Chapter Fourteen #3
“This isn’t a TV show,” Kit reminded her. She went back into the kitchen to finish her tea, which was now cold. She was debating whether to have a second cup when her phone rang. Beth’s name appeared on the screen.
“Kit, Russ just called and said something about Aunt Maxine killing her baby? What the hell is that all about?”
Kit laughed dryly. “It’s the remains of a baby. Just bones, really. The doctor—the medical examiner is here, and he said that by judging from the size of it, he’d guess either a late miscarriage or a stillbirth.”
“Poor thing. Was it really Maxine’s?”
“We don’t know for sure about, well, much of anything at this point, but I don’t know who else’s it could have been. It was wrapped in a quilt in the blanket chest in her bedroom.”
“So strange. Why would she keep something like that in her room?” Kit could almost see Beth’s deep frown. “Oh, God. A million questions come to mind.”
“Tell me about it. I haven’t thought of anything else for the past two hours.
Maybe for some reason she felt she couldn’t part with it.
I have read about women doing something similar.
Hiding the body of a newborn because they couldn’t bear to bury it or dispose of it.
It was really tiny, Beth. The more I think about it, the more I think the doctor is right.
It was so small, it must have been premature and couldn’t survive if it were born alive.
But I’m not the one who’s going to be making that call. ”
“How could they tell if it was born alive or not?”
“I don’t know that they can. But the doctor said he saw no broken bones or signs of abuse, so I don’t know that they could say definitively either way.”
“So I guess they’ll do a DNA test?”
“There’s no way of knowing where to find Maxine’s DNA at this point since the house has been cleaned, so I’m going to take a DNA test. If that baby was Maxine’s, the DNA will match me as a first cousin. If there’s no match, we’ll probably never know who the child was.”
“Keep me in the loop. I’m fascinated but sad we might have had a cousin we never knew about.” Beth paused. “Of course, we never knew about Maxine, either, and that’s really sad. I feel like we lost out by not ever having met her, don’t you?”
“I do. But I feel like I’m starting to—I don’t know, get to know her a little bit through her friends. I think we would have gotten along really well, and that makes me very sad.”
“We don’t have any cousins on Mom’s side, but we do have a few on Dad’s. I haven’t seen any of them since we were kids. You think maybe one of them . . . ?”
“Good question. We’ll know when the DNA results are back, though, because they’ll show whether the relationship is on the maternal or paternal side. I guess we’re going to have to wait for that.”
“In the meantime, I can try to reactivate my Ancestry account and search for cousins. Mom and Maxine probably had a mess of them, since Dad had other siblings. For all we know, Maxine could have been close to a cousin or two. Maybe one of them was visiting her and gave birth while they were there.”
“Wouldn’t you think if that had been the case, they’d have taken their baby with them when they left?” Kit couldn’t imagine a scenario where a mother would simply leave her child.
“Well, I would have, and you would have. But sometimes people do strange things. Of course, then there’s the question of why Maxine would have held on to someone else’s baby for so many years.
Maybe the baby was born alive and the cousin—or whomever—didn’t want it and maybe Maxine did, so she offered to keep it but later it died? ”
“That sounds a little far-fetched, Bethy.”
“You’re right. So I think we can pretty much agree that it was probably not an out-of-towner’s baby. But it’s still a mystery.”
“One I’m sure the Maine State Police will do everything to solve.” She heard footsteps cross the front porch, then stop at the door. “Beth, I need to go.”
Kit went into the front hall and opened the door just as a uniformed state trooper came up the steps.
“Are you here for Detective Stevens?” Kit asked.
“I am, ma’am. State Trooper Collins.” He extended his hand.
“The detective is upstairs with Dr. Steele and our local police chief.”
“Thank you.” He nodded to Kit as he walked past her and hustled up the steps.
“So now we have a cop, a detective, a doctor, and a state trooper,” Greta said from behind Kit. “I wonder who’ll show up next.”
“Maybe someone looking for evidence.” Kit turned to walk back into the living room. “Although I don’t know what they’ll find that pertains to that baby. Fingerprints? Yours and mine from the chest and from handling things in the bedroom. Maxine’s from the magazines and the furniture.”
“I polished the furniture after I cleaned the bathroom,” Greta told her.
“And how would we know which were Maxine’s?
It’s not like we’re going to get prints out of her ashes.
” She followed Kit into the living room.
“So they’ll find yours, mine, and some unidentified prints that we’ll assume belong to the late lady of the house.
