A Father's Vow

“Just her,” the woman said. “She was his nurse, and his office manager, I suppose. They pretty much worked as a team. You’re not from around here, are ya, or you’d know that.”

“I’m not,” Carolyn said. “This is Ben Mulholland, and his daughter, Lucy. We think that Dr. Benton assisted Ben’s mother in her delivery. We’re looking for Eileen Mulholland’s records.”

“I can’t give you none of that,” the caregiver said, “even if I knew where they were.”

Mrs. Benton turned her head. “Eileen?” she asked in a quavering voice. “Eileen?”

“Eileen Mulholland,” Carolyn repeated softly. Ben’s heart seemed to pause.

Mrs. Benton frowned, obviously trying to sort through something in her mind. “Eileen.”

“Mulholland,” Carolyn said again.

The woman scratched at her hand. “Is she here?”

“No.” Carolyn’s voice was soft. “She died.”

“Oh, no,” Mrs. Benton said. “She didn’t die. She’s a healthy farm girl. I took her vital signs.”

Carolyn’s gaze met Ben’s in triumph, but all he felt was a keyed-up sense of fear. He wanted answers, but how were they going to get them out of this addled woman?

Mrs. Benton turned toward the television again, apparently finished.

“Won’t get much out of her,” the caregiver informed them. “You’re lucky you got that much. Say, if this Eileen Mulholland is dead, what are you wanting to see her records for?”

“Eileen Mulholland is not dead,” Mrs. Benton disagreed without taking her attention from “Hollywood Squares.” “I took her vital signs myself.”

“Her health history could help us determine whether little Lucy here is predisposed to any medical problems.”

Ben admired Carolyn’s quick and logical answer. If nothing else, she was managing to squeeze some water from a very difficult stone. He’d have walked away with an empty cup if he’d been in charge of the questioning.

Carolyn took Lucy from Ben’s arms and brought her near to Mrs. Benton, as if to engender a bond between them. To his surprise, Mrs. Benton glanced at the child—then drew back as if she were afraid.

“Is there something wrong with her?” the caregiver asked bluntly, her voice hard as she stared at Lucy. “She looks sick to me.”

Ben took Lucy back from Carolyn and held her more tightly to his chest, willing his anger to burn itself out. Let Carolyn handle this, he reminded himself. If you give this old witch a righteous ass-chewing, you’re going to blow any chance of learning what you need to know.

“I think I’ll go for a drive,” Mrs. Benton said. “I need to drive.”

The caregiver sighed. “No, Mrs. Benton, no drive for you. But if you be quiet, I’ll push your wheelchair in the garden.” She brought a wheelchair over from a side room and helped her charge up, then glanced at the guests. “I think you’ve gotten all you’re going to out of her. Could you see yourselves out? If I leave her while she’s taken a notion to go driving, I’ll come back here and find her gone. One time she walked down the street and tried to get into someone’s house. She kept repeating over and over that she was an orphan and needed a home. Poor devil.”

“We can see ourselves out,” Carolyn assured her. “Thank you for your time.”

“But—“ Ben began, but Carolyn shook her head.

The wheelchair moved toward the back of the house, and they heard a door open and shut.

“I’ll bet she tells everyone she sees that she’s being kept prisoner. She’s probably ‘out’ a lot more of the time than she’s ‘in’ just to survive living with that battle-ax.”

“No,” Carolyn disagreed. “Mrs. Benton’s suffering is real. The interesting thing was, she totally clicked in when anything was mentioned about patients or nursing. Did you notice how that really caught her attention? I have a feeling she was a very competent nurse. It’s the part of her life she seemed very cognizant of. She remembered your mother had been a patient, and that she’d taken her vitals.”

“Great, so Nurse Ratched was a nurse down to her cuticles. How does that help us?”

“It’s something to go on.”

He followed Carolyn as she moved to the front of the house.

“Daddy, can we go yet?” Lucy asked.

“We’ll go, sweetie. I know you’re getting tired.” He was frustrated by the lack of information they’d found, but he injected his voice with kindness for Lucy’s sake. Inside, he cursed, hating the brick wall they’d hit.

Carolyn walked into another room off the hallway, her gaze on the steel filing cabinets lining one wall. “There’s probably a gold mine of information hidden in those steel drawers.”

“I think you need a search warrant or a request or something, Carolyn,” he said worriedly. He’d hired her for her tenacity, but he didn’t know if this much was a good thing. She had a determined gleam in her eye that hinted at her intentions. “Carolyn, if you go through those cabinets and the harpy catches you, she may call the police on us. I wouldn’t put it past her.”

“We don’t have a lot of time for legal dancing,” Carolyn said. She pointed to the garden, where they could see the wheelchair being pushed by the unenthusiastic caregiver. “Why don’t you go settle Lucy in the car? I’ll be right behind you.”

“Getting fired from your job isn’t something I want to have you do on my behalf,” Ben said, watching as she walked into the office.

Carolyn ignored him as she opened the first set of steel drawers. “I’m not doing this on your behalf,” she said, her voice preoccupied as she looked into some files. “These files are in a feminine hand, rather than masculine, which makes me think Mrs. Benton was far more than just a simple temperature taker. She was his partner.”

“Miss Carolyn,” Lucy said. “You’re not ‘posed to touch people’s things without asking.”

Ben patted his daughter’s back. “In our home, we teach that it’s not good to just take things we want, Carolyn.”

She glanced up at him, then at Lucy. “I always knew you’d be an excellent father, Ben.”

He frowned. “What does that mean? You make it sound so strange.”

She smiled at his harsh tone. “Sh. You two go outside—you’re wrecking my concentration. I think I’m onto something here.”

“You’d better be. The harpy’s on her way back inside.”

Carolyn flipped a page in a file. “There’s no way that’s possible,” she said.

“Oh, yes, it is. She sees our car hasn’t moved, and she knows exactly what we’re doing. Come on, Carolyn.”

“No, I mean, how could the good doctor have been on the outskirts of Austin to deliver you, then deliver a baby four hours away at the same time?”

“I don’t know, damn it! Come on, Carolyn!”

“Daddy! Don’t say damn it,” Lucy protested, but Ben held his daughter tighter and grabbed Carolyn’s arm with his free hand. She stuffed the file back into the cabinet and closed it just as they heard the wheelchair bumping the porch door.

“You are the most hardheaded, intractable, tenacious person I know,” he said between gritted teeth as he hauled her toward the car. He opened the driver side door for her, then went around to the passenger side, so he could strap Lucy in the back seat. Glancing over his shoulder, he was relieved to see that the caregiver wasn’t brandishing a broom or some other weapon at them.

“That’s what you hired me for,” Carolyn snapped. “It was the trait you were specifically looking for.”

“Buckle up,” he commanded. He slammed the door and hurried to the driver’s side, getting in and cranking the engine. The car pulled away from the curb, and he allowed himself a breath. “I don’t want you bending laws, Carolyn. I’m desperate, yeah, but not enough for you to put yourself at risk.”