Familiar Lullaby. Caroline Burnes

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СКАЧАТЬ is it, Clotilde, my love?

      “You’re worried about your humans? You think they’ll fall in love with baby David and then he’ll be taken away from them?

      “You want me to do what?”

      Geez, I’ve just come off a case, and now she wants me to track down the humanoid who gave birth to baby David. That isn’t going to be an easy thing to do. Women who dump babies generally don’t want to be found. And already Detective Dick Tracy is on the case. Boy, did he have an attitude or what? I could see it from a mile off. Every time he looked at that baby he got righteous.

      Yet he seemed to have a real tender spot. Maybe he just didn’t want to work an abandoned baby case. Probably a step down for a homicide detective. Me, on the other hand, I like it when all the players in the game are still alive.

      But who says the mother is alive? Holy moly, what if she was murdered and the baby taken and then dumped? I can see that Clotilde is reading my expression and not liking a single thing she sees. Humanoids think that I’m inscrutable, but Clotilde can read me like a book. So I’d better change the content of my thoughts.

      “Nothing, love. I was just thinking about how to find David’s mama. The blanket and basket are good clues. Dick Tracy noticed them also. And he took them with him when he left. If I wait around, he’ll do the legwork for me….

      “What, precious? You want me to start tonight—before the police find her? And you’re going to help me?!”

      Aye caramba—why do I suddenly feel like Ricky Ricardo when Lucy decided to help him with his career? But the best thing to do is smile and play along.

      “That would be great. We could work together. Familiar and Clotilde. Yes, that does have a nice ring to it.”

      Brother, I’m in way deep now. I guess we’re going out to search the backyard for additional clues.

      MEL CLOSED the files on his desk with a sigh. Within the time frame he’d established, he couldn’t find a single record of a baby of David’s size and gender born in any of Washington’s hospitals that wasn’t accounted for.

      So that meant a midwife or some other type of health-services delivery. Private clinic. He’d heard of places where wealthy women went to have their children; places with all the frills of a health spa plus the benefit of top physicians. Lots of celebrities opted for these exclusive, and very private, facilities.

      Or there was the possibility of the extreme opposite—cheap hotel room and midwife. Somehow, though, that just didn’t fit with baby David.

      This case was going to take a lot of legwork. And, suddenly, he didn’t want to pursue it. Hell, the baby had a good home. He was safe and wanted. If the system acted in a logical way, David would soon legally be David Johnson, only child of loving parents.

      Maybe he should drop it.

      Sitting in the busy police station, Mel looked down at his scarred desk. When he’d been three or four, he’d eaten at a table that was nicked and scarred. Him and six dozen other boys. They’d eaten three meals a day there, even when money was short and the food served was oatmeal—morning, noon and night.

      It wasn’t the food that Mel remembered with a clenched stomach. It was the long nights of being afraid, of wondering if his mother would come for him. She’d promised him that she’d come back for him. Soon. But weeks had passed. Then months. Then years. And she never came back.

      He’d never seen her again. She was just a memory—a tall, slender woman walking down the hallway, her legs moving as fast as they possibly could as she hurried away from him. As she got near the end of the hallway, she’d begun to run—right into her new life. Leaving him behind. An orphan. A child that no one wanted.

      No, he couldn’t drop it. Not on his life.

      “Hey, Mel. What’s going on?” Sonny Caruso dropped his coat on the chair by the desk next to Mel.

      “Not much.”

      “You looked like you were planning a bombing, or at least a hijacking. Very big thundercloud on your forehead, buddy.”

      Mel forced a smile. Sonny Caruso was a handsome, dark-haired detective who had more natural intuition that most women. And the one thing Mel didn’t want was Sonny poking into his past.

      “Got an abandoned baby. What are you working on?” Mel leaned back in his chair, forcing his body language to be casual.

      “You’ll love this. We had a woman killed downtown. Beaten to death. Probably a working girl, but she was dressed a little odd. Sort of business suit, so we couldn’t be certain. I put in a call on the radio, notified forensics, etcetera, and guess who shows up?”

      “Who?”

      “The number-one advisor to the mayor, Wayman Bishop. He was all over the scene like white on rice.”

      “Doing what?” Mel was intrigued. Wayman Bishop, who advised Mayor Al Torrell on all things of importance in the city of Washington, D.C., was less concerned about crime in the city than he was about litter. The death of a victim normally wouldn’t ruffle a hair on his head—unless it might have political repercussions.

      “Nosing around, hunting for facts about ‘the heinous crime.”’

      “I hate to be cynical, but it sounds like Mayor Torrell is getting ready to gear up some kind of antiviolence campaign. He’s building his base for the next election. It’s easy to be against crime. What’s hard is doing something to prevent it.”

      “Exactly what I thought,” Sonny said. He looked into the coffee cup sitting on his desk, made a face and threw the whole thing into the trash. “My wife told me to buy disposable cups. She said I’d never wash mine out. She was right.”

      “How is Louann?” Mel liked Sonny’s wife. She was a cartoonist, still waiting for a break with a syndicated strip or some steady income.

      “She’s fine. Working all the time. She’ll get a break eventually.”

      Mel nodded, but his mind was back on the dead woman and the mayor’s advisor. “So what did Bishop do, have the mayor’s picture taken with the dead woman?”

      Sonny laughed. “You have a macabre sense of humor, buddy. No, he just lurked around, taking notes. He finally got a look at the woman and then he split like he’d been shot at.”

      “Any suspects on the murder?”

      “Usual ones. Spouse, boyfriend, neighbor, pimp, unhappy customer. You know, fill in the blank.” Sonny shook his head. “This job makes it difficult to love my fellow man.”

      “I know what you mean,” Mel said. “Somebody dropped off a baby at a social event.”

      “No kidding.” Sonny’s dark eyebrows lifted almost to his hairline. “Posh party?”

      “Preston Johnson’s.”

      “Very posh,” Sonny said. “Plenty of money to give a kid a good home. But they won’t keep an abandoned baby.”

      “They will, if СКАЧАТЬ