Close to Home

by Jenna Bennett

  “Delusions?”

  “She was always here,” Marley said, her voice becoming shrill. “She’d stop by every day, sometimes more than once. She’d tell me my baby would be better off with someone else, and that I wasn’t a good mother. I felt like she was hounding me.”

  “Was she really here more than once a day?”

  “She lives just over there,” Marley said, pointing through the trees. “So she’d stop the car on her way to work in the morning, or when she came home in the afternoon. Or both. Or she’d knock on the door when she was out walking at night, just to see how I was doing.” Her voice twisted on the last half of the sentence, taking on a solicitous, unctuous sort of quality I assumed she thought she’d heard in Dr. Seaver’s voice.

  “Eventually I stopped answering the door, and then she started looking through the windows. She said I thought she was out to get me.”

  “And was she?” Judging from the closed curtains and her earlier remarks, Marley believed people were staring at her now too. Then again, after what had happened, they probably were.

  “It felt like she was,” Marley said, sloshing more tequila into her glass. “You sure you don’t want some of this?”

  “I’m positive, thanks. I’m taking pills that don’t mix well with alcohol.”

  “Oh,” Marley said and lifted the glass to her lips. “More for me.”

  “Knock yourself out.” I thought for a moment. “I’m not trying to be insensitive, but would you mind telling me what happened the day Oliver d... disappeared?”

  She sent me a jaundiced look. “It’s OK if you believe he died. Most people do.”

  “Sheila didn’t.”

  Marley shook her head.

  “I’d like to understand why.”

  “She said she just knew. She knew I’d never do anything to my baby.” She took another sip of tequila.

  “So what happened?”

  “It was a Wednesday,” Marley said and leaned back in the sofa. “August, so it was warm. Sunny. We’d had a rough night. Oliver had been crying a lot, and neither one of us had gotten a lot of sleep. I was supposed to go to the gym for an aerobics class, but I couldn’t drag myself there. Sheila stopped by afterwards to see if we were OK, and I told her I wished I’d never had a baby.”

  A tear leaked out of the corner of her eye and rolled down her thin cheek.

  “I wouldn’t let her come inside. Oliver had finally fallen asleep, outside on the back deck in a swing we had sitting there, and I didn’t want her to wake him. I left him there while I went inside and took a shower. It was shady out there, and private, and it was only going to take a few minutes, but when I came back outside he was gone.”

  Tears were running down her cheeks now.

  “What did you think had happened?” I asked.

  “I had no idea.” Marley dashed at her cheeks with the back of her hand. “I knew he couldn’t have gone anywhere on his own—he was just a few months old—but I looked in the yard. Under the bushes and through the flowerbeds. Like I thought he might have crawled out of the swing and hidden.” She gave a slightly hysterical hiccup of laughter. “I ran through the house calling his name because I thought maybe I really was losing my mind, and he hadn’t been outside at all, he was upstairs in his crib.”

  “But he wasn’t.”

  She shook her head. “He wasn’t anywhere. Not in the house, and not in the yard.”

  “So then you called the police?”

  “I called Sheila first,” Marley said. “And asked her if she’d taken my baby. She said of course she hadn’t. She came over and helped me look, and she was the one who called the sheriff.”

  “And then what happened?”

  The sheriff had already told me that they’d gone door to door and talked to people and checked video surveillance cameras and the like, but I wanted to hear Marley’s take.

  She twisted her hands together. “They looked for him. Everywhere. And when they couldn’t find him, they started thinking that I’d done something to him. They said that because I wouldn’t let Sheila in that morning, Oliver was already dead.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I said, although a small part of me wondered if it might not be the truth. Her explanation made sense, but so did theirs. It all depended on the point of view.

  “Dr. Seaver came by and gave me a prescription for something to calm me down, and said that I should clean the house, to keep busy and because if they found Oliver, they wouldn’t give him back to me if they saw that I kept my house looking like a pigsty.”

