Courting Disaster

by Joanne Pence

  Stan gaped at his rearranged bedroom.

  “This is wonderful.” Hannah looked at him with adoring eyes. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “It…it’s nothing,” he said stoically. “I’ll make up the couch for myself.”

  Angie sent Stan out to find an all-night grocery to buy basic supplies for a baby, while she helped Hannah set up a couple of bottles of formula.

  It was near dawn when Hannah, wearing one of Angie’s nightgowns, sank into Stan’s bed, exhausted, and Angie headed back to her own apartment.

  Stan still hadn’t returned from the store.

  Chapter 10

  As soon as Angie woke up the next morning she was on the phone with Paavo to tell him about her adventurous night with Stan’s strange new girlfriend. He warned her to stay away from Hannah and her troubled relationship. Every cop knew that domestic disputes, even if the couple wasn’t married, were potentially the most violent and the most dangerous.

  Connie was much more interested, and she had news for Angie as well. She’d donated her hot tub clowns and a few other items to the public TV station’s week-long annual auction to raise money and pledges, and while at the KQED studio, she learned that the station had gotten a number of the city’s biggest restaurants to donate dinners for four. The auction director had planned to have the restaurateurs share the TV camera to promote their restaurants and the event.

  As soon as Connie said that, Angie knew it was a disaster waiting to happen. Connie affirmed it, saying jealousy ran rampant, with each owner demanding peak audience time and more minutes on camera than any other owner. The whole concept was threatening to fall apart.

  While Connie spoke, Angie thought about the restaurateurs all gathered in one spot—owners of the type of place Serefina would likely choose for a party. She barely had a week and a half left. Maybe she’d gone about this all wrong and needed to talk to the owners themselves.

  Just then an idea sprang to mind. It was the answer to her prayers—and maybe KQED’s as well.

  Paavo got himself a cup of French roast, black, at the South San Francisco Starbucks, then took a seat at the table across from Sal. He’d called him that morning, planning to discuss face-to-face the foolishness of sitting outside Schull’s apartment. If she saw him, she’d have a case against him that Johnnie Cochran wouldn’t be able to get him out of.

  To his amazement, Sal showed up wearing what looked like a doctor’s white jacket.

  “What’s that getup?” Paavo asked.

  “When you called this morning,” Sal said, “I realized you’d be the perfect foil. Let’s go.”

  “Go? Go where?” Paavo’s voice rose. “We need to talk.”

  “We’ll talk in the car.”

  Sal headed out the door, and Paavo followed, fuming. Now he knew where Angie got her one-track mind.

  “Do you want to drive?” Sal asked. “Or shall I call a taxi? I’m not sure of the way, and I don’t like driving in strange neighborhoods.”

  “The way to what?” Paavo asked.

  “The Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital.”

  After much arguing, which did no good, Paavo decided to drive them himself in hopes of convincing Sal to change his mind. His hope was in vain.

  “May as well park in the doctors’ parking,” Sal said.

  Paavo went to the general area. “It’s not going to work,” he warned.

  Both men got out of the car. “Come along and find out,” Sal answered, clipping an ID badge to his breast pocket. The badge had his photo and was from San Francisco General, which worked closely with the city’s mental health facility. “It’s amazing what a little money can buy,” he said, patting the badge.

  “You’ll get caught.”

  “Dio! You’re like the Voice of Doom,” Sal complained. “The same thing over and over. Relax! You’ll be there to arrest me if I do anything wrong. I just want to look at her records. It’s not as if I’m going to rob the place!”

  “Sal, it’s illegal.” Paavo said the words as slowly and forcefully as he could.

  “So is jaywalking.”

  He headed for the hospital, Paavo at his side.

  “Excuse me, nurse.” Sal strode up to the woman at the reception desk. “Where can I find the archived medical records? I need to look up something right away that’s a good twenty years old.”

  She looked him over quizzically. “I’m sorry, but do you belong here?” she asked.

  Here we go, Paavo thought.

