The Moon by Night (49 page)

“Someone's here,” Shiloh said in a low voice. “Hiding.”

“Should we split up and search?” Officer Goodin asked uncertainly.

Shiloh shook his head. “First I want to look around down here.” He went out into the foyer, then down the narrow dark stairs to the kitchen. It was dark, but his eyes had become accustomed enough to the dimness that he could see the bare shelves, the dirty dishes piled in the dry sink, the empty cupboard.

He stood still, listening intently, then went back up the hall. As he came back into the foyer, he suddenly stopped, and his face lit up with comprehension. He turned and found a tiny lever, pushed it down, and bent over to peer into the dark triangular storage space under the stairs. Dev and Officer Goodin watched in surprise.

Shiloh stiffened, then slowly, with cautious movements, he squatted down, facing into what appeared to be a black hole. “Hello,” he said softly. “My name is Shiloh. What's your name?”

He waited. A very faint rustle was the only sound Dev and the officer could hear. Shiloh put his hand out very slowly. “Don't be afraid. I won't hurt you. We came to find you, you know.” His hand crept forward, but suddenly he pulled back. “No, don't be afraid. I—”

Abruptly he stopped. To Dev's amazement, Shiloh then started speaking French, using very simple sentences and phrases, repeating them, speaking very softly. Shiloh stopped for a moment. Dev and Officer Goodin waited.

Shiloh said, still in halting simple French, “I think your name is Solange, is it not?” His face grew intent, and he nodded. “I thought so. And is this your sister, the baby? What is her name?”

After another long silence a tiny voice whispered, “Lisette.”

“What a pretty name. But not as pretty as yours, I think,” Shiloh said easily. “All right, Solange, if you're afraid to come out, would it be all right if I just sat here and talked to you?”

From inside the dark hole they heard a whisper, so soft that it was barely a sound. Shiloh said very quietly, “Of course I will.” He held both his hands out.

She came out, holding a baby almost as big as she. She put the baby in Shiloh's arms. He grasped the baby in one arm, then held his other hand out to her. A heartrending struggle between longing and fear showed in her face, and then she fell into his arms and buried her face on his shoulder. He hugged both of the children close and murmured, “I promise you will never have to be afraid again.” The three sat still that way for long moments, unmoving. Then the baby gave a muffled cry and waved one fist, which broke the spell.

Dev took a step forward, and immediately Solange jerked her head up, eyes wide in fright. Dev made a courtly half-bow, then spoke in his firm, dignified manner. “Allow me to properly introduce myself, mademoiselle,” he said in formal French. “I am Devlin Buchanan, and I am a doctor. I have a brother who is now almost two years old, and I have been taking care of him since he was very little, much like Lisette, so I know about babies. I think it would be best if I took care of Lisette now, don't you?”

He stepped forward confidently, and Shiloh held the baby out to him. Solange's wide tragic eyes followed their every movement, but the fear in them had faded. Dev took the baby and went on confidently, “I need your help, please, Solange. Please show me where Lisette's things are. I'm going to examine her, to make sure that she is well, and I'm going to change her and feed her. Will you help me with that?”

Now Solange was like most women, young or old. They fell in love with Shiloh, but they trusted Dev and knew instinctively that if he could take care of them, he would. She nodded, disentangled herself from Shiloh, and crept forward to take Dev's hand. She pointed to the parlor. “In there, Monsieur
le docteur,
” she said shyly.

They went into the parlor, and Dev said to Shiloh and Officer Goodin, “I'm going to try to examine Solange too, if she'll let me, after the baby. Maybe you two could look around and see if there's any clue about the parents.”

Officer Goodin and Shiloh did a thorough search of the house. The master bedchamber had both men's and women's clothing in it, but it had a curiously abandoned air, as if the couple had moved and simply left their things. The bed was unmade, but there was a layer of dust on the mussed bedclothes and the pillows. It had not been slept in for many days, they thought.

The clothing was a mystery too. There were no shoes, but there was a man's perfectly good dress shirt thrown on the floor. A trunk held two dresses and some small clothes that looked hardly worn. The other bedroom had a small bed, stripped of linens, and it definitely looked unused, as it didn't even have curtains. The fourth floor and the attic had no furniture at all. They obviously had not been used.

