Out on a Limb

by Joan Hess

  If ever I had felt the blood drain from my face, this was the moment. “She’s armed?”

  I did not add that she was, therefore, dangerous.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I wasn’t sure how much Luanne had heard of my conversation with Finnigan, but I could see no reason to set her off while she was still fuming. As long as the rope ladder was furled, no one could menace Miss Parchester. And, I reminded myself, the cause was defensible but unlikely to stir up unrestrained fury from those who favored development over scruffy oak trees, no matter how old they—or the players—were. Only one person would profit from Phase Two, and he was conspicuously absent. Jessica Princeton had done her best, but squabbles at city hall and political corruption on the county level had now captured her viewers’ attention.

  “Let’s go,” I said to Luanne before she could throw a punch at anyone in range, including the Green Party demonstrators, bewildered gawkers, or even a few curious chickadees. “Miss Parchester can take care of herself.”

  The security cop was still undercover in the literal sense of the word, but I doubted he would be of much use. The platform was high; anyone who attempted to climb the tree might discover that Miss Parchester had not only a chamber pot but also a thermos of scalding tea at her disposal (and, well, a gun, but surely one of minimal caliber). And the issue might be resolved the next morning, either in court or by brunt of a bulldozer. Anthony Armstrong might well be the perpetrator behind the demise of fruitful orchards and babbling brooks, but I could not believe that he would welcome the adverse publicity should physical harm come to Miss Parchester.

  The student was pacing near the road. “My seminar starts in less than ten minutes,” he announced as if we cared.

  “Seventeenth-century French literature?” Luanne asked in a sugary voice. “Will Moliere sink into obscurity without your profundity?”

  “Wow, like sorry,” he said as he followed us toward my car. “This is really nice of you. I didn’t mean to sound so rude. My name’s Randy Scarpo. My wife, Jillian, and I have lived here for almost two years. I’d planned to go to the library earlier this afternoon, but she was upset because the baby’s been running a fever. I had no idea what was going on until I came outside, at which point there was no way for me to get my car out. I have orals at the end of the semester, and the last thing I want to do is piss off a professor on the committee.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I live next to the campus, and dropping you off won’t be inconvenient.”

  He folded himself into the backseat of my perpetually messy hatchback. “Are you two faculty?”

  Luanne appraised him over her shoulder, then said, “I regret to say that we’re merely outside agitators who may have been protesting the cause celebre alongside your parents before they opted to beget you.”

  “Not my parents. They were in their sanitized dorms, watching televangelists pray for your mortal souls.”

  I waited until a van passed, then pulled onto the road. “Is the baby better?”

  “It wasn’t anything. Jillian gets upset when Connor so much as sneezes. Last month she insisted we take him to the emergency room when he got the hiccups. You can imagine how that went down. Our pediatrician has tried to talk to her, but she won’t listen.”

  “Doesn’t she have some sort of support?” asked Luanne. “A group of mothers her age with whom she can share concerns?”

  “I wish she did, but she’s kind of reclusive. Her only friend at Oakland Heights moved out. No one else has a baby, or even a toddler. Her only sister is a lesbian who does stand-up comedy at college campuses. Jillian hasn’t spoken to her in years.” He paused, then added, “My parents adore Jillian. They bought us the condo for a wedding present.”

  I glanced at him in the rearview mirror. “Where shall I drop you off?”

  “Koenig Hall, if that’s okay. And my seminar’s in differential vectors, not French literature.”

  Moments later I pulled to the curb in front of his destination. “I’d like to ask a favor of you, Randy. The demonstrator on the platform is a friend of mine. When you get home, would you please go out there and see if she’s all right?” I found a taco wrapper on the floor of the car and scribbled my name and telephone number on it.‘Then give me a call so I won’t worry about her.”

  “It’ll be a couple of hours.”

  I gave him the greasy paper. “I’d appreciate it.”

  I watched him disappear into the building, then drove Luanne to her apartment above Secondhand Rose.

