02 Outwitted

by Beth Solheim

  "Not yet."

  Sally handed Sadie four merchandise tags and three plastic stems removed from the tags. "Here's a bag, too. This one had pink socks in it." Sally pointed at a bootie outline sketched in black on a white label.

  Aanders picked up a tag and looked at Sally. "How do you play store with a dog? That's dumb."

  Jed lifted Sally back onto his lap. "Maybe Pam bought new clothes for Chelsie."

  "No she didn't. Chelsie was in a box under the desk." Sally tilted sideways and tucked the tags in her hip pocket. "That baby sure cries a lot."

  "She sure does," Sadie said. "The first few days the Averys were at the resort, I didn't hear a peep. Then all of a sudden, Chelsea cried nonstop. I wonder if she developed colic."

  "Are you talking about Pam's baby?" Jane looked at Sadie.

  "I noticed she's been crying a lot, too."

  "Not Chelsie," Sally said. "Chelsie can't cry. She's a doll. See?" Sally pointed at one of the photos from Mr. Hahn's envelope.

  Sadie lifted the photo and held it to the light. "I don't see what you mean?"

  "There." Sally placed her finger on a shadow. "That's Chelsie."

  On one of the photo's Mr. Hahn had taken of Jane, Dan Avery stood peering out through the cabin door. His right hand clutched an item as it dangled at his side. "See. Chelsie's not wearing new clothes. She's BA."

  Sadie and Jed squinted as they strained to see the object.

  Jane said, "Why are you looking at my picture?"

  Sadie held it up to Jane. "I'm not looking at you, I'm looking at what Dan Avery is holding. Sally says it's Chelsie."

  "Chelsie?" Bernie raised his glasses above his eyes and leaned closer to the photo. "If it is, he's holding her by her leg."

  "He was." Sally nodded in agreement. "She's BA. Just like Jed." Her hand shot to her mouth as she giggled.

  "Sally said that's exactly what Dan was doing. Holding Chelsie by her leg." Sadie looked at Jane and Jed in disbelief.

  "I don't get it." Bernie frowned. "What did I miss?"

  "Sally's claiming Chelsie is a doll and the baby Pam's been carrying around is a boy."

  "I saw her. She's a girl," Jane argued. "All you have to do is look at her."

  "Look at what? Pink?" Jed tapped his temple. "Think about it."

  Sadie turned from Jed to Jane. "That's exactly what they wanted us to see. Pink."

  Bernie drew a deep breath as his eyes grew larger. "Do you mean to tell me you suspect the Averys of child abduction? Are you out of your mind?"

  "Do you have a better explanation?" Sadie glared at Bernie. "I certainly wouldn't take the word of a child," Bernie said.

  "Especially when she's a crosser. How are you going to get Lon to believe you? You'd better have proof before you make an unfounded accusation."

  "I intend to. I need to find a way to get into the Avery's cabin." Sadie pointed at Bernie as she walked toward the door. "And you're going to help me."

  31

  The printer hummed as it spit out a spreadsheet. Draining the last drop of coffee from his mug, Lon stood, stretched, and reached for the coffee pot. Empty. Didn't anyone have the competence to brew another pot?

  Lon had spent the last three hours creating a spreadsheet listing each hand-written entry from the notebook Sadie had discovered with Celeste's body. He carefully traced the lines connecting one name to another. Nan and Sadie had recognized one of the names as a parent of an abducted child. Maybe a coincidence. Maybe not. Each connection began and ended within a short timeframe.

  The muscles in his back burned. Time for a fresh shot of caffeine. He also needed a firm-handed masseuse to get the kinks out.

  The writing in the notebook looked familiar. Lon had sat so long staring at it, his brain had gone fuzzy. Where had he seen the scrawl before? When Lon visited Celeste's parents to find out if it was their daughter's penmanship, Celeste's mother confirmed it wasn't. When she provided one of Celeste's old letters for comparison, the writing appeared nothing like the nearly illegible writing in the notebook. Celeste's writing was the opposite. Practice-sheet perfect.

  "What are you smiling for?" Deputy Wayne joined Lon at the coffee station and watched while fresh coffee ran through the filter into the pot.

  "You don't want to know."

  "Try me."

