The Case of the Red-Handed Rhesus (A Rue and Lakeland Mystery) (3 page)

I didn’t speak. Not initially. My recent experience with liars and deception was too raw to accept her words at face value. And yet, the conversation was punctuated by bursts of another voice in the background, like she was being hurried along to come help with something. Her urgency seemed so real. “I’ll talk to Natasha,” I finally said, “and I’ll call the sheriff’s department.
They
will be able to tell us where to meet.”
If this is real. If you aren’t calling from some rented phone trying to lure my foster daughter into danger herself, under the pretext of a rescue mission. If June isn’t about to come back around and bite us in August.

I hung up the phone. “What do you want to do?” I asked Lance.

“You wake up Natasha,” he said. “I’ll wake up Officer Carmichael.”

Over the course of the investigation in June, we had become friends with a deputy, a junior detective, at the county sheriff’s office, and he could be trusted to give us honest information, even if we dragged him out of bed from a sound sleep.

Lance got out his own phone and started dialing while I walked down to Natasha’s room. I knocked. She didn’t answer. “Natasha?” I knocked again.

“G’way, Gram. I’m sleeping.”

“It’s Noel. I need to talk to you about something.”

A pause, then, “Yeah, I think I’m up.”

Natasha’s meds knocked her out soundly and fast. Although she was allowed to stay up until midnight on these last few summer nights before school began, she was often in bed by ten-thirty or eleven. As soon as she surrendered her phone, she powered down. Right now, it was going on toward one in the morning.

As soon as I said Nelly Penobscott’s name, though, she leapt out of bed and started pacing. “Why didn’t you let me talk to her?”

“For all I know, she’s one of those crazy people.” I didn’t finish the thought. I didn’t need to. Lance and I had been lured by Gert’s murderous twin Gretchen to try to find and rescue Natasha at the primate center. Gretchen showed up at our wedding, looking enough like Gert, and projecting sufficient distress, so we played right into her hands, rushing in where we should have maintained caution.

“Let me see the number. She’s in my book.”

I handed Natasha the phone. “This one came up without a name.”

Natasha studied her call history. “If it’s really Mrs. P,” she finally said, “she’s calling from someone else’s house.”

“Agreed.”

“But she knew so
much
! I saw Will and Sara at the pizza place yesterday and again earlier this afternoon. Sara was the little girl talking my ear off while we waited in line. You might have noticed her, but Will’s quiet. He doesn’t talk much. He’ll wander off where nobody can find him. Wait! Did Mrs. P. say kindergarten? Anywhere in the conversation, did she use that word?”

“No-o-o, why?”

“It’s our safe word. So I’ll know it’s her. But if she was upset, and confused because you answered, she might not have remembered.”

Lance poked his head into the room. “Be right back,” he said.

“Why? Where are you going?”

“Drew says it’s all legit. I want to check out the place where the volunteers are gathering.”

“Don’t go.” Natasha, who had blazed at me for withholding her phone call, sounded frightened. “Let me call Mrs. P back first.”

“If it’s not . . .”

“She didn’t say kindergarten. If it’s her,
somebody
is going to answer at either this number or the one in my book. And then we’ll know at least one thing.”

Natasha’s wariness since June was equivalent to that of a jealous spouse. While she would go places with her friends and stay out past her curfew if not monitored, she made Lance or I check all destinations first. Her friends grumbled when their own parents wanted to speak to a new pal’s mother before allowing more than a casual gathering. Natasha begged us to pretend we were doing the same thing against her will, when in reality she was the one who wanted her new acquaintances checked out. She told them a limited amount about her situation and had established safe words with
all
of them. I had packed the list somewhere in the pile of boxes from the office. It had accidentally gotten lumped in with something nonessential and gone missing. Natasha knew them all, but I certainly couldn’t keep track of them. And she was right. A call to a trusted number could at least establish some things.

“Use the number in your contacts first,” I advised her.

Our arrangement worked out well, since it meant we had an honest kid. Her social worker, the same one who had been with her in the months leading up to being adopted by her grand-parents, had warned us to expect problems with lying at the same time as she congratulated us for clearing all the system’s hurdles in a mere two months. I had no doubt that even from what had nearly been his deathbed, Natasha’s grandfather had eased those to speed the process. Somehow, the home study was already in progress while we completed the six weeks of parenting classes, even though the classes should have come first.

