Thank you for the very thoughtful reviews. All mistakes are mine. There will be some new characters appearing beginning with this chapter.
Chapter 7
It was very late when Ranger and Stephanie stepped out of the stairwell onto five. Tank was sitting in his office and on his desk was a brown puffy envelope.
Closing the door behind them, they stood by Tanks' desk.
Wordlessly he handed it to Stephanie.
"It was hand delivered to the main desk. It looks like the same person who delivered the first package to the courier office dropped off this one here."
Stephanie accepted the bag from Tank and grimaced. Once again, there was no return address.
Ranger looked at Tank. "It's been checked?"
Tank nodded.
"Nothing on the bag to suggest anything chemical or explosive. The guys scanned it and nothing suspicious came back."
Stephanie took a deep breath and put her hand to the little tab and pulled. It fell away and once again she laid the strip on the desk and pushing the two ends together looked inside.
There was no disk or a note this time.
She pulled a VCR out of the bag and looked at the men.
"Do we even have anything to view this? That's like 30 years old!"
Ranger pulled out his phone and pressed a button.
"Hector, do we have a VCR player kicking around here somewhere? Stephanie received another package and it held a VCR tape. We need to know what's on it."
He listened as Hector spoke on the line.
"Come and get it. We're in Tanks office."
Ranger had barely finished the conversation when Hector knocked on the door. He slid in and closed the door behind him.
Ranger looked at the tape then at Hector.
"If you don't have a machine, I know that Celia does. Let me know, and I'll call her tomorrow and get it for us to look at this latest delivery."
Hector glided to the door, opening it and looking back.
"I'll check my stores, boss."
Nodding at Tank, Ranger and Stephanie headed out of the office, walking to the elevator and stepping in. Opening on seven, Ranger fobbed open the door and they walked in, putting keys and shoes in their proper place.
Heading to the bedroom, Stephanie put on one of Rangers' t-shirts and a pair of boy shorts. Ranger just dropped his clothes into the laundry hamper and slipped into bed.
Ranger pulled his wife to him and soothingly rubbed his hand up and down her back, over and over again until she finally fell asleep. If she was wearing his shirt, she was either worried, scared, or uncertain what would come next.
He fell asleep still holding his babe, vowing to do everything he could to help unravel this mystery.
~~~o0o~~~
Hector stayed up later than even his usual late shift, scouring his storerooms for that elusive VCR player that had been a hold-over from so many decades ago.
Literally going Ah-Ha, he opened a box way in the back of his oldest storeroom, glimpsing an old relic from the past. In a fit of foresight so many years ago, he'd rescued the family unit from heading to the dump and had stored the old machine in a box in his home. After being hired at RangeMan, Hector had taken those boxes collecting dust and had moved them into the various storage rooms at RangeMan. While he embraced new technology, he believed that the old still had value.
Bringing it out, he plugged in the cables, then dragged out the accompanying old 20 inch tv and attached the cables to the back. There was no remote so he manually turned on the tv and the player and shoved the tape into the machine, pressing Play.
The recording was grainy, usual from those many years ago, but it was good enough to give a few more clues.
Hector reached for his phone, pulling it out of the holster. Re-winding the tape, he used the camera video function to make a copy of the recording.
There were two clips of the girl in the hospital laying in a hospital bed, obviously in the early stages of labor and later as her labor progressed. Listening to the medical staff, it sounded like they were discussing options with her about how the labor was progressing.
There was a clip of her holding her newborn in her arms, and a tired but very happy smile as she held her baby. This clip showed a young man standing beside the bed, looking down at both girl and baby.
There was a scratchy recording of voices and Hector pressed the buttons to make it as loud as he could.
He heard. "You did it Mitch, you did it. But it's a girl and you promised me a boy."
The young girl's smile faded and she held the baby protectively close to her body.
She spoke with a waver in her voice.
"I'm really sorry, Charles."
A nurse came into view and she gently took the baby girl from Michelle. Adjusting the blanket around the baby and putting her in a bassinet, she prepared to wheel her to the nursery.
Speaking in a soft but harsh tone, she leaned close to the man and muttered, "Hey, you. Everyone knows that it's the daddy who decides."
Charles turned on his heel and headed for the door.
"I need a drink and I have to buy more cigars for the guys. Now I need to get pink wrapped ones."
There was another small snippet of the young girl and the baby climbing out of a car. It may have been 1981, but the car was at least 8 or nine years old, a sandstone Chevrolet Vega. It was dented and rusty and definitely had seen better days. The video played as she walked into the row house, obviously feeling the after effects of childbirth and then someone following with a small battered suitcase.
Hector looked closer. The man holding the suitcase looked from the back like he had a possible similar build to the man dropping off the packages to his Chica. No face was visible and Hector sighed. He could have started to find said person if he was in the data base.
The recording ended.
Hector took the VCR out of the machine and put it on his desk. He re-packed up the player and took both the box and the old tv back to his storeroom. He would put it back in deep storage. One never knew when a relic from the past would be needed again.
