Toni Donovan Mysteries- Books 1-3

by Helen Gray

  She glanced at the clock. “Right after school?”

  “We practice from three to five. If you could come to the field during seventh hour, I could meet you on the bleachers.”

  “All right, I’ll see you about two-thirty.” She forced her curiosity to the back of her mind.

  By the time she and the boys had eaten, Toni felt a little renewal of energy. She was past the scare over her dad, at least enough to compartmentalize it in brain storage while she dealt with other responsibilities. She dressed quickly in an aqua blouse, white pants, and aqua sandals.

  Once started, it was an easy day. Odd hour classes took finals, which meant no instruction or labs. Toni just collected textbooks, distributed tests, and then sat quietly or walked around the room while they worked. Even hour classes reviewed for the finals they would take the next morning. She was busy enough to keep her mind from dwelling on thoughts of her dad.

  When sixth hour ended, she put materials away and headed for the ball field. Jeremy was waiting on the bottom seat of the bleachers behind home plate, clutching a sheaf of papers. When she approached, he glanced around, as if assuring himself of their privacy.

  Coach Hopper was working on the field, chalking base lines, and paying no attention to them. Seventh hour was his plan period every year so he could use it to prepare for after school games and practices.

  Toni scooted onto the bench next to Jeremy. “What’s up?”

  He indicated the printed sheets in his hands. “I’ve been doing research on the internet. I started out looking for information about maternity homes, but then I found myself reading articles about what happens to the babies who are born in them.”

  Toni listened closely, knowing the serious minded boy was leading up to a point.

  “Maternity homes are usually thought of as large institutions where women or girls go to have their babies in secret and give them up for adoption,” he said, obviously quoting from his notes. “Which is what Cindy’s mother wanted. Cindy was only fourteen, and Mrs. Fuller didn’t want people to know about her pregnancy.”

  “But that’s not what today’s maternity homes are like,” he continued. “They tend to be much smaller, housing between six and ten clients at a time. Some of them just house the women for the duration of their pregnancies, like the one we’ve found. Others let mothers stay on at the home after their babies are born. But either way, most of them keep the women isolated and limit their communication with their friends and family. I guess they think the girls need to be taken out of the environment that led to their getting pregnant.” He paused in his recitation to catch his breath.

  Toni nodded. “It sounds like you’ve done your homework.”

  He gave her a crooked grin. “That’s just the beginning. As I tried different searches, I started getting hits on articles about baby brokers. Let me read you this description,” he said, indicating the top sheet in his hand.

  “Baby brokers are unscrupulous doctors, nurses, attorneys, agencies and humanitarians, including licensed or unlicensed facilitators such as clergy, midwives and others,” he read. Then he looked up at Toni. “I think that’s what’s going on out at Charity Haven.”

  Toni met his unblinking stare, her mind racing. It was just a theory, but it made sense in a wild, crazy way. “I assume you’ve read more about how such an operation works.”

  His eyes lit at her indication of interest. “They have different ways of getting hold of babies. Sometimes mothers are pressured into signing away custody of their newborns. Sometimes these places admit pregnant women under the name of the person who is adopting the baby. Or they will sometimes outright buy babies from parents who are economically disadvantaged.”

  He paused a moment before stating the next method. “Sometimes they lie to the mother, tell her the baby died at, or shortly after, birth and falsify the original birth record. I think that’s what happened to Cindy. She was told that her baby was stillborn. Then she was asked to sign papers to take care of its burial. I bet what she signed was actually a form giving up custody of her baby for adoption. Her friend Melanie probably did the same thing.”

  Toni had trouble believing what she was hearing, but she couldn’t refute anything he was saying.

  “If they can’t come up with enough babies to fill their orders through these means, some of them just outright kidnap, or steal, babies,” Jeremy finished.

  An eerie tingle went up Toni’s spine, a feeling of certainty. She met his dark blue gaze. “What kind of a market do you think there is for black market babies?”

  He tapped a finger on the stack of papers in his lap. “According to the stories I found, it’s a way to get rich. Baby brokers troll discussion boards and chat rooms that focus on adoption. They tell couples wanting to adopt that a pregnant woman is looking for a good home for a baby she can’t keep, and ask if they’re interested. Many of them are, and they’re prepared to spend a small fortune to get the baby, sight unseen. There’s a difference between black market and gray market adoptions, you know.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know,” Toni admitted, frowning. It was clear that Jeremy was enjoying enlightening her.

  “Black market adoptions are illegal ones in which babies are sold for thousands of dollars, and new birth certificates are issued, made up like there was no adoption at all. That’s so there’s no paper trail to their true identity,” he explained precisely. “Gray market adoptions are questionable private or independent adoptions where babies are transferred directly from their parents to the adopters, and expenses are paid. The birth certificate has the adoptive parents’ names on it in place of the birth parents.”

  Toni was mentally assembling a cast to match what he was outlining. She began to articulate it slowly, thinking it out as she voiced it. “People who are doing this kind of business need a doctor for delivering the babies, a nurse to care for them, a clergyman to counsel the mothers and talk them into relinquishing their babies for adoption, and an attorney to take care of the paperwork.”

