Whirlwind

by Rick Mofina

  Her name was Jan Marie Cross and she was a nurse at the hospital.

  Bascom was confident she would tell him what he needed to know for his client Hedda Knight in Chicago.

  I sure as hell hope so.

  The adoption lawyer had been pathologically demanding with her relentless texts and calls for him to confirm that Remy Toxton had delivered the baby and to locate the child.

  “Offer people money, Ed. I don’t care how you do it, just do it!”

  Since the earlier information he’d obtained about Arkansas dead-ended, Bascom had gone full tilt on the case. He’d returned to Lufkin, Texas, and Remy’s neighborhood for more door-knocking, finding a neighbor he’d missed the first time.

  Ned Weller, a retired electrician, had been walking his dog when he saw paramedics with All Aid Ambulance Service take a young woman from the house in the night. No siren or lights, so few people would’ve noticed. Ned was good with time and dates because he’d always walked Rider, his retriever, after Letterman and that night Clooney was his guest.

  As all private investigators know, medical information is confidential and there are laws against obtaining medical history or records. Bascom acknowledged that when he went to All Aid’s office and worked a ruse to find out where their ambulance had taken Remy and about her condition.

  He claimed to be her estranged dad; that Remy’s mother had a terminal condition and he needed to learn more about their daughter’s, and possibly their grandchild’s, situation before his wife died, and how he was praying people could find it in their heart to help him.

  “Oh no, that is so sad.” The assistant at the office blinked fast when Bascom showed an old picture of himself with his wife and daughter, saying it was Remy.

  The assistant had then gone into the database, reviewed the call then put Bascom in touch with the two paramedics who’d transported, his “daughter,” out of state. “You should talk to them,” she said, scrawling numbers on a slip of paper. “Give it a moment. I’ll call them first and explain.”

  Bascom’s success with the assistant led him to Don Dunlap, one of the paramedics, who was not as easily moved by Bascom’s story. In fact, Dunlap was reluctant to help. But, after Bascom suggested he would consider compensating him for his time, Dunlap agreed to meet him privately the next evening at his son’s baseball practice.

  Dunlap was nervous at the ballpark. “Look,” he said. “How do I know you’re her estranged father? Talking about a patient is risky for me.”

  “I understand. She’s got a boyfriend, Mason,” Bascom said. “He may have been with her at the time. He’s an ex-convict. We’re worried. Remy’s mother is terminal and we’ve got a lot of pain in our lives to make up for. And if Remy’s got a baby now, well, maybe my wife can pass knowing that we’ve made a new start, you know?”

  Bascom looked off to the laughing children playing on the diamond.

  Dunlap looked down, kicking gently at gravel as he thought.

  “Okay,” he said. “I won’t tell you much and I’m not giving you any paper.”

  “Any help would be appreciated.”

  “Before I left work today I looked at my patient chart for that trip. She was having trouble breathing, which can happen in the third trimester. She was not bleeding and the fetal tone was fine. But the mother’s vitals were a little off. She was having some pain. We got her on oxygen, stabilized her. We transported her to hospital—that’s really all I can tell you.”

  “Wait, where? What hospital?”

  “Out of state. We were advised to take her to Shreveport, to the Beau Soleil West Medical Center. It’s a faith-based nonprofit, might’ve had a connection to her boyfriend’s employer. I think he’s a carpenter.”

  Bascom thanked Dunlap and offered him cash, which he rejected.

  “I changed my mind about that. My old man walked out on us when I was a kid and never tried to reach me the way you’re doing. It just got me thinking.”

  Bascom looked at him, nodded and turned to leave.

  “Another thing,” Dunlap said. “I figure you’re going to Louisiana to learn more.”

  “I am.”

  “One of the names we had for the hospital was Jan Marie Cross. You might want to start with her. She was a nurse with the team treating Remy when we delivered her there.”

  “Thank you. May I ask one more favor?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Would you mind letting her know, confidentially of course, as a kind of follow-up, about my family concern about Remy? Sort of let her know I’m on my way to Shreveport and need help?”

  Bascom gave Dunlap his cell phone number.

  “If it helps bring a family together,” Dunlap said, “I’ll consider it.”

  Bascom’s work on Dunlap resulted in him having several heartfelt telephone conversations with Jan Marie Cross, a nurse at the Beau Soleil West Medical Center hospital.

  With each call Bascom opened up about how things went wrong for him and his wife and their relationship with their daughter, Remy. Eventually Cross opened up about being a single mom and her teenage son’s online gambling problem and how he ran up three thousand dollars in debt on her credit card. Money she did not have. Bascom said he would give her the money for her peace of mind if she could help him with his.

  That’s when Cross, who’d been extremely nervous about breaching patient confidentiality, agreed.

  “You sound like a kind man,” she said. “There’s a park across the street from the hospital. Meet me there.”

  So now here he was, waiting.

  Bascom had followed Cross’s instructions to meet her at this time, at this bench, and to be reading a copy of the Shreveport Times.

