Two Days Gone (Ryan DeMarco Mystery #1)(66)

“Uhh,” she said, “Sergeant? I’m not sure I can give you that information. We have a confidentiality policy and we’re not supposed—”

“Let me speak to your supervisor,” he said.

“Uhh, there’s just me and the nurse and the doctor right now.”

“Nurse or doctor, either one. Now. Thank you.”

“Okay, uhh…may I put you on hold?”

“No you may—” he managed to get out before the Muzak began, an orchestral version of the Lennon–McCartney song “Here, There and Everywhere.” “Fuck,” he said. “No respect for authority.”

As he listened to the Muzak, he was reminded of his favorite cover of the song, the one by Claudine Longet, former French wife of the balladeer Andy Williams. Then she had been arrested for the murder of her lover, the Olympic skier Spider Sabich. Longet had beguiled the jury and the judge, and spent thirty days’ worth of weekends in a plush cell for negligent homicide, a misdemeanor. As far as DeMarco could recall, her singing career had ended with the bullet that went into Sabich’s belly. DeMarco had been just a boy at the time, but he could still picture the singer’s waifish and fragile beauty, could still hear her whispery voice. She had been one of his first infatuations. Even then, apparently, he had been attracted to murderers.

“Sergeant Ryan?” a deep male voice said.

“Yes. Who am I speaking with?”

“This is Dr. Atwater. I’m the physician on duty today. Jolynn has passed on your request to me, and I’m sorry to say that our policy prohibits the release of personal information.”

“I understand that, Doctor. And I’m sure you realize that if necessary I can obtain a court order and—”

“Sergeant? If I could finish, please.”

“Go ahead.”

“If I were able to provide such information, and if a patient fitting your description did avail herself of our services on the day specified, it would most likely be the case that our services were limited to an ultrasound and the administration of the prescription drug RU-486 to induce termination of the pregnancy. In which case, the patient would have undergone a miscarriage some time during the next twenty-four hours or so.”

“Are you telling me that this was the case with Bonnie?”

“I am telling you that if a patient came here only six weeks into her pregnancy, RU-486 would have been administered. I’m afraid that’s all I can tell you.”

DeMarco said, “Okay. Thank you, Doctor.”

“I’m sorry I can’t be more precise.”

“I understand. Would you be able to tell me anything about the man who accompanied her?”

“Not even if I knew anything.”

“Okay, well…thank you for your cooperation.”

DeMarco had hoped that the clinic performed routine tests on all aborted fetuses, and that, in this case, the blood type could be matched to Huston’s. Given the commonality of blood types, Huston would not be entirely ruled out or definitively identified as the father, but it was a hunch DeMarco had had to play. Now he was left with only the unsubstantiated certainty that Huston’s phrase the other man had no relevance to the novel in progress. It applied only to Huston’s own certainty that he had not fathered another baby. And there were only two ways to account for that certainty. Either Huston had never had sex with Bonnie, or he was no longer capable of producing children.

“The in-laws,” DeMarco said. He grabbed Huston’s file off the corner of his desk, slapped it down on the blotter, and started flipping pages until he found the home phone number for the O’Patchens. DeMarco hoped that Rosemary would answer, and she did.

“Would you happen to know,” he asked after his greeting, “if your son-in-law ever had a vasectomy?”

Rosemary’s voice remained as flat as the first time he’d heard it. “How is that important now?” she said.

DeMarco cautioned himself to slow down, to take his time with her. She had been delivered a blow from which she would never recover. If for no other reason than that, she deserved whatever patience he could muster. He said, “In your heart of hearts, Rosemary, you don’t really believe that Thomas could ever have hurt his family, do you?”

“Ed says I have to accept it. That I need to see things as they are. But I just can’t get my head around such an idea. I can’t.”

“Well, I’m working on a theory that might prove you right.”

“You are? What… I mean can you tell me what it is?”

“Not just now I can’t. I’m sorry. But I will when I can, I promise you that. In the meantime, about the vasectomy…”

She said, “Right from the start they both wanted a boy and a girl. And it worked out exactly the way they’d planned. First Thomas Jr. and then Alyssa.”

“But ten years later, along came another one.”

“Ever since Alyssa, he’d intended to have a vasectomy. But Claire was on the pill, so…”

“It just never happened?”

“They changed their minds. After Alyssa started school, I think it was.”

“They changed their minds about…?”

“Only wanting two.”

“Ah. And so…”