Without Her Consent Read online

  This particular day, he was at his desk eating a ham and Swiss cheese sandwich with extra mayo, washing it down with a can of Red Bull when the call came into the overcrowded, dingy news bullpen. Tommy answered the call with a mouth full of food. It was some guy who worked in food service at Oceanside Manor, the extended-care facility next to the hospital. The guy was calling in a tip. At first, Tommy thought the man sounded like a moron and he tried to get him off the phone so he could finish his sandwich.

  ‘I’m telling you, man, there’s been some strange things going on here this week,’ said the food services guy. ‘People are whispering all kinds of crazy stuff and there are cops all over the place. They’re interviewing like every person who works here. Even the guys who mow the lawns.’

  ‘Do you know why?’ asked Tommy Devlin, mildly interested as he reluctantly put his sandwich down to grab a pen.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said the man. ‘What’s in it for me?’

  ‘My eternal gratitude,’ said Devlin. ‘We don’t pay for tips. If that’s what you’re looking for, you came to the wrong place. Call the Enquirer.’

  ‘I was just asking. No harm in that. I mean, what if you did pay for tips and I left money on the table. Then, I’d be a big loser.’

  ‘Yeah, you’d be a loser. But we don’t. If you want to talk to me because you want to do the right thing, I’m here. If not, I’d like to finish my lunch,’ said Tommy about to hang up.

  There was a long pause as the would-be tipster considered his options.

  ‘Okay, I’ll tell you what I know,’ said the man on the phone. ‘It’s something to do with a baby.’

  ‘What do you mean “something to do with a baby?”’ asked Devlin. ‘Isn’t that a place full of old people?’

  ‘There’s a lot of old people in here but there’s some younger ones, too,’ said the man on the phone. ‘Oceanside Manor is for people who are, you know, brain-dead, nothing going on upstairs, vegetables. All I know is that I heard people saying something about a baby and pretty soon all these cops showed up. We don’t have no babies here. Something strange is going on.’

  Tommy smelled something. When he finished the sketchy call with the tipster he walked directly over to his editor’s desk.

  ‘I just got a line that something weird is going on over at that extended-care facility next to the hospital. You know the place, Oceanside Manor.’

  ‘I know it. What do you mean by weird?’ asked his editor, looking up from an article he was reading.

  ‘That’s all I’ve got so far,’ said Devlin. ‘My source said there were a bunch of cops over there and they’re interviewing all the employees, even freelancers. The guy said there’s a baby involved.’

  ‘Isn’t that place a nursing home? Why would there be a baby there? You think it’s something?’

  ‘Could be. I don’t think it’s nothing.’

  ‘Grab one of the photographers and go see what you can find out. Bring back something for tomorrow’s paper.’

  Tommy Devlin tapped one of the photographers on the shoulder and the two headed across town. When they drove through the front entrance of Oceanside Manor, several police cars were outside. Parking in front of the old brick building that at one time had been the hospital, before the new one had been built next door in 1998, they got out and walked towards the front doors. A uniformed police officer stood in the center of the lobby. Tommy recognized him. Oceanside wasn’t that big a town and Tommy had been working the crime beat for a long time. He knew all the local cops and they knew him and most of them had his number. It was common knowledge that Tommy would sell his own grandmother if it would give him a leg up and a front-page story. The police were always guarded about what they said to him.

  ‘Hey, Officer Manzer,’ said Tommy, smiling as he stuck out his hand. The officer reluctantly shook it and cautiously smiled back.

  ‘Doesn’t take long for bad news to travel, I see,’ said the policeman. ‘What brings you down here, Devlin?’

  ‘Got a tip. What’s going on down here? Awful lot of cops around the place.’

  ‘Routine stuff.’

  ‘Routine? Three squad cars in the parking lot?’ said Tommy. ‘You’ve got cops standing guard in the lobby. Doesn’t seem routine to me. I doubt you’re here to collect unpaid parking tickets.’

  ‘I’m not at liberty to discuss anything at this time.’

