The Baby Plan: A Cozy Mystery

by Kathi Daley

  She screeched, seeming to reply that she had.

  “It looks like your mommy is going to come and get you soon.” I settled the baby onto my lap and used my leg to bounce her up and down. “I bet you’ll be happy to see her.”

  “I’m anxious to find out exactly when your dad is coming for her,” Tony said as he prepared a salad. “I am going to miss her, but I’m also happy that things worked out for her mom.”

  “Me too. I have a feeling that if Secret’s mom is wrapped up with my dad, things could have gone either way.”

  “I suspect that she’ll be put into protective custody,” Tony said. “She and the baby. There’s a good chance that they may not even remain in this country.”

  “Yeah. It’s really too bad. I would have loved to stay in touch with Secret and watch her grow up, but I suspect that isn’t in the cards.” Kody barked when a vehicle pulled up out front. “That must be Mike and Bree.”

  “I’ll let them in,” Tony said, wiping his hands on a dishtowel.

  A few minutes later, Tony returned with my brother and his wife. Bree headed directly for Secret, so I handed her over.

  “The casserole needs another thirty minutes,” Tony informed us. “Would anyone like a beer? A glass of wine?” He looked at Bree. “Iced tea?”

  “I’ll have a beer,” Mike said.

  “I’ll have wine,” I added.

  “And I’ll stick to water,” Bree announced.

  “I’ve been anxious to hear about the call you received from Dad,” Mike said to Tony.

  “It was brief,” he answered. “Basically, it was a recording in his voice that just said he was finished with Secret’s mother and he’d be by to get the baby. He didn’t say when. I guess he’ll tell us that tonight. I was thinking that we should just have him come here to pick her up.”

  “I agree,” Mike said. “It doesn’t make any sense to risk exposure at this point when no one even knows she’s here.”

  “I have her things packed in her diaper bag,” Tony said.

  “You don’t think he’ll come tonight, do you?” Bree asked.

  Tony shook his head. “No. I don’t think he’ll show up tonight. But soon. Maybe even tomorrow. I figured it was a good idea to be ready just in case.”

  “Did Dad say anything else in his message?” Mike asked. “Did he mention Theo?”

  “No,” Tony said. “His message was brief and only addressed the situation with the baby.”

  “After finding out about the boat, I’m beginning to suspect that Theo asking Mom to buy him a boat and Anton’s death are somehow related even if Dad didn’t think they were.”

  “Finding out what about the boat?” Tony asked.

  “I’m sorry. I meant to tell you when I got home,” I said. “Mom said that she found out that Theo put at least fifteen hours on the boat when she didn’t even know he’d launched it yet.”

  “Fifteen hours.” Tony’s brows rose slightly. “When exactly did he launch?”

  “On Sunday,” Mike answered. “I knew that since Bruce over at the marina had told me that Theo actually launched Sunday even though Mom thought they were going to do it together Tuesday, but I wasn’t aware how many hours he’d put on the thing until Mom mentioned it to Tess today.”

  “Anton died Monday night, so it’s possible that Theo was the one who took him out and drowned him,” I pointed out.

  “What was Theo doing on White Eagle Lake for close to fifteen hours over two days?” Tony asked. “White Eagle Lake is a large lake, but it isn’t the ocean. Fifteen hours is a long time to go fishing or water skiing.”

  “I looked into it further, and it appears as if Theo took the boat out on both Sunday and Monday evening and stayed out into the early morning hours,” Mike said. “Dad saw him talking to Mom Monday morning, so I suspect that Dad detained Theo at some point after he returned to the dock early Tuesday morning. He may have even been waiting for him. I also suspect that Dad is the one who wrote the note that was left for Mom from Theo. I guess he didn’t want her thinking he’d been kidnapped or something.”

