I fell asleep fifteen minutes into the drive to St. Sebastian. Okay. I’m lying. It was five minutes. The buzzing of my phone woke me as Fats exited the highway on the road to town.
“Nice nap, Duchess Drool,” said Rocco and he handed me a drive-thru coffee and a sausage biscuit. I must’ve really been out to miss a drive-thru.
I wiped the drool off my chin, thankful that nobody in that truck would’ve taken a picture for Instagram and posted it with a snarky comment. My breasts were blowing up all over social media as it was.
“Thanks,” I said and checked the phone. It was Spidermonkey and it wasn’t the first time. “Why didn’t you wake me up? I’ve gotten like five calls.”
“That dingus thought you needed your rest,” said Fats.
“She did,” said Rocco. “Besides, Kimberly wasn’t born yesterday. Nothing was gonna change in the last forty-five minutes.”
I wanted to argue with that, but the coffee hadn’t hit yet.
“Where are we going?” Fats asked.
“The Sentinel until I get a plan,” I said.
“A plan,” scoffed Rocco and he turned to his sister. “She’s not getting a plan.”
“She never does. Out her ass. One hundred percent.”
The siblings went back and forth, finally agreeing on something. Unfortunately, it was my incompetence.
“Hey, it’s me,” I said to Spidermonkey. “Sorry. I was asleep.”
“I thought so,” he said. “I’ve got some information.”
“Lay it on me.”
Spidermonkey gave me the names of the two obstetricians that were in St. Sebastian in 1980, Dr. Harvey McBride and Dr. George Burke. McBride died in 1984 at the age of seventy, so he may not have been practicing anymore. Burke was alive but at an assisted living facility in Florida. Spidermonkey had the Thooft insurance, which was, predictably, Farmers. They didn’t have any of Ann’s old records in the computer but did show that she’d had a hysterectomy ten years ago and the record claimed that she had four live births and three miscarriages. Her current GP had the same notes in his file.
“So miscarriages,” I said. “She could’ve lost the baby in question and replaced it with an adoption.”
“Possible,” said Spidermonkey.
“But you don’t think so,” I said.
“Do you?”
I had a feeling that something wasn’t right about that idea, but it was certainly possible. Women did try that kind of thing. Nutballs, but still they tried. Presumably some got away with it.
“Kind of,” I said. “Would Anton really kidnap me to hide it? That’s pretty extreme.”
“If I found out Loretta had me raising a baby that wasn’t mine, we wouldn’t be married for much longer,” he said.
It still didn’t feel like enough, but I said, “I guess so. If Anthony wasn’t in on it, he’s not going to be happy.”
Fats glanced back. “How didn’t he know? When I go to the hospital, Tiny would notice if I didn’t have a baby. Anthony didn’t seem like an idiot.”
No, he didn’t.
“I’ll call you back,” I said to Spidermonkey.
I refocused on the birth certificate and blew up the image, searching for some kind of something. The date was right. Ann and Anthony were on there.
“We’re here.” Rocco got out and took a chain down that was in front of the entrance to the Great Missouri Shoe Company parking lot. If I’d been thinking, I’d have questioned why that chain was up, but I wasn’t thinking and I didn’t.
Rocco jumped back in and Fats turned into the crusty parking lot.
“I will totally do the microfiche again,” Rocco’s voice went really deep, unnaturally so.
“Don’t be a hero,” said Fats, her voice had an edge I’d never heard before.
“I’ll take one for the team.”
“What team?”
“Us,” said Rocco. “We’re a team.”
“Mercy and I are a team. You are an appendage that I can cut off.”
“Try it Porky Boy!” Rocco yelled at her.
“What did you say, asshat?” Fats screamed.
Rocco turned in his seat, his handsome face twisted in rage. “You’re fat and people think you’re a man!”
The obscenities that came out of them were scorching. I never heard anything more hateful in my life, not even when I was tossed in a trunk.
