Where is the Baby? (4 page)

But nothing she'd read or seen or experienced prepared her for the child asleep in the ER cubicle, watched over by a young cop she hadn't met before. Putting down her bag, she offered her hand, whispering, ‘Hi, I'm Connie, the photographer.'

‘Hi. I'm Brian Kirlane. You'll take it easy with her, huh?'

‘Absolutely,' she assured him, studying the girl. ‘I hate to wake her. But the sooner we get this done, the better. I'll just get set up while you do the honors.'

‘Okay.'

The kid came awake with an alarmed jolt, shrinking away from Brian's hand. ‘It's okay, okay,' he crooned, stroking her arm. ‘This is Connie. She's going to take some pictures and then you'll have that bath I was telling you about.'

‘You're so lucky,' Connie said with a smile. ‘I'd love to have a bath right now. It would be so nice.'

Connie plugged in her flash attachment, then lifted the camera. At the sight of it, the child squatted on the gurney and spread her knees, a lurid smile transforming her face. Connie felt as if her lungs had been punctured and all the air rushed out, leaving her breathless.

His stomach lurching, Brian said, ‘No, no. Don't do that, honey. You don't have to do that.' His hand on her shoulder brought her back to a sitting position. ‘Connie isn't going to take those kind of pictures. Are you, Connie?'

‘Oh, no!' Connie managed, her pulse thudding in her fingertips.

‘I'll just wait outside,' Brian said, prepared to give the two some privacy.

‘Can Mister Brian stay?' the child asked uncertainly, looking from one adult to the other.

‘Sure, if you want him to.'

‘I want him to.'

‘Okay. I'll stay over here, out of your way.'

Without looking at him, Connie said, ‘Thanks,' as she put her camera down on the end of the gurney. ‘What we're going to do,' she told the girl, ‘is take off this T-shirt' – she got it off in one deft move and let it fall to the floor – ‘and if you'll just stand here' – she lifted the tiny, malnourished child to her feet on the gurney, then grabbed up the camera – ‘I'm going to take a bunch of pictures really, really fast. You don't have to do a thing but stand there for me.' Moving in a circle, automatically dividing the girl into quadrants that required nine shots each from head to toe, especially capturing the insides of her elbows and the concave belly, all covered with circular burns of varying ages, she kept talking. ‘You are going to love your bath,' she said, the flash strobing in the small cubicle. ‘I bet they'll even let you have some Mister Bubbles. It's the best. You can make big soap bubbles if you do a circle with your thumb and forefinger, and then blow very carefully into the circle.'

Mesmerized, the child stood listening, blinking at the repeating flashes, her head turning to follow Connie's progress. Brian, too, was awed by the woman's balletic sweep around the child and lulled by her low, calming voice. In what seemed like only seconds, Connie was putting the camera down and wrapping the girl in the blanket.

Then, to the surprise of them all, Connie took the child into her arms and hugged her. Stiff as a sculpture, the girl didn't respond but sat, plainly enduring the embrace. Pierced by sorrow she refused to show, Connie released her as a pair of nurses came in, the more senior one cheerily asking, ‘All done?'

‘All done,' Connie told them, looking into the deep brown depths of the little girl's eyes. ‘Thank you, sweetie,' she said softly.

Looking dazed, the girl said, ‘I forgotted your name.'

‘It's Connie. What's yours?'

‘Humaby.'

Connie blinked slowly, then said, ‘Well, I'm going to call you sweetie. Okay?'

‘Okay.'

‘You're going to have your bath now,' Connie said merrily. ‘With Mister Bubbles, right?' She looked meaningfully over at the older nurse.

‘Definitely! You ready, dearie?' the woman asked.

The child shrugged.

‘Okey-dokey, then. Let's do it.' She scooped up the girl, who at once asked, ‘Can Mister Brian come too?'

‘I have to go back to work now,' Brian told her. ‘But I'll come see you tonight, if you like.'

‘Yeah?'

‘Yeah,' he said, then impulsively added, ‘Connie will come back, too. Won't you?'

‘Yes,' she said, her voice even lower than usual. ‘I'll come back.'

The child said, ‘Okay,' and the two nurses went off with her.

‘I shouldn't have done that,' Brian said, ‘volunteering you to visit. I was way out of line.'

