by Sean Little
“What did all that mean?”
Duff shrugged. “Hell if I know. I was just hitting buttons.”
A second later, Tilda’s return text popped up. It was a googly-eyed face with the text, LoveU2 Uncle D.
Duff snorted. “She knew it was me.” He couldn’t hide his smile.
“Well, duh. She knows I wouldn’t send that sort of message.”
“You should start. It keeps you young.”
THEY RODE IN silence for the next twenty minutes. Duff was staring out the window, deep in thought, trying to process the threads of something fishy. His eyes stared unblinking at the blue afternoon sky. Even if the sun flashed in his eyes, he did not seem to notice. His puzzle-brain had taken full control of his body. His mind was elsewhere, trying to put the pieces in a logical order. They did not want to fall into a clean, easy, progression and it bothered him. The biggest problem he had was figuring out the Maryland-to-Chicago connection. Why Maryland? Why Chicago? Why that particular young girl in that particular neighborhood? Why did they only want the male child and not both children?
In Duff’s mind the logical play if you wanted to adopt a child without the rigmarole of the adoption process would be to do essentially what happened at the hospital in Baltimore. If you had the money to pull it off, you could bribe doctors and bribe the administration of a hospital to look the other way and get yourself a baby pretty easily, especially thirty-five years ago when the internet was yet a dream and most files were still backed-up on paper in massive filing cabinets taking up whole floors in major hospitals.
Duff reset his brain and started with the Who, rather than the Where. Who would have enough money, enough power to make a play like this? Who would have the influence to silence a hospital and simply take a baby the way they did? A newborn, minutes old, was whisked out of a hospital by men in suits and taken...where?
Abe stutter-stepped the brake on the Volvo because of traffic. Duff barely noticed. He rocked in his seat but did not flinch otherwise. Duff licked his lips. “D.C.”
“What?”
Duff spoke in a slow, monotone voice. “That’s the only thing I can think of. Who would have the money and power to buy off a hospital and a young girl like they did? It had to be someone in Washington D.C. It’s an hour from Baltimore. That’s far enough outside the limits of the town that you could keep people from talking if you were quiet enough and nailed up the loose ends.”
Abe tried to switch lanes, but the driver of the car in front of him slammed on his brakes, so Abe was forced to tromp the brake on the Volvo bringing the car almost to a halt. Duff was launched forward against the seatbelt, all inertia slinging his head around to face forward. He could not help but be jumped out of his puzzle-brain by his primitive, survive-at-all-costs lizard-brain whose job it was to keep him alive no matter what. Duff looked around at the surroundings as if seeing them for the first time. He slowly started to note the locations that gave him a sense of bearing. He knew where he was at the moment. Traffic was almost at a dead stop. Duff’s eyes flitted from one thing to the next, constantly scanning for details.
Duff’s eyes landed on a blue, rectangular sticker on the bumper of the pick-up truck ahead of them. The dark blue almost matched the Patriot blue of the mid-’90s Chevy S-10 to which the sticker was attached. Duff could not help but read the name on the sticker. Then, just like it always did when he made a major connection, a sensation rippled through his mind not unlike the sensation one gets from watching a line of dominoes falling. The fog lifted from the part of Duff’s brain that was looking for logical connections. Power. Money. Almost forty years of continuous control. The ability to suppress information. It all suddenly made sense to him. It had to be a congressman, someone with executive-level power who had held that role for all that time. Someone with access to Washington D.C. as well as Illinois. Only one man in the state fit that bill.
“Stevens.” Duff read the name from the sticker. “The guy who took the baby. Robert ‘Even’ Stevens, the Congressman.”
Abe jerked his head around with a look of disbelief. “Are you insane?”
Duff was staring intently at the sticker. The puzzle pieces clicked together with crystal-clear focus in his mind. “Listen to the facts, Abe: First, let’s start with the fact whoever is doing this had to have power and money. The only people who have that much power and money are Congressmen. They have lobbyists. They have handlers. They even have the backing of the White House if it benefits the party in charge. That’s why they found a girl in Baltimore. It was close, yet far from D.C. where they were living at the time. Second, whoever did this would have had to be relevant thirty-five years ago and still relevant enough today to want to silence someone for seeking the truth.”
