The Priest Who Ate a Poison Petit Four
Page 16
Hannah shrugged. She was not sure she wanted to breach her considerations of Susan with Hym just yet. It would upset him further, even though both he and she had agreed to the terms of the investigation. Yet, another part of her felt that keeping secrets now that they were married was wrong. She decided to approach the subject from a distance. “Among others. There’’s a lot to consider, and I won’t know much for sure until after I talk with Rhoades. Which reminds me, I need to call Cate and keep her updated.” Taking one of Hym’s chips, she examined it as she talked. “Are you going to call Magdalen? I’m sure she’d want to know.”
“Already have. She’s coming down.”
“How?”
“Rent a car I guess. She didn’t say. Just that she would get here.”
“What about Hazelnut?”
“Your grandparents will look after her. She’ll be fine.”
Hannah acknowledged with a few bobs of her head. “Gigantor will love having her around. Casper, not so much,” she said, recalling Gran and Papa Jay’s dog and cat. She glanced over to Hym. “Sorry for all this. This is not how I imagined our honeymoon.”
Hym half laughed. “It’s pretty much dead on what I expected.”
The sleuth reached out to swat at her husband’s arm. “Oh, you, come here,” she said, reaching out to pull him by the shirt toward her. She shared a kiss with him. Leaning back, she added, “It’s coming, mister, and when we get there, boy, are you going to get it.”
“That’s the plan,” Hym said with a grin.
Hannah’s mouth fell open with a mixture of amusement and shock. “You are a bad man,” she summed up with a grin. “A bad, bad man indeed.”
*****
After chatting with Hym and waiting for Whipson to return, Hannah fell asleep on her husbands shoulder. When she awoke, it was just before four in the afternoon. The Reverend was just settling into a chair opposite the two, with the help of Calvin. Hannah rubbed her eyes and yawned before stretching. “How is she?”
Calvin gave a concerned but appreciative look. “Still not awake but she’s stable for now.” He paused and took a long, slow breath before letting it go. ““She appears to have sustained some damage to her heart. That friend, the cardiologist I told you about is flying back in early from vacation. When he gives the all clear, we’re transporting her to University of Alabama in Birmingham Medical Center. He has a friend, a surgeon, who’ll oversee the implantation of an internal cardioverter defibrillator. It’s a device to regulate her heart and uh…” He leaned back with a worrisome expression as he ran his hand over his jaw. “Well, it’ll be there if this happens again.”
Hannah leaned forward in her seat, placing her elbows on her knees. She peered straight at Calvin. “Do you expect it to happen again?”
The physician gave a noncommittal shrug. “I didn’t expect it to happen now. I guess no one does, but she’s been fine otherwise. We had ourselves checked out just last month for insurance purposes.” He glanced between the Reverend, Hym, and Hannah. “And we were trying for a baby.” He turned to look to Whipson. ““We wanted to let you know before…” His words trailed off as tear welled in his eyes.
Whipson reached over, took hold of his grandson-in-law’s hand, and smiled, but he said nothing. Instead, he swallowed hard and cleared his throat.
Hannah watched every minute detail of the exchange. Real, she commented to herself. It was at that moment that she would follow her instincts. Her ‘gut’ as Gran called it. Calvin is not involved, she determined, but what about his wife. Again, she reconsidered what she had briefly pondered.
It seemed nearly impossible that Susan would poison herself just to throw off an investigation. Then again, she had not only heard of stranger things, she had borne witness to it. In her brief time with FBI, she was part of a kidnapping investigation. All evidence suggested that the victim, a young wife, was first targeted, and then taken. Every detail seemed in place. Every clue leading right toward where it should. When the victim’s wealthy husband refused the ransom demand, a finger showed up at his office within hours. Tests concluded that it belong to his wife. He paid thereafter. Once the ransom delivery concluded, her kidnapper returned her as promised. Within weeks of the incident, the wife filed for divorce, citing her husband’s reluctance to pay upfront as a sign that he did not care. While everyone else found this reasonable, Hannah again followed her instincts. It did not feel right to her. Her gut suggested something was amiss. She dug deeper and in time exposed the whole affair as an elaborate plan between the purported victim and her lover. Their downfall was the unexpected refusal of the husband to pay. In desperation, the two decided to remove a finger. This was not in exchange for a $1,000,000 dollar ransom, but for her half of the divorce settlement. It amounted to about $10 million dollars. Before, the woman had determined that she could not get nearly that much because of the limited time married to the man. However, after his refusal to meet the demands of the ‘kidnapper’, she felt she had a greater chance of things going her way. Her lover, being an attorney, believed he could sway the court, under the given situation.
The thought made Hannah shake her head. Greed, she noted. What people won’t do for money? It also troubled her that before she considered this whole mess as a possible result of fraud. From what she knew of Susan, it did not seem probable. Yet again, Cate’s reminder of Conny Miller pushed forward. You don’t know her. You don’t know what she’s capable of. You only have Hym’s word about her, and he’s wearing rose colored glasses. Even this bothered her to a degree. Hym, her Sweet Face, still seemed enamored of the woman to Hannah. He seemed protective of both Calvin and Susan, but to the sleuth, it was more apparent with the latter. His ‘Mudbug’ as he called her. It caused a swell of emotion within her. Something she denied having. She pressed her thumb into her temple and rubbed.
