The Wrong Girl

80

“You sure you’re okay? Both of you?”

Jane handed DeLuca his radio, and looked Jake up and down in the Brannigan parking lot. A squadron of cop cars had swooped in, sirens wailing. Jake explained that Ardith Brannigan was on her way downtown and Collins Munson en route to a hospital.

Funny that the sky was so blue. Funny that the cold sun was glowing in the winter sky. Funny that a couple of sparrows flittered into the warmth of the evergreens. Like nothing bizarre had happened. Jane looped her arm through Jake’s, ignoring DeLuca’s knowing smile. He was a pal. She couldn’t believe she’d suspected him, even briefly.

“Our Jake here’s the hero of the day, Jane,” DeLuca said. “I’m fine. The good news? I heard Ardith Brannigan start talking the moment she hit the backseat of the cruiser. Her lawyer’s gonna be pissed, but that’s not our problem. Apparently Lillian Finch discovered some footprint scheme Munson was using to-” He shook his head. “Must have been a big deal. Anyway, I’ll give you two a moment. I’m going inside to make the necessary phone calls.”

“Kat,” Jake said.

DeLuca looked at the pavement, then nodded. “Yeah. And then I’ll inform the Supe you’re on your way to fill him in on what happened.”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Jane almost stamped her foot in impatience as D walked away. “Ardith talked about footprints?”

Jake gave her arm a squeeze, then stepped away from her. “Jane? What do you know about them? That’s the question.”

“Remember the fire?” Jane said.

Jake rolled his eyes. Jane always had to tell every detail. There was no such thing as long-story-short with her. He loved her for it.

“Okay, fine. You remember. Anyway, Ella gave me a piece of paper, apparently one of the things she found in Lillian Finch’s house before-” She paused. “Okay, fine, fast forward. It’s a footprint. They were-”

“They?” Jake said.

“You want me to tell you this?”

Jake shrugged. Her ears were turning red and her hair was tousled and she’d run out without gloves. He wished he could grab her hands, grab all of her. Maybe he was simply feeling relieved. And alive. “Sorry.”

“Anyway, someone-now I guess it was Munson, or Ardith and Munson-was taking the footprints, the baby footprints, out of adoption files,” Jane said. “I can’t figure out why, except that’s the only thing in the documents that would absolutely clinch the identities of the children. Chief Monahan told me Ella was trying to carry out a pile of documents, but they all burned in the fire. Except this one.”

She zipped open her tote bag.

And stopped, mid-zip. Jane looked up as she heard the beep-beep of a car’s horn, the crunch of tires on the salted pavement. A black SUV rounded the corner into the parking lot.

“What now?” Jake’s hand hovered over his gun.

“Don’t worry.” Jane knew that car.

“Huh?” Jake said.

“It’s Tuck,” Jane said. “She’s how this whole thing started. Anyway. Look at this paper.”

Baby Girl Beerman. Jake read the typed description on the creased and wrinkled paper Jane handed him. It smelled like fire. A tiny baby footprint, impossibly small. So what?

He looked up as Tuck slammed the car door. A woman he didn’t recognize was getting out of the passenger seat.

“Hey, comrades,” Tuck called. “What’re you all doing here?

By the time Jane neared the end of the story, her hands were frozen and her ears would never be the same. She tried to tell the whole story, fast as she could, since they were still out in the parking lot.

“So if this is your footprint, Tuck,” Jane said, “you really are baby girl Beerman. If it isn’t-well, that’s why we came to see you, Carlyn.”

She handed the paper to Tuck and Carlyn. They examined it together, shoulders touching. Judging by their expressions, the two women didn’t seem to understand.

“Get what I’m saying?” Jane said. “If this footprint doesn’t match, that proves Tuck is the wrong girl.”

“The wrong girl?” After hearing Jane’s explanation, Jake worried about fingerprints on the document, about Ella Gavin’s potential testimony, about the documents destroyed in the fire, and how to link it all to their growing case against Munson and possibly Ardith Brannigan. Was it fraud? Deception? The wrong girl?

“Tuck? We can take a print of your foot downtown,” Jake said. “Take it to our lab.”

“Great,” Jane said. “Can we do it today? Tuck? What’s wrong?”

She’d have thought Tuck would be eager to take Jake up on his offer. Carlyn, too. The footprint could instantly answer the questions that plagued Tuck. But Tuck had a funny look on her face.

Carlyn, holding the footprint, had a funny look, too.

Maybe Jane couldn’t fully understand the depth of the emotions. The past and the future. Right here, right now. Revealed.

“I’m sorry.” Was she being insensitive? Disrespectful? So interested in the story that she’d lost sight of the real people involved? “Do you two want to talk privately? Without-” She waved a hand at Jake, and the parking lot, at the Brannigan’s brick walls. “All this?”

“Jane, we’re so grateful.” Carlyn began.

Tuck had pulled the charm bracelet from her pocket.

“Jane? My mother-my adoptive mother-is dying. You know that. The nurse called this morning. To let my mother say-well, I’m flying down there tonight.”

“I’m so sorry.” No wonder Tuck’s voice had sounded strange.

Tuck held up the bracelet. Carlyn moved behind her, draped an arm across her shoulders. “She told me that she’d made this bracelet. She’d written the note. To prevent me from finding my birth mother. Remember I told you she’d hate that I was looking? So this morning she said…”

Jane watched Tuck struggle for words. Her eyes welled with tears and Carlyn comforted her.

“Go ahead, honey,” Carlyn said. “We understand she did it out of love, sweetheart. Out of thinking you’d be happier.”

Tuck took a deep breath. “She said she couldn’t face me, but had to tell me the truth. Let go of the guilt. All these years, she wanted me to feel loved by her. That she was my only ‘real’ mother. That she and Dad were my real family. She knew if anyone tried to say otherwise, I’d use the bracelet and note to prove they were wrong.”

“Which she almost did. Right, honey?” Carlyn handed the footprint back to Jane. “But that’s why we don’t need the footprint, Jane. I’m so happy to introduce you to-”

“Audrey Rose Beerman.” Tuck blinked away the tears. The bracelet twinkled in the milky sun. “The right girl. The rightest girl in the world.”