Mother's Milk

by Charles Atkins

  ‘Of course, my little angel just got changed, and now he’s taking a nap. We had a lovely walk in the park, I charged two hundred dollars in groceries on your card and also found the most beautiful fire-engine-red spice rack at William Sonoma. It matches the blender you’re going to be giving me. So I’ll expect you no later than … six?’

  ‘Yes, I promise.’

  ‘Thank you, sweetie, I love you.’

  ‘Love you too, Mom.’ She looked at Hobbs, who’d clearly been listening in. ‘I think I’m losing it.’

  ‘Naah, it’s just first-time parent stuff. I remember after we had Katie, Margaret wouldn’t leave her with a babysitter for the first ten months. This’ll pass.’

  ‘I hope you’re right, and how are the girls?’

  ‘Good,’ he said, ‘and polar opposites. Katie just wants to play sports and Becky has decided she wants to be a princess when she grows up. It makes their weekends with me interesting – last one was a Yankees game on Saturday followed by a trip to this ridiculously expensive doll store in midtown on Sunday.’

  Barrett’s pager rang. ‘Crap!’ She looked at the number, a forensic center extension, and not one she recognized. But the voice that picked up was unmistakable – Jim Cray.

  ‘Dr. Conyors,’ he said, ‘I wanted to give you an update. I’ve pulled the security tapes from last night and got in a quick and dirty first round with the cleaning crew.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘You’re not going to like this. The only possible witness is a woman with Down’s who according to her supervisor – and don’t shoot the messenger – “saw a pretty man last night”.’

  ‘Bring her in,’ Barrett said, ‘maybe there’s something on the tapes and she’ll be able to ID him.’

  ‘Maybe,’ he said, his tone doubtful, ‘her supervisor says she’s a sweet girl and a hard worker, but beyond that we won’t get much. And the tapes don’t cover your floor, just the front door and observation unit.’

  ‘What about the keypads? Do they have a history? Can we see whose card it was?’

  ‘We could if we had a decent system, but the one that got installed doesn’t have a retrievable history.’

  ‘If anything turns up, call me right away.’

  ‘You got it, Doc. Your detective friend called in a crime-scene squad, and they’re dusting for prints, but considering how many people have been in and out of your office …’

  ‘What about Marla, has she been able to identify anything missing?’

  ‘No, so far it’s just your pictures. Either they didn’t take anything else, or it’s something you and she wouldn’t miss. But I’ll let you know the minute we get something better.’

  She hung up and just stared at her cell.

  ‘What?’ Hobbs asked.

  She put a hand to her brow, ‘I’m so creeped out,’ thinking about Max’s pictures. ‘Why would someone take his pictures and nothing else? None of the usual stuff is gone. The computer, printers, anything with value is still there.’

  ‘They tore the place apart and took the most personal thing they could find,’ he said. ‘I think it was a message, and I also think they didn’t get what they were after … Jerod’s phones.’

  ‘But how would someone even know I had them?’

  ‘A lot of people know,’ he said, ticking off all the possibles. ‘The security guards and the cops who were involved in yesterday’s incident. Then you’ve got a couple commissioners in your office and this other doc who wants your job, then we’ve got Marla, anyone involved with his care on your observation unit yesterday and anyone he might have told. It’s quite a list. We can narrow it down some, because it looks like they had an access card, but even there, where there’s a will …’

  ‘So you do think it has to do with Jerod.’

  ‘Yup,’ Hobbs said, ‘we’re mucking in something ugly, drugs, dead teens, a naked girl in a video … who’s gone missing …’ His cell rang. He pulled it off his belt. ‘Bryan again,’ and he pressed on.

  Barrett listened in, feeling as though she were being pulled in too many directions. But the worst part was that this had to be an inside job, someone was watching.

  ‘We’re at Croton,’ Hobbs said, ‘maybe thirty minutes from there. I’m with Dr. Conyors. Hold on.’ He turned to her. ‘Barrett, we’re close to the home of the girl you found … Ashley Kane. Bryan was wondering if I’d do the “Your kid is dead and would you mind coming down to the morgue, just to be sure?” visit. Your call. I know you want to get back and see what’s going on at the center …’

  ‘Sure,’ she said, wanting any opportunity that might shed some light on this mess. Plus, since seeing Ed for the first time in months, there was no denying it felt good to be with him. She snuck a glance in his direction, the scarred side of his face toward her. She felt a sudden urge to touch it. What the hell are you thinking? she thought, and stared at the floor.

