Glue, Baby, Gone

by Joanna Campbell Slan

  “Here’s the deal. As you are well aware, my husband, I can't be of any help,” Kiki said. “I’m not capable of it. In fact, I’m barely able to make good decisions about the welfare of my own family.”

  I swallowed a gasp.

  Detweiler leaned his hands on the desk so he was practically in Kiki’s face. “Please listen to yourself. I know you’re hurting, but this isn’t like you. Not at all. You are blurring the lines here. Are you seriously telling me that you can't help Bonnie Gossage, or that you won’t? Kiki, can you live with that? Because I can’t. Do I want to involve you? Of course not. No way! But Prescott won’t allocate the resources we need. That was Hadcho on the phone, telling me that Prescott has decided to give it twenty-four hours and see if the baby shows up before he allocates resources to the case. He’s convinced himself the child was simply mislaid. Mislaid! Can you hear how feeble that is? And twenty-four hours? That’s one whale of a head start. By the time we get our butts in gear, the child might be dead.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Of course, Kiki caved.

  Instead of having Brawny take Detweiler to the police station, it was agreed that the nanny would pick up the older kids from school.

  That left Margit as chief babysitter. She was thrilled to have the chance to spend time with baby Ty. Since Lee Alderton was in the next room, she offered to help out. Her face practically glowed with happiness as she took the infant from Kiki’s arms. “Hello, little one,” said Lee. “You remind me of my son, Bradley, when he was tiny. Don’t worry about us, Kiki. I could hold this sweet child all day.”

  “Ja,” Margit said. “We are good here. Take as long as you need.”

  “I’ll drive us to the hospital,” I said. “I rented a Kia Sorento because they’re good in snow and bad weather. After we stop by the hospital, I can swing back here to pick up Ty if you have a car seat.”

  “Speaking of which, hand me your keys and I’ll go warm it up for us now,” Detweiler said, and I complied.

  “No fair teaching him how to decorate a home while I’m gone,” said Kiki with a wink at Lee. “Cara? Wait until you see the photos of Lee’s new home down in Palm Beach. She and her friend Peter had this brilliant idea to turn a garage into a kitchen. The place looks outstanding.”

  Lee laughed. “I didn’t realize you live so close to us in Florida. We’ll have to get together down there, Cara. As for the baby? He might be a bit young to go antique shopping with me. But I’ll work on teaching him the names of furniture styles while you’re out. By the time you get back, Kiki, he’ll be an expert. Trust me.”

  “I do,” Kiki said, “with my life.”

  Margit’s smile grew even broader. “Ja, and I will teach him my mother tongue. He will learn fast, this one will. I know it. German will be a second language to him.”

  After Kiki planted a kiss on the baby’s forehead, I helped her put on a cape that buckled in the front. “Is this the one that Brawny made for you?” I asked.

  “One and the same.” Kiki wound a long knitted scarf around her neck, jammed a hat over her unruly curls, and pulled on gloves.

  I did the same with my new purchases from Target. Boy, was I glad I’d taken the time to complete my winter wardrobe. “Out into the frozen wasteland, we go,” I said, trying to keep our spirits up.

  As we trudged through the dirty old snow toward my rental car, I shivered. “I’d forgotten how cold it gets up here.”

  Detweiler had offered to warm up the Sorento for us. When we got closer, he hopped out of the driver’s seat and let me take his place. I knew that ceding control must have been hard for him, but the damage from his gunshot wound made turning the steering wheel painful. After making sure Kiki was safely ensconced behind the passenger’s seat, he attempted to play navigator while I drove. “Head back to Highway 40, going east.”

  “She lived here for thirty-some years,” Kiki reminded him in a crisp voice. Whatever was happening, she wasn’t about to let her husband off the crochet hook where he was firmly skewered.

  “Okay. Kiki, do you have any ideas who could have stolen Bonnie’s baby?” Detweiler asked his wife. “Off the top of your head? Anyone that Bonnie has mentioned as stalking her or being predatory?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do. There’s at least one person I know of who would dare steal Bonnie’s baby. Who has long held a grudge against Bonnie…and me.”