‘No,' Connie said slowly, at last taking a good look at the man. He was perfectly beautiful, with Nordic blond-white hair, dark blue eyes and features so flawless in their symmetry that his emotional availability was a bit shocking. In Connie's experience, beautiful people rarely had any emotional depth or a significant interest in anyone but themselves. ‘I'm glad you did it.' She glanced at the time, then said, ‘I've got to shoot a big party downtown. But I'll come back when it's over, bring her some treats. I'm glad you did that,' she repeated. ‘I have to go have a little breakdown now, Brian.' She held out her hand. ‘You want to take her home, too, don't you?'

He nodded. Then, as if there'd been a time delay, said, ‘You, too?'

‘Never wanted anything more in my life. Maybe I'll see you later.' She slung the camera bag over her shoulder and headed briskly away.

Standing alone in the cubicle, Brian battled a very childlike desire to break into tears. His brain felt big and hot and swollen inside his skull as if it had been boiled. He couldn't seem to move or think, stuck in place, staring at the grubby T-shirt on the floor. At last, taking a deep breath, he routinely patted his walkie, his cuffs and holster, straightened his shoulders and headed out to the cruiser.

T
he ladies in the white dresses worried her because they talked to each other but not to her. When Toadman and Wolf did that, bad things usually happened. So maybe a bad thing would happen now, even though Mister Brian and Miss Connie said she was lucky to have a bath. Maybe that was a lie. Big people lied all the time, saying one thing would happen and then something else happened instead.

The room they took her to was all white and the older lady held on to her while the other one started running water into what looked like a big sink. She'd seen those before, when Wolf took her to places where men would lay down on top of her. She remembered a few times when the men said Wolf had to clean her up or they wouldn't touch her. Then Wolf took her into the room that had that kind of big sink and also a little one, and he'd get a cloth and water from the little sink and scrub her bottom, hard so it hurt, then leave her with the men. When he came back, the men would always give him money. Then he'd say she did good, and he'd come back to the van with a burgler and fries for her.

‘Don't forget the Mister Bubbles, Liz,' the old lady said to the young one, but smiling at Humaby.

She watched as the one called Liz picked up a bottle and squeezed it over the water.

‘Lots of bubbles for you,' the young one said, smiling, too, as she put the bottle down. ‘Don't be scared,' she said, her smile going away. ‘It's nice. You'll like it.' She looked at Humaby for several moments, then her face went funny and she said, ‘Ruth, I need a break. I'll be back in a minute,' and she ran out and closed the door.

The old lady jiggled her up and down on her lap while the water ran and ran. At last, Humaby tapped on the woman's arm and said, ‘Please, Miss. I'm getting dizzy.'

‘Oh, sorry, dearie.' She stopped the jiggling. ‘I wasn't thinking. I'm just going to sit you down here for one little minute while I turn off the water. Okay?'

‘Okay.' Even though it was hot in the room, her teeth were chattering and she tried hard to make them stop, but she couldn't. Wolf and Toadman got mad if she showed she was scared. Toadman would say, ‘I'll give you something to be scared about, if you don't stop that shit!' So she tried never to let anybody see when she was scared.

‘There's nothing to be afraid of, honestly,' the old lady said. ‘I'm going to lift you into the tub now.'

When her feet touched the water, she couldn't help herself. She shrieked. Then, instantly, she was afraid, her heart jumping fast.

At once, the old lady lifted her out. ‘Too hot?' she asked.

‘Don't like hot! Please, Miss!'

‘Okay, dearie. I'll make it cooler.' The lady ran some more water, then said, ‘Let's try it again.'

Humaby shook her head, but the lady said, ‘You have my promise. I will
not
hurt you.' She looked right into Humaby's eyes. ‘Please believe me. I would never, ever hurt a child. I have three of my own. I'd kill anybody who touched a hair on their heads.'

Maybe it was true, 'cuz when Wolf or Toadman lied they never looked at her, especially not in the eyes. ‘'Kay,' she said.

The old lady put her slowly, slowly into the water, then let her sit there for a while to get used to it. With an encouraging smile, the lady scooped up some bubbles and held them out on her hand, saying, ‘Blow!'

Obediently, she blew, and the bubbles floated away. It made no sense.

‘I'm going to wash you now,' the lady said, taking a white cloth and putting soap on it. ‘Will you stand up for me?'

