“You cannot say I showed you this,” Jake said. “It’s strictly background. We’re on to this case because of you. I owe you. Not because it’s you, Janey. It’s only fair. And the Supe is aware. But if you reveal-”
“I promise.” Jake had Collins Munson’s confession on video. And she was about to see it.
“This is conference room B. Munson’s in a folding chair at the table. My back’s to the camera. The woman’s his lawyer,” Jake said. “She objected, but after an overnight in a Suffolk County jail cell, probably contemplating life without parole, Munson insisted. I have to admit, Jane, his defense is a new one. I forwarded the tape to the relevant part.”
“Let me. See. The video,” Jane pleaded. Geez.
Jake hit the green button.
“So how many were there, Mr. Munson?” Jake’s voice came over the tinny speakers.
“Have you heard any complaints?” Munson said.
“That’s not what I’m asking,” Jake said. “You took the footprints out of the files so the probative evidence was gone. Ms. Finch found out, obtained copies from hospitals, and threatened to expose you. So you killed her.”
“Has anyone called to say they’re unhappy?” Munson took a pocket square from his jacket, polished his glasses, examined the lenses in the fluorescent lights. He wore a tweed jacket and gray slacks. No tie or belt.
Jake made a mark on his legal pad. “Mr. Munson, your role was to reunite, on request, birth parents with the children they’d put up for adoption. But you were sending-just anyone?”
Munson flipped a palm, derisive. “Of course not. When there was a true match, marvelous. That’s our goal, after all. But for many of our clients, the birth mothers were-shall we say-uninterested. Or dead. I’ve handled these cases for many years, hundreds of them. Thousands. Many of these connections could never be made. Then I thought, if we matched basic characteristics, eye color and age and such, how would they know?”
Jane couldn’t help it. She pushed stop. “How would they know?”
“Yeah,” Jake said. “He realized-well, listen. We don’t have much time.”
He pushed play.
“How would they know?” Jake asked on the tape.
“Precisely,” Munson said. “The children were infants when they were left at the Brannigan. No memories, no history, no idea of their origin. The birth parents, too, had seen their child only briefly. If at all. How would they know what they’d look like as adults? I mean, who would ask for a DNA test? When the agency offers you your child? Your mother? We simply took the outliers, often the ones whose birth parents were deceased, or where the child was deceased, and put them together. It was all they ever wanted. To be a family. We could give it to them.”
“We?” Jake said.
“‘We,’ the Brannigan,” Munson said. “But I put the families together. I created them. I was the Brannigan. No matter what that pompous ass Niall thought. Or Lillian, who was about to ruin it all.”
Jane pushed pause. The screen froze.
“You didn’t tell him about Ella, right?” she asked. “That she figured it out? Because-”
“Jane,” Jake said. “Gimme a break.”
He pushed play.
“So let me get this straight,” Jake said on the video. “Every time-”
“Of course not,” Munson said. “Of course not every time. Sometimes, the request came in and the family was available and it all fit together without my… help. Sometimes, however, we had to give Mother Nature a little nudge.”
“Did they pay you?”
No answer.
“Munson?”
A woman’s voice came from off camera. “Collins, you agreed.”
“Of course they paid me,” Munson said. “I would explain they had a difficult case. The Brannigan simply did not have the resources to do extensive research in the whereabouts of birth parents who did not want to be found. Or children who did not want to be found. I explained I knew a top-notch investigator who could help them. Separately. For a fee. Of course they paid. They’d pay anything.”
“Who was that investigator?” Jake asked.
Munson stared at the camera, his disdain apparent. “Detective. There was no investigator. I took their money. I chose a family. Et voilà.”
Jane pushed pause. “Holy-”
“Yeah. It’s almost over.” Jake pushed play.
“So as I asked, Mr. Munson,” Jake said on the tape. “How many times? And you’ll need to provide the records of the instances where you sent-”
“You really want that, Detective?” Munson asked. “All those happy families we created. You think it’s best to ruin their lives?”
Jane pushed stop. The screen went black.
“Yeah, you know? Tuck thought she was the wrong girl because of the bracelet. But she was the right girl, in the end. And they’re so happy. But this means there are other adults out there, living with people they’ve been deceived into believing are their families.”
Jake shook his head. “I know. It’s sick, really. We’re trying to figure out what’s illegal about it.”
“Can you just leave them? With the people they love?” Jane sat in one of Jake’s office chairs, leaned back, stared at the ceiling. Medical histories. Genetics. Inheritance. Truth. Would she want to know?
“All those families,” she said. “It puts their whole lives into question.”
She clacked the chair upright again. “What are you going to do?”
EPILOGUE
Jane propped her feet on the low wooden coffee table in Jake’s living room. Took a sip of her wine, leaned back into the couch cushions. Jake’s feet were next to hers. Their socks touched. This was perfect. But she couldn’t allow herself to get used to it.
Diva had flattened her golden retriever self on the floor against the couch, stretched out, from nose to plumy tail, under their legs.
“Diva would probably eat Coda,” Jane said. “No way that’d work.”
“We could figure it out.” Jake took a swig of his beer.
They sat in silence, listening to the evening street sounds, a car or two, the buzz of an airplane.
“Ella’s gonna be okay,” Jake said. “She’s talking-well, writing-the District Attorney. They’ll decide what to do about the Brannigan ‘families.’ Good thing we don’t have to. You know Ella said-wrote-that Munson had offered to find Ella her birth mother. Imagine if they had? And gave her an impostor family?”
“It’s incredibly sad,” Jane said. She’d been promised the scoop on the Brannigan story. Alex had insisted she send it to him in Washington. His office was empty now. There was already buzz about the new city editor. “People. Families, you know. Everyone’s is crazy, some of the time at least. But still-”
She touched Jake’s toe with hers. Thought about her mom, and her father, and home. Thought about families. Maybe she should go visit. Her father meant well. He just wasn’t good at showing it. People weren’t perfect. Life was short.
“-that’s all this whole Brannigan thing was about, you know? Families. People would do anything to find theirs. So Munson took their money, and sold them one. Sold them a family. He actually believed he was doing a good thing?”
“Yeah, so he insists,” Jake said. “Not killing Lillian, of course. Or taking Ardith. But by then he was trapped. Maggie Gunnison thought she was helping, too. No good deed, you know? The DA is considering probation for her, though, now that she’s promised to help untangle that paperwork.”