“Pat’s doing that now, sir.”
“Good, good. You know what to do, Dave. Just get me an answer to it fast.”
“We’ll do our best, sir.”
He leaned back in his leather chair. “A little girl, huh?” He shook his head. “Damn shame. Damn shame.” He kept shaking his head and looking at the report, and then he dropped the report on his desk and said, “Here’re the boys you’ve got to work with.” He handed me a typewritten list of names. “All good, Dave. Get me results.”
“I’ll try, sir,” I said.
Pat had a list of calls on his desk when I went outside again. I picked it up and glanced through it rapidly. A few older kids were lost, and there had been the usual frantic pleas from mothers who should have watched their kids more carefully in the first place.
“What’s this?” I asked. I put my forefinger alongside a call clocked in at eight-fifteen. A Mrs. Wilkes had phoned to say she’d left her baby outside in the carriage, and the carriage was gone.
“They found the kid,” Pat said. “Her older daughter had taken the kid for a walk. There’s nothing there, Dave.”
“The Old Man wants action, Pat. The photos come in yet?”
“Over there.” He indicated a pile of glossy photographs on his desk. I picked up the stack and thumbed through it. They’d shot the baby from every conceivable angle, and there were two good closeups of her face. I fanned the pictures out on my desk top and buzzed the lab. I recognized Caputo’s voice at once.
“Any luck, Cappy?”
“That you, Dave?”
“Yep.”
“You mean on the baby?”
“Yeah.”
“The boys brought in a whole slew of stuff. A pew collects a lot of prints, Dave.”
“Anything we can use?”
“I’m running them through now. If we get anything, I’ll let you know.”
“Fine. I want the baby’s footprints taken, and a stat sent to every hospital in the state.”
“Okay. It’s going to be tough if the baby was born outside, though.”
“Maybe we’ll be lucky. Put the stat on the machine, will you? And tell them we want immediate replies.”
“I’ll have it taken care of, Dave.”
“Good. Cappy, we’re going to need all the help we can get. So...”
“I’ll do all I can.”
“Thanks. Let me know if you get anything.”
“I will. So long, Dave; I’ve got work.”
He clicked off, and I leaned back and lit a cigarette. Pat picked up one of the baby’s photos and studied it glumly.
“When they get him, they should cut off his...”
“He’ll get the chair,” I said. “That’s for sure.”
“I’ll pull the switch. Personally. Just ask me. Just ask me and I’ll do it.”
I nodded. “Except one thing, Pat.”
“What’s that?”
“We got to catch him first.”
The baby was stretched out on the long white table when I went down to see Doc Edwards. A sheet covered the corpse, and Doc was busy filling out a report. I looked over his shoulder:
Date: June 12, 1953
From: Commanding Officer, Charles R. Brandon, 37th Precinct
To: Chief Medical Examiner
SUBJECT: DEATH OF Baby girl (unidentified)
1. Please furnish information on items checked below in connection of death of the above named. Body was found on June 12, 1953 at Church of the Holy Mother, 1220 Benson Avenue, Bronx, New York.
Autopsy performed: examination made Yes.
By: Dr. James L. Edwards, Fordham Hospital Mortuary
Date: June 12, 1953
Where? Bronx County
Cause of death: Broken neck.
Doc Edwards looked up from the typewriter.
“Not nice, Dave.”
“No, not nice at all.” I saw that he was ready to type in the “Result of chemical analysis” space. “Anything else on her?”
“Not much. Dried tears on her face. Urine on her abdomen, buttocks and genitals. Traces of a zinc oxide ointment, and petroleum jelly there, too. That’s about it.”
“Time of death?”
“I’d put it at about three a.m. last night.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You want a guess?”
“Sure.”
“Somebody doesn’t like his sleep to be disturbed by a crying kid. That’s my guess.”
I said, “Nobody likes his sleep disturbed, Doc. What’s the zinc oxide and petroleum jelly for? That normal?”
“Yeah, sure. Lots of mothers use it. Mostly for minor irritations. Urine burn, diaper rash, that sort of thing.”
“I see.”
“This shouldn’t be too tough, Dave. You know who the kid is yet?”
“We’re working on that now.”
“Well, good luck.”
“Thanks.”
I turned to go, and Doc Edwards began pecking at the typewriter again, completing the autopsy report.
There was good news waiting for me back at the precinct. Pat came over with a smile on his face, and a thick sheet of paper in his hands.
“Here’s the ticket,” he said.
I took the paper, and looked at it. It was the photostat of a birth certificate.
This certifies that Louise Ann Dreiser was born to Alice Dreiser in this hospital at 4:15 P.M. on the tenth day of November, 1952. Weight 7 lbs. 6 ozs. In witness whereof, the said hospital has caused this certificate to be issued, properly signed and the seal of the hospital hereunto affixed.
Gregory Freeman, LTJG MC USN
attending physician
Frederick L. Mann, CAPTAIN MG
commanding officer USN
“Here’s how they got it,” Pat said, handing me another stat. I looked at it quickly. It was the reverse side of the birth certificate.
Baby’s footprint
(Permanent Evidence of Identity)
Left foot Right foot
Sex of child female
Weight at birth 7 lbs. 6 ozs.
Certificate of birth should be carefully preserved as record of value for future use.
1 — To identify relationship
2 — To establish age to enter school
There were several more good reasons why a birth certificate should be kept in the sugar bowl, and then below that:
Official registration at 148-15 Archer Avenue, Jamaica, L. I., N. Y.
“Alice Dreiser,” I said.
“That’s the mother. Prints and all. I’ve already sent a copy down to Cappy to check against the ones they lifted from the pew.”
“Fine. Pick one of the boys from the list the Old Man gave us, Pat. Tell him to get whatever he can on Alice Dreiser and her husband. They have to be sailors or relations to get admitted to a naval hospital, don’t they?”
“Yeah. You’ve got to prove dependency.” He nodded.
“Fine. Get the guy’s last address and we’ll try to run down the woman, or him, or both. Get whoever you pick to call right away, will you?”