A Perilous Conception

by Larry Karp

  You hire people whose judgment you can trust. I excused myself, helped Mrs. Wadlin sit up, then followed Barbara into the hall. “Ms. Kennett,” she said.

  “With a problem.”

  “She insisted she had to talk to you immediately. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I’ll take it in my office.”

  Joyce didn’t even say hello, just opened fire with both barrels. “Detective Baumgartner was here again. He said he knew we were doing IVF.”

  “Joyce, listen, please? He can’t possibly know anything about your procedure. There’s no record in any chart. He’s blowing smoke.”

  “He also went back to that accident in the lab, and said it was connected with my procedure. You told me the accident was on an experiment, and had nothing to do with me.”

  “That’s because it was an experiment, and it did have nothing to do with you.”

  I heard her mutter something, but couldn’t make it out. Then she said, “One other thing. Baumgartner told me he knew about some second sperm sample in my procedure. You never said anything about that. I don’t see any way James could’ve given a second sample. When we first came to you, and you wanted a routine sperm sample to make sure he was fertile, I had to go in the room with him and help him get it, and then I did the same before I went to the operating suite for the egg recovery. And besides…oh, damn. When we’d go to bed, he was one and done, every time. He simply could not have given—”

  “There was no second sperm sample, Joyce. Period.”

  No answer.

  “Joyce, there was no second sample. That cop is desperate. His captain is probably pushing him to make an arrest, so he’s inventing stories, trying to get you upset.”

  “Well, he’s doing a goddamn good job.”

  “That’s the point. Don’t let him. We’ve talked about this, and we’ve got to hold firm until the police go away. We can’t have them turning this into a media circus that will ruin everything.”

  “What will ruin everything is if another doctor beats us out. That’s what Baumgartner said before he left.”

  “Sure he did. He’s trying to get us to do something foolish, And we’ll be foolish if we let him send us into a panic.”

  I heard a whoosh in the receiver, air being forced across the mouthpiece. “Dr. Sanford, I can’t see why you’re so insistent about waiting. What can the police do to us if we go ahead now?”

  “Turn up the heat. And then, there’s the press.” They’ll have people talking all over the world about the police investigation of a murder-suicide involved in the first reported IVF success.”

  “And according to Baumgartner, some kind of suspicious disappearance. What the hell is that all about?”

  Like in surgery, when you think you’ve got all the arteries tied off, but whoops, there goes another one, spurt, spurt, spurt. “Baumgartner told me about that, too. A lab worker quit and left town right about the time you got pregnant. Apparently, nobody thought anything of it then, but now he’s trying to tie it into his case. He’s so far out on a limb, he can’t possibly hold on much longer. There’s nothing of any substance there. Please trust my judgment on this, Joyce. We agreed to wait a week.”

  More silence. Then a clipped. “Okay. But you’d better be right.”

  “I’m sure I am. What’re the odds that Steptoe and Edwards, or anyone else, are going to announce a success within the next week?”

  “More than zero,” she shouted. Then I heard a click.

  After I hung up, I took a moment to pace the room. New mothers aren’t nearly the most stable creatures in the world, and this particular one had a lot more than just the new baby working to unsettle her mind. I picked up the phone on my desk, and started to dial Sally, to ask her to get me the Emerald Police Department. But then I hung up. Better to do it myself.

  It took going through a receptionist, a desk sergeant, and a secretary, but finally I heard, “Dr. Sanford, this is Chief Melville Richmond. What can I do for you?”

  “We’ve got a problem,” I said. “One of my patients had a baby last week, her husband committed suicide, and one of your officers has been awfully rough with her. He’s got her on the edge of a nervous breakdown.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Baumgartner

  Elsa Hearn was a lot better put together than when I’d called on her a week earlier. She greeted me at her door by saying she hoped she hadn’t sounded reluctant when I’d called to ask if I could come by.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I think that’s a natural reaction when a cop says he wants to talk to you. I don’t take it personally.”

