Swallow The Hook Part 24

For the first time Constance looked afraid. "I can't leave my husband."

"Then talk to me here."

She wavered, then stepped toward the phone. "I'll get Judy Penniman to sit with him. Just give me a few minutes and I'll be ready to go."

33.

THE BUZZING FLUORESCENT CEILING LIGHTS of the police department cast the only light in the town square. There was no moon, and a dense cloud cover obscured the usual canopy of stars. Malone's and the Store were closed; any meetings at the church were long over.

Two hundred and twenty-five st.i.tches and three units of blood later, Melanie Powers lay heavily sedated in post-op recovery. The doctors said it would be at least forty-eight hours until she could talk to Frank. The Veeches' two surviving dogs were under observation at the state police animal control unit. Pap, Ralph, and Anita Veech had steadfastly stuck to their story: Ralph had been out all morning checking his beaver traps; Anita and Pap had been in Pap's house when Melanie had sneaked into Anita's place; the dogs had attacked when they discovered the trespa.s.ser on the property. All three denied any knowledge of Sheltering Arms, and the whereabouts of Diane Sarens. Pap had finally been charged with failure to control an aggressive animal, and released on his own recognizance.

Constance Stiler had followed the advice of the lawyer she had brought in from Lake Placid, and had refused to answer questions. When Frank pointed out that she would be compelled to testify before a grand jury, the lawyer had merely smiled and shrugged. "When, and if, one is convened, Chief Bennett."

Now, all of them were back in their own homes while Frank sat in his office.

He craved solitude to plan his next move and had commanded Earl to go home, but relented at the stricken look on the kid's face. Melanie's family held Earl responsible for what had happened, making him persona non grata at the hospital. But Earl's restless sighing and pacing were driving Frank to distraction.

"Can't you sit still?"

"I can't help it," Earl whined. "It's not fair that Melanie's hurt so bad and none of them are in jail."

"You know we need corroborating evidence, Earl. The Veeches say Mel was trespa.s.sing. We have nothing to prove she wasn't."

"What about what Mr. Stiler said?"

"He didn't say anything. It's not even hearsay. It's less than nothing."

"But when Mel comes around, we'll get them, right?"

Frank sighed. By the time Mel came around, Constance Stiler and the Veeches would have had two full days to destroy evidence and cover their tracks. Even then, it would just be her word against theirs. He needed concrete proof now that they were running an illegal adoption business. Finding Diane Sarens would help-she might be able to identify Anita or Constance. But if she couldn't, Mel's testimony alone would not be enough to bring the whole operation down. A good lawyer could tie that girl up in knots on the witness stand.

They were much shrewder than he gave them credit for; they wouldn't collapse and confess.

Earl continued to yammer. "I should have known. My cousin Donald warned me about Anita Veech. He said she was really mean, and smarter than she acts."

"How does Donald know Anita so well?"

"They were in the same cla.s.s at school."

"Anita went to school with your cousin Donald? I thought he was only a few years older than you?"

"That's right, he's twenty-seven."

Frank let some papers slip out of his hands onto the desk. "Are you telling me Anita Veech is only twenty-seven? She looks like she's forty."

The fat and bad teeth had misled him. But now he remembered something Olivia had told him right here in this office. She said, "I had a brother, but he went away." He'd a.s.sumed she had an older brother who'd left home. But if Anita had been twenty when Olivia was born, that meant the brother must be younger than Olivia.

"What about Anita's other child, her son?" Frank asked Earl.

"Son? I never knew she had a son."

"Olivia told me she had a brother who went away."

Earl shook his head. "She was trying to put one over on you. All those Veeches lie."

"No." Frank answered out loud, but he was talking to himself more than Earl. "No, she wasn't lying. She had no reason to lie. I think Anita had another child recently, and I have a feeling I know what happened to him."

Frank and the Ess.e.x County prosecutor sat in the chambers of Judge Roland Kovally. Chambers was a pretty glorified term for Kovally's very ordinary office, and "your Honor" was a pretty glorified form of address for a mild-mannered, middle-aged man who looked more like a social studies teacher than a judge. When he'd sized up the setting, Frank had been quite confident that Kovally would quickly grant them the court order needed to access Anita Veech's medical records at the Saranac Lake Hospital.

"Absolutely not," Kovally was saying. "You have no evidence that this woman is involved in anything illegal. Medical records are accorded the highest level of privacy. And adoption records are even more protected."

"But there's a good chance that the adoption was illegal," Frank protested. "And the father of Mary Pat Sheehan's baby was denied-"

Kovally held up his hand for silence. "You've explained all that to me, Chief Bennett. Until you can bring me more evidence that Ms. Veech was involved in this illegal adoption scheme, her medical records are off-limits. I think we're finished here."

