to be a guardian angel, or so you say. This is not guardian angel behavior.” Was it? Kaitlin didn’t know how guardian angels behaved but she doubted they put their own lives in jeopardy unless it was in defense of the person they were angeling or whatever. She was confused.

  All of them, Caroline, Mac, Mary Jane and Kaitlin piled into Mac’s car. Caroline seemed to know something had happened during the night. After all, here was Mary Jane supposedly at a conference in Albany being driven out to pick up a car. It was more than that, however. Kaitlin knew no one could miss the tension in the air between Mac and Mary Jane. Once sensual in nature, now it had turned to ice from Mac and something that was a cross between regret and agitation from Mary Jane. It made Kaitlin uncomfortable, and she knew it was affecting Caroline the same way.

  On the way out of town, they stopped at Hiram’s to pick up Mary Jane’s borrowed car. No one was around. Mac inspected the vehicle to make certain Hiram hadn’t sabotaged it during the night. He declared it drivable, and Mary Jane got in. Mac stood at the driver’s side window, and the two of them exchanged words. Kaitlin couldn’t hear what they said, but it couldn’t have been good because Mary Jane sped off without a backward glance, and Mac returned to the car with a closed look on his face.

  “So what’s our plan?” he asked.

  Mac obviously had a lot on his mind, and he seemed to want Kaitlin to take the lead. Fine. She had a plan. Not a big plan, but a little bitty plan-to-plan plan.

  “Let’s stop by the high school and ask to see the old yearbooks. Maybe we’ll get some clue about who Leda’s friends were, and we can go from there. Let’s just hope that whomever she palled around with is still in the area.”

  With school on summer hiatus, the parking lot held only a few cars, so Mac pulled into an empty spot near the door. He waited in the car while Caroline and Kaitlin stepped into the school corridor. The smell of floor wax and onions and peppers cooked weeks ago assaulted Kaitlin’s nostrils, bringing back memories of her own high school days, memories of Hiram. She quickly dismissed his smarmy smile from her mind. Caroline smiled at her as if to say she remembered high school too.

  The woman in the school office was about Leda’s age. Her wide smile and bouncy white curls invited Kaitlin to take her into her confidence. The plan was unfolding as she went along, smooth enough to fool Caroline at least.

  “Did you go to school here?” she asked.

  “Oh yes. Born and raised here and lived here all my life. Graduated in the fifties from old Woody High. That’s what we called it then.”

  “Do you remember a Leda Pippel, I mean, Leda Small then? This is her daughter Caroline Adams, and she wants to know more about her mother as they were separated when Caroline was little. Leda died recently. Before she and Caroline could get to know each other better.”

  She clucked her teeth in a sympathetic sound. “Let’s see. Sure, I knew Leda. Not well because she was younger than me. The person you want to talk with is Violet Means. As I remember it, she was Leda’s best friend. Violet never married. She was the town librarian until a year or so ago. She lives in the old Bradley house on Parker Street.” She gave Kaitlin the directions.

  Caroline and Kaitlin thanked her for her help. Kaitlin was grateful, for it saved them the agony of going through old yearbooks and guessing about which people were Leda’s friends and whether they were still around. Once more, Kaitlin loved the closeness of the people in small towns, forgetting her most recent issues with gossip spreading about her role in stealing Leda’s letters and lap top. Forgiveness. Was that Mary Jane’s voice in her head? She had a feeling this was not going to be a good day.

  * * *

  This isn’t so bad, she thought as she and Caroline sipped late morning tea with Ms. Means in her sunny living room on the second floor of the Bradley House Apartments. Kaitlin’s eyes took in the charm of the quaint English cottage-style room with its collection of fine bone china cups lined up in a glass-fronted corner cupboard. Lace café curtains hung at the windows and ivy from white pots placed on glass shelves trailed gracefully around the tops of the windows. African violets adorned the sills. The floral carpet beneath her feet was soft and plush. She could imagine removing her shoes and letting her toes walk lightly through the peach and coral-colored roses along its border.

  “Kaitlin. Kaitlin. Dear, are you with us?” Ms. Mean’s voice brought her back from the broadloom garden.

  “Oh, right. I just love this room, so bright and cheery.”

  Caroline’s forehead creased, and she leaned forward lightly touching Kaitlin’s knee to get her attention.

  “Ms. Means was just saying that she knew Leda was pregnant, but although they were best friends, Leda refused to tell her who the father of the baby was.”

  Kaitlin smiled and nodded. She shouldn’t drift off like that and worry Caroline. She reached for her cup and tried to look more attentive.

