Motherhood is Murder Page 16

The shop was within view, but if I went inside and, say, I was at the counter ordering, then I wouldn’t be able to see the entrance of Celia’s midwife center. I couldn’t risk missing her.

  Darn.

  I bit into the bagel anyway. It was absolutely divine. Either that or I was extremely hungry—which I was. After a few bites the bagel was gone.

  Now I was out of food but still hungry.

  I sipped on my latte. It was too bitter to drink fast.

  Good. That would give me something to do and maybe curb my appetite a bit if I drank it slowly.

  I tapped my foot and waited.

  What was the deal with stakeouts? Why had I been so excited? This was boring. How long would I have to wait for some action?

  What was I hoping for anyway?

  Wait.

  A car just turned the corner.

  Yippee! Action.

  Maybe someone was coming to see Celia. I strained to identify the car. It didn’t look like Alan’s Lexus.

  It was a Toyota. It drove right past me.

  Darn!

  I fidgeted around the van. Kenny had some pretty good gear in here. I picked up a trombone. Man, it was heavy. My cell phone rang and I dropped the instrument as though I’d been caught in the act of stealing it.

  I fished my cell phone out of my purse. “Yes.”

  “Kate! How’s the stakeout?”

  It was Kenny.

  “Boring. How do you play this thing? It’s really heavy.”

  “Are you messing with my stuff?” Kenny laughed. “Why is it boring?”

  “I ate all my food and nothing is happening.”

  “What’d you bring with you?”

  “A bagel.”

  “That is boring.”

  I laughed. “So, what’s up? Do you need your van back?”

  “You’ve only been gone thirty minutes.”

  “Is that it?”

  “Do you want some company?” Kenny asked.

  “Not yours.”

  Kenny laughed. “I can bring you some chips or something.”

  Hmmm.

  Catering ŕ la seventeen-year-old.

  “Chips sound good,” I said.

  “I can’t bring beer or anything. I’m not drinking age,” Kenny said.

  “I’m on a stakeout! This is serious business. I’m not here to drink beer.”

  “You have to have something to drink with chips.”

  “I’m drinking coffee,” I said.

  “Coffee doesn’t go with chips.”

  “Okay, bring some soda then. Something with caffeine,” I said.

  “Okay,” Kenny said cheerfully.

  “All right, see you soon.”

  “Uh, Kate?”

  “What.”

  “Uh, are you going to come pick me up or what? Because you have my van.”

  Christ.

  “I can’t leave the site, Kenny.”

  “Bummer.”

  Three hours had passed since I’d first parked the van and now I had a more serious problem than hunger and boredom. I needed a hospitality break.

  Should I risk going down the street to the shop and use the restroom?

  I thought about Laurie. Surely she’d be hungry by now and my breasts were starting to burn. Before leaving home, I’d examined my breast pump. It had a car attachment for power that plugged into a standard car charger. But who wanted to pump in the car?

  After all, it wasn’t like there was any kind of privacy in a car. What did other moms do? Use a nursing wrap?

  I recalled a news item about one mom getting pulled over because she was breastfeeding while driving. Now that was taking multitasking to a whole new level.

  I’d tried distracting myself from my bodily needs by killing the time on the phone. I called Jim to check on Laurie; he reported that Laurie was watching him from across the room and making coo-coo eyes at him.

  I dialed Paula and caught up with a few friends I hadn’t spoken to in a while. I called my brother long-distance; he had moved cross-country for work and this would be the first Thanksgiving we wouldn’t be together. I chatted with Kiku. my future sister-in-law. She filled me in on some planning details for her wedding with Jim’s brother, George. Considering George was on probation due to his antics during my first case, things were going relatively well for them and their new baby. I even called Kenny back a few times.

  As soon as I decided that I simply had to go down the street to that shop, the door to the midwife center swung open.

  Oh yes!

  Action.

  I grabbed the binoculars and put them to my eyes, only I was so excited that I did it backward and the effect was that Celia looked miles away. I quickly switched them around and Celia zoomed right up to me, giving me the impression that she could reach out and touch me. I pulled away from the binoculars to verify Celia’s distance.

  She was half a block away and hadn’t bothered to notice the van at all.

  She was dressed in a track suit with running shoes. I watched as she reached her car, a yellow VW bug, and got in.

  I jumped into the driver’s seat of the van and started the engine.

  Please, Celia, bring me a clue.

  It could blow the case wide open if she drove straight to Alan’s clinic and engaged him in a juicy kiss.

  Either that or maybe she’d be going to see a client. Then I could at least get a trail on her activities, find out more about her from someone outside Roo & You.

  I followed her car to a local gym. She parked and went inside.

  There was no way I could wait here for her to finish a workout. Nothing for me to do, but go home to Laurie and Jim empty handed, or empty headed—whatever the case may be.

  As I started home, I found myself driving right back to the midwife center.

  Why was I here?

  I parked in front and walked up to the entrance. With Celia gone, perhaps I could get a look inside. I peeked through the glass window.

  The floor was a blue-green marble, and on the reception console matching tile had been laid in a wave pattern across the front. On top of the reception console was a stack of pamphlets and a vase of red roses.

