Lisa Scottoline - Look Again

"No problem, and thanks for accommodating W." Ellen gestured to the secretary's desk outside, where Will was eating vending-machine Fig Newtons and watching a Wizard of Ox DVD on the computer.

"It's great to see him so healthy. What a difference, eh?"

"Really." Ellen shifted forward on the chair. "So, as I said on the phone, I'm seeing you in your official capacity, and I want to pay for your time today."

"Forget it." Ron smiled. "You made me look like Clarence Darrow in the paper. I got tons of clients from that press. I owe you."

"I want to pay."

"Get to the point." Ron gestured toward the door. "I hear the scarecrow singing. We don't have much time."

"Wait, let me ask you something first. Is what we say absolutely confidential?"

"Yes, of course." Ron nodded. "How can I help you?"

Ellen hesitated. "What if a crime is involved? I didn't commit it, but I know, or I suspect, that a crime has been committed by someone else. Can you still keep this confidential?"

"Yes."

"So if I tell you about this crime, you wouldn't have to report it to the police?"

"I'd be barred from so doing."

Ellen loved the authoritative note in his voice. "Here goes. I think that Will could be a kid named Timothy Braverman, who was kidnapped in Florida two years ago."

"Will? Your son Will?"

"Yes."

Ron lifted a graying eyebrow. "So the crime in question is the kidnapping?"

"Yes, it was a carjacking gone wrong, and the kidnapper murdered the boy's nanny."

"Those are past crimes, unless we consider the fact that you retain custody of a kidnapped child as a continuing crime, which I don't think it is. You did legally adopt him."

"Here's what I need to know. If Will is really Timothy, what are my legal rights? Could the Bravermans, his birth parents, take him from me? Would I have to give him up if they found out or if they came and found us? Wouldn't it matter to the court that he lived with me for two years?" Ellen had so many questions that they ran into each other on the way out of her mouth. "That I'm the only mother he's ever really known? Would that-?"

"Please, slow down." Ron held up his hands. "Tell me how you found this out, about W."

So Ellen told him the story from the beginning, showing him her adoption file, the composite drawing, and her computer printouts of Timothy and Will at their various ages. "By the way, my father thinks I'm crazy. He's the only other person I've told."

Ron studied the photographs on his desk, even placing the composite tracing over the photo enlargement of Beach Man. Finally, he looked up at her, his expression grave behind his glasses.

"What do you think?"

"You're not crazy, but you are speculating." Ron's gaze remained steady. "The composite drawing is the linchpin, and you can't support your belief that Will is Timothy Braverman by comparing the composite with a photograph. It just isn't reliable enough. I see some similarity, but I can't be sure it's the same person."

Ellen tried to process what he was saying, but her emotions kept getting in the way.

"I'm not an expert, and neither are you. Composites, as a legal matter, cannot stand alone. Any one of my first-year law students can tell you that a composite is merely an aid to the identification and apprehension of a suspect. They're not a positive identification." Ron shook his head. "You don't have enough information on which to base any conclusion that Will is the kidnapped child."

It was the same thing her father had said, only in lawyer-speak.

Ron continued, "Now, the first question you should have is whether you have an obligation to go to the authorities with your suspicion. Answer? No, you don't."

Ellen hadn't even thought of that.

"The law doesn't impose responsibility on the citizenry to report crimes that are so speculative in nature."

"Good."

"That's not to say that you couldn't voluntarily report your suspicion to the authorities, if you wished. I'm sure there are fingerprints of Timothy Braverman on file, or blood tests that could be done, or DNA analysis that would determine if Will is Timothy." Ron tented his fingers in front of his beard and looked at her directly. "Obviously, you're concerned that if you tell the authorities and you're right, you would lose W."

Ellen couldn't even speak, and Ron didn't wait for an answer.

"You're also concerned that if you're not right, you'd cause the Bravermans more pain and upset."

Ellen hadn't thought of them, but okay.

"Let's take a hypothetical. Assume for a moment that you're right. Will is Timothy."

Ellen hated the very sound of the sentence. "Could that even happen?"

"Hypothetically, it's easy, now that I give it some thought. All that is required for a valid adoption is a birth mother to produce a birth certificate, which is easy enough to fake. Unlike a driver's license or a passport, it doesn't even have a photo." Ron stroked his beard. "And she has to supply a signed waiver of her parental rights, from the birth father, too, which is also easy to forge, and she could make up the father's name. There are plenty of cases from mothers who put a child up for adoption without the father's consent. They're very common."

Ellen was remembering the elementary school, where Charles Cartmell's house was supposed to have been. The Charles Cartmell that nobody had heard of and who didn't exist.

"The second question is what are your parental rights, if any? And what are the Bravermans' parental rights, if any? That's the question that's worrying you, isn't it?" Ron paused. "If you're right, who gets Will?"

Ellen felt her eyes well up, but kept it together.

"You raise an interesting question under Pennsylvania law, and one not well understood by laymen. It involves the difference between adoption cases and custody cases."

Ellen couldn't take the suspense. "Just tell me, would I get to keep Will or would I have to give him back to the Bravermans?"

"You'd have to give him back to the Bravermans. No question."

Ellen felt stricken. She struggled to maintain control, teetering on the fine line between crying and screaming. But Will was in the next room, lost in a world somewhere over the rainbow.

"The Bravermans, as the child's birth parents, have an undisputed legal right to their child. They're alive, and they didn't give him up for adoption. If he was kidnapped, your adoption is simply invalid. Therefore, as a legal matter, the court would return Will to them."

"And he would go live in Florida?"

"That's where they live, so yes."

"Would I have the right to visit him?"

"No." Ron shook his head. "You would have no rights at all. The Bravermans may permit you to, perhaps to wean him from you, so to speak. But no court would order them to permit you to visit."

"But I adopted him lawfully," Ellen almost wailed.

"True, but in the hypothetical, no one gave him up for adoption." Ron cocked his head, tenting his fingers again. "As you remember from when you adopted him, you presented the court with signed waivers, consents to adoption from his mother and his father. That's a prerequisite to any adoption. If the consents were false, forged, or otherwise fraudulent, the adoption is invalid, whether you knew it or not."

Ellen forced herself to think back to her online research, done last night in anticipation of this meeting. "I read online about the Kimberley Mays case, in Florida, do you remember that? She was the baby who was switched at birth in the hospital, with another baby. In that case, the court let her stay with her psychological parent instead of her biological parent."

"I know the case. It got national attention."

"Doesn't that help me here? Can't we do it that way?"

"No, it doesn't help you at all." Ron opened his hands, palms up. "That's what I started to tell you. There's a fundamental difference between adoption and custody. The Florida court in the Mays case was applying a custody analysis, which involves an inquiry into the best interests of the child. The court decided that it was in the child's best interests for her to stay with her psychological father." Ron made a chopping motion with his hand. "But we have an adoption case here. It has nothing to do with what's in Will's best interests. It's simply a matter of power. Your case is like those in which the father's consent to the adoption was forged by the mother."