A Perilous Conception

by Larry Karp

  “I need it now,” I said, and held up the badge.

  “Oh, police. This is for a case you’re investigating?”

  “Right.” I put the billfold back into my pocket.

  “Is it a murder…oh, I guess you can’t really tell me, can you?”

  “Right again. Here, I’ll fill out the form for you.”

  No trouble filling in name and age. Victor Sanford, five years old. Date of death, Fourth of July…I did a little quick math. Victor had been five, a year older than Sanford, who’d been born in 1935. So, July 4, 1939. I hesitated before I signed my name and the reason for my request, but I didn’t see any way around it. Besides, this was City Hall. That form would get filed and shoved into a cabinet, never again to see the light of day. I slid the paper back to the clerk, and pointed to the row of tan vinyl chairs against the opposite wall. “I’ll wait over there while you get it for me.”

  “Yes, sir.” She picked up her phone.

  A minute later, a walking beanpole with a pair of black-rimmed glasses hanging on a cord around her neck came out from the back, and marched up to my chair. “You’re with the police, and you need a death certificate?”

  “That’s right, ma’am.”

  “May I see your identification, please?”

  I opened my billfold to show her the badge and ID.

  She slipped the dark-rimmed cheaters onto her nose, and studied my credentials. “Bernard Baumgartner…detective, Emerald police. Very well.” Off with the glasses, on with a grudging, tight-lipped smile. “I’ll have it out for you just as soon as I can, Mr. Baumgartner.”

  “I appreciate that, ma’am.”

  Less than fifteen minutes, she was back with the certificate. I thanked her, then scanned the paper, folded it, and slipped it into my shirt pocket. Now that I had it, I’d have to think about what to do with it.

  But right then, all I felt like was taking a nap. The fight with Sanford had really taken it out of me. My left shoulder was sore, the side of my chest felt tight, my right temple was tender to the touch, and my rear end throbbed. Soon as I got back to Iggy’s, I hit the couch.

  ***

  I slept for three hours, and when I woke up, I felt logy. I stumbled into the bathroom and washed my face with cold water, which seemed to help some. By the time Iggy came back from work, I was in the living room, reading the paper. Iggy gave me the twice-over, then whistled. “Looks like you was in the wrong place at the wrong time, Mr. B.”

  “Wait’ll you see the other guy.” Then I told him about Sanford, and what I had in mind for the evening. “I’d appreciate it if you’d come along. I might need a witness, and if things get rough, I wouldn’t mind another pair of fists on my side.”

  “You want we should take my car?”

  “If you don’t mind. That way, I can have both my hands free the whole time.”

  “No sweat. Then, I guess I oughta go out now, before our boy shows up, and put the equipment in the trunk.”

  “Good thinking. I should’ve thought of that myself.”

  ***

  Sanford rang the doorbell right at six. I let him in. Iggy, in his chair, looked up from the paper, like for all the world he didn’t have a clue. Sanford sported a nice little swelling at the right corner of his mouth, which I’ll admit gave me a bit of satisfaction. “Iggy,” I said, “I want you to meet Dr. Colin Sanford. Dr. Sanford, my friend, Irwin McKeesport. He’s going to come along with us later. Let’s get some dinner, then we can take off.”

  Iggy laid down the newspaper. “Okay by me. Whatever.”

  Sanford didn’t say a word. He was too busy trying to figure what was up.

  ***

  We dallied over our eats at Grandma’s Oven, a small formica-table, vinyl-booth comfort food joint a couple of blocks from Iggy’s. By the time we got back to the house, it was a quarter past eight, deepening twilight. “I’m going to make a pit stop,” I said. “There’s a fair ride ahead of us.” When I came out, Iggy went in, and when he reappeared, zipping up, I asked Sanford if he wanted a turn. He shook his head. “I’m fine.”

  “Good. Let’s get moving.”

  In the garage, Iggy got into the car behind the steering wheel. I motioned Sanford to the front passenger seat, climbed in the back, ran my hand absent-mindedly over the little bulge inside my jacket.