As old as those bones must be, who knows who’s come and gone through here over the years and what might remain after all that time. ”
Greta shook her head and sat at the table where they’d had lunch.
Moments later, the detective came looking for them.
“Some questions, if you don’t mind, Ms. Porterfield,” she addressed Kit.
“Of course.”
“Is there somewhere else we can talk?” the detective asked.
“Oh, I won’t be a bother,” Greta said.
“You’re the friend of the woman who owned this house?” Detective Stevens stood in the middle of the room, unsmiling and all business.
“I am. Maxine was my best friend, and I was with . . .” Greta started to rise from her chair.
“You hold that thought. I’ll get back to you, ma’am.” She turned to Kit. “Another room . . . ?”
“Of course. We can go into the kitchen. It’s this way.” Kit led the detective into the kitchen. “Greta is a little overwrought,” she explained. “She was close friends with my aunt, and she’s still shaken up by . . . well, what we found.”
“Why don’t you tell me about that? From the beginning.” Detective Stevens pulled a chair out from the table and sat, then took out her phone and placed it on the table. Kit sat opposite her. “Okay with you if I record this?”
“Of course.”
The detective turned on the recording function, introduced herself, gave the date, time, and place of the interview. She had Kit spell her first and last names, then asked for her permission to record the interview. Kit agreed, and the interview began.
“Why were you in the house today?”
“I inherited it from my late aunt. I came up from Pennsylvania last week to look over the house and the grounds and see what was here,” Kit explained.
“When was the last time you saw your aunt?”
Kit sighed. “I’d never met her. In fact, I didn’t know about her . . .”
“Why would she have left you her home and her business if she’d never met you?”
“I don’t know. I assume because I was her sister’s daughter. But they didn’t speak, so—” Kit threw up her hands. “I still don’t know the answer to that question.”
“So you were her sole heir?”
“Yes. There were only the two of them, Maxine and my mother.”
“And you have no siblings?”
“I have a sister, Beth.”
“So she’s part owner as well?”
“She wasn’t mentioned in the will, no.”
“Just you?”
Kit nodded. “Just me.”
“Why would she have cut your sister out of the will?”
“I have no idea.”
The detective changed her line of questioning. “When was the last time you were here at the camp?”
“I’ve never been here before. I didn’t even know of its existence. Just like I didn’t know of Maxine’s existence.”
“You didn’t know you had an aunt?”
“No. My mother told us she was an only child.”
“So your mother never brought you and your sister here?”
“No.” Kit sighed deeply. “Despite the fact that she grew up here, and her family lived and worked on this land for well over a hundred years, no. She never brought us here.”
“How long have you been staying here?”
“Here in the house?” Kit shook her head. “I’ve been staying at the Tolerance Inn.”
“Any particular reason you’re not staying here in the house you inherited and now own?”
“I didn’t feel comfortable staying out here by myself.”
“And why is that?”
“It’s remote and I’m alone,” Kit said defensively. “And possibly not as brave as I was when I was younger.”
“Start from the beginning.”
Kit related the tale, from what she knew, and didn’t know, about her mother and her aunt having some sort of falling-out, to the moment she moved the quilts and found the remains.
Judging by the expression on the detective’s face, Kit wasn’t sure her story was totally believed, but Stevens made no comment either way and simply moved on to her next line of questioning.
“Any idea who the baby was? Or whose baby it was?”
Kit shook her head. “No. I wish I did. But I would assume it was Maxine’s. I don’t know who else would have left their baby in that room. I’ve been told that it was Maxine’s room from the time she was a child.”
“Told by whom?”
“Greta Crimmins. The woman in the next room. She knew my aunt almost her entire life.”
“Assuming the baby was your aunt’s, any idea why she would have kept the child’s remains in a quilt?”
Kit looked at her blankly. “How would I know what she was thinking when I didn’t even know her? I didn’t know the woman existed until a few months ago, when I heard from her attorney.”
“Who was her attorney?”
“Jeremy Banks. Banks, Anderson, and Banks.”
The detective smiled as if she’d had experience with Banks.
“You know him?” Kit asked.
“We’ve crossed paths before.” Detective Stevens was still smiling when she added, “He’s sharp, all right, for a man of his years, but you’d be making a mistake if you discounted him because of his age.”
Kit laughed. “You have met Banks.”
“Yeah, he’s a good man. A tough nut but he’s a good guy.”