“Headache?” Hym asked with a concerned tone.
“A little one. It’ll pass. I need to get some water and aspirin, and then give Cate a call.”
She rose and exited the waiting area.
*****
“For your honeymoon? I was joking when I said he should take you there. You know that, right?” Cate commented with an incredulous tone.
“Yeah, but he said something always comes up with me and that I wouldn’t be able to do anything until I got this out of my head. Then we’ll go on to our actual destination.””
“Well, you can’t say he doesn’t know you. Smart and pretty to look at. You did score big.”
“I did, but if I don’t get on with this, he might leave me here, stuck between Greek Hell and old age emotional bliss.”
Cate half laughed. “Well, let’s see if I can help you along so you can use that number I got you.”
The thought of Cate’s last minute, impromptu wedding gift made her both smile and blush. “I’d like that. What have you got for me?””
“Well, just a few things. Some of the info I told you would take some time, I actually got quicker.”
Hannah smiled. As expected, she commented to herself. “Have I ever told you how amazing you are?”
“Occasionally, but not enough. Now, when we started talking about his troubles at seminary, that whole bit distracted us from the fact that Janus was an adoptee. The state of Ohio sealed his adoption records, for the most part per usual. But with some finagling…well, a lot of finagling, I did find out some things. Someone viewed those records according to the lady I talked to where the records are held. She wouldn’t say who or when, so it could have been yesterday or sixty years ago. No way of knowing. All she would say is you have to make a special request through the court to view them. But she did say that the ‘who’ in that scenario, the one who viewed the record is also redacted without an additional court order, and you’d need to have good reason to do so.”
“Like someone under investigation or such,” Hannah thought aloud. “Interesting. Someone was or is looking for that person. Like us, just with the authority to do so.””
“Such as health issues that require contact with the birth family.”
“Uh huh. Things like blood disorders or rare genetic illnesses. Sometimes if a person has a rare blood or bone cancer and requires a match.”
Again, suffering traipsed across Hannah’s thoughts before she further responded. “Okay, so there is a probable medical link to the good Father’’s adoption.”
“I’m not sure how that helps, but you have the info. So use it to your advantage.”
“Will do. Anything else?” Hannah inquired.
“Yeah, you know the family who adopted him was from Ohio, but he wasn't from there. I couldn’t find out where.”
“How’d you find that out?”
“Inter occupational cooperation. I had the local librarian do a quick search of the Peaksville Gazette. They digitized it for storage and research purposes. Turns out Janus did an interview for an article about being the child of adoption. According to his own words, his came when he was three.”
There was a slight pause. Hannah broke the moment, disrupting Cate’s flair for the dramatic. “Now I’m sensing an ‘and’ coming on.”
“Spoilsport. His surname at birth was Raymond Beaumont, and he had four siblings. The state split him away from them. A twin sister named Mary, an older brother named Buck who was five, and a younger sibling who was one and named Scott. At the time of the article, Janus was nineteen and looking for his siblings.”
“Why would the state split up a family? Twins in particular?”
“You got me. Makes no sense. But if the opportunity presented itself, like a family looking for something specific, I imagine they would jump on it. A placed child is a placed child. Off the books of the state.”
“Sad.”
“It is, but from all the records I have managed to get hold of, there is no mention of his brothers or sister. I can only assume he never found them. Janus, of course, ended up in Peaksville.”
“Their names may have changed.”
“I suppose, but I have no way of finding that out. He’s lived in a dozen different places over the years but he doesn’t leave a trail, at least not a traceable public one for the most part.”
“Did he say why they ended up parentless?”
“No, not in the article, but he did mention his adoption came through a state operation, but his siblings and he came from a local institution of some kind. From the article, he seemed to have been too young or too traumatized to remember, which means the parents were out of the picture at the time of his adoption. Could be neglect. Parents in prison or unfit.””
“Or dead,” Hannah stated.
“Can’t say. But there’s more.”
“More? Do tell. Remind me when I get back that I owe you big time.”
“You’ve owed me for years. Someday you’ll pay, like at my wedding.”
“Set a date?”
“Not yet, but you’ll know when I do. Anyway, back to his troubles at seminary. You were right about the charge. It was involvement with a staff member. One Ingrid Larkin. Seems innocent enough but the seminary had a rule about dating among the staff and students.””
“Even though that denomination doesn’t require celibacy.”
“I suppose not. But, regardless, I couldn’t think of a reason why this would be significant.”
“Me either, but I’m sensing a ‘but then’ coming next.””
“Indeed, but then I got to thinking, so I followed up on her. After the incident, she lost her job at the seminary, but while there, she worked as a records clerk for the church.”
“Hmm,” Hannah commented, producing her quirk as she shifted her phone to the other ear.
“You’re doing it again. I can hear it rolling around. What?” Cate huffed from the other end.
“You know what I’m thinking...”
