“Any idea who that might have been?” I asked.

“Oh, it was so long ago. Coach Hopper got a lot of flack. People said he should have known what was going on. But how can you blame him-our team had a good record that year. Still, folks did blame him. The school never renewed his contract, and he moved away. Ohio, I think. He tried to stay in sports but had a hard time getting another coaching job because of the drug scandal. Last I heard he was a sales representative for an athletic supporter company, in Ohio, I think. Did I say that already?”

I didn’t expect Helen Warren and I to have the same taste in men, but I had to ask. “Mrs. Warren, would you say Coach Hopper was an attractive man?”

“Well, now there’s somebody for everybody, dear. Hop was pleasant looking, but he did have one unfortunate facial feature. I wonder he never had something done about it. I guess he didn’t care and it didn’t seem to keep the ladies away.”

Her own son had a cleft lip and that didn’t hurt his chances with the opposite sex.

“Was it a broken nose?” I held my breath until she answered.

“Well, I don’t really remember his nose, dear. It was something else entirely. I hate to point out anyone’s physical flaws. After all, we’re all God’s creatures-but Hop really did have a nasty set of choppers.”

Forty-three

The next morning, Lucy hated to leave, but she’d already been out of the office two days researching her fugitive story, which she’d been doing on spec. “Text me the minute you hear anything,” she said, clutching the bag with the wig.

After I dropped her off at the train station, I drove to the Springfield police department. The same desk sergeant I’d met when Grant Sturgis and I were brought in was on duty. I made it sound like a personal matter.

“Sergeant Stamos. Is Mike O’Malley here? I’d like to speak with him.”

“He’s on patrol. I can get a message to him to call you. That okay?”

(I had to remember this new strategy the next time I was in the police station.) It had to be. I gave the desk sergeant my cell number and turned the phone on; then I headed for the Paradise.

Babe welcomed me with a big grin. “You’ve had a busy couple of days, haven’t you?”

“Why do you say that?”

Mike O’Malley and Kevin Brookfield had already been and gone-though not together. “Brookfield thinks you’re cute but crazy,” Babe said. “I told him he was right.”

“He’s got a nice smile, don’t you think?” I said. Babe confirmed that Kevin Brookfield had beautiful teeth. This was good news for the single women in town, and, what the heck, I was one of them, wasn’t I?

“You are a little crazy, aren’t you?”

The night before, in her quiet, methodical way Mama Warren had given me Coach Hopper’s dental history. The poor man had had teeth like a broken comb. At some point he’d gotten cut-rate implants and they all got infected and had to be pulled. The last time she saw him, he just had nubs. “Like candy corn,” she’d said, “that had been sitting out in the rain.”

“Oh, you know who called,” Babe said. “She tried you on your cell, then called here. The bulletin board is one thing, but if you expect me to take messages, too, I’m going to have to start charging you.”

Babe slipped me a piece of paper. It was a number in Massachusetts where Caroline said she could be reached until 10:00 that morning. I looked at the clock-9:45.

Babe tossed me the key to her office so that I could talk to Caroline in private. Again it stuck, but I finally got in, then dialed the number she’d had given me.

“Blue Willow Bakery.”

For a moment I wasn’t sure who I should ask for-Caroline or Monica.

“Is Caroline there?”

“Anyone here named Caroline?”

I heard some shuffling and then Caroline’s voice. “Let me call you back on your number. There’s cell service near the general store.”

A minute later, my phone rang. Eddie Donnelley had gotten in touch with her-through her brother. He demanded the money he said she’d stolen or he’d testify, once again, that she had orchestrated the whole drug and gambling operation. If he did, Caroline could be sent back to prison for eighteen years.

“I didn’t steal the money, I swear. Maybe…maybe Kate did. Where else would she have gotten all the cash she sent to my brother years ago? Paula, Donnelley knows where my children are.”

“What? How?”

“My mother-in-law must be an idiot. Grant talked to her to see how they were all doing. She said some woman called, saying she was a friend of mine, and told her to send the kids home. Eddie must have gotten a woman to call for him.”

“Well, that’s a bit of a story, Caroline.”

“Stupid woman, she sent Molly and Jason home on the red-eye last night. Their flight landed ninety minutes ago. We’re on our way, but it will take us five hours to get there if we catch a break and don’t get jammed up on that damn bridge. I left a message for O’Malley, but he hasn’t called back. I’m worried about the kids. Paula, if anything happens to them because of me, I’ll kill myself.”

O’Malley had said she should call if anything else happened, and it had. But O’Malley was on patrol. And if his antennae were up, they were up for a man, not a woman. I left another message for him and kept my cell on.

“You look pale,” Babe said when I reentered the diner.

“Sometimes I wish you had a liquor license.” I hoisted myself on the counter stool, wishing it were a bar stool.

“It’s 10 A.M.”

“I’m going to Caroline’s. I’ve left two messages for O’Malley, but if you see him, tell him to meet me there ASAP. Better yet, call Channel 8 News anonymously and tell them you saw Caroline Sturgis arrive home this morning. She’s there now.”

“Is she back?”

“No, but Eddie Donnelley is.”

The kids would have used their parents’ black car account to get from the airport in New York to Connecticut, but Caroline hadn’t mentioned which airport they’d flown into. It would take anywhere from two to two and a half hours for them to get home, if they’d flown into a New York City airport and didn’t hit traffic. Less time if they flew to Westchester. I didn’t have the key to Caroline’s, but if I was able to get into her garage, I thought I’d be able to enter the house. Hopefully reinforcements would get there not long after I did. I’d need more than just the element of surprise if something really came down and I was on my own.

Just as I was pulling out of Babe’s, Kevin Brookfield pulled in. I jammed on the brakes and our cars were side by side.

“Smile!”

“What?”

“Nice teeth.”

Brookfield must have really thought I was crazy by now, but he did it. “Does this mean you’re buying me?”

“Follow me. I need your help.”

He turned his rental car around and stayed close all the way to Caroline’s. Once again, I drove on the back roads, taking the water company’s private road to the rear of Caroline’s house. When we got there, I pushed the middle button on the roof of my Jeep and their garage door opened. I still didn’t know how that worked, but I was glad it did. I slid in and Brookfield pulled in alongside me. I closed the door behind us.

Chances are Grant had left the door inside the garage open-many suburbanites did-but even if he hadn’t, Caroline had once told me there was an extra set of keys in the garage. We just had to find them.

“I hope there’s no one here,” I whispered as I got out of my car.

He sidled up next to me. “Are we breaking in?”

“Not exactly.”

Just then we heard a car door slam. Caroline and Grant weren’t due for hours. I hoped it was O’Malley or the reporters that I’d asked Babe to summon. I pressed my face as close to the narrow garage windows as possible, but I was an inch too short to get the right angle. All I saw were the fringes of a sticker with a company logo and a taxi-and-limousine issue plate. Then I heard kids’ voices and a woman’s. Damn, they weren’t alone.