By Monday morning things were back to normal. We were no longer arguing, although we hadn’t talked about what happened, and we hadn’t done anything to welcome the new mattress into the family, unless Sadie spitting up what appeared to be at least eight ounces of breast milk on it counts. We set off for Isaac’s Parent Appreciation Breakfast a fairly content—or at least not visibly discontented—family unit.
The “Bet,” or B class, had gone all out decorating their room in honor of the visiting parents. The walls were hung with painted self-portraits, and I had to remind myself sternly not to compare Isaac’s to those of his classmates. It wasn’t my kid’s fault that his hand-eye coordination skills weren’t on a par with those of some of his classmates. Who would even want a child like that Rebecca Fineman, I told myself as I stared wistfully at the little girl’s beautifully rendered drawing. It was an almost perfect likeness, down to the little bump on her nose and the amblyopia. Isaac had drawn one of his usual bubble-people and for some reason had given himself blue skin.
Sue and Bracha, the preternaturally even-tempered preschool teachers, called the milling parents to order, just in the nick of time, before we began tearing each other’s throats out in an excess of competitive zeal. I was not the only parent unable to prevent herself from comparing her child to the others. Quite frankly, I think I was one of the only ones who bothered even to feel lousy about engaging in the fierce Olympiad of Parental Expectation. Which was a lucky thing, since my son was about to make me feel like I deserved to be given a spot in the Maternal Hall of Fame right between Jeffrey Dahmer’s mother and Joseph Stalin’s.
The other parents, conversely, felt just grand when the centerpiece of the Parent Appreciation Breakfast began. After we ate our booger scones and drank our tepid coffee, the children stepped to the head of the room, one at a time. Each one recited a poem written especially for his or her parents. The poems weren’t long; the children were only four years old or even, like Isaac, hadn’t quite reached that birthday. Each poem began, “I love my parents because . . .” and then listed three special things that the child’s parents did. It was a veritable waterworks in the Bet class, as you can imagine. Every mother burst into tears as her child’s piping voice recounted her delicious chocolate chip cookies or the way she kissed his boo-boos. The fathers grew too misty-eyed to work the digital camcorders when their sons talked about playing catch and reading good-night stories.
And then it was Isaac’s turn. Peter and I squeezed each other’s hands in delighted anticipation. Isaac stood up, sighed deeply, and then, prodded gently by Bracha, began to recite, “I love my parents because they play with me. My mom plays gin with me. It’s fun because I win. My dad plays poker with me and takes my money. I love my mom because she makes really good fried chicken. I love to eat the crispy skin.”
Peter and I sat holding hands, our smiles frozen on our faces. One of the mothers leaned over to me and whispered, “I must get your fried chicken recipe.”
I said, “I’ve never made fried chicken in my life.”
* * *
After the last child recited her poem, the last mother wept with joy, and the last father chuckled with pride, Peter and I sent Isaac out to play on the tricycles and cornered Bracha and Sue.
“So, here’s the thing,” I said. “None of that was true.”
“Pardon?” Bracha said, in her thick Israeli accent.
“Isaac’s poem. Nothing in it was true. I’ve never made fried chicken. I don’t play gin with him, and Peter does not play poker with him. Peter does all the cooking in our house, and we play lots of other games. Uno, for example. And Legos.” I was so worried that the teachers would be convinced that Isaac had invented the things in his poem because there was nothing at home he could come up with, no games we played or food we made. And that just wasn’t true! We played with the kid all the time.
“No,” Bracha said. “That’s not possible. I went over the poems with each child, individually. We talked all about it. Isaac told me all about your games of cards. And the poker. He said you give him allowance but you take it away when he loses.” She clearly didn’t approve of that.
“Okay, that’s just nonsense,” Peter said. “Did you really believe that?”
This was definitely the wrong tack to take. “We’re just sort of wondering what you recommend we do under these circumstances,” I said. “We’re sort of knocked for a loop here.”
The two teachers exchanged glances. Bracha said, “This has never happened before, and we’ve been doing these poems for six years.”
“He’s an original, my kid,” Peter said.
Did I detect a note of pride? I resisted the urge to kick my husband in the shins.
“Do you think this is a cry for help or something? Should we take him to a therapist?” I asked.
Bracha gave me a pitying, sorrowful smile, the kind of smile you give an insane street person who shouts a greeting as you walk past. “Perhaps you might just talk to him about it, and see why he lied. And we’ll do the same.”
“Right,” I said. “Of course. Talk to him. That’s exactly what we’ll do.”
We did, of course, that very evening after supper. Not that it was a particularly satisfying conversation. Isaac offered no explanation for why he had lied in his poem. Neither did he seem to care that his parents felt decidedly unappreciated.
“Do you want to write a new poem, Isaac?” I said.
“Why?”
“You could write a poem about stuff we really do with you.”
Isaac shrugged.
“Or you could write a poem about why you’re mad at Mama and Daddy.”
Isaac gave me the look of disgust my attempt at child psychology deserved.
