The Puppy Project, page 9
part #9 of Tess and Tilly Cozy Mystery Series
“I hear there is some excellent hiking in the area if we have time tomorrow,” Tony said.
I sat down on the edge of the tall bed. “About tomorrow. What exactly is your plan? Are you going to just show up at this woman’s home and ask to speak to her?”
“No. I called and spoke to her earlier. I made up a story about wanting to interview her for a story I was doing for a travel magazine. As it turns out, Betty Weston works for the Chamber of Commerce, so she’s happy to speak to us. We actually have an appointment with her at ten a.m. at the chamber’s offices. I figure once we get our foot in the door, we can figure out how to proceed from there.”
“Sounds like a good plan. Do you know what you’re going to ask her?”
“Not really. I guess I’ll just find a way to steer the conversation in such a way as to open a door to the questions we want to ask about Henderson and take it from there.”
I laughed. “A door? What door? I can’t imagine any topic of conversation you could engage in that would naturally segue into a discussion about her involvement with a baby factory back in the nineteen seventies.”
Tony smiled at me. “No. I guess not. I suppose I’ll just have to bring up the subject abruptly. I figure she’ll either talk to us or throw us out. Either way, at least we’ll have the opportunity to let her know that someone is out there looking for her. Or at least looking for the person she used to be.”
Tony made a good point. At the very least, we really did need to alert her to the situation.
Tony’s phone rang. He looked at the screen. “It’s one of my clients. I have to take this.”
“No problem.”
He stepped out of the bedroom, and I looked around the room. It really was nice. A river rock fireplace was prominent on the wall at the end of the bed, and the view of the mountains out the window was magnificent. In addition to the king-sized bed, the room also featured a seating area with a small sofa, a large screen TV, and a couple chairs. I stepped out onto the deck and took in a deep breath. The air in White Eagle was crisp and clear, but that didn’t mean I didn’t appreciate clean air wherever I happened to be.
I was contemplating the idea of raiding the minibar when Tony joined me on the deck. “It’s almost ten-thirty. Do you want to watch some TV? Maybe go downstairs to the bar for a drink?”
“Honestly,” I yawned. “It’s been a long day at the end of a long week. I think I just want to go to bed. We’ll need to get up early to make it back to Logan for our ten a.m. appointment.”
“I’ll call down and arrange for coffee and muffins to be sent up at seven-thirty. That way, we won’t have to stop for breakfast. We can have lunch after we speak to Betty.”
“Sounds good.” I returned to the room, grabbed my toothbrush, and headed into the bathroom to wash up. I had a feeling that tomorrow was not only going to be a long day, but an emotional one as well.
Chapter 12
Saturday, May 16
“So, what magazine did you say you worked for?” Betty asked the following morning after she’d shown us into her office and offered us a seat.
“Technically, we don’t work for a magazine,” I jumped in, not wanting to lie one minute longer than we had to.
“So if you don’t technically work for a magazine doing a spread on our town as you indicated, why are you here?”
“My name is Tess Thomas, this is my friend, Tony. My Dad is Grant Thomas. Or at least he was. I’m not actually sure what name he’s going by now. We have reason to believe you knew him when he was Grant Tucker.”
Her mouth fell open. “You’re Tuck’s daughter?”
I nodded.
She narrowed her gaze and looked at me more closely. “Yes. I can see it now. You have his eyes.” She looked behind us. “Is Tuck here?”
“No,” I said. “As far as we know, he’s unaware of our visit.”
She paused before responding. “So, why are you here?”
I glanced at Tony, and he picked up the thread. “Several weeks ago, I received an email from someone claiming to be Tess’s father. He wanted my help in tracking down three women. I met Tess’s father briefly this past December, and we’d communicated a few times via email before that, so I had reason to believe he might reach out to me. I answered the email, which initiated a dialogue. Since then, Tess and I have discussed these emails at length, and we’ve decided that we are far from certain that the person behind the correspondence really is her father.”
“If not Tuck, who is it?”
“We aren’t sure,” Tony answered. “Since we don’t know for certain who we’ve been corresponding with, we’ve decided to proceed with caution. If the person behind the emails really is Tess’s father, we want to do what we can to help, but if the messages aren’t from him, we don’t want to give him or her information that might put these women in danger. At this point, we are simply gathering information but not passing it along.”
“And you think I might have information as to the whereabouts of these three women?” Betty asked.
“We think you’re Linnea Karlsson, one of the three women,” I said.
She frowned.
“Please be assured that the last thing we’re here to do is out you or do anything that will compromise the anonymity you’ve found as Betty Weston, but we thought you should be aware that someone is looking for you. We also hoped that you could fill in some of the blanks so we might be better equipped to decide how to proceed.”
Betty looked at Tony. “The emails you have been receiving are fake. You must immediately cut off all communication with this person.”
“How do you know they’re fake?” I asked.
