P. Parrish - An Unquiet Grave

Claudia. . something was coming back to him, something Charlie had said about the apple babies, and suddenly he knew that what he thought in the tunnels was only half right.

Claudia and Phillip’s baby. . that was what had started it all. Someone had probably paid good money to Seraphin for that baby. And that was what had given her the idea.

Use women patients for breeding. Use Ives to impregnate them. A scheme to create healthy, white infants that Seraphin could adopt out to wealthy couples.

Seraphin’s voice came back to him:

The hospital had so little funding, so money was always a problem. . I was instrumental in correcting many deficiencies.

Those long periods of isolation. It wasn’t therapy or to punish patients; it was to keep the pregnancies secret. Then the newborns were removed from the hospital in baskets, driven away in fruit trucks.

Babies. . conceived by a rapist, sold to the highest bidders so Dr. Seraphin could keep her programs in place. Buy new equipment. Make a career.

Proof. He still had no real proof. There was nothing to connect Seraphin directly to Ives.

Louis stared at his reflection in the mirror, something clicking in his brain. He slid off the stool and went quickly upstairs to his bedroom. It took him a moment to find the patient file for Buddy Ives. He grabbed his glasses off the nightstand and began flipping through the files.

He found the notation he was looking for: Ives had been put in “temporary isolation” at least five times. He was about to pull out Claudia’s file to compare the dates when something on Ives’s form caught his eye.

He stared at the bottom of the form at the signature right above the typed line ATTENDING PHYSICIAN.

Dr. Rose Seraphin.

Louis pulled out other forms. She had signed them all. He slapped the file shut. Seraphin had told him she had stopped seeing patients after being promoted to assistant deputy superintendent. So why the hell was her name on every piece of paper in Buddy Ives’s file?

His eyes swung to the phone. He searched his wallet for Seraphin’s lake house number and dialed.

Oliver answered. Louis was polite when he asked for her. After a few minutes, Seraphin’s voice came on the line.

“Good evening, Mr. Kincaid,” she said. “Have you called to shout at me again?”

He took a breath, working hard on sounding contrite. “No,” he said. “I called to apologize.”

“I appreciate that.”

“I also called for something else,” he said.

“Yes?”

“I need some help.”

She was quiet for a moment. “What kind of help?”

“Personal,” he said, lowering his voice, trying now to sound pathetic. “I lost it down there, Doctor.”

She said nothing.

“It scared me,” he said. “Scared the shit out of me.”

“And you want a session?”

“Yes.”

Again, a pause. “I’m closing up the lake house in the morning,” she said. “If you want to see me, you’ll have to come here.”

“Thank you.”

“Tonight.”

“I’ll see you around seven.”

“I’ll be waiting, Mr. Kincaid.”

It was snowing hard by the time he started up the hill toward Seraphin’s house. He had gone only twenty feet when the Impala lost traction and stopped. He tried again but the tires spun and the car went nowhere.

“Shit,” he muttered. He looked out the windshield at the huge wet flakes caught in the headlight beams. Far up the hill, between the bare trees, he could see the front of the house in the glare of the floodlights. No choice. He had to walk the rest of the way or risk getting stuck here all night.

He got out and trudged up the hill. The driveway looked like it had been plowed recently, but there was at least a foot of fresh snow covering it now.

Seraphin’s Volvo was parked to the left of the front door. Louis went up and knocked. Oliver opened the door immediately, wearing his usual black suit.

“The doctor’s waiting for you in the den,” he said. His face was red from cold or exertion. There was a mound of Vuitton luggage behind him.

“I can find my way,” Louis said.

Oliver gave him a cold stare, then hoisted up two bags and headed outside to the car.

Seraphin was behind a desk, sorting through some papers, when Louis came into the den. She looked up and gave him a curt smile as she continued putting papers in a briefcase.

“Please, make yourself comfortable, Mr. Kincaid. I’m just finishing up here.”

Louis slipped out of his jacket and took a chair. He noticed two Vuitton duffels on the floor next to the desk.

“So, where are you going?” Louis asked.

“Florida,” she said. “I have a condo on Hobe Sound.” She smiled again. “I just can’t tolerate the cold the way I used to. The price one pays for getting old, I suppose.”

Louis had to grit his teeth at the small talk. “Yeah.”

Seraphin snapped the briefcase closed and set it on the floor near the duffels. She came forward, pushing up the sleeves of her beige sweater as she took the chair opposite him. “Now,” she said. “What exactly is wrong?”

“I was hoping you could tell me,” Louis said.

“Have you ever been in therapy before?”

“No,” he said.

“Well, there’s nothing to be nervous about.”

“I’m not nervous.”

“Do you always sit on the edge of a chair like that?”

Louis hesitated, then sat back, draping his hands over the chair’s arms. “Is this better?”

She allowed her smile to widen. Then she, too, sat back in her chair. “You said something happened to you while you were in the tunnels,” she said.

He nodded.

“That you were scared.”

He nodded again.

“Can you tell me why you felt scared?”

“You mean besides the fact I was locked down there with a crazed, insane murderer?”

Seraphin somehow managed to keep her expression neutral. She picked a speck of lint off her beige skirt. Her eyes came back to Louis’s face and stayed there, waiting.

Louis let out a long breath. “I heard things,” he said finally. He waited, seeing a new spark of interest in her eyes.

“Go on,” she said.

“I heard things and I don’t know if they were real.”

“What did you think you heard?”

“Babies. . babies crying.”

There was a quick flash of something across her face. Louis was sure he had seen it.

“Why do you think you heard babies?” Seraphin asked.

“Why do you think I heard babies, Doctor?”

She uncrossed her legs and sat up straighter in the chair. “I would guess it was your guilt,” she said.

“What do I have to feel guilty about?”

“That you couldn’t save that poor woman. I would guess that it was her cries you heard in your imagination.”

Louis shook his head slowly. “No. It was babies.”

She tilted her head as she looked at him. “Do you have any children of your own, Mr. Kincaid?”

“This isn’t about me.”

“Of course it is.”

Louis sat forward in his chair. “I know what you did. I know you used Buddy Ives to impregnate patients and that you sold the babies. You isolated the women and then shipped their babies out in apple baskets. For money.”

Seraphin didn’t move.

“How much did you make, Doctor?” Louis pressed. “Enough to build a new infirmary? Enough to pay off the nurses? Enough to get appointed to the state board?”

Louis stopped. He couldn’t believe it. Seraphin was smiling.

“That’s quite a story,” she said. “You believe it’s real, don’t you?”

He could feel the balance shifting back to her, but he wasn’t going to let it happen. “I know Claudia DeFoe was real,” he said. “And I know she was pregnant when she came to Hidden Lake.”