  Five minutes passed, then ten.

  He knew how uneasy Cross was and how it was always a roll of the dice dealing with people in these situations. He’d gone to a bank and obtained three thousand dollars in cash from the account Hedda had established for the case.

  Still, anything could happen.

  While waiting at the bench, Bascom surveyed the area, noticed an older couple in the distance strolling along the grass, then a man with an eReader, before he saw a woman in her mid-forties coming toward him from the hospital. She was wearing blue scrubs, just as Cross described.

  She had a plain face that was taut with concern.

  “Ed?” she said.

  “Yes. Jan?”

  “Yes.”

  Bascom set his paper aside for her to sit next to him, but she declined.

  “I can’t stay long. I debated about coming.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s become complicated. I felt I had to see you, since you’d come this far.” She cupped her hands over her face. “I’m sorry but I can’t help you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I thought it over and I just can’t do anything to jeopardize my job. I’m sorry.”

  “Even after everything I told you about my wife and daughter, don’t you think we have a right to know? We’re family.”

  “You’re not listed in her records. I can’t do this. I’m sorry. I don’t want to lose my job.”

  Taken aback by her change of heart, Bascom reached into his jacket pocket for the envelope.

  “I understand. Still, let me help you, Jan.”

  She looked at the envelope, thick with cash.

  “No, please,” she said. “I can’t”

  Bascom continued holding out the envelope.

  “All I can tell you, Ed, is that she was brought to us. She was stable and the baby’s heartbeat was stable, when she first arrived.”

  “Then what happened? Did she have the baby? Where did they go? Did they leave any—”

  “No. Please. I can’t tell you anything more. And what you’ve go
t, you got from the paramedics. I have to respect patient confidentiality. I’m so sorry—please forgive me.”

  She turned and hurried back to the hospital.

  After she was gone from view, Bascom sat there for a long moment before returning the envelope to his pocket in defeat.

  He stared at his phone for several minutes as he tried to sort out how he would update Hedda. He’d tell her that Remy came to Shreveport to have the baby and so far, the trail ends here.

  Soft breezes tumbled along the park, crackling the pages of his newspaper in an attempt to carry it off. Bascom grabbed it.

  His attention went to a story on one of the inside pages.

  It was out of Dallas and concerned a baby missing since the tornadoes hit. It highlighted how the FBI was searching for two persons of interest in the case and it was accompanied with sketches of what they might look like. They had no names and few other details.

  At first, Bascom thought that the woman resembled Remy.

  That couldn’t be, though.

  They were from Lufkin and she’d come here to have the baby.

  It’s highly unlikely, he thought, before he called Hedda. Still, to be on the safe side, he’d mention it to her.

  47

  Dallas, Texas

  The Dallas County Forensic Sciences building was a three-story complex located northwest of downtown on the Stemmons Freeway.

  The state-of-the-art facility contained a spectrum of sections: a ballistics testing unit, DNA, forensic biology, toxicology and autopsy labs, along with a morgue—making it one of the busiest full-service crime labs in the country.

  Angela Clark, a senior forensic analyst, was the acting chief of the trace evidence section. She was in charge of leading the processing of evidence from the Tumbleweed Dreams Motel.

  The FBI’s Evidence Response Team had worked the scene. They’d seized hair and fibers from Unit 21’s carpet, bathroom floor, curtains, furniture, as well as drains for the sink and tub.

  The techs also lifted latents from the TV remote, door handles, the TV, the sink, toilet, mirrors, counter, tabletops, the light switches, the coffeemaker, the phone, the Bible and the Do Not Disturb sign. They’d also collected trash and linen believed to have been from the room.

  The evidence had all been collected in envelopes, bags, and packets, and paper and plastic containers. The biological material they’d gathered was saved in breathable containers and allowed to dry to reduce the risk of mold contamination. All the required chain-of-custody documents had been completed with signatures, case and inventory numbers.

  The case was a top priority, for the FBI and the Dallas PD.

  Work at the lab had been piling up.

  Angela’s boss had been seconded to work with the FBI Quantico for a month, leaving her to take on more responsibility. It also meant that, as a mother of two boys, aged ten and eight, she’d missed a few soccer games.

  Adjusting her glasses, she studied her monitor and her master inventory log. She’d assigned the evidence to appropriate team members: those who were expert in analyzing hair, fibers, biological evidence, DNA and liquids.

  Angela was certified in several areas. She was an expert latent fingerprint examiner. She also had two degrees in forensic science and was a PhD from Caltech. The courts had qualified her to give expert testimony on forensic matters.

  Everyone had been going flat out, putting in long days.

  On a personal level, many were dealing with the aftermath of the tornadoes. Angela’s neighborhood had been spared, but nearly everyone in the lab knew someone who’d lost relatives, friends or property. And now with the apparent abduction of a baby from its mother during the storm, another layer of stress had fallen on her shoulders.

