Dying for a Clue

by Judy Fitzwater

  “How can a nurse be too involved?”

  “She had plans to go back to school, so she could counsel prospective patients, particularly surrogates.”

  “And he didn’t approve?”

  “Let’s just say he questioned her judgment.”

  “How so?”

  “When I mentioned his attitude to one of the other nurses, she said she thought it was because he didn’t want the clinic covering Beverly’s tuition costs. But it was in her original contract when she came to work for them, so he couldn’t block it. Sweet deal.”

  Maybe not sweet enough.

  “Did you get a chance to speak with Sullivan?” she asked.

  “Oh, yeah. The iron lady. Made it through med school back when lady docs weren’t popular. Kind of liked her, but I wouldn’t want to cross her. She seems to be one of those women with all the answers. Easy to get along with as long as you agree with her.”

  “What happens if you don’t?”

  “I don’t intend to find out.”

  She nodded. She’d met the type. Had one in charge of her writers’ group.

  “Hoffman seemed awfully chummy with the Colliers at the funeral,” she said.

  “Family helping family.”

  It’d be nice if it were always that simple.

  “And Beverly had only the two children?” she asked casually.

  “A four-year-old girl and a nine-year-old boy.”

  “Not three?”

  “What are you getting at? I think her husband would notice how many children they had.”

  “But you didn’t ask him outright if there might be a third?” She grimaced. Even to her that sounded a little weird. “Look. Here’s the deal. I saw the Collier’s older son, the one who was at the funeral, at last night’s Wednesday church supper.”

  “Since when did you start going to church on Wednesday nights?”

  She swatted at him. “You never saw Beverly, did you, that is, not while she was alive?”

  He wrinkled his brow at her and shook his head.

  “The Colliers couldn’t have children of their own. That’s why they opened the clinic. And now they have six. Only while I’m thinking they worked their magic in petri dishes, they must, at least for one of their children, have used a far easier, older method. Dee Dee told me they used every procedure available. But I hadn’t—”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Beverly was a surrogate. She had to be. It had to be her egg and whose sperm? Paul’s? That kind of condition...Certainly none of the rest of them have it. It must come down in a direct line—”

  “What are you getting at, assuming you’re actually getting at something?”

  She had to remind herself again why she kept him around.

  “Let’s just say Beverly Hoffman had the most unusual eyes I’ve ever seen—until last night.”

  “So?”

  “Her son. He has her eyes,” Jennifer said.

  Chapter 23

  “Her eyes?” Sam repeated. “What was so special about Beverly Hoffman’s eyes?”

  “It’s called heterochromia. Each iris is a different color. I looked it up on the Internet last night after you’d gone to bed. It’s not usually a recessive characteristic,” she explained.

  “Yeah, but they are family, aunt and niece. What are you implying?”

  She wasn’t implying anything. She thought she’d been saying it straight out. Beverly was the birth mother of one of the Colliers’ sons. “Beverly Hoffman must have been a surrogate. She must have conceived and carried that child to term and then turned it over to them. Why would they have asked her to do that?”

  Bearing a child, especially if it wasn’t her own, for someone else was nothing to be taken lightly. She’d followed April’s first pregnancy from leg cramps to edema to not being able to tie her shoes, until the night of one writers’ meeting when April, rounded to the point of a beached whale, announced she’d had it. That baby could get himself born immediately or find himself another mother. She wasn’t carrying around that freeloader one minute longer. It was either him or her. One of them had to have some relief.

  It didn’t help that she was scared. Or that Leigh Ann kept assuring her how natural the process was—as if she knew anything about it. Or that Teri insisted that women had been doing it for millions of years so what was the big deal. Of course, that only applied to other people, not to Teri herself, who wanted none of it. Ever.

  The enormity, both physically and mentally, of the whole birthing process had been almost more than April could deal with. She couldn’t seem to come to terms with the idea that a human being was actually growing inside her, and that she was a part of that miracle.

  And now, with the second one, it seemed more like a been-there-done-that kind of thing. She didn’t talk about it much. Still, if she could have gotten the kid by mail order, she would have done it in a heartbeat—an option Jennifer wouldn’t mind having herself.

  And that’s why part of the selection criteria for surrogate mothers was that they already have children of their own. And that they were older than the early twenties that Beverly Hoffman had to have been when she gave birth. Jennifer knew all about it. She watched all the TV magazine news shows.

  So, what had happened in this case?

  “Women do it all the time,” Sam assured her, as though he had a clue what he was talking about. Having babies was the one thing Sam could be sure he’d never be asked to do. “She was probably close to her aunt. They must have trusted her.”

  Sure. That explained the Colliers motives. It didn’t explain why a young woman, recently married, childless, would agree to such an arrangement. Had they offered her money?

  “How long did you say Beverly had worked at the clinic?”

  “About sixteen years. She started fresh out of school with her B.S. in nursing.”

  So she’d gone for training right after the child was born. And she was getting ready to go to graduate school with the clinic footing the bill. Was all of this coincidence or had Beverly gotten her education in return? And was that why Beverly had been so interested in screening surrogates—to make sure that what had happened to her didn’t happen to anyone else?

