The Cradle Robbers

by Ayelet Waldman

  He shook his head vigorously. “No. No way. You do not know her if you could ask that. She made no money off that. None. She introduced those dudes. That was it. All she got out of that was jail. No, I guess it was just that she came around about my mom or something. I mean, she knew my mom wasn’t, like, evil. Suzette’s a bitch, but, like I said, she wouldn’t have let the kid starve.”

  “Did Sandra know your mother? Did they ever meet?”

  “Yeah. After we got out of rehab, they came down, my mom and Spencer, and took us out to dinner. It was okay. I mean, it wasn’t any family reunion or anything. But it was okay. Sandra took to them. Spencer was real nice to her. Even my mom was on her best behavior. We had a decent enough time. Then, a couple of months later we went up for the weekend to my family’s vineyard in Napa. We did that a bunch of times that summer. But then, out of nowhere, Sandra didn’t want to go anymore. She always had a reason we couldn’t go. It was like she and my mom had a fight or something, but neither of them would tell me what happened.”

  And then, thanks to John Updike’s Rabbit, I figured it out. I knew then who had the motive to kill Sandra Lorgeree. I had known for a while who had the opportunity; I just had not realized it. It was not Gabriel who could confirm what I knew, however. His cluelessness was profound and complete. This was the kind of thing you tell your girlfriends, never your boyfriend, and I would go back to Kate Gage to get confirmation of what I now knew. But before I did, there was something bothering me.

  “Gabriel, aren’t you worried about your baby? Don’t you wonder where he is?”

  He shifted nervously in his seat. “I know she was real worried,” he mumbled.

  “Aren’t you?”

  He sighed. “Sandra said these Christian fundamentalists got him.”

  “That’s what she was afraid of, yes.”

  He shrugged. “Would that be so bad? I mean, look at me.” He waved a limp hand up and down in front of his face. “Maybe if he’s raised by them he won’t end up like me.”

  I got to my feet and picked up the car seat where Sadie still slept. Gabriel stayed slumped in his chair. “He’s with your mother,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Your mother has him. Noah is in San Francisco living with your mother. Is that okay with you? Is that what you want?”

  He shrugged. He said, “I don’t know. I mean, there’s nothing I can do about it. What do you want me to do?”

  I had no idea how to answer that question.

  Twenty-four

  “HOW did you find out?” Kate Gage said. We sat once again at a table at Swork, listening this time to the Polyphonic Spree on the stereo system. She seemed unsurprised to see me, as if she had been waiting for me to return for a while.

  I opened my mouth, about to launch into an explanation of the literary inspiration for my solving of the crime, but instead I said, “How long were Sandra and her father-in-law sleeping together?”

  “He wasn’t really her father-in-law. She and Gabriel weren’t married, and Spencer Loft is just Gabriel’s stepfather, so it wasn’t incest or anything. It only happened a few times, while they were visiting the family vineyard in Napa Valley. She stopped it as soon as she got pregnant.”

  “Did Suzette know?”

  Kate shook her head, vehemently, her dangling earrings striking her cheek. “No! Of course not. She’d have killed them both if she found out. And neither did Gabriel. He would have killed himself. Sandra never wanted anybody to find out. All she wanted was enough money to take care of the baby. She wasn’t even going to ask for that, but I convinced her that Loft owed it to her.”

  “When did she ask him for the money?”

  “Before she was arrested. It got ugly. At first he insisted the baby wasn’t his, but she threatened to have a paternity test done. Then he agreed to pay her. She was so smart about it. She wouldn’t take a lump sum. She knew herself, and she knew Gabriel. She knew they couldn’t withstand the temptation of having that kind of money lying around. She insisted that Loft arrange for monthly payments, and she said she wanted the agreement in writing, so that he couldn’t just stop paying one day if he felt like it.”

  Pragmatic, self-aware, and hard-nosed Sandra. It was precisely this quality of realistic practicality that had, I knew, gotten her killed.

  “What happened after she was arrested?” I asked.

  “It all kind of went to hell. Sandra didn’t know what was going to happen to the baby. She had no idea who was going to take him.”

  “She didn’t want Gabriel to take him?”

  “Of course not. Without Sandra, Gabriel’s just a junkie. She knew that. And she was terrified Gabriel’s mother would take him. She didn’t like Suzette, but worse, she was worried that Suzette would find out he was Spencer’s baby, and not her grandson at all.”

  “That’s when she thought of her Aunt Bettina?”

  “Yeah, Sandra thought that if she could find her aunt, maybe she’d be willing to take the baby. She figured that if Spencer gave her aunt the child-support payments it would make taking Noah more attractive.”

  “Did she ever get anything in writing from Spencer about the child support?”

  “No, I think she was still waiting for that. She wrote him from jail, I know that. But he never wrote her back. That’s when she started to panic. She even wanted me to call him for her, but I was too afraid.”

