Angel Sleuth

by Lesley A. Diehl

  “Aaargh, you little bastard!” Hiram grabbed himself in agony.

  Jeremy glanced over his shoulder and saw Hiram sink to his knees onto the grass by the path. He seemed to be crying.

  I made him mad, real mad, thought Jeremy as he ran faster. I hope he won’t hurt Kaitlin. A final turn of his head before the trees obscured his view, and he saw Hiram grab the shiny red bicycle and fling it into the river. Then he limped off down the path. Jeremy had never seen anybody so out of control.

  Jeremy was torn. It was important to let Mary Jane know about Hiram’s threats against Kaitlin. But would Doc Martin think he didn’t care about Dessie if he didn’t show up? He stopped to catch his breath. Doc Martin would help Dessie, but it was up to Jeremy to help Kaitlin.

  “Bye, Dessie.” He turned to head back home to the others.

  * * *

  The ringing phone woke Kaitlin. I must have dozed off after my shower. I was more exhausted than I thought.

  “Is Jeremy there?” She recognized the voice at the other end of the line as Doc Martin’s. The stillness of the house told her no one else was home.

  “No. He’s not. What’s up?”

  “He was supposed to meet me at the carnival in Arbor today at noon. We think we’ve found Desdemona here, but Jeremy didn’t show, and Robin has taken all of his pigs and left, so no Desdemona either.” Doc Martin filled her in on Jeremy’s early morning visit and Desdemona’s kidnapping by Robin.

  “Robin won’t get far, but I’m worried about Jeremy. He’s crazy about that pig. Why wouldn’t he show?”

  Kaitlin walked down the hallway and checked Jeremy and Mary Jane’s rooms. Empty. Both of them. Too empty.

  “I’ll get back to you, Doc.”

  She entered Jeremy’s room. The birds were there in their cages, food cups full, paper on the bottom of the cages clean. She opened one of Jeremy’s dresser drawers. No tees. No underwear. There were no clothes in his closet.

  She ran out of his room to Mary Jane’s room. It was the same as Jeremy’s—no clothes anywhere, no makeup, no hair curlers, nothing to say anyone ever lived there.

  Downstairs in the kitchen, she found Mary Jane’s pool cue leaning against the kitchen wall next to the message board. A message on the board read:

  We had to leave. Didn’t want to wake you. Please take care of everything and everyone. We love you.

  She slumped into a chair at the table and stared at the board. The house was silent, and Kaitlin was alone for the first time since the beginning of summer, and she didn’t like the feeling.

  She didn’t hear anyone enter the house until a voice from behind her called her name.

  “Kaitlin, are you okay? I rang the doorbell, but no one answered. I came around back and saw you sitting here at the table.”

  She looked up into Jim’s brown eyes which were as warm as the afternoon sun pouring through her bedroom windows. Concern softened his usually stern features.

  “They’re gone.” She gestured toward the message board. “Mary Jane and Jeremy. This morning. I don’t know where, and I’m afraid for them.”

  “Your local vet found Jeremy’s bike in the Kinderkill. Looks like someone threw it there. Maybe Mary Jane thought it was safer for her to get Jeremy out of town. She’s right to be concerned. Hiram got away last night.”

  Of course, thought Kaitlin. How stupid of me. It was just like Hiram to get to her by threatening someone close to her.

  “Mary Jane’s a pretty savvy lady. I’m certain she’s fine. Just hiding out for a time. She’s good at that, you know.”

  She was good at hiding, at protecting her child, at making sure everyone she loved was safe, but with Mary Jane gone, Kaitlin felt the emptiness of the house. Come back, and I’ll never doubt you again.

  “Maybe this was a good time for her to leave. She wasn’t going to stay here forever you know,” said Jim. He touched Kaitlin’s shoulder in a gesture of sympathy. Something stirred in her at the contact, and she began to cry.

  Jim did the manly thing. No, he didn’t take her in his arms. He went to the sink and ran a glass of water. She took the glass and visually compared the liquid in it to Jim’s arms. They looked a whole lot more substantial than water.

