Wading Into Murder

by JOAN DAHR LAMBERT

  “Ready, get set, go!” declared a shrill voice from a wheelchair. Disregarding nurses, meal trays, visitors and all else, the contenders weaved with varying degrees of expertise through a series of cardboard boxes and emerged triumphantly at the other end of the hall. Laura and William flattened themselves against the wall, which failed to protect them from a few out-of-control chairs. Lady Longtree prudently retreated into the elevator, with a finger on the do not close button.

  “Bravo, Bravo, Victoria!” she cried to the winner.

  The child who had won – who was also the announcer – looked up and grinned. “Hi, Aunt Olivia. Hi, William. Helps to pass the time. Want to watch some more?”

  Laura regarded her with interest. Her blond hair stuck up in all directions and her nose already showed a distinctly patrician hump. She looked to be about eight or nine. A determined character, Laura decided, probably a curious and observant one as well.

  “One more go, and that’s it,” a nurse ordered. “The visitors are arriving and we don’t want to knock down your mums and dads, do we?”

  “Yes.” Victoria’s answer was unequivocal. The other children giggled and lined up once more. To no one’s surprise, Victoria won again.

  “Some of the other kids are pretty good, too,” she conceded when Laura admired her skill in a wheelchair. “They’ve been in them for longer.”

  “But they haven’t been racing horses the way you have,” William countered. “I hear you’re a champion jumper.” Victoria looked gratified.

  William touched the wheelchair. “Can you go all over the hospital in that thing?”

  “Not supposed to but I do,” Victoria answered laconically. “I like to keep track of what goes on around here.”

  “I bet you see a lot.” Laura observed, hoping that Victoria’s inquisitive nature had led her to listen in on conversations about the stolen babies.

  Victoria had done better than that. “I was on the infant’s floor, hiding around the corner, when the two babies were taken, and I saw everything!” she said, her button blue eyes glittering with excitement. “The kidnappers didn’t pay any attention to me, though, so I don’t think they’ll come back and kidnap me.” She sounded almost disappointed.

  “Can you tell us about it?” William asked eagerly.

  “Close the door first,” Victoria ordered. “The nurses don’t like me to talk about it, but that’s silly. It’s a crime and it has to be solved. I told the police some stuff I saw but not all of it because I want to solve it myself, like Nancy Drew.”

  “I read all her books when I was younger,” Laura told her. “She’s great.”

  ‘Well, I’m going to be the English Nancy Drew,” Victoria announced. “Will you send me some copies if I tell you everything? They’re hard to get here.”

  “I certainly will,” Laura agreed. “As soon as I get home I’ll look for them.”

  “All right. But I get to write the book about it because I was in on it from the very beginning,” Victoria bargained. They all nodded, and she seemed satisfied.

  “I was down on that floor, watching the tiny babies,” she began. “They look like monkeys, and I like to see their faces go all red and scrunched up when they scream. Two nurses came down the hall. One of them had yellowish hair and the other was ancient-looking. That one told me I should go back to my own floor because I might infect the babies, which is nonsense since all I have is a broken leg, but I pretended to anyway, so that’s why I was hiding around the corner.

  “Then two of those ladies who wear black scarves over their heads and faces came out of the elevator. They went up to the nurses and one of them asked which door was right for the women they wanted to visit. The nurses told them, but then a loud bell rang and they left. The two covered up ladies went down the hall. One of them went into one room, the other into another, and when they came out they were each holding a baby.”

  Victoria took a deep breath. “This is the part I didn’t tell. One of the covered-up ladies was very tall, too tall for a lady, I think, almost as tall as William, and her face was covered too, so you couldn’t see her except for her eyes. They were a weird greenish color. She never said a word to the nurses. I think it was because she didn’t want them to know she was really a man.”

  Laura felt Lady Longtree’s eyes on hers.The father? Lady Longtree mouthed, and Laura nodded.

  Victoria shivered. “I didn’t like him. Anyway, the two people came back down the hall, got into the elevator, and that’s the last anyone ever saw of them – except for me,” she finished dramatically.

