Mystery Dad

by Leona Karr

  Her siblings, three brothers and two sisters, were married with children. One of her sisters lived in the neighborhood, the other in Colorado Springs, and her brothers had settled their families back East. There were times when Kerri wondered why she had never made it to the altar herself.

  “Too picky,” her grandmother had said. “Too much the career girl,” her mother had decided. “It’s her father’s fault for getting her into the damn business. She’s married to it.”

  Maybe, they’re right, Kerri admitted to herself as she parked her car in a narrow driveway leading to an ancient garage that nobody used, even in the dead of winter. The house, a two-story white clapboard, was cushioned in a nest of tall ponderosa pines and one giant oak tree that brushed against Kerri’s window at the back of the house. Her father had bought the house for his Irish bride, a lass of seventeen fresh from the hills of Kilkenny in southern Ireland. Their marriage was a happy one, and when Kerri’s paternal grandmother was widowed, she came to live with them, and helped raise Kerri and her brothers and sisters.

  Kerri slipped out of the front seat, and grabbed a briefcase that was filled with everything she needed to put in a long evening at her home computer. She often worked late into the night when the house was still, with the familiar sounds of creaking floorboards and groaning old plumbing keeping her company.

  She hurried up the front steps to a porch that was weathered and needed a new coat of paint. Woodbines trailing along the eaves were harmonious with a porch swing and her grandmother’s favorite rocker.

  As soon as Kerri opened the front door, she knew her younger sister, Cathy, was visiting with her fouryear-old twin girls. Squeals and laughter coming from the kitchen warned her that a clan gathering of four generations of Kincaid females was in progress. Cathy and her policeman husband, Harry, had bought a small house with a backyard directly behind the family home. For all intents and purposes, the alley separating the two properties didn’t exist as the two families mingled.

  Kerri smiled as she heard her grandmother’s voice, raised above the hullabaloo. Grams was a feisty eighty-year-old who had no intention of turning her life over to anyone, including Saint Peter himself. Kerri doubted that heaven would ever be the same once her fiercely independent grandmother arrived. She’d have the whole place reorganized before they issued her wings.

  “Look who’s home,” her spunky grandmother greeted Kerri warmly as she came through the kitchen door. The older lady’s sharp eyes took in the dejected slump of Kerri’s shoulders. “Just in time to join us in a snack of scones and honey. You look in need of a pick-me-up.”

  Amy, one of the twins, bolted from her chair and ran across the kitchen to Kerri. “Auntie! You have to help.” An anxious expression scrunched up her little face and tears threatened to gush out of her round blue eyes.

  Kerri bent down and gathered her into her arms. “What’s the matter, honey? What’s happened?”

  Tearfully, the child croaked, “Bojo. I don’t know where to look. He’s lost. You’ll find him for me, won’t you?” She clung to Kerri and raised her pleading eyes. “You can find anybody. I know you can.”

  The little girl’s childish confidence rang hollow in Kerri’s ears. At the moment she wasn’t sure she could find anything, including Bojo, a stuffed monkey that had become Amy’s security blanket.

  “Of course, I’ll help,” she told the child reassuringly. “Wherever he is, we’ll find him.”

  “For heaven’s sake, let Sis catch her breath a minute, Amy,” Cathy chided her daughter. “She doesn’t need to hunt for Bojo right this minute. Besides, we’ve looked every place we can think of.”

  Kerri took the little girl’s hand and led her back to the table. “I bet Bojo hasn’t wandered very far. He’s probably just playing a game with you.” Not like a mother who had disappeared and doesn’t want to be found. The thought brought new feelings of compassion for three abandoned children who should be sitting around a family table, secure in a circle of loved ones.

  Kerri’s mother frowned as she wiped her hands on a dish towel. “You look tired, honey.” She was a large woman with soft, warm arms and a round face that had smile lines around a generous mouth. Cathy and Kerri’s older sister, Mary, took after their mother, struggling with their figures, while Kerri’s slender body structure and metabolism came from her grandmother’s genes—much to her sisters’ disgust.

