“RFID?” Midge frowned at me.
“Radio Frequency Identification. It’s that do-jobby that sets off an alarm if you try to leave the premises with an infant,” I said.
“But who actually walked out of the hospital with Bonnie’s daughter?” asked Kiki. “Someone had to carry the baby out the front door.”
“That was Marie, I bet. Bernice. Whatever her name is. Was,” said Midge with a nod of her head. “See, after she did the rounds with the flower cart, she complained she had a migraine and left early that day. I remember because she looked perfectly fine to me. I had a friend who used to get migraines, and you could tell when one was coming on. She’d just look terrible. But Marie seemed fine. Perfectly all right. And I know how she carried the baby out of the hospital past security.”
“You do?” Kiki and I asked in chorus.
“Uh-huh,” said Midge. “She had this big black bag that looked like a gym bag. She brought it in a week before the abduction. I remember because she didn’t seem like the type who’d want to break a sweat, so I asked her, When did you join a fitness center? She told me it was none of my business and that I wouldn’t know a gym bag if it bit me.”
CHAPTER 27
Kiki sent the photos of the cart to Detweiler. She took down Midge’s full name, address, and phone number. Then she extended a slender hand to our new friend. I did the same and said, “Midge? You’ve been invaluable. Thanks ever so much. We’re going to run upstairs and try to see our friend, Bonnie Gossage. As you can imagine, she’s miserable.”
Midge’s skin was dry and papery to the touch. The cloying scent of hand sanitizer came away on my palm. I resisted the urge to wipe it on my pants’ leg. The stuff was so pungent that my nose started to run. Midge reached under the counter and found a box of tissues that she pushed toward me.
“I lost my own baby when he was a year and a half old. There’s no grief like a mother’s grief.” Midge pulled out a tissue and dabbed her eyes. “My husband, Charlie, couldn’t take it. We went to counselors. Talked to our priest. Fat lot of help that was. He told us that we had to accept God’s will. Charlie wanted to know what kind of a God takes a child from his mother. Eventually it got to be too much for my husband and he left me. Mailed me a letter, that coward. Said that he wanted to start over, and he couldn’t if he had to look at me because he’d always remember our son. Last I heard, he was married with three kids, two grandkids, all in Wyoming with a new wife. She used to be my best friend. Lived not two houses down from us.”
My eyes bugged out of my head. “He told you? About the kids and grandkids? He had the nerve to share that with you? After he left you high and dry?”
“Goodness no. I found all that out on Facebook. Went snooping around one day, and there he was grinning into the camera, bouncing a grandkid on each knee. So then I went to his wife’s Facebook page and asked her if we could be friends.”
“And she accepted you?” Kiki asked. Her eyes were big as tea saucers in her head.
“Yes, ma’am. She never was very bright. People are really gratified to have ‘friends’ on Facebook. It’s pathetic, really. That’s how I got them back.”
Kiki’s eyes sparkled with interest. “What did you do?”
“I used a piece of stationery from the hospital to send both of them certified letters that they’d been exposed to an STD. But the way I wrote it, each of them had a different diagnosis! Their status on Facebook went from ‘married’ to ‘it’s complicated’ overnight.”
CHAPTER 28
Kiki couldn’t walk away from Midge without handing her a gift certificate for ten bucks from Time in a Bottle. “I keep these in my purse just for occasions like this,” my friend explained.
Midge was over the moon with happiness. “I’ll hop right over there tomorrow and use this, for sure. I’ve been working on a goodbye album.”
“If you’re planning a big trip, we have lots of cool paper with destinations, names of cities, and stuff like that,” said Kiki.
Midge snickered. “I suppose you could call it a big trip. A really, really big trip. Or even the trip of a lifetime. See, I’ve got cancer of the brain. It’s terminal. Before I check out I’d like to put together an album. I think one of my sister’s kids might like it.”
