Music City (20 page)

Alex and Derek were starting to understand now. Derek smiled, “Her maiden name was Harris?”

Francine nodded, “Yes! I remember a couple of days later, Maye herself called me, and well, she called me more than just Francine, I’ll have you know. But, she was so mad at me because I told the people I didn’t know her. She wondered why I didn’t remember her name was Harris before it was Taylor. Well, honestly, I had forgotten about it. You see, our mommas were sisters and of course they married men with different last names. How was I supposed to remember her last name was Harris? I apologized to her, but she just told me the next time someone was asking for Maye Harris, to make sure I told them I knew her.”

Derek and Alex thanked her for her time and left after she had furnished them with a list of possible relatives they could talk to in trying to locate Shelly’s other siblings.

Derek, Alex, Tracy and Vani met in Alex’s office to review the information gathered from Francine and from Maye. The news was shocking to the siblings say the least.

“How are we going to tell Shelly that she is not who she has always believed, and that we have no idea at this point, who she really is?” Derek wanted to spare her feelings, to be slow and careful, but at the same time, Shelly was his client and needed to be kept up to date on the progress of the investigation she was funding.

“Just like that. Direct. No wasted words. She has to know sometime and Momma always faces things head on. Yes, it will be a shock, but as you both have said many times, she is a strong woman, she has handled worse news than this.” Vani knew her mother so well, she could almost tell the others word for word what Shelly would say.

Vani invited Derek and Alex to come over for supper.
Both Martha and Shelly were wonderful cooks, producing meal after wonderful meal that kept the men eager to return whenever an invitation came.

Martha
had once commented that she thought she might be spoiling them. Alex had grinned and told her it was far too soon to tell about that. She had nodded and smiled, “That’s what I thought.” Martha's greatest joy in life was feeding people good home-style southern food.

After supper, the family group, which now included Alex and Derek, adjourned to the living room.

Vani and Tracy took seats near their mother, with Alex and Derek facing them across the large coffee table on which Alex had spread out papers and set his audio recorder.

Alex began telling Shelly about the interview with Francine Dawson and how she had told them that it was quite possible that Maye had switched babies in the hospital nursery after Shelly
was born. Of course, this possibility had never crossed Shelly’s mind, she always thought she looked just like Maye.

“Could this be possible?”

“Yes, it could, especially with Maye’s privileged access to the maternity ward.”

Shelly was taken aback. She sat in silence while Alex continued carefully.

“We checked the hospital records for the date you were born, and the few days before and after, while we couldn’t get names, we were able to get general numbers. The hospital had many babies in the nursery that week and you understand that in the 1960’s, an extended stay for the mother and the baby was the norm. There would have been ample opportunity.”

Numbly, Shelly nodded.
Derek, Vani and Tracy said nothing, waiting for her to organize her thoughts. Alex gave her a minute for that information to sink in, then proceeded with as much compassion as he could muster. “There’s more, it gets even more complicated. It seems that you were only the first of your siblings to be victim to her attempts to keep any fathers from claiming any of her children.”

“Francine told you all of this? Why? Was she involved?”

“She apparently wasn’t involved, but over the years, there were plenty of rumors. Maye talked a lot when she was drunk, sometimes directly to Francine, but then when she was sober, she would deny it.”

“Alex, I thought I knew you to be more careful of someone’s feelings than this. How can you just come in here and upset my whole life on the hearsay of one person?”

“Momma, hold on a minute, there’s more.” Vani, for once, had misjudged how her mother would respond.

Alex now condensed what he needed to say to get the basic facts out in the open and worry about filling in the details later. “I know this is a shock, but there is more information to confirm it. Derek and I found Maye the next day. We interviewed her, she was glad to finally clear her conscience. I have the recorded interview right here.”
He said lifting the recording device from the table and putting it gently back down.

He paused while Shelly attempted to compose herself. “Let me know when you are ready to hear it from her own mouth.”

Shelly rose and walked to the window. Vani and Tracy gave her a minute to herself, then joined her. The three of them talked quietly through tears and hugs, and soon Alex and Derek heard her say, “Well, we have to hear it... and there’s no time like the present, I guess.”

The three of them returned to their places. For
hours, Maye's voice, more raspy than Shelly remembered, told the story and gave the reasons for her actions. Her coughing spells and gasps for breath were horrible to hear, even on a recording. They listened in stunned silence and sat silently after the interview ended.

Shelly looked directly at Alex. “I’m sorry for what I said earlier. I should have asked for confirmation before accusing you of being insensitive and unprofessional.”

Alex nodded. “Apology accepted, of course.”

“What is the next step? Do we need to get a DNA sample from Maye?”

“Yes. And we need to try to get copies of hospital records, to see who was in the maternity ward at the same times as Maye’s other births. With today’s privacy laws, it is going to be very difficult. I don’t want to mislead you that this can be a quick and easy task.”

Derek cut in, “We can find them all if you want us to, but I warn you, it is going to be a long and winding road.”

Shelly shook her head, “I don’t understand what is so hard about checking for a few birth certificates?”

Alex shrugged, “That hospital, from what we have gathered, was the only one in a few counties with a maternity ward. That, coupled with Raleigh being the second largest city in the state, means that that particular maternity ward was one of the busiest in the entire country when you were born. The day you were born, for example, just from a quick inquiry, we found out that there were over two hundred and fifty babies born in that three day time frame.”