  “She actually said that?”

  Marley shrugged. “So I cleaned. All night long. Everything. Walls, windows, closets. And then it turned out that that was the wrong thing to do, because the police thought I’d been trying to hide evidence.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “They never found him anyhow. And now I’m probably going to jail for murder.”

  She sounded exhausted.

  “Not necessarily,” I said bracingly. “How’s the trial going?”

  “Not well.” Marley leaned her head back against the sofa and closed her eyes. “My ex-husband came back to testify that I have a bad temper and that I threatened to hurt him.”

  “Did you?”

  She opened her eyes again. “I was eight months pregnant, as big as a house, my feet were swollen, my back hurt, and my jackass of a husband told me he’d been sleeping with someone else since I started showing, since pregnant women didn’t turn him on. He called me fat, the bastard. So I told him I’d cut off his Johnson if it happened again.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  She shook her head. “A week after Oliver was born, he told me he was leaving. That I was a psycho. He said I killed Oliver to get back at him.”

  “This was at the trial?”

  She nodded.

  “Then what?”

  “The jury believed him,” Marley said. “Dr. Seaver said the same thing. And she’s a doctor, so she should know, right? And some of the neighbors testified that they heard the baby crying all the time, so they made it sound like I was abusing him. And the sheriff testified that the police had talked to all the neighbors and checked everyone who went in and out of Copper Creek that morning, and there hadn’t been anyone here who shouldn’t have been. Nobody had seen anyone but me at the house.”

  “Someone could have come through the backyard, right?”

  “Must have,” Marley said. “The gate to the front was locked. And I know nobody came through the house.”

  “Those people over there,” I pointed through the trees, “are they part of Copper Creek, too?”

  She shook her head. “Different subdivision. Gated, as well. But there’s a road from here to there. Dr. Seaver drives through Copper Creek to and from work.”

  Right. She had said Denise Seaver lived over there, and used to stop by. A little chime tinkled in the back of my head. “Was Dr. Seaver here the morning Oliver disappeared?”

  Marley shook her head. “She wasn’t here that day. Not until late. After everything had happened. That’s when she told me I should clean the place up, so I would look like I had it together for when they found him. Does it matter?”

  “Probably not,” I admitted. “I was just thinking...”

  “Yes?”

  “Is it possible that Dr. Seaver might have taken Oliver?”

  “Why?”

  “Because she thought you weren’t taking care of him properly. Because she thought he’d be better off with someone else.”

  “That’s crazy,” Marley said.

  It was. Denise Seaver was a respected doctor with thirty years experience and a good reputation. She had taken care of my female health since I reached puberty, and she had helped deliver every child in our family for the past thirty years. My mother trusted her with her private parts, as well as with her children.

  In spite of all that, my spider senses were tingling. Every thread seemed to go back to Denise Seaver. Somehow, sh
e was connected to everyone and everything that had happened, from Elspeth and David twelve years ago, to Marley and Oliver two years ago, to Sheila now.

  “What if...”

  “Yes?” Marley said. She was sitting upright now, her eyes wide awake. In spite of her statement that it was crazy to suspect Dr. Seaver, she was clearly paying attention.

  “What if she walked through the trees that day, and saw Oliver on the deck? That might have been the thing that sealed the deal for her, that you’d left him there and gone inside.”

  Marley nodded.

  “She picked him up and took him back to her house and put him in the car and drove him to Nashville.” Sheriff Satterfield had said that no one had been in Copper Creek who shouldn’t have been; that only the people who lived there, and a few domestics, had come and gone. But Denise Seaver was a resident, she wouldn’t set off any alarms.

  “Why Nashville?” Marley wanted to know.

  Because of St. Jerome’s Hospital. Dr. Rushing seemed to have been running some sort of behind-the-scenes adoption agency out of St. Jerome’s, so he probably knew of someone who was praying and hoping for a white baby boy.

  “What did Oliver look like?”

