“I don’t know. I doubt if Ben knows, either. We’d have to see Ellie’s will, as well as Rita’s and Irene’s. No one was expecting Diana to die. Things moved at the speed of light after that. Did the ladies change their wills? I have no clue,” Isabelle said.
“We need to assume that young Ben is in danger then. Not immediate danger but danger nonetheless,” Myra said.
“We need to ask why Ellie would desert Ben for such a long period of time. Does she have someone watching over him? Who? The people at the Institute? Obviously, she isn’t or wasn’t all that worried about his safety when she took off. More than six months is a very, very long time,” Maggie said.
“I rummaged in my footlocker and found the name of the law firm that paid me my fees when I worked for Ellie. We could go there and talk to them. Ellie must check in with them from time to time. Maybe they can help us. The firm is one of the oldest, most prestigious law firms in the state. We go and plead Ben’s case,” Isabelle said.
“It doesn’t work that way, Isabelle,” Nikki said. “Attorney-client confidentiality is in force. The most we could hope for is, we plead Ben’s case and ask them to get in touch with Ellie if they can. I’ll go with you tomorrow if you can get an appointment that quickly, or we could wing it and just show up. Let’s take a vote.” Eight hands shot in the air.
“Isabelle, do you have any idea, any idea no matter how far-fetched it might seem, as to where she might have gone for such a long period of time?” Alexis asked.
Isabelle shook her head. “We were friends, but while Ellie spoke of many things, she never got really personal with me. The Diana part was something I could see, and she needed to talk about her daughter. I understood that. But to answer your question, she could be anywhere, out of the country, in New York, California, or holed up around the corner. I just don’t know.”
“Then our best bet is her law firm or Ben himself. He might remember something or have some clue. If he’s as smart as you say he is, he might know but is afraid to betray his grandmother. It’s obvious he loves her dearly,” Yoko said.
“So now what do we do?” Annie asked. It was clear to all at the table that she was itching for action.
“I have an idea,” Myra said. Everyone looked at her expectantly.
“The night is long, and we’re just sitting here. Why don’t we all go to the Circle and check out Mrs. Lymen’s house? Eight sets of eyes, fresh eyes. Maybe one of us will pick up on something.” She turned to Isabelle. “Do you see any possible problems? It is dark out now, and there’s no moon. How well lighted is the area?”
Isabelle pondered the problem. “I have the key to the main gate, but there is also a retina scan. I don’t know why Eleanor switched up. Probably because she didn’t want to have to get out of the car to get the gate to open. The key works just as well, but, of course, you have to get out of the car to use it. A card swipe would work better for her. You can drive through, but you would need to swipe a card. If you drive in, you take the ring road behind the Circle but are still within the Circle because that’s where the garages are. We’ll walk it. I don’t see any problems. We can park in my office parking lot. I’m game if you guys are.”
They moved as one and were out the door in seconds, Myra last as she issued orders to Lady and her pups to watch the house.
“We need two cars,” Annie said.
Maggie and Nikki volunteered to drive as each had a four-door sedan.
Forty-five minutes later, the group stood under the old sycamore tree as Isabelle poked around the leaves of the Virginia creeper for the hand pulley.
“This is really clever, dear,” Myra said in awe.
“I thought so. Ellie loved it. Don’t talk above a whisper since voices carry in the night. Not that there is anyone around here, but there might be eyes on us. You just never know. Okay, I have the key. Be careful now and walk in single file,” Isabelle said.
When the sisters reached the kitchen door, Isabelle fit the key in and opened the door. A small light glowed in a round circle over the kitchen range, but it was still dark. Isabelle and Maggie both pulled small Maglites out of their bags and aimed them at the floor. “We’ll split up here. Annie, Myra, Yoko, and Alexis take the ground floor. Be sure to keep the lights aimed at the floor. Nikki, Maggie, Kathryn, and I will take the second floor. Then we’ll switch up. You never know what one of us will see or miss.”
The sisters went at it with gusto.
An hour later, they met on the landing of the staircase. “Nothing, absolutely nothing!” Maggie said, disgust ringing in her voice.
