Pushing Up Bluebonnets (10 page)

  The salad was delicious, however, and Loreen had no problem with Doris finishing that off. When Jeff's sister had come to live with him, most vegetables had been met with a vigorous shake of the head, but those days were over.

  After the three of us cleaned up the dishes, I told Loreen I'd stay with Doris until Jeff came home. Loreen's protests to the contrary didn't last long and soon she was on her way.

  Doris and I did a jigsaw puzzle until she tired of it and asked to go to her room. ''Can I watch TV, Abby?''

  ''Would Loreen let you?'' I asked.

  ''I can watch one hour if I do the homework. Five spelling words. Bird. B-I-R-D. Cat. C-A-T. Dog. D-O G. Fish. F-I-S-H. Rat. R-A-T.'' She grinned like a mule eating cockleburs.

  ''Good job,'' I said. ''Don't go watching any of those gory shows with the bodies. You'll get nightmares, remember?''

  ''I remember. I'll watch TV Land, okay?''

  ''Good choice. I'm proud of you.'' These sounded like Kate's words coming from my mouth, but my sister had been right when she advised me to give Doris plenty of praise. The tantrums Doris used to throw were history.

  Another hug and she was off to her room. When I peeked in a half hour later, she was sound asleep, so I turned off her small television.

  I made coffee and now that Doris was down for the count, I took my mug into Jeff's office and booted up his computer. Without the birth certificate, my job had become a lot tougher.

  I sipped my coffee while the computer screen populated, then clicked on the browser icon. The Internet is scary when it comes to all matters illegal. While doing a search for a case, I've sometimes found advice on how to con people out of their savings, bomb buildings and buy assault rifles. But I'd never looked into how you could completely obliterate the identity of a car. I ran a search just for my own education and discovered this kind of crime seemed to be more prevalent in the United Kingdom—but that was a Google search. After logging on to one of my private-eye databases, I discovered forgery didn't involve only checks, birth certificates and wills, and counterfeit didn't apply only to money. If people needed documentation for something they owned or had perhaps stolen—especially expensive jewelry and cars—someone could manufacture the right paperwork for a price.

  Okay, now what? JoLynn had a life before showing up at the Magnolia Ranch last year. Could she have been reported as a missing person by someone? But after an hour of searching—there are thousands of missing-persons' pictures on the Net—I gave up, my eyes blurry from gazing at photo after photo.

  I checked my watch and saw it was nearly ten o'clock. Still not too late to make a call. I wandered back into the living room, found my purse and took out my cell. I located the phone entry for Penny Flannery.

  I'd met Penny, a Children's Protective Services caseworker, after she called and asked me to help an adolescent foster kid who wanted to meet his biological father. The man had been AWOL from the kid's life for about fourteen years. Unfortunately that case didn't turn out well. I discovered the father was in Huntsville State Prison on an armed-robbery conviction. The young man decided he didn't want that reunion after all.

  But Penny and I had become friends and I'd told her to relay to Health and Human Services that I would be willing to take cases pro bono in the future.

  I punched CALL and Penny answered on the fourth ring, sounding out of breath.

  ''It's Abby. Did I catch you at a bad time?''

  ''No way,'' Penny said with a laugh. ''I was running around in circles trying to find the damn phone. What can I do you for?''

  ''I need help with a case and I realize you can't search adoption files, but this particular person appeared in a man's life with his family name on her birth certificate. She told him she'd been adopted as a baby and was his biological granddaughter. In fact, the man's daughter's name was on that certificate.''

  ''But that doesn't make sense if she was adopted. They put the
adopted
parents' names on the certificate, not the biological mother's name. Unless this woman went to court, had her adoption file opened and reclaimed her original birth certificate, that is.''

  ''Exactly. If she didn't petition the court for her records, could she have been in foster care and not an adoption case?'' I said.

  ''For sure. We don't change their names—we keep their original birth certificates until they're officially adopted.''

