Chapter 21

Uncle Donald worked fast when he had something to do. Tess and Jackie were instructed to meet him Monday morning at his office in the Department of Human Resources. The destination made Tess nostalgic, for the agency was housed in the old Hutzler's, once the city's grandest department store. Ten stories high, so full of things to buy and covet that it had a second building to the south to catch the overflow. Tess had bought her first makeup here, cutting school and taking the #10 bus downtown. By today's standards-department stores with grand pianos and marble floors and espresso bars-the old Hutzler's wouldn't seem quite so grand. But something caught in Tess's throat when she saw what it had been reduced to, just another state office building with flimsy walls and little warrens of offices.

"Let's take a walk," Uncle Donald said when he met them in the lobby, clipboard in hand.

Glancing at his watch, he led them to the Light Rail stop around the corner and sat on the benches, the ones designed so homeless people could never stretch out along their length.

"As soon as I started making inquiries, I was told there was a judge," Uncle Donald began. "He does this for a fee, usually."

"How much?" Jackie asked.

"Ten thousand dollars."

"I have that." And Jackie actually took out her check book and her Mont Blanc pen. No ordinary Bics for Jackie. Uncle Donald put his hand over hers before she could start filling it out. Tess could just imagine what she might have written there. Pay to the order of judge-so-and-so. Ten Thousand Dollars. For: just a little bribe.

"It's strictly a cash business, dear. Besides, I said he usually does this. When I told him of your situation, he said he can't help. See, all he can do is unseal the original birth certificate. But you know what's on that, right? And there's nothing that connects the original birth certificate with the second one issued."

"Another dead-end," Jackie said bitterly. "From everything I've learned, it sounds as if my daughter could find me pretty easily, but I'll never be able to find her."

The Light Rail train pulled up just then, half-empty as usual. A tall, broad-shouldered man with curly blond hair poking out from beneath the brim of a Yankees cap got off and sat down next to them, studying the sports pages of the New York Post. He wore a denim shirt, untucked, faded jeans and dirty-white Chuck Taylors. Normally, wearing a Yankee cap in Baltimore was akin to sporting a "kick me" sign, but it was hard to imagine anyone bothering this man. It wasn't just his size. He carried himself with an assurance as formidable as it was irritating to Tess. She disliked natural self-confidence, given how much she had to work at faking it.

"If you're headed to Camden Yards, you're about six blocks too far north," Tess told the man, put off by his invasion of their personal space. What kind of creep sat down right next to you when there were plenty of benches free? "If you're heading for Yankee Stadium, that's two hundred miles to the north."

"Believe me, I know where I can go when I want to watch some real baseball," the man said in a quiet voice, his eyes focused on the box scores. "The Yankees are only three back in the all-important loss column. Only three back in the loss column, five out of first place. You know baseball? You understand the significance of that?"

"We're sort of having a private conversation here, and it's not about baseball geekery."

"Donald, you might want to tell this woman who I am. Well, not who I am, but why I'm here."

"Tess, Miss Weir, call this gentleman Mr. Mole."

"What, are we playing Wind in the Willows all of a sudden?" Tess asked. "Dibs on being Mr. Toad."

Mr. Mole studied her, but not with the squinty, sun-averse gaze of his namesake. He had bright blue eyes, eyes that burned so bright they seemed freezing cold. He easily won the stare-down.

"Mr. Mole works in the Health Department," Uncle Donald said. "He has access to birth certificates, which are private under Maryland law. As I said, we know what's on the original birth certificate, because Jackie filled that out herself. What Mr. Mole proposes to do is go through all the birth certificates in the eighteen months following the birth of Jackie's daughter."

Tess didn't see how this would work any better than everything they had tried. "How can you match the new certificate to the old? At this point, we're not sure of any of the clues we started with-not the name, not the parents' names, not their location. For all we know, everything we were told was a lie, or just flat-out wrong."

"I don't need a name," Mr. Mole said. "I can immediately narrow my search to any certificate that has a different issue date than the date of birth. That's the tip-off, you see, it indicates there was an adoption. Otherwise, the two dates are the same."

"How broad a field of possibilities are we talking here?" Tess asked, still skeptical.

"Pretty small, actually. The certificate had to be issued through the city, because that's where the adoption took place. It has to be a girl. I'm going to go through the county records, just in case, but I'm confident I'll find it in the city records. This baby was biracial, right?"

"Right," Jackie said, glancing sideways at Tess, checking to make sure she was allowed to give this much information. She had immediately understood and accepted Tess's condition that the Weinstein family be sheltered from the exact details.

"Once you have the parents' names and the kid's name, you'll be amazed at how easy it is to find them. Computers today-"

"I know all about computers today," Tess said. Even to her own ears, she sounded like a cranky, know-it-all child.

Jackie was pulling out her checkbook and Mont Blanc pen again. "So how much do I owe you for this?"

Mr. Mole shook his head. "No money."

Now Jackie was the skeptical one. "Then why do it? What's in it for you?"

"I'm adopted. When I started at the Health Department, they showed me how to pull birth certificates and I found the original of my certificate, with the name of my mother on there. It was supposed to be under seal, but it's a bureaucracy, you know? It involves people and people fuck up. I found my mom. She had lived two miles from me the whole time I was growing up. It didn't change my relationship with my ‘real' Mom and Pop, but it made me feel as if some question had been answered. Why shouldn't I give other people a shot at the same deal?"

They could hear the rumble of the next Light Rail train approaching from the south. Mr. Mole stood and tossed his newspaper in the waste bin.

"I need to know what the original birth certificate says, just in case. Donald told me it was a baby girl born August eleventh, thirteen years ago this summer, right? What does the certificate say for mother and father?"

Tess looked anxiously at Jackie. They hadn't anticipated this question.

"Mother, Susan King," Jackie said. "Father unknown."

The Light Rail's squealing brakes covered the sound of Tess's relieved sigh. She didn't know if Jackie had told the truth or not about the father being listed as unknown, but she was keeping her end of the bargain. Mr. Mole wasn't searching for the original birth certificate, anyway. And if he should see it, Tess knew he would be discreet. Mr. Mole wasn't someone she could like, but she had a feeling he was someone she could trust. He boarded the train without a backward look.

Uncle Donald stood, clipboard at the ready. "Back to work. I have many corridors to roam, many cups of coffee to drink before this day is through."

"How long before we hear from Mr. Mole?" Jackie asked.

"No idea. He'll signal me with a coded memo. Truthfully, I think he likes making this a little more mysterious than it has to be. It's not that exciting, you know, working at the Health Department."