The 3rd Victim

by Sydney Bauer

  ‘Designer babies – like you'd order a Hermès Birkin or …’

  Sara nodded. ‘Yes, but in this case we're talking about children – about their gender, their intelligence level, their artistic ability. It's all about their genetic make-up.’

  The penny dropped. Sara could see it in Madonna's dark brown eyes. The girl had made the connection – eggs, seminal fluid, men, women, babies, genes, doctors.

  ‘Dr Davenport is making designer babies.’

  Sara nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘That's awful.’

  ‘It's more than awful, Madonna, it's criminal. We believe Sienna Walker's daughter was created in this way – the egg from her and the sperm from another man of Dr Davenport and his business partner's choosing. We're not sure if, in the beginning, Eliza was implanted inside her mother as a sort of concession to Sienna – a child to keep her happy while others were born using her genetic material – or if some sort of deal fell through, or a surrogate pulled out or …’

  ‘Surrogate?’ interrupted Madonna.

  ‘Yes.’ Sara realised just how much this poor girl had to take in. ‘We are assuming that the embryos are transplanted into surrogates – women who carry the child to term – and then, when they are born, the babies are given to the parents who placed the initial order.’

  Madonna's eyes widened once again. ‘Not women,’ she said.

  Sara shook her head. ‘I don't understand.’

  ‘Girls.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Girls. Young girls. Like Sophia.’

  ‘Sophia?’ Sara held her breath.

  ‘Sophia is not like Dr Davenport's regular clients. She's poor. She dresses like shit. I talked to her. She was sad. She said she was a virgin! I got the feeling she wasn't seeing much past the birth. She was kinda scared and, you know – regrettable.’

  ‘You think she regretted her decision?’ Sara needed Madonna to be clear.

  ‘Not regretted, regrets.’

  Sara shifted so she could look Madonna directly in the eye. ‘This Sophia is still pregnant?’

  Madonna nodded. ‘Yes, but she's ready to pop. She came to the surgery this morning. Dr Davenport made me get her in. He said it was urgent. So she came in, and she looked really worried. She was still in his office when I came to meet you.’

  ‘She's there now?’

  ‘Unless she's left.’

  Sara looked at her watch before taking Madonna's hand once again. ‘Listen to me, Madonna, I know we just met and I know how hard it must be for you to get your head around everything I have just told you. But right now, a jury selected to decide Sienna Walker's fate is being sworn in, which means the trial will start tomorrow. And that means we don't have much time to prove her innocence – to find evidence that proves Dr Davenport and his friend are the ones who should be charged with Eliza Walker's murder and several other crimes to go with it. So we need your help, I need your help,’ she corrected herself, ‘to get to the truth, which means you need to provide us with Dr Davenport's records – perhaps similar ones to those you forwarded to Esther Wallace.’

  ‘Esther Wallace knows about this?’

  ‘We think that is why she left. It might help if you could give me the email address she gave you.’

  ‘I guess I could do that,’ Madonna nodded, the whole picture starting to make sense.

  ‘We need information on Dr Davenport's patients,’ Sara continued, sensing she could not lose momentum. ‘And most importantly, we need your help to get to Sophia, to stop them from stealing the child that is growing inside her – to work out where her baby comes from and how we can protect it. But you need to make a decision now … for Sophia, for Sienna Walker and all the other moms who've been duped by your two-faced boss.’

  Sara took a breath, knowing she had said all she could and that in the end, the decision belonged to the confused girl in front of her.

  ‘Will I be in danger?’

  It was a good question.

  ‘Not if we can help it.’ It was the best Sara could do.

  ‘You want me to help the mothers,’ said the girl.

  Sara nodded, offering Madonna the simplest of smiles.

  The girl's brow knotted. ‘Well I guess there was a reason after all,’ she said.

  ‘A reason for what?’ asked Sara.

  ‘For my mom calling me Madonna,’ she said.

  Sara smiled. ‘I think you might be right.’

  Madonna managed a smile. ‘You know, this might be for the best in any case. I think I am done with medicine, and maybe … maybe I am more suited to a career in the law.’