They returned to the parlor empty-handed. The baby was asleep, wrapped in clean linens. Solange's grimy face had been washed, and she was meekly sitting in Dev's lap, allowing him to comb her hair. Her hair was filthy, and behind her back Shiloh observed Dev pull the comb through her hair, then peruse the comb closely for a moment. He looked up at Shiloh and shook his head imperceptibly. No lice.

He was talking in the same soothing manner that Shiloh had used, telling her about his baby brother and how sick he had been when he was small. “And so you see, you and I are very much alike,” he said quietly. “I had to take care of my brother, and even though I am a grown man, and a doctor, it was very hard for me to learn. You take care of your sister, and you have done very well, but it must have been hard.” He kept combing, and the little girl began to look sleepy.

“It was hard sometimes when Maman was sick,” she murmured. “But Lisette is a very good baby, and she hardly ever gets sick like your brother. What is your brother's name?”

“Dart,” Dev answered. “Dart Dunleavy Buchanan.”

“Is Dunleavy his mother's name? Like my name is Solange Fortier, which is my mother's name? I don't have my father's name.”

“Yes, that's exactly right,” Dev said. “You're a very smart little girl.”

Shiloh was translating in a very low voice into Officer Goodin's ear. The officer said to Dev, “If you think it won't upset her too much, ask her about her mother and father. If she knows where they are.”

Dev kept combing her hair, and her thin little body kept relaxing, the tension in her face and neck and shoulders and hands visibly lessening. “Why is it, Solange, that you don't have Dr. Pettijohn's name?”

She stiffened abruptly, and her face took on the wary hunted animal look again. Hastily Dev said, “It's all right, Solange. No one is angry at you. No one is going to hurt you. We are going to help you, but we also want to talk to Dr. Pettijohn, that's all.”

“He's not my father,” she said stiffly.

“I see,” Dev said gravely. “Do you happen to know where he is?”

She shook her head vehemently.

Dev combed in silence until she had calmed down again. He asked quietly, “Do you know where your mother is, Solange? We will help her too, you know, if we can find her.”

She frowned and sighed, a sound much too tragic and burdened for a six-year-old. “I don't know where she is now. She left yesterday to sell her clothes. She didn't come back.”

In a careless tone Dev said in English, “She doesn't know where Dr. Pettijohn is, and she says her mother left yesterday to sell her clothes and didn't—”

He stopped, for Officer Goodin had stiffened, and his indrawn breath was so ragged that it startled Dev. Solange cringed, for she was still a little afraid of the policeman. Goodin rasped, “Sell her clothes? Her mother was
selling her clothes
? Ask her what she had on her, what she was carrying, if she took anything with her when she went to sell her clothes.”

Neither Dev nor Shiloh understood the policeman's sudden intense manner, since Officer Goodin had only told Cheney the entire story of the woman in the morgue. But Dev knew that his questions were important, so he immediately patted the startled girl's shoulder and said, “My friend is a policeman, and they ask so many questions. But he's a very nice man. He even has a little girl who's just about Lisette's age. Her name is Dinah.”

“He-he does?” Solange breathed. This seemed to reassure her, so she allowed Dev to resume combing her hair. “What did he say?”

“He asked about your mother,” Dev answered, “and would like very much to find her. That's a policeman's job sometimes, you know, to find people who need help. So he was wondering if you might be able to tell us anything to help us find her. Could you say what she was wearing and how she took her clothes? In a bundle, wrapped in paper, or perhaps in a box or a trunk?”

Solange began to explain about Manon's arrangements and told Dev what she was wearing when she left. She finished with, “And she took my doll Susannah too, for good fortune and love, she said.”

Dev related this to Shiloh and Officer Goodin and was downcast as he watched the policeman's face. His craggy features softened with sorrow and pity, and Dev knew then. He stopped combing Solange's hair and very gently set her down on the floor, then turned her to face him. He held her hands and looked into her fearful eyes. “We're going to go now, Solange,” he said firmly but kindly. “You and Lisette are coming with us. We will take care of you.”