  ‘You got it, Bryan … No, I have a set of the pictures. Just give me the address and number, and let them know we’re on the way.’

  EIGHT

  With his eyes on the road, Hobbs asked, ‘You’re pretty freaked, aren’t you?’

  Barrett again snuck a glance at his damaged face, the scars much less red than the last time she saw him, before Max’s birth. ‘I hate this feeling that someone’s been in my stuff, looking at things, and not knowing what it is they’re after – why take the montage? It’s ripping me apart, and maybe that’s what they want, like they know my most vulnerable point. I hate this.’

  ‘So who has a grudge?’

  ‘Take a number. My boss can’t stand me, I’ve got Dr. Hugh Osborn filing a hostile-workplace grievance against me, and I’d be willing to bet that Lydia – the social worker that found those dead kids with me yesterday – will bring up some kind of hazardous-duty shit.’

  ‘Being the boss sucks,’ he commented and then grew quiet.

  ‘Hobbs,’ she finally said, ‘we need to talk.’

  ‘Listening,’ he said, his jaw tight.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, not quite certain where this would go, ‘I’ve been a shitty friend.’

  ‘No argument there,’ he agreed.

  ‘You’re not going to make this easy, are you?’

  ‘I’m not going to be a little girl about it,’ he said, ‘but after your “can’t we just be friends” speech I thought we were good. And then I don’t hear from you for what … six months.’

  ‘I didn’t want to make it worse for you.’

  He turned and looked at her, the good side of his mouth twisting up in a half smile. ‘My, but we are full of ourselves.’ He focused on the road. ‘Here’s the deal, Barrett, my timing was for shit. You’d just lost your husband and were pregnant with a baby you didn’t know if you were going to keep or not, and suddenly I decide it’s time to tell you … oh crap. I’d had a thing for you for a long time, but when Ralph was alive and we were both married, I wouldn’t think about it. Then Margaret dumps me, Ralph … well, that was awful, and not something I would ever have wanted’ – referring to the hit-and-run murder of her husband. ‘Truth is I’m glad I told you how I felt. Too bad you didn’t feel the same; it happens. I’m not going to chase after someone who’s not interested, and who I always liked too much as a friend to screw that up. And, so you don’t have to worry about any more awkward declarations, I’ll have you know that I started seeing somebody a couple months back.’

  Barrett felt a lump in her throat, glad that Hobbs was trying to clear the air, but surprised … and bothered by that last piece of news. ‘Is it serious?’ she asked, pretending to be fascinated by the passing scenery on the Saw Mill Parkway.

  ‘Hard to say,’ he commented, ‘we have a good time.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ she said. ‘I’ve missed you, Ed. But I thought that if I called you …’

  ‘I’d turn into a psycho stalker.’

  ‘That’s not what I was going to say.’ She glanced at him.

  ‘But it is what you were
thinking.’ He caught her gaze, smiled and looked back at the road.

  ‘Hey, you got to consider my history,’ she said, glad the mood had lightened, and I should be happy he’s seeing someone.

  ‘Great, so now you’re comparing me with Jimmy Martin.’

  Barrett froze at the name … The thought that flew to her brain, Speak of the devil and he will appear. ‘Don’t even say that as a joke.’

  ‘Sorry, it’s just that we used to be able to talk about anything. I’ve missed that, and now I feel like I got to be careful. I want us to get back to the way we were, and I don’t know if it’s possible.’

  He turned off the Saw Mill and negotiated through the pricey community of Katonah. He checked the address and turned down a road where most of the houses couldn’t be seen, only guessed at behind high well-manicured boxwood and evergreen hedges, many with iron gates across winding drives. ‘Look for thirty-two,’ he said.

  Barrett scanned her surroundings as Hobbs slowed to a crawl. ‘They don’t seem to have any mailboxes visible from the road. I didn’t think that was allowed. How the hell does the mailman know?’

  ‘I think,’ he said, ‘this is the kind of neighborhood that if you don’t know the number, you don’t belong here.’

