The Many Lives of June Crandall

by Suzanne Whitfield Vince

  Her entire body trembled as she climbed into her car and pulled out of the circular drive. She turned right onto the first street she could, and put the car in park. She slammed the steering wheel with both fists and screamed. Dammit, what the hell was she thinking? That son of a bitch may well have been the one who took her from her mother, and now she might never know what really happened.

  When her anger died down, she put the car in gear and drove to the beach, hoping a long walk would help clear her mind.

  She had to come up with plan B.

  "How'd it go with McIntyre?" Antonio asked when she called him later that night.

  "It didn't. I lost my cool before I got anything out of him. I just hope I didn't give him another stroke.""

  He chuckled. "That's my girl. Were you able to get a sense of whether or not he was involved? I mean before you launched something at him?"

  "Ha ha," she said, but despite herself, she laughed. "For your information, I didn't throw anything at him, although there were plenty of valuable trinkets I could've used as ammunition. But no, I really couldn't tell whether he was involved, which is odd because I can normally read people pretty well. This guy gave away nothing. He''s either a sociopath or innocent."

  "Did you ask about the nurse?"

  "Yes, I got two names. One retired before I was born and the other started several years afterward. I ran background on both of them anyway, but nothing popped. There were several in between, but Mrs. McIntyre doesn't remember their names.""

  "So, now what?"

  "Now I pull a rabbit out of my hat."

  "That's your plan B?"

  "No, but I'm going to stick around for another day or so until I figure one out."

  Distracted by the dream she'd had the night before, Grace picked at her eggs the next morning. She remembered the balding man with the thin, curly gray hair and thick black glasses. He was trying to tell her something but she couldn't quite hear him. It was a very vivid dream, like nothing she'd had since childhood. Something about the dream was important, and she was trying to dredge it out of her head without much success.

  She confirmed her stay at the hotel for another night and decided to drive to the Santa Monica Pier, where her parents had gone on their first "official" date. She smiled at the thought of her parents strolling hand in hand, new love burning in their hearts. And she thought of Antonio. Theirs had not been an ideal courtship because of all the baggage she'd brought into it, and she wished it had been different. That she'd been different. That she''d been able to love freely, the way her mother had been able to love her father.

  Without abandon.

  The long walk helped clear her head. As she pulled out of the parking lot and drove toward the freeway, the rows of pastel-colored houses and apartment buildings she passed triggered the memory she'd been waiting for.

  She pulled over to the side of the street to harvest the memory before it once again escaped her. The man from her dream was the super from the apartment building her mother had supposedly lived in when Grace had been born. The apartment in Pacific Palisades she'd visited years ago. But her mother had never lived there. Someone else had lived in that apartment.

  The woman who had stolen her from her mother!

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Grace tried to contain her mounting excitement as she sped back to the hotel in Beverly Hills. Once inside her room, she flipped on her laptop and, while it was loading, yanked her suitcase from the closet, tossed it on the bed and shoved all of her things into it.

  She easily located the information she needed and booked a ticket on the three o'clock flight to Phoenix. It was just after noon as she flung her laptop over her shoulder and wheeled her suitcase up to the front desk to check out.

  Ignoring the glare from the front desk clerk--the one who had just hours ago confirmed her stay for an additional night--Grace hurried to her car and drove as fast as she could to the airport. Her leg jiggled nervously as she waited for her flight to board. She thought about calling her mother, or Antonio, but decided against it in the event that this was just another wild-goose chase.

  Her plane touched down shortly after four o'clock and, after collecting her bag, she hurried outside to the taxi stand. When they arrived at her destination, she paid the driver and made her way to apartment 4A.

  Her hand shook as she reached for the bell, then quickly pulled it back. She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths, trying to calm her racing heart. Suddenly she felt silly for being here, for following the wild, impetuous thought that led her to this stranger's doorstep.

  She remembered the super's words that day, many years before, when she'd gone looking for her mother. Her name was Nancy Ogilvie. She lived here for thirty years. Just moved out a few years back. Registered nurse, she was. Worked for some hot-shot plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills. Retired to Phoenix.

  It couldn't be coincidence.

  She lifted her arm once more and pressed the doorbell.

  The woman opened the door and eyed her suspiciously.

  Grace gave Nancy Ogilvie her best smile, and the woman's face relaxed.

  "May I help you?" she asked.

  She'd run dozens of different greetings through her mind on the flight to Phoenix, but they'd all seemed too contrived, and more importantly, not likely to get her into the woman's home. In the end, she decided that honesty would probably be her best bet.

  "Ms. Ogilvie, my name is Grace Adams. I'm sorry to just show up on your doorstep unannounced, but I have a personal matter that I think you might be able to assist me with. May I come in?"

  The woman scanned Grace from head to toe and then her eyes settled on her suitcase.

  "I've just come from the airport. I'm afraid the matter is rather urgent. We can go somewhere else if you'd prefer. Is there a coffee shop nearby?"

  "No, it's alright. Come on in." She stepped back and held the door for Grace.

  Grace stepped inside. "Thank you."

