Without Her Consent

by McGarvey Black

  ‘You’re back,’ she said. ‘I didn’t think you’d be here for a few more weeks.’

  ‘I didn’t have much choice. After Devlin plastered my name all over the news, I had to get back here and contain things,’ said Farwell. ‘Enjoy your time running the place?’

  ‘Shut up, Frank. You know it’s been hell.’

  ‘Where are we on the whole investigation, anyway?’ said Farwell.

  ‘I think the police have run down all their leads and there’s nothing new. It’s been quiet the last few days.’

  ‘Quiet is good.’

  Frank told Angela he intended to start managing Oceanside Manor that Monday and the two of them would work together for the first week as they transitioned the operations back to him. He asked her to arrange a meeting with the detectives on the case for Monday afternoon so he could get up to speed. He’d deal with the board on Tuesday, a little bit at a time.

  ‘I heard,’ said Farwell, ‘that you and David are taking care of the baby.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You think that’s wise given everything that’s happened?’

  ‘I don’t need a lecture from you, too,’ said Angela, the hair on the back of her neck standing up. ‘The baby was the innocent in all of this. They were going to send him into foster care. David and I tried for years to have a baby and it never worked for us. It just made sense. The baby has a home and now we have a son.’

  ‘You’re planning to keep him?’

  ‘Right now, we’re just fostering, but yes, adoption is our plan.’

  ‘Will you be leaving us?’ said Farwell, hoping she would.

  ‘I’m going to continue to work and David is going to be at home to take care of Eli.’

  ‘Eli?’

  ‘He’s named after Eliza.’

  Farwell nodded. ‘C’mon, walk me around the building, so I can get a look at the state of things,’ said Frank.

  Nurses, doctors and aides waved to him as he and Angela passed and welcomed their old boss home. It felt good being back on his home turf. After he finished his walk-through, he got in his car and drove directly to The Oceanside Bulletin and asked to speak to the editor in chief. A few minutes later, an assistant walked him back to the editor’s office.

  ‘What can I do for you, Dr. Farwell?’ said the suspicious editor. ‘You want to make a statement on the Stern case?’

  ‘I’ve got a bone to pick with you. A bone named Devlin,’ said Farwell. ‘And, it’s going to cost you some cash. A lot of cash.’

  62

  Day 140

  The Oceanside PD was humming on a Monday morning. Though it was the shoulder vacation season, there were a few massive festivals going on as well as an international tennis tournament. Hotels were at capacity and word around town was that condo rentals were booked solid. You couldn’t get near a restaurant without a reservation and even the hot dog stands had a fifteen-minute wait. The influx of people kept the police extremely busy; more car accidents, brawls, thefts, mayhem and even—more murder.

  McQ and Blalock were at their desks reviewing new data on several of their open cases when a FedEx envelope was placed in McQuillan’s in-box.

  ‘It has to be the results on that DNA sample we sent to FamilyRoots,’ said McQ, grabbing the envelope, ripping it open and scanning the documents. ‘Would you look at this!’

  ‘Would I look at what?’ asked Blade, not taking her eyes off the paper she was reading.

  McQ leaned over, tapped his partner’s shoulders with the envelope and placed the document in her hand.

  She quickly scanned the page. ‘In a million years, I never would have guessed that,’ said Blade making a clicking sound with her tongue. ‘Not what I expected at all. Looks like we’ve been barking up the completely wrong tree, partner. But how the hell…’

  ‘I’m still not clear on how it all fits together,’ said McQ, scratching his head. ‘I’m waiting for my brain to kick into gear and come up with an explanation.’

  ‘You think this is right?’ said Blade. ‘It doesn’t make any sense.’

  An hour later, McQ and Blade assembled the Eliza Stern police team to update them on the new information they had just received.

  ‘As most of you know, we co-ordinated with the FBI and the Family Roots genealogy company, and have been waiting a long time for the results. It was a long shot but the effort appears to have paid off. Family Roots sent us their results today and I’m happy to announce, we have a match.’

  Applause and whistles erupted from the small crowd.

