Birthright

since Wil’m passed.”
    “I just recently found out about the connection. If I could ask you some questions it might help me figure out what really happened.”
    “Don’t this beat all.” Lorna shook her head and scattered a couple of silver hairpins. “Just like something from that America’s Most Wanted or some such thing. Guess you better sit down.”
    She led the way into a small living room coordinated to within an inch of its life with matching maple tables, two identical china lamps, a sofa and chair out of the same pink and blue floral print.
    Lorna took the chair, propped her feet on a matching ottoman. When Callie sat on the sofa, cats leaped into her lap. “Don’t mind them. They don’t get much company. Suzanne’s little girl, after all this time. Isn’t that something? You got the look of her, now that I think about it. Good breeder,” she added. “Breezed through both of those pregnancies. Strong, healthy girl, just about broke your heart to see how she went sickly after she lost that baby.”
    “You worked with your husband.”
    “Sure I did. Worked with him for twenty-two years.”
    “Would you remember, when he was treating Suzanne through that pregnancy, if there was anyone who asked questions about her, seemed overly interested in her?”
    “The police asked questions back when it happened. Wasn’t a thing we could tell them. Wil’m, he was heartsick over it. That man loved his babies.”
    “What about the other people who worked in your husband’s office back then?”
    “Had a receptionist, another nurse. Hallie, she was with us ten years. No eleven. Eleven years.”
    “Hallie was the other nurse. What about Karen Younger, the receptionist?”
    “Moved here from the city. D.C. Worked for us six years or so, then her husband he got transferred down to Texas somewhere. Got a Christmas card from her every year. Always said she missed Dr. Wil’m. She was a good girl. Billy delivered her second baby, a boy. Worked for us another two years before they moved away.”
    “Do you know where in Texas?”
    “ ’Course I do. Didn’t I say I wasn’t senile? Houston. Got two grandchildren now.”
    “I wonder if I could have her address, and Hallie’s? To contact them in case they remember anything.”
    “Don’t know what they’d remember now they didn’t remember then. Some stranger snatched you up. That’s what happened. That’s how people can be.”
    “There were people at the hospital, too. People who knew your husband, who knew Suzanne had a baby. Orderlies, nurses, other doctors. One of the delivery-room nurses was with Suzanne for both deliveries. Would you remember her name?”
    Lorna puffed out her cheeks. “Might’ve been Mary Stern, or Nancy Ellis. Can’t say for sure, but Wil’m asked for one of them most often.”
    “Are they still in the area?”
    “As far as I know. Lose track of people when you’re a widow. You want to talk to every blessed one who worked up the hospital back then, you check with Betsy Poffenberger. She worked there more than forty years. Nothing she doesn’t know about anybody or anything goes on there. Always had her nose in somebody’s business.”
    “Where would I find her?”
    B etsy lived twenty minutes away, in a development Callie learned had been built by Ronald Dolan.
    “Lorna Blakely sent you?” Betsy was a robust woman with hair as black as pitch that had been lacquered into a poofed ball. She sat on her front porch with a pair of binoculars close at hand. “Old biddy. Never did care for me. Thought I had a thing for her Wil’m. I wasn’t married back then, and in Lorna’s mind any unmarried woman was on the prowl.”
    “She thought you might be able to tell me who was in the delivery room with Suzanne Cullen when her daughter was born. Maybe who her roommate was during her stay. The names of the nurses and staff working the maternity wing. That sort of thing.”
    “Long time ago.” She eyed Callie. “I’ve seen you on TV.”
    “I’m with the archaeology project at Antietam Creek.”
    “That’s it. That’s it. You don’t expect me to tell you anything without you telling me why.”
    “You know Suzanne Cullen’s daughter was taken. It has to do with that.”
    “You an archaeologist or a detective?”
    “Sometimes they’re the same thing. I’d really appreciate any help you can give me, Mrs. Poffenberger.”
    “Felt sorry as could be for Ms. Cullen when that happened. Everybody did. Things like