Читать книгу A Woman With A Mystery - B.J. Daniels - Страница 13

Christmas Day

The next morning, after opening presents and eating Shelley’s famous cranberry waffles with orange syrup, Slade followed the snowplow over the pass to Pinedale. It had snowed off and on throughout the night, leaving the sky a clear crystalline blue and everything else flocked in white with a good foot of new snow on the highway.

Pinedale was a small mountain town, forgotten by the interstate, too far from either Yellowstone or Glacier parks and not unique enough to be a true tourist trap.

He wondered what Holly Barrows was doing here—if indeed the woman he’d met yesterday in his office really was the same Holly Barrows the Department of Motor Vehicles reported lived at 413 Mountain View and drove a blue Ford Explorer.

Pinedale was smaller than Dry Creek, set against a mountainside and surrounded by dense pines. The entire town felt snowed-in and deserted, caught in another time. It had once been a mining camp, some of the scars of its past life still visible on the bluffs around it.

He found Mountain View and drove up to 413. The sign on the lower level of the building read: Impressions Art Gallery. He got out of his truck and glanced in the gallery window, not surprised to see a typical Montana gallery with bronze cowboys and horses, oils and acrylics of Native Americans, and watercolor scenics. He spotted a nice acrylic of a sunny summer scene along a riverbank. The name in the right-hand corner was H. Barrows.

Off to the left of the gallery was an old garage and tracks in the snow where a vehicle had been driven in within the past twenty-four hours.

He stepped back to look up at what he assumed was an apartment on the second floor. The sun glinted on the large upstairs window but not before he’d glimpsed the dark image of a woman there, not before he’d felt a chill.

Rounding the corner of the building, he found a stairway that led up to the apartment. He stopped at the foot of the stairs and glanced around the neighborhood. A handful of kids were dragging shiny new sleds up the side of the mountain a few doors down. A dog barked incessantly at one of the boys. A mother called from a doorway to either the dog or the boy, Slade couldn’t tell which. Neither paid any attention.

He didn’t see a Santa bell-ringer, but then he hadn’t expected to. He figured the man in the Santa suit already knew where to find Holly Barrows. The Santa had been waiting for Holly to show up at Rawlins Investigations as if he’d either feared she would—or had been expecting her. Why was that?

He realized as he glanced up the stairs, that he had more questions than answers. And one big question he needed answered above all the rest. Had Holly given birth to a baby—his baby?

He noticed fresh footprints in the snow on the steps to the apartment. The boot print looked small, like a woman’s, and since this was the address Holly Barrows had given as her home on her car registration, he figured the tracks were probably hers and was relieved to see that there was only one set of prints and they ended at the bottom of the stairs.

Someone had come down, it appeared, to get the newspaper and had then gone back up. The newspaper box was empty, the snow on top dislodged. With any luck, Santa hadn’t been here and Holly Barrows was home. But was the person he’d glimpsed in the window the woman he was looking for?

He climbed the stairs, finding himself watching the street. The dog was still barking. One of the kids squealed as he and his bright-colored sled careened down the hill and into the street. Kids.

Slade knocked at the door at the top of the stairs and waited, more anxious and apprehensive than he wanted to admit. He expected a complete stranger to open the door, figuring the woman in his office yesterday had lied about everything, although he had no idea why. Maybe she’d borrowed the car. Or even stolen it.

So, when she opened the door, it took him a moment. He stared at her in surprise. And only a little relief. She hadn’t lied about her name. Or her occupation. But did that mean she hadn’t lied about the rest of it either?

She stood in the doorway, a paintbrush in her hand and a variety of acrylic colors on her denim smock. She wore a sweatshirt and jeans under the smock, but she looked as good in them as she had in the skirt and blouse last night.

“You’re the last person I expected to see,” she said, not sounding all that enthused about the prospect.

“Yeah.” He glanced to the street again, then back at her. “Mind if I come in?”