“Tuck wouldn’t ask you to find me because he knows where I am. I suspect if he helped the other two women escape from Henderson’s operation, then he knows where they are as well.”
Okay, I hadn’t seen that coming, but I guess it made sense. “How do you know that my dad knows where you are?”
“He sends me a Christmas card every year. It never has a return address and is always postmarked from a different state, but when I get a card from Kimble, I know that while he might still be running, he is also alive and well.”
“Kimble,” I said. “As in Richard Kimble from The Fugitive. My dad loved that show.” I paused. “How long has he been sending you these cards?”
“Since he dropped me off at the clinic in nineteen seventy-eight. I was so scared and didn’t want him to leave, but he said he had to. He also said that he would keep an eye on me and would send me a card every year so I would know that he was still out there watching over me.”
So he must have sent cards to this woman the entire time he was married to my mom. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, but I supposed it was nice of him to offer support to the woman he rescued from a man who was beginning to sound like a monster.
“Did he send a card this past Christmas?” I asked.
“He did. It was postmarked in Montana.”
Okay, so that fit. “So, how did you become Betty Weston?”
“Tuck gave me the ID before he left. I really have no idea where he got it, but he said that I shouldn’t have a problem using the documents he gave me, and I haven’t. He told me to wait to use the drivers license and credit card until after the baby was born and had been taken away by the folks he’d arranged to handle the adoption, so there wouldn’t be a link between the person I was to become and my child.” Her voice caught just a bit. “Giving that baby away was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, but I knew that was the only way she’d be safe, so I did what I needed to.”
“And you have no idea who adopted the baby?” I wondered.
She shook her head. “Tuck made the arrangements. He told me the whole thing would be an under the table sort of affair, and that once my baby was safe with her new family, there wouldn’t be any way to link her back to me.”
“So, you don’t know what became of her?”
Her eyes welled with unspent tears. “No. I don’t know. There hasn’t been a day that’s gone by when I haven’t wondered, but I knew that if I looked for her, I would put her life in danger. I guess she must be in her forties now. At least I hope she is. I hope she was able to live out her life free of the fear and uncertainty I live with every day.” She looked me straight in the eyes. “You need to be careful. If you have been snooping around, then you can count on the fact that Henderson or someone who works for him knows who you are and probably where you live. Henderson wants your father bad. I wouldn’t put it past him to use you as bait.”
“Bait?”
“Kidnap you to smoke out Tuck. I don’t know how you managed to get yourself wrapped up in this in the first place, but I can say with certainty that your involvement with Henderson and his human engineering program is going to get you dead.”
It actually hadn’t occurred to me that if the person who reached out to Tony wasn’t Dad, then Tony and I could both be in danger. “Tony and I set up a test of sorts for the person behind the email,” I said. “We asked the person to tell us the name of the sick puppy in a story that he told me when I was a child.”
“Daisy,” she said.
“So, he told you the story as well?”
She shook her head. “Your dad did what he could to save those he could, but a lot of women had children in captivity. Henderson’s staff raised the children using methods he developed to try to predict certain characteristics and behaviors as the children aged. The program’s test subjects all lived in a dormitory once they reached their third birthday. Tuck would sneak into the dorm and tell the children stories. The story about Daisy, the sick puppy, was one of them.”
“So anyone who was around back then would know the answer to the question we posed,” Tony stated.
“I imagine that there are a lot of people who would know the answer, including the children, who would be adults now, and perhaps a few of the staff. Tuck was a popular guy. Not only did he have the trust of the big boss, but he was also handsome and sweet, and most of the female staff had crushes on him.”
“And how did you end up with him? I guess you must have met in Hungary.”
She nodded. “When I was first brought to Hungary, I worked as one of the handlers who cared for the children. To be honest, it took me a long time to figure out what was going on. Initially, I was told that the children were orphans and that Henderson was providing them with a home. I thought that was very noble and generous of the man. But as time went by, I realized that the reason the children didn’t have mothers was because the babies were taken from their mothers shortly after birth.”
“So did these women volunteer for this project?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I suppose there might have been those who became impregnated against their will, but most of us were volunteers who received the cash offered and agreed to willingly leave after our child was born. I don’t know everything that went on. What I do know is that while I initially agreed to participate in the program in exchange for a large amount of cash, by my third trimester, I was so in love with my unborn child, there was no way I was going to willingly give her up. Of course, not giving her up wasn’t an option. I tried to back out of the program, but was told that my baby was Henderson’s property and that I would not be allowed to leave until after she was born.” She put a hand to her mouth as if to suppress her emotions. “If I’m totally honest, I’m not actually sure any of the women were allowed to leave. Ever.”
“What do you mean they weren’t allowed to leave?”
“Henderson went to great lengths to keep what he was doing a secret. He offered the women who he artificially impregnated money to volunteer for the program, but I always wondered if the women were actually able to walk out of there with their cash once their babies were born. There were rumors that once you were part of the program, you would never be allowed to get out.”