  ‘Maybe, Madonna,’ smiled Sara once again. ‘Maybe.’

  65

  Eat This was one of those early opening, late night closing corner diners that had a menu board sitting on the pavement out the front.

  Today's special was the Cajun Chicken Burger but, as Joe also noted, some bright spark had also decided to change the order of the letters at the top of the menu board so that E-A-T T-H-I-S now read E-A-T S-H-I-T, which Joe knew was not that far off the mark.

  Rigotti was already there, sitting in a booth in the far back corner with a plate of cholesterol in front of him. He looked tired and jumpy at the same time, like a man living on coffee and Alka-Seltzer. He didn't get up as Joe and Frank approached, merely lifted his fork in salute before tossing it onto his plate and shoving the plate to the far corner of the table.

  ‘A bullet would be faster,’ said Joe.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ said Rigotti. He wiped his mouth with a napkin before signalling at the waitress with whom he must have placed Joe and Frank's order earlier. ‘They've run out of cream donuts, McKay, so you have to settle for jelly.’

  ‘I'll try not to show my disappointment,’ he said as the waitress arrived with two mugs, a pot of black and a donut on a chipped blue plate.

  ‘So we're here,’ said Joe, determined to get to it. ‘You said there were two new names on Katz's list.’

  Rigotti nodded as he stifled a burp. ‘Sorry. Reflux,’ he said as he reached into the briefcase beside him. The reporter pulled out two sheets and placed them on the table face up, turning them around and sliding them toward Frank and Joe. ‘List one and list two,’ he said.

  Joe shifted the coffee pot so Frank could get a better view. Rigotti was right, the first list held no surprises, but the second was longer. The two names were on the bottom, the first of them familiar to him.

  ‘Davenport,’ he said. This was no surprise.

  ‘Walker's OB/GYN,’ said Rigotti. ‘You got a take on that?’ he asked, also knowing Joe well enough not to waste time.

  ‘Not necessarily,’ lied Joe.

  ‘Bullshit,’ replied Rigotti.

  Joe considered his response. ‘Daniel Hunt employed the husband. Hunt is friends with Davenport. Davenport helped them conceive the daughter. They were all supposed to be friends.’

  ‘Then maybe Hunt and Davenport should be on Cavanaugh's list.’

  Joe stifled a smile at the irony. ‘Maybe Katz wants Davenport to give evidence on Walker's state of mind?’

  ‘No,’ said Rigotti. ‘No way is the DA going with diminished responsibility. We're talking the Kat here, Mannix – you know he'll want more bang for his buck.’

  Joe did not bother correcting him. ‘I interviewed Davenport. He supported the defendant's story. But that's not to say the good doctor might not be open to …’ Joe was not sure how to put it ‘… ingratiating himself with the frontrunner.’

  ‘I've seen Davenport speak. He's so far up himself he's practically coming out the other end.’

  Joe couldn't have put it better himself.

  ‘You think he's selling her out?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Joe, at this point unwilling to elaborate further, and so he considered the second new name on the list. ‘I've never heard of him,’ said Joe, his eyes flicking to Frank.

  ‘Ditto,’ said Frank, his finger tracing the long triple-barrelled name – a Horace Maximi
llian St John Esq. ‘Esquire – he sounds like someone out of a Jane Austen novel.’

  Rigotti nodded. ‘The “Esq” aren't the only letters after his name. Supporting documentation lists him as a professor.’

  ‘A professor of what?’ asked Joe.

  ‘Psychiatry. His practice is based in London.’

  Joe looked at Frank. ‘I thought Katz was using Shoebridge?’

  Frank shrugged. ‘Even if he wasn't, he has plenty of other local shrinks on his payroll.’ He scratched at the barely visible stubble on his chin. ‘We need some intel on this guy, Chief.’

  ‘We're not even supposed to have this list, Frank.’

  Frank nodded. ‘So we get someone to do the digging for us.’

  Joe knew what Frank was suggesting. Joe had told his partner of FBI Special Agent in Charge Leo King's offer to help, but this was not a discussion to be held in front of Rigotti. ‘We'll see what we can find out,’ he told the reporter.

