Fertile Ground (43 page)

“I’m sure they do. The media was at the hospital.”

“I’m not surprised. You think Mrs. Hoffman received Chelsea’s eggs?”

Lisa hesitated, then nodded. “I spoke to Grace today. She confirmed it.” She repeated what she’d learned from the nurse.

“Grace doctored the documents, huh?” Sam whistled, then was silent for a moment. “So you think Chelsea

went to the Hoffmans to demand shared custody or something, is that it?”

“It’s possible.”

“Did you tell Barone?”

“Not yet.” Lisa tightened the belt on her robe.

“But you suspect that Baruch Hoffman panicked and killed her?” Sam’s eyes narrowed. “But then who killed Matt? And why?”

“I’m not a detective, Sam. And I don’t want to jump to conclusions about Baruch Hoffman.”

“Absolutely not. That would be terribly unfair.” Cocking his head, he looked at her thoughtfully. “So whom do you suspect?”

“Sam, I’ve had a long, exhausting day.” She rose. “Let’s talk later, all right?”

He made no move to leave the sofa. “I was at Elana’s earlier, thinking I’d find you there. I lied and told her you wanted me to look through the files in the guest room.”

Her stomach muscles knotted. “You had no right, Sam.”

“You’re absolutely correct. “Chotosi,” ” he said, using the refrain from the Yom Kippur liturgy of confession. / sinned. He pounded his chest. “But what was I supposed to do? You’ve been acting like I have leprosy or something. I thought at first that you were nervous because of the other day in your office, but that’s silly. So I figured it had something to do with the files.”

She just stood there, looking at him.

“I said to myself, “Lisa spent hours photocopying the damn stuff, almost got killed doing it. No way is she not going to look at it.” So I decided to see what you found. You made it easy, charting all that info. Did you tell Bar one about it?”

She cleared her throat. “Yes.”

“But you didn’t tell me. Which means you couldn’t trust me. How’m I doing so far. Lisa?” he asked softly.

“Sam, I’m sorry. It’s hard to explain.”

“Explain what?” His eyes were flashing with anger. “That you thought I was screwing around with donor

eggs, giving them to patients without their knowledge or consent?”

“Someone was doing it. It’s not my imagination!”

“Well, it wasn’t me! How could you believe for one second I’d do something like that?”

“Why did you erase your name as attending physician from a recipient’s file?”-she demanded angrily. “Why did you write in Matthew’s name?”

He stared at her. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Nicki Sandier. Remember her?” The name was emblazoned on her mind.

“Nicki’s my patient. She just had her second IVF. She was on that list of yours, right? According to you, she received donor eggs.”

“She didn’t?”

“If she did, it was done without my knowledge. Why?”

“Matthew is listed as attending physician. I spoke to Nicki. She said you were her doctor. What was I supposed to think?”

“You weren’t supposed to think’. You were supposed to ask me. And I would’ve told you that she was my patient, and that I had no idea who’s doing this stuff, but it sure as hell isn’t me.”

“You kept nagging at me not to look at the files, Sam,” she said quietly.

He groaned. “Because I thought it was a waste of time! I offered to go through the stuff with you, didn’t I? I was attacked too, wasn’t I? Or maybe you thought I made that up, that I bruised myself after I attacked you.”

She glanced away.

“I was being sarcastic, but I guess you did think that, huh?” His voice was so soft. “Did I put the money in your pantry too? Dumb of me if I did, ‘cause I could use twenty grand now that I’m out of a job.”

She was hot with embarrassment. “I’m sorry. I was frightened and confused, and Barone kept hammering at me not to trust anyone, not even you. I’m so sorry, Sam,”

she said again, sitting down next to him. She put her hand out to touch him, then drew it back.

“What really hurts is that you could believe for one second that I would harm you. Lisa.”

“I didn’t really believe it. I just crawled into a shell and stopped thinking. Can you understand that, Sam?”

“I don’t know.” He sat for a while, brooding in silence, then pushed himself off the sofa.

“Please don’t go, Sam.”

“I need to think about all this, okay?”

She bit her upper lip and nodded. “Okay.”

After he left, she went into her bedroom and sat on the bed. In their last few phone calls, her parents had hinted that she should come home. There were fertility clinics in New York, too, her father had told her. Why stay in Los Angeles?

Why, indeed?

