The Baby Plan: A Cozy Mystery

by Kathi Daley

  “You look nice,” Tony said when I came back downstairs with five minutes to spare.

  “Thanks. I’m feeling pretty nervous, and the makeup gives me confidence. Where are Mike and Bree?”

  “On the patio with Secret. I’m going to have them come inside. I think it will be best to have this quick meeting indoors.”

  “I agree. With Dad, I guess you never really know who might be watching.”

  Tony went to get Mike and Bree, and I ran a brush through my hair one more time. I could feel the tension in the room as a black sedan pulled up next to the front entry. The driver’s side door opened, and my dad got out. He walked around the car and opened the passenger side door. A young woman who looked to be in her twenties got out. She paused and looked at the house before Dad grabbed her elbow and propelled her forward. Tony crossed the room and opened the door before they even knocked. The woman walked in, smiling at Tony as she did so. When she saw the baby in Bree’s arms, the woman immediately crossed the room. I could see that Bree was struggling with strong emotions as she handed her the baby.

  “Thank you,” the woman sobbed as she held the baby against her chest. “I could never have survived the past couple weeks if I hadn’t known my baby was being taken care of.”

  “We were happy to help,” I said.

  “We need to go,” Dad said.

  “Wait. I need fifteen seconds,” I said, grabbing Dad’s arm and pulling him to the side.

  “I told you this would need to be quick.”

  “And it will be,” I responded to my father. “Theo wasn’t living with Mom. The fact that his little black book and the flash drive were found at her house makes no sense. We think they were intentionally planted. I have more, and Mike does too. We need to talk.”

  “I’ll call Thursday at eight o’clock. Same protocol. Now, I really need to go.”

  I nodded. I watched as Dad waved to the woman, who hesitated but then followed him to the door.

  “The diaper bag,” Bree said, waddling over to get it.

  Once Bree had handed off the diaper bag, Dad ushered the woman out to the car, strapped the baby into the car seat, and then pulled out of the drive only minutes after he’d pulled in.

  Talk about a whirlwind.

  “I hate that we can’t know what’s going to happen next,” Bree said.

  I reached out and hugged her. “I know. I feel sad and worried and sort of helpless, but I guess we’ve done all that we can. Our time with Secret was short, but we did the best we could to make her happy and comfortable while she was here.”

  “I know.” Bree rubbed her stomach. “The whole thing is just so terrifying.” Bree glanced at Mike. “Until this happened, it never occurred to me that any baby Mike and I have might end up as a pawn in whatever game it is your dad has been playing for most of his life.”

  I didn’t want to admit that I’d had the same thought. It wouldn’t help and might even make Bree feel worse.

  “What did you say to Dad when you pulled him aside?” Mike asked.

  “I told him that Theo hadn’t lived with Mom and that it made no sense he would have left the notebook and flash drive at Mom’s house unless they were planted, and he intended for us to find them at some point. I also told him that we had more to tell him but needed time to discuss things, so he’s going to set up another call for Thursday at eight o’clock.”

  “We need to figure out a way to have a conversation that lasts more than two minutes,” Mike said. “I get the fact that Dad keeps moving, never landing anywhere in either the physical or cyber universe for long before moving on, but the case he’s currently working on involves us. It involves our mother. We have a right to ask questions and expect them to be answered.”

  “So tell Dad that,” I suggested. “When he calls Thursday, tell him exactly what you told me. The call will probably cut off anyway, and we won’t get our answers, but at least he’ll know what we’re thinking. Maybe he’ll find a way so we can all meet and really talk.”

  “Yeah. Okay. I’m going to do just that. To this point, Dad has driven all the conversations, and all we’ve been able to do is listen, but things are going to be different Thursday. When he logs on, we’re going to make sure that the two minutes allotted are our two minutes to share any information we feel is important to share, ask some questions, and hopefully get some answers.”

