by Gayle Wilson
“There are other scenarios that might explain it.”
“Like what?”
“Maybe Wayne found the body. And the baby.”
“And if he reported finding the body,” Susan said, quickly following his thinking, “he would have to report finding the baby, too. And he didn’t want to do that.”
A lifelong resident, Adams knew this area as well as anyone. He would certainly have been aware of the currents at the entrance to the bridge, as well as its reputation. Maybe he hadn’t had a hand in Richard’s death, but he might well have had a hand in seeing that his car ended up in the river there.
“All of that’s speculation,” he warned. “And with Adams dead, there’s no way to prove any of it.”
“A DNA test wouldn’t be speculation.”
“Do you think Diane will allow you to take a sample from her daughter?”
“Don’t you think that under the circumstances a court would order her to?”
“Maybe.” If they could get this to court before Diane and Alex disappeared. “But we’ll need something other than suspicions and guesswork before we get that far.”
“Like what?”
“Maybe Alex’s birth certificate.”
“Her birth certificate?”
“Diane would have to have one to get her into school. If Alex is Emma, then the one she provided can’t be the original.”
“People use copies all the time. Maybe they forged it. Or maybe Adams helped her to get one that said Emma was her daughter. He may have handled it here where he had some pull.”
“If you’re right about Alex,” Jeb hedged, “then I’m sure he did. I’m just saying that’s one thing we need to have the authorities take a look at.”
The plural pronoun echoed in his head, but he didn’t bother to retract it. That’s how he felt. As if he were part of this. As if he had some stake in seeing Susan reunited with her daughter, a little girl he’d never met.
“I just don’t think there’s anything we can do tonight.”
“Jeb, I can’t go back to Lorena’s and just go to bed, knowing what I know.”
“You don’t know anything. You suspect something based on a lot of circumstantial stuff that wouldn’t convince anyone, much less a judge. In any case, I don’t think Diane would take her daughter over there tonight. Do you?”
“To Adams’s house?”
“I think she’ll probably go herself, but I don’t think she’d want to take Alex. Not at her age.”
“You think she’d leave her at home alone?”
Jeb could hear the sudden excitement in her voice, an excitement he needed to temper with reality. “Would you?”
“She’d probably leave her with someone,” Susan admitted. “A neighbor or a friend.”
“That makes sense. And without approaching Diane directly, something we can’t afford to do because she might run, there’s no way to know where Alex is right now.”
“What if the deputy tells her I asked about the photo?”
“Ahern? I doubt he’ll go back out to Wayne’s. Someone else is in charge of the investigation.”
“Investigation? Do they think there was something suspicious about his death?”
“I asked that. Apparently it’s routine with any death not attributable to natural causes.”
“Well, I would certainly say there was nothing natural about that one.”
Jeb glanced at her again. Her arms were wrapped around her body as if she were cold.
“How could that happen?” she asked. “The jack, I mean.”
“How could it slip? Age maybe. Or carelessness on Adams’s part. It’s designed to go under the chassis and hold the weight of the axle, but if you bump it hard, the handle can release. Believe me, this isn’t the first time something like that has happened.”
“But someone could have done it, couldn’t they? Someone could have lowered the jack so that the truck would fall on him?”
“You think someone deliberately—” He stopped, thinking about what she’d just suggested. “Why would anyone do that?”
“Because if it’s possible he found Richard’s body, maybe it’s also possible he knew who killed him.”
“And didn’t tell anyone?”
“He couldn’t. Not and keep Emma.”
“Despite what you and I may think about Adams, he held his job for a lot of years. And in all that time I never heard any intimation he was corrupt. Or even particularly incompetent. Certainly no more so than any other rural sheriff down here.”
“I haven’t been here two weeks, and I thought he was incompetent. He couldn’t even tell me if the doors and windows were closed when they pulled Richard’s car out of the river. That should have been one of the first things he’d check. Then, when I told him about Emma, he came up with half a dozen things that could have happened to her. When those didn’t work, he tried to warn me off by saying that whoever had her might take her and run. So…save the testimonials, please. He may be dead, but unlike Ahern, I’m not ready to assign him sainthood.”
Jeb couldn’t argue with Susan’s assessment of the sheriff’s mishandling of things following the discovery of Richard’s body. And he had opposed almost everything she’d tried to do to get to the bottom of her daughter’s disappearance.
“If they ever found out he had the baby,” Susan said, going back to her theory, “then they would know he’d found the body. Whoever killed Richard, I mean. After he took Emma, revealing any of what had happened was a chance he couldn’t take.”
“Wayne would know where to push the SUV into the river to keep it out of the reach of the current,” Jeb admitted. “He would also know that if it were found at that location, everyone would assume it was just another accident.”
“So why didn’t he open a window? Then if the car were ever found, he wouldn’t have had to answer questions about Emma’s disappearance.”
“Because something might have floated to the surface.”
“Like Richard’s body,” she said bitterly. “And it might have happened before the soft tissue disappeared.”
“What?”
