The Valentine Mystery

by Kathi Daley

  “You brought pizza,” I said, noticing the box in his hand.

  “And beer,” he added, holding up a brown paper bag.

  “I feel like we’ve been having a lot of beer and pizza lately.”

  “I like beer and pizza.”

  I grinned. “So do I. In fact, if I had to choose just one meal to eat for the rest of my life, it would be beer and pizza.” I unlocked the door and was greeted by two rambunctious kittens, who seemed happy to finally have someone home. “I’m going to change my clothes real fast and then we can eat and talk.” I went to my bedroom while Tony fed the animals. I pulled on a pair of overly large sweatpants and a long-sleeved T-shirt, then joined him in the kitchen.

  “What’s so important you had to drive all the way over here to talk to me?” I asked.

  Tony picked up a large slice of the cheesy pie and slipped it onto his plate. “After you left this morning, Coby and I discussed ways we could continue to look for his mother while staying off his father’s radar, if in fact that’s who they are. After a bit we realized if Maria Worthington and Daisy are the same person, we might be able to track her down via the Worthington family.”

  “Do you think she kept in touch with them?”

  “I wasn’t sure, but I figured it was worth a try. I did a little research and found out Maria’s parents died when she was a young woman, but she had a sister, Veronica, who’s married to a man named Daniel Portland. I tracked her to her last known address, in Denver. Unfortunately, she’d moved, but I’m pretty sure I’ve found her. I’m waiting for confirmation, but it appears she divorced Portland in 1998 and moved to Seattle, where she met and married a man named Elon Ramsey.”

  “Does she still live in Seattle?” I asked.

  “If my trail isn’t flawed, I think she does. I have a contact at the DMV who’s verifying that the present Veronica Ramsey is the same person who was once married to Daniel Portland.”

  “Do you think she’ll know where Maria is?”

  Tony took a bite of his pizza, chewed, and swallowed. “Honestly, I’m not sure. It’s worth a conversation to find out. When I hear back from my buddy at the DMV, we can decide how best to follow up with Veronica.”

  I looked at Tony with what I was sure was an expression of suspicion. “Is there something else? It seems to me that you could easily have told me what you just did over the phone.”

  Tony took a sip of his beer, then set aside the bottle. “There is something else. It has to do with your dad.”

  Okay, that got my attention. “So spill. What did you find out?”

  “The photo of Jared Collins that appears to have been taken in Norway was part of a surveillance report conducted by a private investigator working for a state senator named Galvin Kline. I’m not sure exactly why Kline was having Collins watched, but I traced the photo back to the PI who took it and was able to find additional photos of the same man taken during the midseventies. Based on those photos, it appears Collins got around. I managed to locate photos of him in Paris, London, Belfast, Tokyo, and several other cities in Europe and Asia.”

  “So if Collins and my dad are the same person, he traveled extensively, not just to Norway. Why would he lie about that? It isn’t even that he lied; he went out of his way to say on several different occasions I can remember that while he’d been to every one of the continental United States, he’d never traveled to a foreign country.”

  “I don’t have answers for that,” Tony answered. “Keep in mind, what I pulled up was a travel history relating to Jared Collins. We still haven’t definitively proven Jared Collins and Grant Thomas are the same person, though I’ll say that from the additional photos, my level of confidence that they’re of the same man has increased significantly. If your mom has a photo of your father when he was in his early twenties, we’d know more. But even if we do find proof that Jared Collins and Grant Thomas are the same person, it won’t tell us where he is now or why he faked his own death.”

  I sat back in my chair, peeling away the label on my beer bottle as I tried to digest Tony’s words. If Jared Collins was Grant Thomas, he must have decided to leave his old life behind and take on a new persona, that of a small-town, cross-country trucker. But why? Was he a spy? A fugitive? Could he have been in witness protection, or was he a member of some secret group or international order? So many questions needing answers.

  “What do we do now?” I asked.

