"It's not good, ma'am. I think you want to be sitting down." He gave her the news as delicately as he could. Envisioning her as ill-tempered, self-pitying, selfish, and ignorant, he nevertheless felt his heart go out to her when he heard the emptiness in her voice as she exhaled, "Oh."
When he finished, silence engulfed the line.
When Mrs. Keilly finally spoke, it was barely a whisper: "That rich old woman thought her boy was so great, so perfect. They were so far above all of us. And that my girl was trash. All of us were trash. She thought Staci got pregnant on purpose to get her hooks into them and their money."
"So what did they do?"
"Well, first, of course, they denied Cameron was the father. They said everybody knew that Staci was a slut and was sleeping with every boy in the camp."
"She was at Cameron's water-ski camp?"
A brittle laugh. "Are you kidding? We couldn't afford anything like that. She was a lifeguard at Berryessa, that was all. It was her summer job. Maybe we shouldn't have let her go up there alone, but it was supposedly an excellent camp for rich kids, and we trusted her. We didn't think…well, it doesn't matter what we thought."
"So then what?"
"Well, say this for the boy, he fessed up. Wouldn't hear no talk about Staci being with somebody else. That was his baby, their love child, and he was going to be a man and take care of it, and marry her, too. He loved her. Sixteen years old. The fool."
"So you-"
"Hold it. We didn't do anything. Nothing wrong, anyway. If this was their precious boy's child, then the baby was her grandchild…"
"You mean Carol Manion's?"
"That's who we're talking about, isn't it? Carol rich bitch fucking Manion. Her son wasn't likely marrying any white trash. And she wasn't allowing no grandson of hers being raised in some trailer park. Oh, and the scandal. Don't forget the scandal. You know they never even came to see us, talk to us? Just sent their doctors and lawyers. Cutting their deal."
"With who? With Staci?"
She'd found her voice again, snappish, whining. "Staci didn't get to choose. She was fourteen years old, for God's sake. When she wouldn't sign the papers, we signed them for her. It was our decision and best for the child, for everybody. There wasn't anything wrong with what we did."
"How much did they pay you?" Hunt asked. To leave your daughter's child with them so they could raise it as their own. And then to move your fourteen-year-old Staci-no doubt without any warning and perhaps with a deception tantamount to kidnapping-to another far-distant part of the state.
"It wasn't the money," she said.
But he knew that, of course, that's exactly what it had been.
29
Case or no case, Juhle had learned the hard way that you didn't take your cell phone to your kid's ball game if you didn't want to be disturbed. And tonight, since he was actually functioning as the Hornets' manager, the rule applied even more strictly. So he was truly unreachable, his pager and cell phone in his glove box.
Then, after the team's win and pizza with the family, his conscience got the better of him, and he drove them all over to the Malinoffs' place in Saint Francis Wood to visit Doug. He was still in bed, his leg encased to his thigh. Everybody signed the cast-Juhle wrote "Slide, dammit, slide!" and Connie had added under it, "But not on grass where the spikes can catch." And everybody had a chuckle. Then Juhle and Connie each had a couple of beers and hung out in the bedroom with the invalid and his wife, Liz, until the Giants game on the big screen was over while the six kids sat mesmerized by some animated feature film in the playroom.
Now it was a bit after ten, the kids were down in their own beds at home, and Juhle took off his sling and laid it over the bedpost, rotated his shoulder in a tight circle.
"Any progress at all?" Connie asked as she came in from the hallway.
"At least it's not frozen. I think I'm going to stop with the sling. And it's getting so I can pick up small objects in the other hand. It's slow, but every time it gets me down, I think of poor Doug stuck in his bed for the next few weeks with a spiral fracture and, call me cruel, but somehow I feel better."
"You are cruel."
"True. But in a friendly, kind of touchy-feely way. Was it just me or did you get the impression Doug was surprised we won tonight with me managing?"
"Surprised? His worldview went out of whack. Did you see his face when you told him you let the kids do their own batting order? With everybody in a position they'd never played before? I thought he'd have a heart attack."
"I probably set the team back a couple of years."
"No doubt about it." Without breaking stride, Connie walked up to him and put a finger on his chest. "I see you looking at your phone, inspector, and I must admonish you-do not turn it on. Don't even pick it up. I'm going to retire to the powder room for a minute and return in a state of natural splendor for which you should prepare yourself. You will need all of your energy, I warn you."
Connie was breathing deeply beside him most of an hour later when he left the bed, grabbed his phone and a robe, and walked out into his living room. Played his messages. Finally called Hunt. "You awake?"
"Full-time," Hunt said. "Where are you? You got my messages?"
"Home, and I just listened to them. You've been busy."
Hunt outlined it all briefly again, Juhle taking down names, approximate dates, telephone numbers.
"So it's all about this kid?" Juhle asked when he'd finished.
"Right. Carol Manion's been raising Todd as her own son since he was born, as Cameron's little brother, when he really is his natural son. It looks like the adoption wasn't even legal. They just paid off Staci's parents to get her out of the picture right after the birth."
"They admitted that?"
"As much as, Dev. But Staci doesn't learn to live with it. When she's eighteen, after high school, she moves up here, no doubt to just be close to her kid, and sometime after that finds Todd and from a distance takes the picture that everybody's seen now. After that, I don't know what happened exactly. Maybe she saw the good life this kid had, way better than anything she could offer him. Plus, she's still only a teenager. She's got to be intimidated by the Manions. But at least she's physically close to her son now. And Todd's got a mother who loves him, who he believes is his mother. Add to that, that Todd doesn't know Staci at all, never had. And he was, in fact, living with his natural father. Maybe she came to terms with all of it."
"Until Cameron died?"
"Right. I think that's what happened. Cameron died, Todd's real father. After that, somehow it wasn't the same. It didn't feel the same to Staci, Todd being raised by his grandmother alone. It wasn't fair and it wasn't right. Besides, by now-we're only talking last summer-Staci's life has changed pretty dramatically. She's not only four years older and a real adult, she's got a good job, she's living in this very nice condo. On top of that, she's intimate with Palmer, who not only has huge power, but who, it turns out, also knows the Manions. She's got leverage and even legal standing now. She can fight to get her baby back."
Juhle, going along with it. "So the judge gets her set up with Parisi."
"Not yet, I don't think," Hunt said. "He gives Andrea's card to Staci, okay, but before they get involved with a bunch of lawyers and it gets ugly, Palmer's the big negotiator with the ego to go with it, right? He can call Carol Manion, and everybody can talk it all out like civilized people. Plus, this makes him even more of a hero to Staci."
"So he invites her over to his place Monday night?"
"That's how I see it. It starts out a nice call from Palmer to Carol Manion, old friend to old friend. Come on over, and we'll talk about the situation, reach some amicable settlement. The judge mentions that he's extremely sensitive to Carol's privacy issues and so far has made sure that neither he nor Staci has mentioned a word about this to a soul in the world. All Staci wants is some time, some regular visitation with her baby."