She opened the door farther, motioning him inside. The place was small, but tastefully furnished, the colors warm and bright, the furniture comfortable-looking. Homey. Except there was no tree. No sign at all that it was Christmas Day.

“Don’t you celebrate Christmas?” he asked, curious.

“Not this year.”

He followed her through the living area to her studio on the north side of the building. The room, bathed in light, was neat and orderly. He watched her, wondering if the woman he’d come to know this time last year was the true Holly Barrows or if this woman, who seemed to be as dazed as a sleepwalker, was the real one.

She moved around an easel in front of a huge picture window and stopped, seeming startled by what she’d painted.

Not half as startled as he was as he stepped around the easel and saw what she’d been working on. He’d expected something like the idyllic summer scene he’d seen in the gallery downstairs. The two paintings were so different no one would have believed they were done by the same artist.

He stared at the disturbing scene on the canvas, feeling ice-cold inside. He didn’t need to ask what the painting depicted. It could have been the birth of Satan, it was so foreboding and sinister. Three horrible creatures with misshapen grotesque faces and dark gowns huddled at the end of a bed waiting expectantly for the birth.

While he couldn’t see the patient’s face in the painting, he could feel her pain and confusion—and fear in the angle of her body, the disarray of her wild dark curly hair and the grasping fingers of the one hand reaching toward the ghouls at the end of the bed, toward her baby.

The painting was powerful and compelling, and seized at something deep inside him. Sweet heaven.

“We need to talk,” he said, even more convinced of that after seeing what she’d been painting.

She nodded and washed her paintbrush, the liquid in the jar turning dark and murky as she worked. He watched her methodically put the brush away, wipe her hands on the smock, then take it off.

“Why did you wait so long to start looking for your baby?” he asked.

She looked up, her eyes the same color as the Montana winter sky behind her. “Mr. Rawlins—”

“Slade.”

“Slade.” She seemed to savor his name in her mouth for a moment as if she’d tasted it before, then, frowning, continued as she led him into the living room. “I believed that my baby had been stillborn. I had no reason not to.” She waited for him to sit, then perched on the edge of a chair, her hands in her lap. “I woke in a hospital. The nurse told me. I thought at first that my belief that the stillborn wasn’t my baby was nothing more than denial. It wasn’t until I started having these memories—if that’s really what they are—” She shook her head. “Before that, I just assumed my sister-in-law was right. That my grief over losing the baby was causing my…confusion about the birth.”

Sister-in-law? “You’re married?” he asked, unable to hide his surprise—or dismay.

She shook her head. “Widowed. My husband died a year ago.” She looked away. “Are you going to take my case, Mr. Rawlins?”

He didn’t correct her. He was still mulling over the fact that she’d had a husband. And the man had died a year ago. Just before Slade had met her? He felt as if she’d sucker punched him. “There are a few things I need to know.” That was putting it mildly.

“I will tell you everything I can.”

An odd answer, he thought, all things considered. “I’ll need you to agree to an examination by a doctor.”

“To prove that I recently delivered a baby.”

He nodded.

She didn’t seem offended. “What else?”

“I’ll need the name of your doctor during your pregnancy, and I’ll want to talk to the doctor at the hospital who allegedly delivered your baby.”

“I didn’t have a doctor during my pregnancy. I was seeing a midwife.”

He lifted a brow at her. She didn’t seem like the midwife type. “Was that your idea?”

She flushed. “Actually, my sister-in-law suggested her. The woman is highly regarded as one of the top midwives in the country. Her name is Maria Perez. She just happened to have bought a place near here and was on a sabbatical. I was very lucky to get her.”

He stared at her. Something in the way she said it caught his attention. It almost sounded rehearsed. And too convenient. “You have her number then?”

Holly came up with the number from memory. He wasn’t sure why that surprised him either.

“Something else. Why did you drive fifty miles over a mountain pass in a blizzard on Christmas Eve to hire a private investigator?”

