Family Tree

by Barbara Delinsky

  “The senator has no serious opposition.”

  “That could change if certain information comes out.”

  “Is this extortion, then? It’s early September. A frivolous charge now would garner publicity that might not be resolved until after the election.”

  Hugh leaned forward. “The timing has to do with an accident that happened two weeks ago. The child is four. He was playing on his front lawn when a car jumped the curb and hit him. The driver was an elderly man who had a heart attack. He was pronounced dead at the scene. All parties were uninsured. Given a choice, the mother would never be approaching your client. She doesn’t want any more to do with him than he does with her. But the injuries aren’t minor.”

  Drummond yawned. “What are they?”

  “There’s a fracture to the spine between the pelvis and the rib cage. The fracture extends through the growth plates on the right side, which means the child will have asymmetric growth without future surgeries. It’s a very specialized field.”

  Drummond drank more coffee. His voice was flat. “No hospital will deny that kind of surgery to a kid.”

  “Correct, but they’re going to put the mother in debt for the rest of her life. She works as a waitress and falls into that no-man’s-land where she earns too much to be covered but not enough to pay the bills. They’re already starting to hound her for payment. The boy’s about to be discharged, which means she’ll have to miss work to take care of him, which means even less money coming in. Add to that the fact that the best doctor to treat his condition is in St. Louis, which means she may have to give up her job.”

  “This is Boston. We have the best doctors in the country right here.”

  “Not for this. I’ve checked it out. The best center for this kind of problem is at Wash U.”

  Drummond made a face. “Why does she need the best person? Won’t the second best do?”

  Hugh smiled. “For many people, yes. For a boy whose father is your client, absolutely not. Hutchinson’s son deserves nothing less than the best. I’m sure Hutch would agree.”

  “Oh, he would. If this were his son. I’d put money on the fact that it’s not.”

  “You’d lose. The evidence is compelling.”

  “What evidence?”

  “I have six witnesses willing to testify that your man was at the tavern on the night in question and that he was waited on by my client. I have two witnesses, one of them a Ph.D., willing to testify that a car matching the description of your client’s was later parked at the motel in question. I have receipts from the car service as well as the motel.”

  “So she had an affair with the chauffeur.”

  Hugh shook his head. “There’s a surveillance tape.” Lakey had done a good job. “Five years back, surveillance tapes weren’t as common as they are now, but this particular motel had suffered a rash of thefts, hence the videocam. The tape’s grainy, but there’s no mistaking the senator.”

  “Do you know how easily tapes can be altered?”

  “Do you know how easily it can be proven that they weren’t?”

  Drummond let several beats pass. “Is that it?”

  Hugh shook his head. He had saved the best for last. “It seems that at the moment of orgasm, the senator shouts a name. I have two women, plus my client, willing to testify to it. That’s three women citing the same name.”

  “What women?”

  “Nicole Anastasia and Veronica Duncan.” Nicole was the actress that Lakey had found first, and though photos of her with the senator remained unpublished, rumors of a liaison continued to surface in the tabloids. Veronica was a lobbyist for the health care industry; she had worked closely with the senator for years.

  Understanding the implications of that, Drummond shifted direction. “What name do they say he calls?” He was wide awake now.

  “Dahlia.” Hugh let it sink in. “Not the name of the senator’s wife, is it? Nor of his mother.”

  “Dahlia? Not Dial Ya? Or Dah-ling?”

  “Dahlia. Of all the names in the book, three separate women could not have made up the same one. Who do you think Dahlia is? His first lover? A longtime paramour?”

  “I think the name is irrelevant. Do you have direct evidence that your client—what’s her name? Crystal Kostas?—was in a motel room with my client?”

  “I have no picture of them in bed together.”

  “What about entering or leaving the room?”

  “No.”

  “Then, my friend, what you have is purely circumstantial.”

  “But damaging if this goes to trial,” Hugh replied without missing a beat, because he worked with circumstantial evidence all the time. Some was flimsy; some, like this, was not.

