The P.I. Contest

by C. J. Carmichael

  After a few seconds, the significance sunk in.

  This was where Kate had been rushing off to when he’d passed her on the stairs. She’d found Coach Gifford in a nursing home.

  JAY SLIPPED ON his sunglasses as he stepped out to the street, searching for a cab.

  The day was bright, the air calm. Perfect winter flying weather. He felt the old yearning and flexed his hands, remembering the feel of the controls from his cargo pilot days—his first job after flight school.

  He’d seen some beautiful, awe-inspiring sights back then. Snow-covered mountain ranges, ice-blue skies and acres and acres of evergreen forests. He could fly for hours without any sign of human life below.

  He’d loved that job, and had only quit when he heard his mother was sick and not expected to last long. And she hadn’t. Six months after he’d relocated to Manhattan, his mother was buried and he was trying to get his sister into a rehab program for her meth addiction.

  Those had been the pre-Eric days. When Tracy had realized she was pregnant, she’d turned her life around for a while. For a glorious period of two or three years, she’d devoted herself to being a mother…until the next jerk walked into her life and messed her head up all over again.

  A cab stopped and Jay hurried inside, giving brief instructions to the driver then sinking back to watch the constant stream of passing buildings.

  Jay closed his eyes. The pace of the past few months was catching up to him. The brief exhilaration he’d felt a moment ago had passed and now he was engulfed with a sense of profound sadness. For his sister. For Eric. Even for a man he’d never known and the woman who had loved him, but been unable to help him when he’d found out he was dying.

  Snap out of this, he finally told himself. There was nothing to be gained by letting the past bog him down. He thought about Kate—she had about thirty minutes on him. Perhaps she wouldn’t even be at the nursing home when he arrived. For all he knew, right this moment she was on her way to BioFinds Lab with a sample of Gary’s DNA.

  “Here you are,” the driver said, pulling to a stop about fifteen minutes later. Jay paid him, then stepped out to the street.

  The Brooklyn Heights nursing home was a redbrick, three-story structure built in a U shape, with a garden in the center. Paved paths meandered through the shrubs, and benches were placed at discreet intervals. It was much too cold for anyone to be sitting out there now, of course, but the paths had been cleared of snow, and a couple of chickadees were fighting over a seed feeder strung from a branch of one of the taller shrubs.

  All in all, it did not seem an unattractive place to live out your final years, Jay thought. If someone was paying attention to details outdoors, hopefully the same was taking place inside with the residents.

  He made his way through the automatically opening glass-fronted doors and was surprised to see Kate standing in the waiting area, talking on her cell phone. She was focused on the call and hadn’t noticed him.

  He wondered why she hadn’t left for the lab. Maybe she still hadn’t spoken to Gary Gifford. Was it possible he could get the sample before she did?

  Jay scrubbed his feet on the rubber matt by the door, then approached the receptionist. Whether Kate had seen him already or not, he still wanted to meet Gary Gifford. If nothing else, he really should pass along Lillian Price’s greeting.

  The receptionist was in her fifties, with short curly hair and glasses, and she sat behind a high counter topped with granite and protected with a sliding glass partition.

  She looked at him curiously. “I’ll be right with you.” Then she returned her attention to a young man in a nursing uniform standing by her side with a clipboard.

  Meanwhile, Kate was ending her call. “If it’s okay with you, I’ll go ahead and ask him. I’ll phone you right back and let you know what he says.”

  She snapped her phone shut and slid it into the front pocket of her sweater. Then she saw Jay.

  Her mouth dropped open, then her jaw tightened and her eyes narrowed. She moved toward him. “I don’t believe this.”

  “Just can’t shake me, can you? Still, you found Gary Gifford first. Congratulations.”

  “What are you doing here? How did you possibly—” She shook her head. “I keep underestimating you.”

  He thought guiltily of the directions spewed out by the printer, but didn’t mention anything about that. He could salvage his pride a little and pretend he hadn’t been that far behind.