Abe’s mouth moved like a fish gasping for air. “So?”
“Who is the only person in the world with a connection to D.C. and Chicago that has lasted for more than thirty-six years? Who is up for reelection in a couple of months? Who would have spies in place in the C.I.A. or the Illinois state government to know if someone started digging into Maryland-to-Chicago adoptions?”
Abe’s mouth snapped closed. He thought long and hard about what Duff was saying.
Duff continued. “He’s also the only African American to be in politics for the last forty years in Chicago, hence why they needed a black baby. Tell me, Abe: who else could it be?”
Abe had no answer.
Duff’s puzzle-brain shot a load of endorphins into his body the way it always did when the pieces fit. He had no proof of anything with this theory, of course. It was just the only logical explanation. Marcus Edward Stevens, the handsome, charismatic son of a congressman, the former standout running back at Northwestern, was actually the long-lost brother of Mindy Jefferson. He had been covertly adopted, and now Congressman Robert “Even” Stevens was trying to silence someone who might expose this long-buried event. But why?
“Why would Stevens want to cover up a private adoption this way, though?” Duff chewed his lower lip. Some of the puzzle was clearer, but there was still a lot of fog. At least he felt more certain they were heading in the right direction.
“We’re going to have to look into Stevens,” said Abe. “Research his history. I don’t have any idea about how to proceed on this, otherwise.”
“We will,” said Duff. “We will.”
“We don’t tell Betts until we have proof,” said Abe.
“Agreed.” Duff fished his phone out of his pocket, and he used it to search for a picture of Robert Stevens and his son, Marcus, side-by-side. They were not very similar. “Look at this.” Duff held the phone up by the center of the dashboard so Abe could glance at it while he drove. “They don’t look a lot alike. Marcus has an oval head shape. Robert’s is squarish. Marcus has attached earlobes. Robert has unattached. Their noses are different. Robert’s got a flat, wide nose. Marcus’s is angular, hawkish almost.”
Abe glanced at the picture while trying to maintain an even course on the crowded road and not run up the back of the car in front of him. “Does Marcus look like Mindy? Does he look like Kimberly Stevens?”
Duff enlarged the photo of Marcus. “I need to compare him to Kimberly Stevens too, but I guess maybe he looks sort of like Mindy. It’s hard to tell. Fraternal twins can be really different. Not to mention, his life has altered his features. He doesn’t have Mindy’s hard, piercing eyes. He’s starting to get a little soft while she’s lean like a viper. I don’t know, man. I could make an argument either way.”
Duff brought up a picture of Kimberly Stevens and Marcus standing together at a recent fundraiser for Robert’s new campaign. “Doesn’t look anything like Kimberly. The nose, the eyes, the chin, the head-shape—it’s all wrong.”
Abe checked the picture. “Yeah, she’s definitely not his.” Matilda looked like her mother, but there was enough of Abe’s hangdog features about her to let anyone who compared her to him know his D.N.A. was in there somewhere. Kimberly Stevens did not share one
iota of similarity with Marcus.
“I know this sounds racist of me, but even their skin tones are wrong.” Duff was flipping back and forth between the two photos of Marcus with his parents. “Look at it. Kimberly and Robert are both quite dark. Let’s say they’re like mahogany. Would you call that mahogany?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“Marcus is not that dark. He’s a lot lighter. I know it doesn’t necessarily mean anything—they could have light skin in the family and all that, but when you look at Marcus’s skin-tone, he matches Mindy’s skin-tone, not the Stevens’.”
Abe admitted Duff was correct in his assumption. “It doesn’t make it proof, though.”
“I know, but I think we can agree we're on the right track.”
They rode in silence the rest of the way to the district. Abe even shut the radio off so they could dwell properly on this breakthrough. When they arrived at the cop shop, Betts was in his office. Gates was there, too. She was seated in one of the two chairs opposite Betts’s desk. Her legs were crossed primly, and she was looking intently at a file. Betts was shuffling through a mound of paperwork, pen poised in the fingers of his right hand.
