Forbidden Birth

by William Rubin

  Chapter 3

  The Giver’s Laboratory

  April Cassidy lay unconscious, her hands and feet strapped down on the gurney as a long, thin needle pierced the skin just below her navel. With one hand The Giver drove the 18-gauge needle deep into her, with the other he used the ultrasound probe to guide his efforts. Everything was progressing as planned. The Giver applied negative pressure to the syringe attached to the end of the needle. Fluid and cells poured into it from April’s still body, taking what he needed from the young woman.

  In 1968 a Scandinavian named Mohr first described the technique The Giver was using―chorionic villus sampling or CVS. The medical community, including Smidt-Jensen and Hahnermann in the 1980s, refined the technique many times over. But it was The Giver who perfected it, utilizing amniocentesis and CVS in ways Smidt-Jensen and Hahnermann never could have imagined.

  Without warning, April lurched forward. She shook her head from side to side and yanked at the restraints around her hands and feet. The Giver struck her hard across the face with his fist. Her head snapped back from the impact and she again lay motionless on the gurney. He went back to his work, taking his time filling the syringe. Eventually he pulled the needle out.

  April came to again. “What the hell are you doing? Where am, aaargghh!—” April’s voice was cut short as The Giver grabbed the hair on the back of her head with one hand and yanked down. Her mouth flew open even more, and The Giver used his other hand to pour a purplish-red syrup down her throat. April tried spitting it up, but it was too late; she had swallowed enough for it to have its affect. She kicked and screamed, striking him with glancing blows that did nothing to stop him.

  April fought the lightheadedness and disorientation that washed over her. Despite her best efforts, she felt herself slipping away, and before she knew it, blackness overcame her.

  §

  April felt nausea rippling through her as she bounced from side to side in the backseat of The Giver’s black Lincoln Town Car. Rope tore into her arms and legs. Terror raced up and down her spine, consuming her. She tried to scream, but no words came forth. A tight gag made it impossible to utter a sound and difficult to even breathe, and a blindfold made it impossible for her to see where she was or what was going on.

  The car broke hard, and April’s momentum slammed her into the back of the seat in front of her. The door next to her flew open and The Giver’s powerful hands dragged her out. April flailed at him, scratching his hooded face as he struck her already bruised cheek.

  April landed in an irregular pile of softness as she started to come to. She heard the car race off and struggled to free herself as she slid down between slick bags. Her mind raced, and her senses strained to determine where she was. The stench of the garbage eventually reached her nose as she heard high-pitched squeals and felt rats scurry across her body. Just then she heard voices as the sweet smell of marijuana broke through the odor of the garbage.

  “Hey man, check it out! Some bitch was dumped in the garbage!” said a man in a black dirty hoody as he looked down at the nicely wrapped package in front of him.

  “Yeah. White trash makes good pussy! Let’s take a piece,” his friend responded, and he pulled out a blade and cut through the ropes holding April’s legs together.

  Fear shot through April as her entire body tensed. She knew if she didn’t break free, she would be raped and perhaps even killed.

  The first man tore at her pants as she kicked blindly at them. She smelled her own sweat and that of her attackers when a knife pressed against her throat.

  “Don’t fuckin’ move, bitch, or I’ll slice you up.”

  “Yeah, bitch, just hold still and enjoy it. You might learn something ʼbout how a real Latin lover takes care of his woman,” the other teased as he caressed her crotch with his hand.

  Blindfolded, bound, and gagged, April knew she had few options, but she wasn’t going to make it easy for them. She crossed her ankles and squeezed her legs together as tightly as she could. Her head was swimming from her struggle and whatever she was doped with earlier. She pressed her eyes closed, praying for the strength to resist their attack.

  Chapter 4

  Traffic was crawling as Kennedy and I worked our way north on Madison Avenue towards the 97th Street and 5th Avenue entrance to Central Park. “Is Petersen always such an asshole to deal with, Kev?”

