In Like Flynn (Molly Murphy Mysteries, #4)

“That damned stance,” Barney muttered. “I knew it would only upset her.” He didn't look me in the eye as he came into breakfast.

We learned also that the Misses Sorensen were keeping to their cottage and having their meals sent over to them. Two seances in two nights had apparently taxed their strength and they needed time to rest and recover. This was not good news for me. I was free but unable to do any snooping around the Sorensen Sisters' cottage.

Instead I took a notebook and a folding garden chair onto the lawn by the river, on the pretext of writing letters home. Last night’s storm had cleared the air, producing a clear cool morning. Birds twittered, bees buzzed, dragonflies darted over the water. There were cheery shouts fromriverboatmenas their craft passed in the stream. Tom and Adam were working together, chatting as they cleared away tree limbs that had come down in last night’s storm. All in all a peaceful scene, quite in contrast to the turmoil going on in my head.

Get a grip on yourself and start thinking like an investigator, I reprimanded myself. There was nothing I could do where Justin Hartley was concerned. I could only hope that his friend Captain Cathers would take him off on a westward journey as soon as possible, where, in uncharitable fashion, I hoped he might meet hostile Indians or charging buffalo. In the meantime I had two cases to solve. I picked up my pencil and analyzed what I knew about the Flynn baby’s kidnapping.

Given the nature of the house, the number of servants and the visibility from the windows, it was either the nursemaid, Morell or someone else from the household who took Brendan out in broad daylight. Unless—I paused and chewed on my pencil, a bad habit and one for which I was caned across the knuckles in school, but which always helped me to think. Unless the child had somehow been drugged and carried out in some kind of container. A laundry basket? A grocer’s delivery box? I would have to check what deliveries were made that day. There would be little point in asking Soames, who wouldn't talk to me, but I had yet to interview the cook. She must have been aware of all deliveries from her vantage point in the kitchen.

Speak with Cook, I wrote in my book.

I took my thoughts one stage farther. If it were a stranger who had carried Brendan out of the house, then why hide him on the property? Why not spirit him away in a laundry cart or on a delivery boy’s bicycle and hide him somewhere less dramatic? I took this one stage farther. The very act of hiding the child on the property must have been an extra act of cruelty done to taunt the Flynns. The kidnapping might then have been done as much for revenge or spite as for money.

Look into those who might have a grievance against Bamey Flynn, I wrote.

Another thought—preparing a chamber to conceal the child would have taken time and tools. It wouldn't have been easy for an outsider to find a way onto the property carrying spades and everything else needed to create a subterranean space. I thought of little Brendan, waking up to darkness, crying unheard, and shuddered. It was truly a horrible crime, not a simple act of greed.

I tried to push personal feelings aside. A good investigator never gets personally involved. That’s what Paddy Riley, my mentor, had said. So far I hadn't managed to follow his advice once. The most logical suspect, I wrote in the notebook, would therefore have access to tools on the property. He would not arouse suspicion if seen moving around with tools. That meant Bertie Morell or the gardeners. Both Tom and Adam had been kept on because they had been absent that day, but could they have helped with the preparation?

Again the thought struck me that it was such an audacious, complicated and risky undertaking that it surely came from the mind of more than one person. Adam admitted to enjoying a beer with Bertie at the local saloon, and Annie Lomax had expressed mistrust for Adam. Had they hatched a plot together? But no, that was a ridiculous thought, because Adam would then know where the child was buried and would have spoken up to save him. No-body would keep silent in such circumstances. Nobody except an unfeeling, inhuman monster. So, in the absence of such a monster, Bertie Morell had done the deed alone.

Still, if I were to help Annie Lomax, I had to keep trying. Joseph Rimes and Desmond O'Mara had both been here when Brendan was taken, although according to all reports, they had been working with Senator Flynn all afternoon. But even people hard at work sometimes look out of windows. I'd try to strike up a friendship with the unappealing Mr. O'Mara and maybe even the self-important Mr. Rimes.

But first things first. There were two gardeners at work within plain sight I got up and made my way over to where Adam was swinging a wood chopper with alarming force at a dead limb that was hanging down from a buckeye tree.

“What a terrible storm last night, wasn't it?” I said.

They both looked up.