  Marley got to her feet, left the room, and came back a few seconds later with a picture in a frame, that she handed me. Baby Oliver grinned out, toothlessly, waving a stuffed lamb. He had a head of fuzzy hair, big eyes, and a cute, elfin-like face with a pointed chin.

  “He looks like you,” I remarked.

  Marley nodded. “That’s what everyone said. So you think Dr. Seaver took him to Nashville?”

  I placed the photo on the table. “She would have dropped him off to a friend at a hospital up there, and then she would have turned around and come back. It wouldn’t have taken but a couple of hours. Plenty of time to stop by later that night and tell you to clean the house really well. She might have already decided that she was going to try to make it look like you’d done something to Oliver. If you cleaned and sanitized the house, it would look like you were trying to hide evidence.”

  “What happened to Oliver?”

  “If I’m right,” I said, “someone adopted him.”

  Marley gripped the edge of the table, her knuckles white. “Who?”

  “I have no idea.” And no way of knowing, since St. Jerome’s didn’t seem to have kept records of the biological parents of the children they placed. “Although...”

  “Yes?” Marley said.

  “There was a photograph missing from Dr. Rushing’s cork-board last week.”

  “What?”

  I shook my head, too busy trying to get things straight in my mind to take the time out to explain. “Sheila was there on Friday. She tried to call you, but you didn’t answer. What if she recognized the boy in the picture?”

  “What boy?”

  “It was a picture of a little boy. Two years old, give or take. Sitting on a pony.”

  “OK,” Marley said. She must have come to the conclusion that it was easier just to let me prattle on, and I’d get around to explaining everything in my own time.

  “Maybe Sheila recognized Oliver, and she called you—maybe Dr. Rushing left the office for a minute or two, to get something, maybe—and when he came back Sheila told him she’d recognized Oliver and that Oliver was kidnapped, and she was going to call the Sweetwater sheriff and tell him, and Dr. Rushing panicked and hit her over the back of the head and killed her.”

  “OK,” Marley said again.

  “He waited until after dark and dumped her body in the river and thought everything was fine. But then Rafe and I showed up on Monday, and started asking questions about David...”

  “Who?”

  “It’s a long story. Another adoption that St. Jerome’s facilitated twelve years ago, when the mother was told her baby was stillborn.”

  “Wow,” Marley said.

  “I know. But it doesn’t matter right now. Other than that it sort of shows a history of doing sneaky, underhanded things. David was adopted by a nice family who had no idea that his mother didn’t give him up voluntarily, and the same thing probably happened to Oliver.”

  “So Oliver is still alive?”

  “If he is who I think he is,” I said, “my friend Tamara Grimaldi with the Nashville police talked to his parents on Friday. The people who adopted him.”

  Marley had scooted up to the front of the sofa and looked ready to jump off. “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know that. Tamara Grimaldi would know. I’ll find out tomorrow.”

  “Could I get him back?”

  I hesitated. That might be trickier. First of all, the boy in the picture might not be Oliver. And even if he was, we’d still have to prove it. A DNA test would settle the question, but only if his parents agreed to do it, or if a judge ordered it done. And honestly, with Marley on trial for murder, a judge might think twice about pandering to what would probably look like a desperate attempt to shift blame before the verdict came down. And if Marley got convicted, even if the boy in the photograph was Oliver, she’d have to appeal and wait for another trial to get out of jail. And while all that went on, Oliver would get older and older, and more and more attached to his adoptive parents. At some point, like with David Flannery, it would come down to a choice between what the biological parent wanted and what was best for the child.

  “He’s my son!” Marley said.

  “I know that,” I answered, “I just don’t know how difficult it would be to prove it...”

  Marley glanced out the window into the darkness of the backyard. “I’m gonna kill Dr. Seaver. If she stole my baby, I swear to God, I’m gonna kill her.”