  ‘They found a partial match to a woman named Bette Moreno who lives in New York City,’ said McQ. There was a wave of surprised grumbling in the room.

  While McQ continued to talk, a few of the police officers in the meeting pulled out their phones and googled Bette Moreno and looked her up on various social media channels. They found her on Facebook: she lived in Forrest Hills in Queens, NY. On further exploration of Moreno’s online friends and connections they saw no link to Florida.

  Blade placed a call to the NYPD to ask for some help. It reminded her of how she first met John McQuillan. He was working on the Quinn Roberts case in New York and he had called the Atlanta PD to ask for her help with his investigation. The rest was history. The perp in McQ’s case was now serving a life sentence in a federal prison and she and McQ had since become partners.

  The NYPD was a thousand times the size of the Oceanside PD but cops are cops and when a brother calls for some help with a case, help is given. Blade was quickly connected to a police captain who assigned the task to a couple of patrolmen. Later that same day, the two uniformed NYC police officers took a ride over to see Ms. Bette Moreno. Ms. Moreno was home alone and was rather surprised when the pair of cops showed up at her apartment door.

  ‘Are you here about the guy next door who smacks his girlfriend around?’ Ms. Moreno said through the partially open crack in her door, safety chain still on.

  ‘No,’ said one of the officers. ‘Is there a problem with your neighbor?’

  ‘I thought you were here about them,’ she said. ‘They make an awful racket. I’ve called the police a few times when they get really loud but when the cops show up, the girlfriend tells them everything’s fine. What are you gonna do?’

  ‘We can’t do anything in those situations if people won’t press charges,’ said one officer. ‘We’re here because we have a few questions we’d like to ask you about a different matter.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Ms. Moreno,’ said the other officer, ‘we’re helping on an out-of-state investigation and oddly, one of the pieces of evidence in that investigation led us to you. We’re trying to figure out what the connection is.’

  ‘Am I in trouble?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ said the first officer. ‘Can you tell us what connection you might have with the state of Florida?’

  ‘I like to go there on vacation sometimes, especially in January or February,’ she said. ‘These last few winters have been awful. It just snowed and snowed. I thought it would never end. I can’t take the cold anymore.’

  ‘Yeah, it was really bad last year,’ said the first officer. ‘When you go to Florida where do you visit?’

  ‘My family went to the Florida Keys two years ago and last year we went to Disney in Orlando for Christmas,’ said Bette Moreno. ‘They do a really nice holiday show at Disney, you ever been?’

  ‘I took my six-year-old last year,’ said the first police officer. ‘You go anywhere else in Florida?’

  ‘I have a brother who lives in Oceanside. We try to get down every other year to see him,’ she said. ‘He’s my only sibling.’

  The two cops shot a look between them. ‘When was the last time you visited your brother?’

  ‘Let’s see, that would have been last April on my son’s spring break from college,’ said Moreno. ‘My husband and my son and I all went down for about a week.’

  Another look was exchanged between the police of
ficers. ‘Ms. Moreno,’ said the second police officer, taking out a notebook and pen. ‘Can I get your brother’s name, please?’

  ‘David Crawford. He’s a writer, a novelist. He’s won all kinds of literary awards,’ she said proudly. ‘His wife, Angela, is a doctor. She runs that place where that woman in the coma had the baby. My brother and my sister-in-law are actually taking care of that baby for a while. The story was all over the news. You must have heard about it. Crazy story.’

  The two cops nodded.

  ‘Does this have something to do with that?’ she asked, realizing they weren’t at her door for a social visit. ‘What does any of this have to do with me?’

  ‘When you were in Oceanside, did you ever go to the Oceanside Manor building?’

  ‘I’ve been there once or twice to pick my sister-in-law up, but I don’t remember if we were there on the last visit. I don’t think so.’ The woman had a puzzled look on her face as she tried to remember. ‘Wait, I think there was one day that I was out shopping with my sister-in-law and my son, Mark. He’s a junior at NYU. Angela got a call while we were out and said she needed to swing by her office on our way home to pick something up.’

  ‘Did all of you go inside?’ asked the first police officer.

