Mavis squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. “No, I don't have to, but I need to. We may not learn anything new, but we won't know unless we go find out.” With that said, she led the way to her Town Car.
Several vehicles were in the parking lot of the Methodist Church when they arrived a few minutes later. Harriet recognized Ilsa's rental car and Pastor Hafer's mini-van. She assumed the rest belonged to the Willis brothers.
'Welcome,” Pastor Hafer said as they approached the open door to the church, and pointed them to their left. They walked down a hallway that led away from the sanctuary and toward the fellowship hall, a smaller public room that adjoined the kitchen area and could be configured with tables for dining or with rows of chairs for smaller meetings. Today, the chairs were arranged in a horseshoe shape, with three rows of chairs in the curved section and Gerald's casket at the open end of the shoe. The half-lid of the dark wooden casket was open, but a standing spray of flowers was strategically placed to prevent premature viewing.
Ilsa stood with the Dutch cousins and nodded to the trio when they came into the room. Harriet noticed Marit had been left elsewhere for the evening. Gerry and James were in front of the pass-through window to the kitchen. Their wives were on the other side with two women who looked familiar to Harriet. She assumed they were involved in the after-funeral food for tomorrow.
Pete was sitting in a chair by himself on the far side of the room.
'Could you all take a seat please?” Pastor Hafer asked as he ushered Harry and Ben in and shut the door. “I won't keep you long.
'This is a time for family to come together and support each other. We have a rather unusual situation here, so I'd like to do something before we move on to the actual viewing.
'Gerald Willis left his family nearly twenty years ago. We can only guess why. He began a new life in the Netherlands, and again, we can but speculate about why he never told his new family about his life in Foggy Point. God knows, and that has to be enough.
'Everyone here has suffered a loss, some more recently than others.” He went on to suggest they set aside any anger they had over the situation for a few minutes and share a few stories of life with Gerald… or Gerard.
It sounded like a terrible idea to Harriet, but Pastor Hafer started the group out with a story one of the ushers had told him about the time Gerald was helping out during a Christmas Eve service and accidentally lit the manger on fire when he dozed off and dropped the candle he was holding. The organist had a pitcher of water, and had gotten up and dumped it on the manger, putting out the fire. Gerald had never lived it down.
Before long, both groups were laughing and talking and sharing their memories.
'He's good,” Harriet said in a low voice to her Aunt Beth after they had moved away from the group, standing near the now-empty kitchen.
'Who?'
'Pastor Hafer. I was having a little trouble seeing how this was going to be anything but a disaster, but look at them.'
'Gerald was a good man. It only stands to reason both of his families would be good people.'
'I hope we can give them all some peace by figuring out why all this happened.'
A coffee and tea service had been arrayed on the kitchen pass-through counter, and Harriet poured a cup of hot water and selected an Earl Gray bag from the basket of assorted teas.
'Want some?” she asked her aunt.
'No, if I drink anymore I'll be running to the bathroom all night.'
Harriet was dunking her bag when the door to the fellowship hall opened a few inches and Aiden gestured for her to come out into the corridor.
'What are you doing here?” she asked, the smile on her face disappearing as she noted his worried expression. “What's wrong?'
'Carla's missing,” he said. “The daycare called me at work to say they were closing and she hadn't shown up to get Wendy.'
Harriet cracked the door open again and signaled to Aunt Beth. Her aunt came into the hallway, and Aiden repeated his story.
'That's not right,” she said. “Carla would never leave that baby.'
'That's what I'm saying,” Aiden said. “I came here to the daycare then had to go home and get a carseat. I'm just lucky my mom had one at the house from when my nieces were little. I got Wendy and then got hold of Carla's sister to babysit.” He was bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, his left hand rattling the coins in his pocket.
'What about the police?” Harriet asked.
'I called, and she hasn't been gone long enough. They said they would keep an eye out, but without any idea of where she might have gone, they weren't hopeful. If Wendy had been missing it would be different, but for adults they have to consider that the person might have chosen to leave. She has to be missing forty-eight hours before the Foggy Point Police Department will take a formal report.
'I don't suppose there's any sign that her friend Terry showed up, is there?” Aunt Beth asked.
Aiden shook his head. “There's no sign of anything. No note, nothing out of place. I even looked in her room.'
'And?” Harriet asked.
'Nothing. I can't even think where to start.'
'Let's go talk to her sister,” Harriet suggested. “Maybe Carla said something to her that would give us some place to start.'
'I'll stay here with Mavis,” Beth said. “I'll call when we're out of here and see if you've found her. There's no point calling the Threads for help until we have a starting point.” She went back into the Fellowship Hall, and Harriet had to trot to keep up with Aiden as he left the building and went to his Bronco.
'Let's drive by Terry's motel on our way back to your house.'
'Okay, but I don't want to leave Wendy with Carla's sister any longer than we have to,” Aiden replied. Harriet felt a small twinge of jealousy at the way he spoke of Wendy as if she were his child.
He drove through a series of neighborhood streets where single-story houses nestled among Douglas fir trees and shore pines then onto a gravel roadway, taking a more direct route to Smuggler's Cove. Harriet was pretty sure she'd never been on some of these roads.
'Carla used to leave Wendy with her sister all the time,” she said eventually.
'Have you ever met the woman?” Aiden countered. “You might want to before you make any judgments. I'm not sure I'd trust her to take care of Randy.'
'You're right, I haven't met her. I think she's a half-sister, not that that should affect her parenting skills.'
Aiden guided the Bronco into an empty spot near Terry's motel room. The gray rental car sat at the end of the line of parking spaces that nosed into the sidewalk in front of the ground-floor rooms.
'Isn't that his car?” Harriet asked.
'It looks like the car we followed, but it's a pretty generic model for a rental. I'm sure every motel in town has at least one that looks similar to this one in its parking lot.'
Harriet opened her door and jumped out before he could ask what she was doing. She stepped up to Terry's ground-floor room and rapped on the door. No one answered.
'If you're looking for soldier boy, he ain't here,” said a balding fat man carrying a bucket of ice cubes. “His room hasn't been slept in for a couple days.'
'And you know this how?” Harriet said as she turned toward him.
'I'm the manager here,” he said and straightened as much as he could, given his bulging gut. “He ain't used the bed, he ain't left me a tip. Nada.'
'Do you know where he is?'
'He don't check in with me. He's friendly enough if he's in his room while I'm cleaning, but he don't tell me his calendar. What he does do is pay in advance a week at a time. So long as his room's paid up, he can sleep wherever he wants.'
Harriet found the thought of finding this greasy man, with clean towels over his arm, when you opened your motel room door expecting the maid sort of horrifying.
Aiden started to get out of the Bronco, but she waved him back. She thought of asking the manager to call her if he saw Terry, but she knew it would be a waste of time. Plus, she didn't want him to have her number.
'He's not here,” she said as she got back into the car. Aiden immediately backed out of the driveway and
