Acts of Mercy

TWENTY

Has Susanna gotten here yet?” Robert looked anxiously out the kitchen window.

Trula glanced at the clock on the oven.

“It’s barely eight o’clock in the morning, Robert. Susanna usually isn’t here until eight thirty.”

“Maybe she’s hung over,” he said. “Do you think maybe she has a hangover?”

She frowned. “Have you ever known Susanna to drink too much?”

“First time for everything,” he muttered.

“Why would you even think such a thing?”

“She went out drinking last night with that FBI guy who’s supposed to be looking for my son. Not trying to make moves on my… employees.”

Trula sighed. “Robert, they went to dinner.”

“Dinner usually means wine,” he reminded her. “And it was the third time this week.”

“Dear lord, Robert, the woman’s allowed to have a life.”

He mumbled something unintelligible under his breath and Trula turned around, her hands on her hips.

“You know, Rob, if I didn’t know you better, I’d think you were jealous.”

“Yeah, well, you do know me better, so you know I’m not.”

Trula laughed out loud. He scowled and started to say something when they heard a car in the driveway. Trula peered out the window, and chuckled.

“Well, here comes that old drunk now. Maybe I should get out the aspirin. Maybe I should be making Bloody Marys instead of orange juice this morning.”

“Maybe you can forget the part about the hangover,” he said as Susanna breezed in the back door.

“Who has a hangover?” she asked.

“No one.” He waved off the question.

“Robert thought you might,” Trula said, ignoring the dirty look he shot in her direction. “Because you were late.”

“Why would you think that?” Susanna frowned as she poured her coffee. “And I wasn’t late. Actually, I’m early.”

He chose not to answer, pretending instead to be absorbed in the morning paper.

“So how are we this morning?” Susanna asked him.

“Fine,” he replied coolly from behind the front page.

“Did you want me for some reason, Robert?”

“No, why?”

“Because you seemed concerned that I wasn’t here.”

“I wasn’t concerned. I was just… curious, that’s all.”

A moment later, he asked, “How’s Agent Parrish?”

“He’s fine.”

“How was dinner?’

“Great. Terrific. We went to Loki over in Toby Falls.” She looked over that morning’s plate of muffins and picked one that she recognized as peach and pecan, one of her favorites. “They have a new chef. You should try it sometime. The fish was excellent.”

Robert’s reply was a grouchy hrrrmph.

Susanna smiled from ear to ear, and winked con-spiratorially at Trula.

“The new décor is lovely, by the way, Trula. All in chocolate brown and pale blue.”

“I’ll have to try it some night.” Trula smiled back. Robert was still hiding behind his newspaper.

“Let me know when you’d like to go and I’ll go with you,” Susanna told her. “I’d love to go back. Maybe we can go on Friday.”

“Maybe Agent Parrish will take you,” Robert grumped.

It was all Trula could do not to laugh out loud.

Susanna let it ride. Years of working for Robert had taught her when to change the subject. She leaned against the countertop and asked, “Robert, what’s the one thing you always said you most admire about me?”

“Is this a trick question?” He lowered the paper.

“No, seriously. What is it you first noticed about me?”

He looked her up and down, head to toe, not sure what he was being asked. “This is a trick question.”

“Robert…”

“Okay. Well, I guess your organizational skills.” Good answer, he told himself.

“Which are legendary, I don’t mind saying, but no. That’s not what I had in mind.”

“Your sense of humor?” He tried again.

“Also fine, but no once again.”

“I don’t know, Suse.” He looked up at her, wondering what she was getting at. “The fact that you know me better than just about anyone and yet you like me anyway?”

“Good one, but guess again.”

“That you’re smarter than any woman I know? That you have great legs? That you’re very insightful?”

“All true, all part of the whole,” she said, but still she shook her head.

“I give up.” He held up both hands, palms up.

“Think back to all those meetings we used to go to together. You always said that what you most valued-what you found most useful-was the fact that I have a-”

“Photographic memory,” Robert recalled. “It never failed to amaze me, how you could look at something one time and be able to remember everything, pull it all up a week later, if you had to. Just like a computer. Never saw anything like it.” He shook his head. “We haven’t had much cause to use that skill lately, have we?”