I scrambled for the door handle. Fats slammed on the brakes and went for Rocco. I was not a hero, nor was I taking one for any team. I jumped out with Pick and ran for the Sentinel door. I grabbed the knob and nearly ripped my fingernails off when I tried to yank it open. Locked. The town newspaper was closed in the middle of the day. Did that happen? Was that a thing?
I turned around, hoping to spot some kind of sanity, only to see the Licatas having an all-out slap fight in the front seat while the truck slowly rolled toward the building and a bank of half-broken windows.
Son of a bitch!
“Stop!” I went for the truck, but the poodle didn’t. He went the other way, yanking my recently-healed arm nearly out of its socket and getting me off balance. I slipped on a discarded hubcap and fell onto iced-over dirt. Pick pranced around me, whining and tucking his tail.
“What the—” I spun around. “Holy crap!”
Four jagged pieces of metal moved in front of the truck’s wheels. There was a series of bangs as the truck ran over the metal. Then a whooshing sound and I swear, just for an instant, I saw a bunch of people in the parking lot. Like twenty or thirty and could smell rancid male sweat and something like hot grease or machinery oil. Then they were gone and Fats was staring straight ahead with her hands at ten and two. Pick’s tail untucked and he danced around in the debris of the parking lot.
I jumped up, at least I remember it that way, and ran for the truck, whipping open the door. “Are you alright?”
Fats stared straight ahead with a blooming black eye and a bloody lip and Rocco said, “I need to knit.” I think that’s what he said. It was hard to understand him. His jaw looked like it was dislocated.
“What happened,” I asked. “Why did you do that?”
Fats still didn’t move. No blinking. No nothing. I didn’t really want to touch Fats Licata, especially after I just heard her tell her brother that she was going to rip out his left eyeball and eat it on toast, but I put out a tentative finger and gave her a poke.
Please don’t kill me.
Nothing.
“Fats?” I poked a second time, a little harder as I was starting to worry that she’d popped a vessel.
“That happened,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“You saw them?”
“I did.”
“I think my truck’s wrecked,” she said.
“Little bit,” I said and pulled out my phone. Neither Licata was moving and it was creeping me out, not as much as seeing translucent dudes in a parking lot in broad daylight, but it was up there in the creep factor.
I texted Tank. “Where are you?”
Thirty long seconds later, he texted back. “Church. Where are you?”
“Your parking lot.”
“Right now?”
“Yes.”
“Get out. Something might happen,” he texted.
“Too late,” I wrote.
“On my way.”
I tugged on Fats’ sleeve. “Tank said we have to get out of the parking lot.”
“I’m not moving.” The instant she said that, she was moving. The truck started rolling backward. Fats was not doing it. The truck was in drive.
“Get out!” I tried to unclip her seatbelt and pull her from the vehicle, but it was like a flea trying to move a dog. No effect whatsoever.
Someone yelled behind me. “Are you crazy? Get out of there!”
I turned around and saw a young couple on the porch of a little Craftsman-style house, waving frantically at us. More neighbors came out to watch and began to shout. I yanked on Fats, but she was clamped onto that steering wheel like her hands were vise grips. I ran to the other side and opened Rocco’s door. He sat there with his hands limp on his lap. I climbed in to undo his seat belt, but then I was out of the truck skittering across the parking lot on my rear. Yes, it was painful. Very.
“Run!” People were screaming. I was freaking. Pick was gone. The truck was rolling on completely flat tires and there was some kind of horrible metal breaking sound coming from the undercarriage.
“Get up!” a woman at the edge of the parking lot screamed at me, but I couldn’t move. I could only stare as the truck rolled toward the street. It reached the entrance and the front end lifted up. Then the truck got flipped ass over tea kettle by nobody. Nothing. Then it started going again.
Another truck screamed to a halt in the street. Tank jumped out and ran over. He got me under the arms and started dragging me backward to the street. Fats’ truck flipped up right side up and damned if it didn’t tip up again.
