Murder as Sticky as Jam Read online

  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 cheeks. “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?” Mom 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.

  I sat up a little. Mom clapped her hands in childish delight and Jim crossed the room to stand next to me.

  “I’ll call your doctor,” the nurse said, turning to leave.

  Mom started to follow her. “I’ll be right back. I just need to feed my parking meter.”

  The nurse spun around and stared at Mom. “Don’t leave now. You may miss the birth.”

  “The baby’s coming that fast?” Mom asked.

  “I hope I can get the doctor here in time,” the nurse said, rushing out.

  “I hope I don’t get a ticket,” Mom said.

  I laughed. “Why didn’t you park in the hospital parking lot?”

  Mom shrugged. “There was a spot in front.” She hurried across the room to the window, straining to get a peek at her car.

  Jim tried to hide the smile that played on his lips. He leaned in close to me and whispered, “Here I am worried about you, the baby, and my brother the screw-up, while I could be worrying about really important stuff like getting a parking ticket.”

  I giggled. “Or who took home stale crackers from a party.”

  Our eyes locked. Jim’s face broke into a huge smile. “I love you, Kate.”

  Mom came away from the window. “No ticket yet, that I can see.”

  Dr. Greene, my ob-gyn, popped into the room, her brown hair held in place with two tortoiseshell clips. She walked straight to my side, looking confident in her blue scrubs. She smiled into my face. “How are you doing, Kate?”

  “Okay, I guess. I don’t feel a thing.”

  She smiled wider. “That’s the beauty of modern medicine. Just push when I tell you.”

  After about twelve minutes of pushing, Dr. Greene said the words I’ll never forget in all my life: “Kate, reach down and grab your baby.”

  What? She wanted me to pull the baby out?

  Startled by her words, I instinctively reached down.

  There she was. I grasped my baby girl and pulled her to my chest.

  I clutched her to me with a desperation I had never felt before, trying to press her right into my heart. Everyone else in the room seemed to fade into the background. My little angel, my little love.

  She was the most beautiful thing in the world. Her round, pretty face was punctuated with a button nose, and strawberry blond hair graced the top of her head. Dark blue eyes peered at me, examining me with the wisdom of an old soul.

  I realized Jim was crying. He reached down and enveloped the baby and me in his arms and I forgave him for muting the TV.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mom pull a hankie from her purse and wipe a tear. “Don’t worry, darling, I’ve already memorized her face. No one’s switching her on us.”

  •CHAPTER THREE•

  Recovery/Discovery

  We were moved to a bright recovery room with a view of Saint Ignatius Church. Jim slouched in a corner of the room on a hospital cot.

  Mom had left for the day, ticketless. It was only 5 P.M., but felt much later.

  I held my sleeping pumpernickel in my arms. I was told that newborns mainly sleep the first week. It’s difficult to wake them even to nurse. Right now sleep sounded great. Jim and I were exhausted.

  “I wish I had space in this stupid hospital bed for you,” I said, raising the bed slightly, then lowering it again.

  Who could ever get comfortable in one of these?

  “Don’t worry, honey, I’m fine,” Jim grumbled from the corner cot.

  “I miss you way over there.”

  He stood, stretched, and hobbled over to me, his legs cramped from a long night of worry and catnapping on a bad cot. “Let me hold her awhile.”
>
  I handed the baby to him. He settled himself against the windowsill and admired her. “Hope for the next generation.”

  I knew, of course, that his remark was connected to George. But I didn’t have the energy to think about that. “I need to sleep awhile, honey . . .”

  I was already drifting off when I felt the covers being tucked against my chin. “Take care of Laurie,” I mumbled.

  “Is that her name?”

  “If you like it,” I said, drifting to sleep.

  “I do. Get some rest. I promise to take good care of Laurie.”

  <><><>

  I slept a fitful hour, dreaming that I was swimming in the bay. In the dream, I became entangled with a dead body that seemed to pull me under. As I freed myself from the corpse to swim toward the surface, my ankle caught in the strap of a bag. The sound of cries pierced the water. Suddenly, the water was full of bags and corpses. A shrill cry startled me awake.

