Shoot from the Lip

15

The next morning I called Murray Motorcycles and asked for Rhoda. The man who answered told me she wasn’t in, but he expected her soon. I asked for directions and hung up. The shop wasn’t far from where I’d been yesterday, and I hurried out the back door, anxious to interview Rhoda.

Unfortunately, fifteen minutes later I found myself in a giant traffic jam on Highway 59. Damn. When I have a plan, a traffic mess like this is sure to happen. I tried a Josh Groban CD to calm down, and when that didn’t work I picked up my cell. I hoped to reach DeShay rather than his voice mail, and prayed he’d forgiven me for pestering him yesterday.

“Peters,” he answered.

“It’s me. Did you hear anything on the DNA yet?”

“I’ll call you in five minutes,” he said. “White will be out of here by then.”

“Gotcha.” I closed the phone and in those seemingly endless five minutes the Camry and I moved about a hundred feet.

Finally the phone rang.

DeShay said, “Sorry, but Don’s having a bad day, and you know how he feels about your working this case. Thought I’d better not antagonize him by giving you information while he was around.”

“Sergeant Benson told me White was territorial, but his reaction to me seems way beyond that. Am I that annoying? Wait, don’t answer that. What’s this information?”

“You won’t believe this, Abby.”

“Try me,” I said.

“The dead woman’s DNA does not match the baby but does match Emma. She’s Christine O’Meara for sure.”

“Wait a minute. The baby under the house wasn’t Christine’s? And wasn’t Emma’s sister? Hell, do you even know if it was a boy or a girl?”

“Girl. They did mitochondrial testing to figure all this out,” he said.

“That’s right. Julie said you can only use female samples for that. What do we do now?” I said.

“Now we have a different unidentified victim. White’s been busy pulling files to see if anyone reported a kidnapping or a baby snatching from a hospital in 1992. Thing is, we checked the Chronicle archives first and found nothing. Something like that would have been big news.”

“White’s focus is still on identifying the baby first?” I said.

“It’s a good place to start, but-Wait. Hang on.”

I heard White in the background say, “Who you talking to?”

DeShay must have covered the phone, because I couldn’t hear his response. When he came back on the line, he said, “He came back for something. Anyway, he’s on his way to the hospital. Ed’s not doing so hot, and I think that’s part of White’s attitude problem. They’ve been partners a long time.”

“Oh, no,” I said. “Sergeant Benson seems like such a nice man, from the few times I talked to him.”

“He had another small stroke.”

“I sent flowers, put you and Jeff on the card, too.”

“Thanks for thinking of Ed. Women are good at remembering shit like flowers and cards.”

“And cops are good at giving their blood and their lives for the rest of us. As for the case, while White’s doing his thing, are you following up on Christine O’Meara’s murder?”

“Don’t I wish. White jawed all morning that since Emma hired you for that job, you could take O’Meara while we focus on the bones. I sorta get that. Lots of media people have been asking questions about how a baby could die without anyone knowing. I wonder myself.”

“I’ll keep doing what I’m doing then.”

“Yup. Find out anything you can on O’Meara and pass it on to me. And by the way, that asshole Mayo has pulled strings, gotten the okay for Paul Kravitz to talk to us about the investigation into the infant’s death. Like I got time for that.”

“Kravitz left town this morning. You won’t be seeing him today.”

“That’s the best news I’ve had since I woke up. I’ve got something for you to follow up on concerning O’Meara.”

“Shoot.”

“I found out Crime Stoppers had a call in ninety-seven about the then-unidentified body of a woman. According to the report I found, this guy who phoned said he recognized her from the reconstruction photo in the paper.”

“The police had a lead?”

“Not exactly. This guy wanted the reward, but when the investigator on the case interviewed him, the man flipped, said he’d made a mistake. Said he didn’t know the woman.”

“That’s weird. Was he some kind of attention seeker? Just wanted to talk to a cop?” I asked.

“You mean like the attention seekers who’ve been phoning in useless clues all morning? I don’t think so. Doesn’t fit the personality of our regular callers. They prefer higher-profile cases like the infant bones. Some nameless woman found dead in a field wouldn’t have grabbed their interest.”

“But Christine’s murder will draw plenty of publicity once people know her connection to the bones-whatever that connection is.”

“Right,” DeShay said. “That’s why, besides you, only Emma and her family will be told about the O’Meara ID. We don’t have any hard evidence to connect the baby’s death and her disappearance and murder yet. I’m hoping something CSU collected will show that Christine killed that baby, or at least put her in the ground.”

“Christine’s death came five years after that baby died. Maybe her murder’s not related,” I said.

“True. But I’m not expecting answers anytime soon. White’s not real into this case. Along with hating my guts because I’m not Ed Benson and being pissed off at you because he thinks only cops should work homicides, he’s distracted by Ed’s illness. Jeff got an earful about all this when I talked to him this morning.”

“You talked to Jeff?” Even though we’d spoken less than twelve hours ago, I felt a little flutter in my stomach when I heard his name.

“Yeah, I told him he needs to get his damn ass back here.”

“He doesn’t have a damn ass. He has one of the nicest-”

“Some things you can keep to yourself, Abby girl. Anyway, I told him White’s got me screening the crack-pot calls, people telling me it was their baby under that house or they know someone who knows someone who might know something about the case. Stupid stuff that will probably lead nowhere. Jeff told me I should cut White some slack, so I’m trying.”

“I guess I should try, too,” I said. “Did Jeff say anything else?”

“No hint about coming back, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

I smiled. “You read my mind.” Just then, a kid in the back of the car ahead of me must have thought the smile was for him, because he began playing games with me-hiding and then popping back up. I said, “I’ll follow up on the Crime Stoppers lead, see if this guy really did know Christine O’Meara and for some reason backed off on the ID.”

“Go for it. It’s probably a dead end, but it’s all we’ve got. Guy’s name is Jerry Joe Billings. No rap sheet-which would have helped, but-Wait a minute. The O’Meara woman was a drunk, right? If this guy knew her, maybe he was a drunk, too. He might have been arrested for public intoxication.”

“But I thought you said he didn’t have a rap sheet,” I said, confused.

“Anything less than a Class A or Class B offense isn’t listed in our criminal database, but there’s somewhere else I can look for minor violations. If I do find out he was arrested, then we’ll have his social.”

“I can do plenty with that,” I said.

“I have a copy of his driver’s license, but he’s not living at his last known address. You want me to fax you the copy so you’ll have a picture of him?”

“Send it as an e-mail attachment straight to my computer phone.” I gave him the number. I always keep the new BlackBerry with me, but found I liked my smaller cell phone with the camera for regular use.

I’d moved only about a city block during our entire conversation. Up ahead I could see a car being moved to the side of the road. The flashing lights of about ten wreckers glittered in my rearview. Up ahead the little boy was still playing his jack-in-the-box game.

And that game suddenly brought it all together when I realized that there were two boys, close in age but one with darker blond hair and different clothes from the other. When one went down, the other popped up.

That was why there had been no report of a kidnapping in ‘92. Since Emma’s sister had been born at home, there was no official record of her birth. No record would make a switch far simpler. That had to be it. One baby-Christine’s-had been exchanged for another. Evidence or not, I had little doubt that if Christine hadn’t put that tiny body under her house, she knew who had.

I clenched my fist and banged the steering wheel. She’d given up or sold her own newborn for another child, a baby who may have already been dead or about to die. A child was left under a house-hidden, nameless and forgotten. It made me sick. And where was Emma’s sister? Continents away? Or still in Houston? With what little I had, finding her might be impossible.