“You’re cute in an apron. What’s cooking?”
Byerly turned, saw Lupe Hernandez at the kitchen door, and motioned her inside. “I’m deep into poor man’s stroganoff, better known as SOS. That stands for-”
“I know what it stands for.”
“Then you won’t be staying for dinner.”
She laughed. “Thanks for the invitation. I’ll take some of that wine, too.”
He poured, added to his own glass, then busied himself at the stove, adding seasonings to the onions, mushrooms and hamburger he was sauteing. “What brings you to Monarch Lane?”
“I offered Buster Brogan your information about the Gould case.”
“And you are no longer a member of the police force.”
“Almost. I should decide where my loyalties lie and not listen to you and DeeDee. By the way, you are now known as the Bye-Byes, at least to Buster Brogan.”
“We’ve been called worse.” He heard a car door slam. “That’ll be Doreen. Hold up, she’ll want to hear this.”
Her voice entered the kitchen first. “Darling, wait till you hear what I’ve just learned.” Then she saw Lupe and hugged her. “How wonderful to see you.”
“What’s your news?” he asked.
“It’ll keep, I want to fuss over this creature. I love your hair this way, pulled back into a chignon. You look like Nefertiti on one of her better days. With your deep-set eyes, you’re so-o…dramatic, that’s the word.” She turned to him. “She’s too lovely, Walter. I don’t think I should leave you alone with her.”
“Good work, but enough, already. Detective Hernandez is here on official business. She reported our info on the Gould murder to Sgt. Brogan and was warned not to associate with the Bye-Byes, as we are now known. I sorta like it, don’t you?”
Doreen dismissed that with a flip of her hand. “The erased files didn’t impress him?”
“It only proves the suicide.”
“That’s ridiculous! Is the man a Neanderthal?”
“Buster believes conclusions are to be reached, not leapt to.” Lupe sighed. “That would be easier for me to believe, if he’d run a paraffin test on Gould.”
“He didn’t?” Byerly almost dropped his spoon. ”What’s wrong with him?”
“It looks to me like he has another agenda.”
She shrugged. “Maybe, I can only hope you’re wrong.”
Byerly poured wine for Doreen, then tended to his stroganoff, dumping a bag of noodles into boiling water. “I wasn’t serious about dinner, Lupe, you’re more than welcome. Be about ten minutes.”
“You may not want me after I tell you the real reason I came." She sipped her wine. "Sgt. Brogan gave me an assignment. I’m to find a missing boy, blond, blue-eyed, about three years old. Sounds like the missing child you asked me about, doesn’t it?”
“And what did Brogan tell you about this child?”
“Not one syllable more than you did. Walter, what’s going on?”
He glanced at Doreen, saw wariness in her eyes. “We have to tell her. We’re on the same deserted island.” He saw her reluctant nod. “The child is safe, in good hands, being cared for, just where his mother left him. We didn’t tell you-”
“We were afraid you’d feel duty bound to contact Children’s Services and we don’t want that, at least not yet.”
“Who is this child?”
“He answers to the name Jamie. Other than that, we don’t know and at age three he can hardly tell us.”
“I think I know,” Doreen said. “I talked to-” She glanced at Lupe. “Maybe we should start at the beginning.”
“I think you’d better, I’m lost.”
Doreen told of Jamie’s abandonment, but did not reveal where he was, nor did Lupe ask. Smart girl, Lupe. Better she not know. “There’s a definite link between Harry Gould’s murder and Jamie’s abandonment.”
He looked at her sharply. “There is?”
“It’s what I’m dying to tell you. Jamie’s last name is Linden, Jamie Linden. His mother’s name is not JoAnn-she made that up-but Sophia Linden.”
“Doreen, my clever one, where did you learn this?”
“From Cyn Wu, the girl in Boston, Sophia’s roommate. Harry Gould contacted Sophia. I don’t know how they knew each other or why she trusted him, but she accepted the air fare he sent for her and Jamie, flew out here and stayed at the Upham Hotel.”
“Why did she come?” Lupe asked.
“Sophia had Jamie out of wedlock. Cyn Wu doesn’t know the father, apparently nobody does. She’s had a hard time. Cyn Wu thinks she came out here in hopes of obtaining financial support.
