As if she was clairvoyant, Hannah showed up at the store. Mama started babbling out the whole story and I let her then I showed them both the paperwork.
The three of us pored over it and, against my better judgment, a plan formed.
I went home to research the man that apparently ran the show, Vasily Arnoff. He was a naturalized U.S. citizen. I got an address for him and a Lucetra Arnoff, his wife that was in Bexley, a swanky, old money Columbus near suburb, just out of downtown. I was trying to dig a little more information up on her when my cell phone rang.
I glanced at the number – Russ.
“Hey Dana,” he started right in when I answered, “I haven’t heard from you. I thought you’d give me a call yesterday on Bakula.”
“I intended to,” I lied, “but some new information on him as come to light. I’m trying to follow up but I won’t know more until later today.”
“Bad stuff?”
“Let’s just say that if the client is demanding a report, you might want to tell them to sit tight on renewing his H1B and maybe even consider any other candidate that they have.”
“Wow, that bad?”
“Probably criminal, Russ. I’ll know more later.” I was speculating but I was as confident as I ever was in an investigation.
“Be careful Dana.”
###
11:52 AM
The Italian Village
Columbus, Ohio
I put my hair in a ponytail, put on a ball cap that shaded my eyes and drove my dad’s car into Columbus. Mama left a vague note for my dad then closed the store for a ‘family emergency’ and she and Hannah followed me in her car.
The plan was for me to break off from them a couple of streets before Hamlett. They’d go on to the adoption agency and, if anyone was even there, try to gain entrance. Hannah was going to pretend to be four months pregnant and upset, wanting to give her future baby up for adoption. Mama was going to pretend to be her supportive grandmother. They were going to use the names of the couple from the paperwork and say they referred them there.
I thought to myself, what could possibly go wrong?
Mama told me later, when she and Hannah got there, a man and a woman were taking boxes of paperwork from a side door to a car parked about mid-way up in the driveway. They agreed to give them just a couple of minutes of time after Mama apologized for bringing Hannah by unannounced and on a Saturday to boot.
She said the man walked down the drive a little way and looked up and down the street, she thought, suspiciously.
I worked my way quickly over to the alley behind the Victorian on foot. I was still hurting but the weather was a little warmer so I didn’t hurt quite as bad as I might have. I had a mission and I intended to fulfill it.
I used the root cellar door to sneak into the basement again and then picked my way very slowly and carefully up the rickety stairs to the main floor. Every creak had me pausing for several seconds, worried I’d be heard and discovered.
When I reached the door at the top of the stairs, I prayed it wasn’t latched and that it wouldn’t squeak when I opened it.
Taking a hold of the ancient metal knob, I turned it oh so slowly. The catch clicked back and the door started to open.
The stairs had angled up toward the back of the house from the bigger basement room. Through the crack in the door I could see now that the door opened into what was probably once a formal dining room. Now it held a small conference table and chairs and some book cases. No one was in there and I breathed a sigh of relief.
I listened closely. I could hear Mama’s voice coming from somewhere at the front of the house. The coast was clear so I opened the door just far enough to squeeze out and left it that way.
I took a quick peek around. The kitchen was right behind the dining room at the very back of the house as I had suspected before. A hardwood center hall led up toward the front and the stairs going up to the second floor. There was a small water closet style bathroom tucked in along it and a small room that must have been a den, once upon a time. It was full of filing cabinets. A couple of drawers, one each in the two end cabinets, were hanging open and empty. A banker’s box half full of files sat on the floor in front of one of them.
Continuing on, I tiptoed up the hallway as quickly as I dared, hugging the wall along the stairs to go up as I went. I knew I’d be exposed if anyone peeked out of the room I could hear them all in at the front end of the hall but I thought I had a better chance of not treading across a squeaky old floorboard by scooting along where I was.
There was no diaper bag in the large foyer or anything else that looked like it might belong to a baby, just the desk and waiting chairs I’d seen before. Discouraged, I still pressed on. Mama was firing away with questions in the office giving me great cover so I took advantage and worked my way upstairs.
Up there, the floors were carpeted which had me a little less worried about the sound of my footfall but I still clung to the walls fearful of crossing a place with a bad board underneath that would give me and the whole jig away.
The door was closed tight to the first room I reached. I skipped it for the moment. The next one was open and in it I found what I would describe as a basic nursery.
There were two cribs in the room bracketing a changing table to the left and the right. They were made up with linens but were empty otherwise. Some supplies for newborns and very young babies were evident on the shelves under the changing surface; diapers, wipes and cream. At the end of the crib on the right, closest to the door, was a small chest of drawers. It was obvious to me that infants didn’t spend a lot of time here.
The door to the last room on that side was closed too. I didn’t bother with it either. On the stairs side, at the far end of the hall, there was one room, a bathroom. It made sense that it was there even if it had been added years after the house was built. It would be over the kitchen and probably shared water pipes.
I felt defeated. I had nothing but confirmation they did bring infants here and I already knew that. Now I had my work cut out for me to get back out of the house undetected.