A Perilous Conception

by Larry Karp

  “Good. We want to keep it under wraps until we’re sure the police are finished. I can’t imagine it’ll go on much longer.”

  Joyce gazed at the window next to the bed, its brownish dried water line framed by dime-store flowered chintz curtains. “I’ve got to admit, I’m on the edge,” she murmured. “James didn’t have much life insurance, no pension or anything like that, and we never had money we could put away. Then, there were all those medical bills that insurance wouldn’t cover because they were for infertility work.”

  Her voice grew shakier. “Dr. Sanford, I’m scared. I can’t get my job back. My mother wants me to ‘come home to Topeka,’ and live with them, but just thinking about that could make me suicidal.” She nodded toward the baby. “I’m looking at twenty years’ hard labor, having to put Robbie in some cheesy day-care center where he’ll catch all the colds and upset stomachs the other kids have, then pass them along to me. And where am I going to get money to send him to college? Would it really make any difference to the police if we went ahead now? A press conference wouldn’t be easy for me, but I think I could suck it up and get through. I need to see the color of that money.”

  My mind went into overdrive. “You say you’ve got some insurance. How long is it going to hold out?”

  “Six months, tops. But—”

  “All right then. No reason to panic. If we come out with our press conference while the police are still poking around, they’re going to wonder about some of the things I had to do in a hurry, to protect you. Like hiding Dr. Hearn’s log book, and changing your chart to say all we did was a sperm treatment. But if we wait till they close the case and move on, it shouldn’t be a problem to quietly put the original pages back into the chart, and say I found the log book someplace where Dr. Hearn had hidden it. We want the reporters to focus on you and Robbie, no distractions. Believe me, I want to make this announcement as much as you want me to.”

  Before Joyce could answer, Mrs. Enright came into the room, a teapot in one hand, cup and saucer in the other. “Here you are, dear,” she said to Joyce. “Chamomile. It’ll do you a world of good.”

  She set the cup and saucer on the little table next to the bed, on the side opposite Robbie in his bassinet. As she began to pour, Joyce and I exchanged a look of suppressed amusement, a conspirators’ handshake. “I’ll be on my way,” I said. “Your daughter’s doing fine. You don’t need to worry about her.”

  Mrs. Enright passed the teacup to Joyce, then executed a little bow. “Will you be coming back to see her?”

  “Count on it.” I started to the door, but stopped after a couple of steps, and called over my shoulder, “Was the detective who came to see you named Baumgartner?”

  Joyce nodded.

  “That’s right,” said her mother. Bernard Baumgartner. I remember thinking, ‘BB.’ Why?”

  “Just curious.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Baumgartner

  I was hungry when I said good-bye to Joyce Kennett, but as I drove home, my mind was grumbling louder than my stomach. Lab accident, special sperm treatments, vanishing lab supervisor, murder-suicide, all tied together in time through the same small group of people. Hard to write off as a line of coincidence.

  And was I really supposed to believe Sanford was doing all that work to get eggs for Dr. Hearn so he could say he was the right-hand man for a University research scientist? And that he’d scheduled a press conference for the day after Joyce Kennett’s baby was born so Hearn could announce a research breakthrough that Sanford didn’t know a whole lot about? More applesauce than I could swallow.

  Cops who live thirty years on the job have above-average peripheral vision. As I approached a street-corner bar, I picked up on some action. A fancy dude, was laying it heavy, both fists, to a woman. I swerved into a parking space, hustled out of the car and across the sidewalk. The guy took one look at me, dropped the woman, and took off around the corner. I thought of going after him, but decided better to help the woman, who had collapsed to the pavement, sobbing and groaning. I knelt beside her, cupped her chin in my hand. “Take it easy, Ma’am. I’m a policeman. We’ll call you an ambulance, you’ll be all right.”

  She was a mess, face swollen, blood running from the corner of her mouth. I wiped it with my handkerchief. “Please don’t leave me alone,” she whispered. “He’ll come back and kill me.”

  “No way,” I said. “After we get you taken care of, we’ll make sure he doesn’t bother you or anyone else anymore.”