  “I think you need to find an opportunity to ask your mom about the photos and I’ll keep digging. Keep in mind, digging could be dangerous. We still don’t know if the threatening call you received was a reaction to our search for Maria Milovich or Grant Thomas. I want to help you find your answers, but I don’t want you to be in danger because of our snooping around.”

  I pushed my beer bottle toward the center of the table, then leaned forward. “I know I’m taking a risk digging into all this, but I need to know. One way or another, I need to understand why my father made the decisions he did.”

  “Okay. I’ll do what I can to help you find your answers, but you have to promise that if you get anymore creepy phone calls, you’ll tell me. I’d never be able to live with myself if my investigating caused you harm in any way.”

  “I’ll tell you if I get any additional calls. It’s not like I’m looking for danger.”

  Tony picked up his phone. “There’s a text from my contact. He confirms Veronica Ramsey is the sister of Maria Milovich.”

  “So, do we call her?”

  Tony didn’t answer right away; I could tell he was thinking things over. “I think we should have Coby contact her, nephew to aunt.”

  “That’s a good idea. I’ll call him to see if he’s free to come over.”

  ******

  Tony tracked down a cell number for Veronica. When Coby arrived, we helped him write a text to her.

  “We don’t know if she even knew her sister had a baby,” I said. “The text should include a brief history of where you were found and the photo that was found with you,” I began.

  “It’s probably okay to say you were abandoned in a church, but I wouldn’t mention White Eagle just yet,” Tony said. “It’s possible her sympathy might be with the abandoned husband.”

  Tony had a point. “Maybe you should just say you were adopted and have been searching for your birth mother and have reason to believe it may be Maria,” I suggested. “You can always add details if she’s responsive to speaking to you.”

  “I’ll speak from the heart but keep things vague for now,” Coby agreed. “Is there anything I should add?”

  “Maybe include a phone number and an email address where she can get in touch with you,” I said.

  Coby did as I suggested. “I’m really nervous,” he said. “What if she isn’t interested in talking to me?”

  “What aunt wouldn’t want to connect with a long-lost nephew she might not have even known existed?” I asked.

  Coby received a reply a few minutes later: I don’t know where Maria is. Don’t contact me again.

  ******

  Later that evening, I tossed a log on the fire, poured myself a glass of wine, and sat down on the sofa with a quilt, my kittens, and the sketchbook I’d taken from the Honeycutt house. I didn’t expect to find the answers we were looking for in it, but I was too wound up to go to bed, and I hadn’t had a chance to look through it yet. The sketches were quite good. I recognized many as locations around town, so the person it belonged to must either have lived in the area or stayed here for a significant amount of time. About halfway through the book, I found a sketch of a woman who looked a lot like Maria, sitting on a rock. The detail the artist had included was remarkable.

  I continued to look though the book, finding quite a few additional sketches of Maria posing in front of different backdrops. All of them looked to have been drawn at the Honeycutt house, including several of Maria sitting on the porch rocking on the swing or sitting on the stoop. If I had to guess, the artist and Maria had
spent quite a bit of time together during her stay in White Eagle.

  The longer I stared at the sketches, the more certain I became that something wasn’t right. On the surface, it seemed we’d most likely figured out what had happened. Maria had married a rich, powerful man only to find that, like many rich, powerful men, he had a cruel side. Maria learned she was pregnant right about the time her husband announced plans to move back to his home country. Not wanting her child to be brought up there, she fled. At some point she met Edith Honeycutt, who’d provided her with a place to hide out until the baby was born. Then she wrapped her newborn in a blanket, went to Kalispell, and left the baby in the church. Perhaps at the last minute she left a photo of herself with him, needing to provide some connection between herself and her son. Then she disappeared, apparently never to be seen again.

