Lou Mason Mystery 03-Cold Truth (26 page)

"Absolutely," Mason said, "glad you asked. Can't be too careful, huh?"

Gene carefully studied their driver's licenses. "It's the rules," Gene said. "Patient Social Security numbers?" he asked. "That's how we search for the records," he explained, pointing to the computer terminal behind the counter.

"They're on the authorizations," Mason said, forcing his smile to stay on duty, deciding that Gene would probably ask his own mother for her ID and Social Security number.

Gene ignored Mason's goodwill, sitting down at the computer, his back to them. He disappeared a few moments later, returning with a thin file of papers he handed to Mason.

"That'll be twenty-five dollars," Gene said.

Mason looked at the records. The cover sheet was labeled "Baby Girl Doe." Beneath that was a stamp that read "Adoption," and next to the stamp, a handwritten note that said "Baby named Jordan Hackett per adoptive parents." Mason handed the records to Abby as he wrote a check.

"The birth mother's name is blacked out," Abby said, her voice cracking with the strain.

"The baby was adopted, so the natural mother's identity is sealed by state law," Gene said.

"But what about my records? Where are my records?" Abby demanded, gripping the edge of the counter as if she was about to vault over it.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," Gene said. "We don't have any records on you. Are you sure you've got the right hospital?"

Abby's grip gave way, Mason supporting her with his hand pressed against the small of her back. "You're kidding, right? This is some kind of a sick joke, right?" Abby asked. "I was a patient here twenty-one years ago. I gave birth here. They took my baby away from me in this hospital twenty-one years ago! You don't seriously think I would forget what hospital I was in, do you?"

Gene raised his palms in self-defense. "I'm not saying anything, lady. The computer doesn't have any records for you. As far as the hospital is concerned, you were never here. That's all I know."

Abby shuddered, fighting for self-control. "Check it again," she said. "It's a mistake. Check it again, please."

"I already did, ma'am. There's no mistake."

Mason put his hands on Abby's shoulders. She twisted away from him. "No!" she said. "There is a mistake. I was here! Let's go," she said to Mason.

"Where?"

"The maternity ward," she answered, practically running for the elevator.

Mason caught up to her as the elevator doors opened. She punched the button for the sixth floor without checking the directory. "It's there, I know it," she said.

"What's there?" Mason asked.

"They called it the Baby Book. All the mothers signed it when they checked in. They had at least ten volumes, hundreds of pages for all the babies born here. The nurses made a big deal of it."

Abby burst out of the elevator onto the sixth floor, Mason trailing her, not doubting her memory of the hospital's layout, hoping her memory of the Baby Book was as accurate. She pushed through the double doors marked
Maternity,
breathless, glancing around in near panic.

"They changed it," Abby said. "It used to be right over there." She pointed to a waiting area decorated in rainbow wallpaper and worn furniture, then marched to the nurse's station.

"Hi," she said to the nurse, catching her breath.

The nurse, a large gray-haired, black woman with a round, tender face, put down her charts. "What is it?" she asked evenly, accustomed to excited women.

"The Baby Books, where the mothers wrote their names when they checked in, what happened to them?"

"Oh, honey," the nurse said. "Just like everything else, it's all done by computer now."

"But what happened to the old books, the ones from twenty years ago?"

The nurse smiled. "Are you in one of those books?" Abby nodded. "Well, come on then," the nurse said. "I wouldn't let them throw those books away. I'm Evelyn," she said, taking Abby by the hand. "When were you here, child?"

Abby told her as Evelyn led them past the nursery where the newborn babies were on display, Mason following a few steps back, feeling like a stranger in a strange land, sensing again the depth of Abby's longing. They stopped at a linen closet filled with sheets and towels, except for three shelves that were lined with alternating pink and blue three-ring binders, each dated for the years they covered. Evelyn and Mason stood aside as Abby traced her finger along the binders, stopping at the one she was searching for, yanking it off the shelf.

