Page 41

This terrible admission silences both of us for a moment. I listen to a clock ticking somewhere in her home, while she blinks away tears.

“Why would he... ?” I snap my mouth shut. Even through my rage, I might already know the answer. “I’ve heard of people paying for babies. Is that what happened?”

“Possibly.” Her eyes are downcast. “That was Tim’s theory. After we first met, he started digging into the Magdalene Home. He’d come over about once a week. He sat right there.” She nods toward where I’m sitting. “And we’d just talk. He was trying to piece it together.”

“He was investigating,” I say slowly.

She nods, and another tear falls before she brushes it away.

“I’m so sorry,” I say softly. “You’d just gotten him back.”

She takes another sip of tea and takes a moment to compose herself. “For forty-five years I had so much guilt,” she said. “They told me it was my fault that he wasn’t born healthy and strong. They said it was God’s will, and I believed them. Although it didn’t take much persuasion. I already felt stupid for getting pregnant with a boy who didn’t stick around.”

“I did the same thing,” I blurt out. Not helpful, Gallagher .

But maybe this was the right thing to say, because her gaze snaps back to mine. “Really? Did you give up a baby, too?”

I shake my head. “My family has some money, and I was stubborn. Everyone was very disappointed in me, but I got my own way. My daughter is sixteen now.”

“Well, I was stubborn, too,” she says slowly. “At the Magdalene Home, you weren’t supposed to be stubborn. You were expected to sit down, shut up, and then give up your baby. All the girls did.”

“ All of them?”

She shrugs. “Basically. I was there in 1979, which was getting toward the end of that place. Birth control and abortion were both legal. But I was a ward of the state. An orphan. I lived in a Catholic group home. So the rules were different for me.”

“Oh,” I say softly.

“Yeah. It was a nun who figured out I was pregnant. I was seventeen. I barely understood how babies were made.” She rubs her temples. “The father was also a resident of the group home. Almost eighteen. He ran away when they realized I was pregnant.”

“Nice,” I hiss.

“I don’t even blame him.” She gives me a tired smile. “He escaped while he could. Girls raised by the Catholic Church don’t get abortions. They get married, or they give up the baby. They sent me off to the Magdalene Home to hide my shame. They treated pregnancy like a contagious disease, you know? Like I would ruin other girls with my sinful presence.”

I wish I were more surprised. But I’m not. “What was it like? At the home?” It’s a selfish question. I spend a lot of time wandering around the place, trying to picture it in years gone by.

She picks up her tea and takes a sip, her eyes unfocused, as if she’s trying to recall. “Boring, mostly. With moments of humiliation. Like being in jail, I guess. And the jailers weren’t very nice. They wanted us to feel very bad about the sins we’d committed. He loved talking about sin.”

“Marcus Wincott?”

Her focus sharpens onto me. “He ran that place like a dictator. Everyone feared him—the girls, and the women who worked there, too. It was all young women, and a man in his midfifties. I don’t think that would fly nowadays.”

“I sure hope not.”

She looks down into her mug. “Sometimes he hit us. Never on the face. Never where anyone would see. He liked the shock value, I think. There was one really mouthy girl. Debbie? Darcy?” She shakes her head. “That one had a death wish. She slapped him back . And as a punishment, he handcuffed her to a dining chair.”

A dining chair . Holy Mary, mother of God. I know that dining chair.

“He also...” She rubs her eyes. “I think he got handsy with the girls sometimes. I heard a lot of rumors. And one night I got up for a drink of water, and I saw him disappear into another girl’s room. The next morning she had a black eye. I asked her how she got it, she said she slipped in the shower.” She shakes her head.

“That sounds...” Every word I can think of is inadequate to my horror. And now I work for these people. “It sounds barbaric. And terrifying.”

She actually shrugs. “I can’t be sure about everything that happened there. He never tried anything with me. Maybe I wasn’t his type. Or maybe the girls exaggerated.”

“Do you still talk to any of them?”

She shakes her head. “I never wanted to think about that place again. Besides, we didn’t use our last names in there, which would have made it hard to find anyone I’d known. He said the name thing was for our privacy. But it was probably just another manipulation. If we didn’t know how to reach each other, then we couldn’t compare notes later.”

“Right,” I say softly.

“Now that I know the truth, I wish I knew what happened to the other girls. If they were molested. If they were told their babies died. That man’s lie changed my life. I had plans to steal my baby away if I had to. He was mine.”

The image makes my chest lurch—like the drop of a roller coaster. “He stole him from you. Because you wouldn’t fall in line.”

She nods slowly. “Tim wondered how he got away with it. The girls gave birth at the home. That probably helped. When I was in labor, they anesthetized me. I woke up and asked to see my baby. The nurse shook her head and sent Wincott in.” She swallows hard. “The nurse had to be in on it. Maybe she was afraid of him, too.” Her face crumples. “He came in and said that my baby died. God’s will . I cried so hard. I howled. He told me to shut up.”

My eyes get hot. “What did Tim say when you told him?”

“He didn’t believe it. I could see it on his face. I wasn’t sure I should tell him the rest. It’s pretty shocking.” She sighs. “But I’m not stupid, you know. When they told me he was dead, I screamed my head off and asked to see him anyway.”

My heart trembles. “Of course you did.”

“They brought me a dead baby.”

“What?” I gasp. “Are you serious?”

She nods. “Poor little thing, all swaddled in a blanket and cold as ice. The blanket was cold, too. They said it was from the morgue.”

“Oh God” is all I can manage.

“It sounds crazy, but I know what I saw,” she says, lifting her chin. “Marcus Wincott looked me right in the eye and told me that God didn’t let me keep my baby because I was a sinner.” Her mouth pinches into a rough line. “After that, I wasn’t careful with myself. Spent my life as a sinner. That man broke my spirit.”

