The smile slid from his face, and his arms loosened around her. “Kate, you didn’t have to do that.”
“I know. I just wanted to help.” She didn’t understand why he was being so prickly about the whole chili thing anyway. Did winning the competition really mean that much to him? “Thank heavens for Janice. Those files couldn’t be any more organized.”
She’d meant it as a compliment to his former secretary, but Paul’s face darkened ominously. “I’ll take care of it myself.”
“Okay, okay.” She stepped out of his arms, more than a little annoyed. She’d only been trying to help. “I wasn’t criticizing you, just admiring Janice’s efficiency. The only other place they keep files that organized is at—” She broke off in midsentence. Why hadn’t she thought of it before?
Paul moved behind his desk and sat down. “The only other place is where?” He looked at his wife. “Uh-oh. You’ve got that expression on your face again.”
“What expression?”
“The one that says you’re up to something, but it’s not completely devious. Only partially so.”
“I didn’t know my expressions were quite that specific.”
Paul laughed. “My dear, I’m pretty sure you have an expression for everything.” He laughed again when she scowled at him. “See what I mean? There’s the ‘I’m exasperated with my husband’ expression.”
If she’d been in the kitchen, she would have swiped at him with a dishtowel. Instead, she had to content herself with crossing her arms and turning up her nose. “And what does this expression mean?” she asked with a sniff.
Paul hauled himself back up out of his chair and approached her cautiously. He was, however, still smiling. “That expression says my husband better use his masculine charm on me pretty quick, or he’ll be eating a mighty cold supper.”
Kate couldn’t help but laugh. “I guess you’re right.” She stepped into his arms and hugged him again. “Now enough of this silliness. I have supper to finish.”
“It smells wonderful. Thanks for fixing it.”
“Better wait until you taste it before you get too excited. I wanted to do lamb chops with rosemary and a Greek salad, but this being Copper Mill . . .”
“We’re having what instead?”
“Beef stew.”
“I’m happy either way.”
“Which is something I appreciate about you.” She gave him a quick peck on the cheek.
“So what were you thinking to put that expression on your face?” Paul asked.
“Oh, that. Nothing much. I just figured out the way to locate Mavis Bixby once and for all.”
“And that would be?”
“Oh, we good detectives never reveal our secrets to amateurs.” She winked at him. “Supper will be ready in half an hour. Don’t be late.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Kate was smiling when she shut the door to the study, leaving Paul to his own devices while she finished preparing the meal. Nothing frustrated her more than hitting a dead end when she was solving a mystery, and the puzzle of Mavis Bixby had been one dead end after another. Now, though, she knew where she could go to get some definitive information. And she planned to do so first thing in the morning.
Chapter Twelve
The back stairwell of the Harrington County Courthouse in Pine Ridge smelled of lemon cleaning solution and cigarettes. Apparently more than one of the county employees had decided against complying with the smoking ban in public buildings.
Kate made her way down the stairs, favoring her still-sore knee as she followed a long corridor to the Register of Deed’s cramped, sterile office. A row of windows at the top of the room showed the feet of passersby on the sidewalk outside.
“Good morning, Mrs.Sedberry.” Kate greeted the older woman whom she’d met at a barbecue not long after she and Paul had arrived in Copper Mill.
Mrs.Sedberry was seated behind an ancient metal desk that filled up almost every available inch of the tiny room. Other than a phone and a large blotter, her desk was completely clear. A severe black nameplate, with the words ELEANOR SEDBERRY in large white letters, was the only form of decoration.
Mrs.Sedberry, who had to be seventy-five if she was a day, looked up at Kate over the top of her reading glasses. With a sigh, she set down the pen she’d been using to complete the crossword from the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
“May I help you?”
Kate stepped forward and extended her hand. “I’m Kate Hanlon, from Copper Mill. We met at the Richardson’s barbecue.”
The woman’s lined face remained impassive. Kate must not have made much of an impression at the barbecue.
