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  Bundle of Trouble

  ( Maternal Instincts Mysteries - 1 )

  Diana Orgain

  Diana Orgain. Bundle of Trouble

  (Maternal Instincts Mysteries — 1)

  “Anyone who’s been a mother or had one

  will welcome the arrival of this entertaining new sleuth.”

  — Gillian Roberts, author of the Amanda Pepper series

  NECESSITY IS THE MOTHER OF INVENTION. .

  From my front window, I watched the PI squish into his compact car. Where would he go next? Maybe he could lead me to George.

  I contemplated following Galigani.

  Yeah, right. With a newborn? Like I’d ever be able to get out of the house in time.

  I heard Laurie’s wake-up call. I went to my bedroom and picked her up from the bassinet. Cold. Wet. Hungry.

  A mother’s job is never done. I changed her, swaddled her tight, then settled down on our sofa to nurse her. I absently looked out the front window again. Galigani’s gray Honda was still there. What was he doing hovering outside my house?

  Was I being staked out?

  This book is dedicated to

  Tom, Carmen, Tommy, Jr.,

  and Robert, who complete me.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I’m most grateful to my loving and supportive husband, Tom Orgain. He is my right-hand man, always ready to provide me with the precise words for my prose, help with babysitting, or just plain make me laugh. Without him this book simply would not have been possible.

  Thanks to my dear friend Seana Patankar for her endless faith and optimism. I also appreciate the many writers, friends, and family who offered feedback and encouragement-especially my mother, Maria Carmen Noa.

  Special thanks to my critique group: Bette and J. J. Lamb, Margaret Lucke, Shelly Singer, Nicola Trwst, Mary Walker, and Judith Yamamoto.

  Finally, thanks to my wonderful editor, Michelle Vega, and to Lucienne Diver, agent extraordinaire.

  •CHAPTER ONE•

  Labor

  The phone rang, interrupting the last seconds of the 49ers game.

  “Damn,” Jim said. “Final play. Who’d be calling now?”

  “Don’t know,” I said from my propped position on the couch.

  I was on doctor’s orders for bed rest. My pregnancy had progressed with practically no hang-ups, except for the carpal tunnel and swollen feet, until one week before my due date when my blood pressure skyrocketed. Now, I was only allowed to be upright for a few minutes every couple of hours to accommodate the unavoidable mad dash to the bathroom.

  “Everyone I know is watching the game. It’s gotta be for you,” Jim said, stretching his long legs onto the ottoman.

  I struggled to lean forward and grab the cordless phone.

  “Probably your mom,” he continued.

  I nodded. Mom was checking in quite often now that the baby was two days overdue. An entire five minutes had passed since our last conversation.

  “Hello?”

  A husky male voice said, “This is Nick Dowling. .”

  Ugh, a telemarketer.

  “. . from the San Francisco medical examiner’s office.”

  I sat to attention. Jim glanced at me, frowning. He mouthed, “Who is it?” from across the room.

  “Is this the Connolly residence?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Are you a relative of George Connolly?”

  “He’s my brother-in-law.”

  “Can you tell me the last time you saw him?”

  My breath caught. “The last time we saw George?”

  Jim stood at the mention of his brother’s name.

  “Is he a transient, ma’am?” Dowling asked.

  I felt the baby kick.

  “Hold on a sec.” I held out the phone to Jim. “It’s the San Francisco medical examiner. He’s asking about George.”

  Jim froze, let out a slight groan, then crossed to me and took the phone. “This is Jim Connolly.”

  The baby kicked again. I switched positions. Standing at this point in the pregnancy was uncomfortable, but so was sitting or lying down for that matter. I got up and hobbled over to Jim, put my hands on his back and leaned in as close as my belly would allow, trying to overhear.

  Why was the medical examiner calling about George?

  “I don’t know where George is. I haven’t seen him for a few months.” Jim listened in silence. After a moment he said, “What was your name again? Uh-huh. . What number are you at?” He scratched something on a scrap of paper then said, “I’ll have to get back to you.” He hung up and shoved the paper into his pocket.

  “What did he say?” I asked.

  Jim hugged me, his six-foot-two frame making me feel momentarily safe. “Nothing, honey.”

  “What do you mean, nothing?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he whispered into my hair.

  I pulled away from Jim’s embrace and looked into his face. “What’s going on with George?”

  Jim shrugged his shoulders, and then turned to stare blankly at the TV. “We lost the game.”

  “Jim, tell me what the medical examiner said.”

  He grimaced, pinching the bridge of his nose. “A body was found in the bay. It’s badly decomposed and unidentifiable.”

  Panic rose in my chest. “What does that have to do with George?”

  “They found his bags on the pier near where the body was recovered. They went through his stuff and got our number off an old cell phone bill. They want to know if George has any scars or anything on his body so they can. .” His shoulders slumped. He shook his head and covered his face with his hands.

  I waited for him to continue, the gravity of the situation sinking in. I felt a strong tightening in my abdomen. A Braxton Hicks?

  Instead of speaking, Jim stood there, staring at our blank living room wall, which I’d been meaning to decorate since we’d moved in three years ago. He clenched his left hand, an expression somewhere between anger and astonishment on his face. He turned and made his way to the kitchen.