“That he met her trying to find out something about his siblings whereabouts or his parents.”
“People do abandon children at churches sometimes. It would have been sixty-five or seventy years ago, more or less. Things were different then, but if it were already a seminary, it might look just as appealing to parents looking for a safe place for their kids.”
“And I’d bet good money they’d keep records. He was following a trail.”
“Worth looking into, don’t you think?” Hannah asked, already aware of the answer she would receive. Cate did not disappoint.
“I’ve already been digging. I got some people helping me check for this Ingrid Larkin. So far, I haven’t found her, but I’’d imagine she got married and has a different last name. Plus, like you said, it’s been a long time. Even then, she may or may not remember him, or even if he found what he was looking for. If that is even relevant to the case, but even if it is, how does that relate to what’s been going on?”
“I’m not sure. Just following the bread crumbs to see where they lead at the moment.”
“Well, we could also just take the direct route. Have you spoken with him yet?”
“No, he stayed in the cabin for the weekend. It was already rented and he asked if we would mind. Hym didn’t see any harm in it and neither did I.”
“You want me to swing by and see if I can catch him?”
Hannah thought for a second before answering. “That’d be great. I don’t know if you got to talk to him much, but he can be a bit terse. He might not like us poking into his past, so tread lightly. You might want to come up with a cover story.”
“Will do. Anything in particular you want me to get at?”
“Anything and everything you think would help. You know the drill. We’ve done this before.”
“Gotcha.”
The phone line clicked indicating an incoming call on Cate’s side.
“Oh, that’s one of the people looking for Larkin. I have to run, but given when they said they were leaving, Buster and Magdalen shouldn’t be too far out. Tell him to give me a call and let me know they got there safe.”
“Buster’s with Magdalen?”
“Connected hip to hip, girlfriend. Got to go, and wrap this thing up so you and Hym can get on with it.”
“You’re starting to sound like Gran.”
“Same idea. Different goals. Love you.”
“Love you too. Let me know about Larkin.”
“Will do. Bye.”
Hannah clicked off the cell and tapped it against her chin as she pondered Cate’s information. It was all intriguing to her, but is it relevant? She checked her phone and found she still had just a short time before meeting with Rhoades. She pressed her thumb into her temple and rubbed. ““Darn,” she half mumbled. “No closer than before.” Her shoulders were tight and her head ached. She inhaled and let out a long breath, trying to calm her increasing tension. Too much information. Too many possibilities. Focus. Focus. Focus, she chided to herself.
She was about to return to the waiting area and tell Hym she was going to her appointment when a familiar voice called to her. “Hannah,” she heard from an elder, female voice. She turned to see Buster and Magdalen waving and heading her way. Beside them was Gran. She paused and greeted them with a strained smile. “Gran? What are you doing here? I thought you were watching Hazelnut.”
“Oh, she’s here too with your grandfather in the RV.”
Hannah blinked several times, eyes wide and mouth agape. “But…”
“Well, Magdalen and Buster needed a ride. You have a case. More importantly, you have a honeymoon. You won’t go until you get this thing behind you, and the longer it goes on, the longer it will take for that thing to happen that will get you in that way.””
Buster assumed a quizzical face. “Wait. What?”
“Pregnant,” Magdalen half-whispered, “she wants her to get pregnant.”
Hannah said nothing as she tried to compose a response, but nothing came forth. Seeing this, Magdalen intervened.
“How is she?”
“Still out. They’re waiting for a specialist friend of Calvin’s to look her over, but he’s pretty sure she suffered some heart damage. Enough for a defib implant.”
Magdalen’s eyes widened as her hand came to cover her mouth. Buster put his arm around her waist to steady her. After a moment, she stiffened her stance. “Hym said that it was cardiac arrest, like all the others. Someone tried to kill her then?””
“Oh, my,” Gran said. “Good thing I came.”
Hannah considered her response with care. First, she had to deal with her sister-in-law. Like Hym, Magdalen was friends with both Susan and Calvin. She even mentioned in an earlier conversation that the Yorks offered her a place working in their practice. Whenever she was ready to leave Chicago, she had a job waiting. This gave Hannah pause. Hym’s sister was more open to the idea of the Yorks’’ involvement than Hym. Now, with Susan as a possible victim of attempted murder, Hannah was unsure how Magdalen would react. Of particular concern was her theory of self-poisoning. She decided to air on the side of caution and to avoid a direct statement. Be noncommittal, she told herself.
“Maybe,” Hannah gave with absolute uncertainty. “It could have been accidental. That she was in the room of the intended victim and picked up a poison piece by accident.””
Magdalen nodded.
“Well, at least it narrows your list down,” Buster chimed in. “That one guy who you thought may have been doing it but poisoned himself by accident isn’’t around.” He squeezed his hold on Magdalen. “And their friend is now a victim.”
Hannah’s eyes darted over to Buster. She knew he was attempting to comfort Magdalen, but he was jumping to conclusions. Susan still ranked high on her list at the moment, despite her condition. She considered going on and exposing her theories to the three before her. However, in the end, she again held back and avoided the question.