When he answered, the girl was so distressed she couldn’t talk, and she handed the phone to Felicity, who was more than a little unnerved herself. “Marcus, Jenny’s going into labor, and Jason is driving us to the hospital. Can you meet us there to coach Jenny?”
The young minister’s sleepy voice cleared immediately, and he promised to join them as soon as he could get dressed. Felicity got the feeling his panic might be just as great as Jenny’s, but at least he was following up on his promise. He might turn out to be good husband material, and she resolved to do everything in her power to help make this real for Jenny.
The girl had been through a bad time, and she was working so hard to make the future something she would be proud of. Planning the matchmaking helped take her mind off how fast Jason was driving and blanketed the sounds Jenny was making in the back seat.
Felicity was still in her planning zone when Jason pulled up at the emergency entrance to the hospital. He switched off the engine and rushed in to shout for help. Before she could gather herself back to the present, two orderlies threw open the back door of the car and gently eased Jenny onto a gurney. Jason came around the car and opened the door to help Felicity out. “You’d better stay with her until this Marcus person arrives. I have to move the car out of the way here.”
“Oh, dear. I’ll do what I can, but as the maid said in Gone with the Wind, ‘I don’t know nothin’ about birthin’ babies.’” Felicity knew she was babbling, but she couldn’t help herself.
Jason laughed. “Me neither,” he said, “but I’ll stick around as soon as I get the car parked, so don’t worry about anything. I have your back.”
He met her in the crowded Emergency Room and stayed with her while she began to give the middle-aged nurse at the desk as much information about Jenny as she could. The woman smiled and patted her hand as soon as she spelled Jenny’s name. “Relax, Mrs. Canaday. Remember when you set up that single mother’s class? Every young woman who attended did a pre-registration ... at your insistence, I might point out. We have everything we need right here.”
She entered the name into the computer, and like a miracle, all Jenny’s particulars began scrolling down the screen. “What I don’t see is the young man who’s supposed to be her labor partner. From the sound of things, if he doesn’t show up soon, she’s going to be without a friend at hand.”
A huge lump formed in Felicity’s throat. After what seemed like hours, she swallowed it and said, “Then I guess I’d better go back to be with her. I won’t know what to do, but I can hold her hand so she knows she’s not without friends.”
Just then the sound of another siren echoed from the parking lot, and the automatic doors slid open. The sound stopped abruptly, and the back doors of the ER vehicle swung open. The silence was broken by a string of shouted curses as the occupant’s gurney was hurriedly pushed down the ramp and in through the doors. Felicity and Jason, once more shaking with laughter, watched as Dan Truxler was brought through the large room at high speed. He spied Felicity as they passed, and the curses and shouting increased.
The gurney disappeared down the hall into an exam room.
Felicity hoped she’d had the good sense to close her mouth, which had sagged open in shock, and gathered her wits. “Why is it every time these people get caught it’s always someone else’s fault?”
Jason began to laugh all over again. Finally he managed to say, “My dear lady, you are truly one of the purest souls I’ve ever met.” He hugged her, then added, “You better get back there to hold Jenny’s hand. I’ll be out here watching for her coach.”
“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Jason.” Felicity patted his cheek. “I do hope he shows up soon. After all the excitement tonight, I’m simply not ready for this.”
With that, she hurried to catch the attention of the desk nurse, nodding at the instructions before heading down the hall to the elevator at the end. As she passed one curtained exam room, she heard Dan Truxler still swearing and berating those attending him.
Once she was safely in the elevator, she murmured, “I hope I don’t go to hell for hoping they lock that lying half-brother away for as long as possible.”
She pushed the button for the designated floor and tried to compose her thoughts. There was no excuse for letting her own anxiety transfer to Jenny. The poor girl was frightened enough.
