Where was Natasha Korba? Had her mother and stepfather really fled with no intention of showing up in court on Wednesday morning? While Bernie went about applying his green thumb to our potted vegetation, I texted Nick and Harry about the situation with Natasha, asking them to check in with me ASAP. I was at a loss as to what to do about the Gailworths.
Chapter 27
Cleo emailed an update half an hour later. Loren Davidson had convinced home office to put Quinn back on the job, lifting his temporary suspension. Temporarily. Any sign that the police were ready to arrest him and charge him with Lowe’s murder would put Cleo back in charge. Sanjay had been asked to take a leave of undetermined duration. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. In his first job, fresh out of school, he’d already dealt with a murder in the administrative suite and the suspected abduction of a celebrity child prodigy.
Even worse, word had leaked out about what the media were calling Natasha’s “disappearance.” Local newspaper and television reporters had taken up positions outside all of the entrances, shouting questions at employees who entered or left the building and blinding them with the flash of cameras. As usual, our security personnel were pretty much impotent against the media, unless they felt justified using Tasers. That wasn’t likely.
Nick and Harry both responded to my texts. Harry was up to his armpits in alligators at his mall job site. Rella was en route to D.C. He’d let me know if her contacts there came up with any leads as to Quinn’s unknown construction worker. Nick was hanging out with Buck Sawyer’s cyber geeks. Still on the same quest, they’d had no luck so far. I texted both guys back, saying I’d keep them posted on the Gailworth situation.
With no further word from Cleo, I turned to my latest library project. I wanted to make good on my spur-of-the-moment idea to read materials for the Pediatric Unit. The New York Public Library’s site listed 100 Great Children’s Books. More than enough titles to choose from.
Working on the list helped keep my mind off worst-case scenarios involving the Gailworths and Natasha. I kept at it until I looked up and saw Bernie standing at my desk.
“Miss, might I have a word?” I didn’t like the look of him. From his somber expression, he appeared troubled. I hedged, hoping he wouldn’t try to pull me into another conversation about Lola.
“Only if it’s something brief. I’m afraid I’m awfully busy right now.”
“I’ll try to be quick.” He squirmed and stared at the toes of his boots, then sent me a look so imploring I couldn’t ignore it.
“Is it something urgent, Bernie?”
“That’s the question, Miss Aimee. I don’t know, but it might be. That’s why I talked it over with Lola.” He glanced at the orchid on their shared desk. “We’re getting along, you see.”
It was about Lola. I should have known. “That’s nice, but I really don’t have any relationship advice for you.”
“No, no, that’s not it. I’m doing fine in that department, now that Lola knows Oslo Swanson is a womanizer. In my day we used to call a fellow like him a two-timing louse.”
“Then I don’t understand. What did you want to ask me? And what does it have to do with Lola?”
“Something happened in here the day you left me alone. I mentioned it to Lola, and she said the same thing had happened to her. We thought you might ought to know.”
He had my attention.
“Do you remember what day that was?”
“I do. It was Tuesday a week ago. My first day on the job, don’t you know.”
I remembered. “Go on.”
“Well, a couple of things came up that day. I talked them over with Lola, and she advised me that you might want to be informed.”
“What happened, Bernie? Something you forgot to mention?” My sense of urgency about Natasha Korba made it difficult to hold my patience.
“Didn’t forget. Just didn’t know it was important until Lola clued me in. Her being your right-hand man and all, she knows what’s what, don’t you see?” Right hand woman, I mentally corrected.
“Yes, she’s very sharp,” I agreed. “What was it that she thought you should tell me?”
Bernie’s focus seemed to drift for a moment. “She put me on to a new kind of denture adhesive, don’t you know. Stopped that infernal clicking.”
Cripes, was all this buildup really about Bernie’s dentures? My patience was wearing thinner than a strip of off-market dental floss.
“Good for you.” Though the clicking got old fast, his slippery dentures were not first and foremost on my mind. “Is that what Lola wanted you to tell me?”
His eyes widened. “Oh, no. Sorry. Lola said I should tell you about the man who came into the library while you were gone last Tuesday morning.”
“Why? Was there a problem with the patron?”
“That’s the sixty-four-dollar question.” Sixty-four?
“Do you mean sixty-four thousand?”
“No, that copy-cat TV show came later. I mean sixty-four, from the radio show my folks listened to back in the forties. It was the most important question, don’t you know.”
I had to put a stop to his asides and get to the point, or this would take forever.
“Bernie, what is the sixty-four-dollar question?”
“Here it is. That morning a man stopped in and walked to your desk. I was dusting back in the stacks, but I heard him, so I looked through a space between some of the books and saw him opening your desk drawers. Well, I was new, it being my first day, but I wasn’t liking the look of someone snooping in your desk, so I showed myself and asked what his business was.”
“Did he identify himself?”
“Not by name. He said he was a regular in the library. Said he was looking for a pen and paper to leave you a note. Sounded kinda suspicious to me, so I told him I’d take a message. He told me to never mind, he’d just make contact with you later. Said he wanted you to look something up for him and it was kinda complicated. He spouted some medical jargon, and I had to admit he was right about the complicated part.”
