Without Her Consent

by McGarvey Black

  ‘All four men couldn’t be guilty,’ said McQ. ‘My hunch is that the three not guilty parties may have committed other crimes and don’t want to incriminate themselves by putting their DNA into the legal system.’

  ‘Let’s look at this logically,’ said Blade. ‘Barbero is in his eighties and uses a cane. He’s not nimble. He’s not jumping up on hospital beds for sex. Have you seen him walk? He’s very unstable. Just blow on him and he’ll fall over.’

  ‘I agree,’ said McQ. ‘Let’s tentatively rule Barbero out for now. That leaves Farwell, Parris and the vending machine guy, Peluso.’

  ‘I checked out Peluso. Looks like he’s a family man, has a bunch of kids. Because of his job, he uses a lot of supplies,’ said one of the younger female officers. ‘With all that stuff, it would have been hard for him to disappear on Eliza’s floor. They don’t have any vending machines on that wing. The nurses would have noticed if Peluso was hanging around with all of his equipment. None of them remember seeing him.’

  ‘Makes sense,’ said McQ. ‘Let’s back burner Peluso, too. That leaves us with the mysterious Dr. Frank Farwell, who none of us have met. Farwell’s been out of the country for many months but from a timing perspective, he could be our perp. Remote, but possible.’

  ‘Then there’s that oddball Peter Parris,’ said Blade, writing his name on the whiteboard. ‘Parris said he thought about match-making his brother and Eliza because they were both in comas.’ Snickering erupted from the officers and spread across the room. ‘Okay, quiet down people. We’re still waiting for Farwell’s DNA to get here from South America,’ Blade continued as she wrote Farwell’s name on the board. ‘If we wind up ruling him out, the smart money is on Parris. And don’t forget, we still haven’t cleared the data-averse lothario, Dr. Horowitz.’

  ‘Agreed. Let’s move on. What do we know about Brian Finn?’ asked McQ.

  ‘As a reminder everyone, that’s Jenny O’Hearn’s ex-boyfriend,’ said Blade. ‘According to her current boyfriend, Finn is a bad dude. Did we confirm whether Finn was ever in the hospital during our three-month window?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said McQ. ‘It’s probably time to pay Mr. Finn a visit.’ Minutes later the meeting was adjourned, each officer with their own set of tasks to accomplish.

  Since they had found Jenny unconscious in the supply room over a week ago, she remained non-responsive and the doctors declined to make any predictions. She still had some brain activity but it was not at the levels the neurologists had hoped for. The big question everyone had was, if Jenny did wake up, would she still function the way she had before? The general consensus was that Jenny O’Hearn’s prognosis was not particularly good.

  Two hours later, McQ and Blade walked into J & M’s Electronics store in Boynton Beach and asked the manager if they could speak to one of his employees, Brian Finn. At first Finn was belligerent, but after a little relentless badgering from the detectives, he opened up about his relationship with Jenny. He was clearly bitter and said he hadn’t seen his ex-girlfriend since she dumped him.

  ‘Yeah?’ said McQ, looking in his little notebook for effect. ‘According to our investigation, you ran into Jenny and her boyfriend, Danny Laffan, at the Cinemark movie theater.’

  ‘Look, Jenny and I went out for a few years and I found out she was cheating on me with all these different guys,’ said Finn. ‘I even heard, after the fact, that she was doing it with one of the doctors at the hospital while she was seeing me. Then she dumped me for that loser, Laffan.’

  ‘You still sound angry,’ said Blade.

  ‘How would you feel? I’m the one who usually does the dumping, not the other way around. Besides that was ancient history, I’m totally over her,’ said Finn. ‘Now I’m seeing this other girl from Fort Lauderdale who’s way hotter than Jenny.’

  ‘You know Jenny’s unconscious in the ICU right now?’ said McQ.

  ‘I heard,’ said Finn, not very interested. ‘Tough break. Maybe if she had stayed with me, this wouldn’t have happened.’

