Chosen for Death (23 page)

"Wait here," she said, and bounced away through the door behind her. She bounced back a minute later. "Follow me," she said. The door led to a corridor of small offices. Mr. Coffin's was the first one on the right. She pointed at the door. "Go ahead in." She didn't wait to see if I followed her instructions.

I knocked on the door, and walked in. Mr. Coffin was about my height, with a tight body and well-cut fair hair. His suit pants had pleats, he wore gold-rimmed glasses, and there were impressionist flowers on his tie. Either he was into sartorial splendor or he hadn't gone home last night. He stood up when I came in and held out his hand. "Ms. Kozak?" he said. "Please sit down. What did you want to see me about?" He gave me the same once-over I'd given him, and seemed equally impressed.

I took off my heavy coat and sat in one of the visitor's chairs. "I'm sorry to bother you on a Sunday, Mr. Coffin," I said. "I understand you are the senior person in the records department today. I need your help locating records from 1969."

"We don't keep records that long," he said automatically, but his curiosity got in the way of his brush-off. "Why are you looking for records from way back then?"

I pulled out Carrie's letter and a tissue, and handed him the letter. "My sister Carrie is very sick, Mr. Coffin. Her doctors think the condition may be hereditary, and they'd like to get her family medical history. But she is adopted, you see, so I'm trying to find them—her real parents, I mean. I don't really know what I'm doing here. I'm just trying to help, and I don't know much about this search business, but I read in a book that hospitals sometimes keep their records a long time, and I was hoping you'd have a record of her birth and I'd find some information there which would help me." I delivered my speech with as much conviction as I could muster, and dabbed at my eyes with the tissue. "Are you sure there are no records?"

He handed me back the letter. "I'm afraid, without permission from the trustees, that we really cannot let you see those records."

"You mean you do have them?" I said, giving him my best smile and the full benefit of my green-eyed gaze. I leaned forward and seized his hand in both of mine, pulling my elbows together. The forward-lean-and-elbows trick filled my V-neck with cleavage. A cheap trick I'd learned in high school. Learned it accidentally, when I pulled my elbows together to hide the chest I was still shy about and my breasts almost popped out of my sweater. His eyes went to my chest, my face, and back to my chest again. It was a cheap, sleazy trick, and I was ashamed to be using it. I embrace the basic Superman virtues of truth, justice, and the American way, but if I got what I wanted here, the end would justify the means. That was also a tried and true part of the American way.

"We both know how committees work," I said. "Getting the trustees' permission could take weeks, Mr. Coffin, and I'm just at the beginning of my search. Carrie might die before I find her parents. Please help me." Feeling like an actress in an afternoon soap opera, I squeezed his hand and sighed. "Don't send me away empty-handed. That lady at the adoption agency was so terrible. You'd think it was a crime to be adopted. Don't say you won't help me either."

I bent my head and checked the cleavage. Positively blooming. I sneaked a look at Mr. Coffin. His eyes were locked on my chest. I raised my grief-stricken face. "No one would know you did this except you and me, and I'll always be grateful. Please say yes." I waited. I sensed that he wanted to help, but felt bound by the rules. Still, his tie told me he wasn't entirely conventional. I brought my elbows closer together and waited while he struggled with his conscience. Justice had better prevail soon. My arms were getting tired.

Suddenly he rose out of his chair. "Oh, rules be damned," he said. "Of course I'll help you. We'll go down there right now and look for those records." I grabbed my briefcase and followed him. As we passed the redhead he said, "We're going to get some coffee, Kim. Back in twenty, OK?" She nodded and snapped her gum. Bored and uncurious. We took the elevator to the basement. I followed him through a maze of corridors to a door marked records. He pulled a key out, unlocked the door, and snapped on the lights. It was an awesome sight. A warehouse-sized room jammed with seven-foot metal shelves bulging with manila files.

"Quite a sight, isn't it?" he said.

"I'm glad I'm not alone," I said. "It would take a lifetime to search through these."

"You're luckier than you think," he said. "The records you want are on microfilm. Over here." I followed him to a table with a microfilm reader. At the back of the table, and on many more tables along the wall, were drawers of film. "Do you know the birth mother's name?" he asked.

I shook my head. "Only the birth date, and her mother's first name. Her birth date was June 18, 1969. Her mother was at Serenity House."

He was scanning the rows of drawers, looking for the right date. "Serenity House, eh? You've already been there? Of course, you said you had. So you've met the delightful Esther Pappas?"

"Yesterday," I said. "It was brutal. You know her?"

"This city is really just another small town," he said. "Serenity House is still in business, you know. We still have their girls delivering here. And she's their social worker. A superb example of a person totally unsuited for her job. Besides," he said, smiling, "you aren't the first person to come searching for birth records, you know. Did she tell you not to bother?"

"She did. She said all the girls used assumed names and the records wouldn't tell me anything. What do you think?"

"You're here, aren't you? So you didn't believe her." His eyes stopped roving. He opened a drawer, pulled out a roll of film, and began threading it into the reader. "You ever use one of these things?"

"I used to be a reporter, briefly," I said.

"Great," he said. "I'm beginning with the records for the seventeenth, when she might have been admitted. Serenity House always had a slightly punitive attitude toward their girls..." He paused. "I hope you don't mind if I say girls. Most of them are very young."

"I had the same reaction myself," I said.

"So they used to let them labor a while to punish them for their sins before bringing them in. Poor little things. All alone and scared and in pain." He stood behind me as I scanned the film, looking for a patient named Elizabeth or a woman who'd had a baby girl on June 18. I came to the end of the roll and shook my head. "Nothing on this one." He put it away and brought another. And then another. It was on the third film, but I almost missed it.

