by Kathi Daley
“Maybe someone can work out a plea deal for him,” I suggested. “Maybe he can stay here in Holiday Bay so the kids can have some stability. If he can find a job, he can pay back what he took.”
Velma looked at me with a soft expression. “That is one of the reasons I love you so. You have such a tender heart.”
I took Velma’s hand in mine. “You know I love you too.” I glanced toward the dance floor. “I wonder if there is something we can do to help facilitate a compromise so that those kids won’t end up in foster care. They did just lose their mother. I can’t imagine how things would be for them to lose their father as well.”
Velma squeezed my hand. “We’ll talk to Colt about it when he gets here. It might take some wrangling to work out a deal that everyone can live with. I think I can convince the other merchants to go along with whatever we work out so long as Colt can be convinced to speak to the DA on the guy’s behalf. I don’t think the man has been arraigned yet, so we might be able to work out a deal before the DA even gets involved.”
“Maybe we should confirm that the man is worthy of helping first,” Charlee added. “We know the story he told Colt, but before we jump in and get involved, we should make sure it’s authentic, not just a ploy to gain everyone’s sympathy.”
Charlee was right. It made sense to look at the guy’s history. Still, I remembered that Colt had said he took less than five hundred dollars from each merchant, even when there was more than that in the safe. In my mind, that made him something of a gentleman thief.
The conversation segued into other topics, including the Easter parade and egg hunt in April. I was sharing the fact that we’d had a request to host a wedding in September when Georgia came over with Patrice Hamilton.
“I’m so happy that you were able to make it.” Velma got up and hugged Patrice.
“I wasn’t going to, but Wesley insisted that I come with him,” Patrice said, referring to her son. “He thinks that I have retreated too far into myself since Jasper died and is concerned for my mental health. Apparently, I have been grieving longer than is socially acceptable.”
“Now, don’t you let anyone tell you how long it should take to grieve,” Georgia said, pulling out a chair for Patrice. “It takes as long as it takes. Folks who haven’t lost someone as integral to their life as a spouse or child might not understand that.”
“Thank you.” Patrice smiled at my perky roommate. I was certain the two had never met before, but they already seemed like the best of friends. Leave it to Georgia to make a new friend in under ten minutes.
“So where is Wesley?” Charlee asked.
“Dancing with his fiancée. He got me a drink and planted me at a table before abandoning me, but I was happy to see Tanner come over with Georgia.”
“Where is Tanner?” I asked Georgia.
“He is at the bar, chatting with some friends. When I saw Patrice arrive, I figured it might be a good opportunity to ask her about our photo.”
“And what photo is that?” Patrice asked.
I could see that Velma and Charlee were interested as well.
“Abby and I found some letters written between a woman named Ursula and a man named Victor. They were hidden between the wall and the built-in bookcase in the second-floor library in Abby’s house,” Georgia began. “After some research on our part, we were able to find out that Victor and Ursula had a baby while he was stationed overseas in the military. Ursula gave her baby to a local couple to raise, but we aren’t sure who. The only clue we have is a photo of the child when she was about three. She appears to be standing in front of the fence that sections off your rose garden. We hoped you might know who the child is. We’d like to pass on the letters to her if we can find her.”
“Do you have this photo with you?” Patrice asked.
I nodded. “On my phone, in my purse. Hang on and I’ll grab it.”
Georgia continued to fill Charlee and Patrice in on the background of the photo while I went to fetch my purse. I saw Colt walk in but decided to wait to connect with him until we had finished our conversation with Patrice. I returned to the table and pulled up the photo, then passed it to her.
“When was this taken?” Patrice asked.
“We think 1952 or thereabouts,” I answered.
“I didn’t marry Jasper until thirty years later.” She frowned and looked closer. “This child would be older than he was when he passed.”
“We think the child would be around seventy today,” Georgia said.
“Bea Tiddle might know,” Patrice said.
“Of course,” Velma said. “I should have thought of her.”
“Who is Bea Tiddle?” I asked.
“Bea used to work as a housekeeper for the Hamiltons. She is ninety-two now and lives with her nurse in a little house behind the big one on the grounds.”
“I noticed that you had cabins on the property,” I said.
“There are six houses that were built for full-time staff years back. Some lived there, while others chose to live in town.”
“Are all the cabins occupied?” I wondered.
Patrice shook her head. “No. We have a vacancy now that the groundskeeper and his family left.”
“I guess there isn’t a lot of need for a gardener in the winter,” I said.
“Oh, it wasn’t that. The groundskeeper does see to the gardening, but he also shovels snow and takes care of the exterior of the house when it requires repair. The man left because he didn’t get along with Wesley, who has been managing the estate since Jasper died. Before that, he had been with us for fourteen years.”
“But Bea stayed even after she could no longer work?”
Patrice nodded. “She is like family. She has a hard time getting around now, but she is still sharp as a tack, and I know she began working for the family when she was around twenty, so she would have been around when that photo was taken. If you would like to come by to ask her about it, I can arrange for a visit.”
