He found himself thinking about the way they had stood on that porch, two identical figures blocking the doorway like sentinels guarding a tomb.
He thought about the oppressive silence of that homestead, the way no sound had emerged from within the house during his entire visit.
The first break in the case came unexpectedly in late summer when Dr. Edwin Cross visited Galloway’s office on an unrelated matter.
Cross was an older man who had practiced medicine in Taney County for over 30 years, riding out to remote homesteads to deliver babies and treat injuries that would otherwise go unattended.
After their business was concluded, Cross lingered at the door, clearly wrestling with something.
Finally, he asked if the sheriff was still inquiring about the Barrow family.
Galloway straightened in his chair, suddenly attentive.
Cross closed the door and sat back down, his voice dropping to barely above a whisper, despite the fact that they were alone.
Two years prior, in 1894, he had received an urgent summons to attend to a medical emergency at the Barrow Homestead.
When he arrived, he found one of the twin sisters in the advanced stages of labor.
The birth had been difficult and dangerous, requiring all of his skill to ensure the mother survived.
What troubled him, he explained, was the extraordinary secrecy that had surrounded the event.
He had been blindfolded for the final mile of the approach, led by the other sister, who refused to answer any of his questions.
The father was supposedly bedridden in another room, but Cross never saw him.
After the delivery, he had been paid in cash and again blindfolded for his departure, with strict instructions that he was never to speak of what had occurred.
Galloway leaned forward, his instincts suddenly sharp.
Had the doctor seen the child?
Cross shook his head.
The infant had been taken away immediately by the other sister, wrapped in blankets.
He had heard it cry once, a thin wailing sound, but then nothing more.
He had assumed the child was being cared for in another room, though the absolute silence that followed had struck him as strange.
As a doctor, Cross was bound by certain ethical obligations regarding patient privacy, which was why he had remained silent for 2 years.
But the sheriff’s earlier visit and questions had awakened his own concerns.
Where was that child now?
If one of the sisters had given birth, why had no one in the community ever seen the infant?