“As I said, how can I help you?”
Kate lowered her hand. “I’m looking for some title or deed information about a house I’m considering purchasing. I was hoping you could point me in the right direction.”
No part of Mrs.Sedberry’s face moved except her lips. “Those documents are a matter of public record.”
If Kate had known this was going to be like pulling teeth, she would have brought along her dentist. “Yes, ma’am. That’s what I thought. Could you help me locate the deed to this particular house?” She held out a piece of paper with Mavis’ name and address written on it.
“If you buy the house, your title company will get the information for you.”
“Yes, thank you. I thought as much. But I’d really like to see that information now, if I could.”
“We don’t have those newfangled computers where I can look up the deed like that.” Mrs.Sedberry snapped her fingers for emphasis, startling Kate, who wasn’t expecting any sudden movements.
“You don’t? Well, I am sorry to trouble you, but if you wouldn’t mind . . .” Kate let her words trail off and stood her ground, smiling.
Persuading the reluctant was old hat to Kate. You simply had to use more than your average amount of patience. Even a mountain could be moved, one teaspoon at a time. Fortunately, Kate didn’t have anywhere she had to be for the rest of the day.
With another sigh, Mrs.Sedberry pushed back from the desk and rose to her feet. “This could take awhile.”
“I’ve been told I have the patience of Job.” Kate kept the smile pasted to her lips, but she wondered whether even Job could have withstood Mrs.Sedberry.
“Follow me.”
The older woman shuffled across the tiny room, and Kate stepped back into the hallway to allow her to pass. She couldn’t suppress the grin that sprang to her lips when she saw Mrs.Sedberry’s footwear—an ancient pair of house shoes that accounted for the swoosh that accompanied each step. Kate followed her down the hall slowly, wanting to urge the woman along but knowing better than to do so. Eventually they meandered through a series of corridors to a large storeroom. Long gray filing cabinets, reaching to Kate’s eye level, filled the room, leaving only narrow passages for navigation.
Mrs.Sedberry paused just inside the door, took the piece of paper from Kate, and read its contents. She looked up, assessing the file cabinets, and frowned as if she were seeing the room for the first time and had no idea where to start looking. Kate stifled the urge to start rummaging through the file cabinets herself and forced herself to take deep, slow breaths.
“It really would be easier if you’d just let the title company . . .” Mrs.Sedberry’s voice trailed off, as listless as the rest of her, but eventually she shuffled into the room and began to open various filing drawers.
Kate followed her, not surprised to see that none of the drawers were labeled.
“Must be right about . . . here.” The older woman pulled open the umpteenth drawer and ran her finger down the tabs. “Bilson. Bison. Bitters. Bivins. Ah, here. Bixby.”
Her liver-spotted hands drew a long manila file folder from the drawer. She laid it across the top of the drawer’s contents and flipped it open. “Hmm. That’s strange.”
Those were not the words Kate had been hoping to hear. “What’s wrong?” She stepped closer.<
br />
“The deed’s missing. There are a few other things here—the plat, an appraisal—but no deed.”
“Maybe it was misfiled?” A frisson of apprehension darted down Kate’s spine.
From the expression on the older woman’s face, Kate might as well have suggested that Mrs.Sedberry show up for work in her housecoat. The look she shot Kate could have set the courthouse ablaze. “I know my own filing system.”
“Does that happen often, deeds going missing?”
Mrs.Sedberry’s cheeks flushed with anger. “No. This never happens.”
Kate didn’t like it. Not one bit. There was no way that the disappearance of the deed to Mavis’ house could be a coincidence.
“Has anyone else been here asking about this particular piece of property?”
“No. No one.” Mrs.Sedberry closed the file, tucked it under one ample arm, and shut the drawer with her hip.
“What about anyone suspicious? Is there anyone you can think of who might have gained access to the files on false pretenses?” Heavens, she sounded just like someone from a detective show on television.
