The entry ended abruptly. Then there was a carefully glued fragment of a robin’s egg and a clipping about the nesting habits of robins from an old newspaper. The next page contained a staff of music and the beginning of a song. This was typical of commonplace books. Random. Disorganized.
His life, page two:
Biddy takes me with her when she cleans people’s houses. I can’t talk right either so she tries to work when they are gone and don’t ask so many questions. They tell Biddy they are so so sorry her child is retarded. They can’t see how mad that makes her, but I know. I always know. There’s a place on her neck that moves in and out.
My name is Franklin but everyone calls me Dummy because I can only make funny noises, or Duck Boy because my feet won’t work right either.
She made me go to school and then everyone was mad. The teachers were mad because they had to put up with me. “It’s the law,” Biddy said triumphantly when she drug me to first grade. “Kansas law. Mainstreaming. Every child gets a chance at an education.”
Some of the parents were mad too. They said their kids should not have to go to school with a retard. The kids said mean things to me at first, but I was lucky most of the time. I could not talk right, so I didn’t talk at all. I wouldn’t cry so they found other kids who were not retarded and more fun to torment. I sat like a lump. Was a lump. But when the teacher talked I paid attention. No one could stop me from paying attention.
I learned to read and figure. They didn’t give me any tests and when I shambled off to the library and started hauling books back to read, they were mostly relieved that I never caused trouble. I don’t know what they thought I was doing when I turned the pages. Liking the flutter, I guess.
Biddy gets some money for taking care of me so she picks me up in her car after school. It’s important to her to have people think she’s taking care of me. When we get home she lets me do anything I want to. I can go to the pond or stay out all night. She doesn’t care. I can walk well enough to suit myself so that’s what I do. I know she hopes I will die. But I don’t want to.
My friends are all the animals. Once when I was around one of the churches I found a bulletin about the animals.
I turned to a separate page and there was the order of service for the Blessing of the Animals. In honor of St. Francis of Assisi.
A lovely prayer. Just lovely. It was a litany of all that animals had to teach us.
The phone rang, jarring me from the commonplace book to the real world. It was Sam.
“Need to give you a heads up. All hell is breaking loose. The Salina Journal just ran a story headlined ‘The Ghost Baby Killer Strikes Again.’”
“One death and they have a label on the tip of their tongue?’ I was furious. When we hung up I was going to call the editor and give him a piece of my mind.
“No. Apparently not. The most important word in that headline is ‘again.’”
My heart sank. “Don’t tell me this kind of thing has happened before.”
“Well, it did. And I remember the other one now. I didn’t pay enough attention at the time because the death wasn’t in my county. There was a similar one involving a baby ten years ago.”
“In the Garden of Eden?”
“No. At Hays. There was the body of a dead baby.”
“Where?”
He cleared his throat. “The Elizabeth Polly Park.”
“Elizabeth Polly? The Blue Light Lady?”
“Some call her that, yes.”
“Oh, Sam. Where was the baby found?”
“In Elizabeth Polly’s arms.”
“Pete Felten’s statue of Elizabeth Polly?” I tried to process what he had just told me. “Another female statue? But her arms are at her sides. She’s clutching a bouquet of flowers in one hand. No place for her to hold anything.”
“Doesn’t matter. Stuffed between the bouquet and her right side was a dead baby.”
“It was ten years ago? But my God, how can it not be the same person?”
“We need to talk. I’ll be in the office tomorrow.” He sounded weary. Worn down. “Do you want me to read the article to you?”
“No, I’ll read it online. I’ll go to the historical society and do some extra research before I head home. And you get some rest.”
We hung up. I looked at my watch. It was after four o’clock. The historical society would close in another hour. I should be able to access old newspapers from this office but it would take a while before our computer system was in place.
I called the historical society to let the women know I was coming.
***
“You all can leave early if you want,” I said when I breezed in the door. “I need to work here for a while.”
I headed for the server and Angie proudly showed me the latest pages all ready for the printer.
“I’ll copy these right now so you can take them home with you tonight.”
After they left I turned on the microfilm printer and inserted the Hays Daily News reel and forwarded to the date Sam had given me.
Baby found in Elizabeth Polly Park
The Ellis County Sheriff’s office has called in the KBI to investigate the discovery of a dead newborn baby in the arms of Pete Felten’s statue of Elizabeth Polly in the park named for her. The infant was judged to be less than a day old by the coroner and was swaddled in a blanket and wedged between the side of the statue and the bouquet of flowers she holds. The park has very few visitors in the winter months and the baby was likely placed there under the cover of darkness during the blizzard. It was discovered by some children who were playing hide and seek. There is no record of any woman giving birth within the last twenty-four hours at any of the area hospitals. Please call in any tips or information to Sergeant Lightner at 785-482-2213.
