by John Decure
“When you agreed to give your child to the Danforths, did you at the same time privately plan to take your baby back?”
“Oh no, I did not,” she said. She surveyed the faces staring at her from around the courtroom. “You think I’d want to go through all this for money? I’d have to be insane, and no sir, I am not insane.”
“I still don’t know for sure why you went through with it,” I said as if puzzled. I thought back on the first hearing we’d had in this case, when Sue Ellen talked of having continuous contact with Nathan even after the adoption, how strange the notion had sounded to me then. “There had to be something more,” I said.
“There was.” Her voice trembled. “It was supposed to be an open adoption. We were gonna be part of the family. Exchange pictures. Visit him. Aunt Sue Ellen and Uncle Ty.”
“But it didn’t happen that way?”
Tears shot down her cheeks. “No,” she said.
“Was that your fault?”
She started to answer, but held up. “Yeah, I think it was, Mr. Shepard.” She bit her lip to keep from crying.
I wasn’t sure where she was going. “How was it your fault?”
“Because of who I am,” she said. She looked at Ty, whose face and eyes were red like hers, then studied the faces of those in the gallery, Jimmy Nicholsen and his cronies, the attorneys at counsel table. Shelly Chilcott, Foley’s clerk, the bailiff. No one moved. “You all look at me like you can see right through me. You think you know me. White trash. Welfare bums. Think that, because we got no money, we must be no good, lazy, dishonest people. White trash. Well, I can’t help that.” She looked up at Foley. “It’s like you said before, Your Honor, life’s not fair. And I can’t help it if you believe them instead of me because they’re rich and I’m poor. All I can do is tell the truth.”
“Tell the truth about the adoption,” I said. “Did you ever really give it a chance?”
Her wide eyes found the Danforths in the gallery. “I shoulda known an open adoption with them and us would never work out. We were fooling ourselves.” She sat up straighter. “But we never intended any of this to happen this way.”
“But what about the money they spent?” I asked.
“I’m going to pay it back, every last penny. It’ll take a long time, but I will, I swear.” She sighed audibly and regarded Foley. “I know it’s no good sayin’ this now.”
Kitty Danforth’s face was tear streaked but taut.
“Why is that?”
“Because I want my baby,” she said, “and I know he’s the only thing they want, not their money back. It’s an impossible situation for both of us.” She stopped to wipe her eyes. “I know it’ll break their hearts, losin’ Nathan, but I know I made a mistake givin’ him up. I want my baby back,” she said resolutely, as Kitty Danforth’s lip trembled. “I want him back.”
“No more questions,” I said with a nod to Sue Ellen.
Belinda paced the length of counsel table until she was directly in front of the witness stand. “Five months you were with the Danforths,” she said. “Five months of having them support you, pay your bills, buy you things.”
“Yes.”
“Sixteen thousand dollars worth of support, perks and goodies during that time.” Belinda paced. “That’s pretty good.”
“They were very generous.”
“Now tell me, how much money did you and your husband make the year before you met the Danforths, ten thousand, twenty thousand, thirty thousand dollars?”
“Ty was outta work a lot last year,” Sue Ellen said. “I guess if you count AFDC and the money he picked up doin’ odd jobs, a few pies I sold, wheat harvest in Kansas . . . twelve, maybe thirteen thousand dollars.”
“Gee,” Belinda said, “that’s not much compared to fifteen thousand in five months. And you didn’t even have to work.”
“Objection, argumentative,” I said.
Foley stared at Belinda. “Sustained.”
“And now you get your baby back,” Belinda said.
“Miss McWhirter . . .” Foley said.
“Quite a sweet deal, Miss Randall.”
“That’s enough!” Foley yelled, Belinda smugly gliding to her chair as if the judge wasn’t even in the building.
Foley took another recess. When he came back, he limited our closing arguments to ten minutes each. Lily Elmore deferred her comments to Belinda and Boris Kousnetsov concurred with mine. Belinda spoke first, assailing the Randalls much as she had on the first day we’d argued detention two weeks earlier. Fraud, deceit, baby selling, emotional risk to Nathan if he was returned to Sue Ellen and palmed off on another unsuspecting couple. Foley’s face was tired and drawn, but he scribbled onto his pad as she spoke, which troubled me. The courtroom was still full when she sat down.