“Not until last night,” she told him, her eyes sparkling.

“What happened last night?” He was almost afraid to ask.

“I got Agent Parrish to show me the list.”

“The list?”

“The list of all the people who’d rented the cabin over the past ten years. Including the names and addresses of all the Sisters of St. Anthony who stayed there.”

“You have it?” His eyes widened. “Where is it?”

Susanna tapped herself on the side of the head.

“For God’s sake, Suse, write it down.” Robert all but tripped himself getting to the desk to look for a piece of paper and a pen.

“Don’t need to. It’s all right here.”

“What if you got hit by a car? Or struck by lightning?”

From the opposite side of the room, Trula cleared her throat.

“Just kidding,” he said.

“Me, too.” Susanna opened her bag and took out a sheet of paper, telling him as she unfolded it, “I couldn’t wait to get home last night to write it all down.”

She spread the paper out on the tabletop. Robert leaned closer for a better look.

“Suse, you’re a wonder. You’re irreplaceable. Amazing. You realize that if I ever see Ian again, it will be because of you.”

“Yes, I do realize it. It’s true.”

“I don’t know how to thank you.”

“I’ll think of something.” She smiled, then a second later was all business. “Okay, let’s get started. Boot up that demon computer of yours. We’re going to give those mad skills of yours a workout…”

She started out of the room ahead of him, then turned and asked, “Do you really think I have great legs?”

“World class,” he assured her. “Absolutely world class…”

Despite interruptions from Emme and Mallory, by the time Trula took a tray of lunch up to Robert’s office, the list had been narrowed down to five people who could possibly look good for the kidnapping of Ian Magellan.

“How did you figure that out so quickly?” Trula set the tray of sandwiches and fruit on the edge of Robert’s desk. “You’ve only been working on it for”-she checked her watch-“four hours and thirty-five minutes.”

“It’s actually easier than it may sound,” Susanna replied, since Robert was still focused on his findings. “We went through the list, first doing the obvious, a general search on-what else-Magellan Express. We were able to weed out several who were deceased, several others who were nowhere near Pennsylvania when the accident occurred.”

“How could you know where any of these people were on that date?” Trula frowned. Other than her email, the occasional use of Magellan Express, and a little online shopping now and then, Trula had little use for the Internet.

“Well, here, let me show you.” Robert typed in the name of one of the people from the list. He clicked a few links, then turned the monitor around to face Trula. “Here’s a picture of one of the women on board a cruise ship that was docked in Cabo, Mexico, on Valentine’s Day, 2007. As we know, the accident was on February eleventh of that year. The cruise set sail on February ninth, so we could eliminate her right away.”

Robert held up the list. “We were able to cross off a lot of names because they were in places which could easily be confirmed. Many of the nuns are teachers who were, in fact, in their classrooms on that day.”

“How could you know that?” Trula’s eyes narrowed.

“I figured out ways to… figure it out,” Robert said, averting his eyes.

“Robert, is any of this illegal?” she asked sternly.

“Well…” He cleared his throat, scrambling for the right answer. “There could be a gray area.”

“Which means that some of it’s black and white.”

“Depends on how you look at it.”

Trula sighed. “So show me one who could be the kidnapper.”

“Sure. Here’s one. Margaret Alice Davies. We haven’t been able to pin down where she was back then, but we’re still working on it.” A few keystrokes and Robert pulled up a page of entries. “She’s on the list because we weren’t able to eliminate her in any other way-former nun, no trail after December of 2006. Could be something will turn up as we proceed. But right now, could she be our girl? Sure.

“She stayed at the house the previous summer, then left the convent, so she knows the area. Might have had a key copied and kept it.” Robert looked up at Trula and explained, “The thing about that cabin is that no one went there on a regular basis. The owner didn’t bother with it-she said most of the time she pretty much forgot about it until someone asked about renting it, which she said no one ever did in the winter. So any one of these people could be the right one.”

“Like this one.” Susanna waved a sheet of paper. “The former Sister Teresa Joan LeMaster. Goes by Terry, now that she’s left the convent. Apparently she’s been in and out of St. Anthony’s for the past eight years, which tells me she’s a woman with a lot of conflict. Lives in West Virginia-not too far from the convent and the cabin. Doesn’t work, so she could have been at the cabin on that Sunday in February.”