“We’d like that very much,” Georgia said. She looked at me. “Wouldn’t we, Abby?”
“Absolutely. When would be a good time?”
“Bea doesn’t get out much, so any day would probably be all right. She tends to tire by the end of the day and doesn’t like to get up early, so maybe eleven o’clock?”
“How about the day after tomorrow at eleven?” Georgia asked. “That would be Monday.”
“That should be fine. If you want to give me your number, I will confirm it with Bea and then call and let you know for sure.”
Georgia jotted down her number and then dove straight into a conversation with Patrice about the history of her family and the bank. I wanted to chat with Colt, so I excused myself and headed in his direction.
“So, are you here alone?” I slid onto a barstool next to him.
Colt nodded. “I hoped you’d make it. Good turnout.”
“It is a good turnout, which I suppose equates to a whole lot of cleanup later. Georgia and I are on the cleanup committee. At least I hope we are on the committee rather than being the committee. I’m not completely clear on that.”
“As long as no emergencies pop up, I’ll be happy to stay and help. Tanner mentioned something about hanging back to help as well. And I’m sure Nikki will stay if Tanner and Georgia do.”
“That is very nice of you all and the help is appreciated. To be honest, I’m exhausted. I’ve enjoyed myself tonight, but I am beginning to wonder why I let Georgia drag me here.”
“She does seem to have more energy than any two normal human beings combined.”
“Which is why she is going to be the ideal manager for the inn,” I pointed out. “I heard you caught your burglar.”
Colt sighed. “Yeah, I got him.”
“I heard the story. Is it true? About the kids and his wife?”
“It all seems to be true from what I have been able to confirm so far. Brady Baxter admitted to a life on the wrong side of the law when he was younger. He was never ca
ught then, so he doesn’t have a record, which is something when you think about it. He swore to me that after he met the woman he eventually married, he stopped burglarizing businesses and got a legit job, bringing home an actual paycheck. He worked hard, they bought a house, he coached his kids’ sports teams, and his wife volunteered at their school. He and his one true love shared ten happy years and three children, and then she got sick. Cancer. He spent all the money they had and a whole lot of money they didn’t have trying to save her. In the end, she died despite their effort. By then he was so far in debt there was no way out. He’d lost his job when he chose to stay home to take care of his wife during the last months of her life, and after she died, he packed his kids into his van and took off in search of a new start. He made it as far as Holiday Bay before he ran out of both gas and money. He was desperate to find a place to stay and to feed his kids, so he stole from the first business he was able to scope out. When the money from that theft ran out, he picked a second target.”
“I feel for the guy, but it seems he was lacking a plan.”
“Oh, he was. Baxter said he’d been looking for a job, but it is the slow season around here, so he wasn’t having any luck. I feel for him too, but he really messed things up for himself and his kids.”
“Yes, he did.” I glanced toward Georgia and the others at the table. “So how can we help him?”
“Help him?”
“He didn’t have a good plan, but he did end up here in Holiday Bay. It seems to me that this is the place to be if you need a second chance. How can we help him get his?”
Colt hesitated. “I don’t know that we can help him. He broke the law. He is going to jail.”
“Is jail the only outcome to this situation? Isn’t there some other way? What if he gets a job and pays all the money back? Maybe he can do community service too.”
Colt didn’t answer right away, so I plowed forward. “Velma said she’d talk with the other merchants who were burglarized. She would be fine with a plan where he pays back the money instead of doing jail time and she thinks she can get the others to agree. If this father of three is basically a good guy who simply reverted to an old role after finding himself down on his luck, he might very well be worth saving. And those kids. My heart bleeds for them.”
“The guy doesn’t even have a place to live. I doubt we are going to convince anyone to return the children to him if he doesn’t have a place to live and a way to support them.”
“I have an idea. Give me a few minutes to see what I can work out.”
I headed toward the table where Georgia, Patrice, Velma, and Charlee were still chatting. Patrice had an empty cabin, and it sounded like she needed a groundskeeper. I didn’t know her, so I had no idea how flexible she’d be, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to explain the situation and see if she would be willing to help.
Chapter 15
Once Velma, Georgia, and Charlee, got involved in the situation with Brady Baxter and his three children, I could see that seas would be parted if need be. Patrice was open to the idea of Baxter and his children moving into her empty cabin and his working for her family as a groundskeeper, so long as she could get Wesley on board. She admitted that he didn’t always view the world in the same way she did, and his agreement to the plan was anything but guaranteed. In a way, it seemed odd to me that Patrice had so little control over the estate that her husband had owned, but she didn’t seem to bemoan the situation, so I supposed his taking over was something that she was both expecting and comfortable with. In the end, it was decided that Colt would get involved to see if the concept we’d explored would be acceptable to everyone who needed to agree to it before Patrice wasted her time talking to her son.
Velma assured Colt that she could get the other affected business owners to go along with a plea deal if he and the DA were able to work one out. No one wanted to see three kids thrust into foster care if there was another answer. And it did seem that, while his actions were wrong, Baxter had done what he had for a good reason, although asking for help from a church or some other charitable organization might have been the better choice.
