Dying for a Clue

by Judy Fitzwater

  This time, when the doors closed and before the plane lifted off, Sam appeared in the aisle next to Johnny. He didn’t say a word, just grumbled and pushed past them, settling into the seat next to the window. Leaving Jennifer a human buffer zone. With no armrest of her own.

  She waited until the plane lifted off and Johnny had his required dose of nicotine before turning to him. “So give. What’d you find out at the clinic?”

  “You could work on your interviewing technique, doll. Kind of brusque,” he told her, leaning out into the aisle to check out a dark-haired attendant who was distributing pillows.

  “You don’t want me mad,” she warned him, pushing his elbow off her armrest. She’d put up with him on the trip down; she wasn’t up for an encore.

  Sam was watching, an amused look on his face.

  “Hey, all right,” he said, shifting in his seat and turning toward her. “Took me some sweet talk to get the information.”

  Yeah, right. She’d believe a fifty dollar bill.

  “Donald Collier was the Turners’ physician, just as you suspected. Mr. Turner had a...you know...a low count, as in practically nonexistent.”

  Hah! She didn’t know Johnny knew how to blush.

  “Anyhow,” he went on, “they did whatever it is they do in those situations, and Mrs. Turner came up pregnant. She transferred to the care of an obstetrician, and baby Turner appeared nine months later.”

  “And that was it?”

  “Yeah. Except for follow-up visits by Mrs. Turner.”

  Jennifer nodded. There had to be something else, some other link. As far as she was concerned, sending Diane’s fingerprints to Myers was simply a formality. She had no doubt that Diane was Cat. Now if she only had a clue how Cat had become Diane...

  “When did Donald leave the practice?”

  Johnny grinned at her as though he’d been waiting for that question. “Thirteen years ago. You can add six months to that if you want to get technical. The Turners had been his patients, and their deaths didn’t reflect well.”

  “But that was three years before.”

  “Yeah, but Mrs. Turner was still under his care. And you don’t go messin’ with something as volatile as baby makin’ if you’ve got some unstable individual involved. He should have screened them out. Collier’s colleagues weren’t so happy about the publicity, so—”

  “So he abandoned ship and threw in with brother Paul,” she finished. That was one way to look at it, she supposed.

  Sam nudged her from the other side. He’d been listening and, fortunately, not commenting. “What are you going to tell her?”

  Why was it always left for women to deal with situations like this? As if she could cushion the blow better than a man. She glanced at Sam and then Johnny. Maybe there was a reason they left these things to women.

  She ran her tongue over her lips. They felt dry. Her whole mouth felt dry. “If I tell her—”

  “When,” Sam said.

  He was right. She wasn’t getting out of this one, whether it was now or later. “When I tell her, she might remember something.”

  “Don’t count on it.”

  “I’m not. I’m hoping she won’t.” She wished she could somehow back up, get some perspective. She was identifying far too closely with Diane. Like Mrs. Owens, she seemed stuck on the details.

  But they’d made some major progress. Now they knew the who, at least as far as Diane was concerned. And part of the what. They still had to figure out the how and the why.

  She let her eyes drift shut. Mrs. Owens had given her another question to add to her list: why had Turner killed his wife?

  Think, Jennifer, she told herself. She’d glided right over that question before, dismissing it as totally irrelevant. She’d been so intent on finding out who Diane was, she missed the bigger issue. Leigh Ann had tried to tell her, but she wouldn’t listen. Maybe it wasn’t why she was adopted; maybe it was why she was adopted. Because her father had killed her mother and then committed suicide. Or had he? Somebody else had a stake in what happened to Diane. But why?

  She sat up, her eyes wide open. It was all starting to make sense. Why Diane had disappeared from Bethesda, why she’d been given to the Robbinses, why money mysteriously appeared in their bank account every August 14, why Diane was on full scholarship when kids with close to perfect grades were having trouble getting grants.