Chapter Fifteen
The following morning the previous night’s events scrolled through Felicity’s sleep-fogged mind. Her lips curved in a reminiscent smile over the relief she’d felt when Marcus, his too-long hair sleep-tangled and his half-buttoned shirt flapping over his jeans, had erupted into the birthing room ten minutes after she’d clutched Jenny’s hand and begun murmuring every encouraging phrase she could dredge out of her jangled mind. Relief had spread across the faces of every occupant of the room. Apparently her words hadn’t been doing as much in the way of reassurance as she’d hoped.
She opened her eyes. “Well, I’m old,” she said. And truly after all the excitement, she felt far older than her sixty-three years. Sunlight streamed through the windows. Her exhaustion had been so complete she had simply fallen on the bed, forgetting to pull the shades.
The baby had come twenty minutes after Marcus’s arrival, and after congratulating Jenny and peering anxiously at the wrinkled little scrap who was named Marcus Edward, she and Jason had headed home. She’d been so tired it was a miracle she’d made it up the stairs to her room, and she realized she’d gone to bed in her underwear. Felicity checked her feet and was relieved to discover that she’d had the good sense to remove her shoes.
Stretching once more, she risked a look at her clock. “Oh, good grief! It’s ten in the morning!” she exclaimed as she leaped to her feet. “I have to fix breakfast.”
As she rushed to get dressed, Felicity realized there were advantages to falling asleep in your underwear, although a shower after breakfast sounded like a good idea. She headed for the stairs as fast as she could move, amazed by how stiff she felt. Catching thieves and delivering babies took a lot out of a person.
The mixed aromas of coffee and bacon met her nostrils at the bottom of the stairs, and she took a deep breath. Who on earth was cooking breakfast? When she passed through the dining room, she saw place mats and service for two nicely arranged on her mahogany table. The door to the kitchen swung open, and Cousin Freddie backed through carrying a bowl of cantaloupe chunks.
“I bet you didn’t think I wasn’t going to pay you back for saving me, did you?” he said brightly, then chuckled. “I was just waiting to see when you’d wake up before I put pancakes on the griddle. I do like your old-fashioned kitchen, Felicity. It’s just like the one I have in my home in California.”
Felicity wanted to cry with gratitude. “Oh, Freddie, you don’t know what it means to me to have you do something so nice for me. After last night I wasn’t sure I’d have the strength to pour out cereal. I’m simply frazzled.”
Freddie grinned. “I already heard that mother and baby are doing fine,” he said. A wicked twinkle appeared in his eye as he continued, “Your neighbor, the Naval man, asked me some pretty pointed questions about how long I planned to stay. You got something going on there?”
“Andrew is a good friend and neighbor,” she replied. “I suspect he was simply being friendly.” Even as she spoke, she was inwardly amused. Imagine, at her age, someone was acting territorial about her.
He set the bowl on the table and turned to re-enter the kitchen. “Just asking. I didn’t want to make any trouble, although it occurred to me he might move a little faster than he has if he thought there were some competition.”
“You’re just like Oliver!” she declared. “He could never resist poking into things where he thought he could roil the waters. Andrew and I are good friends, and we’ll get along fine without anyone trying to make anything more of it.”
He rolled his eyes as he held the door for her. Lazarus, who had been hovering around her ankles
ever since she came downstairs, darted between them and entered the room first.
“Actually, I’ll be on the road just as soon as I find something to take the place of my truck.” His voice hardened. “During the night it all came back to me. I don’t like to fly, so I had taken my time and driven East to that conference in Boston. That old truck was always dependable, no matter how it looked.” He spooned sour cream into the bowl of batter and stirred vigorously.
“Over the years, Dan and I had touched bases occasionally. We didn’t have any real ties, other than the fact that my father was a bit of a tomcat. He lived outside Boston, so naturally, I let him know I was in the area.”
Felicity broke in. “Didn’t you know what he did for a living?”
Freddie’s mustache actually twitched as his grin widened. “Oh, I’ve always known he was a bit shady, but he’s kin. When he asked me if he could ride back west with me, I never gave it a thought. He said something about wanting to go to Cincinnati, and that he’d make his way from here.”