“You think he killed these women?” Tony asked.
“Perhaps. Like I said, I don’t know everything that went on, but I do know that it seems unlikely that Henderson would allow there to be people in the world who knew what he was doing who could potentially make his activities public.”
“So, how did you get away?” Tony asked.
“I realized the only way I was going to be able to keep my baby was to run away, so I began to devise a plan. One night, I shared my decision to escape with Tuck, and he agreed to help me.”
“You shared your decision with Tuck? I thought he was the head of security for Henderson. Why would you trust him?”
“During my time in the employ of Henderson, I got to know Tuck. I suspected that he was only working for Henderson in order to infiltrate his organization. In my heart, I knew he was one of the good guys and that I could trust him.”
“So you think he was there undercover? Like some sort of spy?”
She nodded. “Yes. I know that is true.”
“Do you know who he worked for?” I asked.
“No. He never said.”
“So, what happened after you spoke to Tuck about escaping?” Tony asked.
“He came up with a plan to help me and another woman escape. He snuck us out, brought us to this country, and arranged for our babies to go to new families. He set us up with new identities well away from our children.”
“Do you know the name of the other woman you escaped with?” I asked.
“Gretchen. I don’t know her last name, nor do I know the name she was given by Tuck after her baby was born.”
“So, you went your separate ways after giving birth?” I asked.
She nodded. “I was the furthest along, so Tuck helped me find a safe place to give birth and a family to adopt my daughter. Then he left with Gretchen. I never saw either of them again, but I have been getting the cards from Tuck, so at least I know he’s okay. It’s so sad and ironic that I ran in the hope that I could keep my baby, but in the end, I had to give her up anyway.” She continued in a soft voice. “I suppose she was never going to be mine, but at least by running away, I was able to give her a chance for a normal life.”
“We know that a woman named Ivana was also helped by Tuck the year after you escaped. Do you know if he helped others?” Tony asked.
She lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know. I suppose Gretchen and I were the first. Since we were successful in escaping Henderson, I imagine Tuck decided to try again, but I really don’t know this with any certainty.”
“So you don’t think that Henderson realized that Tuck helped you to escape?”
She smiled. “He had no idea. Tuck hid Gretchen and me, and then he told Henderson that we’d escaped. At that point, we were still on Henderson’s property, but Tuck had hidden us well. When we weren’t found, Henderson tasked Tuck with the job of tracking us down. The whole time Tuck was helping us escape to America, he was reporting to Henderson that he was on our trail. I suppose he might have gone back to Henderson admitting defeat at some point so he would be around to help other women.”
I had to admit my dad really had come up with a pretty awesome plan. It appeared that the first woman to give birth was Linnea, followed by Gretchen. Tuck must have been able to convince Henderson that he really had been trying to track the women down, and after having arranged for Gretchen’s baby to be adopted and Gretchen to have a new life, he must have gone back for Heidi and Ivana. We know that Ivana was shot and killed, but assuming that Heidi had already given birth, it made sense that Ivana must have been the last. I guess Henderson must have figured out what my dad was doing at some point and went after them.
“Do you know when the others gave birth?” Betty eventually asked.
“According to the information I was sent, Gretchen was due to give birth in December of nineteen seventy-eight, Heidi in July of nineteen seventy-nine, and we know Ivana gave birth in September of nineteen seventy-nine. We have reason to believe she was the last one,” Tony said.
“And why is that?” Betty asked.
“Because she was shot and killed, and Grant Tucker disappeared and became a truck driver known as Grant Thomas.”
She bowed her head. “I’m sorry to hear that. Tuck is a good man. I’m sure he did everything he could to save Ivana.”
“I’m sure he did,” Tony agreed.
I wasn’t sure it was a good idea to try to track down Linnea’s baby, but I was curious as to how it all worked out and found myself asking about the specifics surrounding the birth. “So Tuck brought you and Gretchen to the United States, where you would safely be able to give birth. Where did you give birth?”
“There was a small rural clinic north of here. Tuck arranged for me to give birth in the clinic. As soon as my daughter appeared in the world, she was taken away by a woman who Tuck assured me would find the perfect family to raise my child. I never saw her after that, but I do wonder what became of her.”
“Do you remember the name of the woman who took your child or the adoption agency she worked for?”
She shook her head. “Tuck never said, and I was so scared that I didn’t even think to ask.”
“Do you remember where the clinic was?” Tony asked.
“Up near the border, almost to Lewiston. It was a small clinic. One doctor. A woman. Emily. I remember her name was Emily. I remember that she was kind and helped me through what had to be the worst time in my life.”
We chatted with Betty a while longer, but she didn’t seem to know anything else, and it was obvious our conversation was disturbing to her. Now we knew what happened to Betty, but we had no idea what happened to her daughter, and we still needed to find out the fate of Gretchen and Heidi, as well as their offspring. There were still a lot of missing pieces to this story, but it felt like things were beginning to come together.
