Breach of Ethics

by Sharon St. George

  “Natasha texted you?” Cleo shook her head in amazement. “That’s remarkable. I hope to God her mother has half that little gal’s spunk.”

  “So do I, but look what Melissa is dealing with …. She has no job or profession of her own. Until she married that slick-tongued con artist of a husband, she and her daughter depended on Natasha’s intimidating and controlling grandfather. Now both men are pressuring her for control of Natasha’s future.”

  My phone vibrated and I half expected another message from Natasha, but it was Nick saying the plane was available and to keep him advised. I texted back an okay and told Cleo about his offer to use Buck’s plane to bring Melissa and Natasha home.

  “Let’s hope this ends well enough for that to happen,” Cleo said. “I don’t have a good feeling about that Gailworth creep.”

  “Neither do I, but we’re not alone. He’ll be dead meat if Korba and Snyder get their hands on him.” We sat mute for a few minutes, alternately watching the clock and waiting for our phones to ring, until Cleo broke the silence.

  “Speaking of Snyder,” she said, “what kind of vibe did you get with both of them there in Quinn’s office? Do you still think there’s a chance they’re lovers?”

  It was a valid question, and I didn’t have an answer. “Hard to tell under the circumstances. It was all about Natasha, and Quinn’s office was like a pressure cooker. That’s why I broke away and came here.”

  “So maybe Rita Lowe had it right. Maybe Snyder was noodling with Gavin Lowe and not with Korba.”

  Cleo’s comment reminded me of Bernie Kluckert’s story about a man matching Glen Capshaw’s description who seemed to be looking for something in my desk. I dropped that bit of news about Sybil Snyder’s husband.

  “What the heck?” Cleo said. “Snyder’s husband nosing around like that is more than a little strange.”

  “Even more strange considering that a week earlier, Lola saw someone doing the same thing. It could have been the same man. I would have mentioned it sooner, but with all that’s been going on, it kept slipping my mind.”

  “I remember you telling me about Capshaw’s jealous accusations. Maybe it had something to do with that.”

  “Maybe. Both Gavin Lowe and Hector Korba are members of his wife’s committee, but what’s that got to do with Capshaw rifling through my desk in the library?”

  “Why don’t you ask him?” Cleo said.

  “You’re kidding. How would I go about doing that?”

  “I don’t know, but you can probably think of something.”

  I couldn’t believe what she was asking me to do. “You’re forgetting he has a temper and suspects his wife of cheating. According to Rita Lowe’s sources, he’s even been informed that his wife was cheating with Gavin Lowe. I might as well come right out and ask him if he’s a murderer.”

  She nodded. “Ah, good point. Maybe confronting Capshaw isn’t such a good idea. Besides, now that Abel Gailworth is on the run, the odds seem to be in his favor as Lowe’s killer.”

  Just then I felt my phone vibrate. Another text.

  Help ru still there

  Chapter 30

  I texted back, Still here. RU OK?

  She replied, K for now can u help us

  I answered, We're getting help. Are you headed to Canadian border?

  Thik so gotta go

  I filled Cleo in, and then called Quinn from Cleo’s phone to let him know I’d heard from Natasha and to see if he had any news.

  “We’re making progress,” he said. “The police haven’t made a decision yet on the Amber Alert, but they have contacted the Canadian border to be on the lookout for Gailworth’s vehicle. Canada is pretty picky about letting people with a DUI on their record into their country, so that might be enough to keep him from crossing the border. We checked with the Canadian Border Services Agency, and they say if there’s only a single DUI, and it’s been more than ten years, there’s something called Deemed Rehabilitation. Gailworth might qualify, but it would be up to the immigration authorities to decide whether to let him pass through. It’s not certain to stop him, but it could work in our favor. At least it should slow him down.”

  “What about the pending custody hearing? Did the police tell the border people about that?”

  “They did, but the Gailworths haven’t yet missed their court date. They still have nineteen hours to get back to Timbergate for the hearing. Gailworth might argue that he plans to return home in time for the hearing, but I suspect the officials at the border will detain him, at least until they can do some extensive checking.”