  ‘You think I’m going to sit out in a car in that Florida heat? You bet we went inside. Too hot to wait outside in the sun and Angela wasn’t sure how long it would take her.’

  ‘Do you remember if you signed in or showed any ID when you entered the hospital?’ asked the second policeman.

  ‘I don’t remember,’ said Bette, wrinkling her forehead. ‘I don’t think we did because we were with my sister-in-law and she runs the place. I think they just waved at us.’

  ‘How long were you on the premises?’

  ‘It was supposed to be a ten-minute stop but after we arrived,’ said Bette, ‘Angela got pulled into an emergency meeting for about twenty-five minutes. I used the time to check my messages from work.’

  ‘And your son, was he with you the whole time?’

  ‘We sat together for a few minutes until he said he was hungry and went to the cafeteria. Why are you asking me about my son?’

  ‘How long was your son gone?’ asked the police officer.

  ‘I don’t know, maybe twenty minutes. Why are you asking about my son?’

  ‘Nothing in particular,’ said the second police officer. ‘Just gathering the facts.’

  ‘Facts about what?’ asked a surprised Mark Moreno who had just walked into the apartment and saw the police standing in his living room.

  The officers explained they were doing some routine investigating because there had been a DNA match with Bette Moreno on the Eliza Stern case.

  ‘How could that be?’ gasped Bette. ‘I don’t know much about DNA other than what I see on cop shows but isn’t DNA for each person totally unique? How could my DNA be a match?’

  The two police officers looked at young Mark Moreno whose face went pale.

  ‘I didn’t have anything to do with that baby,’ said Mark Moreno, finally understanding what the police officers were implying. ‘That’s disgusting. Besides, I have a girlfriend. I don’t need to tap brain-dead women. I get enough action on my own.’

  When the police left the Moreno apartment, they called McQ.

  ‘I think it’s time we make a house call,’ said McQ to Blade after he hung up the phone. ‘I still can’t quite figure out exactly how this all comes together. It’s like we’ve got jigsaw puzzle pieces from two different puzzles, you know what I mean?’

  ‘I guess more will be revealed when we start pulling at this ball of yarn,’ said Blade as they grabbed their bags and headed to their car.

  63

  When the NYPD reported back to McQ and Blade about Bette Moreno’s connection to Oceanside and the fact that her brother was David Crawford, it opened up a whole new can of worms, including a few they didn’t know existed. They now had several new suspects.

  ‘Based on their shared DNA, either David Crawford or his nephew, Mark Moreno, could be the father of Eliza Stern’s baby,’ said McQ to his partner as they drove in the direction of the Crawford house. ‘It’s time we pay David Crawford a visit.’

  David was home alone with his four-and-a-half-month-old son, putting the final touches on the first draft of his new manuscript. Happily jumping and squealing in his swing, Eli was the picture of a well-cared for baby. The phone rang. It was David’s sister in New York and she was hysterical.

  ‘Two cops were just in my apartment asking questions about you and my son and that woman from Angela’s hospital who had the baby, the one you and Angela are fostering,’ said Bette Moreno in a panic. ‘What’s going on? They practically accused Mark of raping that woman. My son didn’t do anything. You know him, he’s a good kid. He’s just a college student for God’s sake.’

  ‘They think Mark had something to do with Eliza Stern?’ said David. ‘That’s insane. They’re grasping at straws because they’ve got nothing and they’re trying to save face. Angela told me they haven’t one solid lead and she’s furious. Wait until she hears about this ridiculous harassment.’

  ‘Are you positive everything is all right?’ asked his frightened sister.

  He calmed her down, got her off the phone, and started to call his wife when he was interrupted by the chime of the front doorbell. When McQ and Blade flashed their police IDs, David was caught off guard and let them in to the living room.

  ‘What a coincidence,’ said David, taking a defensive pose. ‘I was just about to make an official complaint about the police.’

  The two detectives explained that they were the team that had been working with his wife on the Stern investigation.

