The Dog Who Ate The Flintlock

by Edward Coburn

  Riddley was surprised by the audacity of the plan. “I presume the parents and the baby were part of the setup.”

  Jenny scanned the room as if searching for the answer. “I honestly don’t know, but I doubt it since I wasn’t told which baby to take. I simply took a healthy, white baby boy with dark hair as Ronald had ordered. I certainly hope the parents were informed after I took the baby that everything was planned. I wouldn’t want to be the cause of some parent’s shock and heartache. But even if they weren’t informed, they definitely will get their baby back. I put a tracking device on the baby that I was given by the FBI so they should have been able to find the baby.” She shook her head as if in answer to some unasked question. “Yes, I know the baby hasn’t been returned to the parents, at least not yet. I’ve been watching the news and scanning the newspapers ever since I got to Maine and haven’t seen any mention of the baby being returned. But, of course, the FBI may have returned the baby and sworn the parents to secrecy so as not to mess up the sting.”

  When Agent Donald Smithers of the FBI office in LA hung up, he turned to Ralph and Tami Nelson already sitting in front of him. “I’m so sorry we didn’t tell you right away, but my hands were tied. We’re not in charge of this operation. It’s part of a nationwide crackdown on illegal trafficking.”

  “But where’s our baby now and why hasn’t Ollie been returned to us?” Ralph yelled in anguish. It had been almost three weeks since Ollie had been stolen from the hospital and now this bureaucrat was telling them they knew about the kidnapping beforehand and didn’t stop it. Further, they had Ollie in their possession somewhere, but he hadn’t been given back to him and Tami, Ollie’s parents, by God. It was simply unforgivable.

  “Your baby is in good hands…”

  “But he’s not in our hands,” Ralph cut him off in mid-excuse. “I insist Ollie be returned to us immediately.”

  Donald’s hands were currently crushing an empty piece of paper. When he was finished, he tossed the ball at the wastebasket. It fell to the floor several inches right of the target. “I’m afraid that can’t be done. He’s currently in New York.”

  “New…York…” Ralph sputtered. “How could you!”

  “As I’ve already explained…”

  “I don’t want your explanations. I…We want our baby.” Ralph cut Donald off again.

  “And I’m trying to get that done. But there’s paperwork to be filed and permissions to be gotten.”

  “Can you just tell us where our son is in New York,” Tami pleaded. “We’ll fly to New York ourselves.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m not allowed to do that.”

  Ralph had had enough. He tried a tactic that often worked with morons he frequently had to talk to on the phone when trying to resolve a bill or something else that wasn’t right. “I’m tired of this runaround. Let me talk to your supervisor.”

  Donald sadly shook his head. “I’m afraid I’m not allowed to do that either.

  “And why the heck not?” Ralph shouted. “Isn’t anybody responsible around here? I just…just…don't understand any of this.” He got up heading for the door. Donald reached under his desk and flipped a switch. Ralph tried the door handle, but it wouldn’t budge. The door was locked. He turned back to Donald. “You unlock this door. You…you…”

  Donald stood up. “Sir, you need to sit down.”

  “Not until you take me to someone else I can talk to.”

  “If you don’t sit down I’ll have security show you out.”

  “Is that the best you can do? Just because we want our son back, you’re going to bully us.” Ralph said not sitting. He tried to wiggle the door handle a few more times. He turned to his wife. “Let’s go, Tami. If,” he glared at Donald again. “you’ll open the door. You can’t keep us prisoner. We have rights.” He turned back to Tami who was still seated. “Come on. Let’s go. We’re obviously not going to find out anything from this joker. We’ll just have to take our story to the press. Then we’ll see what doors will open up.”

  Donald didn’t unlock the door, but he did pick up his phone and punched a number. “I’m sorry, sir. They’re not going to be reasonable. Yes, sir, I understand.” He immediately punched another number. “Come in now. The door is locked.” He waited until there was a knock at the door and then reached under his desk. Ralph and Tami heard a click and then the door was opened from the outside. Two men and one woman stood outside the door.

  “Come with us please.” The woman agent said.

  “And if we don’t choose to go with you,” Ralph said getting angrier by the second.

  One of the men calmly pulled a set of handcuffs from behind his back. “You can either go with us easy or hard,” he said smoothly.

  Ralph shrugged at Tami who also shrugged. “All right! We’ll go with you.” He turned back to Donald. “But this isn’t over,” Ralph said emphatically.

  Ralph and Tami left the room, and they followed the agent down the long hallway.

  Donald had just turned back to his paperwork that Ralph and Tami interrupted when his phone rang.

  “Agent Smithers,” he said answering the phone.

  “Agent Smithers, this is Captain Riddley.”

  “Yes, Captain. What can I do for you this time?”

  “I know you ordered us to let Miss Logan go, but she told us the person that made her steal the baby sent someone to Colorado to kill her. So, my question is this. Don’t you think she needs to be protected in some way or other?”

  “Let me talk to Jennifer, Captain.”

  Riddley handed the handset to Jenny. “Yes, this is Jenny.”