  I gasped for air as I awoke. Jim was standing over me with the baby in his arms. “Are you all right?”

  I nodded, dumbfounded.

  “Sorry, honey, I didn’t mean to wake you. She’s crying and I don’t know what to do.” Jim handed me the baby.

  “I think she’s hungry, or wet, or both.” I placed her near my breast. Instead of latching on, she only cried louder, howling into my face. Jim laughed but I felt like crying, too.

  “Maybe we should call the nurse,” I said.

  Before we could do anything, a tall, slender African-American nurse glided into the room. Her name tag read GISELLE.

  “What is it now? Little baby girl giving her parents a hard time? Hush now, they don’t know what they’re doing, girl.” She rewrapped Laurie’s blanket around her.

  In an instant the crying stopped. Laurie gratefully curled into Giselle. Jim and I stared at her.

  “Did anyone teach you how to swaddle?” she asked.

  “I thought she was swaddled,” Jim replied.

  “Not tight enough. Babies like to be wrapped tight, like a little burrito, or they feel like they’re falling.” She handed Laurie to Jim and turned to me. “How’s Mama?” she asked, expertly taking my blood pressure and temperature.

  “Now that you mention a burrito, hungry.”

  Giselle smiled. “Dinner’s coming up. What about pain medication?”

  “Yes, please,” Jim said.

  <><><>

  When dinner was served, I handed Laurie off to Giselle. Laurie would spend the night in the nursery down the hall. Giselle would bring her in whenever she needed to nurse, which felt like every couple of minutes but at the same time too long in between. I missed Laurie terribly when she was out of the room, but felt exhausted when she was brought in.

  After gobbling down the hospital dinner of cardboard sliced ham and runny applesauce, I eagerly turned to chat with Jim. He was sacked out on the cot in the corner.

  I shifted to the edge of the bed to make my way to the restroom.

  Wait a minute.

  I didn’t need to pee. What a miracle, to go from running to the restroom every five minutes to not needing to go for an entire night. I sat in silence.

  Finally, I reached for a pen and paper and scratched out a to-do list.

  To Do (When I Get Home):

  1. Get better at breastfeeding.

  2. Lose weight.

  3. Take a gazillion pictures of Laurie.

  4. Call work and let them know about Laurie and plan a return date—yuk!

  5. George? Where is he?

  Was he dead? What could have happened? I thought about suicide. Certainly if he had become homeless, it seemed possible. Why hadn’t he come to Jim and me if his only option was the streets?

  What about an accident? Could George have fallen into the bay and drowned?

  The medical examiner had said the body was badly decomposed. How long would it have to be underwater to decay? Had it been caught on something that kept it submerged? Seaweed?

  My mind flashed on the Mafia movies and bodies being held down with concrete.

  What if he had been murdered?

  “Jim,” I called. He lay motionless on the cot, in a deep, exhausted sleep. “Jim,” I called again.

  He sat up, startled. “What is it, honey? Something wrong?”

  “I can’t sleep. I’m thinking about George. What if it’s him, dead in the bay? What if he was murdered?”

  “Murdered? My God, Kate! I mean, he’s probably not hanging out with the cream of the crop, but . . .” He paused, letting out a sigh. “We don’t know anything yet. The medical examiner asked if George had any identifiers on his body, you know . . . to help them . . . George has a pin in his ankle and he’s also had his appendix out.”

  My heart stopped.

  We could have known if it was George twenty-four hours ago!

  In my calmest voice, I asked, “Why didn’t you tell the medical examiner that?”

  Jim shrugged. “Part of me is always trying to protect him. What if the guy who called wasn’t even from the medical examiner’s office? What if it was someone who’s just trying to find out where George is? Like someone he owes money to or something like that.”

  I held out my hand for Jim. He got up and crossed the room, sitting on the bed. “Honey,” I said. “That makes no sense. If it was someone George owes money to, why would they ask about his scars?”