  ''Okay, you've given me a glimmer of hope here. How confidential are foster-care records?'' I asked.

  ''The records are pretty private unless there's a good reason to reveal a child's identity,'' Penny said.

  ''This girl—her name is JoLynn Richter, by the way— is too old for foster care now, so does that change anything as far as the confidentiality?''

  ''Maybe. Get to the point, Abby.''

  I told her the situation and how I wasn't sure we had correctly identified the woman in that coma. With the fake ID and the birth certificate conveniently missing, I definitely smelled a scam. Or, at the very least, a girl who was protecting her past.

  Penny said, ''This sounds like a special circumstance. I'll run the name, check with my supervisor and get back to you.''

  ''Would a picture help?'' I certainly could use one myself and felt stupid I hadn't asked Richter to provide a photo today. Maybe he could e-mail me one.

  ''I only need to run the name. Her picture will be in her file if she was in foster care.''

  ''You'll call me when you know something?''

  ''Sure, Abby. Should be tomorrow.''

  We hung up and I logged off Jeff's computer. This was a start, but for some reason, I felt less than hopeful, something that never happens to me early in a case. Heck, I'm usually so optimistic, I expect to bring home a bird from a wild-goose chase. JoLynn obviously went to plenty of trouble to hide her past. The birth certificate could have been the original and she was ashamed of being a foster child. I could only hope it was as simple as that.

  When I heard Jeff's key in the lock, my mood brightened.

  We embraced in the living room and he murmured, ''You are the best thing I've seen all day.''

  I pulled away and smiled. ''I look better than a corpse? Gee, I'm flattered.''

  ''Shut up, smart aleck.'' He drew me back and his hands gently lifted my face to his, his fingers in my hair.

Oh, yes, let the undressing begin.

An hour later, Jeff sat at the breakfast bar eating leftover chicken and rice. I'd pulled a stool to the end of the bar so I could see more than his profile.

  My hands were supporting my chin as I admired him. ''I think you should always eat wearing only boxers. Shirtless suits you.''

  ''Tell me that again in about twenty years and I might smile. As for you, I get a total kick out of your hair all messed up like it always gets after we make love.''

  I laughed. ''I can do messy hair for a lifetime. Now, I hate to change the subject, but you wanna hear about my case?''

  ''Sure.''

  I told him about my meeting with Richter, the forgeries, the missing birth certificate. ''This might be my toughest job yet. Richter's got his head in the sand when it comes to JoLynn.''

  ''Maybe he's playing you,'' Jeff said. ''Are you sure he was as heartbroken and confused as he seemed?''

  ''Playing me? Why would he do that?''

  Jeff finished the last grain of rice, reached over the bar to the kitchen counter and grabbed a napkin from the wicker basket. ''Maybe he hopes you'll find out things about JoLynn he can use to discredit her and get her out of his life.'' He wiped his mouth.

  ''No way, Jeff. He loves that girl. Besides, Cooper found out plenty of information to open that particular door and Richter never walked through. But there's something else going on, something I can't put my finger on.''

  ''You'll figure it out like you always do, hon. How's about we go back to bed and continue this conversation there?''

  ''Conversation? I don't think that's what you have in mind.''

  Jeff just grinned and we walked back down the hall to the bedroom, arm in arm, my head on his shoulder.

11

I left Jeff's place right after Loreen arrived early Tuesday morning to begin her day with Doris. Diva snubbed me when I came in through my back door. She always has what I call her ''kitty buffet''—three dishes of her favorite dry foods and a water feeder that could be used to quench a desert. Didn't matter. I'd left her overnight and she didn't like that one bit. She ran off to a hiding place as soon as she saw me, but she
had
been waiting in the kitchen for my arrival and that made me smile.

  Penny called not long after I arrived home, and I was glad I didn't have to wait around all day to hear her say, ''Though I cannot tell you who
was
in foster care in Texas, I certainly can tell you who was not. No one named JoLynn Richter came through our system in the last two decades.''