“I went to Dry Creek to the last-minute-shoppers art festival at the fairgrounds to look for promising new artists for my gallery. I go every year.”

Again, the lines sounded rehearsed. Or as if they weren’t her own. Was the art festival where she’d been last year before she’d come stumbling out of the snow and into his headlights?

“Although, this year I almost didn’t go,” she added with a frown, a clear afterthought.

“So why did you?”

She shook her head. “My sister-in-law thought it would be the best thing for me.”

He wondered about this sister-in-law who knew so much. “And do you hire a private investigator every year?” he asked, the sarcasm wasted on her.

“Of course not. I never intended to hire anyone. I was driving by and I saw your sign through the snow and—” She looked up at him and shook her head. “I don’t know why I came to you. I just had this sudden need to know the truth and there you were.”

“No matter what that truth is?” he had to ask.

“No matter what you discover,” she said, but he heard a slight hesitation in her words. She sounded scared and unsure. He couldn’t blame her. He felt the same way.

He went for the big one. “What about the father of your baby?”

“I don’t see what that has to do—”

“If your baby really was stolen, the father of the baby seems the prime suspect.”

It was clear she’d already thought of this. She nodded. “I…” She licked her lips and swallowed. “I don’t…”

“You don’t know who the father of your baby is?”

“I know what you must be thinking.”

He doubted that. “Surely, you have some idea or can at least narrow it down.”

“Are you familiar with alcoholic blackouts?”

He stared at her. “You’re an alcoholic?” The only thing he’d ever seen her drink was cola.

“Let’s just say I don’t remember getting pregnant and leave it at that for now.”

He studied her for a long moment. Was it possible he knew more about the conception of their baby than she did? “When can you see a doctor?”

Relief washed over her features at his change of subject. “The sooner the better,” she said.

“No problem. I think I can get you an appointment this afternoon.” Dr. Fred Delaney had delivered both Slade and Shelley and had been a friend of the family for years. He would make time for this, Slade knew. Dr. Delaney was also on his list of people to talk to about his mother. “Is that too soon?”

“No.” She rose as he got to his feet.

He considered telling her about the two of them. That after doing the math, he figured the baby had to be his. But first he had to know if there really had been a baby.

He started to leave and stopped. “Last night, when you came to see me at my office…”

“Christmas Eve,” she said, then waited for him to go on.

“There was a Santa bell-ringer in front of my building. Maybe you saw him?”

She shook her head, frowning as if wondering what that had to do with anything.

“I think he had my office staked out. I saw him on a cell phone as you were leaving. I think he’d been waiting for you.” He saw her pale, her hand trembling as she grasped the back of the chair he’d been sitting in for support.

“Then they know I’ve come to you,” she said, fear making her blue eyes darken.

“They?” he asked, just to clarify.

“The people who took my baby.”

The monsters in the painting.

If “they” existed outside this woman’s mind.

The Santa bell-ringer, on the other hand, had been real. He described the Santa as best he could, hoping she’d recognize the guy as someone she knew. But while the man hadn’t been hiding behind a monster mask—he had been hiding under a beard and hat and possibly a whole lot of padding. Like the monsters in her painting, real or not, Santa hadn’t wanted to be recognized either, it seemed.

“I can’t place him from your description,” she said.

He nodded, not surprised. “You just might want to be…careful.” He wanted to warn her, but he didn’t have any idea against what—or whom. The bottom line was: if those monsters in her painting existed, then Holly Barrows was in danger.

“You don’t have a phone?” he asked, remembering that he hadn’t found a listing.

“I have it listed under the gallery.” She rattled off the number.

He memorized it. “I’ll call you with a time. We can meet at the doctor’s office.”

He glanced back at the painting as he left and almost wished she really was crazy. The alternative scared the hell out of him.

DR. FRED DELANEY had grayed in the years since he’d delivered Slade and Shelley. He’d come to Dry Creek right out of medical school and ended up staying. Now in his sixties, he was semi-retired.

