Chapter 23

A week went by, a week in which nothing happened. Oh, the sun came up and the sun went down, Tess went through her daily workouts and Kitty finally dumped Will Elam, which provided about five minutes of drama. He cried, he said he would never forget her, he tried to steal her first edition of Anne Tyler's A Slipping Down Life and Esskay nipped him on the ankle. Luther Beale stayed out of jail, and no one else died-at least, no one that could be linked to Tess. Inertia was too strong a word to describe the state she was in. All was waiting. Every time the phone rang, she assumed it would be the announcement of Sal Hawkings's death, or perhaps the discovery of Eldon Kane's body, bobbing to the surface in the harbor or turning up beneath the ice skating rink in Patterson Park.

But when the phone finally did ring, it was Uncle Donald, summoning her and Jackie to his office, a week to the day after their meeting with Mr. Mole.

"It has to be good news, don't you think?" Jackie asked, as they waited in the lobby of DHR, maybe ten feet from where the Hutzler's cosmetics counter used to stand.

Tess, who was beginning to buy into the no-news-is-good-news concept, tried to look optimistic. "Well, it's too soon to throw in the towel."

"That's exactly what I was thinking." Jackie was almost bubbling over in her excitement. "It's like when you ask for a shoe in a certain size. The longer they stay in the back room, the greater the likelihood they don't have it at all. But if they get right back to you, they always have a box in hand. Not that I'm comparing my daughter to a shoe. But you know what I mean."

Tess rubbed her forehead. She had a killer headache, right at the bridge of her nose, sinuses most likely. And although she didn't want to rain on Jackie's parade, much about this hastily called meeting bothered her. The arrangement with Mr. Mole had been covert and unofficial. So why were they inside the agency, waiting to be summoned to the office of the general counsel? Uncle Donald had been strangely terse on the phone, choosing his words carefully. Tess had the distinct impression that someone was monitoring the call. They had broken the law. Maybe they were going to be reprimanded and interrogated until they gave up Mr. Mole.

One of the three elevators opened and a stout, middle-aged woman beckoned to them. "They're ready for you."

"They? How many people are we meeting with?" Tess asked, as the elevator climbed to the tenth floor.

"Just the general counsel, the head of the Social Services Administration, your uncle, and some private attorney, David Edelman."

"Why is there a private attorney involved?"

"I'm sure I don't know," the woman said placidly. She was short, with a broad chest that reminded Tess of a pigeon. The woman even had something of the same dim, self-satisfied air that such birds had. "I didn't keep my job here for almost twenty-five years by asking about things that were none of my business. But they're agitated, I can tell you that. They've been dithering around all morning."

This intelligence only made Tess more anxious, but Jackie was still obliviously blissful. Jackie was allowing herself to hope again, and she was almost giddy with expectation. And when they entered the general counsel's office, Tess felt her own spirits lift slightly. These folks may have been dithering all morning long, but they were nervous and deferential, as if Jackie had all the power in this equation. So why did Uncle Donald's spaniel brown eyes look so sorrowful?

The general counsel was an Asian-American woman in her thirties, while the head of the Social Services Administration was a tall, thin black man. They looked at the private attorney, Edelman, as if to say, Who goes first here? He shook his head. Not me. Not us, they shook back.

"Is anybody going to say anything?" Uncle Donald demanded. "For God's sake, I'll start. Jackie, you know how sometimes when you're looking for something, it's right under your nose?"

She nodded, still beaming.

"Okay, so you were looking for your daughter, but you assumed she had a different name and a new birth certificate, because that's what happens when a kid is adopted. But what if she wasn't adopted?"

"I don't get what you mean," Jackie said, her joy ebbing away.

"There was no birth certificate that could be traced back to your daughter. My…friend had the idea to run your name and your daughter's birth name through the files here, after he came up empty on the original search. The funny thing was, it kicked out, in no time flat. She was right here all along, Samantha King."

"She was right where all along?"

"She's in foster care," the general counsel said. "She's in the state's custody and has been for almost all of her life."

"How can that be?" Tess could see all the emotions battling inside Jackie-the exultation at knowing her daughter had been found, her puzzlement that she was in foster care, her concern that there was another shoe yet to drop in this conversation. Tess shared the last feeling.

"The adoption never happened," the general counsel said. "According to our records, Family Alternatives turned your daughter over to the state when she was fourteen months old. Whatever arrangements they made fell through, and they couldn't find another set of adoptive parents. So she went into foster care."

"Is she okay? Can I see her? Is she in some group home, or living with a family?"

"She's fine," David Edelman said. "She's doing great."

Jackie turned to look at him. "What would you know about it?"

"I'm her foster father."

Awkward was inadequate to describe the silence in the room. Jackie and Edelman eyed each other. Edelman looked wary and defensive, while something hateful crept into Jackie's face.

"You look like you're doing pretty well, in your nice suit and your Bally shoes," Jackie said at last. "Why do you have to take kids in for money?"

"We didn't take Sam in for the money, we took her in because she needed a home. My wife and I wanted to adopt her, but we can't. Policy prohibits a white couple adopting a biracial baby in Baltimore city."

"Policy does not prohibit it," the SSA director broke in. Robert Draper, according to the name plate on this desk. So this must be his office, even if he had given his desk chair to the general counsel. "Each jurisdiction is allowed to set its own standards on adoptions. In Baltimore City, the social workers elect to follow the recommendations of several prominent groups, that believe such placements are harmful to the child."

Edelman glanced at the SSA director. "Fine, Robert. So do you want to explain how Samantha King ended up in permanent limbo in my home, or shall I?"

Draper nodded stiffly, indicating Edelman should continue.

"Did you ever hear of a lawsuit called LJ v. Massinga?" the lawyer asked Jackie and Tess. Jackie shook her head. Tess thought it sounded dimly familiar, or at least the name Massinga did.

"Wasn't she the secretary of this agency at one point?"

"Yes, more than a decade ago, when the foster care program was in a crisis state. Workers were juggling huge caseloads, there was virtually no oversight. It was a catastrophe. Social advocacy lawyers, working with private attorneys like myself, brought a class action lawsuit against the state on behalf of seven children, who had been taken from their own parents only to be placed in homes that were more abusive. LJ was a boy, the lead plaintiff."

"Was my daughter one of the seven?"

Edelman smiled at Jackie. "Sam was one of the lucky ones, actually. Not long after the suit was filed, I got a tip that an elderly couple had continued taking in children long past the point where they could really care for them. They had five kids in their house, three of them under the age of five. Sam didn't even have a separate bedroom, she was sleeping in the living room in a little nest of filthy blankets. It was a Friday night, and I couldn't find any place to put her for the weekend, so I took her home. She's been there ever since."