“I don’t allow riffraff to roam around down here.”
But Kate could have snuck into this room if she’d already known where the deeds were kept. The door wasn’t even locked. Neither were the filing cabinets.
“Someone must have gotten in here, though.” Kate was thinking aloud, not criticizing, but she saw immediately that Mrs.Sedberry hadn’t taken her words that way.
“This job isn’t as easy as some people think. People looking for family history coming and going all the time. The secretaries upstairs always telling ghost stories about the Yankees who died in their beds down here during the Civil War. Why they haven’t installed metal detectors at the doors is beyond me, especially after that one young man with the knife—” She stopped, distraught.
Kate’s skin tingled. “What young man with a knife?”
“Some hoodlum in a leather jacket. Metal stuck through every orifice. The security guard found him in the men’s room upstairs. He had a knife in his pocket.”
Now Kate’s heart was pumping quickly, matching the tingling of her nerve endings. “When was this?”
“Oh, several months ago. It turned out to be nothing, but it could have been much worse,” Mrs.Sedberry said darkly.
“What happened to the young man?”
“The security guard sent him on his way. He never showed his face around here again.”
Kate’s first instinct was to ask if there might be security tapes from the incident, but she doubted whether a county that hadn’t yet computerized its basic records would have something as sophisticated as video surveillance.
“Could he have been down here, do you think?” Kate hated to risk irritating Mrs.Sedberry any more than she already had, but she didn’t see any way around it.
The older woman’s eyes flashed, and Kate was glad that the Register of Deeds didn’t have superpowers, because if she did, Kate would have been reduced to a pile of ashes.
“I would certainly have known it,” she snapped. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to report this to my superiors.”
She shuffled past Kate and out the door, and Kate was left alone in the room. She almost laughed, but then brought up a hand to smother the sound. So much for the rigid security measures of the county courthouse.
The thought of the leather-jacketed young man, though, quickly wiped the smile from her face. The knife was enough to confirm her suspicions. He had been here too, and he had also been looking for Mavis. Now the certified copy of the deed to Mavis’ home was gone. Those facts in combination might be enough to prompt Sheriff Roberts to look further into Mavis’ departure. Kate was certainly going to find out.
But she also intended to find out the identity of this mystery man. He must have been involved somehow with Albert Baxter and his mobster boss, but how? Kate wished she’d been able to see the deed to Mavis’ house. It might have given her an important clue. But she’d received other information just as valuable.
Now if she could just discover what it meant.
KATE USED the computer terminal at the Pine Ridge Public Library across the street from the courthouse to find the answers she needed. And this time, instead of searching the Internet merely for information, she decided to search for pictures that accompanied the stories about Albert Baxter’s prosecution for racketeering.
The Pine Ridge library was smaller than the one in Copper Mill but boasted more computer terminals. With the help of an obliging young librarian named Sarah Blake, whose cousin attended Faith Briar Church, Kate settled into a chair not more than fifteen minutes after she’d left the courthouse. Her efforts were immediately rewarded.
Most of the pictures of Albert Baxter showed him entering the federal courthouse in Chicago, and for the first time, Kate saw the missing Mavis Bixby. Slightly stooped with age and wearing glasses and a red jacket, she looked as normal as any other woman in Copper Mill. Or Chicago, for that matter. Her husband’s face was lined with worry, and he kept his arm protectively around her shoulders. For the first time, Kate realized what a tragedy Mavis must have suffered, through the trial and her own testimony, and then later when her husband had been imprisoned and subsequently died.
Kate searched the widest shot of the pair, looking for any further clues that might help her in her search, when her gaze landed on a dark-haired man on the edge of the image. He was wearing a black leather jacket, and Kate could just make out the faint outline of a ring through his eyebrow and one through his nose.