  “You get used to him. Hell, ten years on the force, you get used to a lot of shit, Chris,” Kennedy said with intensity. “At least this case is going through the DMC. It must piss Petersen off to no end that a cop with six weeks on the job has made detective third grade and is running one of the department’s divisions,” Kennedy said as a grin engulfed his face. “It took Petersen twenty-two years to make chief of detectives.”

  “He’s not the only one pissed off. I get the feeling most of the guys on the force resent the hell out of me and wanna see me fail. I can’t blame them. If I was in their place, I’d be pissed too if some guy made a deal with the governor and commissioner to skip over years of hard work and be anointed their new golden boy.”

  “Yeah, makes you wish life was simpler, like back in the old days when we were playing ball, chasing girls, and trying to keep one step ahead of the cops. We had some good times growing up, huh, Chris?” Kennedy’s voice was tinged with nostalgia as he weaved around an SUV and cut off a cabbie just outside the entrance to the park.

  “I guess when you’re both branded outsiders by your classmates, you either stick together and become best friends or you beat the shit out of each other,” I said with a laugh. “We managed to do both.”

  §

  Our Jane Doe was lying in the grass, a few feet from the Jacqueline Onassis Reservoir, which she was pulled out of two hours earlier. Officers from the 2-2 were milling about the area, keeping the crime scene secure until we arrived. We ducked under the familiar black on yellow crime-scene tape and took a look at the body.

  “Aw, shit. What a fucking mess,” Kennedy said as the color drained from his face and he grabbed his nose.

  A strong stench, like a closet filled with rotten eggs, emanated from the body, which was badly mutilated in the abdominal and genital regions. Anaerobic organisms, those requiring little to no oxygen to survive, had eaten through our corpse’s gastrointestinal and respiratory tissue, creating the foul-smelling hydrogen sulfide. It was my first clue to how long ago Jane Doe had died.

  “Kev, you spoke to Doctor McGowan earlier, right? Any idea why she called us in on this one?”

  Kennedy was still trying to shake off the smell. I’m sure he had never seen a body this badly decomposed. “She said something about the vic maybe missing some organ, that’s all I remember.”

  I put on two layers of latex gloves and knelt by the body. “The body has turned red, indicating blood decomposition. And the nails on our vic’s right pinkie and ring fingers have already fallen out, along with several of her teeth.”

  Kennedy nodded, his face still ashen.

  “Decomposition has already obliterated about 25 percent of her body’s mass, courtesy of the maggots that have been feeding on her. I’m going in.”

  Kennedy cringed as I immersed my hands in what remained of her abdominal cavity. My fingers sloshed along her intestines, and what remained of her vital organs. Her pancreas was long gone, obliterated by the very digestive enzymes it held during life. Much of her liver had suffered the same fate.

  One structure was completely unaccounted for.

  “Kev, she’s got no uterus.”

  “What does that tell us, Chris?” Kennedy said, the color returning to his cheeks.

  “I’m not sure yet. The body is so badly decomposed I can’t tell how old our vic is, if she had it surgically removed while she was alive, or if it was taken around the time she died.”

  I stood and pulled off my gloves, slipping one inside the other to keep the decomp on the gloves off of my hands. “If there’s any blood left to analyze, we’ll need McGowan to run
a β HCG―a pregnancy test―and also check on levels of progesterone and estrogen. The progesterone and estrogen levels could tell us how many weeks pregnant she was or if she was peri or post-menopausal.”

  Kevin opened his notepad and started taking notes. “Any idea what might have killed her?”

  “Afraid not. Her abdomen and vaginal areas are pretty torn up. The killer may have done this to allow the methane, hydrogen sulfide, and carbon dioxide to escape from her body so she didn’t float to the surface while she decomposed.”

  “Or he might just have gotten off on mutilating her,” Kennedy said with a nod.

  “Either way, running creatine kinase levels, specifically the MM isoenzyme, found in skeletal muscle, may help us determine if the mutilation occurred before or after death, but I don’t know if we have enough blood for that.

