Julie’s smile turned from disarming to dangerous. ‘Donor number 7135 was my father.’
‘The father of us all,’ Andy said.
‘No, I mean my actual father, Andy. My dad. First tooth, first communion, first don’t-you-dare-keep-my-daughter-out-late kind of dad.’
Andy sat back abruptly, feigning shock.
‘I guess the secret’s out now,’ Julie said, skewering him with her eyes, ‘but you knew that already, didn’t you, Andrew?’
‘W-what are you talking about?’ he stammered.
‘The date on your baggage tag, Andrew Zimmer,’ she said, her voice dripping acid. ‘You were in Baltimore, Maryland. You met my dad.’
Andy’s eyes flicked to the duffle at his feet, then back to Julie. He melted into the back of his chair, looking defeated. ‘Yeah, it’s true. Ever since my mother died, I felt like half of me was a big question mark. I decided to look for my donor. I wanted to see his face. Is it like mine? I wanted to hear my donor laugh, see him smile, you know? I hoped to be able to shake his hand.’
I tried to imagine what it would have been like never to have known my own father – the smart, big-hearted, funny scientist I called Dad. My heart ached for what Andy had missed.
Andy paused for a sip of coffee, his hand shaking. ‘I put my DNA up early on. Every time there was a match, I’d think, this might be it, but the matches always turned out to be donor kids, too. So I decided to try another tack.’
‘Which was?’ I asked after several long seconds of silence.
‘There was this lab tech at the clinic. I don’t want to get her into trouble, so all I’ll say is I got a name. Once I had the name …’
I filled in the blank. Unlike Smith, Brown or Jones, Cardinale wasn’t exactly your garden variety family name. It must have been easy after that. And it was.
‘I did a search on Google,’ Andy said, addressing Julie. ‘There was a picture of your dad up on that church website. Once I saw the picture, I knew.’
‘Yeah, spitting image,’ Julie said dryly. ‘Well, I hope you got to shake his hand.’
He smiled. ‘I did.’
Julie attacked without mercy. ‘Because he died. A month ago.’
Andy fell back in his chair as if he’d been shot. ‘My God, no!’
Julie let him mull that over. I think we were both surprised when a single tear rolled down Andy’s cheek. He swiped it away. ‘Sorry,’ he sniffed. ‘I don’t know how I can miss someone I never really knew.
‘He’s dead?’ he repeated, as if he’d misheard. ‘I simply can’t believe it. All those years of wondering, then searching and I get to spend fifteen minutes with him, now …’ His eyes misted over. ‘Shit. Dead.’
‘Murdered, to be exact,’ I said.
His head jerked in my direction so quickly I thought he’d get whiplash. ‘I think I want to go back to Chicago and start this weekend all over again. Murdered?’
I nodded, deciding to skip the details.
Andy turned to his half-sister, his eyes pleading. ‘I didn’t kill him, Julie. When I left your house he was definitely alive.’
‘We saw that,’ Julie said, letting him off the hook inch by painful inch. ‘You were caught on a neighbor’s security camera.’
‘I see. Well, if that’s the case, then you know I had nothing to do with it.’
‘Somebody did,’ I said. ‘What can you tell us about your visit, Andy? It might help track Scott’s killer down.’
‘OK.’ He pushed his breakfast, now stone cold, aside. ‘I got there around one. Your dad was pulling weeds out of the flower bed in front of your house, Julie. I just walked up to him and introduced myself.’
‘That must have been difficult,’ I said.
Andy managed a smile. ‘I’d practiced it for years, Hannah. Hi. My name is Andrew Zimmer. Twenty-five years ago my mother became pregnant with the sperm you donated to a clinic in Chicago.’
I was trying to picture Scott’s face when confronted so baldly, but failed.
‘So, what did Dad say?’
‘He was really nice about it, Julie. He invited me into the backyard. I told him about my background and he seemed genuinely interested. Then he asked me for time to break the news to his family, in other words, you.’
‘And he honored that commitment, Julie,’ I said, thinking she’d been a bit brutal with him. ‘Andy could have revealed Donor 7135’s identity to everyone this weekend, but he didn’t.’