  “Okay,” Tony said. “So this Theo talks your mom into buying a boat even though she doesn’t like the water, makes plans with her to launch the boat Tuesday, but instead, he launches it Sunday without her. He takes the boat out Sunday evening and doesn’t return to the dock until the early morning hours. He then takes the boat out again Monday night, possibly to dump Anton’s body, although we don’t know that with any degree of certainty. At some point shortly after this, your dad grabs him and leaves a note for your mom.”

  “That’s about it,” Mike confirmed.

  “I have a lot of questions, but my number one question is why did Theo make plans to launch the boat with your mother Tuesday after work if, in fact, he’d already launched it Sunday? If your dad simply noticed Theo talking to your mom and grabbed him after that, then your dad couldn’t have known at the time that Theo had made plans with your mother that he wouldn’t be there to keep.”

  “It’s true that they had specific plans,” I said. “Mom mentioned champagne, so I would agree that at the time Theo made plans with her, he probably meant to keep them.”

  “If your dad hadn’t nabbed Theo when he did, how was Theo planning to explain to your mom that the boat she’d bought, and they had plans to launch together, was already in the water?” Bree asked.

  “Maybe he was planning to take off anyway even if Dad hadn’t detained him,” I said.

  “Then why didn’t he take his stuff from Mom’s house?” Mike asked. “If he had plans to leave White Eagle, then you would think that, at the very least, he would have collected his little black book and flash drive.”

  “Was Theo living with your mother?” Bree asked.

  I glanced at Mike. He looked as uncertain as I felt. “I don’t think so,” I eventually said. “I guess I never actually asked where he lived, but I did have the impression that he had his own place.”

  “Then why would he take the little black book and the flash drive to her house in the first place?” Bree asked.

  “I asked myself the same question,” I said.

  “Maybe Theo, or whoever this guy really is, wanted us to find the black book and flash drive,” Tony said.

  “Why would he want us to find them?” Bree asked.

  “If Theo knew that Mom was Grant Thomas’s wife before Grant Thomas faked his death, then he might have been planning to use her for leverage at some point,” I theorized. “If that was true, maybe he left the items at Mom’s since there is information in the little black book and on the flash drive meant to trap Dad or something along those lines.”

  “If all of that is true, then Mom might still be in danger,” Mike said.

  My heart sank when I realized that was true. “We need to make sure that Dad takes the time to talk to us about this,” I said. “I know he likes to pop in and out, but if our mother is a pawn in someone else’s game, we need to know about it.”

  “We’ll make it clear that we need to talk about the situation,” Mike said. “If the chat room we access tonight is set to self-destruct after two minutes like the one last week, we need to make sure Dad knows that we expect him to set up another conversation.”

  “If all of this is true,” Bree said. “If Theo approached your mother in the first place because of her link to Grant Thomas or Grant Tucker or whatever he’s calling himself these days, and if Theo’s plan was to detain her and use her for leverage, why would he ask her to buy the boat? How does that fit into things? And if Theo did kill Anton, does that mean that Anton is somehow connected to Grant Thomas?”

  “All good questions,” I said as the timer on the oven dinged to indicate that dinner was ready.

  Chapter 13

  As he had before, Dad sent Tony a link that was to be accessed at precisely eight o’clock. Bree opted to stay upstairs with Secret as she had during the previous telephone call. Mike had assured her that he’d fill her in later, and I knew she was
more comfortable knowing that someone was close at hand should the baby awaken. I supposed that when Tony and I had children of our own, we’d need to add nanny cams to the nursery and the rest of the house so we could keep an eye on the baby wherever we happened to be in the house.

  Tony made the call at eight o’clock. Dad answered and jumped right in. “As with the last call, this one will end in two minutes. I’ll arrive at Tony’s home tomorrow at six o’clock in the evening. The stop will be short as we will have an airplane to catch, so be sure the baby is ready.”

  “Is the mom coming along as well?” I asked, hoping to meet her.