Thus, what should have been a three- to six-month delay to formalize Natasha’s durability as our guest wound up only taking eight weeks. We might not have needed to go through the formality at all if our connection to Stan and Gert hadn’t been so tangential or if Natasha’s former situation hadn’t been so dire. In the height of absurdity, we’d started receiving checks from the state to support her care, even though Stan had ordered us to use his credit cards and buy her anything she needed.

She shifted the phone from hand to hand after she dialed. From the look on her face at the answer, something was wrong. Natasha handed me her handset and buried her head in her pillow. “This is all my
fault
!”

“I . . . uh . . . kindergarten . . . ,” I blurted out.

The woman who answered had obviously been asleep. “Natasha? Honey, it’s the middle of the night,” she said.

“I’d better call Drew back,” Lance said. “I’m going to bet that kid didn’t wander off.” He snorted. “It’s like one of those problems in your mother’s advice column. ‘Dear Nora: Stalkers keep trying to lure my teen into danger. Please help or send thread.”

I appreciated my husband’s stab at humor, but I doubted we would be seeing my mother tackle this issue in “What’s Next Nora?”. I briefly outlined the situation for the real Nelly Penobscott, but hurried her off the phone. I needed to make another call, this one to a federal agent. And I needed to see about getting Natasha a new cell phone, one with a better protected number.

Dear Nora:

I have the worst trouble with houseguests. It seems like they’re always dropping by uninvited. What can I do?

Teeming in the Country

Dear Teeming: Lock the doors. Pretend you aren’t home. If that fails, leave.

Nora

The next morning brought Trudy Jackson and her partner, Darnell Marshall, who worked for the feds. Technically, the agents had come and gone once already, but they only popped in for a few minutes in the middle of the night before leaving to contribute what they could to the search for the boy. None of us slept well. We were worried about the missing child, but we weren’t stupid enough to go rushing out after our last similar experience. Other people could hunt for now.

At first light, I opened the back door and waved to Trudy’s beat-up sedan, the same one she used to pose as a sanctuary volunteer. “Come on in, Trudy,” I called reluctantly. “Where’s Darnell?”

“Talking to our people down the block.” Trudy joined me on my front stoop. For a moment, I hesitated to step aside and let her in. I didn’t trust her. Not any longer. When she was merely a volunteer technically in my employ, I had held her in great esteem. I still felt conflicted about her role in the federal operation ongoing when Art was killed. If she and Darnell had broken their silence to let at least Lance and me know a little, could our friend have been saved?

She waited outside the door, not answering my confrontational stance. I didn’t mean to be so judgmental, not when my own decisions also contributed to Art’s death. If Lance and I hadn’t been dashing around with last-minute wedding preparations, we would have been there to keep him from going out back looking for the abandoned orangutan that would ultimately save Stan, Lance, Natasha, and me. It tried to save Art when he crossed Gary’s path out there. I drew a deep breath and moved out of the way.

Once inside, Trudy gave Natasha back her phone. She had taken it when she pulled up in the middle of the night. By the time she and Darnell arrived then, they had already researched the number Natasha got the call from. Their clothing had been neat, but Trudy’s hair pointed out in several directions, as if a mere hairbrush had been inadequate to tame it when she rose from slumber. Darnell had motioned to us, and Lance followed him outside, while I stayed with Tasha and Trudy in the doorway.

Trudy had told Natasha, “The phone number belongs to somebody named Ivy Dearborn. Mean anything?”

“Dearborn does, not Ivy.”

At the time, Tasha had simply handed the phone to Trudy, who didn’t elaborate. Now, however, Trudy said, “Tell me what you know.”

Natasha sat at the kitchen table, her back rigid, clasping and unclasping her hands. Then she sagged. “About Ivy Dearborn? Nothing.”

“About the missing boy, his sister, how you know them, and who would know you saw them since you came here.” Trudy’s voice was clipped and professional. She needed information, and she needed it fast. A national alert had been released hours before the alarming call Natasha received, but most people wouldn’t see it until they got up in the morning. Right now, the authorities’ best chance of finding the boy lay in talking to the people who knew him.