‘I kept thinking I’d hear from him,’ Andy said, sounding lost.
Julie nudged him gently. ‘What happened after that?’
‘He got a call on his cell, answered it, then told me he had to go.’
‘What time was that?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know – one thirty or so.’
‘Did he say who was calling him?’
‘No, why should he? He just apologized for cutting our talk short. Said it was business.’ Andy reached into his back pocket and pulled out a thin plastic case. ‘I gave him my card, and he told me he’d be in touch after he’d had time to think things over.’
He handed Julie one of his cards and waited while she studied it.
‘You’re an accountant,’ she observed.
He flushed. ‘Yeah. The apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree, does it?’
‘My brother, your half-brother, Sean, he’s working on a masters in Economics at Hopkins.’
‘Brigham Young for me,’ Andy said.
Julie wrapped her hand around Andy’s wrist. ‘You need to talk to the Baltimore police, Andy. They think my brother, Sean, might have killed our dad.’
‘You say I’m on tape?’
‘Yeah. Looking exactly like my brother.’
‘I am your brother.’
The remark made Julie smile.
Something was still puzzling me. ‘We mistook you for Sean on the tape because of the floppy hair.’
‘I got a haircut,’ Andy said simply, rubbing his hand over his fuzz.
Julie cocked her head. ‘How do we know you didn’t come back later?’
‘I took an Uber, Julie, both coming and going.’ He reached for his cell phone, tapped the screen and called up the Uber app with the record of his past trips. ‘See?’
‘OK, then,’ Julie said, after studying the screen. ‘I believe you.’
‘You want to freshen up your breakfast?’ I asked, indicating his long-neglected plate.
‘Not really hungry just now,’ Andy said.
‘Let me show you something.’ Julie reached into the knapsack hanging off the back of her chair and pulled out a thin paperback photo album. The Cardinale Family Summer, 2018 was scrawled across the cover in elegant calligraphic script. ‘I had it printed at Shutterfly,’ Julie explained.
I had to hand it to my niece – she’d come to the reunion prepared. At least four additional copies of her family album remained in her bag. I wondered who she planned to give them to.
Julie pushed the paperback across the table and watched silently as Andy opened it and began to leaf slowly through. ‘It’s like looking in a mirror,’ he said.
‘You can keep it,’ Julie said.
Andy wagged his head sadly. ‘I have so many questions.’
‘And I’ll do my best to answer them,’ she said.
Suddenly she popped up from her chair. ‘I know we did a group shot last night, but Aunt Hannah, will you take our picture?’ She looked at Andy. ‘Do you mind?’
‘Not at all.’ Andy stood up, too, wrapped his arm around Julie’s shoulders.
‘How do you take such wonderful pictures?’ I’d once asked my artist friend, Naddie Gray. ‘Stand as close to the subject as you think you need to be,’ she’d advised, ‘and then step closer.’
Brother and sister smiled as I framed the shot, stepped closer, then pressed the button.
‘Will you email it to me?’ Andy asked.
Julie took the phone from my hand and, referring to the business card he’d given her, did
so on the spot.
‘I’m grateful to your dad, Julie,’ he said, tucking the photo album carefully into his duffle. ‘It bears repeating that I wouldn’t be here without him.’
‘I don’t know why my dad decided to donate his sperm to the fertility clinic,’ Julie said. ‘Maybe he needed the money? But, one thing I know for sure. When guys donate their sperm it’s not like slam-bang you’re done. They need to understand that they’re actually making people.’
‘Will you give me permission to tell our diblings?’
‘Hell,’ Julie said, ‘tell the New York Times, if you want, but promise me one thing.’
‘What’s that?’
She screwed up her face. ‘Don’t ever call me a dibling.’
THIRTY-THREE
The Saturday after Julie and I returned from Des Plaines, Illinois, I invited Georgina to join me at Our Time on the Eastern Shore. I told her I needed help washing, drying and rehanging the curtains, which was true in a way, but the Housekeeping Police wouldn’t have shown up to give me a citation if I’d put off the task until Spring. I felt Georgina needed a break from Baltimore, is all, and she readily agreed.
