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His eyes narrowed and he nodded, recollection sparking in his expression. “Yes. You look…different.” His gaze came back to Slade’s, a hardness to it. “I assume you’re the father?”
Slade assumed the same thing, but said nothing.
The doctor continued. “Yes, I remember now. The male infant was stillborn.”
A son. Slade felt sick, filled with a terrible sense of loss. The baby had been stillborn. His baby. His baby and Holly’s. And, as much as he didn’t want to admit it, the sister-in-law had been right. In her grief, Holly had come up with this crazy story about monsters, a secret room and a baby who had lived and was stolen and replaced with a stillborn.
“Then you delivered the baby,” Slade said, feeling sick.
The doctor looked surprised as he glanced from Slade to Holly and back again. “She had already given birth when she was brought in, more than likely without any help, from her condition.” His look said he thought Slade would have known that. “She was unconscious and suffering from hypothermia. I stitched her up and tried to make her comfortable the best I could.”
Slade stared at him. “She didn’t give birth here? Then where?”
“I have no idea. I was told that both mother and infant had been found in that condition and some good Samaritan got them to the hospital.” His accusing tone made it clear he wondered where the father of the baby had been during the delivery.
Was there even the slimmest chance that Holly’s memories could be real? That their baby was still alive somewhere? He tried to hold down the surge of hope, but it was impossible. However, he reminded himself, this still didn’t rule out the possibility that Holly had given birth alone for whatever reason. She would have been frightened and in a great deal of pain and then when the baby was stillborn, she would have had a monstrous amount of guilt—as well as tearing.
“This good Samaritan, do you know where we can find him?” Slade asked.
“You would have to ask the admitting nurse. I was called in just to check them both and pronounce…” He glanced at Holly, a practiced look of sympathy coming to his gaze. “…the baby stillborn.”
“You’re sure it was hers?” Slade said.
The doctor blinked. “Who else’s baby would it have been? Both mother and child were covered in blood and it was obvious she’d just given birth.”
“Then the umbilical cord was still attached?” Slade asked.
Dr. Wiltse looked uncomfortable. “The cord had been severed, but I assumed the mother had done that herself before she passed out.”
“Is that normal—to pass out after a delivery?”
The doctor shrugged. “It’s possible. It was also cold that night. She was experiencing some hypothermia.”
“Could she have been drugged?”
Dr. Wiltse blinked. “I wouldn’t know. We don’t routinely check for drug use.”
“Is there any way to find out?”
The doctor seemed to consider this for a moment. “We always do blood typing on both mother and baby, but we only keep the samples for seven days after the birth.”
Blood typing. “Would the blood typing confirm the baby was hers?”
“Possibly. It would depend on the blood type of the mother and father compared to that of the baby.”
Slade glanced over at Holly. She looked pale and scared. “Where do we find the admitting nurse from that night?” he asked Wiltse. “Also we’ll need a copy of the blood typing.”
“You might try the front desk,” the doctor said, straightening his clothing as he brought himself up to his full height. “It’s the novel way we do things around here, rather than in supply closets.” He glanced past Slade to Holly. “I’m sorry about your loss.”
She nodded, and Slade pushed open the door to let the doctor pass. “Thanks.”
At the front desk, Holly asked for a copy of the blood typing on her and the stillborn baby. She filed out a written request form and was told to check back the next day since that office was closed for Christmas.
The nurse on duty didn’t want to, but finally agreed to take a look at the admittance sheet from Halloween.
“I remember that night. It was pretty slow early, but then as usual we got real busy,” the nurse said, checking the schedule. “Carolyn Gray was the admitting nurse.” She checked the admittance sheet. “Nope. It doesn’t say anything about who brought in Holly Barrows or her infant. Sorry.”
“Is Carolyn Gray working today?” Slade asked.
“Called in sick.” There was suspicion in the nurse’s tone. But anyone who called in sick for work on Christmas would be suspect.
“It’s urgent we speak with her.”
It took a little coaxing but they finally got Carolyn Gray’s address and phone number. She lived in an apartment house on Cedar and Spruce streets called The West Gate. The nurse at the desk tried Carolyn’s home phone number but there was no answer.