  "I have this image of Sadie on her hands and knees in a mini skirt under Clay's cabin and I can't get it out of my mind."

  "Ouch." Deputy Wayne poured a cup of coffee. "Sadie in a mini skirt isn't something I care to think about." He grimaced. "In fact, the thought scorched the right side of my brain."

  Lon laughed. "Sadie means well."

  "No she doesn't. She's a busy body. She's also loonytoons."

  "No she's not. She's actually very smart. If you knew her better, you'd agree."

  "That woman has imaginary friends. She's got a tat on her belly."

  "So?" Lon grinned at Deputy Wayne and raised an eyebrow. "I seem to remember your wife got a tattoo on her boob last year. You gave it to her for her birthday."

  "That's private information. Besides I didn't think you were listening. Do you remember everything?"

  Lon sat back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. "I wish I could." He held the notebook up. "This is driving me nuts. I've seen this writing before, but I can't place it."

  "Let me see." Deputy Wayne turned the notebook around. "Looks like hen scratch."

  "I agree it's pretty bad. I couldn't read some of the names. At least I didn't recognize any as being from Pinecone Landing." Lon laid the spreadsheet on his desk. "I thought if I organized it by date, we could make sense out of the notebook. If you think of something better, let me know."

  Static erupted from the speaker clipped to Deputy Wayne's shoulder. He shouted to the dispatcher, "I'm standing right here. You don't need to broadcast."

  A muffled voice came from the dispatch center, "Sorry. I didn't know you came back."

  "I've been chasing my tail following up on all the sightings," Deputy Wayne said. "Everybody and their mother think they've spotted the abducted baby."

  "I know what you mean. Dispatch called me at midnight to go to the Fertile Turtle. One of their regulars insisted the baby was sleeping in the back seat of his car. It turned out to be a bag of groceries."

  Lon tapped on the date column with his pen. "From the dates in the notebook, it looks like it covers twenty-one years. Whoever made the entries wrote it hit and miss at first. Then they started adding more details about four years before Celeste went missing."

  Lon ran his finger down the date column. "Here's where the frequency increased." He moved his finger to the dollar column. "The amount increased, too. Whatever they sold got more expensive."

  "What's that?" Deputy Wayne pointed at a right hand column containing names.

  "I haven't figured it out. The notebook had lines drawn from one name to the other, so I figured it must be part of a transaction. Actually, that's what Sadie figured it meant when she handed over the notebook. Sometimes the lines spanned two pages, but a line and an arrow always ended in the same column."

  "When did Celeste go missing? Ten years ago? Or was it earlier?"

  "She disappeared fifteen years ago during the summer.

  Fifteen years as of last week. I pulled the old file so I could compare dates with the notebook."

  "It's too bad Jed didn't live long enough to find out what happened." Deputy Wayne shook his head. "He'd have been pleased his parents finally put her to rest."

  "It is a shame," Lon said. "Nan and Sadie shed a lot of tears over Jed's death. Everybody did."

  "So, did you ask her to marry you yet?"

  Lon crossed his arms over his chest. "Who? Nan or Sadie?"

  Deputy Wayne stopped tipping his coffee mug in mid-motion. "That thought scorched the other side of my brain."

  "I asked Nan more than once. She's afraid Clay will drive a wedge between us."

  "Then get rid of him. He left town once, maybe
he'd leave again."

  "I'm trying. First I need to sort a few things out."

  "Nan's too skeptical."

  "You'd be skeptical, too, if you'd picked a loser," Lon said.

  Deputy Wayne held up two fingers. "Two. Don't forget she planned to marry Paul Brinks last year."

  Lon turned his head from side to side trying to loosen the knots in his shoulders. Deputy Wayne had covered his back more times than he cared to remember. Working side-by-side over the years, his partner understood the depth of his love for Nan. They had more than a partnership. It was a relationship based on complete trust. The day Lon learned Nan intended to divorce Clay, Deputy Wayne encouraged him to quit striding the fence and make his feelings known.

  After Nan's divorce, Lon moved forward with the fervor of a hungry lion. Then Paul Brinks entered the scene and shattered Nan's life. Now the lion circled once again had no intention of losing sight of his prey. He needed something more. His falling in love with Nan years earlier hadn't been an accident. Everything happened for a reason.

