A Tale of Two Tabbies (10 page)

I verified that the flashlight worked, then Max and I returned to the building. Walking around in a large, dark room with the remnants of what must have at one time been functioning machinery was downright spooky. I found myself jumping at every creak and groan, which my mind tried to convince me was caused by a deranged ghost or possibly a serial killer but my common sense told me was most likely just the building settling.

I had to walk slowly so as not to trip on any of the debris on the floor. My flashlight was a powerful one that allowed me to see a large area ahead of me, which helped me to decide which direction to search first. It seemed I was in the main part of the packing plant, so it made sense that an employee lounge or locker room would be located in the rear of the large building.

Max barked as something scurried past me.

“It’s just a rat, a harmless rat,” I chanted to myself as my heart raced with fear and adrenaline.

I continued on one careful step at a time. When I got to the rear of the building I was happy to see that my assumption had been correct and there
was
a room with rows of lockers along one wall. The lockers were old and rusted and most of the doors hung open, which made searching for the right one quite a bit easier in spite of the fact that none of them had numbers on them. It took me quite a while to open the doors of all the lockers that were closed, so it was quite a while later that I realized all of them were empty.

“Wow, I really thought we were on to something,” I said to Max.

He tilted his head, as if to convey that he was trying to understand what it was I wanted, but he clearly didn’t have a clue. I rubbed my arms, which suddenly felt chilled. While it had been an exceptionally nice day, the heat of the day only lasted for a few hours, and the island evenings were still chilly. I realized I should have brought the sweater I’d worn that morning, although now that I thought about it, I’d left it in the choir room. I supposed I could stop by the church to get it on my way home.

The sun had set and it was starting to get dark by the time I arrived at the church. There was a car in the parking lot and the lights were on in the building, so I knew there was someone present on the premises. I decided to leave Max in the car; other than service dogs, animals weren’t allowed inside the church. The temperature had cooled significantly from the afternoon, so I wasn’t worried about the heat being too much for him.

I found Wilma Harold from the Coming Up Daisies Shop inside, refreshing the flowers. It seemed odd to me that she’d be doing that after Sunday services, but she explained that there was a baptism scheduled for the following day and the family had requested a specific type of bouquet. Now that I thought about it, there had been different flowers in the church on Wednesday than there were today. I asked Wilma how many times a week she changed out the flowers and she told me it depended on the number of special events—baptisms, funerals, weddings—for which there had been special requests.

“I’m just here to grab the sweater I left in the choir room this morning,” I explained after we’d chatted for a minute.

“Cliff has already been through to clean. He usually puts any items he finds in the lost and found box in the back. Chances are that’s where you’ll find your sweater.”

“Thanks. I’ll look there first.”

I headed to the little room behind the altar where the altar servers got ready for services and Father Kilian kept the robes he used for mass. Sure enough, my sweater was sitting right on top of the box marked Lost and Found. I grabbed my sweater and then noticed the row of lockers at the back of the room. I’d forgotten about the fact that lockers were provided for the altar servers’ personal possessions during services. The lockers didn’t have numbers on them, but they did have a piece of tape with each person’s name. At the very end of the row was a locker that was marked
Lively
.

The code had been VWSP126. If VW was the blackmail victim, then SP could stand for St. Patrick’s. But what about 126? It was clear each locker had a four-digit combination; 126 was only three numbers. Perhaps the combination was 0126 and Theresa hadn’t bothered to write down the 0.

I tried 0126 and the door popped open. Inside was a pile of sheet music, which I removed one at a time. As I suspected I would, I found an envelope tucked in the middle of the stack. I slipped the envelope into the pocket of my sweater and returned the music to the locker before Wilma came looking for me. There’d be time enough to explore the contents of the envelope when I got back to the cabin.

The first thing I noticed when I arrived home was that Maggie’s car was in the drive and the lights were on. Siobhan’s car wasn’t there, so I had to assume she was still with Finn. As much as I wished I could avoid the conversation I needed to have with Maggie altogether, I knew in my heart it was best to get it over with.

