The Dollmaker's Daughters (Bo Bradley Mysteries, Book Five) (15 page)

"Now we'll go," she said, turning the full fury of her green eyes on the man who might or might not remain a friend after today. "And don't ever call me crazy again!"

The drunk in his pink house slippers didn't move as they stomped past his head, the baby crying his high-pitched cry like a mourner
in the gloom. Bo hugged the littl
e body close and said, "That's good, get it out, tell us all how sad it was in there. And then get ready for some good times, because your crazy social worker is going to make sure you never go back there. And I mean
never
!"

Back on the street Reinert holstered the revolver and laid a big hand on the baby's wispy brown hair. "Gotta hand it to you, Bradley," he said. "I didn't know this guy was in there. I would have left. He might have died. So whether you're crazy or not, I'll never call you crazy again, deal?"

"Deal," Bo answered. At least it was honest. "I've got to take the baby to St. Mary's," she went on. "He needs emergency care and I need the documentation of his condition for court. But I still want to know about Kimberly Malcolm. When—"

"I'll escort you to St. Mary's, lights and sirens. It's the least I can do, right? So load him up and follow me. We'll be there in five minutes. And as soon as Buster gets taken care of, you and I can have a chat about what really happened to Kimberly Malcolm."

As Bo strapped the weak and wailing baby into the car seat she thought again of Janny Malcolm's doll. There was something about babies, about baby dolls, but it didn't scan, didn't
go anywhere. And after a few minutes the tiny boy's piercing cry began to make her ears ring, give her a headache. He was moving about inside the sweaters, his little fists batting t
he air. He was angry
. Well, he had good reason. But the sound of his anger was getting to her, combined with Dar's siren just ahead.

"I'll bet you've never even heard of Handel," she told the baby, "but you're going to love
The Messiah
." Jamming the tape in the tape deck, she ran it forward and pushed the play button. "This is called 'The Hallelujah Chorus,'" she grinned, turning up the volume. "Sing your heart out."

Chapter
11

The cafeteria of St. Mary's Hospital for Children had been decorated, Bo decided, by a committee savagely devoted to political correctness. Attached to the usual garlands of fake and fireproof greenery over the doors were colorful plastic Hanukkah dreidels, while a Styrofoam snow woman beside the cash register held a sign urging eaters to
celebrate kwanza
! There was no Christmas tree, but the bottlebrush trees surrounding the patio had been strung with tiny white lights.

"Let's sit by the patio so we can enjoy the lights," she told Dar Reinert, who was ambling behind her with a large coffee and a dish of rice pudding. She could smell the extra nutmeg he'd sprinkled on the pudding from a shaker by the coffee urns.

"I haven't had rice pudding since I was a kid," he grinned. "But when it's gone, so am I. Can't spend the whole damn day on a CPS case. So listen. I pulled an old file on this Kimberly Malcolm. Sucker goes back thirteen years. She was beaten, hit over the head with a flat object. Something with an edge. The medical report from this hospital said the injuries were consistent with a two-story fall onto the side of a cement block. Except the injury occurred in a one-story cottage with no cement blocks anywhere in the vicinity. The detective on
the case, guy named Pete Cullen, ran down everybody who'd ever been near those kids but got
nada
. It was never solved. It never will be."

"Wait a minute," Bo said, breathing coffee steam, her elbows braced on the small table. "This Kimberly Malcolm was head-injured thirteen years ago and just
now
died? I thought you said it was murder. That can't be murder, and who was Kimberly? I thought she might be Janny's mother. Why was she seen at a children's hospital?"

"Mother?" he scowled into the rapidly vanishing rice. "Kimberly and Janet Malcolm were sisters, Bo. Twins. Identical twins. They weren't
quite two years old when it hap
pened. The mother said somebody broke into her place down in Mission Beach and grabbed the little girls, and there was a scuffle in the dark. Both the kids sustained injuries, but Kimberly got the worst of it. Massive brain injury. The mom said she never saw the guy, that he threw the kids down and ran out. Nobody believed her, but nobody ever put the pieces together, either. Now that Kimberly's dead we could reopen the investigation as a murder, but it's a waste of time. Cullen had a reputation as one of the best. If he couldn't crack it, nobody could. The damn thing's cold now, stone cold."

Bo stared at the lights outside and tried not to think about stone cold. "Where is this Cullen now and where has Kimberly Malcolm been for the last thirteen years?" she asked. "There was no mention of a twin in Janny's case file."

"Impossible," Reinert boomed. "CPS was all over the case, made all the arrangements. I forget the social worker's name, but it's in the file. 'Reindeer' or something. I put a copy under your front seat while you were in the ER with the baby. Maybe it's somebody you know. And Pete Cullen retired a couple of years before Deb and I moved down here from L A.
He lives up in Julian, drops in downtown now and then. The guy's a legend, Bo. A real cop's cop. If he couldn't pop the Malcolm thing it couldn't be done."

Bo ran her hands through her hair and watched as the detective chased a final grain of rice with a plastic spoon. There had obviously been a comprehensive CPS file on this case, and that file had obviously been withheld. It wasn't difficult to guess who had simply run a copy of the current face sheet and fastened it into a new folder. But it was impossible to guess why.

"Gotta run," Reinert sighed, standing and eyeing his empt
y pudding dish with affection. “
Tell the doc hello. Guess Deb and I will see him at your tree-trimming thing Sunday, huh?"