  William’s eyes widened. “What did you do?”

  Victoria sent him a triumphant look. “I got on the elevator with them. I wanted to see if I was right about her being a man, but I didn’t know they were kidnappers then.” She frowned. “I should have known, because they didn’t coo at the babies or slobber kisses on them. Parents always do that, especially mothers. Anyway, the tall one reached out to push the button for the lobby, and that’s when I saw his hand. It was hairy, really hairy, so I knew he was a man. We all got out in the lobby and I followed them to the front doors. A guard asked to see their identifications so they each showed him a bracelet that looked the same as the ones the babies had. The man used his other hand then, and it didn’t have any hair. I tried to follow them outside but the guard wouldn’t let me. So I watched from inside. I saw the kidnappers get in a car that was waiting in the hospital driveway. It turned left and vanished, never to be seen again!”

  “Have you told this to anyone else?” Lady Longtree asked sharply.

  “I told the guard in the lobby, but I don’t think he believed me, and he told me to go back to my own floor. After that, I only told the nurses and the children up here, and my mother. And the police. They came later that afternoon. They kept asking what the kidnappers looked like, and gave me photographs of some women to look at to see if it was them. I thought that was dumb because how can you see what they really look like with scarves all over their faces? So all I said was that one was small and the other was tall and had green eyes, but I haven’t told anyone but you that he was a man.”

  “I think you should tell the police that, too,” Lady Longtree advised. “It might help them to find the babies faster. Men with green eyes are unusual.”

  “Then I haven’t got a lead all my own, like Nancy Drew,” Victoria objected.

  “And the babies stay kidnapped longer,” Lady Longtree argued firmly.

  “I guess you’re right,” Victoria agreed half-heartedly.

  A knock on the door announced the arrival of the meal cart. “For all we know, the two babies aren’t being fed, and even babies don’t deserve that,” Laura added as she saw Victoria’s eyes fix on the tray of food.

  Victoria looked shocked. “That would be cruel!”

  “Kidnappers are cruel,” Lady Longtree said implacably.

  “Better tell them everything,” William advised. Victoria looked at his face and nodded reluctantly. “Okay. I guess you’re right. I will the next time they come in.”

  William pressed his advantage. “In the meantime, don’t talk about it to anyone else. If the criminals find out you saw them, you could be in great danger!”

  Victoria looked delighted but nodded gravely and promised she wouldn’t talk to anyone. Laura didn’t believe her. For an eight year old to refrain from boasting about knowledge only she possessed was almost impossible.

  “The nurses might get mad, too,” she said, hoping the more immediate threat of a scolding from the nurses might have at least some effect.

  “I’ll just talk to you,” Victoria promised. “But you have to come back so I can tell you what I find next. I’m going back to the babies’ floor tonight.

  “Don’t worry,” she added kindly, seeing Laura’s worried face. “I’ll be very careful. No one will ever know I’m around and anyway, no one pays much attention to kids. They think we’re dumb or something.”

  Laura hoped that was the case.
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  ***************

  They separated after that, Lady Longtree to visit a friend in the administrative department, William to chat up the guard at the hospital entrance and Laura to pose as an American friend of Amy’s who wanted to say hello while she was in England and would be appropriately disappointed to hear that Amy was on vacation.

  The nurse she spoke with was chatty and told Laura all about the recent theft of two babies and how the kidnappers had foiled the hospital’s security system by obtaining two extra bracelets that matched the ones issued to the baby and its parents. She was also very vocal on the subject of one of the fathers, who was furious about his baby daughter’s disappearance because he had promised her to an uncle in marriage. Married before she’s out of her cradle, the nurse had said disapprovingly.

  William got a description of the getaway car and the perpetrators that matched Victoria’s; Lady Longtree was treated to a lengthy explanation of the new and up-graded security system the hospital was installing. While listening, she managed to scribble the names and addresses of the families whose babies were stolen by reading them upside down from a file on the administrator’s desk.

  “Well done!” Laura congratulated her.