“You know my office is closed the week of Christmas,” he said when Slade called him.

“That’s why I’d like you to see this woman. I’d just as soon have this done…quietly.”

Dr. Delaney didn’t ask. “Three o’clock.”

Holly Barrows arrived a few minutes before her appointment. Slade had half expected her not to show and realized he was going to have to start believing at least some of what she said.

The checkup didn’t take long. Dr. Delaney came out of the examining room and motioned for Slade to follow him into his office.

“Close the door,” he said as he went around behind his desk.

Slade didn’t like the look on the older man’s face.

“She delivered a baby in the last month or so. Is that what you wanted to know?”

Sweet heaven. Slade felt light-headed. His baby. Holly had been telling the truth.

“There was quite a lot of tearing,” Dr. Delaney continued. “The baby could have been overly large. Either there wasn’t time for an episiotomy or…one just wasn’t done. I would imagine she was in a lot of pain during the delivery.”

Slade felt a cold anger fill him. “You’re saying the delivery wasn’t handled properly?”

Dr. Delaney blinked. “I would have no way of knowing that. The baby could have come too quickly for anything to be done.”

“Or the doctor could have bungled it.” Slade knew how doctors hung together. Especially when the word malpractice started floating around.

“Do you know who delivered this baby?” Dr. Delaney asked in answer.

He shook his head. Maybe a midwife. Maybe monsters. “But believe me, I intend to find out.”

It wasn’t until he and Holly left the office that Slade realized he’d forgotten to ask Dr. Delaney about the man in Marcella Rawlins’ life.

“Are you all right?” he asked Holly once they were outside.

She looked over at him and he sensed something different about her. She didn’t look as much like a sleepwalker. “Did you get the proof you needed?”

“Yes. I’m sorry you had to go through all of that.” All of it, including the pregnancy and delivery without him.

“Where to next?” she asked, her eyes glinting with what appeared to be a combination of anger and stubborn resolve. This wasn’t easy for her, he could see that. But she wasn’t backing down. It reminded him of the Holly Barrows he’d known. And that was something he didn’t need to be reminded of.

He hadn’t planned to take her with him, but he changed his mind. “The hospital. I want to find out who supposedly delivered your baby.”

Dr. Eric Wiltse didn’t look anything like a doctor. He wore jeans, a T-shirt and a Carhartt jacket. His face was tanned and his sunbleached hair hadn’t even started to gray at the temples. It was pulled back in a ponytail. How he’d ended up in Dry Creek, Slade could only wonder. His office was in the new building at the edge of town but this morning he was making rounds at County Hospital, a small fifteen-bed hospital with an even smaller staff because of the holiday.

“Dr. Wiltse?” Slade inquired, although he’d already seen the man’s name tag. He stepped in front of Wiltse, blocking his way.

The doctor, not much older than Slade, seemed more annoyed than surprised as he glanced from Slade to Holly. He didn’t seem to recognize her.

“We just need a moment of your time,” Slade said, pushing open a supply-room door and shoving the good doctor in.

“Hey, what the—” That was all Dr. Wiltse got out before Slade grabbed a handful of the man’s shirt and shoved him against a shelf full of towels.

“I understand you were the emergency-room doctor the night Holly Barrows delivered her baby,” Slade said. “I don’t have a lot of time and even less patience.”

The doctor’s eyes widened as he took in Holly again. “This is against all hospital pol—”

“The delivery. Were you assisted? Did you deliver the baby by yourself? If you want, Ms. Barrows here will sign whatever papers you need to release you from any oaths you might have taken, doctor.”

“And who will keep me from filing assault charges against you?” the doctor asked, jerking free of Slade’s grasp. But he didn’t try to leave the supply room. Nor did he look like he was going to put up a fuss.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t remember you,” he said to Holly. Memory loss seemed to be going around. “When did you deliver?”

“Halloween night. I was told my baby was stillborn.”

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.