Drawing Blood

by Deirdre Verne

  I charged from my spot and screamed Frank’s name. He swung his head in my direction and picked up Corey in his peripheral. He sprinted across the front lawn in an attempt to intercept her, but she was surprisingly fast. After making it safely to her car, Corey tore up the road with Frank in useless pursuit behind the BMW.

  The school bus, I thought. I hoped it had finished its route and the children were home safe, because Dr. Corey was on a mission.

  “She’s gone,” I yelled.

  A defeated Frank walked back to me, breathing hard, just as a familiar dog bounded from the path. “Don’t worry. She doesn’t bite,” I said to Frank. I whistled to the dog, who recognized me as his source of tasteless fruit bars. The dog’s owner came trotting from behind while his dog slobbered me with kisses.

  “You again,” he said, smiling. I shook his hand and introduced Frank.

  “Do you know the people in the white house?” Frank asked.

  “Sure. The Goffs. Nice people,” he said, and then squinted at me. “By the way, I didn’t buy your story about climbing the tree.”

  “Your dog loves me.” I shrugged. “How bad could I be?”

  The man turned to Frank. “I wouldn’t be happy if you gave the family any trouble. One of them passed away recently, and they’ve had a rough go of it.”

  Another dead person within walking distance of the recycling center. How convenient, I thought as a shudder ran through my body.

  Frank pet the dog. “I understand your concern, but it’s a police matter,” he said, and then added, “now.”

  Frank’s last word hung precariously in the air like a boulder on the edge of a cliff. When we left Harbor House this morning, my egg wasn’t a police matter. The surprise visit at Dr. Corey’s office, also not a police matter. Even tailing Corey through the suburbs of Cold Spring Harbor was nothing more than an off-duty cop and his girlfriend seeking answers to a personal drama.

  But now—now that the trail leading away from the recycling center, where a man had been murdered, led directly to the house where the woman who was closest to the answer about my egg had just fled … I was convinced that there really was a connection between these events.

  The man started to turn away when Frank flashed his badge. The action surprised me because I knew Detective Frank DeRosa wasn’t one to throw his badge around lightly. The ruse he had pulled earlier in the morning, telling Dr. Corey he was investigating uncatalogued sperm donations, had probably stretched the limits of his straight-laced conscience. This was a cop who turned down free coffee and donuts.

  Yet here he was, his badge on display for the dog owner to see. It could only mean one thing: Frank, too, believed that the blue-shuttered house held clues to Bob’s murder. With his game face on, Frank asked, “When does the family get home?”

  The dog’s owner stared at Frank’s badge.

  “You’re a cop?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  The man reattached the leash to the dog’s collar and started to walk back to his house. “Kelly gets home around six thirty,” he said without turning around.

  It was all I could do not to ask the dog owner about Kelly. Could Kelly be the skinny jeans woman? My mouth opened, and Frank flashed me a look. “Let him go. We’ll come back this evening.”

  “What about Dr. Grovit?”

  “That’s our next stop.”

  forty-two

  Dr. Grovit lived in a modest Victorian home in a historic section of Huntington, a short walk from the town’s bustling main drag. Not unlike the disarray of Dr. Grovit’s medical office, the house’s landscaping was severely overgrown, and there were piles of corded newspapers stashed in a corner of the porch.

  The front door was open, allowing us to see through the carved wooden screen door through to the kitchen. Dr. Grovit was seated at the table. He was so still I thought maybe he’d had a heart attack. We entered without knocking and walked quickly to the kitchen. Dr. Grovit’s wife had passed away a few years ago, but her death didn’t seem to warrant the current chaos of the kitchen. The sink was loaded with dirty dishes, piles of papers covered every available surface, and trash overflowed from a garbage can.

  “Dr. Grovit,” I said, taking a seat, “what’s wrong?”

  He shook his head sadly. “Did Corey remember me?”

  “She did,” I said.

  “I wanted to tell you myself.”

  I looked up at Frank. He leaned against the kitchen counter, arms crossed over his chest. He wasn’t pleased.

  “I wanted you to meet with Corey.” Dr. Grovit lifted his head, and I could see he’d been crying. “I want you to find your child,” he said, reaching out to a pile of yellowed papers. He leafed through a stack and said, “I’ve searched through everything I could get my hands on to help you.” Frustrated, he let the loose papers drift to the floor.

  “Then why did you dissuade us from talking to Corey?” Frank asked.

  Dr. Grovit pointed to an empty glass on the counter. Frank filled it and walked it over to him. “Why didn’t you want us to talk to Corey?” he repeated as he dropped the glass down. Dr. Grovit took a long, slow drink of water.

  “The day before you called about Corey, William came by.”

  My stomach heaved. “Here? My father was here too?”

  Dr. Grovit’s eyes flashed. “Where else has he been?”

  “To Corey’s house,” Frank answered.

  “Oh my god,” Dr. Grovit moaned. “He must be serious.”

  “About what?” I grabbed Dr. Grovit’s hand. “You have to tell us what you know.”