  She tried to smile, but couldn’t carry it off. “Thank you…thank you so much,” a murmur I could barely hear.

  ***

  If I was hungry before, one foot inside the house, and I was starving. Hungarian goulash. Irma’s mother had made sure her daughter learned to cook right. I hustled into the living room, slung my folders onto the couch, my gun along with them, then trotted into the kitchen. Irma was stirring a pot on the stove with a big wooden spoon. I walked over and grabbed her bottom. “Hey, there.”

  “Hello.”

  One word that froze me on the spot. “Something the matter?”

  She took way too much care setting the spoon into the pot. “What were you doing all this time?”

  “What do you mean, ‘what was I doing?’ What do I do for a living?”

  She tossed a long look up at the clock over the sink. “Till after eight o’clock at night?”

  “Till whenever I can get away. I worked my case all day, then on the way home, I ran into an assault, a man beating up a woman, and I didn’t really think I ought to ignore it because I’d be late for dinner. Not exactly like I’m having an affair or something.”

  Wrong move. She wheeled around. I could see on her face, in her eyes, from the way she was standing, this was now a lost cause. “Damn you, Bernie,” she shouted. “You are having an affair. Over thirty years now, you’ve given every minute of every day of your life to the Emerald Police Force, and I’m sick of it. Sick…of…it. Do you hear me?”

  Like I might not hear her, the way she was yelling. “Yes, I hear you, but—”

  “But nothing. “God damn it, Bernie, if it’s not one thing, it’s another. But it’s always something.” She wheeled around, grabbed the spoon out of the pot and slung it straight at my face.

  I ducked. The spoon sailed past my ear, splattered goulash on the wall behind me.

  “There’s always something more important than coming home in time to have a bowl of goulash that’s not vulcanized.” She stamped a foot; a drinking glass tumbled off a shelf, shattered on the floor. “Bernie, you son of a bitch, you had no right getting married. I could put on a see-through negligee and prance around in front of you, and you’d just stand there, trying to figure out what I’m up to. Getting a good fuck once in a blue moon wouldn’t be interesting enough for you.”

  It’d been a long day, Sanford wise-assing me, now this. “What’re you saying, Irma? That I’m supposed to get all worked up over Henry Streator’s cold leftovers? I mean, if you want to talk about having an affair.”

  Don’t bother telling me I shouldn’t have said that. Irma looked like she had an open air hose up her butt. We just stood there for I’m not sure how long, glaring at each other, till Irma whipped around and grabbed the pot off the stove. I made a move toward her, but saw I was going to be too late, so I turned and dodged left, but she read me perfect, scored a dead-on hit with that pot. If it was a bullet, it would’ve blown my heart into powder. “There’s your dinner,” she shouted. “Get down on the floor and lick it up. You might as well enjoy it because that’s the last meal you’re getting from me.” She slammed the pot to the floor, then ran out of the room and up the stairs. A minute later, I heard a door slam.

  So there I am, standing in the middle of the kitchen, dripping goulash all over the floor. I walked over to the sink, brushed off what
I could, rinsed my hands, face, and arms. I felt like I’d been cranked through a wringer. I pulled a dishrag off the rack under the sink, got down on the floor, and started mopping up goulash. I figured when I was done, I’d go up and apologize for what I said about her and Henry, but what to say about my work and her feelings about it, I didn’t have a clue.

  Then I heard Irma come back into the room. I looked up from the goulash puddle, and found myself staring into the barrel of a handgun—my handgun, to be specific. I was on my feet in nothing flat.

  “Take one step, and I swear, I’ll shoot.” In a voice like a violin string. Tighten it one more tiny turn, and snap!

  I held out my hand. “Irma, give me that gun.”

  She pointed it at my right knee. “Stay away. Come one step closer, and you’ll never move that leg again.”

  Her eyes had the look you see in people an inch away from shooting a hostage or jumping off a bridge. Try to reason with them, and everyone ends up dead. Part of me wanted to rush her and knock the gun away, but the cop in my noggin got the upper hand over the hothead who’d made the dumb remark about her and Henry. I tried to distract her. “Well, I sure am glad I showed you how to defend yourself if somebody came in here and I was away.”

