Every Street, Chapter 14

--see previous chapters for notes--

Carol was pregnant. Carol was pregnant. No matter how many times he thought it or said it out loud, he still couldn't quite grasp the reality of it. She had been carrying his child. She must have been pregnant before the court case, so now...now, somewhere, he had a child; they had a child between them. A son or a daughter, out there in the world. He had to find her now, more than ever before, more than he ever thought possible. Now he wasn't just looking for Carol, he was looking for his child too. He couldn't think of anything else that would ever matter again compared to this. The sudden thunderbolt of understanding stuck him down as he fumbled across the bed, throwing tidied items to the floor and finally locating what he knew he recognised all along. The photograph - it was an ultrasound image, with the fuzzy outline of a tiny foetus cut out from the main picture. It was his baby. He traced the outline, marking the head, the arms and the legs of the half-developed infant. What had she called him or her? Had she run away because she was having the baby? Surely...surely, she wouldn't have had it aborted? She had wanted a child so much. But, it was his and he had ruined her career, her life, and run away from it all leaving no contact routes. He leant back against the wall behind the bed, letting his hands holding the image fall to his lap with despair. If he couldn't find Carol, how would he ever trace the baby? How did anyone ever trace...an idea began to form in his mind, as he remembered a time at the hospital when a lost father had come rushing into the ER looking for his wife who had just given birth. A simple record search had shown that in fact the woman had been taken to Mercy, where she had given birth to a baby boy. Hospital records. That's how he'd find them. All fired up with this new route to success, he was about to pick up the phone and call County when he recalled that no-one else had known Carol was pregnant aside from Haleh. So she couldn't have gone to County - the news would have spread like, well, bacteria. Instead, he picked up the phone and dialled the police number, now a familiar pattern of button presses on the telephone.
"Chicago PD."
"Hi, I'm looking for the person dealing with missing people cases?"
"Putting you through now."
There was a long buzzing noise and then some elevator music again. Doug gritted his teeth against each other.
"Hello, Chicago PD, missing persons report desk, how can I help?"
"I need to speak to someone dealing with a particular case?"
"What case is that, sir?"
"Carol Hathaway. She went missing a year ago."
"And you want to report her missing?"
"No, no, she's already been reported missing. I want to talk to whoever was investigating it."
"Uhmmmm, okay...." There was the sound of typing. "Miss Carol Hathaway? That was being looked into by...Sergeant Gregory in 13th precinct. Do you want me to put you through to him?"
"Yeah, please."
"Okay, one moment."
Doug prayed for no more music. There was none, instead a voice saying "Gregory."
"Sergeant Gregory?"
"Uh huh." He was obviously eating something. Probably a doughnut.
"Did you investigate Carol Hathaway? She disappeared last year..."
"I don't know, I go through about 500 cases a year. Who is this?"
"I'm Doug Ross. I was...with Carol for a while before she went missing, and I heard that she was pregnant with my child."
"That's real cute. But I don't remember any Hathaways."
"You just said yourself you go through 500 cases a year. Can't you look it up?"
"Sure I can. But why would I want to? I got three more missing person files on my desk right now from today, two unsolved murders and some old guy complaining about noise pollution from his student neighbours."
"I know you're busy. But If you could just do me a favour-"
"I don't do favours, buddy. I'm a police officer."
"Look. Carol Hathaway. She went missing while I was out of the area and now I'm back and I just found out she was pregnant. Is there any way I can somehow find out at least where she had the baby?"
"Go to the hospitals. Tell 'em you're the father of a baby, have them look up the records."
"They can't do it - medical confidentiality."
"So what you want me to do about it?"
"Can't you call up the hospitals...?"
There was the sound of raucous fake laughter on the other end of the line. Doug sighed - he knew he sounded desperate.
"Look buddy, I wish you all the luck in the world finding your girlfriend and your kid, but I can't help you. Call me if you find her, then I can get rid of that report." And he hung up.

