Maternal Harbor

by Marie F. Martin

  Lute reached for the door.

  “Just a damned minute,” Morgan said. “Don’t wait for Thorburn to report in. Go over to West and impress on them to hold her. Schroeder’s not going to believe this one.”

  “I’ll take Hal with me. Two voices are better than one.”

  “We have a fresh corpse at Green River. Hals’ on that. Everyone’s tied up with some kind of emergency. It’s up to you to make sure those babies are safe.”

  Back at his desk, Lute picked up the phone. “Is that you, Sylvia?”

  “And who else sounds like me?”

  “Edith Bunker.” Lute chuckled at the dispatcher’s groan. “Thorburn report in yet?”

  “Negative, she wasn’t where she was supposed to be. They’re looking for her now.”

  “I’m leaving for West Precinct. Keep me updated on my cell.”

  “Roger.”

  Lute turned on his cell and hurried to the elevator. How did this happened? He had sensed the good in Teagan. But the captain wanted more than hunches. His cell phone rang as he pushed the button.

  “Detective Lute?” Teagan’s voice.

  He held the receiver tighter to his ear, cutting off the noise of the room behind him.

  “Did you get my message about Tracy?”

  “Yes. Where are you?” Lute heard a click. Before he tucked his phone way, it rang again.

  “Teagan?”

  “A Bryan Winslow from Montana is down here at security and wants to see you.”

  “I’ll be right down.”

  Lute stewed while he waited for the elevator to reach the main lobby. Ever since Teagan’s last phone call, the knot in his gut told him she was telling the truth. Now time was being wasted, time to let her pull something really dumb. One of the patrolmen should’ve spotted her and Erica should’ve been brought in by now. And now he had to question Winslow, who might or might not provide enough information to back up her story. If he does have something, maybe Morgan would believe it. Maybe Schroeder would believe it. Maybe I will too.

  Lute rubbed his forehead. It was impossible to work a murder investigation on maybes.

  The Cedar Village apartment complex teemed with playing children. A cluster of gossiping mothers watched over them near a swing set. Pai and Jimmy should be among them, Teagan thought. Jimmy in a fancy wicker carriage, and his mother in a red silk dress. Pai’s memory flourished for a moment. She had the most perceptive almond eyes; pools of emotion, always ready to shine in laughter or sorrow.

  That is until the day they changed to worry: Teagan had gone with Doretta and Pai to buy clam chowder at the wharf and sit in the breeze, watching sailboats ply the Sound. Erica strolled by and acted surprised to see them. Pai was always on guard after that.

  Teagan straightened the blanket over the Mauser and set the lock on the Jeep door.

  The curious mothers watched her every step. One separated herself from the group. “Hi,” Sung said. “I haven’t seen you since Pai died. I know you were a friend of hers.”

  Teagan remembered their meeting at the clinic. “Is Duffy home?”

  “He left to buy groceries.” Sung gestured toward the visitor’s parking area. “He must be back though. I don’t see the squad car.”

  Teagan’s nerves sharpened. “Squad car?”

  “I must say it seems strange to leave a baby with a cop, but I guess Pai met her at the clinic.”

  Teagan bolted across a short stretch of lawn and ran up the steps two at a time.

  Pai’s door gaped open.

  “Duffy!” Teagan charged inside. Silence chilled her, and she halted. Dirty dishes filled the sink and a baby bottle sat on the cupboard. She called again, softly this time. She crept down the hall afraid of what she’d find.

  Don’t be dead.

  Please don’t be dead. She licked her lips and pushed open Pai’s bedroom door. Empty. The nursery was too.

  Erica took Jimmy!

  Teagan bolted back through the apartment, but skidded to a dead stop at the door. Pai once said Duffy owned a handgun. She dashed back to the master bedroom and yanked out drawers, checked under pillows, and ran her hand the length of the closet’s top shelf. Nothing. She swept the room with a sharp look. Where? Where? Of course. The mattress. Sure enough a handgun rested hard under the pillow-top mattress. She picked it up by its black handle, the barrel nickel-colored and lethal. Familiar only with hunting rifles, Teagan decided it was basically the same, just a point and shoot. She checked the cylinder for bullets. The butts of brass shells contrasted against the dull metal. She inserted the lethal sidearm into her belt. Her skin molding to the handle, she pulled her shirt over it, and ran for the door, barreling into Duffy as he stepped inside.

