The Single Twin

by Sean Little

  Instead, she stepped toward the screen door and squinted at the card. “You don’t look like detectives.”

  “Is it because we’re not wearing trench coats?” said Duff. “I swear, I own one. It’s just too hot to throw on the ol’ London Fog at the moment.”

  “Not that.” Sherry Franklin scanned them both again. “Neither of you looks like you’ve ever been in a fistfight in your life.”

  Duff pointed at the scabbed split on his lip. “I just got punched yesterday!”

  “You look like you get punched a lot. Doesn’t mean you fight back.”

  Duff nodded, accepting her assessment. “Fair point. And accurate.”

  Abe tried to salvage the moment. “Detective work, real detective work, has surprisingly little violence. It’s only Hollywood’s depictions of it that makes it seem like you have to be good with your fists. Real detective work is a lot about looking through documents and tracking down long forgotten or misplaced information. We both do that sort of thing very well.”

  Sherry looked at Abe, then to Duff, and back to Abe. “Well, you might as well come in, then. I know you’re not murderers because no murderer would have given a boring-as-hell answer like that.”

  “Hey, we could be murderers. Don’t sell us short,” said Duff.

  Sherry unlocked the door to the front porch. “If you’re murderers, then I’m Julia Roberts.” She took the proffered business card from Abe and glanced at it again before stuffing it in the pocket of her jeans. “What kind of name is C.S.?”

  “A literary one.” Duff walked past Sherry into her home. Abe followed.

  The Franklin home was a combination of old and new. The house was old enough, but the decor inside was a collection of things at war with each other. The furniture was mostly art deco and modern, more about style than utility. This contrasted with the art and decorations on the wall which leaned far closer to traditional. There were some farm-and-country knick-knacks on the shelves, and several pieces commonly found in a more traditional Jewish home like a menorah on a cabinet and a mezuzah next to the front door. A curved shofar hung on the wall next to a small dining table in the kitchen.

  “Have a seat at the kitchen table. You boys want coffee? I’ve got one of those Keurigs.”

  “No, thank you,” said Abe. “Like I said, I hope this will only take a moment and then we’ll get out of your hair.” He and Duff took seats at the table.

  Sherry wandered into the living room and picked up a silver-and-blue Yeti mug of coffee from an end table next to the gray, post-modern couch. She walked back into the room and sat at the head of the coffee table. “So, what can I help you with?”

  Abe took out his little pocket notebook and put on a pair of cheaters. Like most men his age, his eyesight was starting to get fuzzy. “We’re looking into something strange that happened many years ago, back when you were in Baltimore.”

  Sherry’s eyebrows shot up. “You know about me? It was a long time ago.”

  “Standard investigation stuff, ma’am,” said Duff.

  Abe continued. “We have reason to believe you may be privy to some information about a sketchy adoption about thirty-five years ago.”

  Sherry’s face lit up instantly, and she sat up in her chair. “Oh. Oh, yes. I know exactly what you’re talking about. The twins, right?”

  Duff and Abe exchanged a look. “That would be it, yes.”

  Sherry slumped back in her chair. “I was a rookie nurse. I’d just finished my degree at the University of Maryland and working at the hospital there was the first job I’d ever held in my entire life. Never had to work in high school, and my parents told me to concentrate on my degree in college. They footed the bills for everything. I remember I wanted to do so well in that job. I worked so hard, at first.”

  “You worked in the delivery ward?” asked Abe.

  “Yeah. Typical for a dumb twenty-something girl to want to work with the babies, I know. I was baby-crazy until I had my own. Then, after I learned how much work they were it pretty much tempered my feelings on them.”

  “And this moment. The twins?” Duff prompted her.

  “It was strange, really strange.” Sherry took a sip from her big, steel mug and set it down. She looked like she was trying to gather her thoughts. “I’m like three months into the job at this point. It was long enough so I knew what I was doing by then, but I was still considered the new girl by all the doctors and other nurses. No one was looking over my shoulder while I worked anymore, but I was also not really asserting myself professionally. I didn’t want to rock the boat. After thirty years as a nurse, I’d rock an entire hospital. I don’t give a flying fig anymore.”

