Divine Intervention (23 page)

Stepping into the elevator, Jasi zipped her jacket halfway, concealing her gun from curious eyes.

"How do you want to handle this?" she asked Ben when they reached the third floor.

"Boardroom A is to the left." He pointed to a hospital directory hanging on the wall. "We don't know if there's an alternate escape, so we'll just have to push our way in."

In front of the door to the boardroom, a receptionist's desk stood unmanned. The waiting area was empty too.

"We're in luck, Ben."

Jasi unzipped her jacket.

Gripping the gun firmly, she kept her hand tucked inside. No need to alarm everyone in the meeting. If they could take Gibney quietly…

Ben barged into the room.

She followed on his heels, taking long, brisk strides.

"Martin Gibney?" Ben demanded.

Jasi scoured the startled faces of the board members.

"There!" she hissed.

Gibney was bent over a stack of legal documents.

"A-Agent Roberts?" he stuttered. "What are you doing here?"

Bewildered, he straightened slightly.

Jasi detected fear in Gibney's eyes.

He knows
something
, she realized. But was he a serial arsonist?

Ben strode over to the cowering man and grabbed his arm. "Martin Gibney, we have a few questions for you. If you'll come with us, please."

"Is there somewhere private we can talk?" Jasi asked the man.

"There's a private lounge, two doors down."

A terrified Gibney motioned them to follow while fifteen shocked board members sat mutely.

"We're just questioning him," Jasi assured one woman on her way out the door.

"For now," she heard Ben mutter, annoyed.

When they were safely ensconced in the lounge, Ben ordered three hospital workers out, then locked the door behind them and told Gibney to sit.

"Voice record on!" Jasi commanded, placing her data-com on the conference table.

Taking the seat across from the doctor, Ben leaned forward, placed his elbows on the table between them and clasped both hands firmly.

"We need to know
exactly
what was going on with you and Dr. Washburn. We have proof that you were both involved in illegal abortion activities."

Gibney's mouth hung open. "I'm not saying anything."

"This is your last opportunity to talk to us."

"I want my lawyer," Gibney argued, staring at the wall.

"That's up to you," Jasi shrugged. "But then we'd have to bring you in for questioning. And we might have to find you some cellmates to teach you how to play nice."

She smiled acidly and perched on the edge of the table.

Jasi suspected that Gibney wouldn't like being dragged out in handcuffs, or the countless hours of processing and waiting around a police station. She also suspected that making new friends in a Kelowna jail cell wasn't Gibney's idea of a good time either.

"I'll lose my job, my house―everything," Gibney whined, desperation carved into his face.

"Then tell us what you know," she warned. "It's in your best interest to talk to us. If you answer our questions, then we may not have to bring you in. Right, Ben?"

"Maybe," her partner agreed.

Finally the doctor let out a long, unsteady breath and began talking. "Norman Washburn didn't just handle the occasional abortion, he also delivered his own kids."

Jasi was shocked. "What?"

"Norman brought in a prostitute one night," Gibney said flatly. "In August of 1979. The woman was in labor, full-term. I overheard her threatening to expose Norman."

"Expose him for what?" Ben asked bluntly.

"Norman had paid for her services―more than once.
He
was the father."

Jasi stood up suddenly and paced the room.

"Washburn couldn't deal with another scandal," she said. "So what did he do―deliver the baby?"

"Ba-
bies
," Gibney corrected.

Babies?

Jasi was stunned.

Somewhere out there, Washburn had more children.

Allan Baker had siblings.

"How many?" she asked.

Martin Gibney held up two fingers.

Ben leaned forward, pulled off a glove and grabbed the man's arm. "So let me get this straight. Norman Washburn slept with a prostitute, got her pregnant and delivered his own kids in the basement of the hospital?"

Gibney nodded. "He didn't want anyone to find out. Especially the board or his wife."

"So what happened to the mother and the babies?" Jasi asked.

"Norman took care of them," Gibney mumbled grimly.

"Wait a minute." Motioning Ben aside, she whispered, "In Natassia's vision, she saw the mother's eyes."

"Yeah?"

"Were they open or closed?"

"I don't know," Ben admitted.

Jasi punched in Natassia's data-com link.

"Wide open," Natassia replied. "But unmoving."

Jasi broke communication. "Ben? The mother's eyes were wide open. I think she was dead."

Gibney groaned loudly, then rested his head in his hands. "Norman killed her."

"Why would you think that?" Jasi demanded, lingering beside the man.

"Right after the twins were born, Norman told me to get a bag of AB blood for the mother. When I returned about fifteen minutes later, the woman was dead." Gibney's voice was flat and lifeless.

"I don't see―"

"I saw something wrapped in a towel," he interrupted. "The placenta. Norman refused to let me examine it."

Ben glided around the side of the table. "So, what exactly are you saying?"

Gibney dragged in a deep breath. "I'm saying that Norman ripped the placenta out of the mother. He knew what he was doing. He knew his actions would result in a postpartum hemorrhage."

"And he didn't want you to see what he had done," Ben guessed. "That's why he wouldn't show you the placenta. You would know that he had committed murder. But you already knew. You guessed, didn't you?"

Martin Gibney cowered guiltily.

Jasi bent over him, bracing herself on the arms of his chair. "Washburn intentionally made the mother bleed to death so that she wouldn't expose him. What happened to her body?"

The man looked up apprehensively. "I don't know. Norman got rid of it."