Tank got me out of the parking lot and the instant we were on the sidewalk the truck dropped back onto its four flat tires with a tremendous crash. He dropped me and ran for the truck. “Call 911! Call 911!”
People converged on the truck and I staggered to my feet, dazed and tingly. A woman was with me. “They’re coming. Don’t move.”
I was moving. I was flipping moving.
“She’s pregnant.” I careened toward the truck as sirens started sounding in the distance. People grabbed at me. I may have smacked them. I don’t know and I don’t care. “Get out of the way.”
“Mercy”—Tank was with me—“she’s talking. She’s okay.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “Bleeding.”
“Yes, but the belly’s okay.”
Tiny. I have to tell Tiny.
I hurled on the sidewalk and a cruiser careened to a halt, siren wailing. Dallas Mosbach ran up to me. “Mercy! What happened?”
“They went in the parking lot,” said Tank.
“Why? My God why?”
Tank looked at me. “What are you doing here?”
“I figured it out,” I said weakly.
“What?”
I stared at them and told the absolute truth. “I don’t know.”
An hour later, Fats and Rocco were in the ER having every test known to doctor-kind run on them, despite their angry objections, and I was sneaking out the back. The baby was fine. Heartbeat fine. No abruption. No bleeding. But neither Fats nor Rocco were getting out of there anytime soon. They’d been so bleary when they were brought in, they made the mistake of telling the staff that they’d seen ghosts in the Sentinel parking lot. You’d think in St. Sebastian General Hospital of all places that wouldn’t be a sign of insanity or head injury, but apparently it was. They had a Confederate regiment roaming the halls on occasion, for crying out loud, but they were keeping my bodyguards overnight.
I didn’t say anything about ghosts or smells or the Licatas beating the crap out of each other. I went with, “I don’t remember.” I remembered and they knew I remembered, but it wasn’t in the chart so they couldn’t say I was nuts. I checked out fine. By fine, I mean I had shards of metal and glass pulled out of my butt, a rope burn from Pick’s leash, and a shoulder that burned like someone had injected me with acid. Otherwise, I was good to go, but I had once again been forced to shop at the hospital giftshop, which, I decided, was staffed by the colorblind and chronically incompetent. The clerk sadly told me they were all out of bubblegum pink, but they had mint green and naturally only in men’s extra-extra large. I could’ve fit my whole body in one leg and, to make matters worse my coat was a dark chocolatey brown. I know you’re thinking that I had bigger problems like bandages all over my butt, but I’m vain. I spend a lot of my life trying not to look stupid and failing. When I went in to tell Fats I was leaving I opened with, “At least I’m not a marshmallow peep.” She said, “You’re grasshopper pie.” This was not an improvement. It might’ve even been a downgrade.
“I’m going to have Aaron cater your shower with meat, lard, and sugar.”
She bared her teeth at me, but then said, “I’ll just barf it up anyway.”
“Didn’t the doc give you anything? You were vomiting on the way in.”
Fats crossed her arms and her biceps bulged to an amazing degree. “I declined his suggestion.”
For some reason, I thought being in the hospital might have an effect. Dr. Crocker talked to me. She was worried. Fats’ blood chemistry was all wacky and she was afraid that the baby was in danger.
“Don’t you understand the situation?” I asked.
“You don’t understand the situation.” Fats rolled over and faced the window. “I can do this. I will do this.”
Fats’ will had never failed her before. I had every faith that she could do anything, but this wasn’t a matter of personal strength and it was time—past time really—to pull out the big guns. I fought every instinct I had, then stepped out into the hall and called Aunt Miriam. Asking her for help was to open yourself up to guilt and quid pro quos. I would have to watch horror movies. It was happening.
After throwing myself on the not so tender mercies of my delighted Aunt Miriam, I went for the front door of the hospital, but when I turned the corner, I saw no less than three news crews angling to get inside and only being held off by a couple of elderly security guards who had no clue why they were there. I did an about-face and went through the ER and radiology to an out-of-the-way exit I’d discovered on my last visit to St. Seb.