  Chapter 15

  Wednesday, May 26

  As I drove through town on my way to the post office the following morning to pick up the mail I needed to deliver, I noticed that Mike’s truck was already parked on the street in front of the police station. It was unlikely that Frank would be in yet, so it might be a good time to talk to Mike. I glanced at the clock on my dashboard and realized that if I didn’t pick up the mail on time, my supervisor would have a fit, so I headed to the post office, picked up the mail, stashed it on my backseat, and then headed back to Mike’s office.

  “You’re here early,” Mike said when I walked through the front door.

  “You are too. Why are you sitting at Frank’s desk?”

  “I figured I might get visitors once folks noticed my truck out front, so I decided to stay out here in the lobby until Frank gets in.” He motioned to the chair across the desk.

  “Where’s Leonard?” I asked, noticing the fact that the dog hadn’t run out to greet Tilly and me.

  “Bree is staying home today, so she decided to keep him with her for company.”

  “Is she okay?” It wasn’t like Bree to skip work unless she was sick, although she was eight months pregnant.

  “She said she’s fine. Just tired. She’s hired extra staff to fill in while she’s out on maternity leave. I think she’s thinking about starting that leave sooner than she first planned now that her delivery date is getting closer.”

  “That might actually be a good idea. I hate to see Bree overdoing it.”

  “I agree. When Bree complained about a backache this morning, I encouraged her to take the day off. When I get home this evening, I’m going to talk to her about making plans to officially start her leave.” Mike leaned back in his chair. “So is there a reason you’re here so early in the morning?”

  I shrugged. “I guess our conversation about you, me, and Mom, and even Tony, Bree, and Ella, being in danger due to Dad’s past and current activities last night has been messing with my mind. I know he said he faked his death to protect us, and maybe that was true at the time, but if a guy like Theo, or I guess I should say Arno, can find Mom, then it seems that Dad might not have done as good a job covering his tracks as Dad seems to think he did. I almost feel we should all move and change our names, but then I remember this is our home, and I realize how hard that would be.”

  “I understand where you’re coming from,” Mike said. “I’ve been having similar thoughts. Dad seems to be convinced that Theo being here in White Eagle is in no way linked to Anton’s death, but I think he’s wrong.”

  “Actually, I think he’s lying,” I said. “I haven’t figured out why he’d lie, but if Anton was linked to Dad’s past in some way, and if this Arno recognized Anton when he showed up in town to do whatever it was he planned to do with Mom, then maybe the guy did kill him. I mean, the guy launched a new boat purchased at his request by our mother Sunday, and Anton drowned Monday night. That seems pretty coincidental to me.”

  “Me too,” Mike said. “And Anton did live in the area back when Dad lived here, so it’s likely they knew each other. I still don’t know why Theo would want Anton dead, and I really don’t know how he managed to put fifteen hours on the boat in two days.”

  “Yeah, that’s a strange one,” I agreed. “It seems like Theo went out at night, which makes sense if he didn’t want to be seen. But fifteen hours? This is a lake and not an ocean. I just can’t imagine what he could have been doing.”

  “I did take another look around the boat,” Mike said. “I didn’t find a smoking gun. I hoped that maybe if I could find the object Anton
was hit with, or a trace of blood, even a small one, I might have reason to link Theo and Anton, but I didn’t find anything.”

  “Theo might have wiped things down. If he had a baseball bat at some point, he might have dumped it overboard when he dumped the body. It would help prove our theory that Anton killed Theo if we could find even a tiny shred of proof that Anton was on the boat. What about fingerprints?”

  “We did pull some prints, but only a few, and they’re smudged. It looks as if someone wiped things down. Which makes me think Theo, although there are a lot of other boat owners in the area, so it’s not like he’s our only suspect.”

  The conversation paused when Mike’s phone rang, and he answered. I noticed his frown deepen as he listened. I couldn’t hear enough of the conversation to know who he was speaking to, but I had a feeling he was talking about Mom’s boat and Theo’s use of that boat.