  “Just another day,” Kerri lied as she kissed her mother’s pink cheek. In truth, there had been nothing ordinary about anything since the moment Mark Richards walked into her office.

  “I called the office earlier this afternoon and Debbie said you were out.” Her mother raised a questioning eyebrow. “She said you had a new client, one that could make a national Handsomest and Sexy Men list, hands down.”

  Cathy perked up. “Sis has a sexy, good-looking client for a change?”

  “You know Debbie,” Kerri said with a depreciating wave of her hand. “She’s got radar out for any available male.”

  “Then he’s not sexy? Not handsome?” her sister prodded.

  “I didn’t say that,” Kerri answered as evenly as she could, hoping to heaven a betraying flush of color wasn’t creeping up her neck.

  Cathy smirked. “Then he definitely must be some hunk of man if you’ll admit you even noticed. Is he married?”

  “No, he’s not married,” she answered evenly. “He was referred by another client. He wants me to find someone for him.”

  “Who? Is he looking for a long lost sweetheart? Or a fiancée? What’s his name?”

  Kerri smiled patiently at her sister as she took the cup of tea her mother offered and sat down at the table. “You are a true romantic, Cathy. I’m running a business and that’s all this is. His name is Mark Richards and he’s looking for his late brother’s wife. While he was out of town, she left her three kids at his place with a baby-sitter, and took off.”

  “I’ve been tempted to do something like that on occasion,” Cathy quipped, winking at her girls to let them know she was kidding.

  Kerri’s grandmother snorted. “Some mother. She probably took off to kick up her heels. That’s the way with some of these modern women. Don’t want to grow up. It’s a good thing she left them with family.”

  “Mark’s not really family. The kids aren’t his brother’s so they’re no relation to him. In fact, he didn’t even know they existed until he came back from a business trip and found them camped out in his fashionable loft.”

  “That must have been a shock.” Kerri’s mother shook her head. “How small are the children?”

  Kerri told her.

  “Poor babies.”

  “The little boy, Timmy, is a handful.” Kerri started to tell them about the afternoon’s escapade and then changed her mind. She needed time to digest what had happened. Too many loose ends to talk about. Was Timmy mistaken about Jason’s brother knowing the man the boy called, Dirk? And how would they ever get a handle on who the man might be? Everything had to fit together. But how?

  “Didn’t the mother leave any kind of a clue where she’d gone?” Cathy asked.

  Kerri shook her head.

  “Then how are you going to find her?”

  “I don’t know, but I will.” Kerri knew that with one lucky break she’d be off. Once she hit full stride, she would successfully follow a trail until she had all the answers. She’d find the clue she needed somewhere. Maybe she’d find it if she went over everything again tonight. She’d love to have something positive to tell Mark in the morning, not that he wouldn’t have more pleasant things on his mind after a hot date with Lisa. She felt a smug sense of feminine satisfaction that they wouldn’t be coming back to his apartment after their date.

  “Hey, come back, come back, wherever you are.” Cathy waved a hand in front of her sister’s face.

  “Sorry.” Kerri gave a sheepish grin.

  “If you were thinking about your sexy, handsome new client you’re excused. Were you?”

/>   “In a way,” she admitted.

  “Aha! Do I detect more than just a business interest in this guy?”

  “Leave her alone, Cathy. You’re not going to find out anything pushing and pulling like a puppy worrying a shoe,” her grandmother warned. “Don’t you know that Kerri shuts up like a clam when it comes to her love life?”

  “What love life? Whenever a fellow starts to get serious, she gives him the brush-off. She’s had a dozen chances to get herself a husband but every time she hears the tinkle of wedding bells, she puts in earplugs.”

  “It’s true,” her mother agreed. “Not that I’d want her to marry just anyone.”

  Kerri winked at her grandmother. They both knew what was coming. Her mother kept an up-to-date roster of all the eligible men in the parish as well as any likely business or professional males who crossed her path.