  “Miss Parchester will be fine,” she said, patting my arm. “She outsmarted Peter and all his CID lackeys. They’re a lot tougher than an itty-bitty bulldozer and a few gorillas with more tattoos than brain cells.”

  I decided not to mention the gun. “I just don’t like it. If Finnigan Baybergen were up there on the platform, I wouldn’t bat an eyelash. In fact, I might pack a picnic lunch, find a shady spot beneath an endangered oak tree, and root for the bulldozer.”

  Luanne got out of the car. “If you aren’t overly occupied with Peter, call me after you hear from Randy.”

  I promised I would, then drove home and parked in my allotted half of the basement garage. The downstairs tenants seemed to change with the seasons. The current one had no ascertainable gender and was rarely at home. Caron found him or her spooky, but I had no problem as long as music was not played so loudly that my floor vibrated.

  Caron met me in the kitchen. “We’ve got a problem,” she whispered. “Peter’s in the living room. I can’t explain, but you have to get rid of him.”

  “Is he the problem?”

  “Just get rid of him—okay?”

  I put down my purse and stared at her. “What’s going on, Caron? Have you and Inez done something illegal?”

  “Of course not,” she said as though the two had never skittered near the brink of felony charges and been yanked back by dint of a metaphorical apron string. Her eyes began to well with tears. “I can’t tell you until Peter’s gone. Trust me, Mother—This Is Serious.”

  “All right,” I said, giving her a hug. I went into the living room, where Peter was sitting on the couch, his feet propped on the coffee table. He’d managed to find a beer, and the pizza box was empty. He was flipping through one of the magazines I receive monthly and rarely find time to read. The domesticity of the scene was unsetding, but I put it aside to think about later, when Caron wasn’t hopping about in the kitchen as though she’d given sanctuary to a serial killer, which was far-fetched but not beyond the realm of possibility. She has an extraordinary track record.

  “Hey,” I said, “how are you?”

  He looked up, his eyes as appealing as warm ginger bread and his teeth as white as whipped cream. “Wondering where you were.”

  “I gave Luanne a ride home,” I said truthfully. “I hope you haven’t been waiting too long.”

  “Go anyplace else?”

  I sat down next to him. “Well, let me think. I went to the grocery store this morning, then came back here and made myself a peanut butter on rye for lunch.”

  “Peanut butter on rye?”

  “It’s quite intriguing. After that, I spent the morning at the Book Depot, doing the crossword puzzle and trying to prevent my science fiction hippie from shoplifting several paperbacks. He claims he’s a Marxist and therefore repudiates the concept of private property unless it involves the sale of galactic battleships and nubile slaves with multiple appendages. At noon, I walked to the bank branch and deposited a very minuscule amount of money, but enough to cover the outstanding checks.”

  “And then you ate peanut butter on rye?’

  “Yes, I did. I then sold a few books, banged on the boiler, and dealt with a sales rep who’d had one beer too many. Luanne came by at five and—”

  “Let’s talk about Oakland Heights.”

  “Why would I go there?” I said.

  Peter Rosen had not achieved the rank of lieutenant in the police department because of his
talent for disarming witnesses with an adorably dimpled smile. He certainly hadn’t done so in order to collect a monthly paycheck; his family was wealthy, and the cost of one of his suits would have covered my rent for several months. He was stubbornly unforthcoming whenever I tried to find out why he’d chosen to settle in Farberville, an insignificant city of perhaps thirty thousand with only the college to give it a smidgeon of charm. Smidgeon as in pigeon, as in droppings.

  He grinned, knowing it would annoy me. “You might have gone there because your friend Miss Parchester is chained to a tree.”

  “I was there briefly,” I acknowledged. “Luanne and I happened to catch the local news.”

  “And you were worried about the rednecks returning after everyone else had left?”

  I nodded. “Good guess, Sherlock. Is there any way a bona fide police officer can stay there during the night? Preferably one with more than a tin badge and a beeper?”

  He started to answer, but Caron came into the room and glowered at me.

