“What about the sheriff?” Livvy asked. “Didn’t you talk to him?”
Kate hesitated. “Yes. Certainly.”
“And he didn’t know anything either?”
Again, Kate hesitated, and she could see a look of understanding dawn in her friend’s eyes.
“Look, Livvy, I need to take you into my confidence. The sheriff asked me not to repeat the information he told me, but I really need your help.”
“Will it put Mavis in more danger if you tell me?” Livvy asked.
“I honestly don’t know,” Kate answered. “But I also don’t think it could make matters any worse. And maybe you can see something here that I can’t.”
“You know you can trust me, Kate.”
“I know.” It was time for a leap of faith, she thought, because Mavis was one lost sheep Kate wasn’t going to be able to find on her own.
“Livvy, what if I told you that Mavis was in the Witness Protection Program?”
Livvy looked at her for a long moment with a blank expression, and then her face broke out into a smile, and she laughed. “Very nice, Kate. Way to pull my leg.”
“No, Liv. I’m serious. Mavis really was in the Witness Protection Program.”
“You’re certain?” Her hazel eyes grew wide.
“As sure as I’m sitting here. The sheriff told me himself.”
Kate watched Livvy’s features as she processed this new piece of information. Small perplexed lines appeared at the corners of her eyes, and her lips turned down at the corners.
“Did the sheriff give you any specifics? Like why?”
“No. Not really. In fact, he wouldn’t share anything beyond the basic fact.”
Livvy sat back in her chair, and her eyes returned to the whiteboard. “No wonder no one knew much about Mavis. She didn’t want to give anything away.”
“That’s why I don’t put much stock in the story of her running off with Agnes Kelly’s husband,” Kate said.
“Agnes Kelly’s husband?” Livvy’s eyebrows shot up. “I know what happened to him, and it had nothing to do with Mavis Bixby.”
“You do?” Kate was relieved.
“Yes, but I haven’t said anything to anyone out of respect for Agnes. She’s a nice woman who’s had a hard life.”
An image of the crotchety Agnes, red stocking cap jammed on her head, flashed in Kate’s mind. “What did happen to Edwin Kelly?”
“She had to put him in an Alzheimer’s care facility in Chattanooga. It’s taking every penny she has.”
“Why is she so secretive about it? I’m surprised that Agnes would confide in you.”
“She didn’t confide so much as come to me for help researching facilities in Chattanooga, and she’s ashamed of not being able to care for him at home. In a small town like this, people frown on you when you don’t take care of your own.”
Kate had known that in some small communities, such attitudes still existed, but she hadn’t expected to find it in Copper Mill.
“I don’t know if there’s such a thing as librarian-patron privilege, but . . .”—Livvy broke off to smile at Kate—“I need to keep Agnes’ secret. And I trust you too.”
“Ouch.” Kate laughed. “Okay, I get it. You’ve been instrumental in helping me solve all the mysteries that have cropped up in town so far. I just wasn’t sure if I should share what Sheriff Roberts told me.”
“It’s a fine line, isn’t it?” Livvy said. “Knowing when to keep a confidence and when to share it isn’t as easy as it sounds.”
“Well, now that you know, what do you think? Any theories on how we can find Mavis Bixby?”
“You don’t know her real name, do you?” Livvy asked.
“Maybe. The government Web site said that they encourage people in the Witness Protection Program to keep their first name and take a new last name that starts with the same initial as their old one.”
Now Livvy’s eyes flew to the whiteboard. “You mean—”
“Kevin Baxter. Baxter. Bixby. I didn’t have time to check it when I was here the other day.”
Livvy looked at Kate. “Then what are we waiting for?”
Kate was up and out of her chair in a shot, but Livvy beat her to the conference-room door. Several patrons frowned as Livvy and Kate scurried by. By the time they reached the computer stations, they were both out of breath and laughing.
Kate beat Livvy to the chair in front of the first computer terminal. She took a deep breath and rubbed her arthritic knee. “I’m getting too old for that.”