  “You said you didn’t want a trial,” said Drummond.

  “I don’t. But if Hutchinson does, I’m ready.” Turning a page in the folder, he unclipped a small photo from the next page and passed it across the desk. “Here’s the boy.”

  Drummond looked at the photo. He couldn’t quite hide a moment’s surprise before he tossed it back to Hugh. “I’ll bet I could walk into any school in the country and find a boy who looked like the senator.”

  “Maybe you could,” Hugh granted, “but would any of them be born nine months to the day after the senator was seen in a tavern being served by the mother, a woman who can prove she spent two hours at a motel with him?”

  “Prove? You said yourself there are no pictures of them together at that motel. Who’s to say they weren’t each with other people?”

  “There’s that,” Hugh said, glancing at the photo, which lay halfway between them. He knew it was his ace in the hole. “He’s a sweet kid, Dan. His mother says he could kick a ball around pretty good. She was going to start him in peewee soccer next spring. But he may never be able to play now. His whole future’s in jeopardy. Given the many pieces of circumstantial evidence that I have, a judge would have trouble looking the other way.”

  Drummond sighed. “How much does she want?”

  “Not want,” Hugh corrected him. “Need. And we’d like it in a trust fund. She has no interest in anything from Hutchinson except what her son will require to make sure he can walk. She isn’t looking for personal gain.”

  “So that makes her noble? She still slept with a married man.”

  “A married man still slept with her. She knew he was a senator, because people at the tavern called him that, but did she know he was married? I doubt it. She isn’t exactly a political wonk.”

  “How much does she want?” Drummond repeated.

  “Need,” Hugh corrected. “A million.”

  Drummond stared.

  “In trust,” Hugh added. “With the option of more if the medical situation warrants.”

  “Or she’ll go public? That’s blackmail.”

  “No. It’s a medical reality.”

  Drummond drained his coffee. “A million bucks.”

  “He has it. He has hundreds of millions.”

  “And that makes him an easy mark? A million bucks, just on her say-so?”

  “If he doesn’t trust her word, a DNA test will do.”

  Drummond laughed in disbelief. “Do you seriously think my client will go for that?”

  Hugh shrugged. “We have compelling evidence that’ll make for several days’ worth of testimony in court. Either a quiet admission or a DNA test will spare everyone involved the time, effort, and humiliation of a hearing. The test is quick. Your client is in Boston a lot.” Hugh sensed he was in the driver’s seat. He could afford to be agreeable. “I know you can’t commit to anything without talking to the senator. Take this folder. It lays out the evidence. At this stage, we’d simply like a written admission of responsibility and the establishment of a preliminary trust so that we can start planning the boy’s treatment. I’d just as soon settle this civilly, as I’m sure the senator would.” He pushed the boy’s picture back toward Drummond. “Take this, too. It may help.”

  Drummond stared at the
picture. “I like your father, Hugh. And I like your uncle. So I just want to be sure you understand that the senator hates being accused of things like this.” He held up a hand. “I’m not threatening you, just letting you know that if you go ahead with this accusation and it doesn’t pan out, there could be repercussions.”

  There had been times in his career when Hugh had sensed that a client was lying to him. Crystal wasn’t one of those clients. And he had met the boy.

  “It’s worth the risk,” he said. Rising, he clipped the photo back to the medical report, closed the file, and held it out. “Thanks for coming, Dan. Will I hear from you by the first of the week?”

  Drummond took the folder. “Don’t push it.”

  “The senator will be in Boston next Friday for a fundraiser.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Then you must not be on his big-donor list. I could arrange for the test at whatever time he wants.”

  “And if he decides to fight this?”

  “Does he want headlines?”

  “Does your client?” He gave a man-to-man chuckle. “Hey, any woman who leaves work at a tavern to have a quickie in a local motel isn’t a sweet, innocent thing.”

