Dante's Wood
Page 20
“Did she say who the father was?”
“No. And I don’t ask unless the patient volunteers the information. I did confirm that she wasn’t having sex with multiple partners to lessen the possibility of an STD. Shannon said there had been only one man, that she’d broken up with him after New Year, and that she wasn’t planning to tell him about the child. Later, when I read in the papers who he was, it surprised me. I mean, here she was, a teacher who’d had sex with one of her students. Didn’t she realize what kind of trouble she’d be in if she carried the baby to term? You remember the story about that high-school teacher, the one who got pregnant by a seventeen-year-old. Didn’t she go to jail?”
“Yes. But Charlie Dickerson is legally an adult. Maybe that’s why Shannon thought she could get away with it, especially if she wasn’t planning to say whose baby it was.”
Terry said, “Fair enough. But if she was sure it was his, I don’t understand why she didn’t want to have the fetus tested.”
“You discussed that with her?”
“At length. I always bring it up, regardless of the mother’s age. The American College now recommends preliminary screening for trisomies in all pregnancies. A simple blood test is all that’s needed, and a detailed ultrasound is usually sufficient to confirm a positive result. It’s become so routine in my practice, we don’t even think about not doing it. But Shannon turned me down flat.”
“Did she say why?”
“She seemed to be morbidly afraid of doing anything that might cause harm to the fetus. I explained we weren’t talking about CVS or amniocentesis, which do carry a risk of fetal death, however slight. But she wouldn’t even hear of it. She told me that she worked with intellectually disabled adults, thought they were lovely people, and was sure a positive result wouldn’t alter her plans. I couldn’t argue with that, so I let it drop.”
“How were things left between you two?”
“Pretty standard. I prescribed prenatal vitamins and asked her come back in a month’s time. I advised her to get plenty of rest and to take it easy for a while and to call me if she started to spot again. I could have handed her back to my partner, but being a single mom myself I felt some sympathy for her. I remember thinking I didn’t like her all that much, but maybe I would warm to her over time, and she was going to need a lot of support over the next months.”
“Was that all you were going to tell the police?” I asked, disappointed. I had gotten my hopes up there would be more.
“No, wait. About two weeks later Shannon called back asking about a paternity test.”
I cocked my head in Terry’s direction. “You mean a DNA test?”
“Right,” she said. “I asked the reason and she told me she was no longer sure who the father was, that she’d lied to me when she said there was only one. I wasn’t too happy about that, but it happens. Many women have trouble admitting to sex with multiple partners, especially to a doctor they’ve just met. It’s one of the reasons I don’t like seeing new OB patients. I like to have an established relationship with someone whose baby I’m going to deliver, so they trust me and I trust them. With the malpractice situation, you can’t be too careful. Anyway, Shannon told me she’d been having second thoughts about not informing the baby’s father, there were money issues involved, and she needed to be absolutely certain who he was before she went ahead.”
So Shannon hadn’t been sure the fetus was Charlie’s. Or had she?
“That’s interesting,” I said. “What did you tell her?”
“I told her yes, prenatal paternity testing was available. But it requires a fetal tissue sample. The only way to get one is by doing CVS or amniocentesis. I was remembering her earlier objections to testing, you see—the fears she’d expressed. I advised her to wait until the baby was born, when she could get the results in as little as two weeks.”
“What did she say?”
“She did a complete about-face about the baby’s safety. Told me she didn’t care what happened to the child. She had a decision to make and ‘obviously’—to use her words—couldn’t wait nine months to find out. She demanded that I schedule the procedure as soon as possible. Was pretty snotty about it, actually.”
“Did you go along?” I asked.
“Are you kidding? You can imagine the warning bells going off in my head. Here was a woman I barely knew who’d first turned down a completely innocuous blood test and now wanted me to plunge a six-inch needle into her abdomen. I was worried about what would happen if I did what she asked and—God forbid—something happened to her baby. All I needed was another lawsuit. So I told her I first wanted to do the blood work and a Level II ultrasound. If one or both indicated a higher than normal risk for a birth defect we could consider a more invasive procedure that would also tell her who the father was. Otherwise, I couldn’t in good conscience agree.”
“What was her response?”
“She said something I won’t repeat and hung up on me.”
“What did you make of it?”
“I don’t know. Something in her manner made me feel she wasn’t telling the truth. To be charitable, given what we now know about the baby’s father, she may have started to think about what it would be like to raise a retarded son or daughter.”
“Not a son,” I said.
“Why?” Then she thought about it and said, “Oh, yes of course. Fragile X. How clever of you.”
“So you think the sudden concern about who fathered her baby was manufactured, a way of getting genetic testing without coming right out and asking for it?”
“You’re the psychiatrist, you tell me. To tell the truth, I don’t know what to think, except that something must have happened in those two weeks to make her think less fondly about the baby she was carrying. It would explain what she meant by not having nine months to make a decision.”
“Earlier you mentioned her reaction when she found out she wasn’t miscarrying. Could that have been faked?”
Terry thought about this before answering. “I don’t think so. We were sitting face to face in my examination room. I’ve been doing this a long time and I’m certain I would have known. I’ve never seen anyone so overjoyed.”