Elizabeth Polly gave aid to Fort Hays soldiers during the cholera epidemic of 1867. Fort Hays was closed in 1905 and the bodies moved to Leavenworth, but hers was left behind. Her spirit allegedly roams the cemetery in a long blue dress searching for the missing bodies of the soldiers. She is said to carry a lamp and has a blue aura. Hence, Polly is often referred to as the Blue Light Lady.
I scrolled to the next months’ pages to see if there were any follow-up announcements. None. No progress whatsoever. I printed out the relevant pages, then rewound the film, placed it back in its folder and put it back in the file drawer. Any updates could probably be found through Google and police databases.
On the drive back to the farm, I kept thinking about these perfect little babies struggling to draw one more icy breath.
Kansas has Safe Haven laws. Babies can be left at fire departments, hospitals, and police stations without fear of prosecution. In a day and age when hospitals and fire departments have programs that let mothers drop newborns off at a hospital with no questions asked, why in God’s name would anyone want to let a baby freeze to death?
In addition to that mystery was how a new mother could have the strength to leave an infant in Elizabeth Polly Park or the Garden of Eden? The answer was obvious—they couldn’t. No woman who had just given birth would be physically able to put a baby in Reaching Woman’s arms. In fact, Sam was still puzzled as to how a man in his prime could manage it. Putting an infant in the arms of Elizabeth Polly’s statue would be easy physically except that it happened in the dead of winter during a storm. What woman who had just given birth would be up to walking in a blizzard to leave her baby in a strange place?
Sam would be pleased that I finally could say one thing with absolutely certainty. We could rule out the mother in both situations.
Chapter Six
My cell vibrated. I glanced at Keith’s text message:
Dorothy here. Fixing supper.
Great!! I pushed Send, knowing he would think I was referring to having a hot meal waiting. But I also meant “great” because I could tell
them simultaneously about the baby in Elizabeth Polly Park.
I turned into the lane leading to our large three-story house. Where were the mothers? Were there any missing women reported at the time the babies were discovered? Women who were pregnant?
An even harder job would be discovering women who had given birth. There would be no records, no birth certificates since the births obviously had not taken place within hospitals. According to Gene Romney, the head EMT, the baby at the Garden of Eden had been alive less than ten hours before she froze to death. Ten hours. No hospital would have kicked a mother out that fast. As to the Elizabeth Polly baby, we would need to track down police records as I was certain no medical or birth information existed.
Secret pregnancies didn’t really make sense. I know there are reports all the time of women who didn’t know they were pregnant or ones who hid their condition from their boyfriends or family and later stuffed all evidence of the delivery—including the baby—in a trash barrel. But this was blatant murder. Not a furtive attempt at disposal. There was obviously a connection between these Ghost Baby incidents. It had to be the same killer.
Ghost Baby. I couldn’t believe I had just used that term, even in my thoughts.
The job was making me crazy.
My next step was to assemble a team. I wanted my sister to step in right away. Her reputation was spectacular now. It was formidable enough to begin with. Then after two bizarre encounters here in Carlton County she decided to expand her degree in clinical psychology to an additional one in forensic psychology. Recently she became board certified. Never mind that she was family and her involvement would raise a few eyebrows. She was the best.
Twice before, I had gotten her into situations psychologists don’t sign up for. Like near-rape, near-death, near-mutilations. She had escaped all three but “near” was too close. She always swore that it was her choice—she could have refused. But this time I wouldn’t give her a choice. I wouldn’t hesitate to persuade her by any means necessary.
As for the two other family members on the team, Keith was a solid gold addition even though it was inclusion by default because of his friendship with the Suter family. He wields enormous authority because of his integrity. People listen to him. Besides, when his relentless energy is focused he’s like a bloodhound and he never gives up. That makes him a valuable asset in any investigation.
And then there was Dorothy. I had acquired her by popular acclamation. It wasn’t any of my doing at all. But in a short time I’d learned her powers of observation were second to none. Either that or she was blessed with extraordinary visual memory. However, I was wary of her intense curiosity and her pleasure at being included on a crime team. There was an unseemly excitement present on her face. Too much enthusiasm for the hunt. For a large woman she was light on her feet and seemed to be shifting her weight from one foot to another like a prize fighter spoiling to get in the ring. But to her credit she had not interfered once, despite her near-miss involving the misogynist boom lift operator.
My assessment of Keith and Josie and Dorothy was detached and ruthless, but essential. I couldn’t afford to mess with mediocrity. If any of the three had been screw-ups I would have ditched them in a heartbeat. My job was to find the Suter boy’s murderer and whoever killed the precious newborn. Period. If members of my family were the best, they were best. I couldn’t help that. My job was to find a killer by whatever means.
Dorothy’s car was parked out front. The garage door opened and I steered my Tahoe inside, then walked into the kitchen. Keith was seated at the table.
“I’m celebrating,” Dorothy said. She wore an apron and was busy stirring a family favorite, “Drop Noodle Soup,” a combination of beef simmered in watered-down potato water gravy with little dumplings added.
