The Purrfect Lie (Klepto Cat Mystery Book 12) (16 page)

“Sure, Maggie. What is it?” she said, wiping her hands on her apron and easing into a kitchen chair. “Is something wrong?”

“I don’t know. Something just might be right. Barbara.” Margaret hesitated for a moment. “Now, you left Hammond for a while after you married, didn’t you?”

“Yes. My husband got a job as manager at a large factory over in Stratton and we lived there for several years. We returned to Hammond when Jenna was ten.”

Margaret looked at Savannah and then at Barbara. Finally she said, “Barbara, I’m sorry I’ve got to ask; did you have a little girl who went missing?”

Barbara gasped. Took in a deep breath and stared across at Margaret and Savannah. She shook her head and said quietly, “No. What makes you ask such a question? No,” she said defensively. “I have just the one child. You know Jenna. She’s my only child.” She stood and began puttering again. “Why would you ask this, anyway?”

When Margaret looked at her niece pleadingly, Savannah said, “I have a new friend who looks an awful lot like Jenna. Her name’s Mary. We thought maybe…”

Barbara faced Savannah and peered at her for a moment. She then turned away, saying, “You’re mistaken.”

Margaret nodded. “Yeah, I guess so. It’s just that…well, we believe this woman may have been abducted as a child, but she doesn’t know it. When we saw how much she looks like your daughter, we thought…”

Barbara spun around and stared at the two women, finally saying, “Well, you thought wrong.” She stood silently for a moment, then said, “I’d really better get this cake finished. I have other things to do. If you don’t mind…”

Promptly standing up, Margaret said, “Yes, we need to get going.” She looked at Barbara and started to reach out to apologize, but the woman walked hastily past her, leading them toward the front door. She opened it, stepped back, and said sweetly, “Thank you both for coming by. Savannah, I hope to see you at church soon…and do bring Lily over to play with the children again sometime.”

****

“Wow!” Margaret said, once the two women were seated in Savannah’s SUV. “That was intense.”

Savannah stared at the steering wheel. She took a breath through pursed lips. “Yes, I kind of wish we hadn’t done that. Talk about a can of worms.” She looked at her aunt. “We definitely hit a nerve with her, didn’t we? She was nervous as a cat.”

Margaret nodded. “Yes, something’s not right. If she didn’t lose a daughter, why would she act that way? If she did, why would she not want to know about Mary?” She looked Savannah in the eyes. “Okay, I’m hooked.”

“What do you mean?” Savannah asked as she started the car and pulled away from the curb.

“I want to pursue the mystery. Let’s go to Stratton and see what we can learn about a possible abduction, shall we?”

“Now?”

“Why not?” Margaret asked.

“Uh, well…” Savannah hedged. “Let me see what Iris is doing today. If she can watch Lily, yeah, I could go today.”

****

An hour later, Savannah and Margaret were on the road to Stratton. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” Margaret asked.

Savannah glanced at her aunt. “Having second thoughts?”

She nodded. “How about you?”

Savannah sighed. “I’m not sure this is a good idea, either. But, knowing what we know—or what we think we know—I can’t imagine not doing it.” Then, changing the subject, she asked, “So things have been quiet around your place since you hired the nighttime guard?”

“Yes, and since our weird neighbor was put in jail.” Margaret faced Savannah and said sternly, “I just imagine it was him—you know how he hates seeing us lock up and harness our cats.”

“He’s crazy, all right, but do you think he’d actually sneak over to your place in that get-up at night and bother the cats? And do you think he actually killed his wife?”

“Hard to tell what someone as crazy as he is would do,” Margaret said. She began giggling.

“What?” Savannah asked.

“Well, I just wonder how all of us women could have let that worm squirm out of our grip that night.”

“If it was him, he’s wiry, that’s for sure,” Savannah agreed. “He can run pretty fast, too. Only…”

“Only what?” Margaret asked.

“Where was that cane he carries when he walks past here with his dog?”

“Could be that it’s not a cane, but a weapon to keep coyotes away from his poodle.”

“Yeah, as gruff as he is, I think he actually likes Princess.”

“Is that her name? She seems like a nice dog.”

“Yes, I wonder what will happen to her if he’s put in prison,” Savannah said.

“Lexie would probably like to have a pal. After all, the cats outnumber the dogs in your family.”

