Love Finds You in Sugarcreek, Ohio (19 page)

Joe put the final dish in the drainer to dry. The macaroni and cheese Bobby had requested as a bedtime snack hadn’t turned out half bad.

Yeah, Mr. Big Shot Ballplayer,
his mind taunted.
So you managed to boil water and throw in some pasta, did you? You couldn’t manage not to show off at the ballpark today. What’s the matter? Didn’t you already have enough attention in your life? You needed more?

Still sick at heart, he dried his hands on one of the yellow dish towels Lydia had given him and then draped it over the faucet to dry—like he’d seen his mother do hundreds of times.

He missed her. She had been a rock of common sense and spiritual strength. He still grieved the fact that she had not lived to see her grandson. She would have loved Bobby, and he would have loved her.

Nothing had been the same since her death. She had been the glue that held everyone together, even when they were on separate sides of the ocean. If she had been alive, perhaps his father wouldn’t have disowned him.

He glanced at Bobby, playing with a little truck at his feet. How could a loving father disown his own flesh and blood? Was there anything Bobby could ever do that would make him stop loving him?

Of course not.

But
had
his father stopped loving him? He honestly didn’t know.

He shook his head in exasperation. Fathers all over the world would have killed to boast of having a pro baseball player for a son.

But not Dr. Robert Mattias.

He had to pick the one dad in the world who would be disappointed in him. Didn’t his father realize that he had never been cut out to be a minister, let alone a missionary? Couldn’t his dad understand that?

The next question was: had he stopped loving his father?

No.

He had been furious at him. He had been hurt by him. But ultimately, he knew he still loved the man who had held him in his arms and told him that God had made the moon and the stars just for him.

If his mother were still alive, she would have fixed things. He and his father would have both complained about how unreasonable the other was being, and while they were blowing off steam, she would have somehow fixed it.

“Can I watch the video now, Daddy?”

“Sure, buddy. You’ve got half an hour before bedtime.”

He had found a small battery-operated DVD player at a garage sale on the edge of town today, along with two barely used VeggieTales DVDs. Quite a treasure. Oddly enough, he had enjoyed making that purchase more than he had enjoyed the last two homes he and Grace had bought.

He had no more than gotten his son set up in the living room and entranced with the adventures of Larry Boy, when he heard someone pull into the driveway.

His stomach tightened with worry as he glanced out the window. Rachel’s squad car. She wasn’t coming to visit her aunts tonight. She was headed straight for his house.

As she strode across the yard, he couldn’t help but admire the way she walked—shoulders back, head straight, long, purposeful strides. Rachel took the straightest route to wherever she wanted to go—whether from her car to his front door or telling him she didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him.

She was frowning as she mounted his steps. He hoped she hadn’t come over to interrogate him about his actions at the ball game. He was so weary tonight of carrying his load of secrets that he was afraid he might just break down and tell her everything.

Rachel had thought she would be able to do this with no emotion, but she was wrong. Joe had recently showered, and his wet hair was combed straight back. His blue work shirt hung open, and his chest and his feet were bare. He smelled good, and he looked good.

But he was no longer Joe Matthews, a man with whom she had a tentative, if very guarded, friendship. He was “Miracle Micah,” someone who was known and admired around the world.

It made relating to him difficult. She had never known anyone famous.

How cramped this cottage must feel to him after the mansion he and Grace had shared, how measly the salary her aunts were paying him compared to what he had earned playing ball. And that ball game today—how silly it must have felt to play with such amateurs.

But he hadn’t acted like any of it was beneath him. He had acted as though he was…grateful.

What a complicated man.

“Come in, Rachel,” he said as he opened the door. “What can I do for you?”

She swallowed hard and stepped into his living room. Bobby was sitting on the floor, enraptured by a video that involved a dancing pickle.

“Can we talk privately?” she asked.

“Sure.” He turned to Bobby. “Rachel and I are going to my study to talk, son. I’ll leave the door open. Will you be okay?”

The little boy nodded without taking his eyes off the DVD screen.

“I think Bobby has a serious VeggieTales deficiency,” Joe said as he ushered her toward her grandfather’s old study.

Rachel said nothing. It wasn’t Bobby she was concerned about right now.