  She took another sip of her coffee. “I remember this teenage girl gets brought in and she’s the size of a planet. Definitely carrying twins. She was taken to a rather expensive private suite, which was very strange for a lower-income teenage, black, single mother at the time. I remember there were two men in suits in the hallway outside the room. They gave off a seriously odd vibe. Felt like police, but not quite. They never came in to talk to the girl. Never said anything to any of us.”

  “They were there for the baby boy, weren’t they?” said Duff.

  “You know already! Why are you here?” Sherry looked shocked.

  “We know some things. We want to see if we can find out what we don’t know. We were hired by the sister of that baby boy to see if we might locate him for her,” said Abe.

  Sherry whistled lowly. “Good luck. It was the damnedest thing I ever saw at a hospital.”

  “How do you mean?” asked Abe.

  “Well, the delivery went down without a hitch, save for the fact the poor girl was on her own. Her own mother didn’t even show up for the birth. She told me her momma was working and couldn’t get out of work. Can you believe that?” Sherry shook her head. “I spent most of the delivery holding the poor girl’s hand and coaching her through it. She gave birth to two healthy babies, a little boy and a little girl. Once the babies were cleaned up and swaddled, I started to hand the boy to her but those guys in suits rushed in. They told me to get out, told the other nurse in there to get out, too. So, we left. The only people in the room were the doctor, those two suit-wearing gents, and the poor young mother.”

  Sherry shook her head slowly as if the memory of that night was coming back to her in sharper focus. She rubbed at her forehead. “The two guys in suits spoke to the doctor. They spoke to the young mother. Then, I saw them take papers out of their coats. They handed something to the doctor and made the young woman and the doctor sign some things. Then, they simply walked out of the hospital room with the newborn baby as it squalled in their arms. Poor little guy never even got to be held by his mother.”

  “They falsified the certificate of live birth, didn’t they?” said Abe.

  Sherry nodded. “All hospital records showed that poor young girl gave birth to a daughter, and only a daughter. As far the official records go, the little boy was never born. I tried to ask around about it, but I was told by the doctor and by a hospital administrator in no uncertain terms it was none of my concern, and I should forget it happened. Being an eager-to-please rookie nurse, I tried my best to do just that. I can’t believe they took an infant away, though. That was dangerous. Risky. I prayed a lot for the baby for a couple of weeks. Then, I don’t know, I guess I just forgot about praying for him. I sort of forgot about the whole incident. Every so often, I’d remember it, but it is not central in my memory anymore.”

  “You don’t know anything beyond what you told us?” asked Duff.

  Sherry sat back in her chair. She looked sad. “I talked to the mother, of course. When no one else was around, I asked her what happened. She told me she agreed to a private adoption with some man who agreed to pay for her hospital stay and set her up in an apartment with a decent job so she could take care of her daughter. She told me I couldn’t tell anyone, though. Made me swear on my life not to tell. She was really fearful the men woul
d cheat her on their agreement if she ever told.”

  “Seems like a good deal for a teenage girl in need,” said Abe. “I don’t blame her.”

  “It really opened my eyes as a privileged rich girl. Made me appreciate the fact my back had never been to the wall. I never had to make a decision that heavy. How did she live with herself afterward? How did she raise a daughter knowing her little girl had a brother out there?”

  Abe was scrawling notes in his flip-cover journal. “You know nothing about the men who took the baby? Was one of them the adoptive father?”

  Sherry shook her head, but it did not look like she was certain. “No. I don’t know for sure, of course. But no, I don’t think so. Adoptive fathers usually fret and watch through the window. This guy was cold, distant, indifferent.” She closed her eyes and thought hard. “She said the whole thing happened really fast. Like, she met the man a week or two prior to the delivery. I don’t remember the girl ever saying a name. She just said he was rich.”