  As expected, her mother took a deep breath and launched sail. “Kerri, I was talking to Mrs. Teagarden, you know the florist, and she told me—”

  “Mom, I really should look for Bojo before it gets too dark,” Kerri interrupted as she got up from her chair. “Where did you last see your monkey, Amy?”

  “In the backyard. Me and Emily were playing like we had a magic Aladdin’s rug. It was fun. I was the princess and Emily was Aladdin. We flew high in the air—not really,” she corrected, as if her aunt might take issue with such a claim. “Just pretend. We went lots of places and Bojo went with us. But when Mom called us to come in the house, he wasn’t on the magic rug anymore.” Her eyes moistened and her lip trembled. “He was gone. Emily said he went on a trip without us.”

  “I see.” Kerri noticed the way Emily was pointedly ignoring everything that her twin sister was saying. A telltale sign that Emily knew something she wasn’t sharing. Although identical twins, the two girls were opposites in personality. Emily knew how to stir things up and Amy innocently played into her schemes. “Well, I’m sure Bojo’s back from his trip by now. You stay here, Amy. Emily and I will go look for him.”

  Ignoring Emily’s protesting scowl, Kerri took the twin’s hand and led her out the back door. The backyard was a child’s paradise with wonderful trees to climb, a deep green carpet to roll on, and even a log fort that Kerri’s brothers had built when they were young. The rug the girls had been playing with still lay under a white trunked maple spreading its branches over a grassy corner of the yard. A lingering sun sent a wash of soft light across the green grass and tipped the high branches of the tree with gold.

  As they walked across the yard, Kerri felt Emily’s hand tighten in hers, and when they stood beside the rumpled rug, the little girl kept her head lowered, assuring Kerri that she’d guessed right. Emily knew more about the whereabouts of Bojo than she’d admitted.

  Kerri dropped down on the rug and motioned Emily down beside her. “So this is Aladdin’s magic rug? Your mother and I used to play all kinds of pretend games when we were your age. We had lots of fun together, and were good friends. That’s what sisters should be, good friends looking out for each other. Don’t you think so, Emily?”

  The little girl squirmed.

  “I know you were sorry when Bojo turned up missing. Was he playing the Aladdin game with you? And then he just disappeared?”

  Emily nodded.

  “What do you think happened?”

  Her little jaw worked for a moment without any words coming out, then she said in a weak voice, “He just left.”

  “Left? Where did he go?”

  Emily’s voice grew stronger. “Bojo didn’t want to stop playing, and when Mom called us in, he just flew away.”

  “Bojo just flew away,” Kerri repeated. “Where?”

  Emily bent back her head and pointed up in the tree. “Up there.”

  Kerri had spied the stuffed monkey half hidden in the tree branch above them when they first sat down, but she wanted Emily to own up to what had happened.

  “He just flew up there, Auntie,” Emily said with a rush. “He didn’t want to quit playing. So…so…he just flew up there.”

  “And why didn’t you tell your sister that’s where he was?”

  “I was going to tell her but she got so upset and everybody was looking all over and…and…” she stammered. “I didn’t want them mad at me.” Her face scrunched up with tears. “Amy’s such a baby.”

  Kerri smothered a smile and hugged the child. “Games are not fun when someone gets hurt. I know you were just playing, but you should have told Amy right away that you threw Bojo up in the tree. That’s what happened, isn’t it?”

  Emily nodded.

  “I’ll get a rake and get Bojo down. Then we’ll go in the house and you’ll tell Amy you’re sorry for making her worry. Okay?”

  When they returned to the house, Emily’s mother scolded her soundly.

  “It was just a prank that got out of hand.” Kerri said, coming to the little girl’s defense. “She wants to tell her sister that she’s sorry.”

  Amy’s reunion with her beloved monkey brought smiles all around, and Kerri wished to heaven that the mystery of Ardie’s disappearance could be solved just as easily as the stuffed monkey’s whereabouts. When she thought about Mark, she wondered what he’d make of all this family commotion over a child’s missing plaything. She knew he was trying to adjust to the unwanted father role that had been thrust upon him, but he’d never understand the give-and-take of a large family like hers. She sighed, realizing how far apart their worlds were.

