A Woman With A Mystery

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In other words, proof. The one thing Slade was real short on.

“I assume this is about that plate you needed run?” the chief asked.

“Yeah. I’m getting the blood typing from the hospital tomorrow and I hope it’s questionable enough for a court order.”

“I thought she didn’t give birth at the hospital,” Curtis asked.

“No, but she did go there right after the birth and they routinely take both the mother’s and baby’s blood.”

“This is one hell of a time to ask for an exhumation,” Curtis noted.

“Yeah,” Slade agreed. “I’ll check back with you, but meanwhile I’ll be at Shelley’s. I’m house-sitting until she gets back from her trip to Tobago.” Shelley’d had the chance to spend the rest of the holiday with some friends on the Caribbean island, and Slade had insisted she go. He felt better having her out of town right now.

“Too bad you didn’t go with her,” the chief said, and hung up.

Slade shook his head as he clicked off his cell phone, started his pickup and headed for Paradise.

INEZ WELLINGTON lived some thirty miles from Dry Creek in a condominium in a fancy gated community known as Paradise West. Slade had been born and raised in Montana in a time when only a jack-leg log fence—and often not even that—separated the men from the cows. Because of that, he was contemptuous of gated communities and pitied the frightened people who lived behind the bars.

A stoop-shouldered thin woman with a shock of white hair and small dark eyes opened the door. Inez looked to be in her early seventies and had the pinched face of a woman who hadn’t got what she wanted out of life. She leaned on a gold-handled cane and eyed him suspiciously.

“Yes?” she said, even though she knew who he was and why he’d come because he’d had to call even to get in the gate.

“I’m Slade Rawlins, the private investigator Holly Barrows hired,” he said again, just so there was no misunderstanding.

But from the look of obvious contempt in her gaze, it was clear she knew exactly who he was and why he was there.

“Yes,” she said, motioning him in and triple-locking the door behind him. “The only reason I’m bothering to see you at all is for Holly.”

Somehow he didn’t believe this woman did anything for Holly’s benefit. He stood in the small stone foyer. From what he could see of the rest of the condo, the decor was as severe and cold as the woman herself. A few plaques hung on the wall, tributes to one Wellington or another. Obviously a bunch of overachievers.

He couldn’t see the Holly Barrows he knew from the two months they’d spent together last year marrying into this family. He couldn’t help but be suspicious and wondered just how old Allan Wellington had been.

“I need to ask you a few questions,” he said, hoping the old bat would at least offer him a drink.

She pursed her lips as she shuffled past him and into a sitting room, the tip of the cane tapping the floor. She didn’t head for the ornate mirrored bar, but took a straight-backed chair and offered him one that looked equally uncomfortable. It was.

“This is such a waste of time and money,” she complained as she brushed at her spotless slacks.

“How long have you known Holly Barrows?” he asked, getting right to it. He didn’t want to stay here any longer than he had to.

Inez lifted a thin, veined, pale hand from the arm of her chair. “About two years.”

“Did you meet her before or after your brother Allan met her?”

She pursed her thin colorless lips, her hand dropping to the arm of the chair. “We met her at a party, I believe, the same night. Did she also tell you they had hoped to have children? Unfortunately, Allan succumbed to a weak heart before he could produce an heir.”

An heir. Slade made a mental note to see how much money Holly Barrows had come into after her husband’s rather quick demise and was disgusted with himself for his suspicious nature.

“And how old was Allan?” he asked, unable to contain his curiosity any longer.

The old woman stiffened. “Fifty-one.”

“You had the same mother and father?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Of course, we did. I was the firstborn. My mother had trouble conceiving. It’s one of the reasons Allan dedicated his life to infertility. He was a change-of-life baby, a miracle. Not that it is any of your business.”

“I just want to get the lay of the land, so to speak. Holly, is what, twenty-eight? That’s quite the age difference.”

Inez raised her nose a little higher. “Allan was a very vital fifty-one. Age doesn’t always matter if two people are right for each other.” She seemed to choke up. “We had no idea there was anything wrong with his heart.”

He wondered if Holly had known and mentally kicked himself for suspecting she had. He dropped the subject of age difference, more convinced than ever that Allan and Holly had been anything but “right” for each other. “I take it Allan didn’t have any children from an earlier marriage?”

She made a face as if suddenly smelling something unpleasant. “Allan’s first love was his career. He was much too busy to even consider marriage, then he met Holly.” She made it sound as if Holly had hexed her poor unsuspecting brother. A definite possibility, he thought, as a man who too had been hexed by her.

“You say Allan and Holly met at a party? What party was that?” he asked.

“I can’t see what any of this could possibly have to do with your…investigation into the death of Holly’s baby,” Inez said. “That is what this is about, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he admitted. “I was just curious.”