Abe and Duff walked through the door. Betts didn’t even say anything. He just handed over the wallet. Duff took it and ran through it. There was no I.D. card in the little spot with the plastic window where there should have been an I.D. card. There were no credit cards, either. That was not unusual in and of itself. Plenty of twenty-four-year-olds didn’t have a credit card, especially twenty-four-year-old college dropouts.
“The phone?” Duff asked.
Betts pulled it off a charger on the desk next to him. “It’s locked. I have a call in to tech to break it, but they have not been able to get here, yet.”
“Pssh!” Duff hissed through his teeth. “Tech, he says.”
Abe knew where Duff was going already. “Search the internet for a picture of this kid in his football uniform.”
Betts squinted at Abe. “Why?”
“Trust me,” said Duff. “I’ll get you into this phone in two shakes.”
Betts shrugged and did a search. There was a link to an old picture of the Iowa State team with Montrell Davies’s name listed. Betts brought up the page and found the number. “Says he was number 24.”
Duff thumbed in the four-digit code 2424. The phone unlocked.
“It’s pretty simple, actually. Athletes, especially the more elite athletes, tend to have some sort of near-fetish for their jersey numbers,” said Abe. “It’s practically universal. The number dominates their thoughts and lives. It’s not just athletes, too. We’ve done a lot of work around this town and it’s always a pretty safe bet to try 3434 for codes.”
“Everybody still loves Walter Payton in this city. Can’t blame ‘em for that.” Duff thumbed through the phone. Basic apps. Nothing fancy. No social media. “It’s a burner.”
Betts snatched it out of Duff’s hands. “Let me see.” He thumbed through the apps. Even the messaging app held no messages. The Contacts app was blank. Even the call history looked like it was purged after each call. Betts threw the phone onto his desk in disgust. “Dammit.”
“Well, that was a waste,” said Duff.
From the chair, Gates said, “Maybe IT can still pull something off the hard drive in it?”
“Anything’s possible, I guess,” said Betts.
Duff flopped into the chair next to Gates. “Got an address for this guy, yet? Anything we can go search through?”
“Not yet,” said Betts.
“Dammit.” Duff slapped his hand off the chair’s armrest angrily. “I was hoping I’d find some sort of proof, some sort of evidence to link him to that guy.”
“What guy?” asked Betts.
“No one,” said Abe. “We’ll tell you if we find hard proof.”
“Or even flaccid proof.” Duff lifted his ball cap and scratched absently at the short hairs on his head.
“Dick jokes? Really?” Gates arched a single eyebrow at Duff, wholly unimpressed.
“It’s okay, Gates. I’m sure you’re no stranger to flaccid dicks,” said Duff.
Gates tossed the file she was reading onto Betts’s desk. “You’re lucky I’m immune to dick jokes.”
“I am? Why?”
“Because otherwise I’d rip yours off and feed it to you.”
Duff thought for a second. “To be honest, I could use a light snack.”
The corner of Gates’s mouth jerked slightly. “Nice. Most guys would have said something about it being a filling meal or some such bullshit.”
“I could never lie to you, Detective Gates.” Duff laced his fingers under his chin in a cherubic pose and shot Gates a big-eyed smile.
Abe picked up the folder Gates tossed down. “Are these the autopsy photos?”
“They are.” Gates shrugged. “Nothing in them, though. Unless you’ve never seen a G.S.W. to the heart, in which case, be my guest. I just hope you haven’t eaten today.”
Abe picked up the folder. Inside were the medical examiner's notations and results from the autopsy as well as digital photos of the various stages of the procedure. It was not viewing for the weak of heart or stomach.
Abe flipped to the first two photos on the second page of the file. The first photo was the vic as Abe had seen him in the apartment, sans life of course. Still in the jeans and hoodie, still with a bloodstain where the heart should be. The second picture was after the M.E. had cut the hoodie off the vic. He was wearing a blue T-shirt underneath. The shirt, although bloodstained, still had a readable logo across the chest: Even Stevens for Congress.
