by Diane Kelly
“Shoot,” said Seth’s coworker, pulling a coffee mug from the cabinet. “With all the noises that baby’s making, she’d have been right at home at my frat house.”
I looked down at her and offered her her first piece of advice. “You steer clear of frat houses, hear me?”
The baby now fed, I rounded up a diaper from the grocery bag and carried her across the hall to Seth’s bunk to change her. The dogs plopped down on the floor and engaged in a tussle, mouthing each other’s necks and limbs and growling playfully. Seth leaned against the door frame while I laid the baby down on the bunk and unwrapped her blanket. The piece was an intricate work of art, featuring quilted bluebonnets, the state flower, which blanketed roadsides and fields each spring. The person who had made the quilt had found the perfect shade of fabric for the flowers, which were a unique mix of royal blue with a hint of purple. The baby wore a soft pink gown and blue crocheted booties that matched her cap. Whoever made the clothing and blanket was skilled with both crochet needles and sewing needles. Had they been made by the baby’s mother? It must’ve taken hours and hours to hand-stitch the blanket and crochet the cap and booties. That says something, doesn’t it?
“What’ll happen to her?” Seth asked.
I pulled the tapes on the girl’s diaper to loosen it. “CPS will take her to a hospital for a complete exam and to get the shots and other stuff that’s normally given to newborns. Once she’s released, they’ll find a foster home to take her in until she’s put up for adoption.” She’d have no shortage of takers. Healthy babies were in big demand.
After wiping the baby’s teeny, perfectly pink bum, I wrapped it in a fresh diaper and left her in Seth’s care while I went to the bathroom to dispose of the old diaper and wash my hands. When I returned, I spread out her quilted blanket and plunked her down in the center of it, pulling each of the points in and tucking the last one in by her chin as if she were a burrito. “There you go, sweetie. Snug as a bug in a rug.”
I picked her up and gently placed a kiss on her forehead. When I turned around, I caught Seth eyeing me. He said nothing, but his eyes made it clear there was a lot going through his head at the moment. What is he thinking? Whatever it was, he didn’t seem intent on sharing it with me, at least not yet. I didn’t push him. He tended to clam up when asked about his thoughts and feelings, but I’d learned that if I gave him enough time he’d eventually share the important ones with me.
The baby looked up at me with her glassy, unfocused newborn eyes. At the same time, my heart swelled with some type of maternal instinct and my gut wrenched at the thought that this moment could be critical in the baby’s formation of her thoughts of the world. I had no idea what she’d endured so far. Just because she hadn’t been bruised or battered didn’t mean she’d been cuddled and coddled and welcomed to the world the way every new baby should be. I had to reassure her that the world was a good place, at least for the most part, and that there was a special place in it just for her—even if she hadn’t found it yet.
I raised her up until her face was only inches below mine. “Would you like me to sing you a song, baby girl?” Unfortunately, the only lullaby I could remember was “Hush, Little Baby” and, frankly, the song’s message didn’t sit well with me. The lyrics basically told the baby that if it shut up and didn’t complain or question, it would be rewarded with a diamond ring and other gifts. Hell, that was the arrangement many philandering men had with their wives. Screw that! Better this little girl forgo jewelry and other material things and instead learn to stand up for herself. Hmm. What to sing, then?
When I hesitated, Seth cocked his head. “You don’t know any lullabies?”
“Only ‘Hush, Little Baby,’ and no way am I shushing her. She’s got a right to speak her mind.”
“How can she speak her mind? She doesn’t know any words yet.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
Seth looked up in thought. “Okay, how about this song, then?” A classic rock fan, he launched into Cat Stevens’s hit from the seventies, “If You Want to Sing Out.”
I gave Seth a smile and a nod, and sang along with what lyrics I knew, rocking back and forth gently on the bed with the baby in my arms. He stepped over and sat down next me, draping an arm around my shoulders and rocking with me.