  ‘There’s twenty-four,’ she said, seeing a modest but beautifully maintained white clapboard Victorian farmhouse set close to the road.

  ‘Good, so I’m guessing same side of the street, four further along.’ He stopped outside a gated drive, opened his window, and pressed a button on the intercom.

  Barrett tried to calm her jitters, the break-in, the missing pictures of Max, and the mention of Jimmy Martin in the same conversation sent a lot of horrible ‘what if’ scenarios skidding through her brain. What if he had someone break into my office? What if he knows he’s Max’s father? Jimmy Martin, born into a family of great wealth and insanity, had been obsessed with her, had stalked her and killed her husband. Now he was locked away in a forensic hospital, she tried – daily – to forget his existence and how close he’d come to killing both her and her sister. But he’d been locked away before, and with his kind of money it wasn’t hard to find people on the outside who’d do his bidding. What if it was him?

  The white-painted iron gate opened. ‘This is never easy,’ Hobbs said, as the wheels crunched over the white crushed-shell drive.

  With a shock, Barrett realized that while she’d agreed to come along, she’d now become involved in a parent’s worst nightmare.

  As if reading her thoughts, Hobbs said, ‘You don’t have to come in.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ she said, and a stunning white stucco structure appeared before them. It was all gentle curves and expanses of glass, an architect’s jewel set in a mounting of specimen evergreens in shapes and colors Barrett had never seen before. In front of those was a sea of deep purple-black iris in full bloom. Beyond the house she caught a glimpse of the Hudson River valley, and understood the reason for the long drive; the view was spectacular. At another time she would have liked to just stand there and take it in, but now there was an open door and a woman in her early forties with short brown hair, jeans, a button-down blue-plaid shirt, and dark-green gardening clogs. She stared at the two of them, seemingly frozen in place.

  ‘Mrs. Kane?’ Hobbs asked.

  ‘Yes, I’m Marion Kane.’

  ‘I’m Detective Hobbs with the NYPD and this is Dr. Barrett Conyors, my associate.’

  Before he could say more, Mrs. Kane looked him in the eye, she held herself rigid and asked, ‘It’s Ashley isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is she dead?’

  ‘I believe so.’ Hobbs said simply, ‘I need to show you a photograph. May we come in?’

  ‘Of course.’ She looked back into the shadowy house, and appeared to struggle with some kind of decision. ‘Would it be OK if we stayed outside?’ she asked. ‘I was working in the back, I find gardening is the only thing that can take my mind off …’

  ‘That’s fine,’ Hobbs said.

  Marion Kane yelled into the open front door. ‘John, you need to come out, the police are here. I’m taking them around back … you need to join us.’

  ‘Your husband?’ Hobbs asked.

  ‘Yes.’ She led them down a bluestone walk that brought the view into full sight.

  Despite the gloom of their task, Barrett nearly gasped at the gorgeous setting, the sun, the smell of the fresh-cut lawn, a breeze off the distant river. She looked at the house and saw that the entire back was a wall of glass, three stories high. It was the kind of house featured in high-end architecture magazines. It didn’t fit with that girl dead in a top-floor walk-up of a Lower East Side tenement. The image of finding her, of placing her fingers against the still-warm flesh, and realizing that this was the girl’s home, her mother – it was too real.

  Marion Kane led them onto an expansive deck that overlooked the valley. There were several sets of wrought-iron tables and chairs with folded-down blue-and-white-striped umbrellas. Next to one of the tables was a green plastic gardener’s pail with a pair of leather work gloves placed on top. ‘My husband should be out soon.’ She glanced at the French doors, and then sat.

  Hobbs pulled out a stiff Manila folder and looked through its contents. He selected a single snapshot and put it on the table in front of Marion Kane. It was a close-up of the dead girl’s face shot at the scene.

  Marion stared at the image. A strand of brown hair, gray at the roots, fell across her forehead. To Barrett it seemed as though the woman was forcing herself to look, to be certain, to have no doubt.

  ‘Yes,’ Marion said in a dull voice, ‘that’s her.’

  They turned at the sound of a door opening. ‘Shit.’ A middle-aged, thin man with military style salt-and-pepper hair, dressed in a navy suit, white shirt, and no tie was shaking his fingers after having spilled his amber-colored drink on the French doors. He wiped his hand on his pants and squinted against the sun; he walked toward them. ‘I’m John Kane,’ he said, not sitting, not extending his hand.

