Blood of Innocence

by Tami Dane

  Inside the bedroom, the ME looked to be finishing up his preliminary investigation. JT went straight to him. “Do you have a COD?” he asked.

  “Exsanguination.”

  “The fetus?”

  “No heartbeat. Looks like she’s already delivered.”

  “Did you find the puncture wound?”

  “Groin.”

  A bird chattered outside, drawing my attention. A dark shadow flashed across the window. I went to it, checked it. It was shut but unlocked. I opened the window and a black feather floated into the room on a soft breeze. A branch of the sickly maple tree outside, blown by a stronger gust, swayed. The black-red leaves rippled.

  “What do you see?” JT asked.

  “Nothing. Just a shadow. Must have come from the tree.” I closed the window. “This was unlocked. But that tree outside is half dead.” I pointed at the leafless limbs closest to us. “There’s no way the limbs nearest to the window could support a grown adult.” As if to support my theory, one snapped off and fell to the ground.

  “So we still have no idea how the unsub is getting in,” JT summed up.

  “I’m still thinking a door. It’s the most logical.”

  “Let’s go talk to the husband. We’ll see if he can tell us anything.”

  “Okay. Did you get anything from the victim?” I asked.

  “Not a damn thing.”

  We found Volpe sitting in his living room, looking miserable and confused and overwhelmed. He had an elbow bent and was holding a piece of gauze against his arm. I was hoping that meant he’d agreed to the blood test. JT introduced us, as I’d come to expect.

  “Mike Volpe.” The man gave us each a nod. “I’ve told the police everything I know. I even gave them some blood.”

  “I’m sure they’re grateful for your help,” I said.

  Volpe checked his arm. “I just don’t understand. It’s so strange. It almost doesn’t feel real. It’s like I’m going to walk upstairs and she’ll be there, sleeping. And I’ll learn it was all a sick joke.” He wadded up the gauze.

  Shit, there was nothing to say to that. “I’m sorry.”

  “Would you mind answering a few questions?” JT asked.

  “No.” Volpe stared at the ball of gauze in his hand.

  “Do you keep all your doors locked at night?” JT asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Windows?” I asked.

  “The windows on the first floor are locked every night. When I was a kid, we had a break-in one night. Scared the shit out of me. I always lock the doors and windows. Don’t worry about the second floor so much. There’s no way for anyone to break in up there.”

  “Did you notice anything unusual before you went to bed last night?” I asked.

  “No.” Volpe crossed his arms over his chest and raised his gaze to me. “Unusual? Like what?”

  “Like, was anything out of place? Did anything feel wrong?” I asked.

  “Was your wife acting normal?” JT added.

  Volpe’s eyes narrowed. “Of course she was acting normal. Why would you ask a thing like that?”

  “I don’t mean to offend you, sir,” JT said. “We’re just trying to find out what we can, to help the detective solve the case.”

  Volpe’s narrowed eyes widened. His gaze dropped to the floor. “Nothing stands out. We watched the news, like we always do. Then we went to bed. Together. It was a nice night.”

  “Did she leave you at any point?”

  “Probably. To go to the bathroom. She’s always complaining that she has to pee every half hour. But she was never gone for long. I wake up really easily, every time she leaves and every time she comes back. I would know.”

  “Was your bedroom window open last night?” I asked, jotting some notes.

  “Sure. It was cool enough to cut off the air. But I can tell you for certain nobody got in our window.”

  I nodded. “Of course.”

  “Anything else?” Volpe asked, looking—and sounding—worn-out and shutdown.

  “No. Not at this point,” JT said. “Thank you.” We excused ourselves and went back outside.

  “I wonder what this victim’s secret is?” I asked, recalling what Gabe had said yesterday as we strolled down the sidewalk toward our parked cars.

  “What?” JT asked, hesitating in front of the house next door.

  “Gabe told me he’s learned something, working this case. Everybody has secrets.”

  “Oh, yeah? What’s yours?”

  “I don’t have any.”

