Tell Me Who I Am (3 page)

I was down the street in a diner having a burger when he called back. I took my phone outside and listened to his findings.

“Sometimes they call them ‘baby mills'—like puppy mills, you know. There're thousands of them; the demand for kids is high, since a lot of people today are all wound up in their careers and wait too long to be able to produce their own families. Most provide full documentation of the baby's birth, but in the name of the adoptive parents. Legitimate adoption procedures are discouraged.”

“Was that true twenty years ago, about the documentation, I mean?”

“Not like it is now.”

“So the family Pamela Stanton was sold to might've needed a birth certificate and used that old dodge of requesting one of a child who had died from the state.”

“Right. But here's an interesting fact: you said the child was two?”

“Yes.”

“Then the crime wasn't baby brokering. She was too old. It was human trafficking.”

“What's the penalty for that?”

“In California, it varies. And our laws are designed for cases where the victims are sold into slavery—particularly sexual slavery. Your investigation takes us into murky territory. I put a call in to Hank and Anne-Marie”—the agency's affiliated attorneys—“but I haven't heard back yet.”

I thanked him and asked him to call me when one of them got in touch. Then went back inside to my cold burger and thought of the day Pamela Stanton had disappeared into that murky territory. Wherever her parents had taken her, they'd been back home in time to prepare dinner. It hadn't been a long trip.

Someplace in the county?

Well, the Yellow Pages weren't going to help me. There wouldn't be listings for “baby brokers” or “human traffickers.” I needed an inside source, someone who would know about illegal activities and—more important—would talk about them. My mind sifted through the people I'd met here and kept coming back to the newspaper owner, Tricia Prine.

Prine was still in her office when I arrived. “I've been having a lot of trouble with a story I'm working on,” she told me.

When I finished telling her what'd found out, she said, “Interesting, the difference between baby broker and human trafficker. I wasn't aware of that.”

“I guess few people are. Do you recall anyone in the county, particularly in Colusa, who might match either description?”

Prine was silent for a moment. Then she said, “Two. An attorney named Jerome Page and an orphanage called Home Sweet Home. The orphanage is long gone, but Page is still practicing in Colusa.” She read off the phone number, home, and office addresses.

Okay, Mr. Page, Esquire.

Jerome Page's office was in a faux adobe building near the Colusa city hall. When I arrived at nine the next morning, a slender woman in a black business suit and high stiletto heels was unlocking its door. She showed me in, told me Mr. Page usually appeared between then and nine thirty, and began making coffee; the cup she brought me was very good—some sort of vanilla bean blend.

Page arrived at nine twenty. A short man, somewhat heavy, with a clipped mustache and receding brown hair. When I mentioned the Pamela Stanton case, he turned away from me. “Give me a few minutes to get organized,” he told the secretary.

When she showed me into his office some ten minutes later, Page was seated behind a light-oak desk, shuffling some papers. He didn't rise or offer his hand, nor did he invite me to sit down. I sat anyway and slid my card over to him. A faint flush colored his cheeks as he looked at it.

He pushed it aside.

“Now what's this about, Ms. McCone?” he asked.

“As I said before, the Pamela Stanton case.”

“Little girl who disappeared some twenty years ago? It was big news here for a while, but I can't say as I recall much about it.”

“Let me refresh your memory.” I went over the details.

“But what does all that have to do with me?”

“At that time, according to local sources who prefer to remain anonymous, you fulfilled the role of an adoption facilitator.”

He swallowed, picked up a pencil that was lying on his desk blotter, and began turning it between his thick fingers. “I admit I may have placed one or two unwanted babies with adoptive parents, but such procedures are perfectly legal under state law.”

“You
may have
?”

“…I did.”

“How many was it—one or two?”

“Um…two.”

“I suppose you have records of those proceedings?”

“In storage, yes.”

“I'd like to see them.”

“They're strictly confidential. And would take days, even weeks, to find.”

I studied him. Beads of sweat were beginning to appear on his high forehead, although it was cool here in his office.

I took out my notebook—a little leather one I seldom use for anything more than grocery lists—and flipped through it.

“Does the name Judson have any meaning for you? In particular Dennis and Marla Judson?” I showed him the photos; he barely glanced at them.

“No.” He replied too quickly and a nervous tic appeared at the corner of his mouth.

“Not names that might appear in those old confidential files?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Aren't you curious about why I'm asking you about them?”

“Not especially. But who are they and what do they want from me?”

“They don't want a thing from you, Mr. Page. They're both dead.”

“Then why…?”

“Their daughter, Debra Judson, is my client. And she has evidence that suggests she is—or formerly was—Pamela Stanton.”

“Impossible!”