She searched his face, and Dev could see that she suspected what he already knew. Her eyes dropped, and she whispered, “I think that would be a good thing, monsieur. We will come.”

After Dev left on his mysterious mission, Cheney was obliged to work so quickly and make so many difficult decisions that she had very little time to consider the implications of what had happened in the cubicle with Officer Jamison and Alfie the Pocket and of what Dev had said. By the time she had arranged for restocking the hospital's supplies and drugs from the office and had adjusted the interns' scheduled duties to account for Dev's absence, it was already midnight. She was at the nurses' station starting some emergency patient files when Dr. Cleve Batson came striding through the emergency doors. His face was pale and seemed thinner than when Cheney had seen him a week ago, but he didn't look deathly ill.

“Hello. Before you say anything, I am pronouncing myself cured of the plague,” he declared as he reached the desk and bent over it to speak very emphatically. “I have slept the clock around, and now I am up, the wraith, haunting the halls of the hospital, looking for my severed head. No, no, I forgot. I'm looking for work. Need a hand, ma'am?”

Cheney laughed. “Are you really all right, Cleve?”

“Yes, ma'am! I know I look like week-old porridge, but I feel better than I look. And listen—ahhhhhh—no rales, no stridor, no frogs. Okay?”

Cheney smiled at him. He was so boyish, so endearing, that it was very difficult to deny him anything. “No coughing, no sneezing,” she ordered with mock severity. “You'll be confined to quarters again if you disobey.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Then I am very glad to see you, Doctor, and I hope you are indeed cured, because you are going to have to work.”

Cheney updated him on the rather odd situation concerning the supplies and Dev's sudden insistence that he go find Dr. Pettijohn. Cleve asked no questions; he merely went to work. By one o'clock Cheney realized that things had calmed down enough, and that Cleve indeed was well enough, that she could let him work the rest of the late shift.

She went for a short walk around the hospital grounds. The snow had stopped falling, and though it was very cold, the night was so still and quiet that Cheney found it restful and refreshing. Of course she was burning with curiosity about Dr. Pettijohn, the laudanum, and Dev's abrupt departure with Officer Goodin, and her husband, for Shiloh had sent John with a message that he was accompanying Dev and that Sean and Shannon were at the stables.

Cheney knew she wouldn't be able to rest until the men returned, so she decided that if she had the energy and could concentrate clearly enough, she would autopsy the woman Officer Goodin had brought in that morning. As she walked, she worked to clear her mind of the feverish stew of speculation the last few hours had induced. She looked up at the heavens, praying a little, relishing these small hours of night when the Lord often seemed nearer than during the distractions of a busy day.

After her walk she went to Roe's. The lanterns inside and out still shone brightly, which meant that James and John were still there. Sure enough, when she came in, they were playing checkers by the stove. At their feet Sean and Shannon looked up with sleepy curiosity and then came alive. They were not wiggly, eager sort of dogs. They were slow and deliberate and dignified, even as puppies, so they got up and plodded to meet her, blinking and yawning. Sean bumped his head against her knees and Shannon leaned against her legs, their favorite greetings for the people they loved.

She petted both of them as she greeted the boys. “No, please, don't get up and interrupt your game. I just came by to get the dogs. You two aren't staying up baby-sitting them, are you?”

“No, Dr. Duvall,” James answered. “Mr. Irons-Winslow told us we could take them to the office any time. We just decided we wanted to wait up for them, for we know Balaam and the policemen's horses will need warming up and brushing down when they get back. You can leave Sean and Shannon with us if you like.”

“No, I'm going to be working down in the laboratory, so I think I'll take them with me,” she said, smiling. “Give them a change of scenery. When the men return, will you tell my husband and Dr. Buchanan where we are?”

“Sure, Dr. Duvall,” James answered.

John rose and went to the post of the door of the first stall. “Here's their mufflers, Dr. Duvall. I expect you'll be wanting them to wear them. It's likely cold down in that old cellar.” He sounded vaguely reproachful. Cheney found it amusing that people fell so in love with those two dogs that they took all sorts of liberties with advice and reproofs.