  Sal lifted himself up to his full height, his voice quivering with indignity. “I’m Dr. Salvatore Amalfi. Who do you think I am?” He peered down his nose at her.

  “Oh, of course…I’m so sorry,” the nurse murmured. Then, stronger, “You’ll need to go to the basement. Keep to the right when you get off the elevator. It’s all the way at the end of the hall.”

  “Thanks.”

  Paavo breathed deeply as they took the elevator.

  They got a few surprised looks as they passed a couple of orderlies and a doctor and walked through the basement corridor, but no one questioned them.

  They went through the file cabinets until they found the one with her records, listed under her original name, Janice Schullmann.

  Sal pulled it out and read, Paavo peering over his shoulder.

  She’d been engaged to be married, and one week before the wedding, she learned that her fiancé had run off to Reno and eloped with another woman. When he returned, she tried to run him over with her car.

  She accepted a stay in the mental hospital, and in return the ex-fiancé didn’t press charges.

  The diagnosis in layman’s terms was “a psychotic episode brought on by extreme jealousy.”

  “A very scary woman,” Paavo murmured.

  Sal nodded, his face a little pale.

  Hannah padded barefoot into the kitchen, where Stan sat at the table reading the Chronicle. Her face was still wan and tired, and she was bundled in a thick terry cloth bathrobe from Angie.

  “You’re awake,” he said, jumping to his feet.

  She was already asleep when he finally made it back from the grocery last night, or, more accurately, this morning. He rarely went grocery shopping. Trying to shop for a woman was bad enough, for a baby was impossible. He read labels until his eyes went all bleary and finally a female store clerk took pity on him and helped him out.

  He’d slept on the sofa in his clothes, not wanting to disturb her by going into the bedroom to get his pajamas.

  “Are you sure you should be up?” he asked as he dashed around the small table and pulled out a chair for her. “Sit, please.”

  “Thank you, but—”

  “Would you like some coffee? Tea?” He darted from the table to the Mr. Coffee on the counter.

  “Coffee is fine,” she said.

  Coffeepot in hand, he looked at her seated at the table. “Oh, a cup.” He put down the pot, dashed to the cupboard, pulled out a cup, studied it, put it back, and took out another, finally settling on a third with a matching saucer. He hurried back to the pot and poured, then set it in front of her.

  She asked for milk and sugar. He’d bought milk, and found some rock-hard sugar cubes in the back of a cupboard.

  “I don’t want to put you to any trouble,” she said.

  “You’re no trouble.” He sat again, watching her, and pushed his newspaper aside.

  She took a sip, then put down the cup. “I’ll figure out where to go and what to do soon. I just never expected…”

  “It’s all right. You’re welcome here. Oh! You must be starving.” He jumped up and opened the refrigerator. “We’ve got Egg-Os, Jimmy Dean sausage breakfast”—leaving the door open, he turned to a cabinet—“instant Quaker Oats, Pop-Tarts, and I’m not sure what else,” he said dejectedly as he couldn’t remember what else he’d bought. Maybe nothing. “What would you like?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, her head swiveling fast as he rushed about. “I’m not very hungry.”


  “Well…” He wasn’t sure what to do. Was he supposed to decide for her?

  “Just some toast, please,” she said finally.

  “Toast…toast.” On top of the dinner plates he found the long loaf of Wonder bread. Glad he bought it, he took two slices and was about to drop them into the toaster when the baby let out a cry. The bread flew from his hand and onto the floor.

  As Hannah left the room, he tossed the dropped bread into the garbage and put more in the toaster, then sat again, feeling a bit weary himself. He turned back to his newspaper, unsure where he’d left off.

  She soon returned. “Baby’s fine. Took a little of her bottle and went right back to sleep.”

  He folded the newspaper shut, then studied her a moment before saying, “Angie said this is about the baby’s father.”

  She gripped the cup with both hands. “It’s a long story. Not one that’s easy to talk about.”

