by Henry Hack
“Chief Warrant Officer Alan McDonough,” he said sticking out his hand. “How can I help you?”
“I do ordering, pricing and requisitions for the fleet and I’m pretty good at computer research, but I’m not having any luck in locating a person I’m interested in finding.”
“Who is the person?”
I figured I’d tell it like it was, well part of it. “My mother. She abandoned me when I was nine years old.”
“Sorry to hear that. What’s her name?”
“Angela Chandler, and there seems to be hundreds of women out there with that name. But I’m pretty sure that’s not her name anymore. She didn’t get along with my dad, so I’m assuming she changed it after he…uh…died.”
“What was her maiden name?”
“I don’t know.”
“How about her date of birth and social security number?”
“I don’t know.”
“Place of birth?”
“Uh, uh,” I said shaking my head.
“You have a tough one here, Frank. Almost impossible. But I can give you some direction that may help. Most places of employment would keep records that usually include all the information you are looking for – a date of birth and social security number being the most important. They may not contain her maiden name, though. But her marriage license application certainly would. And the motor vehicle department would also have her date of birth on her license file.”
“Suppose she got a new identity all together?”
“Well, if she were willing to give up her original social security number she would have forfeited all her earning credits. She could then have applied for a new number under a new name. I don’t see a reason for her to change her date of birth though, unless she wanted to appear younger – or older.”
“Anything else, sir?”
“No, like I say you have a tough one there. It’s been my experience that if a person wishes to disappear and establish a new identity they can do it without great difficulty.”
“Well, thank you very much Mr. McDonough. If you think of anything else please let me know. I’m right around the corner – at least for eight more months.”
“Your hitch is up then?”
“Yes, sir and I’m not re-upping. I’m going to college.”
“Good for you, son, and good luck locating your mom.”
I pondered the advice given me by Chief Warrant Officer McDonough and a few days later an almost forgotten fact jumped into my mind – Mommy had worked! She had a job with the school. She worked at the Maywood High School right in Levittown. And, I decided, when my next leave came up, that’s where I would visit.
A month later, travelling in my naval uniform, I flew from San Diego to New York and took a bus out to Long Island. I registered for one night at a local motel on Hempstead Turnpike at a nice discount because of the uniform. At nine-thirty the next morning I walked into Maywood High School and found the administrative offices with no difficulties. A young lady approached and smiled at me. I hoped the uniform would open the door to any files on Angela Chandler.
“May I help you, sailor,” she said.
I turned on a big smile and said, “I hope so. I’m looking to find someone who used to work here.”
“Oh, we can’t share any employee information with anyone, except with a court ordered subpoena.”
“Maybe, you might make an exception, Miss…?”
“Evans. Judy Evans, but…”
“Miss Evans,” I said taking out my wallet. “Here is my official identification. Please note my name.”
“Frank Chandler,” she said carefully examining the document.
“The person I’m looking for is Angela Chandler – my mother.”
“Oh, but…”
“I ran away from home when I was fifteen and eventually joined the Navy. I did an awful thing in leaving her. I haven’t seen her in seven years and I want to find her and make amends. Will you help me?”
“Let me look her up in the records and I’ll see what I can do,” she whispered. “Please, have a seat.”
A long five minutes later Miss Evans came out with a slim manila folder in her hand and sat next to me. “There’s not much in here, I’m afraid,” she said opening the folder and handing it to me.
But as I leafed through the pages I had to differ with Miss Evans. On one document alone, my mother’s initial employment application, were listed her date of birth, place of birth, social security number and maiden name – Capozzi. Then I noticed the fingerprint card.
“My mother was fingerprinted?”
“Yes,” Miss Evans said. “All employees of school districts who come into contact with children – and that’s just about all of us – have to be background checked through the state and national criminal record system.”
“I see,” I said as I continued to leaf through the file coming upon a small black and white photo of Angela. I stared at it and pretended to wipe a tear from my eyes. Miss Evans patted my arm.
“Can I make a copy of a couple of these documents?” I whispered.
“We just got a brand new copier. It’s right around the corner. Be quick, okay?”
“Sure,” I said. “Thanks a lot.”
I copied the employment application, the fingerprint card and the photo and slipped the copies into my pocket. I returned the folder to Miss Evans and said, “You’ve been a big help, Miss Evans.”
Judy Evans, who seemed to have practically fallen in love with me, blushed and smiled and said, “Oh, I’m so happy to help. I hope you find her soon.”
“So do I,” I said. “I can’t wait to see her again.”
Judy Evans was a very attractive young woman and I would have loved to ask her out, but Judy, or any other girl, did not fit into my plans at this time. I had a mission now and I had to get focused on it. The submerged desire to find my mother had once more resurfaced – forcefully. I had to find Mommy and have my question finally answered.
Immediately upon returning to my quarters that afternoon, I changed from my uniform into tee shirt, shorts and sandals, and booted up my laptop. The first database I checked was the Social Security Death Index. I plugged in Angela’s number and got no hit. But, what if she had gotten a different number? I concluded that, regardless of what her social security number was, she was most probably alive. Her date of birth, November 17, 1967, made her forty-five years old. She would turn forty-six in four months.
