Without Her Consent

by McGarvey Black

  ‘You always said you’d never adopt. I suggested it to you many times, remember?’

  ‘I never wanted to. I guess we just fell in love with this baby,’ said Angela, smiling sheepishly. ‘Can’t a girl change her mind?’

  ‘And David?’

  ‘He’s over the moon right now,’ said Angela. ‘Eli is just what we needed. David started writing again after not writing anything for years. Just this week he’s completed three chapters and is so proud of himself. This baby is a miracle on so many levels.’

  ‘So, it seems,’ said Virginia.

  52

  Day 25

  From the moment she had raced down to 3 West and delivered Eli everything in her world had changed. For nearly four weeks Angela’s life was no longer her own. Oceanside Manor was swarming with cops, technicians, and reporters, day and night. Instead of running an extended-care facility, Angela spent all of her waking hours dealing with hospital lawyers, angry patients’ families, police, and unending prying queries from news organizations. In short, she was exhausted. Despite all the chaos, the worst part of her job was her almost daily interactions with the hospital board. Vitriolic Bob Beckmann continued to be impossible to deal with and had Angela permanently in his crosshairs.

  When she arrived at her office a little before eight, she heard the phone ringing on her desk as she unlocked her door. She looked at the caller ID and rolled her eyes. Taking in a deep breath, she picked up Bob Beckmann’s call.

  ‘Good morning, Bob.’

  ‘There’s nothing good about it. I’m calling for an update on this mess.’

  ‘As you know—’

  ‘I want this debacle over,’ he shouted. ‘Today.’

  ‘You must have me confused with the chief of police,’ said Angela, losing her composure. ‘I don’t get to weigh in on the police investigation timeline. They’ll finish when they finish. It’s out of my hands.’

  ‘Shut it down,’ said the board president as he terminated the call.

  Angela put her head in her hands. To distract herself from what had just happened, she picked up her cellphone and scrolled to the pictures of Eli she had taken the night before. Looking at them calmed her and made her smile.

  I have a baby now. David is happy and writing again. I’m not going to let that overbearing bully rain on my parade. All of this, has been worth it—even enduring Beckmann.

  After a full morning of budget meetings, Angela took a couple of calls from the police before she ducked out at lunchtime to send a registered letter to her attorney. It contained more documentation required for the Crawfords to remain a foster family to Eli. As she walked out of the post office and down the street towards her car, she passed a store that sold baby and kid’s clothing. Drawn inside, before she knew it, her cart was filled with baby clothes and toys.

  ‘Wow,’ said the young woman at the register, ‘you sure got a lot of stuff. Is this for a baby shower or something?’

  ‘It’s for my new baby,’ said Angela, beaming. ‘My husband and I are adopting a little boy. Do you want to see a picture of him?’

  The girl nodded and Angela proudly whipped out her phone and showed the cashier.

  ‘He’s so cute,’ said the girl. ‘Look at his little cheeks, and that red hair.’

  ‘He’s an amazing child,’ said Angela proudly. ‘My husband and I are very lucky.’

  53

  Day 37

  Two weeks later, the police received more disappointing news and results. Frank Farwell’s DNA sample kit was still held up at U.S. Customs. No one could give McQ a straight answer on what the problem was and when it would be released.

  ‘This is beyond ridiculous,’ said McQ to no one in particular as he slammed the phone into the receiver after an unproductive conversation with a U.S. Customs agent. ‘We’re not talking about smuggled drugs or the crown jewels here, it’s a lousy sample kit.’

  Seven of the remaining ten DNA candidates were not a match to Eliza Stern’s baby. There were still three men left who refused to provide their DNA.

  ‘You think one of those three could be our father of the year?’ asked Blade as she pushed her chair back from her desk. ‘If they won’t give us their spit, I say we check each of their alibis the old-fashioned way and dig into their personal history. Whoever is responsible for attacking Eliza probably has a history of unsavory behavior. Someone just doesn’t start raping unconscious women if they’ve been leading an otherwise exemplary life. There has got to be some foreshadowing. We find that and we’ll find our perp.’