  Like her daughter, Mrs. Hearn was a large woman, but not fat. In fact, she was quite attractive. White hair, gathered round and round, pinned up atop her head, a fair complexion, and blue eyes that I thought could deliver spring warmth or a January freeze, depending on the circumstances. Right then, she was doing June, though I couldn’t miss the fatigue lines spreading out from the corners of her eyes. “I suppose I really shouldn’t have been surprised,” she said. “It’s quite reasonable, isn’t it, that you’d want to check back with me. Have you found out any more about…Giselle.”

  “I’ve got some thoughts,” I said. “I’m hoping you might be able to help.”

  “I certainly will, if I can. Please, come in.

  ***

  We sat in the living room of a large farm house built some fifty years before. The furniture looked to be from the same era, comfortable upholstered chairs, a sofa with carved round mahogany tables at each end. There was an orderliness to the room, everything in its proper place. A mahogany grand piano sat below a picture window to my left. On the wall to my right, I saw a photograph of a younger Mrs. Hearn, standing between a stout, smiling man whose head came up just past her shoulders, and a very serious girl just at the point of becoming a teenager.

  She saw me looking. “Now, I’m the only one left,” she said. “It’s not supposed to happen that way.”

  “No, it’s not. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s as if someone somewhere placed a horribly wrong order that’s not subject to correction.” She cleared her throat, then worked her body upright in her chair. “Well, then. What can I do for you, Mr. Baumgartner?”

  Feeble smile, but give her credit. “Do you know the name, Alma Wanego?”

  Her forehead crinkled, eyebrows approached each other in the middle. She shook her head. “No…no, I’m quite sure I’ve never heard that name. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it. She was the supervisor in your daughter’s lab. About eight months ago, she disappeared, from one day to the—”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake. Yes, of course, I do remember that. Giselle said it was the oddest thing. One day, the woman was there, the next day, she was gone. Giselle was irritated, but not altogether displeased. She said Miss Wanego was not an easy person to work with. She never did show up again, so Giselle appointed a new supervisor, someone who got along much better with people, and that was that. Do you think there was some connection between that and…?”

  “Some things suggest that possibility.”

  Sly smile. “And you can’t be specific. That’s all right, Mr. Baumgartner, I understand. Go ahead, ask me whatever you’d like.”

  “Tell me about Giselle. Start from when she was a girl.”

  “Well, I’d be glad to, but what possible connection could there be—”

  “You’d be surprised, Mrs. Hearn. Sometimes, the smallest thing makes a critical connection.”

  “All right. Giselle was born in Emerald, in 1933. My late husband was a tool and die maker, and after Pearl Harbor, his company was conscripted into the war effort. Not that Michael was unpatriotic, but he was terribly individualistic, and he couldn’t put up with the government agents and their regulations. He
also thought it would be a bad idea to bring up a young girl in Emerald, with all the sailors around…oh, he was very old-fashioned, Mr. Baumgartner. Which sometimes made me want to shake him, but I have to admit, in some ways it was charming. So we bought this working farm from an older couple who were delighted that Michael was going to hire some help and keep it running. The children took to it as well, Randolph and Giselle—they were eleven and eight when we moved in. They loved the farm animals, and seemed to enjoy the chores, at least most of the time.”

  Mrs. Hearn pointed out the back window, to a thick stand of tall trees. “Giselle was always a bookworm. In the summer, she’d take two or three books back there, find a spot and read the whole day long. At one point, Michael mentioned cutting down the trees to get more farming space, but the fit Giselle threw made him change his mind.”

  “Sounds like your daughter didn’t have a lot of friends.”

  “Not ever. Even back in Emerald, when all the other girls were out playing jump rope, she’d sit for hours, reading. Some of the neighbor women brought their daughters to meet her, and sometimes she’d visit with one or the other, but not often. She lived in her head. Not that there was anything, you know, the matter with her. She simply preferred books to people.”

  I smiled. “Sometimes I feel the same way.”

  “Randolph was more outgoing. He got into groups at school, 4-H, the football team. He always had a friend or two around. He went to Washington State, then to Indiana University, and became a veterinarian. He met a girl out there, so that’s where he’s stayed.”