I took Max inside, gave him fresh food and water, checked on the cats, and then grabbed Theresa’s photos and began the long walk across the lawn to Maggie’s back door. I knocked once, then let myself in.

“Maggie?”

“In the living room, dear.”

I walked through the kitchen, down the hall, and into the living area. “How was your trip?”

“It was nice. I only just got back a half hour ago so I still need to unpack, but I wanted to relax for a few minutes first. I was about to have a nightcap. Would you care to join me?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I would. I have something I need to talk to you about.”

Maggie poured two snifters of brandy and handed one to me. “Is something wrong?”

“I’m not sure.” I handed Maggie the photos. “I was hoping you could tell me.”

Maggie looked at the photos and then back at me. “Where did you get these?”

“I found them in a locker at the bowling alley.”

Maggie frowned. “Perhaps you should elaborate.”

“After Theresa was found dead in her car I decided to investigate.”

“Theresa’s dead?”

“Yes. Since Wednesday. I figured you knew.”

Maggie paled. She sat back in her chair. Her eyes looked haunted as she stared at the flames dancing in the fireplace. “No. I had no idea. I was out of contact with the outside world while I was away and, like I said, I just got back. I haven’t even checked my messages yet. What happened?”

I shared with my aunt everything I knew, including the fact that Theresa had been blackmailing at least five people we knew of. I informed her that I’d found the evidence she’d stashed away on all five victims and had already identified all but the last. Then I shared with her the fact that Theresa had gotten the information she used to blackmail her victims by bugging the confessional. “What I don’t get,” I added, “is why you would have confessed to Father Kilian that you’d been spending time with him.”

“I didn’t. I’m really not sure how Theresa found out that we were meeting or how she got these photos, but I do want to assure you that nothing inappropriate has happened.”

“Why don’t you tell me what
has
been going on?”

“Has anyone other than you seen these photos?”

“No. I was alone when I found them and haven’t shown them to anyone.”

Maggie let out a long breath of relief. “I’m going to tell you what has been going on, but first you have to promise me that you won’t share what I’m about to say with anyone. Not Siobhan, not Cody, not anyone.”

“Okay. I promise.” I braced myself for the worst. If everything was completely innocent why all the secrecy?

Maggie drank the brandy she had poured herself and then refilled her glass. It seemed obvious that whatever it was she was about to tell me was difficult for her to talk about.

“I’ve already told you that Michael and I dated in high school,” Maggie began in a voice that shook when she spoke. “I also shared with you the fact that we were very much in love and that we’d planned to marry.” Maggie paused and took a breath. “Michael knew he was expected to enter the priesthood, as was the tradition with all the eldest sons in the Kilian family, but he felt such traditions were both archaic and unfair and planned to live his life on his own terms.”

I knew that much. Maggie had already shared it with me after the church secretary had spilled the secret just before she tried to kill me. What I didn’t know was why he’d changed his mind.

Maggie paused. It was clear she was hesitant to continue. Not that I blamed her. Confessing to an affair with the local priest, even if he wasn’t yet a priest at the time, was sort of a big deal.

I decided to help things along. “So why did Father Kilian change his mind?”

“He became a priest as the result of a deal he made with God. I’m embarrassed to admit this, but shortly before I graduated from high school I found out I was pregnant with Michael’s baby.”

Wow. I wasn’t expecting that.

“At first we were happy. We were in love and planned to marry. We’d talked about having a big family, and while we certainly didn’t intend to begin it quite so soon, we found joy in the news. I’m sure if I hadn’t developed complications we’d be happily married to this day.”

“Complications?”

“I developed an infection that led to a high fever. I didn’t want anyone to know I was pregnant, so I hid my illness from everyone for as long as I could. It was a mistake. By the time I admitted I was ill and sought medical care I was in really bad shape.” Maggie paused. I decided to wait and let her finish when she was ready. A single tear slid down her cheek. “It was touch and go for a while, and though I obviously did recover, it was too late for the baby. It died and it was all my fault.”

Oh, God. Poor Maggie. Poor Father Kilian.