  “Really?” The detective’s head swiveled around to stare at my friend who was sitting in the back seat. “Who?”

  “Her name is Bernice Stottlemeyer. Remember her?”

  He shook his head, no.

  “Bernice and her husband Wesley wanted to adopt, and they knew one of the mucky-mucks at Bonnie’s law firm. So this senior partner assigned the case to Bonnie, because after all, Bonnie is a mom. He made a huge issue about how Bonnie was uniquely qualified to help the Stottlemeyers approach a birth mother about giving up her baby. The idea was that once they appropriately convinced a birth mother that the Stottlemeyers would be excellent parents, Bernice and Wesley would use Bonnie’s firm to help them with the legalities involved in adoption.”

  Although I was listening, I still paid attention to the roads. Drivers in St. Louis are unpredictable in the best of times. It’s an old joke that when four residents come to a four-way stop, at least one of them will run the stop sign, expecting the others to put on their brakes. That’s a bad enough habit on dry pavement, but when the weather is miserable like this, it’s deadly.

  “But how did you get involved?” Detweiler wondered.

  “Birth mothers today can afford to be choosy about the adoptive parents. These young women want a sense of the families who’ll be raising their babies. One way to provide that is by showing them a family album. These albums are usually quite elaborate. Bernice couldn’t possibly get up to speed in time to make one, so Bonnie told Bernice that I was the best person for the job.”

  “Why do I sense this project didn’t turn out so good,” Detweiler grumbled.

  “Bernice was turned down by the birth mother. She got it in her head that I’d sabotaged her album, so she decided to trash the place. Did a pretty good job of it, too, until Aunt Penny nailed Bernice’s purse to the floor and we duct-taped the woman to a stool.”

  “You are kidding!” I nearly slammed on the brakes. “You did what?”

  “You have to understand,” said Kiki in a soft voice, “Bernice had gone bonkers. Using her purse as a weapon, she’d knocked over displays. She broke bottles. Later we learned she’d slashed all the tires on my BMW. Good thing I didn’t confront her while she was wielding that knife. Aunt Penny put a scare into her with the nail gun, but we needed a way to keep her from walking off, and the duct tape was handy.”

  “Bernice Stottlemeyer was not exactly Mother of the Year material.” Detweiler chuckled.

  “Nope. Of course, it goes without saying that I did not sabotage her album. In fact, I worked really hard to make her and her husband look good, but I couldn’t manufacture a happy home where none exists. I’ve never met anyone less suited for parenthood than Bernice. That woman is just plain nasty.”

  “You’re thinking she took Bonnie’s baby?” Detweiler pressed the subject.

  “Yup.”

  “Isn’t that a little obvious?” I asked Kiki. “I mean, wouldn’t the trail lead right back to this Bernice woman? You’d have to be nuts to try something like this.”

  “You’re assuming that the person who took the baby is rational. Bernice had a mental breakdown. I know about it because we were going to press charges for the damages she did to my store. Hadcho was the first responder. He called in the locals to take her away.” Kiki paused.

  “I remember that,” Detweiler said. “He laughed about it for days.”

  “When I went to give my report at the station, they took it but they warned me that Bernice’s husband was trying to have her committed to the psych ward at one of the local hospitals. But the laws are complicated and Missouri only has half
the beds we need for psychiatric patients. A few days later, Wesley Stottlemeyer himself called me. He asked me if I’d be willing to drop charges if he paid for all the damages. He explained that Bernice was undergoing a psychiatric evaluation. According to him, she had longstanding psychological problems, exacerbated by the hormone therapy she’d undergone while trying to have a child naturally. The birth mother’s rejection of the Stottlemeyers set Bernice off. In her mind, they were perfect parenting material. Wealthy. Well-educated. Church-going. Bernice had looked up all the qualities and she was convinced they fit the bill. The only problem was that she had no compassion. Perfection, yes, in a clinical way, but love? That wasn’t part of the equation.”

  “What did you tell Wesley when he asked you to drop the charges?” I asked, as we bumped our way down residential streets. I’d decided to take the back way to the hospital rather than the highway.