“Why?”

“Pamela Stanton was a child who wandered off into the woods. Her body was never found.”

I looked at my notebook again. The page I'd turned it to read “orange juice, salmon, dishwasher soap.”

“My client has documents that indicate otherwise.” When Page flushed again I added, “Memories too.”

“She couldn't possibly remember anything, she was only two—”

“Some children—especially exceptional ones—retain memories from early childhood.”

“What does she remember?”

I shook my head. “What do
you
remember, Mr. Page?”

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing!” He stood. “And now, Ms. McCone, I want you to leave my offices—at once.”

The man, I decided, wouldn't be budged from his story. Not by me. But my client's history of growing up in Michigan was another thing entirely: interstate human trafficking is under the jurisdiction of the FBI. I was quite certain that Page wouldn't be able to stonewall them. I called Craig and asked him to hand over the case to his contacts there. Then I went to collect Jackson Stanton from the bar.

Jackson was horrified when I explained how his parents had sold his little sister. “How could they've done that?” he asked. “She was such a little sweetheart.”

I just shook my head.

“But you say she had a good life with these Judson people?”

“Yes, but they're both gone, and now she's searching for family. Would you like to fly back to San Francisco with me and meet her?”

Jackson hesitated, then studied his image in the mirror on the backbar. “Would she want to see me like this, an old hairy drunk in ratty clothes?”

“She wants to see you. We can deal with the hair and ratty clothes. The drunk part is up to you.”

He looked wistfully at his beer, then pushed it away. Stood and said, “Then let's get a move on.”

Later that day when Jackson—a cleaned-up and barbered man in brand-new clothing—and my client met in my office, the resemblance between them was totally apparent: same facial shape; same eye color; similar features. His had been roughened by too many bad years; hers were toned and smooth, but the worry lines around the eyes were the same. I was sure a DNA test would prove they were brother and sister.

At first they were shy, exchanging pleasantries but holding back in a way that decidedly would not make a good TV movie. I ordered in sandwiches from Angie's Deli downstairs, then found an excuse to leave them alone. When I peeked through the office video cam an hour later, they were sitting close, talking earnestly. I ordered up dessert. And when they emerged an hour after that, they were holding hands. After they'd left, I felt lonely for my own relatives.

Mick was out somewhere on a case. John didn't answer any of his phones. Sister Charlene, I knew, was overseas and probably in lengthy conferences with bankers and venture capitalists. Sister Patsy answered her cellular but said she'd have to call me back; she was supervising the installation of a pizza oven at her restaurant in Napa County.

Who else? Robin Blackhawk, my half sister in law school at UC Berkeley? No, she was in Cozumel for a long-deserved vacation. Saskia Blackhawk, my birth mother, had told me she'd be in Washington, DC, for the week. Ma, my adoptive mother, was jurying an art show in Mendocino County and hadn't left a number. Of course, there was my birth father, Elwood Farmer.

After three rings he answered at his home on the Flathead Reservation in Montana. I started babbling about solving the cold case and telling my client who she was, as I'd been hired to do.

“Relax, my daughter,” he said. And then added a variation of the first phrase he'd ever delivered to me, “Wait a moment, until you've assembled your thoughts.”

I waited and assembled. I could hear Elwood's patient breathing.

Finally I said, “You know, Elwood,” then corrected myself, using the name he now preferred I call him, “Father, a lot of the things that I'm required to do in my work don't make me feel proud. In fact, some of them are downright distasteful.”

“So you've told me.”

“Well, today I did something that makes me proud. I reunited a sister and brother who had been lost to each other since they were quite young.” Then I proceeded to tell him about the case.

“This should be no surprise to you,” he said when I'd finished. “It's what you did when you located your mother and your half brother and sister and me. Along with us and your adoptive relatives, you've created a whole new family. Be glad of it, and depend on it, as we depend on you.”

Please turn the page for a preview of Marcia Muller's new Sharon McCone mystery
SOMEONE ALWAYS KNOWS

Coming in July 2016

Ted buzzed me. “You're not going to like this.”

“What's the matter?”

“You and Hy have a visitor. Gage Renshaw.”

My breath caught and my pulse elevated. “…Gage—that can't be! Hy and I assumed he died years ago.”

“But you never received conclusive proof of it.”

“No, but it's been years since he disappeared. Knowing Gage, he would've turned up to devil us long before this. Are you sure it's him?”

“Turn on your surveillance cam and take a look.”

I touched the switch. The grainy picture on the monitor—not the best we should have bought—showed the reception desk; I moved the cursor to take in the rest of the room.

