“Grim,” Darcy said.
I nodded. Even under a bright, blue sky—and if I imagined it without the pungent odor of garbage—it looked like a place you didn’t want to live. It didn’t even particularly look like a place I wanted to visit.
“I hope this isn’t a waste of time.”
“We’re here,” Darcy said, “so we might as well go in. And inside, it probably won’t smell like garbage.”
It was a hopeful thought.
We followed the signs to the visitor’s parking lot, and slotted the car into an empty space between an old Pontiac with a peeling top and a pickup truck with oversized tires and a painted beach scene that included a buxom young woman in a bikini on the tailgate.
“We have to leave everything in the car,” I told Darcy. “All we can bring inside is one key—I have to take the house keys off the chain and leave them in the car—and our driver’s licenses for identification. No wallet, no purse, no money.”
She looked pained, but started to remove her ID from her wallet.
“You can keep your watch and two earrings. If you have more, you’ll have to take them off. I get to keep my wedding ring and one other ring.” My pre-engagement ring, the one Rafe gave me last Christmas, with the blue stone. He’d told me I wasn’t ready for him to propose—he’d been wrong about that; I’d have accepted on the spot if he’d popped the question on Christmas Day—but he’d still wanted me to wear his ring. So I did. And would continue to.
“There are strict rules for behavior once we’re inside,” I continued, from my vast experience and the reading I’d done on the computer last night. “We can’t hug her—not that we’d want to. We can’t give her anything. No passing anything across the table. We can’t touch her, or she us.”
So at least I didn’t have to worry about her throwing herself across the table to try to strangle me. And if she did, there’d be someone on guard to stop her, since it was against the rules.
“We can’t really leave the table—unless it’s to go to the vending machine, and I don’t plan to buy a vending machine card. This isn’t a social visit.”
Darcy nodded.
“We’ll have to pass through a metal detector on our way in. They are allowed to frisk us, so don’t be upset if they do.”
“You’ve been through this before,” Darcy said. “Was it your husband?”
Not at all. “Rafe went to work for the TBI ten years before I met him again. But I went to visit my old boss in Riverbend Penitentiary last year. He had some paperwork he wanted to give me. I guess he must have gotten special permission to pass it over the table.”
“Was it uncomfortable?”
“The prison? Quite. And I don’t expect this to be any easier. Although they’re all women, so maybe that will make a difference.”
At least they wouldn’t be looking at me as if I were lunch, the way some of the men at Riverbend had done. Although the inmates being female could mean that most of the visitors were male, and that might be another version of awkward.
I squared my shoulders. “Let’s get this over with.”
Darcy nodded and fell into step beside me.
We joined the line at the checkpoint, where we explained to the big, beefy (male) guard that we were there to see Denise Seaver.
No, we’d never been to see her before, so we weren’t on her list of visitors. Was that a problem?
It wasn’t.
Did she have a list of visitors? Could we see it?
We couldn’t, but the guard said he’d get Inmate Seaver down for us. And then we were processed in, though the ID check, the metal detector, and the frisk search.
The meetings took place in a big room full of tables. We were directed to one, and sat there and waited for Denise Seaver to be brought down. Around us, other families were waiting, too, or chatting with their incarcerated members and friends. Here and there, subdued children sat kicking their legs while they waited to be set free. Running and playing was not allowed in the visiting area.
All the inmates were dressed in the same blue shirt and pants. They were similar to scrubs, and maybe that made Denise Seaver feel at home.
She walked in a couple of minutes later, accompanied by a female guard. They stopped just inside the door to look around. I saw Doctor Seaver scan the room, and there was no mistaking the change of expression on her face when she saw me. Her eyes narrowed, and her lips compressed to a line.
She said something to the guard; I assumed it to be along the lines of not wanting to see or talk to me.
Was that allowed? For a prisoner to refuse to talk to someone?
It probably was. It’s not like we were anyone official.
I pasted what could probably pass for a friendly smile on face—at least from a distance and to someone who didn’t know me. In truth, I had no more desire to talk to Denise Seaver than she obviously had to talk to me. However, she might have information about Ora Sweet, information we needed, and for that, I could make nice for the time that I had to.
The guard must have laid down the law, or maybe just convinced Doctor Seaver to give us a chance, because they came toward the table.
“You have an hour,” the guard informed us as Denise Seaver took a seat on the opposite side of the table. “No touching. No passing anything across the table. No profanity.”
Sheesh, I wasn’t sure about that last one. I already wanted to swear, just looking at her.
“I don’t think this will take an hour,” I told the guard, “but thank you for the information.”
She nodded and stepped back. As she headed for the door, presumably to bring the next inmate down for a visit with her loved ones, I turned to Denise Seaver.
“Doctor.”
Her lips twisted. “Savannah. I see you got yourself in the family way again.”
Denise Seaver had been my OB-GYN the last time I was pregnant. I’d ended up in Skyline Hospital in Nashville when I had the miscarriage, but she’d seen me both before and after that, in Columbia. She knew all about it, and about Rafe. Once upon a time, she had considered taking him away from LaDonna and selling him to some couple somewhere who couldn’t have a baby of their own. But as she’d explained, thirty-one years ago, there’d been less demand for a mixed-race baby. If he’d been the Swedish supermodel type—blond and blue-eyed—things would have been different.
