GUNNED (25 page)

“But the murder, Alex? Do you think Martha killed Mr. Spiegel and hopes to get away with it, at least for now?”

I took a last bite of my scone and tossed the rest in the trashcan next to our table. “I’m not sure, but we may have just been dealt the poor widow angle. It worked for her once, why not keep it going. She may have been telling us the truth about not having a gun, but at the same time the woman is out a lot at night, so who knows.”

We left the café and walked back to the car. I was tired and hungry. And I had just added another very good suspect to my ever-growing list instead of clearing off a name.

“Annie, we need to step up our game if we’re going to solve this thing by time you leave on Sunday.”

Annie looked at me over the hood of my car. “
Mon Dieu
.”

Mon Dieu
was right. And
bupkis
. That’s what we had,
bupkis
. Nothing. At least nothing I could put my finger on because I still felt at some point I had heard something important, but I couldn’t bring it to the front of my thoughts. One of the people we had talked to said something, or Shirley told me something, or maybe it was my grandmother. I just couldn’t remember who told me what, but someone said something about something important.

I looked at my watch. It was late by my standards, but in reality it was only eight-thirty. We still had another two hours before we had to pick up Meme. I was hungry for something with more nutrients than some M&M’s and a scone, and headed my car to the Indian Cove Inn. Once there I used a house phone by the front desk to ring Jackie Spiegel’s room. She answered on the first ring and said she would meet us in the restaurant.

“What is our plan?” Annie asked, as we took a seat.

“First, find something to eat, and then I want to find out if Mrs. Spiegel’s mother is around. I’d like to ask her a few questions about the incident in the hospital.”

A waiter came by and took our order. It was probably too late for a heavy meal, but I was hungry. I ordered a bowl of beef stew and Annie picked the fish and chips. I also ordered another cup of hot herbal tea and Annie got decaf coffee. The waiter brought our drinks over a minute later, and I held my warm cup in my hands wishing I was home in my bed with a good book and my flannel pajamas.

“I know there’s something I’m missing, Annie. If I could just remember it, I might be able to clear this whole thing up and then we could go into the city and do some shopping before you have to leave.”

“There’s always next time.”

I nodded and smiled. I was happy that Annie and Gerard would be back again for another visit.

The waiter arrived just as I saw Jackie Spiegel standing in the doorway of the restaurant talking with a good-looking gray-haired man. I watched her say good-bye and then she walked over to our table.

“I’ll have a coffee,” Jackie said to the waiter, and then took a seat next to me. “Eat. Your food will get cold. I was talking to my store manager when you called.

“Was that him?” I asked.

“Who? Clark. No, he’s one of my long-time New York friends. He came to lend us support. You know who your friends are at times like these and he’s one of the good ones. His wife too, but she’s tending to her mother. Dementia. Very sad. My manager is back in North Carolina. I just don’t have the heart to go back there. It was never really home, you know. I’ve always been a city gal and I guess I’ll move back. Andrea and her husband live in Brooklyn. It’s nice. Trendy. I have lots of other friends. Maybe I could start a shop there. I think my manager might like to buy me out. So, what brings you both here at this time?”

I put my spoon down and then spread some butter on a piece of warm bread. “I’ve been talking with some of the other mothers about the time in the hospital and I’ve even managed to talk with one of the nurses who was on duty. What do you remember about the time you were in the hospital?”

Jackie waved her hand. “
Oy
, it was so long ago. I slept a lot and when I wasn’t sleeping or didn’t have Andrea, I played cards with my mother. That woman loved her cards. And she was good. Always won.”

“Your mother was with you the whole time?” I asked, and then took a bite of my stew.