  “She comes close. She’s a good mother, and a good person, and right about now, she’s over in that hospital room, beat after working until midnight trying to dress her son over his cast, and wondering what a four-year-old ever did to deserve this. He’s being discharged later today, and she has no babysitter who can handle him with his casts, so she’s going to have to miss work. That means zero pay. Next Friday will be none too soon.”

  “Next Friday may not work.”

  “It has to, Dan. We can’t wait. You’ve saved me the effort of filing papers by meeting with me today, but the more time passes, the more urgent it becomes. If I don’t hear from you by Wednesday, I’ll call Harkins’s clerk to set a hearing for Friday.”

  “Harkins?” It wasn’t a question, more an expression of dismay.

  “He’s a good judge. This kind of case is right down his alley.”

  “Yeah, because he has a handicapped child himself.”

  Hugh nodded. “Right.”

  There was a long silence, then a short laugh. “You’re shrewd.”

  “Believe it,” Hugh said, and showed Drummond out. On the way back to his office, he felt good. He felt effective. He had made the points he needed to make.

  Intent on driving to the hospital to share the news with Crystal, he took the elevator to the parking garage and climbed into his car. Once into broad daylight again, though, he glanced at his watch, changed his mind, and headed out of town.

  Strapped in a bouncer on the kitchen floor, Lizzie was contentedly full. She was so intrigued by the play of morning sun on her own hands that Dana decided the bath could wait. An intrigued baby was a happy one, and they weren’t due at the pediatrician’s until nine. It was only seven-thirty.

  Looking at the clock, Dana remembered that this was the time, back when they were close, that Ellie Jo’s cousin Emma Young used to call. Emma lived in northern Maine and had been a farm woman for so long that even after the farm was sold and she moved to town, she was up at dawn. Dana would surely find her home now.

  She dialed the number she had slipped from her grandmother’s dog-eared address book the day before. She had felt guilty then, but there was no helping it. She didn’t know where else to turn. As a last resort, she had driven around town and, under the guise of showing Lizzie off, had brought up the question of Ellie Jo’s family, to no avail. No one had known her before she moved to town, which was soon after she met Earl. Emma was the only one who had known Ellie Jo back in Maine.

  “Hello?” came a scratchy voice. Dana figured the woman was eighty if she was a day.

  “Emma? It’s Dana Joseph.”

  “Who?”

  Dana spoke louder. “Dana Joseph.”

  There was a pause, then a cautious “Are you calling about my cousin Eleanor?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “Is she dead?”

  “Lord, no,” Dana cried. “Is that what you thought?”

  “What?”

  Dana shouted, “My grandmother is fine.” There was no point in elaborating.

  “When phone calls come after long periods without, they don’t always bring good news,” said Emma in her broad Maine accent.

  “This one does. I have a new baby.”

  There was another pause, then a scratchier “How new?”

  “She’s two and a half weeks old.”

  The woman’s voice rose. “And I wasn’t called when she was born?”

  Dana backpedaled. “I’m sorry. I’ve been a little overwhelmed. We haven’t done anything about birth announcements.” Emma had certainly been on Dana’s list. But Ellie Jo might have called.

  “I was at at your wedding,” Emma continued. “Your grandmother needed warm bodies, and I was the token Joseph relative. In every other regard, she shut me out of her life. And do you know why she did that?”

  Dana waited. When Emma didn’t go on, she said, “Not really.” Ellie Jo had simply said that Emma was a crotchety old lady out to hurt anyone whose life she envied.

  “Because I dared to say something about her Earl that she didn’t like,” Emma went on. “The man was not who people thought he was. She didn’t want anyone to know.”

  Dana held her breath, then asked, “In what way was he not who people thought?”

  “He was a bigamist.”

  “A what?”

  “A bigamist—oh, but I shouldn’t have said that. Ellie Jo told me I was just jealous because she had married a good man and I hadn’t married at all. She said I was an ugly person—that’s what she called me, an ugly person—and she slammed down the phone.”

  “A bigamist,” Dana repeated. It was almost ludicrous, given what Dana remembered of her grandfather. He had been devoted to his wife, daughter, and granddaughter, doting even when work took him out of town.