“I don’t think we want to go there,” Savannah said, smirking playfully at her aunt. “We’re not in the market for any more pets.”

An hour or so later, the two women walked into the Stratton Library. Margaret pointed. “There are the old newspapers. What time span are we looking for?”

“Well, Jenna is a year younger than me—born in 1982.”

“Do you know Mary’s birth date?” Margaret asked.

“Yeah,” Savannah said, frowning. “She says she was born May tenth.”

Margaret looked at Savannah. “What’s Jenna’s birth date?”

“June fifth,” Savannah said, quietly.

Margaret took in a deep breath and exhaled. “So what the hell are we doing here, Vannie? They don’t even have the same birthday.”

Savannah shrugged. “Maybe they aren’t twins. Maybe they were born a year apart.”

“Or maybe we’ve got it all wrong,” Margaret said, gritting her teeth. “Vannie,” she said sternly, “I don’t have time for a wild-goose chase. Are you sure…”

“I’m not sure about anything, Auntie, except that, in my mind, there’s enough evidence to continue this pursuit.” In a take-charge manner, she said, “Now, for someone to not remember being taken, they would have to be under two, don’t you think?”

Margaret peered at her niece impatiently for a moment, then said, “Okay, we’re here. Let’s see what we can find.” She then responded to Savannah’s question. “Yeah, two or three, maybe. Do you have any memories of when you were three?”

“Yeah, I think so—or else I just remember what I’ve been told.” She shook her head. “I’m not sure. Anyway, we probably want to look in newspapers from 1982 through 1985.”

The two women scoured through newspapers for nearly two hours before Savannah said, “Bingo!” she quickly put her hand over her mouth, realizing she’d spoken too loudly for the library environment.

“What did you find?” Margaret asked quietly.

“Twin daughter of Barbara and Allan Bryant disappears. Neighborhood combed. The toddler, age nineteen months, was playing in the front yard with her sister when their mother stepped inside the house to grab a towel. At first they thought the child had wandered off. It says the gate was open.” Savannah looked at her aunt. “How horrible for that family.”

“Why did Barbara deny it? That’s what I want to know,” Margaret said.

“Guilt, perhaps? Who knows?”

“Doesn’t she want to find her child?”

Savannah said, “This might be the answer right here. In a subsequent article, it says that the family has been bombarded by look-alike child spottings. Maybe they didn’t want another false alarm. Look at this baby picture. She sure looks a lot like Bradley, doesn’t she—with all that curly red hair?”

“Okay,” Margaret said. “What should we do with this information now that we’ve got it? Confront poor Barbara again?”

Savannah thought for a moment. “Maybe show it to Jenna.” She stared off into space, then said slowly, “There’s someone else who’s going to be shocked by the truth and may find it hard to digest.”

“Who’s that, Vannie?”

“My friend, Mary—the one who thinks the man who raised her was her father.”

“And maybe he was, kiddo. Remember, the girls don’t even have the same birth date. We could be totally barking up the wrong tree.”

****

“So you gals are actually going to get involved in this family’s private business?” Michael questioned as he sipped his coffee the next morning.

“Hey, those people need to know what we learned about their daughter, and Mary should have the opportunity to know her family,” Savannah insisted.

“If that
is
her family. Savannah, all you know is that Barbara’s and Allan’s daughter was kidnapped. What proof do you have that Mary is their child?”

“Oh, Michael,” she said, “we have almost positive proof.”

“Almost?” he challenged. “You said the girls don’t even have the same birth date.”

She raised her eyebrows. “I’ve been thinking about that, actually. If the man who took Mary didn’t know the family, he wouldn’t know when her birthday was. It’s like finding a kitten. You sometimes have to guess what day it was born. Also, as you know, the man who confessed to abducting a child has been identified as Keith Mullen. Mary said that Crissy’s middle name—Mullen—is a family name. She’s been told that her mother died at birth and you saw how much she resembles Jenna. What more proof do we need?”

“Well, it’s not conclusive, Savannah. You’re still dealing with some loose ends.”

“Which will be tied into a perfect bow once we introduce Mary to her family,” Savannah insisted.

Michael ran his hand through his hair and said, frowning, “I really don’t like that you’re doing this without Craig’s okay.”

“Doing what?” she asked, being coy. “…visiting friends and bringing them some news they may want to hear?”

Michael shook his head. “Okay, okay. I just hope you know what you’re doing.” He then said, “By the way, Mr. Crankshaw is out of jail. He came and got his dog.”