  “Not entirely to your satisfaction.”

  “Well, of course not. I was so glad to have Giselle as close as she was.”

  “I understand she had been married.”

  Mrs. Hearn nodded. “Yes…my, that was seventeen years ago, in 1960, while she was in Chicago, in graduate school. Her husband’s name was Patrick Carver. I met him only a few times, but he seemed like a nice young man. He was quite gregarious, and I hoped he might be able to, oh, get Giselle out of her shell. But it didn’t work that way. The way I heard it, Patrick was always out with friends, playing ball, going to theaters and concerts, but to Giselle, that was all a waste of time. So after a few years, she and Patrick grew apart. No hard feelings on either side, and fortunately, they’d not started a family yet. Patrick was interested, but Giselle didn’t want the distraction of a baby. In the end, they separated, then divorced. It’s common these days, isn’t it, Mr. Baumgartner? Perhaps it’s better than feeling as though you need to hang on forever, as people did in my generation.”

  “Do you know where Mr. Carver is now?”

  She shook her head. “Giselle said after the divorce, he got a good job in New York City. But they didn’t keep in touch, at least as far as I know.”

  “Since her divorce, did your daughter have any other relationships? Any men friends?”

  “Not to my knowledge, but then, Giselle never did talk much about herself. I will say, though, over the past year and a half, she seemed more animated. She told me she’d begun a collaborative project with a Dr. Sanford. He took human eggs from patients at surgery, then she did experiments on them, studying what might go wrong at fertilization. She said it was a great opportunity. To hear her talk about it, her relationship with Dr. Sanford was purely professional, but I’ll admit, I did wonder. Late one night last September, I was awakened by noises, and thought I might have a burglar. I tiptoed out of my room, and looked down over the banister, and there was Giselle with a man.”

  Mrs. Hearn smiled knowingly. “Giselle was as surprised to see me as I was to see her. I’d gone on a cruise, and she’d thought I wouldn’t be back until the following week. She introduced the man as Dr. Sanford, and explained that they’d had some major success in their work, and had driven up to the Gold Bar Restaurant, a fancy place a few miles up the road. They didn’t seem inebriated, but Giselle said they’d had a few drinks, so they thought they’d come by here, make some coffee, and sit around for a couple of hours.”

  A smile even more knowing than the first. “They both were a bit disheveled, and, I thought, nervous. I hoped perhaps since I’d caught them in pre-flagrante delicto, they were going to tell me they’d decided to get married. But they didn’t. I made a pot of coffee, we sat and drank it and talked for a little more than an hour, then they left. And I never met Dr. Sanford again.”

  “You said this was late at night? How late?”

  “Between twelve-thirty and a quarter to one. I remember looking at the clock when the noise downstairs woke me.”

  “Do you know how late the Gold Bar stays open?”

  “That would depend on the day of the week. I remember it was a Friday night, because I’d gotten home from the cruise the day before, and that was a Thursday. On Friday and Saturday, The Gold Bar is open till two in the morning.”

  I could hardly keep my butt in my seat. Wanego had been at work on Friday, September 10, then never showed up over the weekend, or on the following Monday. And here were Hearn and Sanford, sneaking around the old family farm, thinking Mother was still away on her cruise. Maybe they really were going to celebrate with a roll in the hay, but one reason for the celebration might have been that they’d gotten rid of a nasty fly who’d settled in their ointment. Or, given that Wanego had vanished just after the Kennett pregnancy had been confirmed, it could’ve been a double celebration. “Would you mind if I look around?”

  She shrugged. “Not at all. Please go right ahead. Any way I can be of help.”

  ***

  About halfway back to Emerald, my beeper shrieked. I snatched it off my belt, and barked my name into it. A woman’s voice came through a cloud of static. “Detective Baumgartner, this is Roxanne McClure.”

  Richmond’s secretary. I thought I heard alarm bells in her voice. “What’s up, Roxanne?”

  “Chief Richmond wants you to come in. He needs to talk to you.”

  No question on the alarm bells. “When?”