“You also said something about the pregnancy being unplanned. How did you know that? Did she tell you?”
Terry paused before answering. “Now that you mention it, no. I just assumed it was because she was young and single. What are you thinking?”
“Just that she might have conceived intentionally.”
Terry snorted. “You don’t think she actually wanted to marry that boy, do you?”
I winced.
Terry must have noticed my expression and hurried to say, “I’m sorry, that didn’t come out the way I intended. Of course, if he were of normal intelligence . . . ,” she trailed off.
Which only made it worse.
Fifteen
When I got back to the street, I was tired and confused. The sun was drilling holes in my eyes again, so I crossed over to the shady side of Broadway and began walking south. I remembered the area well from the long walks I had taken after moving to Chicago, seeking out the attractions of my new home and trying to forget why I had one. The strip I was on winds past some of the most desirable addresses in the city, but it hardly resembles a shopping magnet for the wealthy. Used-clothing emporiums and acupuncturists share frontage with hardware outlets and insurance agencies, and the antique stores lean more toward Fiesta Ware than Chippendale. It has an unpretentious Midwestern feel to it, as far removed from Madison Avenue as Cape Town is from the North Pole.
At Fullerton, I stopped at a coffee shop, ordered myself a rare espresso as a treat, and phoned Alice Lowe.
“I’m glad you called,” she said. “I asked around like you wanted and found out a few things.”
“I’m in your neighborhood now. Would it be all right if I stopped by in a little while?”
“I have a staff meeting starting in a few minutes. But if you’re free, perhap
s we could have that dinner you promised me?”
It sounded like a swell idea to me.
We agreed to meet at the New Horizons Center at 6:30. I had a few hours to kill, so I walked the few blocks over to the Lincoln Park Zoo. The baby giraffe had drawn a crowd and the pathways were thick with strollers and baby joggers and nannies chatting in Spanish and Tagalog and Polish. It was easy to tell them apart from the biological mothers, whose conversation tended toward the didactic. “No, Taylor, that’s not a bear. It’s a koala. Can you say K-O-A-L-A? What letter does koala begin with?” I thought of my own son, Louis, now coming up on his third birthday. I wondered if we would ever visit a zoo together and what he would make of a father who always needed to have sights pointed out for him. As if reading my mind, a docent stopped me and offered me a Braille guide to the exhibits, and I wandered around identifying lions, and tigers, and bears until nearly closing time.
When I tapped up to the center a little later, Alice was waiting for me at the door. “Here,” she called when I came up. It suddenly struck me that I hadn’t been on a date with a woman since the night Jack died. I quickly shoved aside the thought.
“How’s everything?” I asked awkwardly. “Another rough day?”
“Impossible,” she said. “That’s why I was so forward about asking you to dinner. I could really use a hiatus for a few hours. How about you? Any success?”
“I’ll tell you while we eat. Where are we going?”
“A neighborhood place called LaScala that’s supposed to be good. It’s within walking distance. I looked up the menu on line. Shall I describe it to you?”
Alice locked her arm in mine and highlighted the house offerings while we strolled over to the restaurant, housed in a Victorian on Southport. When we arrived, “Nessun Dorma” was playing quietly on the sound system, pans were being rattled in the kitchen, and wood smoke was drifting from an oven in the rear. Tables lit with votive candles winked like a field of fireflies at dusk. The hostess showed us to the one Alice had reserved, in a corner where I could stow my cane upright. Alice carried a folding model that she collapsed before sitting down.
“I’m sure we’re creating quite a scene,” she said after we’d gotten settled. “Two blind people eating out without a sighted keeper.”
“Should I knock over my water glass to liven things up even more?”
Alice giggled.
“Or accidentally set fire to my tie?”
“Might be wise to reverse the order,” Alice said.
After the waiter announced the daily specials and we’d ordered food and a bottle of wine, I asked Alice what she had learned.
“It’s not much. I asked around about whether Shannon was dating someone. No one had seen the man, but it seemed she did have a beau.”
“Did you find out his name?”
“No. As you mentioned, Shannon was being very secretive about it. Mmmm, that smells good.”
The waiter had whisked over our first course, fried artichokes alla giudia—in the Jewish style—and we dipped in. Between mouthfuls, Alice told me that around February of the preceding year, Shannon had come back from a long weekend with a tan and told one of her coworkers, Dean Parsons, that she’d been to Hawaii. This was followed by half a dozen other weekend trips, including one to Arizona in March, and another to San Francisco in April. The frequent travel continued until the fall, when Shannon abruptly stopped mentioning it. All of this squared with what Marilyn Sparrow had told me.
“Did Parsons know who she was vacationing with?” I asked.
“No. Just that she wasn’t by herself.”
“She could have taken those trips with a female friend,” I said, playing devil’s advocate. The artichokes were just right, crisp but not chewy, and I suspected the chef had been trained abroad.
“I don’t think so. That’s a lot of money to spend on airfare. Shannon’s salary, unfortunately, was barely above minimum wage. But there’s more. Around June, she received a package by special delivery with a turquoise box in it. I assume you know where those come from.”