  After leaving the petulant Brian Finn, Blade and McQ drove back to the police station. ‘So, sweet little Jenny O’Hearn ran around with a lot of men and had a drug history,’ said Blade. ‘Didn’t seem like the type. Then, she finally dumped Finn for Danny Laffan, which I totally get because Finn is such a tool. But she also had an affair with Dr. Horowitz.’

  ‘That’s a lot of socializing given that she worked all day and went to school at night to get her masters,’ said McQ. ‘The more I think about Jenny and the overdose, the less it makes sense to me. It doesn’t fit her profile. She was too driven.’

  ‘You know how we women are, we’re big old multitaskers. Women get things done,’ said Blade.

  ‘That’s exactly what Marie keeps telling me.’

  ‘We both agree that Finn’s a jerk, but my gut tells me he didn’t have anything to do with Jenny’s overdose or Eliza’s baby,’ said Blade. ‘We’ve got nothing placing him inside the hospital other than that one time he went to her party. The seven or eight people who were there that night would have noticed if Finn had been MIA for any length of time.’

  ‘Let’s see if we can get Finn’s DNA, so we can rule him out,’ said McQ.

  As their car idled at a traffic light, both detective’s phones vibrated simultaneously, each getting the same text message from the chief. Jenny O’Hearn had passed away ten minutes earlier.

  When McQ arrived at his desk, a green sticky note was on his bulletin board. Frank Farwell’s sample kit, was apparently stuck in U.S. Customs and Peter Parris had finally agreed to submit his DNA. McQ felt his ears get warm as he shared the update with his partner.

  ‘Parris is giving it up?’ said a surprised Blade. ‘Wonder what changed his mind?’

  ‘The note says his father begged him to clear himself, that he didn’t want to lose another son. The old man already had one kid permanently in the hospital and didn’t want another in jail.’

  ‘If Parris has agreed to give it up, then it may not be him,’ said Blade. ‘And Frank Farwell is a real long shot. If we rule those two suspects out, we’ve got nothing.’

  49

  Day 19

  For three solid weeks, Tommy Devlin had spent most of his waking hours stalking hospital employees and promoting himself as the resident expert to international news syndicates and U.S. cable news networks. Public interest in the Eliza Stern case had continued to grow and The Oceanside Bulletin readers were clamoring for more. As each day passed, his editor was adamant that he devote a hundred percent of his time to the Stern investigation and do nothing else. That suited Devlin just fine. Eliza Stern was going to be his magic ticket out of Oceanside and on to the big time.

  For the past several weeks, the reporter had been fed a lot of bogus leads—some went to dead ends and some to the ridiculous, like the ‘dead baby found inside the wall’ story. Thankfully, he had the experience and instinct not to run with loose talk before he checked a story out. Devlin’s articles had been on the front page every day since the incident had been made public. His byline had been picked up by hundreds of newspapers around the country. He was starting to make a name for himself and he liked it.

  As the leading local investigative journalist for the only Oceanside newspaper, Tommy had been invited to do pundit appearances on CNN, MSNBC, ABC and Fox News within the first ten days of his story breaking. Oceanside, once a relatively sleepy beach tourist town, was now a point of global fascination and Devlin was determined to milk it for all it was worth. Bizarre crimes like this didn’t happen every day and might never happen for him again. He intended to use it to catapult himself into the cable news career that he believed was his destiny. He even got a call from the BBC and an Italian news agency asking for comments. If he played his cards right, he figured this coma baby story could make him a household name, just like Anderson Cooper.

  After his numerous television appearances, when he walked into the Bulletin newsroom, he was razzed by the other reporters for
being a ‘big TV star.’ That was all right by him. Eliza Stern’s mystery baby had become his golden goose. A producer at NBC had even suggested they might want him to do a segment every night until the case was resolved. Sweet.

  Today a guest news segment, tomorrow my own TV show. Maybe I’ll get a Pulitzer Prize for this story? That would be the bomb. Thomas Devlin, Jr., Pulitzer Prize winner. I like the ring of that and I think there’s a cash prize too. Nice.

  Until he was ‘discovered,’ he still had his day job at the Bulletin and an obligation to grind out a daily story for his paper with very little new information to work with. This is where his creative writing skills came in handy.