  Who had given her the roses?

  The center looked freshly remodeled. Where did Celia get the money to have her own center? How much did midwives charge anyway? Was she billing back to the insurance companies? I couldn’t imagine she was bringing in enough money to own the building, but if she rented the center, the lease payment had to be considerable.

  If she was having an affair with Alan, maybe he was helping her with the payments. Doctors made pretty good dough. He had a private practice and he lived in a nice neighborhood, big house.

  By far the nicest home I’d been in lately was Bruce’s, though, with the rooftop access and incredible view. Suddenly a thought hit me. Everything that was true for Alan could be true for Bruce.

  Bruce had great income as an investment banker. And there were those odd moments I’d witnessed between Bruce and Celia, at the service and then again at his house.

  Maybe Bruce had killed Helene to get her out of the way so he could be with Celia, but then somehow things went wrong with Celia.

  Could I run a search on his credit card? Find out where he was spending time and money? Had he bought those roses on the counter?

  I made a mental note to ask Galigani about background and credit checks. Now that I was officially under his wing, he could give me database access to some specialized data providers for licensed private investigators.

  From down the street, I heard a car engine. Out of reflex, I turned to look and nearly passed out. It was a yellow VW bug, Celia’s car.

  Shoot!

  What was she doing back so fast?

  She parked in front of the center and hopped out of the car.

  Had she forgotten something? Did she know I had been outside watching her? Had she returned to catch me red-handed?

  As she walked up to the building, she said, “Hello, Kate.”

  What do I say? What do I say? What do I say?

  I smiled.
“Hi!”

  She nodded at me expectantly.

  “Uh . . . hi!” I said again, adding a wave this time and smiling bigger.

  “Have you been here long?” she asked.

  How could I be here long, you just left!

  “Uh . . . no.”

  She reached into her gym bag and pulled out keys. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was in the neighborhood. I was curious about your birthing center.”

  Celia scratched her chin. “Really, next time do you think you’ll go natural?”

  I laughed. “Margaret practically has me convinced,” I lied.

  She unlocked the door and pushed it open. “Why don’t you come in and check it out?”

  I followed her inside.

  “I thought maybe you were here because you had some news . . . ?”

  “News?”

  She shrugged. “I guess I was hoping you were going to tell me that the results from the hospital were ready.”

  “The hospital wouldn’t release your results to me.”

  She eyed me. “Really, I thought because you’re an investigator, you might get the results from the medical examiner.” She sat down on a waiting room chair and looked crushed. “I was hoping that the results would be in and they would show conclusively that Bruce poisoned me with the same thing he used to poison Helene. I keep waiting for someone to tell me he’s in jail.”

  Her shoulders slumped and she looked ready to cry.

  What was I thinking? This woman had been poisoned. Surely if she was dating Bruce and suspected him, she would have made the affair known.

  It had to be Alan.

  I crouched down next to her. “Celia, about that day, what can you tell about the morning? Did you see anybody else, maybe earlier in the day? Before going to Bruce’s house?”

  She sniffled and snapped to attention. “Just my normal client list.” She stood and crossed to the reception area. She looked at the appointment book on the counter, running her finger down a daily column. “The fifteenth? Hmmm, pretty dead really. Just Evelyn came in for her appointment. She’s getting close now and coming in weekly.”

  Right. Evelyn had told me about the appointment.

  “Did you go anywhere before Bruce’s?” I asked.

  “Let’s see.” She paced around and looked thoughtful as though she was trying to re-create events in her mind. “I had the appointment with Evelyn in the morning at ten A.M. then left here and went to Bruce’s. He’d called me the night before and asked me to meet with him. He said he wanted to talk about the adoption.”

  I leaned against the arm of the waiting chair. “Did you stop anywhere along the way? To get coffee? Or pick up dry cleaning?”

  Or see your boyfriend, Alan?

  She shook her head. “No. I don’t typically buy coffee—it’s so expensive! Four-fifty for a cup? No way.” She glanced down at her track suit. “And dry cleaning? I don’t know if anything in my closet is dry clean only.”

  Maybe she could afford the rent because she wasn’t spending money on coffee or dry cleaning bills.

  “This is a nice place you have here. How long have you been here?”

  “The center is brand-new. Sara’s husband, you know Sara, right?”

  I nodded.

  “He remodeled it for me. He’s a contractor—gave me a great price. The place used to be a record store. I got a deal on the rent because the area is low foot traffic, which is fine with me, because people don’t usually select a midwife by spontaneously walking in. Let me show you around.”

  I followed her to a back room. There was a beautiful birthing pool in the center of the room. Around the sides of the room were large exercise balls, a shelf with towels, and several laundry baskets. Celia dimmed the lights and pressed Play on the stereo. There were small lights around the baseboards and the room seemed to glow.

  “This room is where most of my moms deliver. There’s an exam room next door. Did you want to see that?”

  I shook my head. “No. This is wonderful.”

  And it was. It was truly beautiful and relaxing. I still couldn’t see myself giving birth outside of a hospital, but now I understood the draw.

  “Did Margaret give birth here?”