I did. It was Annie’s favorite jeweler, and I’d purchased many a peace offering there.
“Tiffany,” I said. “Did anyone catch the name of the sender?”
“Nellie, our receptionist, said it came directly from a store on Michigan Avenue.”
“Did Nellie watch her open it?”
“No. But later that day she was seen wearing a necklace, an expensive-looking one. After that she wore it every day.”
“Did you get a description?”
“Yes. It was silver or white gold with a teardrop-shaped diamond pendant.”
I made a mental note to ask O’Leary whether such an item had been found on Shannon’s body. “That could be important. I doubt Charlie could have purchased an expensive gift like that on his own.”
“True, but all the necklace shows is that there was someone else in the picture,” Alice said. “We don’t know if he was involved in Shannon’s death.”
Our primi piatti had come. I twisted a strand of homemade chitarra onto my fork and tasted it. It too was perfect, bathed in a clam and garlic sauce. I probed my plate with my fork and found one tucked into its shell. It was as fresh and sweet as any I’d tasted in Italy.
“This place is amazing,” I said appreciatively.
“I’m glad you like it. I was worried it would be one of those dreadful rubber cheese and Ragu joints.”
“Properly speaking, ragú just means sauce. It doesn’t have to resemble watered-down tomato paste.”
“Spoken like a true Son of Italy. Now it’s your turn.”
“Sorry. I don’t cook.”
“Silly. I meant for you to tell me what you found out today.”
I filled her in on my visit to Shannon’s gynecologist while I emptied my plate and swabbed up the remains of the sauce with a chunk of crusty bread. When I mentioned my idea that Shannon might have become pregnant with Charlie’s child on purpose, Alice grew quiet and asked me to pour her another glass of wine.
“But why . . . why would she do something like that?”
“I can think of only one reason.”
“Which is?”
“Blackmail.”
The word cast a pall over the table.
“That’s . . . plausible,” Alice said, after a moment. “But do you really think Shannon intended to go to this . . . boyfriend of hers, demand some kind of payment? It sounds so nineteenth century.”
“I know, but look at the lengths she took to conceal the affair. I’m thinking it was someone important, a politician maybe. Her former roommate said they broke up sometime last fall. Maybe Shannon was trying to salvage something from the relationship, even though it was over. Maybe she was using Charlie to get pregnant. She’d have to move quickly to pass the child off as the other fellow’s. Charlie happened to be available and was unlikely to raise an objection.”
“But wouldn’t a paternity test eventually prove who the real father was?”
“I think she never intended it to get that far. She’d offer to have an abortion in return for some kind of payoff and then disappear. According to Shannon’s sister, her place was packed up, like she was planning to move, and she’d scheduled some kind of medical procedure, one that involved anesthesia.”
“All right,” Alice said. “I’m with you so far. But then why the sudden desire to have the baby tested?”
“That’s the part I don’t get. Unless she thought there was a chance she was mistaken. Maybe mystery man called her bluff and she got desperate. We know now that the baby was Charlie’s. But that doesn’t mean she was sure it was.”
“There’s no doubt about the accuracy of the DNA test—I mean that Charlie was the father?”
“I had a friend read it to me. The alleles of Shannon’s fetus matched up almost perfectly with Charlie’s. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s that genes don’t lie.”
Alice chewed on this a bit before replying.
“You say that like it means something special to you.”
I stiffened. I didn’t like being asked about how I went blind, but it was my fault for leading the conversation in that direction. And Alice wasn’t being morbidly curious in the manner of strangers who thought it appropriate to ask me how I dressed myself while I was standing on line at the grocery store. So I told her about it while we ate our main course, a melt-in-your-mouth veal saltimbocca.
“That’s tough,” she said when I’d finished. “I’ve often asked myself whether it’s better to go blind gradually or all at once. You seem to have had the worst of both worlds.”
“What about you?”
“Car accident,” she said. “My fiancé—his name was Ted—and I were returning from a weekend at a friend’s cottage in Delavan. It was Labor Day and we’d both had too much to drink. Ted lost control of the car going up a ramp. We plowed into a bus and Ted was killed instantly. I should have died too, but I woke up a week later in intensive care with massive head injuries. It took months to learn how to walk again. I’ve been legally blind ever since. I was twenty-five when it happened.”
I wanted to know how old she was now, but thought it impolite to ask. “What did you do before?”
“I was a nurse. Naturally, I couldn’t continue working in a hospital, so when I was up and about again I went back for my master’s degree in Rehabilitation Counseling. I’m forty-two now, in case you were wondering.”
I smiled at how easily she had read me. “I confess the question had occurred to me. Is this the part where we’re supposed to describe what we look like?”
“I already know.”
“Yeah. How so?”
“George Clooney. I’d know that voice anywhere. Perhaps not as tall.”
I laughed. “It’s a good thing you can’t see me.”
“What about me?” Alice asked playfully.
“Diane Keaton.”
After we’d finished with coffee and I was paying the check, Alice asked if I’d like to stop by her place. “It’s only a few minutes away and we could open a bottle of Armagnac I bought in France.”