Laura Lippman - Butchers Hill

"She has problems, but she's okay as long as she takes her medication," Tess said. "It's the same old story. She starts feeling good, then decides she doesn't need to take the lithium any more. This happens every six months or so."

Willa glowered, but didn't dare contradict her. The officers retreated to the car somewhat reluctantly, called in on their radio, and backed out of the driveway about a minute later. As soon as they were out of sight, Willa turned to Tess.

"That crazy nigger bitch friend of yours did this to me," she screamed. Tess couldn't believe such a loud sound was coming out of mousy Willa Mott. "That crazy nigger bitch kidnapped me, took my shoes, and then put me out on the road in the middle of nowhere."

Tess glanced back at her family. Her mother looked stricken, as if she had always feared exactly this: some white cracker friend of Tess's crashing an otherwise pleasant family gathering, screaming expletives and epithets. Cousin Deborah leaned forward, a hint of delight in her shocked face, while Gramma merely looked impatient. Baby Samuel continued to pound on the table with his crab mallet. "C'azy nigga bit. C'azy nigga bit," he chanted happily.

Tess said the only thing that occurred to her. "Would you like to join us for dessert?"

Willa Mott passed on the cake, although she let Tess's father tend to her feet, whimpering as the hydrogen peroxide bubbled and hissed over her open wounds.

"That just means it's working," Patrick assured her.

"Now tell me what happened with Jackie," Tess said.

They were in the upstairs bathroom, away from the rest of the family, although Judith had insisted on being here, too. It was her house, after all. Willa sat on the closed toilet, Patrick at her feet, while Judith blocked the door. Tess was left with the rim of the tub, wedged in tight by Willa Mott's side, so she was facing her profile. Willa seemed to prefer it that way, making eye contact with Patrick instead of Tess.

"About four-thirty today, after the last of the kids had been picked up, that nigger bitch pulled up in her fancy car, said she wanted to talk to me."

"Jackie," Tess corrected. "Her name is Jackie and if you keep calling her that, I'm going to smack you."

Willa shrugged, as if so much had happened to her today that one more smack wouldn't make a difference. "So then she says, she knows. She knows, and she's going to kill me if I don't give her what she wants."

"Knows what?"

Willa's voice was inaudible.

"Speak up, Willa."

"She knows I have the records from Family Alternatives, and she's going to kill me if I don't turn over her file."

Patrick and Judith were completely bewildered, but Tess had an instant image of Willa walking back and forth through her living room, her arms full of juice packs. The whole operation had taken much longer than it should have, but Tess had chalked it up to Willa's general ineptness.

But it was only after she had returned from the garage that she began to remember the details of Jackie's case. A quick peek at the records had probably done more to freshen her memory than all the twenties Tess had dropped in her lap.

"How did Jackie figure it out?"

Willa shrugged, indifferent. "I don't know. Something I said about the baby's father. Besides, I wasn't in a position to argue with her, the way she was yelling and threatening to kill me. So yeah, I had the records. So what? Those creeps I worked for left in the middle of the night, owing me two weeks' salary. I figured the files could be my severance."

"What good are adoption files for some defunct agency?"

"You think you're the first hot-shit investigator who's tracked me down, looking for one of the babies we placed?"

Yes, in fact, Tess had thought she was. "So you sell the information."

"Only after talking to the adoptive parents."

Now Tess was confused, but her father was nodding. He had seen his share of graft in his years as a city liquor board inspector, and he was a quick study when it came to such schemes. "A bidding war," Patrick explained to Tess and Judith. "She gives the adoptive parents a chance to pay more not to reveal the information. And the parents have to go on paying, right, because you can hold it over their heads forever."

"I never thought of that." Willa looked dejected, contemplating her lost blackmail opportunities. "I just charged them a flat fee of five thousand dollars. That's how I got the money to put down on my house, start my business. But it had been a long while since anyone had come around. Maybe I should have worked with some of those adoption rights groups, let them know what I had. But they would have shut me down."

Something didn't fit. Tess drummed her fingers on the tub's rim, trying to pinpoint what was wrong.

"Jackie's baby wasn't adopted. There were no parents to blackmail in her case. Why didn't you name your price and tell her that the baby had gone back into the system? Why didn't you tell her what we wanted to know when we first came out there?"

Willa lowered her eyes. "The people who took her baby and gave her back, their…privacy meant a lot to them. They wouldn't have wanted that crazy ni-that crazy bitch showing up at their house, asking questions, making a fuss."

Tess grabbed Willa's arm and shook it, quite roughly. "What did you tell Jackie?"

"I told her what she wanted to know." At her best, Willa Mott was plain and ordinary. Angry, her features seemed to shrink, until her eyes almost disappeared and her mouth was as small as a bug's. "I told her the name of the people who took her baby, the people who gave it back-when they found out it was half-nigger. You see, they paid for a white baby, and they said it wasn't enough if it looked white, it had to be white. The agency offered them a discount to keep it, but they said no way. I can't say as I blame them."

Tess leaned to the side until her right temple touched the cool black-and-white tile. It was a big bathroom, but it wasn't built for four people, and it suddenly seemed stiflingly close.

"You didn't tell Jackie that part, did you?"

"I had to tell her," Willa Mott whined. "I didn't have a choice."

"You could have lied, the way you did before. Why did you pick today to become so honest and aboveboard?"

"Because today is the day your fancy friend held a gun to my head and threatened to kill me if I didn't tell her everything I knew."

"A gun? Where would Jackie get a gun?" Tess ran downstairs to the front door, where she had dropped her knapsack by the hall tree. Sure enough, her Smith and Wesson was gone. Jackie must have faked her headache, so she could sneak the gun out of Tess's bag and into her purse. She had been planning this all along, perhaps from the moment they had left the Edelmans'. Do you think there ever were any Johnsons who planned to name their baby Caitlin? I guess we'll never know .

"Where did Jackie go after she put you out of the car?" she asked Willa, a little breathless from taking the stairs so fast. "She went to the adoptive parents' house, didn't she? Where do they live? What are their names?"

Willa suddenly looked coy. "Why, I'm not sure I can remember, just like that. What's it worth to you to find that crazy nigger bitch?"

Tess backhanded her, and Willa's head snapped back, hitting the wall was a dull thud. It felt pretty good, probably better than it should have.

"Tess!" her mother shouted. "This is how you do business?" But her father looked impressed.

"You are through making money off your files, Willa Mott. Do you understand that?" Tess held her by the shoulders, the way someone might grip a sullen child, and shook her hard enough to make her head wobble on her skinny neck. "You are never going to sell another piece of information as long as you live. Now tell me what you told Jackie."