Джеймс Паттерсон: The Midwife Murders

I now begin trying to do three things at once. One, I start to get dressed. No time for a shower. A wet washcloth under my arms, a few swipes of deodorant, and a generous helping of Johnson’s Baby Powder will compensate. Two, I try to find information about the missing baby on my laptop. Nothing. Where are you, Twitter, when I need you? Three, I keep yelling toward the bedroom, “Willie, wake up!”

Within a few seconds I’m slipping into a pair of slightly stained jeans and a less-than-glamorous turquoise V-neck T-shirt, also slightly stained. Both are victims of the Chinese beef and broccoli, which The Duke is noisily eating right now.

I try searching an all-news website.

Great. I guess.

Missing baby NYC and missing baby hospital news info brings me one news brief that “an underage patient at Gramatan University Hospital (GUH) has been reported missing.”

Underage? The freaking baby is one day old. That’s PR for you.

I head back into Willie’s room. He is snoring like a 300-pound drunk. I’m surprised he doesn’t wake the neighbors, and I’ve got to wonder how somebody that little can make a noise so loud.

“Willie, get up. Come on. You’ve gotta get down to Sabryna’s. Right! Now!” Well, that sure didn’t work.

I stand in the little bedroom, and then I waste a few seconds just staring at my fine-looking son, asleep on Bart Simpson sheets. I tousle his hair. No reaction. I tousle it somewhat harder. One eye opens. Then a mouth.

“You’ve got a really huge stain on that T-shirt, Mom.”

“I know,” I say. “I haven’t had time to do laundry. And the stain is not huge. It’s medium.”

Willie now has both eyes closed again. He’s gone back to sleep. I move into very-loud-but-still-not-yelling volume.

“You’re going down to Sabryna’s in your underwear if you don’t get up right this minute. I repeat: Right. This. Minute.”

Sabryna and her thirteen-year-old son, Devan, are our downstairs neighbors. She is originally from Jamaica, and her voice still has the beautiful island lilt to it. That lilt, which Sabryna can turn on and off like a faucet, also adds a note of authenticity to the small Caribbean grocery store she runs on the ground floor. The store is a jumble of goods: baskets of plantains and bunches of callaloo greens, as well as Pringles, Skittles, cigarettes, and New York Lottery tickets.

Sabryna’s store is open from five in the morning until seven at night. She works hard, and she works alone, except for some reluctant help from Devan. Sabryna, who is hands down my best friend, also is my go-to babysitter when I’m called out suddenly.

A buzz, a beep, a phone text from Tracy Anne: R u on way? Hosp nurse about 2 interfere.

Let me explain something here about how things operate in my professional world. The nurse-midwives are entirely separate from the medical staff at Gramatan University Hospital. We’ve trained for three years—intensely, some of us at the best teaching hospitals in the world: Johns Hopkins, University of Chicago, Yale. I honestly believe we’re only a few steps away from being doctors. I say that with just a touch of arrogance. I don’t want you to think we’re a bunch of former hippies who stand and sing over a screaming woman giving birth on a kitchen table. The hospital setting is around us only in case of an emergency. So when Tracy Anne uses the word interfere, my blood starts to boil.

“Okay, Willie. You’re going downstairs in your tightywhities,” I yell. I toss a pair of khaki cargo shorts on top of him.

“Wait. I need a shirt, and I need to go to the bathroom, and I need—”

“And I need to help a woman give birth to twins. Downstairs! Right now, buddy boy. Right now!”

CHAPTER 2

WHAT’S GOING ON IN my world this morning is really not at all unusual. My life seems to always be a great big blur of chaos. It’s the collision of my very intense job, my adorable but somewhat demanding kid, my unbearably messy home, and my dog. Yes, of course I love my son. He is smart and charming and usually quite cooperative. Yes, of course I hate my life. I don’t have enough time, and I don’t have enough money. I often think if had more of either of those things I’d be able to manage, but I’m smart enough to know that isn’t true.

As Sabryna says, “Money is a necessity, but it never is a solution.” I guess. Sabryna’s folk wisdom catchphrases always sound right, but I’ve never really put them to the test. Like the one that she loves about raising children: “Don’t pester your children with lots of discipline. Allow room for the good Lord to raise them.” Okay, sounds good, but I’m not buying it. And I’m certainly not going to test it out on Willie.

“Where you off to, Lucy?” Sabryna asks as she stacks cans of gungo peas. I can smell the frying of onions and goat meat coming from the tiny kitchen in the back. Devan is stacking cigarette packages on the shelf slowly … very, very slowly. His face lights with a smile, however, when he sees Willie. They exchange one of those complicated handshakes that only young people seem to know how to do.

“I’m sorry. I have an emergency,” I say.

“No worries, girl. We always got use for an extra pair of working hands, no matter the size of the hands,” says Sabryna.

Now it’s Willie’s turn to roll his eyes.

“Didn’t I hear you coming up the stairs early this morning?” Sabryna asks.

“Yeah, I went out running with the dog and then I got a call about an emergency,” I say.

“Some lady-mama is ready to pop?” she asks.

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“You might as well live at that hospital of yours,” says Sabryna. Then she adds, “Well, you practically do. Pretty soon Willie-boy’s gonna think that I’m his mama.”

I laugh at the joke, but a part of me, just for a second, is sad at even the funny truth of it.

My own slightly bossy mother, who should be canonized a saint, lives a long, long car ride away, down in West Virginia, so I can’t lean on her for help. I’ve read all the online advice for the single mother, the working mother, the single mother with two jobs, the single mother with two children, the single mother with no family, the single mother with a bossy mother of her own. With all this advice available, why does it usually feel like I’m making it up as I go along?

“The Duke’s up in the apartment. I’m not sure he did his stuff when we were out. I’ve lost my memory completely,” I say.

“Not a worry. I’ll get the boys to take him out later.”

My cell phone buzzes. I know it will be the frantic Tracy Anne. I don’t even bother to look at the screen. Instead I stoop down and hug Willie. “Do whatever you can to help Sabryna,” I say.

Sabryna jumps in immediately. “You can start by unpacking that sack of Scotch Bonnet chili peppers.”

“A Scotch Bonnet. What’s that?” Willie asks.

“Not some rich lady’s hat. They’re the hottest peppers on earth, just about. You touch your eyes after handling the Scotch Bonnets, you’ll be blind for three days or maybe even forever.”

I kiss Willie on his forehead, what we call a head kiss .

“See you later,” Willie says. Then he glances at the small burlap sack of peppers and adds, “At least I sure hope so.”

CHAPTER 3

TWO NEW YORK CITY police officers are at the employees’ entrance of GUH.

What the hell is going on? And then, of course, I start to think about the missing baby. I’d been so focused on getting here for the birth of Val’s babies that I’d managed to forget the horrible news.

It takes a full minute of plowing through my bag to find my employee ID card. Both officers glance back and forth a few times between my face and my card. One of the guards says, “Okay. Go to second check.”