Grounds to Believe (19 page)

Over the static of long distance, a pencil scratched on a note pad. “I hate to ask you this, but do you know how difficult to prosecute these cases are?”

“I already had a lecture from my partner. But I also need to know if there might be the possibility of abuse.”

“There might. It sounds to me, based on all those symptoms, that your informant has good instincts. But that’s not enough. Tell me more about the mother.”

“I don’t have much, but I do know she’s been the center of attention her whole life. Parents adore her, friends think she can do no wrong. They’re in this church that thinks she’s a saint.”

“A certain type of personality needs that.”

Ross went on, “She plays mind games with the doctor. She’s in total control as far as the kid’s care is concerned. Never leaves his side.”

“What about the father? Is he distant? Does he control other aspects of her life?”

“I wouldn’t say that, but the church lays down the law along traditional lines. Men have all the say.”

“Uh-huh. And the pattern of abuse is a clear signal. You noticed that every time there’s an event in the family to take the attention off her, the child gets sick.”

“Yes. The family blames the kid’s fragility. I wondered if it was something else—some kind of religious rite.”

“That would be easier to believe. Investigator Malcolm, have you ever heard of Munchausen’s syndrome by proxy?”

The ugly words chilled him as she gave his fear a name. “I’ve heard of it. Never been involved in a case, though.”

“This mother fits the profile in many ways. Have you done any research on it?”

“No, but Ray told me what happened on that case you and he worked on.”

Dr. Chang’s voice hardened. “He was operating on an assumption based on the evidence he had at the time. It wasn’t until the second baby was born that we realized the evidence could go both ways.”

“It can in this case, too.”

“I wouldn’t say so. From what you’ve told me, the pattern is consistent with events in the family. Ray’s case was completely different.”

“I’m not going to start a witch-hunt and prosecute someone with a reputation for being an exemplary mother.”

“But the majority of women who fit this profile are seen that way. The maternal bond is sacred in our society, so people aren’t willing to believe MSBP exists. There’s a lot of research on it out there now. A few years ago there were only a couple of hundred reported cases. Now they’re making TV shows about it and the pendulum is swinging
the other way, attacking innocent mothers with legitimately sick kids. You’re right. It’s all too easy to do a witch-hunt.” Dr. Chang paused. “But the victim—the child—has to come first.”

Ross nodded, then realized she couldn’t see him. “Of course. I’m scared I might be wrong. But if I’m right and something happens to the kid…” He swallowed. “You’re short on time, here. Can you just tell me if it’s possible to generate the kid’s symptoms? And what might be used?”

Dr. Chang sighed. “It would need to be something easily available to the caregiver. People use anything from rubbing alcohol to ant poison to their child’s own feces to create gastric distress. From your description of his symptoms it could be some form of grain alcohol. But without a blood sample, of course, I’m just guessing. You say the symptoms have been going on for nearly three years? Vomiting, lethargy, gastric bleeding?”

“From the documentation in the file, I’d say so.”

“Well, I must say it would take some medical training to know exactly how much to administer over time. Otherwise it would kill him. If you think you have enough evidence, you need to do something before they put the feeding tube in. It creates direct access to his GI tract. In his condition he isn’t going to be able to fight any foreign substances.”

His stomach twisted as he got a mental flash of Madeleine injecting something—isopropyl?—into a tube, the fast lane to Ryan’s vulnerable gastric system. “She did have some nurse’s training apparently.”

“But these symptoms could indicate any number of diseases. A simple ulcer, for one. Epilepsy, even.”

“His doctor would have found those long before now.”

“Not if he’s testing for something specific. Anything outside that screen would be missed. I’m still curious about the mother. You say she’s a good caregiver?”

“The best. Like I said, the community reveres her. Her husband worships the ground she walks on, and so does every other man she knows. The family doctor has been in love with her since she was eighteen.”

He heard what sounded like a snort. “Not a good sign, then. She could bring the kid in bleeding from a stab wound and he’d believe anything she said. You seriously think this is how she maintains her standing in the community? This church?”

“One of the ways. Her sister’s been talking to me: I’m also using her as an informant.” This felt like a confessional. “When my informant, Julia, brought me to the church, everyone’s attention swung to us. That’s when Ryan took a downturn. And I started to get a weird feeling about it.”

“Don’t feel responsible for that,” Linda Chang said. “If your suspicions are correct, it would fit her particular pattern. The mother sees that the church is paying attention to her sister instead of her, so her reaction could be to hurt the child…if she suffers from MSBP. And that’s a big
if
at this point without hard data.”

