The Girl With No Name

Chapter Four

The infant bouncer chair was a soft gray with green and yellow pastel polka dots. It lay on its side and the mobile that normally hung from the U-shaped bar over the seat had been snapped off, its soft zoo animals sad and scattered across the floor. Beside the bouncer lay a small stuffed elephant and a crumpled green blanket just big enough to swaddle a newborn.

“There was a baby? She had a baby? Is it—?”

“The baby’s not here,” Noah said quickly.

That didn’t quell the awful feeling of anxiety blooming in Josie’s stomach.

“I didn’t even know she was pregnant.”

Noah nodded. “The neighbor said that Misty was due any day. Based on what we found in the upstairs bathroom, we believe she delivered the baby here at home. But there’s no sign of it. We found a dog locked in the basement, barking up a storm. The neighbor said she’d care for it until things get sorted out.”

“When did she deliver?”

“We don’t know, but I think it was in the last day or two. The neighbor says she saw Misty four days ago and she was nearly due.”

“You think she was alone when she delivered?”

“I don’t think so. Come upstairs.”

Josie followed Noah up the steps and he led her past a room that Misty had obviously prepared as a nursery. Josie glanced in; the walls were yellow with animals dancing across them; the dresser, changing table and crib all looked newly bought. If Misty had really given birth in the last twenty-four to forty-eight hours, she wouldn’t have had a chance to use any of it.

Noah led her past the nursery to the master bedroom and the first thing that hit Josie was the smell: stale sweat, a strange sweet smell that she couldn’t place, and the faint coppery scent she knew to be blood. The room was a mess. The massive bed, couched in an ornately carved mahogany bed frame was littered with crumpled towels and sheets, the bedspread tangled in a heap on the floor. Wadded towels, washcloths, and sheets made a trail into an adjoining bathroom, almost all of them covered in dried blood.

“We’ve processed this room already, so you can move freely,” Noah told her.

Josie went to the master bathroom. “She had her baby here.”

“Yeah,” Noah said.

Josie didn’t know much about childbirth, but she knew Misty must have had help.

“Where’s her phone?” Josie asked.

“We haven’t found it.”

“Did the elderly neighbor see anyone coming or going? You interviewed the neighbors closest to her first thing, right?”

“I did. I talked to them myself.”

“Did they see anyone? Perhaps carrying a baby? Any unusual vehicles?”

“No one saw anything,” Noah said.

“We need to issue an Amber Alert for the baby immediately.”

“Based on what?”

“This meets the criteria. Amber Alerts are to let the community know when a child under eighteen is missing or has been abducted and is in imminent danger. If a newborn baby is not here and it’s not with its mother, then we need to treat this like an abduction. I’m not taking any risks, not with a newborn baby.”

“Boss, we don’t even know the sex.”

“Then you need to find out. Someone should be talking to her ob-gyn. What about her best friend? The one who called us when she went missing last time?”

“I already have a call out to her,” Noah told her. “I found an appointment card on the fridge for a local ob-gyn and sent Gretchen over to their office to see what she could find out.”

“Good,” Josie said.

Gretchen Palmer was the department’s appointed detective. Josie had hired her shortly after she became chief of police and needed a detective to replace her. Gretchen was approaching forty and had worked as a detective in Philadelphia most of her career. She was seasoned and no-nonsense and a real asset to her team.

Noah frowned. “We have no photo, no vehicle, no witnesses.”

“I know. It’s not a lot to go on,” Josie said. “Let’s at least try to find out the sex as quickly as we can before we put out the alert. What about the father?”

“According to the neighbor, Misty wouldn’t talk about him to anyone.”

“So, it’s possible that this is domestic, and the father has the baby,” Josie said. “We need to find out who he is. We also need to work out who helped her deliver, and whether she was even planning a home birth.”

“Boss? Lieutenant Fraley?” a voice from downstairs called. She recognized it as the officer standing sentry outside of the house. “Someone here to talk to you.”