“Is Gould the father?” he asked.
“I don’t think so. If she came out here with Jamie, Gould would have met her at the airport, at least known about Jamie. There was no need for her to hide him with a total stranger.”
“She came out here to meet someone else.”
“And got herself abducted by our friends in the castle.”
Lupe Hernandez held up both hands. “Whoa! Not so fast. Walt, is this the library abduction you asked me about?”
“I think so. I drove out to the Karl Kinkaid place. Sitting in the driveway was a limousine and chauffeur as described by Henry Clay.”
“And who is Henry Clay?”
“My homeless informant.” Lupe’s expression was the sort a person makes while sticking a big toe in a tub of hot water. ”I know it’s not much. You’re hardly going for a search warrant and an arrest.”
“You’re right there. What possible connection can there be between Karl Kinkaid, a local jillionaire, and an abandoned tyke?”
Doreen’s voice brightened. “Maybe Kinkaid is Jamie’s father. She came out here to-”
“Try again. I took your advice, darling, and delved into the bible. I ended up with Sid Rankin in D.C.-I don’t think you know him-and came up with an utterly charming speculation. For starters, Sophia Linden may not be the correct name, either. Jamie’s mother is more likely Amanda Sykes.”
“Good heavens, Walter!”
“It’s something checkable, maybe by you, Lupe.”
“If I only knew what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, darling, must you be so mysterious?”
He grinned. “Gotta have some fun. Okay, Sid Rankin says the hot political rumor this season is that Justin Wright fathered a child out of wedlock with one Amanda Sykes. She and the child have both disappeared. Wright’s political opponents, the press and apparently God Himself are looking for her.”
“And the Wright people want to keep him hidden.”
“My exact words to Sid Rankin.”
“Or test for DNA to prove he’s not the father.”
“Wright himself could save that expense.” He looked at Lupe. “What’s bothering you?”
“What was that term you used?”
“Charming speculation. That’s what it is.”
“No mistake there.”
“Except for one thing,” Doreen said. “Who asked the police to find a missing little boy? It just has to be someone who knows Jamie is in Santa Barbara and not very many people do. Cyn Wu wouldn’t tell, and Gould is dead. That leaves whoever hired Gould in the first place.”
“We ought to be able to trace that.”
Doreen shook her head. “We can’t. The erase button on Gould’s PC was punched and the backup disk stolen, remember? We’re dealing with a smart and careful person.”
He paced the kitchen. “Okay, let’s say it was Kinkaid for the moment. He discovered Gould knew Amanda Sykes sometime in the past.”
“College maybe.”
“He hired Gould to contact her and he-”
“Entices her out here on a promise of financial support for Jamie. A meeting is arranged-”
“But at the last moment, Sophia or Amanda, worried about what might happen to Jamie, gets cold feet-”
“Leaves him with the only person she knows in town-”
“Whom no one would think of or be able to trace-”
“Then goes to meet Kinkaid on schedule-”
“And is forced into the limousine-”
“And has been held ever since-”
“And will be until she tells where her son is.”
Lupe laughed. “Is this how you two operate?”
“Sometimes.” Doreen smiled. “We make a pretty good team-”
“For a couple of old folks.”
“Speak for yourself, darling.” She patted his cheek. “This JoAnn-Sophia-Amanda, whoever she really is, just has to be an interesting person. As far as we know, she’s never revealed who Jamie’s father is.”
“Maybe he doesn’t know.”
“Exactly, dear. She doesn’t want him to know and has endured hardship to keep him from knowing.”
“And if it is Wright, she has to know the damage she’d do him and wants no part of it-certainly all the hullabaloo it would bring.”
“She wants a normal life for herself and her son,” Doreen said, “not money, not 15 minutes of fame. Quite a remarkable young woman, I’d say.”
He watched Lupe shaking her head and laughed. “We’d better let you throw your cold water before you freeze. What is it?”
“I keep remembering your term charming speculation. That’s all it is, you know. You have no evidence-”
“Speculation is not a bad word, despite the efforts of critics to make it so. To speculate is to reflect, ponder, think. Without speculation we’d all be living in caves. Doreen and I are simply trying to solve a mystery-why a mother, obviously caring about her son, left him with a nearly total stranger.”