  “The person you should ask is our old English teacher, Frederica Hatfield, if she’s still alive. I think she was living at the ARC place in Aldensville. She and Leda were very close. If anyone knows who your father was, it would be Ms. Hatfield.”

  Kaitlin leaned forward, banishing visions of roses from her head and concentrating on Ms. Me
ans’ information. How strange. This hunt was taking them back to the point at which they began—Leda and the senior facility. She and Caroline finished their tea, thanked Ms. Means for her time, and departed. As friendly and helpful as she was, she had told them very little about Leda’s teenage years.

  “What a sweet woman,” said Caroline.

  Mac put aside the detective novel he was reading and started the car. Caroline waved to Ms. Means who stood in her front window watching them. Kaitlin’s thoughts traveled back to Leda and what an unusual woman she was. How interesting that she felt closer to a teacher than to a friend her own age. And why didn’t Kaitlin know anything about Frederica Hatfield, supposedly a resident of the facility in which she volunteered?

  “Kaitlin. You still with me?”

  She shook herself free of her thoughts and turned to Caroline.

  “What’s funny is that I’ve seen a list of the names of the residents at ARC, and the Hatfield name doesn’t sound familiar to me. I guess I’ll have to have a little chat with Mr. Toliver.”

  Given Toliver’s most recent interaction with her, Kaitlin had no intention of being the one to talk with him. She thought it was better for Caroline to approach him, and she shared her thinking with Caroline.

  “Good idea. Besides you’ve put far too much time into finding my father. I think I should take over now. Oh, I don’t mean to cut you out of this. I mean, let me talk to Mr. Toliver and snoop around for a bit.”

  Ah, breathed Kaitlin. Off the hook for a while and able to devote some time to her career which was… What was it? Not writing advice columns. Not serving as an ombudsman. And certainly not snooping into murder and a lost father.

  Back at the house, she found Mary Jane and Jeremy were back from the conference.

  “Any luck?” she asked of Mary Jane.

  She merely shook her head no. It was clear she didn’t want to talk. Mac had refused the invitation she offered for dinner. Kaitlin didn’t know what was worse, the lustful vibes of Mac and Mary Jane when they liked each other or the chill off the deep freezer presently in place between the two of them.

  The three of them settled down in the living room with the television, but the tension in the air was so unsettled to Kaitlin that she hit the ‘off’ button and threw the remote on the sofa beside her.

  “Go talk to Mac,” she said. “I can’t take it anymore.” Jeremy nodded his head in agreement.

  “I don’t think he wants to talk to me,” said Mary Jane.

  “Well try. Then you can come back here and explain to me what the hell you were doing once again with Hiram.”

  “I wasn’t with Hiram,” said Mary Jane.

  “Go,” said Kaitlin. She pointed toward the front door.

  * * *

  Something must have happened out in the car. It was after midnight and Mary Jane was still out there with Mac. He’d either killed her, or… Kaitlin didn’t want to think about what the other might be. Her life was too passionless at this point and living vicariously through them seemed voyeuristic.

  She climbed the stairs and laid her head on the pillow. She was confident sleep would soon follow, but before she drifted into her first dream of the night, the shrill ring of the phone yanked her from slumber’s arms. Drat.

  Mac was on the other end of the line. “I just got off my cell with John Morris at the state bureau, you know, the one I gave the note and cross to. They examined the autopsy report on Leda’s body, and they seem to agree with Baldo’s findings, at least in part.”

  “What part?” She looked at her digital clock on the bedside table. It read midnight. Murder knows no business hours.

  “Cause of death was most certainly her heart, but they think the bruises on her shoulders and chest are in keeping with someone pushing her down the stairs. Baldo also reported extensive bruising on her back. The authorities believe that indicates she went down the stairs backwards, kind of funny if she stumbled or slipped. Some of the more minor points are up for interpretation, too.”

  “Such as?”

  “The fingernails on her left hand were torn and wood from the staircase was embedded under them. That would indicate she attempted to break her fall as she was pitching backwards. The state crime investigation team found scratches on the banister in her house. Could be from a fall, as Baldo concluded. Equally likely is a push. Tom’s note and the cross in the hands of this Jewish woman kind of clinched their thinking about her death. Suspicious and they’re investigating. They’d like to find the wearer of that cross.”

  “Sounds like Baldo did his job, but where was his head to dismiss these possibilities? Unless…”

  “Unless he’s just too old for this work.”

  She sat straight up in bed. “That doesn’t sound like the Mac I know. Don’t you mean unless he’s covering for someone?”

  “The authorities suspect foul play, especially with those letters to her, the attack on you…”

  “They’re taking that seriously?”