“He told me that if they’d had soft tissue, they could determine cause of death. So he knew the longer the body stayed in the water—”
“The fewer clues there would be,” he finished for her.
Although it was all speculation, it fit. Adams had taken the baby for his sister. Or maybe to satisfy his own desire for a family. He’d weighed his chances of Richard’s body being found, deciding they were fewer if he left the windows closed. And he’d been right. If it hadn’t been for the derailment…
“You think someone killed him for the money and left his body and Emma wherever Adams found them?”
“That’s something we can’t know right now.” With Adams dead, maybe they never would. “What’d you find out in Atlanta?”
“That Powell is no longer in existence. I couldn’t even find a listing in the phone directory. I did get in touch with Richard’s secretary. She was going to get back to me with the names of any of his clients she could come up with, but she was working with several of the other accountants at the same time. She couldn’t remember any Powell clients having problems when the fraud cases began hitting the headlines. I don’t know, Jeb. This is all beginning to look as if whatever happened, happened right here in Linton.”
“Then the question of why Richard left home remains.”
“Maybe all those people were right. Maybe he did have someone waiting for him. Maybe someone in this area.”
“Another woman? Do you really believe that?”
“I didn’t then. Nobody thinks that about their marriage, but don’t they say the wife is always the last to know?”
There was nothing he could say to that. No comfort he could offer. Just because he couldn’t imagine any man being unfaithful to her, that didn’t mean it hadn’t happened.
“What are you doing?” Susan questioned as he drove past the turn to Lorena’s.
/>
“I just thought of someone who might be able to give us some information about Diane Paul. Something that might be even more important right now than her address.”
THERE WERE LIGHTS ON inside the imposing Victorian mansion, showcasing the rich elegance of the front rooms. The same melodic chimes sounded deep inside the house, but this time it didn’t take Callaway but a moment to answer the door.
Jeb hardly gave the old man a chance to get it open before he began. “I need your help, Doc, and don’t give me any crap about patient confidentiality.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Callaway’s voice was cold.
“It means two people are dead, and a little girl has been missing for seven years. If you’ve got answers for any of this, I want them. And I want them now.”
“If I’ve got answers? I swear, Jeb, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t even know who you’re talking about, other than maybe Ms. Chandler’s husband and daughter. And what the hell you think I’d know about either of them—”
“I’m talking about Wayne Adams. And a little girl named Alexandra Paul.”
“Wayne? What’s Wayne got to do with this?”
“We just found him crushed under a truck.”
“Crushed? Are you saying…he’s dead?”
“Very. And I think he may have been murdered, Doc.”
“Murdered? Why would somebody murder Wayne?”
“Maybe because he knew too much about Richard Kaiser’s death. I think he may have found Kaiser’s body and the baby. And maybe he also found evidence of who was involved.”
“Whoa. Slow down. You think Wayne found Ms. Chandler’s husband and daughter?”
“I think he hid the body in the river and took the baby.”
“Now why in the world—?”
Something changed in the old man’s eyes, making Jeb know he’d been on the right track in coming here. Doc had just realized he did know something about what had happened that night. Something he hadn’t put together before.
Now that he had, Jeb had to convince him to tell them what it was. Even if this wasn’t the kind of evidence they could take to a judge, it might be enough to justify the risk of going after Emma themselves.
“Alex Paul,” Jeb said again. “What do you know about her?”
“That she was never a patient of mine.”
“But you do know who she is?”
“I know she’s Wayne Adams’s niece.”
Jeb waited, but Callaway seemed to have nothing to add to that statement.
“How about Diane Paul, née Adams? Was she your patient?”
“At one time. Years ago.”
“So what can you tell me about her?”
“If you’re asking what I can tell you medically, then you know better. How would you like it if the folks who are seeing you started talking to other people about your treatment?”
“If it would right the kinds of wrongs that have taken place in this town, I’d say go ahead. There are all kinds of ethics, Doc, and standards of morality that outweigh the ones you’re hiding behind.”
There was a flash of fury in the old man’s eyes that made Jeb wonder if he’d gone too far. Indignation flushed the thin skin of Callaway’s cheeks.
“How dare you talk like that to me.”
“If you know anything about Diane Paul that might help us figure out what happened seven years ago, then you damn well owe it to this woman to tell her.”
Doc’s eyes moved to Susan’s face before he said, “You know I can’t breach patient confidentiality. Not even if I wanted to. And I don’t. Whatever treatment I provided for Diane Adams, I’m bound by law not to reveal it to anyone. I could lose my license to practice. I could also be sued. And rightly so.”
“Except you’re no longer practicing medicine. And if we’re right about Diane, she isn’t going to be suing anyone. She’s going to be serving time as an accessory to kidnapping.”
“If you’re right,” Callaway reiterated stubbornly.
“Damn it, Doc, are you telling me that if someone has committed a criminal act, you can’t discuss something in their history that might be relevant? Legal or not, that’s insane.”
