Her name is Wynne. She’s eleven weeks old. Her mother’s name is Viola and she sang to her the whole way here.
My mother is Waverly Linwood, 14 Pennock Street. She doesn’t know about the baby. We hadn’t told her. Viola and I had a fight with her at Easter two years ago and nobody has spoken since. We were driving up to tell her tonight.
Tell my mother I’m sorry about Easter.
Tell her we were coming.
Mr. Amory read it aloud in a voice that cracked on the last line.
Then he put the logbook down very gently on the desk.
“I wrote it on that tarp,” he said, “and I read it to the state trooper who was working the scene. I read it twice. He wrote it down. I watched him. His name was Rasmussen. He retired two years later, and I have since learned that he was a decent man.”
“What happened?” I said.
“I don’t know.” He looked at me. “That’s the honest answer. I have spent seven years on it. In the morning I called the county. I was told the matter had been referred to Children’s Services. I called Children’s Services, and I was told that relatives were being identified. I called a third time a week later, and a very kind woman told me that a records search had been completed and that, regrettably, the baby had no living relatives.”
