Carly expertly takes the child into her arms. “Even when you haven’t known them for long, it’s always hard to let them go,” she says softly. “Isn’t it, pretty girl?”

“What will happen to her now?” the bishop asks.

“We’ll take her to the hospital for a checkup,” I tell him. “Once we make sure she’s stable and healthy, she’ll probably be placed in a foster home. In the meantime, I’m going to try to find her mother and father.”

The old Amish couple exchange a look that betrays their concern. For the baby. Maybe for the mother, especially if she’s Amish.

I nod at the social worker. “Tomasetti and I will follow you to the Hospital.”

Taking a final peek at the newborn, Carly flips the corner of the quilt over the baby’s head. “Since we’re getting a police escort, I’ll get her buckled in.”

* * *

I spend an hour in the emergency room of Pomerene Hospital in Millersburg with the abandoned newborn—now dubbed “Baby Doe.” The social worker and I talk shop while the baby is thoroughly examined. A blood sample is taken from her little heel for DNA that will, hopefully, be matched with the mother’s DNA when—or if—she’s found.

Once the infant girl is deemed stable and given a clean bill of health, I leave her in the capable hands of the social worker and make my way to the OB department to speak with the RN on duty.

I find Louann Zeigler at the nurse’s station, her fingers flying over the keyboard of a sleek laptop. I’ve met her a couple of times over the years in the course of my job. She’s friendly, capable and, luckily for me, always seems to have a pretty good handle on the goings-on inside the hospital.

She looks up from her computer screen and smiles when I approach. “Hi, Chief Burkholder,” she says. “How can I help you?”

I tell her about the abandoned newborn.

“I just heard,” she says with a shake of her head. “Doctor Atherton—he’s the head of pediatrics here at Pomerene—is looking at her now. He says you probably got her here just in time. Any longer and we might have been dealing with dehydration issues or even hypothermia.”

“I’m wondering if you’re aware of any expectant moms who were upset by their pregnancy or troubled or confused about having a baby,” I begin.

“Not off the top of my head.” Her brows knit. “Occasionally, we’ll have a patient get upset when her pregnancy is confirmed. Usually, a case like that is a young woman who’s not married or she’s not ready for kids, and the pregnancy is unplanned. I’ve seen it happen to women in unhappy or abusive relationships, too.”

She thinks about it for a moment and then shakes her head. “We’re a relatively small department, Chief Burkholder. I come into contact with most of our maternity patients, and I can’t think of a single woman who was in any way ambiguous or unhappy about her pending birth. Then again, women are good at keeping secrets when they feel they need to.”