And it appeared Inez wasn’t about to satisfy any more of that curiosity.

“On Halloween night you got a call to go to the hospital,” he said. “Who placed that call to you?”

“One of the nurses, I assume. She said she was calling from County Hospital and that Holly had delivered her baby.”

“Then she led you to believe Holly had had the baby at the hospital,” Slade asked.

“Well, of course she did,” Inez snapped. “Where else would she have had the baby?”

“Well, that’s the question isn’t it? The doctor says she didn’t deliver at the hospital. Someone dropped her and the baby off.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

He could see Inez was the type of woman who believed what she wanted and nothing was going to change her mind.

“Did you see Holly the day she had the baby?”

“No, I hadn’t seen her for a couple days. But the baby wasn’t due for another week or so.”

“The baby came early then?” Was it possible the people who had delivered Holly’s baby had induced the labor? Especially if they’d planned to take her baby and had known another woman who was about to deliver a stillborn baby?

He knew that sort of thinking was way out there. But until he found out where Holly had given birth, he had to wonder if anything wasn’t possible.

“What difference does any of this make?” Inez demanded. “The baby didn’t live. Allan Junior is buried next to his father. There is nothing more to be said about this.”

“His father? Allan Junior? But the baby isn’t his, right?”

“Playing up to Holly’s delusions isn’t helping her,” Inez continued as if he’d never spoken. “She’s come up with this fantasy about another baby out of guilt. She had another man’s offspring when she knew how badly poor Allan wanted a child. Of course, she feels guilty.”

Slade could see that Inez was doing her best to make Holly feel that way. But as much as he didn’t want this old witch to be right, he was also smart enough to know that the other baby, the one Holly thought she remembered, might be nothing more than a guilt-induced fantasy.

But the mystery still remained as to where Holly had given birth.

The elderly woman got to her feet with no small effort, signaling that their “meeting” was over. “It’s just a case of guilt, grief and postpartum depression for the dearly loved husband she lost and the child she conceived only to appease that loss.”

Slade didn’t move. Guilt, grief and postpartum depression. The exact words Holly had used and in the same order. The words echoed, making his skin crawl.

“What if Holly’s right?” he asked quietly. “What if that baby in the ground isn’t hers? What if someone has her child?”

“Then good riddance,” the old woman snapped, her face contorting into a mask of meanness. “That baby should never have been conceived in the first place. As far as I’m concerned, it’s dead and gone and Holly’s licentiousness is buried with it.” She took a ragged breath, anger putting two slashes of scarlet into her otherwise gray face. “Nor will I hear of this so-called investigation of yours going any farther. Holly gave birth to a stillborn baby. That’s the end of it.”

It surprised him, not how she felt about Holly’s baby, but that she’d bury the child as Allan Junior in the family plot.

“I’m afraid it isn’t up to you,” he said slowly getting to his feet. He could see that she wasn’t going to take the exhumation well, if it came to that. “If Holly wants to keep looking for her baby then she has that right.”

Inez Wellington narrowed her gaze to pinpoints of darkness as she glowered up at him. “I won’t see my brother’s memory derogated any more than it has been. If Holly continues to behave irrationally, I shall see that she goes back to the sanitarium.” She smiled at his surprise. “So she didn’t tell you about her breakdown after Allan’s death?” She leaned on her cane, a triumphant, self-satisfied look on her pinched face. “Holly committed herself. Since she left the doctor’s care without a proper release, those commitment papers are still valid.” She smiled. “Let me show you out, Mr. Rawlins. Unless you want to see your client locked up indefinitely, you and I won’t be crossing paths again.”

The intercom buzzed. He saw her glance at her watch, frown, then look at him. The intercom buzzed again. Someone was at the gate.

She walked to the front door, the intercom continuing to buzz, and waited for him. He could see the irritating sound was wearing on her and wondered why she didn’t answer it.

Then it struck him: she didn’t want him to know who it was!

He stopped to admire one of the commendations on the Wellington wall of fame. Dr. August Wellington had been honored for his work during World War II. How nice.

“Good day, Mr. Rawlins,” Inez said pointedly as she opened the door.

“Shouldn’t you get that?” The buzzing was getting to him as well. But now he really wanted to know who was at the gate. He waited, pretending to admire another one of the awards.

Glaring, she reached over and hit the intercom. That was the problem with gated communities. The damned guard at the gate.

“Yes?” she demanded.

The loud voice of the overweight guard who’d let Slade in echoed through the entryway. “Dr. O’Brien from Evergreen Institute is down here. He says it’s of utmost importance.” It was obvious Dr. O’Brien had been giving the guard a hard time from the tone of the man’s voice.