  Kate’s fear probably saved her life.

  “Like I said, when she hadn’t heard from Spencer for a while, she got really desperate. I think . . . I’m pretty sure she threatened him. I think she told him that if he didn’t find her aunt and pay her to take Noah, she would tell Suzette about the baby. I think she even said she’d go to the newspapers.”

  “You think? Why do you think so?”

  She lowered her face and stared at the fingers she was knotting and unknotting in her lap. She whispered, “Because that’s what I told her to do.”

  “I never thought he’d kill her,” Kate whispered. “I mean, how could he have done it? He’s a rich white guy from Pacific Heights. How could he have gotten into Dartmore Prison?”

  “It was an Aryan Brotherhood hit.”

  “So? How would Loft know anyone in the Aryan Brotherhood?”

  “Spencer Loft is a member of the Parole Commission. He must have sat on hundreds of hearings over the years involving members of the Aryan Brotherhood. It was the easiest thing in the world for him to pull a file. He didn’t even need to pay them off. All he needed to do was promise a sympathetic ear at someone’s parole hearing.”

  Kate’s pale face grew pale under its jaundice. “What’s going to happen now?” she said.

  I was terribly afraid of the answer to that question. I knew what I was going to do. My way was clear. Al and I would call one of those FBI agents who had liked me back in the day, one I hadn’t cross-examined. We would explain what we’d discovered, we’d encourage a corruption investigation based on the fact that Spencer Loft was a parole commissioner. Al would make some calls to friends on the force and encourage them to look to Loft in the murder investigation at Dartmore, as well. And perhaps there would be sufficient evidence to indict Spencer Loft. Perhaps there would even be enough to convict him. One thing was for sure, the news media would grab this in their teeth and run wild with it. The case had all the makings of yet another trial of the century—murder, drugs, sex, wealth, power. What more could the viewing public ask for?

  What I didn’t know was what would happen to that tiny baby in the red Bugaboo stroller. Who would take care of him now? Who would love him and feed him? Who would raise him to be the man his father never was, the man his mother had wanted him to be?

  That question, I had no answer for.

  Twenty-five

  I took my last trip to San Francisco a couple of weeks later. I was surprised that Suzette Arguello had agreed to see me. I made the call on a whim, more or less, because I could not get the fate of Noah Lorgeree out of my mind, unsurprising s
ince the faces of his dead mother, his real father, and the other players in this family drama were in the newspapers nearly every day for a while. I left Sadie behind this time, worried about appearing with a baby at this lunch, and also worried that Suzette might be attended by the phalanx of reporters I feared were a feature of her life now.

  We met per her instructions not at her house but at a restaurant in a private club. There was the most discreet of signs on the door, and the elevator operator only whisked me up to the top floor of the building once my name had been checked and double-checked by the doormen and security guards manning the front desk. Suzette had arrived before me and sat at a table in a far corner of the restaurant. I would not have recognized her. She wore a dark wig and had subtly altered the shape of her face with makeup. The woman would have made a good spy.

  “Hello,” I said as I sat down.

  “We’re drinking Signorello chardonnay,” she said. “It’s their 1997, and it’s very good.”

  “Thank you,” I said, taking a sip. It was good, although quite frankly if it had come from a box with a spigot, I probably wouldn’t have been able to taste the difference.

  “Thank you for agreeing to see me,” I said.

  “I was curious to see what my reaction would be to the woman who ruined my life.”

  I paused, a mouthful of wine rolling on my tongue. I swallowed the now bitter drink. “And what is it?”

  “Strange. I feel very little.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry?”

  “I’m sorry that your husband slept with your son’s girlfriend, and I am even sorrier that he murdered her. . . .”

  “Allegedly.”

  “Allegedly. I am terribly sorry for that. I’m not sorry, though, for my role in uncovering what happened. I owed that to Sandra.”

  She frowned and sipped her wine. “I think this wine is even finer than I remember. Don’t you think it’s a fine wine?”

  “Yes.”

  “What can I do for you, Ms. Applebaum?”

  “I came to talk to you about the baby. About Noah.” Her glass clacked against her teeth and she lowered it to the table. “Where is he?” I asked softly.

  She blinked. “With Moira,” she said finally. “In Napa.”

  I had said nothing to the police about the baby theft. I’d started to, once or twice, but then I’d stopped. It seemed inevitable that it would all come out with the rest of the investigation, that once they turned their eye on the case everything would come clear. But miraculously, so far I had seen no mention of Nancy and Jason McDonnell in any of the media coverage of Sandra’s murder.

  “What are you going to do about him?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. I suppose I’ve been waiting for them to take him away.”