  “Well, then, that shoots his theory all to hell.” He motioned toward the neighbor, who was standing on her front porch, a coffee cup in her hands. JT waved at the woman; she waved back. Turning on the charm, he headed toward her. I followed.

  “Hello, ma’am, Agent Thomas. This is Sloan Skye. FBI. Do you have a few minutes to answer some questions?”

  “About what?” she asked, peering toward her neighbor’s house. “What’s going on?”

  “Your neighbor was found dead early this morning,” JT told her.

  The woman’s face turned white. “Really? Mike is dead?”

  “No, his wife,” JT told her, after shooting a glance over his shoulder at me.

  Maybe the Volpes had a dirty little secret, after all.

  “Oh.” The woman’s brows drew together. She didn’t speak for a moment, just glanced at the house periodically while staring down into her coffee cup the rest of the time. “That’s ... awful.”

  “You look very shaken,” I said. “Were you friends?”

  “No, not really.” The woman looked at me. “She was pregnant.”

  “Yes,” I said. “She was.”

  The woman gnawed on her lip. She glanced at the house again.

  “Why did you assume it was her husband who was found dead?” I asked, keyed in to her pensive reaction.

  She jerked her gaze back to me. “Oh. Um. His hobby.”

  “What kind of hobby does he have?” I asked.

  “Well, he sort of likes to ... test computer security systems. . . and then he ... Oh, hell, he loves hacking into company’s computers and messing with them. But it’s not as bad as it sounds. He’s doing the companies a favor, in a way. He’s letting them know there’s a vulnerability.”

  “And this has what to do with his wife’s death?”

  Her gaze flicked to her neighbor’s house. “Last week, he told me he nailed some little company in Scranton. A few days later, he found a package on his front porch. Inside was a fake bomb. The note said if he so much as logged on to the Net, the next one would be real.”

  I shook my head. I’d known a hacker or two in college. For the most part, they were like this guy, harmless. But the fact was, they sometimes hit the wrong person. Then things could get ugly. “I’m hoping he realizes it’s time to take up a new hobby.”

  Genius—to know without having learned; to draw just conclusions from unknown premises; to discern the soul of things.

  —Ambrose Bierce

  7

  Three dead women.

  Three missing babies.

  I was convinced that their being pregnant was no coincidence. Despite all the other ugly secrets we’d dug up—the affairs and shady careers and so-called hobbies—the pregnancies were the unifying factor.

  “What do you think?” I asked JT as we walked toward our cars. Both were parked a few houses down. JT’s car was in front of mine.

  “With a ‘hobby’ like that, it’s a miracle something hasn’t happened to him sooner.”

  “But it has nothing to do with the case,” I stated.

  “Right. Nothing.”

  We stopped next to my car. JT watched me get in.

  I rolled down the passenger-side window and asked him, “What do you think? Check Laura Volpe’s medical records next?”

  He opened the passenger-side door and made himself comfy. “Makes sense.”

  “I don’t suppose it’ll be so simple that we learn all three women
were going to the same doctor... .”

  “That would be nice.” He motioned to my phone, which I’d set in the cup holder. “Why don’t you go ahead and call Hough? She can have the physicians’ names in a few minutes. In the meantime, we could grab an early lunch somewhere.”

  I checked my phone. It was early all right. More like breakfast time. But I was starving. “Sounds like a plan.” I called Brittany, asked her to get us the names and addresses of all three victims’ OB-GYN doctors. By the time I’d ended the call, JT was in his car and I was following him out of the subdivision. Twenty minutes later, we were pulling into the parking lot of one of my favorite little deli restaurants.

  “Is this okay?” he asked in the parking lot.

  “Sure is.” I grabbed my laptop bag and headed inside. JT fell into step beside me. I reached for the door, but he beat me to it, opening it so I could step through.

  Inside, we were escorted to a table in the back. I multitasked, ordering a cola while setting up my laptop. JT did the same. We pecked at our keyboards in silence for a few minutes.