  Nancy ushered her into the small living room, and Grace sat down in a pale chintz easy chair.

  Nancy sat on the matching sofa, then immediately stood up. "I'm sorry, I seem to have lost my manners. May I get you something to drink?"

  "Thank you, no. Ms. Ogilvie--"

  "Nancy, please. Are you a detective or something, Ms. Adams?"

  Grace smiled. "No, nothing like that. I'm looking for answers to something that happened a long time ago." She paused, trying to decide how to proceed. ""Nancy, did you ever work for a doctor named Emmett McIntyre?"

  The smile on Nancy's face dropped like an elevator car plummeting toward the ground. Grace had come to the right place.

  Nancy sat back down. "Yes, I worked for Dr. McIntyre." Her words were barely audible.

  "And do you remember a patient by the name of June Crandall? A home delivery?"

  Nancy's shoulders slumped and she leaned back in her seat. "Yes. I remember her. And I know who you are."

  Grace placed a trembling hand on the woman's knee. "Ms. Ogilvie--Nancy--I'm not looking to get anyone into trouble. I only want to understand what happened." She spoke softly, careful not to lose her temper or scare her away with accusations. She had to keep the conversation moving forward.

  "Nancy, I spent my life living in various orphanages and foster homes. And my mother has spent all these years thinking I was dead. I'm sure you didn't have anything to do with what happened. I just want to find out how something like this could've happened. Please, if you know anything, will you tell me?"

  Nancy walked into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water. She returned a moment later and sat down with the glass in her hand. She suddenly looked years older than she had only moments before when she'd opened the door.

  "Nancy?" Grace said.

  Nancy's eyes shone with unshed tears. "Yes, sorry. I guess I expected this day would come. Maybe I even wanted it to." She paused for a long moment and looked down at her hands.

  "You were wrong, Grace. I am not innocent
in all of this. I've spent the last twenty-seven years hating myself for what happened that day, and my part in it. I've spent the rest of my life since then trying to make up for it, but nothing ever could. Telling you the truth is the least I can do for you."

  Grace steadied herself. She couldn't believe it. She was going to learn the truth at last. She took a deep breath and held it as Nancy began her story.

  1977

  The phone startled Nancy awake. She glanced at the clock before picking up and saw that it was after midnight.

  "Hello?" she whispered into the receiver.

  There was a delay on the other end before the caller finally spoke. "Nancy?"

  "Emmett, is everything alright?"

  "Yes. No. I don't know. I need to see you. Can I come over?"

  "Now? Can't it wait until the morning?" Nancy asked.

  "No, it can't. I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

  Nancy quickly dressed and ran a brush through her sleep-worn hair. She heard his footsteps on the concrete corridor and pulled the door open before he could knock. He barreled inside and turned to face her.

  "I'm in trouble, Nancy, and I need your help."

  "Emmett, you're scaring me. What happened?" She smelled alcohol on his breath, and she'd never known him to drink. This was serious.

  "Edward Crandall. That's what happened. That bastard, Edward Crandall!"

  2004

  Grace inhaled sharply. "My grandfather? Edward was involved in this?"

  Nancy nodded.

  Grace stood and walked to the window. She stared silently out at the parking lot below and contemplated what Nancy had just said. She'd been looking forward to getting to know him, another part of her loving family. And he was somehow involved? Her hands clenched. That son of a bitch!

  This was going to devastate her mother.

  She turned to Nancy. "Go on."

  1977

  "I don't understand," Nancy said to her boss. Outside of being doctor to Elena and June, she didn''t think that Emmett had any other business dealings with Edward Crandall.

  Emmett paced back and forth, wearing a track in the freshly vacuumed carpet. "He's blackmailing me, Nancy. He wants me to do something unthinkable for him or else he'll......he'll tell Shirley the truth."

  "The truth about what? Emmett, are you having an affair?"

  He paused for a long beat. "It's more complicated than that. Let me just say that I would lose everything if the truth got out, and I can't take that chance. This is a one-time thing I have to do, and I'm just going to have to do it."

  "Emmett, what does he want you to do?"

  He looked at her but said nothing for a very long time. "It's his daughter, June. She's sixteen, and she's pregnant. Edward doesn't want her to keep the baby."

  "What does she want?"

  "She wants to keep it."

  Nancy remained silent as the enormity of the situation settled in. "Just so I'm clear, he wants you to help him steal the baby from his own daughter?"

  "I can't do it without you."

  She gasped and covered her mouth with her hands. "Emmett, I can't...I can't. I want no part of this. I can't believe you would even ask." She pointed to the door. "Please, go."

  Emmett stood in place. "Don't get all saintly on me, Nancy. I know about your time at the track. And I happen to know you're in over your head with people who would just as soon kill you as look at you if you don't pay up. How were you planning to pay them?"

  Nancy stood locked in place. Everything he said was true, except that they hadn't threatened to hurt her. They'd threatened to hurt her elderly mother if she didn't come up with $50,000 by the end of the month. She'd been thinking about leaving town, starting over, but maybe...

  What he was asking her to do was horrible, but her mother was all Nancy had left in the world. But to steal a baby... She closed her eyes and shook her head. God forgive me. She turned to her boss.