I reviewed for the judge the weaknesses in the county’s case, the fact that there was no baby sale, that only bills for essentials were paid. I reminded Foley that the Danforths’ own expert had agreed that if Nathan was eventually headed home with Sue Ellen and Ty, the best time was now. I decried the manner in which Gilbride, Lois Nettleson and the Danforths had secretly conspired against the Randalls, the rank manipulation of Sue Ellen’s due date, the painful inducement of her labor for the sake of a grand evening at the White House. And still, through all her travails, Sue Ellen had delivered Nathan up to the Danforths. Decency in the face of gross mistreatment, a willingness to hold to an agreement until it was painfully clear that the open adoption was nothing more than a convenient fiction. I paused before making my final point, and the sight of Foley jotting notes again bolstered my resolve.
I spoke, at last, about the bond between mother and child. “The love a mother feels for her baby, this wonderful gift of life, is profound,” I said. “It is a far-reaching love, a sustaining love that ensures the survival of our race. A powerful thing.”
I rested a hand on my client’s shoulder. “Sue Ellen Randall has acted upon that love. How? Belatedly, no doubt, and as such, at the risk of great peril. Your Honor, I ask you to see her for who she really is, a woman who needs to be with her child. A woman who wants the chance to love her son.”
Foley paused to read from the mess of notes on his desk, then reread the petition, jotting more notes. The rest of us remained seated.
Sue Ellen leaned over to me. “Whatever happens,” she said, “thank you.”
Ty leaned forward in his chair to establish eye contact with me and shrugged with a wait-and-see rise to his eyebrows. The lump above my eye was still red and painful to the touch, but I answered Ty’s gesture with a nod of assent.
Foley recessed to look at his notes but told us all to remain seated. The few conversations that started up in the gallery were muted. The court reporter wrung her hands and replenished her paper supply. Belinda whispered with Gilbride and Mr. Danforth behind the partitions, Kitty pursing her lips as she watched the big clock keep time. I made no effort to confer with Sue Ellen, for there was nothing more to be said.
“All right, people,” Foley said, “we’re back on the record. I’m ready to make my ruling.”
Sue Ellen stopped breathing. The bailiff put down his magazine and the mutterings in the gallery stopped cold.
“I’m taking jurisdiction over this Minor,” the judge said.
“Oh God, we lost, didn’t we?” Sue Ellen whispered. To my left, Belinda and Lily Elmore were beaming. Behind us, Gilbride was clasping hands with the Danforths.
“Hold on, people, I want quiet!” Foley said. “Now I’m taking jurisdiction, but only as to one count, that the child is at risk of emotional harm, and I’m rewriting the facts of that count. The county did not prove that the Randalls placed Nathan at risk by defrauding Nathan’s current caretakers—”
“But Your Honor!” Gilbride said.
“Not another word, Counselor!” Foley said. “By God, let me make my ruling!”
I turned and saw that Gilbride wore the very face of confusion, which gave me instant hope. In cu
stody matters, the man’s instincts were otherworldly. The air in my lungs seemed to evaporate. Jesus, I thought, I’m not wired for this kind of action.
“Sorry, Your Honor,” Gilbride said.
Pained again, Foley rubbed the sides of his head. “Mr. Shepard, I still don’t like the way your client and Mr. Kouznetsov’s client spirited the eldest child back to Kentucky. It was wrong. That’s why I want to retain jurisdiction. I want to monitor Nathan’s progress in their home for awhile.”
He was releasing Nathan to the Randalls. We had won.
“Here’s my disposition: I’m ordering the minor released H.O.P.,” Foley went on. “Mother and Father are to attend parenting counseling beginning . . .”
“What’s H.O.P. mean?” Sue Ellen whispered.
“Home of parent,” I said. “That means he’s coming home to you.” Sue Ellen began to cry. Boris was already shaking Ty’s hand.