The chill spread through Ross’s body. That was the problem. There were too many
if
s. The suspicions that had taken root that afternoon on the hillside when Julia had pointed out the patterns in her family life could be ex
plained in a number of different ways. And he couldn’t prosecute until he’d narrowed them down to one.

“What am I going to do?” he asked heaven, scraping his fingertips through his cropped hair in agitation.

Dr. Chang replied as if he’d asked her. “You’re going to get me a blood sample, to begin with. And then you’ve got to catch her in the act of administering the substance, on video if possible. Nothing else is going to stand up in court.”

Ross tried to imagine setting up video surveillance in the Blanchard home. That’d be about as easy as riding his bike into their living room. “This church is so conservative they don’t even watch TV. And how would I get consent from the husband? He thinks she’s the Madonna.”

“What about the sister? Could she help? Or the nurse? Even the doctor. There’s got to be a way to get to one of them. Quietly. Don’t do what Ray did and get the entire hospital lined up, only to find out you’re wrong.”

“I’ll find a way.”

“I hope so. In my opinion, regardless of the cause of his illness, this child doesn’t have much time.”

Ross had prayed many prayers in his lifetime—thankful prayers, angry prayers, humble prayers. On his knees by the bed, he learned for the first time what it was like to pray a desperate prayer for two children who affected him deeply in different but equally powerful ways.

He would do everything in his power to get Kailey through the adjustment process and back to a normal life. But as far as he could tell, only God’s help was going to get Ryan through this one.

I
t seemed to Julia that the thing Kailey liked most about her apartment was how soft everything was.

The second time she saw the little girl cuddled up in the corner of the couch under the knitted afghan, she put down the knife she was slicing apples with, and sat beside her. “Are you cold, sweetie?”

Kailey stroked the afghan. “It’s soft. Pretty.” She bounced a little on the couch cushion. “So is this. And your bed.” Her tone held wonder. “Everything.”

Julia smiled, and stroked the afghan too. “Not quite everything. The corners of that little table there are pretty sharp. And you don’t want to clunk your head on the bathroom sink, either.”

“You have a bathroom? All your own?”

“I sure do. Tonight you can have a bath if you like.”

Kailey scowled. “Don’t like baths. They’re cold.”

“Mine isn’t. I have lots of hot water. I don’t have any
bath toys but I have lots of soaps that smell pretty. You could have a raspberry soap or a lime one.”

Julia brought her a plate of apple slices spread with peanut butter and a glass of milk. “This is just a snack until your dad gets here.” Kailey ate like a kitten, with delicate bites, licking her lips after each one to make sure she didn’t miss anything.

The hollow sound of footsteps on the stairs brought Julia to her feet. “There’s your dad now.”

She swung open the door and Rebecca blinked at her in surprise. “Julia. I didn’t think you were home.” She waved a piece of paper, then stuck it in her pocket. “I was going to leave you a note, but now I don’t have to. May I come in?”

Julia stepped back, a little flustered. She’d been so consumed with Ross and Kailey and making life-changing choices that she’d forgotten about the possibility of being evicted.

“Sure.”

Kailey covered herself with the afghan and peered over the arm of the couch. The fringe hung in her eyes like the ruff of a woolly sheepdog as she watched Rebecca warily.

“My goodness,” Rebecca said, taking in the child, the half-full glass of milk, and the fact that Julia was wearing jeans. “This is different.”

Julia had never before been subjected to the up-and-down evaluation of her dress. Alma Woods was quite good at it, but usually Julia and her small circle of friends were so self-conscious that they gave the older women nothing to criticize. She realized for the first time exactly what a
“speaking glance” was. She stiffened her spine. Getting caught in jeans was just the beginning.

“Rebecca, this is Kailey Malcolm,” Julia said steadily. “Kailey, say hello to Miss Quinn.”

“Hello, Kailey,” Rebecca said gently. Kailey didn’t reply. Instead, she tugged the afghan over her head and made herself small in the corner of the couch.

“Are you baby-sitting, dear?” Rebecca asked. She moved a cushion out of the way and sat in the easy chair.

“No, this is Ross’s daughter.”

Rebecca looked confused. “Ross? The young man on the motorcycle? I didn’t know he was a father. Or married.”

“He isn’t married. Kailey’s mother died recently and Ross and Kailey have just been reunited. It’s a long story.”

“Long enough to explain why you weren’t at the young people’s meeting?”

Trust Rebecca to jump right in.

“Yes. Ross found out Kailey was in Pitchford so we went to get her.”

Rebecca gazed at Julia for a moment, her eyes very blue and clear over the silver rims of her glasses. “You know that you’re one of my very favorite people, don’t you, dear?”