With Andy Zimmer almost certainly out of the picture, we’d stayed up late that night drinking red wine and mulling over our only other suspects in Scott’s murder – Bob and Judee. ‘But what was their motive?’ I’d asked my sister.
‘They were having an affair,’ Georgina said flatly, waving her wine glass.
‘The only proof of that is the sketch,’ I said.
‘But we saw them arguing at Scott’s funeral, remember?’ Georgina said.
‘Neither would hold up in a court of law, Georgina. Besides, just because they’d been having an affair and Scott got wind of it, isn’t much of a reason to murder him.’
‘Well, they were fighting about something,’ she insisted.
‘That could have been about anything,’ I told her, pouring myself another glass. ‘Maybe Judee needed more money for playground equipment and Brother Bob was being stingy about it.’
So we’d gone to bed a little tipsier and no closer to a solution than the moment we walked through the cottage door.
When I wandered out for coffee late the following morning, I was astonished to find Julie sitting at the kitchen counter.
I pressed a hand to my chest. ‘You nearly gave me a heart attack,’ I teased. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I think I found the smoking gun,’ Julie said, her voice quavering with excitement. ‘It was hidden in plain sight,’ she rattled on, ‘tacked up on Daddy’s bulletin board the whole time. It wouldn’t have meant a thing to the police, of course, so that’s why they didn’t take it.’
I held up a hand. ‘Whoa! What on earth are you talking about?’
‘It’s the roster of kids attending day care at the church,’ Julie explained. ‘The monthly report the Day Care Director submits to the pastor and the pastor sends to the treasurer.’ She hoisted her backpack onto the counter, unzipped a pocket and pulled out a wodge of pages. She plopped them on the counter, smoothed out the top sheet, then stabbed at it with her finger. ‘This is total bullshit!’
‘Bullshit is a two coffee problem,’ I said as I headed for the Keurig machine. ‘Can I make you a cup?’
‘No, thanks,’ Julie said. ‘I stopped at Starbucks on the way over.’
While I waited for water to gurgle through the coffee machine, I studied the roster over my niece’s shoulder. It looked like a perfectly ordinary list of children, arranged alphabetically by last name, followed by a grid of seven dated columns with checks to mark attendance.
When the coffee was done, I dosed it quickly with cream and sugar and then gave my full attention to Julie.
‘Explain,’ I said.
‘How many children do you see there?’ she asked.
That was easy. The list was numbered one to twenty-five. Twenty-one lines had names after them. ‘Twenty-one,’ I said.
‘Look at the next sheet down,’ Julie instructed.
‘Nineteen,’ I said.
‘And the next?’
‘Twenty.’
‘I work part-time in the day care center,’ Julie reminded me. ‘And we always have at least twenty-five kids. Always!’ She slapped the top of the pile. ‘According to these reports, we didn’t have a single week with more than twenty-two children.’
‘Maybe I need more coffee, Julie, but I’m not sure where you’re going with this.’
‘OK. When I first saw the roster, and it didn’t add up, I looked at the individual names. Where’s Jamie? Where’s Declan?’
‘Maybe they were away that week?’ I suggested.
‘No way! Declan’s a little monster. He kicked me in the shin.’ She tugged on her pant leg, revealing a convincing bruise. ‘See that?’
‘If I understand you correctly, there were usually twenty-five children in day care, but only twenty on that week’s report.’
‘Five children unaccounted for,’ Julie interrupted. ‘You got it. The day care isn’t free, Aunt Hannah. They may be a church and all, but they’re not that charitable.
‘So, I decided to look into it,’ Julie continued. ‘The teacher has a contact list for all the parents, for emergencies and stuff, so I called Declan’s mom.’
‘To complain about the kicking?’
‘Fat lot of good that would have done,’ Julie huffed. ‘Anger management issues? Not her little darling.’
‘So what did you tell her?’