  She needed to make a phone call to Myers as soon as they landed. He could find out the information she needed to confirm her suspicions.

  There was never a black market baby operation. Diane had not been sold. She was carefully placed and carefully watched over. No wonder no one had bothered them since the break-in at her apartment. There’d been no need.

  But the noose was tightening. The trip to Maryland had shown their hand when they didn’t even know they were holding one.

  And Jennifer had made one major mistake. She should never have let Diane out of her sight, not now, not after they knew she was Cat.

  While Diane obviously had a benefactor, it was just as obvious that someone else would stop at nothing to keep the past buried. Beverly Hoffman’s murder proved that.

  She struggled against the seatbelt. “Can’t this plane go any faster?” she complained.

  Chapter 36

  “Stop here!” Jennifer insisted to Sam, tumbling out of his Honda in front of the stairs to Unit 207 of the Residence Inn on Macon’s north side. Johnny was out of the backseat before she hardly had the door open. Her heart raced as she ran up the steps right behind him. His wound was still fresh enough to give him trouble. He was breathing hard when they got to the top.

  The sun had long since gone down, but the place was well-lit. Light streamed from the door, which was standing open. When Jennifer walked in, Anne Marie, her face streaked with tears, fell into her arms.

  “They’re gone,” she sobbed.

  “When?” Jennifer asked, trying to take in what had happened.

  “I don’t know. Hours ago. I went out to bring something back for supper. Valerie insisted she had to have some pork barbeque. I had to go all the way across town, and then I had to wait. When I got back, they weren’t here.”

  Sam burst through the doorway. “What’s going on?”

  “The girls have disappeared. Valerie engineered the whole thing, I’m sure,” Jennifer told him.

  “Valerie?” Anne Marie said. “But she’s Diane’s roommate.”

  “She’s been passing information, I’m sure of it.”

  “She couldn’t have. She’s a college student,” Anne Marie insisted.

  “That, too. Most likely she’s getting a little money every month for her services. I doubt she has any idea what she’s done.”

  “But who—”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe from the same person behind the Elliot Woodrow scholarship. You had to suspect something,” Jennifer told Anne Marie, helping her to sit down in a side chair. “Did you really think Diane’s grades were good enough to merit that kind of grant? Or were you simply used to money and gifts showing up unexpectedly where Diane was concerned?”

  “It seemed innocuous enough, and if someone wanted to help her out—”

  “How long have you known Diane is Donald Collier’s daughter?” Jennifer asked.

  Sam grabbed her arm. “Did I miss something?”

  Anne Marie shook her head and turned her back. “I swear I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She was like a little kid covering her ears. She didn’t want to hear it. She’d had her head stuck in the sand so long, she’d long since lost any desire to know. If she’d ever had it.

  Johnny put a warning hand on Jennifer’s other arm. “She doesn’t know, doll. Didn’t any of them know about the Bethesda connection till you uncovered it.”

  “Listen to me,” Jennifer insisted, tugging at Anne Marie’s sleeve.

  Reluctantly, Anne Marie turned back around.

  “Your daughter may be in danger. It’s time to put all our resources
together. You can’t hide from this any longer.

  “We’ll need to get Myers to check out the blood types,” she told Sam and Johnny, “but I’m sure, now of what happened. Donald and Colette either fell in love, or she simply saw a way to get what she wanted: a child. And she could do it without her husband ever suspecting. Or so she thought.

  “Who knows what Donald’s motives were,” Jennifer continued. “Maybe he simply found Colette attractive. In any case, Colette realized her husband was never going to be a father, at least not with the technology available at that time. Mrs. Owens said they’d been to another clinic that couldn’t help them before going to the one in D.C.”

  “But why the murder/suicide?” Sam asked.

  “That was the key. Why did Turner kill his wife? Mrs. Owens gave us the answer when she said Diane had been injured.”

  “Her leg,” Anne Marie said. “She had a cast on her leg when we got her.”