  "I'll do it." Her voice was barely more than a whisper. "God help me, I'll do it."

  He made his way toward the door. "God help us both."

  2004

  "So, you turned a blind eye to what my grandfather and Dr. McIntyre were doing in exchange for $50,000?"

  Nancy expelled a long breath. "There was more to it than that. I had to watch the baby." She looked at Grace. "You. I had to watch you for a few weeks after you were born, until it was time to deliver you to the orphanage. During that time I held you, and fed you, and comforted you when you cried, and God help me, I fell in love with you. It was then that I realized I had made a deal with the devil. I'd sold my soul for $50,000."

  Grace looked at the woman. The first person who had cared for her. She wondered whether she was supposed to feel something for her. She didn't. Unless contempt counted. Or disgust.

  "What happened then?"

  1978

  Nancy removed the baby from the car seat and held her close. She kissed the tiny bundle before handing it over to Edward. Their eyes met, and she placed the infant in his arms. She hated Edward, hated him with the kind of hatred that started wars.

  She knew she should thank him. He had freed her from her mounting debt, given her a fresh start. But she could not help hating him. The only reason she was doing this was that she hated herself even more. No amount of money could ever absolve her from this sin. She could feel the mark it left on her, and it felt like death. Except that she was still alive, and she would have to live with this for the rest of her life.

  As Edward placed the child in the hands of the nun, Nancy turned her back and wept. She turned toward the old nun whose face was as weathered as a well-traveled road and she saw kindness in her eyes. Instinctively, she reached for the tiny cross she now wore around her neck and prayed for the innocent girl whose life would be forever changed because of what they'd done.

  2004

  "When I drove away from the orphanage, I was free from my gambling addiction," she said with a bitter laugh. "But I had entered a different kind of hell. I made a declaration to God that day that I would spend the rest of my life giving to others, but every night when I turn out the light, I still see your sweet, beautiful face looking up at me. You were so trusting, and I betrayed you in the worst kind of way. I should have stopped it. I had the power to stop it, and I didn't."

  She looked at Grace. "I understand completely if you want to report me. I deserve that and a whole lot more."

  Grace sat, unable to speak or move. She thought she'd been prepared for the truth, but she never expected it to be this...terrible, this sinister. This truth was going to destroy her mother.

  "Why did Edward give me to an orphanage rather than sell me to some infertile couple of Dr. McIntyre's? What did he say to the nuns about why he was giving them this infant?"

  Nancy shook her head. "I told you I'd tell you the truth, Grace, but this might be even more painful than what I've already told you. Are you sure you want to know?""

  Grace nodded. She needed to know what her grandfather had done. She needed to know all of it.

  Nancy took a deep breath. "He told the church that your mother had been brutally raped and was pregnant as a result. He told them that she didn't want to keep the baby. As to why he didn't give you to an infertile couple...he said that the baby's father, your father, was a lowlife Mexican immigrant and nobody would want a half-breed child like you." Nancy buried her head in her hands and cried. They were loud, deep sobs that shook her entire body.

  Grace's cheeks burned. With the exception of Robert Sampson, she had never really hated anyone in her life. Until now. But she hated her grandfather with all of her being.

  Both women sat, neither one speaking, and finally Grace stood to leave. She looked down at the sad, pathetic woman on the couch and felt a stab of pity. This woman had been living in hell for the past twenty-seven years while her grandfather went about his life without a second thought about what he'd done. She was a victim, like Grace. And for what reason? What could ever have possessed a man to do somethi
ng so evil?

  "I'm sorry my grandfather used you," she said. "If it hadn''t been you, it would've been someone else. You should forgive yourself." Grace turned toward the front door. As an afterthought, she turned back to Nancy, who was still sobbing. ""Did you ever find out what Edward had on Dr. McIntyre?"

  Nancy sniffled and nodded. She stood and shuffled over to the small desk in the corner of the living room, opened a drawer and pulled out a manila envelope. "I didn't work for Emmett for very long, but when he had his stroke a few years back, I paid a visit to his wife and asked if there was anything I could do to help. She asked if I would clean out his office files, which I found a little strange at first, but I was glad she'd asked when I found this." Nancy handed an envelope to Grace. "I found it taped to the bottom of one of his desk drawers."

  Inside the envelope were pictures of Dr. McIntyre in compromising positions with other men. There were several photos, each one more explicit than the other. Grace nodded slowly as understanding dawned. Her eyes traveled to Nancy's. "Did you know?""

  "No. I'm just glad I found them instead of Shirley. She really is a lovely woman."

  Grace handed the photos back to Nancy. "Thank you." She left, closing the door to the apartment quietly behind her.

  Grace sat at a bus stop near the driveway of the apartment complex waiting for her taxi, and wondered whether the truth was all it was cracked up to be. Two things were certain. She had to figure out how much of this to tell her mother, and she needed to find a way to forgive Edward. She could not spend the rest of her life with this much hatred in her heart. She was done with all that.

  After a few minutes, she pulled out her cell phone and made the call.

  Chapter Thirty-Six