“She probably has it unplugged,” the nurse said, obviously not believing that any more than Slade did. Except he was hoping for Carolyn Gray’s sake that she really was sick.
On the way to The West Gate, he tried Holly’s midwife again on his cell phone. He’d been trying all morning with the same result. No answer. He was ready to hang up when a female voice came on the line.
“Maria Perez?”
“No, I’m the caretaker,” the woman said.
“The caretaker? Has Ms. Perez left town?”
After a long silence, the woman said, “I’m sorry, but Maria Perez was killed in a car wreck.”
He sucked in a breath. “When was that?”
“October. I’m just taking care of the place until the estate is settled.”
“Can you tell me when exactly she was killed? Was it on Halloween?”
“No, the day before. Would you like a member of her family to call you?”
“No, that won’t be necessary.” He clicked off the phone and glanced over at Holly, who was waiting expectantly. “Maria Perez was killed in an automobile accident the day before Halloween.”
“Then she couldn’t have been one of the monsters,” she said.
“No.” But had someone seen to it that Maria Perez wasn’t at the birth?
Holly stared out at the passing town, visibly shaken by the news. He didn’t have the heart to tell her what he feared they’d find at Carolyn Gray’s apartment.
Chapter Four
The West Gate was about as upscale as Dry Creek got. A half-dozen two-story apartment buildings with bay windows and balconies painted the recent color of choice: tan. Slade idly wondered what kind of money nurses made these days as he and Holly found Carolyn Gray’s unit, knocked at the door and waited. To neither of their surprises, Carolyn Gray didn’t open the door.
“Keep an eye out,” he told Holly as he pulled out his lock-pick kit and went to work on the door. It was a simple lock and Carolyn hadn’t set her dead bolt.
“Are you sure about this?” Holly asked with obvious apprehension as he opened the door.
“Carolyn?” he called softly.
No answer.
Holly followed him deeper into the apartment.
He had a bad feeling that Carolyn Gray was probably the only one who’d seen the person who’d brought Holly and the baby to the hospital, especially if most everyone else had been busy that night. If Holly was right about her baby being born alive and then stolen, that person wouldn’t want to be identified.
By the time he pushed open the bedroom door, he’d pretty well convinced himself that they’d find Carolyn Gray murdered. Holly’s paranoia was definitely catching. And quite possibly with good reason.
Instead of finding a body though, he found the place had been cleaned out. And in a hurry! Empty drawers hung open, abandoned clothes hangers were piled like pick-up-sticks on the closet floor. Carolyn Gray was gone and it didn’t look as if she’d be back. But had she left on her own?
After finding nothing of interest in the apartment, they left.
“There’s a chance I’m not crazy, isn’t there?” Holly said quietly as she climbed back into his pickup.
“Yeah.” A slim chance at this point. But a chance. The same chance that he might now be looking for his own very-alive baby. He didn’t want to think what had happened to Carolyn Gray.
“Did you have any tests done while you were pregnant?” he asked, hoping for at least one that might prove the stillborn wasn’t hers.
Holly shook her head. “Maria, my midwife, didn’t feel it was necessary.”
“So you didn’t know the sex of your baby?”
“No.”
And there were no tests anywhere as proof. How convenient. Other than the blood tests taken at the hospital.
He drove back to Dr. Delaney’s office, where they’d left her SUV. “I want to talk to your sister-in-law,” he said as he pulled into the parking lot next to her car. “She was there, you said, when you woke up at the hospital. Did you call her? Or did one of the nurses?”
Holly seemed startled by the question. “I don’t know. I never even thought to ask.”
“I’d like to see your sister-in-law alone, if that’s all right with you.” He could feel her gaze on him.
“I should tell you that Inez might be difficult.”
“You told her you were hiring me?” he asked, wondering if this Inez person was the one who the Santa bell-ringer had been talking to last night.
She shook her head. “I just mentioned to her that I didn’t believe the stillborn baby was mine, and that I was concerned about the blanks in my memory. I didn’t mention hiring you because I didn’t even know myself that I was going to until I did.”
“You didn’t mention the…monsters?”