“And then he left?”
“Yep. I didn’t think any more about it ’til Lola and I got to talking about our duties here in the library, trading war stories, so to speak. When I told her that one, she sat up and took notice, so here’s my sixty-four-dollar question: did I do wrong by not reporting that fella to you right away?”
“Of course not, but I’m glad you decided to let me know. Do you remember what the man looked like?”
“‘In his fifties, I’d say. Average looking, except for the red hair and moustache.”
Glen Capshaw.
I hoped I sounded calm and professional. “Thank you, Bernie. I believe I know who he was. I’ll follow up with him and take care of the matter.”
Looking relieved, Bernie went back to tending the library’s potted plant collection.
A tingling sensation thrilled through me. I knew why Lola had advised Bernie to tell me his story. It sounded a lot like what had happened to her, except she hadn’t been able to get a good enough visual to identify her intruder. Searching my memory, I realized Lowe’s murder had happened two weeks ago, sometime late Monday night. On Friday of that same week, Lola’s intruder had come into the library. Bernie was saying that another intruder, or possibly the same one, had shown up in the library a week ago, on the Tuesday following Lola’s incident. The only doctor I knew with red hair and a moustache was Glen Capshaw. What had he wanted from my desk?
My curious conversation with Bernie took a backseat to the news about Abel Gailworth taking Natasha from her hospital room. A glance at the time on my computer screen surprised me. I could swear I’d been at work for hours, yet it was only ten o’clock. An hour had passed since Cleo had been called to the administrative suite.
I was itching to hear an update on Natasha’s whereabouts. Knowing Hector Korba, there would be hell to pay if anything happened to his granddaughter. He would start by suing Timbergate Medical Center out of existence.
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It was impossible to get back to work on my list of potential acquisitions for the Pediatric Unit. Instead, I placed a call to Rita Lowe to see if she could give me get a sense of the kind of man Glen Capshaw was. I asked her what she knew about Sybil Snyder’s husband. She sounded glad to hear from me, saying she was getting almost no input from the police into the investigation of her husband’s death.
“Capshaw is jealous and possessive, if you believe the gossips,” Rita said. “I suppose it doesn’t help that Sybil Snyder chose not to take his name when they married. I only met him a few times on social occasions, and our longest conversations were no more than an exchange of perfunctory greetings.”
“What about the woman who told you she had seen Sybil Snyder with your husband? Is there any chance she might have done the same favor for Dr. Capshaw?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Rita said.
“But she didn’t imply she'd told Capshaw, or come right out and say so?”
“No, sorry, and I’m certainly not inclined to ask her, if that’s where you’re going with this.”
“Of course not.” I ended the call, promising to get in touch again if I had any further news. Rita did the same.
Cleo called a few minutes later. She was back in her office, relieved at having turned TMC’s helm over to Quinn. She asked if I could get away for a face-to-face update. I readily agreed and left Bernie with explicit instructions: keep eyes on my desk area at all times. I gave him permission to lock the library if he felt uncomfortable and promised to be back in half an hour or less.
“No problem, Miss Aimee. You can count on a Kluckert. That’s the family motto made up by my Grandpa. I carry it on down the line.”
With eagerness to hear from Cleo outweighing my misgivings, I left Bernie in charge, hurrying toward the main tower through a sudden rain shower. Cleo had coffee poured for both of us, and the rich aroma filled her office. I plopped in a chair next to her desk—damp, chilly, and grateful for the hot beverage.
“What’s the latest on the Gailworths and Natasha?” I asked.
“Not much is happening, except Hector Korba is going to have a stroke if the police don’t think of some way to justify going after Natasha and her parents.”
“Has Quinn thought of anything?”
“He’s grilling Sybil Snyder about Natasha’s medical condition, hoping she’ll find a legitimate medical reason to convince the police the child is in imminent danger. That’s the only way they can put out an Amber Alert. And the judge in charge of the custody hearing can’t issue a bench warrant unless the Gailworths fail to appear at ten o’clock tomorrow as scheduled. As far as the letter of the law is concerned, Natasha is on a legal outing with her mother and stepfather.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. I certainly couldn’t contain my exasperation as I said, “They’ve been gone since six o’clock this morning. It’s after ten now. They could be in Oregon or Nevada by this time. Or on their way to Mexico.”
Cleo was definitely on the same page. “That’s what Quinn’s thinking,” she said. “He’s inclined to think they went north just because that’s the quickest way to leave California. Korba agrees. He’s convinced that Gailworth is headed for Canada.”
“Why not Mexico?” I asked.
Cleo replied without hesitation. “Language, for one thing. According to Hector, Gailworth has always been prejudiced against Mexicans, and Hispanics in general. He wouldn’t even allow Natasha to study Spanish in school. Hector thinks there’s almost no chance they’d be headed in that direction. He’s guessing if Gailworth can get them across the border into Canada, he’ll book a flight to Europe.”
She was confirming my worst fears. “So there’s nothing anyone can do to track them down and bring Natasha home before they reach Canada?”
