Peggy Holloway - Judith McCain 04 - Jupiter Returns (4 page)

“She’s right,” said Tracy, “I’ve been lying awake thinking, that’s why I heard you so easily, and I think we need to go to every car dealer that sells Corvettes.”

“You could start with Houston Corvettes and Foreign Sports Cars,” said Mark. “It’s over on Richmond. They have beautiful cars there.”

Tracy smiled at him.
“Honey, you sound like you’ve spent some time there.”

“I was thinking about getting myself a sports car,” he
said, grinning.

“Why not, you can afford it,” she said hugging him.
“I’m going to check on Brad while I’m up. It’s nice having him and Jesse in that far wing, Mimi, especially now.”

“I agree,” Mimi said and then turned to me.
“Don’t worry too much, Judith. Ben is a big strong man and can take care of himself. Remember how he saved you from Jupiter a couple of years ago?”

I hugged her.
“I remember, but I can’t help worrying. I’m sorry I disrupted the whole household.”

I tossed and turned the rest of the night.
My mind was jumping from one thing to another. Who was this woman who was impersonating me and looked so much like me that she had fooled both Mark and Ben?

The next morning I found Mimi in the kitchen fixing a big breakfast.
“I thought everyone would need extra strength today,” she said.

I hugged her.
“Thanks, Mimi. Everything looks so good.” Surprised at being so hungry, I loaded up my plate with sausage, scrambled eggs, and a biscuit. Mimi poured me a cup of coffee.

Tracy came down.
“Judith, let’s get going. Oh, Mimi, you fixed breakfast. Well, I’ll have some too.”

We ate in silence and then left for the sports car place Mark had talked about.
We went in Tracy’s car and Huck followed us. As soon as we pulled into the parking lot, a small man with thick salt and pepper hair combed straight back ran to the car and opened the door for Tracy.

When I got out he smiled
and rushed around to my side of the car. “Did you come back to get the Corvette?” he asked.

We all introduced ourselves and he handed each of us a business card.
His name was Jerry Bethune.

Tracy took over.
“Mr. Bethune,” she said, “would you tell us from the beginning what happened from when the woman came in. You waited on her, right?”

He looked from Tracy to me.
“Is this some kind of joke?” He asked. “She’s standing right there. Why don’t you ask her yourself?”

“Mr. Bethune, this is not the same woman.
I know she looks the same and she even fooled some of the members of the household including Ms. McCain’s husband whom she picked up in the Corvette pretending to be his wife. Please tell us what you remember from when she first pulled up on your lot. What was she driving?”

“She got off a bus and walked in here.
You want to see the security tapes?”

“You have tapes?”

“Well, since we have such expensive cars, we have cameras everywhere in case we get robbed.”

It was a lucky break for
us. I saw the imposter I couldn’t believe it. It was like looking into a mirror. I’ve always heard that the camera puts 10 pounds on a person. This woman looked about ten pounds lighter than I so she must have been extremely thin.

We were all crowed around the
TV screen and I turned to Jerry. “This woman looks a lot thinner than I,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said slowly.
“Come to think of it she was thinner than you. But other than that she looked just like you.”

The woman was wearing something I would never wear, a pair of ripped jeans and a black halter top.
Her clothes looked dirty and her hair looked greasy. She walked into the lot and Walter walked over to her. She pointed to the red Corvette and pulled out her driver’s license. Tracy told the technician to freeze the frame and blow up the license. It was my driver’s license number. They walked into Jerry’s office and did some paperwork. He handed her the keys and she left.

“Do you know what time she returned the car?” I asked.

“It was while I was gone to supper, so sometime around six or six thirty.”

“Can we see the tape of that period of time?”

She was alone when she returned the car. She looked like she had taken a shower, washed her hair, and she had changed her clothes. She had her hair in a ponytail and was wearing a pair of tan short shorts with bright green tee shirt.

CHAPTER 7

We left the car d
ealership and went to the Bureau. We worked until around six and headed for home.

Tracy hadn’t said much but I could see the wheels spinning.
When she pulled into the driveway she turned to me. “I have some hard questions for Mimi. Judith, do you think there could have been three of you instead of two?”

“That was my first thought but, remembering how long and relentlessly Mimi se
arched for Julia and me, I think she would have known about a third.”

“Okay, let’s talk to her and see what she thinks.”

Tracy told Huck to go home, that we were in for the night. Brad ran up and hugged our legs. “You know what? Jesse tooked me to a lake to see the ducks.”

“That’s wonderful, sweetie.
Hi Jesse, can you take him upstairs? We need to talk to Mimi. Has my husband come home yet?”

“No, he’s not home yet, Tracy.
Come on, scooter. Let’s play some chess.”

We found Mimi sitting in the growing dark in the front living room.
She looked up when she saw us.

“I’m glad you two are home,” she said.
“I’ve been thinking all day about something. Don’t laugh because it sounds so crazy, but do you think there could have been another baby born at the same time that we didn’t know about?”

“Tracy and I were talking about the same thing, Mimi.
What was the hospital where we were we born and who was the doctor who delivered us?”

“You were born in a very private birthing center.
Your mother, Jennifer, wanted everything as natural as possible. She had a midwife and a nurse.”

“Was my dad there?”

“No, your dad was away on a business trip. He didn’t want to go but your mom told him not to worry, that the baby wasn’t due for another two weeks. We called him and he took the next flight out of Baltimore, but you and Julia had already arrived when he got here.”