  Rigotti nodded, before his brow began to furrow. ‘This information,’ he began, ‘I'm afraid it has to remain between us for the time being.’

  It was exactly what Joe didn't want to hear. ‘Cavanaugh deserves to know,’ he said. ‘And besides, maybe his client has heard of the British shrink.’

  ‘I know what you're saying but this is some seriously sensitive intel, and I have to protect my source. If David finds out about the Kat's second list, and if he takes the news badly – which I would totally understand, by the way – he might …’

  ‘You're worried David will hightail it to Bullfinch Place and kick the Kat's ass.’ Joe called a spade a spade.

  Rigotti nodded. ‘And that Katz will go after my source, who is …’ Rigotti pondered on how far he should take this. ‘Let's just say my guy is still in the provisional window where he could still feel repercussions.’

  Joe's brow furrowed. ‘Your source is a temp?’

  Rigotti nodded, but only slightly.

  ‘So he's filling in for someone else?’

  Rigotti said nothing.

  Joe lifted his palms in frustration. ‘David doesn't have much time, Rigotti,’ he said.

  But Rigotti held up his palm as his cell phone started to buzz. The reporter had a text message. He picked up the phone to read it. He sighed. ‘The jury's being sworn in,’ he said.

  ‘What – already?’ said Joe.

  ‘As we speak.’

  ‘Then David really is out of time. You have to –’

  ‘Twenty-four hours,’ interrupted Rigotti. ‘That gives my guy time to get out and you time to make some preliminary investigations. Twenty-four hours and you can take this to Cavanaugh – on the promise you stop him from confronting the DA.’

  Joe exhaled. ‘Okay,’ he said. It wasn't ideal but it was better than nothing. ‘Thanks,’ he added, knowing how far the reporter was climbing out on a limb. He looked at his watch. ‘We'd better go,’ he said, keen to get started.

  As Joe got to his feet Rigotti said: ‘Hold up. There's one other thing.’

  Joe swivelled. The look on Rigotti's face told Joe the reporter had something else to tell them, something he'd almost held back.

  ‘My guy, at the court. He says the Kat has asked for extra time.’

  Joe's brow furrowed. ‘What, on top of these two additions?’

  Rigotti nodded. ‘He requested an extra session – say one morning or afternoon's worth of testimony.’

  ‘He has someone else?’ It was the only explanation.

  Rigotti nodded. ‘It looks like it, but he didn't say who.’

  ‘Can your guy find out?’

  ‘Not unless the Kat gives the name to the court.’

  ‘Stein will have a baby.’

  ‘Not if Katz spins some story about a new piece of evidence, an unforeseen development – you know how he works.’

  Unfortunately, Joe did. ‘Nothing we can do until we have a name,’ he said.

  Rigotti agreed. ‘Maybe the Kat is just hedging his bets.’

  ‘The DA doesn't bet on anything unless he knows he can win,’ said Joe. ‘So we keep our ears to the ground.’

  Rigotti nodded again as Joe extended his hand toward him. ‘Thanks,’ he said.

  Rigotti shrugged. ‘I'm a sucker for the underdog,’ he said as his cell buzzed again. ‘My editor. I have to go.’

  They all turned to leave as Joe threw a twenty on the table.

  ‘You see what I did to the sign outside?’ said Rigotti.

  Joe knew Rigotti felt the need to add some degree of levity to their ‘dire’ situation – crime reporters were just like cops, after all, chasing one sad story after another. ‘That was you?’ he asked.

  ‘I try to get a laugh when and wherever I get the opportunity, Mannix,’ Rigotti offered in explanation. ‘And I'm a writer. I like anagrams.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Joe. ‘Fair enough.’

  *

  Seven calls in the space of three minutes.

  The first was from Sara to David, filling him in on her conversation with Madonna Carrera. It had gone well. Madonna was on side. She'd agreed to help with providing information, including the email address Esther Wallace had given her. She'd also told Sara about the girl named Sophia, the surrogate about to give birth. And when Sara had finished, David, who was trying desperately not to let the pro-prosecution jury depress him as he rushed to prepare his all-important opening statement, could not help but feel excited, believing that this, at long last, could be the breakthrough they needed – that Wallace, and this Sophia, were the key.