  “What the hell?” He struggled to hang on to his ripping his grocery sacks. A dozen eggs slipped free and fell, cracking, busting. “Teagan?”

  “She’s going to kill the babies!”

  “What? Who?”

  Teagan shoved by him, sending him reeling. “Call Detective Lute! Maybe now he’ll believe me!” She ran down the stairs and for the Jeep.

  Sung Lee still stood in the same spot, watching with big eyes.

  The Jeep fired and Teagan backed out.

  Duffy charged across the lawn, shouting, “Stop!”

  She lowered the window. “Erica took Jimmy! Make the call!” The Jeep bounced high over the speed bumps.

  Across the main lobby of the Seattle’s Public Works building stood a man, a tad less than six feet, had plenty of shoulder, a narrow waist, brown hair and worried eyes -- had to be Bryan Winslow. Good, Lute thought. It’d be quicker getting answers from someone anxious.

  “Detective Lute?” Bryan asked without greeting. “Did Teagan reach you?”

  Before Lute could answer, Halstead rushed through security, a deep scowl on his face. “What do you know about that baby stealer?” he demanded of Bryan.

  “I came to help,” Bryan said levelly. “Any more comments like that and I’m going straight to the newspapers. I’m sure they’d like to hear how the SPD took three babies from a safe place and put them in reach of a murdering cop.”

  “Maybe in Montana you’d get away with talking like that,” Hal snapped. “Not here.”

  “That’s enough, Hal.” Lute snapped, too.

  “I want to talk to you alone,” Bryan said to Lute.

  “My desk upstairs is as alone as it gets, Mr. Winslow.”

  After a silent ride back up to the fifth floor, Bryan dogged Lute through the maze of work stations to a cubicle on the far left of a wide room. He refused the chair.

  Lute perched on the edge of his desk and relaxed his shoulders and arms, trying to convey a willingness to work together. “We’re on the same team. Quick communication will help Teagan.”

  Bryan sat down. “Teagan tried to phone you before she left Seattle.”

  “I’ve talked to her twice today. I’m sorry that Teagan didn’t reach me earlier.”

  “Not as sorry as she is. Her two friends were murdered and now her son’s in danger. You’d better place officers with the babies.”

  Winslow’s concern added to Lute’s already rising anxiety over the little boys. “Officers have been dispatched to watch over the babies. Also, we’ve an apprehend order on Ms. O’Riley.”

  “Officer Thorburn is the one who killed Teagan’s friends. Have you questioned her, or is she still out there?”

  “You do realize she’s a highly respected sergeant of the SPD?”

  “What is it going to take for you to believe Teagan?”

  “Proof. She can’t give us that without coming in and talking. Where would she hide? Who does she trust?”

  “You, until you took her son.”

  Lute’s cell rang, and he hated the interruption. “Yes,” he answered with a controlled voice.

  “Duffy Sanders called 911. Sergeant Thorburn took his baby.”

  Lute tried to digest that information. “Are officers on the scene?”

  “Aff
irmative, but Mr. Sanders is demanding to see you.”

  Couldn’t blame Duffy for that.

  Lute Searched Bryan’s eyes. “The Sanders’ baby is missing. I have to leave.”

  “Erica Thorburn took him, didn’t she? Is that proof enough?”

  Lute didn’t know what to say.

  Bryan pushed himself up, slowly, deliberately, as if taking his time would cement his determination. His next words came with simple honesty. “Teagan’ll be where the babies are. I’ll find her.”

  Lute’s professionalism took over. “Let us do our job.”

  Disgust darkened Bryan’s features and he strode away.

  Bryan rushed the several blocks to his rental car. He hopped inside, grabbed the weekly newspaper he’d picked up at SeaTac, and flipped to the obituaries. Doretta’s name was second from the bottom. Her surviving sisters were listed with their spouses. Bryan tore out the obit and stuffed it into his jacket pocket. He needed a phone book.