Charlee, who had worked for the local schools for most of her life and had connections with child protective services, agreed to meet with the right people to do her best to see that the kids were returned to their father if everything could be worked out. That wasn’t guaranteed now that the agency was involved, but Charlee seemed to think that the people who worked for the agency were good people with a hard job to do who really wanted the best for the kids they represented.
Colt promised to work on the plan the group had come up with immediately, and I knew he would. He also seemed to want to find a solution that would allow Baxter and his kids to be together, and his confidence that he wasn’t just stringing Colt along provided the confidence everyone else needed to tackle the problem.
In the meantime, Patrice had called Georgia to let her know that Bea was willing to meet with us on Monday if we liked. I never had gotten around to asking Colt about updates on the Mark Stinson murder case and hoped to get back to that today. I still didn’t know why Ben had gone to Philadelphia to visit Mark, or whether their meeting had anything to do with Mark’s and possibly Karen’s death, but the answers I sought could wait one more day, if necessary, if it meant getting the mystery of Victor and Ursula’s baby put to rest.
As promised, Colt had stayed around to help clean up after the Valentine’s Ball, as had Tanner and Nikki. By that point in the evening, the conversation revolved around figuring out a way to help Brady Baxter and his kids. Tanner assured us that if Wesley wasn’t on board with the groundskeeper job, he would hire the man to clean kennels at Peyton Academy. He didn’t have a cabin to offer him to live in, but Tanner had a lot of money, and as long as the guy’s story continued to check out, he would do whatever it took to help get him settled.
It really did seem, as I’d said, as if Holiday Bay existed to provide second chances. At least that had been my own experience. The people who lived here were truly exceptional and seemed to care about both longtime neighbors and those new to the town.
“Rufus slipped out when I opened the door to bring in the groceries,” Georgia informed me when I emerged from my bedroom after working on a rough draft for a new novel that I’d been kicking around for a while. “He scooted under the front deck and won’t come out. I’ve tried calling him, offering him food, even telling him we would go to Velma’s if he came out, but he won’t budge.”
I reached for my coat. “I’ll see what I can do. He slipped under the deck yesterday too, and it took me a good twenty minutes to get him out.”
“There must be something under there that is attracting him. Maybe mice?”
I shrugged. “I suppose it could be something like that. He normally isn’t one to want to spend time outdoors in the cold if an indoor option is available.”
After I pulled on my boots, hat, and gloves, I went out into the cold. “Rufus. Here kitty, kitty.”
“Meow.”
It sounded like he was under my feet.
“Why don’t you come on in and we can have a snack? It is freezing out here.”
Rufus poked his head out from under the deck but did not come to me. “Meow,” he said again.
“What has you so fascinated?”
It was then I heard another meow.
“Do you have a girlfriend down there?” I took a few steps toward Rufus, but he darted farther back under the deck. I knew that he had been altered, so I sort of doubted that a girlfriend was the reason for his odd behavior, but I’d distinctly heard a second cat. I got down on my belly and looked under the deck. It was dark, so I couldn’t see much, but I could make out movement toward the back of the deck, where it met the house. I supposed that spot would be the warmest because the heat from inside would radiate outward.
“Come on, guys. Why don’t both of you come out?”
Neither cat moved, and I was about to give up when I heard a ti
ny little squeak. A mouse? No, not a mouse. A kitten. “Are there kittens back there?”
Rufus meowed again but still didn’t come forward. Making a decision, I headed into the cottage. “There is another cat under the deck, which I think is why Rufus is going under there. I think she has kittens. Either that or she is torturing a mouse. I heard a tiny little squeak.”
Georgia’s brows shot up. “Kittens? We need to bring them in.”
“Yes, but how do we get to them? The cats are right up against the house. We can’t crawl under the deck. There isn’t enough room.”
Georgia bit her lip. “I guess we can find something to use to pry up the boards and get them out that way.”
I nodded. “I’m sure that Lonnie’s crew left tools behind that will work. I’ll run over and check.”
Ultimately, we used a screwdriver to loosen the screws and a pry bar to leverage up the boards. The mama cat took off when we lifted them, but the three kittens she left behind were fully exposed. Georgia took them inside while I worked on catching Mom. It took me a can of tuna and a whole lot of patience, but eventually, we had the mother cat, her three kittens, and Rufus safely tucked inside the cottage. The mama cat almost panicked when she saw Ramos, so I laid down a plastic mat in my bedroom and used boxes to create a pen of sorts. I tossed a warm blanket over the top, then set bowls with cat food and water to the side. Once the mama and her babies were tucked in, I took Rufus with me back into the living room.
“We should put a cat box in there for the mother,” Georgia suggested. “It might be risky to let her out. I’m afraid if she is freaked out enough, she might just take off.”
“Yeah, that is a good idea. Rufus just goes out when he needs to, so we’ll have to stop to pick up some supplies. I guess we can do that on our way back from our visit with Bea Tiddle.” I glanced at the clock. “Which we should get to if we don’t want to be late.”
******