  “She said you’re afraid of him.” The toast popped from the toaster and the sound made him jump as well. He never ate toast—not his own, anyway. He put it on a plate, then found the butter and remembered that he’d even bought some strawberry preserves. Slowly, as he perused his once-neat-and-bare cupboards, the horror that was last night’s shopping adventure came back to him. He’d never seen such a huge food bill in his life. “How did he find you? Wasn’t the name you gave fake?”

  She nodded. “My real name is Polish, or so I’ve been told. It’s pronounced Jan-ick, but spelled D-z-a-n-i-c. Weird, huh? Sometimes it’s easier to simply use Jones. It isn’t as if I knew any Dzanics anyway. I’m the last one in the whole world, it seems.” She paused a moment, as if to quell the somber effect the words had on her. “I’d forgotten that I once told him I sometimes use Jones. If I hadn’t been in such a state when we got to the hospital, I might have come up with something more original.”

  “He called the hospitals?”

  She nodded.

  “Why? I thought you said he was out of your life. It doesn’t sound like it.”

  “There’s nothing between us but hatred.”

  Her words were so stark, her expression so unhappy and troubled, Stan wasn’t sure what to say. Obviously, there was a lot more to the story or she wouldn’t be hiding.

  “Here’s the newspaper,” he said, placing it beside her plate.

  She shook her head. “My social worker said it’s too depressing. She wants to make sure I don’t get any more upset”—she used her napkin to wipe her eyes—“than I am. I’m so sorry to be so much trouble. I didn’t mean to intrude.” Sniffling, she buttered her toast. She didn’t touch the preserves.

  He stood. “Guess I’ll take my shower and get dressed now while you’re out here. I didn’t want to disturb you earlier.”

  “You wouldn’t have,” she said.

  He went into the bedroom and quietly got some clean clothes. Whenever the baby made any sound, he froze, not wanting to wake her. Her cry was surprisingly loud. He remembered how red and wrinkled she was the first time he saw her, and now, only thirty-six or so hours later, she looked quite human. It was all very amazing.

  Under the shower the hot water beat down on him like needles as he tried to make sense out of all this.

  He wasn’t the type of man that women and children—or anyone—turned to for help. Having a woman and child show up on his doorstep was more than strange. He’d given Hannah his bed, yet had no idea who she was or what was going on in her life.

  He soaped his body, scrubbing hard.

  For all he knew, Tyler Marsh was insanely jealous and was loading a shotgun at that very moment. If he found her at the hospital, could he find her here as well?

  Why did I let her come here? Stan asked that question over and over as he poured shampoo in his hand and began to lather his hair. She was nothing to him. None of this was his responsibility. He added more shampoo.

  A glob of soap bubbles slid down his forehead into his eyes.

  Eyes stinging, he groped for a washcloth. Why did this strange woman raise such a sense of responsibility in him? Finally, hair clean, eyes clear, he turned the temperature lever down to cold to clear his head and his emotions.

  Chapter 11

  After talking to the auction director at KQED, then dropping in on Stan and Hannah to make sure everything was all right over there, Angie went shopping.

  Some people might say that was a frivolous thing to do in the midst of her neighbor’s predicament and her own questions about her engagement party. But she had good reasons.

  She was going to be on television, for one.

  And Baby Kaitlyn had none of the things all babies need, for another.

  It took her no time to find a Jil Sander plum-colored jacket, a knit scoop-necked blouse, and gold accessories that would look tasteful and elegant on television. She also bought matching plum slacks, even though she’d be seen only from the waist up.

  Next, she headed for the baby department at Macy’s.

  Little girl outfits, even for newborns, were so adorable she couldn’t resist buying lots more than she’d expected, as well as receiving blankets and booties. She remembered her sisters extolling the virtues of Target. Once there, she loaded her cart with diapers, formula, bottles, Desitin, baby soap, wipes, plastic sheeting, and whatever it seemed Hannah might need.

  Angie saw no choice but to do this. Stan was clueless about babies, and Hannah had confessed she didn’t have anything ready. Had she imagined the baby was just a fantasy or what? A mother not preparing for her own child was inconceivable. It only added to her conviction that something very strange was going on.