  Jeremy nodded vigorously as she spoke. “Charity Haven seems to have all those people in place, or they did until Reverend Goldman was killed.”

  “The attorney on this kind of operation represents both the birth mothers and the adoptive parents, which sounds like a conflict of interest to me,” Toni said, her verbalization fading to silent thoughts.

  “What do you think we should do?” Jeremy asked.

  Toni put those thoughts on hold. “We shouldn’t do anything. You’ve already been put at risk, and your parents are worried about you.”

  Jeremy grimaced. “I know about the little meeting with our parents. Dad told me. I don’t want to worry them, but I want to find the answers.”

  “They care about you, and that episode with the cut brake lines scared them.”

  “I understand. I really do,” Jeremy said, obviously torn.

  Toni sighed. “I told your parents I’ll do what I can. I just haven’t known what that might be.”

  He studied her. “Do you have an idea now?”

  The one that had been half forming in her mind earlier returned. “I might. Why don’t you go on to practice and let me check on something.”

  He smiled and saluted. “We have practice again tomorrow. Can we meet here like this again to compare notes?”

  “We can.”

  Chapter 20

  As Toni returned to the school building to meet her sons, a muddle of thoughts and visions dogged her. Although crude and disconnected, a picture was forming in her mind. She could see how a baby brokering operation could be functioning—and lucrative—with the roles identifiable. But there was no proof.

  She was deeply disturbed by the idea of a local minister being part of a criminal organization. She didn’t want Reverend Goldman to be guilty of criminal activity. Could he have been involved in a way that was not criminal? She had to get more facts. A plan, not fully solid in approach, continued to form in her mind.

  Toni entered the building
and went directly to John Zachary’s room, arriving just as his class was preparing for dismissal.

  He spied her and met her at the doorway.

  “Can you take my boys home with you? I need about an hour to do something.”

  He raised a brow in curiosity. “Of course, I’ll take the boys. I hope you aren’t going to do anything that’ll get you in trouble. At least not without me along,” he added with a grin.

  “This probably wouldn’t be the best place for you to go with me,” she returned with a guilty grimace.

  “Do you want to tell me where to look for you if you don’t return?” A touch of concern laced the question.

  “I’m going to the maternity home to see if I can get some more information,” she admitted.

  He took a moment to absorb that. “Okay, but keep your cell phone with you, and call me if you need help.”

  “Yes, Papa,” she said mockingly, turning to leave just as the bell rang.

  Toni met her boys and sent them to John. Then she managed to drive her van off the parking lot before the buses could load and start rolling.

  Charity Haven, once she found it, appeared as stately as the boys had described, but today there was activity outside it. Two girls were walking in the yard, and an older woman occupied a wicker chair on the porch, a book in her hand. Toni parked and started up the walk. When she reached the top of the ten steps, the woman put her book down and stood.

  “May I help you?” Her tone was pleasant enough, but lacked any real warmth. Her manner gave Toni the feeling that she didn’t want to be bothered. She was a plain woman, rather buxom, and appeared to be in her fifties. She wore a uniform of burgundy pants, a matching floral top, and white crepe soled shoes. Her nametag said Charity Haven, R.N.

  “I’m Toni Donovan. I teach at the Clearmount High School, and I’d like to talk to you about the possibility of referring a student to your facility here.”

  “Let’s go inside.” She turned abruptly and opened the door.

  Delighted to get a look at the inside of the place, Toni followed the woman into a high ceilinged foyer. The room they entered next was a large living area with oversized furniture that included two big sofas and three wooden rockers. To the right was a sweeping staircase that led to a wide second floor landing. Nurse Haven sat in one of the rockers and motioned Toni to the sofa near it.

  “I assume the person you want to refer is pregnant,” she said bluntly, nothing compassionate in her tone or manner, strictly business.

  “Yes, she’s one of my students,” Toni said, sinking onto the sofa cushion. In front of it was a large oval coffee table with an arrangement of artificial flowers in the middle of it. Several magazines, Seventeen, Teen Vogue, Cosmopolitan, as well as an assortment of catalogs, health and fitness related publications, were scattered around it.

  “What are the girl’s circumstances?”

  “Uh, she’s fifteen, and she and her parents aren’t getting along. They want her out of the house.” It was a weakly constructed story, but it was all Toni could produce off the cuff. Hopefully she wouldn’t have to supply too many details. She wasn’t used to deception like this.

  The woman’s eyes narrowed in thought. “When is the baby due?”

  “The end of September or first of October, I think. That means she’ll have to miss the first part of the school year. Will you tell me about your place here, so I can decide whether to recommend it to her?”

  Nurse Charity shrugged. “Girls can come here and stay until they deliver. We don’t let them stay more than a week or two after the baby is born. We’re not equipped for that kind of long-term care.”

  “I see,” Toni said, pretending to be sympathetic. “I guess you run on a pretty tight budget.”