  “No, she was my first client in the Bay Area after I moved up from L.A. She had Marcus at her home.”

  I imagined Celia assisting Margaret giving birth. Margaret—swollen belly, sweating, tired, probably swearing at Alan, juxtaposed next to Celia—olive skin, calm, beautiful.

  How could a father witnessing the birth of his baby choose to be with the midwife instead of the mother of his own child?

  At that moment in my mind, Alan was worse than pond scum.

  “I’ve always wanted my own center,” Celia continued.

  “So, I got this lease and fixed up the place. I need to find some staff now. Do you know anyone?”

  I shook my head.

  Celia led me back up to the front.

  I pointed to the roses on the reception console. “Boyfriend?”

  She smiled. “No. The roses are from me. The one thing I allowed myself to splurge on when I got out of the hospital.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Research

  To Do:

  1. Why would anyone poison Celia?

  2. Where is Margaret?

  3. Must get house in order for Thanksgiving!

  4. Shop, cook, clean.

  5. Drink water.

  6. Exercise—or will have nothing to wear for Thanksgiving!

  On my way home, I’d stopped in at the library to pick up my reserved copy of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Private Investigation. While there I checked out a few picture books for Laurie and a cookbook for Jim.

  By the time I arrived home, I was famished and exhausted. Laurie needed attention, but fortunately Jim had taken a stab at dinner. Spaghetti and meatballs—nothing fancy, just frozen ones—with some canned sauce. But beggars can’t be choosers.

  I ate three bowls before I felt satisfied and then shortly afterward felt overstuffed and regretted the extra helpings.

  Hopefully the cookbook would help us be a little more creative with our meals. There was even a section on homemade baby food!

  Over dinner, Jim told me I’d missed a call from my mom.

  “She’s back?” I asked.

  “Yeah. She’s coming over in the morning. I suggest you don’t tell her about your foray in the hospital. Not unless you have a death wish.”

  I had been anxious to get to bed to catch up on lost sleep, but once my head hit the pillow, I tossed and turned. The night of the cruise was still fresh in my mind, not to mention my venture to the emergency room. I felt like talking to Jim, but he was emitting soft snoring sounds. I peeked at Laurie, snoozing peacefully in the bassinet next to our bed.

  I turned on the bedside table lamp and cracked open The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Private Investigation. I read the section on research then climbed out of bed and padded down the hallway. In the office, I logged on to the computer and fumbled my way through a bit of background information on Bruce. I was able to review his personal website as a financial advisor and pull a credit report for him.

  He had great credit, but that didn’t tell me much. I e-mailed Galigani and requested he help me with subscribing to one of the databases licensed PIs had access to.

  For lack of anything better to do, I googled “Celia Martin midwife”—a gazillion things came up but nothing of value. I clicked through several articles on midwives and the benefits of home births. I read a disturbing account of a pregnant woman in Miami who had disappeared on her way to a natural child birthing center. Her husband was deployed in the military. The woman was on her own to have the baby and had selected a midwife to assist. Only she’d never made it to the center. One of her neighbors had reported seeing her leave the house in labor and had offered to drive her. She’d declined, telling him it was the early stages of labor and she was not having regular contractions.

  The authorities suspected she’d gone into active labor while driving and had an accident. Although w
hen the car was finally recovered, months later, there was no evidence of the mother or baby.

  The midwife wasn’t named, but Celia had told me she was from L.A., so while it had nothing to do with the case I was working on, the story nevertheless upset me.

  Must be the hormones!

  Tears ran down my face as I thought of the demise of this military wife and soon to be mother, not to mention the loss of the innocent life inside her.

  I refined the search to “Celia Martin midwife Los Angeles,” but no direct links came up.

  I went to bed dejected.

  The following morning I was sitting on the couch reading the PI book when Mom rang my doorbell. I opened the door to find her dressed in a poncho and mariachi hat. On her feet were bright red Converse high-tops and in one hand she held a plastic bag.

  “I thought you got in last night.” I motioned for her to come into the house.

  She looked confused. “I did.”

  “Then why are you still dressed like that?”

  Mom laughed. “The poncho and hat are for Jim and this is for you and Laurie.” She handed me the plastic bag.

  I peeked inside. A matching pair of red Converse and a set of maracas.

  “The shoes are for you and the maracas for Laurie. Where is she?”

  “Why did you get me Converse?”

  “Because they’re comfortable. Look at this!” She ran in place. “My bunions were killing me on the cruise. I could barely walk, but then I found these in a two-for sale.”

  “Two-for?”

  “Two for one! I thought of you!”

  I kissed her. “Thanks, Mom.”

  Mom looked offended. “Why do you say it like that?” “Like what? All I said was thanks!”

  “You’re not going to wear them, are you?”

  “Well, I don’t normally wear Converse. They’re for teenagers. Boy teenagers.”

  Maybe I’d give them to Kenny.

  “That’s not true,” Mom said.

  “I’ll try them on.” I sat on the couch and kicked off my house slippers. “Thank you for getting Galigani to sponsor me,” I said, lacing up the left shoe.

  Mom nodded and took off the hat and poncho, then proceeded to place the items on my dining room table. “Coffee?” she asked.