Wednesday's Child by Gayle Wilson

Author:Gayle Wilson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HQN Books
Published: 2013-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“AND GET WHOEVER you used before, the private investigator in Atlanta, to track down the whereabouts of Travis Caffrey,” Jeb suggested over supper that night. “If by some chance Gladys really does remember Richard and Emma, we need to follow up and see if there’s any connection between that and Travis leaving town. We probably need to know the date he left in any case.”

“His name is Nolan Harbinson,” Susan said, “and he’s already working on it. I’ll call him tomorrow and see if he’s found anything.”

Jeb had warned her that most of what he would propose tonight was simply brainstorming. Everything he’d mentioned so far, in her opinion at least, was something that needed to be looked into. And if they waited for Adams to do any of it—

“I’ll get back with Doc and see if he’ll take a look at the autopsy report. He’ll give us his honest opinion about that skull fracture, whether Adams likes it or not.”

“Do you think that’s why the medical examiner changed his report. Because the sheriff brought pressure on him to be less definite about the cause of that injury?”

“I think he probably told Doc what he really thought. He may have told Adams what he wanted to hear.”

“Do you think Dr. Callaway might be a source of information about the children in town? I know he didn’t practice here, but some of the parents probably took their kids to him.”

Jeb nodded, lifting another spoonful of Lorena’s squash casserole toward his mouth as he answered. “Maybe. If they were his patients, though, I don’t know how much he can tell us. There are bound to be confidentiality issues involved.”

“Maybe you could just ask him if he knows any little girls in town who are adopted. Girls about the right age, I mean. When we talked to him before, he said something about knowing there were adopted children.”

“Doc would know about that, all right,” Lorena said.

Although she was sitting at the table with them, the old woman had not set a place for herself. Instead of eating, she had kept Jeb’s plate full and listened as they talked. This was the first time she’d joined the conversation.

“What do you mean?” Jeb asked.

“His daddy used to do that. ’Course, back then there was more call for that kind of thing than there is now.”

“More call for what, Lorena?” Susan prodded.

“Finding homes for unwanted babies.”

Neither of them said anything for a moment, trying to digest the information that had just been dumped in their laps.

“Are you saying Doc ran some kind of adoption service?”

“Mostly his daddy, but I know for a fact about one child Doc helped find a home for. When you practice medicine in a town like Linton, you get to know everybody’s secrets. And if you’re trusted to keep them, then folks come to you when they got a need for something that has to be kept quiet.”

“Like a baby born out of wedlock,” Susan said.

It was a term that wasn’t

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