  Police Investigation Eliminates More Than 200

  By Thomas Devlin, Jr.

  The all-hands on investigation by the Oceanside Police Department into the rape of Eliza Stern and subsequent birth of a male child has consumed the resources of the Oceanside and Palm Beach County police organizations. DNA samples have been taken and processed from over 200 possible suspects. Because of the large numbers of people to vet, some of the kits were sent to the FBI for processing. Local authorities are working hand in hand with federal law enforcement to find a match.

  According to the two lead detectives, Detective John McQuillan and Detective Anita Blalock, both with Oceanside PD, over 200 people have been ruled out but there are still more lab tests to complete. All male personnel have been asked to provide samples for testing. ‘It may take some time,’ said Detective McQuillan, ‘but we will figure out who did this and bring them to justice.’

  Dr. Angela Crawford, acting facility administrator at Oceanside Manor, said her entire staff and all records have been made completely available to the police. ‘We are fully co-operating with law enforcement and hope to have a swift conclusion. The chaos that has ensued since this terrible incident has disrupted the lives of both staff and patients and their families,’ said Dr. Crawford, who has been placed in charge of Oceanside Manor while Dr. Frank Farwell, chief facility administrator, has been on sabbatical in Ecuador. Dr. Farwell is expected to return to Oceanside sooner than originally planned, due to the severity of this situation.

  Devlin added a few pictures of the detectives, one of Angela Crawford and a shot of the entrance of Oceanside Manor to his article and got ready to send it on to his editor. It didn’t have much meat on it — the cops were playing this case close to the vest and it was all he had. As he pushed send, his phone rang. ‘Devlin,’ the reporter barked into the phone.

  ‘Mr. Devlin, my name is Andrew Fein, I’m a producer on Anderson Cooper’s show at CNN. We were hoping you might be available to do a remote segment with Anderson from our Palm Beach studios tonight. Is that a possibility?’

  Tommy Devlin smiled and looked up to the heavens. Eliza Stern and her baby were going to make him a star.

  50

  Day 20

  After Eli’s mid-morning feeding, David put him in his crib and turned on the colorful musical mobile. The baby’s bright eyes followed the swirling characters as they went around and around while ‘Send in the Clowns’ played softly.

  ‘You like that song, don’t you?’ said a smiling David. ‘You’ve got good taste, kid. Only the best for you.’ Once he was sure Eli was settled, David straightened up the nursery and sat in a chair next to the crib and opened his laptop. The day before he had written ten glorious pages and he felt like today, he could do twice that much. He picked up where he had left off and was soon deep in the writing zone. He had finished about 2,000 words when he heard the chime of the front doorbell.

  He opened the door. A short stocky woman of about forty dressed in black stood in front of him carrying an overstuffed tote bag and an umbrella. ‘Mr. Crawford?’ she said.

  David nodded.

  ‘I’m Ms. Esposito,’ she said as she handed him her card. ‘I work as a field agent for Palm Beach child services. My job is to check in on our foster families to see how everything is going and if there is anything we can do to help with the transition. May I come in?’

  David stepped aside to let the lady enter. Once they were seated in the living room, Ms. Esposito pulled out her notebook. ‘How would you say things are going, Mr. Crawford?’ she said, poised to take notes.

  ‘Very well, actually. He’s a lovely little boy. My wife and I are quite taken with him. He only wakes once a night and usually a twenty-minute bottle does the trick and he’s out like a light.’

  ‘I’m so glad it has been smooth sailing for you. It’s a wonderful thing that you and your wife have done for this little boy, especially after all the horrible publicity. If it weren’t for people like you, he’d be in institutional care right now. Not all kids are so lucky.’

  ‘We’re glad we were able to do it. Truthfully, we’ve enjoyed every minute.’

  ‘That’s nice to hear. Not all of our foster parents feel that way.’

  ‘He’s an amazing baby. Would you like to see him?’ said a proud David.

  ‘That’s one of the main reasons I’m here.’

  David led the social worker up the wooden stairs to Eli’s room. The mobile was still spinning slowly and the baby was awake and watching the moving animals dance in a circle. Ms. Esposito took out her phone and began to take pictures of the room, the baby and the crib. ‘I need this for his file, to have a record of how he’s being cared for. You don’t mind, do you?’