  Diane emerged from the tunnel followed closely by her mother. Neither of them was smiling.

  “So how’d it go?” Jennifer asked, hoping it was better than it looked.

  “She wants me to come home with her,” Diane said, pulling her jacket closer over her chest.

  “I think it’d be best,” Anne Marie explained.

  “There’s a risk—” Sam began.

  “There’s a bigger risk if she stays here,” Anne Marie insisted.

  Diane threw up her hands. “Stop it! I’m not going anywhere. In two months I’ll be eighteen. What are you going to do then? Boss me around? Tell me where I can go and with whom? You’re not—”

  Jennifer held her breath, watching Diane’s chest heave, and prayed she wouldn’t say what was on her lips.

  “Mom, I have to do this. I need to find out what’s going on here. You said you don’t know. If that’s true, you have to understand why I have to stay.”

  “Okay, okay.” Anne Marie had her own demons to overcome, and one of them was allowing her daughter to choose how to protect herself. “I’ll stay at the motel. You can reach me there if you need me.” She threw a pleading glance in Jennifer’s direction. “I don’t suppose you’d at least give me a phone number.”

  “We’ll call. I promise.”

  Anne Marie hugged her daughter, but Diane’s only participation was to allow it to happen. Mrs. Robbins turned and headed back up the sidewalk toward the parking lot.

  Jennifer caught up with her. “One question,” she said as she kept up the brisk pace. “The birth date on the birth certificate. Is it the day Diane celebrates as her birthday?”

  “Of course, November the first. Why?”

  “No reason. I’ll be in touch.”

  Jennifer stopped
walking. Anne Marie took two more steps before she stopped and turned to Jennifer. “Thank you,” she said, coming back to her and briefly squeezing her hand. Then she hurried toward her car.

  Jennifer watched as the woman found her Chevy Suburban and climbed into it. She seemed exactly what she purported to be, a nice person who wanted only one thing in life: to have children and raise them. She certainly didn’t look like someone who would buy a baby.

  Chapter 24

  Monique could bully a bouncer. She tossed back the five pages of medical history, complete with clipboard, that the nurse insisted she fill out and demanded to speak with the doctor immediately.

  “I have no intention of providing you with personal information before I’ve interviewed your director and inspected your facilities. If I decide at that time that I intend to use your services, I will provide you with what data I deem necessary. Do we understand one another?”

  Jennifer stared up at the nurse from under her lashes, consciously suppressing a grin. She’d been on the receiving end of Monique’s barrages often enough to know that the poor nurse didn’t stand a chance. Monique Dupree had spoken.

  The nurse backed off, clutching the clipboard to her chest. “If you’ll review the literature I’ve given you—”

  Monique shoved the printed folders into Jennifer’s hands. “I don’t intend to spend my time reading your materials when I have a few simple questions that you no doubt have failed to cover.”

  The nurse was trying hard to keep her cool. “All right, then. We’ll have a room ready for you—”

  “No room,” Monique told her.

  “But I thought—”

  “The doctor can see me in his office.”

  It wasn’t a request.

  “I’ll see what—” the nurse stammered.

  “You do that.”

  The woman backed away, and Teri tugged on Jennifer’s sleeve. “What’d I tell you? Monique—”

  “You two hush,” Monique warned, obviously ready to put each of them in her place if need be. She was on, and she wasn’t about to let anybody spoil her performance. They settled back in their chairs and waited. Neither Teri nor Jennifer dared utter a word. At least they didn’t have to wait long. The nurse was back in less than five minutes.

  “Mrs. DeWinter, Dr. Collier will see you now.”

  She led them to a nicely decorated office with built-in bookcases and walls warmed with paneled wood from the chair rail down. It looked more like a private library than anything else. The younger Doctor Collier was seated behind a large desk, wearing a white shirt and dark tie beneath his white medical jacket.

  Darn. They’d been counting on meeting Paul. He was the sleazy one, if looks were any indication, and the one Jennifer pegged as the ring leader.

  Donald rose and greeted them as they entered, offering his hand. “Mrs. DeWinter, so nice to meet you. And these are your...” he said, indicating Jennifer and Teri. He stopped short of saying family. They were living in the new South, and while the races mixed every day, it was never wise to assume.

  “My niece,” Monique explained, nodding in Jennifer’s direction, “and my nanny for when the baby comes.”

  If Teri was irritated, she kept it to herself. She was about as unlikely a candidate for child care as they came. Rugrats, she called them.

  “Please have a seat,” he said, indicating chairs and then taking his own seat.

  “I had expected to see Doctor Paul Collier,” Monique insisted.

  “That Doctor Collier is not in right now, but I’ll be more than glad to help you. Now if—”

  “But I was assured when I called—”

  “Mrs. DeWinter, I’m sorry. He’s already gone home for the day. We worked you in when you didn’t have an appointment,” he reminded her. “Now what can I do for you? I believe my nurse gave you all the literature we have about our procedures. Our candidates undergo an extensive screening process. We don’t deal with false hopes here. We’ll tell you right away if we can help you or not.”