  After he hung up, he looked at me. “That was Dennis Goldman.”

  I knew that Dennis Goldman was a local man who ran fishing charters during the summer.

  “He said that he was out late Sunday night, trying to figure out an overheating problem he’d been having. Apparently, the boat runs fine for the first couple of hours, but then, by the time his tour is ready to head back, the engine overheats. Anyway, that’s not important; what is important is that he saw a boat out on the lake around ten o’clock Sunday night when he was heading back to the marina. I described Mom’s boat, and he’s relatively sure that the boat he saw was her boat.”

  “And?” I asked.

  “And he said the boat was trolling really slowly from west to east. At first, he thought someone was night fishing, but then he noticed the dingy and realized that there were actually divers in the water.”

  “Divers? Scuba divers?”

  “That’s what he said. Now, it isn’t unheard of for groups to do night dives in our lake. In fact, I think there’s a night dive company that advertises on the bulletin board in Mom’s diner. But if Theo was out with Mom’s boat and he had divers in the water, you can bet he wasn’t simply conducting a tour.”

  “What could he possibly have been doing?” I asked.

  Mike shrugged. “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”

  “Tony’s a diver. If you can find out the exact location where he saw the men diving from Dennis, then you can borrow Mom’s boat, and you and Tony can go and check it out.”

  “That’s a good idea. I’ll call Dennis to see if he has some approximate coordinates, and I’ll call Tony if he does.”

  As it turned out, Dennis had the exact coordinates marking where he’d seen the boat Sunday night. At the time, Dennis thought that the behavior of whoever was on the boat, as well as whoever was in the water, was odd, so he made a note of their precise location. The boats usually anchor when there are divers in the water, but in this case, the boat was moving along slowly as if the divers were doing a drift dive. The thing is that there are no currents in the lake, so there’s no drift as you would experience in the ocean. Well, that’s not entirely true. When wind is present, there’s movement on the lake’s surface that can cause a boat to drift, but as for the divers beneath the water, their location would remain fairly fixed unless they were intentionally swimming.

  Mike called Mom, who was more than happy to let him use the boat. She hadn’t shared her decision to give Mike the boat with anyone other than me yet, but I was sure that his wanting to use it only confirmed her decision to do so in her mind. Mike then called Tony, who was happy to help out, so I reluctantly went out to my car to fetch my mailbag and start my route. I supposed a lack of flexibility was the main reason I’d felt ready to move on from the post office. If I’d been working at the shelter today and didn’t have a class, I’d likely have decided to play hooky and go along with Mike and Tony on their big adventure.

  By the time I made it to my first stop, I was already twenty minutes behind schedule, so I put my head down and forged ahead. Bree was out today, and her assistants weren’t as likely to chat, so that was one stop that usually took a minimum of five minutes that I’d be able to do in less than a minute. Hattie was with a customer when I stopped there, saving me another five minutes, and several of the businesses along the route didn’t have mail today, saving me additional time. I figured I’d get caught up and then head to the hardware store since Hap always had something to say. I really enjoyed talking with Hap, so if I could spend a few minutes with him on any given day, I usually tried to do just that.

  “Afternoon, Hap,” I said as I blew in through the front door with Tilly on my heels.

  “Tess, Tilly. Seems a might late for you to just be getting here.”

  I set his mail on the counter. “I had to stop and talk to Mike this morning, which put me behind schedule. I don’t want to have to work late, so I’ve been trying to hurry a bit.”

  “You know I love to chat, but I don’t want to put you further behind schedule.”

  I looked at my watch. “I have a few minutes but only a few.”

  “Well, I have a ghost story for you if you’re interested.”

  “As long as you can tell it in just a few minutes.”

  Hap nodded, a grin on his face as he began his tale. “Hattie had book club last night. It was her friend Greta’s turn to host, and Greta lives all the way out at those estates on the northwest edge of the lake. I didn’t want Hattie driving all the way out there by herself since her eyesight isn’t what it used to be, so I volunteered to drive her.”