  “You must believe me, Constance. Nothing has been more important to me than helping you find your child. Now that you’ve spoken to Corey, you understand that I was more involved in the extraction than I led you to believe. Unfortunately, I still don’t know what happened after the procedure occurred, but I felt confident we could still locate the child. Selfishly, I figured by the time anyone truly understood that I was in the operating room the day of your procedure, it would be overshadowed by the joy of finding your child. Your father, on the other hand, is not as willing to let things go.”

  Dr. Grovit took another sip of water and continued.

  “Please believe me. I don’t know where your child is, but I believe you’re getting close.” His hands shook and a droplet of water worked its way along the aging creases at the corner of his mouth. “Your father told me that if I gave you any more information about the child’s whereabouts”—Dr. Grovit paused—“he’d hurt the girl.”

  Frank sat down next to me, pulled me into his chest, and repeated the only important words from Dr. Grovit’s confession.

  “It’s a girl,” he whispered in my ear. I had a daughter.

  forty-three

  It was past six thirty, and Frank and I sat in the Gremlin outside the white house with the blue shutters. Corey, not surprisingly, hadn’t returned to work after Frank chased her down the street. Nor had she returned to her own home. With no leads on Corey’s whereabouts, our only option was to speak to the residents of the house.

  “Am I the only one who thinks the skinny jeans woman will turn out to be this woman the neighbor with the dog told us about?”

  Frank scrolled through his iPad. “Kelly Goff. According to my notes, the neighbor said her first name was Kelly.” He looked from the trail to the house and back again. “I’m wondering if this Kelly woman is the surrogate,” he said, and then turned to me. “There’s got to be a reason Corey was in this house.”

  “Maybe Kelly is the adopted mother,” I reasoned. “Maybe Corey is concerned that since the transfer wasn’t legitimate, the adoption could be overturned. Maybe she’s kept in touch with Kelly and tried to warn her.”

  “On the other hand, if Kelly is the surrogate,” Frank said, “then there’s no guarantee she knows the family that received the baby. That w
ould mean we’ve still got a ways to go until we find the child, and in this race, our competition is your father.”

  I stiffened at Frank’s observation. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but if that’s the case, then I’d advocate backing off from this search. Clearly, my father doesn’t want me to find my child. If we step back, maybe he’ll stop and she’ll be safe.”

  Frank shook his head. “At this point, we can’t assume your father ever does the right thing.”

  I looked at the house. It was perfect. If my child had grown up in this home, I can’t say I’d be disappointed. As much as I wanted to meet her, I’d rather she be safe than at the mercy of my father. I forced myself to believe Frank. Regardless of my actions, my father would continue to search for the sole purpose of eliminating the evidence of his twisted plan.

  “I’m thinking about the picture of Corey with her arm around Liz,” I said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she had befriended some of the women involved in the fertility exchanges. What I don’t get is how any of these people are related to Bob’s murder. Outside of this home’s proximity to the recycling center, I don’t see the connection.”

  “The connection to the murder is the location. Being in the vicinity at the time a crime occurs is a core requirement for a witness and murderer.”

  “So you think maybe the skinny jeans woman, or Kelly, as I’m going to call her now, was a witness?”

  “Like the neighbor with the dog, she probably walks the trails and fell upon something that made her run home,” Frank said as he opened the car door.

  I thought about Kelly Goff. Did she have any idea that in addition to being an inadvertent witness to a murder, she was about to be questioned about a fertility scam?

  “Since Corey is currently at large,” Frank said as he headed for the house, “this is all we’ve got. Let’s see where it goes.”

  Frank rang the bell, and the door opened immediately. A hefty man in his early fifties greeted us. He still held his briefcase, and his suit jacket hung halfway off his shoulder. Frank identified himself as a detective and asked for Kelly.

  “I’m Kelly,” he said, placing his bag on the foyer floor.

  Frank shook his head in disbelief. “You’re Kelly?”

  So much for our theory about the skinny jeans woman with short black hair living in the blue-shuttered house. I turned to Frank and shrugged. Then I looked back at the trail leading from the woods to the cul-de-sac. Where had this woman run to? I counted the houses on the street—there were seven. The skinny jeans woman could be living in any one of these homes or maybe, as we had first theorized, she had left her car in the neighborhood and then made her getaway.

  “That’s right. Kelly Goff. I’ve lived here for twenty years.” He led us into a cozy den with a stone fireplace. Frank and I sat down in a pair of soft leather chairs while Kelly remained standing. I glanced quickly around the room, hoping to spot a photo of the skinny jeans woman, but there were no pictures of a female with short black hair. The neighbor had mentioned that someone in the house had passed away. Maybe the skinny jeans woman was Kelly’s new girlfriend and it was too early in their relationship to warrant a photo.

  “What’s this about?” Kelly asked.

  “Do you know Dr. Carolyn Corey?” Frank asked.

  “Carolyn is my sister-in-law.”

  My ears lit up, and my nails dug into the chair’s leather arms. Carolyn Corey and Kelly Goff were related. I wondered if Corey had been afraid to return to her own home after Frank’s visit. Her brother-in-law’s house may have seemed a safer haven.