  ‘Then it is something?’ said Tommy, his head cocked to one side. ‘From what I heard, you’re interviewing a boatload of people. Someone told me the police were meeting with every person on the staff. That right?’

  ‘I can’t confirm or deny anything. Orders. Sorry,’ said the officer, looking away, wishing Tommy would disappear.

  ‘I heard this has something to do with a baby. They got a baby in this place? I thought Oceanside Manor was for old people. Isn’t this a nursing home?’

  ‘I have no comment on anything, Devlin,’ said Officer Manzer, getting testy. ‘You’re going to have to leave the building, now.’

  ‘Relax, I’m going. I’ll just nose around outside a little. That’s okay, isn’t it? It’s a free country, right?’

  Devlin and his photographer walked out through the automatic sliding glass doors into the parking lot. The photographer turned around and took a photo of the red brick building while Devlin waited for new people to walk in or out. A few minutes later the electronic doors of Oceanside Manor opened again and two young women in lab coats emerged, headed towards the parking lot. The reporter spotted them and followed.

  ‘Excuse me, ladies?’

  The two women spun around.

  ‘I’m Tommy Devlin with The Oceanside Bulletin,’ he said, smiling and handing them each a business card. ‘You work here at Oceanside Manor?’

  They both nodded.

  ‘Cool. What’s going on? Why are the police here?’

  The two women looked at each other quizzically.

  ‘We don’t know,’ said the shorter one. ‘We got an email saying the cops needed to interview everyone who works here. They didn’t tell us why.’

  ‘Did they interview you yet?’ asked Devlin.

  ‘Yeah,’ said the short woman. ‘They just asked me some basic stuff, you know, like what my schedule was and had I seen anything unusual around the building.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How about you?’ said Devlin to the taller woman.

  ‘Same thing,’ said the taller one. ‘I didn’t see nothing.’

  ‘You know anything about a baby?’

  The two women looked at each other for a moment as if they were trying to communicate telepathically.

  ‘Well…I heard somebody say something about a baby,’ said the taller one. ‘And, they’ve cordoned off 3 West. No one except the people who work on that floor or the cops are allowed up there.’

  ‘Is that pretty unusual?’ asked the reporter, getting more interested.

  ‘Extremely unusual.’

  ‘I heard someone found a dead baby,’ the shorter girl blurted out.

  ‘That’s what I heard, too,’ said the taller one, her eyes growing wide. ‘I heard somebody found a dead baby’s skeleton buried inside of a wall.’

  Tommy Devlin’s mouth dropped open while he wrote as fast as his pen would move.

  16

  Eliza Stern’s court-appointed attorney, Elliot Meyers, waited in an interrogation room at the Oceanside Police headquarters for a meeting with Blade and McQ. Short, bald and pudgy, Elliot was co-operative, but guarded.

  ‘Thanks for coming in, Mr. Meyers,’ said McQ. ‘We figured it was better for you to come here rather than fight with the circus over at Oceanside Manor. Yesterday, there were already a few reporters poking around and we’re trying to keep a lid on this for as long as possible to keep the chaos to a minimum.’

  ‘I appreciate your discretion, detective,’ said Meyers. ‘This is all a terrible business. That poor girl. Are you any closer to knowing what happened? It
’s an outrage, is what it is.’

  ‘We’re working on it,’ said McQ. ‘There are hundreds of people to be interviewed. We’ve just scratched the surface. It may take a few weeks before we get to everyone.’

  ‘Naturally, my concern is for my client, Ms. Stern. I spoke with a Dr. Horowitz, the attending physician,’ said the attorney. ‘According to him, healthwise, Eliza is fine. What remains to be decided is, what happens to her baby.’

  ‘I believe child services was called,’ said McQ. ‘For the time being, given that the child was slightly premature, they’re keeping him with his mother so they can monitor him and make sure there are no complications.’