  “You’d have to be to have that sort of pull in a situation like this,” said Abe. “Why do you think they chose to falsify the certificate of live birth?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine, I suppose. Obviously they wanted to hide the baby’s parentage.” Sherry thought for a long moment. “I suppose, without any sort of records at the hospital of birth, the baby could have been taken to some other hospital where other birth info could have been forged.”

  “Instead of an adoption, it would look like some rich mother had a live birth herself when she didn’t actually have one.” Duff looked to Abe. “So, we’re not looking for adoption. All the adoption records Mindy had were useless. We’re looking for a faked live birth record.”

  “How would you find a live birth record that’s faked?” Sherry looked incredulous. “If they wrote it up, signed and dated it, and had a doctor sign off on it, it’s the real birth record, even if it’s fake.”

  Abe saw Duff’s eyes go distant. He knew that look. It was unsettling. It was Duff trying to make sense of something weird, something that didn’t line up with the parameters he’d set in his head. Whenever Duff’s face took on the thousand-yard stare, Abe knew they were close to whatever they needed to know. Abe pressed on with the questions. “Do you know why they took the baby from Maryland to Chicago?”

  “The baby ended up here?” Sherry’s eyes arched high on her forehead in surprise. “How? Where?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out,” said Abe. “The woman who hired us to find the baby knew he went to the greater Chicago area, but that’s about it.”

  “Incredible.” Sherry slumped back against her chair. “I thought about that young girl many times during my career. I always wondered what happened to her.”

  “She raised the baby well. She died not long ago of breast cancer,” said Abe. “The little girl went on to be a military officer and a counter-terrorism expert with the C.I.A.”

  A slow, wide smile spread across Sherry’s face. Her eyes looked moist. She reached out a hand and patted Abe’s hand. “Thank you for telling me. I’m so glad it worked out for her.”

  Sherry looked at Duff. He was still doing his blank face. “Is he okay?”

  “Not in the least,” said Abe. “But he’s been my partner so long he’s like a brother to me at this point.”

  Sherry waved a hand over his face. Duff didn’t flinch. “Is he having a seizure or something?”

  “In a way.” Abe stood and smacked Duff in the cheek lightly with the back of his hand. “Duffer! Time to go.”

  The light flooded back into Duff’s eyes. He did not act like a man who just got caught zoning out. He simply stood and held out a hand. “Mrs. Franklin, thank you for your time.”

  She shook his hand lightly. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

  “I get by,” said Duff.

  Abe shook her hand, as well. “I appreciate you opening your home to us like this. We’ll be on our way.”

  “Do me a favor,” said Sherry. “Let me know if you find the baby. I’d like to know what happened to him.”

  “We’ll do that,” promised Abe.

  THEY LEFT SCHAUMBURG with all due haste. As Abe guided The Fucking Embarrassment back through the suburban traffic, Duff was quiet. He was staring again. His mouth hung open slightly as he processed the visit with Mrs. Franklin.

  “What are you thinking about, buddy?”

  Duff was silent for a moment longer. “I can understand a rich family wanting to bury an adoption. If you wanted an heir everyone would respect, you use your money and influence to basically buy a baby. But, what I don’t get is the jump from Maryland to Chicago. Are you telling me they couldn’t find a teenage mother in Chicago willing to part with a baby? How about South Bend? How about Indianapolis, Milwaukee, the Twin Cities, Des Moines, or St. Louis? How about Pittsburgh?”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “Abe, there are probably fifty or sixty large cities closer to Chicago than Baltimore? Were all these major metropolitan centers just without black babies born to single mothers thirty-five years ago? Highly doubtful.”

  “Maybe the distance was to help keep it quiet? Not a lot of people from Maryland will be inquiring as to someone’s affairs in Chicago.” Abe signaled for a turn and moved the Volvo through a gap in traffic to turn onto 290 South.