  “So do you have the sample?” he asked.

  She frowned, annoyed. “Gary Gifford won’t talk to me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Apparently he’s a bit of a recluse. According to the head nurse, he only has one regular visitor. A former student from his coaching days.”

  This was an unforeseen complication. “So now what?”

  “I wondered if he might remember Rebecca. I just got off the phone with her. She says she’ll drive over here if we can get him to agree to talk to her.”

  “Smart plan.”

  Kate took a deep breath. “Here’s hoping it works.”

  Jay hung back as she went to talk to the woman at reception. After a few minutes, a nurse came out to join the discussion. She listened to Kate, nodded, then went back, presumably to relay the message to Gary Gifford.

  Jay went to stand with Kate at that point. She had her arms crossed over her middle and her features were set tensely. “So close,” she murmured. “So close. Please let him say yes.”

  But when the nurse finally returned, she was shaking her head. “I’m sorry, Ms. Cooper, but Mr. Gifford doesn’t want to see his old college friend, either. I’m afraid he’s very sensitive about his physical condition.”

  “Maybe another letter from Hannah,” Jay suggested. They’d tried that approach with Oliver Crane. Why not with Coach Gifford?

  “This is so frustrating. We’re so close…” Kate thanked the nurse and the receptionist for their help, then went to retrieve her coat from a rack by the entrance.

  “You’re giving up?” he asked, surprised to see that she seemed to be about to leave.

  “I can’t think of anything else to do….” She shrugged. “Maybe I will ask Hannah for another letter. Though, frankly, I’ll be very surprised if Gary Gifford even reads it.”

  Jay couldn’t help but feel badly for Kate’s setback. She’d been smart and she’d worked hard.

  “You deserved a better outcome,” he told her.

  “I’ll figure something out yet.”

  He nodded. She wasn’t the type to give up. “Want me to call you a cab?”

  She seemed surprised. “I thought we would share—”

  “I’m going to hang around a bit longer.”

  Her eyes narrowed suspiciously, but before she could ask him why, her phone rang.

  “Kate Cooper,” she said in a flat, businesslike tone. A few seconds later, her eyes brightened. “Really? You bet I’ll come. I’ll be there as quickly as possible.”

  He waited, but she didn’t explain who had called or where she was headed next.

  “See you later, Jay.”

  “Good luck,” he called after her.

  She turned then, and met his gaze squarely. “You, too,” she said, and then she was gone.

  Jay shoved his hands into his pockets and tried to come up with a plan. It was crazy to be this close to Gary Gifford, only to be turned away.

  Finally he approached the receptionist, who wore a badge that read Shelby Summers.

  “Excuse me, Ms. Summers, I was just wondering…Kate said Mr. Gifford has an ex-student who visits him every week?”

  “Yes. Marc Certosimo is a wonderful young man.”

  “Can you tell me when he usually comes?”

  She glanced at the calendar on her desk. “Why, today. But not until later in the evening. Usually some time after seven.”

  “Thanks.” Jay smiled. It seemed luck was on his side again.

  HANNAH’S LETTER TO Oliver Crane had been effectiv
e after all. The Park Avenue lawyer met Kate at the juice bar by his gym. He had a wool coat over his designer suit, and a burgundy silk scarf around his neck. He would have looked quite sharp, however his ears added a slightly comic touch. In clipped, businesslike tones, he asked her what he needed to do in order to provide an appropriate DNA sample.

  She gave him the kit, he took it to the washroom, and was back five minutes later. She held out her hand, but Crane still had one condition.

  “I’m providing this sample with the proviso that no one—not you, or anyone from your agency, and especially not Hannah—contacts me again.”

  “But when we get the results—”

  “I don’t want to know about them. You can tell your client that if it turns out I am her biological father, then she should consider it a pretty clean bill of health. My father had a heart attack in his sixties, but he was an overweight smoker who never exercised.”

