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a simple test. We could arrange--"
    "I don't have worms and I'm not being tested for anything." Tinkie was completely taken aback. Normally Tinkie loved medical attention--from the proper physician, who would be male, handsome, solicitous, and comforting.
    Penny was not to be deterred. "I've seen cases you wouldn't believe. Left untreated, worms can thread the digestive track and intestines, weakening the entire system until there's a blowout of the intestinal wall. This could happen at a formal dinner at The Club, or while you're shopping, or lunching with your friends."
    "Tinkie doesn't have worms," I said, realizing that my earlier fear of the clinic was totally justified. Nurse McAdams was a sadist. "Do you have birth records for Lillith Lucas or not?" I asked in a no-nonsense voice. "Doc Sawyer sent us over here."
    Doc was retired from private practice, but he was the emergency room physician and tended a few old-time patients. Some old gossip I'd retained in the back of my brain came into play. Penny McAdams had once had a crush on Doc. It was a trump card that produced amazing results.
    "I can call Doc and check to make sure he sent you," she said, her eyes narrowing.
    "Be my guest. He said to ask you 'pretty please' to help us."
    She cleared her throat and reached for the stack of files. "Yes, well, there were three births registered to Lillith Lucas, though we had to send someone to the home and demand that she give us the information. All three babies were delivered by the mother, at home, without even the assistance of a midwife. It's remarkable that under those conditions only one of them died."
    "Three?" Tinkie and I echoed each other.
    Nurse McAdams assessed us. "Measles can sometimes cause deafness. I need to check your mothers' vaccination records and see about this."
    "We can hear," I assured her, "we just didn't expect three births. We knew of only one."
    "Even though you make it a point to poke into everyone's business, Ms. Delaney, you don't know everything." She muttered something under her breath that sounded like "Should have been immunized for nosiness."
    "May we have the children's birth dates?" I asked, deciding that I'd rather be stuck in the butt with a needle than have to talk to this woman much longer.
    She handed us the birth certificates with some reluctance. "If Doc hadn't sent you, I wouldn't show you these. I'm under no legal obligation to show you anything, you know."
    I scanned the documents. The first was a baby boy born two years before I was. There was no name, no birth weight or height, no attending physician, no time of birth. No father's name. It was only listed as Baby Lucas, with just the gender and date of birth.
    The second certificate was for a female. The age approximately matched Doreen's. Again, no father or other details. Another Baby Lucas.
    The third was a boy born the next year. The certificate contained his birth day and the note that he'd died only hours after birth. He didn't live long enough to even be called Baby Lucas.
    "Is there any way to tell why this baby died?" I asked the nurse.
    "Sure, hire a psychic."
    Tinkie, recovered from a momentary imaginary journey into the hellish possibility of worms, rose up to her full five-two height. "There's no need for such rudeness," she said. "We're not trying to hurt anyone and we're not asking you to do anything except your job. You can't jab us with a needle, so you're doing your best to make us suffer some other way. Well, it's not working. I'm marking the health department off the list of worthy projects from my civic clubs." Her eyes gleamed. "And I belong to every single one of them. You won't get another dime for renovation."
    I zipped my lip. Tinkie had gotten Penny's attention.
    "I remember the death of the baby clearly," Penny said. She wasn't friendlier, but she was more forthcoming. "It was a perfect baby in appearance, but it simply stopped breathing. That's according to Lillith."
    "There wasn't an autopsy?" I