  “She will be with me. Now, on to Theo, or the man posing as Theo to get to your mother. I’ve managed to convince him that it is in his best interest to talk. He confirmed what I already expected – that he is working with a man I hunted down and detained in the nineties when I was living in White Eagle as Grant Thomas. These two men planned to use your mother as bait in a trap they hoped I’d willingly become ensnarled in. I’ve put an end to those plans, both men, as well as the additional accomplice I picked up when I detained Arno, are in custody, and it is my opinion that any danger to your mother that may have existed at one point is gone.”

  “Arno?” I asked.

  “Theo’s real name.”

  “What if the three men you have in custody aren’t the only ones in on the plan?” I asked.

  “Arno has assured me that it was just him and his partner, plus a hired thug.”

  “He might be lying,” I pointed out as the clock counting down the seconds passed the one-minute mark.

  “He might be, but at the time we spoke, he was highly motivated to tell me the truth. I believe your mother to be safe, but I will continue to monitor the situation.”

  “We have reason to believe that the death of Anton Murphy might be linked to whatever was going on with this Arno,” Mike said.

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  “We have proof,” Mike said as the clock passed the ninety-second mark. “It will take too long to lay it out in thirty seconds. I need more time.”

  Dad frowned. “We can set up another conversation for Friday evening at eight o’clock. Right now, I have to log off.” He looked at me. “Don’t worry about your mother. I’m keeping an eye on her.”

  With that, the screen went blank.

  “That man is so frustrating to talk to,” I said as I stared at the blank screen.

  “That’s because he doesn’t talk to you; he talks at you,” Mike pointed out. “It’s like he thinks he’s God, and he knows everything, and the ideas and opinions of anyone who isn’t him really don’t matter.”

  “He does seem to be overly confident,” I agreed. I looked at Mike. “I still think we’re onto something with the Theo/Anton connection, and I think we should continue to pursue it.”

  “We?” he asked.

  “You need me. And Tony, of course. Given the nature of Theo’s true motivations, there really isn’t anyone else you can share this with. Not Frank. Not the guys at the county. No one.”

  He frowned. “I guess you have a point.”

  “Did you find anything when you searched the boat?” I asked.

  “Not a lot but a few things. Let’s go upstairs. Bree will be wondering what happened to us.”

  As Mike predicted, Bree was anxious to hear all about the video conversation we’d had with Dad. She was happy that Secret was going to be reunited with her mother, but she, like the rest of us, wished we knew more about the danger Secret’s mother was in and the steps that were being taken to protect her. It was likely we’d never know what happened to the baby we’d all fallen in love with once Dad left here with her tomorrow. If her mother was going into protective custody as we suspected, she wouldn’t be able to call or write or do anything to let us know how she and Secret were doing. The thought of never knowing what happened to the baby was almost more than I could bear.

  “So about the boat?” I asked, wanting to get my mind off Secret and the fact that she would be gone from our lives forever by this time tomorrow.

  “The boat is docked in a slip at the marina that Theo rented under our mother’s name. The hour monitor clearly indicates that the boat was driven for around fifteen hours. According to Bruce down at the marina, who I spoke to again, while Theo did launch the boat Sunday afternoon, he didn’t take it out at that time, so he had to have taken it out later. Bruce also said that the boat was in its slip when he arrived at the marina for work Monday morning.”

  “And what time was that?” I asked.

  “Around nine o’clock.”

  “Dad said he saw Theo talking to Mom Monday morning when he stopped by the police station to drop off the baby. Wasn’t that around ten?”

  Mike nodded. “I’d say between nine-thirty and ten o’clock.”

  “So Theo was up and about at that time,” I pointed out. “If he was out most of the night on the boat, it seems like he would have been home in bed at ten o’clock in the morning.”

  “He might not have gone to bed yet,” Bree said. “Maybe he got in early before Bruce showed up for work, went and had some breakfast, or maybe checked in with someone, and then stopped by to talk to your mom before heading home to get some sleep.”

  “Which brings us back to where his home was,” I said. “I need to ask Mom if Theo was staying with her or if he had his own place.”

  “Yeah, we do need to know that,” Mike agreed.

  “So Theo is out on the lake all night or most of the night. Then, after he docks the boat, he stops at the diner to talk to your mom on his way home. Then what?” Tony asked.