“Remind me never to challenge you to a footrace,” Livvy teased good-naturedly. Her breath came in shallow gasps.
“That may be the last one I ever run.” Kate fanned her flushed cheeks with one hand. “Okay, let’s get to work.”
She reached for the keyboard and quickly brought up the search engine. In seconds she hit pay dirt.
“Wow.” Livvy pulled over a chair and sank down beside Kate. “I think we’ve found her.”
The results of the Web search linked to news reports for the most part. Kate quickly clicked on several and scanned the stories, Livvy leaning over from her seat to see.
The basic facts quickly fell into place. Mavis’ accountant husband had been caught up in a racketeering operation in Chicago run by a mobster named Johnny Rydell. Albert Baxter had been sent to prison, but his sentence had been reduced because he’d agreed to testify for the prosecution. Mavis had testified too. There was no mention of the Witness Protection Program, however.
“So why did they put Mavis into the program and not her husband? Why send him to jail if he testified?” Livvy asked. “That seems strange.”
“There’s no mention of the son in any of these accounts,” Kate said. “They must have been able to keep his name out of the papers.”
“But if the husband was involved with the mob, surely they knew about his family.”
“More mystery.” Kate sighed and leaned back in her chair. “The closer I get to Mavis Bixby—I mean Mavis Baxter—the farther away I am.”
“She probably went back to Chicago,” Livvy said. “Maybe there’s no mystery after all.”
“I would think that too.” Kate crossed her arms. “But she left Copper Mill before her husband died. So why, then? What changed her mind about being in the Witness Protection Program?”
“Maybe she got word that her husband was sick and went back to see him.”
“But that wouldn’t explain the strange wording in the obituary. About Albert Baxter dying in prison. Maybe you were right, Livvy, even though I tease you about watching those crime shows. The son probably handled the funeral arrangements and provided the information for the obituary. Maybe he was trying to send her a message, wherever she was. Or is.”
“That’s assuming it was a message,” Livvy pointed out, now arguing against her initial theory. “We don’t know for sure that the obituary was anything other than strange. It would be a strange way to send a message. ”
“True. Except that when enough things seem strange, they start to take on a pattern.”
“So what’s the pattern here?”
“I have absolutely no idea. Not much of a detective, am I?” Kate sighed.
“I don’t know about that. Sometimes you just have to let things brew for a while before you can see the connections.” Livvy rose from her chair. “And speaking of brewing, I could go for a cup of coffee. Why don’t I make a fresh pot while you keep sorting through these search results. And then I’m going to have to get back to work. Not that it isn’t fun playing Mr. Watson to your Sherlock.” She winked at Kate.
“Thanks for your help, Livvy. And for your patience. Not to mention your trust in me.”
“The coffee will be ready in the break room in ten minutes. Or whenever you’re ready.”
“Thanks.”
Livvy patted her shoulder and headed across the room. Kate ended up spending the next hour perusing page after page of search results on the name Mavis Baxter, but non
e of them gave her much more than what she’d found in the first few minutes with Livvy.
By the time Kate was done, Livvy had disappeared into the library office, and Kate didn’t have time for coffee. Paul would be expecting supper on the table eventually, and she still needed to run by the Mercantile to pick up a few things for the recipe she wanted to try that night. Kate tucked the few notes she’d taken on scrap paper into her purse and headed for the door.
Mavis Bixby. Mavis Baxter. Whoever the woman was, she had certainly tied Kate’s head up in knots six ways to Sunday.
Chapter Eleven
You wouldn’t have any lamb chops, would you, Sam?” Kate knew better than to ask the question, but when it came to her love of gourmet cooking, hope continued to spring eternal.
Sam Gorman had been very good to her, stocking her favorite feta cheese and even some of her favorite teas. But when it came to perishables like unusual cuts of meat, he had to draw the line. Kate certainly respected his decisions as a businessman, but it never kept her from asking.