  “That was nice of you.”

  “She’s the love of my life. Nice had nothing to do with it. Anyway,” he continued, “I decided to head down to the Rusty Anchor.”

  I knew that the Rusty Anchor was a bar not far from the point where the private road leading out to the estates left the state highway.

  “There was a baseball game on I wanted to catch, so I figured I’d have a beer and watch the game until it was time to go back for Hattie. Thing is, the game got over about half an hour before I needed to leave to pick Hattie up, and I didn’t want to just sit there nursing the same beer I’d been nursing since I’d arrived, so I decided to take a walk down to the water.”

  The Rusty Anchor was only about an eighth of a mile from where the lake curved toward the north.

  “When I got to the shoreline, I saw a man. He was just standing there looking out over the water. He looked to be deep in thought, and I was pretty sure he hadn’t heard me walk up behind him. I didn’t want to disturb the guy, so I was real quiet and just stood there with my thoughts.”

  “And then?” I asked, trying to hurry the dialogue a bit.

  “And then the man turned around, and for a brief second, he looked directly at me before lowering his head and walking back through the woods. I don’t know who the man was or why he was out there, but when the man looked at me, I swear he looked exactly like your father.”

  I was sure my mouth fell open at this point.

  “Now, I know that your daddy passed a long time ago, so it couldn’t actually have been him. And while I started off by saying I had a ghost story to tell, I don’t really believe in ghosts, but the likeness of this man to your father was enough to send me running toward my car just in case I really had seen a ghost.”

  “And you said this was last night?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Around ten o’clock. I’m sure that this random man I happened upon most likely looks nothing like your father, but with the way the light from the moon illuminated his face for that brief second, it really did look like him. Your dad doesn’t have a brother, does he?”

  “No, he was an only child.” I looked at my watch. “That was a story worth getting behind for, but I really do need to go. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  “Okay, darlin’. I’ll see you then.”

  If Hap had seen someone down at the lake last night who looked like Dad, it probably had been Dad. Hap had seen him around ten o’clock, and Dad had come by for the baby at six. He’d s
aid he was on his way to drop the baby and her mother off at an airplane, but Dad hadn’t said where the airplane had been waiting, so it seemed reasonable that he could drop the woman and her child off and still get back to White Eagle Lake by ten o’clock. The question is, why was Dad standing on the shore looking out toward the water? Was he simply homesick, or had he been looking for something?

  Chapter 16

  Tony was home from his diving trip with Mike by the time I got home from work that evening. I headed upstairs to change and wash up while he got dinner ready to serve. It had been a really long couple of weeks. I missed Secret quite a lot, but the idea of a quiet night with just my husband to focus on was nice as well. Tony must have thought the same thing since he made my favorite penne in creamy garlic sauce that he paired with a really nice wine and a basket of hot garlic bread. Deciding to eat on the patio, we made up our plates and headed outdoors.

  “So, how was the diving?” I asked once we’d settled in and had begun to eat.

  “The diving itself was fine. Fun even. But I didn’t find anything.”

  I frowned. “Really?”

  He took a bite of his bread. “Just sand, rocks, and fish.”

  “I wonder what Theo and the divers were doing there. And why go at night when the visibility is limited?”

  Tony shrugged. “I assume he went at night so he wouldn’t be seen by other boaters, but I really have no idea what he was looking for.”

  “He was obviously intent on finding whatever it was he was after,” I said. “It sounds like he was out there on the water all night for two nights in a row.”

  “If this was the ocean, I’d say he was looking for a sunken ship or downed airplane, but I doubt there’s anything like that at the bottom of the lake. The whole thing is very odd.”

  I sipped my wine, willing myself to relax. It had been a stressful couple of weeks. I was so grateful for Tony, this gorgeous house, the lake, and the spring-like weather, but the case of Anton’s death and Theo’s presence in our mother’s life really did have me on edge. “Did Mike figure out anything else about the case?”