Ali’s first thought was that these were Jane Doe’s parents, come to check on their daughter.
“Sorry, Stu,” Ali said quickly. “I’ve gotta run.”
By the time she made it into the lobby, the couple stood in front of the reception desk.
“My name’s Gordon Tower,” the man announced in a booming voice that echoed off the polished granite floor. “I understand you’ve got my wife and my baby in here—Enid and baby Sarah. We’ve come to take them home.”
His voice was loud and his manner brusque enough that there wasn’t a person in the lobby who didn’t turn to look in his direction. Ali looked, too. The man’s gray hair and weathered face hinted that he was probably somewhere in his sixties. The woman’s age was more difficult to pin down. Her graying hair and sunken cheeks, the product of many missing teeth, hinted that she was the same age as the man, although her pregnancy suggested that she couldn’t be more than forty. In truth, Ali realized, she might even be far younger than that.
Seeming to sense the weight of Ali’s gaze, the man spun around and glared at her. “What the hell are you staring at, woman?” he demanded. Before Ali could frame a suitable response, he had already turned his fury back on the hapless clerk.
“I’m sorry,” she was saying, “we have no patients listed under those names.”
He slammed the palm of his hand down onto the counter with such force that the clerk flinched from him.
“The hell you don’t!” he growled. “They were brought here by ambulance late last night, and they shouldn’t have been. The Family doesn’t condone the kinds of black magic medicine that goes on in places like this. I’m here to take them both home. If you don’t tell me where they are right now, I’ll take this place apart brick by brick.”
A uniformed but unarmed security guard materialized out of nowhere, most likely summoned by a panic button located somewhere on the receptionist’s desk.
“What seems to be the problem here?” he asked.
“The problem is you people have my wife and baby,” Tower growled. “I want them back.”
“I was trying to explain to Mr. Tower here that we don’t have any patients answering to the names he gave me,” the clerk said. “Even if we did, we’re not authorized to give out information . . .”
“Did you hear what I said?” Tower demanded. “You’ve got my wife and my daughter imprisoned somewhere in this hospital. Now, are you going to turn them over to me, or am I going to go away and come back with an attorney and sue the socks off this place?”
“Please calm down,” the guard said, attempting to defuse the situation. “I’m sure this is all just some kind of misunderstanding. If you and the missus here would just have a seat . . .”
“I won’t have a seat and I won’t calm down. I want to talk to whoever’s in charge, not some self-important pretend cop.”
With Tower’s attention focused entirely on the security guard, Ali took advantage of his momentary distraction to make for the elevator, dialing Sister Anselm’s phone as she went. Naturally her call went to voice mail. When the elevator doors swished open, Ali bounded out into the waiting room. Several people were gathered there, but Sister Anselm wasn’t one of them. A moment later, however, Ali caught sight of the nun emerging from a room down the hall. Sister Anselm looked at Ali in alarm.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
“There’s a guy downstairs hassling the front desk. He says his name is Gordon Tower, and he’s come to take his wife and baby home, by force if necessary.”
“Put the floor on lockdown, Nurse Mandy,” Sister Anselm called to a woman seated at the nurses’ station. Ali was surprised to see a metal shutter glide silently down over the inside of the nursery window. At the same time Ali heard the distinctive click of a door lock.
“Hey,” one of the new fathers in the room said. “I’m here trying to look at my baby. What’s going on?”
“Is the elevator disabled?” Sister Anselm asked.
Nurse Mandy nodded. “Done.”
“All right, then,” Sister Anselm said, taking Ali by the arm and guiding her toward the stairwell. “If there’s going to be some kind of confrontation, it won’t happen here on the maternity floor.”
Sister Anselm sprinted down four flights of stairs in a way that left Ali far behind. When Ali opened the door at the bottom of the last flight, she heard raised voices coming from the lobby. Hurrying out of the stairwell on Sister Anselm’s heels, Ali saw that the crowd in the lobby had grown. Several new innocent bystanders had shown up and were gawping. Five people stood outside the elevator door, pushing impatiently on the Up button and waiting for an elevator car Ali knew wasn’t going to come.
Sister Anselm made it to the clamoring group in front of the reception desk at the same time two uniformed Flagstaff PD officers rushed in through the front entrance. The cops were there; the security guard was there; a man in a suit who, Ali discovered later, turned out to be the hospital’s chief administrator was there; but it was Sister Anselm who waded into the melee and took charge.
“What seems to be the problem?” she demanded, her voice cutting through the uproar.
Gordon Tower rounded on her. “Who the hell are you?”
“My name is Sister Anselm,” she replied calmly. “I may be able to be of some assistance, but first I expect you to stop shouting.”
A look of consternation crossed the belligerent man’s face. He was not someone who was used to being spoken to in that fashion, and certainly not, Ali surmised, by a woman. The other men in the room were more than happy to step back and let the nun take over.
“My name is Gordon Tower,” he snapped at her.
Sister Anselm turned to the woman cowering behind the man. “And you are?”
The woman seemed perplexed at being expected to join in the conversation. She glanced at the man and waited for his nod of assent before she answered.
“Edith,” she said. “Edith Tower.”
“And your relationship to the woman you claim we’re concealing here?”
“I already told these people,” Gordon interjected. “I’m Enid’s husband.”
Again, Sister Anselm focused her sharp blue eyes on the woman. “I asked about your relationship to Enid?” the nun insisted.
Again Tower answered for her. “Edith’s relationship to Enid is of no consequence in the matter at hand. Now, are you going to give me back my wife and baby or not?”
“Enid was brought in by ambulance and wasn’t carrying any identification at the time she was admitted to the hospital,” Sister Anselm said calmly, withdrawing her iPad from the pocket of her smock. “We need to have a few details, starting with her date of birth and her full name.”
Tower sighed and ground his teeth. “Enid Ann Tower. No E on Ann.”
“Her date of birth?”
Sister Anselm stood with her finger poised above the keyboard, while an exasperated Gordon turned to Edith. “Well?” he demanded impatiently. “When’s her birthday?”
“July,” Edith offered timidly. “It’s sometime in July.”
Ali was astonished. She remembered the month, day, year, and hour when Christopher was born. How could a mother not know that?
Sister Anselm exhibited no surprise whatsoever. “How old will Enid be this coming July?”
“Seventeen,” Edith answered.
“Which means she’s sixteen now. And where was she born? Perhaps we can ascertain her exact birth date through hospital records.”
“Don’t you understand anything?” Tower grumbled. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you people all along. We believe in God. We do not believe in doctors and hospitals. Enid wasn’t born in a hospital. She was born at home—in the birthing room.”