  “Quinn, I’m worried that if Gailworth gets turned away at the border, he might head off in some other direction. If he does show up at the border crossing, we have to make sure he’s held there somehow. Could the police say he’s a suspect in a murder case?”

  “They may be considering that, but I’ll check with Kass just to make sure. Don’t forget to call him about Natasha’s latest text.”

  Cleo looked up from her computer as Quinn and I ended our call. “Here’s something interesting. Take a look.” She had pulled up criteria for entering Canada with a child, and it matched what Rella had told Nick. The Gailworths wouldn’t need a passport for Natasha, but they would need a birth certificate.

  I sent a text to Natasha’s phone, praying that because she was sitting in the backseat, her mother and Gailworth wouldn’t notice the phone vibrating.

  Do you have a passport?

  No

  Did your mom bring your birth certificate?

  In moms purse why

  You cannot cross border without it

  Gotta go mom crying

  Again, she was gone abruptly.

  Cleo gave me a look. “What?”

  I told Cleo the Gailworths had Natasha’s birth certificate with them.

  “Darn,” she said. “I was hoping Gailworth hadn’t thought of taking it along.”

  “Me too, but Natasha says it’s in her mother’s purse.”

  “Too bad.” Cleo glanced up at her wall clock. I did the same. It read three fifteen. Gailworth could reach the Canadian border in less than two hours. Would he try to cross, or would he check into a motel on the Washington State side and wait until morning? I considered a more frightening scenario. If he was more than a fraud and a con artist and if he had somehow found his way into Quinn’s office and killed Gavin Lowe, was Gailworth capable of doing something far more desperate? Would he use Natasha and her mother as hostages?

  Cleo said, “Do you realize you’ve been in my office for an hour and you’ve been standing or pacing the whole time?”

  “I can’t stop hoping we’ll get her back and she’ll be okay. I don’t know what else to do.”

  Cleo gently grasped my shoulders and aimed me at the door. “Go back to the library and take a breather. The police are on this. They have all kinds of reasons now to catch up with Gailworth, not least of which is that he’s a murder suspect. He’s not only left town, he’s left the state and might very well try to leave the country. Hardly the behavior of an innocent man.”

  Back in the library, I called Detective Kass and gave him verbatim reports of my texts with Natasha.

  “Good job, but our first priority is to keep her safe. We don’t want her stepfather finding out what she’s doing.”

  “I know. I’m scared to death she’s going to put herself in harm’s way.”

  “If she texts again, tell her to turn off the phone and put it back in her mother’s purse. It’s too dangerous for her to be using it.”

  “I will. I told her to leave it on because her parents think she’s using it to play games. I thought you could use it to locate them. I’m not sure how that works. I’ve only seen it on television crime shows.”

  “In some cases that would be a good idea, but we don’t want to put the child or her mother in peril. Better have her turn it off and put it away. The Amber Alert is going to be activated any time now, and the Canadian Border Services Agency w
ill be watching for Gailworth. We’re going to catch up with him one way or another.”

  Relief washed over me at hearing what the police had in place, but it was chased by a bolus of pessimistic fear that a lot of things could still go wrong.

  “Miss Machado?” Kass said. “Are you still there?”

  “Yes, what?”

  “I understood Mr. Quinn to say you have someone available to fly the girl and her mother home. Is that true?”

  “Yes, my friend, Nick Alexander. He’s a licensed pilot with an instrument rating. Would that be all right? I plan to go with him.”

  “I think we can arrange that. Tell him to stand by. I’ll keep in touch. And please contact me right away if the girl sends another text.”

  “I will. Thank you.” I hung up, feeling as if this day had already lasted for a month. I glanced at my wall clock, amazed that it was only four in the afternoon. I did the math again and realized Gailworth could be a scant hour away from the Canadian border. I wondered how soon the Amber Alert would activate, dreading what might happen if Gailworth spotted it.

