Angie shifted her weight. She suspected this veteran nurse could see right through her reason for being here. But Angie was not ready to tell anyone that she was the cradle child abandoned here in ’86. She inhaled deeply and said, “My friend was the one found inside the cradle that night. She learned only two weeks ago that she’d been adopted. For her whole life she believed she was someone else entirely. Now she’d like to know who she really is, who her biological parents might have been, how she came to be left in that baby box. Her case, as you know, was investigated by Vancouver police, but with no leads, no one coming forward with any information at all, the case finally went cold.”
“And because you’re a detective with the Metro Victoria police on the island, your friend asked you to come over to the mainland to find out more?”
“That, yes. And because I . . . have a bit of free time on my hands.” Not of her own volition—Angie had been placed on administrative leave after she shot sexual predator Spencer Addams—the Baptist—to death. Her disregard of a direct order, breach of MVPD protocol, her use of excessive force, evidence of rage, and a blackout had resulted in her being stripped of her badge and gun pending an Independent Investigations Office probe. On top of that there was a separate review underway by her own Metro Victoria Police Department. Worst-case scenario was that the IIO would deem her actions had veered into criminal. The IIO investigators could hand her case over to a Crown prosecutor. She could face criminal charges.
It didn’t help that she was now being sidelined in the ongoing investigation that had come out of the Spencer Addams pursuit—a case she had helped crack wide open.
Angie cleared her throat. “So, visiting the location and speaking to you is my ground zero, my first step.” She offered the nurse a smile. “I found your name in a newspaper feature from ’86 that had been digitized. Apart from a few articles, there’s not much online from that pre-everything-on-the-Internet period,” she said. “I’m sure I’ll find detailed coverage in library microfilm archives, but unfortunately the VPD has purged the old files and evidence from storage, so whatever you can tell me about that night, and about the cradle itself, is going to be helpful.”
Jenny nodded, her gaze still probing Angie’s. “Well, the modern cradle concept was inspired by the foundling wheels of the twelfth century. When Catholic nuns in Europe sought a way to reduce infanticides, they came up with a method that allowed moms in distress to discreetly place newborns into a cylinder outside the wall of a convent. The cylinder was then rotated, moving the baby inside. The mother would then ring a bell outside the convent and leave without ever being seen. Modern cradles, or baby boxes, work in a similar way. A mother unable or unwilling to care for a newborn—and who might otherwise dump her infant somewhere to die—can safely and anonymously abandon her baby in a hospital bassinet accessed via a secure and electronically monitored door located outside the emergency department.”
“But from what I’ve read, the first Saint Peter’s cradle was shut down?”
“Yes,” Jenny said, stepping farther back under the eaves as rain pummeled down and wind began to gust. “Because of legal issues. Four months after it first opened, a healthy baby boy just hours old was dropped off. This sparked international media attention, alerting the World Health Organization. The WHO then came out claiming baby boxes contravened the rights of children to know their parental history and medical backgrounds. This, of course, is not a view that I share,” Jenny said. “My take is that a child’s very first claim is the right to life, upon which all other rights are contingent. I mean, what use is the right to know your birth history if you’ve been abandoned in a dumpster and you die?” She inhaled deeply, shaking her head. “Nevertheless, the WHO protest did highlight our country’s lack of safe haven legislation, and the cradle was shut in ’88.”
“But you now have a new angel’s cradle at the new Front Street ER entrance?” Angie said.
“The program relaunched only in 2010. It took a great deal of persistence, imagination, and collaboration with government and other stakeholders to get to that point,” Jenny said. “And because there’s still no blanket safe haven legislation, it’s key that our local program works in concert with existing laws, which still hold that the abandonment of a child is a criminal offense. However, police and the attorney general’s office finally agreed that they would not seek to prosecute mothers if there was no evidence of abuse on the child. Hospital staff are also under no obligation to report the abandonment or connect the baby with the parent, even if the birth mother does anonymously present to our hospital hours or days after delivery for treatment, provided her newborn was left safely.” Jenny paused and held Angie’s eyes. “The toddler abandoned here in ’86 was a whole other story. For one, she wasn’t an infant.” She paused, and history seemed to hang in the cold air. Wind whirled suddenly in a new direction, chasing down the alley as it whipped rain at them under their shelter.
“Would you like to see the new cradle?” Jenny said softly. “I can show you how it works from the inside. I did let the ER staff know that we’d be coming, and they’re fine with it.”
“Please,” Angie said, suddenly reluctant to enter the old Catholic-run hospital, fearful of the memories that might confront her. But she was equally anxious to see a real cradle for herself—perhaps it would prod some buried memory—and that’s precisely why she was here. She was desperate to recall more than the few dark snippets that had begun haunting her.
They made their way down the alley and rounded the corner onto Front Street. It was alive and dense with evening commuter traffic, pedestrians, buses. Tires crackled over the wet road surface. A vehicle honked. A bus exhaust puffed white condensation into the chill air. Across the street from the hospital, store windows glowed brightly, colors smeared with rain. Above those stores, apartments and offices rose up into the low cloud.
Jenny Marsden took Angie past a bank of ambulances parked outside the ER facility entrance. Under the cover of the portico, outside the ER doors, Jenny halted and once more shook out her umbrella, the ruby light from the emergency sign above the doors casting an otherworldly hue across her features.
“This is it,” the nurse said as she closed her umbrella and nodded toward the wall beside the ER entrance. On the wall was a mural. It depicted a woman’s head bent as if in sorrow, her hair flowing into the shape of an angel’s wing—as though the angel was protecting her. Beside the mural, written in a gentle cursive font, were the words ANGEL’S CRADLE OF SAINT PETER. Beneath the words a small square door—more like a window—had been set into the wall. It was rimmed with metal and positioned just above waist level.
“This door remains unlocked at all times,” Jenny said. “A mother can open it, place her newborn in the bassinet inside, and thirty seconds after the door is shut, an alarm sounds inside the ER. Staff will then respond and attend to the abandoned infant.”
Angie swallowed as cold seemed to crawl deeper into her body.