  I followed. “Does he?”

  Jim opened the refrigerator door and fished out a can of beer from the bottom shelf. “Does he what?” He tapped the side of the can, a gesture I had come to recognize as an itch to open it.

  “Have any scars or. .” I couldn’t finish the sentence. A strange sensation struck me, as though the baby had flip-flopped. “Uh, Jim, I’m not sure about this, but I may have just had a contraction. A real one.”

  I cupped my hands around the bottom of my belly. We both stared at it, expecting it to tell us something. Suddenly I felt a little pop from inside. Liquid trickled down my leg.

  “I think my water just broke.”

  Jim expertly navigated the San Francisco streets as we made our way to California Pacific Hospital. Even as the contractions grew stronger, I couldn’t stop thinking about George.

  Jim’s parents had died when he was starting college. George, his only brother, had merely been fourteen, still in high school. Their Uncle Roger had taken George in. George had lived rent-free for many years, too many years, never caring to get a job or make a living.

  Jim and I often wondered if so much coddling had incapacitated George to the point that he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, stand on his own two feet. He was thirty-three now and always had an excuse for not holding a job. Apparently, everyone was out to get him, take advantage of him, “screw” him somehow. At least that’s the story we’d heard countless times.

  The only thing George had going for him was his incredible charm. Although he was a total loser, you’d never know it to talk to him. He could converse with the best of them, disarming everyone with his piercing green eyes.

  Uncle Roger
had finally evicted George six months ago. There had been an unpleasant incident. Roger had been vague about it, only telling us that the sheriff had to physically remove George from his house. As far as we knew, George had been staying with friends since then.

  I glanced at Jim. His face was unreadable, the excitement of the pending birth diluted by the phone call we had received.

  I touched Jim’s leg. “Just because his bags were found at the pier doesn’t mean it’s him.”

  Jim nodded.

  “I mean, what did the guy say? The body was badly decomposed, right? How long would bags sit on a pier in San Francisco? Overnight?”

  “Hard to say,” he muttered.

  I rubbed his leg trying to reassure him. “I can’t believe any bag would last more than a couple days, max, before a transient, a kid, or someone else would swipe it.”

  Jim shrugged and looked grim.

  A transient? Why had the medical examiner asked that? George had always lived on the fringe, but homeless?

  Please God, don’t let the baby be born on the same day we get bad news about George.

  Bad news-what an understatement. How could this happen? I closed my eyes and said a quick prayer for George, Jim, and our baby.

  I dug my to-do list out from the bottom of the hospital bag.

  To Do (When Labor Starts):

  1. Call Mom.

  2. Remember to breathe.

  3. Practice yoga.

  4. Time contractions.

  5. Think happy thoughts.

  6. Relax.

  7. Call Mom.

  Oh, shoot! I’d forgotten to call Mom. I found my cell phone and pressed speed dial. No answer.

  Hmmm? Nine P.M., where could she be?

  I left a message on her machine and hung up.

  I looked over the rest of the list and snorted. What kind of idealist had written this? Think happy thoughts? Remember to breathe?

  I took a deep breath. My abdomen tightened, as though a vise were squeezing my belly. Was this only the beginning of labor? My jaw clenched as I doubled over. Jim glanced sideways at me.

  He reached out for my hand. “Hang in there, honey, we’re almost at the hospital.”

  The vise loosened and I felt almost normal for a moment.

  I squeezed Jim’s hand. My husband, my best friend, and my rock. I had visualized this moment in my mind over and over. No matter what variation I gave it in my head, never in a million years could I have imagined the medical examiner calling us right before my going into labor and telling us what? That George was dead?

  Before I could process the thought, another contraction overtook me, an undulating and rolling tightening, causing me to grip both my belly and Jim’s hand.

  When my best friend, Paula, had given birth, she was surrounded mostly by women. Me, her mother, her sister, and of course, her husband, David. All the women were supportive and whispered words of encouragement while David huddled in the corner of the room, watching TV. When Paula told him she needed him, he’d put the TV on mute.

  When I’d recounted the story for Jim, he’d laughed and said, “Oh, honey, David can be kind of a dunce. He doesn’t know what to do.”

  Another vise grip brought me back to the present. Could I do this without drugs? I held my breath. Urgh! Remember to breathe.

  I crumpled the to-do list in my hand.

  Bring on the drugs.

  •CHAPTER TWO•

  Delivery

  After checking into the hospital and spending several hours in “observation,” we were finally moved to our own labor and delivery room.

  “When can I get the epidural?” I asked the nurse es corting us.

  “I’ll call the anesthesiologist now,” she said, leaving the room.

  Jim plopped himself onto the recliner in the corner and picked up the remote control.

  “Hey, I’m having contractions here. . they’re starting to get strong. Aren’t you supposed to be breathing with me?”

  “Right,” he nodded, flipping through the channels. “He he he, ha ha ha,” he said in an unconvincing rendition of Lamaze breathing.

  “Jim!”

  “Hmmm?”

  “I need your help now.”