  “Mother,” she said, enunciating each syllable as if it were a crystal on the verge of shattering, “I told you I need to talk to you. It’s urgent.”

  Peter looked at her, but she turned away. After an uncomfortable moment, he stood up. “Maybe I’d better go.”

  “I suppose so,” I said, unable to offer any explanation. I participated in a lingering kiss by the front door, then waited until I heard him go down the stairs and leave through the front door. I locked my door and turned around. “Okay, dear, what’s the crisis? Did Inez fail to show up?”

  “Inez is here,” she said grimly. “She’s in my room.”

  “And that’s the problem?” “She’s not alone.”

  “She’s not? Someone else is here? Who is it?”

  “Yes, someone else is here, and we don’t know who he is, much less his name. You’ll have to ask him yourself.” She raised her voice. “Peter’s gone, Inez. Come on out.”

  Inez Thornton is Caron’s best friend, and proof that opposites not only attract but cling like burrs. She’s soft spoken and marginally anemic, and the throes of adolescence have left her thus far unscathed. Caron is full of sound and fury. Inez merely wheezes.

  “What on earth are you talking about?” I demanded.

  Inez came down the short hallway carrying a large wicker basket. “This is for you, Ms. Malloy.”

  In the basket were not Easter eggs or foil-wrapped chocolates. Those I could have dealt with. In the basket was a baby, perhaps a month old. A bit of dark hair, a rosebud mouth, defiant bluish-gray eyes. Tiny pink fists. Cheeks marred with rough red patches. All in all, and with no way to deny it, a baby.

  “What the …,” I said, stunned.

  Caron stared at me as Inez placed the basket on the floor near my feet. “We haven’t been trick-or-treating, Mother. The person downstairs found this on the porch, along with a denim bag and a letter with your name on it. He—or she—pounded on the door and insisted that I take delivery. I didn’t know what else to do. Then Peter showed up, and I thought I’d better talk to you first.”

  Inez blinked at me. “It’s a boy. Whoever abandoned him left some diapers in the bag. I changed him while Caron heated up a bottle. There are a couple more diapers and cans of formula in the bag.”

  “A letter?” I said weakly. “Did you open it?”

  My daughter gave me a contemptuous smile. “Of course not.”

  Inez handed me the missive, which was suspiciously moist, as though innocent parties might have tried to steam it open. I accepted it, although I was distracted by the baby, who seemed content to gaze at me.

  I finally averted my eyes and opened the envelope. Inside it was a sheet ripped off a legal pad and covered with a scrawled script that was nearly indecipherable. As best I could tell, it read: “You’re the only person I can trust to take care of Skyler. Just for a few days. Don’t let anyone take him away. I promise I’ll come back for him. Please do this for both of us.”

  “Oh, dear,” I said as I put aside the note and looked more carefully at the resident of the wicker basket. Caron and Inez had both managed to lean over my shoulder and read the terse message.

  “Skyler?” said Caron.

  “It’s a complicated story,” I said as I went into the kitchen and poured several inches of scotch into a glass. It had been about a month ago, late in the afternoon, with dark clouds in the sky. Caron had disappeared from a local inn, and although I had been frantic to find her, I’d found myself delivering a baby. Claire Malloy, book seller and hastily recruited midwife. The mother, a teary, malnourished, and abused teenaged girl, had agreed to be transported to a battered women’s shelter and then, I’d hoped, to a hospital for postpartum and neonatal care. I hadn’t followed through, since she had been a sad yet determinedly anonymous figure.

  I had told no one about the episode, not even Luanne.

  “Who are his parents?” asked Inez as I came back into the living room. “I mean, why would they leave this baby with you?”

  I glanced at Skyler, who thus far seemed docile but could quite possibly be the personification of the calm before the storm. “His mother’s about your age. She was living on the streets. I had… an encounter with her, and I guess she found out who I was and where I lived.”

  Caron crossed her arms. “That doesn’t explain why she left this baby on our front porch.”