“Anyway, as I lay in the hospital fighting for my life, Michael made a deal with God that if he spared me, he would go into the priesthood as his family expected him to do. Michael felt that my illness and the loss of the baby was a sign from God that He was displeased with us.”

“Oh, Maggie, I’m so sorry. That must have been so very difficult for both of you.”

“It was a very dark time in my life. I guess if there’s a silver lining in all this it’s that, other than the doctor and my parents, no one knew I was ever pregnant. Everyone just assumed I’d caught some strange virus. After graduation Michael went to seminary and I went on with my life as a single woman and no one was the wiser.”

“And now?”

“Now we are faced with a decision. A huge decision that neither of us takes lightly. Michael has dedicated forty-five years of his life to the priesthood and he finds himself looking toward retirement.”

“I guess that’s natural. What’s the decision?”

“Whether or not to leave the priesthood now, so that we can live out what’s left of our lives together.”

Oh. That
was
a big decision. “So that’s why you’ve been meeting? To discuss it?”

“Yes. Michael feels he has kept his promise to God by spending the majority of his life in the priesthood, but now he wonders if maybe it isn’t finally our time. On the surface it would seem an easy decision. Although we’ve kept an appropriate distance between us for the past forty-five years, neither of us has stopped loving the other. If the decision affected only the two of us, the choice to be together could be made in a heartbeat. The thing is, it doesn’t just affect the two of us. There are those who wouldn’t understand how a man of the cloth could ever choose to walk away from his calling. If Michael chose to do so it would affect the church, the community, and our families.”

Maggie was right. A decision to leave the priesthood in order to marry would have major ramifications on the island. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m not sure. It’s a huge decision and we agreed to take the time we needed to be sure we make the right choice. We did decide to spend some time together. Our weekends away have been strictly platonic. The photo of us holding hands while walking was taken in a weak moment, but I promise you that hand holding is the most intimate physical contact we’ve engaged in.”

I believed Maggie. She looked and sounded genuine, and it was obvious she was concerned about the big picture.

“We’ve been spending time together because we wanted to be sure the feelings we had would stand up to the test of actually spending time together,” Maggie continued. “We’ve maintained our friendship for all these years, but we really hadn’t spent any time alone. What if Michael left the priesthood so we could be together only to find we actually annoyed each other after all this time?”

“Yeah, I get that.”

“While nothing inappropriate has occurred between us, we decided it was best that we kept our trips to ourselves for the time being. I really don’t know how Theresa got those photos. They’re very carefully framed so that our time together looks a lot more intimate than it actually has been.”

I sat back as I tried to wrap my head around everything Maggie had told me. I’d already come to terms with the fact that Maggie and Father Kilian had once dated, but a baby? Wow.

“So I assume Theresa came to you with the photos and demanded payment to keep her mouth shut.”

“Basically.”

“Does Father Kilian know you were being blackmailed?”

“No. And he doesn’t know about the photos. Theresa agreed to keep the whole thing between the two of us if I agreed to pay her what she wanted. I really felt I had no choice. If the photos were leaked they would create chaos in the church and in the community.”

Maggie’s cat, Akasha, jumped into my lap as I contemplated the situation. I scratched him behind the ears as I tried to figure out my next move. I was the only one who had seen the photos, but Finn, Siobhan, Tara, and Cody had all seen the page of the notebook. The likelihood that one of them would put two and two together and realize MH stood for Maggie Hart was actually pretty good. I promised Maggie that I’d keep her secret, but I also informed her that the others had a small piece of the puzzle and that at some point she was probably going to need to come clean with the entire sleuthing team.

Maggie and I talked a while longer and then I returned to my cabin. I had a lot of information to process, but I realized that solving Theresa’s murder sooner rather than later was going to work out best for everyone. I’d eliminated four of the five blackmail victims as potential killers. That just left VW.

I still needed to see what was in the envelope I’d found in the church, so I tossed a log on the fire, put on some soft jazz, poured myself a glass of wine, and curled up with Max, Sydney, and Lucie on the sofa. When I opened the envelope I found two newspaper articles that were several months old. The first showed a photo of a man and a woman standing in front of a large two-story house. The caption identified the couple as Joseph and Melanie Littlewood. The story was about the kidnapping of their ten-year-old son, Craig. According to the article, Craig had disappeared earlier that day after leaving home to make the three-block walk to the elementary school he attended.