By midday, Doug was beginning to wonder if the phone receiver had welded itself to his head. It felt like his ear had been glued to it all morning - which, for the most part, it had - and as he listened to the voice on the other end, he gazed out of the window at the sun and felt the need to escape the confines of his room.
"Okay. Yup, sure. Thanks. I'll talk to you later. Thanks a lot."
Finally, he put the phone down. Standing up, he pushed the tips of his fingers up into the air, as far away from his feet as possible, and yawned. Time to get out. Grabbing his coat from the desk and putting the room key in his pocket, he left the hotel. As he strode down the street, his gaze firmly fixed on the sidewalk before him, he tried to let the breeze clear his mind. But all it could do was remind him that he should be back in that room again in less than 30 minutes if possible, just in case. Just in case Kerry came through. He felt the damp splatter of a raindrop hit the back of his neck, and tried to avoid looking at the pushchair that passed him, pushed by a couple of doting grandparents. If Kerry could just find out...he was surprised that she was willing to help him, after everything. But the ring of sadness in her voice suggested that maybe she too was confused by Carol's disappearance.

Standing up, he pushed the tips of his fingers up into the air, as far away from his feet as possible, and yawned. Time to get out. Grabbing his coat from the desk and putting the room key in his pocket, he left the hotel. As he strode down the street, his gaze firmly fixed on the sidewalk before him, he tried to let the breeze clear his mind. But all it could do was remind him that he should be back in that room again in less than 30 minutes if possible, just in case. Just in case Kerry came through. He felt the damp splatter of a raindrop hit the back of his neck, and tried to avoid looking at the stroller that passed him, pushed by a couple of doting grandparents. If Kerry could just find out...he was surprised that she was willing to help him, after everything. But the ring of sadness in her voice suggested that maybe she too was confused by Carol's disappearance. He couldn't understand why no one had done anything about it - but he reasoned that someone had gone to the police, and working at the hospital didn't leave a lot of time for private investigations. The rain was starting to fall harder, but Doug was unaware as he sat down on a park bench, his hands still buried deep in the pockets of his overcoat. He forced himself to stay there, instead of rushing back to the hotel to see if the phone had rung. He knew he had to give it at least half an hour, and if he hadn't come out he would have gone crazy. But now it felt like it was even worse outside. The freedom you normally expect, the escapism had backfired because now it felt not just like the walls of the hotel room were closing in on him, but the city too. The city had swallowed Carol, left her untraceable, left him trapped in the middle and almost suddenly claustrophobic despite the rain, wind and clear view of grass and trees all around. Had she felt that way? Had she simply left for another part of the country? Surely not, she would have mentioned it to someone. Her mother. Mark. Haleh, even, who, for all intents and purposes, had been the last person to see Carol. A cold gust of wind slapped water in his face, and he stood up, unable to take the waiting any longer. He walked slowly in the direction of his hotel, rain dripping from his hair onto his face, running down the skin like tears, falling from his jaw to his coat collar, or running down his neck making a bumpy path over the ruined flesh on the left.

He was standing outside his door, digging the key out of his pocket when the phone started ringing inside. With some urgency, Doug rammed the key into the lock and turned it, cursing the complicated system as he lifted the handle up once, turned the key again and finally crashed through the door in a forward perpetual motion, stretched to his full extent as he reached for the receiver.
"Hello?" The rest of his body caught up with the front half of him and came to a halt by the desk.
"A call for you from Dr. Weaver, Mr. Ross."
"Okay." He folded down onto the chair, one hand spread flat on the surface of the desk where he had originally placed it to stop himself running through the cheap furniture.
"Doug?"
"Hi, Kerry." He didn't want to ask anything directly for fear of the answer.
"I searched the medical database for the whole of Cook County, but they only let me read the files from public hospitals."
"Uh huh..."
"But I did find a record - from Sinai. It's dated November 12th."
"Uh huh." He wished that she'd stop pausing, the suspense was not something he needed or wanted.
"A Miss Carol Hathaway was admitted to the ER in labour, brought in by paramedics, then sent to OB, where she gave birth to twin girls."
There was a long and heavy silence that echoed down the telephone line.
"Doug?"
"Yeah."
"They were both born healthy, they weighed about 6 and a half pounds each. It says they were named Kate and Tess."
"Kate and Tess."
"Are you okay, Doug?"
"Yeah. Yeah, Kerry. Thanks for finding that out for me."
Another short pause followed.
"There wasn't any information about her address or where she went afterwards."
"Okay."
There was some shouting in the background.
"I have to go, Doug."
"Thanks again, Kerry. I really do appreciate that."
"That's okay." There was more shouting and Doug could hear Kerry shouting back loudly before putting the phone down. He slowly replaced his own phone in the cradle and tipped his head into his open hands. Twin girls, twin daughters. Tess and Kate. Such beautiful names...such Carol names. She would have had no trouble choosing them, she would have known all along what she wanted to call her children. Their children. He tried to imagine what they would look like, what Carol's face would have looked like when she saw her girls for the first time. He ached thinking about it, and he rubbed his head backwards and forwards over the palms of his hands that contained it. He wanted to be there. He wished he'd been there. And now, if he could only find his family, he would never let them go again. They would never be let out of his sight. They could move somewhere new, out of Chicago. Somewhere where there were fields and grass and sun, and a beach nearby, where they could live in a house with three bedrooms, a room they could turn into a playroom, a den just like they used to have, and a swimming pool - he could teach the girls to swim when they got older, right in their backyard. They could ride their bikes across the fields without worrying about gangs and traffic, and they could spend days on the beach building sandcastles and eating picnics...the only thing standing between the hotel room and that vision was finding Carol and his daughters. That was all.