“Cooking a meal for us isn’t exactly celebrating.”
“Cause enough. I found a great house to rent.”
Ruefully I scolded myself for being affronted by Dorothy’s interest in the case. I hoped she was renting the house because she wanted to and not because we had offended her in some way.
“On the bad news side Dimon called,” Keith began. “There’s been a new development.”
“It’s a game changer,” Dorothy added.
“There was a note wrapped in the blanket.” Keith’s fingers tightened on his coffee cup. “Handwritten, Dimon said. ‘See how the mighty have fallen.’”
“My God.”
“Yes.”
“There’s a worse development. I’m going to call Dimon right now.”
I glanced at their faces as I dialed the KBI’s number and put the phone on speaker so they could hear every word. This was the A team and I needed all the help I could get. That meant giving them access to information. Dorothy was already sworn in as a consultant and Keith was a reserve deputy. There was no reason why they shouldn’t hear.
If it was possible to hear someone suck in a deep breath, that was what I was hearing when Dimon listened to my report of the baby discovered ten years ago in the arms of the Blue Light Lady.
“Son of a bitch.”
I waited.
“Well, the ball is in your court, Lottie. This is yours. You wanted to be in charge of a regional crime center. Figure out what to do next. Keep me updated down to the last detail. Let me know what resources you need, including people.”
“Okay. I’m home now. After I get to the office tomorrow and look over the rest of the autopsy reports I can be more specific, but it the meantime here’s what you can do a lot better than I can from here. Find out if there were similar murders.”
“God, Lottie.” He fell silent.
“I know,” I said, “but you’ve just now learned about the Blue Light Lady. There was no reason for that thought to enter your mind right off the bat.”
“Well, you’ve obviously beat me to the punch.”
That concession surprised me. The regional center had been his idea to begin with but he wanted the staff firmly under the control of the KBI, not the warring collection of counties that formed the western third of the state. But I had out-maneuvered him.
“I’m not taking credit, Frank. This information came from Sam and unfortunately he read about it the Salina Journal. The headline couldn’t have been worse. “Ghost Baby Killer Strikes Again.”
“I’ll get right on it. We’ve got to keep a step ahead of the press. The first thing we should do is call in the very best psychologist in the state. And I guess we both know who that it.”
“My sister.”
“Right. You make the call, Lottie.”
“And I want Keith too.
“Naturally.” He sounded weary, reluctant. Despite the seriousness of the situation I knew he was sick to death of the Fiene family. In fact he once accused us all of having something in our blood that caused “all these damned murders.”
Wait until he heard about Aunt Dorothy.
“Do whatever you need to do, Goddamn it.”
We hung up and I turned to Dorothy and Keith. “I didn’t want to overload on family, but you are both now officially members of the task force investigating these murders because you are the best qualified. He even suggested I call in Josie.”
“Dimon is backing you on everything? That’s a new one.” Keith got up and went to the stove to ladle a bowl of soup. “And he wants Josie on this too? He must have had a major change of heart.”
“No, I don’t think so. I think this is so important that he doesn’t dare risk having any major screw-ups. At heart he’s a good man. He…”
“He’s a major control freak, Lottie.”
“True. I’m not saying he isn’t, but at heart he wants to protect and serve.”
“He wants to protect his ass. And serve his own self interests.”
I laughed, then explained to Dorothy the basis of Keith’s antipathy toward Agent Fra
nk Dimon. We sat down and Keith said grace. Dorothy glanced at us curiously as he made the sign of the cross and I didn’t.
I was much too exhausted to go into our complicated religious histories. In fact, going over the details of the baby murders sounded like an easier topic.
“So, tomorrow I’ll complete adding members to the regional team. Any ideas about where to start with a formal plan?” I knew that Keith’s best ideas would come after he had time to think. Usually while he messed around with his guitar. “Dorothy? Any ideas?”
“Yes.” Dorothy carefully placed her soup spoon on the saucer beneath her bowl. “I think you should make a list of all the female statues around Kansas. Ones that have arms. Then the next step…”
“Yes!” I couldn’t keep the admiration out of my voice. “Yes, of course. That would shorten the search for similar incidents by weeks if we started with the statues themselves instead of beginning with pregnant women who had gone missing. This also would stop us from looking into all the incidents of abandoned babies. Which sadly enough would be in the thousands. Yes, female statues that have arms. If we can’t find something—then, and only then—will we expand the search.”
“Then try to find out if there were any other deaths at the same time. But somehow I don’t think there will be.” She rose and went back to the warming oven and put a fresh supply of buttermilk biscuits on a serving platter and waited until she was seated before she finished what she had been going to say. “I think the Suter boy’s murder might be only accidentally connected to the Ghost Babies.”
“Are you saying his murder isn’t linked? I want to know what in the hell he was doing there.” Bewildered, Keith looked up from the biscuit he was buttering. “His family is hiding something and I’m going to get to the bottom of it.”
Fractured Families Page 5