  “We’re staying for dinner,” Cathy announced, which was no surprise. When her policeman husband was going to be delayed getting home, she and the girls often had their evening meal with the family. “Harry called and said he’ll be along in a couple of hours, hopefully,” she said, crossing her fingers.

  Kerri liked her brother-in-law. Harry was a wonderful husband and father, and as honest and conscientious as you’d want any officer of the law to be. They were just finishing their meal when he came in and pulled up an extra chair at the table. Kerri’s mother rushed to get him a warm serving of her Irish stew and sourdough bread.

  “I’m glad you found the kid,” he told Kerri. “You say he wandered over to Coors Field?”

  She nodded. “He heard all the ruckus coming from the nearby stadium, and slipped out of the apartment building.”

  “Well, you were damned lucky to find him in that crowd. That place is a zoo on a game day. As usual, there was plenty of excitement going on all over the place. We had to break up a fight or two before I went off duty. Good thing the kid’s safe.”

  “It certainly is,” Kerri said with prayerful thankfulness.

  “By the way, on my last run, there was an ambulance pulled up to the front entrance of the Crystal Lofts building. Couldn’t see who they were taking out on a gurney.”

  Chapter Five

  The kitchen floor under Kerri’s feet dipped. “What? You saw an ambulance at that building?”

  “Yeah. Just caught a glimpse of white uniforms and flashing lights as we went by. They were loading somebody up.”

  Kerri’s stomach muscles jerked as she pushed to her feet “I have to make a call.”

  “What is it, honey?” her mother asked anxiously. “Is that the place where the children are?”

  Kerri shot a look at Harry. “You’re talking about the Crystal Lofts, aren’t you?”

  “That’s the place all right,” he said.

  Her feet barely touched the floor as she flew to the telephone stand in the center hall. Her hands were moist as dialed the number she’d already memorized. It rang four times before the answering machine kicked in and Mark’s deep vibrant voice advised her to leave a message.

  Her voice was urgent as she said, “It’s Kerri. Is everything all right? Mark? Cora? Someone call me back. Right away.” She left her number and then stared at phone. Who was going to take the time to listen to telephone messages if there was a crisis? It could be hours before she found out what was going on. Then, again, she schooled herself,
maybe nothing was going on. There were other residents in the building who could have called for an ambulance. Mark was probably out on a date with Lisa, and Cora had the kids bedded down for the night, and all was well. Maybe.

  And maybe not.

  Kerri went back to the kitchen. “No one’s answering the phone. I think I’ll check and make sure it’s not my client who called the ambulance.”

  “Oh dear, I hope that one of the children isn’t sick,” said her grandmother, shaking her head. “That’s the way kids are. One minute they can be jumping all over the place and the next laid low with a burning-up fever. I remember the time—”

  Kerri cut Grams off with a quick kiss on her cheek. Then she gave one to her mother and promised, “I’ll call, Mom, if I’m going to be delayed.”

  Her mother hurried after her to the door, delivering her usual monologue about driving carefully and keeping her doors locked. Kerri took the front steps two at a time as her mother watched from the doorway. When she backed her car out the narrow driveway at a speed that nearly laid rubber tracks on the cement, her mother shook a warning finger at her.

  Once out of the residential area, Kerri took Sixth Avenue, one of the main arteries from Lakewood into downtown Denver. With difficulty, she forced herself to stay with the traffic flow, already going five miles over the speed limit. Don’t jump to conclusions, she mentally lectured herself, but the words made little impact on the coil of anxiety tightening her chest.

  The area around Coors Field was still humming with postgame revelry. She idly wondered if the Rockies had won, not that it made any difference to the merrymaking crowd of sports enthusiasts. She was surprised and grateful when she swung the car into a parking place just a half a block away from Mark’s apartment.