“Rafe and I got married,” I told her, lifting my hand with the wedding band. “Two months ago.”
“Your mother must be thrilled.” The implication was that Mother would be having kittens.
I smiled. “Actually, she is. I didn’t think she would be—she wasn’t at first—but now that she’s gotten to know him, I think she likes him better than she likes me. We’re very happy.”
The conversation obviously wasn’t going the way Denise Seaver had hoped. She’d always been adept at taking jabs at people, and now the jabs weren’t working. She looked at Darcy instead. “Who’s your friend?”
I made the introductions. “Darcy works for Dix and Jonathan at the law firm.”
“Of course.” Denise Seaver smirked knowingly.
“We’re trying to find Darcy’s biological mother,” I said. Might as well just spit it out, right? Nothing ventured, nothing gained, and so on. And besides, I didn’t want to stay here any longer than I had to. Sitting across the table from her made my skin crawl. “We believe Darcy was born at St. Jerome’s Hospital to a young woman who called herself Ora Sweet. She gave her address as 4521 Water Street in Columbia.”
Doctor Seaver nodded pleasantly.
“There’s no such address. And no one named Ora Sweet ever lived on Water Street in Columbia. Or for that matter anyone else named Sweet.”
“Of course not,” Denise Seaver said pleasantly. And yet not pleasantly as all, if you know what I mean.
“I would have brought a copy of the birth certificate to show you, but they don’t let us bring anything in here other than car keys.”
She nodded.
/> “But we thought you might remember her.”
“Oh, I remember. Of course I do.”
She sounded very complacent about it. Darcy straightened on her chair.
I gave her a warning glance and turned back to Doctor Seaver. “Are you sure? It was a long time ago.” And a dose of healthy disbelief might get us more information than breathless anticipation. Darcy had enough of that for both of us. I might as well provide the counterpoint.
“I had just finished medical school,” Denise Seaver said, “and come home to practice. She was one of my first clients.”
You always remember your first. Or something.
“So I assume you knew her name wasn’t really Ora Sweet?”
“Of course,” Denise Seaver said. “We’d gone to school together, after all. She was a year ahead of me, but I knew her quite well. I was the one who told her to give a fake name at the hospital, so her real one wouldn’t show up on the birth certificate.”
Good to know. “So then you can tell us her real name.”
Denise Seaver shook her head, her lips shaped into a superior little smile. “Oh, no.”
“No?”
She leaned back, plump little hands folded over her plump stomach. She has a very earth-motherly look about her, with long gray hair and a comfortable sort of figure, and the best part of a year in prison hadn’t changed her looks overmuch. Nor her attitude. “There’s something called doctor-patient confidentiality, my dear.”
“I’m aware of it,” I said. Condescending witch. “But you’re in here, and for all we know, she might have been the victim of a crime. Elspeth was. She was told her baby was dead, and instead you took David and sold him.”
“Those were adoption fees, dear.”
Her composure wasn’t the least bit ruffled.
“And you might have done the same to Ora Sweet.” Or whatever her name was.
Denise Seaver shook her head. “It was her decision. She was of age, and capable of making her own choices. Unlike Elspeth, who was underage, and whose father made the decision for her. There was nothing illegal about it.”
“There certainly was,” I said. “You took her baby and told her he had died. If that isn’t illegal, it’s immoral, at the very least.” And directly opposed to the Hippocratic oath. First, do no harm. If harm hadn’t been done to Elspeth Caulfield, I didn’t know what had.
Denise Seaver just smirked. I reined in my emotions, since this was ancient history, and I couldn’t let it interfere with what we were trying to do here today. We had to find out about Ora Sweet, and antagonizing Denise Seaver wasn’t likely to get us the information we wanted.
While I restrained myself, Doctor Seaver turned to Darcy. “I’m so sorry, my dear. I know it must be hard to hear these things.”
I wondered whether Darcy picked up on the delighted maliciousness in her voice, or whether I was able to just because I’d heard it before.
“But your mother didn’t want you,” Denise Seaver said, twisting the knife. “She was of age. Mid-twenties. She was more than capable, mentally and financially, of caring for a baby. She just didn’t want to.”
“That’s a horrible thing to say!” I said. “You don’t know what her life was like. You might have gone to school with her, but that was years earlier. And you had no idea what was going on in her life when she came to you. She might have been very reluctant to give Darcy up!”
Doctor Seaver giggled. “She seemed happy enough to sign the papers, dear.”
Sure. “So you’re not going to tell us who she was.”
Denise Seaver shook her head. “I told you. Doctor-patient confidentiality.”
“Of course.” There was nothing more we could do here. I got to my feet. “Let’s go, Darcy.”
Darcy got to her feet, too, but reluctantly. “I just want to know where I come from,” she told Doctor Seaver.
Denise Seaver nodded, and managed to look like she understood and sympathized. “I’m sorry I can’t help you, dear.” If she had been allowed to reach out and touch, I’m sure she would have leaned over to pat Darcy’s hand.
