A Woman with a Mystery Read online

  Whoa. She married some old guy who died only a week into the marriage? That didn’t sound at all like the woman he’d known. But he reminded himself, he’d never expected her to steal his money and files and skip out on him either. So he couldn’t rule out the possibility that Holly had married Allan Wellington for his money. He just hoped he didn’t find out that she’d offed the guy.

  She fell silent as if she wished she hadn’t offered as much information as she had. He wondered if she was worried about what he thought—or suspected. Or if the concern he saw in her expression was over the possibility of riling her sister-in-law.

  “You always do what your sister-in-law wants?” he had to ask, studying her. The Holly Barrows he’d known before wouldn’t have let some old biddy boss her around.

  She seemed surprised by the question. “Inez has a way of wearing you down,” she admitted, a sadness to her tone as she opened her side of the pickup to get out.

  He glanced around to make sure there was no one around her vehicle, not sure who he was looking for. He doubted he’d recognize the Santa bell-ringer without his beard and hat. But there were few people on the streets with most of the stores closed for the day.

  “I’ll call you later,” he said as she got out. He waited until she drove away, his mind racing. Who was this Inez Wellington that she had so much power over Holly? And Allan Wellington, this man Holly had married, why did his name sound familiar? Something told him the marriage hadn’t been a happy one. Or maybe he just wanted to believe that.

  He picked up his cell phone and dialed Chief L. T. Curtis.

  “What do I need to get a body exhumed?”

  “This isn’t about your—”

  “No.” Slade had put his mother’s murder on the back burner, but hadn’t forgotten about it by any means. “It’s for a client of mine. She gave birth recently. There is some question as to whether the baby might have been switched and the wrong baby buried.”

  Curtis was silent for a moment. “It’s happened before. Were these babies born at County Hospital?”

  “No, it’s complicated,” Slade said, not really wanting to get into the details or to involve the police at this point. “What would I need for an exhumation?”

  “Enough information to talk a judge into giving me a court order.”

  In other words, proof. The one thing Slade was real short on.

  “I assume this is about that plate you needed run?” the chief asked.

  “Yeah. I’m getting the blood typing from the hospital tomorrow and I hope it’s questionable enough for a court order.”

  “I thought she didn’t give birth at the hospital,” Curtis asked.

  “No, but she did go there right after the birth and they routinely take both the mother’s and baby’s blood.”

  “This is one hell of a time to ask for an exhumation,” Curtis noted.

  “Yeah,” Slade agreed. “I’ll check back with you, but meanwhile I’ll be at Shelley’s. I’m house-sitting until she gets back from her trip to Tobago.” Shelley’d had the chance to spend the rest of the holiday with some friends on the Caribbean island, and Slade had insisted she go. He felt better having her out of town right now.

  “Too bad you didn’t go with her,” the chief said, and hung up.

  Slade shook his head as he clicked off his cell phone, started his pickup and headed for Paradise.

  INEZ WELLINGTON lived some thirty miles from Dry Creek in a condominium in a fancy gated community known as Paradise West. Slade had been born and raised in Montana in a time when only a jack-leg log fence—and often not even that—separated the men from the cows. Because of that, he was contemptuous of gated communities and pitied the frightened people who lived behind the bars.

  A stoop-shouldered thin woman with a shock of white hair and small dark eyes opened the door. Inez looked to be in her early seventies and had the pinched face of a woman who hadn’t got what she wanted out of life. She leaned on a gold-handled cane and eyed him suspiciously.

  “Yes?” she said, even though she knew who he was and why he’d come because he’d had to call even to get in the gate.

  “I’m Slade Rawlins, the private investigator Holly Barrows hired,” he said again, just so there was no misunderstanding.

  But from the look of obvious contempt in her gaze, it was clear she knew exactly who he was and why he was there.

  “Yes,” she said, motioning him in and triple-locking the door behind him. “The only reason I’m bothering to see you at all is for Holly.”