  Thirty-four years later, a dying man gave the photo to his son on his deathbed. The woman in the photo is assumed to be the biological mother of the man’s adopted son. The son decides to find her, only to run into one roadblock after another. When he questioned the parishioners at the church in Kalispell, no one remembered a baby ever being left in the church. If the baby had been left anonymously, wouldn’t some effort have been made to identify the parents of the child? Wouldn’t someone remember this, even if no one had seen the mother?

  And then there was the fact that a man who had a photo of Coby in his glove box happened to become involved in a fatal accident with the man he was following. I mean really, what were the odds of that happening?

  Tilly came over and put her paw on my leg, which was her way of letting me know she was ready to go to bed. I set the sketchbook aside, then let her out for a quick bathroom break while I washed up and changed into my pajamas. After I let Tilly back in, the four residents of the cabin headed into the bedroom and cozied up in bed.

  Chapter 14

  Wednesday, February 14

  It snowed overnight, but the sun was shining brightly by the time Tilly and I went into work. I was looking forward to dinner with Brady, Bree, and Coby, and made a personal commitment to get my route done in a timely manner so I’d have plenty of time to get ready. Technically, my dinner with Brady wasn’t a date. We were going out as friends, but he was picking me up and paying, so I decided to let myself refer to the evening as one, despite the fact that exhibits of intimacy would most likely not be part of the package.

  “Good morning, Queenie,” I greeted her when Tilly and I arrived at the post office. “Another two-bagger today?”

  “No. I guess folks were organized this year and made sure their cards were delivered before the holiday. Do you have plans tonight?”

  “Yes, I do,” I answered as I slipped my bag onto my shoulder.

  “I don’t suppose your plans would include that handsome young man you’ve been hanging around with for the past week?”

  “If you mean Coby, no. At least not directly. Brady Baker and I are going out to dinner with Bree and Coby. It’s really more of a friends thing than a date thing, but I’m excited about it.”

  “Sounds like a fun group.”

  “I think it will be. I even have a new dress for the occasion. At first, I wasn’t going to go to any special effort because my Valentine’s dinner isn’t really a date, but at the last minute I bought that strapless red dress that’s been in Hannigan’s window all month. They only had one left, but it was my size and fits perfectly.”

  “I know the dress you mean. It’s a beautiful dress, but I’m betting it cost more than you make in a week. Seems pretty special for a dinner that’s not a date.”

  I shrugged. “Yeah, I guess it does, but you know Bree will wear something gorgeous. I’ve never been able to compete with her because she looks absolutely perfect with seemingly no effort, but I want to look nice tonight too.”

  “You always look nice, darling, even when you’re wearing faded jeans and that old red sweatshirt. But I get what you mean. I have a couple of friends who make beautiful look effortless as well. Best get going so you have time to do your hair and makeup.”

  “I’m gone. I’ll see you this afternoon.” I headed to the door leading out to the parking area, where I’d left my Jeep. Tilly followed closely behind. With any luck, we’d have the route done in record time, leaving plenty of time for primping before Brady picked me up.

  Of course, as usual, things didn’t quite work out as I planned.

  ******

  “What do you mean, Armand Kowalski was murdered? I thought he had a heart attack.”

  “He did have a heart attack,” Mike answered. I plastered my cell phone to my ear and waited for him to continue. “But it didn’t occur naturally.”

  I narrowed my gaze and looked up to the sky, which was filled with snow flurries. This conversation wasn’t making a bit of sense. I was less than a quarter mile from Mike’s office, so I told him I’d be right over to talk in person. I hung up and began to walk quickly down the sidewalk with Tilly trotting along beside me. I couldn’t know for certain at this point, but I had the feeling this surprising twist was going to interfere with the perfectly lovely evening I had planned.

  “Okay, catch me up,” I said to Mike as soon as Tilly and I entered his office.

  “I just received Kowalski’s full autopsy report. While the cause of death was heart failure, the medical examiner found a large quantity of Jax in Kowalski’s system.”

  “What’s Jax?”