  I sighed, thanked Penny for her help and hung up. Maybe JoLynn had been placed in foster care in another state or maybe she really had been adopted. But then how did she get her original birth certificate if it wasn't fake like everything else? There was no way to find out. I made a pot of strong coffee and went to my office. Stopping only for a few snack breaks, I spent the rest of the day again searching missing-persons databases, which apparently made Diva forgive and forget. She made good use of my lap for hours.

  I'd called Richter and left a message with Eva for him to call me. I needed a picture of JoLynn for comparison with those I was searching through on the Web. I began a file, saving any missing person's profile and photo that could possibly be JoLynn's—tedious swivelchair detective work and the part of the job I swear I'm allergic to.

  Richter didn't get back to me until almost three o'clock and said he had only a family photo from last Christmas, the one time she'd agreed to be photographed. He said he'd been in Houston this morning to visit JoLynn and could have brought it then but would give me a copy when Kate and I came for dinner.

  An hour later, dressed in black slacks, a lacy white tank and the platinum and diamond necklace Jeff gave me for my birthday, I drove to Kate's house. She, too, lived in West University, so that was the short part of the trip. Then we were off to the Magnolia Ranch. I filled her in on yesterday's visit there and told her the plan to interview each family member alone.

  When we finally reached our destination and I drove down the winding driveway to the house, I said, ''Hope you have your shrink brain in gear, Kate. The way Richter talks, you're gonna need all your skills tonight.''

  Eva answered the door dressed in a white uniform, her gray hair pulled back so tight she looked like she'd had a face-lift. She even had a starched little maid's cap set back on her crown. After looking me up and down, unsmiling, she appraised Kate—who had chosen a red sundress with a wide patent leather belt. That's when Eva's expression softened. Kate's beauty can make anyone smile and she has
style
while I have
clothes.

  ''Come in, please,'' Eva said.

  Without a word, Eva led us through the house to the porch, where several people were drinking wine. A large glass bowl sat on a high round table and was half-filled with ice and mounded with peeled shrimp. No one was partaking. There was still plenty of daylight left and Otto, the cook who had served us yesterday, was working away at a stainless barbecue grill and prep center just outside the porch. That setup would take up my entire backyard.

  Kate and I stood in the doorway with no one acknowledging our presence. Then, before I made a fool of myself by standing among these rude people and shouting, ''Hi, I'm Abby and this is Kate. We're not invisible,'' Scott Morton came in behind us and saved me from myself.

  ''Abby and Kate. I'm so glad you're helping us,'' he said.

  Heads turned. Disdainful looks came our way. The porch, with its spinning fans and glassed-in elegance, seemed to grow chilly enough to freeze the balls off a billiards table.

  ''Come and meet my parents,'' Scott said. But I could tell the hostile atmosphere made him nervous and fidgety.

Kate whispered, ''This ought to be fun.''

  ''Yeah,'' I answered through the side of my mouth. ''Fun as chasing armadillos.''

  Scott introduced his parents to Kate and me as ''Mom and Leo.'' ''Kate, this is my mother. She's Uncle Elliott's sister. That reminds me. Maybe someone needs to tell him you two are here.'' He made a hasty exit—and I felt like following him.

  His mother switched her wineglass from right hand to left and extended her diamond-loaded fingers. ''Adele Hunt. This is my husband, Leopold.''

  I squeezed her hand, but got nothing in return. She then greeted Kate with the same flipperesque shake. Leopold was more enthusiastic, maybe because Kate's cleavage had his full attention. Adele was obviously younger than her brother, Elliott, but Leopold was at least sixty.

  Adele wagged a finger between Kate and me. ''Which of you will be the interrogator?'' Her bloodred lips formed a smile that said ''I hope you know who you're dealing with.''