“It’s here. I know it,” Isabelle all but cried. “Ellie would never, and I mean never, desert Ben. She left something here for him. He said he came here looking, hoping for the same thing, but he couldn’t find anything. He was on the verge of tears, so he wasn’t conning me. I think he truly felt, at least for a little while, that his grandmother had deserted him. I don’t think he feels that way any longer. It’s just a gut feeling.”
“If she did leave a clue or something for him, where do you think she would have left it, Isabelle?” Annie asked.
“His room. But we all went over it. Even Ben said when he sneaked in here he went straight to his room, but he ended up crying and left. If there is anything, it has to be in his room. Come on, let’s give it another once-over. We can pull up the carpet if we have to. Take the pictures off the walls, strip it down to the bare nub.”
“We need light for this,” Kathryn said. “Light will still leak out if we close the shutters. Let’s take the coverlet and drape it over those two side-by-side windows. Tuck it behind the rod, and it should black it out. A towel over the little window will work. Two would be better.”
Thirty minutes later, the room looked like a tsunami had hit it at full speed.
“Nothing!” Isabelle cried dejectedly.
“Not so fast, ladies. It’s here. I can feel it,” Maggie said as she looked around at the torn-up room. “What kid leaves his junk behind? Look at that shelf. It looks like it belongs in a magazine to tempt some parent into decorating a kid’s room like this one. Look at this room! It’s a kid’s dream. Connor, bastard that he is, or we assume he is, wouldn’t he take all these things for the kid to comfort him? Wouldn’t Ben have cried to take them? He’s only eight years old, for crying out loud. What? They just ripped him out of here, and he wasn’t allowed to take anything? That’s pretty damn shitty if you want my opinion,” Maggie exploded in frustration.
“Sure does look that way. I never even met the guy, and I hate him already. Lots of clothes in the closet. Lots of clothes in the drawers. No false bottoms in any of the drawers,” Nikki said. “No messages taped anywhere. No safe either. You’d think someone like Mrs. Lymen would have a safe.”
“There is a safe. It’s in the linen closet. I checked it when I was here. No point in looking at it since we don’t have the combination. We can come back another time, and Annie can take a crack at it,” Isabelle said.
It was Myra who reached for the panda bear on the shelf as she remembered her daughter Barbara’s favorite bear, which she had called Willie. She hugged the bear to her chest, wondering if Ben had cried himself to sleep because he missed the bear. She wondered if it had a name and what it was.
“Oh! Oh! I found it! I found it!” Myra screamed. “Look! It has a zipper. Kids keep their pajamas in it. They call these special bears, Sleep Bears. I see them advertised all the time. There’s something in here, and it certainly isn’t pajamas,” she said, pulling the zipper down. “We found it, ladies! We found it! The Holy Grail.”
“It would help if you told us what you found, Myra,” Annie suggested.
“Yes, yes, yes. Okay, here’s a bundle of credit cards. A stash of cash, hard currency. And the Last Will and Testament of Eleanor Porter Lymen. A bunch of loose papers . . . a diary. Entries. A packet of what look like deeds to properties.”
“The mother lode, no doubt about it.” Annie sighed. “Quick, bundle i
t all up and we’ll take it with us. We’ll each carry some under our jackets in case there are eyes on us out there. We’ve been here way too long as it is. We have to leave. Like right now. Stuff something back inside the bear so it doesn’t look so limp. Some of Ben’s tee shirts from the drawers. Turn off all the lights, and let’s get this room back to the way it was before we tore it apart.”
The sisters fell to it the same way they divided up the kitchen chores.
Six minutes later, Maggie yelled, “Done! Six minutes! Move, people, move!”
They moved and were back in Myra’s kitchen in exactly seventy-two minutes.
“I think we need the table for this,” Myra said, switching on the light in the dining room.
“I’ll make the coffee,” Kathryn said. “Don’t start without me.”
“Wouldn’t think of it, dear,” Annie said as she unzipped her jacket to clutch at everything she’d stuffed inside the pockets. The others did the same as they waited for Kathryn and the coffee.
