Sail With Me (6 page)

Jake was now sitting in the living room, completely absorbed in the files and notes of the O’Sullivan case.
 
She went to the kitchen to clear the coffee mugs and was surprised to see they had already been washed and dried, stacked neatly on a dish towel to dry.
 
The sugar bowl was back in its place and the creamer had been placed in the refrigerator.
 
Even the chairs were pushed back under the table.
 
Delaney couldn’t believe it.
 
Kevin never even made his own coffee let alone cleaned up after himself.
 

Together they decided it would be easier to take his car and Delaney watched as Jake loaded the box of files into his trunk.
 
After getting in she realized she forgot her Coach bag and walked back into the house to retrieve it.
 
Jake sat behind the steering wheel watching her slim body move by the hood of his car.
 
Her scent lingered in the air and it was driving him crazy.
 
He thought about the way she looked after running, completely caught off guard and so fresh, so full of energy.
 
He loved a woman who didn’t mind getting all hot and sweaty and started to wonder what she would be like in bed, then the door opened and she slid in beside him.
 
He felt the bulge in his pants grow, and he gripped the wheel tighter, reminding himself this was a professional relationship.

Chapter Ten

The police department was still fielding hundreds of calls a day regarding the heat and complaints of people disregarding the watering restrictions.
 
After being out sick, Chief O’Malley was now on a month-long vacation and the timing was wonderful.
 
All day Delaney and Jake sat in her cubicle discussing the O’Sullivan case.
 
Jake was surprised with her concerns and her ability to think outside the box for a small town detective.
 
Delaney signed out everything that was kept in the evidence room, which wasn’t much in this case.
 
Lynn was the keeper of evidence, and gave her a peculiar look when she requested everything, including the hospital security videos tapes.
 
Delaney and Lynn had always been friendly. Along with Ginny the secretary, they were the lone females and looked out for each other.
 
Lynn gave her everything she requested and made the “my lips are zipped” motion with her finger across her mouth.

Jake suggested starting at University Hospital, talking with everybody who came into contact with Caroline the day Andrew was born.
 
The plan was then to question the doctor who declared him dead.
 
From there they would follow who prepared his body for the morgue.
 
Delaney now had boxes stacked in her small cubicle.
 
She explained to Jake that University Hospital had done away with paper charting and everything was computerized.
 
Every time a nurse or doctor had contact with Caroline it was charted in real time into a computer system and forever saved in cyberspace.
 
All of these notes, from the time Caroline checked herself into the hospital until she was discharged, had been printed out and saved in these boxes.
 
The same held true for Andrew.
 
The moment he was born, a new computer file had been created for him.
 
Now it was just a matter of going through and reading everything to make a time line.
 
Delaney wanted to find out who declared him dead and who the last person to handle his body was.
 

As Jake was loading the boxes of files and documents into his car, Delaney couldn’t help but think the man was a pack mule.
 
He barely broke a sweat as he heaved box after box into the trunk.
 
When he was finished he asked her if there were any good places around to get something for dinner.
 
She realized the poor man must be starving.
 
She had offered him one of her Diet Cokes and yogurts for lunch but he had only taken her up on the beverage.
 
Since then she hadn’t even thought of food, and she was reminded of how easily she had forgotten what it was like to be around a man again and their constant appetite.
 

An hour later they were sitting at Sails, a seafood restaurant popular with the locals.
 
Delaney ordered the grilled salmon with asparagus and Jake ordered the blackened swordfish with a salad and baked potato with sour cream.
 
Their meals were delicious and Delaney was surprised when she put her fork down and Jake eagerly ate the rest of her meal.
 
The waitress returned with the dessert menu and Jake didn’t miss a beat.
 
He ordered for both of them, a hot fudge sundae with wet walnuts and whip cream for himself and an upside down banana split for her.
 
Delaney laughed at his confidence, and asked, “But what if I don’t like banana splits?”

Jake quickly responded with, “Well, I guess I’ll have to eat both deserts then.”
 
Together they laughed and Delaney found herself feeling amazingly relaxed around him.

It was after ten by the time Jake brought her back to her house and carried the boxes of documents into her living room.
 
Fetch was happy to see them and was eagerly begging for treats from the kitchen area where Delaney kept them up high.
 
Feeling bad for missing their evening walk to the beach, she took a handful and spread them across the floor.
 
Then she added some peanut butter and filled Fetch’s Kong, knowing this would keep her occupied for awhile.

For the first time, Jake was feeling awkward around a woman.
 
He had a long history of one night stands and had no interest in a serious relationship.
 
Jake liked sex, a lot of sex, with a lot of different women, and wasn’t willing to ever give it up, or so he believed up until now.
 
He wanted to pull her up against him, smell her hair and her body, feel her against him but knew this was a professional relationship and he couldn’t let on how he felt.
 
He decided his feelings would have to wait until the case was closed.
 
He thanked Delaney for being such a charming hostess and handling his surprise early morning visit so well.
 
He told her to have a good weekend and he would see her again Monday morning.
 
She followed him to the front porch where she stood leaning against the porch post and watched him back out of her driveway.
 
