To a lot of the people in this neighborhood, and this part of the city, this was health care.
While Catholic hospitals were run by religious orders — St Mary was run by the Franciscans — the archdiocese itself did not run or operate any hospitals or clinics in Philadelphia. The few that were in existence were run by local parishes.
Jessica approached the young woman at the front counter, showed her ID, and asked to speak to someone in charge. She was told that that would be a man named Ted Cochrane, but he had three patients that were in triage, the worst of which was probably a rupturing appendix, and they were waiting for EMS. It might be a while.
After ten minutes or so, during which the appendectomy candidate was picked up and transported to nearby Temple University Hospital, a man emerged from the back room, spoke to the young woman behind the desk. The woman gestured to Jessica. The man signed a few papers, came around the desk.
‘I’m Ted Cochrane,’ he said. ‘How can I help you?’
Jessica made him to be about twenty-two. Tall and well-built, dark hair and eyes. It didn’t seem likely, based on his youthful appearance, but Jessica asked anyway. ‘Are you a doctor?’
Cochrane smiled. ‘Not yet. I’m an LPN. I’m heading to med school this fall.’
‘Is there somewhere we can talk privately?’
‘Sure.’ He got the young woman’s attention, pointed to a back room. The receptionist nodded. Cochrane led Jessica to a small examination room off the main hallway. It looked like every other examination room she had ever been in, but shabbier, more exhausted. On the wall was the ever-present hand sanitizer tube. Cochrane pulled a small ball of disinfectant foam, ran it over his hands, partially closed the door behind them.
‘What can I do for you, detective?’
‘Well, maybe you can start with what you do here at the clinic.’
‘We patch and repair, mostly. Lots of bumps and bruises, ’flu shots, sore throats. We’re pretty much first line. There is usually a doctor here six hours a day, but the MD on today’s sheet got called into Temple for an emergency surgery.’
Jessica noted the crucifix on the wall. ‘How much religion do people get here?’
‘As much or as little as they want. None at all, if that’s what they want. We are partially funded by the parish, but belief in Christ is by no means a prerequisite to medical care.’
‘Like AA?’
‘Like AA,’ Cochrane said. ‘Our evangelism is really just that wall of pamphlets in the waiting room. We don’t proselytize.’
‘Are you a Catholic?’
Cochrane smiled. ‘No, born and raised Methodist.’
‘Do you do pediatrics here?’
‘We do just about everything here. Pre-natal, post-natal, pediatrics, all the way up to and including geriatric medicine.’
‘What about mental-health services?’
‘Absolutely. Family counseling, substance abuse counseling, group therapy, some Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.’
‘You have the staff for this?’
He smiled again. ‘No, far from it. We are blessed to get a lot of pro bono work through the Catholic hospitals. The Archdiocese has been very good about turning the emotional and professional screws on its faithful.’
‘Have you treated any young infants in the past few weeks?’
‘Oh, my, yes. At least five or six.’
‘Any white female babies?’
Cochrane considered the question. ‘Is this about the baby on the news? Baby Doe?’
‘I need you to keep this inquiry confidential, but yes.’
Cochrane nodded. ‘I had some down time yesterday, and I started going through records from the last few weeks. As you might expect, most of the children we treat here are minorities. But we did see a Caucasian female infant recently. Her information will be in the database.’
‘Why do you think this is related?’
Now it was Cochrane’s turn. ‘I need this to be confidential, as well.’
‘Of course.’
‘The mother of this baby, Adria Rollins is her name, has some mental health issues. When she visited she came with her great-grandfather, who is pretty frail. That’s why the flag went up when I saw the news story. I thought the child might be at risk.’
‘Do you have contact information for the mother?’
‘Maybe, maybe not. We do our best here, but half the time the addresses we get are fake.’
‘Could you take a look?’
Cochrane hesitated. Jessica was losing him.
‘I wouldn’t ask if this wasn’t very important,’ she said. ‘I know how crucial it is to keep medical records confidential, but this may well be related to a homicide — perhaps two homicides — and I promise I will treat the information with discretion.’
It was touch and go for a second, but Cochrane soon relented. He sat down at the terminal, hit a few keys, then a few more.
‘Here it is,’ he said. ‘The address on her record is of her great-grandfather’s apartment. It looks like he is her legal guardian.’
Jessica wrote down the address. It wasn’t that far away.
The woman from the front desk poked her head in the room. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt, but we need the room.’
Jessica and Cochrane stepped into the narrow hallway. The woman led in a man who appeared to have scraped half the skin off the back of his left hand. The nurse closed the curtain.
‘If I recall correctly, we have a few pictures of the Rollins baby,’ Cochrane said. ‘We sometimes take photographs of children when we suspect abuse.’
‘Are you saying this baby was abused?’
‘It’s possible. I can show you the pictures.’
‘I would appreciate it.’
Cochrane went into the back room for what seemed like fifteen long minutes. In that time four more people came into the clinic. Nobody made eye contact with anybody else, perhaps out of some sense of shame. They all seemed to wait patiently, reading coverless five-year-old copies of Sports Illustrated or Essence.
Finally Cochrane emerged, a manila file folder in hand. He took Jessica to the side, extracted two photos from the folder. One was a close-up of the back of an infant’s leg.
‘This is Ceci,’ Cochrane said. The photograph showed a deep purple bruise, just at the top of the right calf. ‘That’s her nickname, of course. Her full name is Cecilia.’
‘This is Adria Rollins’s baby?’
‘Yes.’
Jessica studied the photograph. ‘And this bruise is the result of abuse?’
‘Hard to tell,’ Cochrane said. ‘If a baby comes back with other evidence, we’ll have this record, then we make the call to Children’s Services. As I’m sure you know, unless the abuse is flagrant — which this is not — there has to be a pattern of abuse before a case can be made.’
With this Cochrane took out the other photograph, turned it over.
The plummeting feeling in Jessica’s stomach was instant, and debilitating. It took every ounce of her strength, and every moment of her training, not to break down in tears. The photograph in front of her was of the baby they had found frozen to death in that shuttered church.
There was no doubt in her mind.
She now had a name to go with the face that she was sure would live in a dark corner of her mind for a very long time, long after this case was closed.
The dead little girl’s name was Cecilia.
SIXTEEN
They sat at a table at the Subway on Frankford Avenue, near Cottman. It was between the lunch and dinner hours, and the regulars had not yet descended on the place. At this hour, the restaurant was nearly empty.