  Somehow he didn’t believe this woman did anything for Holly’s benefit. He stood in the small stone foyer. From what he could see of the rest of the condo, the decor was as severe and cold as the woman herself. A few plaques hung on the wall, tributes to one Wellington or another. Obviously a bunch of overachievers.

  He couldn’t see the Holly Barrows he knew from the two months they’d spent together last year marrying into this family. He couldn’t help but be suspicious and wondered just how old Allan Wellington had been.

  “I need to ask you a few questions,” he said, hoping the old bat would at least offer him a drink.

  She pursed her lips as she shuffled past him and into a sitting room, the tip of the cane tapping the floor. She didn’t head for the ornate mirrored bar, but took a straight-backed chair and offered him one that looked equally uncomfortable. It was.

  “This is such a waste of time and money,” she complained as she brushed at her spotless slacks.

  “How long have you known Holly Barrows?” he asked, getting right to it. He didn’t want to stay here any longer than he had to.

  Inez lifted a thin, veined, pale hand from the arm of her chair. “About two years.”

  “Did you meet her before or after your brother Allan met her?”

  She pursed her thin colorless lips, her hand dropping to the arm of the chair. “We met her at a party, I believe, the same night. Did she also tell you they had hoped to have children? Unfortunately, Allan succumbed to a weak heart before he could produce an heir.”

  An heir. Slade made a mental note to see how much money Holly Barrows had come into after her husband’s rather quick demise and was disgusted with himself for his suspicious nature.

  “And how old was Allan?” he asked, unable to contain his curiosity any longer.

  The old woman stiffened. “Fifty-one.”

  “You had the same mother and father?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Of course, we did. I was the firstborn. My mother had trouble conceiving. It’s one of the reasons Allan dedicated his life to infertility. He was a change-of-life baby, a miracle. Not that it is any of your business.”

  “I just want to get the lay of the land, so to speak. Holly, is what, twenty-eight? That’s quite the age difference.”

  Inez raised her nose a little higher. “Allan was a very vital fifty-one. Age doesn’t always matter if two people are right for each other.” She seemed to choke up. “We had no idea there was anything wrong with his heart.”

  He wondered if Holly had known and mentally kicked himself for suspecting she had. He dropped the subject of age difference, more convinced than ever that Allan and Holly had been anything but “right” for each other. “I take it Allan didn’t have any children from an earlier marriage?”

  She made a face as if suddenly smelling something unpleasant. “Allan’s first love was his career. He was much too busy to even consider marriage, then he met Holly.” She made it sound as if Holly had hexed her poor unsuspecting brother. A definite possibility, he thought, as a man who too had been hexed by her.

  “You say Allan and Holly met at a party? What party was that?” he asked.

  “I can’t see what any of this could possibly have to do with your…investigation into the death of Holly’s baby,” Inez said. “That is what this is about, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” he admitted. “I was just curious.”

  And it appeared Inez wasn’t about to satisfy any more of that
curiosity.

  “On Halloween night you got a call to go to the hospital,” he said. “Who placed that call to you?”

  “One of the nurses, I assume. She said she was calling from County Hospital and that Holly had delivered her baby.”

  “Then she led you to believe Holly had had the baby at the hospital,” Slade asked.

  “Well, of course she did,” Inez snapped. “Where else would she have had the baby?”

  “Well, that’s the question isn’t it? The doctor says she didn’t deliver at the hospital. Someone dropped her and the baby off.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  He could see Inez was the type of woman who believed what she wanted and nothing was going to change her mind.

  “Did you see Holly the day she had the baby?”

  “No, I hadn’t seen her for a couple days. But the baby wasn’t due for another week or so.”

  “The baby came early then?” Was it possible the people who had delivered Holly’s baby had induced the labor? Especially if they’d planned to take her baby and had known another woman who was about to deliver a stillborn baby?

