Читать книгу Murder In The Heartland - M. William Phelps - Страница 15

Brenda Standford^* was at her Lyndon, Kansas, home on the previous night, December 15, getting her children ready for bed, when Darlene Fischer—although Brenda knew her by another name—had phoned with some rather remarkable news. According to the time frame Brenda later gave, the phone call was made shortly after Darlene had been in touch with Bobbie Jo Stinnett online and made plans to meet with her the following day in Skidmore.

At one time, Brenda saw Darlene Fischer nearly every day. They were coworkers, even close friends.

Already preparing for bed, Brenda was startled by the phone call, she remembered, because “it was so darn late.”

“Hi, Brenda,” said Darlene. She sounded cheerful, upbeat.

“Darlene? That you?” Brenda was a busy woman: kids, husband, two jobs. “Why you calling me so late?”

“I had the baby,” said Darlene in excitement. “Everyone’s doing fine.”

After a brief pause: “Wow,” replied Brenda, “you’re home from the hospital already?”

Brenda was under the impression Darlene had given birth earlier that morning, but she could tell she was calling her from home. It seemed strange the hospital would allow Darlene to leave so soon after giving birth.

“Yeah. You know, they ship you out of there so quick nowadays,” said Darlene.

Brenda was surprised. She knew insurance companies pushed new mothers out of hospital beds, if they were healthy, as soon as they could. But in under twenty-four hours?

“You and the baby are fine?” asked Brenda.

“Oh, yes. It went smooth.”

“So what’d you have?”

“A girl. Can you believe it?”

“Just what you wanted.”

“Yeah.”

Over the past few months, Brenda had spoken to Darlene almost daily about the baby. She believed, “without a doubt in [her] mind,” Darlene was pregnant. She would wear maternity clothes, or baggy shirts and sweaters, and talk about how excited she and her husband were about having the child.

“She would tell me that her ankles were swollen,” recalled Brenda. “How she was having terrible bouts of morning sickness. ‘My stomach is getting so hard,’ she’d say. And it was…I felt it,” added Brenda, before changing the subject slightly: “Up until the day everything happened, I believed her, because I watched her stomach grow. It was getting bigger, harder. She had me all the way.”