The second article was dated a week later and claimed Melanie Littlewood had likewise disappeared from her home sometime after Joseph left to do some errands. The reporter who wrote the story speculated that perhaps Craig had never been kidnapped. It seemed the police had been called out to the house on several occasions after one of the neighbors in their upper-class neighborhood had reported shouting and other loud noises coming from the home. Though no arrests had been made, the article said it was rumored that Joseph was an abusive husband and father who might have killed his own family and reported the kidnapping to cover up his own crime.

The news clippings were tragic whatever the reason for the disappearance of Craig and Melanie, but I couldn’t see how these events related to VW, or how Theresa could have used the information as leverage for blackmail. With her other victims once the evidence was discovered the who and the why had been made clear, but I had to admit in this instance I was still as stumped as ever.

I looked toward Sydney and Lucie. “I could use a little help here. How about it? Anything?”

Both cats ignored me.

I decided to call Finn. Maybe he could dig up copies of the original police reports. My hope was that there would be additional details that would make this whole thing make sense.

Finn agreed to see what he could find and then he and Siobhan would meet me at the cabin. They’d gone out to dinner, but so far my dinner had consisted of a snifter of brandy and a glass of wine, so I decided it would be best if I ate something while I waited for them to arrive.

Finn filled us in as soon as he and Siobhan settled around my dining table.

Melanie Littlewood was a financial analyst, Joseph an investment banker in New York. According to the police interviews conducted at the time of Craig’s kidnapping, they were a busy couple who each led their own lives but seemed to get along as well as could be expected given their demanding lifestyle. After Craig was born Melanie decided to stop working in order to stay home to raise her son. This decision didn’t seem to cause any heartache until Joseph made a series of bad investments and lost not only a whole lot of his own money but a lot of his customers’ money as well. He was fired.

Joseph was unable to get a job after several months and Melanie decided to go back to work. Craig was seven at the time so he was in school for much of the day, and Joseph took over the responsibility of childcare while Melanie worked. Based on the notes the lead detective took, it seems that was when the trouble between the couple began.

From the time Melanie went back to work right up until the day Craig was kidnapped when he was ten, there had been complaints from neighbors of loud shouting and other indications of violence such as the sound of breaking glass on several different occasions. Melanie refused to press charges so the complaints went nowhere. Three months before Craig was abducted he came to school with a black eye and a broken arm. He said he fell off his bike, but the teacher didn’t believe him and called Child Protective Services. A case file was opened, but in the end, like the other times well-meaning neighbors complained, things went nowhere.

A month before Craig was kidnapped, Melanie came into the police station with multiple contusions and claimed that Joseph had beaten her up and had been doing so for years. An investigation was begun, but just like the other times, it ended up nowhere. The detective who investigated the kidnapping speculated that Joseph had friends in high places.

On the day of the kidnapping Craig walked to school as he did every other day. He never made it there. The investigator found out that there had been some trouble at home that morning and that Craig had left for school twenty minutes late, which meant that the kids he normally walked with had already gone, so he had to walk alone.

The detective in charge of the case was suspicious from the beginning, given the previous complaints from the couple’s neighbors, but both parents seemed to be sincerely distressed over the disappearance of their son, and there was no evidence to suggest that anything other than what the parents reported had happened. In spite of an exhaustive search the police were unable to turn up anything. A week after Craig’s abduction Joseph called 911 and reported that he’d come home from a job interview to find his wife missing and the bedroom they shared destroyed. Blood that proved to belong to Melanie was found in the bedroom, but there were no other signs of an intruder such as forced entry, unexplained fingerprints, or any other physical evidence. At that point the detective was certain Joseph had most likely killed both his son and his wife, but he was never able to find either body or any other evidence to support his theory. Joseph insisted he was innocent and even agreed to take a lie detector, which he passed. There had been no sign of Melanie or Craig in the eight months since they’d disappeared.