“Are you serious?” Chief Candace Stratton yelled down the hall at me as I pushed open the door.
So close.
I went out the door and pulled out my phone. Did St. Seb have Uber?
Stratton came out to find me hobbling across the parking lot, looking for the closest driver. Thirty minutes. Awesome.
“Where are you going?” Stratton fell in slow step beside me. “We found the poodle. He’s fine.”
“I know.” I held up a key. “I hear the red door in the west section is safe. They don’t mind that.”
“Where did you get that key?” Stratton asked.
“I may have liberated it from Tank during the excitement,” I said.
“Why on Earth would you do that?”
“Tank said the place was off limits, considering the situation, but I thought I might need to get in.” I grinned at her. “And I need to get in.”
“I will kill him,” Stratton said.
“Don’t bother. Mallory’s on it.”
“He didn’t tell you about the situation? It’s unpredictable. The Licatas obviously triggered something.”
“Do you think we would’ve driven into that parking lot if we knew?” I asked.
Stratton screwed up her mouth and said, “Maybe. It’s you.”
“That’s fair, but I like to think I’d have avoided rioting ghosts from 1933.”
“I can’t believe he didn’t tell you.”
“He forgot,” I said.
She gave me a look and I can’t blame her. Normally, a riot that turned deadly in 1933 wouldn’t be cause for concern, but we were talking St. Seb, home of floating eyeballs and a nun that looked after students fifty years after her murder.
“To be fair,” she said, “it’s only two Sundays in December.”
“Of course, I would hit one.”
“I knew we were in for it when you turned up again,” said Stratton. “Now why do you have to get into the Sentinel?”
“I figured it out,” I said.
“And you remember?” The chief dripped with sarcasm.
I turned up my nose. “Do you want me to tell you or not?”
Stratton considered it for longer than I expected and I thought for a moment she might go against me. “How much trouble is this going to cause me?”
“Hard to say,” I said cheerfully. “Since I just got attacked in a parking lot, but I’m not going to sue anyone or make a fuss, I’d think you might give me a break.”
She groaned. “Come on. I’ll give you a lift.”
“To the Sentinel?”
“To the station. Your poodle is there and he isn’t happy. He keeps gnawing on people.”
“That’s not unusual. That’s Pickpocket,” I said.
“He’s not my problem and your bodyguards say you’re not supposed to be without him.”
Swell.
She waved me over to her truck and helped me get in. I sat—I use the term loosely—by wedging my feet on the floor and my back pressing against the seat back so my rear wouldn’t touch the seat.
Stratton got in and eyed me. “You want to lie face down in the bed?”
“If it requires moving, no,” I said.
“Have it your own way.” She started the truck and carefully drove out of the back lot avoiding as many bumps as she could.
“You think this is my way?” I asked. “My butt is torn up and swollen to epic proportions.”
“Big butts are in,” she said in a motherly way that was meant to be comforting.
“Lumpy butts aren’t.”
Stratton screwed up her mouth to hold back a laugh. My life. So funny. Ha. Ha.
“Kimberly was adopted and it was illegal,” I said and I got the gasp I craved. I might have a rash and a lumpy ass, but I could figure things out.
“No way.” Stratton set her jaw and then looked over at me. When she saw my expression, her eyes went wide. “You think that has something to do with Anton kidnapping you.”
“We think he was being blackmailed,” I said.
“What is it with you?”
“It’d be better to ask what’s wrong with your town.”
“The Thoofts live in Whiskey Ridge.”
“Kimberly was born, supposedly, in St. Seb.”
Stratton pulled into a back lot behind the station and parked right next to an emergency exit door. She radioed Dallas to open it for us and then said, “Supposedly?”
“If Ann gave birth here, it wasn’t to Kimberly.”
The chief rubbed her eyes, spreading chips of mascara across her cheeks. “We have a missing baby?”
“Maybe.”
“Great. Fantastic.”
