Always Watching

by LS Sygnet

  “It’s a four hour drive from Montgomery.”

  My eyebrows lifted. “He’s not flying in?”

  “Budget concerns, Helen. That and I got the distinct impression that this guy is more interested in how the bureau can use this situation to leverage Datello.”

  “Unbelievable,” I mumbled around another bite. There is a finite amount of crucial time when a child is missing, even if it is a case of custodial interference. They’re wasting it plotting how they can use this to squeeze more information out of Datello on Marcos.”

  “Speaking of that finite clock, we won’t have a whole lot of time to do this our way before Agent Preston shows up and limits what we can accomplish.”

  “Which is why you decided to drag me out of retirement. Or do I have my better half to thank for this development?”

  Devlin chuckled. “We weren’t able to get ahold of him. Apparently there’s some sort of thing going on at the governor’s place tonight. Crevan said he’d take the heat if Johnny is pissed off about our decision.”

  “I suspect he won’t mind one little bit, particularly since he’s not here to butt heads with the FBI. Although, I suspect he’d be in the middle of the case and relegate the political wrangling to Chris.”

  “Our thought exactly. Chris is already at the hospital, setting up a command center for the joint effort between the FBI and OSI. He’s planning to follow their abduction playbook while we do things quickly and quietly. It might be optimistic or maybe naïve of me to think that we could close this thing before the suit shows up, but there you have it.”

  “Dev, these cases are more complex than I think you realize.”

  “Another reason why you’re the perfect person to guide us. You’ve probably seen more of them than everybody in law enforcement in Darkwater Bay combined.”

  Since Johnny was gone, I had to agree. I tossed the remnant of my sandwich out the window and brushed the crumbs off my pants as Devlin pulled up to the hospital portico. He flashed his badge to the security guard waving wildly for him to move on.

  “What’s the first step, Helen?”

  We jogged toward the elevators. “We’ve got to talk to the nursing staff,” I said. “Hospitals enacted specific security measures to prevent babies from being stolen from nurseries years ago. Things like this aren’t supposed to happen.”

  “You think it was an inside job?”

  I punched the button for the sixth floor with determination. “Honestly, I don’t see how it could be anything else.”

  Then again, all the facts couldn’t begin to explain the motive behind something that should’ve been a very simple investigation. We hadn’t even chipped past the tip of the tip of the iceberg.

  Chapter 5

  I’d seen less security in federal prisons. The maternity ward, where all the moms and babies were housed – happily on most days – was overflowing with uniformed officers, detectives and hospital administration.

  Dev’s badge got us off the elevator, but word of mouth spread quickly from that point. I found it amazing that mere hours ago I believed gone equated forgotten in this city. It wasn’t imagination. My name literally rippled through the cramped space a moment before bodies parted like the Red Sea mythically had for Moses back in the day.

  “Where’s Mrs. Datello?” I asked.

  “Room 612, Dr. Eriksson,” man in suit who looked officially panicked said.

  “And you are?”

  He thrust out one hand, “Francis Fangman, CEO of Saint Mary’s Hospital.”

  “I’ll need to talk to you later,” I said. “You should get the director of human resources over here as well, Mr. Fangman. I’ll need employment files on everyone with access to this unit.”

  “Surely you don’t believe one of our employees would –”

  “How else do you explain this, sir? I know for a fact that hospitals have sophisticated security measures in place to prevent infant abductions. Someone got past those carefully implemented measures and stole a newborn. Are you suggesting that your system has vulnerabilities that you failed to correct before tragedy struck?”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Devlin smirk.

  “I –”

  “Please do as I asked. When I’m finished talking to Mrs. Datello, I’ll come find you.”

  A nurse was poised with a syringe, ready to inject clear liquid into Celeste’s IV when Devlin and I stepped into the room.

  “Hold off on that,” Devlin said quickly. “We need to talk to her first.”

  Celeste’s eyes were red, swollen nearly shut. A half empty box of tissues lay in her lap, the used scattered around her on the bed. I stepped close and spoke her name softly.

  “Detective Eriksson,” she sobbed. “Thank you for coming. You’ve got to find my baby. You’re the only one who can do it!”

  I perched on the edge of the bed. “Mrs. Datello, there are close to a hundred officers in this hospital dedicated to finding your baby and bringing her safely back to you. It’s imperative that you tell us anything you know right away.”

  “It won’t matter what I tell them,” she whispered with a hysterical edge to her affect, sort of a waxy expression, wide eyed, dilated pupils. If I hadn’t seen Dev prevent the nurse from injecting her with drugs, I’d have sworn we were too late. “They don’t understand these people the way you and Danny do.”

  Great. Nice way to build rapport, Celeste. Lump me in with a bunch of crazy criminals. Still, I couldn’t argue her logic. Not really. In many ways, Datello and I did share a few traits I’d rather that the rest of the world not realize.

  “It was my understanding this morning that I’m the last person your husband wants helping resolve this matter.”

  “He’s angry. Oh God, I don’t even think he knows that our daughter is missing! I’m terrified of what he’ll do when he finds out.”

  “We’ll take care of that, ma’am,” Devlin said. “We need to know if you saw or heard anything that could help us find your baby.”

