“Henry Baldo is getting up there.” Will seemed eager enough to talk when he encountered Kaitlin on her way to the Cappuccino Café the morning after she learned about Barbara Bartlett’s death. The hospital had released him earlier, and he was walking down the village streets with the help of a cane. The smile on his face said he was enjoying the late spring weather which was rushing toward summer heat.
“Maybe this town could use a new doctor. I might just set up my practice here. Even though everyone knows about my past gambling problems, the town is small enough to know that I’ve joined Gamblers’ Anonymous. That’s the thing about small towns.”
“Yeah,” she said, “That’s the thing.”
Will proceeded down the street toward the river while Kaitlin took the left onto Main. She opened the door to the café and paused to take in the conversations filling the room. It was obvious the patrons there already heard about the murder, and they knew she was somehow involved in all of this. Not everyone stopped talking when she entered. A good sign, but old Mrs. Pearson was so involved in relating a version of the story asserting Kaitlin had killed Barbara to get Barney that she didn’t see Kaitlin enter. Geez with the absurd stories.
Kaitlin stood near the coffee barista as she steamed the milk for her cappuccino, grabbed the cup when she finished and left the sound of gossiping voices behind her. Maybe she could get some work done on her column in the sanctuary of her small office at the newspaper.
Thank God Delbert was out for the morning. Brittany gave her usual cheery greeting and handed her the morning mail. “So how long have you been lusting after Barney Bartlett?”
“That’s not funny.”
“Sorry. Lots of letters here. That should keep you out of trouble for a while.”
Kaitlin gave her a look with narrowed eyes. Brittany grinned back at her.
Her phone rang. It was Lucille, her agent, and she was excited.
“How do you feel about pigs?”
“Oh, God, don’t tell me Jeremy talked to you about Desdemona?”
“Desdemona. Now there’s a great name for a pig. No. Jeremy? No, but I talked with Deirdre over the weekend, and she showed me some pictures she’d drawn of your pig. I like the idea of a pig so much, I’m having her make more sketches. What do you think?”
She thought she liked the idea of a potbellied pig better than a buzzard, but she had too much going on now to just switch gears so suddenly. But perhaps her writer’s block was really buzzard block. A new animal might just do it.
“And the buzzard?”
“Finish the buzzard. Have you seen Deirdre’s drawings of the birds? They’re great.”
She wondered how they’d look illustrating a blank page.
She said good-bye and got back to her mail. The third envelope she tore open contained a handwritten note which read:
I’ll meet you at seven tonight. Be outside the Dollar Store.
It was signed “Bethany.” Hmmm. The postmark on the envelope read Kingston. Not Philadelphia? Her parents said she was in Philadelphia at her grandparents’ house. Kaitlin thought she should call Bethany’s mother.
Before she could dial the number, Jim strode into the office. Her heart thumped harder. What was it about this guy? She hardly knew him.
“I thought you’d like to know. The autopsy on Mrs. Bartlett revealed cause of death to be blunt force trauma,” he said.
“English, talk English, not cop.” She was being pissy with him for no more reason other than she wished he could have said “good morning” before he launched into criminal matters.
“Right then. She was in the water for a day or so at least. Someone hit her over the head with a lug wrench. I thought the weapon used on the pig looked a lot like a possible murder weapon here, so I ran prints and checked the blood on it.
“Pig blood on it, but also Mrs. Bartlett’s. As well as prints from the guy who was tormenting that pig. Ran his prints through the system and up popped a match for our pig poker. Jake Willoughby. A local druggie, no violent crimes on his record until he took up aggravating animals and killing Barbara.” He stopped. “May I?” He gestured toward the chair.
“Uhm.”
“I’ll take that as a yes. Something wrong?”
A lot. The details of Barbara’s death upset her, and the note from Bethany was disturbing too. She handed it to him.
“The last time I saw her she was scared silly. She knows something about all of this, and I don’t want to frighten her away. I think she needs to be protected, don’t you?”