Foley read the rest of his orders and thanked the Danforths for their cooperation in caring for Nathan. Kitty was too angry and broken up to speak, but Corwin Danforth raised his hand to ask a question. “Go ahead,” Foley said.
“We’d like to spend one last evening with Nathan, if we could,” he said, “to get his things together. To say good-bye.” His anguish was evident, and I felt my mouth going dry.
“Mr. Shepard?” Foley inquired.
I looked at Sue Ellen, who was already gripping the straps of her baby bag. She turned to look at the Danforths. “What do you think?” she asked me.
“You’ve won,” I said. “I think it’ll be all right.”
“Tomorrow morning’s fine, I guess,” she told Foley.
“Eight o’clock tomorrow morning, right here, before calendar call,” Foley said. He folded his court file shut a final time and adjourned, the gallery draining out behind us.
“We’re locking up for lunch in one minute,” the bailiff called out to those of us who milled behind, “so pack your briefcases and head on out, everyone.”
Belinda flashed by me, obviously distressed. She didn’t lose very often in here. Lily Elmore shook her head at me as she hoisted her bag lady’s monster purse to leave.
“Hope you’re proud of yourself, J.,” Lily said.
I was tempted to tell her to kindly go fuck herself, but I was too pleased with Foley’s ruling to let her bother me. “You look like you could use a cigarette, Lily,” I said.
“We gotta go,” Sue Ellen said, hugging me ever so gently. I could tell she regretted having caused me so much grief with her previous untimely displays.
An older man in a cheap gray suit and a western string tie ducked his head in and waved at Sue Ellen. “Comin’, R. G.,” Sue Ellen called out to him. “Truck broke down again,” she told me. “Our friend who drove us this morning has to get back. R. G. works the night shift, security at a mall in the Valley.”
“The Valley, huh?” I said. “You’re starting to sound like you know your way around L.A. You’re practically a local.”
She laughed. “Get out.” She compared the back of her white hand against mine. “Not until I start sportin’ a tan like that.”
I found Jackie outside, at the far rim of the deserted waiting room. Every other court in the building had adjourned for lunch already. He was gazing at the slice of East L.A. that lay across the freeway junction. Rosemary Egan was seated twenty feet away, dozing upright.
“How’s it hanging, kemosabe?” he said. I saw my reflection in his wraparound shades when he turned to me.
We stared out the big windows together. “Quite nicely,” I said. “Sue Ellen got her kid back.”
He briefly looked over his shoulder at the slumbering nurse. “Egan do her thing?”
“She did.”
“You owe her a lift home, brother.”
“I’ve had enough of this place,” I said. “Let’s bail.”
We woke Rosemary Egan and went downstairs and out the front, where Holly Dupree was waiting.
“Ah, shit,” I muttered as Holly and her crew jangled toward us, “let’s run for it.”
“No dice,” Jackie said, sizing up an opportunity. “Let’s give the viewers at home something to chew on tonight.”
“Mr. Shepard, a word?” Holly said. “Tell us what happened today.”
“Pardon me, ma’am,” Jackie said in a phony Texas lawman’s drawl as he stepped squarely in front of me, “but I have orders to escort all civilians from the premises. Please remain calm and exit in an orderly fashion.”
“Who are you?” Holly said. “Cut the camera . . . Who is this guy?” she said to one of her equipment jockeys, who shrugged in response.
“Security personnel, highest level,” Jackie said. Nurse Egan and I slowly backed away from the confrontation.
“Let’s see some identification,” Holly said.
“Can’t do that, ma’am.” His eyes surreptitiously darted to and fro. “Under cover.”
Holly groaned. “Get off it, you’re not for real.”
“I’m afraid the bomb threat we just received is very real, ma’am,” he said.
That got Holly’s attention. “Let’s get it on tape,” she said to a clipboard-wielding assistant, who agreed. The camera began to whir again. “What can you tell us? What kind of threat is there?”
“Well, ma’am, it’s really quite diabolical . . .”
I silently prodded Egan to keep heading for the parking structure as Jackie blathered on. How did his brain manufacture this crap with such chilling efficiency?
