Regarding Anna (17 page)

“Good work. And for this client, Naomi, I am Lily Lambert. Please remember that.” I just hoped
I’d
remember that—I had never used a fake name with an actual client before.

She gave me a puzzled look but said, “Got it.”

Naomi left, and I took a couple more minutes to compose myself before returning to my office and new client.

I started talking even before sitting down. “I am so sorry, Miss Herschberger, for rushing out of here like that.” I reached out to shake her hand. “I’m Lily Lambert,” I said, hoping she was far enough away from my PI license hanging on the wall to be able to read it.

“It’s nice to meet you, Miss Lambert. And your receptionist explained. It’s happened to all of us at one time or another, believe me.”

I took that opportunity to explain my fees, which she accepted without any questions.

“Now, you were saying.”

“Yes, I was saying I’d like to locate my birth mother. You see, two wonderful people adopted me when I was an infant, but I didn’t find out I was adopted until a few years after they died, almost five years ago.”

“You don’t mind if I take notes, do you?”

“Not at all.”

I asked her why she wanted to find her birth mother.

“I have a boyfriend, and we plan to get married...and have children someday. And I know someone my age who was adopted and passed down a terrible condition to her baby without knowing, and...well, I wanted to be sure before...”

I knew she wasn’t being forthright, but I thought it best to keep the discussion moving. I asked her to tell me all the facts she had—not her assumptions, not conjecture, just the facts.

She didn’t respond right away, and when she did, her voice was even softer than before.

“I don’t think I have any facts.”

Most people don’t fully understand the definition of a fact, so I explained.

“For example, what is your birth date, Miss Herschberger?” Was that fair—to start out with that question? How do I separate my objectives from hers?

“January 4, 1942.”

Holy...six months before I was born.

“So you may know for a fact that you were born on January 4, 1942, because that’s what it says on your birth certificate, or you may think that’s your birth date because you were told that your whole life, which wouldn’t necessarily make it a fact.”

“I have a birth certificate, so I guess I do have at least one fact.” She let out a nervous laugh. “I probably have more, but I don’t know what’s important.”

“Who is listed as your parents?”

“My parents’ names are on it, but I don’t believe they’re my biological parents.”

I spent the next hour asking her questions, only some of which she was able to answer.

Her story stunned me.

Her parents had died six months from each other—her mother first from cancer. After her father died in a boating accident, she had found adoption papers in a safe deposit box that indicated her birth mother was Rosa Lindroth—my mother! Well, not my real mother...I don’t think. But she discovered strange errors on the adoption papers which she thought may have been forged to make it look like a legal adoption when it wasn’t. I didn’t tell her this, but some of the documents she mentioned should have never left the court and/or the agency.

There were other things that hadn’t made sense to her, and she later found clues that led her to Anna’s boardinghouse. Over time, Fern located Anna’s friend, Esmeralda “Essie” Noe, the same friend Minnie had found for me. She went on to say that in order to get close to Essie, she’d joined Essie’s church and became involved in the same activities.

After going to this church for several months, Fern learned from Essie that she had volunteered with her best friend Rosa at the Our Lady of the Angels School after their tragic fire. I remembered that tragedy—it happened in 1958 when I was a senior in high school. That put Essie and Rosa together after Anna’s death.

I concluded the meeting by telling her I had enough information to get started on her case and would be back in touch.

At first, I thought it too bizarre that Essie had known both my mother and Anna, but then I thought that was just one more piece of evidence tying all this—whatever
this
was—together in my case. And learning Essie had known my mother, I wondered if I had actually met Essie at some point.

I had an obvious ethical dilemma. How could I charge this woman for investigating a case that would benefit my own interests? And giving her a bogus name complicated matters. That had been a rash decision on my part. In hindsight, I was not sure I should have done that.

The first thing I did was start a background check on Fern Herschberger, which, thanks to the many contacts I’d made, I was able to do over the phone.

I learned that she lived in Portage Park, taught fifth grade at T. Roosevelt Elementary School in Cicero, and had a bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois. She had a valid driver’s license, no judgments or liens against her, and no criminal record. Nothing conflicted with what she had told me.

I had been taught in school that a private investigator should never handle his own case. Now I understood why—something happened to the reasoning part of the brain when it was your own case. I walked out to Naomi’s desk to clear my head. I hadn’t seen Elmer yet, and I asked Naomi about him just to pass the time.

“He
said
he’ll be in court all day,” she told me, rolling her eyes. “Has me working on his personal stuff.”

I glanced down at her desk at what seemed to be a bank statement. It appeared he had her balancing his checkbook.
None of my business.

“Okay. Well, I’ll be in all day, I think.”

“Everything okay?” she asked.

“Yes. Everything is okay. Thanks for covering for me back there.”

“Um, Nora Edgar called and said she’s found another agency to help her and won’t be needing your services.”

Shit.
I had let the Storage Room case slip through the cracks in deference to my own case.