We were in the last verse of the song, singing to the baby about how there were a million things to be, when Harrison rapped on the open door. We stopped singing and looked up.
“CPS is here,” he said. “The caseworker’s waiting in the lounge.”
“Okay.” I looked down at the little baby once again, feeling an odd need to explain myself to her before handing her off forever. “I’m about to turn you over to a social worker. She’s going to get you medical treatment and find you a good home. I might never see you again, but I’ll be thinking about you and I won’t ever forget you, okay?” I pressed my lips to her cheek and whispered in her ear. “Have a wonderful life, little one. Don’t let anyone or anything hold you back from chasing your dreams.”
My eyes pricked with unshed tears and emotion gripped my throat. Sheesh. If I was this choked up, how difficult must it have been for her parents to give her up?
Seth reached out and gave the baby a soft chuck on the chin. “Good luck, squirt.” Was it just my imagination, or did he sound a little choked up, too?
We stood and made our way down the hall to the lounge. A woman in her forties who looked like she’d been roused from a deep sleep stood waiting, a well-used infant car seat in her hand.
She set the seat down on the coffee table and turned to me and the baby. She gazed down at her. “What a cutie. We’ll find her a family in no time.”
The social worker reached out her arms to take the baby. Before I handed her over, I gave the baby one last, tight cuddle and closed my eyes in a quiet prayer. Goodbye, baby girl.
As the woman took the baby from me, the corner of the blanket that had been behind the baby’s head flopped over, and loose threads on the trim caught my eye.
Wait. That’s not just loose thread. There’s a word there, too.
I gasped as my mind processed the image before me.
The thread spells “HELP!”
My palm shot up in a stop motion. “Wait!”
The woman froze. “Something wrong?”
I gestured to the quilt. “I need to take a closer look at the blanket.”
She gave me an odd look but shrugged. “Okay.” She freed the baby from the blanket and handed it to me.
Seth stepped closer, a puzzled look on his face.
My fingers frantically worked the fabric until I found the word on the trim. I held it up. “Look! This thread spells out ‘Help!’”
The word was followed by what appeared to possibly be the remains of a stitched peace sign, a circle with an inverted Y inside. It was hard to say for sure given that the thread had pulled loose, a couple inches of it hanging from the fabric. But on close inspection I could see tiny holes in the fabric where the needle had gone through. Oddly, there were two such holes inside the circle, on either side of the vertical line. What does that mean? If the stitching was, in fact, a peace sign, the symbol would be at odds with the word “help.” Terror and tranquility were polar-opposite concepts.
Seth and the caseworker leaned in, squinting for a moment before making out the word, their eyes popping wide in surprise. The three of us stood in stunned silence for a moment, trying to process things.
Seth eyed me intently. “What does it mean?”
There was no way to know for certain. But I did know one thing. “It means Brigit’s about to be put to work.”
Before my partner and I stepped away, the caseworker asked, “Is it okay if I take the baby to the hospital now? I don’t want to put it off too long.”
“Sure,” I replied. After all, it wasn’t like the baby could provide any testimony, tell us where she’d come from and who’d brought her here. Too bad. It would make things so much easier.
> I exchanged business cards with the caseworker so we’d be able to contact each other as necessary. Official matters over with, I reached out to the baby one last time, picking up her tiny hand in mine. Instinctively, her little fist tightened around my index finger, as if she were holding on for dear life. Her eyes opened and seemed to focus on mine, imploring me to do what the word on the blanket asked, to help.
Brigit and I will do our best, little one.
THREE
SMELL YA LATER
Brigit
Megan clipped Brigit’s lead onto her collar and directed the dog to put her nose to the ground. Brigit happily obeyed. Tracking was fun, like a game of hide-and-seek. Brigit never lost this game. She had the best nose in the biz. The best part about it was that Megan would give her a treat afterward, an edible paycheck.
Sniff-sniff. Sniff-sniff.