  “Hough e-mailed the doctors’ names to me,” JT announced, just as the waitress was returning with our drinks.

  “Doctors, as in plural?” I asked.

  “Yep.”

  “So much for things being simple.”

  We ordered our food. JT shut his laptop after the waitress hurried off to turn our order in to the cook. “Sloan, are you going to hide behind that computer screen the whole time we’re here?”

  “I’m not hiding. I’m working.” I hoped he wouldn’t look at my screen. I’d already checked my e-mail. Now I was on Facebook, reading my mother’s latest rant. It was about me. Evidently, I was the world’s worst maid of honor.

  JT gently closed my computer. “Sloan?”

  “Hey, I was doing something important.”

  He raised his eyebrows in a classic yeah-right expression.

  I shrugged.

  “Okay.” He removed his hand. “I’ll let you get back to your ‘important’ work.” He drank half a glass of water. He fiddled with his napkin. He cleared his throat about a dozen times.

  “Are you okay? Need another glass of water?” I asked.

  “Nope. I’m fine.” He blinked big eyes at me.

  I swallowed a sigh. Yes, I had been hiding from him. That was rude. And childish. Immature. Unprofessional too. “My work can wait.” I put my computer back in the bag. “So you said there’s more than one doctor?”

  “There are three.”

  “I don’t suppose they all practice in the same building?”

  “Doubt it. Their office addresses aren’t the same—though they’re relatively close. All in the Baltimore area.”

  “Well, that’s something.” I paused while our waitress gave us our food and asked if we needed anything else. When we indicated that we didn’t, she set the tab on the edge of the table and thanked us. “This case is a tough one. We have so little to go on. And there’s so much at stake, since the victims are—were—pregnant. What do you think the unsub is doing with the babies? They’re all theoretically old enough to survive outside of the womb if they were delivered. But you never know. There’s always some risk when a child is delivered.”

  “I think we’ll have his motivation for killing when we figure out what he’s doing with the babies.” JT took a big bite of his sandwich and chewed.

  “I agree,” I said. “But as far as gender goes, I’m second-guessing the assumption we’re looking for a male. Historically, infants have been commonly murdered by women, going back over two hundred years to the practice of infant sweating in Victorian England. If those babies have been killed, I’m thinking our unsub is a female. Female with some kind of medical training.”

  “Do you have a statistic to support your theory? Or is it based on conjecture?” JT asked.

  “I haven’t found any hard numbers, but I can look for some.”

  “Don’t bother. I’m only kidding.” He flashed one of those insanely adorable grins, and I felt myself going soft. “You make a good point.”

  “What I don’t like is how often the unsub is killing. Not only is he or she locating a new victim very quickly, but she is progressing through all seven psychological phases—aura, trolling, wooing, capture, murder, totem, and depression—within forty-eight hours, sometimes faster. To go through such extreme highs and lows in such a short time ...”

  “Someone has to be noticing,” JT said, shaking a fry at me.

  “Good point.”

  “When we find her, we’ll know it.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  We ate for a few minutes in silence, but then our gazes locked. My heart lurched. My mouth went dry. I knew what was coming.

  He said, “Sloan, about that conversation we had—”

  “Please don’t, JT. Let’s keep things like this, friendly but professional. It’s better for both of us.”

  “But I’d like to explain.”

  “There’s no need.” I’d eaten all I was going to. I pushed my plate away, dug out a ten-dollar bill, and put it on top of the bill. “Where to first?”

  “I guess we’ll pay Sprouse’s doctor a visit first.” He dropped his wadded napkin on his empty plate.

  “I’m ready to go when you are.”

  “Okay.” He tried handing my ten back to me; but when I refused to take it, he slid it under the candle centerpiece, placed a twenty on top of the bill, and grabbed his laptop bag.

  We headed out into a bright, sunshiny morning. As I inhaled the scent of freshly mown grass, I thought that somewhere, out there, our killer was already hunting his or her next victim.

  The drive to Sprouse’s doctor’s office was quick and relatively painless. Rush hour was winding down and the roads were passable.

