Part 22 (1/2)
I let him go on.
”I called Beaufort Memorial, but there'd been no twin boys delivered there in the past year. Next I tried the clinics and hit pay dirt. They remembered the mother at . . .” More paper rustling. ”. . . Beaufort-Jasper Comprehensive Health Clinic out on Saint Helena. That's an island.”
”I know that, Ryan.”
”It's a rural health clinic, mostly black doctors, mostly black patients. I spoke to one of the OB-GYNS, and, after the usual patient privacy bulls.h.i.+t, she admitted she treated a prenatal that fit my description. The woman had come in four months pregnant, carrying twins. Her due date was late November. Heidi Schneider. The doctor said she remembered Heidi because she was white, and because of the twins.”
”So she delivered there?”
”No. The other reason the doctor remembered her was because she'd disappeared. The woman kept her appointments through her sixth month, then never went back.”
”That's it?”
”That's all she'd give up until I faxed her the autopsy photo. I suspect she'll be seeing that in her sleep for a while. When she phoned back she was more cooperative. Not that the chart info was all that helpful. Heidi wasn't exactly forthcoming when she filled out the forms. She listed the father as Brian Gilbert, gave a home address in Sugar Land, Texas, and left the boxes for local address and phone number blank.”
”What's in Texas?”
”We're checkin', ma'am.”
”Don't start, Ryan.”
”How schooled are the Beaufort boys in blue?”
”I don't really know them. Anyway, they wouldn't have jurisdiction out on Saint Helena. It's unincorporated, so it's the sheriff's turf.”
”Well, we're going to meet him.”
”We?”
”I'm flying in on Sunday and I could use a local guide. You know, someone who speaks the language, knows local protocol. I have no idea how you eat grits.”
”Can't do it. Katy's coming home next week. Besides, Beaufort is perhaps my favorite spot on the planet. If I ever do give you a tour, which I probably won't, it will not be while you're taking care of business.”
”Or why.”
”Why what?”
”Why anyone would eat grits.”
”Ask Martha Stewart.”
”Think about it.”
No need. I had as much intention of meeting Ryan in Beaufort as I did of registering myself as an available single person in the People Meeting People section of my local paper.
”What about the two charred bodies upstairs?” Back to St-Jovite.
”We're still working on it.”
”Has Anna Goyette turned up?”
”No idea.”
”Any developments on Claudel's homicide?”
”Which one?”
”The scalded pregnant girl.”
”Not that I'm aware of.”
”You've been a fountain of information. Let me know what you find in Texas.”
I hung up and got myself a Diet c.o.ke. I didn't know at that point, but it was going to be a phone-intensive day.
All afternoon I worked on a paper I planned to present at the American a.s.sociation of Physical Anthropology meetings in early April. I felt the usual stress from having left too much until the last minute.
At three-thirty, as I was sorting photos of CAT scans, the phone rang again.
”You ought to get out more.”
”Some of us work, Ryan.”
”The address in Texas is the Schneider home. According to the parents, who, by the way, aren't ever going to win Final Jeopardy, Heidi and Brian showed up sometime in August and stayed until the babies were born. Heidi refused prenatal care and delivered at home with a midwife. Easy birth. No problems. Happy grandparents. Then a man visited the couple in early December, and a week later an old lady drove up in a van and they split.”
”Where did they go?”
”The parents have no idea. There was no contact after that.”
”Who was the man?”
”No clue, but they say this guy scared the c.r.a.p out of Heidi and Brian. After he left they hid the babies and refused to go out of the house until the old lady got there. Papa Schneider didn't like him much either.”
”Why?”
”Didn't like his looks. Said he brought to mind a . . . Let me get this exactly.” I could picture Ryan flipping pages in his notebook. ”. . . 'G.o.ddam skunk.' Kinda poetic, don't you think?”
”Dad's a regular Yeats. Anything else?”
”Talking to these folks is like talking to my parakeet, but there was one other thing.”
”You have a bird?”
”Mama said Heidi and Brian had been members of some sort of group. That they'd all been living together. Ready for this?”
”I just swallowed four Valium. Hit me.”