“Do you wish I still didn’t remember?”
“A little bit.” Stratton got out and came over to help Dallas hoist me out of the truck.
“How bad does it hurt?” the young cop asked with a grimace.
“Medium pain with a side of sting,” I said.
“I can’t believe Tank didn’t tell you.”
“You and the entire world.”
We went into the station and young Patton glanced back with a pained expression on her face. There was a crowd around her with their numbers and they weren’t looking very happy.
“They’re worse on the weekends,” said Stratton as she helped me up on the first stair.
A man yelled, “Look here, girl. I’m taking time outta my busy life to come down here to this podunk town to do your job for you. The least you could do is get me a cup of coffee.”
“Can she shoot him?” I asked.
“I wish.”
“It’s not your turn,” said a woman. “I’m twenty. You’re twenty-five.”
“I’m sick of waiting. Mine is a murder case,” he bellowed.
“Your father had a heart attack.”
“He was fifty. They have something up in that attic and I want to know what it is.”
“My father’s just as important,” said the woman, “as yours.”
“Go to that doctor and ask him.”
“He’s dead.”
“Then there’s no hurry.”
Another man said, “I’ve got a current case. That’s the most important.”
“Mr. Curran,” said Patton. “Please, I told you Pacific isn’t our jurisdiction and it happened a year ago.”
“You’ve had snatchings. I’ve heard about it. There might be a connection. My wife’s arm was pulled right out of the socket.”
“I need a vacation,” said Stratton.
“I need a drink,” said Dallas.
“Don’t you start. Will was bad enough.”
We made it up the back stairs to Stratton’s office and closed the door on the clamor downstairs.
Pickpocket leapt at me and tried to choke himself to death. He was tied to the desk and he’d just about chewed his leash in two. Stratton untied him and he acted like he hadn’t seen me for a year.
“Calm down, meathead,” I said and gave his puffy head a scratch. He started to gnaw on my leg and Dallas hauled him off me and found a coat in the lost and found for him to curl up on. Stratton offered me a chair, but I chose leaning on the wall as a safer bet.
“So let’s have it.” Stratton braced herself and I flatter myself to think she wasn’t disappointed. “You have the birth certificate?”
“I do, but it’s hard to look at on a phone. Can we print?”
“Sure.”
She printed Kimberly’s birth certificate and the three of us leaned over her desk looking for discrepancies. She and I saw it at the same time.
“Ha! It’s not my town,” she crowed.
The chief was right. It wasn’t her town. Kimberly’s birth certificate said she was born in Whiskey Ridge, not St. Seb.
“Was there a birthing center in Whiskey Ridge?” Dallas asked. “It’s kinda a one-horse town.”
Stratton shook her head. “No. Maybe she was born at home.”
“She wasn’t,” I said. “Holt said she was born at the hospital here in St. Seb.”
“Well, he’s wrong obviously.”
I kept looking at that certificate. Holt wasn’t wrong. That was the story, emphasis on story. “Ann lied. Again.”
Stratton leaned back and crossed her arms. “You’re assuming that.”
“I’m not. Holt said she was born two weeks early at the hospital and Ann didn’t like to talk about it because Kimberly was so little, she was afraid of losing her.” I rolled my eyes. “It was traumatic or so the family story goes.”
“Look,” said Dallas, “how could she lie about it? People know where you had your kid.”
There was something…right there. I could almost remember it.
I called Holt and he answered with a whisper, “Are you okay?”
“Mostly,” I said. “I want to double check something with you.”
“Okay.”
“Where was Kimberly born?”
“How the hell should I know?” Holt’s voice rose dramatically and then he went back to a whisper. “I don’t know anything. I don’t know who she is.”
“I meant to ask where does Ann say she was born?”
“I told you St. Seb. Why?”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely. When Kim went to have our boys, she and Ann were talking about it.”
“What did Ann say?” I asked.
“You know, about how Kim was giving birth in the same hospital where she was born. Yada. Yada. Ann said it might even be in the same room.”