Isabelle couldn’t take her eyes off the bounty on the table. “I hope we find some answers here.”
“I’m sure we will, dear. I’m sure we will,” Myra said, repeating herself for effect.
Chapter 5
While the sisters were deep into planning how to help Isabelle’s new best friend, Ben was trying to help himself with the aid of his grandmother’s credit card and his computer. He watched as the reports he paid $29.95 for rolled out of his high-speed printer, hoping there would be something in the reports that would help him somehow find his grandmother.
Just as the printer beeped to indicate that the printer had finished the job, Ben heard the front door slam shut. He ran to the window in time to see his stepfather, Connor, running to his car. Correction, his mother’s car. Ben couldn’t decide at that moment if Connor’s leaving was a good thing or a bad thing. Normally, Connor didn’t go anywhere in the middle of the afternoon, especially on a Sunday. He pondered the problem and decided that with Natalie gone, the habitual behavior of one Connor Ryan was likely to change. That also meant, he supposed, that he was going to have to feed himself, not that Connor or Natalie actually ever cooked. Their version of mealtime was either to go out to eat or order in. Most times, Ben was left to fend for himself.
He thought, then, for a few moments, about what he would do for dinner if Connor didn’t bring back some takeout. He was pretty good at making grilled cheese sandwiches, providing, of course, there was any bread and cheese in the house. And he could make ramen noodles with his eyes closed.
Suddenly, the little boy burst out laughing. He could order in now if he wanted to. He had money. Lots and lots of money, and he knew where he could get more if he needed it. He could even ride his bike to several fast-food places and actually sit down and eat pizza, tacos, or burgers till he was stuffed. Right now, at this very moment, he decided the world was his oyster.
The house was quiet. Sometimes he liked quiet. Other times he would turn on the small television set in his room just to hear voices. He was lonely, no doubt about it.
Ben ran back to the printer and pulled out the reports he’d paid for. Skimpy at best. Maybe he should have gone for the $59.95 deluxe package. He shuffled the pages and stapled them together. His and Hers. Meaning Natalie and Connor.
Ben started with the report on Natalie, a fairly minimal one, and read through it in warp time. While there wasn’t all that much, what there was was pretty powerful in his opinion. He wondered if Connor knew about Natalie’s background. The report was rocky road. In his opinion.
The report on Connor Ryan was pure vanilla. He summarized Connor with: a lazy, good-for-nothing, idiotic moron. And yet his biological mother had married him, as had Natalie. Maybe women liked lazy, good-for-nothing, idiotic morons. He made a mental promise to himself to research women in regard to their choice in men.
Ben went back to the dark-chocolate report. He read it again, then a third time until he had it memorized word for word.
Natalie Kendrick. Age thirty-one. Born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Didn’t finish the tenth grade. “Ooooh,” Ben said. That certainly explained a lot. Job history was about what he expected. Cocktail waitress, cocktail hostess, bartender. All told, there had been seventeen different employers. Married twice and divorced twice. No mention of her current marriage to Connor Ryan. No children. Two DUIs, both in the two years before she married Connor. Loss of driver’s license the second time. Twenty-three different addresses during her life.
Three arrests, two for shoplifting, sixty days for each conviction in the county jail. The third arrest was for solicitation. Ben knew what that meant. He was well versed on the birds and the bees.
And that was it.
Ben wondered what kind of additional information the deluxe $59.95 package would have yielded. Other than not having Natalie’s financial records, which he was pretty sure would only show that she had nothing, he didn’t think he’d made a bad choice opting for the $29.95 package.
Now the question was, what did he do with the information? Natalie was gone. Maybe the point was moot.
A second later, Ben was off his chair, out of his room, and running down the hall to the master bedroom, where he ripped through it like a tornado. In his life, he’d never seen so many pairs of shoes. There had to be hundreds and hundreds, all colors, all kinds of heels. Lots and lots of clothes, some with price tags dangling from the sleeves.