“It doesn’t look like it. The Amber Alert would be the best bet.”
“What are the criteria for the Amber Alert?”
“I just looked it up.” Cleo read from a notepad on her desk. “Law enforcement has to confirm that an abduction has taken place. They need a description of the child and the captor, or at least the captor’s vehicle. And they need to verify that the child is at risk of serious injury or death.”
Her words sent chills down my arms. “Can Quinn get a description of the vehicle from our outside security cameras?”
“Already done. And Natasha’s nurse has written up an incident report about Gailworth physically carrying Natasha out of her room and leaving without filling out the AMA form. Not quite an abduction, but he definitely removed her by force.”
“What about Natasha being at risk of injury or death?”
“That’s a tough one,” Cleo said, “unless Snyder swears Natasha’s health is in danger. Hector is trying to bully her into coming up with any convincing medical reason, no matter how flimsy. So far, she hasn’t caved, and I don’t blame her.
“Right,” I said. “She’d have a hard time proving that in court, since she admitted to Quinn that Natasha’s been well enough to go home for at least a couple of days.”
Cleo dropped her glasses on her desk and massaged her temples with her fingers. “The thing that’s bothering me most about this is that Melissa Gailworth is going along with it. Is she really so loyal to Gailworth that she’d flee the country with him and take her daughter along?”
I stood and paced her office. “She might … if Gailworth is holding her past over her head. She and Natasha have been caught in the middle between Gailworth and Korba for a long time. Being torn between the two of them must have taken an excruciating emotional toll. Maybe she just wants it to end, and running away is her best hope.”
“I wonder if they’ve left the country already. What’s to stop them from catching a plane at an airport somewhere in Oregon?”
“I can think of one thing,” I said. “Gailworth might have to use a credit card to buy airplane tickets. He wouldn’t want to leave a paper trail proving he’s fleeing the country. At least not this early on. For all he knows, law enforcement is already on the lookout for him and checking airports.”
“I see what you mean,” Cleo said, looking a little more optimistic. “Purchasing three one-way tickets to anywhere outside the U.S. on the day before the custody hearing would be hard to explain.”
“Right,” I said. My words were still tumbling out, as if speaking quickly would lead to a faster solution. I concentrated on slowing down as I continued, “So, if I were him, I’d try to get across the border into Canada, then wait until the last minute to buy tickets on an international flight.” As I spoke, I had an idea. I walked around her desk and stood looking over her shoulder. “Cleo, go online and look for an airport located in Canada but close to the Washington State border.”
Cleo put her glasses on and started tapping her keyboard. “Vancouver International.”
“Good. Now look up the U.S. town nearest the border crossing from Washington to Canada.”
Her fingers flew across the keyboard. “Blaine. It sits on the border and has a crossing called the Peace Arch.”
“Does it have an airport?”
She tapped again. “No. It closed in 2008. Looks like Bellingham International Airport is close, though. According to this site, it’s only about thirty minutes from Vancouver.”
“Thanks. I’m going back to the library. Call me if you hear anything.”
“I will. You do the same.”
Chapter 28
Back in the library, I asked Bernie if any patrons had dropped in while I was gone.
“Matter of fact, some did, but I took care of their needs.” He seemed pleased with himself, so I waited for him to elaborate. He didn’t, so I gave him a nudge.
“Bernie, do you want to tell me how you helped our patrons while I was gone?”
“One doctor fella wanted to make a copy of some pages from a magazine. Lola told me you don’t charge for photocopying, so I told him to go ahead.”
“That’s right. Anything else?”
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“Just a phone call asking you to call back. Somebody named Dick, or Rick or—”
“Or maybe Nick?” I asked.
“Coulda been. I don’t hear as clear on the phone as I used to.”
I went to my desk and looked at the number written in Bernie’s spidery hand. It was Nick’s cell phone.
“You did just fine, Bernie. It’s almost noon, so you’re free to go.”
“Roger that. I’ll see if I can catch Lola in the cafeteria.” He whistled softly as he made his way to the exit.
As soon as the door closed behind Bernie, I called Nick’s cell. He picked up immediately with his “Hi, lady” greeting.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“That’s my line. I’m checking in to hear the latest about the missing girl.”
“We’re still in the guesswork stage, but my best guess is still that Gailworth is headed north, hoping to cross into Canada and from there, who knows?”
“He could fly just about anywhere he wants from the Vancouver B.C. airport,” Nick said. “If he does that, they’ll have a hell of a time catching up with him.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“So you’re fairly sure Gailworth is taking I-5 north, but you can’t come up with a legit reason for law enforcement to stop him?”
“No. We can’t be sure he’s taking that route.”
“What would you want to do if you knew they were headed that way?”
“Good question. What would you do?”
“Head him off at the pass.”
He sounded like a B-movie cowboy. Losing patience, I asked, “How? I’m praying they won’t make it across the border, but I don’t see how anyone can stop them. So far, we have no leverage. We can’t claim Natasha’s been abducted, because she’s with her mother, and we can’t claim they’ve skipped out on the custody hearing because it isn’t scheduled to take place until tomorrow morning.”
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