  The second call was from Joe Mannix to a friend at the DMV. He gave the friend the name Horace St John – at the very least taking this preliminary step to try to find out if the shrink was based in London but with some sort of irregular residency in the US of A. If St John had a current licence it would give Joe his local address.

  The third call was a follow-up to the second, a call also made by Joe but this time to his ex-colleague, now FBI Agent, Susan Leigh. While Leo King had offered his help that morning at Millennium Park, Joe sensed it might be safer to go with his old friend Leigh, who was ex-BPD. She had once been Frank's partner. She was annoying as all hell, and conscientious as all get-up, but she spoke their language and read between the lines. The conversation was largely one-way with Susan offering only three words – ‘I'm on it’ – before hanging up the phone. And then Joe sat back and waited, the clock on the wall telling him it was still another twenty-two hours before he could fill David in.

  The fourth call was made some fifteen blocks north, this one by Davenport to a secure cell following his reading a newsflash on his computer regarding the impending start of the Walker trial. There was no answer so Davenport left a message saying the patient was booked in for surgery tomorrow – just as his friend had requested. He asked that the call be returned immediately so as to confirm that they were still set on the same course of action, secretly hoping his friend might have changed his mind, but knowing this was highly unlikely. The time for procrastination was gone, he knew. It was now or never. It was time to act.

  A simultaneous fifth call was being made in the room outside Davenport's door, this one executed by the girl with the long red fingernails. The patient named Sophia had left by the time Madonna had returned from her lunchtime meeting with Sara, so Madonna called the number she had on file and asked her to return the call – to Madonna's personal cell number which she repeated twice – urgently. And then Madonna logged onto her computer to find the file she had emailed to Esther Wallace, before forwarding it to Sara and including the email address Wallace had given her, just as Sara had requested.

  Call six was made by a girl named Carina to her best friend Madonna. Carina wanted to tell Madonna that, while on her lunch break from her job as an insurance company secretary's secretary, she'd bought a pair of Juicy Couture jeans from Filene's Basement – the Boylston Street department store famous for selling designer brand seconds – for only $29.99. Carina explained how she wrestled an
other customer for the last size 12 and how the bitch hit Carina across the head with her handbag. But Carina said it was worth it because the jeans, while last season, were stovepipe skinny but super stretchy which meant she would achieve the desired look without the usual side effect of walking around minus any hope of circulation in her legs. Madonna congratulated her but said she had to go. All of a sudden Carina's shopping victories seemed hollow and meaningless. And then Madonna felt a little dizzy and decided that if she didn't splash some water on her face pronto, she could well faint in her swivel chair. So she took her cell with her as she raced to the bathroom in the corridor, praying that the girl named Sophia would call her back sooner than soon.

  The seventh call was from the girl named Sophia who had run out of credits on her cell phone and so had to wait until she got home to return the medical secretary's phone call. She punched in the cell number Madonna had given her, but when the number was busy she did the next most logical thing. She called the surgery, the main number she had saved in her cell phone. The phone rang and rang until finally a voice answered. It was Dr Davenport. She said she got Madonna's message and, given that the doctor's secretary had asked her to return her call urgently, she wanted to know what had happened and whether something else, god forbid, to do with the baby had gone wrong.

  66

  Boston's Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel Oak Bar was one of those upmarket drinking places where executives went to be seen while they were being discreet. It had that British Officers' Club in the Orient feel, created by soft lighting, dark wood panelling and ornate gilding on the painted coffered ceiling. It took Sara less than a second to spot Hunt, who had been watching the door for her, in the top right corner, where he stood from his expensively upholstered chair the moment she entered. Determined to swallow her nerves, she picked up her pace and headed straight for him, allowing him to pull a chair out for her before he retook his own.

  ‘How are you?’ he asked, a simultaneously normal and odd question to open with.

  ‘I'm fine,’ she answered.

  ‘You look tired.’

  The observation made her uncomfortable so she shifted in her seat, straightening her back as she pulled the hem on her tailored skirt further toward her knees.