"We need to find out who this woman was," Jasi said to Ben. "Someone is out to avenge her death. Maybe her pimp, a boyfriend―someone."

Gibney shook his head grimly. "Norman refused to have any record of her existence. By the time I realized what had happened, I was in way over my head. It was too late to do anything about the mother…or the babies."

Ben cleared his throat. "We need to search hospital records and newspapers. The babies would have needed medical attention."

"Unless Washburn killed them too," Jasi murmured.

Martin Gibney looked like he was going to vomit.

"No, Norman found them a home," he argued.

Ben's eyes lit up suddenly. "Charlotte Foreman got them somehow."

Gibney nodded slowly. "Norman insisted that Charlotte Foreman get those kids…the twins. He wanted her to keep them out of his way―make sure they never went looking for him. Norman wrote her a glowing recommendation."

Jasi was appalled. "Why would he do that? She abused those kids."

The man's head jerked up sharply. "What?"

"How do you think Allan Baker's hands were scarred?"

"He told me a gang of boys burned him on a pipe," Gibney said nervously.

Ben glared contemptuously. "Actually his foster mother held them on the stove burner."

"My God!" Gibney sputtered. "I thought those boys were just accident prone. You know, boys being boys and all that."

"Boys?"
Jasi questioned sharply.

"Yeah. Allan and the twin. Mrs. Foreman brought them in at different times. I treated them both for minor burns and broken bones."

"Jesus!"
she whispered in disbelief.

"Tell us about the other boy," Ben demanded, his eyes snapping with barely controlled fury.

"Well," Gibney began slowly. "Uh, TJ, I think his name was, he came in with a few broken bones. He broke his arm twice in one summer. Climbing trees, he told me."

The man's eyes grew hazy with guilt. "One time, I treated Ronnie, the sister, for burns to her arm. She told me it was from a curling iron but I admit, I did wonder what a six-year-old was doing curling her hair with a hot iron."

Jasi glared at him coldly. "So two boys and a girl were brutally abused by Charlotte Foreman, and you didn't report it."

She leaned closer so that her face was inches from his. "My, aren't you a hero!"

Gibney recoiled as her sarcasm sliced through the room.

"But I didn't know for sure," he moaned.

"Yeah," Ben scoffed dryly. "A trained professional had no clue."

"I swear to God! The foster mother and the kids told the same stories. Even if I suspected something―"

"It was your duty to report
anything
suspicious," Jasi seethed. "Why the hell wouldn't you have done that much for those kids?" She stared at him for a long time.

Gibney slumped in his chair, deflated. His bloodshot eyes flooded with guilt and a shameful tear trickled down one cheek.

In a small voice he said, "I didn't want my own past to be exposed. She would have told everyone what we had done to her."

Ben bolted from his seat. "What do you mean?"

"She came to us, before she was married. Said she was too young to have a baby."

Jasi gasped. "Charlotte Foreman's medical file stated she couldn't have children. There was extreme scarring of her uterus―a botched abortion."

"We performed the abortion on her," Gibney confessed. "But something went wrong. Norman had been drinking and when we were done, we realized she'd never be able to conceive. She had us both by the balls, after that."

Jasi fervently wished that she could grab those balls and―

"So you didn't report her abuse because you knew she'd report yours?" Ben hissed. "Instead, you allowed her to continuously abuse those kids. So much for your Hippocratic oath to do no harm."

Gibney dropped his head. He rocked slowly in his chair, both hands covering his face.

"It's over," he moaned.

"It's not over until we find the sick son-of-a-bitch who's responsible for three deaths," Jasi reminded him. "Oh, and Gibney? Don't go anywhere."

Martin Gibney's eyes widened with shock. "Agent McLellan! I did not kill anyone! I never wanted this to come out. I wanted Norman to resign…step down."

Jasi glared at the man. "You know anyone else who wanted Dr. Washburn dead?"

"I've told you everything―everything I know. I may be…many things, but I-I am not a murderer. I swear to you, both of you. I did not kill Mrs. Foreman and that little girl. And I did not kill Norman Washburn."

"You're free to go," she said scornfully to Gibney. "Just don't go far. We'll be checking out your story."

The man stumbled from the lounge with a nervous twitch over his shoulder. Red-faced, he lifted his chin proudly and made for his office.

Motioning Ben to follow, Jasi hurried from the hospital.

"What did you get from him?" she asked.

Ben's lip curled in disgust.

"He's telling the truth, Jasi. He feels immense guilt and shame. But the only blood on his hands comes from his involvement with the underground abortion clinic. Martin Gibney's no serial killer."

Stepping outside the hospital doors, they passed a young mother and father smiling proudly at their newborn son.

"Tell that to the Pro-Lifers," Jasi muttered.

It was after eight o'clock when she opened the door to her hotel room. Ben hovered outside the doorway. He was finishing a report on Gibney.

"I'll send it to Ops right away," he stated, remaining in the hall.

Jasi nodded and then entered the room.

Brandon and Natassia were still sifting through the crime scene files. Brandon looked up from the table and she could see the relief in his eyes. He had been worried about her. How strange.

She recalled Ben's words.

He's a good man. He won't betray you.

"Well?" Brandon asked, his voice tinged with hope.

"Washburn killed a prostitute after she gave birth to twins―
his
!" Jasi said abruptly. "He and Gibney were also responsible for Charlotte Foreman's botched abortion. She blackmailed them and used Gibney for her family GP. That way, she could hide the child abuse and neither doctor could report her."