“Am I?” Julia wondered how long that would last. If she were a betting woman, she’d estimate about seven or eight minutes.

“And I know you’ve often come to me to talk things over when by rights you should have gone to your mother. In fact, I look on you as the daughter I never had. Which is
why it distresses me that you didn’t let me know you were out of town overnight.”

“Rebecca, I’m twenty-six. If I want to go somewhere, I don’t need to ask permission.”

“I didn’t say anything about asking permission. But I would have appreciated having some kind of story to give your mother, your brother-in-law and Melchizedek when they called me one after the other. Once they found out you weren’t in the young people’s meeting and Derrick didn’t know where you were, there was a hue and cry the likes of which I’ve never seen before. Silly geese.”

Julia gaped at her.

“It was very awkward. It’s been a while since I had to play stupid, but I did it. After all the hueing and crying was done, I simply said I had no idea, and no doubt you would have a perfectly good explanation when you came home.”

“Thanks.” Julia couldn’t think of another thing to say.

“You’re most welcome. I would prepare myself, dear. I have no doubt you counted the cost before you went to Pitchford, and that it was worth it.”

Julia glanced at the couch, where Kailey had partially emerged and was looking at Rebecca with great curiosity. “Yes, it was worth it. We found her in the county shelter, and it took some time to get through the legalities. She was just released into his custody this morning, and we took the bus back. Ross should be here any minute.”

“Here?”

Julia nodded. Now came the part where she was going to be evicted. “He’s been staying at a motel, but I think
Kailey will be more comfortable here. She needs new clothes and decent food and a little bit of stability while Ross is in town. So they’ll be staying with me for a little while.” She took a breath and rushed on. “I realize that looks bad, and I understand it will reflect badly on you. So yes, I’ll be looking for another place to live. I just hope you don’t mind if it takes me a few days.”

“I do mind. I mind very much.”

Julia’s shoulders tightened with tension. “I’m sorry, Rebecca. I’ll try to find another place as fast as I can.”

“I don’t mean about that, you ridiculous child. I mind very much that you think I would give you the boot for providing a temporary home for two people so obviously in need of one. What kind of heartless—” she cast around for a word bad enough “—wretch do you take me for?”

Julia struggled to make sense of the collision between expectation and reality. “You’re not going to evict me?”

“Evict you for caring for a child who was found in a homeless shelter? Great heavenly days, dear. I’m astonished at you.”

Julia dropped on her knees beside Rebecca’s chair and hugged the older woman. Rebecca hugged her back, and Julia felt the strength of her bones.

“There’s Ross, too,” she managed around the lump in her throat.

“If it really bothers you that much, you can come and sleep in my guest room. But for pity’s sake, you have more to worry about here than lending a room to your friends. Your mother, for one thing. Dear Elizabeth is on the warpath
with a vengeance.” Gently, she steered Julia to the couch, where Kailey had come out from under the afghan completely, and was busy braiding each tuft of the fringe. “She isn’t letting on, of course. If anyone but Melchizedek brings up the subject she freezes them out. But the Spanish Inquisition has nothing on her when it comes to interrogation. I finally had to lie and tell her I had a kettle boiling over to get her off the phone. May the good Lord forgive me.”

“What I don’t understand is why all the fuss. I’ve been on overnight trips tons of times and no one has batted an eye.”

“That’s what I came here to tell you, dear. Ryan’s condition is worsening, and most of the family has been at the hospital since last night.” She held up her hands as Julia leaped to her feet. Kailey snatched the afghan over herself again and blinked fearfully through the fringe.

“There’s really nothing you can do. He was moved to intensive care, and Michael told them not to overreact and act as though he was on his deathbed, poor wee baby, but everyone went into panic mode anyway. I would suggest you clean up and change, and consider yourself warned.”

“I can’t leave. What about Kailey?”

“I’ll watch her until Mr. Malcolm comes. In fact, I think we might get along famously if she allows me to help her with some of those lovely braids.”

Julia was becoming painfully familiar with the pediatrics ward. Even when she was concentrating on bringing Madeleine and Owen two cups of tea without spilling them, she avoided the corner of the carpet sticking up in
the waiting room as automatically as she avoided the creaky board in her bathroom that had been known to wake Rebecca out of a sound sleep.

She got to Ryan’s room without spilling a drop. Madeleine looked awful after a two-day vigil. Her skin was pale and drawn, and her eyes looked tearful to the point of flooding. Owen looked up from the Bible on his lap, which he’d been reading to them in lieu of going to Sunday Gathering, and got up to greet her. A cold feeling of unease tugged at Julia as she handed him his tea. If Madeleine looked drawn, Owen looked positively deathly. Julia suddenly realized that he was not the young, golden god she had always worshiped, but a middle-aged man whose greatest efforts and constant faith were useless against the unknown threat that stalked his son.