  She shook her head and sniffled. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t know who did this. Detective, did you listen to the tape? They threatened me. They knew where we were.”

  “I did hear it, which is why we’ve had officers guarding your room since you delivered the baby. Does she have a name?”

  “No,” more wailing ensued.

  “Did anyone take pictures of her after she was born?” I asked gently. “If so, they could be very helpful.”

  “My nurse,” the distraught mother rasped, “she took pictures of the baby with my cell phone.”

  Where was this girl’s family? “Celeste, I’ve noticed that you don’t have anyone here with you. Is there someone we could call?”

  “No,” she whispered. “After he… after you arrested Danny, my family wanted me to make a choice I couldn’t make. He’s my husband. Our child’s father… I couldn’t turn my back on him, not when he needs me so much.”

  I bit back the urge to snort at her stupidity. If the tables were turned, Datello would’ve thrown her under the bus just as fast as anybody else in his warped family.

  “You don’t believe that. I know you don’t know Danny the way I do. I knew he had a horrible life… before. But he really did put it behind him.”

  “Celeste, I’m not here to talk about that. We need to focus on the baby right now.”

  “I need you to believe that my husband would sacrifice his life, his freedom, his fortune, everything he has to protect me and our daughter. Someone said that he was probably behind this. You need to know that he would never do this to me. His family on the other hand …”

  “I’m aware of the lengths they’d go to, Celeste. Let’s talk about your family for a moment.”

  “They wouldn’t,” she whispered.

  “Perhaps not, but I think that this might be the perfect time for you to mend fences with them, don’t you? The next few hours are critical in this investigation. I don’t feel right about you facing this alone.”

&nb
sp; “Can’t you talk to that judge?”

  “I’m not sure what you’d like me to talk to Judge Gates about.”

  She clutched my hand. “She could give Danny permission to be here with me. If he could be out for just a little while, I know he could help you find our baby.”

  “I know you believe that, but his interference will only hamper our search,” I said. “We’ll try to talk to him, Celeste. I hope he’ll be cooperative.”

  “But you don’t think he will be.”

  I shook my head. “Unfortunately, your husband doesn’t trust me. Frankly, I was surprised that you wanted to talk to me at all, Celeste. I don’t doubt that Danny has shared his opinions with you on a number of things.”

  “I don’t believe you could’ve killed Rick,” she said. “I don’t see that kind of hate in your eyes. You’re not like the rest of those people, Detective Eriksson. I’d like to think that if Danny had gotten away from his family the way you did your father, that he could’ve been very much like you are now. Noble. Honest. Decent. Those were the traits I saw when I fell in love with him. I knew there was another side, but I thought …” Speech disintegrated into sobbing.

  “You thought you could save him?”

  She nodded. “I will never believe that he’s the monster that people have accused him of being. But we won’t heal this rift if you can’t find my daughter.”

  I was momentarily taken aback, not only because she refused to acknowledge that there were scores of witnesses to what Datello perpetrated at the Medical Examiner’s Office, but his employees tried to kill uniformed police officers when we attempted to apprehend them. I couldn’t begin to process her comments on healing some alleged rift. Did she really believe that good old Danny and I could bury the hatchet? He believed, and rightly so, that I murdered his cousin, my ex-husband.

  My fist flew to one eye and rubbed hard. “Celeste, you need to understand that I will put forth all of my energy and effort into finding your daughter, but not because she’s your daughter. I would do the same for any missing child.”

  “I know that,” she said softly. “Which is exactly why I want you looking for her. Please tell Danny that I want him to cooperate with you. If he thinks you’re lying, maybe he could call me.”

  There was no mistaking the fact that this woman ached to hear her husband’s voice, maybe even receive some reassurance that everything would be all right. It tugged at my newfound empathy. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Out in the hall, Devlin muttered, “That wasn’t particularly helpful. In fact, I’d call it on the far side of creepy. What the hell was that shit about healing?”

  “Don’t go there, Dev. We both know that this woman is blinded by the image he’s painted for her. He’s not a good person, and I doubt he’ll cooperate with me, even if it could save his daughter’s life. No, our best bet is to look at who inside this hospital had both access to the baby and the opportunity to remove her.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Where’d that smarmy little administrator go?”

  Crevan joined us from behind. “Conference room at the end of the hall. He’s got some woman in there with him, Vanessa somebody. Fremont maybe.”

  “Do they have the personnel files I requested?”

  “Uh, nothing physical but the woman showed up with an enormous laptop computer.”

  “Dev, are you ready to do this?”

  “Should we keep interviewing the staff?” Crevan asked.

  “Yeah. I want a head count. Everybody scheduled to work this shift needs to be present and accounted for.”

  “Slight problem there, Helen,” Crevan cringed. “They had a change of shift just before you got here. Hospital security assured us that they detained everybody that was here at the time the baby disappeared, but some of the nurses are talking. It seems that at least one of them managed to slip away.”

  “Get her name and send a car out to pick her up,” I said. “I want her back here before Dev and I are done talking to the administrator. What’s her name?”

  He flipped open a notebook and flipped through several pages. “Florence Payette.”

