Obsession (38 page)

April set down her coffee cup. “I've been meaning to ask, what did Mrs. Johnson do about that?”

“I talked to Tyler yesterday evening,” Melissa answered. “His grandma was going to start baby-sitting when school opens up next week anyway, so she just started a few days early.”

“And how is Tyler?” asked Toni.

“He's fine. He was so excited when I called. He said he was praying for me, and he knew I'd come back home soon. He… also said he was still praying for his dad to come back in time for his birthday in two weeks. I really didn't know what to say to him about that. If his dad's not there, it could ruin his whole birthday.”

“Well then, my dear,” said April, “we shall just have to join him in praying for his father to come, won't we?”

Melissa hesitated. She didn't want to sound as if she didn't trust God, especially after what he had done for her, but this was different. “I guess so. But… what if he doesn't come?”

“It isn't our responsibility to get him there,” April explained. “It's just our responsibility to pray.” She smiled. “I think we can leave the rest to God. He's bigger than we are and much wiser. He'll know how to work things out so Tyler's faith isn't damaged, regardless of the circumstances.”

Melissa dropped her eyes for a moment. Would it be disrespectful or inconsiderate to ask April how she could still pray even after what had happened to Julie? She looked back up. “I thought about that while I was… while I was gone. About how you prayed for Julie, I mean—to come home safe, just like you prayed for me. But… she didn't, and you still have faith in God. I'm not sure I understand.”

April smiled. “It's taken me a lot of years to learn that my faith in God doesn't depend on what he does for me, but rather on who he is. I have come to understand that he is always faithful, he is always right, and he is always in control, no matter what happens. I have walked
with him now for almost sixty years, my dear, and he has never once deserted me, even though I often wondered where he was and what he was doing. Give yourself a little time to walk with him as I have, and then you'll also begin to understand.”

Melissa nodded, returning April's smile. She so appreciated her wisdom and advice. She would certainly miss her when she returned to Colorado. Before she could ask her when that might be, the doorbell rang.

“I'll get it,” she announced, bounding out of her chair and heading for the front door. She pulled it open and grinned. “Abe. I thought it might be you. Toni said you called this morning and that you might come over.”

Abe, his right arm in a sling, smiled as he walked in the door. “Oh, she did, did she? Well, I'm glad she warned you. I think I scared you the last time I showed up unannounced.”

Melissa laughed. “Are you kidding? Only for a minute, when I wasn't too sure why you'd showed up, but once I realized that you came to get me out of there, I was never so glad to see anyone in my whole life.”

Abe gave her shoulders a quick squeeze with his free arm and kissed the top of her head. “Believe me, I felt exactly the same way when I saw you.”

“Come on,” said Melissa, taking his left hand in hers and leading him into the kitchen. “You're just in time for breakfast.”

“Breakfast? At eleven o'clock? I was hoping for something more along the lines of lunch.”

“Lunch will just have to wait,” said Toni, smiling up at him as he joined them. “We all slept in this morning. Have a seat. Would you like some coffee?”

Abe raised his eyebrows. “You made coffee? I thought you never touched the stuff.”

“She doesn't,” said April, “but I do, and I made it.”

“Then I'll take some.” Abe sat down next to Melissa while Toni
filled a cup for him. “I never trust coffee made by someone who doesn't drink it.”

“Toni used to make it for Dad,” said Melissa. “I tasted it once. Trust me, it was terrible.”

“Thanks a lot, little sister.”

“No problem. By the way, Abe, how's your arm?”

“It's OK. Just babying it for a while, you understand.” He cut his eyes toward Toni, then back to Melissa. “Thought I'd get all the mileage out of it that I could.”

“Don't count on getting any sympathy from me,” Toni said. “You look entirely too healthy to qualify for that sort of thing.”

“Thanks. You look pretty great yourself.”

Toni flushed, and Melissa grinned. Only a few days earlier she would have been furious over such an interchange between the two. Today she watched them and knew it was right. Even though Toni and Brad had always been able to joke around together, something had been missing. Whatever that something was, it was definitely there between Toni and Abe. She was glad for them.

