The Cradle Robbers

by Ayelet Waldman

  Eight

  BACK out in the parking lot, I plugged the breast pump into the cigarette lighter, turned on the car engine, and did my best to achieve a modicum of discretion by lowering my shirt over the tops of the flanges. I watched a few cars drift in and out of the parking lot and almost nodded off, the rhythmic hum of the motor lulling my chronically sleep-deprived self to sleep. I jerked myself awake and, holding the pump flanges with one hand, I called the office with the other. Al was out, unfortunately, but Chiki was there, waiting for me to check in.

  “Damn,” I said at the news that my partner was on the shooting range.

  “You need some help, Juliet?”

  “Yes, but you can’t help me. I need Al to do a quick address search.”

  “Who are you looking for?”

  “The social worker at the prison, Taylor Brock. There’s no way they’re going to let me into the prison to see her without an appointment and permission from the warden. I figured I’d have better luck just showing up at her house.” Since Sandra had said the social worker was only at the prison during the morning shift, there was a chance I could find her at home. Now I was going to have to rely on the telephone operator, and the likelihood of Ms. Brock being listed was slim. Individuals who work in law enforcement rarely are. They are less sophisticated, however, at keeping their addresses off the Web.

  “436 Peachwood Lane. In Dartmore Village.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “There’s a T. Brock at 436 Peachwood Lane.”

  “Please tell me you did not just use the computer.”

  “Go on, check your BlackBerry. I bet there’s an email from Al with driving directions from Dartmore to 436 Peachwood Lane.”

  “Did Al also turn up an actual office address of the Lambs of the Lord?” The address I got from Sandra’s documents was the same as the one I got from Sister Pauline—a post office box in Pleasanton: their mail drop.

  For a moment I heard rapid clicking that sounded suspiciously like tapping on a computer, but that of course must have been something else. A long-toenailed rodent clicking across the cement floor of the office?

  “Dang,” Chiki said.

  “Dang, what?”

  “Nothing. I’m just surprised at what a good job the Lambs are doing at hiding their business address. It’s, like, nowhere. I can’t find it in any of the usual places.”

  “You can’t find it?”

  “I mean, Al can’t find it. Man, whoever they have doing this for them is good. You know what? You got to go to Pleasanton today? Because I know I—I mean, Al—can find it. It just might take some doing. It’s like trapping a mouse, you know? You come at it from every direction, bit by bit, until you’re holding it in your hand.”

  I looked at the clock on the dashboard of my rental car. I had just enough time to get over to Taylor Brock’s house and grill her before making the drive back to the San Jose airport. As little as I relished the idea, I was going to have to come back up to northern California some other day to visit the office of the Lambs of the Lord. Another flight. Not to mention the hours. This non-case of ours was going to end up costing Al and me more in expenses than most of our actual cases did. And there was no one to reimburse us this time. I glanced over at the hulking prison building behind the razor wire. The money didn’t really seem to matter.

  “I’m sure if you gave Al some very specific instructions, and a few hours, even he could figure out how to use the computer to track the Lambs down. Chiki, you’ve got to be careful with what you’re up to in the office. You don’t want that probation officer of yours barging in while you’re doing something you shouldn’t be. They make unannounced work and home visits. You know that.”

  “I’m in a windowless garage with the door locked, Juliet. But don’t worry. I won’t touch the computer. I won’t even breathe on it. How about that? Not even to download you the patches for your system software that were released today. You’ll have to figure out how to keep your computer from crashing all on your own.”

  Nine

  TAYLOR Brock was convinced, I could tell, that she was on the side of the angels. She thought her job was to heal a terrible wrong in the world. The evil she repaired was that which was done to the tender souls of innocent babies, babies forced to spend their lives tied to the wickedness that was their natural mothers. Taylor, through wisdom and luck, was in a position to do something about it. She could take these innocent little lambs and bestow them on loving families, who would raise them as all children deserve to be raised.