She listened to “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and dusted the bookcases, which needed no dusting. She wondered when she’d get her computer and disks back. She didn’t even know whom to call to find out. In the bathroom, she watched the water drain out of the tub, leaving snowy caps of bubble-bath foam.

The doorbell rang. She went to the entry and looked through the peephole, then opened the door.

“I thought you had to think about all this,” she said lightly. Her heart was pounding as she stepped aside to let him enter.

“I sat in the car and tried putting myself in your shoes,” he said. “I tried to imagine what I would’ve thought, what I would’ve done.”

“And what did you decide?” she asked quietly.

“That I don’t want to lose you.”

Her heat beat faster. They stood in the entry, staring at each other, suddenly shy with awkwardness.

He put his hands into his pockets. “You have no idea how much I want to kiss you,” he said, his voice husky.

“The rules are the rules.” She smiled and saw his shoulders relax.

He smiled, too. “Yeah, the rules are the rules.” After

a few second’s silence, he asked, “Do you feel guilty because of Matthew?”

She hesitated, then said, “Yes.”

Sam sighed. “Me, too.”

Long after Sam dropped her off at the Presslers’, Lisa lay in bed, thinking about the Hoffman babies, about Naomi Something about her conversation with Grace was nibbling at her subconscious. She’d almost had it, and then Sam had rung the bell. The more she tried to remember now, the more it eluded her. Finally she fell into a restless sleep.

tn the middle of the night, she remembered. She sat up with a start and checked the time. Four-thirty.

She couldn’t call Grace now. She paced around the room, lay down again, and willed the hours to pass. At six-thirty, after washing up and doing a half hour of exercises, she decided she couldn’t wait any longer. She dialed Mary Rick’s number and apologized immediately for calling so early.

“I have to talk to Grace right away,” Lisa told the woman.

The woman’s hostility crackled through the receiver. “She hasn’t stopped crying since you left.” Frosty accusation in her voice.

“I have one or two more questions. Please tell her it’s urgent.”

“I don’t want you bothering her anymore!”

“If you don’t put her on the phone, Mrs. Rick, I’ll have to drive to your house again.” She was so tired, she didn’t have the energy to sound threatening, but she heard Mary say, “All right,” in a tight, angry voice, and a minute later Grace was on the line. Sullen, scared.

Lisa apologized again for calling so early. “Grace, you said Chelsea told you she wasn’t eighteen when she donated the eggs in July. You meant that’s when she signed up, right? But when did she actually donate the eggs?”

“In July.” An edge of impatience. “That’s when she started the fertility drugs and went through the egg retrieval. She signed up for the program in May.” Her voice

dropped. “I changed the dates on the application and the waiver to August, a week after her eighteenth birthday.”

Lisa dug her nails into the receiver. “You’re sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. That’s why I panicked—because the retrieval was done a month before her eighteenth birthday.”

Lisa was rigid with excitement. Unless Chelsea’s eggs had been fertilized, they couldn’t have been frozen until September, when Naomi had completed her IVF cycle.

But what if they had been fertilized and frozen? she wondered with fresh alarm. What if Nestle’s accomplice at the clinic had used donor sperm as well? “Do you know when Chelsea’s eggs were implanted?” She held her breath.

“Dr. Gordon implanted them three days later. Two of the embryos took, but the patient had a selective reduction. I didn’t tell Chelsea—I thought she’d fee) worse.”

Lisa’s relief was so acute she felt light-headed. She couldn’t wait to get off the phone and tell the Hoffmans.

“It was all very hush-hush,” Grace said. “The woman was there under an assumed name. That’s happened before—movie stars do it all the time.”

“The recipient is an actress?” Lisa didn’t care who she was, as long as she wasn’t Naomi Hoffman.

“No. High society, very wealthy. Dr. Gordon didn’t tell me who she was, but I thought I recognized her when she came in for the embryo transplant—I read the society pages all the time. I didn’t let on to Dr. Gordon that I knew—he wouldn’t have approved. And then I saw her picture in the papers about half a year later when her husband died, and I knew I was right.”

My God! Lisa thought. My God. The blood rushed to her head, and she felt faint. “He died when she was pregnant?”

“A heart attack. I felt so sorry for her at the time, can you believe it? I felt sorry for a murderer.” When Lisa didn’t respond. Grace asked, “Dr. Brockman, are you still there?”

“What’s her name?” Lisa whispered hoarsely, al though she knew. She needed confirmation before she went to Barone.