The figure slumped on the sofa was Gage Renshaw all right. Older, more rumpled than I remembered him, but still with that jet-black hair with a white shock hanging down over his Lincolnesque forehead.

“Son of a bitch,” I said.

“What should I do with him?” Ted asked. “Throw him off the roof garden.”

“Come on, Shar, this is serious. He's smarmy and obnoxious as ever, and he's demanding to see both you and Hy.”

I asked him to show Renshaw in.

Up close he looked even seedier than he had on the monitor. When he shambled into my office I noted that his hair was unbarbered and the large white shock that hung over his fore- head was greasy, and that he hadn't shaved today. His clothing, khakis and a blue shirt, were rumpled and worn. His beat-up leather flight jacket I could understand: both Hy and I had ones like it; the more years you're a pilot, the more evidence of your prowess you want to exhibit, and—for whatever reason—a disreputable flight jacket is part of the mystique.

He spread his hands wide and said, “Here you see me in all my resurrected glory.” The raspy catch in his voice from smoking too much had worsened. Then he plunked himself down in one of the chairs that faced my desk and propped his feet on its edge. Yes, he did have a broken and badly knotted shoelace, and the heels and soles were worn down.

Hy took the other chair, and I retreated to mine. “So, Gage,” Hy said, “long time.”

“You bet.”

“What've you been doing with yourself?”

“This and that.” With an annoyed gesture he pushed the shock of white hair off his forehead.

“How come you haven't been in touch?”

“No need to be.” Then he looked around and added, “Nice operation you've got here.”

 “We like it,” I said.

“Bringing in the big bucks. Nice house in the Marina, nice place on the Mendo coast. And Hy, I hear you've still got the ranch. Still got a plane too. And this firm has one of those CitationJets, if you need to get where you're going in a hurry.”

“Where'd you get all this information?” Hy asked.

“You're a fine one to question me. We learned at the feet of the same father.”

“What does that mean?” Hy asked.

“Father Mammon. He taught us the lure of the buck.”

Hy's expression told me he had no patience for that kind of nonsense. He said, “What do you want, Gage?”

“What do I want?” He paused, rubbing his stubbled chin as if in thought. “What
does
Gage want? Well, at the moment he doesn't rightly know. Why don't you show me around this place?”

“It's off-limits to anybody but qualified personnel.” “You were always big on security, Ripinsky.”

“It's paid off for me.”

“For you, maybe.” He stroked his chin again. “Not for me.” Pause. “What
do
I want? Not an in with this agency, for sure. No action here. You've turned what was a great outfit into a bunch of wimpy yes-men. You still have the training camp down south? The safe houses?”

RI has always maintained various fully staffed dwellings throughout the country to provide for clients at risk. These range from pricey homes and condos to modest suburban tract houses to sleazy motels. I'd had the dubious privilege of hiding out in one of the worst in San Francisco, a former hot sheet motel near the Great Highway.

Hy said, “We have a number of safe houses, yes. We still own the camp, but we don't use it much any more.”

The training camp is comprised of fifty-some acres, an airstrip, and a few classrooms and housing near El Centro in the Imperial Valley. It was originally used for teaching operatives and clients the tools of their trade: self-defense, evasionary driving tactics, firearms skills, hand-to-hand combat. I'd been there only once, and encountered a horrible situation that had nearly cost Hy and me our lives. If I could help it, I'd never go back.

“Yeah,” Renshaw said, “it looked kind of dead when I drove by there on my way up here. Where you sending the new ops now?”

“We outsource the training.”

“Still, you oughta keep the place up. There're weeds growing through the asphalt on the runway. And the buildings look like shit.”

I asked, “Where were you driving up from, Gage?” “South.”

“That's no answer.”

“It's all you're getting.”

I noted the word
up
on a legal pad. Renshaw glanced curiously at me, but didn't ask what I'd written.

“You want to buy the camp? We're putting it up for sale soon,” Hy said. “You could start your own driver-training and stunt school.”

“Ha. No way.”

“Why not? You above all that now?”

They were likely to get off on an unnecessary and unproductive tangent, so I said, “Since you're so disparaging of the firm, Gage, and not legally entitled to any sort of compensation”—God, that was what I hoped to hear from Hank later!—“just why did you come here?”

He shook his head slowly. “I can't articulate it.”

“Try; I've never known you to be at a loss for words.” “But I am.” He spread his upturned hands wide.

“Then why show up at all, unannounced, after so many years?”

“Maybe I'm sentimental, just wanted to catch up on old times.”

“Well, it's been great, but…” I stood up.

Renshaw stood too. “Now that you've mentioned it, though, there just might be something I want from you old pals.” He chuckled and then started for the door. “You folks'll be hearing from me soon, you betcha.”