Turning back, I saw Jackie put his index finger into his ear as if he were receiving a report on a tiny radio transmitter. He glared at Holly, aghast. “Good Lord,” he shouted, pointing at her big hair, “I believe we’ve located the bomb!”
“What? Where?” Holly spun on her heels, scanning the empty courthouse grounds.
We had a good laugh when we got back to the car. “I dare her to use any of that footage,” Jackie said.
Rosemary Egan blushed. “You sure gave her a start,” she told Jackie.
“She had it coming,” I said.
Egan craned and smiled at Jackie, who’d piled into the back seat. “You’re a bit of a wild one, aren’t you?”
I didn’t know the full story about what Jackie said and did to persuade her to testify, and I wasn’t about to ask either of them. It really didn’t matter.
He’d saved my life again.
Twenty-One
Midday traffic was thick, so we drove surface streets up into South Pasadena, where Rosemary Egan lived with her husband, a retired X-ray technician. I’d started with some polite conversation about the apparent rewards of a nursing career, but Jackie hijacked the topic and veered the discussion into a gore-fest, featuring the most bizarre and unusual medical conditions both he and Egan had ever seen.
Eyeballs hanging by a thread from their sockets—“No way!” Surfboard skegs severing testicles—“Heavens!” A mammoth boil on a small man’s ass, an inflammation so formidable that the entire buttock withered and collapsed when the lance was performed—“Please, that is just too rank!” A thumb bitten off by a shark, but recovered posthaste from the reef and sewn back on with fishing line—“Goodness! Where did you learn how to stitch like that?”
And on and on. I attempted to stem the flow of gruesome details with a quick stop-off at a burger stand that sold soft-serve ice cream, but the two let up only long enough to inhale their cones. At least the ice cream helped settle my stomach somewhat. I felt glad I chose to pursue law instead of medicine.
We stopped at the curb outside Egan’s modest home, a red stucco job with white trim slashed diagonally across the fake shutters and a garage with a roof sloped like the sides of a barn. Jackie and I both got out to help her from the Jeep. We thanked her for testifying, but she shrugged us off. I reflected on the unbiased affability Rosemary Egan displayed today. In my experience, such a combination is rare in a witness. I’d been lucky to be able to rely on her.
Crooked elms lined both sid
es of the street. A mailman scooted up the narrow brick walkway of the house next door. Rosemary Egan buttoned a few notches of her sweater.
“Thank you again,” I said, shaking her hand.
“Just think,” she said, “the Randalls are probably home with their little one by now, starting a new life together.”
“Homey homey,” Jackie said.
“Actually, the baby’s still with the Danforths,” I said. “They’re keeping him one more night.”
Jackie put his hand to his chest. “What?” He looked stunned.
“Yeah, they’re getting his stuff together, saying good-bye,” I explained. “We worked it out that they would bring the baby in to court tomorrow.”
Jackie’s eyes flashed. “Holy fuck, you’re joking, right?” Egan looked taken aback. “Sorry,” he told her, “but J., why? I thought the judge gave . . . Oh, man. Not good!”
“What?” I said.
“The kid,” he said. “They’re not gonna give him up.”
“What do you mean? The judge made the order.”
“You don’t get it, do you?” he said. “They’re gonna give him to someone who will hide him so your clients never get him back.” He looked at Egan. “You better call the cops, get ’em over there. The D’s live in Old Pasadena.” I stared at him when he recited the address from memory. “You said investigate, man,” he said. “I investigated.”
“Call the department, too,” I told her.
I jumped in the wagon and revved the motor. Rosemary Egan turned to wave from her doorstep, but thought better of it. As we pulled away from the curb I saw her drop the uneaten stub of her ice cream cone into a row of ivy near the porch.
Jackie held the road atlas in his lap and gave shortcut directions as we drove. Once I was confident we were making time I hit him hard for more information.
“What difference does it make how I know, I just know!” he said.
I looked both ways and jammed through a red light at a vacant intersection. “Don’t give me that shit,” I said. “Just tell me how you knew.”
“Promise you won’t blow a gasket first.”
But I was through making promises to him. “Out with it, man.”