  He scanned the businesses along the block. An upscale deli was sandwiched between a cell phone business and a bridal shop on the far corner. He dodged through slow moving cars, ignoring the glares.

  A wooden Please Wait to be Seated sign stood between him and the cash register. It wobbled when he brushed by. “I need to check a couple of phone numbers,” he said to a lady working behind the counter.

  “Sure.” The silver-haired hostess appeared like the kind of a person who’d never turned down a request for help, and Bryan secretly blessed her when she handed over the thick book. He ran his finger down the pages, scanning for the sister married to a Sheldon Alness. Only one was listed and the address followed the name.

  “Do you have a piece of paper?” he asked.

  She pulled a notepad from under the counter and tore off a page. “Is something wrong?”

  “You wouldn’t believe it.” Bryan wrote down the street number and turned to the next name listed in the obit. A list of Richards covered half a page. The next sister was married to a Smith. Forget that.

  A single address scrawled on a piece of note paper. One chance.

  Chapter 36

  With a shove of her boot heel, the beach house door sealed the world out, and Erica was immediately drawn to a picture window overlooking Puget Sound. The awesome continuation of the undulating surf captivated her. The swish and swell was unheard through the glass, but she rocked Jimmy in rhythm to the motion of the water. The warmth of his tiny body and the hypnotic view relaxed her. Her eyelids drooped. Overcome by the urgent need to curl up, she turned away.

  The urn on the table emitted loneliness – a loneliness utterly empty of life.

  Derek.

  “Iska, I know the job isn’t finished. I won’t rest until it is. Just give me a little peace.”

  Erica tried to recall anything left at home that gave away the location of the cottage. Nothing she could think of. The deed and tax records remained hidden in a safety deposit box at the bank. It’d take Detective Lute days before he learned its location and obtained a warrant.

  But it wasn’t days that she needed; a few hours would be enough to go get Charlie and Levi. Erica groaned. “But there won’t be enough time for us to be together, Jimmy.” She cherished how his eyelashes fanned his cheeks. “I can’t stay. Derek has invited you boys to go swimming.” She stroked Jimmy’s head with the side of her thumb. “I promise no trauma, you’ll simply slip away to the Peaceful Place, just like my kittens did.”

  Erica snuggled him. Wrath at her mother again coursed through her fiber like it had since her eleventh birthday. “It was her fault, Jimmy. Daddy pitched in the money to have Iska spayed, but Mother bought a slutty dancing dress instead.” Her father’s tantrum when the kittens were born reverberated in her mind. “How could he be mad at tiny furry babies?” She moaned, and once again felt the cold water inch up her body as she waded out chest deep after them. Her ears and nose filled painfully when she ducked under and brought up the plastic bag. She held the soggy limp bodies, the water dripping through her fingers back into Puget Sound. The little splashes the only noise except the sobs caught in her throat and the swish and swell of the water. She brought the kittens back to the cottage and opened the garage’s side door to get a shovel.

  She had frozen at the sound of her father’s violent voice and now heard it anew. “I’ll drown you too. You no good slut,” he screamed, yanking Mother from the car and beating her.

  Jimmy stirred in Erica’s arms, drawing her away from the long ago images. She shivered and squeezed the baby tenderly. “Jimmy, I wanted him to do it, prayed he’d do it. I even searched for a sack big enough to put her in.”

  She was your mother and you loved her.

  “I did not, Iska! Her bruises healed. The kittens were dead.”

  Erica’s body tightened. For a moment, she thought she might never be able to move again, but her muscles eased and she gently placed Jimmy on the table beside the urn. She removed the Glock, re-secured his receiving blanket with a tighter tuck and replaced the tiny knit cap over his soft spot.

  Gathering two pillows from the bedroom, she placed one on either side of Jimmy even though he could never squirm to the edge of the long pine surface. The giant table was her mother’s fault, too. She said they’d need lots of room for all the little girls she planned to invite. Erica would have such happy days at the beach. But only the kittens came to play.