  “And her job?”

  “She’s an RN in the nursery.”

  “Find out if she had any contact with the child from her coworkers. Also, Celeste Datello has some snapshots of the baby on her phone. They’ll be useless to us sooner than you might imagine, Crevan. It’s all we’ve got at the moment. Better than nothing I suppose.”

  “They change a lot after they’re born, don’t they?” he said.

  “Drastically. Ask somebody if Celeste had a cord blood kit. It’ll be invaluable if it takes us awhile to find this kid, but regardless will provide instant DNA for comparison.”

  “I’m on it.”

  Devlin held his tongue until we were out of earshot down the hall in the direction of the conference room. “I doubt any of us would’ve thought of that cord blood thing, Helen. If we find her, it’ll be a good tool to make sure she’s who we think she is.”

  “Exactly. If this takes more than a day, her features will be significantly different than they were today. Birth is a traumatic experience. The shape of her head will no doubt be different. This is a nightmare. Toughest thing you can imagine, a baby this young.”

  “I take it you’ve done this kind of investigation before.”

  “Unfortunately, more than once. Let’s see what we can learn about our missing nurse.” I shoved the conference room door open and found Fangman with a woman we had yet to meet.

  “Mr. Fangman.”

  He rose. “This is the head of human resources, Vicky Ferrite.”

  Not Vanessa Fremont.

  “Ma’am,” Devlin nodded curtly. “Wish this was under better circumstances. We’re going to need access to your personnel files right away.”

  “Mr. Fangman and I were discussing the rigorous process required to hire our staff, sir,” she said. One hand rested in a protective gesture over the laptop computer. “I can assure you that none of our staff has a criminal record of any kind.”

  My smile sent frost climbing up the walls. “Then again, Ms. Ferrite, every criminal has his or her first time. I’d prefer that we avoid any delay in obtaining the information we need. I believe that Mrs. Datello – and the lawyers she and her very wealthy husband are certain to hire – would appreciate your immediate cooperation, rather than forcing us to obtain a search warrant for these personnel files. That kind of lawsuit would be a public forum after all, and would hurt the confidence the city has in your hospital.”

  One of her perfectly manicured claws tapped the laptop. “And I’m sure that you realize we’ve already summoned our legal department –”

  “Devlin, would you get Zack Carpenter on the phone? We’re going to need a phone warrant from a judge to access these files. Also, if you could call someone from the Sentinel over here, the television stations too. We’re going to get that Amber Alert on the air right away, and I don’t see any point in holding the press conference for this abduction anywhere else. I’m sure Chris Darnell can handle it from his command center downstairs until the FBI arrives.”

  Ferrite flipped open the laptop. “Are there any employees in particular that you need information about?”

  “Everyone on duty during the time that this child disappeared, specifically those with access to the nursery. At the top of that list should be one of your nurses who escaped questioning and slipped away at change of shift. Her name is Florence Payette.”

  “Florence Payette?” Ferrite echoed. “But she’s a harmless old woman.”

  “How old?” Devlin still held his phone poised and ready to dial.

  “Mid fifties. She’s worked here on and off for years. Since she graduated from nursing school, Florence has been voted employee of the quarter, of the year, countless times by her peers. She’s worked here nearly twenty years.”

  “How many babies have been abducted from your hospital in the past, Mr. Fangman?” I asked. “Two
? Five? Twenty?”

  “Three,” he said softly. “But this is the first since we implemented the security system that is mandated by JCAHO.”

  “When did the first two take place?”

  He glanced at his fuming human resources director. “There was one in the mid 1990s, the other probably before you were born. This one is the third.”

  I did the math. The one in the ’90s was during the Lowe years of Darkwater Bay. “And were those children ever found?”

  “I don’t believe so. That was long before our tenure in this hospital, Dr. Eriksson.”

  “I’d like Ms. Payette’s file now, if you don’t mind,” I said.

  A printer hummed to life behind Ferrite. Devlin retrieved the pages and handed them to me. I scanned the ancient cover letter.

  “She wasn’t trained in the United States?”

  “Her mother was a citizen, but Florence was born overseas. Saudi Arabia I believe.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Is it?” Dev asked.

  “We’ll talk about it later. I’d like to see her performance reviews as well,” I said. “Has she always worked in obstetrics?”

  “Yes,” Ferrite said. “I believe that while she was working her way through nursing school that she was employed as a nanny for a retired diplomat. Her mother had worked for him in Saudi Arabia. When he came back to the United States, Florence and her mother came with them.”

  “And Florence was the nanny for this diplomat’s children?”

  “I think so,” Ferrite said. “This is based on what I can recall from Florence’s profile being published in the hospital newsletter for her many honors as an exemplary employee.”

  “I don’t suppose you remember the name of this alleged diplomat,” a little venom seeped into my voice. Ferrite was really beginning to annoy me with her attitude. Couldn’t she put a missing newborn ahead of the hospital’s reputation? Perhaps she didn’t comprehend that we could destroy public confidence in the place. I glanced at Devlin. “Did you call Chris about that press conference? We need to get the pictures of the baby plastered all over the country, Dev.”