"Okay, later then," he said
Much later, Dad. Like never, she thought.
The basement of the Sullivan Library on the campus of the University of Washington is one of those cavernous spaces where footsteps echo like thunder. After negotiating a labyrinth of shelving, Nick Martin and Jenna Kenyon spoke with a librarian in the research periodicals department, a cheerful man of about fifty with a soup-strainer moustache who agreed that it was silly that no newspapers of the 1980s were yet archived in a searchable electronic format.
"If it didn't happen after 1992," he said with a wink, "it just flat didn't happen. Writing a paper?"
"Yes," Jenna said, "We're from West Seattle High and our teacher sent us here. We're doing a team project" She was proud of her quick response and Nick shot her a quick glance indicating he, too, was impressed.
The librarian smiled. "What's the subject? We have an excellent reader's guide to our periodical collections."
"Angel's Nest," Nick said, testing the notoriety of the name.
The man didn't flinch. "Oh, that one. Should be interesting."
He directed them to a massive row of gunmetal-gray cabinets, and they searched under Adoption, Seattle Scandals, and Criminal Cases of Puget Sound. After twenty minutes of digging, they only found only one scrap of ephemera on the subject.
It was a postcard mailed to college campuses in the 1970s. It showed a picture of a pregnant young woman, sitting on a swing in a playground. Underneath her name it carried the words: "Make a Future. Make a Family. Give Your Baby to Angel's Nest"
"That's creepy," Jenna said. "The girl looks like she wants to jump off that swing, ditch the baby, and get back to class."
Nick didn't know what to make of it. "Why didn't she just get an abortion when she could?"
"Times have changed," said the librarian, still hovering nearby. "You two are bound to find more info on the microfiche rolls of the paper." He jotted down some suggested dates and pointed to the south end of the building. "If you have any trouble working the equipment, let me know."
Nick had threaded the first tape and began to spool through the images of the 1980s as presented in the pages of the Seattle Times. Jenna pulled up a chair and retrieved a pad and pen from her purse.
"I think this is the part where they play some cheesy elec- tronica," she said.
Nick glanced over at her, a blank look on his face. He didn't have a clue about what she was talking about.
"You know, as we zip through the pages, a loud instrumental track plays," she said. "God, Nick, like CSI, don't you ever watch TV?"
Nick grinned. It was the first time Jenna had seen him smile in days. Since it happened. For a fleeting moment, it gave her just a little hope. We'll be okay. We'll all be okay.
Jenna put her hand on Nick's shoulder as the grainy images of the microfiche flew through the reader. Every once in a while, she'd drop a quarter into the coin box and push the button. A slightly damp photocopy of the worst possible quality came from the printer. Headlines were gray instead of black. Photos were milky. One headline, despite its ghostly shading, screamed for attention:
ADOPTION COORDINATOR: NO IDEA WHAT WILSON WAS DOING"
It was accompanied by an artist's sketch of a plump woman with long dark hair. She was in the witness box testifying. The caption read: Defense lawyers tried to discredit Bonnie Jeffries by questioning her about her pen-pal friendship with noted serial killer Dylan Walker.
Saturday afternoon, Ogden, Utah
It was the smell coming from 4242 Foster Avenue in Ogden, Utah, that finally got local police inside the beautiful home with the tall paneled doors. It wasn't the pile of newspapers on the stoop, or the concerns of a fourteen-year-old paper delivery kid. Just the fetid stink that cops knew immediately as the scent of decomposing human flesh. Maggie and Jim Chapman, and their daughter, Misty, a freshman at BYU, were found in a back bedroom, bound, gagged, and strangled to death. The cord from a miniblind from the laundry room had been used to asphyxiate the daughter. Mrs. Chapman had been strangled with a phone cord, and it appeared that Mr. Chapman had died from the pressure of his own necktie. The autopsy conducted by the medical examiner's office downtown would make the determination, of course.
The Salt Lake City Tribune ran the story on the front page. The article was picked up by the Associated Press and dispatched across the country:
PARENTS, GIRL, SLAIN BY INTRUDER IN OGDEN
CNN ran a video version the next day, flashing images of the murder house and the neighborhood. One viewer in Seattle paid particular attention, satisfied that the mission had been accomplished.
There was Ogden, Des Moines, the Cherrystone screwup, and the last one close to home.
Armed with their stack of damp microfiche printouts and a genuine need to get away from the Johnny-on-the-spot research librarian, Jenna and Nick retreated from the basement and found a quiet corner and some soft upholstered chairs on the third floor. A trio of engineering students studied for a test nearby. Otherwise, they were alone.
"What exactly are we looking for?" Jenna whispered.
Nick divided the copies in half and handed a stack to Jenna. "I'm not the detective's daughter."
"Thanks," she said, her tone anything but thankful.
"Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean anything by it. Really. I guess we're just looking for whatever we can find about Angel's Nest"
As they worked their way through the material, they learned that the agency had a sterling record for its first decade or so back in the 1960s. Randall Wilson had helped reinvent the whole concept of adoption. At least, according to one article, prior to Wilson agencies were often viewed as shameful dumping grounds for unwanted babies. Wilson's brilliance was marketing. Through ads on TV he was able to turn that thinking on its ear, and make an unplanned pregnancy something positive and heartwarming. Wilson, a genial fellow of forty, saw adoption as "a golden opportunity to build new families." Instead of selling the idea of taking in an unwanted baby, he sold hard to the birth mothers, making them feel like cherished heroines instead of shameful losers.
A photo of Wilson showed him outside the building on Stone Way. He had his arms crossed over his chest and a broad smile on his face. "No child is really unwanted," says Wilson. "They just need to find their way into the right family. That's my job."
"What's the big deal?" Nick asked. "I mean, I'm adopted. My parents wanted me ""
Jenna looked up from the papers. "You're a guy. You wouldn't get it. But back when our parents were young, getting pregnant out of marriage was the biggest sin of all. Not like today when every movie star has a baby without ever getting a husband. In the 1960s women actually went away and hid out until their babies came"
"So?" Nick pushed his chair back from the table. "Big deal."
The remark surprised Jenna. "So? This was huge. Wilson was one of the first to turn that thinking around, I guess. He helped promote the idea that having a baby and giving it to someone else was a great gift."
Nick shook it off. He put his head down and kneaded his eyes with the palms of his hands. He seemed exhausted and hurt. But he wasn't about to cry in front of Jenna again.
"When I was a kid, my mom and dad told me I was adopted," he said. "They said that they had `chosen' me. I guess that was good enough for me. I never thought of myself as a bastard or anything like that"
"I'd hope not" Jenna continued scanning the page in front of her. "But what if it wasn't good enough for your birth mother or father?"
Riffling through the stacks of news stories quickly, the headlines told the story. By the 1980s, the agency was buying babies from shady operators overseas and selling them to rich, childless couples. There were also hints in the story that they were also buying babies from girls here in the United States and selling them in quickie private adoptions.