  It’s not like she told me any of this. I’m extrapolating, but I think it would be safe to wager on the accuracy of my conjecture. The woman gave off the unmistakable odor of self-righteousness. She reeked of smug conceit. She was absolutely confident that whatever rules she had technically violated, justice and God were on her side. She felt no fear of my condemnation. It amused her.

  I found Ms. Brock in her garden, deadheading roses with a sharp and cruel-looking pair of pruning shears. The rose bushes were trained like topiary, their twisted stems rising like miniature tree trunks about three feet off the ground, and the tops cropped in perfect globes of leaves and blooms. They alternated red, white, and pink. Ms. Brock’s own figure was similarly trained, forced by dint of hardworking undergarments into a tubular shape. Her hair was its own series of steel-gray tubes, one upon the other, and I could just tell she had it set weekly by a hairdresser who still believed in the magical powers of Dippity-Do.

  The garden was protected by a low picket fence, white of course. I parked my car and, standing on the street side of the garden, called out to Ms. Brock. She snipped the heads off two overblown roses, caught them in her flowered glove, and laid them in her basket before responding to my greeting. I made my business clear; I told her that I was there to inquire after her role in soliciting pregnant prisoners for the Lambs of the Lord. I had hoped to take her by surprise, to put her on the defensive.

  She rocked back on the heels of her gardening clogs—yellow, with ladybugs—and said, “And the Lord Jesus said, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not: for of such is the Kingdom of God.’ Mark, chapter 10, verse 14.” Then she snapped the air with her clippers, as if to punctuate the Bible verse.

  “Ms. Brock,” I began.

  “Miss.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Miss. I am not a feminist. I prefer Miss.”

  I moved closer so that I was standing right next to the fence. “Miss Brock. Both Sister Pauline Hubblebank and Sandra Lorgeree would like their little children to come unto them. Or, in Sandra’s case, unto her family. She’s asked me to find her child, and I think you can help me.”

  Miss Brock shook her head, an expression of sad tolerance on her face. “I can see that you’re a person who really cares for my Dartmore girls,” she said.

  My Dartmore girls? What did that mean?

  “Yes, I do care.”

  “As I’ve told all my girls at Dartmore, their problem is that they seek the wrong thing. Instead of looking for children whose lives can only be improved by their mothers’ absences, these girls should seek salvation in the Lord’s embrace. For as Jesus said, ‘You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.’ Jeremiah, chapter 29, I believe. Although I might be wrong. My memory for numbers does fail me at times.”

  “Miss Brock, that’s hardly your decision to make, is it? As the social worker charged with the task of helping the women at the facility deal with issues such as guardianship and foster care, I assume your ethical obligation is to the women, correct? To your clients?”

  “My obligation is clear to me,” she said. “Therefore to Him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to Him it is sin.”

  This placid and self-satisfied scripture quoting was going to make me leap the fence and strangle the woman. I gripped the posts with my hands and did my best to control myself. “Miss Brock, I can think of a dozen federal statutes you’ve violated by encouraging t
he Dartmore prisoners to hand over their infants to the Lambs of the Lord when you know full well that at least some of those babies are not going to be returned.”

  She sighed, as if disappointed at the implied threat of my words. “What is at stake is so much greater,” she said. “‘Whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein.’ Luke, chapter 18, verse 17. You tell Sister Pauline that I wish her well, and that her little girl’s soul is saved.” She snipped a rose, tossed it into her basket, and then, without another word, stalked up the path to her front door, leaving me fuming in her wake, clutching the fence.

  After a moment or two my cell phone rang. Chiki said, “I’ve got a street address for the Lambs. I don’t know if it’s any good, but it’s a Pleasanton address. You want it?”

  “I’ll get the address tomorrow. I can’t make it to Pleasanton today. I’ve got to get home to my kids.”