The first thing that she noticed when she entered the room was that the musty smell she always associated with it had disappeared.

“What did you do?” she asked, playing for time to get her nerves under control. “This room doesn’t smell like mildew anymore.”

“Oh.” Joe looked at the wall filled with books. “I wiped down all the book covers with alcohol.”

“That must have been a job.”

“Not so bad,” Joe said. “Actually, it was a pleasure. I used to help my dad do that when I was a kid. He had a lot of books too.”

There it was again. Joe and his gratitude. How could cleaning old books possibly be a pleasure for someone like him?

She decided it was time to stop beating around the bush. She had to face this thing and deal with it. She grabbed a straight-backed chair, turned it around, straddled it, and crossed her arms across the top slat as she faced him.

“That was some play you made today.”

“Yeah, well.” He shrugged it off.

“Have a seat, Joe. I’ve got a few things I need to say.”

Joe reluctantly sat down behind the desk. “You sound serious, Rachel. Is this the place where you tell me it’s time to get the heck out of Dodge?”

His tone was lighthearted, but his eyes showed real concern.

“No.” Rachel’s voice was soft. “I’m not going to ask you to leave—but Lord help us all if you stay.”

“What are you saying?”

“I know who you are, I know why you’re here, and I came to apologize for the way I’ve treated you.”

She could almost see the shutters come down over his eyes. “What do you mean?” His voice was low and intense.

“Micah Joel Mattias. Age 32. Older son of Dr. Robert Mattias, a renowned missionary and author,” she recited. “Graduated from a South African boarding school. Fluent in three different African dialects as well as in French and English. Left Africa to attend a Christian university in the States with the intent of obtaining a degree in Bible. The plan was for you to return and complete your father’s dream of a father/son evangelism team.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “How am I doing so far?”

He folded his arms across his chest. “I’m listening.”

“Your mother, now deceased, once played on a highly ranked women’s softball team. Because of the training she gave you, along with a good coach at the boarding school, combined with your uncanny natural ability, you won a baseball scholarship to college. During your junior year, your expertise was discovered by a scout, and you dropped out and signed with the Dodgers.”

She paused again. “Do I have it correct so far?”

“Yes.” He sighed. “Go on.”

“Married to Grace Plonkett aka May Hunter. One child, Robert Douglas Mattias, born five years later.”

“I don’t want my son to hear this.” Joe stood, walked over to the door, and closed it. His hand lingered on the knob, as though he wished he could walk away from this conversation. “What was it that gave me away?”

“No amateur can make a throw like that.”

He shook his head. “I should never have agreed to play.”

“I’m glad you did. Otherwise I might never have known.”

Their eyes met and held. She saw a question in his that she answered. “You can trust me.” She stood up. “I’ve got your back on this, Joe. I’ll tell no one.”

“If
anyone
had to know, I’m so glad it was you.” He held his arms out to her.

It was only a hug. Just a hug between friends. She knew he didn’t mean anything by it, but she wasn’t prepared for the flood of emotions that being held by him triggered. She lifted her face to his. He stared down at her, his eyes dark and intense. His head began to descend, slowly. She could almost taste the kiss she thought was coming. It was a surprise to discover how much she hungered for it….

“Daddy.” Bobby opened the door and peeked around it.

Joe abruptly pulled away and put his hands into his pockets. “What is it, buddy?”

“Can I watch the other video now?”

“Absolutely, son.” Joe cleared his throat. “I’ll be right back, Rachel.”

She was grateful that Joe had to leave the room. By the time he returned, she had managed to pull herself together. The moment for a kiss was gone. She didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved.

“All I know is what I’ve read,” she said as she leaned against the desk. “What really happened that night?”

Joe hesitated, as though evaluating her mood. The moment of intimacy between them seemed to have dissipated. It was, she decided, just as well.

“We don’t know for sure. All we know is that someone locked Bobby in his room while he was asleep, and then—well, you know what happened then. The strangest thing was that whoever killed Grace left snacks and drinks for him.”

“They left snacks? That’s odd.”

“The water and juice bottles had the seals already broken, and the lids had been loosened so Bobby could open them by himself. When I found my son, he was terrified at having been left alone, but he wasn’t hurt or hungry.”

