Angel Sleuth (15 page)

“What do I say?” She dialed the number, and it connected.

“That’s your problem. You should have thought of that before you dialed.”

Kaitlin said very little on the phone. The voice at the other end of the line did most of the talking and not in a pleasant tone of voice.

“I know who you are, and I’ve been informed that you took over my mother’s job after her death. The Aldensville police called me just minutes ago to let me know about the will. I suppose I should thank you for locating it, but, from what an Officer Hendricks told me, there’s some question about Will Jameson and your involvement in this whole matter.”

Kaitlin heard her take a quick breath, and she rushed on before Kaitlin could interrupt.

“It’s clear what Will had to gain. What I can’t figure out is your motive in this. I’m taking the next flight out there, and, along with the police, I’m going to press for additional information on her death. In the meantime, I suggest that you and your friend, Dr. Jameson, get yourselves good lawyers.”

She hung up, and when Kaitlin tried the number again, no one answered. Kaitlin shared her comments with Mac, who was exploring the contents of the fridge. She looked at the wall clock. It read noon.

“Well, I think you got what you wanted,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Looks like the police and Leda’s daughter think something is suspicious about her death. Old Baldo is going to throw a fit if the police insist upon reexamining the autopsy report. Baldo was too close to this case personally, dating Leda and all. He should have excused himself from performing the autopsy. Besides, I’ve heard the state police complain about his technical skills on other cases. Maybe he’s just too old for this kind of work. And maybe he’s too old to be pushing pills at ARC, also.”

The phone rang, interrupting Mac’s comments. Kaitlin grabbed it and jammed it against her shoulder while setting a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter on the table. She signaled Mac to withdraw his head from the fridge and build his own sandwich. The voice coming from the other end of the connection surprised her.

“Kaitlin Singer? Dr. Will Jameson here. You might want to get yourself a good lawyer, because I’m going to sue your ass.”

“Whaaat?”

“The police were just here to pay me a little visit. They accused me of helping you hide my aunt’s will and then putting up a smoke screen around her death by helping you steal her letters and computer. And they knew about my money problems. I’ll sue you for slander or libel or whatever, once I call my lawyer.” He slammed down the receiver.

Before she could apprise Mac of the nature of the call and the name of the caller, the phone rang again.

“Look, Dr. Jameson…”

“Dr. Baldo, you mean, little lady. You’ll need legal representation once I’m through with you.”

“Police been to see you, Dr. Baldo?”

“Yes. Thanks to you and that phony will, the police think there’s something suspicious going on with Leda’s death. Now they’re questioning my autopsy results. I assume you set them on this line of thinking.”

“So what’ll it be on your part? Suing me for slander or libel?”

“I’ll think on those alternatives and get back to you.” He, too, hung up.

“What a mess.” She explained the phone calls to Mac while he consumed his sandwich.

“Time for you to pack your bags and visit your roommate,” he said.

“With Caroline Adams arriving in town? I don’t think so. We need to get to the bottom of this, and she could use our help.”

“When you use the royal ‘we,’ you mean ‘I,’ don’t you? You can’t mean me, can you?”

“Mac.”

He walked out onto the front porch and lit up a cigarette.

She hated to admit it, but maybe he was right, and maybe she should tell him he was maybe right.

“So, okay, maybe you’re right.”

It certainly looked like a good time to leave town. Soon. Real soon. But first…

Kaitlin spent the early part of the week helping Mary Jane and Jeremy hunt for Dessie. Despite the colorful posters on trees and fences, light poles and in store windows, no Dessie could be found. The rest of the time Kaitlin visited ARC, wrote her column and tried to avoid Delbert, who left notes for her on her desk asking for an update on Leda’s death. She had no information about what the authorities were pursuing with respect to the original autopsy results.

Since her stock with the police department was not high, she vetoed playing investigative reporter by interviewing her only contact there, Officer Hendricks. Instead, she spent her time arranging for ombudsman training at the Office for Aging on Tuesday.