  “You think finding a baby in Milwaukee wouldn’t have done the same thing? People from Milwaukee don’t talk to people from Chicago unless it’s to insult each other’s football or baseball teams.” After a moment Duff added under his breath, “The Bears suck. Screw the Cubs.”

  Abe had to agree Duff had a point. “It does seem weird.”

  Duff drummed his fingers on his knee. “This is the sort of stupid shit that keeps me awake for days, Abe.”

  “That’s why you’re good at your job, pal. Try not to think about it for a while. Let it percolate in the back of your mind for a time. We’ll go back through Mindy’s stuff and see if we can link anything together.”

  “I don’t think it will help,” said Duff. “She was looking for an adopted baby. She was going down the wrong path.”

  “So why does someone want to stop her from searching for her brother?”

  “And who has been keeping tabs on her to come after her when she started probing? That’s my question.” Duff spat out the window in disgust. “This crap ain’t adding up, Abe old bean.”

  Abe’s cell phone rang. While driving, Abe fished it out of his pants and saw Betts’s contact info on the call screen. Abe hit the speakerphone button. “This is Abe.”

  There was a moment of silence. “Jesus Christ, Abe. Sounds like you’re in a damned wind tunnel.”

  Abe set the phone down on the dash while he and Duff cranked up the windows of the car. “Sorry, Betts. We’re on the highway.” With the windows closed, the car immediately became a sauna. It had already been hot and humid. Now it was a hotbox, a torture device. Abe felt speckles of sweat dotting his bald head immediately. Rivulets began running down his temples and cheeks seconds later.

  “I got some info about the homicide from last night.” Betts rattled off the info without emotion. “Name’s Montrell Davies, twenty-four. He’s got a short rap sheet, but nothing major on it. A couple of thefts, a drunk-and-disorderly. No gang tats. No known affiliations. He played football at Iowa State for two years until he wrecked his knee during training camp before his junior year. After that, he dropped out of college, moved to Chicago, and worked a bunch of odd jobs. No drugs in his system. Nothing out of the ordinary on his person.”

  “Wrong place, wrong time?” asked Abe.

  “Might be,” said Betts. “Probably the most likely scenario.”

  “Did he have a wallet?” asked Duff.

  The sound of papers being shuffled came through the phone. “Yes. Wallet and cell phone. That’s it, though. No keys. No chapstick. Nothing else. Cell phone was not charged. We’re charging it now. The wallet did not have any definite I.D
. and only a few bucks cash.”

  “It wasn’t a robbery, then. It was a murder for a reason. I want to see the wallet and phone,” said Duff.

  “Well, get here, then. Autopsy gave us no surprises. Cause of death was a G.S.W. to the chest from close range. Just like you’d assume.”

  “Anything else, Detective?” asked Abe.

  “Nada. Any ideas?”

  “Not as of yet, but if we get one, we’ll let you know. Thanks for letting us know.” The phone went dead before Abe could end the call.

  Abe noticed a text came through while Betts was on the phone. Abe made sure the car in front of him was distant enough to risk a glance at the message. It was from Katherine’s number, but the text-speak clearly showed it was from Matilda. Hi Daddy! Dinner 2Nite? Just Me & U?

  Abe passed the phone back to Duff. “Text Tildy for me, would you? Tell her, Yes. I’ll pick you up at five. And make sure you spell it correctly and use all the punctuation and such. It drives me nuts when she does teen-text abbreviation emoji stuff.”

  Duff thumbed at Abe’s phone for a second. Then he sent the message and passed it back to Abe the message read, Y. 5pm.

  “Really?”

  Duff shrugged. “Roll with the times, you fossil.”

  A return text came through from Matilda. It was just two heart emojis. Duff opened the emoji menu and thumbed in twenty or so random emojis. Several different face emojis, a Tin Lizzie, a cat, a pig, a palm tree, three vomiting faces in a row, a rocket ship, baseball, stop sign, yield sign and a few others Abe didn’t quite catch. He hit send.