It was apparent that Abe had noticed the pink tinge of Toni's cheeks, but he graciously declined comment and changed the subject. “Well, believe it or not, I already have some updates for anyone who's interested.” Melissa could tell that included all of them, as they each sat up, alert and receptive, all eyes focused on Abe. “It looks as if it's going to be a long, drawn-out investigation, especially since we're discovering that this baby-selling ring extends far beyond the Northwest into several other countries, just like you said, Melissa. They may even have dabbled in the slave trade. The authorities have picked up Lorraine, and she and Bruce Jensen can't seem to talk fast enough. They're hoping for the possibility of a lighter sentence, I suppose. They spent all day yesterday filling in the blanks for us, giving us information that could have taken weeks, or even months, to track down. Even though the investigation will take quite a while, it would have been worse without their cooperation. I can't remember when
we've been able to get so much information in such a short time—and with so little effort on our part.”

Toni shook her head. “It's still so hard for me to believe that Lorraine was involved in something like this. Even though she only worked for Dad for a short time, I never would have thought she could do anything so awful.”

Melissa felt her recently restored confidence beginning to dissolve as the memories came flooding back. “She was… right there, in the room, when Raymond killed Carlo. Or Carl… whatever his name was.”

Abe squeezed her hand. “It's OK,” he said softly. “It's over now.”

She nodded, smiling up at him gratefully. “Thanks to you.”

“Hey, I couldn't have done it without your sister's help, you know.”

“That's right,” Toni agreed. “And don't you forget it, Detective Matthews. Maybe the next time I offer my assistance you won't run off without me and force me to track you down like the good private detective's daughter that I am.”

Abe looked across the table at Toni. “You really did show up at the right time… ‘Detective Matthews.’ That rock-throwing ploy of yours distracted them just enough for me to be able to get Melissa down on the floor and, to some degree, out of the line of fire.”

“When you threw me on the floor, I screamed because I didn't know what was going on,” said Melissa. “Everything was happening so fast. I didn't even see Toni come in.”

“That's because I wasn't inside the cabin for more than a couple of seconds before I was on the floor too. I'm glad to know my timing was good because I sure wasn't much help other than that.”

“Yes, you were,” Melissa insisted. “After the shooting was finally over and you came and lifted me up off the floor, that's when I knew I was going to be OK.”

Toni smiled at Melissa's reassurance but seemed to be studying Abe's face. “Are you all right?” she asked softly.

Abe's jaw twitched, and Melissa realized he was thinking of his uncle. This time it was her turn to comfort him. She reached over and took his hand. “You saved my life and… your uncle saved yours.”

Abe nodded and smiled at her. “Yes, he did. It seems he was always running interference for me, especially since my parents died. This wasn't the first scrape he got me out of.” He paused, then fixed his eyes on Toni's. “In fact, I'd like to talk to you about that, if I could. Would this evening be OK? We could grab a bite to eat somewhere and… talk. Maybe about six or so?”

Melissa watched their eye contact. It was obvious that the two of them knew more about this particular subject than either she or April.

Toni nodded. “Six would be fine.”

“Well,” said April, looking at Melissa, “it appears as if it's just the two of us for dinner tonight. Any ideas?”

Melissa grinned. “Pizza?”

“Why did I even ask? All right, pizza it is.” She turned toward Abe. “By the way, what about your uncle's girlfriend… Rosalie, is it?”

Abe nodded. “Rosalie, yes. It seems she was oblivious to any of his illegal dealings, at least from what we've learned so far, but she sure is clamoring to know about his will. Didn't waste any time asking about that.”

“I see,” said April.

As they talked and visited, Abe continued to fill them in on some of the details that had emerged over the previous thirty-six hours. It seemed that Lorraine had been involved in the illegal organization in another town, and when Paul Matthews had mentioned to Bruce Jensen that he had been hired by a woman in Colorado to find her missing granddaughter, Bruce had helped Lorraine get the recently vacated secretarial job at Matthews and Matthews so she could monitor Paul's progress. When he got too close to the truth, Bruce knew his friend well enough to know that he would never back off. That's when it was decided that Paul Matthews must be eliminated. Just
before Paul was to go on his annual fishing trip to Eagle Lake, Lorraine gave her notice, saying that she planned to marry her boyfriend, Carl, and move out of state. The truth was that she didn't want to be anywhere in the vicinity if anyone started asking questions about her former boss's untimely death.