“Thanks. That’s a big help.”
“It feels like nothing’s going to help.”
“I know, but I’m going to find out what happened and you can go from there.”
Holt agreed, but he sounded pretty glum. Kimberly wasn’t speaking to him. Her father and brothers were bewildered and Ann was enraged.
“She was born at the hospital here in St. Seb,” I said. “Ann said it in front of Holt. No mistake.”
“Maybe the certificate’s wrong?” suggested Dallas.
“I might think so, if it weren’t for the length and weight.” I pointed at Kimberly’s stats. She was seventeen inches long and weighed a mere four pounds and three ounces.
“Whoa,” said Dallas. “I didn’t notice that. She was teeny.”
Stratton went and sat down heavily in her swivel chair. “She wasn’t thirty-eights weeks. That’s for sure.”
“How long would a baby like that stay in the hospital?” Dallas asked.
“It depends on her condition,” I said. “A few days to weeks.”
Stratton relaxed a bit. “Kimberly had to be in the hospital then. You must be wrong.”
I could’ve called Holt back to check, but he would’ve mentioned talk of Kimberly being in the NICU. And why would she be? She was supposed to be thirty-eight weeks. Those babies have very few complications. No. There would’ve been too many questions in the hospital. Like Dallas said people notice.
I am an idiot. So obvious.
“She wasn’t in the hospital. At least not St. Seb’s hospital.”
“How do you figure?” Stratton asked.
“This is a small town. Kimberly isn’t a Thooft. People would notice if a preemie girl was born here and went home with Ann.”
Dallas threw up his hands. “Dads aren’t dumb. We know where our kids are born. Where was Mr. Thooft? Under a rock while his wife is adopting some random kid from who knows where?”
There it is.
“Yes.”
Stratton gave me the side eye. “Anthony Thooft was under a rock and had no clue?”
“No to the rock and yes to the clue.” I hobbled for the door. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?” Dallas asked, taking up Pick’s leash.
“To the Sentinel. I have to check something.”
“The old Sentinel?” he asked hopefully.
I would’ve rolled my eyes at him, but I would’ve had to turn around and it wasn’t worth the effort.
“Do we have to?” he asked the chief.
“I hope not,” she said. “What’s at the Sentinel?”
“An article. Anthony won some kind of prize pig contest.” I got to the stairs and took a breath. I can do it. It won’t hurt that bad.
“So what?” Stratton asked.
“It was in August,” I said. “The article.”
“That’s a month late.” Dallas jogged down the stairs being dragged by the poodle, who was always ready for a trip.
I went down four steps.
Fire butt.
“It’ll be worth it,” I said.
“I don’t know about that,” said Stratton. “You look like you’re going to pass out.
“No passing out.” I did go down the rest of the stairs under my own power, but Stratton went on ahead since toddlers could’ve outrun me. Sundays were not a day of rest in St. Sebastian. I couldn’t see the crowd of complainers from the back stairs, but I could hear them. The same woman was raising her voice but pleading at the same time.
“It can’t be a coincidence. Mrs. Tishell sent me. You know Mrs. Tishell, don’t you?”
Patton groaned. “She’s always stirring the pot. There’s absolutely no proof.”
“That’s why I’m here,” said the woman. “You people turned my dad away ten years ago. You said that all the records were destroyed, but they weren’t.”
“We’re working on it,” said Patton. “Please give us a chance to reorganize.”
I got to the bottom of the stairs and a man said, “Enough of that. My grandmother’s car was stolen and I want to know who the suspects are.”
“We haven’t had any stolen cars recently,” said Patton.
“Well, it happened in 1998.”
“What the!”
“It was a cherry ’68 Mustang. She says you knew who stole it and you wouldn’t do anything about it. We’re going to sue.”
“That’s a car,” said the woman. “My father wants to know who he is.”