  A pattern his son had definitely not followed, Kate thought. Judging by his trim physique, he did more at his gym than sip carrot juice at the fruit bar.

  “There are no other health issues that I’m aware of,” he told her. Then he set the bag with his DNA sample on the table. “Now, do I have your word that my privacy will be respected?”

  She couldn’t stop herself from asking, “But aren’t you curious?”

  His gray eyes flashed impatiently. “I could give you ten very good reasons why I shouldn’t provide you with this sample. I have career aspirations beyond the legal profession and I have no desire to have illegitimate children popping out of the woodwork.”

  “Hannah has agreed to keep the results absolutely confidential. I’m sure she’ll also agree never to contact you again, if that really is your wish.”

  “It is.” He shook her hand then, and finally passed over the DNA sample.

  As Kate watched him leave, it occurred to her that what she found so unbelievable in Oliver Crane—that he could walk away from his own biological child with such apparent ease—was exactly what she had asked Jay to do.

  AT A QUARTER TO SEVEN, JAY returned to the nursing home. Someone new was sitting at the reception desk now. As he approached, he squinted to read her badge. Rosie McBride looked close to retirement, with silver curls and penciled-in eyebrows.

  “May I help you?” she asked cheerfully.

  “I hope so.” He explained that he was waiting for Marc Certosimo, and that he would appreciate it if she would point him out when he arrived for his usual visit.

  “No need for Rosie to do that,” a strong, young voice said from behind him.

  He turned to see a muscle-bound man in his early twenties, dressed in a training suit and wearing white sneakers that made his feet look clownishly large.

  “I’m Marc Certosimo.”

  “Glad to meet you. Jay Savage.” He offered a hand, which the young man proceeded to crush in a grip that went beyond firm.

  “Is this about Coach Gifford?”

  Given the setting, it was a logical question, and Jay nodded. “Can we sit down and talk for a minute?”

  “If it doesn’t take too long.” Marc followed him to the reception area, then lowered his body into one of the chairs.

  Jay didn’t often meet men who were his size, and Marc was slightly bigger. He leaned forward in his seat and made eye contact, hoping to establish a rapport.

  “You play football?”

  “Defensive end for New England College.”

  “Coach Gifford’s alma mater.”

  “That’s right.” A gleam of respect showed in the kid’s eyes. “You’re too old to be one of his students. How do you know the coach?”

  “I’m working on behalf of The Fox & Fisher Detective Agency in Manhattan. One of their clients believes Coach Gifford could be her father.”

  “No shit? What makes her think that?”

  “Her mother had a thing with Coach Gifford in their first year of college,” Jay said, tactfully refraining from referring to the encounter as a one-night stand.

  “Is that right?” Marc grinned. “So the coach had a girlfriend in his past. Cool. Most of the guys at school figured he was gay.”

  “Not you?”

  “I could tell he was crazy about our high school music teacher, Lillian Price. They went kind of gaga when they were in the same room together. But she was married, and the coach wasn’t the kind of guy to get in the way of that.”

  “So you would call him an honorable man?” Jay hoped he had finally found his opening.

  “Definitely.”

  “Then you would think that if he had fathered a child, he would be willing to own up to it.”

  Marc’s eyes widened at Jay’s bluntness, but he took a minute to reflect, then nodded. “Yeah. I think he would. But if his daughter is hoping to squeeze some money out of him, tell her to forget it. All his pension goes toward this place.”

  “This isn’t about money,” Jay assured him. “His daughter is planning to have a baby. Huntington’s is a genetic disease. If she’s his daughter, then she has a right to know if she’s a carrier.”

  “Hell,” Marc said. “That’s for sure.”

  “Someone else working for the agency, Kate Cooper, was here earlier. She asked Mr. Gifford if he would provide a DNA sample for testing. It’s a simple procedure—all we need is saliva from his mouth—but he refused.”