“That must have been about the time I ran into Lorraine and her so-called fiancé,” said Toni. “I had just gotten home from college and had told Dad I would fill in at the office for him until he found someone to replace Lorraine. I was on my way back to work after lunch one day, and I saw Lorraine climbing into the passenger seat of a car parked in front of the office. Apparently she had come to pick up her final paycheck.”

“Don't tell me,” Melissa interrupted. “It was a red BMW, right?”

Toni nodded. “Yes, it was, and I guess I don't have to tell you who was driving it. Lorraine introduced him—somewhat reluctantly, I might add—as her fiancé, Carl. He didn't have much to say, just enough that his voice sounded vaguely familiar when he started making his threatening phone calls. Then they took off as quickly as they could. Guess they didn't want me getting too close a look at him.”

“I'm sure that's true,” said Abe. “Then, just before your dad left for his vacation, Bruce Jensen called him and arranged to meet him at the lake to do some fishing. Would anyone like to guess what day and time they were going to meet?”

Toni's face grew pale, and her eyes opened wide. “Wednesday morning at six o'clock?”

“You got it.”

“But… why would Dad write that down in Julie's file?”

“That's the beauty of it. The best we can tell, he must have had Julie's file open when Bruce called. He jotted down the time and day, then got busy doing something else and forgot where he'd left the information. He called Bruce back later that day to confirm everything and told him he had misplaced the note. So your one piece of evidence, the one and only thing that linked your dad's death to Julie's
disappearance and started your obsession with this whole case, was nothing more than an accident.” Abe raised his eyebrows and looked around the table, focusing primarily on Melissa. “Or, so it would seem.”

Melissa was shocked. “You mean… Dad didn't put that note in there on purpose? It had nothing to do with Julie?”

“Nothing at all.”

“Then…” The realization dawned on her slowly. “Then maybe…” She looked from Toni to Abe and finally to April. “Do you think God planned for Toni to find that note?”

April smiled. “I think it's possible. As I told you earlier, walk with him a while, and soon you'll understand a lot more about his ways. What you don't understand, you'll simply accept because you'll have learned that he is faithful.”

Although there was still so much Melissa couldn't understand, she was beginning to see a pattern and a purpose in things that had once seemed so meaningless. Still, there was one thing that didn't make any sense at all. She looked at Abe. “If they were planning to… murder my dad… what did Dr. Jensen's fishing date with Dad have to do with all this? If Dad died of a heart attack…”

“He didn't,” said Abe, pausing a moment as the others absorbed his words. “Toni was right from the beginning. If anyone other than Raymond Johnson had performed the autopsy, we would have known that long before this, but between him and Bruce Jensen, they were able to keep their little secret.”

Toni's face was still pale. “But… if Dad didn't die of a heart attack, what happened to him? He was out in the boat fishing, alone, in the middle of the lake. How could anyone possibly have gotten to him and… killed him… in such a way as to make it look like a heart attack?”

“Dr. Jensen was his physician, right? He was well aware of your father's heart condition. He also knew your father well enough to be familiar with many of his habits, particularly when it came to
fishing.” He turned to Melissa. “I'll bet you know those habits, too, don't you?”

Melissa nodded, wide-eyed.

“What's the first thing your dad did when he got up in the morning and got ready to go out on the lake to go fishing?”

“He packed some food and fixed a thermos of coffee.”

“Exactly, and Bruce knew that. When he got to your dad's cabin, he offered to make the coffee while your dad prepared the food. Being a doctor, he had access to medications, including digoxin, pills that dissolve easily in hot liquid like coffee and can be fatal to someone with a heart condition. Bruce knew he could put enough digoxin in your dad's thermos to kill him, and he also knew your dad wouldn't drink it until he was out on the lake fishing—alone.”

This time it was April who spoke up first. “But… I thought you said Dr. Jensen was going to go fishing with him.”

“That was the supposed plan. Just before the two men left the cabin to go to the lake, however, the doctor's beeper went off—compliments of Lorraine—and he used his cellular phone to make a call, only to learn of an ‘emergency’ that required his immediate presence at the hospital. Apologizing, he got into his car and drove away, promising to return for the fishing outing the next day. Needless to say, that never happened.”