  Kiki stared out the passenger side window for a long time. Finally, she said, “Bonnie has done me a million favors. After Bernice went bonkers, I called Bonnie and asked if we could get together and talk. Strictly off the record, which means I'm breaking a vow by sharing this with you. But her baby's life is at risk, so... whatever. After Bonnie assured me that Wesley was doing his best to get Bernice into treatment, I decided that I wouldn’t press charges. He paid for the damage to the shop. I figured there wasn’t any reason to pursue the situation further.”

  “You’re convinced that she’s the one who took Bonnie Gossage’s baby?” Detweiler asked.

  “I’m sure of it. Bernice blamed me, of course, for being rejected by the birth mother. But she also blamed Bonnie. Beyond all that, she was livid that I was pregnant. She said as much while she was slinging her purse around. That suggests to me that she would have gotten equally upset with Bonnie for being pregnant.”

  “But someone tried to take other babies at other hospitals,” Detweiler said. “Which would mean that Bonnie wasn’t the original target.”

  “That’s one way of looking at things.” Kiki fingered a button on her blouse. A thoughtful expression clouded her eyes. “Or it could mean that Bernice Stottlemeyer practiced on the other babies. Once she perfected her technique, she waltzed right in and kidnapped Bonnie’s little boy.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Of course, I have known Bonnie Gossage for years. She and Jeremy were regulars at my family restaurant. However, we didn’t really become friends until we took classes together at Kiki’s store. She always cracked me up with her funny observations about life. Although once or twice she showed up in a business-like jacket, blouse, and skirt, typically she wore mom jeans, a tired University of Missouri sweatshirt, and sneakers. You'd never know she was an attorney, except when she opened her mouth and commented thoughtfully. That's when you realized she was whip-smart. Her observations generally shed a thoughtful light on any subject. Her eyes would narrow as she'd explain an aspect that had eluded the rest of us. Make no mistake about it, Bonnie Gossage was a mental powerhouse.

  Or had been. I wasn't prepared for the shell of a woman whom we encountered at the hospital.

  We had a sense of the disorganization the minute the elevator doors opened on the maternity floor. Two security guards roamed the hallway aimlessly. The tense postures of the nursing staff suggested they felt the entire weight of what they probably saw as failure. I couldn't blame them. I'd feel the same.

  Detweiler introduced himself at the nurses' station. He had called the situation correctly. Prescott Gallaway had not sent even one uniformed city officer to the rescue.

  “Thank goodness, I'm only working part-time,” Detweiler muttered. “Otherwise, Prescott could complain about me being here.”

  Kiki and I waited while Detweiler handed both guards his business card and ordered them, “Don't leave. I'll want to talk to you after I speak with Mrs. Gossage.”

  After a polite rap on the door, Kiki led the way inside her friend's room. There, a broken Bonnie Gossage sagged in a hospital bed, while sobbing and gibbering in an unintelligible speech. A bleak-looking man sat on the far side of the bed, his eyes vacant and listless.

  “Bonnie, Bonnie, it’s me,” said Kiki, hoisting herself onto the bed next to the attorney.

  Following Detweiler's lead, I went over and said hello to Jeremy Gossage. “We’ve met,” as I explained that he’d seen me at my family’s restaurant and at the scrapbooking store. Jeremy nodded, but obviously, he wasn’t in the mood to talk about fine dining or scrapbooking, I pressed my body against the far wall, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. Detweiler pulled his phone from his pocket and retreated to a far corner of the room. Once there, he kept his back to us and he spoke in low tones.

  “How does this even happen?” Jeremy slapped his palms against his thighs. “Explain it to me. They put a bracelet on our son’s foot. They gave us this song and dance about how tight security is. But someone comes right in and walks off with our son? This has to be a bad dream. My parents are at home with the other two. I told Dad to lock all the doors and get my Sig out of the gun safe.”

  That caused the hairs on the back of my neck to stand at attention. “Um, is that really necessary? You have two small kids, right? Couldn’t they get hurt?”

  “Sure they could get hurt, but our baby has been abducted, so I have to do something, don’t I?”

