“You’re the one from TV, right?” Vee said. Two more green lines began to ring. Then another. Vee ignored them.
Jane kept up her smile. She was tired of explaining why she’d been fired, and even more tired of accepting sympathy and support because she had protected a source. It was over, she had a new job, she was happy happy happy. And as she so often heard, nobody watched local TV anymore. Which, truth be told, made her even happier.
“I’m with the Register now.” Jane looked at her watch. Cutting it so close. She had to get the scoop about the victim’s children, learn what would happen to them and how this system worked, and she absolutely could not wait until someone got back from a Caribbean vacation to get those answers. “Like I said, Ms. Gunnison is expecting me, and-”
A buzzer interrupted, and a thick metal door clicked open.
“Thanks, Vee. Jane? I’m Maggie.” Maggie Gunnison had poked two yellow pencils through her dark ponytail, misbuttoned her navy cardigan, and was now battling an unwieldy stack of paperwork. As she adjusted the pile in her arms, trying to keep the door open with one hip, one of the pencils clattered onto the floor. She rolled her eyes behind her wire-rimmed glasses. “Perfect. That’s what happens when you try to rush, right? I only have about fifty million cases to handle before I go. They told you I don’t have much time, right?”
“Right.” Jane tried to look sympathetic as she picked up the pencil. “The day before vacation is always a bear. You’re very kind to see me.”
Maggie was already through the door, motioning Jane to follow her down a dingy hallway warrened with modular office cubbies and cartons of copy paper stacked shoulder high. It smelled of aging drywall and stale coffee.
“What do you want to know? They told me you wondered about the Callaberry Street kids. The police notified us of the… incident.” Maggie stopped in the middle of the hallway, took a breath, turned to Jane with a frown.
“Look. I can’t discuss any specifics. I’ve seen your stuff on TV. You know the drill. They’re juveniles, it’s private, it’s protected, it’s confidential, there’s no way under any circumstances I can-”
“I completely understand.” This was not the moment for a hard sell. But Maggie looked crazed with paperwork, about to be sprung from this fluorescent sweatshop into a sun-filled week on the beach. Jane should certainly be able to convince her to spill the beans. On something. She pulled out her reporter’s spiral notebook and twisted open a ballpoint, realizing Maggie had already revealed some big info.
The police had called DFS. Why? Were the Callaberry Street kids about to go into foster care? That gave her story a perfect news peg. She’d keep it vague, like she was only getting background.
“I’m researching a consumer education story on foster kids. Foster care. Why the children get placed, and what happens to them later. How foster parents are chosen. Are there enough DFS people-”
“Caseworkers?”
“Caseworkers. To get to know each child and family individually? To make sure the kids are in a good place?” She eyed the files in Maggie’s arms. “What if it doesn’t work out?”
Maggie tightened her stranglehold on the paperwork, as if shielding it from the marauding reporter. Made no move to lead Jane to her office. “I’m not sure why they directed me to speak to you.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I’m not asking specifically about Phillip and Phoebe. But kids like Phillip and Phoebe.” She paused, wondering if Maggie would correct her, or ask how she knew the names. But-nothing. “What their future holds. Generally. That’s all.”
“Listen.” Maggie looked at the floor, institutional carpeting battered and flattened by decades of trudging civil servants, then back up at Jane. “It’s not like a private adoption agency, where, I don’t know. It’s difficult, and often heartbreaking, but it’s all civilized. It usually follows… a choice. Foster care almost always follows tragedy. Kids whose parents abuse them, or abandon them, or get arrested and leave them with no one. The kids stay in state custody, fostered, until they’re adopted. Sometimes the short-term parents fall in love and that’s a relief. But it doesn’t always happen. So there’s a cycle. A stupid, relentless, impossible cycle.”
Jane could see the tension around the young woman’s mouth, the beginning of dark shadows under the rims of her glasses. “Cycle?”
“Yup. Like Callaberry Street. That’s why you’re here, right? When something goes wrong, those children go back on the foster list, and we try to find another approved family for them. Emphasis on try. Sometimes a relative will show up, and offer to take them in, but even those homes have to be approved. That takes time. Even infants have to wait. The longer they wait, the more difficult it gets. Yes, the families get a state-funded stipend for each child they take in. Is this the kind of thing you want to know? I don’t have much more time. Five minutes.”
Maggie pointed toward a closed office door, and Jane followed her down the corridor, processing the surprise Maggie had revealed. Phillip and Phoebe were already foster kids?
That would mean the victim was their foster mother, not their biological mother. Maybe they weren’t even brother and sister.
What if an overburdened state system had actually put them into danger? Placed them with exactly the wrong woman? That could be a big story. If Maggie was aware of that? An even bigger story.
Jane would behave as if Phillip and Phoebe’s past was something she already knew. Now she had to learn whether a foster father existed. Who the birth parents were. Those people would be instant suspects. Did Jake know this? He had to.
If she got the scoop, Alex would have to let her take over the Callaberry murder story. And that would be the good news. Every big headline equaled job security. This one could be her biggest headline yet.
20
“So, Phillip? Do you have a little baby at your house?” Jake sat cross-legged on the floor of Dr. Bethany Sibbach’s toy-strewn living room, running a bright blue Batmobile across the carpet. Jake and DeLuca had purchased the toy at a CVS after leaving the Brannigan. The Supe assigned another team to the Finch case, agreeing Jake needed to focus on Callaberry. Jake couldn’t help but think the kids were the key.
That empty cradle. Bugged the hell out of him. Dr. Sibbach insisted she’d been given no paperwork about a third child. Insisted there were only two kids. But that didn’t add up. Nothing added up. They still hadn’t found ID for the victim, no files, no paperwork of any kind. That bugged him, too. More than bugged.
Was there a baby somewhere? In trouble? Though everyone said no, little Phillip would know for sure. Question was, could he tell Jake?
Leonard Perl, the Florida landlord, hadn’t called back. Seemed like time to notify the Ft. Lauderdale PD. Get them to put some fear into the guy. DeLuca stood in the hall, talking on his cell to Kat McMahan, insisting he needed to check on the medical examiner’s progress. D had never been so fascinated by the morgue.
“Baby at youah house!” the little boy said.
Jake looked at the therapist, who sat on the flowered couch, Phoebe in her lap. The little girl clutched some kind of thick toasted cracker, crumbs from it dribbling down the front of her dress. There was more cracker on the pink cotton than in Phoebe’s mouth.
“Is that a yes?” Jake asked. “Would you say he’s confirming-?”
Bethany shook her head. “Phillip’s in a repeating phase, Detective Brogan. He’s two, I’d estimate. He’ll try to echo whatever you say. Repeating is how they learn. It’ll be unlikely he’ll be able to tell us anything. Feel free to try, though-Phoebe, honey, shush-I suppose it can’t hurt. He’s quite taken with you, it seems. He only stopped crying when you arrived.”