  In the lobby/reception area, JT introduced us to the young woman manning the front desk. She took our names and informed us someone would be with us soon; then she slid the little glass partition closed.

  We waited among a dozen or so visibly pregnant women. A couple of them smiled at me after flicking their eyes at JT. I could only imagine what they were thinking. As tempting as it was to explain we weren’t patients, I didn’t bother. Several patients were called before we were. I was getting antsy by that time and had skimmed every Parents magazine in the lobby. Finally I heard my name.

  As we strolled through a doorway, following a cheerful nurse dressed head to toe in scrubs (who, ironically, could be a cold-blooded killer), I peered into the bustling center of the practice. The office was staffed by at least a half-dozen women who were working phones and computers. Any of them could be the killer too. I nearly bumped into a woman pushing a cart full of sonographic gear—yet another suspect—as I rounded the corner, following the nurse down a crowded hallway. Our eyes met. Then hers flicked to my flat stomach. She smiled and apologized.

  Numbered examination rooms were positioned at regular intervals along one wall. We were ushered into a teeny, tiny room by the nurse and asked to wait there.

  JT sat on the chair pushed into a corner before I could. He grinned and pointed at the bed—the one with the stirrups.

  “If you were a gentleman, you’d give up the chair,” I pointed out.

  “I guess that cinches it then, huh?” he joked. “I’m no gentleman.”

  I bit back a smart-ass retort and climbed up on the bed, leaving my legs swinging over the side. The paper crinkled under my ass. It was such a precious, wonderful, delightful moment.

  Not.

  JT’s eyes glittered. “If you’re sleepy—”

  “Don’t you dare.” I crossed my arms over my chest and crossed my ankles too. “This is bad enough as it is. Do you really need to make inappropriate comments?”

  His eyes sparkled. “No, I don’t ‘need’ to. But it’s kind of fun.”

  “Stop it.”

  “Done.” His lips quirked for a split second.

  I stared at the wall, trying to pretend I wasn’t
shut in a room the size of a closet with a man my body thought was the next best thing to chocolate. My mind knew better, thankfully. And my mind was in control.

  What felt like an hour later, I checked the time on my phone. It had been fifteen minutes. “Sheesh. How much longer is this doctor going to make us wait?”

  “Don’t know. Should I poke my nose out and check?”

  “Sure.”

  JT sauntered to the door, opened it. “Hmm,” he said just as the sound of a woman’s scream echoed down the hall. “I think something’s wrong.”

  I slid off the table and rushed toward the open door. Several nurses were all dashing toward the same room, down at the end of the hall. Another shriek came from that direction.

  “Great timing,” I mumbled.

  The nurse who ushered us into the room caught sight of us and sprinted over. “I’m sorry. Dr. Rosenstein is going to be busy for a while. Is there any chance you can come back later?”

  “What’s going on?” I asked, having some notion, but knowing my assumption could be wrong.

  “A patient’s delivering.”

  I wasn’t wrong.

  JT pulled a card out of his pocket and handed it to the nurse. “If you’d please let him know we’d like to talk to him as soon as possible? It’s regarding one of his patients.”

  “I’ll deliver the message.” Off she ran.

  And off we headed, to doctor number two.

  Dr. Patel’s practice was much like the first. The waiting room was packed with women sporting swollen bellies. The nurses bustled around, escorting patients to rooms, checking blood pressures and weights. Roughly twenty minutes after we arrived, a nurse called out JT’s name and asked us to follow her. As we walked past the administration area, I eyeballed the huge wall of file drawers. There were perhaps a half-dozen people working back there, several nurses and maybe three administrators. None of the faces looked familiar, not that I expected them to be. I figured it was safe to assume there was no way for the same person to work at all three offices.

  This time—thank God!—we were taken to a small office. Not an examination room. We sat in the chairs facing the desk and waited for Dr. Patel to find his way back to us.

  “I have a feeling we’re wasting time here,” I said.