  “One thing I can tell you, based on the color of the body, extent of decomposition, and the loss of two of her fingernails and some teeth, our vic has been dead a couple of weeks.”

  Kennedy nodded as he continued to write down my orders.

  I turned back to the corpse, studying it, when I was hit with a flashback of my battered and bruised mother laying in the ICU just hours after being attacked. A wave of fear and anxiety swept through me as dangerous levels of epinephrine-adrenaline-surged through my body. My illness was rearing its ugly head. My chest tightened up. Breathing became difficult. Christ, I couldn’t afford an attack here, in front of all these other officers, running my first investigation for the DMC. I became a detective, uprooted my family, tearing them away from a life of privilege, to stop violent criminals like the ones who killed my mother. I had no other way to support myself if I failed at this. Spatick and Commissioner Kelly had made it clear; they were sticking their necks out for me, and the DMC would be dismantled and I’d be out of a job if I didn’t turn things around for them and quickly. I stared at the reservoir, my gaze on its still waters. Deep breaths filled my lungs as I purged the anxiety and fear that clawed at me from within.

  §

  Kennedy and I stood in the autopsy room at 520 1st Avenue in Manhattan with Doctor Audrey McGowan. McGowan was the Chief Medical Examiner, or ME, for New York County.

  Our Jane Doe’s remains lay before us on the autopsy table. “As I told Detective Kennedy earlier, I thought you might help me to understand why our victim’s uterus was removed as well as offer some theories on her cause of death. That’s why I recommended Commissioner Kelly bring the DMC onto the case.”

  Kennedy and I looked at each other, then back at McGowan. “No theories yet on cause of death, doc. Were you able to run the blood tests I requested?”

  “The blood serum and cerebrospinal fluid were too badly decomposed, so analysis was impossible. I did, however, sample one of the vitreous cavities. Using a quantitative electrochemiluminescence immunoassay I was able to determine the test was positive for β HCG, but I could not determine gestational age.”

  Kennedy was dumbfounded. “How about in English, doc?”

  “Doctor McGowan took a sample from the back of our vic’s eye and it confirmed she was pregnant, but we don’t know how old the baby was,” I said.

  “Correct, Detective Ravello,” McGowan said with a hint of a smile. “We’re currently testing the vitreous for progesterone, estrogen, and creatine kinase, as well. We hope to have those results soon.”

  “What’s your gut feeling, doc, on whether the cuts were made in our vic before or after she died?” Kennedy asked.

  McGowan smiled. “I don’t entertain gut feelings, Detective Kennedy. But I will share my scientific conclusions about the abdominal and genital lacerations once I have the test results back. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some additional work to complete. ”

  Chapter 5

  A siren wailed as red and blue lights shot across the scene. Officer John Fitzpatrick was the first out of the car, racing after the two men running away from the girl. He thought he recognized the pair as local drug dealers but he wasn’t sure. His partner, Rory Marone, scanned the street, one hand on the gun in its holster, while he approached the girl.

  “Are you all right?” Marone said with a noticeable Italian accent as he dropped his defensive posture. He removed the girl’s blindfold and loosened her gag and the rope that bound her arms.

  “I don’t know. Where am I?” April cried.

  “Yer at a 185th Street and 3rd Avenue in the Bronx, honey. Let me help you out of this crap and let’s take a look at you.”

  Holding onto the officer, April rose to her full five feet nine inches. Her long, wavy brown hair was matted together in sweat-filled clumps. Her brown eyes were red-rimmed and her eyelids swollen. The black sweater that concealed her large, firm breasts was torn at the bottom.

  April leaned on Marone for support. She felt lightheaded and unsteady on her feet. April trembled, still very much shaken up by the attack. Her panties were torn off to one side. A few scratches ran between her hips and upper thighs. Her torn jeans lay wrapped around her ankles.

  “Let’s get these back up if we can,” said Marone as he helped April pull her jeans into place, stopping whenever she winced from the pain.

  “What hap—” Marone’s question was cut off by a voice coming over his radio.