  “Maybe he didn’t understand the request. He has his good days and his bad days, if you know what I mean.”

  “Would you mind bringing it up with him?”

  “I don’t see what it could hurt. I’ll talk to him.”

  “Here.” Jay passed him one of the test kits. “If he agrees, you can get the sample right away. Like I said, it’s really easy to do.”

  Marc turned to leave, then Jay called him back.

  “One more thing. Would you tell him that Lillian Price says hello?”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Marc returned to the reception area shaking his head. “I’m really sorry.”

  “He wouldn’t provide a sample?” Jay couldn’t believe it. He’d been so certain that Marc would be able to convince his former coach that it was the honorable thing to do.

  “Before he got sick, I have no doubt he would have cooperated. Coach Gifford taught us that we have to take responsibility for our actions—on the field and in real life, too.”

  “Sounds like he was a great coach.”

  “That’s why I’m here,” Marc answered simply. “But this disease has affected his mind. He’s suspicious and paranoid about so many things. I couldn’t risk upsetting him by forcing the issue.”

  “Did you mention Lillian Price?”

  “Yeah. But I’m not sure it was a good idea. When he heard her name he started to cry.” Marc handed the test kit back to Jay.

  Damn. Jay had had such high hopes that this would turn out differently.

  “Well, thanks for trying.” Jay offered the younger man a business card. “If he changes his mind, will you call?”

  “Sure,” Marc said, but it was clear that he didn’t believe there was much chance of that happening.

  IT WAS TOO LATE in the day to take Oliver Crane’s DNA sample to the lab, so Kate had to wait until the morning. She was so anxious, she arrived ten minutes before opening and stood stamping her feet in the cold until the front door was unlocked.

  She’d been prepared to see Jay, waiting with a sample from Gary Gifford, but she was the only person in the lab as she handed over the test and filled out the paperwork.

  Did that mean he hadn’t had any more luck with Gifford than she had?

  She hoped so. She was so close now, so very close.

  She wanted to stay at the lab and wait for the results, but of course, that didn’t make any sense. Still, she felt at a loss for what to do.

  There was nothing more to be accomplished by going to the office. Until she’d been officially selected for the job, this was her only case.

  She decided to
go to an Internet café for breakfast. The café was one of those cozy, casual places, with a menu written on a blackboard in colored chalk, weathered wooden floors and tiny round tables matched with small, wooden chairs.

  Kate bought a muffin and juice, then found a table next to the window. She ate slowly, gazing outside at the tail end of the morning rush. On the sidewalks she saw people with every shade of skin, dressed in clothing that ran the gamut from designer business wear to grungy casual.

  Gray-haired executives brushed past multipierced and tattooed young adults. Beautifully coiffed women stepped around harried young parents with children in tow—on their way to schools or day cares, before heading into the office.

  Kate’s attention was drawn to the children, especially the babies and toddlers in strollers. They were the only ones, she thought, who were really looking and paying attention to the world around them.

  Most of the adults had distracted expressions, as if mentally they were already at their place of employment. They were sipping from takeout coffee mugs, or talking into their cell phones.

  It was the children who were taking in the world around them, wide-eyed and curious. Kate felt the familiar ache, the desperate need to be a mother.

  In six more days, she would know for sure. According to her research, that was when she would be able to expect a reasonably accurate result from a home pregnancy test. But she wasn’t holding out much hope. In fact, with each passing day she realized how foolish she’d been to even consider getting pregnant could be this easy.

  Kate sighed, then logged in to the computer and hooked up to the Internet. One way or the other, either she or Jay were shortly going to be out of a job. It couldn’t hurt to do some research. Find out what else was out there.

  The most promising opportunity she found was with the Ashenhurst Agency, located in SoHo. The firm was quite a bit larger than The Fox & Fisher Detective Agency, which would translate into less freedom and more bureaucracy. But still, she jotted down the contact information.