Not for the first time since she’d begun asking questions about Mavis Bixby, cold fear swamped her. The man in the picture might not be older than his early twenties, but hard lines of hatred marred his face, slicing across his forehead and from the edges of his mouth to his chin. His dark eyes burned, their expression perfectly captured because he was looking directly at the photographer.
This was the man who had come to Copper Mill looking for Mavis. He wasn’t identified in the picture. Only Albert and Mavis were named, set apart from the sea of faces surrounding them, but Kate could come to only one conclusion. The young man must work for or be related to Johnny Rydell, the mob boss whom Albert and Mavis’ combined testimony had brought down.
Kate did another search on the mobster’s name, hoping to find a second image of the angry young man, but all that came up were pictures of Rydell’s assorted attorneys.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” Sarah paused by Kate’s terminal.
“Maybe.” Kate clicked back to the picture of Albert and Mavis. “This may sound strange,” she said to the librarian, “but have you ever seen this fellow before?” She pointed to the dark-haired young man.
The librarian leaned forward, squinting. “The one with the pierced eyebrow?”
“Yes. He looks familiar. I thought I might have seen him here in Pine Ridge.”
The librarian laughed a bit nervously. “I doubt that. If he’d been here, I would certainly have remembered him. In this neck of the woods, it’s a scandal for a girl to get her ears double-pierced, much less for a guy to have that much body piercing.”
Kate thanked the young woman and exited the computer screen. Well, she knew a great deal more than she had when she’d left Copper Mill that morning. Someone else had wanted whatever information was on the deed to Mavis Bixby’s house, so she’d been on the right track there. And most likely that someone had been the angry young man who could only have a sinister agenda.
Now, more than ever, it was imperative that Kate find Mavis Bixby. As she left the library and returned to her car, she could only hope that once this mystery was cleared up, no more intrigues of this magnitude would come her way. Solving puzzles was one thing, but holding someone’s life in her hands was quite another.
Chapter Thirteen
By the time Kate returned from Pine Ridge late that afternoon, dusk had settled over Copper Mill and was rapidly turning to darkness. He
r frustration over the numerous dead ends she’d encountered during the past week, compounded by the dreary weather, had dampened her usually sunny spirits. When she saw Paul’s pickup truck parked in the garage, she sighed with relief. She was more than ready for some husbandly TLC.
“Honey? I’m home.” The increasingly familiar odor of frying beef and onions, mingled with the richer scent of chili powder, assailed her nostrils. Kate’s shoulders sank. Not again.
The kitchen was an even greater disaster area than it had been the last time Paul attempted to recreate his mother’s chili recipe.
“Hi, Kate. Do we have any cumin?” He barely glanced at her over his shoulder.
“It should be there on the spice rack.”
Paul had the stove so covered up that she wouldn’t even be able to put the kettle on for a cup of tea.
“Can you look? I’ve kind of got my hands full here.”
The electric can opener had broken the week before, so Kate had been relying on an old-fashioned hand-cranked one instead. Paul was twisting away at the device. Kate counted seven or eight already-opened cans lined up on the counter next to the stove.
“Sure.” She stepped around him to reach for the jar he’d requested. “Here it is.” She pulled the small container from the rack. “Is that your missing ingredient?”
Paul’s face darkened. “May I just have the cumin, please?”
Exhausted and stung by his snappy response, Kate bit back a sharp retort. “Here.” She brushed past him, headed for the door.
“Kate. Wait.”
But she couldn’t. She’d come home needing some comfort and coddling. Getting crosswise with Paul over the chili hadn’t been on her agenda.
Before she could leave the kitchen, the phone rang. They both reached for it, but Kate snagged the receiver first.
“Hello?” She really didn’t want to speak with anyone, but right now she’d rather talk to anyone besides Paul.
“I told you to mind your own beeswax,” the voice rasped. “Quit nosing around.”
“Who is this?” Kate had lost all patience with the kind of coward who would call a woman and threaten her like this. “How did you get this number?”
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