“How is he?” she whispered.

“No change.” Owen’s voice carried his pain the way damp air carried sound. He made an effort to smile at her. She had always been so much in awe of his position in the church she had never felt comfortable kissing him, but she did so now. “I’m glad you’re here, Julia.”

She was selfishly thankful that her sister and brother-in-law were both so consumed with their son that they had no time for trivialities such as where she’d been lately and with whom.

She turned to the bed. Ryan lay on the pillow, his head engulfed by its softness. He looked so small. So fragile, as if a word spoken too loudly would end his life. A tube ran into his nose.

Julia looked over her shoulder. “They’ve put a feeding tube in?”

Madeleine nodded, and leaned over to brush a lock of damp hair off Ryan’s forehead with the gentlest touch of her fingers. She didn’t seem to see the cardboard cup Julia held out to her, so she put it gently on the tray at the end of the bed.

“He couldn’t keep his food down. At least this way we know he’s getting nourishment while they try to find out what’s wrong.”

“Is it—is it the same as before?” Julia asked, frightened to put the thought into words. “It’s the flu, isn’t it?”

“We don’t know,” Owen replied, subsiding into his chair again. “We’re hoping that’s all it is. It came on so suddenly.”

“I’ve never thought it was flu,” Madeleine said with authority. She held her head so stiffly the cords in her neck stood out like bone. “I told Michael that from the first. If he’d listened to me sooner, we might have been able to act days ago.”

“He’s acting now,” Owen said, looking at Julia. “They have a specialist coming up from Spokane in the morning.”

“I still think we should have insisted on the GI man in Seattle,” Madeleine said stubbornly. “I was very impressed with his credentials. What can they know in Spokane, for goodness’ sake?” She adjusted Ryan’s blankets, then peered at the digital display on the apparatus next to the bed as if checking the doctors’ work.

“If it does turn out to be flu, we’ll probably be glad he only came from Spokane,” Owen said with a trace of his old humor, watching her.

“It isn’t flu, Owen. Why do you keep believing what Michael says?”

“Because Michael’s a doctor, darling.”

“Oh, and I’m not. I’m just his mother, and for your information, you forget I have nurse’s training.”

“You were only there a year, Lina,” Julia said without thinking, and Madeleine rounded on her.

“That’s a year more than either of you! I don’t need any comments like that from single people, thank you very much! Since when did you become an authority on children when you’ve never had any?”

Julia stared at her sister. Her stomach rolled over with a nauseating thud.

Owen gently led Madeleine to the other side of the room. “Come on, sweetheart, I know how hard this is on you. I know you’ve given the kids everything you had to give. Let’s go for a walk, all right? I could really use one.”

“I’m not leaving Ryan.”

“Julia can stay with him for two minutes. Please.”

Madeleine allowed her husband to take her out into the waiting room, and Julia sat in the uncomfortable chair. The anxiety was getting to them all. Poor Madeleine was just developing stress fractures in her spirit.

But it hurt. Deeply. No one in their family used such unkind words, or that tone of voice, either. Julia groped for some sort of spiritual strength, but there was nothing inside but a reverberating shock that anyone who professed to love her could speak to her that way. It was almost as if Madeleine hated her for voicing even the smallest of doubts about her
ability to care for her children. For a few dreadful seconds she’d seen a stranger glaring out of Madeleine’s eyes.

“Auntie Julia?”

Ryan’s voice was hardly more than a whisper. Julia leaned over the bed, her uneasy thoughts vanishing. “Hi, big guy. I heard you weren’t feeling so good.”

The little boy’s eyes were huge in a face that had long ago lost its baby fat. His short eyelashes were clumped together, and his hair was stuck to his forehead with perspiration. Julia dipped a tissue in the water carafe and sponged his face.

“Auntie Julia, I saw the angel from hell.”

The back of Julia’s neck prickled.

Ryan and Hannah had always been creative, imaginative children. Was Ryan really so ill that he could no longer distinguish between reality and fantasy? Or was there, as worldly people believed, really an angel of death hovering at this moment in the pastel-colored hospital room, waiting to take away the child she loved?

Julia huddled in the chair by the bed, cold inside and out. When Owen and Madeleine came back a moment later, the look on her face betrayed her.

“Julia, what is it? Is he worse?” Madeleine pushed the sock monkey aside and took Ryan’s wrist.

But the little boy had drifted back into sleep. Not for worlds would Julia tell them what their son had seen.