The mystery man drove north on Yearling Road and took a left at 5th Avenue. In the evening rush hour traffic, 5th was a long slog even though we were going toward downtown Columbus instead of away from it. All hope was dashed for me when he kept in the left lane and just kept going.
“Boo, we’re not going to make it home in time for any kind of a reasonable supper time,” I told my short haired, Boston terrier companion.
A little sense of relief flooded my system when we got on I-670 and blew through downtown Columbus rather than continuing to traverse city streets. By the time we reached it, most traffic had left the immediate downtown area and was gone to face the trek out to the suburbs. That relief turned to a dumbfounded sense of shock when the guy exited 670 onto North 4th Street and then a few blocks later, made a left on East 1st Street and entered the Italian Village.
“What are the odds?” I asked out loud as I pounded the steering wheel. “Of all the neighborhoods you could be going to in the whole metro area...”
I almost caused an accident when he turned his maroon Ford right onto Hamlett Street, the same street where the place I suspected was an adoption agency was. Speeding past Hamlett, I took the next legal right I could take almost two blocks away and went as fast as I dared in the residential neighborhood up to 2nd Avenue where I hung another right and scooted back toward Hamlett myself.
When I got to the old fashioned, cobbled brick street, I looked right and left but I didn’t see the Ford. He was gone. Dejected, I turned north to go up the street past the agency and toward the little park. I figured I’d let Boo out at the park to relieve herself one last time and then we’d head home.
As I passed by the Victorian house, I couldn’t help but look that way. Parked halfway back in the driveway near the side entry door was the maroon Ford. The driver wasn’t in it. It was all I could do, not to do a double take.
I did drive to the park but I nearly forgot all about Boo as I sat and shuddered and tried to calm myself. “It’s just a crazy coincidence, a crazy coincidence.” I said to myself.
Finally, as I rocked myself back and forth in my seat, she yapped at me, breaking through my swirling thoughts. I hooked her to her leash and we got out of the car but, while she did her business, I continued to run all the possible scenarios through my mind. Only one made any sense. I realized the little scene I’d witnessed a half hour between this guy and my background check assignment guy may have been a payoff for something.
“Maybe he’s not as squeaky clean as I thought,” I whispered to myself.
I didn’t know what to do. One part of my brain was telling me I was making wild assumptions with absolutely nothing to go on but the other side of my brain, the one that represented the curious investigator in me was dying to know more. Was it all just a coincidence or had I inadvertently stumbled into the unthinkable, I asked myself.
The investigator won out. I bundled Boo back into the car, gave her a little drink from a water bottle I’d bought in between stops earlier and then I locked up and hoofed it up the back alley that ran behind the houses on the Victorian’s side of the street.
There was a bit of a gap between the gate and the fence post it latched too. In the waning light, I peered through it. There wasn’t any movement at the back of the house or even any lights on. I could still see the car that had been there in the morning parked up close to the garage and the maroon Ford parked about midway up the drive, next to the house. I figured at least the woman who’d answered the door and the mystery man were inside, at a minimum.
I checked over my shoulder. There wasn’t a house across the alley directly behind me. No one seemed to be around at all.
I pulled gently on the gate. It was unlatched, just as I’d left it. Ducking, I crept low along the fence across the back yard and then up along it toward the back side of the house, opposite of the driveway side. My left leg, injured months before when I took a bullet in it in the line of duty and already aching from the cold, screamed with pain from the odd crouching walk but I pressed on.
Working my way along the back of the house, I made it to the little patio, mounted the steps and peered through the screen door. The heavier door beyond had a window that began at waist height and continued upward. It was curtained like the other windows but with a much more sheer fabric.
The kitchen was the only room in my view and it was dark. I listened intently but I could hear nothing.
I stepped down, backed up to the building again and contemplated entering the root cellar. I was already trespassing; might as well add breaking and entering to my list of crimes. If these people had Jef and I could prove it, any charges I got slapped with would be worth it to me.
“I’m making a real habit out of eavesdropping these days,” I whispered to myself as I eased the door on the right that overlapped the left one open.
A set of sandstone steps, weathered with age but still largely intact led down to the basement. I stepped down carefully as I hung onto the edge of the door. I knew it would be dark when I closed it but I didn’t want to risk leaving it open and having someone see it so I eased it down. The old hinges creaked even more than they had when I opened it. I held my breath and waited several beats to see if anyone moved about above.
I descended carefully them pulled out my cell phone and used only the main screen for light. I was standing on a packed hard dirt floor. Over the years, it had never been upgraded. There was a tiny bit of light coming in through a single dusty window to either side of the room I was in. There was a dividing wall out in front of me with a doorway set in it more to the left.
There wasn’t anything but dust and grime in the area I was in and I couldn’t hear the occupants of the house. Assuming I was under the kitchen, I went toward the opening and stepped into what had to be the main part of the basement.
There was one set of rickety wooden stairs that led from the right that I assumed went up to the main floor. I moved around stuff that was stored in the room to those and tested my weight on the bottom step. It held me but creaked a bit. Taking note of the rest of the staircase, I realized there was no way I could climb up them to tray and listen in at the top without being heard and discovered. They were mostly unsupported and would moan and groan as I moved.
While I was trying to pick my way in the darkness carefully and form a new plan, I heard muffled voices coming from a few feet over my head. Backing up a little, I stood back and shined my phone screen indirectly on the spot where I thought the sound had come from. There was a heating vent there and the sound of people speaking came from it again but I couldn’t make out what they were saying.
Stuff was all around me. I found a couple of curiously heavy cardboard boxes and stacked them under the vent then climbed them to get an ear as close to it as I could.
A slightly accented male voice was saying, “It’s been difficult to get the paperwork done for the male child. There’s a couple waiting but we can’t seem to get a birth certificate that will pass.”
Another male voice, also slightly accented, responded, “Once Roman is at Riverside, that little problem will be a thing of the past.”
Realization dawned for me quickly; these people have Jef! In my mixture of horror and excitement, I jerked back away from vent and lost my balance.
I fell off the boxes and bit my tongue to keep from crying out as I hit the cold, hard dirt of the floor. Tears flooded my eyes from the physical pain shooting through my mouth and continued as I thought about the possibility that I might be within a few yards of Jef.
I pulled my cell out again and powered the screen on. That’s when I realized the boxes I’d been standing on were actually banker’s file boxes full of paperwork. I lifted the lid of one and pulled out a thick file. Nothing was legible in the dim light of my phone so I pulled out several pages, folded them in half and stuffed them into the inner pocket of my ski jacket.