“We’ve got names on the four in back.”
I waited.
“It was a family. Mother, father, and twin baby boys.”
“Hadn’t we already figured that out?”
I heard the rustle of paper.
“Brian Gilbert, age twenty-three, Heidi Schneider, age twenty, Malachy and Mathias Gilbert, age four months.”
I connected my base series to a set of secondary triangles.
“Most women would be impressed with my detecting.”
“I’m not most women.”
“Are you pissed off at me?”
“Should I be?”
I unclenched my molars and filled my lungs with air. For a long time he didn’t reply.
“Bell Canada was unhurried as usual, but the phone records finally came on Monday. The only nonlocal number called during the past year was to an eight-four-three area code.”
I stopped in mid-triangle.
“Seems you’re not the only one whose heart’s in Dixie.”
“Cute.”
“Old times there are not forgotten.”
“Where?”
“Beaufort, South Carolina.”
“Are you on the level?”
“The old lady was a great dialer, then the calls stopped last winter.”
“Where was she calling?”
“It’s probably a residence. The local sheriff’s going to check it out today.”
“That’s where this young family lived?”
“Not exactly. The Beaufort link started me thinking. The calls were pretty regular, then they stopped on December twelfth. Why? That’s about three months before the fire. Something kept bugging me about that. The three-month part. Then I remembered. That’s how long the neighbors said the couple and the babies had been at St-Jovite. You had said the babies were four months old, so I figured maybe those kids were born in Beaufort, and the calls stopped when they arrived in St-Jovite.”
I let him go on.
“I called Beaufort Memorial, but there’d been no twin boys delivered there in the past year. Next I tried the clinics and hit pay dirt. They remembered the mother at . . .” More paper rustling. “. . . Beaufort-Jasper Comprehensive Health Clinic out on Saint Helena. That’s an island.”
“I know that, Ryan.”
“It’s a rural health clinic, mostly black doctors, mostly black patients. I spoke to one of the OB-GYNS, and, after the usual patient privacy bullshit, she admitted she treated a prenatal that fit my description. The woman had come in four months pregnant, carrying twins. Her due date was late November. Heidi Schneider. The doctor said she remembered Heidi because she was white, and because of the twins.”
“So she delivered there?”
“No. The other reason the doctor remembered her was because she’d disappeared. The woman kept her appointments through her sixth month, then never went back.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s all she’d give up until I faxed her the autopsy photo. I suspect she’ll be seeing that in her sleep for a while. When she phoned back she was more cooperative. Not that the chart info was all that helpful. Heidi wasn’t exactly forthcoming when she filled out the forms. She listed the father as Brian Gilbert, gave a home address in Sugar Land, Texas, and left the boxes for local address and phone number blank.”
“What’s in Texas?”
“We’re checkin’, ma’am.”
“Don’t start, Ryan.”
“How schooled are the Beaufort boys in blue?”
“I don’t really know them. Anyway, they wouldn’t have jurisdiction out on Saint Helena. It’s unincorporated, so it’s the sheriff’s turf.”
“Well, we’re going to meet him.”
“We?”
“I’m flying in on Sunday and I could use a local guide. You know, someone who speaks the language, knows local protocol. I have no idea how you eat grits.”
