“Yo, D,” Jake said. Jane always said D looked like he’d gotten thinner every time they saw each other. DeLuca lived on black coffee and roast beef subs-maybe that was it. Right now Jake had a bigger question. Besides the murder weapon, another important thing was missing from this crime scene.
“We’ve got a dead woman.” Jake zipped up his jacket, zipped it down, then up again, like he always did when thinking. “No apparent murder weapon. An empty apartment. Two little kids who can’t talk. So who the hell called nine-one-one?”
5
Niall Brannigan strode up the front walk of Brannigan Family and Children Services, cataloging mistakes. No one had deadheaded the decorative mums along the garden path. Now some were rotting and brown. Such a waste of money. Such a poor public image. No one left tomorrow until those were gone. A fine mist lifted from the snowy grass, the last of the afternoon’s light disappearing. Still light enough to see a litany of annoyances.
Fallen twigs and branches, pine needles strewn across the flagstones, patches of ice on the cobbles. What, the whole grounds crew was surprised it was winter? His polished wing tips, protected by stretchy rubbers, marched through the slush.
“Ridiculous.” He said it aloud, swiping his plastic pass card through the new gadget mounted beside the front door. His father would have cringed, someone screwing holes in the wood Mother told him had come over on the Mayflower. Brannigan allowed himself the day’s first smile. Doubtful. But a useful and effective story.
A bell pinged, a green light appeared, and he clicked open the door. Inside, only the night lights lit the dusky hallway. The place was closed Sundays-he’d come here after afternoon mass-but as executive director, he liked to confirm all was well. Organize a few files, the mail, the upcoming schedule. See what new children were arriving. And departing. Ardith wasn’t waiting at home, but probably at her precious yoga, as always. Thank heaven for liberated spouses.
He wiped his feet on the bristly reed doormat, loosened his striped muffler, and began to unbutton his overcoat.
An office light shone down the hall. On?
Yes. On. A dull glow came through the narrow pane of one of the admin offices. Someone was here? He reached for his cell phone. Should he call 911? The second smile of the day curved his lips. Unnecessary.
The front door had been locked. So had the back, since no alarms clanged. Not a breakin. All he had to do was check the fancy computer scan on his fancy new lock machine, and he’d instantly know who was here, when they got here, and which door they used. No one had cleared overtime with him. Whoever was working today was doing it on their own time. And without pay.
He folded his gloves into a pocket, then crossed his arms, contemplating the closed office doors lining the carpeted hallway. One wall was all photographs, a calculatedly impressive gallery of silver-framed infants and toddlers and the occasional preteen. Their “wall of fame,” they explained to first-time visitors. Privately the staff called it their “family jewels.” Children were the Brannigan’s profit center, even though the service was a properly registered non-profit. Their “profit” was making families, he often explained, not only the money. Although the money was lovely.
Brannigan sniffed, cleared his head of random thoughts. At sixty-seven some thought he should retire, turn the place over to-whoever. Not going to happen. But who was here? Door number one, admin, closed, no light. The second door, bursar, closed, no light. The third door, History and Records, Munson’s office, no light there, either. His own office door, at the end, was still bathed in darkness, as it should be, a single pin spot illuminating his brass nameplate.
The fourth door. Closed as well, but a spill of orange glowed through the window and under the door. Lillian Finch’s office.
Brannigan sniffed again. He might have predicted as much.
What had Mother always said? You can’t know too much about your employees.
He knew enough about Lillian Finch to know exactly where she was. And as a result, he could predict exactly who was poaching Lillian’s office on an illicit Sunday afternoon. Did she think he wouldn’t find out? And now, he had a decision to make.
6
Maybe there was nothing to find.
Hush, Ella, she shushed herself, propping one elbow on Ms. Finch’s desk and tucking a stray lock of hair back into the bobby pin. She’d been Lillian’s eyes and ears for the past however many years, not that she’d ever call her Lillian to her face. Even those times when she’d been invited for tea at Ms. Finch’s beautiful home.
Anyway. Lillian always kept every piece of paper, and had told Ella, again and again, that documentation was the key to everything. If there was something to find, Lillian would have it.
Ella turned another page in the thick manila folder she’d pulled from the bank of wooden file cabinets along the back wall. Birth certificate for baby girl Beerman, a certified copy. Father’s name, not listed. Audrey Rose Beerman, dark eyes, dark hair, deemed healthy, all her shots. Letter from the birth mother. Court order. A revision. A few photos in an envelope-swaddled infant, toddler in a pinafore and floppy hat. Nothing odd, nothing strange, nothing she hadn’t seen dozens of times in dozens of family folders.
Was that a noise in the hallway? She looked up from her paperwork, fingering the loop of one earring, her heart twisting for a beat or two. She wasn’t supposed to be here on a Sunday afternoon. She’d get in trouble if anyone found out.
A noise? No. Only the creaking of the old building. Chilly, too, with the heat down. She buttoned her thin cardigan, wished she’d worn jeans instead of her corduroy skirt.
The call from that Tucker Cameron woman was, well, upsetting. She’d taken it the day before yesterday, Friday, last call of the afternoon. She’d already had her coat and muffler on, almost hadn’t picked up the receiver.
She sighed. She never could resist the phone. What if it was a match? Wouldn’t want to miss that. She’d answered, then tried to understand what the woman was saying, her words coming too fast to comprehend.
The wrong girl?
Impossible. The Brannigan was in the business of making families. Nothing “wrong” about that. Ella reassured the woman, as best she could, there was no mistake. Someone would call her back.
Should she have reported it? At five on a Friday? What good would that have done? Monday would be soon enough. Lillian wouldn’t be angry with her.
She hoped.
Ella eyed Lillian’s desk, the silver container of massed white roses next to a silver-framed photo collection of the families she’d created. Lillian was a saint, no question. Still, she was pushing fifty, fifty-five, maybe, and someday she’d retire. Ella would be ready to take the big desk.
She turned another page of the Beerman file. There was the R and R request from the mother, Carlyn Parker Beerman, asking the Brannigan to rescind her initial stop order of the closed adoption and release information requested by the birth daughter. Date of issue… Ella squinted at the page. Smudged. But clear enough, three months ago. She’d heard Ms. Finch phone the daughter herself.
She leaned back in Ms. Finch’s puffy chair. Getting to make the Call was one of the things she loved most. They both did, she and Lillian. The call where you know you are changing someone’s life. Two peoples’ lives. Two strangers, two people who probably thought about each other every day, maybe missed each other every day, would finally be together. After all those years, a mother meets her daughter. A mother meets her grown-up son. A father sees his child for the first time. They recognize themselves in each other’s eyes. They realize they’re not alone.