"Sorry, Frank," the prosecutor apologized out in the hallway.

Frank glared at Kovally's closed door. "I thought everyone up here was a Republican law-and-order type. Where did Mr. Civil Liberties come from?"

"He falls into the 'keep government out of private citizens' lives' camp, I think."

"Fine. He wants more evidence, I'll get him more evidence."

"What makes you think Anita had her baby in the hospital?" Earl asked. They were in the patrol car on the way to Verona to see if anyone had witnessed the meeting between Melanie and Constance. "She mighta had it at home, just like Mary Pat."

Frank shook his head. "I don't know for sure, but I doubt it. You see, I don't think Anita necessarily tried to hide her pregnancy. She's just so fat, n.o.body noticed. And don't forget, she's only been working at the Stop'N'Buy for the past six months-before that, I never used to see her around town."

"Yeah, the Veeches keep to themselves. Walter told me she only took that job because they were going to cut off her welfare. This way she gets to keep her food stamps," Earl said.

"That plays right into my theory of why she wanted to give the baby up," Frank agreed. "It used to be, you got extra welfare money every time you had another baby. It doesn't work that way anymore; you don't get anything extra if you have the baby while you're collecting-it's supposed to discourage people from having more kids they can't support. This baby was going to be a drain on the family finances, but then Anita, or maybe Pap, saw one of those ads in the paper, and they realized they could actually get money for it if they gave it up for adoption. And when Anita noticed that Mary Pat was in trouble, she hooked her up with Sheltering Arms. And got a cut of the action, I'm sure."

"Couldn't you try to get Olivia to tell you more about the baby brother who went away?"

Frank sighed. "I thought of that, but a parent has the right to be present whenever a minor is interrogated. And Olivia certainly won't volunteer anything with her mother in the room."

"You could try to trip her up."

"Can you imagine what Pap would do to her if she was the one to blow their cover? I can't put Olivia in danger."

"You oughta get Trudy Ma.s.sinay to take Olivia away from them," Earl said righteously. "The way those people live is disgusting. They use an outhouse, for G.o.d's sake."

"It's not that easy, Earl. I know it seems to us like Olivia would be better off with anyone else, but they're her family. Lack of indoor plumbing is not enough reason to take a kid away from her mother.

"No, I've decided that Constance Stiler is the weakest link. If I can scare her enough, I can get her to talk. She's not used to lying."

"Why would a nice lady like Mrs. Stiler get mixed up with them anyway?"

"It has to be money, I think. She's running out of money for her husband's medical care. She must've been desperate for cash, to get involved with this adoption scheme."

"Mrs. Stiler and the Veeches-you think that's all there is to Sheltering Arms?"

"No, there has to be someone coordinating the whole operation."

"Dr. Galloway?"

Frank shrugged. "He's got the brains for it. And I'm sure he's lying to me about Diane Sarens. But there could be someone outside the area-all that Internet stuff could be done from anywhere. I just hope I can get Mrs. Stiler to tell us the rest."

Earl looked unconvinced.

"Where do you want to start?" Earl asked as Frank parked the car in the center of the two-block-long main street of Verona.

"You ask in all the stores if anyone noticed Melanie and Mrs. Stiler here yesterday. Don't just ask the workers, ask the shoppers; they'd be more likely to have seen them on the street, or in the park."

Earl nodded, taking a picture of Melanie along to jog people's memories, although he might not need it. Verona and Trout Run were part of the same regional school district, so families in both towns tended to know each other. Constance would be less well-known since she hadn't raised her kids in the area, and, of course, she wasn't about to give them a picture.

Frank headed directly for the town park where Mel had agreed to meet the mysterious woman who was supposed to help her give her baby up for adoption. With low, gray clouds blocking the sun, the temperature barely hit fifty. The wind blew steadily from the west, carrying occasional spurts of drizzle. Frank pulled his collar up and buried his hands in his pockets as he walked the block from the main street to the gra.s.sy area on the bank of the brook.

A swinging wooden sign announced that he'd arrived at the Carl W. Fahey Memorial Park. He didn't know who Carl was, but his tribute amounted to a picnic table, two wooden benches, a trash can and some rickety playground equipment. Not surprisingly, the place was deserted.

He looked around. The closest building had a shop on the ground floor with two stories of apartments above. Six windows faced the park. Frank walked over and climbed the stairs in back that led to the apartment doors. No one was home at the second-floor apartment, but the blare of the TV on the third floor told him he was in luck.