“Oh really?” Savannah said. “Do they have the autopsy report back?”

“Don’t know. He’s out on bail; I don’t think he’s completely in the clear. He sure seemed edgy when I saw him at the clinic.”

Savannah chuckled. “More so than usual?”

He nodded. “Yeah, actually.” He focused on Savannah as she finished feeding Lily and asked, “So what time are you and your aunt doing the deed?”

Savannah smirked light-heartedly in his direction. “She’s picking me up around ten.” She turned to face Michael. “So what do you and Lily have planned for this morning?”

“Oh, since it’s raining, I guess we’ll play inside. I’ve been wanting to organize all her new her toys—maybe we can make it a daddy-daughter project.”

Savannah grinned. “Good luck with that.”

“Why?”

“It’s just that usually when I want to take care of a chore, she has her own agenda. If I’m putting things away, she takes them out. If I’m taking them out, she scatters them around the house. Then you have Rags and Buffy to deal with. Rags finds every excuse to be in the way and Buffy crawls into boxes and drawers when you’re not looking and you sometimes close her in. One day last week, she didn’t show up for lunch—she always joins Lily for lunch. I went looking for her and finally found her closed up in a box of my summer clothes that I had packed to store upstairs.”

“Poor Buffy,” Michael said, reaching down and scratching the cat behind one ear. “Was she crying to get out?”

“No, she just stays put until someone happens to find her, then she looks at you like, ‘What took you so long?’”

“Okay, you convinced me,” Michael said with a sigh. “I think Lily and I will do some reading this morning. We shouldn’t lose any cats or trip over any cats while pursuing that calm, quiet activity.”

****

“Are you ready for this?” Margaret asked as Savannah climbed into the passenger side of her aunt’s Jeep Liberty.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” she said.

“Where’s the baby?”

“She and Michael are going to do some reading.”

“Where are we meeting Jenna?” Margaret asked, pulling out of the driveway.

“She invited us to her home—out on the bluff overlooking the meadows. It’s on Beechnut. Are you familiar with that area?”

“Oh yes, I’ve been up there corralling cats a time or two.”

“One thirty-five…right here with the topiary dinosaur out front. Cute,” Savannah said, smiling. She then said, “Oh, there’s Jenna and Bradley. They must have been for a walk.” She looked around. “Nice area to walk in. Hi,” Savannah called as she climbed out of the car.

“Hi,” Jenna said. “Nice to see you two. Come in. Can I get you a cup of tea, soda, coffee?”

Margaret stepped into the house behind Jenna and Bradley. “How about coffee?”

“I’ll have tea, if it’s no trouble,” Savannah said.

“No,” Jenna said, placing her son on the floor and pulling off his jacket. “It’s a might chilly out this morning.”

Margaret shivered. “You got that right. At least it stopped raining. The weather is confusing lately.”

“Confusing?” Savannah asked.

“Yes, warm enough for a light windbreaker one day and chilly to the bone on the next.”

Once the two women were seated at the kitchen table sipping their beverages, Jenna brought out a plate of chocolate-chip cookies and joined them.

“Yum,” Margaret said. “They look good.”

All three women glanced at Bradley when he began to fuss. “I think I’ll put him down,” Jenna said, lifting him off the floor. “He’s been a little cranky; maybe he’d like a nap. I’ll be right back.”

When she returned, she said, “He zonked out almost immediately. Thank heavens for the binky.”

“Binky?” Margaret asked, looking confused.

“Pacifier,” Savannah explained. The room was quiet for a few moments, then Savannah said, “Jenna, did your mom tell you we came by to see her yesterday?”

Jenna shook her head slowly, lowering her brow. “No, she didn’t.”

Savannah glanced at Margaret, a puzzled look on her face, then asked Jenna, “So she didn’t say anything to you?”

“No.” Jenna looked from one to the other. “What’s this about, anyway? Is something wrong? You seem all mysterious.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Savannah insisted. “We hope to make things right again, actually.” “Now don’t jump the gun, there, Vannie,” Margaret suggested.

“Okay,” she said, looking down at the copy of the newspaper article she’d pulled out of her jacket pocket. She took a deep breath and handed it to Jenna.

“What is this?” she asked.

“It’s an article published in the
Stratton Daily Times
in 1984 about your twin sister’s abduction.”