“I think you could use some protection, too.”
That was nice of him.
“So where do we go from here?” she asked.
“How about the café for a cup of coffee.”
“No.”
“No?”
“I was just in there, and the talk is that I killed Barbara Bartlett for her husband. Suddenly everyone favors me for anything bad that happens in this town. If I walk in there with you, it’ll just confirm their suspicions. I need to live in this town, you know.”
“Okay then, how about dinner, after you and I talk to Bethany tonight? We’ll go somewhere out of town.”
“No. I mean no to both of us talking to her. I think Bethany’s too scared to speak to the authorities.”
Jim nodded as if he understood and trusted Kaitlin to ask her the right questions.
“And dinner?”
Yes seemed like the only answer to that.
They settled on Mac shadowing her. He could blend in ways that a stranger like Jim wouldn’t.
“Catch you tonight after you meet with Bethany. You might want to encourage her to speak with us. I’d bet she knows something about Leda’s death, and assuming she does, her life might be in danger.”
“I think she knows that and is hiding out,” Kaitlin said. She worried that Bethany’s hiding place wasn’t as safe as she assumed it to be.
“The blood found in Hiram’s car? Not that you’d care, but it’s not his. It’s Barbara’s. Her prints were there too, along with Willoughby’s.”
Maybe Barney was right. Barbara left him for another man. And surely not Jake Willoughby. But Hiram? That was kind of like exchanging one drunk for another. Kaitlin couldn’t see Barbara as the type of woman who’d be interested in Hiram. Barney, drunk as he might be on alternate Thursdays and some off days, had a regular job. No one could quite pinpoint just what Hiram’s work was.
Jim remained in the chair as if he weren’t eager to leave. Should she interpret that as he wasn’t eager to leave her?
“How well do you know Mary Jane?”
Oh, oh. That sounded like an official police question. Apparently he only wanted to conduct more business.
“She’s family.”
“Mother’s or father’s side?”
“Uh. I’m not sure. You’d have to ask Mom. I never got it straight just how we’re related.”
“Her fingerprints were in Hiram’s car.”
“I know that. She took him out to dinner and tried to pry information out of him. Of course, her prints are in the car. What’s going on here?” She could feel a trickle of sweat running between her shoulder blades. Would she have to confess to Jim Mary Jane’s profession? And how would that sound to him?
“I ran her fingerprints through CODIS.”
“Now listen here. You’ve no right to snoop around like this.” She stopped and tried to calm herself. Of course he would investigate. It was his job. “And just what does that mean anyway.”
“I found them in the FBI databank.”
“It wasn’t her fault. The woman just died on her. She was old and…”
“What the hell are you talking about? What woman?”
“Never mind. I must have been confused.” She tilted her chair back, and the legs threatened to go out from under her. She righted it, sat forward, and ignored the twitch in her eyelid. “And?”
“She’s listed as Mary Jane Smith. Is that her last name?”
&
nbsp; She shrugged. She’d never inquired after Mary Jane’s last name.
“When I tried to get more information on her, the message came up “Access Denied.” Why do you think that would be?”
“I don’t know. You’re the cop with the computer. What do you think?”
“Well, there are several possibilities, but that message often means the person is in the Witness Protection Program.”
No, no, no. Wrong. She is the witness protection program.
* * *
Mary Jane and Jeremy were not home when she got back. They’d left a note indicating they were having dinner with friends. What friends, she asked herself? Maybe federal agents checking up on them. She pictured all of them seated at a table laughing at her gullibility. She was more than gullible, she admitted. She was just plain dumb to believe Mary Jane’s angels story. And how horrible for the woman to get her son to go along with it. The state should take the boy away from her.
As she ranted and raved at her stupidity, Mary Jane’s duplicity and her own mother’s idiocy in believing these people were relatives—did she even check?—Kaitlin considered her meeting with Bethany and dinner date with Jim. Mostly her dinner date with Jim.