  “Listen. I’ve got a line on Hiram. I think he’s back in town, and I’m going to find him before he makes any further trouble. And we’re making a move on ARC today. I wanted to make sure you were okay. I have to leave, but I want you to stay here. Mac’s out front to keep an eye on you. Keep the doors locked and don’t let anyone in. I mean, anyone at all. I’m not certain who all is involved in this mess, but they’re probably people you know and used to trust. Don’t let them in. Hear me?”

  She nodded.

  “Paul?”

  “Not even Paul.”

  But she could interrogate Mac as to Mary Jane’s whereabouts. She assured Jim she would stay put until he returned and urged him to go do his cop thing. If he didn’t buy her willingness to cooperate, he said nothing. She was glad he had other things on his mind. She almost bodily pushed him out the door.

  After he left, she knew she had to do two things today. First, talk to Mac and find out where Mary Jane and Jeremy had gone and for how long. And then, and here was the tough one, she would visit Henry Baldo and confront him with his lies to Caroline about her father. Mac and Jim wouldn’t like her out on the streets today, not with all the sleazy characters running about in the town. And they’d hate her going to see Baldo. Now that was the kind of dangerous action Mary Jane was noted for, thought Kaitlin. Do it, she argued to herself, or betray the mark Mary Jane’s guidance had left on her personality. Be bold.

  She ran upstairs and rummaged around in her dresser drawer until she found the scarf her mother had given her for her birthday last year. Blood red and deep purple silk. Not like her at all. She wound it around her neck and tossed the end over her shoulder with a roguish flip of her wrist. She was ready to take on the bad guys.

  Chapter 26

  Mac looked up as she approached his car.

  “Where are Mary Jane and Jeremy? Are they safe? Gone for how long? What…”

  He held up his hand as if he were a school crossing guard. “Stop it. All you need to know is they’re in a safe place for now. Hiram threatened Jeremy this morning when he was off to find Dessie. It’s better for everyone for them not to be here.”

  She wanted to push for more, but the tight look on Mac’s face told her she would be wasting her time.

  “I’ve got to go see Dr. Baldo.” She told Mac what she knew about Baldo.

  “Even so, Jim told me you were staying here. In fact, he told me to make sure you stayed here.”

  “Mac, please. This is important.” He rolled an unlit cigarette around in his fingers and stared out the windshield.

  “I’ll give you a ride.”

  “I need the walk to clear my head. Make sure I know what I want to say to him.”

  “Lead on. I’ll be right behind you. Baldo won’t try anything if he sees me sitting in front of his house.”

  Mac started the car, made a U-turn, and began to follow as Kaitlin strode down the shady streets toward Baldo’s house near the river. She hoped her impulsiveness wouldn’t get Mac in trouble, or her either, for that matter. But how could Jim know what she was doing? He would be too busy doing his police thing at ARC.

  She opened the gate to Baldo’s yard, hurried up the sidewalk, and stepped onto his porch. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Mac pull the Buick over to the curb across from the house. Baldo opened the door before she could knock.

  “I saw you coming. This’ll have to be quick. I’m going on a short trip.”

  Was Baldo one of the people the police were interested in at ARC? Jim didn’t have to tell her not to trust Baldo. She’d never trusted him before all the trouble there.

  Baldo did seem in a hurry. He ushered her into the house. She followed him through an open door to his office where he busied himself with opening and closing d
rawers and file cabinets, pulling out papers and documents, and placing these items in a briefcase on his desk.

  “Sit down, Henry. You’ll want to pay full attention to what I have to say to you. The time will be worth it.”

  Kaitlin’s tone of voice caught his attention. He stopped scurrying around the room and looked at her. What he saw in her face seemed to convince him that he owed her his focus. He gestured toward a chair and sank into the one behind his desk. His restlessness told her she’d better be brief. And accurate.

  “Get on with it,” he said.

  “I found some letters Leda wrote to Frederica Hatfield. They indicated you were Caroline’s father.”

  Baldo’s chin jerked up, and he seemed about to deny her words, but he sighed instead and leaned back in his chair.