“Okay.” Natasha swallowed. She rested her head in one hand. “I guess Mrs. P . . . Nelly Penobscott . . . could tell you more
about
them than I could . . .”

“We have someone interviewing her now. What do
you
know?”

“Not much. I mean, I guess more than you. I’m not sure.” I wondered if Natasha’s mood was addled by more than her meds. I didn’t smell alcohol on her, but there wasn’t any way to surreptitiously look at the champagne bottle, and I didn’t want to outright ask in front of Trudy if she’d taken a sip.

Instead, I got her a soda pop and told my part, about the phone call itself, first. By the time I finished speaking, Natasha had gathered her wits. “Here’s what I think,” she said.

“Is that different from what you know?” Trudy had a tablet computer out, ready to take notes.

“A little. I know you didn’t pick up
any
of the other kids they were using in the ring, even though you got most of the adults.”

Natasha had already provided a list of names and descriptions; the best she could, anyway. She was often drunk when she was acting, and even many of the children she knew well had been kept on a first-name-only basis. “We all came from out in the sticks, and if we didn’t, our folks did, especially the moms.” This was information she had already given back in June. “Will and Sara—the missing boy and his sister—they weren’t in the ring.” To me, Natasha explained, “We didn’t age in until we were ten. Gary and Aunt Gretchen had the idea it was all okay after that, but you were too young before. But the twins’ mom was in. She and my mom used to do . . . scenes together.” Natasha shuddered. This was hard. “They got picked up together in the drug bust.”

“The one leading to your placement with Mrs. Penobscott?” Trudy tapped her screen and scribbled with a stylus.

Natasha nodded. “The twins weren’t quite two, and they didn’t know what was going on. There was another girl named Layla whose dad got picked up with the twins’ mom and mine. But he was a gang-banger . . . I mean, he was T-Bow Orrice. You know him, right?”

Trudy stopped writing to stare at Natasha. Yes, she knew T-Bow Orrice. We
all
knew T-Bow Orrice, currently serving concurrent life sentences for murder. He was a major player accidentally caught when agents believed they were only breaking up a pimping ring. “
I
know,” she said. “I didn’t know
you
knew. Why haven’t you talked about Layla before? Did you know she was living out here?”

“T-Bow was only connected to Gary and them tangentially, and Layla wasn’t ever in Gary’s ring, as far as I know. T-Bow had custody of Layla, because her mom was adamant about getting his name on the birth certificate in the hospital, but ultimately took off and ran back to her parents out here. I guess she spent a year getting clean. It pissed T-Bow off, her ditching him with the kid. He doesn’t like his women and kids to get hooks in him. He wants the kids, but he doesn’t want anything to do with them. He . . .” Natasha trailed into silence.

“Tasha?” Trudy finally prompted.

“Sorry. It was a memory, but it went away. Anyway, once he
had
Layla, T-Bow wouldn’t give her up to her mom for anything. He was punishing this woman by holding onto Layla, but his arrest changed everything around. In the end, Layla got out with her mom. He hated that. He didn’t approve of the mom.”

I couldn’t stop myself from interjecting. “A gang-banger didn’t approve of an ex-porn star?”

“He’s weird. He’s real protective of all his kids. The ones he acknowledges, anyway. Plus, the mom, Shannon, she got out.”

Trudy steered the conversation back to its original focus. “Out. You’ve used that word twice. Out how?”

“Out.
Out
out. Home free, no films, no drugs. Layla went to her mom, and T-Bow promised to leave them alone if Shannon didn’t tell what she knew about T-Bow and his gang. The rest of us were supposed to pretend Layla never existed.”

“She went away and you stopped talking about her?”

“We all knew what would happen if we talked.”

“Not pleasant,” Trudy agreed. Clearly, she and Natasha had already discussed the finer points of life inside Gary’s ring.

Natasha sank her head into her arms, which were crossed on the table. “What does it matter anymore?”

“Natasha?” Trudy placed a hand on Natasha’s arm. “We don’t know what matters or what doesn’t until we know what it
is.
”