  ‘My client has no other close family members,’ said Meyers. ‘Only one or two distant relatives who didn’t know Eliza before the accident and they’ve taken no interest in her since. Right after the crash, they crawled out of the woodwork. Once they learned there was no money in it for them, they disappeared. I can assure you, they will not want the baby. I suspect the child is headed into foster care.’

  Blade shot her partner a look.

  ‘Mr. Meyers, can you tell us what exactly your role is and what you do for Eliza Stern now?’ said Blade.

  ‘I was appointed by the courts after the family’s car accident when it was determined that Eliza would not be coming out of her comatose state,’ said Meyers. ‘There was a settlement from their insurance company which provides enough money to maintain her in Oceanside Manor for as long as she lives.’

  ‘If she dies, who gets the money?’ asked Blade.

  ‘No one,’ said the lawyer. ‘It’s open-ended. As long as she stays alive, they keep paying. If she dies, their obligation is complete.’

  ‘What about if she has heirs, like a child,’ asked Blade.

  ‘There was no provision made for that as it wasn’t something anyone…anticipated,’ said Meyers.

  ‘It would be in the insurance company’s best financial interest if Ms. Stern expired, correct,’ asked Blade.

  ‘That’s true. If my client died, the insurance company would be off the hook,’ said Elliot Meyers. ‘Are you suggesting that somehow there was a conspiracy on the part of the insurance company to impregnate my client with the hopes that she’d die?’

  ‘We’re not suggesting anything,’ said McQ. ‘We just want to understand all the players and who might benefit from the situation.’

  ‘Mr. Meyers, according to the hospital records,’ said Blade, sifting through some papers, ‘you come here fairly regularly. Why do you come to Oceanside Manor?’

  ‘To see my client, of course.’

  ‘But your client’s in a coma,’ said McQ. ‘Couldn’t be a very productive visit.’

  ‘Look, detectives, my office is right here in town and once every quarter, I stop in and talk to her, as her attorney,’ said Meyers. ‘I have a soft spot for her. She was a kid when she was brought in here. We have a nice little chat. I tell her what’s going on in the news, how I’m taking care of her bills and how things are going in the world. Been doing it for over ten years.’

  ‘Once a quarter you spend alone time here with your client?’ asked McQ.

  When he heard McQ’s comment, Elliot Meyers furrowed his brow and looked at each of the detectives. ‘Wait a minute. You’re barking up the wrong tree,’ said Meyers, his palms in the air.

  ‘Do you hear any barking, Detective Blalock?’ said McQ to his partner.

  ‘I don’t hear a thing,’ she said, laying on her thickest southern drawl. ‘When mah partnuh barks up a tree, he howls. He ain’t howling right now. You’d know it if he was.’

  ‘If you’re trying to insinuate that I had anything to do with Eliza Stern’s pregnancy, you’re out of your mind. Take it any further and you’ll have a lawsuit to contend with.’

  ‘Now don’t get your tail all in a bunch, Mr. Meyers,’ said Blade slowly and cheerfully. ‘We’re just having a friendly, neighborly conversation.’

  ‘Are we through here?’

  ‘One more question,’ said McQ. ‘You’ve been handling Ms. Stern’s affairs for ten years and visit her four times a year. That would mean you’ve had about forty meetings with her. Is that correct?’

  ‘I guess so. Are we finished now?’

  ‘There’s a part B to my question,’ said McQ. ‘During your visits with Eliza, were you always alone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘One of the floor nurses said,’ McQ continued, while reading from a piece of paper in his hand, ‘that you’d tell them you were going to confer with your client and you were not to be disturbed. The nurse said you always closed the door to the room. Now, why would you close the door, Mr. Meyers?’

  17

  After Elliot Meyers left the police station in a huff, threatening multiple forms of legal retribution, McQ and Blade headed back to Oceanside Manor for an afternoon of interviews. With so many people to interrogate, the chief of police decided that they would conduct most of the interviews over at the long-term facility.

  Blade pulled their Toyota Camry out of the police station parking lot and pointed the nose of the car west towards Oceanside Manor.