  Jim shrugged, then pinched the bridge of his nose. “All my life everyone has tried to help George. Growing up, my mom told me to take care of him. Your best friend for life, she always said. I did my best, but nothing was ever good enough for him. He always demanded more, giving nothing in return and managing to poison everything and everyone around him.” His face contorted in anger, then turned to sadness. “I didn’t want the joy of Laurie’s birth clouded over by news about George.” After a moment, he said, “I took down the guy’s phone number. I’ll call him when we’re home, make sure I’m really reaching the medical examiner’s office.”

  We sat in silence for a moment. I put my arms around him and pressed my cheek against his. I understood his desire to postpone bad news.

  As the sun came up, the room began to glow. I glanced at the clock and realized Laurie was due back at any minute.

  “Sorry I woke you,” I said.

  He stroked my hair. “Try not to worry about George. I’m doing it enough for the both of us. You focus on Laurie and on recovering.”

  <><><>

  The day nurse wheeled in our little bundle, wrapped in a pink and blue striped swaddling blanket with a pink cap on her head. She looked like a tiny cherub with rosy cheeks. I noticed a scratch on her face. Laurie’s itty-bitty nails were extremely long. The nurse explained that hospital staff refused to trim them “because of the liability.”

  How ridiculous was that? A qualified nursing professional wouldn’t trim those microscopic things. I’m supposed to?

  How could I trust myself not to cut off a finger? Where was Giselle? And who was this day nurse who didn’t even have the decency to help us trim the little talons?

  Laurie swung her hands frightfully close to her bright blue eyes. Jim and I decided filing them seemed a much safer option.

  As I manicured Laurie, Jim called our family and friends announcing the birth of our daughter. When Jim dialed his Uncle Roger, I found myself holding my breath.

  “Uncle Roger? It’s Jim . . . we had the baby . . . yeah . . . beautiful baby girl . . . six pounds, five ounces . . . Laurie. Katie’s doing great.”

  Jim listened as Roger spoke. I continued to eavesdrop, but couldn’t make out much from Roger’s end.

  I mouthed to Jim, “Ask him about George.”

  Jim waved me away, then turned his back to me.

  I checked Laurie’s diaper. Her diapers were so tiny, Jim and I laughed every time we had to change one. She was dry.

  I wondered if the nurse had changed her. In the baby preparation class, they told us we would now become “waste watchers.” Laurie needed
to have as many wet diapers per day as she was days old. Two days old, two wet diapers. At least until the mother’s milk came in. Right now she was surviving solely on colostrum, the premilk.

  How would it feel to have milk come in? Were you supposed to feel anything? So far, I’d noticed nothing. What if it didn’t come in? What then? How would I know anyhow? And even if it did come in, would it be enough?

  Earlier this morning the day nurse had stood over our bed and observed me breastfeeding. She frowned as she wrote down on my chart: “Breastfeeding: mother—poor, baby—poor.”

  How could she write that?

  I’m an overachiever by nature, but the nurse’s remark about me didn’t bother me as much as the remark about Laurie. How could she say Laurie was “poor” at anything? I felt an immediate instinct to defend my little one. Forget that nurse. We would show her. We were going to become breastfeeding wonders.

  When did Giselle’s shift start?

  Jim hung up the phone, the sound interrupting my thoughts. “Uncle Roger hasn’t heard from the medical examiner’s office.”

  “Oh? I didn’t hear you ask him.”

  “I didn’t. But he didn’t say anything about it, so I know they didn’t call him.”

  “Why didn’t you just ask him?”

  “Why bother him? Hasn’t Roger been through enough?”

  I felt my stomach tighten. “Aren’t you worried?”

  Laurie answered with a wail as though she sensed her father’s distress.

  Avoiding my question, Jim teased, “Go ahead and try that breastfeeding thing again. I hear you two are poor at it.”

  •CHAPTER FOUR•

  The First Sleepy Week

  Morning came soon enough. The hospital personnel checked out our car seat. Laurie and I were given a clean bill of health and released.

  Panic.

  There wouldn’t be any specialized nursing staff at home. What if Laurie developed a fever? Or wasn’t getting enough milk? How many wet diapers was she supposed to have?

  Who was going to answer all my questions? I suddenly missed Nurse Giselle terribly.

  Jim studied my face as he rocked Laurie back and forth. “We’ll be fine, honey.”