  I took another sip of wine. “Do you want them to take him away?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Ms. Arguello, I know that this baby, Noah, is about as unrelated to you as any child could be. I can see why he might symbolize for you everything terrible about what has happened to your life—your husband’s betrayal, your very public humiliation. But I also know that I saw you with him. I saw you hold him and feed him. I saw you stroke his cheek and wipe his lips. I think you love Noah. Those feelings aren’t dependent on a shared genetic code, are they?”

  She pressed her narrow lips together and shook her head. “You don’t know me, Ms. Applebaum. You don’t know what kind of mother I am.”

  “That’s true, I don’t know what kind of mother you were. I know that your son Gabriel is a disaster, but I also know that our children are who they are, and there is often not much we can do to change or rescue them. Maybe you made some mistakes. We all do. Maybe your mistakes were particularly bad ones. Maybe they were what caused Gabriel to turn out the way he did. But don’t you want a second chance? Don’t you want the opportunity to try again? Everyone deserves a shot at redemption.”

  She took another sip of her wine.

  “Why is this so important to you?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “I can’t bear to see that baby get lost. He has no one. Not a single soul in this world. I guess I’d like to see at least one person come out of this horror with something to show for it. I want someone to be redeemed.”

  “And which of us would be redeemed, Ms. Applebaum? Noah, or I?”

  “You tell me, Ms. Arguello. You tell me.”

  Twenty-six

  I wish I could say that it was so easy. I wish I could say that the ending was simple and happy for Noah and for the woman who once thought of herself as his grandmother. But in real life endings are never quite as happy as we wish they would be. The elaborate ruse Suzette Arguello used to take the baby she thought was her grandchild did, of course, come to light. Nancy and Jason McDonnell turned state’s evidence and agreed to testify against Suzette. Suzette in turn accepted a plea bargain that resulted in a three-month period of incarceration, avoiding the much longer kidnapping charge she could have faced.

  Spencer Loft’s attorneys did a remarkable job, and had things proceeded as he had imagined, the grand jury might never have returned an indictment against him. Although he might have failed in his attempt to silence the story of their affair, he might have avoided punishment for his girlfriend’s murder. Spencer Loft was a hubristic man, however, and his promises exceeded his power. The man whose freedom Loft had guaranteed in return for Sandra’s murder came up for parole and was denied. That meant all bets were off. The Aryan Brotherhood was eager to turn against Loft, and the district attorney happy to accept their assistance. Spencer Loft was convicted of second degree murder. I imagine that he is serving his sentence in a lonely cell in the SHU. It is far too dangerous for him to be in the general population.

  And Noah? Despite the horrible irony, custody of Noah was initially given to his biological father, Loft, and revoked only after the guilty verdict. By then Suzette had come home from serving her own sentence. That is how In re: Noah, once Lorgeree, and then Arguello, and now Loft began. I suppose that Noah Loft is the name under which the boy will be registered at the Town School for Boys, if Suzette wins the case. Her opponents in the litigation are Sandra Lorgeree’s brother Jonathan and his wife Allison. At first I followed the case, but when the talking heads on Court TV began to speculate that the hefty child-support obligation of the incarcerated father might be the motivation for the uncle’s petition for custody, I had to turn it off. The story of this little baby was too tragic. It was only by imagining him caught between two families who wanted to love him, not two families who wanted merely to take advantage of him, that I could bear it at all.

  Long before the resolution of the case was clear, on the evening of the day I saw Suzette Arguello for the last time, Sadie was fast asleep in her baby hammock and my two other lucky and loved children were settled in their rooms, either sleeping or doing a good facsimile of it.

  Peter and I curled up together in our own bed, and I nestled my head against his chest.

  “What a horrible case this was,” he said, stroking my hair.

  “Yes.”

  “What an awful mess those people made of their lives.”

  “And for what?” I said into the soft nest of his chest hair. “I just don’t understand it. I don’t get any of it. What did Spencer and Sandra destroy their lives for? They weren’t in love, clearly. So does that mean that they did it because of sex? It just seems so insane.”

  Peter kissed the top of my head, but he didn’t answer. He’s a man, and as he held me I wondered if by virtue of his gender he felt in some deep, unmentionable part of his soul that sex is, in fact, worth it. I wondered if he believed that the hysterical passion that lasts never more than a few hours, and usually no more than a few minutes, could justify any amount of devastation and pain. I leaned up on my elbows and peered into his sleepy eyes.

  “Don’t be an idiot,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I w
ould never have an affair.”

  “But you do think sex is incredibly important, don’t you?”

  “I think sex with you is incredibly important. Because I love you.”

  “I love you, too.” I sighed. After a few moments I continued, “This case just really got to me. Such a high price to pay for something so ephemeral, so pointless. This idiotic affair devastated so many lives.”

  I waited a moment but Peter did not reply. I turned to look at him. He gray eyes were closed, his lashes long against his cheeks. I kissed him gently on the lips and willed myself to fall asleep.

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