The Lullaby Girl (Angie Pallorino Book 2) Read online

  “Jenny—please call me Jenny. I’m so sorry I’m late.” Her voice was low and husky at the edges with kindness—the sort of voice a child might imagine a nurse should have. Jenny joined Angie under the eaves out of the rain, which was beginning to come down harder now, splashing into puddles. “And I apologize for not managing to meet earlier in the day when there was more light—this place looks downright spooky in the darkness.” She laughed softly as she shook out her umbrella. “Retirement is not what I thought it might be. The soup kitchen where I volunteer is running me off my feet, especially at this time of year. When that blush comes off Christmas, there really is less giving, you know? Everyone seems to turn inward in the cold month of January when debt starts to hurt.”

  “I appreciate you being able to see me at all, and at such short notice.”

  “How could I not? When I got your call about looking into that old cradle child mystery for your friend …” The nurse turned to face the bolted garage doors of the service entrance behind them. She shook herself. “It was over three decades ago, and the memories still come over me like it was yesterday—Christmas Eve, the sound of that alarm going off inside the ER alerting us to an abandoned baby in the box, then the gunfire and ringing of the church bells …” She tilted her chin toward the doors. “They now use this entrance for hospital waste pickup. But this is where it was, the first angel’s cradle. And right beside it, over there”—she pointed with her umbrella—“was the old ER entrance. Ambulances traveled into this alley until the new, larger entrance and parking bays were constructed down at Front Street.” She paused. “It was the first newborn safe haven in the country. A place where mothers in distress could leave their infants safely. And as long as there was no sign of physical abuse on the baby, police were not contacted. The child went into the system for adoption.” The woman turned and studied Angie in the dim light, as if searching to prove something for herself. “What is your friend’s interest in this particular case?” she said.

  Angie shifted her weight. She suspected this veteran nurse could see right through her reason for being here. But Angie was not ready to tell anyone that she was the cradle child abandoned here in ’86. She inhaled deeply and said, “My friend was the one found inside the cradle that night. She learned only two weeks ago that she’d been adopted. For her whole life she believed she was someone else entirely. Now she’d like to know who she really is, who her biological parents might have been, how she came to be left in that baby box. Her case, as you know, was investigated by Vancouver police, but with no leads, no one coming forward with any information at all, the case finally went cold.”

  “And because you’re a detective with the Metro Victoria police on the island, your friend asked you to come over to the mainland to find out more?”

  “That, yes. And because I … have a bit of free time on my hands.” Not of her own volition—Angie had been placed on administrative leave after she shot sexual predator Spencer Addams—the Baptist—to death. Her disregard of a direct order, breach of MVPD protocol, her use of excessive force, evidence of rage, and a blackout had resulted in her being stripped of her badge and gun pending an Independent Investigations Office probe. On top of that there was a separate review underway by her own Metro Victoria Police Department. Worst-case scenario was that the IIO would deem her actions had veered into criminal. The IIO investigators could hand her case over to a Crown prosecutor. She could face criminal charges.

  It didn’t help that she was now being sidelined in the ongoing investigation that had come out of the Spencer Addams pursuit—a case she had helped crack wide open.

  Angie cleared her throat. “So, visiting the location and speaking to you is my ground zero, my first step.” She offered the nurse a smile. “I found your name in a newspaper feature from ’86 that had been digitized. Apart from a few articles, there’s not much online from that pre-everything-on-the-Internet period,” she said. “I’m sure I’ll find detailed coverage in library microfilm archives, but unfortunately the VPD has purged the old files and evidence from storage, so whatever you can tell me about that night, and about the cradle itself, is going to be helpful.”

  Jenny nodded, her gaze still probing Angie’s. “Well, the modern cradle concept was inspired by the foundling wheels of the twelfth century. When Catholic nuns in Europe sought a way to reduce infanticides, they came up with a method that allowed moms in distress to discreetly place newborns into a cylinder outside the wall of a convent. The cylinder was then rotated, moving the baby inside. The mother would then ring a bell outside the convent and leave without ever being seen. Modern cradles, or baby boxes, work in a similar way. A mother unable or unwilling to care for a newborn—and who might otherwise dump her infant somewhere to die—can safely and anonymously abandon her baby in a hospital bassinet accessed via a secure and electronically monitored door located outside the emergency department.”

