Chapter 3 - I STOPPED THE FUNERALBen went to Cape Fear Valley Medical Center before midnight.
Dr. Shah rode with him.
I stayed long enough for Ortiz to secure the house and separate Mother from Caleb.
No dramatic arrests happened.
Not yet.
Ortiz had videos that appeared devastating, but she still needed original evidence, statements, medical findings, and a legally defensible timeline.
Mother immediately demanded an attorney.
Caleb did the same thirty minutes later.
At the hospital, Ben was treated for dehydration and low blood sugar.
He was weak, but stable.
I sat beside him until almost four in the morning.
That was when Ortiz returned.
“We have another problem.”
Emily’s body had already been released to a funeral home.
Mother had told responders that Emily had suffered a sudden postpartum complication after refusing hospital treatment.
Because there had initially been no obvious indication of criminal conduct, arrangements had moved forward quickly.
“The burial is scheduled for tomorrow,” Ortiz said.
“Stop it.”
“We’re working on that.”
“No.”
I looked directly at her.
“I’m her husband. I’m objecting to any disposition of her body.”
Ortiz nodded.
“That helps.”
The medical examiner agreed to review the circumstances after receiving the nursery footage and emergency-response timeline.
Emily’s burial was suspended.
Mother found out before sunrise.
She called me.
“You had her taken away from the funeral home?”
“I had my wife examined.”
“She deserves peace.”
“She deserved an ambulance.”
Mother hung up.
Later that morning, investigators tried identifying the private midwife Margaret claimed had attended the birth.
There was no name.
No phone number.
No payment record.
No appointment in Emily’s calendar.
Nothing in her messages.
Nothing in the house suggested a midwife had been there.
Then emergency dispatch produced another inconsistency.
The first call from our address had not come when Mother claimed it had.
There had been an earlier call.
Forty-three minutes earlier.
It lasted eleven seconds.
Ortiz requested the audio.
Before she left, she pointed toward Ben.
“There’s something else you should prepare yourself for.”
“What?”
“The laboratory is testing that bottle.”
I looked at my sleeping son.
May you like
Ortiz continued.
“If someone put medication in it, this stops being only about what happened to Emily.”
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