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identity might give investigators an idea what to look for in the parents.”
    “I’m concerned with her health, not her ethnicity.”
    I was trying to think of something to say that would make me sound reasonable and intelligent when Harry reached for my sleeve.
    “Watch out, Carson!”
    Pain stabbed my ankle. I jerked around to a cart at my back, its deck piled with towels and cleaning supplies.
    “Jeez, I’m sorry,” said the thirtyish guy pushing the cart, somehow looking more smug than apologetic. “I rolled around the corner and didn’t see you.”
    “It’s…all…right,” I grunted, leaning against the wall and rubbing my Achilles tendon. The corner was a dozen feet away; the guy must have been temporarily blind or daydreaming hard.
    I set my foot on the ground. Limped a few feet down the hall. Turned and came back. I waited for Doc Norlin to inspect my potentially broken ankle, but she seemed blind to my pain and suffering.
    The guy started to roll the cart away, but pausedto look at the kids. He tickled his fingers at them and smiled as though greatly pleased, then pushed on. Babies have that effect on some people.
    “So you think the kid’ll pull through, Doc?” Harry asked, turning back to the window. He tapped the glass and made an eyes-wide, tongueboinging series of faces through the glass. He cooed and babbled. Harry was one of those people unhinged by babies.
    “The prognosis is guarded, Detective Nautilus, but I’m hopeful. Especially with the strong immune response and general good health, given what Baby Doe must have been through.”
    Harry’s goofy grin descended into a frown. “Baby Doe? Is that what you’re calling her?”
    “Standard procedure. They assign the name in Records.”
    Harry studied the child for a long minute. “Can’t you pick more descriptive names?”
    “What’s wrong with the temporary designation?” I asked.
    My partner stared at me like it was the dumbest question he’d ever heard.
    “Baby Doe’s a generic name, Carson. No one should be generic.”

Chapter 8
     
    Leaving Harry to talk baby this-and-that with the blonde doc, I told him I’d meet him at the car and set off down the hall to the can, remembering to limp to keep the weight off my wounded extremity. The orderly who’d rear-ended me was leaning beside a hand-dryer and talking on a cellphone. He glanced up, mumbled, “Gotta go, Miriam. We’ll talk later.” He snapped the phone shut and ducked out the door without acknowledging my presence.
    Outside I found Harry leaning against the car, beaming like a child at Christmas.
    “Isn’t it great,” he said. “The kid’s gonna pull it off.”
    “Pull what off?”
    “Live. Have a life.”
    “Sure,” I said. “Who’s driving?”
    We were cut off by the dispatcher. “ Harry? Carson? We have a call regarding a possible 10-54D at 824 Bellewood. You anywhere close? ”
    The code for a dead body. I grabbed the mic.“Ryder here. Harry and I are maybe four miles. Why us specifically?”
    “Caller is Hispanic and not speaking entirely in English, but she keeps screaming about trabajo de diablo …the work of the devil. Plus she’s screaming sangre. Blood. Sounds like a weird one, so I figured we’d best have the Piss-it boys check it out.”
    “Let’s hit and git it,” Harry said, jumping behind the wheel and pulling a 180 in the street. It was a maneuver he loved but had never mastered. The rear tire banged the curb, jumped up, burned rubber, dropped back into the street and screamed like a scalded banshee until the tires bit. “We’re en route,” I told the dispatcher when my breath returned.
    I hung up the mic and held tight as Harry put the pedal to the floor. He switched on the siren and in-grille lights and we blew past other vehicles like two tons of rabid metal.
    The address led us through a wide white gate, down a long lane canopied by trees, and into a circle of a dozen single-story cabins surrounding a bonfire pit. The cabins