Secret Sisters - an LDS cozy mystery

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen 

The Baby Mine Company manufactures formula, diapers, cribs, car seats-pretty much anything you can think of for a baby," Eden said. She pulled a brochure out from her bag. "This is a piece of literature they circulate to the stores. Baby food, clothing-it's all in there." 

"I love their products," Hannah said, rejoining the meeting for the first time in a while. "Especially the diapers. They've got little blue bunnies on the outside, and they're really absorbent." 

"Blue bunnies? Like Beatrix Potter?" Tansy asked. 

"Sort of, but a little more cartoonlike. And the girl diapers have pink bunnies on them." 

"Boy diapers and girl diapers?" Ren asked. "Does it really matter?" 

 "Some people think it does, but I'm not so sure," Hannah replied. 

"Back to the matter at hand," Ida Mae spoke up. "Eden was just telling us about the warehouse." 

"They ship their products all over the nation," Eden said. "Today I was given a tour of the facilities and the basic rundown of how everything works. The merchandise comes in from the factory and is stored in the warehouse. It's shipped out from there. One end of the building is the shipping area, and the rest is for storage. Nick's job is to unload the truck from the factory in the morning, and then in the afternoon to ship out the orders of baby food and formula. Other people are in charge of the orders for the larger items, like cribs and car seats." 

Ida Mae scribbled furiously. "So he unloads the truck and then he packages product." 

"Correct." 

Ida Mae paused, nibbling on her pencil. "Ren says he saw the black Jaguar parked outside the warehouse the other day. Was it there today?" 

"Yes, it was. The man in the Jaguar is James Jeffries. He's the vice president of the company, thirtyfive years old, single, has dark hair and eyes, a small moustache, likes French cuisine, and stands about six feet tall." 

Ida Mae blinked. That was a lot more information than she'd expected for just one day on the job, and certainly more than they ever would have been able to glean from the DMV computer, if they'd been successful-which they hadn't. But she was choosing not to dwell on that.  

"How did you learn all that?" Arlette asked. "I thought you were going to be surreptitious." 

"I was," Eden said. "But after watching the Jaguar all day, and not seeing anyone go near it, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I went up to Nichole, one of the other female employees, asked her who owned the Jaguar, and if he was single." 

"And you got all that information?" Ren asked. 

"Of course," Eden said, flapping one hand in his direction. "Women love to talk about men." 

"I've also heard that women can smell fear," he replied. "Is that true?" 

"Of course," she said again.  

Ida Mae decided to intervene before the conversation got any more . . . interesting. She turned to Ren. "Do you have anything to report?" 

"I went out to the Dunns' early this morning to check the camera. The Jag came by at eight o'clock last night." 

"Could you see if the driver delivered another envelope?" 

"The camera doesn't have that wide an angle. We've got it set to cover the driveway, not clear up by the shed." 

"Eight o'clock," Ida Mae murmured, jotting down the time. "Okay, let's get back to Nick's job. It sounds perfectly respectable to me." 

"There has to be something we're missing," Arlette said. "There's nothing sinister about baby food."