  I swallowed hard. “Right, but your parents are probably upset, too? I'm not sure how easy it’ll be for them to keep careful eye on your boys, under the circumstances. And little kids are fast. Especially little boys. I raised one. We used to call him Tommy 'Quicksilver.'“

  Jeremy studied my face for a long, long time. Then, very slowly, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket. “Ma? It’s me. No news. Oh? You did? Right. Good thinking. Thanks, Ma.”

  He hung up and said, “My mother wouldn’t let Dad go and get out the gun.”

  With relief surging through me, I concentrated on what Kiki was saying to Bonnie as she rocked the other woman in her arms. “Tell me everything you remember, Bonnie, okay? It's going to be all right. We're here to help.”

  Detweiler put his phone away and stood respectfully at Bonnie’s bedside.

  Bonnie's gasping sobs devolved into noisy, but infrequent hiccups. It had taken a while, but our friend was calming down. Kiki patted her back repeatedly, treating the attorney like an emotional child.

  “She came,” Bonnie said. “I forget her name. She said she was in a room down the hall when she heard I was still here. So she came by.”

  “You can’t remember her name?” Detweiler prodded.

  “No.”

  “What was she wearing? Do you remember? Can you describe her?” Detweiler asked.

  “A gown. Like this.” Bonnie plucked at her own faded cotton smock.

  “She was only wearing a gown?” Kiki repeated for clarification.

  Bonnie paused. She tilted her head to one side. “Boots.”

  Kiki frowned. “Boots? Here? In the hospital?”

  “Yes. I remember because they were like those UGGs that Anya has. Loose. Sloppy. They didn't click on the floor when she walked. They were wet. The nurse came by and had to mop up the mess. That's the last thing I remember, except that I was holding Riccardo. In my arms.”

  Detweiler took a notebook from his back pocket and scribbled on a page. He'd caught the discrepancy, as had I. A patient wouldn't be wandering around in wet boots. The tile floor would become slippery. Bonnie's description didn't make sense. Or did it?

  “Was Jeremy here at the time?” Kiki asked.

  “I ran home to check on the other boys and my parents. They're not accustomed to dealing with two rambunctious guys in diapers,” he sounded a tad defensive, as if to suggest that it wasn't his fault the abduction had occurred. Of course, he'd blame himself. If the baby wasn't found, their marriage might suffer. How could it not? They would always wonder, What if?

  “That woman brought me a Vanilla Coke.” Bonnie gasped and pointed to her trash can. “Where is it? The can w
as here. Then I drink a little of it and fell asleep, but I hadn't finished it. Next thing I knew, Jeremy was waking me up and asking where the baby was.”

  Detweiler slipped out of the room. Straining to listen, I heard him tell the security guards to search all the trash and recycling containers for an empty Vanilla Coke can. He also told the head nurse that he wanted a comprehensive list of all the patients in the other rooms on the maternity floor and a list of anyone coming and going, staff and visitors.

  “No, no, no,” moaned Bonnie.

  “Bonnie, this isn’t the time to go to pieces. Your son needs you. You have to put him first. You can cry all you want later, but right now, you need to focus,” Kiki said.

  To my relief—and to the obvious relief of everyone in the room—Bonnie nodded her head. “You’re right. I know you are,” she mumbled.

  “Can you get a police artist here?” Kiki asked her husband. “Or someone trained in using an Indenti-Kit? It sounds like you need to help Bonnie with a description.”

  “I know who gave me the cola,” Bonnie interrupted.

  “You do?” I couldn't help myself.

  “It was that woman who was in our baby album class with me. Jana something or other.”

  CHAPTER 8

  “I can’t believe it,” said Detweiler, shoving his hands into his pocket. “The security guards and first responder couldn’t get anything useful from Mrs. Gossage, and then Kiki asks the right question and pow. Now we’re getting somewhere.”

  “Bonnie needed to calm down,” I said. “Kiki had the right effect on her. I sure hope Margit can find that woman’s registration information.”

  “This is the information our customer gave us,” said Kiki after she got off her phone from calling Time in a Bottle. “There's her street address, phone number, and email address. But odds are, she lied. If she was planning this from the start, it would make sense to lie, wouldn’t it?”