  “Don’t say that where anyone can hear you.” My cell phone rang, and I stuck my hand in my bag to dig for it. It was Dix. “I have to take this,” I said. “Would you excuse me a second?”

  Marley nodded. I headed out of the room into the hallway, and lowered my voice. “Hi, Dix.”

  “Everything OK?” my brother inquired, his voice normal.

  “Everything’s fine.”

  “Why are you whispering?”

  “I just don’t want her to know that we’re talking about her. She’s a little...” I hesitated before I could utter the word ‘paranoid,’ and substituted, “sensitive.”

  “You still in one piece?”

  “Of course I’m in one piece. I told you not to worry.”

  A sound from the family room had me glancing over my shoulder, but I couldn’t see anything. Marley wasn’t coming toward me.

  “You sure she isn’t sneaking up behind you with a kitchen knife?”

  “I’m positive,” I said, but not without another look in the direction of the family room. There were no new noises. I headed back in that direction, slowly.

  “So there’s no need for me to run to the rescue, right?”

  “Absolutely none. You enjoy spending the night with your girls.” I reached the doorway to the family room and was just about to tell Dix goodnight when I realized the room was empty. “Damn.”

  “Excuse me?” Dix said.

  “Sorry. But...” I looked around, and held the phone away from my mouth for a moment. “Marley?”

  “What?” Dix said.

  I put the phone back to my ear. “She’s gone. The back door’s open. She must have... Damn !”

  “What?!”

  “Nothing. I’ve got to go. I think she went to find Dr. Seaver.”

  “Why?”

  “Long story. Just...” I stopped, before I could tell him to call the sheriff. If Marley had gone off the deep end and was heading through the trees to kill Dr. Seaver, I didn’t think I wanted the sheriff’s help. He thought Marley had killed Oliver anyway; he didn’t need to arrest her on another murder charge. Or shoot her because he thought she was a dangerous criminal on a rampage. It would probably be better to handle it on my own. I was armed, after all. “I’ll call you later, OK? I’ll have to try to catch her.”

  I hung up before
Dix had a chance to answer, and headed out through the back door into the dark yard on Marley’s heels.

  Chapter 22

  It was a rough few minutes fighting my way through the band of trees. The ground was soggy because of the recent rains, and I couldn’t see where I was going. I kept splashing into little puddles that I was sure were ruining my suede boots, and naked branches kept snagging on my cardigan and whipping me across the face. Every once in a while I’d stop and listen for Marley ahead of me, so I’d know which direction to go.

  I thought she’d be slower, since I knew she was barefoot and probably cold, in just her T-shirt, but by the time I had fought my way free of the trees on the other side of the little copse, she was far ahead, flitting toward a house in the distance.

  “Marley!”

  The slim figure hesitated for a moment, and I’m sure she glanced over her shoulder at me, but she continued forward. I put on a burst of speed, ignoring the complaints from my still-healing body, and got to the house just about a minute or so after Marley. By then, the back door was standing open—the glass was broken, a terra cotta pot lay in pieces on the tile floor inside, and Marley must have stuck her hand through the broken window and unlocked the door. Considerately, she’d left me a trail of blood and mud to follow: I assumed she must have cut her hand on the door or her foot on the glass on the way past. It wasn’t much blood, just a drop here or there, so I knew she wasn’t in danger of bleeding to death.

  I entered into a sort of combination mud room/laundry, with a washer and a dryer positioned up against one wall and a pair of muddy rubber boots in a corner, under a slicker hanging from a hook. The tile continued through the doorway to the left and into the next room, from whence I could hear their voices. I crept that way, careful not to jostle any of the little pieces of terra cotta on the floor.

  Dr. Seaver’s voice was higher than usual and a little shrill; I could hear the fear in it. “Put the gun down, Marley. You don’t want to do this.”

  Gun? That didn’t sound good.

  “Oh yes, I do!” Marley snarled.

  “Don’t you think you have enough problems without adding attempted murder of a witness to the list?”