  Charity shrugged again. “We receive funding through the Transitional Living program for homeless youth. Congress changed the federal Runaway and Homeless Youth Act legislation in 2003 to make maternity group homes eligible for it,” she added as though by rote. “We also get some funding through the Administration for Housing and Urban Development.”

  “I assume you also receive some private donations and user fees,” Toni said, as if she knew about that sort of thing.

  “Of course.” It was stated matter-of-factly.

  “Are you the owner?”

  Charity stared at her, as if amazed at her audacity. “No, I’m a nurse. I’m also the House Mother.”

  “Oh, I thought maybe you were the owner, since the place has your name.” Toni tried to project an air of chattiness.

  “No, it’s my…uh, it’s owned by some people in the area. I just work for them. But I was here when they first opened it, and when they were trying to decide what to call it, someone thought my name seemed appropriate.”

  “Where do your clients deliver? Do you transport them to a hospital, or are you equipped for that here?”

  “There’s a small clinic here,” Charity said. “We have a doctor on call. If he expects complications, we take them to a hospital.”

  “Is he near enough to get here quickly?”

  “Dr. Spurgeon has a private practice in Poplar Bluff, but he makes regular visits here for checkups and emergencies.”

  Toni nodded in understanding. “What about counseling and school work? Do you provide for those?”

  “We provide a full range of services,” she said, a note of impatience entering her voice. “We have someone on call for personal counseling, and we have a former public school teacher who tutors the school age girls. She gives them career counseling as well as continuing education guidance, and some of them take online classes as well. They also get help in applying for public assistance programs, food stamps, and Medicaid and nutritional advice.”

  “You certainly seem to have everything covered,” Toni said, trying to sound impressed while wondering if the someone on call for personal counseling was a psychologist, a minister, or something else. “Do you have any kind of worship services?”

  “We used to have a minister who conducted a weekly service, usually on Sunday afternoons, but since Reverend Goldman left, we haven’t found anyone who will do that for us.”

  “May I have one of your business cards so I can call you after I talk to my student?”

  Charity hesitated a moment. “I’ll see if I can find one.”

  She went to a small desk next to the bottom stair post and pulled out a drawer. After rummaging in it a bit, she came back with a card and handed it to Toni. “We had these made up when we first opened, but we’ve never had many requests for them and never reordered.”

  Toni took the card, being careful to not smudge any fingerprints left on it by Charity. She placed a thumb along the lower edge and her index finger along the top, making a show of studying it. “Thank you,” she said, rising to leave.

  The door opened, and the two girls who had been walking in the yard entered. One of them, a redhead, was an already obese girl whose late pregnancy made her resemble a blimp. Moving slowly, she approached and stopped near Charity. “I’m feeling kind of sick, Miss Charity. May I take my turn at kitchen clean-up tomorrow night instead of tonight?” She was breathing in short, shallow gasps.

  “I’ll take her turn tonight if it’s okay,” the other girl said. She was tall and muscular, with long dark hair hanging down her back. Her pregnancy didn’t appear to be quite as advanced as the redhead’s.

  A look of irritation flashed across Charity’s face, but she managed a calm reply. “All right, but you’ll be expected to take care of it tomorrow night.”

  “Thank you,” the girl wheezed.

  Toni watched them make their way slowly to the stairs and start up them hand in hand. Then she moved toward the door. “Thank you for your time,” she said to Charity.

  Charity didn’t respond.

  Toni was careful with the card as she went to her van and scooted inside. She laid it carefully on the passenger seat and rummaged in her purse. She found a zip lock bag of breath mints, dumped the conten
ts into her purse, and placed the card inside the bag. Then she started the engine and drove away.

  As she made her way back to town, Toni took her phone from her purse and dialed Buck Freeman’s cell phone.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you at the office or home?”

  “If this is Toni, I’m at the office,” he returned drolly, as if her identity wasn’t right there on his phone.

  “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  When she walked into the police station, Buck was in the front office. He grinned. “There’s a Coke on my desk waiting for you.”

  They went inside, and Toni sat in what was beginning to feel like her chair by his desk. He eased back in his own chair and ran an assessing eye over her. “What are you up to?”

  Toni pulled the zip lock bag from her purse and placed it on his desk. “I went to the maternity home and pretended I was looking for a place to refer a pregnant student,” she said forthrightly.

  He frowned. “Why?”

  “Jeremy and I have a theory, and I wanted to see if I could get any information to support it.”

  “So what’s in the little baggie?”

  “I asked the woman in charge—whose name just happens to be Charity Haven—for a business card so I can call her back. She gave me one.”

  Buck leaned forward and picked up the plastic bag. “What am I supposed to do with it?”

  “Check her fingerprints. I want to know who she is.”

  “You think she’s someone other than who she says she is?” His forehead creased as he held up the bag, examining it from different angles.

  “I don’t care what her job title is, she’s not much of a mother. And my gut says she’s less than honorable. I’d like to know if there’s any kind of record on her.”

  Her words and intent must have penetrated, because his demeanor suddenly intensified. “I’ll get someone right on it. We’ll try to raise some prints and see what we can learn from them. Do you think this woman killed the preacher?”