  ‘There’s also a chance that our rapist has stayed completely under the radar and isn’t on our list at all,’ said an aggravated McQ, tossing a file into his drawer. ‘What if it was just some random creep who walked into the building and didn’t sign in. Most of the people who work at reception are just volunteers, not security professionals. Someone could have wandered in, passed Eliza’s room, saw an opportunity and on the spur of the moment decided to whack one off.’

  ‘I suppose that’s possible,’ said Blade. ‘If that’s the case, we’re screwed. One thing I feel certain of, the perp didn’t anticipate leaving behind a DNA trail in the form of a baby.’

  ‘All we can do now is focus on the three remaining men and hope one of them is our father,’ said McQ.

  ‘Maybe a little gentle pressure from us would help loosen some tongues.’

  ‘Why, Anita, I think you’re itching to play a little old-fashioned game of good cop/bad cop,’ said McQ with a wink.

  ‘I’ll play if you will.’

  ‘Let’s go pay a little visit to Dr. Horowitz,’ said McQ. ‘Now that I think about it, we never got to congratulate him or Mrs. Horowitz on the birth of their twin boys.’

  ‘No, we didn’t,’ said Blade with a smile. ‘And you know how much I love kids.’

  ‘You love ’em like a rash.’

  Twenty minutes later, the detectives pulled up in front of the Horowitz’s large white colonial home accented with royal blue shutters. When the doctor opened the door and saw the police, he quickly stepped outside and shut the front door softly behind him.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ asked Horowitz, whispering nervously while glancing up at his second-floor windows.

  ‘We had a few loose ends to tie up and we were in the neighborhood,’ said Blade, smiling. ‘We thought, wouldn’t it be nice to drop by and talk to Dr. Horowitz and congratulate him and Mrs. Horowitz on the new babies. Twins, so exciting.’

  Horowitz stared at the detectives, uncertain if they were putting him on. ‘My wife and the twins are napping.’

  ‘That’s a shame,’ said McQ. ‘We’ll have to come back another time.’

  ‘Why are you really here, detectives?’

  McQ and Blade told Horowitz that their investigation into the Eliza Stern case was bleeding over into the Jenny O’Hearn overdose.

  ‘Unless we can rule you out by your DNA,’ said Blade, ‘your relationship with Ms. O’Hearn might leak. If we can eliminate you on Stern, we’d probably be able to keep your name and relationship out of the O’Hearn inquiry. Would be such a shame for Mrs. Horowitz to read about all that business in the Bulletin.’

  With a sudden change of heart, Dr. Steven Horowitz agreed to submit to a swab the following day.

  54

  Day 60

  The Crawfords’ time with the baby passed quickly. Angela could hardly believe it when David reminded her that Eli had been in their house for more than a month and a half. Despite things being in order at home, the police investigations at the hospital were still ongoing. Between the search for Eliza’s rapist and the questions surrounding Jenny’s overdose and subsequent death, there had been little time for Angela to focus on anything else. Families and staff now complained about everything and she longed for the day Frank Farwell returned and she could turn over the reins.

  That night with David sleeping beside her, Angela tossed and turned. After trying a variety of mind games to trick herself into slum
ber with no success, she got out of bed and went to Eli’s room. A small night-light cast a pale yellow glow onto the walls. She leaned over the crib and watched the child breathe easily in and out. She knew she might wake him but she couldn’t help herself and picked up the sleeping baby gently and sat down on the white rocking chair.

  Somehow, holding Eli in her arms made all the negative energy swirling around her disappear. She hugged him tight and looked down at his round pink face and hands while she examined his tiny fingernails.

  ‘You’re perfect,’ she whispered. ‘Any woman would be lucky to be your mother and I’m the one who gets to have you.’ The sleeping baby scrunched up his face, but didn’t wake as Angela continued her blissful rocking.