  Minutes dragged by while I made a halfhearted attempt to turn my mind to anything that could be considered library tasks. As I opened my desk drawer to reach for the keys to the locked file cabinet where I stored committee minutes, I flashed on Bernie’s description of the man he observed nosing around in my desk drawers. Bright red hair and moustache. It could only have been Dr. Snyder’s husband, Glen Capshaw. What possible reason would he have for looking around in my desk? I came up with zero. Should I call him, using the pretext that I wondered if he needed library assistance? Say one of my volunteers had recognized him in the library?

  I decided to wait until the Gailworth drama had run its course. Capshaw had told Bernie he was looking for a pen and paper to leave me a note. Then he said he’d get back to me later. That was exactly one week ago, and I hadn’t heard from him. His failure to follow up seemed to contradict what he had told Bernie, but maybe Capshaw had found what he needed elsewhere.

  I found myself comparing Capshaw and Gailworth as suspects. Gailworth had a lot at stake financially, so the motive there was money. He thought Lowe had to be prevented from testifying. On the other hand, Capshaw’s only motive that made sense was a crime of passion incited by Lowe’s alleged affair with Capshaw’s wife. Love or money. Which was it?

  As I sat there watching the clock approach five and wondering what to do with myself after closing the library, my cell phone came to life.

  Ru there

  Yes but you need to stop using phone dangerous

  Abel says we are close to bordr

  Border guards will help you. They know what to do

  K but I maybe did somethig bad

  What did you do?

  Threw my birth certif out window mom and Abel dont know

  Why?

  You said they wont let me in canada without it am I in trouble

  My eyes filled with tears for that child. She had done the one thing she could think of that might stop Abel in his tracks. I hoped she was right.

  You’re not in trouble. Turn off your phone and put it back in your mother’s purse, K?

  K thak u

  I locked the library and raced across the complex to Quinn’s office with my phone to my ear, telling him about Natasha’s text and asking where things stood with the police. He told me they were in touch with the Canadian officials and that Gailworth had been apprehended moments ago just as he pulled in line at the border crossing. Melissa and Natasha were emotionally exhausted but physically fine. The wave of relief that passed through me was so strong that it turned my legs to rubber.

  We called Detective Kass from Quinn’s office, where Korba and Dr. Snyder seemed to have taken up permanent residence. Quinn put me on the line and I reported on my final text conversation with Natasha, while Korba glared at me with loathing instead of gratitude. Kass said he’d let me know if and when Nick and I might be allowed to bring Melissa and Natasha home. I didn’t relay that part of the conversation in front of Korba for fear he would either object or demand to come along with us.

  After I left Quinn’s office, I called Nick right away to give him a heads-up. He suggested we meet at the Timbergate Municipal Airport coffee shop to wait for further notice about the flight to pick up mother and daughter. They were now being termed Gailworth’s hostages and were being routed through the red tape necessary to turn them over to the jurisdiction of the Timbergate Police Department. After a couple of hours of formalities involving various law enforcement agencies, Kass called with the okay to bring Melissa and Natasha home.

  Two hours later Nick and I touched down at Bellingham International Airport in Buck Sawyer’s six-passenger Eclipse 500. It was a smooth night flight through clear skies in the light jet that Buck used primarily for small groups and short trips. Our return trip would have us back in Timbergate before midnight.

  When we walked into the terminal, we spotted mother and daughter seated in a waiting area. A female officer who looked to be in her fifties and wore the uniform of the Bellingham Police Department acted as their chaperon. When Natasha spotted us, she jumped up and ran to me with a bright-eyed smile.

  “You saved us,” she cried.

  “You saved yourself, Natasha. You were very brave.” I glanced over her head and saw her mother give me a wan smile and wipe a tear from her face.

  We signed the woman officer’s required paperwork and were soon on our way home. It was Natasha’s first time in an airplane, and she was giddy with excitement, looking down through the clear night at the sparkling city lights spread out like spilled diamonds on black velvet.