He sobered quickly, an embarrassed expression spreading across his face. “I just never thought he’d Shanghai me like he did.” He turned to the griddle and spooned out batter. “If seeing you hadn’t triggered my memory, I might never have come back.”
“Oh, Freddie, don’t even think about what might have happened. You snapped out of your amnesia, and you’re here safe.” Felicity hurried to him and administered a hug. “And as soon as we’ve eaten, we’ll go look at new trucks. Do you have anything in particular you’d like? My treat. Oliver wouldn’t let you say no, and neither will I.”
Lazarus yowled plaintively, and the sound of his bowl rolling across the kitchen floor interrupted what might have become a sentimental moment.
“Oh, dear. You poor cat. Your breakfast is two hours late!” she exclaimed as she released Freddie and hurried to the cupboard. “I think it has to be Lobster Surprise today, since you’ve been so patient. And we mustn’t forget what a wonderful job you did of saving me from Dan last night.”
The front doorbell rang just as Felicity popped the lid off the can. “Whoever it is will just have to wait, isn’t that right, Lazarus?” She hurriedly emptied the can’s contents into a clean bowl, and exchanged it for the one the cat had thumped into the refrigerator, then sped through the door to the foyer.
After peering out the side window, she made a sound of surprise. Officer Maguire? Surely they’d taken care of all the legalities last night when they carried the imposter off to jail. She flung open the door.
“Sorry to bother you this morning, Mrs. Canaday, but we made some discoveries last night and wanted to keep you up to speed.” The detective looked half embarrassed.
“We were just about to eat a late breakfast. Since anything you discovered probably is also of interest to my husband’s cousin, why don’t you join us?”
“Well, I don’t want to ...”
Freddie’s voice sang out from the dining room. “Join us, detective. I have lots of pancake batter.”
This side of Oliver’s cousin surprised Felicity. Of course, she’d never really known him except from Oliver’s tales of their boyhood, and of course hadn’t even seen him except for that brief meeting years ago. No wonder Oliver had such warm memories. He was a thoroughly nice man. Eccentric, of course, but then Oliver had been also. Eccentric she could deal with. “Come in, Detective. I’m afraid you have no choice.”
Maguire kept trying to turn the conversation to the business at hand, but Freddie and Felicity gave him no chance to get started. They whisked him inside and put him to work setting his own place at the table while talking about the two new babies who were going to need Felicity’s care – not that she was complaining.
The officer hadn’t looked dire, and she felt they’d all be much more comfortable hearing his news over a good meal. She picked up the thermal coffee pot and hustled him ahead of her to his place at the table, and Freddie followed with a platter mounded with bacon and pancakes.
After she had buttered her cakes and made delicate patterns across them with warm maple syrup she picked up her fork and said, “Whenever you feel you can begin, detective, we’ll be your captive audience.”
Maguire picked up a piece of bacon from his plate and pointed it at her. “You’re very kind, Mrs. Canaday. I came here on official business, and now I feel as if I’m part of the family.”
She sighed and said, “I’m afraid I felt any news you had for us wasn’t going to be particularly nice, and everything seems better over a good meal.” She cut a piece of pancake and speared it with her fork. “Freddie has been through enough over the past week or two, and I feel sure he wants to take anything that comes sitting down.”
“Amen to that,” Freddie murmured as he buttered his pancakes.
“Actually, I just came to bring you up to date. After all the excitement last night, we got down to the task of sorting out the contents of that rascal’s plastic sack. You won’t believe this, but they solved a couple of mysteries for us.”
Felicity thought the detective still looked as if he’d just fallen down the rabbit hole, but he was trying, so she encouraged him. “I’m so glad something’s going right. Things seem to have gotten out of hand lately.”
“To begin with, the wallet that was stolen when that student was mugged last week was in there. Your fake houseguest had even left the credit cards in it.”
