Every Street, Chapter 14

--see previous chapters for notes--


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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.


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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.


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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.


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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.