She shook her head and looked appalled at the idea. “Can you imagine what Inez would do?”
He couldn’t, but obviously she could and it wasn’t good.
“I was thinking about your painting,” he said. “One of the monsters seemed smaller than the other two. Do you think it’s possible it could have been a woman?” He could feel her gaze.
“Yes, that’s true, one is smaller.” She sounded surprised that he’d noticed. Or surprised that she hadn’t.
“But the painting doesn’t prove anything. I mean, how can I be sure it’s even a real memory?”
She had a point there. But he found it hard to believe anyone could conjure up something like that.
“You aren’t thinking it could be Inez, are you?” she asked suddenly. She seemed to find the idea laughable. “When you meet her you’ll see why that isn’t possible. She can barely get around.”
He’d have to take her word for it. Until he met the woman.
“But I do wish now that I’d never said anything to her about any of this.” She let out a sigh and he wondered why she’d confided in him about monster memories—and not her sister-in-law. “You have to understand,” she said slowly, “Inez is from an older generation and a very conservative family. My getting pregnant only a month after Allan died was considered a family scandal. Inez doesn’t want me making it any worse by pursuing what she sees as lunacy brought on by guilt, grief and postpartum depression.”
A possible explanation, one Slade himself had definitely considered. But so far they had no idea where Holly had given birth. Or if the baby taken to the hospital with her was actually hers. And the only other person who might know anything had left town in a hurry. Or had been taken out of town. It was enough to make him definitely suspicious.
Holly’s story was crazy. It was a leap to think that some other woman had given birth that night at about the same time and close by in order to make the baby switch. Quite the coincidence. Or maybe not. Just like the midwife getting killed in an auto accident the day before Holly gave birth.
“I hope the blood typing will prove that the baby isn’t…yours.” He’d almost said ours. “Otherwise, we might have to have the body exhumed for DNA testing.”
She looked shocked—and scared. “Inez will never allow it. She had the infant buried in the family plot. She even named the little boy after her brother, Allan Wellington.”
The sister-in-law had named the baby? “Wellington? Not Barrows?”
“Barrows was my maiden name. I never took Allan’s name,” she said, and looked away from him out the side window at the passing houses. “We were married less than a week. He was older than I was.”
Whoa. She married some old guy who died only a week into the marriage? That didn’t sound at all like the woman he’d known. But he reminded himself, he’d never expected her to steal his money and files and skip out on him either. So he couldn’t rule out the possibility that Holly had married Allan Wellington for his money. He just hoped he didn’t find out that she’d offed the guy.
She fell silent as if she wished she hadn’t offered as much information as she had. He wondered if she was worried about what he thought—or suspected. Or if the concern he saw in her expression was over the possibility of riling her sister-in-law.
“You always do what your sister-in-law wants?” he had to ask, studying her. The Holly Barrows he’d known before wouldn’t have let some old biddy boss her around.
She seemed surprised by the question. “Inez has a way of wearing you down,” she admitted, a sadness to her tone as she opened her side of the pickup to get out.
He glanced around to make sure there was no one around her vehicle, not sure who he was looking for. He doubted he’d recognize the Santa bell-ringer without his beard and hat. But there were few people on the streets with most of the stores closed for the day.
“I’ll call you later,” he said as she got out. He waited until she drove away, his mind racing. Who was this Inez Wellington that she had so much power over Holly? And Allan Wellington, this man Holly had married, why did his name sound familiar? Something told him the marriage hadn’t been a happy one. Or maybe he just wanted to believe that.
He picked up his cell phone and dialed Chief L. T. Curtis.
“What do I need to get a body exhumed?”
“This isn’t about your—”
“No.” Slade had put his mother’s murder on the back burner, but hadn’t forgotten about it by any means. “It’s for a client of mine. She gave birth recently. There is some question as to whether the baby might have been switched and the wrong baby buried.”
Curtis was silent for a moment. “It’s happened before. Were these babies born at County Hospital?”
“No, it’s complicated,” Slade said, not really wanting to get into the details or to involve the police at this point. “What would I need for an exhumation?”
“Enough information to talk a judge into giving me a court order.”
