Welcome to the World, Baby Girl! (50 page)

Diggers thought that Gerry would probably jump off the Chrysler Building backward if Dena asked. She said, “Call him. Now.”

He answered right away.

“Gerry, it’s Dena.”

“Well, hello,” he said again. “Are you back?”

“I’m still in Missouri.”

“Are you coming back soon?”

“Gerry, that’s just it. I don’t know. I have a problem. Well, a big problem—and I need some help.”

“Oh,” he said and reached over and put on his lucky red baseball cap. “What’s going on?”

She told him everything about her mother disappearing and read the letter she had gotten from Capello. Gerry said, “Who is this idiot?”

“He’s a man I know and he’s dangerous.”

“But that’s just a bunch of stuff he’s trying to scare you with. You know it’s not true. Why can’t you call his bluff?”

“Because I don’t know if it’s true or not.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well … my mother did speak German.”

“So?”

“And she didn’t like to have her picture taken.”

“Dena,” Gerry said, “a lot of people don’t like to have their picture taken. Don’t let this creep freak you out. Your mother was no more a spy than I am.”

“Gerry, you didn’t know her.
I
didn’t know her, really. I always felt that there was something … wrong. Why else would somebody just run off like that?”

“There could be a thousand different reasons. Maybe she met a guy. Maybe she just didn’t want to be a mother anymore; it happens all the time. Who knows what her reason was. But Dena, you can’t let this jerk drive you out of your job. If you don’t want to go back, that’s one thing, but this is blackmail! You can’t let him get away with it.”

“I have to,” Dena said. “I don’t have a choice.”

“Sure, you do. Come on, there has to be something. Talk to a lawyer. Sue him for defamation of character.”

“You don’t know Sidney. He would love for me to sue him, get it on public record.”

“But it’s not true.”

“It doesn’t have to be true. Besides, I don’t want my mother’s name dragged through the papers. And my name would make it news. There is nothing I can do, believe me. Don’t you understand? I can’t fight him. It would kill me. I don’t have the strength to do it anymore.”

Gerry realized she was right.

“No, of course you can’t. What am I thinking about? Sorry, it’s just that I’d like to kill this guy. But don’t worry, we’ll figure out a way so you won’t be involved. You just forget about this sicko, he’s not worth your getting ill again. Let’s concentrate on what we can do for you so you won’t have to think about this anymore. The first thing we need to do is to find out what happened to your mother. And then we’ll figure out what to do about this character. Dena, do you trust me?”

“Yes.”

“OK. I want you to sit tight and let me handle this thing for you. I have a friend in Washington I can call, somebody I went to school with who will know exactly what to do. And I promise you, you can trust him, too. The sooner we find out, the better, so you never have to guess or wonder, you’ll know once and for all. OK? Are you up for that?”

“Yes … I think I am.”

“Here you have been living with this thing all these years, all by yourself, but you’re not alone anymore. I’m with you, do you hear me?”

Dena felt as if a hundred-pound weight had been lifted off her chest. “Yes.”

Macky, Norma, and Aunt Elner were in the living room when Dena told them that she had decided to try and find out more about her mother. Aunt Elner’s response to that news was “Well, she was a pretty thing, I can tell you that. When she stepped down off that train … we all said that, didn’t we, Norma?”

Norma looked at Macky with a horrified expression.

Macky slowly leaned forward in the chair and said, thoughtfully, “Baby Girl, if that’s what you want to do, then that’s what you need to do.” Norma became very nervous and stood up and said, “I think we should all take a walk. I don’t know about all of you but I’m stuffed; they say it’s good to walk after a big dinner.”

“Sit down a minute, Norma,” Macky said. “Dena, is there any particular reason other than I’m sure you’d like to know what happened to her?”

She had not told them about Capello’s threat. “I just think it’s time I found out. I’d like to know if there’s a chance she’s still alive. I know my grandfather hired some people and they didn’t find her but that was what? Twenty-some years ago? They have all kinds of new ways to track people now.”

“So you’re definitely gonna go ahead with this thing?” Macky said.

“Yes, I think so. Unless there’s some reason I shouldn’t?”

Norma wailed, “Oh, I just knew we would make the wrong decision, no matter what we did. I told Macky that at the time. Now look what’s happened.”

“Norma, calm down, nobody’s made a wrong decision. Just go get the box.”

Dena appealed to Macky. “What’s she talking about?”

Norma stood up and started for the bedroom, muttering under
her breath, “I am going to have a complete nervous breakdown before I die, I just know it.”

Aunt Elner, not really clear what was going on, smiled. “I’ll tell you one thing about your mother, she was a pretty thing, had that little hat sitting on the side of her head. It looked just like a little pancake with a net on it.”

Norma came back in and handed Macky a tin box. “Here, you give it to her, I can’t.”

“What is it?” asked Dena.