  Half an hour up the Interstate, I told Iggy to get off at Holcomb County Road, then directed him to the west. We’d gone about a mile when Sanford half turned. “Baumgartner, where in hell are you taking me?”

  “You’ll see. We’re almost there.”

  He looked at the lock button on the door. “If you’re thinking about getting me out of your way, you’d better think again,” he said. “If I don’t show up for work tomorrow, my office staff’ll call the cops and tell them how you’ve been living in my office. Then, you’ll have to explain why you look like you’ve been through a war, especially after they see the note I left with someone that says I was going off I-didn’t-know-where with you tonight.”

  “Relax,” I said, and tapped Iggy’s shoulder. “Go right here, kill the lights, go slow.”

  I turned back to Sanford. “You’ve got a good imagination, but you can only help me if you’re alive. Another couple of hours, we’ll have this wrapped up, and you won’t ever have to think about me again.” If you can do that from behind bars, I added silently.

  The house at the end of the dirt road had one light on, probably the living room. I told Iggy to stop. “From here, we walk,” I said. “No lights, no talk.”

  We got out of the car. Iggy opened the trunk. I gave him a shovel, took the other one myself, picked up the lantern with my free hand, and started leading my troops through the farmland, our feet squishing in the wet field. “My shoes are going to be ruined,” Sanford groused.

  “Shut up and keep walking,” I hissed. “You’ll be able to afford all the shoes you want after the Good Deed Fairy takes care of you.”

  We gave the farmhouse a wide berth, then cut back to walk toward the grove of trees. Once there, I turned on the lantern, directed the beam toward the ground. “Single file,” I whispered.

  We snaked through the trees till we came to a small clear area under a couple of giant maples. Sanford, directly behind me, stepped to the left, lurched, but caught himself before he fell. “Right,” I said, and tapped at the dirt with my shovel. “Ground’s sunken in there, isn’t it? Let’s start digging.”

  Sanford reached for Iggy’s shovel, but I wasn’t about to give him anything that might become a weapon. “Iggy and I have calluses on our hands,” I said. “You hold the light for us.”

  Every shovelful I lifted sent a message straight to my ass. I ignored them. Get this close to nailing down a case, I could handle a little pain. After five minutes of gritting my teeth, I felt something solid at the end of my shovel. I reached down. “Over here,” I called to Sanford.

  I watched for any sign he might be thinking about swinging the lantern, but he did no more than squat over the hole and hold out the light. A piece of fabric came into view. Sanford zeroed in on it. Iggy and I set to clearing the area, first with shovels held short, then with our hands.

  Iggy whistled. “This the lady who disappeared, Mr. B?”

  Gently, I lifted the left arm. Bones showed through decomposing flesh. I slid my fingers over the corpse’s hand. “Light here.” I glanced back toward Sanford. “From this ruby ring, I’d say yes.”

  His face told me nothing. “What’s a ruby ring got to do with…is this the woman you’ve been looking for? The lab supervisor?”

  “One and the same.”

  “Where the hell are we?”

  “Dr. Hearn’s mother’s farm.”

  That got his attention. “Giselle’s…oh, no.” The lantern shook in his hand, cast a weird, trembly
glow over the grave. “That’s why…I didn’t know the first thing about this, I swear.”

  “You’ve never been up here before? As close as you and Dr. Hearn were?”

  “We never socialized. No.”

  “Never? Or hardly ever?”

  “Baumgartner, you could drive a man nuts. No, I’ve never been here, not ever, not once. Never in my life. Got it?”

  I sighed. “I need to let Mrs. Hearn know what we’ve found.”

  Sanford stood up, stretched, brushed off his hands. “All right, go tell her. I’ll wait in the car.”

  “No,” I said. “We’re all going.”

  Sanford started to object, then threw his hands in the air. “I’ve done what you wanted. I don’t understand why, but I did it.”

  “We’ve still got a little more to do.”

  “I can’t see any reason why I should go in there. That poor woman doesn’t need a committee to give her more bad news.”