“If there was a court order—”
“We don’t have time for a court order. Adams is dead, and we believe Diane may be preparing to leave town. If she does, she’ll take her ‘daughter’ with her. Only we think the little girl she and Wayne raised might not be her daughter. And if she isn’t, maybe she and Diane are next in line for whoever murdered both Richard Kaiser and Adams.”
For a long time the old man said nothing. “I’ve lived my whole life by a certain code. And now you’re telling me I should discard everything I’ve sworn to uphold—”
“To save a child’s life. Funny, I always thought that was part of that code you lived by. This isn’t a court of law, Doc,” Jeb said, pressing his advantage. “And you aren’t on the stand. This is just me, Jeb Bedford, asking somebody I admire almost as much as I did my own father to do the right thing. Help us find out what happened to a baby who disappeared right here in this town. Your town.”
“Please, Dr. Callaway,” Susan said, “if you know something that might be related to Emma—”
The dark eyes shifted to her face again, as if he had forgotten she was here, before they tracked back to Jeb’s. “I never thought I’d hear you talk to me that way, boy.”
“I never thought I’d have to,” Jeb said, his voice equally cold. “All I’m asking you for is the truth.”
“And if that truth isn’t your business?”
“Is it mine?” Susan asked, bringing the old man’s gaze back to her face once more. “Is Alexandra Paul my daughter?”
For a long time no one spoke. Jeb was afraid Callaway might step inside, closing the door in their faces. And by now it was obvious that he did know something about Diane Paul or her daughter. Whether or not it was the proof they needed—
“I don’t know,” the doctor said finally. “And that’s the God’s truth,” he added, looking back at Jeb.
“But you do know something, don’t you, Doc? You know something you think might be related to what happened.”
There was another silence. Through it, the old man’s eyes remained locked on Jeb’s face.
“Wayne brought her to see me one night.”
For a second Jeb thought he was talking about Emma before he realized who Doc meant. “He brought Diane here?”
“She was maybe fourteen or fifteen at the time. She had a fever. Chills. Looked like death warmed over. He wanted me to prescribe an antibiotic or give her a shot, but I told him I’d have to examine her first. Throat looked good. Ears. Chest sounded okay. There was something about her eyes, though…” Callaway seemed to recall himself from the past. “I told Wayne I wanted to examine her more thoroughly and that I needed him to leave the room. Soon as he was outside, it didn’t take more than a couple of questions to bring the whole story pouring out.
“She’d gotten pregnant and was too scared to tell anybody. She and the boy had skipped school one day and gone to New Orleans, where somebody had butchered her. She might as well have taken a knife or a coat hanger to herself. She’d probably have been better off if she had.”
“And Adams knew?” Jeb asked.
“Not then, but there was no way to keep him from finding out. The infection was so massive by that time I ended up having to put her in the hospital to save her life. I’ll give him credit though. He never said a harsh word to her. Not in my presence anyway. And he seemed far more concerned about her welfare than about what she’d done.”
“And what about Diane?”
“Antibiotics, of course. Powerful ones. And I called in a specialist, but the damage was pretty severe.”
“Severe enough to keep her from conceiving a child?” Jeb prodded, knowing that question was at the heart of Doc’s story.
“Nature’s a far better healer than most of us with medical degrees. I’
ve seen some miraculous—”
“In your professional opinion, Doc,” Jeb broke in, “after that botched abortion, would you have expected Diane Paul to conceive a child?”
“The truth?” the old man said.
“That’s all we’ve asked you for.”
“Then no. In my professional opinion, I wouldn’t have expected her to conceive, much less carry a fetus to term.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“WHAT DOC TOLD US doesn’t change the fact that we can’t possibly know where Alex is.”
“Emma,” Susan said stubbornly.
“You can’t confront Diane tonight,” Jeb went on, ignoring the correction. “If you do, you’ll scare her off, and you may never see Emma again. Think,” he demanded.
She was trying to. All she could think about, however, were Callaway’s words. Confirmation of what she’d suspected since she found that photograph on Wayne Adams’s desk.
“What do you think I should do?”
“Call the FBI. Based on what we know right now, I’m pretty sure they’ll send an agent down here. Once they do, all of this will be out of the jurisdiction of the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department.”
“It’s out of their jurisdiction now. As a kidnap victim, Emma is, at least.”
“And who do you think the deputies are going to believe about that? You or Diane?”
“I can’t just leave her with that woman—”
“Yes. Yes, you can.” Jeb modulated his tone from that first abrupt affirmation. “That’s exactly what you can do. Diane isn’t going anywhere until after her brother’s funeral. Not unless you force her hand. If you do, you’ll leave her no option but to run. And to take Emma with her. You may never see her again, Susan. Despite how close you are right now.”
“And you could be wrong. She could have Emma with her at Wayne’s house right now. If she does—”
“If she does, they’ll be surrounded by half the deputies in this county. If you go there, then you’ll have warned Diane, and Wayne’s followers won’t allow you to take Emma away with you. You know that.”
“I can’t risk that she might—”
“Tomorrow,” he interrupted again. “After the FBI arrives. You’ll have a better chance to protect her then.”