“A million times better. So were you able to find out anything on Blythe Donnelly?” I asked, eager to get my hands on that envelope.
“What there is to know.” He sat on one end of the sofa and crossed his legs, which showed off his worn but well-cared for alligator boots.
“Because she’s lived in Jamaica so long?” I sat, too.
“There’s not much to know because she didn’t live all that long.” He opened the envelope.
“What are you talking about?” I said.
“She’s dead, Abby. She died in 1974.” He removed a sheet of paper and handed it to me.
It was a copy of a small newspaper article from the
I said, “Okay, so maybe the woman in Jamaica is a different Blythe Donnelly. Maybe—”
“That’s possible, but not likely. I don’t think two Blythe Donnellys were born on the same day in the same year in Dallas, Texas, do you?”
“You’re right,” I said. “And considering what I found in Donnelly’s house—cash transactions, a large bank account disappearing, the lack of friends—I’m betting there’s an explanation.”
“I won’t ask how you gained access to that information,” he said.
“I seem to have forgotten myself,” I said with a grin.
“Just so you understand that this person you’re tracking is using a stolen identity and could be in big trouble.”
“I understand. So now what?” I said.
“This could be tough,” he answered. “We’re not dealing with someone stealing personal information to rob a person blind. This sounds more like a woman who needed to disappear. And there could be a hundred reasons why.”
“Criminal reasons?” I asked.
“Or personal,” he said. “A way out of a tough life.”
“So what’s my next step?” I asked.
“There are several ways to go at this, but I’d begin by checking missing person reports around the time this woman showed up in Jamaica.”
“That’s probably a humongous number of people,” I said.
“Not necessarily. You have a location—Dallas—and that narrows the field. Not likely someone in Maine would hunt up death certificates in Dallas trying to find a good candidate for their identity theft. We weren’t exactly a nation of computer users back then.”
“You’ve got a point,” I said. “So I’ll definitely start with missing persons.”
“If you need any help with your research, let me know. I’ve got connections in Dallas, a few friends who used to be cops up that way.” He stood and I followed suit. “And now I better get home. Becky’s cooking venison stew and I’m not about to miss out.” He patted his starched, flat belly.
After Angel left, I headed straight for my office, but once I sat down behind my desk, I paused. Angel had mentioned death certificates. If Donnelly wasn’t really Donnelly, maybe the
It took me only fifteen minutes to discover that the baby’s death certificate had not been scanned or even manually keyed into this particular database, though loads of other information from that year had been compiled. The infant’s records could have been lost in the hurricane... and then there was the other possibility. The baby’s death had been faked.
But though I wanted to get busy on this angle, the doorbell rang again and this time the visitor was not nearly as welcome as Angel.
“What can I do for you, Aunt Caroline?” I asked when I opened the door. “Because I’m busy working on —”
“A murder case in Seacliff?” she asked sweetly.
Damn. That’s all I needed was her dipping her pen in my ink. Kate must have let something slip. “Listen, I’d love to visit, but—”
“Do you know a police person named Fielder?” she asked.
Double damn. Better find where this leak had come from and shut off that faucet as soon as I could. “Come on in,” I said.
I offered her a drink, and once we were seated on the sofa, her with a glass of white wine and me with the rum and Coke, she said, “So tell me what you’ve been up to, Abigail.”
“Why don’t you go first? Obviously you’ve been snooping around in my business.”
“Why would you think that?” She offered her best shocked and dismayed expression. “And I really don’t appreciate your tone, considering I came here to offer you valuable information.”
I needed this woman in my life like an armadillo needs an interstate. But knowing her, I’d better play nice or she’d clam up. “Sorry if I sounded rude, but I’ve had a long day. What information are you talking about and what’s this about Fielder?”
She smiled and sipped her wine, leaving bright pink lip marks on the rim. “You know how much I care about you, Abigail. And I’m concerned for your welfare. So before I tell you, why don’t you explain how you got mixed up in all this?”
I knew why she wanted to know and it had nothing to do with my well-being. The next time she played a foursome at the country club, she hoped for center stage with her society friends. And she would get exactly that if she could reveal unpublished details about James Beadford’s death. The quickest way to find out what she knew and get rid of her was to give her just enough information to satisfy her.
I summarized what had happened at the wedding reception, focusing more on the response of the guests than on anything substantive. I mentioned the scream, the ensuing chaos, how long we all had to stay in the house. She then asked who did the catering, what the bride wore, and did I think the wedding gown was totally ruined? It seemed clear she didn’t give a rat’s ass how this tragedy affected Megan and her family.
“Now tell me about Fielder,” I said. “How did you connect her name with mine? Did you read it in the newspaper?”
“She called me,” Aunt Caroline said, looking as proud as a cat with a mouthful of feathers.
I blinked. “Wait a minute. She called you? Not the other way around?”
Aunt Caroline picked a piece of lint off her camel wool slacks. “She had a lot of questions about you, Abigail. And she certainly knew plenty about your past.”
I took a hefty swallow of my drink. What the hell was Fielder doing?
“And the gist of these questions?” I asked.
“She wanted to know if you had a personal relationship with the Beadford family and if so for how long. Of course I couldn’t answer that question.”
“What do you mean you couldn’t answer? I told you the last time you were here that Megan hired me a few months ago.”
“Have you forgotten how you cut me out of your life since last summer?” she said. “What makes you think I would know who your friends are or—”
“This has nothing to do with my friends. What else did she want to know?” I was pissed off and she knew it.
Her smug smile disappeared. “I came here to inform you about the call from Fielder, so don’t get irritable, Abigail. Because you’ve been out of town, which I had to hear from this police woman, too, I was unable to offer this information sooner.”
“Fielder knew about my trip?”
“She said you went to Jamaica. Whatever were you doing there? The Bahamas or Grand Cayman are a far more preferable—”
“So she’s been following me? Bugging my phone? What?”