  “Yes. She said she’d lost a lot of blood. The injury happened the same week as the murder. She was only three years old. The doctors had to be concerned she might need a blood transfusion, whether they actually did one or not.”

  “Which means they’d type her blood,” Sam threw in.

  “And maybe the blood of her parents, one of whom would likely be a match. Even if they didn’t, most adults know their blood types,” Jennifer said.

  “But—” Sam started.

  “The types didn’t match,” Jennifer said, “and Robert—”

  “Realized he wasn’t Diane’s father.”

  “Mrs. Turner panicked—”

  “And called Donald Collier—”

  “Who must have gone to the house and witnessed the confrontation or at least part of the horror that followed,” Jennifer concluded.

  “Are you saying,” Anne Marie said, trying to make sense out of their Ping-Pong conversation, “that Donald Collier took Diane from that house?”

  “He couldn’t just leave her there, not with her parents lying dead in the house. She was his child,” Jennifer said. “He must have been horrified by the thought of her seeing them like that.”

  “Collier figures if he leaves without her,” Johnny said, “the kid goes into the child welfare system. Then the only way he can lay claim to her—if that’s what he wants to do—is by confessing that he’s the father,” Johnny said. “Not so good for business.”

  “That, and maybe he didn’t want anybody asking her any questions about what happened that night,” Sam added.

  “But how did Diane get to Macon?” Anne Marie asked.

  “My guess would be brother Paul,” Jennifer suggested. “Donald must have called him, asking for help. Donald couldn’t keep the child with him. He had a wife at home who would be asking more questions than he would care to answer. He probably hadn’t even considered the implications when he took Diane. He just wanted her out of there.”

  “So you figure either Paul came up and got Diane or Donald flew down with her,” Johnny said.

  “Right. Paul knew how much you and your husband wanted a child,” Jennifer told Anne Marie, “and that you couldn’t afford to continue fertility treatments. There was nothing to link Donald with the Turners except professionally, so who would suspect? His rendezvous with Colette most likely took place in his office. All she had to do was make an appointment. And no one would be looking for Diane in another state.”

  “But why do you think Valerie had something to do with all this?” Anne Marie asked.

  “When I went to Lanier to get the girls their books,” Jennifer said, “I saw the room. Only half of it had been searched—Diane’s half. Who would know which was which? The furniture all looks the same. No one saw anyone suspicious in the dorm that night, and it was Diane who reported the incident to her residence director, after coming home and finding Valerie in the room. I suspect Valerie’s plan was to search for the envelope from Hoffman and then put everything back like it was. It wasn’t to anybody’s advantage to scare Diane off campus.”

  “Only Valerie got herself caught,” Johnny added, “when Diane came home earlier than expected from your apartment.”

  Jennifer nodded. “And then when Diane came to us, Valerie had no choice but to come along.”

  “That way she was privy to everything you said and did,” Johnny added.

  “Diane told me that while you and I were out,” Jennifer said, turning to Sam, “Valerie went through all your closets and drawers on the pretext of looking for a Ouija board. I think she was making sure we didn’t have whatever Beverly had planned to give Johnny that night in the alley. And then there was that time she left your place supposedly to get doughnuts. She probably went out to make a phone call, to check in.

  “But most compelling of all, she had to be the leak about Hoffman meeting Johnny in the alley that night. Only four of us knew: Johnny, Hoffman, me, and Diane. Neither Johnny nor I told anyone. Hoffman would have been crazy to mention it to anyone. But Diane most surely told Valerie. She’d been with her when she found the clinic. She knew everything that was going on every step of the way, and that’s why there was never another threat at Sam’s apartment. There was no need.”

  “But where is Diane? Where would they take her and why?” Anne Marie asked.

  “That all depends on who they are, on who hired Valerie. If it’s Donald, I can’t imagine him actually hurting Diane. In his own way, he’s been more involved with her life than a lot of fathers. If it’s Paul...Somebody paid to stop Beverly.”