  Which did exactly nothing. “You’d better be away, in a hurry. I’m not kidding, Bernie. You’ve been making me crazy for way too long, and tonight you sent me all the way. Now, get yourself out of this house, and stay out.”

  The hothead started a move, but the cop threw a quick stranglehold on him. “Look at me.” I held out my arms. “I can’t go out like this. At least let me take a shower.”

  “No shower. No nothing.” She stepped to the side, clearing a path to the door, then whipped the gun around and put the end of the barrel to her temple. “On three,” she snapped. “If I get to three and I can still see you, I’m gonna fix it so I never have to look at you again. One…”

  A picture flashed in my head, blood and brain all over the wall and the floor, and a homicide cop covered in goulash, trying to explain things to the first-response guys.

  “Two…”

  I could see her finger tighten. “All right,” I shouted. “That’s what you want, I’m going.” I turned and ran out the door, pausing just long enough to grab up my folders from the couch. All the way through the house, I listened for a gunshot. I don’t think I took a breath till I was outside, on my way down the sidewalk.

  An older man and woman passed me, going the other way. I thought their necks were going to snap right off. “It’s the latest style,” I said. “Straight from Paris. You like?”

  As I watched them hustle away, I think I smiled. But now, what? Sleep on a park bench, then go out in the morning and do interviews in my filthy shirt and suit? Have to do better than that. Who on the force could I trust to not ask questions and keep their mouth shut? No one. Even my friends wouldn’t be able to resist yukking it up about something like this.

  Then I had it. I brushed off as much stew as I could, stepped around the bunch of crows who were already fighting over the little solid bits, jumped in the car, and drove off.

  ***

  When Iggy opened the door, he looked me up, down, and up again. I started to laugh. “What’s the matter? You’ve never seen a man wearing Hungarian goulash before?”

  He didn’t want to smile, but couldn’t help it. “I don’t ask questions that ain’t none of my business, Mr. B. You want to come inside?”

  I stepped into his living room. “My wife got a little annoyed with me.”

  “Well, I’d sure hate to see what she’d do if she got a lot annoyed.”

  “I’ll tell you. She’d grab my gun and let me know that if I didn’t leave, one of us was never going to do anything ever again.”

  Iggy worked his tongue around his mouth. His face asked a hundred questions, but all he said was, “Well, I’m guessin’ you need some new duds. Only thing is, I ain’t got clothes gonna fit you. I’m like half your size.”

  “Could you go out and get me some stuff to wear?” I looked at my watch. “Bergstrom’s is open for almost another hour. If you wouldn’t mind.”

  “’Course not. I’ll go right on down. But not to make too much of a point, what’re you gonna do about money?”

  I pulled my wallet, peeled bills, put them into Iggy’s hand. “This should cover the clothes. Irma and I keep separate accounts, checking and saving, and what I can draw on ought to hold me for a while.”

  Iggy grinned. “You always think of everything, Mr. B.”

  “If I always thought of everything, I wouldn’t have run my mouth to my wife like I did.”

  Then I thought of something else. With Irma holding my gun, I’d need to pick up a new piece. Not likely anyone in this case was going to make me draw, but you never know. I was pretty sure Iggy either had a gun on hand or could get me one in a hurry, but if I had to use that nonofficial gun in the line of duty, things would get very ugly, probably uglier for Iggy than for me. I’d have to come up with a better idea.

  “Well, hey, Mr. B. Nobody’s perfect. Where you figuring to stay?”

  “Get a room at a motel, I guess.”

  “Bah. You can do better’n that. You come to the right place.” The little guy jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. “My living room there ain’t exactly the Ritz, but the sofa bed’s okay, there ain’t no bugs, and the rent’s cheap. But hey, listen, I better go down and get you them threads, before Bergstrom shuts down for the night.”

  “Right. I wouldn’t get very far tomorrow, trying to grill people in my underwear.”

