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F ocusing on where she was going, Doreen turned her attention to the road. Before long she was up and around the corner, and Riverdale was just a few blocks away. It was an eight-minute drive. As soon as she pulled in, she smiled to see lots of other visitors heading into the home. It was nice to think that people were coming to visit their families on such a cold and ornery day like this one. Yet it was a designated visiting day, and people were bracing the weather. So then they clearly cared about somebody they were coming to see. And that was lovely.

She walked into the front reception area, then stopped, turned, and headed to the front desk. She quickly introduced herself, and the woman immediately lit up.

“Now I know who you are,” she exclaimed, as she leaned over the counter to look at the animals. “I thought you had more than just two.”

At that, Thaddeus poked his head out from under the fall of Doreen’s hair and cried out, “Thaddeus is here. Thaddeus is here.”

Startled, she looked at him and burst out laughing. “Oh my. Aren’t you adorable?”

Immediately Goliath pushed Mugs aside, his tail constantly wagging. Goliath preened in front of her, as if to suggest the entire world revolved around him. The receptionist came around the front desk and stroked his fur, talking to him, while simultaneously petting Mugs, who traveled around her feet. Doreen sighed, knowing there was absolutely no way to get out of this additional need for attention.

Suddenly, as if realizing that Doreen was here for a purpose, the receptionist gasped. “Sorry, let me show you where Lilybeth is.” And, with that, they headed down the hallway. “She’s in the sitting room in the back.”

Obediently Doreen and her animals followed the receptionist. They headed to an out-of-the-way area, away from the general gathering of visitors in one of the main rooms up front. As they came to a sitting room, several people looked expectantly, as if waiting for someone special. Doreen sincerely hoped somebody showed up for them. There had to be nothing worse than sitting here, hoping someone would come and visit, only to realize they were too busy.

As they entered the room and headed toward the back wall, Doreen saw a tiny woman with an e-reader in hand, busily poring through the pages.

She looked up to see the receptionist come toward her and then frowned when she saw Doreen. Lilybeth stiffened and glared at her. “Where are the animals?” And then Mugs woofed, came around to her side, and sniffed her hand. “Ah,” she murmured, a big smile on her face. “You did bring them.”

“Of course,” Doreen replied. “I did ask first whether I was allowed though.”

“Oh my,” Lilybeth muttered, with an eye roll. “If they can stop us from having a decent time here, they will.”

“Now that’s not fair, Lilybeth,” the receptionist countered in a cross tone. “You know we have rules to follow—all of us do.”

“Sure, but we don’t get to make the rules. You guys do.”

“We make the rules to keep you safe,” she explained and then looked back at Doreen. “If you want a cup of tea or something while you’re here, let me know.”

“She won’t be here that long,” Lilybeth snapped.

Doreen held her smile in place as she nodded at Lilybeth. “Hopefully we can get answers to the questions I have, and it will be painless for everybody.”

“You’re here,” Lilybeth declared, still glaring at her, “so presumably not painless enough.”

“Maybe not. I told the captain that I was coming to see you. He mentioned how he knew you quite well back then.”

Lilybeth frowned at her and grumbled, “Right. You work with the police, don’t you?”

“Sometimes,” she agreed, with a nod. “It’s part and parcel of the work I do.”

“Of course it is,” she snapped, “nothing but people poking their noses where they don’t belong.”

“And sometimes people need to poke their noses where they don’t belong, or otherwise things happen, and people get away with things that they shouldn’t. And, in this case, a child was buried in an unmarked grave in a vegetable garden and only discovered because someone wanted to grow yams.”

“Yams,” Lilybeth declared in astonishment. “That’s not right.”

“Exactly,” Doreen agreed, with a smile. “Which is why I’m here. I’m hoping you can help me identify the child.”

“Goodness, how on earth could I possibly identify a dead baby?” she muttered. “Unless of course it’s one of the ones I delivered, and then maybe…”

“And maybe that’s a way to start,” Doreen suggested. “May I sit?”

Lilybeth looked at her and at her animals, then grudgingly nodded.

Not sure how to take the woman’s absolute lack of manners or joy in life, Doreen sat down and kept her animals close. A lot of other people wandered around, and she didn’t want to upset anybody.

“At least you’re keeping them well-behaved,” Lilybeth noted, eyeing her critically.

“I wouldn’t want to upset anyone by having them here,” Doreen replied. “Some people don’t like animals.”

“Of course not, because those people don’t have a heart.”

Doreen didn’t say anything to that, as it might open up a whole minefield of issues. “We don’t even have a name for her.”

“So, you don’t even know who she is?” Lilybeth asked, with a headshake.

“No, at the moment, we don’t. I don’t know if you can help,” Doreen began, “but did you know of any children who died about thirty-five years ago?”