  Producing hard evidence from a motel was challenging at the best of times. Motel rooms were high-traffic areas. Unless you had outside evidence for which you were seeking a match, or comparative analysis, anything could be challenged in court. Still, that was not to say that you couldn’t harvest strong physical evidence to point investigators in the right direction. However, Angela and her team realized that this case also came with other unfortunate aspects. First, the motel’s security camera failed to record surveillance footage. And then, the unbelievable topper: immediately after the subjects left the room, an intoxicated dismissed employee—in an effort to get her job back—had cleaned the room, presenting the FBI’s Evidence Response Team and Angela’s team with a whole new set of problems and circumstances to deal with.

  As Angela continued her work analyzing latent fingerprints, some of her colleagues had already submitted their preliminary reports.

  She checked her monitor, the latest one was for hair.

  The presence of 4-amino-2-hydroxytoluene and m-Aminophenol on strands of hair found in the sink indicated hair dye was used. The blood found in a crumpled tissue under the bed matched the type found on the baby’s romper discovered at the shelter.

  Some of the puzzle pieces were coming together, Angela thought, as she worked on the latent prints the FBI’s ERT people had collected. Because of all the circumstances, they all knew the quality of the latents would be weak, yielding only a few good clear partials.

  Angela scanned the first two into her computer and submitted them to the automated fingerprint-identification systems, AFIS, for a rapid search through massive local, state and nationwide databanks for a match.

  It wasn’t long before she got hits for two licensed drivers in Texas: Arb Winston, a sixty-nine-year-old man from San Antonio and Ella Winston, a sixty-eight-year-old woman from San Antonio. They shared the same address. No arrests, no convictions. Nothing came up for the Winstons in any other databases.

  Angela reasoned that the Winstons were not likely involved, but still would pass the data to the FBI.

  The third and last usable latent print was taking longer. Angela studied the arches, whorls and loops. It was from the right thumb, which in a standard ten-card is number one. She carefully coded its characteristics then scanned the print into her computer and submitted it to AFIS.

  Within a minute, Angela started getting hits as her submission was searched through local and regional information sharing networks and the FBI’s mother of all databanks, the IAFIS, which stored nearly seven hundred million impressions from law enforcement agencies across the country.

  As the process continued Angela left her desk to freshen her coffee.

  When she returned she had her results: four files closely matched her unidentified submission.

  Angela took a sip of coffee then set out to make a visual point-by-point comparison between the motel print and the four on the list. She zeroed in on the critical minutiae points, like the trail of ridges near the tip.

  The dissimilarities eliminated the first two candidates right off. For the last two Angela enlarged the samples even more to count the number of ridges, and distinct differences emerged for one of them.

  That left only one.

  Angela concentrated on her submission with the computer’s remaining suggested match. All the minutiae points matched. The branching of the ridges matched. Her breathing quickened as she began counting up the clear points of comparison where the sample matched.

  This is looking good.

  In some jurisdictions the courts required ten to fifteen clear point matches. She had fifteen and was still counting, knowing that one divergent point instantly eliminated a print.

  We’ve got a match.

  Angela then took the identification number of her new subject, and submitted a query into a number of databanks.

  She knew that the state’s parole division worked with other agencies to ensure that offenders on parole had their fingerprints on file so their cases could be tracked.

  Angela watched as her submission verified parolee history, offen
der identification, arrest records, convictions, and checked for any holds and commitments for other law enforcement agencies.

  Within minutes Angela was staring at the hardened face of a white male on her monitor.

  She went to the offender’s central file summary and read quickly through his offences, then reached for her phone to call Special FBI Agent Phil Grogan.

  This could be our break.

  48

  Dallas, Texas

  After eating a bowl of warmed-over chili in his trailer behind the garage, Lamont Harley Faulk settled into his sofa with his laptop on his chest.

  The garage was closed. Everything was quiet.

  He clicked onto his favorite sites, belched, savored another cold beer and the sweet deal he had. He operated Ray’s Right Fix Auto Repair for Ray, an old ex-con now confined to a wheelchair in an old folks’ home. Lamont got a salary and he got to live rent-free in the trailer. He was also making a tidy sum by allowing certain people in need of disappearing, like that idiot Mason Varno and his woman, to hide out at his dead uncle’s place.

  The old house was getting crowded.

  Lamont was happy here—working on cars, rarely dealing with people and being left alone with his secret pleasures. He clicked on a video from Thailand showing pretty little boys. He liked the young ones.

  The younger, the better.

  He belched, took a swig of beer and settled back to enjoy the number the two pretty things were doing to the old dude. Lamont was catching a nice buzz and getting aroused when the dog’s yelping killed the mood.

  He slammed his laptop shut.

  Stupid dipshit. Likely smelled the chili. He’s gonna pay.

  Lamont left the trailer, hit the yard lights and seized his baseball bat. He walked to the kennel, opened the gate and let loose on the dog, hammering the bat into its back, its stomach and legs. Panting in agony the animal limped into its shed, casting an angry look back at Lamont.

  “Stay in there and shut the hell up!”

  Lamont slammed the gate and tossed the bat.