  “Now, Mr. Baumgartner. He said to tell you whatever you’re doing, please drop it, and come right in.”

  ***

  As she ushered me along the hallway into the chief’s office, Roxanne looked like the priest at the side of a man on his way to the execution chamber. She was back out, door shut before I was two steps inside.

  The chief’s face could’ve been carved on Mt. Rushmore. He motioned toward one of the chairs opposite his desk, then grabbed a pencil and banged out the rhythm to God knows what tune on his desk blotter. I sat, waited. Finally, he said, “I had a phone call a little while ago, a very disturbing phone call. From Dr. Colin Sanford. He claims you’ve got Ms. Kennett on the edge of a nervous breakdown.”

  “I’m sorry about that, Mel, but the truth is, she’s earned it. For that matter, so has he.”

  Richmond started to say something, caught himself, sighed. “Bernie, didn’t I tell you I wanted this investigation done quietly? Now I’ve got a doctor out there, one of the biggest names in the local medical community, complaining that you’re browbeating his patient, a woman whose husband killed a lab scientist and then himself less than a week ago. Do you have any idea what will hit the fan if that doctor decides to talk to reporters? Or tries to go over my head?”

  “Mel, listen to me. Please? I’m not surprised Sanford’s trying to muscle you.” I held up a thumb and forefinger, nearly touching. “I’ve got the case this close to cracked, and he knows it. He and Hearn were working in secret, doing some very questionable fertility work on Ms. Kennett. A supervisor in Hearn’s lab caught on, started blackmailing Sanford, and guess what. She disappeared last September, right at the time the Kennett pregnancy was confirmed.”

  All the time I talked, Richmond’s face got redder. His blood pressure must have been off the charts. “And what ever came out of that investigation?”

  “There wa
s no investigation. No one reported the woman missing. But I’ve been—”

  “God damn it to hell, Bernie.” Mel was out of his chair, leaning across the desk, shooting a fine spray in my face to punctuate the G, the d, and the B. “Now, you listen to me. I asked you to tie the ends together on this case, nice and quiet. A schizo goes off the deep end, shoots a lab doctor, and then himself—how much more open and shut does it have to be? So what do you do? Get yourself all worked up about some esoteric research stuff, and go poking around after a lab supervisor who probably had it up to here with her job, her boss, the rain in this part of the country, whatever, and decided she needed to go off some place and ‘find herself.’ And now you’re turning the screws to a new mother who also happens to be a new widow.”

  “She’s no innocent little flower. And as for Sanford…Mel, I’ll have this whole business tied up no later than tomorrow. When you called, I was on my way back from talking to Hearn’s mother, and—”

  I braced, thinking he was about to fly across the desk and fling his hands around my throat. For a guy twenty-two years on a desk job, he could still move. “And nothing, Bernie. It’s over. What you’re going to do is forget about this case. I’ll close it myself, take care of all the papers personally. As of this minute, you’re on two-weeks leave. Go take your wife on a nice trip.”

  I felt something shift inside my head, shudder, and settle into a new position. Words came out of me that I never, ever, thought I’d say to Mel Richmond. “Take my wife on a nice trip—because you don’t have the balls to tell Bancroft and the mayor where to stick your job, then go tell the paperboys exactly why you’re quitting. Christ, Mel, how do you sleep at night? Or look in your shaving mirror in the morning? If somebody like Horace Bancroft could take away my job, I wouldn’t want it.”

  Richmond sank back into his chair. He looked like he needed every drop of gas in his tank to wave his hand. “We go back a long way, Bernie.”

  “Which is why—”

  “Which is why I’m going to ignore your insubordination. I respect you, Bernie. I really do. I should’ve known you couldn’t handle a quick, quiet wrap-up, my mistake. By now, Olson would’ve had this mess signed, sealed, and delivered, which, believe me, is no compliment to him, or a knock on you. Now, please. Don’t make this any worse. Take your leave, cool off, then come on back, and we’ll figure it never happened. Okay, Bernie?” He smiled, held out his hand. “I’m sorry I shouted at you before. I was upset.”