Джеймс Паттерсон - The Midwife Murders

“How’d you know that?” I ask.

“I only figured it out because you’re here, and he’s there, and whenever I see Leon, he talks about you. By the way, I’m Barbara Holt.”

I should introduce myself, of course, but what I end up saying is this: “Blumenthal talks about me?”

“Yeah, he refers to you as ‘his unofficial special assistant.’”

It takes me a few moments to process this info. I wonder if he says it sarcastically or respectfully. Probably both ways, depending on his mood and our relationship of the moment.

But before I can respond, my new friend suddenly says, “Damn. I was supposed to be in a meeting downtown at my office ten minutes ago. I should quit my job and spend all my time keeping track of Leon. I hope I see you again, Ms. Ryuan.”

“Yes, me too,” I say.

And Barbara Holt’s fancy red-soled shoes take her quickly down the corridor toward the EXIT sign. One thing I know is this: I’m really not hoping to see her again.

I am, however, considering the information that Blumenthal has told people, even just one person, even as a joke, that I’m his special assistant. I’m also wondering, of course, who exactly is Barbara Holt, and what exactly is her role in Blumenthal’s life?

Then the door opens. Blumenthal comes out, and I hear Bobby’s voice begin: “Detective Leon Blumenthal is leaving the—” Blumenthal closes the door behind himself. I’m suddenly looking at Blumenthal in a whole new way.

“We’re going into the viewing room. Two-way mirror.”

We enter a small, dark, stale-smelling room. High-schoolstudent-type desks.

A light-brown curtain covers what I assume is one side of the two-way mirror. I sit down, and Blumenthal says, “Okay. I’m going to pull the curtain open and turn on the speaker.”

Opposite Cilia, facing the mirror, facing us, is … I stand up to get a better look. My hand flies to my mouth. I yell.

“Holy shit. It’s Troy!”

CHAPTER 62

I RUSH TO THE door of the viewing room.

Blumenthal shouts, “Lucy, wait. You cannot go in there.”

“The hell I can’t.”

Blumenthal has joined me and blocks the door. “We’re just questioning him,” he says.

“Is he under arrest? Is he a person of interest?” I ask, wondering if I need to punch Blumenthal in the stomach (or somewhere close to the stomach).

“No, he’s not under arrest. He’s not under suspicion. He’s not anything. He’s here to help.”

“Great news. Then I’m going in,” I say.

Turns out I do not have to punch Blumenthal anywhere. He moves away from the door, and as I enter the interrogation room, Troy rises from his seat and hugs me.

“What the hell’s the story? Why are you here?” I yell. I have about a thousand more questions, but Blumenthal jumps in.

Blumenthal says that he’ll explain. Bobby Cilia says that he should explain. And seizing one of the rare moments when I have a bit of control over the situation, I suggest that Troy can do his own explaining. So Troy starts.

“First of all, I’m sorry, Lucy. I’m sorry as hell. You finding out this way. I shoulda come to you right away. I shoulda—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I say. “Just tell me what happened. How’d you end up here?”

“I’m gonna tell you. But first you gotta promise you’ll forgive me for not going to see you sooner. It’s just that things were getting crazy rough, and I couldn’t get hold of you. So I went to the detective. I’m so sorry. I’m—”

“Jesus Christ, Troy! Just tell me what happened. Tell me the goddamn story!”

And he does.

“Last week Tracy Anne comes in to see me all teary and shaky and nervous. She sits me down and closes the doors, and she makes me promise not to tell anyone anything about what she’s going to tell me. So I swear on a stack of make-believe Bibles, and she tells me that she’s been … that she’s been freelancing.”

Freelancing, when you’re a midwife, means that you’re helping with deliveries but not in connection with a hospital. It’s, well, a totally unconnected freelance job. It’s usually dangerous. It means you have no real support system—no other midwives, no prenatal care, no postnatal care. It’s pretty much like the frontier days when a midwife showed up when the pain began and did her best to help the delivery. Freelancing is usually used by illegal immigrants and drug addicts and very often by women who don’t want anyone else to know they’re giving birth—that would be women like teenage prostitutes and homeless women. Most of the freelance midwives aren’t trained with the depth and knowledge professionals are. At least Tracy Anne has impeccable training and an excellent education. But it’s still a bad thing to do, and because of Tracy Anne’s association with GUH, it’s also totally forbidden by the hospital for her to do it.

Back to Troy. He’s calmed down a little, but he’s still doing some serious shaking.

“So Tracy Anne tells me that she’s done six freelance births in the last two weeks, and she did a few more before that. Well, more than ‘a few.’ So many other births that she’s even lost track. It seems the last six were all teenagers and they were all drug addicts. One of them surely had AIDS, Tracy Anne said, and another one was bleeding out so much they had to bring her to a really sketchy off-the-street clinic in Bed-Stuy.”

Bobby Cilia shakes his head in wonder at the horror of this tale. Blumenthal stands in stony silence.

“Anyway, Tracy Anne tells me that she’s getting all her freelance jobs from this Russian couple. I know, I know. Just like the ones you’re closing in on—that’s when I knew I couldn’t let the story rest without telling someone. And poor Tracy Anne was ready to kill herself. I mean truly, literally, she was talking about how she was in such deep shit already that there was no way out but to kill herself.”

I say nothing, but I am incredibly angry and incredibly sad that one of my most trusted midwives has stooped to such a dangerous and unethical level. And I’m thinking, Why? Why do this, Tracy Anne? Okay, I’m sad, but I’m also shocked. No one is better at her job than Tracy Anne. And if you’re thinking that in her I saw the younger me, well, you’re absolutely correct.

It’s also pretty clear that Troy knows everything about this. He keeps talking, and I keep being amazed. Now Troy tells us that Tracy Anne was paid a thousand dollars per delivery. They were all “at home” deliveries, although the home might’ve been a filthy basement room where dealers were cooking crack, or an outdoor alley in a Bronx housing project.

“The thing is, Tracy Anne said these Russian people said they were selling the babies to give to rich people. At least that’s what they told Tracy Anne. And of course she believed them. Why not? It made her feel better.”

“Yep. She wanted to believe them,” says Bobby. And I think he’s right about that.

I jump in. “Where is Tracy Anne now?”

“That’s just it,” says Bobby. “She disappeared two days ago. We’re looking for her.”

I look at Troy. “You don’t know where she is, Troy?”

“No. I don’t,” he says.

“Are you sure?” I ask. Big mistake.

Troy goes from being nervous and contrite to being angry and belligerent. “No, damn it! I absolutely do not know where that girl is hiding out. She’s scared. She’s in trouble with the police, with the hospital, with the Russian crazy people. So of course she’s gone and made herself disappear. She could be dead for all I know.”

Bobby says, “This girl is deep in the shitter.”

Troy starts talking again. “Look here, Lucy. I broke a confidence by coming in here. I know that. But I had to …”