  She closed her eyes and thought back to her own childhood. Her parents were in their mid-forties when they adopted one-year-old Angela, and her three-year-old brother, Michael. Angela couldn’t remember much of anything before she was five and her brother seven. She could visualize herself and Michael playing together in their yard; hide-and-seek, puppet shows, lying in the backyard on the grass looking up at the moving clouds.

  ‘That one looks like a horse,’ said Michael, pointing to one of the clouds over their heads.

  ‘Which one?’ said Angela, squinting her eyes.

  ‘That one, there.’

  ‘That cloud looks like a cow, not a horse,’ said Angela with complete confidence as they both giggled.

  The two siblings shared secrets and jokes that only they understood.

  As they grew older, Angela made her own friends and was invited to playdates and parties while her older brother stayed more to himself. For most of their early years, Michael looked out for his little sister and protected her. When he was eleven almost twelve, her parents started getting weekly reports from the middle school that their son was causing problems. Once, when Angela’s school was closed for a half day of parent–teacher conferences, her mother dragged nine-year-old Angela with her to her brother’s middle school. She made Angela sit in the waiting room while she talked to the school psychologist. The door to the office wasn’t closed and Angela could hear everything they said, although much of it didn’t make sense until years later.

  ‘Mrs. Asmodeo, your son doesn’t follow the school rules no matter how often he’s redirected,’ said the school psychologist. ‘Michael picks fights with the other kids and won’t listen to his teachers.’

  ‘Maybe the rules don’t make sense to him,’ her mother had offered. ‘My son is highly intelligent. He reads a lot and he’s teaching himself how to play the guitar.’

  ‘This isn’t a conversation about Michael’s intelligence or creativity,’ said the psychologist. ‘It’s about Michael causing a disturbance at school every day. He’s been known to use bad language and even shove a few kids from time to time in the halls. The other children keep their distance and some of them are genuinely afraid of him.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Angela’s mother. ‘My son wouldn’t hurt a fly.’

  ‘His isolation can’t be good for him and it’s probably exacerbating his moods. I’ve met with your son many times. Occasionally, he says things that don’t make sense. Some of his teachers are concerned and have complained about his bursts of anger. The school administration feels we need to get him tested and evaluated.’

  ‘I know my son,’ said Angela’s mother firmly. ‘He’s just highly creative and particular. Einstein didn’t fit in either and look what he achieved. Ever hear of the theory of relativity?’

  The school psychologist let out an exasperated sigh followed by five seconds of silence. ‘Mrs. Asmodeo, some parents are very open to doing testing to help figure things out and make their kid’s lives better. To deny Michael has a problem doesn’t help him, and I believe he needs the support.’

  Angela peeked into the psychologist’s office and saw her mother fold her arms across her chest.

  ‘Mrs. Asmodeo,’ said the psychologist, trying again, ‘we’d like to have an evaluation done on your son. The school will cover all the costs. Michael may have some learning disabilities that are frustrating him. If we can get to the bottom of it, we might be able to put some things in place so he can better adjust and cope.’

  ‘I told you, there’s nothing wrong with my son,’ his mother insisted.

  But there was something wrong with him, Mom, thought Angela, you refused to see it.

  Angela’s mother had always dismissed all the complaints, convinced that Michael was just spirited and more likely bored with the tedium of the classroom because of his high intellect.

  By the time Michael was in high school, he was on a steady diet of heavy metal music and spent more and more time alone in his room. He barely spoke to Angela or her parents.

  Eli sneezed, bringing Angela back to the present. She opened her eyes and looked down at his angelic face. He was still asleep and she closed her own eyes again.