“He probably figured they’d be canceled right away,” Freddie said. “I hope the boy is all right. Dan was probably just after any cash he could get his hands on.” He chewed bacon thoughtfully for a moment, swallowed, and then said, “Why would he keep the wallet?”
“We figure he wanted to keep fake ID on hand in case he wanted to use it somewhere else. At the bottom of the bag we found a crumpled receipt from the bookstore, which strongly suggests he was guilty of that theft. But the real prize was all those stock certificates. Oil wells, gold mines, internet companies, and who knows what. Seems we had a complaint filed day before yesterday that someone in town had bought oil well stock from a slick salesman, then had a case of buyer’s remorse.” He chuckled. “For some reason, the salesman had vanished, and when he checked the oil company, he discovered it didn’t exist.”
Freddie smiled brightly. “Then he deserves to lose his money. It’s stupid to buy without checking the stock first.” He forked another piece of pancake into his mouth and looked proud of himself.
“Ah, but people are gullible,” Felicity said. “Look how easily I accepted him into my home. I knew you were coming, and when he showed up, the resemblance to you I remembered from meeting you years ago was enough that I never questioned him. And poor Kate. I think he romanced her.” She laid down her fork and pushed back from the table. “You don’t think he sold her any stock, do you? I must call her right now.”
“That’s a job for the police, Mrs. Canaday.” He gestured for her to remain in place. “From what I know of her, you won’t win any brownie points by being the one to ask her. Better that it come from someone official. I’ll just mention that I saw her here last night, which I did, and mask the inquiry as part of our investigation.” He hemmed and hawed for a minute, then said, “Actually, that’s partly why I came here this morning. Did he leave anything in his room?”
“Well, I didn’t go in and change the linens on the bed and in the bathroom when we brought Freddie home, because I put Freddie in another room.” I’m afraid I was in a hurry, and there was so much going on. I did notice a few shirts hanging in the closet. I carried them down to the mud room until I could decide what to do with them.”
It was Maguire’s turn to look flustered. “I hate to ask this, but would you mind if I went and looked through anything he left behind? Even the shirts, just in case. He might have hidden a list of his, ah, suckers, and we’d like to locate as many as possible. The chief didn’t want to embarrass you by getting a search warrant, because they put those in the newspaper, for some reason. He thought you might be agreeable.�
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Freddie chuckled. “He’s been a busy rascal, trotting around town in my shoes, so to speak. Search the room. And I have precious little of my own to speak of, but I don’t mind if Felicity doesn’t.”
Felicity pushed her chair back from the table, saying, “Well of course you can search. Let’s get at it right this instant. We can drink coffee afterward. I just want the whole thing out of the way as soon as possible.”
Maguire hastily tucked the last piece of pancake into his mouth and seized a slice of bacon before following her toward the stairs.
Freddie followed in a leisurely fashion.
“Right this way, detective,” Felicity said. “I can’t imagine that you’ll find anything he’s left, but if you do, it’s all yours.” She swung open the door and waved him in. The bed was made, the spread up smoothly. The room looked almost like an unoccupied hotel room, except that the furnishings were well-cared for antiques.
Maguire cast an inquiring gaze from left to right and reached in his suit pocket for a pair of plastic gloves, which he pulled on as he walked to the bed.
“Sorry to mess this up, but beneath the mattress is the first place I always look, no matter what. It surprises me every time how a person can commit clever thievery and crimes and then tuck incriminating evidence in the most obvious of places.”
He threw back the bedding and lifted the mattress to peer beneath it. After a minute he dropped it into place and pulled the sheet and blanket carelessly into position before striding around to the other side of the bed and performing the same exercise. This time he made a satisfied sound as he raised the mattress higher and reached between it and the springs. “That fellow’s no smarter than any of the others. Let’s see what I have here.”
This time the mattress made a wuffing sound as it fell back into place. Between his fingertips he held a flat bag, one that looked as if it held greeting cards from the local card shop. He dropped it on the end of the bed that was least disturbed, then seized the bottom and shook out the contents.
Deceitful Legacy Page 11