“Do you know how much a—”
“Listen here,” said another woman. “I’ve got number twenty-eight and these two have been yammering on for—”
“Yammering?” the man yelled. “We’ve been waiting for forty years for answers.”
“You can’t even count.”
The door closed behind me and, in a moment of weakness, I did lie sunny side down in the bed of Stratton’s truck, which is totally illegal, but she was the chief and nobody cared.
In five minutes, we were at the red door at the west wing of the shoe factory and Tank was there to meet us. After hoisting me out and tactfully not commenting on the size of my butt and enormous sweatpants, unlike somebody I know—Dallas—Tank apologized profusely and let us into the silent factory.
“What are we here for?” Tank asked.
“You still have all the stuff we printed, right?”
He took me by the arm and helped me down the hall. “I kept it all. Did we miss something?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Is it safe in here?”
“Safe as it ever is.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“I know, believe me.” Tank led me into the main area. It looked exactly the same but smelled odd. I got a whiff of septic wound. In case you’re wondering, that’s bad. “Ignore that,” said Tank.
“Easy for you to say,” said Dallas.
“You get used to it.”
“How in the world are you going to put apartments in this place?” I asked. “Who would live here?”
He gave my arm a squeeze. “Funny you should ask, our last five leases were signed while I was at the hospital.”
“You’ve rented to a bunch of crazy people,” said Stratton. “Just what we need.”
“I’ve rented to a bunch of yuppies with more money than sense.” Tank grinned down at me. “Your accident is all over the news.”
“But they’re saying it was a gas explosion,” I said.
The trio of St. Sebastian natives laughed.
“Nobody believes that and it was all over social media until they removed it as fake news and disturbing,” said Dallas. “You getting dragged across the parking lot is very popular.”
“Lots of conspiracy theories,” said Tank. “We’ve got a waiting list now. Thanks, Mercy.”
“I hope Mallory beats you up,” I said.
“She did and she will. No worries there.”
They walked and I hobbled into the accounting section that was as calm and undisturbed as ever. Pick ran over to the puppies’ big dog bed and made himself at home, rolling around and grunting. So not proper poodle behavior.
Our table was still up and I found the stack I needed easily. I flipped past the pages of fair queens and there was the Thoofts, smiling out of a grainy black and white photo. A Thooft Family Farm pink porker had won grand champion in some town in Kansas on Saturday, July 19, 1980. Anthony and an elderly man named as James Thooft smiled broadly behind the champion with their arms around Kevin and Gregory.
“He wasn’t here,” said Dallas. “He went to Kansas and she had the baby or whatever then.”
“That can’t be a coincidence,” said Stratton.
“No,” I said. “It can’t.”
Tank put his long finger on the photo. “And Anton isn’t there.”
“He was home taking care of his pregnant mother,” said Stratton.
Dallas took a big sniff. “Something smells good. Did Aaron cook in here?”
I laughed and Tank got leftovers out of the fridge. They microwaved some dogs and I went through the papers again, in case I missed something. I was missing something. I felt it like something between my teeth. Right there, but I couldn’t get at it.
Between bites, Dallas said, “Ya know, I don’t get it.”
“What’s that?” Tank asked as he fired up his computer. “How she got away with it?”
“No, I get that. Who’s gonna think their wife’s passing off somebody else’s kid as your own? I wouldn’t.”
I took a dog and leaned on the table. I wanted to sit so bad. “Why she did it?”
“Yeah,” said Dallas. “She already had kids.”
“She wanted a girl,” said Tank. “She had three boys and she wanted a girl.”
“You don’t get to pick,” said Stratton. “You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit.”
“Apparently, that doesn’t apply to Ann Thooft,” I said. “But why not just adopt in the open?”
Dallas nodded emphatically.
“Maybe the husband wasn’t interested,” said Stratton, “so she took matters into her own hands.”
I chewed and thought it over. Ann took a pretty big risk. So many things could’ve gone wrong and how did she get a baby on exactly the right weekend? Adoptions for newborns don’t go smooth like that. Was she just lucky? No. Ann Thooft left nothing to chance. Luck wasn’t part of the equation.