Talk at the Cappuccino Café was that Caroline Adams would arrive in town on Wednesday. Kaitlin changed Mac’s assignment and gave him the task of keeping an eye on Caroline, not her, and gave Caroline twenty-four hours to get in touch with her. Surely Kaitlin could explain everything. She would want to know what Kaitlin knew. Wouldn’t she? Kaitlin certainly wanted to know what she knew, especially who she was, other than Leda’s daughter. Who was her father?

By Thursday evening, Kaitlin gave up on Caroline contacting her and called the only motel in town. Sure enough, she was registered there. When Kaitlin identified herself to Caroline on the phone, Caroline hung up. Kaitlin called back, and the phone rang and rang. It crossed her mind that perhaps Caroline didn’t understand how important it was that the two of them talk, so she jumped in the car and drove over to the motel. An in-person encounter might work. When she knocked on Caroline’s door and gave her name, Caroline threatened to call the police. Not a good thing.

Kaitlin waited outside her room until Caroline came out for dinner. She followed her to the local diner, waited until she took a big bite of her burger and introduced herself again.

Kaitlin realized Caroline didn’t look much like her mother. She was blonde and tall, while Leda was short and plump with auburn hair and an olive complexion. Nothing like Leda, she realized, except for those green eyes. No one who met Leda ever forgot those emerald green eyes.

Caroline looked up at her with a mouth full of a deluxe burger, chewed a bit and sighed.

“Sit down. It looks like I’ll never get rid of you. Just what do you want?”

Oh, goodie. Kaitlin filled her in on how she got Leda’s job at the newspaper, her concerns about the circumstances of Leda’s death and how she found the will. She also assured her that she was in league with no one to hide the will or wish her mother ill.

“But I think your mother knew something was wrong at ARC, and someone may have gotten her out of the way for what she found out. I got bopped over the head when I tried to find out what was going on.

“I don’t know what Dr. Jameson’s role in all of this is, but it appears he has some money problems, and they are associated with unsavory characters he chose to, ah, invest with. If so, that may place you in some danger,” Kaitlin said.

“What do you mean?”

“I think Will’s investment firm liked it better when he was the heir and might prefer he be the sole heir again.”

By now Caroline had stopped eating, and Kaitlin had her attention.

“How did you become so involved in all this?” asked Caroline.

The story of the evening of Leda’s death poured from Kaitlin’s mouth and with it her reason for being in Aldensville, including her problems with Zack, her writing block and, what surprised her most, even Mary Jane and Jeremy’s purported occupation. In fact, once she started, Kaitlin found it difficult to keep back any of the details of her life so far in Aldensville.

Caroline sat back in her seat, seemed to consider her next words, then leaned forward again, those green eyes drawing Kaitlin in.

“Okay, you’ve been honest with me, and I need a friend in this town. The only person I know here is my lawyer. Actually, he was Leda’s lawyer. Since she chose to draft her most recent will on her own, I suspect she wasn’t crazy about him. He seems to be more interested in money than anything else.” She told Kaitlin that the lawyer, Will and the police had warned her away from Kaitlin.

“I certainly understand Will’s paranoia if what you say is true. He’s got a lot at stake here,” Caroline said.

“If Mafia types are breathing down his back for money, then paranoia is an appropriate response,” Kaitlin said.

Caroline wiped her mouth with her napkin and launched into her story.

“I discovered Leda was my birth mother. I’m in my early forties and never was interested in searching for my biological parents until just recently. I didn’t care to know the woman who gave birth to me. From my point of view, she abandoned me, and I was glad because I have the most wonderful parents in the world. I’ve always known I was adopted. Mom and Dad never hid that from me. But something happened, and I needed to track down biological relatives.” She paused in her story, her brow knitted together and her eyes filled.

“My husband and I have only one child, a son. He’s nine years old, and his name is Daniel. He’s been ill off and on for several months. The doctors recently diagnosed leukemia. If the disease progresses as it has been, a bone marrow transplant is indicated. I was going to need Leda and my biological father to find the closest match to my son.” She paused and admitted that her desperation drove her to be dishonest with her birth mother.

“I used a detective agency to track her down. So I called her about a month ago. I didn’t tell her about the crisis with Daniel. I thought I’d just get to know her a bit before I sprung it on her. She seemed hesitant about the contact from me but said she would call back very soon. She didn’t. I was furious at this woman.”