  ‘How about making a little detour on our way across town,’ said McQ, pointing to his watch. ‘We’ve got a few minutes.’

  Blade glanced sideways at her partner. ‘What heart healthy establishment do you want to go to today?’ she said with a mix of amusement and disapproval.

  ‘I’ve been thinking Chick-fil-A might brighten our day.’

  ‘Does your cardiologist think so, too?’

  McQ squirmed. Sometimes being with his partner was like being with a wife.

  ‘I’ll stop today because we’re under the gun, and we’re not going to have time for a lunch break,’ said Blade, lecturing. ‘But going forward, we agreed you get only one fast food stop per week. You hear me? I promised Marie I wouldn’t let you eat all that crap.’

  ‘Yeah, I got it,’ said McQ with a sad but resigned expression on his face as they pulled up to the drive-through lane.

  ‘Welcome to Chick-fil-A,’ said the talking sign. ‘What can I get for you?’

  ‘Let me have a spicy deluxe sandwich with pepper jack cheese, no lettuce,’ said McQ.

  ‘God forbid you ate some greens,’ said Blade under her breath.

  ‘What are you talking about. It comes with a pickle.’

  Blade rolled her eyes.

  ‘I’ll also take an order of waffle fries.’

  ‘Anything to drink,’ said the sign.

  Blade squinted at her partner.

  ‘A diet lemonade,’ said McQ.

  The car lurched forward in the drive-through line.

  ‘You think because you ordered a diet lemonade it counteracts all the junk you eat?’ said Blade, shaking her head. ‘You and Marie come over for dinner tomorrow night. You know what a great cook Eve is, she’ll make you a healthy vegan meal. I promise, you’ll love it.’

  McQ finished the last bits of his sandwich as they pulled into the Oceanside Manor parking lot. Four squad cars were parked outside the front entrance. Several reporters and a news van pulled into a spot as the detectives walked across the blacktop to the front door of the facility.

  Within a minute they were surrounded by eager media folks. Some were from the local paper and a couple were from the cable news channels. Standing at the center of the pack was Tommy Devlin.

  ‘Look who’s already here,’ said McQ.

  ‘It’s your good friend, Mr. Devlin,’ said Blade with a laugh. ‘That boy can smell a dead possum on the road before the crows get wind of it.’

  ‘No kidding,’ said McQ. ‘He’s a mercenary.’

  The two detectives walked through the crowd deflecting questions from the reporters and entered the building. They waved to the officer standing in the lobby and went up a flight of stairs to the staging area where all employee interviews were being conducted. Opening the heavy metal door from the stairwell, the detectives looked down the hall. Dozens of people wer
e seated in chairs along the walls. Some reading, some talking—most were screwing around on their phones. A uniformed female officer was at the other end of the hall doing preliminary interviews.

  ‘Looks like you have things under control,’ said McQ to the younger officer. ‘How many people have you logged in so far?’

  ‘We’ve only gotten general info from the staff that was on duty this week. Maybe fifty people in total, twenty-two of those are men,’ said the officer. ‘Figured we’d start there. I’ve color coded them into four batches, A–D. Some because of ethnicity or lack of physical ability are on the D list, meaning highly unlikely.’

  ‘The hospital admin, Dr. Crawford, has her staff pulling together lists of visitors, freelancers, and outside vendors,’ said McQ. ‘They’ll pass those names off to us as they compile them. Should have some of it by end of day today.’

  McQ picked up a stack of folders with individual names on each one. He separated out the ones color coded with red and handed one to Blade.

  ‘Is there an Emanuel Silva here?’ Blade said loudly so everyone in the long hallway could hear.

  A man’s hand shot up.

  ‘Come with me,’ said Blade, waving her hand.

  Silva followed the detectives into the conference room. In his thirties, he was wearing baggy jeans, a utility belt with tools hanging from it and had a beeper on the breast pocket of his shirt. His eyes darted around the room when they closed the door. He was shaking slightly and sweat stains were visible under both of his arms.