I next checked all available name index databases for both Angela Chandler and Angela Capozzi, and did the same for all fifty state DMV listings. I got almost a hundred hits, but not one with Mommy’s date of birth. And, of course, no database that I could access listed social security numbers.
Think, Frank, what do you have? A place of birth – Brooklyn. A maiden name – Capozzi. A date of birth – November 17, 1967. A complete set of fingerprints. If she had been fingerprinted using her new identity and if…no, no she couldn’t allow herself to do that – her previous identity would pop up. Their only value would be to positively confirm her identity once I found her – if I ever found her. Had she gone to Los Angeles and eventually sold the Honda to William Lattimore? And if so, was she still there?
I took a pad and pencil and wrote: approximately 310 million people in the U.S., so 155 million women. 365 (366) possible dates of birth. About 425,000 women per birth date assuming an equal distribution. But how many just in 1967? Over a span of a hundred years about 4,250. Over 4,000 women born on November 17, 1967! How would I ever find just one? But if I narrowed the search to just one state – California – maybe the task would be a lot less difficult.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Seeing a couple of sailors on leave this fine spring day in Manhattan reminded me of Frankie Chandler who I had not thought of in a long while. I was with my second wife, Detective Tara Brown, on a rare day off together. We spent the day in the city walking around, caught a matinee in the theatre and then had dinner in an expensive Asian fusion
restaurant. “Those sailors remind me of Frankie Chandler,” I said.
“Who?” she asked.
“Frankie. The young boy whose mother abandoned him.”
“Oh, yes, a long time ago, wasn’t it?”
“About thirteen years,” I said. “When I was a rookie cop.”
“Whatever happened to him?”
“He joined the Navy. He had just turned eighteen and gotten out of the State Home. I advised him to do that when he came to see me at work.”
“How long ago was that?”
“At least three years,” I said. “His hitch should be up soon.”
“I hope he has a decent life now, and I hope he settles down and gets a good wife when he gets out.”
“Like I got with you?” I asked.
“Best thing that ever happened to you, Mister,” she said smiling and poking me in the ribs. Am I right?”
“You bet you are,” I said.
Full after the delicious meal we walked to Penn Station to catch the Long Island Railroad back to our apartment in Mineola. By the time the train escaped the tunnel under the East River, Tara’s head was on my shoulder and she was fast asleep. And I thought about the life of Frankie Chandler.
My curiosity had been aroused by Frankie’s crude remark about being sodomized. I remembered he had said it as we were leaving the Ryan’s house for the trip back to the Home upstate. During the ride, I pressed him for details, but he clammed up only saying, “Forget I said it.”
When I dropped him off at the front door of the State Home I got out and wished him luck – we shook hands and he smiled a little and said, “Thanks for the ride Detective Boyland.”
“Hey,” I said, “call me Danny from now on, okay? Remember that the next time we meet. And I’ll keep your bike in tip-top shape for you.”
“And when will that be?” he asked. “Just when will we meet again?” He turned his back to me and walked in the door.
When I got back to my office in the Nine-Eight Squad, I called Pam Saunders over at Child Protective Services and informed her of the latest sad chapter in the life of young Frankie Chandler. Then I said, “Pam, have you ever been aware of an attempt at, or an act of, sodomy perpetrated on Frankie?”
“No, why?”
“He referred to it in passing, but declined to elaborate. Can you do some checking for me on that foster home?”
“Sure thing. Give me a few days.”
When Pam got back to me she said there was nothing in Frankie’s history to indicate that he had been a victim of sodomy. “Maybe at the Home?” I asked. “An unreported incident perpetrated on him by an older kid or a staff member?”
“I guess it could have happened, but I can’t recall any incidents like that in my years of dealing with them.”
“And the foster home checked out okay?”
“Yes, the Hammonds were long time foster parents of many children and not one complaint over the years.”
“But Frankie was there only a short time, right?”
“Right, only a few months, but then they brought him back to the Home after he accidentally set the barn on fire, remember?”
“Yeah, but let me ask you this, if you know. Would foster children put up with being sexually molested if the foster home was otherwise okay? You know, to keep them from going back to the Home?”
“Off the record?”
“Sure.”
“Danny, I think that it’s very prevalent, but nothing is done about it. You know, no complaint, no crime.”
“H-m-m.”
“What?”
“Maybe that fire was not an accident after all.”
Nothing ever came of my thoughts about this possible scenario until Frankie visited me in the stationhouse after he had gotten out of the Home once and for all. When I returned to my office after having lunch with him and seeing him on his way that day, I called Pam Saunders at her retirement home in Virginia.
After exchanging hellos and bringing ourselves up to date with our lives, I turned the conversation to Frankie Chandler and the fact that he was now out of the Home for good. I told her he mentioned being sent to another farm.
“That’s right, and he didn’t last long at that place either. The man of the house, Mr. Jonas, died in an accident and the woman couldn’t afford to keep him, so back to the Home he went again.”