  “But from what I’ve read, the first Saint Peter’s cradle was shut down?”

  “Yes,” Jenny said, stepping farther back under the eaves as rain pummeled down and wind began to gust. “Because of legal issues. Four months after it first opened, a healthy baby boy just hours old was dropped off. This sparked international media attention, alerting the World Health Organization. The WHO then came out claiming baby boxes contravened the rights of children to know their parental history and medical backgrounds. This, of course, is not a view that I share,” Jenny said. “My take is that a child’s very first claim is the right to life, upon which all other rights are contingent. I mean, what use is the right to know your birth history if you’ve been abandoned in a dumpster and you die?” She inhaled deeply, shaking her head. “Nevertheless, the WHO protest did highlight our country’s lack of safe haven legislation, and the cradle was shut in ’88.”

  “But you now have a new angel’s cradle at the new Front Street ER entrance?” Angie said.

  “The program relaunched only in 2010. It took a great deal of persistence, imagination, and collaboration with government and other stakeholders to get to that point,” Jenny said. “And because there’s still no blanket safe haven legislation, it’s key that our local program works in concert with existing laws, which still hold that the abandonment of a child is a criminal offense. However, police and the attorney general’s office finally agreed that they would not seek to prosecute mothers if there was no evidence of abuse on the child. Hospital staff are also under no obligation to report the abandonment or connect the baby with the parent, even if the birth mother does anonymously present to our hospital hours or days after delivery for treatment, provided her newborn was left safely.” Jenny paused and held Angie’s eyes. “The toddler abandoned here in ’86 was a whole other story. For one, she wasn’t an infant.” She paused, and history seemed to hang in the cold air. Wind whirled suddenly in a new direction, chasing down the alley as it whipped rain at them under their shelter.

  “Would you like to see the new cradle?” Jenny said softly. “I can show you how it works from the inside. I did let the ER staff know that we’d be coming, and they’re fine with it.”

  “Please,” Angie said, suddenly reluctant to enter the old Catholic-run hospital, fearful of the memories that might confront her. But she was equally anxious to see a real cradle for herself—perhaps it would prod some buried memory—and that’s precisely why she was here. She was desperate to recall more than the few dark snippets that had begun haunting her.

  They made their way down the alley and rounded the corner onto Front Street. It was alive and dense with evening commuter traffic, pedestrians, buses. Tires crackled over the wet road surface. A vehicle honked. A bus exhaust puffed white condensation into the chill air. Across the street from the hospital, store windows glowed brightly, colors smeared with rain. Above those stores, apartments and offices rose up into the low cloud.

  Jenny Marsden took Angie past a bank of ambulances parked outside the ER facility entrance. Under the cover of the portico, outside th
e ER doors, Jenny halted and once more shook out her umbrella, the ruby light from the emergency sign above the doors casting an otherworldly hue across her features.

  “This is it,” the nurse said as she closed her umbrella and nodded toward the wall beside the ER entrance. On the wall was a mural. It depicted a woman’s head bent as if in sorrow, her hair flowing into the shape of an angel’s wing—as though the angel was protecting her. Beside the mural, written in a gentle cursive font, were the words ANGEL’S CRADLE OF SAINT PETER. Beneath the words a small square door—more like a window—had been set into the wall. It was rimmed with metal and positioned just above waist level.

  “This door remains unlocked at all times,” Jenny said. “A mother can open it, place her newborn in the bassinet inside, and thirty seconds after the door is shut, an alarm sounds inside the ER. Staff will then respond and attend to the abandoned infant.”

  Angie swallowed as cold seemed to crawl deeper into her body.

  “Come. I’ll show you what it looks like from the inside.”