“My mother wanted me to have the baby in New York. I was always there, staying with her because Sheldon traveled so much, and I planned to, but I was back in our home here because Sheldon hired a man to replace the water heater, and then he took off on a business trip. The putz. Sheldon, not the heater guy, though, that one!
Batlen
.” Jackie shook her head. “Lazy. Slow as molasses and charged by the hour. But, it was okay. Gave my mother time to finish the nursery. She made these adorable pink and white checked curtains. They matched a blanket she had crocheted. That woman had talent. She could have been another Martha Stewart. And then I went into labor, and there was no time to get back to New York, so we went to the hospital in New Haven. My mother stayed by my side throughout the whole ordeal. This was her first grandchild.” A small smile lit up Jackie’s face. “Sheldon showed up just in time to take us home. He took one look at Andrea and fell in love.”

“What do you remember about the first day or so at the hospital?”

“What do I remember? I remember that I had my beautiful Andrea. You forget the pain the second you hold your baby. It’s true. I thought I was going to die, and I wanted to for a while, but then she arrived.”

“And how was your stay in the hospital. Was it comfortable? Quiet?”

Jackie gave me a strange look. “It was a hospital. The food, who could eat the food. Awful food. My mother brought me pastrami from the Jewish deli in New Haven. It’s still there. All these years.”

“Anything else?” I asked a bit too impatiently, though Jackie didn’t seem to notice.

“I stayed a couple days and I was glad to leave. You try sleeping, but the nurses, they come in all the time to take your blood pressure, your temperature. How do they expect you to get your rest? And the noise. Always something going on. Babies crying, people yelling.”

“Someone was yelling?” I finished off the last couple of bites of my stew and pushed the bowl away.

“A man. A
meshuggener
. Some crazy person with the yelling. My mother went out into the hall to see what was going on, but by then they had the police or the security people to take him away. The area around the hospital wasn’t the best part of town. Now, now, it’s better, but then,
oy
. All I wanted to do was take my Andrea and go home.”

“And your mother,” I started. “Would it be possible to speak with her about that night? Maybe she could remember what the man looked like.”

Jackie’s eyes clouded over. “Only if you have a crystal ball. My mother died a few years ago. A better woman you could never meet. If you manage to contact her, tell her I miss her so much.” A tear escaped down Jackie’s cheek.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Annie said.

“Thank you. We all die, right, but your mother, well, that’s a bond that even death can’t break.”

“Anything else?” I asked. “A doctor or nurse acting weird?” I was grasping at straws.

“I didn’t really know the doctor. I had seen him once or twice, but I was seeing another doctor in New York because I was there all the time. And the nurses were never around when you needed them, only when you wanted to be left alone, then they came in. Thank God for my mother.”

Annie and I needed to get going, but something was puzzling me. Every other woman we talked with went home with their own baby except one, and so far I wasn’t sure who that woman was. But Jackie did go home with the wrong baby so maybe she could answer a question for me.

“Jackie, forgive me for being so blunt, but how could you not tell that Andrea wasn’t your daughter? How was it that you were able to leave the hospital with a baby that wasn’t yours?

“But she was ours. The nurses brought her right to us.”

I twisted around in my chair so I could look at Jackie straight on. “Yes, but now we know she wasn’t yours.”

Jackie kept shaking her head back and forth slowly. “They handed her to me and I looked at that precious face and we left. Sheldon was so moved the man had tears in his eyes. My mother was waiting for us back at the house. She wanted to have everything perfect the moment I walked in the door with Andrea. She was like that. Big entrances. Everything looking just so.”

“But didn’t the baby look different than the one they brought to you the first day?”

“Dark hair, dark eyes. The cutest little fingers. I just took her in my arms and we went home.”

After all these years, I didn’t think Jackie would be able to remember anything else and she seemed certain that the baby they gave her was Andrea.

Annie paid for our dinner and we said good night to Jackie. It was another dead end but at least we had something to eat.

I like driving at night. I don’t go out late for a drive very often, but I found it peaceful. The streets were quiet, not much traffic, and no glaring sun to get in your eyes. The same thing for early morning. In the winter I usually left my house very early and headed over to Meme’s before work, partly just because I liked driving the dark, quiet streets so much. And if there was snow glistening in the moonlight, so much the better.