Lilybeth sat back and let out a loud snort. “You expect me to remember that far back?”

“A lot of people have memories from that era,” she noted, “but, depending on some people’s mental health, maybe they don’t.”

At that, the old woman scrunched up her face. “I don’t like the way you put that.”

“It’s a well-known fact that, as we age, some people remember things that happened long ago far better than something that may have happened last week,” she shared. “And I have the case of an eighteen-month-old baby girl who was beaten to the point of death,” she shared, almost choking up before pushing back the tears. “Then her remains were unceremoniously dumped in a garden plot, where animals chewed on her bones.”

“Who would do that? Everyone deserves a Christian burial.”

“That would be nice,” Doreen replied, “and I’ll be happy to confirm this little girl gets that, once I have her name.”

Lilybeth’s expression turned sorrowful, and she nodded slowly. “Child abuse happens so often.… Back then I don’t think it happened any more than it does today, though it certainly did happen. I just think that we hear about it a lot more these days.”

“Did you know of any families where the children were abused?”

Lilybeth looked at her for a long moment, then slowly nodded. “There were a couple.” She sighed, then shook her head. “In one case, the family was killed in a house fire, and we found out afterward that the husband had murdered them all and then torched the house. Their last name was Smith, but they are all dead now.” She frowned, paused for a long moment, then added, “The other family was the Winters, although I’m not sure it was around the same time frame, but it wasn’t too far off.”

“This little girl was found in Southeast Kelowna, the Black Mountain area.” Then she told her the address.

Lilybeth’s eyebrows shot up. “Back thirty-odd years ago that would not have been that far out of town,” she noted, “yet just far enough that it’s another world. Back then these were all small separate communities, unlike today where it seems they’ve all grown together. I still don’t really know how I can help you.”

“Did you help anybody in that corner?”

“Sure,” she said, with a chuckle. “I helped a lot of people there, but most of the time I stayed closer to town. Sometimes the women came in to see me, and sometimes I went to visit them, but I can’t really say that I would know who had an eighteen-month-old baby who disappeared.”

At that, Doreen frowned at her. “And yet I didn’t mention that she disappeared.”

Lilybeth flushed. “If she was buried in the yard, she disappeared, didn’t she?” she snapped, with a waspish tone. “And don’t you get smart with me, young woman.”

Doreen shook her head. “I didn’t come here to argue with you. I would just like to give this child a proper burial and to mark her grave with her given name.”

Lilybeth obviously was warring with something from the struggle evident by her facial expression, until finally she shrugged. “A couple families were in that corner. Winters was one of them, and I think the other was his brother-in-law.” She frowned. “Another couple in that corner were fairly strict with the rod, after all that church-going preaching and whatnot. I don’t remember the name though.”

“Meaning that they beat the kids?”

“Meaning that, if the kids didn’t behave, they were punished,” she clarified. “And that was a lot more common back then than it is today.”

Doreen could not imagine that, but back then it seemed as if you could do a whole lot and nobody cared. “And do you remember if a little girl went missing?”

“I have no idea,” she stated. “I helped deliver a couple girls in that corner, but I can’t tell you which ones or to whom.”

“No, of course not. So, Winters, and any other names?”

She looked at her and shrugged. “Just because they discipline their kids doesn’t mean they would have killed them.”

“Right,” Doreen replied, “but it’s also quite possible that they disciplined too hard. This little baby’s bones,… they were broken, so she was likely abused.”

Lilybeth winced and then nodded. “So, it’s possible that it’s them. But it could also be half a dozen others.”

“Any other names than the Winters family? I’ve been looking through birth records and death records but haven’t found anything that got my attention. So no sign of them or of a death certificate.”

“If the birth were announced anywhere, or if there was a formal death certificate, I would imagine the child wouldn’t have been buried in the garden.”

“No, I wouldn’t have thought so,” Doreen agreed.

Lilybeth added, “It was illegal back then too. There were certainly some who wanted the afterbirth buried out in the garden, but that’s a whole different case.”

Doreen stared at her. “Did they do that?”

“Some of them did,” Lilybeth said, “and that practice comes and goes on a regular basis. It’s not as if it’s new. Whenever you have women giving birth, you’ll get all kinds of beliefs about what’s proper and what’s not.”

“I’m not too bothered about the afterbirth, as long as they didn’t bury children who died at their hands in the garden.”

Lilybeth nodded. “I wouldn’t either. I think that’s all I can help you with.”

Doreen pulled out a piece of paper from her notepad, wrote down her name and phone number, and handed it to Lilybeth. “If you think of any other names, give me a shout. I will be diligently tracking down any other birth and death certificates, seeing who’s left.”

“That’ll take you a long time.”

“It will, and it’s one of the reasons I’m going the genealogy route, to see if I can speed things up a bit.”