What to wear? Since the felons, or whatever they might be, had moved in with her, she’d lost weight and nothing fit her, nothing presentable at a decent restaurant. She glanced at her watch. Too late to call Brittany and ask to borrow something slinky and black.
She opened the door to Mary Jane’s closet and peeked in. The blaze of colors there slapped her in the face. She slammed the door. She reopened it, shut her eyes for a moment, then opened them halfway, and grabbed for something red, and something else black.
* * *
She strolled back and forth in front of the Dollar Store, self-conscious in Mary Jane’s red silk blouse and black miniskirt. She blinked one eye furiously against the mascara she applied. She’d lost her touch with make-up, almost putting out an eye as she swept the black goop across her eyelashes. Out of the corner of the other, drier eye she spied Mac hunkered down in the front seat of his car.
She tensed as she spied an ancient Camaro circle the block, then park down the street away from the lights of the store and beyond the streetlight on the corner. A boy in a baseball cap, dirty jeans, and a Boston Red Sox windbreaker got out and walked toward her. She stopped her pacing and relaxed a bit. Obviously, a tourist from out of state. No one from in state would be wearing anything other than a jacket with a Yankees logo on it.
“Kaitlin,” the young man said. She looked down into Bethany’s eyes.
“You cut your hair.”
“Just tucked in the cap, that’s all.”
“Are you okay?” Kaitlin asked.
“Can we walk a little and get out of this light? I’d feel better if people couldn’t see me.”
They turned the corner beyond the store and headed toward the neighborhoods of Aldensville where there was less light. Kaitlin heard Mac open and close his car door and knew he was somewhere behind them on foot.
“Here.” Bethany pulled a package out of the front of the windbreaker and handed it to Kaitlin.
“What’s this?” She stopped to take the package.
“It has to do with a promise I made to Ms. Hatfield before she died. She asked me to give this to her friend, Leda, but Leda died before I could get it to her. I don’t know what it’s all about, but I liked Ms. Hatfield, and she was insistent that I get this out of her room. I figured you should have it since Leda’s dead.”
Kaitlin opened the bag. Inside was a music box.
“It doesn’t play anymore. It won’t wind up. I tried it.”
She was right. When Kaitlin tried to turn the key, it wouldn’t move, as if something inside prevented it from turning.
“Kind of dumb, huh? A broken music box, but I thought it might mean something to Leda. Ms. Hatfield gave it to me the day before she died.”
“Tell me what happened that day. Even if it seems silly to you, tell me everything that happened that day.”
Bethany seemed impatient to be on her way once she had delivered the package. She pulled Kaitlin further down the shadowed sidewalk, twisting her head in every direction as if she were expecting someone to jump at her from the shadows. Finally she stopped walking and turned to Kaitlin with a sigh.
“All right, but then I’ve got to go. I got to work at one in the afternoon on that Thursday and went directly to the residents who ate their lunch in their rooms, and I collected their trays. One of them was Ms. Hatfield. I was about to knock on the door when I heard some man in her room yelling at her, and she was yelling back. Ms. Hatfield never yelled.
“‘You keep your mouth shut,’ he said. ‘You keep away from Leda,’ Ms. Hatfield replied. I don’t know what they were talking about, but they were furious with one another. I could hear it in their voices. I moved on to the next room, collected the lunch tray there, then went back to Ms. Hatfield’s room. The man was gone. That’s when she gave me the music box and made me promise to give it to Leda. ‘It’s very important,’ she said.”
Chapter 21
Bethany snatched her cap off her head, clapped it against her leg and looked down the darkened street. Kaitlin didn’t know if the young woman was worried about who might see them talking or whether she was looking for the Camaro so she could escape.
“Think. Think. Who was the man in Ms. Hatfield’s room?”