  He knew that sort of thinking was way out there. But until he found out where Holly had given birth, he had to wonder if anything wasn’t possible.

  “What difference does any of this make?” Inez demanded. “The baby didn’t live. Allan Junior is buried next to his father. There is nothing more to be said about this.”

  “His father? Allan Junior? But the baby isn’t his, right?”

  “Playing up to Holly’s delusions isn’t helping her,” Inez continued as if he’d never spoken. “She’s come up with this fantasy about another baby out of guilt. She had another man’s offspring when she knew how badly poor Allan wanted a child. Of course, she feels guilty.”

  Slade could see that Inez was doing her best to make Holly feel that way. But as much as he didn’t want this old witch to be right, he was also smart enough to know that the other baby, the one Holly thought she remembered, might be nothing more than a guilt-induced fantasy.

  But the mystery still remained as to where Holly had given birth.

  The elderly woman got to her feet with no small effort, signaling that their “meeting” was over. “It’s just a case of guilt, grief and postpartum depression for the dearly loved husband she lost and the child she conceived only to appease that loss.”

  Slade didn’t move. Guilt, grief and postpartum depression. The exact words Holly had used and in the same order. The words echoed, making his skin crawl.

  “What if Holly’s right?” he asked quietly. “What if that baby in the ground isn’t hers? What if someone has her child?”

  “Then good riddance,” the old woman snapped, her face contorting into a mask of meanness. “That baby should never have been conceived in the first place. As far as I’m concerned, it’s dead and gone and Holly’s licentiousness is buried with it.” She took a ragged breath, anger putting two slashes of scarlet into her otherwise gray face. “Nor will I hear of this so-called investigation of yours going any farther. Holly gave birth to a stillborn baby. That’s the end of it.”

  It surprised him, not how she felt about Holly’s baby, but that she’d bury the child as Allan Junior in the family plot.

  “I’m afraid it isn’t up to you,” he said slowly getting to his feet. He could see that she wasn’t going to take the exhumation well, if it came to that. “If Holly wants to keep looking for her baby then she has that right.”

  Inez Wellington narrowed her gaze to pinpoints of darkness as she glowered up at him. “I won’t see my brother’s memory derogated any more than it has been. If Holly continues to behave irrationally, I shall see that she goes back to the sanitarium.” She smiled at his surprise. “So she didn’t tell you about her breakdown after Allan’s death?” She leaned on her cane, a triumphant, self-satisfied look on her pinched face. “Holly committed herself. Since she left the doctor’s care without a proper release, those commitment papers are still valid.” She smiled. “Let me show you out, Mr. Rawlins. Unless you want to see your client locked up indefinitely, you and I won’t be crossing paths again.”

  The intercom buzzed. He saw her glance at her watch, frown, then look at him. The intercom buzzed again. Someone was at the gate.

  She walked to the front door, the intercom continuing to buzz, and waited for him. He could see the irritating sound was wearing on her and wondered why she didn’t answer it.

  Then it struck him: she didn’t want him to know who it was!

  He stopped to admire one of the commendations on the Wellington wall of fame. Dr. August Wellington had been honored for his work during World War II. How nice.

  “Good day, Mr. Rawlins,” Inez said pointedly as she opened the door.

  “Shouldn’t you get that?” The buzzing was getting to him as well. But now he really wanted to know who was at the gate. He waited, pretending to admire another one of the awards.

  Glaring, she reached over and hit the intercom. That was the problem with gated communities. The damned guard at the gate.

  “Yes?” she demanded.

  The loud voice of the overweight guard who’d let Slade in echoed through the entryway. “Dr. O’Brien from Evergreen Institute is down here. He says it’s of utmost importance.” It was obvious Dr. O’Brien had been giving the guard a hard time from the tone of the man’s voice.

  “Let him in,” Inez snapped, then spun around, no doubt ready to do battle with Slade.

  He didn’t give her the pleasure. “Good day, Ms. Wellington,” he said, smiling as he stepped past her through the open doorway.