  “Good. That’s exactly what I want you to do,” Monique declared. “I’ve been to some of the best clinics in the country, Dr. Collier. I can’t have children. You don’t have a procedure that will help me, and, even if you did, I wouldn’t care to put myself through it. Not again.”

  He looked surprised and a little confused. “I see, then why—”

  “My husband and I have decided enough is enough. I want a baby. The normal avenues are closed to us because of our age—”

  “And how old would that be?”

  “Fifty-five.”

  She’d upped her age by at least ten and maybe fifteen years. Go, Monique! This woman had no vanity when it came to getting the job done.

  “I would never have thought—”

  “Thank you.”

  She actually looked gracious. Monique was good at this, really good.

  “As I was saying, I want a baby. I want to adopt, but I will not go through a private adoption. We’ve tried that before only to have the birth mother back out when the baby was born. As I’ve said, the public sector is of no help. Money is not an issue, Dr. Collier. Can you help me?”

  He looked confused. “Mrs. DeWinter, I certainly sympathize with your desire for a family, but we are a fertility clinic. I’m a little puzzled as to why you would come to us. We don’t deal with adoptions.”

  “I understand the position I’m putting you in, Dr. Collier.” She leaned in close and searched his face with such sincerity that Jennifer almost believed her herself. “I don’t ask this of you lightly. But, surely, being in the business you’re in, you must occasionally come across a situation where a child is not...um...wanted. Any arrangements we make will be held in the strictest confidence. I’m very wealthy, Dr. Collier, and I’m prepared to wait a reasonable amount of time if that’s what it takes.”

  “Are you suggesting—”

  Monique shook her head and feigned innocence. “I’m not suggesting anything. I have only one question for you: Can you help me?”

  “The very newest procedures involve fertilizing donated eggs with donated sperm and implanting them in a surrogate. We haven’t actually done one at this clinic, but only because no one has asked us before. It’d be quite expensive, and, I’m afraid, potentially a legal nightmare. It would help a great deal if the child were biologically linked in some way to either your husband or yourself, as protection should a custody battle ensue.”

  “Sort of a made-to-order kid,” Teri piped up.

  Collier turned toward her and smiled, but without much humor. “Not quite. We don’t do gene manipulations. You can’t order, say, red hair and brown eyes. Not yet, at least. Not here.”

  “I don’t suppose you have one ready-made?” Teri asked.

  Collier gave her an odd look.

  Monique was immediately on her feet. “Thank you, Doctor.”

  “Shall I have the nurse set up the initial appointments?”

  “Not yet. I’ll call the office after I’ve talked it over with my husband.”

  “Certainly. It would be an interesting case. I hope to be working with you soon.”

  They couldn’t get out of the office fast enough.

  “It boggles the mind,” Jennifer said, still reeling from their interview with Collier. She was living in a brave new world and hadn’t even realized it. She leaned her head forward between the bucket seats of Monique’s coupe. “You can actually go into that clinic and place an order for a baby.”

  “Not exactly the black market we were looking for,” Teri pointed out. “I mean, why would they bother stealing babies when they can mix one up in their lab for anyone willing to pay the price?”

  “Good question,” Monique agreed. “But that kind of technology wasn’t available when Diane was born. Which means they may have been in the business back then even if they aren’t now.”

  “Right,” Jennifer said. “We know for a fact that Paul Collier gave a child to Anne Marie Robbins. And once she held D
iane in her arms, Paul knew she’d do anything for that child. If you’d only heard her tell it.”

  “So how much did he get for her?” Teri asked.

  “I don’t know.” It made her sick to think about money actually changing hands. “She’s never mentioned money.”

  “Find out,” Monique said. “If we can trace the payment, we’ll have them.”

  Sure. That shouldn’t be a problem. Assuming they had the FBI on their side.

  Chapter 25

  Jennifer had cut Johnny Z enough slack to wrap himself in it twice. Now it was time for him to come clean, to do some sharing of his own. After all, she was aiding and abetting him. If she went down for it, she’d like to have a clue what it was they’d done.

  She’d practically stolen that deposit slip out of Mrs. Robbins’ purse. Okay. So she had an overactive conscience. But she still felt a duty to make sure he didn’t misuse the information. And if he were looking into the Robbinses’ finances, maybe he’d found a withdrawal, say in the amount needed to buy a baby. Whatever that was.

  “You done good, doll,” Johnny told her, stretched back in his swivel desk chair, his hands behind his head. He looked his emaciated best and just a little too pleased with the fact she’d come looking for him late on a Friday morning.

  The office was a mess, as usual, so she chose to stand.

  “You come to take me up on that lunch?”

  “Cut to the chase, Johnny,” she warned. “What’s the word on the Robbinses’ finances?”

  “It’s amazing what you can find out with a few numbers,” he told her, obviously in no hurry to get to the point. “People should treat their numbers with more respect. You get them, you got a record of their whole life.”

  “Okay, I can tell you found something. Tell me. Or do I have to give you one of those little gold stars first?”

  “Marsh, you cut me to the quick. Here I am, ready to share with you, and you put me down. You should be singing my praises.”