Leann Sweeney - Shoot from the Lip

Loreen rested her elbow on the table and held her head with her hand. “I think so.” She was sounding more tired by the second. “She had this list. Tuesday regulars, Wednesday regulars. She never worked on Fridays or the weekend. Those were her drinking days, and no one interfered with that.”

“You remember any of these people?” I asked.

“Everyone we cleaned for worked in the daytime. They left a key and we usually didn’t see them.”

“How did you know where to go and when? The list?” I asked.

“Christine kept a notebook with phone numbers, too. I remember because I saw these doodles in there, and I asked Christy if she’d drawn them. She said yeah. She drew people’s faces. Even me. I asked her for the page, but she said she had stuff she needed on the back side. She drew me another one later but I lost it.”

I thought about the boxes moved out to storage the day of the demolition. Had Emma thrown away this notebook along with the photographs she’d mentioned? “You’re sure you never met any of the clients?”

“I was helping with more houses by ninety-two, and every now and then someone was home sick or… Wait. There was this one lady who quit working when she was so pregnant she could hardly walk. I did see her. Vacuumed right around her for three weeks in a row.”

My heart sped up, and I was thinking how long it had taken me to get this one morsel of information, something Loreen had no way of knowing might be important enough to pull everything together.

Jeff knew its importance, though, because he said, “Do you remember if you cleaned for this woman around the same time that Christine was pregnant?”

Loreen looked thoughtful. “She coulda been pregnant, too, now that I think about it. And you know, Christy never took me with her if she went back there, so I never saw that lady’s baby. You think the kid under the house belonged to that woman we cleaned for?”

“Could be,” I said.

“And maybe Christy did something to that kid so she could sell her own baby to that lady?” Loreen shook her head vigorously. “I wasn’t there if she did that. You better make sure the cops know-”

“Chill, Loreen,” I said. “I don’t think you had anything to do with the baby or you never would have written that letter to Reality Check.”

“Yeah. That’s right,” she said, nodding. “But why didn’t the woman send Christy to jail if she hurt their kid? That’s what any normal person woulda done. I went to jail plenty of times for a lot less than that.”

“We don’t know if Christine hurt any baby,” I said.

Jeff nodded his agreement. “Your friend and this woman could have made a baby deal for reasons we haven’t yet figured out, and Christine agreed to keep the secret. Then later she decided to earn some extra money to continue to keep that secret.”

“Oh, yeah. She’d do that. She was always looking for the big jackpot that never came.” Loreen closed her eyes briefly, then pointed past me. “I’m sorry, but I need to do what she’s doing.”

I turned and saw Doris lying on the floor in front of the TV. She was sound asleep.

“Take the bedroom,” Jeff said.

“I’m not gonna argue,” Loreen answered. She picked up the overnight bag she’d left near the hall entrance and left us alone.

Jeff took out several sticks of Big Red, then offered me the pack. I accepted, needing to rid my mouth of the taste of beer.

After he’d chewed his gum for several seconds, he said, “Tell DeShay everything you’ve learned tomorrow. I doubt this notebook is still around, but you said they stored everything from the house, and a search is worth a shot. Maybe Christine kept names as well as phone numbers.”

“And I could find out if any of those people in the notebook had a baby around the same time as Christine by checking birth records from that year.”

“Good circumstantial evidence, but that won’t promise a happy reunion for your client. A lot can happen in fifteen years.”

I put my hand behind his neck and pulled him close so our lips were almost touching. “You are such a pessimist, you probably never put anything away for a rainy day, ’cause you’re always expecting a drought.”

He smiled, and we were about ready to exchange gum when my cell rang.

I saw from the caller ID that it was Aunt Caroline, and groaned.

“Bet I know who that is.” Jeff picked up our glasses and headed for the kitchen.

“Better answer or she’ll fill up my voice mail box.” I opened the phone and said hello.

“Abby, where are you?” she said.

“Um… someplace.”

“I know that much. But you’re not at home, because I’ve driven by three times. You need to get over here now.”

“It’s late. What can I do for you?” I asked.

“I have something of dire importance to share with you. Please come over.”

Everything with her is always of dire importance, but I tried to sound nice when I said, “Can we do this in the morning?”

She was silent for a good ten seconds, and I knew I’d pissed her off. “If you don’t care about your sister ruining her life, then fine.”

“What are you talking about?” But, of course, this had to be about Clint Roark.

“This man she’s seeing is not who he says he is, and I have proof.”

She’d hired a detective to follow Jeff when I first started dating him, and this sounded like she was up to her old tricks. “If you’re talking about the man’s ex-wife and son, Kate knows about them.”

“It’s not a son. It’s a daughter. And his name is not Clinton Roark. It Harrison Foster.”

Now she had my attention. “What have you done, Aunt Caroline? You haven’t told Kate about this, have you?”

“No, nothing like that. We need to face her with the facts together. Two voices are better than one, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Let me sleep on this and come over to your place tomorrow morning around ten and you can tell me what you’ve got. Then we can talk to Kate.” That would at least give me a little time to find out about this man myself and why he chose to use a fake name-if, in fact, Aunt Caroline had this right.

“That would work. Yes, I like that idea.” The line went dead, and I stared at the phone before I snapped it shut.

“That your aunt Caroline?” Jeff said when he rejoined me at the table.

“Yes. Seems the man Kate is dating may not be who he says he is. This might mean trouble if Kate gets all defensive about Clint Roark. Gosh, my sister is dating-”

“Not who he says he is? What does that mean?” He’d slipped into detective mode as easily as if he’d put on an old slipper.

“Aunt Caroline says his real name is Harrison Foster. You think he might be some kind of con man? Or maybe someone with a criminal record who changed his name?” I was getting nervous now, and was anxious to get home and find out what I could about this guy.

Jeff said, “Maybe he’s both. Or it could be he stole someone’s identity-not good news any way you look at it. But, of course, you’re talking to a police officer. The pessimist with a dark view of the world.”

“My picture was in the paper right after the bones were found. The caption identified me as ‘Heiress-turned-detective Abby Rose.’ Someone may have seen that word heiress and plugged my name into a search engine. That search would quickly bring Kate’s name into the mix.”

“True,” Jeff said. “It’s no secret that thieves and predators read newspapers looking for vulnerable victims, although usually they check the obits, not the headlines.”

“Why didn’t he come after me?”

“Maybe you’re a little too visible right now.”

“True,” I said. “And his endgame is to get money out of Kate?”