  She slammed the door with a force that knocked the dogwood wreath from the door. Slade didn’t bother to pick it up. Let Dr. O’Brien do it. Whoever he was. And what was so urgent? Slade wondered.

  As he drove out through Paradise West, he passed a silver BMW coming up the hill too fast. He only glimpsed the man behind the wheel, but he got the impression the good doctor was very upset about something. Was the Evergreen Institute where Holly had been locked up?

  Chapter Five

  Slade left, thinking how much he’d like to see Inez Wellington locked up indefinitely. But he couldn’t shake the terrible feeling that Inez might be right. Holly had been institutionalized? That had to have been right before he met her. Right before she told him she believed someone was trying to kill her.

  He felt sick. He’d had doubts before about Holly, about her story, about the two of them. But now…

  How could he believe anything Holly had ever told him? Or worse, anything that had happened between them? He felt like a fool. And on top of that, they’d had a baby together. A baby that was now probably buried under another man’s name.

  Why hadn’t Holly mentioned she’d been institutionalized?

  All the doubts he’d had about her, along with half a million new ones, flooded him, drowning him. He hadn’t realized how badly he’d wanted to believe her. To believe they’d shared a baby and that that baby was alive.

  He felt torn and guilty. He’d dropped investigating his mother’s murder, not because of the chief’s threat, but because of Holly. He’d promised his mother he’d find her killer. It was a promise that had weighed heavily on him all these years. And now he’d discovered a lead, one he wasn’t sure he trusted Chief Curtis to follow up on, and he’d bailed out on it to help a woman he couldn’t trust, a woman he wasn’t sure he’d ever known.

  He stopped at the edge of town, trying to think, his head aching. He didn’t know who to turn to, who he could trust. Curtis had been like a father to him, but right now Slade didn’t trust even him. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the chief knew more about Marcella Rawlins’s infidelity than he was willing to tell him.

  He put his face in his hands, eyes closed, head aching, trying not to think about Holly. But that was like telling himself not to breathe. He knew he should just wash his hands of this case. It was only bound to bring him heartache. It already had.
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  But if there was even a remote chance that Holly might not be crazy, might be telling the truth— The truth was, he admitted with a curse, he still loved the woman he’d met last Christmas, and, if possible, he wanted to find her again. If she still existed. If she’d ever existed.

  He rubbed his hands over his face and sat up. Impulsively, he picked up his cell phone and dialed, determined not to let anything stop him. Dr. Delaney answered on the third ring.

  “I’m sorry to bother you again,” Slade quickly apologized. “It’s about my mother.” He could hear Christmas music in the background and faint voices and wished for a moment that he’d had the good sense to wait until after the holidays.

  “Yes?” Fred Delaney asked, a slight impatience in his tone.

  “I found a new lead in her murder,” he said charging ahead blindly. “I think she was seeing someone. A man.”

  The last words hung in the air for a long moment.

  “Marcella?” Delaney asked sounding surprised. “You don’t mean having an affair?”

  Slade took a breath. “Exactly.”

  The voices in the background quieted as if whoever was at the house with the doctor was also listening to that end of the conversation. Or maybe Slade just imagined it. The same way he’d imagined the Christmas music playing more softly in the background as if someone had turned it down.

  “That doesn’t even dignify an answer,” Delaney said heatedly. “Obviously you didn’t know your mother. Is that all?”

  “Yes.” It was the only thing he could think to say, surprised by how adamant Delaney had been.

  The doctor hung up, the thud of the receiver echoing in Slade’s ear.

  So much for Dr. Delaney.

  He started to put the cell phone down and changed his mind. He’d put this off long enough. He dialed Norma Curtis. She was home, but the chief wasn’t. Just as he’d hoped.

  “I’m so glad to see you,” Norma said when she opened the door. She was a petite woman with snow-white hair, warm brown eyes that always seemed to twinkle, and a round, full face that belied her years.