  Erica touched the curve of the urn and patted. “I never invited anyone else, but I promise to fill it for you.”

  Jimmy turned his head away and his eyes closed.

  In the laundry room, she traded Duffy’s basket for a larger wicker one. It wasn’t a sack but plenty big enough for three babies and the urn. She mixed formula and propped a bottle on the pillow. Jimmy little mouth tugged at the rubber. Her nipples felt tight and damp under the chest protector. Her uterus tightened and ached.

  Teagan could tell Florene wasn’t home before she knocked on the bright blue door. She pounded on it anyway. Now what? Find Florene, that’s what, she told herself. The worse thing about this whole sick mess was indecision. One wrong move would destroy any chance to find Charlie. But fear solved nothing. She twisted the doorknob. It didn’t budge.

  Peering through a lace-covered window beside the door, Teagan made out a sofa, recliner, television, desk – all neat and tidy. She walked around the side of the house. No signs of a break-in or damage at the kitchen door, everything inside appeared normal. No damage. If Erica had taken Levi, Florene would’ve fought hard for that baby boy. Levi must still be with his grandmother.

  “Florene, where are you?”

  Teagan rapped the backdoor’s windowpane with the butt of the pistol. Glass shattered inward, crackling to the floor. Reaching inside, she turned the lock and opened the door. The kitchen spoke of Florene’s cooking and fresh floor wax.

  In the living room, Teagan shuffled through papers piled on the antique desk until uncovering an address book. She hoped the daughters and their addresses were listed. She’d check their homes one at a time.

  Doretta’s sister, Dahlia Alness, was listed under “A”.

  Teagan snapped the book shut and stuck it in her hip pocket. Mentally shifting street names for the quickest route to North 104th Street, she hurried for the back door. Shards of window glass crunched beneath her soles. Florene would forgive the mess. Broken glass took only a phone call to fix. Teagan shuddered at the rest of her thought – broken babies . . . .

  Halfway down the block where Doretta’s sister lived, Florene’s Impala was parked between two mini-vans in front of her daughter’s home. They’re having a welcome home party, Teagan thought and burst into tears. It was hard not to charge inside the brick house, scoop up Levi, and rest in the bosom of so many people. Her anguish deepened until she pressed her palms against her temples, praying for strength.

  Erica would come soon.

  Teagan smeared away the tears with the heels of her palms.

  A for sale sign swung on a p
ost in front of house on the far corner. The curtains hung open, glass panes the color of slate. The lawn needed mowed. It appeared vacant and had a good angle to watch Florene’s car, the street, and the Alness home.

  Teagan parked the Jeep under the carport behind the vacant house. A flagstone path led to the cedar deck. At the door, she checked around to see if anyone noticed her. A few wrens visited, picking at dry pods in an overgrown rhododendron. Otherwise, the neighborhood was quiet. She checked for an alarm system, no warning sign posted. Even so, Teagan held her breath and rapped the revolver’s handle against a small pane of glass in the backdoor. Two broken windows. Never had she broken windows or held a revolver, and yet, it felt right and natural. What in her past had prepared her? The escape through her bedroom window? She doubted it, but did not question that whatever was needed to save Charlie, she’d do.

  The mudroom was bare. She breathlessly crossed the tile floor to the stark and stale kitchen; the sounds of her echoed in the emptiness, the pad of her feet, the shallow breaths, the brush of her shoulder against a cupboard.

  Down a hallway, a bathroom was on the left. She twisted a faucet handle and water gushed forth. After drinking several handfuls, she splashed her face. Her stomach felt hollow, but even if she ate, it wouldn’t stay down.

  A large picture window fronted the barren living room. Teagan knelt on the beige carpeting and sidled around until she had a clear view of the ranch-style house and quiet street. The alley’s entrance was partially blocked by an overgrown weeping willow, but anyone entering would be seen.

  Within a few minutes, she struggled to stay awake, her eyelids growing heavier and heavier. She slapped her cheeks, pinched her forearms. The pistol jabbed her ribs. Unbelievable, she thought. I’ve gone from a simple fish shop owner to probably the most hunted person in Seattle.