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. As if that could make it better.

“Tim thought they must have been selling babies. He said he was going to look for the money trail. He said he was good at that kind of thing.”

I picture his Pulitzer nomination for investigative journalism, and I feel a chill. “I bet he was good at that kind of thing.”

She nods. “And I was thrilled. Here was this smart, handsome boy, and I had something to do with it. I was so proud. And so happy I got the chance to tell him that I didn’t really give up on him.” She grabs a paper napkin and blots the corners of her eyes. “At least I got to say it. But maybe I should have lied, you know? Maybe if I’d slammed the door in his face, he’d still be alive.”

The hair stands up on the back of my neck. “Why do you think that?”

“Because he died in front of the mansion. It can’t be random.” She blots her eyes again. “Tim made somebody angry. And now he’s gone.”

She’s upset now, and it’s my fault. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t be asking so many questions.”

“No, you shouldn’t.” She shakes her head. “It’s dangerous. The police want to talk to me. But I don’t really know a damn thing. Tim didn’t tell me what he found. Maybe he knew it was dangerous. Someone threatened him a week or so before he died.”

Another chill races down my spine. “Threatened him how?”

“He didn’t tell me much.” She rubs her temples. “He just said that he must be getting close to the truth, because someone put a note under his windshield wiper. Telling him to leave it alone.”

I lean forward in my chair. “Did you see the note?” I wonder if it’s the same black Sharpie bullshit that I got.

“No, I didn’t.” She sighs. “He said a note on the windshield seemed like a cowardly move. And that in his job, if he wasn’t making someone angry, then he wasn’t trying hard enough.”

I take a sip of my tea and try to think. How do you go from a note under your windshield to dead in a week? “Did he have any idea who was mad?”

She spreads her hands. “I don’t have a clue. He told me he was digging around for a list of people who worked for the home when he was born. Some of them are dead. It was slow work, he said. And even when he thought he had the right name, sometimes people hung up on him. If they knew what was going on back then, they probably didn’t want to talk about it. And Marcus Wincott is long dead.”

It sure puts a new spin on Tim’s final months in Portland. I was buying new jeans and thinking about where we should go on our next date. He was building a relationship with his secret bio mom. “And he never discussed this with his adoptive parents?”

“No.” A quick shake of her head. “He said he’d been asking a few questions, trying to figure out if there were irregularities about his adoption. His parents made a big donation to the Wincott’s charity, but he didn’t think they had the first idea about the ugly stuff.”

“I guess they wouldn’t,” I say slowly. “Marcus wouldn’t want to incriminate himself. And people who are desperate for a baby don’t ask too many questions.”

“They raised him up real good.” She wipes her eyes again. “I don’t blame them for what happened. Did he tell you any of this? About his investigation?”

If only. “Not a word. And when he died, we hadn’t spoken in several days, because he’d broken up with me.”

She blinks at me. “He broke it off? ”

“Yes. I was still feeling pretty confused about it. But that doesn’t seem very important now.”

“But he really liked you. He told me.”

“Maybe he met someone new,” I say softly. “It happens.”

“I have to ask.” She fingers her mug. “Did you find him? Was it you the news was talking about?”

I only nod.

“Do you think he suffered?”

“No,” I say immediately. “It’s terrible what happened to him. But I don’t think he suffered. I think he was gone really quickly. Listen,” I fumble into my purse, pushing past the recording device for the little drawstring bag. “I had a couple things of his that he’d left at my house. I’d like to give them to you.”

She watches solemnly as I extract the cuff links and the watch.

I lay them on the table. “I’m sure you know he collected watches. And he had an old-school style that I admired.”

She lifts a cuff link and studies the monogram. “He dressed so nice,” she whispers. “Like a gentleman.”

“He did.”

She picks up the watch. “This is beautiful. It looks vintage.”

“Doesn’t it? I don’t know anything about watches, though.”

She gazes at the watch’s face before setting it down again. “You keep that. I’ll keep the cuff links.”

“What? No. He’d want you to have it.”

Her eyes are red when she raises them again. “I know myself. It will only be a temptation.”

“Sorry? I don’t understand.”

“You wouldn’t. And that’s a good thing.” She lifts her chin again, almost defiantly. “I have a little problem with heroin. It’s gotten worse since Tim passed.”

Oh God . “Is there anything I can do to help?”

She gives her head a slow shake. “I don’t see how. Just keep yourself safe. That’s all we can do now.” She picks up the watch and hands it to me.

“I’ll keep this safe for you. Maybe you’ll change your mind.”

She gives me a tired smile. “Maybe.”

I push my chair back. “I’ll let you get on with your day. Thank you for talking to me.”

She walks me to the door. “Rowan, wait. There is one thing. Do you have any pictures of him?”

I pause, one foot out the door. “I have two. They aren’t great, but I’m happy to send them along. Do you have email?”

“Course I do. I’m old but not dead.” She smiles faintly at her own joke.

“Sorry. Stupid question.” I dig into the exterior pocket of my bag. “Here’s my card. Email me, and I’ll reply with those two pictures.”

“Thank you, honey. I’ll do that.”

“I appreciate what you shared with me.” My voice is a little unsteady, because I know I’m about to betray her confidence to a police detective.

She grabs one of my hands. “He was half in love with you. I could hear it in his voice when he talked about you. Please take care of yourself.”

“Don’t you worry about me,” I assure her. “I’ll be fine. I just wish they’d catch whoever did this, so you could get some peace.”

She gives me another sad smile. “We don’t always get what we want, do we?”