  From across the table, Barrett smelled Scotch, good stuff that carried the whiff of peat and oak.

  Wordlessly, Marion stood, picked up the photo and held it in front of her husband.

  He shook his head and stumbled back. Hobbs reached over and grabbed him by the arm; the mostly empty glass tumbled to the deck but didn’t break. Barrett stood and helped John Kane into a chair. She looked at the spilled alcohol as it glinted in the sun. A drink wouldn’t be so bad, she mused.

  ‘We saw this coming,’ Marion said, sitting next to her husband and putting a hand on his right shoulder. In her other she held the eight-by-ten photo. ‘I had just hoped …’ Her words trailed.

  ‘She said she wanted to go into rehab … again,’ John said. ‘Or am I jumping to a conclusion. It was an overdose, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Hobbs said, ‘but some things make it suspicious.’

  ‘It was that boy,’ he said, his mouth twisted.

  ‘Which boy?’ Hobbs prompted.

  John Kane’s eyes teared, he looked at the tumbler lying on the deck. He got out of his chair, his gait unsteady. ‘Marion, you tell them. I need a drink. Anyone else?’ He picked up the glass and without waiting for anyone to respond headed back indoors.

  Marion watched her husband’s retreat. ‘He’s not always like this, at least not this early in the day.’

  ‘Mrs. Kane,’ Hobbs said, ‘could you tell us about your daughter, her friends, who she hung out with, what you know about her drug use.’

  Marion Kane looked at Hobbs and then at Barrett. ‘She was a beautiful girl, and an “A” student up until her junior year. She had it all, looks, talent, lots of friends. She wanted to be a designer and have her own fashion line.’

  ‘What happened in her junior year?’ Barrett asked.

  ‘Drugs,’ Marion said. ‘At first I didn’t know why she was acting so strange. Not her usual self. She used to be so happy, always doing extra things
at school – designing costumes for the drama club or making decorations for dances. Junior year that all changed. I could almost point to the day, suddenly she wouldn’t talk to us, stayed up in her room, on the Internet with her friends, doing God knows what. I’d try to check the history on her computer, but it was mostly emails and instant messages to her friends. It was our cleaning woman who found it. When she showed me, at first I didn’t understand what I was looking at. I mean, when I was in college I smoked some pot, who didn’t? Even tried uppers a few times when I had to cram for a test, or to see if I could lose weight. But this was … it was alien, it didn’t belong. It was so ugly and what was it doing in Ashley’s room, hidden inside her dresser?’

  ‘What was it?’ Barrett asked, noting how Marion had trouble looking at Hobbs, and wondered if it was because he was a cop, or was it his scars.

  ‘It was an old cigar box, just like the ones she used as sewing boxes, only it had needles, drugs in plastic bags, a lighter … It looked dirty. I mean I’d always prepared myself for the drug talk with my girls; I thought we had one of those healthy open relationships, the kind I’d wanted with my own mother. But here I was staring at something like on a TV show. My sixteen-year-old little girl was shooting drugs. How could I not know? And where the hell would she get them?’ Her jaw clenched. ‘It’s not like we live in the city. I mean, my God, this is one of the most expensive communities in the state.’

  ‘How did you handle it?’ Barrett asked.

  ‘I told John, of course, and he handled it … well, in hindsight, I don’t know. He exploded and when she got home from school he was furious. Didn’t let her talk, just yelled at her. I tried to step in, but in some ways I agreed. How could she do this to herself? To us? We ended up calling a friend of the family who’s a psychiatrist and she helped us locate a facility in Connecticut, which would take her right away. She didn’t want to go. We forced her. She was furious, screaming at me, screaming at John. She said horrible things. It was like watching The Exorcist. She seemed possessed; this was not my daughter. Even her face – she was vicious. She called her father an alcoholic, which made him furious. It’s a miracle we didn’t have an accident on the way. They kept her for four weeks. The first week she refused to see us or talk to us. They explained that she was going through a detox and was pretty miserable. When she finally let us visit, she was exhausted, but at least she looked like my daughter. She apologized for some of what she’d said.’ Marion bit her lip and looked at the photo again. ‘She looks like she’s sleeping.’