  Ten

  PETER had spent the day ignoring the children. When I got home that evening, I found Ruby and Isaac lying in the family room watching a video, on either side of a pizza box containing an uneaten, congealing pizza. The baby was hanging off Peter’s chest, and by the state of the Baby Bjorn—trails of white spit-up stains, leg openings mysteriously dampened, straps twisted—she’d been there for a long time. All day, perhaps. Peter had his telephone headset on and was pacing back and forth, his normally cheerful expression replaced by a torqued and twisted mask of anxiety so intense it was almost comical.

  “Hi,” I said.

  When Sadie heard my voice she let loose with a series of high-pitched wails. I undid her disgusting harness, letting the top fall against Peter’s thighs. He continued his frenzied pacing, now with the Baby Bjorn flopping along his front like a filthy apron.

  “Daddy’s a crazy person,” I whispered into Sadie’s ear. She snuffled, rooting around in my shirt. I sat down on the floor next to Ruby and Isaac. “Hi, Mom,” I said. “We missed you so much. Gee, that’s nice, kids. I missed you, too. How was your day, Mom? Fine, how was yours?”

  Isaac pried himself loose from Rugrats. “Hi, Mom,” he said.

  “Hi, baby.”

  “It’s Parent Appreciation Breakfast next week at school.”

  “I know. Daddy and I are planning to be there.”

  “Oh,” he said. His eyes drifted back to the television. “I don’t think the scones will taste very good. Flora Stein-McPhee has a cold and she sneezed into the dough a lot today. A whole lot.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Booger scones.”

  “Gross.”

  “Totally gross. You’re probably going to think they’re raisins. But they’re boogers.”

  “I’ll try not to be fooled. The scones will be pretty stale if you guys were making them today, anyway.”

  “Bracha and Sue are gonna freeze them, Mom.” He shook his head at my ignorance.

  I prodded his sister’s behind with my toe. “Hey Rubes. How long has Daddy been on the phone?”

  She shrugged.

  “Who’s he talking to?”

  She shrugged again.

  “Wake up, Ruby!” I said sternly.

  She rolled her eyes and turned to look at me, ostentatiously staring me right in the face.

  “Who is Daddy talking to?”

  “I don’t know.” Her enunciation was over-correct, as if she were talking to an elderly foreign tourist who was a touch deaf. “His lawyer, he said.”

  I looked over at Peter. As far as I knew, he didn’t have a lawyer. He had an agent, and his agent had a lawyer who looked over Peter’s contracts to make sure he hadn’t agreed to serve up our firstborn to the movie studio in exchange for gross points, but as far as I knew the only lawyer my husband had ever had was me, and he wasn’t getting much of me lately. Ha ha.

  “Honey?” I called out.

  Peter flicked his hand at me in the universal “Leave me alone, I’m talking on the phone” gesture. The one specifically designed to piss off your wife.

  “Peter! Who are you talking to?”

  “Hold on a second, okay?” he said into the receiver. Then he covered it with his hand. “I’m on a conference call with the guy from the studio legal department and with the rest of our litigation team.”

  “Your litigation team?”

  “Yeah. As soon as the studio was served they called in the team. We’re strategizing our defense.”

  “You’re strategizing the defense?”

  He shrugged. “Mostly I’m doing a lot of swearing. But that seems to be an important part of the litigation process. At least the lawyers all seem to appreciate it.”

  “I’ll bet. Are you going to be done anytime soon?”

  “I don’t know. They’re conferencing in some exec from features. Apparently, he’s the bozo who took a meeting with the clown. He’s going to get his head on a platter, I can tell you that. Wait a second, they’re back.” He returned to his call and resumed his assigned task.