  His eyebrows furrowed. “No TV?”

  “Get me the epi. . oooh.”

  He pressed the mute button. I sighed and gave in to the contractions.

  Another hour passed before the anesthesiologist walked in. I was horrified to see that he looked all of about seventeen.

  “Sorry to make you wait,” he said. “There was an emergency C-section.”

  “I’m just glad you’re here now,” Jim said.

  The anesthesiologist laughed. “How are we doing?”

  “She’s doing great, really great,” Jim said.

  I would have told him to shut up, but that would have taken more energy than I had. Was this teeny bopper qualified to put a fifteen-inch needle in my spine? What exactly could go wrong with the epidural? I was about to chicken out when the nurse rushed in.

  “Oh, here you are,” she said to the anesthesiologist. “Let’s go, before she’s too far along.”

  Before I could back out, my torso and legs were blissfully numb.

  The nurse placed a metal contraption, resembling a suction cup, on my belly and studied a monitor. “Do you feel anything?”

  “Nope.”

  “Good, because that was a big contraction.”

  I smiled. “I didn’t feel a thing.”

  The anesthesiologist nodded as he left the room. The nurse advised us to get some rest. Jim returned to the recliner and put the volume back up on the TV. I glanced at the clock: 3 A.M. already. Where was my mother?

  My thoughts drifted back to George. What had his bags been doing on the pier? An image of a swollen corpse with a John Doe tag on its foot crept into my mind. I shook my head trying to dissociate the image from George and willed myself to think sweet, pink, baby thoughts.

  I scratched my thigh to double-check the effectiveness of the epidural.

  During my pregnancy, I had heard dozens of horror stories about infants with umbilical cords wrapped around their tiny necks, only to have the doctor push the infant’s head back into the birth canal and perform an emergency C-section. In most of the stories the poor mother had to go through the C-section without any anesthesia. At least I’d already had the epidural.

  At 7 A.M., the door to the room opened and my mother appeared, dressed in jeans and sneakers, with binoculars around her neck.

  “How you doing?” she asked cheerfully. Without waiting for a reply, she reached up and put two hands on Jim’s shoulders pulling him down to her five-foot-two level to kiss his cheeks. After which she handed him her purse and said, “I’m here now, Jim. You can sleep.”

  Jim smiled, clutched the purse, and happily retreated to his cot. Mom had adopted Jim long ago, even before we were married; it was a relationship Jim treasured since he had lost his own parents so many years earlier.

  Just seeing Mom relaxed me. She placed her freezing hands on my face and kissed my checks. “Are you running a fever?”

  “No. Your hands are cold. Where have you been? You look like a tourist,” I joked.

  “What do you mean?”

  I indicated the binoculars.

  “Well, I want pictures of my first grandchild!”

  From Jim’s corner came a snorted laugh, the kind that comes out through your nose when you’re trying to suppress it. I laughed freely.

  “What?” Mother demanded.

  “They’re binoculars,” Jim said.

  Mother glanced down at her chest.

  “Oh, dear! I meant to grab the camera.”

  Jim relaxed, lying back on the cot.

  Mom stroked my hair, then leaned over and kissed my forehead.

  “You’re frowning,” she said.

  “I’m worried about the baby. I’m worried about George.” I looked over at Jim. His eyes filled with tears.

  “George?” M
om turned to look at Jim. Jim covered his face with his hands.

  Mom clucked. “Let’s start with the baby. Why are you worried?”

  I shook my head and took a deep breath. “Don’t know. Nervous, maybe.”

  Mom patted my hand. “Well, that’s normal. Everything is going to be fine. When did your labor start?”

  “Around nine last night. Didn’t you get our messages? Jim must have called at least three times. Where were you?”

  Mom settled herself in the chair next to my bed. “I was at Sylvia’s. She had a dinner party. There was a lady there who wanted to take home some leftover crackers. Can you imagine? They had sat out all night on an hors d’oeuvres plate. And she wanted to take them home!”

  Mom knew me too well. She was making small talk, trying to distract me from thinking thoughts full of doom and gloom. It was working. I was actually laughing.

  I peered over at Jim. His eyes were closed, a grimace on his face. He wasn’t listening to Mom. He was stressed out. Mom followed my gaze.

  “Now, what’s happened with George?”

  Jim flinched. “Let’s not go there, Mom. We got a phone call, right, Kate? Just a call-”

  I clutched Mom’s hand. “Not just a call! It was a call from the medical examiner. They found a body in the bay and George’s bags on the pier.”

  Mom eyes turned into saucers and she gasped.

  “We don’t really know anything yet,” Jim said. “Let’s not get all melodramatic.”

  Mom and I exchanged looks. “Everything will be fine, you’ll see.” She gave my hand a squeeze, then released it and folded her hands into her lap.

  An awkward silence descended over us. Just then the nurse slipped into the room. “Don’t mind me,” she said. “I want to see how far along we are.”

  Jim watched the nurse, his brow creased in concern. I tried to remain calm, my attention returning to the beeping monitor reporting the baby’s heart rate.

  “Oh, goodness, the baby’s practically here,” the nurse announced.