“Maybe it’s Sadie’s fault,” he said.
“Sadie’s fault?” I said. “How could this be Sadie’s fault? Sadie’s just a little baby. She wasn’t even there when you wrote the poem, and she was sleeping in her car seat during the whole breakfast.”
“I think it is Sadie’s fault,” he repeated, nodding.
“Why?”
“Because Sadie makes you tired, and then you and Daddy have fights. You should send Sadie back to the hospital. Maybe just at night, so you can sleep. Can I go play with my Bionicles and watch TV with Ruby now?”
I nodded and he skipped lightly out of the kitchen where we had been having our little meeting. I glanced at my husband.
“Out of the mouths of babes,” he said.
“Wow.”
He went to the fridge and pulled out a beer. “Want half?”
“Actually, yes.”
He split the beer between two glasses and handed one to me. We drank in silence for a few minutes.
I turned to Peter. “What do you think we should do?”
Peter looked at me, sadly. “Hell if I know,” he said. “I’ve got to go to work.” And with that he went down the stairs to his dungeon, closing the door behind him.
Nineteen
“I found Sandra’s aunt and cousins,” Chiki said. His face did not reflect any pleasure at his success. On the contrary. He looked about as glum as I’d ever seen him.
“Give me a second to put the baby down,” I said. I had Sadie draped over one arm, her arms and legs dangling like a rag doll’s. It was her new favorite position.
Chiki reached out his hands, and after a moment’s consideration, I handed her to him. He tucked the baby up under his chin and nuzzled her soft head. She gave him a placid and cross-eyed glance of contentment and shoved her fist in her mouth.
“She likes you,” I said as I tossed my diaper bag, my purse, and the old tote into which I’d crammed my notes on the case under my desk. “So where does Sandra’s aunt live? Did you talk to her?”
Chiki shook his head. “Not to her, to her daughter-in-law. Her son Jonathan’s wife, Allison. They live in Reno.”
“That’s great,” I said. “Reno’s not too far away. What did you find out? What’s with the long face?”
Was Chiki aware that Allison’s mother-in-law suffered from congestive heart failure complicated by emphysema?
Was he aware that despite this diagnosis, and despite a prognosis that promised her no more than a few more months to live, Bettina persisted in smoking through the tracheotomy hole carved into the center of her throat, befouling the air Allison’s children breathed and the upholstery of her furniture?
Was he aware that Bettina had begun using adult diapers, not because she needed them, but because she didn’t like to wait for the commercials to do her business?
Was he aware what adult diapers cost, even when purchased in bulk at Costco?
Was he aware that Allison and Jonathan had four children, and that these four children might end up on the street because the Indian gaming industry was putting the Reno casinos out of business and Jonathan’s job as an airport safety officer at Reno / Tahoe International Airport depended on a thriving casino economy?
Was he aware that Johnny Jr. had knocked his four front teeth out playing T-ball, the first such accident in the history of the West Reno T-Ball League?
Was he aware what a bridge and false teeth would cost for Johnny Jr., who had unfortunately inherited his grandmother Trudeau’s oversized jaw and thus required dental work sized and priced for a grown man?
Was he aware that there was no chance in hell that Allison and Jonathan would be able to assume responsibility for another child, a child of a convicted drug dealer, a child belonging to a relative so distant that Allison, who had been married to Jonathan for seven years, was not even aware that she existed?
At that point Chiki told her that yes, he guessed he was aware of that now.
Allison told him she’d tell Jonathan that Chiki had called, and Bettina, too, when she next woke up from her daytime television–induced stupor to have another cigarette.
“Well, that’s that,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“Now I’m depressed.”
Chiki pressed his cheek against the top of Sadie’s head and squeezed her gently. “There’s also Jonathan’s sister. Mary,” he said. “I’ve got a telephone number for her. At least I think it’s her. I forgot to verify with the daughter-in-law, and I couldn’t bring myself to call back. The Mary Trudeau I found is a student at the New York University School of Medicine.”
“Really? That seems so unlikely, given the rest of the family. Are you sure it’s the right Mary Trudeau?”
“All the biographical data matches.” He rocked gently back and forth and Sadie cooed. “You want Sadie back?” he said, clearly not wanting to let go of her soft warmth.
“No, not if you want to keep her.”
“She’s making me feel better. You know. After talking to Sandra’s cousin’s wife.”
“Good. Sadie’s good for that.”
“She’s a good baby.”
I smiled. “She is. Give me Mary’s number. I’ll call her.”
I woke Mary Trudeau up, which is a terrible thing to do to a medical student, but it’s probably the only reason I found her at home. Chiki had tracked down the correct young woman; she was Sandra’s cousin, Jonathan’s sister. She even remembered Sandra.
“She was just a couple of years older than me,” Mary said, her voice rough from sleep. “Before my aunt died they used to spend two weeks with us every summer, and Sandra and I would end up playing together, riding our bikes around the lake and stuff. Jonathan’s so much older, he was never around. It was just us two. They came up for Christmas every year, until my aunt died. I don’t know what happened after that; We lost touch.”