Shelly was confused, “Three day time frame?”

Derek nodded, “Yes, we have to check the day you were born as well as the day before and the day after, possibly two days before and two days after, which will make the amount of babies born double, possibly triple.”

Alex continued, “She never told us that you and the baby she switched you with were born at the same time or even on the same day, only that she was in labor at the same time as that other baby’s mother. She could have delivered a day or two before that other woman or a day or two after, there is really no way to know, without Maye giving us the information and she did not offer that. You have to remember, that back then, as I said, women were kept in the hospital for several days after giving birth. It wasn’t like it is today where you give birth in the morning and if all is well get dismissed in the afternoon.”

Tracy, who had not said a word, spoke up, “You’re also going to have to take into account the women who had the baby at home, then went to the hospital. There wouldn’t be a record of birth there for them, would there?”

Derek sighed, “I didn’t consider that, but you’re right, there were a lot of home births back then. I’m not sure how they were handled. Shelly, we’ll have to go back and talk to Maye again and try to get more information from her. But, you need to seriously consider this before we proceed. This has the potential to disrupt an unprecedented number of lives if we pursue this to the end. You need to think about the damage that could be caused. You finding your family is one thing, but I’m just not so sure there is much to be gained from opening up this can of worms. Just my opinion... we will do whatever you want us to do.”

Shelly nodded, “I do see how this could destroy lives, but I also now think that if we have this information, we probably need to act on it. I need to think about what I want to do. I do know that I need to go pay a visit to my momma,” she shrugged, “who knows, maybe she’ll give me more information than she gave y’all.”

Shelly didn’t speak her thoughts out loud, but her immediate thought was for Dorothy. Dorothy’s life was upset and turned upside down enough recently without adding this. She’d left her home, Billy Joe, and her son, and then just weeks later had to face the news of their deaths.

“I'll have to take some time to
mentally prepare for this, I haven’t laid eyes on her since the night I left.  I also need to decide if I am going to tell Dorothy, I’m not sure I’m going to, at least not yet. Let me think about it for a few days, and I’ll let you know what my decision is.”

Days passed, but no one in Maye’s neighborhood noticed that she had not been out of her house. Her mail was overflowing the rusted mailbox attached to the chipped clapboard siding on her porch. Finally, the mailman decided he should knock on the door and make sure the old woman was okay.

When she did not answer her door, he called the police and reported that she was sick, elderly and had not taken her mail from the mailbox for several days, nor did she come to the door when he knocked. The local police immediately dispatched to her address, and when they could not get an answer at the door, they entered the home.

Maye was dead for many days by then, and heat and time had taken its toll on her body. The investigating officer quickly closed the door against the smell after a quick look at the scene. He took a deep breath, held a handkerchief over his nose and mouth with one hand while he went inside quickly and checked for a pulse. He knew before going back in, he would find no pulse, but protocol demanded that he do it before calling the coroner. Hot as it was inside the house, her body felt cold. Maye’s photo album lay on the floor next to the chair, her last cigarette had burned to the filter and rolled into the ashtray and a soap opera was entertaining the decaying corpse in the overstuffed chair.

Maye’s living quarters showed no sign of foul play, but in such cases, police have to know for sure that no crime has been committed. Photographs were made of the scene before the body was moved. Her remains were placed into a plastic zippered body bag and taken to the morgue. An autopsy showed that she had most likely died of natural causes due to severe respiratory distress.

Tissue samples were collected from her organs and sent to the lab, just to be certain that her prescription drugs had not caused her death. The investigating officer took Alex’s business card in case he could find no other next of kin to notify. It was the only evidence that the deceased had interacted with anyone else at all.

Alex was alone in the office, it was just past six, and usually there was all manner of activity going on, but not today. He’d had some business to take care of earlier, and had returned to the office to pick up some files and drop a few others off. He sat relaxing in his office, trying to unwind from the day before he headed home. The shrill ring of the telephone nearly caused him to fall out of his chair. He considered letting it ring, but finally after it rang a few times, he answered it.

“Music City Investigations, Alex Howard.” Alex answered crisply.

“Detective Howard, this is Lieutenant Paul Kirk with the Raleigh Police Department in North Carolina.”

“How can I help you, Lieutenant?”

“Well, this may mean something to you and it may not. We found your card at the home of a Maye Harris here in Raleigh.”

“Yes, my partner and I visited with Ms. Harris early last week,” Alex responded.

“Well, your card was the only thing we could find in the form of someone to notify,” he continued without pausing, “Ms. Harris was found in her home
, deceased and she was dead several days by the time we were called in. It was a natural death, but we’re having a devil of a time locating any next of kin for her. Her neighbors said she had children that never visited, but they couldn’t give us any names. Since we found your card at the scene, we were hoping you might be able to help us. Usually in cases like this, the deceased would just get buried in the county cemetery and their personal effects are donated to charity or thrown away, but we wanted to give you a call, just in case.”

Alex leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. This was not exactly the phone call he had expected to get today.

“I appreciate the call, Lieutenant, my firm does represent a member of Ms. Harris’s family. Do you mind if I get in touch with my client, and then let you know how we would like to proceed?”

“Good, glad to hear that. No, I don’t mind at all, but... well, time is a factor here, we can’t keep the body forever.”