“Don’t suppose you’d settle for some nice center-cut pork chops instead?” Sam teased. “I’m a little low on lamb today.”
“Maybe some stew beef instead.” Kate followed Sam through the narrow aisles to the meat case.
“What else do you need? Potatoes? Carrots?” He was always helpful without being pushy, a trait Kate knew better than to take for granted.
“Just an onion. Then I should be set.”
Sam’s part-time cashier rung up her purchase, and Kate was almost out the door when she turned back to Sam. “Do you remember telling me about the stranger who came in here asking about Mavis Bixby? The young man who bought the knife?”
“Yes . . .” Sam looked hesitant.
“Did he happen to mention his name?”
“I don’t know that I recall. He paid cash, so I don’t have a credit-card receipt.” Sam wiped away an invisible speck from the counter.
“What about where he was from?” Kate persisted. “Did he say anything about that?”
“No, but he had a nasal accent. Midwestern. Not East Coast.”
Sam had done several tours of duty in the navy, Kate knew, and had met enough people from all over the United States to peg someone’s accent.
“Do you remember anything else about him? Anything at all?”
Sam looked reluctant to part with the information, but he did so anyway. “He seemed really angry with Mavis Bixby, for whatever reason. I wouldn’t have told him where she lived, even if she hadn’t left town.”
Kate thought of the long prison sentence some of the mobsters in Albert Baxter’s case had no doubt drawn. Their associates would have had good reason to be angry with Mavis if she’d helped put their bosses away. Obviously, one of them had tracked Mavis down to Copper Mill. Somehow Mavis had gotten wind of it and left before he got there. Kate would have liked to know how Mavis had learned that her cover had been exposed. If only Sheriff Roberts would be more cooperative. He could get Mavis’ phone records or find out if any of the mobsters involved in the case had been recently paroled.
“Sorry I can’t be more help,” Sam said. “You’re still worrying about Mavis, aren’t you?”
“Can’t seem to help it.” Kate shrugged. “Occupational hazard, I guess.”
“Well, you’re good to care, Kate. Not enough people do these days.”
“Thanks, Sam.” She opened the door and waved good-bye. “See you later.”
KATE AND PAUL’S EVENING MEAL, shared in the cozy quiet of the parsonage kitchen, was one of Kate’s favorite times of the day. She’d learned early on that being a pastor’s wife meant sharing your husband with a great many people, and just as quickly she’d learned to treasure whatever time alone they did manage to find. Once Rebecca, their youngest daughter, had left home, the evening meal had become their regular “couple time.”
Kate hummed a favorite hymn to herself as she chopped the onion, potatoes, and carrots and browned the beef before assembling the stew. Along with her homemade beef stock, she threw in a few of her favorite spices for good measure. Her recipe was simple but flavorful, and she always made extra to share with friends and church members. Tonight, though, as she stirred the thick mixture and waited for it to come to a boil, she remembered the numerous plastic containers of Paul’s chili she’d stacked in the freezer. She looked down at the pot of stew in dismay. Where would she put the extra she always made?
Once the stew began to bubble, Kate turned back the heat. Thinking about the chili in the freezer reminded her of Paul’s fruitless search for his mother’s recipe. He’d been too busy the past few days to continue his quest, but she had some time while the stew simmered. Maybe she could find the recipe for him.
She reached for her recipe box on the counter and quickly flipped through its contents just in case, but to no avail. She’d have to tackle his study, then.
Kate rarely went into Paul’s study other than to run a dust cloth over the surfaces or vacuum when they were expecting company. Though Paul completed his day-to-day administrative tasks at the church, he preferred to write his sermons in the quiet of their home. So it wasn’t that she didn’t feel welcome in the room, but perhaps Paul felt the same way about her stained-glass studio in the third bedroom. As if it was a bit of a foreign land.