Sitting cross-legged on the hallway floor, with Mason crouched next to her, Abby flipped through the pages, checking the date at the top of each page. Each page was divided into columns for the mother's signature, the date of admission, the date of the baby's birth, the sex, weight, and length of the baby, and the baby's name.

"Yes! There I am!" she said, jabbing the page with her finger.

Mason followed her finger across the line that began with Abby's signature, continued with the entries for the birth of a seven-pound baby girl, twenty-one inches long, and ended with a blank space for the baby's name.

"There's no name," Mason said, looking up at the nurse.

"Did you give your baby up for adoption?" Evelyn asked Abby. Abby, tears brimming, nodded. "That's why. Sometimes a birth mother didn't name her baby. It made it a little easier for some of the girls."

Abby stood, the binder sliding from her lap onto the floor, and walked back toward the nursery. Mason picked up the binder, found the pages for the two weeks before and after Abby's entries, and handed Evelyn the notebook. "Could you make copies of these pages for me?"

"Of course," Evelyn said.

Mason joined Abby at the nursery window, standing behind her, his hands on her shoulders. Abby pressed her hands against the glass, reaching for the babies more than waving at them. A nurse cradling one of the newborns in her arms smiled broadly and mouthed
which one
to Abby and Mason. Abby shook her head. Evelyn found them a few minutes later, handing Mason the copies. Mason thanked her, tugging gently at Abby's sleeve.

"It's time to go," he said.

Abby held onto Mason's arm, letting him lead her, blinking her eyes when they emerged from the hospital. The city was wrapped in a gauzy haze reflecting sunlight in a filtered glare, the day not sunny or cloudy, the uncomfortable ambiguity matching her confusion and disappointment.

Mason found a walkway that led around the hospital grounds, following it to a bench in a garden alongside a small fishpond. The flowers had been trimmed back for fall. Burnt orange leaves shed by the surrounding oaks floated on the surface of the pond, their tips upturned, like miniature junks. The air was crisp, a solidly autumn day.

Abby sat on the bench, her arms folded, rocking slightly. Mason studied Jordan's medical records and the pages from the Baby Books, letting Abby find her voice. The medical records were devoid of anything that identified Jordan's natural parents, reporting her birth and first days of life in neutral medical tones. The last page of the records was a copy of an order from the Family Court Division of the City of St. Louis Circuit Court granting Arthur and Carol Hackett custody of Jordan Hackett, the order noting that the unnamed natural parents had waived their parental rights.

Mason read every entry in the Baby Book. There were several others where the space for the baby's name had been left blank, a hole in the mother's history filled without the mother's knowledge by strangers.

"How could they have lost my records?" Abby asked at last.

"It's a big place. It's been a long time," Mason said, reciting the obvious excuses. "I'll tell you something else that's missing," he said.

"What?"

"Gina Davenport's signature in the Baby Book. The nurse gave me copies of the pages for the two weeks before and after you were there. Emily Davenport was born one week before your baby and Jordan were born. Either she didn't sign in, or she wasn't there."

"That's not possible," Abby said, sitting up and shaking off her funk. "Every mother signed the book. It was a ritual."

"Not Gina," Mason said.

Abby grabbed the pages from the Baby Book, studying each entry. Mason tried to tie the loose ends of Abby's missing medical records to Gina's missing Baby Book entry, but the knot kept unraveling. His cell phone rang, saving him from another attempt.

"Mason," he answered.

"Lou, it's Harry. Where are you?"

"Caulfield Medical Center in St. Louis. We talked to Abby's uncle. He sold Abby's baby, but claims he doesn't know who the buyer was. He's been marinated in booze so long, it's a miracle he remembers his name. We didn't do much better at the hospital. I hope you've come up with something."

"Your hunch about Robert Davenport was half right," Harry said.

"Which half?" Mason asked.

"The half about Davenport getting busted. It happened when he was living in St. Louis."

"Which half was wrong?"

"There's no connection to Centurion Johnson."

"I wouldn't have expected one in St. Louis. Centurion always stayed close to home," Mason said.