  The nurse led Angie through the ER reception area and down a sterile-smelling corridor lined with empty beds on wheels. They came to a set of square double doors in the wall, also at waist height. Four plastic chairs lined the wall beside the doors. Jenny stopped and faced Angie. Under the harsh fluorescent lighting, the nurse regarded Angie in silence. Angie weighed Jenny in return. The woman’s hair was thick and cut into a blunt bob above her shoulders. In this light Angie could see that the nurse’s skin was fine and papery. Deep lines fanned out from wide-set warm brown eyes and bracketed her mouth. The wrinkles seemed to map years of empathy and sadness. They were the lines, Angie thought, of a person who’d cared too much for far too long. Angie had once been told that empathy did not make for an easy nursing career. It was the more self-centered nurses—the ones who could easily objectify and distance themselves from their patients’ pain—who fared best. It was the same with cops, in her opinion. The truly compassionate officers didn’t last—or live—quite as long. It was a survival thing—the ability to cut off that part of oneself.

  “What did you say your friend’s name was again?” Jenny Marsden asked quietly.

  “I didn’t.” Angie forced a smile. “She prefers to remain anonymous at this point.”

  The nurse considered Angie’s reply, oblivious to two paramedics suddenly rushing a gurney past them. “I understand,” she said finally, quietly. Her eyes shimmered with moisture. She turned away quickly and opened the doors set into the wall. “This is the interior entrance to the bassinet.”

  Angie came forward and peered in.

  The compartment was painted a deep eggplant. It ran from waist to ceiling height. A door in the rear wall led to the outdoors. A clear plastic bassinet was positioned at the base. The bassinet was about four by three feet in size—large enough to accommodate a three-or four-year-old. Like Angie had been when she’d been abandoned. The mattress in the bassinet was covered in a soft-looking white flannel fabric. In the corner sat a yellow teddy bear dressed in a red sweater printed with the words SAINT PETER’S HOSPITAL.

  The teddy’s beady eyes regarded her intently. A shrill ringing began in Angie’s brain as she stared into the shiny eyes. The air grew hot. Pressure increased inside her skull. She struggled to draw in a breath, to gather the onslaught of emotions swirling like an unchecked tsunami inside her chest.

  Jenny leaned over the bassinet and opened the door on the far side. Cold wet air blew in. Through the opening Angie could see the lights and traffic of Front Street, a Starbucks logo in the window across the sidewalk. She felt as though she’d slid through some alternate reality, some hole in time.

  “The cradle back in ’86 was not much different from this one,” Jenny said quietly. “It affected us all, you know, finding that bleeding and mute toddler inside. She was a beautiful child—that pale complexion, the long dark-red hair, and that tattered little pink dress with frayed lace.” A pause. “We all thought someone would come forward to claim her instantly—that she had to have some family who was missing her. But no one did—not a soul. No mother presented at Saint Peter’s with injuries later. The other hospitals in this health-care region reported nothing suspicious, either. It was a mystery. An absolute mystery.”

  “Tell … tell me more about the child,” Angie said, her voice husky.

  “Her mouth had been slashed open by a sharp weapon—it had sliced through both the upper and lower lips on the left side of her face. She was bleeding copiously from the wound. Blood saturated her dress, the bassinet. She was clutching the teddy we’d placed inside, like a lifeline. Blood soaked the teddy bear as well. She was in shock, gray eyes like saucers. And she made no sound at all. As though she was beyond crying and had perhaps been that way for a long time before.” Jenny fell silent.

  Angie looked down at her.

  “Eyes the same color as yours,” Jenny said almost inaudibly. Her gaze ticked to the scar that marred the left side of Angie’s mouth. “Hair the same deep-red shade as yours—like Brazilian cherrywood, I always thought.”

  Angie’s cheeks went hot. “The news feature that I read online didn’t give much else beyond those same details.”

  “Yes—the police asked us to keep silent about the other information. They said it would aid them in their investigation. We took their request very seriously. Like I said, finding that toddler in the baby box … It impacted us all deeply. We all wanted answers, and if not talking to the media was going to help get them, we wanted to do everything we could.”