  A thin wail came from the other end of the line. “I shouldn’t have said that. She’ll be even madder at me now.”

  Dana sensed she was losing the woman. Quickly, she asked, “Was Earl from African-American stock?”

  “From what?”

  “Was his family African American?”

  There was a pause. “I said he was a bigamist.”

  “What about your father? And your uncle.” The uncle would have been Ellie Jo’s father. “Did they have African-American blood?”

  “Blood where?” the elderly woman cried. “What are you talking about, Dana?” Her voice left the phone. “Hello? I’m right here.” She returned to Dana. “Here’s my ride. She takes me in town for my morning tea. Will you tell Ellie Jo that I love her and that I’m sorry if I made her mad and that she’s still the only family I have?”

  “I will,” Dana said, though she doubted the woman heard before she hung up.

  She sat a while longer watching Lizzie, thinking she would have better luck with Emma face to face but knowing Ellie Jo would have a stroke if she found out. Besides, Dana had seen pictures of her grandmother’s parents and grandparents. They certainly looked Caucasian. If any had looked African American, Emma Young would have known what Dana was talking about.

  No, Dana didn’t think that the source of Lizzie’s looks was Gram Ellie’s side of the family. Earl’s was another matter, but a bigamist?

  Then she spotted the time. Unstrapping Lizzie, she wrapped the warm little bundle in her arms, took her to the open French doors, and held her there in the sun. “Oh, Mom,” she murmured, “isn’t this the sweetest little girl you have ever seen? Did you feel this way when you had me? Or is it something about Lizzie?”

  She was thinking that there were lots of somethings about Lizzie that made her exquisitely special, when the phone rang. Returning to the sofa, she picked up the cordless, then froze. She recognized the area code: 518. Actually, she recognized the whole number. Father Jack was calling.


  With deliberate care, she moved her thumb away from the Talk button and, heart pounding, waited until the ringing stopped. He didn’t leave a message.

  Coward, she thought.

  Tossing the phone aside, she took the baby upstairs. Minutes later, she had her undressed and in the bathroom sink, which, when lined with a facecloth for traction, she found to be easier than the Mercedes of infant bath seats they had bought.

  Dana drizzled warm water on the baby’s skin. “Ooooh,” she cooed, “isn’t this lovely?”

  Lizzie didn’t look so sure of that. Her little body was tense, her dark eyes alarmed.

  So Dana kept talking as she bathed her, which was likely why she didn’t hear the car. When Hugh suddenly appeared at the bathroom door, she gave a start.

  “You frightened me. I didn’t expect you home. Aren’t you supposed to be at your meeting?”

  “I was.” Looking pleased, he joined her at the sink as she soaped the baby’s hair. Lizzie scrunched up her face. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “I think she doesn’t like being bare,” Dana said.

  “That’s good. Think it’ll last through her teenage years?”

  “Not likely.” But she was encouraged by his mood. “How did it go?”

  “I said what I had to say.”

  “Did it register?”

  “It did. I gave him till Monday to get back to me. Your appointment’s at nine, right?” When Dana nodded, he said, “Mind if I come?”

  “Of course not.” Any involvement on his part spoke of feeling for Lizzie. “You’ve never met Dr. Woods.” Hugh had done all the research into pediatricians, comparing résumés, recommendations, and group setups, but an emergency had kept him at work on the day Dana interviewed Laura Woods, and when she had showed up at the hospital on the day of Lizzie’s birth, Hugh wasn’t there.

  Dana used a cup to rinse Lizzie’s hair. The baby began to cry. “Shhhhh, sweetie, shhhh. Almost done.” She finished up as quickly as she could. Hugh had a towel open and wrapped the baby in it, talking softly as he carried her into the nursery.

  In that instant, Dana felt completely happy. By the time she cleaned the bathroom and followed them to the baby’s room, Hugh had Lizzie dressed. The outfit, another gift, was a little dress with flat pleats at the bodice and matching panties. It was white, with tiny pastel flowers.