  The day she came home from school and found her brother was vividly etched in her brain. It was January 12, it was drizzling outside. She was fourteen and in the eighth grade and had stayed late after school for the science club. Her mother and father were both at work and that afternoon Angela didn’t get home until 5:15pm. She opened the front door and the house was eerily quiet. Usually, when she got home she could hear the bass of Michael’s music thumping from behind his always closed bedroom door. But this day, the house was silent. Sometimes, Angela had heard her brother talking to someone in his room when she knew no one was there. There was no phone in his room. She never told anyone but it scared her. When she asked him about it, he just laughed and told her it was his secret and she needed to get her own secrets.

  That January 12th afternoon, Angela called out as she walked through her house. ‘Michael, are you here? Mike?’ At first, she didn’t think anything of it and went into the kitchen to get something to eat. It was Wednesday and her father always picked up Kentucky Fried Chicken on Wednesdays, one of her favorites. Her parents usually got home around 6:30. Feeling a little hungry, she fixed herself a small snack and unpacked her books. By 5:30, it occurred to her that it was odd that Michael wasn’t home. He was always in his room listening to music. Once in a while, he’d go outside to sneak a cigarette or something stronger. Angela knew about that, too, but she didn’t tell.

  You didn’t know anything, Mom, because you didn’t want to know. You never wanted to know about the bad stuff. I couldn’t tell you because you couldn’t handle it.

  She remembered sitting at the kitchen table that day and starting her homework when something told her to look around the house for her brother. She walked upstairs to Michael’s room, placed her hand on the knob and turned it. Slowly, she opened the door and flipped on the light. It was empty. She looked around her brother’s room, a place where she had once been welcome. When they were little, they were in and out of each other’s rooms constantly. About four years earlier, Michael had suddenly stopped playing with her. His walls were now covered in bizarre and dark posters and his blinds were always drawn. Not finding her brother and it being almost 6pm, Angela checked the other two bedrooms and still could find no sign of him.

  She went back downstairs to the living room and that’s when she noticed the basement door was slightly ajar. She opened the cellar door and called out. ‘Mike, you down there?’

  No answer. Something told her to go down anyway. She flipped on the light switch at the top of the stairs. The old wooden steps creaked as she slowly descended. All of her senses were heightened, her hearing and sense of smell on overdrive. The musty smell of mildew increased with each step she took. When she reached the bottom of the steps she turned and looked around the faux-wood-paneled playroom still containing the toy remnants of their childhood. Her brother was swinging by his neck from a pipe on the ceiling.

  55

  Day 61

  To take his mind off work and introduce some R & R into their lives, Marie dragged McQ on an overnight trip to Universal Studios in Orl
ando. For almost two months, McQ and Blade had been pulling six-and-seven-day work weeks logging twelve to fifteen hours a day. Marie thought her significant other needed some fun time.

  ‘You have to let off a little steam or you’re going to explode,’ said Marie, clucking like a mother hen.

  ‘I’m fine,’ said McQ.

  ‘We’re going,’ said a determined Marie when the detective protested. ‘You need to think about something besides Eliza Stern for a change.’

  ‘I don’t feel like driving all the way to Orlando. Besides, it’s going to be too crowded.’

  ‘I’ll drive. We’re going,’ said Marie emphatically. ‘You can even have one of those enormous, disgusting, cardio-stopping turkey legs that you like so much and I won’t say a thing.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’

  For two months, McQ and Blade had been squeezed from all sides. The press had been relentless, practically mocking the investigation and the police who were running it. The hospital’s administrators and lawyers along with the Oceanside Manor board were demanding an arrest and showed their dissatisfaction daily. The police brass and politicians including the governor of Florida were also breathing down McQ and Blade’s necks and wanting answers—yesterday.

  As the last of the lab results came in, all the remaining leads had dried up and there wasn’t much left to investigate. They still got the odd tipster call from time to time, which they followed up on, but they never went anywhere. Much to the consternation of the mayor, the Oceanside PD was no closer to an arrest than they were two months earlier when the baby was born. The only thing they knew for sure now was—who didn’t do it. They had succeeded in ruling out many but identifying the predator had remained elusive.