"Oh, yeah," Bo nodded. She'd forgotten about her impulsive decision to have a party. And hadn't she promised to take Janny Malcolm out for lunch and shopping
on the same day? Janny apparentl
y remembered nothing of the grisly past Dar had just outlined. Or did she? And where was this mother who said someone had broken in and attacked her toddlers thirteen years ago? Bo couldn't wait to get her hands on the police file.

"And Dar," she smiled a
s he left, "thanks for the back
up!"

"Just promise me you'll call uniforms next time, okay?"

Bo stared into her cooling coffee until a rustl
e of attention among the lunching hospital staff announced the arrival of Dr. Andrew LaMarche, director of the Child Abuse Unit and a celebrity at St. Mary's due to his often highly publicized expert testimony on criminal cases. At the moment he looked less expert than frazzled, Bo noted. Although the warmth that leaped to his gray eyes when he saw her suggested a reserve of energy set aside for concerns other than the professional.

"Alone at last," he whispered dramatically, taking the chair just vacated by Dar Reinert and leaning to kiss Bo's cheek.
"I've missed you, Bo. Let's run away to Las Vegas and get married!"

"Andy, you promised to stop proposing," Bo chided.

"That was before my young cousin, Teless, arrived," he said, sighing. "You have to marry me now, rescue me from my own home, save me!"

"It can't be that bad."

"She plays rap music. Her favorite is by a group of women who yell things about food. I was awakened this morning by the sound of a woman chanting 'Artichoke hearts can't break' over and over. Then the workmen arrived to finish grouting the kitchen tile, and they liked the artichoke thing and she got one of them dancing—"

"Andy, she sounds relatively normal. You'll survive. Right now I need to know about the baby."

"He'll make it. He's dehydrated, malnourished, has three different skin diseases plus acute diaper rash, an eye infection that could have resulted in blindn
ess if left
untreated, and pin
worms. I've ordered
x-
rays, but it'll be a while before I can confirm healing fractures if there are any. He also has some chest congestion, so I ordered a TB test j
ust to be sure, and of course HI
V tests. I don't think he's ever had a bath and his nails have never been cut, resulting in infected scratches on his face, neck, and abdomen. This is one of the worst neglect cases I've seen. He was filthy. Where did you find him, Bo, in a sewer?"

"Essentially, yes," Bo answered. "I'll need a copy of your preliminary report so I can petition this one today. I don't want to take a chance on the mother showing up and taking him out of the hospital over the weekend."

"I already faxed the report to your office and put a hospital hold on the baby. He's not going anywhere. We work well together, Bo. Surely you can see the importance of saving me from a complete emotional collapse."

His graying chestnut-brown hair and mustache were as neatly trimmed as ever, Bo observed fondly. And the expensive tweed jacket over an oyster-gray French-cuffed shirt made him look like an English professor.

"I won't marry you, but I will rescue you from rap music tonight if you promise to read Victorian poetry by candlelight in that jacket."

His answering smile stopped just short of excessive enthusiasm. "Browning?" he queried.

"No, Tennyson," Bo answered.

"Oh, dear."

“
Tennyson's so sleazy," she went on, fanning herself with a napkin. "I can hardly wait."

"
Mon dieu
," Andrew LaMarche exhaled, blushing.

"Molly and I will come by tonight," Bo said as she stood to leave. "Maybe your co
usin can help me plan the tree-
trimming party. And I want to hear you play the harpsichord, now that it's finished."

"The sheet music that accompanied the kit is a selection of Beatles hits, Bo."

"I'll pick up some Bach and some Christmas carols t
his afternoon," she grimaced. “
Take care of my baby for me, okay?"

A darkness flitted across his face at the remark. Bo prete
nded not to see it and bit her li
p as she hit the cafeteria doors with both hands.

How long are you going to drag this out, Bradley? He's a lovely, wonderful man who wants marriage and a family. Neither of you is young and as long as you're around, he's not
going to have that. The only honorable thing for you to do is to change your name and move to Czechoslovakia. Now!

The troubling train of thought was filed for later consideration when Bo saw the paperwork Dar had left for her in the Pathfinder. A thick file folder of Xeroxed police files dating back thirteen years, it would provide not only a view into Janny Malcolm's past but information which might explain Madge Aldenhoven's more recent behavior.
Settl
ing into the driver's seat, she turned on the radio to a pop station playing Christmas carols and began to read. In less than a minute her brow was knit in ridges. It was the most puzzling story she'd seen in a lifetime of social work.

"Answered call to home of TAM
LIN LISETTE LAF
FERTY, 720 Nantasket Street, Mission Beach, at 6:42
a.m.,"
the first officer on the scene had written.

Found LAFFER
TY and three minors—JEFFREY LAF
FERTY, 5; KIMBERLY MALCOLM, 18 mos. and JANET MALCOLM, 18 mos.—in the house, which is owned by LAFFERTY's father-in-law, GEORGE LAFFERTY. TAMLIN LAFFERTY stated that she awakened around 5:30
a.m
. when she heard an intruder in the house. She further stated that she saw a "tall, skinny man in a light-colored nylon jacket" in the bedroom she shared with the twin girls holding one of them under his arm and grabbing into the crib for the other. LAFFERTY said that she screamed and fought with the man who then threw both minors down and fled. She then attempted to phone her estranged husband RICHARD ("RICK") LAFFERTY at the home of his father in El Cajon. When no one answe
red she gave the twin girls bottl
es and put them back in their cribs. She stated that an hour after the
incident she found KIMBERLY rigid and with her eyes rolled back, at which time she phoned the SDPD. Response time: 22 minutes.