Bethany began walking again, her head down, swiping her cap back and forth across her tattered jeans. “I don’t know, but it was an older man’s voice, not one of the interns. Most of the staff on duty that evening was female. I just don’t know!”
“It’s okay. It may come to you if you just let it go for now.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t get the music box to Leda before she died. Maybe it could have saved her life.”
“I don’t think so, but you can save some other lives by telling me everything you know about what’s been going on at ARC. Did you send those letters to Leda’s newspaper column?” Bethany was either genuinely confused at this question or she should be auditioning for community theater.
“Probably it was Ms. Hatfield or Lily.” Kaitlin was talking more to herself than to Bethany. She put her hand on Bethany’s shoulder.
“But you know what’s going on up there, don’t you? You tried to warn me with that note in my car. Things are being stolen from the residents, aren’t they? Do you know who the thief is and what’s being taken?”
She shook off Kaitlin’s hand and refused to answer.
By now the walk was taking them down to the Kinderkill. Kaitlin could hear the rush of the waters in front of them, the nearest streetlight behind them on the far corner. She would have preferred they return to a better lit street and said so to Bethany.
“I’m being picked up down here by my ride.” She turned away from Kaitlin and looked up the street as if anxious to be done with the meeting.
Kaitlin repeated her question about the thefts and the identity of the thief or thieves.
“I know something about that place, but not everything.”
“Look at me!” Kaitlin said. She wanted to grab her and shake the truth out of her, but she tried to keep her voice calm. “Who’s doing the stealing?”
“I can’t say.”
“Yes, you can, unless you want a lot of other people to get hurt or even be killed like Barbara Bartlett.”
From the expression on her face Kaitlin could tell she didn’t know about Barbara.
“Barbara’s dead?” she asked. Her face grew white with shock. Kaitlin needed answers, so she ignored Bethany’s reaction.
“Murdered. Now, who’s stealing from the residents at ARC?”
“Oh, I am!” Her voice sounded like the wail of an injured animal. “But I didn’t mean for anyone to die.” She spun away from Kaitlin who grabbed her and held her to comfort her but also to make certain she couldn’t run off.
“Calm down now. Why are you stea
ling? And what are you taking?”
“I took money and jewelry from the residents in the dementia and Alzheimer’s wings. Most of them don’t even know their stuff is gone. Some of them forget what they have from day to day. It’s easy. It never gets reported, or if it does, no one believes what they say.” Her eyes filled with tears and she began sobbing. “Barbara’s dead? Oh, God, no.”
“There’s nothing you can do to help her, but you’re going to have to return all the things you’ve taken, and you’ll have to go to the police.” Kaitlin was confused. What could possibly make this usually responsible young woman do such a thing? “But why?”
“There’s a lot more to this, but I don’t know what all is going on. All I know is that it’s getting dangerous for us. We’re going to go away, get new identities, hide out and never come back here.”
“We? What ‘we’ are you talking about?”
“Hiram and me. We’ve been seeing each other for a few months now. Things are getting hot up there at ARC, and Hiram and I know it. Ask your friend, that investigator, about it. Hiram and I are going to get married and leave the country before something bad happens.” This young girl and Hiram, the drunken ersatz welder? Kaitlin couldn’t believe it, but she tried to hide her shock from Bethany.
“Something bad has already happened, and you’re part of it,” Kaitlin said. Maybe it was time to try to scare some sense into her.
Before she could say more, the beat-up Camaro turned the corner and pulled up to the curb. Kaitlin expected to see Hiram in the driver’s seat, but instead a young woman with blonde hair was driving the car.
“My friend, Emma. I’m staying with her. My parents know I’m not at my grandparents’ house, but they’re telling everyone that’s where I went. I didn’t tell them much about what’s happening at ARC, and they don’t know about Hiram, but they know I’m scared. Hiram promised to come get me as soon as he puts some money together. He said he had one last job to do before he could go. I’m sorry I can’t help you. I’ve done all I can.”
Angel Sleuth Page 17