“You’re saying if it wasn’t Marie’s, it had to have belonged to the body. Lab should be able to check that out.”

“Yeah, we’ll call them in the morning.”

Marge said, “So how are you playing the scene out?”

“Couple ways.” Decker finished his coffee. “Scene number one, Marie freaked out and took the baby. Then a big black female saw her making off with the kid and tried to stop her. Marie killed her and covered her tracks by burning the body in her car…hoping we’d think it was her.”

“And then we’d stop looking for her.”

“Yeah.”

“Pretty naive, don’t you think? She was a health professional. She must know we have ways of identifying bodies.”

“The body was torched; the facial bones were smashed. Maybe she thought she destroyed enough, and we wouldn’t be able to I.D. the body.”

“She left in the back teeth.”

“It’s hard to destroy them unless you yank the jaw out of the mouth. Marie was panicked. She had murdered this woman, had kidnapped a baby. She did whatever she could to cover her tracks. It just wasn’t enough. So…” Decker paused to collect his thoughts. “So what I want to do is go back through our hospital notes and see who was working at Sun Valley Pres last night.”

“I thought we had them all accounted for.”

“Maybe there was a slipup.”

Marge said, “Maybe this black woman was a floater and not on the hospital’s payroll.”

“Yeah, Darlene mentioned floaters and temporaries. Hollander’s going over the duty roster from the night. We’ll talk to him and tell him to look for any names we don’t already have on our list.”

“Pete, you might want to ask Cindy about this woman. She was around the nursery more than any of us.”

Decker inwardly groaned. “I’m trying to wean her away from police work.” He made a face. “It isn’t working.”

“Of course it isn’t going to work. She sees her father all excited about his cases. Kids pick up on what you do, not what you say.”

“Thank you for that psychological gem, Detective Dunn.”

“Don’t get cranky, Pete. It shows your age. Talk to Cindy.”

“I will, don’t worry.” Decker exhaled and wished he still smoked. “I’ll do anything to find the baby.”

Marge finished her coffee. “You want to know what I’m thinking? If Marie isn’t dead, she and the baby must be somewhere. I’m betting they’re out camping, probably right under our noses.”

“Camping?”

“Tandy said Marie was an experienced camper. Which means she could afford to lay low for a long time, long enough until we give up our search.”

“Marie was a camper?”

“According to Tandy, she used to go to the woods and talk to God.” Marge shook her head. “Getting weirder by the moment.”