“Too bad the doctor’s not on there,” said Dallas.
“My source says there were two obstetricians working in St. Seb at the time,” I said. “Do you know anything about them? Harvey McBride and George Burke.”
They all knew Dr. Burke or knew of him. He was sort of the Andy Griffith of town doctors, sweet and beloved. He delivered Tank’s kids before he retired.
“We haven’t had any problems with Burke,” said Stratton. “I’d know.”
“Good guy,” said Tank. “He was great with Mallory and her pregnancies weren’t easy.”
“He delivered me,” said Dallas. “My mom liked him.”
People liked Anton Thooft, too.
“I’m not saying he did anything,” I said. “But how did Ann come up with this idea. She didn’t strike me as a criminal mastermind and it’s not like she had the internet to help her out.”
“So you think a doctor helped Ann fake her pregnancy?” Stratton asked.
“Somebody helped her. She didn’t get Kimberly out of the cabbage patch,” I said. “The town docs are a place to start.”
Tank nodded. “We might’ve had midwives, too.”
“I doubt it,” said Dallas. “We don’t have any now and they’re kinda in style. Stacy wanted one, but we couldn’t find any outside of St. Louis.”
“Back then, it might’ve been different,” said Stratton, picking up Kimberly’s birth certificate. “The birth was registered here in town. Somebody likely knew something.”
Tank stopped typing. “I’ve found nothing interesting on either doctor online. Looks like Burke graduated from medical school in 1972. I’m not seeing anything fishy in our database. He retired five years ago after a stroke. I remember that now. Poor guy. He wasn’t ready to retire.”
I went over to look at the screen. The Sentinel did a two-page spread of the town’s beloved OB retiring and moving to Florida, loving tributes, the works.
“He certainly looks good,” I said.
“He was good,” said Tank. “I never heard a bad word.”
Stratton and Dallas nodded.
“So let’s start with the geezer,” I said.
“To the microfiche!” Tank jolted up and grinned. “Your favorite.”
I turned around and said, “Dallas, I’ll pay you a hundred bucks to look for crap on Dr. McBride.”
“Sold,” he said.
“No,” said Stratton. “You’re on duty, dufus. You can’t take a bribe.”
“It’s not a bribe.”
I smiled. “A tip?”
“No tips,” said Stratton. “You’ll do it because we’re investigating a possible crime.”
Dallas sighed. “That could’ve been dinner out and a babysitter.”
“Hey,” I said, “doesn’t your wife do facials and whatnot?”
“Yeah? So?”
“Could she maybe go to the hospital and do that for Fats?” I winked. “I’m sure she’d be very grateful and generous.”
Dallas puffed up. “She will be happy to do that.”
“I’m not hearing this,” said Stratton.
“Hear what?” Tank asked, his long face blank. “She’s just doing her job and if she happens to do a great job and get tipped, what’s the harm.”
“I give up.” Stratton took out her phone. “I’ll see if we have anything on Dr. Burke. Don’t hold your breath, Mercy.”
“I never do,” I said, eying the table to see if I could lie down on it without collapsing the legs.
Tank and Dallas headed into the back and Stratton made coffee while talking to Kriedt back at the station. She had a hard time talking him into getting into their database to look for info on Dr. Burke. The line in the front of the house had grown angrier and the word lawsuit was being thrown around.
“Tell them to shove it,” said Stratton. “No, no. Don’t say that. I want to say that, but we can’t. Call Watanabe and see if he can come in.”
I climbed onto the table, facedown, and listened to the creaking complaints of the apparatus beneath me. Worrying but worth it. I was so flipping tired I put my head down on my hands and took a deep breath.
“Mercy,” said Stratton. “You want some coffee?”
“No, thanks.”
“You need to stay awake.”
“I’m good.”
“Your phone is blowing up,” she said.
I couldn’t think of a single reason to care, so I didn’t.