Abe plucked the photo from the file and handed it Duff. The fat man practically vaulted out of his chair. “Holy shit.”
“It’s not hard evidence, but it’s definitely flaccid evidence.” Abe plucked the photo from Duff’s fingers and handed it back to Betts. He moved to the door and closed it. He took a deep breath. “Detectives, we have a story for you. Get comfortable.”
-9-
GATES AND BETTS listened to Duff and Abe’s recap of the case Mindy handed to them and how it potentially tied into Congressman Stevens. They listened with the jaded, skeptical ears of police detectives who were used to hearing perps caught red-handed proclaiming their innocence. They listened with the same sort of pick-it-apart critical-listening skills they would use to dismantle someone’s weak alibi. Abe and Duff would get no quarter from them, no reasonable doubt just because they were supposed to be on the “same side” of a murder investigation. The semi-friendly rivalry Abe and Duff had with Betts went back as long as Abe and Duff had been in business, back when Betts was a rookie himself before he even grew the pornstache. Abe and Duff’s history had earned the right to be heard by the detectives, but it did not guarantee belief. Betts lived to prove them wrong, even though it did not happen often.
After Abe finished his recap, with a few choice phrases added by Duff, Betts and Gates exchanged a glance. Betts leaned forward and rested his elbows on his desk. He tented his fingers and rested his chin on them.
After a long moment of staring at the back of the nameplate on his desk, Betts finally exhaled a long breath through his nose. It whistled slightly. “So.”
Gates leaned forward in her chair. “So.”
Betts licked his lips. “You are trying to tell me your client, this Mindy-person—”
“Mindy Jefferson,” said Abe.
“Mindy Jefferson.” Betts continued his summation. “This client of yours found out she had a brother. She started looking for this brother. Someone who knew about this brother is trying to have her silenced. You think the Distinguished and Honorable Gentleman who represents half our state in Congress—not even the fucking House of Representatives, but Congress—is the man who adopted the child and is trying to have your client silenced.”
“That sounds like a load of bollocks to me,” said Gates.
“Isn’t bollocks a British term?” said Duff.
“Fuck you
, Duff. I can be British if I want. I watch Downton Abbey.”
“I’m just saying cajones might be more culturally appropriate for you.”
“Hey, if you pasty Anglos can eat our tacos, I can say bollocks.”
“I’m half-Irish.”
“Like I give a shit.”
“Ladies,” Betts said sharply.
“I’m a dude,” said Duff.
“Debatable.” Betts started bringing up Google’s image search and pulling up photos of Marcus, Robert, and Kimberly Stevens just as Duff had done in the car. “If Stevens did adopt a baby from that girl in Maryland, so what? Adopting a baby isn’t a crime.”
“He didn’t really adopt it, though,” said Abe. “He kind of bought it. I don’t think you can buy a baby. It never went through the legal adoption process. For all intents and purposes, Marcus Stevens is Robert Stevens’s legal son, no different than if he was naturally born to him. The only way anyone would know any different is if we did a blood test.”
“This is pretty far-fuckin-out there, fellas.” Betts tilted his head back and looked at the ceiling. Abe could tell he was chewing over the mouthful of bizarre probability he’d just been force-fed.
“Do you have any proof?” said Gates.
“Nope. Not a thing,” said Duff. “This is just the only logical outcome which makes sense to me. It fits the timeline. It explains the ability to hush-hush something like this. It explains the Maryland-to-Chicago connection. It explains why someone is trying to keep Mindy quiet, sort of. We just haven’t a single idea of the motive or logic behind it all. Why would he need this to be quiet? Why did he have such a dark-ops private adoption? How did he know Mindy was looking into searching for her brother?”
“We’re going to have to do more research, I guess,” said Abe.
Betts was squinting at the pictures on his computer monitor. “I guess I can see it in their faces. They don’t really look alike, do they?”
Gates leaned over to look, as well. “Skin tones aren’t matches.”