No way in the world would Natalie leave all this behind, especially her hair. He looked at the dresser and saw long strings of red hair clipped to a Styrofoam head. For sure, she was coming back at some point. He remembered the time Natalie and Connor had had a knock-down, drag-out fight, and Connor reached for her hair to pull her closer to him, and he had ended up with a bunch of hair in his hand as Natalie danced across the room screaming and yelling. And Connor screamed right back, asking if anything about the person she presented herself as was real. Ben ran from the room, giggling all the way.
Natalie had probably left because she was mad and wanted to hurt Connor. Ben felt sick to his stomach at the thought that she would probably return. Connor was such a fool.
Ben ran back to his room and sat down at his desk. He wanted to cry. But only babies cried. So he knuckled his eyes to ward off his tears.
Ben picked up the report on Connor and read through it three times until he had it committed to memory. Connor was thirty-five years old. Born in Reston, Virginia. He attended and even graduated from Catholic University. Married once to Diana Lymen. Adopted Benjamin Lymen, Diana Lymen’s son. He was a widower. He was a potter and a glassblower. He sold his creations at local flea markets and on occasion was commissioned to do special projects. No DUIs on his record. Like the report on Natalie, his marriage to Natalie was not mentioned. Obviously, the reports that the company compiled weren’t up to date. He thought about demanding his money back. Truth in advertising and all that. He knew he wouldn’t bother, but it was a thought he stored away. But then he began to wonder if perhaps Natalie and Connor weren’t married at all. But he just as quickly dismissed that idea since in order for Connor to have won the lawsuit over his custody, he would have had to establish to the judge’s satisfaction that he was turning Ben over to a married couple and not a single stepfather.
The report on Izzy was next. He scanned it and realized there was nothing alarming in the report. Car accident. Lawsuit. He saw it every day on the news or read it online. Sooner or later, everyone had a fender-bender and ended up in court. No big deal. Her license had been suspended, then reinstated. Okay, that happened, too. The fact that she was reinstated told Ben she wasn’t at fault. Married to Abner Tookus. Born in Falls Church, Virginia. Grew up in an orphanage. Won many awards for her designs. The biggest awards were for the Circle and the Institute.
Izzy Flanders Tookus was double vanilla.
Now, what he should do with this information was the burning question. Should he show it to Izzy when he met her on Tuesday? She’d said she would he
lp him find his grandmother, but would this help in the search? Couldn’t hurt, was the answer he came up with. He carefully folded the reports and stuck them into one of his books, knowing neither Natalie, if she came back, nor Connor would ever even think of looking at his books.
Ben was surprised when he looked out the window to see that it was dark. It was the end of October, he reminded himself. That meant he was not allowed to leave the house. Once it was dark, and the streetlights came on, he had to be indoors, and until now, he had always followed the rules. That had to mean he was going to have ramen noodles for dinner because at lunchtime he had seen that there was no bread. He’d eaten peanut butter and jelly out of the jars and swigged down a glass of milk that tasted funny.
Or, he could gamble and take a chance and order something from one of the many magnets on the refrigerator. He could use one of the hundred-dollar bills he’d kept from his grandmother’s stash. He could do that. Yes, he could. But then what would happen if Connor suddenly came back? He slapped himself upside the head when he remembered Connor had given him five twenty-dollar bills.
Oh, man, he was good to go! He quickly let his gaze rake over the magnets on the refrigerator and chose Enrico’s Pizza. He called in and ordered a medium everything pizza, antipasto, and a large bottle of Coca-Cola. He figured that with the salad in the refrigerator, he would have meals for at least another day. “How long?” Twenty minutes was the reply.
Ben’s mouth was already watering. Pepperoni, sausage, green peppers, onions, mushrooms, and garlic. His grandmother’s favorite; his, too. He busied himself setting the table for one. Then he ran upstairs to get his money to pay for the pizza. He was halfway down the stairs when he turned around and ran back up to gather his dirty clothes to put in the washer. He’d learned the hard way that if he wanted clean clothes, he had to wash them himself. He just wished Natalie had bought better detergent instead of the one where he had to use three times as much in order to get any suds.
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