  ''We'll probably both have questions,'' I said.

  ''I see. A double-your-fun twin killing.'' She sipped her white wine, her eyebrows raised knowingly at me.

  
Twin
killing? She knew we were twins? What exactly had Elliott Richter told his family? My life history? Probably. And he'd no doubt researched Kate as soon as he knew she would be coming this evening.

  Kate said, ''Are you concerned about meeting with us, Mrs. Hunt?''

  ''Adele only worries about the stock market,'' Leopold said. ''People never intimidate her.''

  ''And Leopold only worries about the level of Glenlivet in the bottle he keeps in his office,'' Adele countered, again with her nasty smile.

  I nodded at Adele. ''Can't wait to talk to you after dinner.'' Then I took Kate's elbow. ''Guess we'd better introduce ourselves to the rest of these folks.''

  My eye caught a woman who I assumed was Piper, Richter's new daughter-in-law. She was fashionably, or rather
sickly,
thin, her arm around the waist of a broadshouldered man with a very fine butt. I assumed this was Matthew, Richter's son. They were talking with a tall man standing beside a wildly overdressed woman in her twenties. I mean, I'm all for free expression, but she was wearing a spangled blue gown better suited to a Las Vegas show.

  I took a deep breath and pulled Kate along with me.

  Their little circle parted a tad when we approached them. We introduced ourselves and learned the tall man was Ian McFarland, Adele's second husband—his emphasis definitely on
second
in his charming British accent. His companion was not the daughter he shared with Adele, the one Scott told me about, but rather a young woman named Cinnamon. Mental note. Do not name any future offspring after spices.

  Matthew and Piper offered the same cool reaction we'd received from Adele, but Ian and his ''date'' actually seemed happy to see us.

  Ian looked at us and said, ''You've no drinks, do you? How atrocious.'' Then the fair-haired Ian yelled, ''Eva, you slacker. Where are you when we need you most?''

  But Estelle appeared, also dressed in a white uniform. At least she'd toned down the makeup. Eva didn't make an appearance. Maybe the word
slacker
had sent her running to the kitchen to spit in Ian's salad. Estelle quickly brought Kate and me glasses of white wine.

  Meanwhile, I glanced over at Adele and saw her appraising Cinnamon with disgust, but when she spotted me looking at her, she put a hand on her husband's arm and drew close to him. Oh yeah, this was gonna be some show tonight.

  Piper looked healthier up close, her highlighted shoulder-length hair tucked behind her ears and secured with turquoise-studded barrettes. They matched the lowslung silver and turquoise belt she wore over a pale yellow sleeveless dress. Matthew was muscular, with the same blue eyes as his father.

  ''This Poirot-like visit with you sounds like such fun, Abby,'' Ian said. ''You and your sister work as a team, I assume?''

''At times,'' Kate answered.

  Ian focused on her, his gaze admiring. ''And what might you do at other times, Kate?''

  Cinnamon nudged Ian's side with her elbow. ''Sugar, would you get me some of that shrimp no one else seems to want?''

  His eyes still on Kate, Ian said, ''Certainly, sweetheart.'' He walked toward the ice-filled bowl.

  Piper and Matthew had stepped a few feet away and were practically feeling each other up. His hand rested on her nearly invisible butt and she had drawn close enough to breathe in his exhaled CO2. She might pass out if they stayed that way too long.

  ''You two live around here?'' Cinnamon adjusted the built-in bra on her gown, which practically thrust her breasts right out of her sequined bodice. She didn't seem to care.

  But before we could engage in small talk, Scott reappeared with Richter at his side. All previous surliness in the room evaporated and white-tooth smiles shone on the family's golden-egg man. Richter took charge at once, insisting we all enjoy the shrimp and the wine and the beautiful summer evening for the next few minutes. Dinner would be ready in fifteen.

  I headed for that bowl of shrimp like I had to get there before this roomful of sharks consumed everything including me.