‘I said that the church was planning to offer parents the opportunity to pay day care tuition by direct deposit, and if so, would she be interested. Then I asked her how she paid tuition now – cash, check or credit card – and she said, “the usual way”.’ At this point, Julie paused, drawing the story out, keeping me in suspense.
‘Which was?’
‘Judee McDaniel told Declan’s mom that since she runs the day care center, the church had set up a special account in her name, so the checks should be made payable directly to her.’
‘Ah, the light is dawning.’
Julie slapped the countertop. ‘It’s unbelievable! I called Jamie’s mom, too, and Justin’s, and Ashley’s. Same story.’
‘So, the roster that Judee submitted to the church didn’t include the names of the children whose tuition she stole.’
‘Yup.’
‘How much does the day care cost?’
‘They charge thirty-two dollars a day, which works out to $972 a month, more or less. The way I figure it, Judee had to be skimming close to five thousand dollars a month off the top.’
‘Do you think someone at the church tipped your father off?’
Julie flushed. ‘I think I did. I told him about Declan kicking me. Declan’s an unusual name. When he didn’t see it on the roster, maybe he got suspicious. I mean, why else would Dad have the day care rosters tacked up on his bulletin board?’
‘Julie?’ Georgina shuffled into the kitchen, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. ‘I thought I heard your voice. What the hell are you doing here?’ Her eyes grew wide. ‘Has something happened …?’
‘Everyone’s fine,’ I assured her. ‘Sit down. Let me get you some coffee while Julie explains.’
After Julie finished telling her mother about Judee McDaniel’s day care scam, Georgina said, ‘Scott had introduced best practices at the church. They were about to conduct their first external audit, and everyone had until September 30 to submit their reports.’ She pointed at the pages Julie had brought with her, still spread out on the counter in front of us. ‘That must be one of them.’
‘Do you think Brother Bob knew that Mrs McDaniel was stealing from the day care center?’ Julie wondered.
‘I think it’s a question the police are going to want to ask him, Julie, especially since he seems to have been sleeping with her.’
‘You are shitting me! They were having an affair?’
‘Julie! Language!’
‘Sorry, Mom, but eeeuw! Can you i
magine having sex with Brother Bob? Gross.’ After a moment of apparent reflection on the nastiness of sleeping with the pastor, she said, ‘Are you sure?’
I fetched my iPhone from the charging station and showed Julie the photo I’d taken of the sketch of Brother Bob, Judee and the heron.
‘That’s them all right,’ she said, pointing out, as Georgina had, Judee’s distinctive tattoo. ‘Damn!’
‘This is serious,’ I said. ‘If Scott confronted Judee about the embezzlement, she certainly had a motive to kill him. And if Scott knew about Judee’s affair with Brother Bob …’ I paused. ‘Not exactly career-enhancing for an aspiring televangelist, is it? He’d fall from grace faster than a skydiver without a parachute. Maybe Brother Bob wanted to shut him up.’
‘Maybe both,’ Georgina said.
‘What are we waiting for? Somebody needs to make the call.’
Julie shot from her stool, my cell phone in hand. ‘I said I never wanted to talk to that detective again, but this time, I’m going to enjoy it.’
THIRTY-FOUR
At six o’clock the following evening, in the middle of dinner, Georgina called me back. I got up from my chicken piccatta to take her call.
‘Scott’s biological minions can rest easy,’ she began.
‘So Uber confirmed Andy’s story?’
‘They did. Are you sitting down?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘Detective Evans just called. They’re charging Judee McDaniel with Scott’s murder.’
‘Hallelujah,’ I said. ‘How’d they catch her?’
‘Anyone who works with kids in Maryland needs to have a background check,’ Georgina explained. ‘They tracked down the security firm that did the work and matched her prints to a partial the FBI lifted from the handle of the garden shears.’
‘And the money she stole?’
‘Oh, it’s perfectly safe, wherever she and her duffle bag are.’
‘She’s not in custody?’
‘Flew the proverbial coop. Judee’s husband, of course, has no idea, which I totally believe, by the way. She’d been squirreling the money away in an offshore account. Nobody knows what she was planning to do with it.’
Tangled Roots Page 19