The bingo hall was in Bridgeport and we got there early and found a place to park not too far from the door of the hall. It was my usual spot to wait for Meme, and because it was at the end of a row and there was a chain link fence on one side making it difficult to get out of the car, most people didn’t like parking there.

“There are lots of people here,” Annie said, glancing around a parking lot full of cars.

“This is nothing. You should see it on weekends. But my grandmother loves her bingo.”

“Does she win a lot?”

“More than she loses,” I laughed. “My grandmother is a person who seems to have an abundance of good luck.”

“Meme is a wonderful person. You are very lucky to have her in your life. She is a person who attracts life, I think. If she has good luck it is because she generates it herself with her wonderful outlook on everything.”

I looked at Annie. “I think you’re right.” My grandmother had always been an all-accepting kind of person. Her attitude was live and let live. Be happy with what you have and if you happen to have a bit extra, then help out someone less fortune. People tended to gravitate toward my grandmother as much as good luck did. She really was a special person. I couldn’t imagine my life without my mother or grandmother. I felt bad that Jackie didn’t have her mother around in her time of need.

“Tell me about your niece and nephew, Alex. We have talked too much of murder today.”

“Ah, well, now you’re talking about my favorite subject. Those two bring us all so much joy. Kendall is growing up so fast. She and I have been going on dates once a month on a Saturday. I take her to lunch and we shop and she tells me all about the kids at school. She’s smart and kind and goes with my mother sometimes to the senior center to spend time with people who don’t have anyone to come visit.”

“And Henry? What is he like?”

“Energy. If I had to describe Henry in one word it would be energy, from the time he gets up until he goes to sleep. And he sees everything. He’s so observant.” I told Annie about Henry’s foray into the finer aspects of French dining.

Annie laughed. “Your poor sister. It is not the kind of snail we would eat. My daughter was a calm little girl. I do not know what I would have done if I had had a boy. They are different.”

“Oh, yes. They are very different. And wonderful. Annie, you know what I don’t understand? Why would Sheldon keep pursuing this quest to find his biological child when he knew it made his family so upset? Why not leave it be? Just like Jackie said, they should have been happy that Andrea didn’t have the same gene.”

 “Mr. Spiegel was an engineer and liked finding solutions. Engineers are very logical people. Everything must have an answer. Or perhaps he never forgave his wife for her affair with his brother and this was his revenge; he tormented her with all the talk of a switched child.”

“Yes, but he wouldn’t just be hurting Jackie, would he? He was hurting Andrea and he was hurting himself as well. What could he possibly hope to gain? After all these years, no matter which young woman turned out to be his, what was the point? They had a family, a life. Did he expect them to drop everything and move to North Carolina? To start calling him dad?”

Annie stared out the window for a minute and then turned to me. “Look at all the people who go looking for their parents when they find out they are adopted. Grown people. I think they just have a need to know where they come from, perhaps to see if they missed out on anything. Maybe Mr. Spiegel felt the same.”

I had another scenario floating around in my head. “What if this man was a diversion for someone to come in from outside the hospital and switch one baby for another?”

“
Mon Dieu
, Alex! This would be horrible. We are struggling to find the culprit from our list of suspects. If you are introducing a random person into the soup, we may as well give up now. We will never find that person. But let me ask you, what would be the point?”

“The point? It would be the same for an outsider coming in as for one of the parents,” I said.

“
Oui
, and have we ever established why someone would switch a baby in the first place?”

I looked at Annie and felt like giving myself a slap. “Oh my gosh. Of course! Why would someone switch a baby?”

“I would say because they wanted a boy but instead got a girl.”

I smiled. “Right. But all the babies were girls, so that wasn’t going to work. There is only one other explanation.”

“Because they feared their child was sick and they wanted a healthy one,” Annie said, her eyes gleaming with excitement. “And Mrs. Shalt had just lost her father to a congenital disease.
Merde! 
Do you think that Gwen Shalt killed Mr. Spiegel?”