“Is the birthing center still there?” Tracy asked.

“As far as I know, it is. It’s over there on Westheimer in Montrose. It’s a house and it’s very homey. Let’s see…the midwife’s name was Matthews.

“I wish I could remember the nurse’s name.”
We were all silent while she thought but she couldn’t come up with a name.

Mark arrived later and we had supper together.
Tracy and I decided to go try to find the birthing center. Jake was against it but Tracy outranked him so we went.

Mimi had told us that she believe the cross street next to the center was Riddle and we found it right away.
It was a big frame house with a wrap-around porch. It was painted bright pink and trimmed in white.

There was a sign out front that said, “Matthew’s Birthing Center.”

We rang the doorbell but no one came. Tracy tried the door and it was open. We entered a hallway and we could hear crying farther down the hall and someone saying, “Come on baby, just one more push and we’re there.”

There was a scream and Tracy looked at me and grimaced, “I remember this,” she said.

“There, there, it’s all over and you have a beautiful baby boy.”

We
waited, knowing someone would come out soon. The baby was born and whoever had delivered him was finished.

A gray haired woman with her hair pulled into a knot on top of her head came out drying her hands on a white towel.
She was overweight and was wearing a long cotton print dress with an apron over it.

She shook our hands
“Hi, I’m Ms. Matthews.” She said. “How can I help you?”

We introduced ourselves and, as soon as Tracy flashed her badge, Ms. Matthews held out her hands like she was expecting to be cuffed.

“It took you a long time to catch me. What tipped you off?”

“Are you confessing to something, Ms. Matthews?” Tracy asked.

“I…I thought you were here to arrest me.”

“Why would you think that, Ms. Matthews?”

“I don’t know. What did you want?” Now she was getting belligerent.

“About thirty seven
years ago you delivered triplets but the mother left here with two babies. What happened to the third baby, Ms. Matthews?”

“How did you find out about that?
I want a lawyer.”

“I’ll just bet you do,” Tracy said.
She took her cuffs out and Matthews held out her hands. I got a sense that she was almost relieved that it was finally over for her, that she had been looking over her shoulder for all these years.

Another woman came from the back holding
the newborn but when she saw Ms. Matthews being handcuffed, she laid the baby down in the nearest chair and ran. Tracy handed me her gun and took off after the other woman. I told Ms. Matthews to sit down and I laid the gun down on the floor against the wall and picked up the baby. He had started crying.

I rocked him in my arms and looked at Ms. Matthews.
She was sitting with her head down and she was crying. She wasn’t going anywhere.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a tissue and b
lew her nose and then she spoke. “It was the only time in my life I did something I knew was bad. I needed the money. I was in danger of losing the center.

“My nurse, Rena, knew a couple who wanted a baby so badly and had plenty of money.
They were unable to have kids and they were willing to pay me five hundred thousand dollars. They were oil people who lived out in Tulsa.

“I thought it would be all right and no one would ever know.
Jennifer had a hard time giving birth and was so out of it she didn’t know if she had two or three.

“When she woke up she asked me if she had had triplets and I told no, that she had had twins.
We kept the other one here until the couple could fly in on their private jet from Tulsa.

“Your parents had already left with you two when the other couple came for the other one.
Yes, I know you are one of the triplets. When you and Julia were kidnapped when you were three, it was in all of the papers. When you two were united with your grandmother, when you were sixteen, it was in the papers too.”

She quit talking and I sat there in a state of shock.
Tracy came back pulling Rena with her. “Did you call for backup, Judith?”

“No,
” I said. I was listening to Ms. Matthew’s confession.”

Tracy groaned.
“Judith, first you call for backup, then you wait until her Miranda rights have been read, then you take her confession.”

She looked around, “Where is the gun?”

I laid the baby down on the floor and picked up the gun and handed it to her. Tracy shook her head. She held the gun on the two who were seated on the sofa while she picked up the phone and called for backup.

CHAPTER 8

T
he two women were put into two separate cars. After notifying Huck and waiting for him to arrive, Tracy left for the agency and Huck and I stayed with the mother and newborn until the mother’s husband and mother came to take him home.

Huck was mad at us for going off on our own without backup but he didn’t say much until his boss was gone.
I had to bear the brunt of his anger alone but I didn’t mind and promised him it wouldn’t happen again.

When I got to the agency, Tracy was coming out of an interview room.
“They both confessed,” she said. “I interviewed each of them separately and I think they’re being upfront. I believe them when they say this is the only time they’ve done something like this.

“Ms. Matthews said that about a year ago a woman who looked like you came to see her and demanded to know all about you and Julia.
She had seen the announcement about your involvement in helping bring down the pedophile ring the year before.

“She had gotten the truth out of her parents and she was furious.
When she got the truth out of Ms. Matthews, she pulled a gun and robbed them. She told them that if they called the cops she would tell them what they did, how they sold her to the Limicks in Tulsa.”

“I’m worried about how Mimi’s going to take this,” I said.
“And I’m still so worried about Ben.”

She took my hand and squeezed it, “Why don’t you go on home, Judith.
We can handle this here.”

I took her up on her offer and Huck took me home.
I needed to get all my tires fixed and called AAA. They took care of it right away and by mid-afternoon I had my wheels. The problem was that I didn’t have any direction as to where to go. I spent the rest of the day with Mimi, Brad, and Jesse. We watched a cartoon together on TV until Mark came in and Tracy right behind him.