Even now as Kaitlin gazed into her eyes she could see the anger and guilt hiding behind the despair.

“I kept calling but got no answer. Then the phone service stopped. I finally contacted the police here. I talked with an Officer Hendricks who sounded very suspicious about why I was calling so I told him I was a distant relative. I left my name and number. I knew that I had to come here to find my father.” The pain on her features was replaced by a look of determination.

“A day later, just before I was ready to leave, I got a call from Officer Hendricks informing me that a will surfaced leaving Leda’s estate to me. I’m not interested in her estate, but I must find my father. I need the bone marrow donor that’s the best match for Daniel, and my biological father may be the one. Maybe you could help me find him?” She reached across the booth and gripped Kaitlin’s hand. “I have to help my son. I have to.”

Well, of course I’ll help her
, thought Kaitlin. How could she not?

“Sure. I’d be happy to do what I can. My friend, Mac,” she nodded toward the Buick in the diner’s parking lot, “has been shadowing you since you got here, just in case you got into trouble. He’ll stay with you. I was supposed to go to the city tomorrow for a few days, but I’ll just cut the trip short and be back Saturday afternoon, and we’ll see what we can do.”

As they left the diner, Caroline put her hand on Kaitlin’s arm.

“I suppose you must think I’m awful for trying to use Leda the way I did. I misled her, and now I find she left her entire estate to me. Will Jameson was closer to her. Probably most people will think he should get her estate. What about you?”

“What I think doesn’t matter. Nor does what you think. Leda was clear in her intentions. She wanted you to have it despite the lack of contact between you two and despite what your motivations might have been in getting in touch with her. Your phone call to her came at an important point in her life, when she found her nephew couldn’t handle his gambling problem. Do with the money what you wish, but you must realize that Leda did not want it to go to Will because she wasn’t interested in having him throw it all away.”

“But what about Will’s problem?”

“He needs to deal with his gambling disease and what it’s done to his life. When he does, the two of you might come to some understanding. Until then, you’re right. You need to be selfish about your son’s needs.”

* * *

Mac and Caroline drove Kaitlin to the bus in Kingston. Kaitlin saw no point in her navigating through city traffic and paying outrageous parking fees to house her car for such a short stay. She’d leave it in case Mary Jane wanted to use it for errands.

“If I hadn’t shown up,” said Caroline, “you would have stayed longer, wouldn’t you? I feel guilty.”

“Well, don’t. It’s her responsibility,” Mac said.

Kaitlin’s college roommate, Roslyn Levenger, met her at Port Authority, and they stopped for a quick lunch. They talked about taking in a museum or two somewhere nearby, and left the evening open for dinner out, a movie or just hanging out in her apartment on the upper west side.

Kaitlin knew she should call her mother and arrange to meet her for breakfast before she left the next day. Coward that she was, she wondered if she could talk Roslyn into coming with her to serve as a buffer. She suspected her mother would cross-examine her about her writing and her love life and since she had little of either, she’d wonder what her daughter had been doing. She couldn’t see sharing her newest occupation, village snoop.

She and Roslyn ate a little and talked a lot over lunch. When they left the restaurant, it was three o’clock, and they headed uptown to walk off the meal. It had been so long since she’d been in the city that she’d lost her sense of rhythm in walking with the crowds on the sidewalks. She continually bumped into others, muttering a quick “I’m sorry” as they pushed around her. Roslyn laughed at what she called “her country stroll,” grabbing Kaitlin’s arm and helping her move with the mass of people on the street.

After several blocks of perusing storefront windows, Roslyn suggested they cross over toward Central Park, find a park bench and have an Italian ice. Kaitlin agreed. It was too nice a day in the city to be inside a museum.

She stepped into the empty crosswalk, turning her head toward Roslyn, just steps behind. The squeal of tires alerted her to danger. A car had careened around the corner and was heading at her. She was slow to react. She caught a glimpse of the driver’s face in the windshield of the car as it bore down on her and opened her mouth to scream. Too late.
Why isn’t he swerving away? Does he want to hit me?
She felt Roslyn grab the back of her shirt and yank her out of the path of the car.