Mary grew very quiet on the other end of the line when I told her about Sandra’s murder, and about Noah.
“You’re not married, are you Mary?” I asked.
“No,” she said.
“What year in school are you in?”
“My second.”
I held the telephone receiver in my hand and looked at it for a moment. This young girl was managing to put herself through medical school on her own—she wasn’t getting help from the bankrupt mother smoking Luckies through her trach tube, that’s for sure. She was studying twenty hours a day and looking at another two years of the same. After that there would be a residency with more round-the-clock workdays. Mary Trudeau was carving out a life for herself. Who did I think I was, calling her out of the blue and seeking to foist upon her the baby of a cousin she hadn’t thought about in years?
I said, “This isn’t your problem, Mary. I’m so sorry to have called you. I had no right.”
“What’s going to happen to Sandra’s baby?”
I closed my eyes, wishing so hard she had allowed herself to forgo that question. But I guess that’s not the kind of person she was. “I don’t know,” I said finally. “I don’t know where he is, or if I’ll ever find him. If I do, I suppose he’ll go into foster care. He’s young, only a couple of months old. He’ll probably be adopted.”
“And if he isn’t?”
Oh, Mary, you know the answer as well as I do, don’t you? “He’ll stay in foster care.”
She didn’t speak for a few moments. Then she said. “Can you let me know? Can you let me know if you find him, and if he finds a family? Because if he doesn’t . . . I guess . . . I mean . . . I don’t . . .”
“I’ll let you know. Don’t worry, Mary. I’ll let you know.”
I rested the telephone receiver back in its cradle and put my head in my hands.
“Here,” Chiki said. He held Sadie out to me. “I think you need her more than I do.”
Twenty
AN hour or so later, Al showed up, positively glowing with success. He had made Brodsky’s client a very happy man. Al had turned up something decidedly incriminating about the man who was suing the actor. He had a wife who spent much of her time looking like she’d been hit by a bus. A few words from Al, accompanied by a well-lit photograph or two, and the actor was in the clear.
Al put in a call to a friend in the domestic violence unit, who promised to send a social worker around to check up on the woman and present her with some alternatives to staying with the brute who appeared to count litigiousness as a comparatively minor fault among many.
All in all, a good couple of days’ work.
Al was only too happy to make the call to the San Francisco Police Department for me. Whenever a private investigator engages in any kind of surveillance, he or she is required to notify the local police, or the county sheriff if the stakeout is outside of a major city. The cops aren’t entitled to know who we’re looking for or why we’re after them: We don’t even have to give a specific address, but we do have to give a street name. They like to know the make and license number of the cars involved in the surveillance, and what time we plan to show up. Sometimes they even ask for a description of the surveillance team. The idea is they want to know that we’re there, so if they get any reports about suspicious prowlers, they’ll know it’s an investigator on a stakeout. Also, I suppose, if some dramatic foul-up occurs, they’ll know who’s been there and whose fault it is.
Al had a hard time convincing the San Francisco desk sergeant that the surveillance team consisted of a thirty-six-year-old, five-foot-tall, redheaded woman . . . and a four-month-ol
d baby.
“Very funny,” Al said. “No, the infant will not be driving the second vehicle. There is no second vehicle.”
Al and I usually do stakeouts with two cars. We park kitty-corner to the house, one car facing the house, one car pulled forward and using the rearview mirror. That’s why we like doing city surveillances. No one notices two cars in the city. In a rural area, you stick out like a pair of Birkenstocks at a Junior League luncheon, but on a city street you can fade into the mass of parked cars. We choose our cars for their “fade-ability factor,” as Al calls it. As soon as Sadie was born, I bought a Honda Odyssey minivan, like every other suburban mother of a certain demographic with more than two children. (Those with two or fewer drive a Volvo station wagon.) Al drives a Suburban. When Chiki started working for us, Al picked up an old Chevy van at a sheriff’s auction for him to use, claiming that it would make a good overnight surveillance vehicle. I liked to drive Al crazy by referring to the Chevy as his “love van.”
This stakeout, however, I was going to be on my own, with only Sadie for company.
“He’s a real wiseacre, that one,” Al said when he got off the phone. “One joke after another. Anyway, he wants you to call in with the plate number of the rental car when you get it.”
“Yeah, that’ll happen,” I said.
“You want me to go with you?” Chiki asked.
“You can’t travel,” I reminded him. “You can’t travel, and you can’t use the computer, and one of these days some fat slob with a hairpiece and a badge is going come busting in here and arrest you for violating the terms of your supervised release.”
“My probation officer is a woman,” he said.
“There’s a female probation officer out of Santa Ana who wears a rug,” Al said.
“I’m serious,” I said. “I’ve had to represent people in probation revocation hearings for less serious infractions than these. Chiki, get away from the computer, now. Go Swiffer something.”
The Cradle Robbers Page 13
