The Arx (10 page)

“We’re looking for anything that would link Gloria to someone who might want to do this,” he said.

He stepped into the tiny bathroom and opened the mirrored door of the medicine cabinet. The bottom shelf held the usual collection of hair and skin products and makeup. On the second were various non-prescription drugs. The third held Band-Aids, tubes of skin cream, a bottle of antiseptic. He checked the cupboard under the sink, but found nothing interesting.

They moved to the bedroom. The bed was unmade; the gaudy pink bedspread lay in a heap on the floor. The crib from which the poor child had been abducted stood against one wall. He imagined Gloria leaning over the empty crib, torn apart with grief. For a second he felt physically sick. He glanced over at Rebecca; she seemed to be holding it together.

In a corner near the bed was a small bookcase. He checked out a couple of paperbacks on the top shelf. Most were cheap romance novels. He smirked at the bodice-ripping pictures on the covers. As he replaced the last one, his hand brushed against something. He bent down and peered along the tops of the books. Sticking out of one of them was a tiny slip of paper. He pulled out the book, removed the paper, and examined it.

“Hmm…” he said. Rebecca strolled over to join him.

“See this?” He held up the slip.

“It’s the label from a pill bottle,” she said.

“She was using it as a bookmark. Olmerol – 500 milligrams. Interesting. I didn’t see any other indication that she ever used it – any bottles in the medicine cabinet.”

“That name sounds familiar,” Rebecca said. “I remember – Olmerol – I remember it because it reminded me of Armor All – you know, the car cleaner? I think she was taking it for morning sickness. No wonder there’s no bottles. That must be a really old label.”

“It
is
a drug,” Frank said, slipping the label into his wallet. “Something a gynecologist might prescribe. Just out of curiosity, there’s something I want to check.”

They returned to the bathroom, and he re-opened the medicine cabinet. This time, he carefully lifted each pill bottle on the second shelf.

“Hmm,” he said, inspecting the shelf beneath a raised aspirin bottle.

“What?” She peered over his shoulder. “I don’t see anything.”

“See the diameter of the bottle I’m holding?”

Rebecca nodded.

“See the imprint of a bottle where this one was sitting? Notice anything?”

“They’re a different size…”

“Someone recently moved the bottles around. It may have been Gloria. Or somebody might have removed a bottle that was incriminating.”

“Incriminating how?”

“It’s probably nothing – but it’s worth taking note. You never know.”

“Maybe the police moved them.”

“Maybe. I’ll try to find out, but I don’t have much pull over there anymore.”

They went back to the bedroom and made a more detailed inspection of the crib. Nothing. On the night table by Gloria’s bed stood a larger copy of the picture Frank had seen when he visited her – Gloria, with an ecstatic grin on her face as she held Ralphie in her arms. Rebecca picked it up and once again choked back tears. After a few seconds she put the picture down, turned her back, and walked out of the room.

“You okay?” Frank said as they exited the elevator.

“Yes,” Rebecca said. “It’s just sad, that’s all.”

As they walked through the lobby he handed her the label. “Think you could check out the drugstore this label came from and find out who prescribed it?”

“It’s just a label. You really think it’s worth looking into?”

Frank shrugged. “We’re dealing with stolen babies. Maybe a drug for morning sickness fits in. I’m going to look into this Child Connect place. I’ll call you in a couple of days.”

“I could do some research on Olmerol.”

“That would be great.”

He walked her to her car. She unlocked the door, and was about to get in when he called, “Rebecca.” She turned and looked up at him.

“Don’t talk to anyone about this,” he said. “Not anyone. And be careful when you do the research.”

“Don’t you think you’re overreacting?”

Frank stared at her.

“I’ll be careful,” she said.

Child Connect

Dr. Monica Gilford was an earnest, thirty-something woman with short brown hair and glasses. She rose from her chair as Frank entered her workspace at Child Connect, and shook his hand as he introduced himself.

The place was cramped, with a single desk and a tiny window in one wall, but it was spotless and meticulously laid out. The books on the bookshelves were ordered by size, and even by colour, as were several stacks of paper on top of the filing cabinet. There was a jumble of pens and papers directly in front of the doctor’s chair, but the remainder of the desktop was arranged with obsessive precision.

“You certainly keep a clean office,” Frank said.

“Oh, that’s not me, I’m afraid,” she laughed, speaking with an English accent. “I’m a bit of a slob, actually. That’s Catherine, Dr. Lesko, one of the other volunteers. We share the office.”

She leaned toward him like she was whispering a secret. “She’s very picky.”

Frank had convinced Art Crawford, his former colleague at the squad, to look into Child Connect. Art had come up with nothing. The place was squeaky clean, and backed by a prominent religious organization.

It looked like a dead end, but Frank had decided to check it out in person anyway. The organization operated from a small space in Yaletown, not far from Rebecca’s office. He’d shown the smiling receptionist one of his old business cards. That was enough to satisfy her that he really was a detective.

When he told Dr. Gilford about Gloria and Ralphie she flinched and caught her breath. Either she was a consummate actress or she really hadn’t heard.

“Sorry,” Frank said. “I thought you knew.”

“That’s terrible,” she said. “I didn’t have that much contact with them, but they seemed very nice.”

She couldn’t divulge any medical information about Ralphie, but said she’d seen him three times since his birth, the last time one month ago. She was unaware of anyone showing an interest in Ralphie or acting suspiciously around him.

Frank saw no reason not to believe her. It looked like he was wasting his time.

