Rory Brown came, carrying his backpack and a paper bag full of clothes.
"He took something out of Hayden's room," I said. I was across the rooms and up the stairs before I knew what I was doing, and passed Rory without so much as looking at him.
Hayden was still asleep, restlessly, and the sheet on his crib mattress had been taken off and then replaced. Since it had been a regular flat bedsheet, much folded to fit the crib mattress, I'd noticed how it'd been tucked before, and I knew that it had been removed and refolded. The receiving blanket I'd covered the sheet with had been placed back on top, but it was wrinkled and crooked. As long as Hayden was all right, I couldn't see that any harm had been done, but I was mighty puzzled.
When I came slowly down to the living room, I saw that Cindy and Dennis were about to go.
"Rory's going to stay here for a while," Martin was saying smilingly. "I'll get him back into town."
Cindy looked doubtful. "Are you sure, Martin? It looks like it's going to let go any minute." The sky looked heavy with snow, the fields and the sky blending into one big sheet of dirty white. Dennis, his hand holding Cindy's, was looking over his shoulder at the horizon, and he was clearly anxious to be gone. "C'mon, Cindy, we'll see Martin later," he said. "And thank you, Aurora, for the coffee. You'll have to tell Cindy how you do it. Her coffee is not her strong point."
I thought of barfing all over his boots, but decided that was a little extreme. Cindy was red. I met her eyes, and elaborately drew my finger across my throat and made a choking noise. She laughed, a little reluctantly, but laughed. This confused Dennis - of course, it would.
"See you!" Martin called from the kitchen, where he and Rory and Karl were standing in a somewhat strained grouping.
"Good-bye," I said brightly, ready for them all to be gone. Something was fishy, and the sooner Dennis and Cindy pulled away, the sooner I'd find out what it was.
Chapter Ten
I went in the kitchen to face what looked like an interrogation. Martin and Karl had taken the paper bag from Rory, and as I entered they dumped it on the table. I gasped. Besides the usual deodorant and razor, underpants and condoms, the bag contained packages of bills. Just like the one in the baby's diaper bag, the one I'd discovered in Lawrenceton.
"They were under the sheet on the crib," I said, into the silence.
"It's mine," Rory said sullenly. "As long as you can't find Regina, it's mine.
She shows up, I share it with her. But we owe some of it to the midwife." "Where'd it come from?" Martin asked. It was the opening salvo in a long bombardment.
An hour later, no one had gotten anywhere, except me. I'd looked up Bobbye Sunday's address in the telephone book, which covered several small towns in the area. The midwife lived in Bushmill, and she wasn't answering her phone. I'd tried her number several times while Martin and Karl questioned Rory. Rory, who was wily if not intelligent, had made up his mind he wasn't going to tell anyone anything. I felt like I was some kind of civil rights observer, there to make sure Rory wasn't thumped by an increasingly exasperated Martin. Karl seemed to consider this Martin's show, but he contributed to the atmosphere of menace by smoldering at Rory, with some effect.
"I never meant to hurt Therese," the boy blurted out of the blue. Karl slammed his palm against the kitchen table with explosive force. "I told you never to say her name!" he said. Then he turned to me. "Therese is simple," he said bluntly. "She can cope with life, but just barely. Then this guy shows up, tells her after one date he loves her, gets her knocked up. I have to take Therese for an abortion. Phoebe's young enough to have one of her own if she wants, we don't want to raise Therese's kid and it's not our job. She can't raise a kid, he can't raise a kid, he doesn't even want to marry her. But he had a fit when she had the abortion, which left her crying for weeks. He had a use for the baby, but not for Therese, who hasn't seen or heard from him since." I looked at Rory in