  “I want to learn to fly,” she called out from her seat behind Nick.

  Nick glanced at me. “Something tells me she’ll do it.”

  I thought of the girl’s musical talent and her spirit, and had no doubt she would learn to fly and do anything else that commanded her interest. I sent a silent thank you to Gavin Lowe, the doctor who had saved her life and lost his own.

  In the seat behind me, Melissa remained quiet, and I had to wonder where her thoughts were taking her. She would face some soul-searching and difficult days, not the least of which was appearing before a judge at ten o’clock in the morning to decide the fate of her daughter. I wondered whom she feared most: the judge or Hector Korba. I also wondered if she knew whether her husband had killed Gavin Lowe. I was surprised that the authorities had allowed her to fly home with us, but Nick and Detective Kass had worked out an arrangement that seemed to satisfy everyone.

  Kass was waiting for us in the terminal when we touched down at the Timbergate Municipal Airport near midnight. From there it would be up to the TPD to decide the next step for Melissa Korba Gailworth and her daughter. I wondered if the custody hearing would go on in spite of what had happened during the past fifteen hours.

  Natasha should have been stressed and exhausted after all she had been through, but she was wide awake and seemed invigorated by her adventure. As Kass escorted her and Melissa toward his vehicle, Natasha broke away and ran back to throw her slender arms around me.

  “I’ll never forget our secret messages,” she said. “I was really scared Abel might do something bad until you told me it would be okay.”

  “It was okay because you were smart and brave,” I said. “If I’m ever in trouble, I hope I’ll be just like you.”

  “You will.” She gave me another hug and ran back to her mother.

  As Detective Kass helped Melissa and Natasha into his vehicle, I glanced at Nick and was surprised to see the emotions of both sympathy and relief revealed there.

  “Great kid,” he said. Then he abruptly changed the subject, quickly regaining his customary unflappable air. “Are you hungry?”

  “It’s kind of hard to tell, but I think so.”

  He took my hand in his. “You know, we were supposed to be on a dinner date tonight. I made reservations. Even got a haircut. I still owe you that belated Valentine�
�s Day dinner.”

  I gave his hand a squeeze. “What do you have in mind?”

  “Whatever’s still open.”

  We ended up at Burger King, feasting on Whoppers and french fries and rehashing our flight and the events that led up to it. When the food was gone, exhaustion began catching up with us and we sat in our booth trading yawns.

  I asked Nick one last question, “Do you think Abel Gailworth would have hurt Melissa or Natasha if he hadn’t been stopped?”

  “Hard to say. He doesn’t appear to have committed any violent crimes in his past, unless it turns out he killed the doctor.”

  “I wonder how long it will take for the police to figure that out.”

  “Not long to rule him out, if he has a good alibi, but otherwise, the stunt he just pulled has definitely backfired. He’s going to be under a lot of scrutiny.”

  “True, but I can’t imagine how Gailworth could have ended up in Quinn’s office with Dr. Lowe.”

  He grasped my arm and gave me an affectionate little shake. “You don’t have to figure that out, Aimee. It’s not your job to solve the murder.”

  I flinched a little, thinking I had a right to my curiosity in this case. “I know, but it’s never far from my mind, especially after being asked to volunteer my DNA.”

  “The police have asked lots of people.”

  “You know, there’s still Glen Capshaw to consider. I keep hoping the police will take a good look at him. So far, I have the feeling he’s escaped their attention.”

  “That’s the lady doctor’s husband, right? What’s her name again?”

  “Sybil Snyder. She took over Natasha’s case after Gavin Lowe died.”

  “Don’t be too sure her husband is being overlooked. Detective Kass seems very invested in solving Lowe’s murder.” He stifled another yawn and said, “It’s late and you have to work tomorrow. I’d better let you get home.”

  “You’re right, but I’m afraid I’m too wired to fall asleep.”

  “I could help with that.” The smile that accompanied his offer sent a little thrill through my body. Still, I knew that tonight of all nights I needed my rest.