I went back to my office and waited until Naomi ran across the street to buy a sandwich for lunch. Something had prompted me to fish around her desk for Elmer’s bank statement. It was from North Community Bank and had been mailed to Waddershins Trust, 5405 W. Ferdinand Street, Chicago, Illinois.

Seeing first-hand that Elmer was associated with Waddershins Trust, the trust that had purchased my parents’ house after they died, made me wince. Seeing proof that Elmer was living in my old house on Ferdinand made me sick.

SIXTEEN

Doing the Right Thing

Three nights later, at ten o’clock, armed with a flashlight, camera, and a can of Mountain Dew, I climbed the twenty-five-foot chain-link ladder to Flora’s sons’ backyard tree fort and settled into the five-by-five-foot wooden box that smelled a little like a wet dog. It was my first stakeout for the Midnighter case. I scrunched my legs up under me—there wasn’t much else I could do with them—and watched the neighborhood.

It was early April. The cool evening air felt more like a winter leftover than a promise of what spring was about to deliver. Minutes stretched into hours, and I passed the time pondering what to do about Fern. There seemed to be three options. I could continue using the fake name and work on the case like I would any other. I could tell her I had a conflict of interest and couldn’t work on her case at all. Or I could come clean and work
with
her.

When one-thirty A.M. rolled around and the only movement I had seen was a large stumpy-tailed cat slinking across the next door neighbor’s backyard, I decided to call it a night.

The next day, I decided to make contact with Essie on my own before making a decision about Fern. If Essie could provide more information, it would make the decision easier.

I knew Essie worked, so I waited until after dinner to call her.

“Esmeralda Noe?”

“Yes.”

“My name is Grace Lindroth, and—”

She hung up on me.

* * *

I stewed for days, going from surprised to insulted to confused and then to angry. Essie wouldn’t have reacted that way after hearing my name if she hadn’t had something she wanted to keep from me.

I had such mixed emotions about Elmer and his connection with my parents’ house. The trusting side of me wanted to believe there was a reasonable explanation for his having purchased it and then having lied about living there. For example, it was possible that he had innocently taken advantage of a good deal by buying it and now was embarrassed for me to know because he realized the reason I was not in that house was due to a personal tragedy. But the suspicious side of me didn’t buy that story.

And I continued to anguish over Fern. If we worked together, we would have a better chance of resolving the issues than if we worked separately, and joining forces would end my deception of her. What was the worst that could happen? I didn’t know the answer to that—a bad position to be in. One thing I did know for sure was that I either had to come clean with her right then or forget coming clean at all. I decided to sleep on it one more night.

The next day, I got ready for work, and as soon as I walked in the office door, Naomi told me Minnie was on the phone.

“Are you sitting down?” she asked me.

“Yes. What is it?”

“That cousin Henry Sikes talked about?”

“Yes.”

“It’s Elmer Berghorn.”

* * *

What I would have given to be able to talk to someone about my situation—someone my age, someone who knew me well, someone to whom I could tell anything and all I would get back was support, someone who made it easier for me to be me. Attempts to rekindle that kind of relationship with Beth proved to be a lost cause—she was too wrapped up in her marriage and pregnancy. Not that I thought there was anything wrong with that. On the contrary, I was very happy for her. I just wasn’t very happy for myself just then.

Thanks to the Midnighter case, I hadn’t slept well in days, and that had taken a toll on me. I had sat in that damn tree fort every other night for a week and seen nothing. On the nights I hadn’t been there, there were reports of stolen items. It was very peculiar, like someone was tipping off the burglar that I was there watching.

Earlier in the day, Naomi had noticed I wasn’t myself and had asked me several times how she could help. The problem with giving her work was that most of what I could give to her required me to do some upfront work first, and I wasn’t always up to it. That was a problem—I had lost two clients in two days because I hadn’t gotten back to them in a timely manner. I felt like things were starting to fall apart.

Fern had left a message with Naomi for me to call her. I had to make a decision one way or another on what to do with her. It wasn’t fair to keep stringing her along.

I went out and asked Naomi to call Fern back to see if she could come in to my office at seven o’clock that evening.

* * *

The afternoon and early evening dragged on. Each time I looked at the clock, it was only a few minutes later than the last time I’d looked. Before Naomi left for the day at five-thirty, she brought in a sandwich.

“You can’t have your meeting on an empty stomach,” she said.

I was lucky to have her.

An hour before Fern arrived, I tried to eat the sandwich, but when the first bite stuck in my throat and wouldn’t go down, I put it aside. Damn nerves. I sipped on a cup of hot tea while I waited for her.

When Fern arrived, without saying anything I brought her to my back room where I had spread out on the table all the photographs from my parents’ attic.

“Before we start, Miss Herschberger, could you take a look at these photographs and tell me if anyone looks familiar to you?”

Fern took her time studying the photos and then picked up the one of a newborn baby swaddled in a checkered blanket.

“I know lots of babies look alike, but this one looks like me in some of my baby pictures. In fact, I have a picture of me right after I was born wrapped in the same kind of blanket.” She glanced up at me. “Same hospital maybe?”

“Let’s sit down, Fern. I have so much to tell you.”