  “What’s this about Morgan sending someone after you?”

  Jenny related how Carl had found her in Amy’s apartment in Colorado Springs, how he tracked her to Amy’s cabin in the woods, and how he had died falling off a cliff after getting sprayed by a skunk.

  “You’re kidding,” Donald said starting to laugh.

  “I don’t see anything funny about this whole thing,” Jenny said irritably.

  “I’m sorry. I suppose from your point of view it isn’t.” He sobered up to ask her his next question. “Did you look closely at the guy who got killed by the skunk?” He chucked again. He couldn’t help himself.

  “I did, but I’d never seen him before. However, you should be able to check with the police in Colorado Springs to see if they found out who he is. My friend Amy was going to call the police a bit after I left and tell them she just stumbled across the body.”

  Donald knew precisely what he should do, or rather, have Jenny do. “Considering what happened, I think you need to go to the FBI field office so you can be debriefed.”

  “I don’t know where that is,” Jenny said.

  “Give the phone back to Captain Riddley, and I’ll have him take you there.”

  “He wants to talk to you again.” She held out the handset for Riddley.

  “Yes?” Riddley said.

  “Considering the trouble she had in Colorado I think she needs to be debriefed and put into protective custody. Have someone drive her to the FBI field office in Boston.”

  “But that’s more than three hours away. My budget can’t afford that right now. It will take an officer from his or her duties for at least six hours and take one of the squad cars off the street not to mention the cost of the gas for the drive.” Riddley knew he would send someone if Smithers insisted, but he didn’t see why his department should have to pick up the tab to get Jennifer to Boston. After all, they weren’t even part of this sting.

  “Stop your whining, Captain. Keep her safe for the time being, and I’ll send an agent from Boston to pick her up.”

  “That would be better,” Riddley said. “We’ll keep her on ice until your agent gets here.”

  “Okay. I’ll arrange it,” Donald said before he hung up. He turned to Carbo. “Put these two on ice. Some FBI agent will be here in a few hours to pick them up.”

  “Yes, sir.” He said. Jenny and Adam got
up and turned to Carbo.

  “Just a second,” Riddley said. He picked up the stun gun and handed it back to Jenny. “I was ordered to give her all her property,” Riddley answered Jordan’s questioning gaze.

  “All right, you two,” Carbo said. “Come with me.” He led them out of Riddley’s office, down a long hallway and into a conference room.

  Chapter 46

  Adam held out a chair for Jenny. She sat after placing her purse on the table. Adam sat across the table from her. “You’ve had a rather interesting few weeks.”

  “I know. But everything I said is true.”

  “I’m sure it is. No one could make up such a fanciful tale.” He knew he was a good writer, but he didn’t think even his imagination could weave such an intricate plot. It was almost too much to believe. The phrase “truth is stranger than fiction” came to mind.

  “Probably not,” Jenny smiled. “I’m not that creative.”

  Adam thought she had a sweet smile.

  “You never said how you and the cops found me.”

  Adam shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does to me. I can’t figure out what I did wrong that clued you in. Please tell me, so I don’t do it again. If I’m going to go into witness protection, I will need to know what to do and what not to do.”

  “You have nothing to worry about. It wasn’t anything you did or didn’t do.”

  Jenny gazed at Adam questioningly. “That’s not an answer. You had to have some kind of clue. I know it wasn’t my picture in the paper and I had my tattoo covered. So please tell me, what did I do?”

  “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to tell you.” He could tell her if he wanted, but if he was to remain in hiding in Canary Corners, he had to be careful who he let in on his secrets. If word got out, it would be all over for the serene life he’d managed to create in the peaceful West Virginia community. He’d found a woman he loved who loved him, a job he had been born to do working for the one friend he’d had since grade school, and he enjoyed using his money to help the people in Canary Corners and the surrounding area. Because he’d scarcely met Jenny, he had no idea if she could be trusted with his secret. True, she’d kept the secret about stealing the baby, but that was for her safety, not his. No, he could not and would not tell her unless he had an overwhelming reason to do so and her curiosity wasn’t that. He understood her desire to know what had tipped him to her identity but, as he said, it was nothing she did or didn’t do and the only way he would be able to convince her of that was to tell her the truth about his abilities and he just wasn’t willing to risk it.

  “What? Is it a state secret or something? Remember I’ve been trusted by the FBI to carry out a pretty important mission and I think if the FBI could trust me, you certainly can.” She emphasized the word FBI each time she used it.

  “No, it’s not a state secret. It’s my secret, and I’m very closed-mouthed about secrets that I don’t want the general public to know.” To stave off further arguments Adam got up and walked to the water cooler against the wall. “Would you like some water?”

  “That would be nice,” she said. “But what would be even nicer is if you’d just tell me what I need to know.”

  He shook his head. “You certainly are persistent. I’ll give you that.” He handed her a cup of water, and as she reached for it, she knocked her purse off the table. It spilled out on the floor, and the stun gun slid to a stop between his feet. He reached down, picked it up, his face got red, and his shoulders shook as they always did when he saw a vision. In it, he saw Jenny stun a man with the stun gun, and he saw her wipe off makeup from the man’s face. When he came back to himself, he turned t o Jenny with a confused expression. He recognized that his vision had shown him the same guy he knew as Howard Morgan. The guy that was, supposedly at least, dead.