“It’s a letter, Baby Girl,” Macky said, “from the detective agency your grandfather hired. I didn’t think it would do you any good to see it at the time but now, if you’re gonna go ahead with this thing, you need to know about it.” He took the letter out of the envelope.

Norma said, “Does anybody else besides me want any more coffee? I know I shouldn’t have any but I’ve got to have something.”

Dena skimmed the letter. One sentence jumped out at her:
According to our records, no such person exists.

“Macky, what does that mean?”

“It means that for some reason she was using a different name than her own.”

Aunt Elner said, “Maybe she didn’t like her real name. I know if I hadn’t married a Shimfessle, I would never have called myself that. I would have changed it to Jones … but I didn’t tell them that!”

The next afternoon, Dena’s phone rang.

“Miss Nordstrom?”

“Yes?”

“This is Richard Look with the State Department.”

Dena’s heart pounded. “Yes?”

“I understand from Gerry O’Malley that you might need a little help locating someone?”

Dena found herself relieved he had not called to tell her anything specific. She was not as ready to find out the truth as she had thought. She sat down and the cat jumped up in her lap. “Yes, what has Gerry told you?”

“Miss Nordstrom, just so you know, Gerry informed me of the entire situation and I understand completely the need for confidentiality. I can assure you, your name will be kept out of the investigation.”

The word
investigation
made her uneasy but she said, “Thank you, I really appreciate that. Did he tell you about the letter?”

“The German spy stuff? Yes, but don’t worry, we’ve handled these kinds of things before. We’ll get to the bottom of this and we’ll do it without involving you, I can promise you that. All I need you to do for me is to send whatever you have—papers, letters, photographs, the names of any friends or anyone who might have known her. Sometimes they can tell you much more than records. Can you do that?”

“Yes, I can do that.”

“Fine. Then we’ll go from there.”

All there was to send him was the one photograph, plus the letter Macky had given her the night before, the letter that had come about Capello’s file, and the first name of a woman who had been a Rockette. Other than her, her mother had no friends that she knew of.

The minute she mailed the letter she regretted it. Walking home she began to wonder again why her mother had changed her name. Had she been a spy? What if she were still alive somewhere? What if they found her and arrested her? What if they executed her? What if she would be responsible for killing her own mother? By the time she reached the house she was in a full-blown panic and was so rattled she could hardly dial the phone.

Gerry was with a patient and she left a message. She looked at the clock. She had to wait twenty-one more minutes until he would pick up his messages and call her back and for twenty-one minutes she threw cold water on her face and walked the floor. By the time he called she was almost hysterical and was too panicked to sit up and was lying on the floor with the cat walking all over her thinking it was a game.

Gerry said, “Dena, just calm down. Listen to me. It’s not too late … nothing’s happened. I can call Dick right now and stop it right now.”

“I don’t want to do this. I’ve changed my mind.”

“Fine. You don’t have to. Nobody is holding a gun to your head.”

“Will you call him?”

“Of course, whatever you want.”

“Will you call right now? Tell him to forget it, please … before he does anything. Tell him not to open the letter.”

“All right, I’ll call him now.”

Five minutes later Gerry called back. “OK, everything is fine. He’s not going to proceed.”

“Does he think I’m crazy?”

“No.”

“Is he mad at me? What did he say?”

“He said whatever you wanted. When and if you ever need his help, he’s there. OK?”

“Gerry, I’m sorry. I guess I’m not as ready as I thought. Are you disappointed?”

“Of course not. You called me, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know what I’m so afraid of. I just can’t do this right now.”

“It’s taken care of.”

“Gerry, are you mad at me?”

“I’m not mad at you, Dena. But I want you to get some help with this. You should talk to Elizabeth.”

Dena set up a phone session with Dr. Diggers for the next afternoon and told her everything that had happened.

Dr. Diggers said, “But from what you tell me, Gerry’s friend assured you that he could try and get some answers and you wouldn’t be involved, right? Don’t you
want
to know?”

“Yes. But … it’s more than that. I just feel it’s wrong, that I shouldn’t pry into my mother’s past, whatever it was she didn’t want me to know. I feel like I might be betraying her or something, you know? I feel guilty about sneaking around trying to find out things, it makes me feel dirty or slimy or … I don’t know, bad …”

“I see,” Dr. Diggers said. “You are going to spend the rest of your life being miserable because you don’t want Mommy upset with you or to get her in trouble. Dena, face the facts. Your mother
walked out on you. You were a fifteen-year-old child. Stop trying to protect her. She was a horrible, despicable human being. You should hate her. She didn’t love you, she walked out on you, she didn’t care about you, she just left for no reason. She was a cold, heartless bitch.”

Dena felt her face flush. “Hey, wait a minute, you don’t know that. Nobody knows that for sure … she could have had a very good reason.”

“Dena, that’s exactly my point! Nobody knows and you will never know because there is a part of you that does not want to know. And sweetie pie, whatever you find out, either way, is not going to be easy. We can’t go back and change the past. All we can do is to try and make the present as pleasant as possible.”