Brigit could smell where the ground had been disturbed, smell one of the same human scents that had been on the baby’s blanket. She continued on, following the scent across the parking lot of the fire station and out onto the sidewalk, where it mingled with the scents of discarded chewing gum and cigarette butts and car exhaust and a thousand other scents her sensitive nose could distinguish. She followed the smell to the curb, out into the street, and diagonally across it, picking it up again on the sidewalk on the other side.
She trotted along with Megan jogging by her side. Down the block they went, then down another. She could smell the same scent but slightly more faint, meaning the man who’d gone this way had backtracked over a trail he’d left not long before. Yep, her nose could create a virtual time line of activity, not only picking up scents but discerning how fresh they were.
Sniff-sniff. Sniff-sniff.
Finally, the scent petered out in a dark parking lot. Brigit snuffled around to make sure she couldn’t pick it up again. But no. The scent disappeared here.
She sat down and looked up at Megan to let her know the trail stopped here. Paycheck, please!
Megan reached into her pocket and removed a liver treat, tossing it to Brigit along with a “Good girl!”
FOUR
SOLITUDE IS GOOD FOR THE SOUL
The Father
Juliette sat bolt upright in the bed as he walked into the infirmary empty-handed. Her dark hair was still matted with sweat from childbirth. “Where is she? Where’s my baby?”
The Father looked from the young woman to her parents. Juliette’s dad was an average-sized man with plastic-framed eyeglasses and a bald spot on the back of his head where his brown hair was slowly retreating toward his ears and forehead. Her mother had the same petite build and dark, silky hair as Juliette, though a few strands of gray had recently crept in. Both were the human equivalent of church mice. Timid. Quiet. Undemanding of attention. Much like the others in the compound, they’d taken the Father’s sermons on humility to heart.
The Father spoke softly and used his most solemn voice as he ducked his head in mock sorrow. “Your baby is with the Lord.”
Juliette gasped loud enough to be heard in the heavens, her eyes going so wide it was a wonder they didn’t fall out of her skull.
Her mother’s face clouded, while her dad reflexively rose from his chair next to the bed, his face pained. “What are you saying, Father?” he asked.
“I’m sorry,” he replied softly. “The baby had a bad reaction to the immunizations. The doctors did all they could, but…” He raised his palms and looked upward.
Juliette’s eyes welled with tears and she put her hands to her face as if she could shut out the news. She spoke through her fingers. “She’s … gone?”
“She is. I’m so sorry.”
The young woman dropped her hands and her mouth opened again, but she made only a choking sound, as if she couldn’t force any more words past the grief strangling her. Her entire body began to tremble as she broke down in sobs. A moment later, she shrieked, “Nooo!” She threw back the covers, getting tangled in them and falling to her knees on the wood floor as she attempted to stand on legs too weak from childbirth and grief to support her.
It gave the Father no small sense of pleasure to see her so feeble and desperate.
“No! Please, God! No!” She gulped air as she looked up at him through eyes blurred with tears. “Why didn’t you let me go with you to the hospital? Why?”
How dare she question his decisions!
“It wouldn’t have made a difference,” he said. “You couldn’t have saved her.”
Brushing back her own tears, Juliette’s mother attempted to both console her daughter and help her up from the floor. “You’d just given birth. You needed to rest.”
“This was God’s will,” the Father added, his voice still low but firmer now. “We may not always understand His plan, but we must accept it.”
If not for her father taking his daughter’s arm, the Father had no doubt she’d have found the strength to hurl herself at him, rip him apart. Her parents offered her useless platitudes. They told her that the Father was right, that as unfair as things seemed she must accept God’s will. That her baby was in heaven, a perfect place. That she’d see her precious child again someday, that they’d be reunited and her grief would be forgotten.