  “Ror, no luck. The attackers got away. I’m on my way back. How’s the girl?” said Fitzpatrick.

  “She’s pretty shaken up, but in one piece. Just starting to question her.”

  Marone, a pot-bellied veteran of seventeen years tilted his head to the left and in a quiet voice asked, “So what happened, young lady? Anything I should know about?”

  April let out a short laugh at the cop’s joke. It felt good to release some of the tension and pain that filled her.

  “I don’t know how I got here. I was…oh, I don’t feel so great,” April said as she collapsed, unconscious, into Marone’s arms. Fitzpatrick came around the corner.

  “Rory, you old fuck, that’s about the only way a young lass will ever fall for you.”

  “Piss off, Fitz. At least I ain’t still living with my mother.”

  “You can’t beat three square meals a day and laundry services in exchange for flowers a couple of times a month and a peck on the cheek every evenin’.”

  “What do you say we get this one over to St. Barnabas,” Marone said as he flicked his head towards April, who was still passed out. “She don’t look too good.”

  With some effort, Marone picked April up in his arms and started walking towards the squad car.

  “I’d say that’s the first bright idea you’ve had all day, old man. I’ll drive.”

  §

  St. Barnabas Hospital ER was a cacophony of sounds and motion. Gunshot wound and stabbing victims came pouring through the ER doors every day. Patients cried for help, competing for attention with overhead requests for STAT X-rays, blood work, and surgical consults. Doctors, nurses, and technicians scrambled from one crisis to the next.

  Located on triangular-shaped grounds, the hospital is situated in the southwestern part of the Belmont section of the Bronx. The Lorillard Family, rich tobacco producers who owned much of this area of the Bronx in the 1800s, lived in a mansion where Barnabas now stands. They called this area “beautiful mountain,” which in Latin is belle mont. Barnabas Hospital was anything but a beautiful mountain to April Cassidy that night.

  Doctor Singh pulled the latex glove two-thirds of the way off his long, spindly hand and shot it like a rubber band into the wastebasket in the corner of the exam room.

  “Officers, she is going to be fine. A bit bumped and bruised but nothing too serious.”

  “Doc, was she raped?” asked Marone quietly.

  “No, I do not believe so. We are waiting for vaginal swabs for semen to come back, but I suspect those will be negative. But even if the swabs show semen, there were no signs on the examination of forced intercourse.”

  April, still woozy from the day’s events, lay on a stretcher on the side of th
e room opposite where Marone, Fitzpatrick, and Doctor Singh stood. Her IV ran D5W, glorified sugar water, into her left arm at a steady rate. A nasal cannula did the same with oxygen. She looked decidedly uncomfortable on the stretcher in her standard issue blue and white hospital gown as she eyed her clothes, piled in a bag on the floor next to her. April found the room’s green walls and white ceiling depressing and cold as she strained to overhear the conversation.

  “What else can you tell us about her condition, doc?” asked Fitzpatrick.

  “Well, her blood work should be back soon. I expect it to be normal. After her pregnancy test results, she will go to X-ray and then we would like—”

  “No way! I am not staying around for anymore poking or prodding, or X-rays or anything!” April said in a loud, high-pitched voice. “I want to get out of here.”

  Doctor Singh walked over to the stretcher. “April, I do not think that is wise. While your injuries seem superficial, you are dehydrated and should stay overnight for some more tests and observation. It is in your best interests to follow my orders.”

  “Thank you very much for your concern, Doctor, uh, Singh,” April said as she squinted to read his name tag. “I appreciate it, I really do,” she said with greater composure than moments earlier. “But I’ve had enough for one day. I just want to go home and rest.” April sighed.

  “Hon, why don’t you do like the Doctor says, okay? You want us to call someone for you? Will that make you feel better?” asked Marone, concern evident in his tone.

  “No. I just need to get out of here, now.” April slid off the stretcher, losing her balance and almost falling as she bent down to get her bag of clothes. “May I have some privacy, please? I need to get changed.”