“Walter thought at first the mother might have kidnapped the boy, which is why he approached you.”
He served his SOS at the counter. “Fruit and cottage cheese okay for a salad?”
“Whatever’s easiest,” Doreen said.
“You are now learning, my dear Lupe, the origins of a happy marriage, the words whatever’s easiest.”
All three ate in silence for a moment. He was starved. Doreen broke it, “Lupe, you have no idea who asked the police to locate Jamie?”
“Someone surely knows, but not me.”
“Would Kinkaid have the clout?”
“Not officially, but…” She shrugged.
“It has to be the Wright people,” he said. “If Win-Win Moore knew Jamie was in Santa Barbara or, God forbid, the press, we’d be awash in TV trucks. Could still happen, I suppose. Kinkaid could trot out a tearful ‘mother’ to beg for the return of her darling little boy.”
“No, Walter. Kinkaid or whoever doesn’t have a photo of Jamie-needed for the tearful mother bit-or even much of a description.”
“They must know something about him”
“My guess is they tried to get Harry Gould to reveal where Jamie was. He had no idea, of course.” Doreen grimaced. “Under threats, maybe at gunpoint, hoping to save his life, he told them what he knew about Jamie-blond, blue-eyed, about three.”
“He may have only seen him once.”
“Oh, Walter, it must have been so awful for poor Harry.” Doreen shook her head, sighed, then looked at Lupe. “What are you going to do with all this information?”
“What information?” She smiled. “My job is to look for a missing child. I have no idea where he is and I’m still looking. The death of Harry Gould is not my case. The Santa Barbara Police have no reports of alleged abductions, nor are they interested in rumors of illegitimate children, however illustrious the parentage.”
“Like I said, only a matter of time, Captain Hernandez.”
“Hear, hear” Doreen raised her glass. “There is one thing you can do, Lupe, help us find this woman. She’s in grave danger, and we don’t have much time.”
After Lupe left, DeeDee helped clean up the kitchen, then went upstairs to change into her nightie, robe and slippers. She returned to the living room, accepted a glass of red wine-it helped her sleep and she needed it tonight-then got out her knitting. She had neglected it lately.
She took her place in an easy chair, matching Walter’s, both facing the unlit fireplace. This room was by far the largest in the house and her favorite, perhaps because it had sunlight most of the day. She’d decorated it in a variety of pastels, her favorite colors, giving it an aura of softness, warmth and familiarity.
“I find knitting very soothing,” she said. “Must have something to do with occupying the hands.”
“I’m sure.” His nose was in the newspaper.
“You might try it.”
“Yes, dear.”
She stuck out her tongue at him. ”Yes dear, yes dear, the words of the truly henpecked husband.”
“What?” At least he put down the paper.
“You were very funny at lunch.”
“I was?”
“I don’t know anyone who makes me laugh as you do.”
“What a nice thing to say, thank you.”
“And you were most insightful with Lupe this evening.”
He looked at her quizzically, “What’re you getting at?”
“Oh nothing.” She worked her needles. “I just wondered why you haven’t mentioned that Tyrannosaurus Rex standing over there by the piano, slobbering all over my best carpet.”
He actually looked across the room.
“He’s a fearsome, husband-taking, widow-making monster, Walter.”
After a long pause he said, “I think he’s more a pussy cat.”
“No, no, pussy cats get mentioned regularly. Only the big, bad things are ignored.” She sniffled. “Only they just get bigger and badder. What did the damn doctor say, Walter? I won’t be cut out of your life at this late stage.”
His sigh was a deep one. “He biopsied my prostate. He’s running tests. Take a few days.”
“For what? The Big C?”
Another sigh. “It could be the little b, as in benign.”
“Tell me every word he said.” She listened, asked some questions, then said, “Thank you, I feel better now.”
“You do?”
“Of course. It’s always better to know. Your day-long silence scared the wits out of me.”
“I've been afraid to tell you.”
“Don’t be silly. Whatever happens we’ll both deal with it when the time comes. “
He arose from his chair and leaned over her. His fingers felt so cool, touching her chin, raising her head to his. “What a magnificent woman you are.”
“It’s about time you noticed.”
As he kissed her she knew she had done the right thing. No matter what, this beloved man must never know the terrible churning in the pit of her stomach.