"Wait," he said, "go back to that last one."

Together we stared at the record. On June 18, a woman named Elizabeth Alden had been admitted from Serenity House and given birth to a female infant weighing only four and a half pounds. "I'll bet this is it," I said. "You've done this before, haven't you?" He nodded. "What am I looking for?"

"Clues. Names, addresses, places, other people or organizations that might have records," he said. "Don't you have that handy booklet?"

"I do. But it still seems mysterious. How will I know what's important?"

"You'll know," he said. "Things just jump out at you." He checked his watch. I felt like we'd been there for an hour, but it had been less than ten minutes. "I shouldn't be doing this," he said. "Hospital policy is that when someone other than the patient wants to see the records and they don't have written consent from the patient, they have to fill out a request form stating the purpose of the request, which is then reviewed by the hospital board to determine whether access will be granted. The board is very conservative—that is, they share the Pappas view that access should be restricted."

"So why did you say yes?"

He put his hand on my shoulder. "How could I say no to a lady in distress?"

I felt the warmth of his hand through my dress. I turned around and looked at him. His eyes were twinkling behind the academic glasses. He looked as impish as my brother Michael used to look when he was plotting a raid on the cookie jar. He'd seen right through my sexy-damsel-in-distress act. So why was he helping? "You believe in helping people like my sister, don't you?" He nodded. "Do you ever say no to helping people search for their birth parents?"

"Often," he said. "I have to. I'm not usually alone in the department. And there's usually an old battle-ax guarding the door. A real stickler for rules and regulations. The lovely Kim only comes in and snaps her gum on weekends. But I'm on your sister's side. I believe people have a right to information about themselves." He dropped his hand. "Let's see what we've got." Slowly we scrolled through the pages. There wasn't much. As I interpreted the information, which was scrawled in barely comprehensible medicalese, the labor had been long and difficult, just as Mrs. Pappas had said, and the birth normal. The baby was small but healthy. The mother had no appetite and no visitors. Mother was returning to Hallowell, Maine, and social services notes indicated she had been encouraged to seek counseling there. Not a word about the father. Bills were to be sent to Dr. Peter Deignan.

I made a note about Hallowell, Maine, and wrote down the birth mother's own birth date, as possible identifying information, but I didn't see how it would be useful if I didn't know the mother's surname. I turned to my guide. "Mr. Coffin, do you know who Dr. Peter Deignan is?"

"Bill," he said.

"Bill?"

"Call me Bill, please," he said. "Coffin is a pretty grim name, you'll have to agree. Dr. Deignan was a local OB. Delivered most of the babies for Serenity House. And much of the rest of town. A real nice man. Grandfatherly. Probably one of the only truly nice people those poor girls encountered around here. It was a real loss to the community when he died. Practiced right up to the end, too."

The tide of optimism I'd felt when I saw Dr. Deignan's name in the records ebbed away. Then I recalled Carrie's notes. "Did he have a wife named Agnes?"

"He sure did," Bill said, checking his watch again. "She lives right around the corner. You ought to go and see her. She might still have his records around, and she loves company." He pointed at the screen. "You done with this? I'd better get back upstairs, before someone comes screaming for a record." He put the film away, and gestured toward the door. "After you, Theadora," he said. He followed me to the door, pausing with his hand on the light switch. "Are you married?"

"No."

"Good," he said. "Call me callow, or rapacious, or a sexist pig, or whatever you want, but I can't end a half-hour alone with a woman as gorgeous as you with a handshake." He put his hands on my shoulders, drew me toward him, and kissed me. A nice kiss. Gentle and friendly, and offering better things to come. I enjoyed it. "That's what you get," he said, "for flashing those breasts at me. I'm only human." He locked the door behind us and we walked to the elevator. The car that came was empty. "You take this one," he said. "I'll wait for the next one. Good luck with your search. I hope things work out OK for your sister, and if you ever need more records, or... or anything... you know where to find me." The door closed slowly on his boyish grin. I stood staring at the fingerprint-smudged door, grateful for his kindness, and feeling slightly guilty for not telling him the truth.

Chapter 19

Upstairs in the lobby I found a pay phone and called Mrs. Deignan. The phone rang so long I was about to give up when a faint, breathless voice said, "Hello." I explained who I was and why I was calling. Mrs. Deignan confirmed that she was indeed the person I wanted, and insisted I must come for lunch. "I've just made a big pot of split pea soup," she said. "I'll never be able to eat all of it alone." My watch said it was after twelve, and as usual, I'd skipped breakfast. My stomach told me that Mrs. Deignan's offer was too good to refuse. She asked me where I was, and laughed when I said I was at Mercy Hospital. "Why, you could walk from there, dear," she said, and gave me directions.

Outside it was cold and gloomy, and I shivered in my thin jersey dress. I was halfway across the dimly lit parking garage, looking through my briefcase for the keys, when I remembered that I'd left my coat in Bill's office, and the keys were in the pocket. I turned back, feeling like a bird dog called away from a falling pheasant. I hadn't gone far when I saw a blond man coming toward me waving something in the air. Bill. He was waving my coat and his arms, and yelling, "Theadora!"
Unusually uninhibited for a man
, I thought.

"Over here," I called, waving back. We met between a battered Chevy Nova and a shiny red Toyota. He gallantly held the coat for me. I slipped it on and checked in the pocket for my keys. "Thanks, Bill. You're a prince," I said. "I'm on my way to Mrs. Deignan's for lunch."