  “Here I am,” Angie said as she walked into Stan’s apartment with four shopping bags of goodies. Stan was appalled by the mass of equipment, supplies, and clothes dumped on his living room floor. He had no idea such little creatures could need so much stuff. He was even more appalled when she handed him her car keys and sent him down to the garage to get the box that had been wedged into the back seat—a changing table. He’d never heard of such a thing.

  Hannah was speechless and teary-eyed as she opened packages filled with adorable baby clothes. When Stan returned carrying the big box, Angie said, “You’ll have to put it together so Hannah can use it.”

  “It’s not put together?” he asked.

  “Of course not. Just follow the directions.”

  As Stan puzzled over the nuts, bolts, and myriad pieces of wood and plastic that fell from the box when he opened it, Angie noticed that Hannah was growing increasingly pale. Although she’d been trying to stay up so as not to make Stan think she was a “burden,” as she put it, Angie sent her straight to bed.

  She then went through Stan’s kitchen and made a long list of basics that he still needed to buy—things like eggs, lettuce, salad dressing, fresh vegetables, soups, rice, and pasta. No wonder he was always eating at her house! He had nothing in his cupboards but junk food and packaged mixes. She’d have to explain to him that not everything came ready-made.

  When she handed him the grocery list, he gawked at it. “Sanitary napkins?” he asked, his voice strangled. “You don’t mean…women’s stuff, do you?”

  “Kotex—that kind of thing, you know,” she said.

  “She needs that now?” he cried.

  “Right after having a baby, of course!”

  “I have to buy it?” His voice was so high it squeaked.

  A short time later, while Angie pulled him away from the instructions he was puzzling over to show him where she was putting the baby things she’d bought, the doorbell rang. Stan answered.

  “Diaper service,” the man said. He was big, burly, and bald, and stood before Stan, his chest pushed out, with two enormous sacks of diapers in one hand and a plastic bucket under his arm. “Where’dya want ’em?”

  Stan’s mouth dropped and he turned to Angie. “Do I want them?”

  “Of course! You can never have too many diapers. Put them by that wall,” she instructed the deliveryman. He handed
Stan the bucket and did as told.

  “Okay,” he said, filling out the bill and handing it to Stan as well. “I’ll be back next week ta pick up the dirty diapers and give ya clean ones. We’ll figure out if you’re gettin’ too many or too few. See ya next week.”

  “Next week?” Stan, the bucket still in hand, turned to Angie after the man had gone. “I’m supposed to keep dirty diapers here for a week?”

  “She’s just a baby,” Angie said. “Go put the diaper pail next to the toilet. You simply shake them clean in the toilet, and then put them in the bucket. Some of my sisters liked the disposables, others swore by Di-dee-wash. Now you have a choice.”

  “Goody,” Stan muttered.

  When Angie left for her apartment, Stan was still trying to figure out how to put the changing table together. She had no idea brand new motherhood was so tiring, she thought, as she lay down to take a power nap.

  She became wide awake, however, when a FedEx deliveryman arrived with a package from the Acme Wedding Supply Company.

  She tore it open. A message inside said, “As ordered for engagement party.”

  When she looked at the contents, she knew it was time for a serious discussion with her mother. Surely she could come up with a simple, nonconfrontational—okay, sneaky—way to find out exactly what Serefina was up to because this had to stop.

  Inside the box were one hundred papier-mâché doves—all painted black.

  Hannah was driving him insane! How could she have disappeared this way?

  Tyler nearly tore Marin General apart looking for her, as well as the administrator’s office. He told them he was the baby’s father and demanded information about the child’s whereabouts. But since Hannah had left his name off the document, he had nothing to substantiate his claim. The fact that the administrators had to inform him the child was a girl and not a boy, didn’t help his credibility any.

  Even threats of lawsuits wouldn’t get them to open their records to him.

  He went to San Francisco General to see what their records showed, only to learn she’d lied about going there.