  Lon pointed at Deputy Wayne. "Don't forget the other man in Nan's life. Aanders plays a big part in this. He's a great kid. He's been through a lot and I don't want to screw it up for him."

  "That poor kid," Deputy Wayne said. "He's probably as skeptical as Nan. How come he never plays with kids his own age? Every time I see him he's with Sadie."

  "He likes the Witt sisters. Sadie and Jane are like his grandmothers," Lon explained. "He's lucky to have them. So is Nan."

  Lon rubbed his eyes. His eyes burned from staring at the notebook too long. Fifteen more minutes of this and they'd pop out and roll on the desk. "I think Aanders has an identity problem. Nobody likes death. People tend to think a kid who grows up around caskets must be a weirdo, and that's why he doesn't have friends. It could be why he hangs with Sadie."

  "I suppose. It also doesn't help he talks to Sadie's imaginary friends."

  "What?" Lon stared at his partner.

  "When the crowd walked back to their cars after Celeste's burial, Aanders walked all the way to the hearse talking and waving his arms."

  "So?"

  "He walked alone. I didn't get the impression he was talking to the people in front of him, because they chatted to each other."

  The sheriff peeked around the bullet-proof glass partition separating the dispatch office from the deputies' desks. "What are you working on?" He pointed at the spreadsheet.

  "I'm trying to make sense out of the names in this notebook Sadie found with Celeste's body."

  "Any luck yet?" The sheriff scanned the sheet.

  "Nope. I know I've seen this writing before, but I can't place it. There's something about this name that keeps raising a red flag." Lon looked up at the sheriff. "The next step is to Google these names and see what comes up. I'll run them through the missing-person data base, too."

  Lon waited for the search engine bar to appear. After he keyed the name in the search field, he hit enter and waited. The three men stared at the listings as they appeared on the screen.

  "Oh, oh," the sheriff whispered. "That better be a coincidence, or somebody's got a lot of explaining to do."

  32

  Sadie parted the curtains and peered out the window. "What's taking so long? Our manager said the Avery's planned to leave for Itasca State Park at 10:00 AM. They got directions and a map earlier this morning." Sadie looked at her watch. "It's almost 10:30."

  "Maybe the baby's not feeling well." Jane joined her sister and peeked between the white muslin panels.

  Sadie picked at her blond gel-tipped spikes. She looked at Bernie. "Why do you keep staring at my hair?"

  "Because it looks like you've got a skunk on your head." Jane reached out to touch Sadie's hair. "That's the second time Big Leon made you look like a skunk."

  Sadie turned her head back and forth and gazed at her reflection in the window. "I can't help it if most of the highlights ended up in a row." She picked at the spikes and tried to move some of them sideways. "Big Leon said it'll look better after he trims some of the streak."

  "I'd schedule the appointment if I were you," Jed murmured.

  "I should have known better. Big Leon was in a hurry. He had a date with his cousin."

  "You mean as in a romantic date?" Jane scrunched her nose. "Ohhhh. Gross."

  "I guess so. Apparently in his family they date their relatives. He couldn't keep his mind on his business.

  "Instead of staring at my head, Bernie, why didn't you notice my new bra?" Sadie cupped her hands under her breasts. "I got it yesterday."

  "Sadie. Shame on you," Jane shouted. "Bernie doesn't want to look at your breasts."

  "Actually, I did notice them. The fact they're considerably higher than yesterday makes it hard to ignore. Maybe you should lower them a tad. That looks uncomfortable."

  "It is. I'm getting ready for tonight. I'm going to the Fertile Turtle and I want to look super sexy."

  Holding Sadie's gaze, Bernie said, "Have you ever been diagnosed with personality disorder?"

  "Not yet, but I've been diagnosed with hemorrhoids. I got it from Jane's cooking."

  Sadie ignored Jane's disproving stare. "Bernie and I talked about what Sally saw at the Avery's cabin. It makes sense." Sadie tapped the table with a bright yellow fingernail while she looked at her sister. "If you think back on when the Avery's checked in, they bundled their baby way too warm for a hot summer day. Think about the rigid bundle. I never noticed any hands or feet moving and the covers never slipped out of place. I know you don't want to believe it, but I think Sally's on to something."