  ‘Do whatever you need to do,’ said David, shrugging. ‘As you can see, we’ve set up a nice nursery for him and he has everything he needs.’

  After the social worker ticked through her litany of personal questions and seemed satisfied, she packed up her things and got ready to leave. ‘I’ll be back to check in on you and the baby every other week,’ said Ms. Esposito.

  ‘Will we set up a regular appointment?’

  ‘No. We prefer to pop in so we get a realistic picture of what the home life is like,’ said the social worker. ‘We don’t want families cleaning up or staging the visit.’

  ‘How long will you continue to visit us?’

  ‘Until we feel certain that everything is fine,’ said the woman.

  ‘Doesn’t everything look fine to you?’

  ‘Yes, Mr. Crawford, it does. Everything looks great. It’s just the way we do things,’ said the woman. ‘We have to protect our smallest clients who can’t speak for themselves.’

  Later that evening, when Angela arrived home, she dropped her bags on the kitchen counter and headed directly upstairs to Eli’s room.

  ‘Don’t wake him,’ warned David who stopped his wife at the top of the stairs. ‘I just got him to sleep.’

  ‘I haven’t seen him all day,’ said Angela, pouting. ‘I won’t wake him, I just want to hold him.’

  ‘Angie, if you pick him up, you’ll wake him.’

  Ignoring her husband, Angela brushed by and entered the baby’s room with David right behind her. She leaned over the crib and gently lifted the infant. The baby remained asleep as Angela let out a grateful sigh, feeling the warmth of the child in her arms. Moving very slowly, she sat down in the rocking chair near the crib and gazed down at the tiny miracle.

  ‘You are the most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen,’ she whispered, touching the soft ginger fuzz on his head. ‘Isn’t he incredible? Can you believe it’s only been six days since we’ve had him? It feels like he’s been in our lives forever.’

  ‘I know. I feel the same way,’ David whispered, smiling from the doorway.

  ‘Imagine how we’re going to feel a year from now. Can you believe it? We finally have our perfect family,’ Angela said, looking down at the sleeping child.

  51

  Day 21

  ‘You’re practically glowing today,’ said her therapist to Angela at their weekly session.

  ‘Am I?’ said Angela with a ‘cat that swallowed the canary’ smile on her face.

  ‘I’ve been following everything that’s going on at Oceanside Manor and the terrible Eliza Stern story on the
nightly news. Sounds like the police are nowhere,’ said Virginia. ‘Given the stress you must be dealing with, you’re remarkably serene. You look more at peace than I ever remember seeing you and I’ve been working with you a long time. What’s going on?’

  ‘Do I really look peaceful?’

  ‘You’re being gamey today, Angela,’ said the therapist. ‘That’s not like you. You’re usually so direct.’

  ‘The most wonderful thing has happened,’ said Angela, bursting with excitement as she related how she and her husband were fostering Eliza Stern’s baby.

  When Angela finished, Virginia wore an expression of total surprise. ‘I sure didn’t see that coming,’ said Virginia. ‘Do you think that’s a good idea? Especially with the ongoing investigation and all that goes with it. How will you have time for a baby? Babies don’t feed themselves.’

  Angela smiled. ‘Everything is all set. David is the primary caregiver and he’s loving it. We named the baby Eli, as an homage to Eliza. The little boy has no other relatives. You know David and I always wanted kids but I kept having miscarriages and the in vitro didn’t work. I thought becoming a mother wasn’t on the cards for me. When we realized they were going to send that sweet little boy into the foster system, David and I discussed everything and made our decision. It felt like the right thing to do, like it was meant to be. And now we know it was. Everything is just perfect.’

  ‘You’re planning to adopt him, then?’

  ‘Of course. My husband is a new man already,’ said Angela. ‘You know how we’ve talked about David having no purpose. Now, he’s got his old swagger and that twinkle is in his eyes again. The old David is back. He’s the same guy I fell in love with again and he’s already proving to be a wonderful father.’