I felt a lump in my throat, because I’d been judging this woman from the first. I’d thought her poorly suited for retail, which she was. I’d found her abrasive, which she had been. Worst of all, I’d inwardly cringed at her ill-fitting wig. The sour taste of regret filled my mouth. What right did I have to judge Midge Wonderlick? That woman was much more alive than I, because she was fully cognizant that her time here was brief.
I vowed to be more generous in the future. I could well afford to be. I had my health, my own son, and a long life ahead of me. Impulsively, I reached over the counter and gave the woman a hug. At first, she stiffened. Then I felt her body sag, as if the starch had been rinsed out of her skeleton. When I let go of Midge, Kiki followed my lead. “Midge? We’ll keep you in our prayers.”
“Yes, please do that.” She pulled free. “Pray that I go easy, okay? Not too much pain? Not too much lingering? I’ve got a stockpile of pills, but you never know. Could be one day I’ll be feeling fine and then it’ll hit me, and I won’t have any say in the matter, see? But I’m hoping I can time this just right. I live alone, and there’s no one to come take care of me, so I don’t want to be at the mercy of a nurse. Or an orderly. I’ve seen too much of that, working here. It’s not that they aren’t good people. They are. But they’re overworked and underpaid.”
What was there to say?
Nothing.
So we thanked her again, picked up the bouquet, the bag full of magazines, and the bottled water.
Kiki and I paused on our way out to give Midge one last word of farewell.
“You two are doing a good thing, trying to help your friend. I wish I’d had girlfriends like you. Now go on and get out of here before I get in hot water for keeping this shop open so long.”
CHAPTER 29
Bonnie had been moved from the maternity ward to another unit.
That alone made me sad. I hadn’t thought about what it must have been like for her on the floor with all those mothers and their babies. But as Kiki and I walked from the nurses’ station to the elevator, it struck me how the natural noises of babies crying would be incredibly hard for Bonnie to take.
We nearly bumped into a nurse coming out of our friend’s room. “You can drop off the flowers, but please turn right around and come back, okay? She needs her rest. Still has a fever.”
We found Bonnie curled into a fetal position, facing the wall.
“Bonnie?” Kiki sang out. “We’re here, sweetie, and I think we’ve made some progress.”
Bonnie lifted her head, and I nearly gasped. She had always been a bit chunky, but now her face was drawn and sallow, except for her eyes. They were bright red and puffy. No one had washed her hair. Limp strands hung down in her face.
“Progress?” She repeated. “Did that woman call? The one who took my baby?”
“No.” Kiki pulled up a chair and explained what we’d learned about Bernice Stottlemeyer.
“You definitely found her,” Bonnie said. “That’s her full name, Bernice Marie Livesay Stottlemeyer. Remember, I have her legal documents.”
“We think she might have been working with Jana Higgins. Is that possible?”
Bonnie struggled to sit up, so I helped her, putting a couple of pillows behind her back. Then I took a seat on the edge of her bed. The quieter we were about our visit, the longer we might be able to talk.
“Yes.” Bonnie covered her mouth with her hand. “Yes! Remember how Jana glommed onto me at the album class? She followed me out to my car and asked to keep in touch. I figured she was nervous about having her first child, so I gave her my number. Aye-yay-aye, was that ever stupid. She called me six times a day asking if I’d felt any contractions yet. Jeremy finally blocked her for me. Tha
t’s one reason I was surprised and relieved to see her here at the hospital. I figured once she had her own child, she’d move on.”
“What we need is a connection, a nexus,” I said. “Can you think of a way that they might have met? Some intersection? If we can prove that they knew each other, we might be closer to finding your baby.”
“Connection?” Bonnie sounded foggy. But she pushed herself to a seated position. “Bernice and…Jana Higgins? I have no idea.”
“Let’s go at this another way,” suggested Kiki. “What can you tell us about Bernice? Her activities? Start with what happened after she threw the fit in my store.”