  “All of this over saving a child through an illegal adoption?” Anne Marie blanched and her hands shook. It was lucky she was sitting down.

  Jennifer shook her head. “There’s something more, something we’re missing.” She started to pace. “Has to be to justify the murder and this kind of cover-up.”

  “Something that may come back to Diane if she learns enough of the story,” Sam said.

  Jennifer nodded, coming back to them. “She recognized Beverly Hoffman’s eyes. Strange even to a three-year-old. If she witnessed the murder...Has she ever seen Donald or Paul, that you know of, since she was three, I mean?”

  “No. Never,” Anne Marie assured her.

  “It might bring it all back—seeing them,” Sam said.

  “And that’s when it could get really dangerous,” Jennifer said.

  “Then we’ve got to find them,” Anne Marie declared. “Now.”

  But how?

  Chapter 37

  “Johnny.” Jennifer grabbed hold of his jacket sleeve and shook it. “You’ve investigated Paul and Donald. Where would they have taken her? Someplace where there wouldn’t be any people around.”

  He shook his head. “Not likely they did it together, but let’s say it was Donald. He has a fishing cabin up on the lake, fairly isolated, likes to go up there for weekends. Could be the place.”

  “And Paul?” Sam asked.

  “Paul hunts deer. He’s got himself a trailer over in Jones County. I can get us to either one, but...”

  He didn’t finish the sentence, and Jennifer was grateful. They didn’t have time to pick the wrong one. Diane’s life might depend on it.

  “Okay, we’ll split up,” Sam said.

  Johnny nodded and turned. The two of them formed a huddle over by the breakfast bar. “You check out Donald’s fishing cabin.”

  “Fine. I’m fairly familiar with the lake, so if you can give me some—”

  “Oh no you don’t. I’m going too,” Jennifer insisted, pulling them apart.

  “If you think you’re leaving me...” Anne Marie was immediately on her feet.

  “All right, all right,” Johnny said. “We don’t have time to argue.” He looked at Sam. “We’ll need to go by my place, to get some, you know, equipment.”

  Guns. Johnny had had to leave his guns at home because of the airplane flight. What did he think was going to happen? Did he think they were headed for a shootout?

  Her everyday reality suffered a final death blow, leaving Jen
nifer caught in the strange and terrible world she’d stepped into that night in the alley, a world where real people could get hurt, people she knew and cared about.

  “Shouldn’t we be calling the police?” she asked, not at all happy.

  “Sure. And then we can spend forty-five minutes to an hour explaining everything and trying to convince them we’re not crazy while who knows what happens to Diane,” Johnny said.

  “I say screw ’em,” Anne Marie threw in. “I hope you have enough equipment for me.”

  The world had gone mad. She’d promised Jaimie she wouldn’t be in another shootout. She had promised, hadn’t she?

  “Okay, get me some paper,” Johnny demanded, sitting on one of the stools at the bar.

  Anne Marie found some hotel stationery, and they all huddled around Johnny.

  “I’m going to draw you a map as best I can remember. Keep in mind you’re looking for something primitive. No running water, no electricity. Not much more than a place to store gear and get out of the weather if a storm comes up. It’s hidden in the trees, but the road goes right down to it. Finding it will be the trick, especially in the dark. There aren’t any lights out that way.”

  “You been there?” Sam asked.

  “No. But I know what road it goes off of, and I know what the land’s like out there.”

  Johnny put a compass in the upper right-hand corner and drew in some lines that he named as roads. “Now once you get here,” he said, pointing with the pencil tip, “you’re sure to lose the pavement. You can expect the road to turn rough. I think you’ll be all right in your Honda, but—”

  They heard steps on the stairs outside, and they all turned.

  “I am so sorry,” Valerie wailed as she came through the door. “I had no idea.”

  Jennifer grabbed her, afraid she might bolt when she saw what was going on, and pulled her over to the love seat in the other half of the suite.