  “Thank you my dear. Now,” Lady Longtree went on, “I propose that we stop by the two houses on our way back to the hotel. I can pose as a census-taker” – she waved the clipboard in her hand – “and you and William can do some sleuthing around the area. We will have the cab wait for us.”

  Her plan backfired. Both houses were deserted, and they looked as if as if the occupants had left in a hurry. There were unwashed plates on the table and a few toys scattered on the floor, and an unmistakable air of being empty.

  “Like the house where we saw the father,” William noted.

  Two children on bicycles rode up as they left the second house. “They went away,” the boy said importantly. “Got into a big black motorcar with some men. I bet they were kidnapped too.”

  “Were not,” the girl contradicted. “They went on holiday, stupid.” A woman’s voice called sharply and they rode off, still arguing.

  The cabby, who had waited for them, beeped his horn impatiently. Laura was about to get into the cab behind William and Lady Longtree when a battered car drew up beside her. A tall man emerged. The father, she saw, too late. His fierce green eyes bored into hers, and the intensity of dislike in them was so strong that she flinched. Obviously, he didn’t think much of women who kept turning up in his vicinity.

  Laura ducked hastily into the cab. Her first feeling was relief that the father hadn’t seen Lady Longtree or William – especially William. The second feeling was satisfaction. There was no doubt now that he was involved with this baby-stealing ring. He could even have sold his own daughter to them. She was his property, to do with as he wished, in his view at least.

  Fast on their heels came a sinking sensation of fear. There was also no doubt that she was now on the father’s enemy list. The thought was terrifying. A man like him would have no compunction about getting rid of her for good.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Time to focus on the clues she already had, Laura decided as the cab bore them back to the manor. The best form of self-defense was to figure out what was going on before her growing list of enemies struck again – or struck someone else. That was the real worry.

  She changed quickly and went down to dinner. Over an excellent meal, she allowed her eyes to drift from one head to another, looking for coarse dark hair. It was quickly obvious that no one on the tour group had hair like that, and that Dr. Bernstein was the only candidate for a bald wig. She needed to get closer to him to make sure. The thought was so repellent that Laura hastily abandoned it and tried to determine from a distance if he wore a wig. That too, was a mistake. When she glanced up at him, she discovered that he was already was staring at her with alarming intensity. His probing eyes were either analyzing her, or - even more appalling – mentally taking off her clothes. What a ghastly thought!

  To her relief, Violet interrupted this line of thought. Ever independent, Violet had also spent the afternoon on some pursuit of her own. She plopped down beside Laura, where a place had been saved for her.

  “Oh dear, has be been at that all evening?” she asked, noticing Dr. Bernstein’s stare. “What do you suppose he’s up to?”

  “I think I know and that’s the trouble,” Laura whispered in reply. “He and Claudine aren’t on the best of terms just now and I suspect he is casting around for a substitute. I’m afraid I may be his candidate. Unless he really is trying to do me bodily harm as William thinks instead of another form of bodily attention.

  “Maybe I’ll sic him on you,” she joked. “That should be interesting to watch.”

  Violet didn’t laugh as she had expected. “I doubt you’d get very far,” she said instead. “The good doctor seems to have developed a distaste for me that is almost as strong as mine for him. I wonder why that is?”

  That was no rhetorical question, Laura realized. Violet really did want to know.

  Dr. Bernstein’s voice distracted them. He had begun to lecture on diabetes, a subject Lady Longtree had for some unaccountable reason introduced. Apparently his mother had suffered from the disease, and he considered himself an authority on the proper ways to treat it. His commanding tone was impossible to ignore.

  If he went on like this all evening they would all be authorities, Laura grumbled to herself. Why had Lady Longtree brought it up?

  She soon learned. As soon as Dr. Bernstein’s paused for breath, the old lady turned to Margaret and Amy. “I wonder what you think about the disease,” she asked pleasantly. “I know that diabetes is not your field,” she added apologetically, “but as nurses I expect you hear a good bit about it, or perhaps you were taught about it as part of your training.”