She stayed there until she couldn’t hear the roar of the car engine anymore.

Saturday morning she woke bright and early and headed off on her usual run.
 
She kept a decent pace, averaging a five minute mile the entire time.
 
After showering and filling Fetch’s bowls with food and fresh water, she started up the Mini Cooper and headed towards the Methodist church.
 
With the air conditioning on full blast and Bono’s voice belting
 
out “Sunday Bloody Sunday” she pulled into the parking lot and let the song finish before turning off the car.
 

As she walked through the parking lot she saw Wally Blythe gathering up little American Flags from graves that had been faded from the scorching sun.
 
“Good morning, Delaney. I haven’t seen you around church in quite a while. What brings you around?”

Delaney felt a little embarrassed for not attending the church that she was raised in.
 
She had stopped coming six months into her marriage, mostly because Kevin refused to attend with her and she felt shame coming by herself.
 
“Good to see you, Wally.
 
I just want to ask a few questions about Caroline O’Sullivan.
 
Do you see her around here a lot?”

Wally immediately straightened up and tipped his hat forward to keep the sun out of his eyes.
 
He always had such sad eyes.
 
“Yeah, she comes every day.
 
Even in bad weather.
 
She doesn’t cause any problems around here.
 
She minds her business and pays her respects.
 
It’s a damn shame what happened to her and her little boy.
 
Why are you asking?
 
I don’t want trouble around here.”

Delaney pulled her hair to tighten her ponytail and said, “No trouble going on.
 
I just have a few questions to ask her.
 
I figured this would be the best place to find her.
 
I heard she spends most of her time here.”

Wally nodded in agreement and pointed Delaney to the direction of Andrew’s grave.
 
“Just follow this path over the hill, when you get to the other side look for the sign. You can’t miss it.”

“There’s a sign for Andrew’s grave?” she asked with a look of disbelief.

“No, not a sign with his name on it.
 
Don’t worry.
 
You’ll know when you see it.” And with that Wally resumed pulling the faded flags off of veterans’ graves and replacing them with new ones.

Delaney returned to her car and grabbed a can of Diet Coke from the small cooler she kept on the passenger side floor.
 
She cracked it open and started her walk through the cemetery.
 
It looked so different during the day, almost serene in a twisted sort of way.
 
Even in this drought Wally managed to keep the grass lush and green.
 
As she walked up the hill she read some of the gravestones and wondered about the people buried there.
 
Along the way she could see a few mourners in the distance, leaving behind small bouquets of flowers for their loved ones.
 
As Delaney reached the top of the hill, she stopped and finished off her soda.
 
Starting down the hill she eventually came to a fork in the path; she could continue straight or take the sharp right.
 
That’s when she looked up and saw the sign.
 
“BABY LAND”
was mounted atop a whitewashed wood post with an arrow that pointed to the right.
 
She hadn’t noticed the sign at night and now felt sick.
 
“No wonder Wally didn’t say what was written on the sign,” she whispered.
 
Below it was a little mound of wild yellow daisies with brown centers and a lone fluttering butterfly.
 
Delaney never knew a place like this existed, that there was a need for it.
 
Not the natural order of things, of life, she thought.
 
She kept walking and it wasn’t long before she saw Andrew’s headstone.
 
Curled up on her right side on a shabby blue blanket was Caroline.
 
She couldn’t tell if she were awake or sleeping or crying.
 
Delaney looked around at the graves and noticed how they looked so different from those of the adults that she had passed on her walk.
 
Instead of bouquets and American Flags, these graves were adorned with pinwheels blowing in the breeze, toy trucks, and dolls.
 
Some even had helium balloons anchored to a heavy toy with messages such as “Happy fourth Birthday” and “We love you.”
 

Not really knowing what to do or what to say, Delaney approached Caroline and knelt beside her.
 
Caroline only turned her head and replied, “Was that you the other night?
 
What do you want?”

Up close Caroline didn’t look or sound like a crazed person at all, just a mother distraught over the loss of her son.
 
Suddenly Delaney realized she didn’t bring her police identification and would just have to hope Caroline believed who she was and why she was there.
 
Introducing herself she could tell Caroline recognized her name by the expression on her face.
 
Delaney apologized for interrupting her at the cemetery but explained she thought it was the easiest and quickest way to find her.
 
Caroline didn’t say anything, she just nodded in agreement.

With a slight tremble in her voice, Delaney started with her theory that Andrew may still be alive.
 
Hearing this, Caroline shot straight up and Delaney knew she had her full attention.
 
Together they discussed the possibility and both agreed that it seemed almost impossible to mistakenly discard a baby into the medical waste container.
 
Caroline told Delaney how sometimes during her dreams she could hear her baby crying and always felt he was alive.
 
She went on to say how nobody from law enforcement ever interviewed her.
 
Everybody had just assumed she had gone crazy from the entire ordeal and had fallen off the deep end.
 
Delaney acknowledged that bringing her in for questioning was discussed but never done due to the fact that nobody had any training on how to handle such an investigation.
 
The topic had become taboo.
 
How would you go about talking to a mother whose dead baby had been unintentionally thrown in the trash?