  “Come on, Sanford. She’s old, and with all the people you’ve had to give bad news, I figured you could help with her. It’s part of the deal.”

  “But that’s it? No more after that?”

  “That’s it.”

  He swept up the lantern, started to walk away from the grave. I told him to wait. “Don’t you think we ought to cover her up so the animals can’t get to her.”

  “Sorry. You’re right.”

  ***

  Mrs. Hearn gave us a very hard eye as we stood under the porch light. Not that I could blame her. Imagine finding three sweaty men with filthy-dirty shoes, two of them with faces straight out of Ring Magazine, on your doorstep late at night. “I’m sorry to bother you this late, Mrs. Hearn,” I said. “But I need to talk to you. May we come in?”

  She hesitated long enough for me to add, “We’ll take off our shoes.”

  Embarrassed chuckle. “Well, of course, Mr. Baumgartner. I was surprised, that’s all. Please, do come in.”

  We stood in the vestibule, light from a crystal chandelier showing off our war wounds a lot more clearly than they must have looked under the dim bulb on the porch. I took care to get myself between Sanford and the door. “Mrs. Hearn, this is my associate, Irwin McKeesport.”

  Iggy tipped his cap.

  I readied myself to intercept Sanford and hold him long enough for Iggy to help me. No breakables anywhere I could see. “And you’ve already met Dr. Colin Sanford.”

  Now, Mrs. Hearn looked even more confused than when she’d opened the door to us. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Dr. Sanford,” I said, gripping his shoulder. “You told me you’d met Dr. Sanford. Unexpectedly, one night last September.”

  “Well, yes…” She peered into Sanford’s face, trying, I think, to imagine him in fully-restored condition. “But this isn’t Dr. Sanford.”

  My turn to be confused. “This isn’t the man who came out here with your daughter that night? When she thought you were still away on your cruise?”

  “No. That man was a good ten years older than this one, and heavier. Taller. With a lot of wavy gray hair, and a distinguished-looking mustache.”

  Sanford and I locked eyes. I’m not sure who said, “Camnitz,” first. I nudged him, and whispered, “Later.” Then I turned back to Mrs. Hearn. “We’ve found the body of that missing lab supervisor. She’s back in that grove of trees where you said your daughter liked to sit and read.”

  It took a few seconds to sink in. The old woman put a hand to her mouth, and I thought she was about to hit the deck. Sanford grabbed one arm, I caught the other, and we helped her into the living room, into an armchair. Sanford knelt at her side. Before I could say anything, he took her hand between his. “Mrs. Hearn, I’m so sorry,” he said. “Things aren’t always the way they seem. I know there’s a good explanation for this.”

  Mrs. Hearn snuffled, pulled a tissue from her pocket, wiped her eyes, then blew her nose. “You’re very kind, Doctor.” She tried to smile, couldn’t quite manage it. “We go to such extremes to lengthen our stays on earth, don’t we? Proper diet, good exercise, mammograms. But I don’t have words to tell you how much I wish I’d gone off on my long journey a month ago. I don’t know how I’m going to face people when all this comes out. What can I possibly say?” Then, she really started to cry.

  We hung around till Mrs. Hearn was better settled. I told her that other policemen would come by and remove Ms. Wanego’s body, but in the meanwhile, I’d be grateful if she’d not speak to anyone about the situation.

  “Who would I speak to?” So softly, I could barely hear the words.

  ***

  The instant we closed the car doors, Sanford took off on me. Iggy gawked as the good doctor angled himself between the two front seats to call me every name in and out of the book. “Start the car,” I called past him to Iggy.

  Sanford was past furious. “Bastard! You were trying to trap me.”

  “So? That’s what cops have to do sometimes to catch a bad guy.”

  “It didn’t mean a goddamn thing when you said we had a deal.”

  “With all the lies you’ve fed me this week, you’d be the last person on earth who’s got a right to complain.” I shifted, to put more weight on my healthy buttock. “But I didn’t lie to you. We did have a deal. Even if I’d collared you, I’d have gone through with my part. Think about the press you’d have gotten, standing there in an orange suit and cuffs, presenting the first IVF baby in the world. But cool it. You’re coming out like a rose. Mrs. Hearn will take one look at Camnitz, and that’ll be that. Then you can go ahead with your announcement. Go make history. Satisfied?”