Humaby stood up, and the lady started to wash her bottom.

‘Hurts, Miss!'

‘It does?'

‘Burns.'

‘Oh, dear. I'll be extra careful, but we really need to get you clean. I'm sorry, dearie. Almost done, just another moment.' She kept going while Humaby chewed hard on her lower lip, then said, ‘Good girl. We're all done with that part. You can sit down now.'

After that, the lady scrubbed at her feet and in between her toes, then cleaned each leg. It felt all right. The heat was making her sleepy, and she could hardly keep her eyes open as first one arm and then the other got washed. Then her neck and inside her ears, down her back and, finally, the lady said, ‘Close your eyes now, dearie,' and her face got washed. It did feel nice, although her bottom burned and burned.

‘Now I'm going to wash your hair,' the lady told her. ‘Just lean back against my arm. That's right. Good.' She put nice-smelling soap on Humaby's head, then rubbed her hair. With a big cup she washed off the soap then poured on some more and rubbed again. She hummed music while she did it, then said, ‘One more rinse and we're all done,' and used the big cup to wash off the soap again.

The other lady came back then and held out a towel that she wrapped around Humaby when the older lady lifted her out of the water.

‘Doesn't that feel better?' the young one said.

‘Burns a lot, Miss,' Humaby told her. ‘I'm sorry.'

‘Don't be sorry, dearie. It's not your fault. The doctor will give you something to make it feel better,' the old one said, as the dirty water went glugging and whooshing away. ‘She's a mess,' she whispered to the young one as she dried her hands on a towel, then said, ‘Be right back,' and went away.

After she was dry, the young one put a kind of dress on her and tied it up in the back.

‘That wasn't so awful, was it?' the young one asked her.

Humaby shrugged. Her skin felt funny and her head did, too, as if something big and heavy had been taken away. She breathed in deeply, then said, ‘I smell good.'

‘Yes, you do!' the young one said happily. ‘You smell wonderful! And you look very pretty, too. Want to see?' She held her up in front of a mirror.

Humaby blinked, trying to understand what she saw. ‘That's me?' She pointed.

‘That's you!'

‘That's
me
,' she repeated, frowning as she took in the details of the picture. ‘I never saw me before. And I'm a girl?'

‘Yes, you're a girl.'

‘They said I was a boy sometimes. I don't know. The baby is a girl.'

‘Ah, God,' the young one said sadly, and held Humaby so tightly she could hardly breathe.

Feeling the child squirming, the nurse eased her grip, and said, ‘I'm going to cut your fingernails and toenails, then brush your teeth before I take you to see the doctor.'

‘And then can I sleep, Miss?'

‘After you see the doctor, you can sleep.'

She took each of Humaby's hands and snipped the nails on each, then did the same thing to all of her toes. After that, she got Humaby to stand on a stool in front of the sink and used a little brush with minty goo to scrub inside her mouth.

‘Isn't that better?'

‘Yes, Miss.'

The old lady came back, and said, ‘This is for you, dearie,' and held out a fuzzy thing.

‘What is it?'

‘It's a teddy bear.'

‘What's it for, Miss?'

‘It's a toy. He's a very soft teddy. Would you like to hold him?'

‘Why?'

‘Because he feels nice.'

She could tell the lady wanted her to, so Humaby accepted the bear and looked it over, puzzled, as the nurses took her to a room where there was another table with wheels, lots of shiny metal things, bright lights that hurt her eyes, and a lady in a white coat with a funny thing around her neck. It was the scariest place yet and Mister Brian and Miss Connie had gone away, so she closed her eyes very tightly, the way she did when Wolf and Toadman took her to the rooms with men, and she didn't make a sound.

Brian was so distracted, so angry he could barely get through the rest of his shift which, mercifully, consisted of starting the paperwork for the file they'd opened on the child. He was hyper-aware that the two goons were being questioned separately just fifty or sixty feet away, and all he could think about was crashing into each of the interview rooms in turn and shooting first one of the sick bastards, then the other. He could see himself doing it, could feel the satisfaction it would give him. When he thought beyond that to the resulting life sentence he'd get, which would end his family life and, very likely, his own, he knew there wasn't a thing he could do. That didn't stop his revenge fantasy, though. It kept cycling through his brain like an annoying tune.