  “What’s going on? You just experienced the same thing that happened twice in the restaurant. I do have some nurses training, remember, and I’m not buying your story that you just had a dizzy spell. It was something more than simple dizziness or at least something different than that.”

  Based upon what Adam had just seen and knowing he had to ask her about Morgan, he couldn’t continue to hide the truth, so he took a deep breath and launched into his story about his body’s manifestations and what happened in his mind’s eye when he saw a vision. He revealed a bit about his past and then how he happened to be in Bangor after his trip to Salem to find Mary Beth for Robert and Richard.

  “So that’s how you knew who I was.”

  Adam nodded. “I had to tell my story to the two officers who brought you here in order for them to believe that you were actually the baby snatcher. I swore them to secrecy, and now I have to beg you to please keep my secret as well.”

  “I won’t tell anyone, I promise. But why did you tell me other than the fact that I kept bugging you about it?”

  “Because I saw something in my vision I have to ask you about. In my vision, I saw you stun a man, and you wiped makeup off his face. It was…it was a man I recognized.”

  “From one of your adventures in California?”

  “No. I’ve never seen him in person. Remember how I knew Mary Beth was in Salem?”

  Jenny nodded.

  “Well, at the same time I got the vision of Mary Beth in Salem. I also got a vision of the guy I suspect killed Mary Beth’s mother. The same man I just saw you stun in my vision. I highly doubt two men could have a scar on their left cheek bisecting a large birthmark. He’s definitely a man called Howard Morgan. I’d stake my life on it. The problem is Howard Morgan is supposed to be dead.”

  “But I only stunned him, I didn’t kill him.”

  Adam held up his hand. “Whoa. That’s not what I meant. Supposedly Howard Morgan died ten years ago in a fire in Morgantown, West Virginia. Obviously, that didn’t happen. They found a body in the fire, but it must not have been Howard Morgan even though they thought it was.”

  “If he died in a fire, how could they be sure it was him?”

  “A beam apparently fell across the lower part of his body that kept his body from being completely burned up. They found his driver’s license in his wallet, but they also had his blood tested for DNA to be absolutely certain.”

  “But I thought DNA tests were accurate.”

  “That’s what I’ve been led to believe. But I guess, in this case, someone must have screwed up the test.”

  “I guess so if you’re sure the man you saw in your vision is this Howard Morgan. But I have to tell you that’s not what he’s been calling himself in California. The man I stunned and who got me involved in the kidnapping is calling himself Ronald Wilkerson.”

  “Yeah. I heard you mention his name during the interrogation. But I had no idea your Ronald Wilkerson is actually Howard Morgan who is most decidedly not dead.”

  “I’d say that’s a safe bet. As you said, there can’t be two people with a scar bisecting a birthmark on his left cheek. If, that is, I can believe what you say you can do. So, let’s suppose you did see what you claim and my Ronald Wilkerson is your Harrold Morgan, what do we do with this new knowledge?”

  “I suppose we’ll have to tell the FBI when the agent gets here. We could tell Captain Riddley, but I don’t know what he could do with the information. Besides, I’m sure he would ask me to explain how I know just like you did and I don’t want to tell anyone else. All it would mean is that one more person would have to be trusted not to divulge my secret on purpose or by accident. I think I’ll be better off letting the FBI sort this one out.”

  “Yeah. I’d think this would be something that the long arm of the FBI would need to tackle rather than a local police department. Besides, I know Ronald—I’m sure I’ll keep calling him Ronald rather than Harold—is involved with the kidnapping which is the FBI’s case so it only makes sense they’d want to know the rest.”

  Adam couldn’t argue with that logic. As a matter of fact, he’d come to the same conclusion. They would wai
t for the FBI agent to take them to the field office in Boston before he divulged his secret to anyone else.

  Chapter 47

  “Hello Richard, it’s Adam.” Adam thought he should tell Richard what he found out about Harold Morgan. It might help give Richard and Robert some closure if they could find out who killed Molly.

  “Well, hello there. How’s your sister doing?” Robert was grateful that Adam was able to fly him to Salem and he and Mary Beth from there to Morgantown. However, he was sad that Adam didn’t get the chance to accept Richard’s thanks for locating Mary Beth especially because of the reason Adam had to take off for Maine. From what Adam had said Adam and his sister were close and probably became closer when they shared the tragedy of their mother’s death. He hoped that Richard would get the chance to express his gratitude later.

  “She’s fine and thanks for asking. I hope I’m not interrupting anything important.”

  Robert glared at the paperwork he had yet to touch. “Absolutely not. I’ve been stuck behind my desk doing paperwork for the better part of…” he paused to look at his watch, “four hours, so any break is welcome. What can I do for you?”

  First things first, Adam thought. “How did it go with Mary Beth and her grandfather? Or maybe she would prefer to be called Mary.”