I turned to signal the guard who had brought Darcy in earlier that we were ready to go, only to catch the back of her head as she opened the door into the visitation room for another inmate. The newcomer was dressed in the same boring blue scrubs as everyone else. Except on her, they looked—if not like high fashion, at least somewhat elegant.
She was short, with coloring similar to Darcy’s. Long, straight, black hair was scraped back from a stunning face with flawless caramel skin and exotic almond-shaped eyes.
The last time I’d seen her, she’d been wearing a short, tight cocktail dress, and her lips had been lacquered red. Now they were pale, but still perfect. Even without makeup, she was gorgeous. And not just that, but she glowed.
Pregnancy hormones.
“She looks ready to pop,” Darcy said, and woke me.
I glanced at her, and then at Denise Seaver. The doctor was looking at me, her expression calculating. “She’s due in couple of weeks,” she said.
I swallowed and tried to make sure my voice was steady, and that I sounded untroubled. “At least by the time I get that big, it won’t be so hot outside.”
Not that she looked like she was suffering. Not from heat, or acid reflux, or swollen ankles, or anything else. None of the things that were bothering me. She glided across the floor without looking right or left—thankfully that meant she didn’t notice me—and took a seat at a table on the other side of the room, across from a couple of Hispanic women. One about her own age, with a similarly pretty face, and one older. A mother and a sister, maybe.
“What will happen to her baby?” Darcy asked, and saved me from trying to come up with something coherent to say. My mind was busy calculating due dates and conception dates. Nine months from September 1st, give or take...
“She will keep it with her for the first few months,” Denise Seaver said. “After that, her sister will raise it. Until she’s released.”
“When will that be? What is she in here for?”
“Organized crime and a host of other things,” Denise Seaver said. “That baby will be going to high school by the time she gets out.”
She sounded gleeful. I wasn’t surprised. Her excuse—what she’d always told herself to justify her need to take other people’s children away—was that she’d been providing them with better homes. The fact that this baby wouldn’t be brought up by a criminal mother, in a penal institution, was one of those things that would totally float Denise Seaver’s boat.
“That’s a shame.” Darcy looked at me, probably wondering why I just stood there like I’d been turned into a pillar of salt. “Did you want to leave, Savannah?”
I did. I really, really did.
“Yes. Let’s go.” I didn’t wait for Denise Seaver to make another snide remark, or for the guard to turn and notice us. I just headed for the door and let Darcy play catch-up behind me.
Fourteen
“That was a waste of time,” Darcy said when we were outside the checkpoint and on our way across the parking lot to the car. The hot air combined with the stench from the dump across the highway conspired to make me feel nauseated, or maybe it was just the shock. “We didn’t learn anything.”
She stopped by the passenger door of the Volvo.
I unkeyed it so she could get in, and then walked around the car and opened the driver’s side door. “I’m not so sure. I think we learned a few things.”
Like the fact that Carmen Arroyo was pregnant, and that her conception date coincided with the time last winter when she and Rafe had rolled around under the blankets.
But that wasn’t what Darcy was talking about. I turned the key in the ignition and cranked the AC up to high. While we waited for the car to cool down, I pushed the thoughts of Carmen and Rafe to the side and continued, “We learned that Ora Sweet—or whoever she was—really was your mother. It sounded like Denise Seaver confirmed that, right?”
“We learned that you were born at St. Jerome’s Hospital. We learned that Denise Seaver knew Ora. We learned that Ora was Doctor Seaver’s patient. We learned that they went to school together before Ora was pregnant. High school, I assume, since I doubt Ora went to medical school.”
Darcy nodded reluctantly.
“That’s all information we can use.” I wasn’t sure exactly how yet—I wasn’t thinking straight—but once I did, I’d come up with something.
“She didn’t want me,” Darcy said.
I pulled on the gear shift and took my foot off the brake. “You don’t know that. Just because Denise Seaver said so, doesn’t mean it’s true.”
“She had no reason to lie,” Darcy said.
“She doesn’t need a reason. She’s mean. And angry. And in prison, probably for the rest of her life. She has no incentive to tell the truth.”
“So what do we do now?” Darcy wanted to know.
That was the question, wasn’t it? As we rolled out of the parking lot and onto the road, putting Southern Belle Hell behind us, I asked myself the same question.
What did I do now?
Call Rafe and tell him I’d seen Carmen, and she was carrying what might be his baby?
Go home, to the house on Potsdam, and tell him face to face?
Think about it, before I did anything?
Or just pretend I hadn’t seen her? She might have been sleeping with other men too, around that same time. It wasn’t like their affair had been a love affair. For him it had been business. She had expected him to be seduceable, so he’d let himself be seduced. To do anything else would have put his life and the mission in danger. I’d come to terms with that.
Mostly.
Hell—heck—he and I hadn’t even been involved then. He’d left Nashville for Atlanta after the miscarriage, believing the baby I’d lost had been Todd Satterfield’s. Not like he’d feel any kind of loyalty to me after that. There had been no reason to say no to Carmen and every reason to say yes.
Uncertain Terms (Savannah Martin Mysteries Book 12) Page 16