The door was opened by a woman in her seventies with keen brown eyes and gleaming white dentures. She looked delighted to find a policeman on her doorstep. Before long she had him settled at her kitchen table with a cup of coffee and some really excellent mola.s.ses cookies.

"You came at the right time. Oprah was just finishing up, and I can't stand that fella who comes on next. Now, you want to know who was over at the park yesterday?" She stretched forward to improve her view out the kitchen window. "No one there today, but yesterday was nice. There were quite a few folks in and out, as I recall."

Frank pulled out his photo of Melanie. "Do you recognize this girl? She was pregnant."

"Can't say as I do." She looked disappointed. "It's hard to make out faces at this distance. And everyone was wearing heavy coats."

"Did you recognize anyone who was at the park yesterday? If I could talk to someone who was there, they might remember seeing Melanie."

Her face lit up. "You know who was there for quite a while-Ruthie Phipps and her boys, Jason and Mason. I know it was her 'cause she's got one of those big double strollers, and she always dresses the twins just alike. This year their jackets are bright orange. She musta picked 'em up on sale."

"That's very helpful, ma'am. Would you happen to know where she lives?"

"Oh, sure. Over on Fowler Street. Pink house, second from the corner."

When the young woman answered the door, Frank had no doubt he was at the right house. Behind her on the floor rolled a writhing ma.s.s with four legs, four arms, and two identical heads.

Ruthie quickly identified Mel's picture. "I know it was her. My younger sister was a cheerleader with Melanie. But I didn't talk to her-she was so caught up in what this other woman was saying, I don't think she even noticed me."

"What did the other woman look like?"

Ruthie shrugged. "She was sitting down, and wearing a thick coat and a hat."

It did no good to prove Mel was there-he had to be able to prove to Constance that someone had identified her in Verona. "Think, Mrs. Phipps. Was there anything distinctive you remember about her?"

"The hat, Mommy!" one of the little boys piped up from behind her.

"Oh, that's right. Her hat blew off and rolled right across the playground. Jason chased it down for her and brought it back. Before she put it back on, I noticed she had the prettiest pure silver hair I'd ever seen."

"Trudy Ma.s.sinay called," Doris announced as soon as Frank got back to the office. "She says to call back-it's very important."

Frank rushed to his phone and dialed. Trudy answered on the first ring.

"I found Diane," she announced. "She's okay."

Now things were looking up. "Great! Where is she? I want to talk to her."

"There's no need for that. She's been staying at the battered women's shelter in Lake Placid. It never even dawned on me to check there, but when I was placing a client, there she was. Dr. Galloway helped her get in."

"A shelter? Galloway helped? What are you talking about?"

"It seems Diane's father has always been abusive, mostly to her mother, but since Diane got pregnant, he's been hitting her, too. Dr. Galloway's been treating her, and he noticed signs of the abuse. He convinced her to go into the shelter so she'd be safe until the baby came."

"But why did she run out on me like that?" Frank asked.

"I guess she freaked when you started talking about adoption. Everyone's been encouraging her to give the baby up, but she wants to keep it. That still hasn't been settled."

"What do you mean, 'everyone' has been encouraging her to give the baby up? Did Constance Stiler try to persuade her?"

"No, I mean her parents, her friends. I asked her about Constance-she claims she never saw her at the clinic. Diane only went three times, always when the other nurse was on duty."

"Why the h.e.l.l didn't Galloway tell me where Diane was? What was the point of keeping the secret from me?"

"Diane said Dr. Galloway told her about a nurse he worked with during his residency. She was being stalked by an ex-boyfriend and got a restraining order against him. The police did nothing to protect her, and the guy came into the ER one night and shot her dead in front of Galloway. He's mistrusted the police ever since."

"I still need to talk to Diane," Frank insisted. Galloway might be honest, but Frank couldn't believe a perfect candidate for Sheltering Arms could present herself at the clinic and Constance wouldn't know about it.

"Tell her I'll be there in half an hour."

Constance Stiler sat in the interview room of state police headquarters, looking as perfectly relaxed as a nun in a cathedral. Frank watched her through the one-way gla.s.s for a moment. He wanted badly to wipe that composure off her face. The interview with Diane Sarens had been a bust. The girl insisted that Constance had never treated her at the clinic, and that Dr. Galloway had never offered to help her give her child up for adoption. Still, she'd been jumpy as a cat, and reluctant to say much about Galloway. And Galloway was still away.

A tap at the door signaled him. Constance's lawyer had arrived-the interview could begin.

Frank took a seat opposite them in the interview room. Constance's eyes met his without hesitation.

"How long has your husband been sick, Mrs. Stiler?" Frank began.

Constance looked a little startled. She glanced at her lawyer, but he nodded.

"About five years."