“There was one thing,” she said, as he turned to leave. “It might not have anything to do with Ralphie…”

He turned back to face her.

“I think somebody might have broken into my office. Not here, at work – at the clinic. It was strange. They didn’t take anything. But there were little things.”

“Like?” Frank said.

“A couple of items on my desk had been moved around. Not much, but enough to notice. Also, I’d accidentally filed a few of my files out of order – including Ralphie’s. I’d been meaning to straighten them out but I hadn’t had time.”

“And?”

“I went through them in case any had been taken. None were gone, but Ralphie’s was in the right spot.”

“You’re sure about this?”

“Like I say, so little had changed I almost didn’t believe it, but I’m pretty sure.”

***

Rebecca studied Frank’s lined and unshaven face as they sat at a sidewalk cafe near her office in Yaletown. She’d called to ask him about Child Connect, but he hadn’t wanted to talk on the phone, so she’d agreed to meet him here. Frank seemed have grown some new gray hairs, though she’d seen him only a few days ago. Was it just the light?

She felt a fresh stab of guilt about involving him in her sister’s case. While it might be true that at some level the familiarity of detective work was good therapy for him, it also presented stresses that could push him over the edge.

She tried to justify what they were doing with the knowledge that Frank would pursue the case whether she helped him or not, but part of her understood that she was enabling him, distracting him from what should be his focus – getting well again.

“Nothing,” he said, when she asked him about Child Connect.

“So it’s a dead end?” she asked.

“Not quite.”

He explained the circumstances surrounding the break-in.

“So she could be imagining it,” she said.

He shrugged. “It’s thin, but right now it’s all I’ve got. I’m going to look into a few of the other doctors from your list. Maybe there’ll be a tie-in. How about you?”

“I did some research on Olmerol,” she said. She leaned forward in her chair. “I was right. It was developed in the fifties to alleviate morning sickness, around the same time as Thalidomide – now there's a scary parallel – by a company called Kaffir Pharma.”

“I’ve heard of them,” he said.

“Olmerol was never banned like Thalidomide – it's been in use for almost sixty years."

"There were no side effects?"

"There’s always side effects, but none serious enough to justify discontinuing its use. One study suggested a higher incidence of autism in children whose mothers had taken the drug, but it wasn’t conclusive. Of course, Kaffir disputed the results, and only that one study showed a connection.”

She took a sip of her coffee.

“How much do you know about Kaffir?” he asked. “You heard any stories about them? Any big hits on their reputation?”

“They market one or two psychiatric drugs I’m familiar with. They’re your typical faceless, soulless, multinational pharmaceutical company. You could argue that they’re all evil in a way, but I don’t think Kaffir is any more so than the others.”

“For a junior detective, you’re doing great,” Frank smiled. “Keep it up.”

“Coming from you, that’s a big compliment,” she said. “What any of this has to do with Gloria’s death is another question.”

“We don’t know much,” Frank said, “but all we can do is go with what we’ve found so far.”

He downed the last of his coffee. “I’ll call you if I find anything.”

He stood. His hands shook as he opened his wallet.

“You okay, Frank?” she asked. Her guilt resurfaced. “You know, you don’t have to continue with this – we can quit anytime.”

“I’m fine,” he said, annoyed. He dropped a five on the table and walked away.

***

Frank checked out three more of the physicians on Rebecca’s list. None of them remembered any special circumstances surrounding the disappearance of the child in their care.

He also asked them about any volunteer activities and any break-ins, but nothing stood out. This avenue of investigation was starting to look like a dead end. He resolved to try one more before giving up.

Dr. Joyce Hunter, the final name he chose to visit, had been the pediatrician for the family in the incident most like Gloria and Ralphie’s, where the baby had gone missing and the mother had committed suicide.

Dr. Hunter was on record as working at the Pacific Coast Pediatric Clinic. The receptionist there went pale when Frank mentioned her name.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Dr. Hunter was killed in a hit and run accident two years ago.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Frank said.

“The car and driver that hit her were never found,” she continued. “It was terrible – such a huge loss.”

“I remember it like it was yesterday,” said Dr. Hunter’s former supervisor, Dr. Carol Raskin, in the meeting Frank arranged with her. “It was a terrible tragedy.”

He asked her about break-ins. She consulted a file folder on her desk. “Oh yes, that’s right,” she said. “Joyce admitted that an unauthorized person had been in her office. Not exactly a break in – apparently they’d somehow gotten hold of a key. She said she knew who it was. She was going to talk to them and give them a chance to explain themselves.”

“You’re sure she said that?” Frank asked. “She knew who did it?”

“Yes. We were quite concerned. There were no drugs in the office, but there were records for most of her patients. I wanted to call the police, but she insisted on handling it herself.”

“And that was just before she was killed?”

Dr. Raskin nodded.

“She never said who it was?”

“No,” Dr. Raskin shook her head. “Such a shame what happened to her.”

“Did she say anything else about the break-in?”

“No more than I’ve told you. After her death we never pursued it further, though we did upgrade some of our security procedures.”

Frank got up to leave. He could check out the hit and run, but if investigators had come up empty back then, what chance did he have two years after the fact?

“Thanks for your time,” he said, turning for the door.

He opened it, then turned back. “By the way, did Dr. Hunter do any volunteer work?”

Dr. Raskin checked the file folder.

“Oh, yes,” she smiled. “I remember – she volunteered once a week at the Painted Pony Farm. It’s a camp for sick children.”