  “Yes, that’s true. I might as well tell you about us. It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s all over now.” He stared off into a corner of the room and spoke in a monotone as if he couldn’t care less about what he was saying.

  “I was married when I met Leda and much older than she was. She captured my imagination with her clear green eyes, her generosity, her naïveté. I fell in love. She didn’t. When she got pregnant, I thought it was the perfect solution to my wife’s infertility. We could adopt the baby and raise it as our own, but Leda felt she couldn’t stand the thought of her child so near to her, so I helped her find adoptive parents. As it turned out, my wife was opposed to adoption anyway. I delivered the baby, here in my office. No one knew of Leda’s pregnancy or of my role in it.”

  Kaitlin knew he was telling half-truths, and she wasn’t going to let him get away with it.

  “That’s a lie, and you know it. Several people knew Leda was pregnant. Her best friend Violet Means knew, then there was Frederica, and Nicole, her twin, knew. And, according to Violet, everything Leda had, Nicole wanted, too. Somehow Nicole found out about your affair with Leda and her child. And, Henry, that made you very attractive to Nicole, didn’t it?”

  He sat up straighter, his face now suffused with a sense of renewed energy. Had she unwittingly given him just the key he needed to put himself in a better light?

  “Yes, yes. Nicole was so different from Leda. Scheming, manipulative. She used people. She seduced me. At first, I thought she was interested in me. I was taken in. She seemed so like Leda. Once she had me, her true nature revealed itself. She was using me. She threatened to tell my wife about our relationship.”

  “But that wasn’t what bothered you, was it?”

  “She said if I didn’t continue with her, she’d tell Leda. I loved Leda. I couldn’t face her knowing about Nicole and me.”

  “You couldn’t face what a fool you’d been with Nicole.” Still lying all these years, aren’t you, Henry?

  “As quickly as she got involved with me, she dropped me. She married Will Jameson, Sr., and they moved away to New York City. I never saw her after that. She didn’t get in touch, and I certainly wasn’t sad to see her gone from my life. I heard she died when Will was born. Yes. Yes. I was a fool.”

  Kaitlin slammed her palm down on the desktop. How dare he dismiss his behavior by labeling it merely foolish?

  “You were more than a fool. You were cruel. To your wife, to Leda, and even to Nicole.”

  He dismissed her comments with a wave of his hand. “To Nicole? She was ruthless in our affair.”

  “As I figure it, Nicole was also only nineteen years old. Hardly a woman of the world. You were at least twenty years her senior.”

  “She seduced me! I couldn’t help myself. She took advantage of how much she looked like Leda.”

  Baldo pushed back from his desk and stood up. His body was trembling, and rage distorted his features. Too many years playing the victim with no one to challenge his view of the events warped his perception of his responsibility in dealing with all of these women.

  His long, bony hands reached out, and for a moment Kaitlin thought he meant to place them around her throat. Maybe he did, but he recovered his composure before he could act. When he spoke, fury was in his voice.

  “Now get out of here. I’ve got to get on the road.”

  “I think you should think twice about running. It makes you look terribly guilty, which you are, of course, but it suggests you played a major role in the events at ARC. Did you? With you out of the picture, your buddies at ARC will be certain to lay the primary blame at your feet.”

  Baldo hesitated only for a moment. Then he grabbed his briefcase and a suitcase that sat on the floor by his desk and headed for the door, pushing around her.

  Kaitlin called after him. “So how did they manage to pull you into this thing? You’re a respected doctor around here. Only you and I know what a real phony you are. Or is there more to your past than misadventures with vulnerable young women?”

  Baldo took a deep breath, exhaled and carried his things across the room to his desk where he placed them very carefully, almost delicately, back onto the floor. He dropped into the desk chair once more. This time there was defeat on his features.

  “Abortions. I did abortions before they were legal in the United States. Somehow they found out and swore they would ruin my reputation with my past illegal and unethical practices.”

  “So you…” She was hoping he would fill in the blanks. She was fumbling in the dark here.