Today the study looked as if a tornado had hit it. The disarray was a clear sign that her husband was heavily engaged in developing a new sermon series. Books and journals covered the desk and spilled over onto the floor. His computer ran with a steady hum, and a dozen sticky notes had been posted around the edges of the monitor.
Kate thought longingly of the container of cocoa still sitting in the kitchen cabinet. If Paul would just let her help, he wouldn’t need his mother’s recipe. A small amount—a tablespoon at the most—and he’d have the flavor he was looking for in his chili. Still, Kate knew that pestering him would only frustrate him.
Kate’s grandmother, she of the secret chili ingredient, had never made a secret of her opinion that husbands were a necessary evil. And given the wild ways of Kate’s grandfather, she certainly understood her grandmother’s feelings on the matter, even if she disagreed with them. Nana had always said that God made Adam first as an experiment and then improved upon his first effort when he made Eve. Kate didn’t agree with that sentiment either, but she did wonder why it was so hard for good, strong men like Paul to accept help sometimes.
Kate decided to avoid the desk, since it posed the greatest temptation to her inner organizer. Paul had mentioned something about sticking the recipe between the pages of a book, but where to start? Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined one wall, and every available inch was filled with Bible commentaries, theology books, minister’s manuals, and even some novels.
Instead of looking through each book one by one, she decided to scan the titles, looking for a likely prospect. That method, though, proved fruitless. After ten minutes Kate was ready to give up. She couldn’t see any possible reason Paul would have put his mother’s chili recipe in the HarperCollins Bible Dictionary or Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. And the only book on any of the shelves with food in the title was Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Hardly the place to stash a chili recipe.
Kate plopped down on the sleeper sofa and let her gaze run over the rest of the room. A red metal filing cabinet from their newlywed days, a style Kate liked to call “early seminary,” had been pushed into the far corner. Paul referred to it as his Magic Sermon Box, because it contained the manuscripts for every sermon he’d ever preached. Kate had been encouraging him for years to pick out the best of the best and submit them for publication, but he always declined, saying he didn’t have the time.
Kate rose from the sofa and went to kneel in front of the filing cabinet like a supplicant at the altar. Please let it be in here somewhere, she half prayed, half hoped. Perhaps he’d used it as a sermon illustration, and it was tucked neatly inside a manila folder.
; She pulled open the top drawer. Unlike Paul’s office, his filing cabinet was neat as a pin—a credit to his secretary at their church back in San Antonio. Janice had even typed labels for each file, with the sermon’s title, biblical reference, and date. Truly, the old filing cabinet was a veritable archive of Paul’s career.
Kate flipped through the tabs, smiling with recognition at the titles of her favorite sermons. She resisted the temptation to pull one out and reread it. That pleasure would have to wait for another day. Instead, she forced herself to concentrate on what titles sounded like they might use a chili recipe as an illustration. Kate chuckled at the thought. She wondered if any other minister’s wife had ever found herself in quite this situation.
Once or twice she spied a likely contender—“Loaves and Fishes Revisited” and “Menu for an Upper-Room Experience”—but none of the files contained the recipe. Kate was lost in thought, so involved in her search that when the door to Paul’s study opened and he walked in, she jumped.
“Kate?” His eyebrows arched, and then he smiled his lopsided grin. “Has it come to this? You’re so desperate for reading material, you’re pillaging my old sermon files?”
He walked toward her and extended his hand. “Need some help getting up?”
Kate accepted his help gratefully. Her knee was still sore from her earlier race with Livvy through the library. “I’m not as young as I used to be,” she said ruefully as she got to her feet.
Paul, though, was having none of that. “You’re as young as ever,” he said, dropping a kiss on her nose, “and you always will be.”
Kate hugged him. “Well, your glasses probably need a good cleaning, but I’ll accept the compliment, thank you very much.”
“So what exactly were you looking for down there?” He glanced at the open file drawer. “My sermons are compelling, but they rarely drive anyone to their knees.”
“Actually, I was looking for your mother’s chili recipe.”
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