Joe’s eyes grew haunted. “The minutes between discovering Grace and finding my son were the longest of my life.”

“Thank God he was unharmed.”

Joe fell into the desk chair and thrust both hands through his hair. “I’m hoping that our disappearance will buy Bobby enough time to heal and grow up enough so that he can better deal with it. I love the fact that there’s no electricity in your aunts’ home. There’s no TV or radio here. Frankly, I don’t care if I never see a news program again.”

She began to pace the room, her mind in overdrive as it worked on the puzzle of the crime. “Have there been any more recent developments?”

“As of yesterday, nothing.” Joe laced his hands behind his neck. “There was this private detective I hired for a while. He’s not actively working the case anymore, but he keeps an ear out for developments. I check in with him from time to time.”

Rachel stopped pacing. “With so much media attention, I would think the cops would be working around the clock. I’m surprised this mystery hasn’t been solved yet.”

“They had little to work with. The killer left nothing behind.”

“That’s not possible.”

“Whoever it was wore gloves, and no murder weapon was ever found. No unusual cars were noted. No visitors to our house were seen. Frankly, we lived in a neighborhood where people don’t spend a lot of time watching the street. I posted a large reward before I left, but nothing of value came from it.”

“Was there anything else the cops kept back?”

“Only one thing. I’d just had a new security system put in. Grace evidently disengaged it right before her death. Her fingerprints were the only ones on it. Bobby told us that somebody rang the doorbell while Grace was putting him to bed. She left him to go answer the door, and he fell asleep.”

“Would she have opened the door to a stranger?”

“No. Grace was raised rough, and she wasn’t stupid. She wouldn’t have let someone in that she didn’t know. Especially at night.”

“Then it was someone she knew and trusted.” Rachel pondered this information. “Did the police check that out?”

“Oh yes. When I started trying to make a list—and the cops definitely asked for one—it appeared that Grace and I knew half the people in California
and
Texas. There were hundreds of people she could have known well enough to invite in.”

Rachel let that sink in. “Is there any chance that Grace might have been the one who locked Bobby in his room that night?”

“That’s been discussed. One of the cops theorized that Grace might have somehow sensed danger and managed to fix it so Bobby wouldn’t come wandering out. We may never know for sure.”

Rachel hated to ask Joe the next question, but she was a cop, and the vagaries of the human mind held few surprises for her.

“What was your wife wearing, Joe?”

“A bathrobe.”

“Anything else?”

“No.” He picked up a pencil and traced circles on a notepad. “I know what you’re thinking, Rachel. But Grace had a routine when she was at home, and she seldom broke it. She took a bath every night at ten o’clock. Then she would read a romance novel for half an hour before she went to bed. She told me that sleep is good for the skin, and she tried to get plenty of it. There was nothing unusual in the way she was dressed. My wife was not having an affair, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“Are you certain? If she intended to be entertaining someone, it would explain why Bobby was so well-provisioned.”

“That’s another angle the police kept hammering at. Lonely, beautiful wife, absent husband. I could tell they were determined to frame the murder as some romantic interlude gone wrong—and they probably still are.”

“Can you be absolutely certain it wasn’t?” Rachel asked.

“Yes, actually.” Joe lifted his head. A ghost of a smile hovered on his lips. “I can.”

“How?”

“She wasn’t wearing any makeup.”

“Pardon?” His statement made no sense to Rachel, who seldom used more than a slash of lipstick.

“Grace was a pageant queen, and she took her movie-star status quite seriously. She was a sweetheart, but she was a vain woman. She would have no more entertained a date without putting on makeup than she would have gone to the store wearing curlers in her hair.”

“I see.”

“That’s everything I know.” He drummed his fingers on the desk. “It’s not much.”

They sat in silence, each digesting everything that had been said.

“So,” he said half-jokingly, “are you sure you don’t want to call the tabloids now?”

Rachel blinked. “Why in the world would I do that?”

“Bobby and I are a hot topic. There’d be good money in a tip like that.”

“I would never do anything to put you or Bobby in danger.”

“I can take that as a promise to keep my secret?”

“I already gave you my word, Joe.”

His voice softened. “Which, from what I’ve seen, is worth a lot.”

“Like I said before”—she looked him square in the eyes—“I’ve got your back.”