“Okay. After she got out of jail on bond for busting up your store, she drove over to the adoption center and threw a brick through the window. Unfortunately, she chose a really bad time to pull that stunt, because a janitor was there cleaning the building. He suffered minor cuts from the flying glass. While we were working to get a court-ordered involuntary admission set up, Bernice pretended to be a teacher at a Montessori school and reported Wesley for molesting a child. As you might guess, it took a while to get that ironed out.”
“Geez Louise. She was on a rampage,” I said.
“Right. You can’t be recommended for involuntary commitment by a family member. Not in Missouri. Has to be a mental health coordinator or the head of a facility. As you can imagine, that makes it much, much more complicated. How do you get someone who has a problem to submit to evaluation? Good luck with that. Since her brother is on the board here, he brought in a psychiatrist who testified that she was not herself. The doctor didn’t use the term schizophrenic, because her family didn’t want her stigmatized—”
“Would that be Douglas Livesay, her brother?” Kiki asked for clarification. “The woman in the gift shop mentioned him.”
“Right. Douglas didn’t want her stigmatized. The psychiatrist said that Bernice had been treated for infertility and that the combination of hormones and so on had caused her to have a chemical unbalance. We offered to pay a fine and of course, Bernice’s family paid for all the damage she did to your store. The judge asked her to do one hundred hours of community service. That was that.” Bonnie paused.
Kiki poured a glass of water for Bonnie and handed it over.
“Wait,” Bonnie said. “That’s not all. I remember now! Judge Riddenbacher also wanted her to attend counseling sessions. The psychiatrist wanted to see her once a day for the next few months, but Douglas Livesay protested. He pointed out that there are a lot of good group counseling sessions held here at the hospital. If Bernice was coming here for community service, Douglas would be a way to keep an eye on his sister. Judge Riddenbacher is a soft touch. I think he’s known the Livesay family for years. You know how it is with these Old St. Louis families. Douglas got exactly what he wanted.”
“But the Livesays knew Bernice had a problem, right?” I wanted clarification.
“Cara, have you ever tried to deal with a family member who has mental illness issues? As a society, we aren’t set up to handle these problems adequately. Most people with mental illness wind up dead, homeless, or in prison. That’s how we cope. We aren’t much better than the Victorians, who locked them away in insane asylums. In fact, in 2010 the number of beds in psychiatric facilities in the US plunged to match the number of beds we had in 1850. Can you believe that? And 1850 was the start of civilized, humane care for the mentally ill. Thirteen states closed 25% of their total beds in the years between 2005 and 2010, and yet our population has grown by nearly 10% during that same time period.
“How bad is it? It’s bedlam. Know where that term came from?”
Kiki nodded. “It’s a nickname for the Bethlehem Hospital in London. We say that a chaotic situation is ‘bedlam,’ because that’s what it was like inside. People chained to the walls and locked inside cages, screaming.”
Bonnie snorted. “Here we are, centuries later, and have we made progress? I don’t think so. Case in point, Bernice Stottlemeyer. Wesley was at the end of his rope. When he married Bernice, she was stable and on meds. Then she decided she didn’t like the way they made her feel. Couldn’t cope with the weight gain. She went off the deep end faster than Michael Phelps hitting the water at the Olympics. Wesley tried and tried to get Bernice help, but her family blocked him at every turn. Then her sister had a baby and suddenly Bernice is convinced that’s all she needs. Yeah, a baby would make everything A-okay.” Bonnie shook her head. “Right. A baby will make you crazy if you aren’t already. Between hormones and no sleep, you’ll go nuts. I tried to tell Wesley he was making a big mistake by agreeing to adopt, but he was desperate.”
Although I didn’t like the picture Bonnie was painting, I appreciated the fact that this was the Bonnie Gossage I’d known before her baby was stolen. Putting her mind to the task of helping us solve this mystery had awakened the intelligent professional within. Maybe, just maybe, we could figure this out. The three of us were certainly making progress.
“To recap,” said Kiki. “We’ve got a couple of points where the two women might have met. Community service. Group therapy. What about a gym? The woman down in the gift shop told us that Bernice was carrying around a big gym bag. She asked Bernice if she’d joined a fitness program, and Bernice told her that it wasn’t any of her business. Could the two women have met in a gym?”