“Jesus, that poor kid! First Mr. Ryan, who was almost like a real father to Frankie, has a heart attack and dies on him, and then another potential father figure dies, too. Oh, what kind of accident?”
“Huh?”
“You said the farmer died in an accident. Was it another fire?”
“No, a truck engine fell on him. Are you suspicious of Frankie?”
“Uh, no. Just my cop instincts talking, I guess.”
“It wouldn’t make much sense to create accidents that would only get you back into the Home, now would it?”
“No, Pam, it wouldn’t, unless…”
“Unless, what?”
“Unless the conditions were worse there than at the Home.”
“Are you thinking maybe sodomy again?”
“Who knows? Was there a police investigation?”
“Sure – and they ruled the death an accident. The motor was suspended from a beam in the barn and the hook gave way. No way Frankie, or anyone else, could have caused that.”
“I guess not,” I said thinking those two events associated with Frankie Chandler’s young life were just as Pam had said – unfortunate accidents and nothing else.
I was pleased when Frankie came to visit me in the precinct. He seemed happy and ready to move on with his life. I thought it would do no good to resurrect bad memories of his experiences in foster homes and the State Home, so I didn’t press him on the issue. And although he had still seemed interested in locating his mother – I guess I can understand why – he didn’t seem obsessed with it, even when I had checked out Angela’s car and found out it had ended up in Los Angeles. So I never did tell him the sad fact that Angela Chandler was not his biological mother. I figured it might do him more harm than good, but after he left I looked over Wally Mason’s file jacket on the death of James Chandler one more time. Coming across a picture of Jim that I had not really looked hard at before, what now struck me was Frankie’s strong physical resemblance to his dead father. Yeah, it would have done no good to have told him – let her tell him if he ever does find her one day. And she’ll certainly recognize him. In fact, she’ll think her husband came back from the grave to exact his revenge on her.
The train screeched to a jolting stop at our station in Mineola bringing me back to reality and causing Tara to wake up with a start. She blinked her eyes and looked around. “Let’s go,” I said. “We’re home.”
“Oh, my gosh, I slept all the way?”
“Yeah, bright eyes, you were great company.”
“You didn’t sleep?”
“No, I was thinking about the sad life of Frankie Chandler, which made me think of the sad life of me and my children.”
“Oh,” she said. “I know you really miss them. What were you thinking?”
“What happened the last time I saw them, and if I will ever see them again.”
“Sure you will,” Tara said. “Things change, people change. Stay strong.”
I smiled and said, “I’m glad I have you around. I only wish I could share your strength and optimism.”
“Forget about it for a while,” she said as we parked the car and went into the house. “Let’s have a nightcap.”
After a good-sized Sambuca, straight up, we went to bed, but sleep would not come to me, and my mind traveled back to the last time I saw my children and, of course, the major screw up in my life that now causes me all this pain.
While young Frankie Chandler had been making his rounds of foster homes to and from the State Home, I was making my own trips throughout the boros of the NYMPD. After four years on patrol in the Levittown precinct, a year in plainclothes in
Brooklyn’s Anti-Crime unit and two years in Nassau’s Street Narcotics Unit, I was promoted to Detective Third Grade and assigned to the Six-Two Detective Squad in Brooklyn. After a year there, I received a transfer to Nine-Eight Squad, coming full circle back to Levittown where Frankie had found me prior to his stint in the Navy.
One day, about a year after Frankie called me from California, my boss Lieutenant Frank D’Elia asked me if I would be interested in an assignment to a Homicide Squad. I was flattered and said, “Sure, Boss, I’d love to, but that’s a fantasy assignment and I’m not sure if I’m qualified.”
He smiled, clasped my shoulder and said, “Danny, you’re probably my best detective. The boss in Nassau Homicide is Ray Roberts. We came on the job together and I think he may have an opening. Should I drop your name to him?”
“That would be great. I really appreciate this, Boss.”
“My pleasure,” he said.
A few months after that chat my transfer to Nassau Homicide came through and, after a period of on-the-job training, I was ready to catch cases on my own. I couldn’t wait to catch my first Big One – a true whodunit – and when I did it almost destroyed me.
To make a long story short, I fell in love with the female murder suspect on my first big homicide case – a mistake of enormous stupidity and fateful consequences. Her name was Niki Wells, and she was as evil as she was beautiful. She actually framed me for the murder of her lover’s wife, and I spent twenty months in prison before the truth came out. Needless to say this tragic affair cost me my marriage and my family. Jean hasn’t spoken to me since the day of the arrest, and my two kids, Patrick and Kelly, still refuse to see me despite my repeated overtures to them.
Fortunately, after I was cleared of the murder charge, I was reinstated to the Force and eventually got my detective shield back. Niki Wells, who stalked me after she beat all her murder charges in court, and managed to put a couple of bullets into me, was shot to death by Tara Brown, my former detective partner, who I am now happily married to. After being re-assigned to Nassau Homicide for awhile, I was transferred to the NYMPD/FBI Joint Terrorist Task Force for a year chasing down a nutty bunch of homegrown eco-terrorists known as the Romens.