  Rather than have my children add to their already colorful vocabularies, I hustled them into the bath. Ruby held Sadie on her lap as I shampooed everybody’s hair and soaped them clean. I like the three of them best when they are all together in one bathtub, confined to a small space, all fragrant and warm. Sadie loves the tub, and her giggling is contagious. The three of them laughed and wriggled, their soft skin covered with bubbles, their wet hair plastered to their cheeks, their eyes glowing in the bright light reflected off the white tiles. Their bathroom, like all five in the house—it seems Mr. Navarro had a thing for cleanliness—was furnished with a massive claw-foot tub. We’d allowed them to choose which bathroom they wanted for their own, and it had been an immediate and unanimous decision. Theirs was the dragon bathroom. The walls were papered in a kind of rubberized, metallic crimson, and all the fixtures were of golden dragons, including the taps and spouts. The kids looked like magical little nymphs, cavorting under the protective eye of a dozen ruby-eyed reptile kings. God only knows what the bathroom’s previous occupants had gotten up to in there.

  By the time I bundled Ruby and Isaac into bed, read them A Day with Wilbur Robinson and The Leaf Man, and nursed Sadie to sleep, Peter had finally finished his conference call and was sucking down a St. Pauli Girl like it was his last drink before rehab. And he doesn’t even like beer.

  “That was some conversation,” I said. “Were you on the phone all day?”

  He shook his head and said defensively, “It was hardly all day. And it wasn’t like it was one long call. We talked a few times during the day. This is serious, Juliet.”

  “It’s a frivolous case filed by a nutcase. I’ll bet the studio attorneys deal with this kind of thing every week.”

  “Well, this particular nutcase has managed to find himself counsel. Very aggressive counsel.”

  “I’m sure it will be all right.”

  For a few minutes we had a ridiculous argument during which Peter tried to convince me that it would not be all right and I tried to belittle his hysteria. Neither of us could acknowledge the underlying truth about the argument. I would not admit to being dismissive, and Peter would not concede that his feelings were hurt. We’d had this fight so many times before, but I was the one who usually had the hurt feelings and Peter was the one who was usually guilty of claiming everything was fine.

  Finally Peter said, “You’re so busy fighting with me that you didn’t even let me tell you the most ridiculous part. You’ll never believe what this guy does, in addition to taking meetings in Hollywood and not getting his pitches produced.”

  “What does he do?”

  “He owns a crafts store.”

  “He does not.”

  “He does. In Calabasas. On Valley Circle Boulevard. I found it on the Web. He has a big mail order business, apparently. His specialty is macramé.”

  “No way! I was just up there, in Canoga Park. I could have stopped in and picked up a few God’s Eyes. Or a skein of alpaca wool.”

  �
��Or you could have beaten him up for me.”

  I was immediately sorry for bickering with him. Peter knows that all he has to do to defuse my irritation is appeal to my protective impulses. He has on occasion referred to me, in very loving tones, as his own personal pit bull. I sat down on the couch and pulled his feet into my lap. I rubbed them, concentrating on his high arches. Peter has lovely feet, beautifully constructed, with flat, even nails, round heels, and sharply indented ankles. Before I met him I used to cringe in preparation for seeing a boyfriend’s feet for the first time. Invariably, there would be some horror lurking under those innocuous argyles. A hammertoe with a gnarled, black nail. Skinny, mismatched toes that overlapped. Or, worst of all, long toenails. There is nothing as deadening to the mood as the sight of ten ragged and filthy toenails curling over the tops of a handsome man’s ugly feet. It’s enough to make a woman swear off sex forever. But Peter’s toes are lovely. He could have an alternative career as a foot model. The first time I saw his bare feet I had thrown him onto my bed and not let him up for days. Tonight, alas, I evinced as much sex drive as if I’d pulled off his sweat socks to reveal a scary, stinky, normal boy’s foot. That is to say, none at all.

  “How was your day?” he asked. “Did you get any closer to finding out where that woman’s baby is?”

  I shook my head. “No. No closer.”

  “Will you, do you think?”

  “God, I hope so. Although, what’s going to happen then? Sandra’s in jail. She can’t keep the baby. And she has no idea where her family is. She hasn’t seen them in years. We’ll probably be able to help her track them down, but who’s to say they’ll want the baby if we find him. Or if they do, that they’ll be competent to care for him. It’s just such a mess.”