  “Then he sleeps and gets up and goes back to the marina and the boat, where we believe he killed Anton and threw him overboard,” I said. I looked at Mike. “Was there blood or other evidence on the boat to support this theory?”

  “No. We didn’t find blood or a baseball bat or similarly shaped object,” Mike answered. “There weren’t any beverage containers, nor were there wrappers or crumbs left from food that might have been consumed. Whoever took the boat out, which we are assuming was Theo at this point, was careful not to leave anything behind.”

  “So we know the boat was launched Sunday, and we know that when your mother tried to return it, she found that it had fifteen hours on it. We assume Theo logged those hours, but we really don’t know that with any degree of certainty,” Bree pointed out. “Theo could have let someone else use it.”

  I supposed that was true.

  “If Theo did lure Anton out on the boat where he hit him over the head with an object shaped like a baseball bat and then shoved him overboard, why? How would Anton and Theo even know each other?” Bree asked.

  “Anton did live in White Eagle back when Dad lived here as Grant Thomas. Maybe they were friends,” I suggested. “Maybe Anton knew something. Maybe Theo knew he knew it, and he kidnapped Anton to try to get information out of him. When he was done with him, he killed him.”

  “That isn’t the worst theory I’ve heard,” Mike said.

  “Where do the poker chip and the pacifier come in?” Bree asked.

  “Maybe they don’t,” Mike said. “Maybe Anton had been playing poker earlier in the day and slipped a chip into his pocket. Maybe the pacifier belonged to the baby whose mother Millie saw him with outside the church. Maybe the baby dropped it, and he picked it up. There are many reasons to have items in your pocket that you might not normally have.”

  “If Theo killed Anton, then we need Theo to confess. Dad said he had Theo in custody. He seemed to get him to talk once, so maybe he can get him to talk again,” I said.

  Mike bobbed his head in agreement. “We just need to convince Dad that we might be onto something, and then we need to convince him that solving Anton’s murder is worth his time.”

  “You don’t think he’ll help us?” I asked.

  Mike shrugged. “Dad is a busy man with very specific goals. Unless we can convince him that Theo killed Anton, I do
n’t think he’ll want to take the time for another interrogation. Even if he does believe us, he’ll probably need to believe that in some way, the fact that Theo killed Anton might affect him.”

  I wanted to stick up for Dad. I wanted to point out that he wasn’t really that self-centered. But I knew Mike was right. The only way Dad was going to help us would be if we could convince him that doing so would help him as well.

  Chapter 14

  Tuesday, May 25

  I was so preoccupied with Dad coming by with Secret’s mother that I could barely get through my route. I had managed to paste a smile on my face, and I’m pretty sure I was appropriately polite and friendly, showing just the right amount of interest in what the men and women along my route said when I stopped in, but by the end of the day, with the exception of my conversation with Mom, I really couldn’t remember the content of a single conversation I’d had.

  I had asked Mom about Theo when I’d stopped by with her mail, and she confirmed that he did indeed have his own place and that the items he’d left at her house were simply items he’d brought over at one point or another. I asked her if she knew where Theo had been living before he left the area, and she blushed and admitted that she’d never actually been there. She did say that he mentioned the beach, so she assumed he lived near the lake.

  According to Bree’s assistant, Bree had taken the day off, so I’d called Tony, who’d confirmed that she’d shown up that morning and had been with Secret ever since. Tony had been the one to spend the most time with the baby, but I suspected it was Bree who was going to miss her most of all. Of course, once Ella was here, she’d have her own baby to focus on, so maybe the ache caused by Secret’s absence would fade over time.

  By the time Tilly and I arrived home after work, Mike had joined Tony and Bree. Dad said he’d be here at six o’clock, and if I knew Dad, he’d be here at six, and not one minute sooner or later, so I hurried upstairs to change. I even put on makeup, which I rarely wore, but apparently, I cared more than I ought to about how I looked in front of my father.