Tomorrow he would take the tape to a friend. He knew that to send it to a Walmart or a Costco it would take upwards of a month to get it back. They didn't have a month. His friend owed him a favor, well a number of favors really, but Hector was going to call in one now. If pushed, and he would, he wanted it back the same day. Miguel could enhance it and transfer it onto a CD faster than anyone else and until they had it returned, well, it was on his phone for safekeeping. Silence on this matter was a given, and well, a well-placed warning also served to remind Miguel that Hector was not a man to be crossed.
~~~o0o~~~
Helen was doing her weekly shopping trip and looked around. She had spent most of her life except for the period in Florida living in the Burg. She was used to the ebb and flow of the neighborhood. She attended the local church and gave both money and time to a number of charitable organizations. She was an organizer of so many functions and her phone was always ringing with a request to help out.
She shuddered to think if this secret ever got out. Would she be shunned and the family driven out of town?
Questions, so many questions, and so far, no answers.
~~~o0o~~~
Frank was driving seniors to their appointments today. Usually he ignored the conversations in the back but today for some reason, he was eavesdropping.
Mrs. Gonzalez was muttering to her fellow passenger.
"Ina Montinez should be ashamed of herself. She was bragging all over town that her son is going to be a father again. I sure wish he'd made it official and marry that poor girl. Imagine, four children and they're still living in sin!"
Mrs. Weigler responded. "And what about Mavis Butler. Her daughter just got herself fired from the tampon factory. Nobody gets fired from the tampon factory!"
Frank wished that he could just tune them out but today, well, he was hyper sensitive to gossip.
Mrs. Gonzalez spoke again. "At the Clip 'n Curl yesterday, Claire told me as she was rolling me up that Terry Bensons' daughter-in-law was just turned down as a surrogate. They are so short of money and I swear she can get pregnant just looking at a penis. I can't imagine someone having a baby and giving them away. I know I wouldn't have been able to give up a newborn to a complete stranger."
Frank heard a horn behind him and jumped. He had been stopped at a light and had obviously missed it turning green.
Grimacing he took off and drove down the road.
Stopping at the clinic, he let the ladies out, accepting graciously the rather skimpy tip. Oh well, he was doing this to keep active, but really…. Not even a dollar, but a quarter each?
~~~o0o~~~
Edna was not having a good day.
Her mind was elsewhere and she practically ran into a number of people walking down the hall. Then, to add to her day, she sat at the table looking at the food in front of her.
Sauerkraut and sausage? What was this? An early trip to the grave?
She toyed and picked at her meal. Finally pushing the whole mess aside, she pulled her cup of coffee toward her. Maybe dessert would be better.
Her ears picked up the conversations from the tables around her. Normally she would have been happy to participate with respect to gossip, but, well, today it just seemed too close to home.
Mrs. Hanson was complaining that her children, ungrateful people that they were, had just cancelled taking her to a concert. Their youngest was sick and nobody was available to come in on such short notice. She'd even had her hair curled and now nobody would see how she looked.
Mrs. Reiger was passing pictures all around. Her youngest granddaughter had slipped off to get married with her fiancé and was coming back a married woman. Wait a minute, was there a tiny baby bump there? Tongues started to wag, fingers pointed and Alice Reiger gathered up the pictures. She suddenly left the table and stomped off to her room.
Mrs. Tessier had just returned after being released from the hospital for gout. She was complaining at the diet she was restricted to for the rest of her life. More importantly though, her daughter had left with all her 'medicinal booze'.
Edna stood up, dessert forgotten. She needed to get back to her room. There was still some coffee cake there and she just wanted to get away from all the noise.
Maybe there was something good on tv.
~~~o0o~~~
In another city, Mary Margaret Morrison was sitting on a bench in her sons' room. Since his abrupt death oh so many years ago, she had not allowed anybody into this room. It was like a glimpse into a time long ago, a shrine to his memory.
She looked around at the little reminders. His brush and comb set. She had bought that for Charles after seeing it in a store front window. He had been eight at the time and was less than impressed at the gift. He had wanted a new bike. She glossed over the fact that he'd had a complete meltdown and she had driven to the hardware store and purchased a brand new bike the same day.
There, in the top drawer of the night table was a tied bracelet. He had been given it by a girl when they were both in grade school. It was a puppy love kind of thing, but well, he was very popular. She remembered that Jessica had suddenly left school. It had never been completely explained but she had appeared to move in with an elderly relative in another city.
In the closet was a leather jacket. Charles had won it in a poker game and was so proud of it. He had worn it everywhere and bragged that he was planning on being a card shark and making lots and lots of money when he finished school. Unfortunately for him the jacket had also identified him at the scene of a crime that he was later charged with.
He had been sent to prison and had died while incarcerated. The prison officials had explained that there had been a prison riot and somehow her son, Charles had been injured. He had passed away before she could get to the hospital.
Opening a side drawer she pulled out a t-shirt, lifting it up to her nose and smelling it. There was a faint smell of the cologne he had always worn, but it was fading. The liquid in the bottle had long ago dried up, but well, a faint scent was better than no scent, right?
She looked at her watch and pulled a flip phone from the pocket of her faded housecoat. Punching in the numbers from memory, she waited for the connection.
"Did you find her? Did you get the pictures to her? Can you get close to her?"