“If I tell you, you’ll tell the police, and she’ll find out and have me killed so I can’t testify.” The tension was back in the nurse’s voice. “I know she will. She has millions. She can hire someone to do it.”

“Tell me her name. Grace.”

“I can’t! I have to think of Suzie!”

“You wouldn’t have Suzie if Dr. Gordon hadn’t helped you. You owe it to him to help put his killer away. Don’t you owe him. Grace?”

The nurse was silent.

“You said you loved him,” Lisa said softly.

“It’s Paula,” Grace whispered. “Paula Rhodes.”

Baruch was standing in front of the third floor nursery. On either side of him were two middle aged couples. All five faces were pressed against the window.

The grandparents. Lisa watched for a moment, not wanting to interrupt, then came closer and called Baruch’s name.

They all turned around.

“This is Dr. Brockman,” Baruch said. “She delivered the babies.” He was smiling as he performed the introductions, but his eyes signaled a plea to Lisa: Don’t tell.

Rabbi Hoffman was a stately, bearded man wearing a black felt hat and a black suit. Baruch’s mother, wearing a short brown wig, was a little stout in a too-tight navy suit with white trim. Naomi’s father was clean-shaven and shorter than Rabbi Hoffman. Her mother was petite and delicate, with hair almost as dark as Naomi’s. Lisa couldn’t decide whether or not it was a wig.

“Mazltov.” Lisa smiled warmly. She was eager to pull Baruch aside, to allay his fears.

“Mazel tov, mazel tov!” they all echoed. Rabbi Hoffman, beaming, pulled his son to his chest and clapped him soundly on the back.

“Naomi tells me you’re wonderful,” her mother said.

“We can’t thank you enough. It’s a miracle, isn’t it?”

“Definitely a miracle.” In more ways than one. Lisa thought. She wondered what Baruch would think if he knew that for several hours she’d pondered the possibility that he was a murderer.

She turned to him. “Can I talk to you a minute? Everything’s fine,” she added quickly, but his face clouded anyway. She could hardly blame him—she’d stood at his doorstep last Friday and told him not to worry then, too.

With an effort, he put on a smile and joined Lisa, who had walked down the corridor. “Is Naomi—”

“She’s fine. I just came from seeing her. She looks great and told me she feels wonderful.” She smiled again. “Baruch—”

“It’s the Wrights, isn’t it?” His hands had formed fists.

“Baruch, Naomi didn’t receive Chelsea Wright’s eggs.”

He stared. “How can you be sure? I thought you told her—”

“I just found out Chelsea donated eggs in July. I spoke to the nurse who processed her application.” If only Grace hadn’t been terrified. If only she’d told the truth right away, the Hoffmans wouldn’t have undergone this agony. And Ted Cantrell might still be alive. And Matthew?

“She’s sure?”

Lisa nodded.

“Baruch Hashem,” he whispered. Blessed be God. “And this nurse will testify to that?”

“I think so.”

“But who made the mistake in the first place? How did Naomi’s name come up as a recipient?” There was more than a hint of anger mixed in with the curiosity in his voice.

“I don’t know. The police are investigating.”

Grace had denied altering the donor codes to coincide with the changes she’d made in Chelsea’s file. She’d also insisted she hadn’t deleted Paula’s alias from the Jane Doe program or torn the September pages from the log.

Grace might be lying, but why? She’d already admitted she’d forged Chelsea’s signature.

“This is a special time for you and Naomi, Baruch,” Lisa said. “Don’t let this ruin your pleasure, or hers.”

He opened his mouth to say something, then nodded instead.

Twenty minutes later Lisa was back home. She was exhilarated for the Hoffmans, fearful whenever she thought about Nestle. Which was all the time.

Sam had called an hour ago, at nine-thirty. “Just checking in,” he’d said. She smiled at the sound of his voice. Edmond had left a message: he wanted her to call him as soon as possible.

Barone had phoned, too—the D.A. insisted they didn’t have enough evidence to charge Nestle. Barone was still optimistic. Lisa phoned the station, but the detective was out. She told the receptionist she’d call back.

She put up a pot of coffee and fixed herself a tuna sandwich on toast. She wished fervently that Nestle were behind bars. She’d feel so much safer. Of course, his accomplice could still be out there. (Charlie? she wondered guiltily. Someone else connected with the lab? Not Sam, she insisted to herself. Definitely not Sam.) Unless his accomplice was Ted.