  "Sadie said the Averys sat on their porch without the baby, but the minute someone stopped by, Pam got the baby and held her while they visited." Bernie tapped a long finger on the table. "This all took place without a single cry from the baby."

  "Maybe the baby slept most of the time?" A skeptical frown caused Jane's chin to dimple.

  "Maybe," Sadie said. "But I never heard a single peep out of their child for the first few days. Usually babies cry when they're hungry. Either Chelsie has no vocal cords, or Pam has ESP. Chelsie didn't make a sound until shortly after the infant abduction."

  "Think about it, Jane." Bernie cupped his hand over Jane's hand and held it. "When the Averys visited with other guests, the baby was completely covered and they did everything to shield her from curious eyes. They didn't want to disturb her."

  Sadie paced. "After the infant abduction, the Averys went out of their way to show her off and introduce her to everyone."

  Jane tugged at her lower lip. "This is unbelievable. Do you think we've seen too many movies?"

  "I keep drifting back to why Sally thought the baby had a penis," Bernie said.

  "Because, it's exactly what she saw." Sadie's voice rose with excitement. "She's too young to make it up. Now it's up to us to prove it."

  "Oh, no, Sadie." Bernie rose quickly. "I don't like your idea. It's too dangerous. If the Avery's have the abducted child, we need to contact Lon."

  "If we took what we've got to the authorities, they'd think we were crazy. Remember, it's one of my crossers who discovered the evidence. The Averys will be gone until later this afternoon, so you and I are going to do some detective work."

  Bernie's eyes fill with unease. "Me? I thought you were kidding earlier. I'm not going to help you. Why can't Jane do it?"

  "I'm not going to help you, either. I refuse to commit a crime. I'll stand guard and let you know if anyone's coming." Jane nodded sharply to affirm her position. "You aren't really going to snoop in their cabin, are you?"

  "You already know the answer. If there's a sign that says do not enter, I'll be the first one through the door. I need to know what's on the other side."

  Bernie said, "What if they come back and catch you?"

  "Then we'll make something up. Like we smelled a gas leak, or we smelled smoke. Something legitimate."

  "I won't do it. I simply refuse."

  "You're such a wuss. Haven
't you ever broken the law?"

  "Not exactly. I have an aversion to handcuffs, and I'm confident I'm in the majority."

  "We'll there's always a first. I'll scout it out by looking through the window. If someone comes near the cabin, holler."

  "You mean like, 'Somebody's coming. Quit looking in the cabin window or they'll know you're sneaking around?'"

  Balling her hands on her hips and grunting in disgust, Sadie said, "That's not funny. You're not helping one bit. Act like a detective or at least try to think like one. If someone comes, pretend you're calling the dog. We'll use Belly's name as our code."

  "I'm not going to be a part of this, Sadie." Bernie walked toward the screen door.

  "You already are. You're an accessory."

  "The Averys just got in their car," Jane whispered, stepping back from the window.

  "Did they have their suitcases with them?" Sadie peered over Jane's shoulder.

  "It didn't look like it."

  "Thank goodness. I'm afraid they'll sneak away before we can prove anything. We'll wait ten minutes before we check it out."

  Mustering the energy to follow Sadie, Belly waddled slowly behind her as she led Bernie across the pine needle strewn ground.

  "I don't like this one bit. I feel like I'm going to the gallows." Bernie matched Sadie stride for stride.

  "Don't be silly. The Averys committed the crime, not us. I own the cabin and we have every right to go in there. We smell gas, remember?"

  As Sadie and Bernie stepped onto the paved path, a woman shouted, "Father Johnson. Is that you?"

  Bernie stiffened, but kept walking.

  "Yoo-hoo. Father Johnson. Is that you?" The woman hurried to satisfy her question and fell into place next to him. "It is you. What a pleasant surprise." She waved at her husband. "Look who's here. It's Father Johnson."

  "Well I'll be darned." The husband caught up and shook Bernie's hand vigorously. "What a surprise. I heard you had left on vacation but I had no idea you were at Witt's End."

  The woman looked at Sadie's hair, at Sadie's breasts, and back at Bernie. "We arrived two days ago. We love it."