  ‘Why are you bothering my family?’ said David, getting angry. ‘My sister in New York just called me, freaking out because a couple of NYPD cops had gone to her place and suggested that my twenty-year-old nephew was a suspect. Why are you harassing my family? You scared the shit out of him and my sister. Mark has never even been to Oceanside Manor.’

  ‘Now, that’s where you’re wrong,’ said Blade, looking down at her notes. ‘According to your sister, she and your nephew stopped by Oceanside Manor with your wife when they were down here during your nephew’s spring break last year.’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ said a surprised David. ‘That proves nothing. Besides, my nephew is a good kid. He wouldn’t do something like that. He’s an honor student at NYU.’

  The baby squealed, interrupting the conversation.

  ‘Cute kid,’ said McQ, looking over David’s shoulder at the smiling little boy in the swing. Out of habit, the detective quickly scanned every item in the living room. Family photos were scattered about. There was a large recent picture in a silver frame of David, Angela and Eli posing together.

  ‘You didn’t answer my question, detective,’ said David, getting in McQ’s face. ‘Why are you bothering my nephew?’

  While McQ systematically answered his questions, Blade examined other family photos in the far corner of the room and spotted Angela and David’s wedding picture.

  ‘That’s a beautiful wedding portrait of you and Dr. Crawford,’ said Blade, tilting her head towards the photo so McQ would take notice. Angela was wearing a long white beaded gown and veil. The creamy color of the dress perfectly offset her olive complexion and dark wavy hair. Next to her, a young smiling David, dressed in a black tuxedo, had his arm snugly around his new bride’s waist. Time had been kind and neither looked much different from their twenty-year-old wedding picture—except for one thing. David’s hair, now prematurely a silver white, used to be red. Blade and McQ noticed the hair color at the exact same moment and shared a subtle look.

  ‘Mr. Crawford, the reason the police went to visit your nephew and why we’re here today is because the DNA strand from that little boy there,’ McQ said, pointing to the baby, ‘had a partial match to your sister. Obviously, she can’t be the father of that baby, so that leaves e
ither you or your nephew.’

  ‘Are you crazy?’ said David, getting agitated. ‘I’ve already told you, I’ve never been inside that building. Ask anyone who knows me. I hate hospitals. I haven’t gone to a hospital since my father died fifteen years ago. I’ve never even laid eyes on Eliza Stern. What the hell do you want from me?’

  ‘We want your DNA,’ said Blade.

  ‘Do I need a lawyer?’ asked David, picking up Eli and holding him close as if to protect the baby from the police.

  ‘Mr. Crawford,’ said McQ, rubbing his face. ‘If you had nothing to do with this, give us your DNA and clear your name. It’s that easy.’

  Eli had a dirty diaper and started fussing. David excused himself for a minute and took the baby upstairs to change him.

  ‘You think he’s good for it?’ said Blade whispering to her partner.

  ‘Maybe, but I’m not a hundred percent there yet,’ said McQ. ‘You know my ears get all twitchy when I hear bullshit. They ain’t twitching right now. Regardless, I still want his DNA.’

  A moment later, David appeared with a clean and happy little ginger-haired boy.

  ‘We’d like to send a technician over here to do a DNA swab,’ said McQ.

  David didn’t respond.

  Blade stepped towards him and spoke in a confidential whisper. ‘I heard through the grapevine that you and your wife are planning to adopt this little boy,’ she said.

  ‘That’s correct,’ David replied without emotion.

  ‘I don’t work for social services but from what I understand, if there’s the tiniest cloud of doubt about you because of this case, it could negatively affect the approval of an adoption,’ said Blade in a most helpful tone, southern accent kicking in. ‘I’ve been around this kind of thing for a long time and in my experience, if there is even the slightest hint of impropriety, the adoptions get turned down. Now, you wouldn’t want to risk losing Eli, would you?’

  David’s heart melted as he hugged the little boy tighter in his arms. Between a rock and a hard place, he didn’t think he should have to supply his DNA to anyone. On the other hand, he knew for sure he wasn’t the baby’s father and a genetic test would definitely clear him. He couldn’t risk losing Eli by being uncooperative. He agreed.