“I doubt it,” said Bonnie. “As far as I know, Bernice was resistant to working out. I say that because I mentioned to Wesley that one of my clients improved her erratic moods dramatically by visiting a holistic doctor and lifting weights on a regular basis. I even offered to take Bernice with me to a yoga class. Wesley told me that Bernice had no intention of touching equipment that other people had dripped their body fluids all over. I suppose it’s possible that she changed her mind, but it’s not very likely.”
CHAPTER 30
The elevator door had nearly rolled shut when Kiki pushed the OPEN DOOR button and held it for us.
The navy blue wool cape that Brawny had sewn reminded me of Superman’s famous garb. In many ways, there was a similarity. Kiki rarely stood up for herself, but she’d risk everything to help a friend. Getting involved with Bonnie’s problem had revived Kiki’s natural sense of protectiveness. But would it be enough to lift her out of her depression?
When we got back to her house, Kiki went immediately upstairs to feed Ty. As simple as that act seemed, I thought it a good sign. I also learned that she had expressed milk while we were at the store and stored it in a small thermal bag in her purse. Realizing she hadn’t totally forgotten about her infant son lifted a huge weight from my heart.
While she took care of her little man, I helped Brawny set the table for dinner in the formal dining room. A rich, robust fragrance had greeted us at the door. “That smells terrific,” I told the Scot, as I put out place mats and cutlery. I loved the idea of Kiki’s family having a sit-down dinner. I remembered doing the same with Tommy, and I felt this ritual would pay lasting dividends for our relationship.
“Coffee braised pot roast.” She’d picked up a bouquet of evergreens and carnations at the grocery store. The pink and green brightened up the room considerably.
“You have to be kidding me!”
“No. Uses a tablespoon of espresso powder. Gets the wee ones to eat their vegetables. I put in pineapple, sweet potatoes, green beans, an onion, garlic, and green peppers.”
“I want that recipe. I only use espresso powder for making tiramisu. Sounds fabulous.”
Erik and Anya couldn’t wait to tell us about the day they’d had at school. I snapped a few photos of them to send back to my pals in Florida. Anya already has a terrific sense of style. She wore a long-sleeved black and white striped turtle neck dress over black leggings that tucked into a pair of adorable chunky booties. Her platinum blond hair was pulled up into a cute ponytail and tied with a black ribbon. Erik wore adorable green corduroy pants and a matching green and brown sweater that I was sure Brawny had knit for him.
Erik wiggled with excitement as he told us about the guinea pig that had been given to his teacher as a new pet for the classroom. “You know his teacher,” Kiki said as she smiled at me. “Maggie Earhardt. Aren’t we lucky? Erik did Miss Maggie want a guinea pig? I didn’t know she was looking for a new pet for you guys.”
He thought about that. “Aubrey Whitehall’s daddy was gonna gived it to da dog pound. Or put it outside in the snow. He dinna like the guinea pig. He said it was stinky and it squealed like a pig.”
All that was probably true. I bit back a smile.
“So Miss Maggie sayed she find room for Giggles. That’s his name. I gots to pat him a little. Then he squeaked and that scared me.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Kiki said. “It’s awfully cold outside, isn’t it? Even with a fur coat, that guinea pig would be miserable. Speaking of which, Anya? Please take an apple out to Monroe. That poor donkey hates this miserable weather.”
We’d finished eating when Detweiler and Hadcho arrived. Cold air clung to them like a moving blanket of frosty weather. They took their places at the table while Brawny dished out two large helpings of the pot roast. I assembled salads while Kiki heated more sourdough bread. Both men ate with gusto, pausing long enough to explain they’d skipped lunch. After Anya and Erik told their father how the day had gone, Kiki excused both kids from the table. When Anya hesitated, Kiki firmly said, “I’m counting on you to set a good example for your brother. This is homework time.”
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