  Both Margaret and Amy looked surprised, and Laura was struck again by how alike they were. “Uh, I guess so, I mean we probably did learn about it but you know how it is. The facts don’t stay unless you use them,” Amy mumbled vaguely, and turned to Margaret with a pleading look.

  Margaret rose to the challenge. “I am not sure how well diabetes tests would work on infants because their systems are immature,” she said evenly. “I imagine Dr. Bernstein knows far more about the disease than we do, anyway.” Her voice took on an edge of bitterness as she continued. “Even if we were experts, I fear that doctors believe nurses are incapable of mastering the complex knowledge that leads to decisions about treatment. I often think doctors give us as little information as they can get away with. We are less threatening that way.”

  Amy flushed with embarrassment. “Now Margaret, I’m sure that’s not really true,” she muttered uneasily.

  “Quite so,” Lady Longtree inserted briskly. “There is certainly a modicum of truth in what Margaret says, is there not, Dr. Bernstein?”

  The doctor turned an unpleasant shade of dusky pink. “I should say not!” he sputtered indignantly. “That is an absurd accusation against a noble profession.”

  Violet gazed dreamily at the ceiling. “I’ve always heard that nursing was the noblest profession. Florence Nightingale and all that,” she murmured. Her yellow-brown eyes rested on Dr. Bernstein’s face and Laura saw that they weren’t at all dreamy. They were as focused as a hawk’s on its prey.

  “A few misguided people subscribe to that notion,” he said, raising a disdainful eyebrow. Violet only smiled indulgently.

  Laura tried not to laugh. Every person at the table was swiveling his or her head from one verbal contestant to the next like spectators at a tennis match.

  Lady Longtree cleared her throat. “I understand that you are a medical doctor as well as a psychiatrist, Dr. Bernstein,” she persisted.

  “One cannot be a psychiatrist otherwise,” Dr. Bernstein replied with pride. “Mind and body are interconnected in so many ways that it is necessary.”

  “Yes, I am certain it is,” Lady Longtree agreed placidly. “And per
haps treatment also has to do with why one wished to become a psychiatrist to begin with,” she went on, as if thinking the matter through. “Rather a discouraging profession I should think, unless one had some kind of personal interest in it. Concern with one’s own impulses or fears, perhaps? But of course, I know so very little of the field.”

  “Bravo!” Violet said under her breath, just loudly enough for Dr. Bernstein to hear. What had the man done to arouse such antipathy from Violet? Could he have made a pass at her already? Laura smothered a laugh.

  Still, she had to agree with Violet’s one word assessment. Lady Longtree’s expert though seemingly innocent questions had uncovered a number of insights: that Amy was surprisingly ignorant on medical matters and that Margaret, while intelligent, had a chip on her shoulder the size of a baseball bat. Dr. Bernstein, on the other hand, might be unbearably self-important and have questionable reasons for becoming a psychiatrist, but he did sound as if he really was one, not just a well-educated fake. Laura sighed. That was too bad. She had liked the idea.

  Margaret rose abruptly, presumably to visit the ladies room before they left for the cathedral. Her face was strained and unhappy. Laura followed her. Margaret should know that one person at least admired her effort to stand up to Dr. Bernstein.

  As she went down the hall, however, she almost ran into Dr. Bernstein himself. “Over here,” he hissed. “Come quickly. I must speak to you!”

  Baffled, Laura followed him. Dr Bernstein grabbed her arm and pulled her into a recessed area behind some telephone booths. With a forceful shove, he pinned her body against the wall. Laura gasped. Was this lust or something more ominous?

  She tried to push him away, but he outweighed her by fifty pounds or more, and he was unexpectedly strong. Twisting her arms behind her, he pressed his shiny round head into her windpipe, cutting off most of her air. His pudgy belly squirmed against her hips with the unbridled enthusiasm of a teenager, while his damp palms slid up and down her body in a travesty of an intimate caress, ranging like a demented massage machine from breast to belly to upper thighs and back again. Perspiration dripped from his face, and his eyes were glazed, almost manic. He reeked of garlic.