  Tears pricked suddenly at Angie’s eyes. It scared her—this lack of emotional control. But hearing that there’d been people who’d cared all those years ago, who’d wanted the same answers she now sought, who’d done everything to help her … it connected her to this place. And to this nurse with whom she shared a piece of the past. It gave her a small sense of belonging, of grounding—something she’d begun to crave desperately since her father had dropped the bombshell of her past on her.

  “Holdback evidence,” Angie offered. “That’s why police asked for silence. But you can talk now. Whatever evidence did come into the cradle with the child in ’86 has since been destroyed. I visited the VPD this morning, and they confirmed this. There are no case files, no evidence, nothing. Their old collection and maintenance procedures have since changed dramatically—as is the case with many law enforcement agencies worldwide that used to routinely destroy evidence in storage after a set period of time. The lead detectives who handled the cradle case are now deceased. I’m meeting with the widow of one tomorrow, but I doubt she’ll be able to tell me anything.”

  Jenny nodded and worried her bottom lip with her teeth.

  “Can you tell me what time the cradle alarm sounded?” Angie prompted. She’d heard her father’s side of the story. Now she wanted as many other viewpoints as possible.

  “It was around midnight,” the nurse said softly. “As Christmas Eve turned into Christmas morning—just before the cathedral bells started to peal. I was busy at the nurses’ station when the alarm rang. We’d experienced false alarms before—sometimes curious folks would open the door just to see what was inside. But that night was different.” Jenny stared into the bassinet, a distant look entering her eyes, as though she were seeing right back into the past. “I opened the doors, and … the little girl just sat there, staring at me, blood pouring from her mouth as she clutched that stuffy bear. I … it was a shock, like nothing I’ve experienced.” Jenny paused, collecting herself. “She must have been taken from some place of shelter in a great hurry given that she was so underdressed for the weather. No time to even put on her shoes. And I imagine she did own shoes because the soles of her feet seemed in fairly good condition. She was very thin, though.”

  “What happened next?” Angie prodded.

  “I yelled for help. ER staff rushed to my assistance. We got her into surgery, controlled the bleeding while checking vitals. The doctor on duty sutured her mouth. A nu
rse trained in forensics was called in. She … uh …”

  “Did a rape kit?”

  “Basically, yes. And took photos while we worked. Our primary focus, however, was patient care. Then the police arrived, asked questions. A pediatrician was brought in, and a social worker. Signs of malnourishment and possible vitamin D deficiency were present. I don’t think she spent much time outdoors in sunlight. Her age was estimated to be around four—dental calcification and eruption, long bone growth, epiphyseal development, closure of growth plates and bones—it all happens at a fairly predictable pace. However, she was small for her estimated age.”

  Tension coiled like a serpent in Angie’s belly. With a very carefully measured voice, she said, “So there were signs of neglect.”

  “Long term, in my opinion. Perhaps her whole life.”

  Angie inhaled slowly. “And … evidence of sexual abuse?”

  “We found no overt signs of sexual trauma. No anal or vaginal tearing or perineal bruising. But that doesn’t always mean …” Jenny cleared her throat and reached into her pocket, extracting a tissue. “There were contusions on her body. Some older, some more recent. Some on the insides of her thighs. Evidence of a fractured left radius that had gone untreated.” She blew her nose. “I’m sorry. There’s always the one case that gets to you. For me, this was it.”

  “I know,” Angie said quickly. “I work in the sex crimes unit on the island. I know how it feels to be faced with an innocent child, or a young woman, helpless in the face of adult abuse, neglect.” She knew it with every molecule of her being, that feeling. It was why she’d become a cop. It was what kept her in sex crimes. It was what got her out of bed every morning. But not in her wildest dreams had she ever thought that her drive—her fierce passion for justice in special victim crimes—might have been shaped and fueled by her own suppressed childhood traumas, a life of abuse that she might have endured before she was found here, in the arms of Saint Peter’s cradle, on that Christmas Eve. A past she could not remember.