  “So I did what they said.” He reached into his drawer and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “One of my patients left these the other day. Haven’t smoked one in over forty years, but I guess it can’t hurt now.”

  He scrounged around in the drawer for matches, found a book, and lit the cigarette. He coughed with the first lungful of smoke, then blew out a perfect smoke ring.

  “I always did that. Leda used to love seeing me blowing smoke rings. The smell of smoke made her sick when she got pregnant, so I quit then and haven’t gone back, until now.

  “So you know about Leda’s letters to Frederica Hatfield telling her everything about Leda and me, about the baby and all. She and Leda were always close, and I was certain Frederica knew all about us. Hiram told me about the letters, that he got them from Bethany. He even tried to blackmail me with them. How did you find out about them? Well, no matter.”

  He had the coughing under control and continued blowing smoke rings, a slight smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

  “You were in Frederica’s room threatening her the day before she died. But you’re wrong about the letters. Not all of them were from Leda. Some were, and they talked about the baby and you, but most of them were from Nicole, spelling out a little secret that even you may not know.”

  She saw a flicker of interest in his eyes as he ground out the cigarette.

  “I suspect Hiram held back on me. He would have eventually hit me up for additional funds as he offered me the privilege of buying more of the letters. I didn’t bite, by the way. Go ahead.”

  “Not only is Caroline your daughter and Leda’s, but Will Jameson is also your son. You had more than an affair with Nicole. You had a son with her.”

  The expression on his face remained the same, expressionless, old, tired, but his eyes lit up for a brief moment, then returned to their usual muddy color. His mouth again turned up at the corners, but it was the smile of an emotional skeleton.

  “Do they know?” he asked.

  “No, they don’t. I thought it was up to you to tell them both, especially Caroline. Her son has been diagnosed with leukemia and needs a bone marrow transplant. So you see, it’s particularly key that they know. And it should be from their father’s lips, don’t you think?”

  He nodded his agreement.

  “And, when you’re finished with those confessions, you might want to take a walk down to the police station and tell them what you did. To Frederica, I mean. You did kill her, didn’t you?” He caught himself in a half-nod of agreement, but refused to answer the question.

  “But I didn’t kill Leda, you know.”

  “I know, but you f
ound her shortly after someone pushed her down the stairs.”

  “I thought you knew something was wrong all along. You were the one on the bicycle, weren’t you?”

  Kaitlin dipped her head slightly, not wanting to interrupt the mood of confession that had moved over Henry Baldo. He had more to tell, she knew.

  “Frederica Hatfield was an old woman. She was dying. Why would you think I had any reason to kill her? I didn’t know about those letters when she died.”

  Denial again. She pushed. “No, but she was on to what was going on at ARC, wasn’t she? And she was going to make trouble up there. Freddie was certain you were in on the thefts and whatever else was happening to the residents. But your major concern was that she would tell Leda. And she would have.”

  “If Frederica told Leda about Nicole and me…”

  “That’s why you killed her? You still don’t get it, do you? It wasn’t about the affair at all. It was about the kind of man you were that finally broke Frederica’s silence. You’re weak and selfish. Always were and continue to be. Finally, Frederica Hatfield could only protect Leda by telling her about you, not keeping quiet any longer.” It appeared there was no end to Baldo’s ability to deceive himself, and Kaitlin had grown tired of the man’s lack of insight into himself and his actions.

  “She never got the chance to tell Leda.” He said this with some satisfaction, some of the arrogant Baldo remaining.

  “But Frederica did pass the letters on to Bethany.”

  “Go away. I want to be alone now.”

  Henry Baldo lit up another cigarette as she left. Kaitlin was glad enough to get away from him. As she opened the gate to let herself out of the yard, she turned back toward the house. She could see him at his study window, blowing perfect smoke rings and staring at the roses along his walkway, their lush red petals now wilting in the hot afternoon sun.

  She glanced at her watch as she trudged home, her faithful tail, Mac, close behind. She hoped Baldo would evidence some integrity for once and place those calls to Caroline and Will. She’d check on that tomorrow. Tomorrow. She’d take care of everything tomorrow.