  “Is there something wrong with her?”

  Frank ignored the question. “And your wife passed away?”

  Kelly frowned. “My husband passed away. It’s been two years, and I don’t know what I’d do without my sister-in-law’s support. Has something happened to Carolyn?” He swiped at his mouth a few times, and I could see he was agitated.

  Before Frank responded, Kelly Goff took a giant step toward me and stared directly into my eyes. “Excuse me. What did you say your name was?”

  “CeCe,” I said. “CeCe Prentice.”

  He nodded and then walked quickly to the stairs. For a large man, he moved swiftly, taking two steps at a time. We felt his heavy vibrations overhead as he moved from room to room.

  Frank looked at me. “We can’t afford another runner,” he said, and then he directed his voice toward the stairs. “Mr. Goff,” he called. “We’re coming up.”

  We found Kelly seated on an antique iron bed made up with a vintage quilt in a patchwork of purples and pinks. Kelly Goff’s weight caused the ancient bed to sag, and a pile of stuffed animals had rolled to the lowest point around his thighs.

  “She’s not here,” he said, and then he lowered his head and wept.

  “Do you mean Dr. Corey?” I probed while Frank ran to find tissues. I took a shot in the dark. “Is this where she stays when she visits?”

  “No,” he said. “My daughter is gone. She should have been home by now. I assumed she was upstairs studying.”

  Frank returned with a box of tissues. My voice was thin, but I repeated what Kelly had told me. “He says his daughter is gone.”

  Frank walked over to Kelly and knelt by the bed. “How do you know she’s gone and not at a friend’s house?”

  Kelly shook his head. “It’s Thai Tuesday, our father/daughter night. We’d normally be heading out the door for Thai now.”

  “How old is your daughter?” Frank asked.

  Kelly inhaled swiftly, as if woken from a trance, and looked at Frank. “She’s sixteen.”

  At that moment, my legs gave way like my hamstrings had been sliced with a knife. I lunged for the desk and crumpled into a chair. Two gay men, one sister-in-law with a medical background, a free egg, and a container of Teddy’s sperm: the exact ingredients required for a test-tube baby. In a billion years, I would never have guessed the outcome unfolding in front of me, yet it was entirely plausible.

  I stared at the man. “You asked me my name. Why?”

  Kelly Goff wiped his tears and looked at me. “Because I know two men can’t produce a baby.” He blew his nose and continued. “Since the first day I held my daughter, I’ve worried that someone, a woman, would surface and lay claim to her. Carolyn told me I was crazy. But then, about six months ago, she came to me. She said she had read something in the paper that made her nervous.”

  I turned to Frank and mouthed, The trial. He nodded.

  Kelly stared at me. “I’m assuming you’re her.”

  “Maybe,” I said, leaving the door open to speculation. “Only a blood test can confirm.” But deep down I knew Kelly was on to something. I didn’t need my blood drawn to know that Kelly Goff’s child was my child, Teddy’s daughter, and Frank’s niece.

  “Carolyn had always been vague about the baby’s biological origins,” Kelly continued, “but we assumed that since she worked with the labs, it was legitimate.”

  “Did you use Lifely’s fertility services?”

  He seemed surprised that I knew about Lifely.

  “Initially, yes,” he stammered. “Carolyn introduced us to the center. It wasn’t easy for two gay men to adopt a white baby twenty years ago. We also weren’t on the fertility clinics’ radars at the time. In New York State, paid surrogacy was and still is illegal, which severely limited our choices. At that point, we’d already wasted years getting rejected by mainstream options. We were thrilled to find Lifely. They were progressive. We went pretty far through the process and paid ten grand for preliminary paperwork. And then one day, Carolyn showed up with another solution.”

  “She had found a surrogate for you?” I said as my mind immediately raced to Lizzy James. I wondered if my father and Corey had been competing for Lizzy’s uterus. “Had your sister-in-law found you a surrogate?” I repeated.

 
“No,” Kelly said. “She was pregnant. Carolyn was our surrogate.”

  My face fell into my hands. Carolyn Corey had carried my child? Why me? Why my child? Why had she stolen my baby and given it to her brother and his husband?

  Frank handed us both a tissue. “Tell us again why CeCe’s name interested you.”

  “After years of downplaying my concerns, Carolyn recently told me someone by the name of Prentice might come around asking questions. By Carolyn’s description though, I thought it would be an older man.”

  So Carolyn Corey knew my father was on to her and that after sixteen years, he’d come back to erase the evidence of his unethical plan to manipulate my family’s genetic tree in the name of science. That’s why Corey had run. She, too, could be implicated. And now she probably also feared my father, afraid of what he might try to do to the child she had carried to term and then given to her brother and Kelly. Surely Dr. Corey, as a former employee of the Sound View labs, had read about Teddy’s death in the papers and the subsequent coverage of the trial. Frank’s unannounced visit to her office and his questions about Lifely must have set off a red flag. When Frank left her office, I guessed Dr. Corey had put a simple plan into action—intercept her niece before the girl returned from school and move her to a safe place.