  “The state police are following up on the case, and they’re being very quiet about their evidence. They’re targeting ARC for scrutiny and plan to interview staff and residents there. That should shake up Toliver and Baldo.”

  “I wonder what Dr. Baldo is thinking now.” She yawned into the receiver. “Sorry. Mary Jane coming in soon?”

  Mac didn’t answer and she heard the sound of a disconnect.

  The phone jangled once more. It was one hour later.

  “Kaitlin? Get outta bed. Now! My wife monitors the police scanner and she just heard that the cops spotted a red Corvette in the Kinderkill River, near that bend downstream from the old bottling company. I need you to get out there and find out what’s going on. Now!” It was Delbert’s voice.

  “You forget. I’m your advice column writer, not Dory, your reporter.”

  “Never mind that. She’s on vacation. Just get out there now.”

  “And what about you? You’re the editor.”

  “I’m in the city. Helen called me to let me know the news. News! It’s news, you know. I need you there. I’m leaving to come back in a few minutes, but you’re closer. It’ll take me at least two hours to get back to Aldensville.” He hung up.

  Before she could think half a thought, the phone rang again.

  “What?”

  “Hey, it’s Mac again. A red Corvette…”

  “I know already. I’ve been ordered by my boss at the newspaper to get out there.”

  “I’m already here. They just pulled the car out of the river. There was no one in it, but it’s registered to Hiram Blackman, your old boyfriend. The police are looking for him now.”

  Chapter 19

  As it turned out, Toliver appeared as unhappy to see Kaitlin as she was to encounter him again. But Caroline insisted she be there, and Kaitlin thought it might be a good idea in case there was an opening for her to ask questions about red Corvettes. Late the next afternoon, Toliver showed her and Caroline into his office and, by glancing at his watch every thirty seconds, made it clear he didn’t have much time for them.

  Kaitlin poked Caroline in the ribs, hoping to jump start the conversation and get them out of there soon. When Caroline asked about Mrs. Hatfield, Toliver tossed the pen he had been playing with down on the desk, rolled his eyes, and in an annoyed voice said, “Frederica Hatfield was here for many years. Her name isn’t on the list of residents because she’s no longer with us. She died several weeks before Leda passed. Natural causes, verified by Dr. Baldo. She was ninety-three.” He ticked off this information in a staccato like manner. “And, of course, I kept her things, for a while at least. I thought Leda would see to them since she was Ms. Hatfield’s only contact, no relatives. Are you a relative?” he asked Caroline.

  Kaitlin watched as Caroline focused her green eyes on Toliver and began talking in that soothing tone of voice she had.

  “I’m looking for my father, and she might have information in her belongings that’s important to his whereabouts.”


  Oh, smooth, Caroline. Very smooth.

  “Sorry I can’t be of help, but I hauled all that stuff down to the local Good Samaritan. We usually give them all our cast-offs.”

  Kaitlin pursed her lips in disgust. What an endearing way to refer to the deceased’s cherished belongings.

  It was another dead end in the search for the identity of Leda’s former lover and Caroline’s father. They walked back to the car, Caroline’s feet dragging, her shoulders hunched. Mac opened the door for her and gave her a pat on her shoulder.

  “I might as well just go back home. The bone marrow results from my husband, his family and me provided some close matches. I told the doctor I might be able to locate my mother and father. He told me we might get a closer match from one of them. That seems unlikely now.”

  “Stay a few more days. Something will come up.”

  “What?”

  Kaitlin hadn’t a clue. She shrugged her shoulders in dismay and looked over at Mac.

  He ignored her searching look and turned the car into the drive. A woman was sitting on the front porch. Violet Means.

  “Oh, dear,” she said as she got up from the porch swing, “I knew I should have called first. You look as if you’ve got important business to attend to. I can come back.”

  “Don’t be silly, Ms. Means. Come in and I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

  Her visit had to mean something important. Caroline settled Ms. Means on the couch and introduced Mac while Kaitlin hustled into the kitchen. She couldn’t wait for the water to boil so the tea came out quite weak and the cookies she placed on the platter were from sometime earlier in the summer, broken and a bit stale. No one seemed to care. Caroline, Mac, and Kaitlin each sat forward in their chairs, eyes glued on Ms. Means. She sipped her lukewarm tea with equanimity, in no hurry to rush the ceremony.

  For the second time that day, Kaitlin felt compelled to move things along. She cleared her throat. “So why did you come to see me?”

  “I felt a bit guilty after you and Caroline left. There were some things I didn’t tell you about Leda, but I’ve had some time to think about them.” She hesitated and set her cup delicately on the table. Kaitlin wanted to reach out and shake the words from her. Instead she sat on her hands.