Juliette sobbed inconsolably as her mother helped her back up onto the bed and stroked her hair. Her mother made another attempt to offer her daughter some solace. “You’ll have a chance to have another child one day after you’re properly married, a child who will have a willing father and won’t know the shame of having been conceived in sin.”
That last comment from her mother sent the young woman right over the edge. She glared up at the Father with such hate and rage that for a brief instant terror gripped him. Would she tell them the truth about who had fathered her child? Would she reveal their secrets?
She didn’t, though. Instead, she pushed her mother away and screamed, “Get out! All of you! Get out now!”
Her parents attempted to placate her with apologies and more talk about the beauty and wonders of heaven, but she only grew more adamant.
She pointed at the door. “Get out! I want to be alone!”
The Father backed out of the door and motioned for Juliette’s parents to join him in the hallway. They emerged, looking grief-stricken and helpless.
He closed the door behind them. “Don’t worry,” he said. “She’ll come around. Right now, though, she needs some time to come to terms with what’s happened. You two head over to the church. I’ll meet you there in a few minutes to pray.”
The ever-obedient couple nodded and walked out. They’d always appreciated his leadership, trusted his guidance. When he’d found them homeless and penniless on the steps of that locked church in Fort Worth over a decade ago, they’d been relieved and more than happy to put control of their lives in his capable hands. If only their daughter could be so humble and compliant.
Once they’d gone, he summoned his men from the adjoining room. Jeb and Zeke followed him as he opened the door to Juliette’s room.
On seeing the Father in the doorway, she grabbed fistfuls of her white cotton nightgown in her hands and screeched, “This is all your fault! You’re not a man of God! You’re the devil!”
Snatching the glass lamp from her bedside table, she hurled it at him. Luckily for him, her aim was poor. The lamp struck the door frame and shattered, glass tinkling down onto the wood floor.
She’d pushed him right over his edge, too. He turned his back to the girl, stepped into the hall, and addressed his men, forcing his voice to stay calm even though his blood boiled. “Take her away. She needs solitude to heal.”
And isolation to be punished.
“Yes, Father,” the two said in unison.
“No!” She fought the men in vain as they grabbed her. “No!”
Her cries intensified as the men dragged her kicking and screaming out of her room. Zeke held her from behind and slapped a hand over her mouth to silence her as he forced her out the back door. Jeb closed t
he door behind them.
A grin slithered past the Father’s lips. In eleven years, he hadn’t managed to break that stubborn girl.
But this ought to do it.
FIVE
WHO’S YOUR DADDY?
Megan
Damn!
I’d hoped to catch the man who’d left the baby, question him about the cryptic message sewn into the trim of the blanket. But there was nothing here but the remains of a razed convenience store. Whoever the man was, he’d disappeared into the night.
Brigit and I had done what we could for now. Anything further would require a detective to be brought into the case. I whipped out my cell phone and dialed Detective Audrey Jackson. Jackson was one of the more senior detectives in the Western 1 Division, and she’d graciously taken me under her wing. Someday I hoped to be in her shoes, working investigations and solving complex cases. But I had only a year and nine months on the force under my belt. An aspiring detective had to serve at least four years as a patrol officer before being eligible to take the detective exam. Two years and three months left to go. Until then, I had to satisfy myself by helping the detectives with whatever tasks they might entrust to me.
Detective Jackson answered on the fourth ring, her voice raspy from sleep. “What’s up, Megan?” Her curt response said she knew my late-hour call meant an emergency was under way.
“A newborn was left at the fire station a little while ago. CPS picked up the baby. She appeared to be unharmed, but when I was handing her over I saw a message sewn into the hem of her blanket. The word ‘help’ followed by an exclamation point.”
“‘Help’?” She groaned. “That doesn’t sound good. Where are you now?”
“Heading back to the fire station. Brigit trailed the man who dropped off the baby to a construction site on Rosedale, but it looks like he got in a vehicle there and left. We’re turning b-back now. I’ll make note of the security cameras on the route.”