"There's still another half," Harry said. "Davenport was busted along with a few other guys. It was strictly small-time stuff, nickle-and-dime bags, but you'll be interested in who one of the other guys was."

"Harry, don't make me beg."

"Habit," Harry said. "It was Terry Nix."

"Do not shit me, Harry," Mason said, "or I'll tell Claire to put saltpeter in your warm milk."

"I shit you not," Harry said. "The charges were thrown out because of a problem with the search. I tracked down one of the arresting cops. Turns out we know some of the same guys. His name is Roy Bowen. He used to work narcotics, undercover. Now he's behind a desk. Said he'd be glad to talk to you."

"Where do we find him?" Mason asked.

"Where do you think?" Harry asked.

"Krispy Kreme?" Mason said.

"Very funny," Harry answered. "Turn yourself in at noon, downtown."

"We've got three hours to kill before we meet Roy Bowen," Mason said, "and we're not spending it on this bench. Come on."

Abby said, "I'm not in the mood for sightseeing."

"And I'm not coming to your pity party," Mason told her. Abby's face fell, Mason cupping her chin in his hand. "I need your help," he told her. "I need you in the game, not on the bench feeling sorry for yourself."

Abby held his wrist, nodding her head. "Okay. What's next."

"Vital records," he said. "Another bureaucratic adventure. Emily's birth certificate will say where she was born. I want a copy. Might as well get one for Jordan while we're there."

An hour later, they were sitting in a Starbucks in downtown St. Louis, the birth certificates, medical records, and Baby Book entries spread in front of them, alongside a copy of the
St. Louis Post Dispatch.
Mason didn't like the taste of coffee, but he did like the smell. The double latte Abby ordered revived her.

"Emily's birth certificate confirms she was born at Caulfield and that Gina and Robert Davenport were her parents," Abby said.

"Gina just didn't sign the Baby Book, that's all," Mason said. "We can't check her medical records without an authorization or a subpoena, and the hospital would fight a subpoena."

"Why?" Abby asked. "She's dead. What do they care?"

"They don't, except they would want a judge to order them to turn over the records so that Robert Davenport doesn't sue them for invasion of privacy. If Davenport objected, the court wouldn't order the hospital to turn over the records unless I could establish some relevance to Jordan's case, which I can't do at the moment. That song and dance will take at least a month."

Abby leafed through Jordan's medical records again, smoothing the pages, stopping at the court order granting custody to the Hacketts. "What's this mean?" she said, pointing to the language in the order reciting that the natural parents had waived their parental rights.

"It means that the natural parents consented to the adoption. Otherwise, one of the parents could have shown up later and asked to have their baby back. I know what you're thinking," he said. "We could find the father, talk to him, but those records are sealed too."

Abby grinned for the first time that morning. "Don't be so certain you know what I'm thinking, mister. We don't need the court records. I know the father."

"Assuming Jordan is your daughter, you know where he is after twenty-one years?" Mason asked, basking in her smile.

Abby showed him the front page of the newspaper's sports section, pointing to the picture of a columnist whose byline and picture appeared beneath a column titled, "Kramer's World." Mason studied the photograph of Tony Kramer, resisting an unexpected twinge of jealousy. Kramer was bald on top, his full cheeks made heavier by a thick beard. Mason felt better.

"You followed his career after all these years?" Mason asked.

"Not really," she answered. "I knew he went to the University of Missouri for journalism. I heard from some friends that he ended up in St. Louis with the
Post Dispatch."
Abby turned the paper toward her. "In high school, his hair was on his head, not his face. He was cute and I was easy. Turned out to be a bad combination. Let's call him."

"Bad idea. Most guys don't like starting the week with a phone call from the girl they knocked up in high school. You won't get anything out of him."

"What do you suggest?"

"A personal visit. Really shake him up."

Roy Bowen was having a bowl of fresh fruit and raw vegetables for lunch. "I'm on a fruit-and-vegetable diet," he explained, patting his belly. "My wife tells me I've got done-fell syndrome. She says my stomach done fell and I can't see my feet anymore. My wife, she's a panic," he said with no trace of humor.