Doug left his room once more an hour later, dimly aware that he should eat at some point, but more focused on his mission than his stomach. In the brief space of time he'd had to get used to the fact he had two baby girls somewhere, he had been overcome with the desire to let Helen know. He wasn't sure why - maybe it was a combination of his family ideals and the fact that he didn't want her to think he had Carol hidden away somewhere himself. Maybe he just needed someone to share the news. He tried calling her, but the answerphone picked up, he presumed because she didn't want any calls from him again. This time though, this time he knew that he could get her to listen. He wouldn't let her shut the door in his face. The five words - "Help me find your grandchildren" - he knew would stop her in her tracks. And he was prepared to force her to listen to him say those words by almost any means. Determined and strong, fuelled by the need to be a father to his children, he strode down the sidewalk to the Hathaway household. The world around him was dull and grey, but the rain had stopped and he marched onward with such a determined look on his face that people moved out of his path before he could get too near them.

But when he got there, the door was already open. The front yard was empty, and there was no one on the porch. No one to the sides of the house either, and it didn't look like the neighbours were in. Doug frowned and went up the porch steps slowly, listening to the creak of the boards beneath his feet. The noise brought a small black and white figure to the door, and out of it. The cat wound itself around Doug's legs, meowing loudly, stopping briefly to sniff the air. Seeing a leaf dancing on the grass in the yard, it leapt off the porch. Doug scratched the back of his head and craned his head forward towards the door. Unsure about what was polite to do in such circumstances, he rang the doorbell once before calling out, "Helen? Mrs. Hathaway?" Only an echo of silence greeted him in response. Helen Hathaway wasn't the kind of person to leave the front door open for visitors to drop by, or while she filled a pail with water for her plants. Calling out again, Doug pushed the door back a little so it opened wide enough for him to slide in and take a look around. There was still no reply, but he couldn't help thinking that if she came in now, he would most definitely be spending the night in a police cell. As he looked around at the immaculately kept house, he knew there was something not quite right about it. Everything seemed to be in its place as far as he could remember, in fact there didn't seem to be a hair out of place. Maybe it had been redecorated, he mused, but he still felt unsettled. And, as he turned into the kitchen he knew why. Feeling a surge of adrenaline, he dropped to his knees and felt the parchment dry skin, looked at the blown pupils and the dried mess of grey pulp and deep red blood on the white, white tiles. He caught himself about to give CPR, but read the signs of rigor mortis and the grey matter, and knew it was not worth the breath. She was dead, shot once in the temple, executioner style. No bloody footprints, no gun, no trail of anyone being here except the flapping door. He ran a hand over the face of the woman he'd considered a mother-in-law, closing her eyelids over the dry eyeballs beneath. His eyes ran to the crucifix she wore around her neck, lying at the very base of her neck, and he touched it once, briefly and almost automatically, crossing himself out of respect as he had been taught to so many years ago. As he stood up, his eyes still on the murdered Helen Hathaway, a sudden blur of thoughts ran through his mind. He had to call 911, he couldn't leave the scene, he'd left his fingerprints on the body, what if the murderer was still here, why had someone killed her, if they had killed Helen had they killed Carol, had his daughters been killed, maybe the police would start to really investigate this, why, why, why? He looked down at his hands, not a drop of blood on them. He stretched forward, leaning over the body on the floor and punched 911 into the phone on the wall. Pulling the cord out to his side of the room, he held onto it tight as he waited to be connected, and crouched back down on the floor by Helen as he let reality sink in.

©Triggersaurus 2001