  Iggy snickered.

  Sanford ignored him. “How did you know where to find the body?”

  “Mrs. Hearn told me that grove of trees was her daughter’s favorite place to go and read when she was a girl. When I saw the depression in the ground, just the right size and the dirt still not packed tight, I knew that had to be it.”

  Sanford shook his head. “I can’t believe you thought I’d gone up there with Giselle and buried that body.”

  “Give me a break. What should I have thought when Mrs. Hearn told me you and her daughter showed up here unexpectedly in the middle of the night, looking nervous as hell, and right about the time Wanego vanished?”

  No answer. Then, Sanford said, very quietly, “Now what?”

  “Back to Iggy’s, then you can head on home. I’m going to have a talk with Camnitz.”

  “You’ve got his address?”

  “Personnel records.”

  “How about Mrs. Hearn?”

  “Damn it, Sanford, I’ll take care of it all. But I’ve got to do some thinking first. Thanks to you, I’ll be lucky to keep my job. That phone call you made to the chief? He took me off the case, said he’d tie it up and write the report himself. He put me on two-weeks’ leave.”

  The stretch of streetlights along the freeway lit up Sanford’s face, a strobe show of confusion wrestling with disbelief. “You’ve been working the case on your own since yesterday…but now that you’ve solved it, why would the chief put your balls in a sling?”

  “Richmond’s got skin like wet cigarette paper. Starting tomorrow, I’m dead meat in that department.”

  Sanford grunted. “Then why in hell did you—”

  “You’re a smart boy, figure it out for yourself.”

  “I’m going with you to Camnitz’s,” he said.

  “Hell you are. That’s the last thing I need.”

  “Maybe it’s the first thing. Don’t you want a witness, Mr. Insubordinate Cop?”

  “God damn it, Sanford. If I wanted a witness, I wouldn’t bring somebody Camnitz knows. Besides, let two or three people march in on him at eleven o’clock at night, and he’ll head straight for his phone to call his lawyer. That�
��s the last thing I need. He thinks I’m a schmuck flatfoot, but I’ll nail him cold before he knows what hit him. I appreciate both you guys’ help, but now, go on home, the two of you. I’ll check in with you later.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Baumgartner

  Schmuck cops don’t live in neighborhoods like Camnitz’s, a tony district on a bluff in northernmost Emerald, overlooking Puget Sound. I followed the winding road lined with ancient maple trees framing palatial residences till I came to Cliffedge Avenue, then turned right. The rich smell of seaweed at low tide came in through my open car window. I wondered whether the owners of the land-side houses dreamed of the day they might double their mortgages, move across the street, and brag about their unobstructed views of shipping traffic going up and down Puget Sound.

  Camnitz’s place was on the water side, Number 1525 Cliffedge. I parked in front, then sat for a few minutes to catch my breath. My left butt pounded like a jungle drum, and the cheek felt twice the size of its mate. Every time I had to hit the brake, a wave of pain shot up my back and down into my crotch. I told myself I wouldn’t have to hang on much longer. Another couple of hours, I’d have this business wrapped.

  I climbed out of the car as carefully as I could. No lights on in the house. One second-story window was open. I walked up to the door, pushed the button three times, then drew in close to the wall, under the overhang, where Camnitz couldn’t see me from above and decide to ignore me.

  Not thirty seconds later, I heard a roar. “Who’s down there?”

  “Baumgartner,” I shouted back.

  “Baumgartner?” Do you know what time it is?”

  “Six minutes after eleven. Come down and open the door. I need to talk to you.”

  “You can jolly well wait till morning. I’ll see you in my office.”

  “This isn’t a social call, Doctor. If you aren’t down here in one minute flat, I’m going to call in reinforcements, and then you can explain to your neighbors why the street in front of your house was full of lights and sirens at midnight. I’m starting to count. Now.”