  Inez went so far as to purse her hps, albeit briefly. “It really doesn’t, Ms. Malloy. This isn’t a hospital or a convent. Why would this girl abandon her baby here?”

  “She hasn’t technically abandoned him,” I said as I reread the note. “She wants me to take care of him for a few days, that’s all.”

  “But why you?” demanded Caron.

  “I don’t know. I guess she doesn’t have anyone else.”

  “This is a baby, not a puppy! I don’t care how old she is—she isn’t supposed to dump her baby like a sack of potatoes! What if no one was home? What if that person downstairs had gone off to dig up bodies or paint swastikas on overpasses? Inez and I were in my room. We couldn’t have heard anything. You came up the back stairs. What would have happened to Skyler if…” Her indignation gave way to sobs interspersed with hiccups. “Leaving a baby like that!”

  Skyler, no doubt sensing emotional upheaval, began to whimper. I took him out of the basket and cradled him against my chest. “It’s okay,” I said, speaking to both of them as I savored the redolence of baby powder.

  Caron went into the bathroom and reappeared with a handful of tissues. “It Is Not Okay, Mother. What are you going to do?”

  “This isn’t kidnapping, is it?” asked Inez, glancing over her shoulder as though anticipating the intrusion of a squadron of social workers armed with assault weapons.

  Skyler quieted down. I eased him back into the basket, which was well padded with a slightly grimy quilt.

  “It’s not kidnapping,” I said firmly. “I have the letter to prove that I’m the designated caretaker for no more than a few days.”

  “So what are you going to do?” demanded Caron. “Shouldn’t you call somebody? Leaving a baby on the doorstep is clearly negligent, and probably criminal.”

  “But you didn’t tell Peter,” I pointed out.

  Inez cleared her throat. “Well, we discussed it, but we figured he’d call some brawny lady to come scoop up little Skyler like a bag left at the bus station and take him off to some dreary, roach-infested house where he’d be left in a metal crib in a cold room. He’s just a little baby.”

  “That he is,” I said as I took a swallow of scotch. “His mother knows who I am, but I have no idea who she is. I don’t even know her first name, much less her last name or where she lives. Any suggestions?”

  Caron seemed to be recovering from what I suspected was more than momentary shock over the present situation. “Well, you are the legal guardian for the time being,” she said. “I really don’t understand why you won’t tell us any more, but I suppose I can live with
it for a couple of days. Just don’t assume I’ll babysit.”

  “Of course not,” I said numbly as I tried to remember how I’d handled the situation sixteen years ago. I’d resumed my graduate assistant duties after three months of maternity leave. Carlton never changed a diaper, much less dealt with strained prunes and rubber duckies. I dealt with it all, although I gave up hope of writing a dissertation on an obscure English novelist who would continue to rest in anonymity until some predatory graduate student stumbled across the body. The college had a philosophically enlightened day-care center where the babies and toddlers had been encouraged to express themselves via finger painting and pudding fights. Caron had thrived.

  “So what are you going to do?” asked Inez.

  “I’m not going to do anything tonight,” I said. “Skyler’s mother will undoubtedly call me tomorrow and make arrangements to collect him after she resolves her problems.”

  Caron stared at me. “So you think you can care for this baby?”

  “I’ve been there, done that,” I answered. “The stork did not keep you in a nest until you were potty-trained and capable of uttering a complete sentence.”

  “But, Mother—” she said, then stopped and shrugged.

  I wasn’t pleased with the scenario, but I most certainly wasn’t about to call social services and allow my temporary ward to be whisked away in the night. I hadn’t conceived him, much less carried him for nine months and gone through the ordeal of birth, but I had, by damn, been the first person he’d encountered and the one who’d wrapped him in a towel, kissed his forehead, and handed him to his biological mother. I’d severed the umbilical cord, but not my involvement.

  “Two cans of formula?” I said. “How many diapers? Any clothes?”

  “I’ll check.” Inez skittered down the hall with more alacrity than necessary.