“I’m assuming the sisters hadn’t arranged for anyone to use the cabin that weekend. I suppose that would be too easy,” Trula noted.

“Way too easy. Like I said, it was winter, remember, and the owner doesn’t rent it out during the cold months. No heat. So far, we haven’t been able to determine where Terry LeMaster was that day.”

“Well, suppose you find out all of them were close enough that day to have taken him. How are you going to narrow that down?”

“Well, for example, we can figure out which one of them has a baby that they didn’t have before,” Robert explained.

“How could you do that?”

“We can ask around their neighborhoods,” Susanna replied.

“Or we can check to see if any of them started purchasing baby supplies back in the winter of 2007,” Robert said thoughtfully.

Trula looked from Robert to Susanna and back again, then made a disapproving face. “Whatever you’re doing is illegal. I knew it.”

“Trula, kidnapping is illegal,” he said quietly. “The more we can narrow the search and hasten the time when the FBI finds the person who has Ian, the sooner we’ll have him back.”

“True. So at the very least, you should have Colin doing this sort of thing,” she admonished, tossing out the name of Robert’s former business partner, the one who even Robert acknowledged had mad scary computer skills. “At least nothing could be traced back to you.”

“Colin.” Susanna nodded. “We didn’t think of Colin.”

“Colin,” Robert repeated. “I can have him check for purchases in February 2007 as well as this current month. Just to make certain, you know…” He thought aloud.

“And he can get in and out of places, look around, and never leave a trace.” Susanna grinned. “No one will ever know that he was looking.”

“Even assuming he finds someone who’s been buying diapers for the past two years, what can you do? You’re not going to ring that woman’s doorbell and say, hey, we’ve checked your”-Trula gave him a dark look-“whatever it is you’re going to check, and by the way, I think that baby belongs to me.”

“No, of course not. Once Colin tells us who looks good, we go there, we make up an excuse, and we ring the doorbell. We see if the child is a male the right age, then we leave and we call Agent Parrish.”

“And you tell him what, Robert? You tell him you had someone perform illegal acts and you checked things out yourself, found your child, and now-please, kind sir-come and get my son for me?” Trula stood with her hands on her hips.

“No. I’ll tell him the truth.” Robert glanced at Susanna, who raised an eyebrow. “Well, part of the truth. I’ll tell him that we got the names of the former nuns from the sisters at St. Anthony’s-”

“Which you haven’t done,” Trula reminded him. “How do you propose to do that?”

“We’ll send Kevin to the convent to ask for the names. Everyone likes Kevin. They won’t turn him down. No one ever turns him down when he asks for favors.”

“What if by, oh, some miracle, the mother superior has respect for the privacy of the ladies in her order, and against all odds, defies expectations and withholds the information?” Trula would not let up.

“Then I suppose Kevin will have to resort to bribery.”

“Bribery! You’d ask a priest to bribe a nun?” Trula shook her head. “Really, Robert… that’s shameful, even for you. Besides, have you thought about what Kevin might say to the mother superior that would get her to give up the names?”

“Easy one. If it comes to that, he’s going to say that several names have come to his attention from an anonymous source-”

Trula snorted.

“… and he merely wanted to confirm with her that these ladies were in fact at one time members of the order. He’ll say that Ian is his nephew-almost true, since Kevin is as close to a brother as I’ve ever had, as you well know-and that he’s hoping to find whoever has the child before the FBI does, because, well, you know how the FBI can be. He can say anything he wants, that he wants to help this poor soul-”

“This is another one of your plans with half an ass, Robert.” Trula-speak for a half-assed plan.

“One of these women could have my son. I want him back. I’ve waited long enough. We’re this close to finding him.” He turned the monitor back to face him. “If Kevin has to promise them a new convent, even a new school-do you really think I care what it will cost? I’ll do whatever I have to do, but I will get my son back.”

Susanna leaned over and turned the desk phone around. She dialed a number, then waited while it rang. When the call was answered, she smiled.

“Colin, hi. Susanna. Very well, thank you. Listen, I’m going to put Robert on the line. He needs your help.”