  Not often that cops talk about a case with a civilian, but every rule’s got its exception. Iggy was holding evidence for me, had opened a lab incubator, was getting me wearable clothes, and now he was offering me a place to stay. If I screwed up, he could be the perfect fall guy if Richmond decided to turn the spotlight off the force. Iggy was almost at the door; I called him back. “Before I pitch a tent here, you need to know why,” I said. “It goes a long way past a pissed-off wife and a pot of goulash. When you get back, I’ll bring you up to speed, and you can decide then if you want to have me staying in your house.”

  Iggy’s face—half of it, anyway—usually has a look on it that says he’s thinking something is funny, but now he got as serious as I’ve ever seen him. “You can tell me whatever you want, Mr. B, and nobody’s gonna get it outa me, not even with needles under my fingernails. Or, you don’t have to tell me nothin’ at all. Wasn’t for you, I’d be doin’ my ten to fifteen right now, and stuff like that, I don’t forget.” He made a grand gesture, taking in his entire living room. “Make yourself at home.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Baumgartner

  Too bad I never thought to set an alarm. By the time I opened my eyes, sunlight filled the room. Almost nine—Iggy’d be on his way to work. I jumped off the couch, and while I shaved with the razor my host had left on the sink for me, I drank some of the coffee he’d been kind enough to leave in the pot. Then I scrambled a few eggs, washed them down with the rest of the coffee, and got myself dressed. Iggy knew clothes. With what my new suit cost, plus a few shirts, couple ties, underwear and socks, I could’ve taken a Caribbean vacation. But I had to admit, I looked like one of those guys in the fashion magazines.

  So, first things first. My wallet was damn near empty. I won’t say the thought of floating myself a loan from the box with ten thousand dollars in it didn’t enter my head. But whatever dumb things I’ve done in my life, I’m proud that I’ve never gone on the take. I drove back to my neighborhood, to the Greenacres Branch of First Savings and Loan, just five minutes’ walk from my house, and pulled seven hundred from my savings account. It crossed my mind to stop in and see if Irma had cooled off any, but the mind-cop told me to let it rest.

  Next, I dropped down to the station, swu
ng into Mel Richmond’s office, and asked if he wanted a quick update. He gave me five minutes. He wasn’t pleased to hear I’d left ten thousand dollars “in a safe place,” but when I asked if he’d like me to bring it in and check it through, he shook his head in a hurry.

  “I’m sure that money came from Sanford,” I said. “I’d love to find out where he does his banking, and look for a tenK withdrawal last September. If I could squeeze him with that, I think it’d open a bunch of doors.”

  Krupa with a pencil on the desk. “You’d need a warrant.”

  “Mel…”

  “Okay, Bernie, I’m sorry. I know you know that. What I’m saying is, I’d rather you find some way to get what you need without doing something the newsies might pick up on. But if absolutely nothing else works, and you’re positive you’ve got to have a warrant, please come to me, and let me handle it directly.”

  With a judge you can count on to keep it quiet in the interest of public safety, I thought. “I hear you, Mel. One more thing before I get out of your way. I need for you to get me a gun.” I flashed my lapel back to show the empty holder.

  His lips moved, but nothing came out.

  “You’ve got to go with me on this,” I said. “Part of trusting me to do right by you on the case. I don’t think you’d want me to answer the questions I’d get, requisitioning a gun through channels.”

  Picture a guy whose son just asked him for money to take his girlfriend to see a doctor. “Bernie, this isn’t going to come back to bite me, is it?”

  Judgment call. I couldn’t see Irma using my gun to hold up a liquor store. And with me out of her sight, she wasn’t about to shoot herself, either. Sure, I could be wrong, but it sounded like a smart bet, and if Richmond wanted to tie one of my hands behind my back, it didn’t seem unfair for him to take a small risk to keep my one free hand working as well as it could. “I don’t think so, Mel.”

  He hesitated a few seconds, then picked up the phone. Ten minutes later, I was outside, with a full holster, leaving Mel to take on his next headache of the day.