  “A synthetically produced street drug. It’s usually sold as a powder, and when used in small doses, snorting it can create a feeling of euphoria. The Jax found in Kowalski’s body wasn’t powder but the liquid form of the drug. Liquid Jax can kill you, and a large quantity can do it in less than a minute.”

  “So why are you just learning about this now?”

  “Jax isn’t widely available or widely used, so it isn’t one of the drugs tested for in a standard tox screen. The ME found a small puncture wound in the victim’s chest, so he ordered a full tox screen. It appears the drug was injected directly into his heart. He would have been dead within seconds.”

  I took off my bag and sat down on the chair across from Mike’s desk. It appeared this wasn’t going to be a quick conversation. “Okay, say this actually happened. Say someone injected Kowalski with this drug. Who could have done such a thing? There was no one around other than me and Coby.”

  Mike raised one brow. “What exactly do you know about this Coby Walters?”

  “I know he’s a nice guy who’s in town to find his biological mother. Yes, he was involved in the accident in which Kowalski died, but he didn’t kill him. He tried to save him. I personally watched him give him CPR.”

  “Seems if I had just killed a man and there was a witness at the scene, I might try giving him CPR to make it look like I was trying to save his life instead.”

  I closed my eyes tight against the imagery Mike’s statement had created. I swallowed hard and opened them again. “Are you saying Coby first injected Kowalski with a lethal dose of a street drug and then gave him CPR knowing he was already dead?”

  “I believe that’s exactly what I just said.”

  “But why? Why would Coby kill him?”

  “I don’t know for certain, but the man did have a photo of Coby in his glove box. We’ve since learned Kowalski worked for the man we’re assuming is Coby’s biological father.”

  “Yeah, but Coby didn’t know about any of that at the time of the accident.”

  Mike sat forward and entwined his hands on the desk in front of him. “Didn’t he?”

  “How could he?”

  “I haven’t figure it all out yet, but it’s beginning to look like things may not be exactly as they seem.”

  I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. This couldn’t be happening. After a few seconds I opened my eyes and sat slightly forward. “Okay, say Coby knew Kowalski was following him. For things to have gone down the way you suggest, Coby would have had to have been traveling with a syringe filled wit
h Jax. That doesn’t make sense. He had no way to predict the accident would even occur.”

  “Unless it wasn’t an accident.”

  I tilted my head back once again, only this time I looked up at the ceiling. Coby a killer? Mike had to be wrong. I lowered my head and looked at my brother once again. “Is there any scenario other than Coby as the killer in which the man who died could have been injected with the drug?”

  “I guess you could have done it.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t, so let’s move on. Maybe there was someone else in the car Kowalski was driving. Maybe after the accident occurred the person traveling with Kowalski somehow stuck the syringe in his chest, got out of the car, and took off into the woods.”

  “Did you see any evidence of a passenger?”

  “No,” I admitted.

  “Footprints in the snow? Anything at all?”

  “No,” I groaned.

  “And didn’t you tell me the side of the car was buckled so the door wouldn’t open, so you had to break the back window and get Kowalski out that way?”

  I sighed. “Yes, I did say that.”

  “You also said Kowalski was unconscious when you found him. Probably from the head wound. Was Coby alone with the man at any point?”

  I cringed. “Yes. After we broke the back window and he crawled inside, he sent me back up to my Jeep to get a blanket. When I got back, he said the man wasn’t breathing.” Oh God. It really did look like Coby had killed Kowalski. “Did you bring him in?”

  “I tried, but we’ve been unable to locate him. We checked with the employees at the Inn. They said he had breakfast and lunch with everyone else but left shortly after that. He told one of the other guests he had a date.”

  “Bree!” I shouted. “His date is with Bree.”

  Mike stood up. “I’m going to the bookstore. Try to call her.”

  Mike hurried out the office door while I called the bookstore. There was no answer. I called her house. No answer there either. I left messages in both places, and then Tilly and I followed Mike down the street. If Coby had killed Kowalski and he’d somehow found out Mike was on to him, Bree could be in real trouble if she was with him.