Allan Leverone: Mr. Midnight

The reality was almost the complete opposite. The Hirschberg Investigations office was big and airy, with framed, signed prints of American sports heroes adorning the walls. To Cait’s right, Bobby Orr flew through the air, hockey stick held high in triumph, forever celebrating his Stanley Cup-winning overtime goal for the Boston Bruins in 1970. To her left, a young Michael Jordan slammed down a dunk, tongue wagging out of his mouth. Behind her, some NFL kicker she didn’t recognize was booting a football into a raging blizzard.

Instead of a clichéd cheap suit, the private detective was dressed casually but crisply in tan Dockers and a midnight blue golf shirt. His weapon, if he was sporting one, was nowhere to be seen. There was no ceiling fan, and the filing cabinets weren’t even in this office, they were located behind Hirschberg’s receptionist in the waiting area. Behind his desk, the glass wall offered a breathtaking view of the Tampa cityscape, with the greenish-blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico beyond.

In short, Caitlyn realized this was no down-on-his-luck Hollywood PI. Everything about Arlen Hirschberg screamed competence and success, and Cait supposed that was exactly the point. She wondered how much money Kevin had had to shell out to secure this man’s services. She had asked him that very question on the way over but he refused even to discuss the issue.

“So,” Hirschberg said after introducing himself and seating them, “can I get you something to drink? Coffee? Tea? Sparkling water?”

“I’m fine, thanks,” Cait replied, smiling. If she had held on to any remaining stereotypes about Arlen Hirschberg, the offer of sparkling water pretty much destroyed them. Her adopted father had been a devoted fan of the 1970s TV series The Rockford Files , in which James Garner played a down-on-his-luck private detective. As a child, Cait had watched just about every episode with him on TV Land and she was almost certain he had never once offered sparkling water to anyone.

“Okay, then, let’s get right to it. You have quite the unusual history, young lady,” Hirschberg said with a smile. “In most cases, when an adopted child wishes to unearth her history, the official records may have been sealed to protect the privacy of the birth mother and thus are not accessible, but there are records.”

Cait nodded. “I understand. But that’s not the case with me, is it?”

“No, Ms. Connelly, it’s not. In your case, there were no official records, accessible or otherwise. You weren’t born in the Tampa area, I’m sure you are aware of that much. Do you have any idea where you were born?”

“The only information I ever got from my adoptive parents regarding my birth history was that I was born somewhere in the northeastern United States. That’s as specific as they would ever get. I got the impression that even they didn’t know exactly where I came from.”

“And your adoptive parents are now deceased, is that correct?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

Hirschberg crossed his arms and cupped his chin in one hand. “What do you know about the black market baby trade, Ms. Connelly?”

The question caught her by surprise. She paused and then shook her head. “Um, nothing, really.”

“You’re not alone. It’s not a subject that gets a lot of media attention. But it should. There is a flourishing market in this country for people who want babies but are not able to have their own and, for whatever reason, cannot or will not go through the normal and accepted—and legal—channels of adoption. This market has existed for decades, centuries probably, and continues to this day. It will likely continue long into the future.”

“Are you saying I was a black market baby?”

“It would seem logical, wouldn’t it, given the lack of official documentation regarding the circumstances of your birth?”

Cait nodded and Hirschberg continued. “This would explain why there seems to be no way to trace your adoption through legal channels. There are no legal channels to speak of.”

“But you said you had news for me. If there’s no way to trace my history, why am I here?”

Hirschberg held up a finger. “I didn’t say there was no way to trace your history. I said there was no way to do it through legal channels. I’ve worked in law enforcement my entire adult life and over the course of my career have served as a patrol officer, a homicide detective and federal agent, among other things.

“Over time I developed a fairly extensive network of contacts, as you might imagine. In your case, mining those contacts was problematic due to the fact that three decades has passed since the adoption occurred. Many people who might have been familiar with the circumstances of your case are now dead or moved on years ago and cannot be found. However, ‘problematic’ does not mean ‘impossible,’ and I was able eventually to secure the information you wanted.”

Cait shook her head, confused. “How in the world could you do that if there are no records?”

“Oh there are records, Ms. Connelly. There are always records, at least in these sorts of cases. They may not be official government records, all neat and clean and notarized and legally binding, but they do exist. And those records are accurate, certainly accurate enough for your purposes.”

“So…” After years of dealing with the pain that came from assuming she would never learn the specifics of her familial background, Cait discovered that being on the verge of getting that information was more than a little daunting.

She took a deep breath and started again. “So, where am I from, Mr. Hirschberg?”

The visions pounded through Milo Cain’s head, one after the other, like movie trailers playing non-stop on some cursed screen in his brain. These trailers, though, often made no sense. They were mostly short snippets of lives being lived by anonymous people Milo would never meet. Pointless visions of ordinary actions, like a woman washing the dinner dishes or a man making plans to play basketball the next day. Their very pointlessness made Milo Cain’s torture even more difficult to bear.

He sat in the tiny shell of an apartment, back propped against the wall—his usual method for riding out the storm of visions—waiting for them to take a break. They always did, eventually, just as they always came roaring back eventually as well. When they finally, mercifully, came to an end, an exhausted Milo Cain considered how to spend his evening.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Milo had survived a traumatic early childhood involving physical and mental abuse, had survived and moved on and deserved better. Up until the age of five, he had lived in suburban Austin, Texas, with his adoptive parents, both executives in the nuclear power industry.

Normal.

Respected.

Abusive to Milo.

He didn’t remember much of anything about Texas, but one thing he did know was that while living there he could not recall so much as a single episode involving visions blasting into his head.

Milo remembered with crystal clarity the first time he had ever experienced a vision. When he was five years old, the Cain family moved to Amesbury, Massachusetts, a seaside community on Boston’s North Shore. His mother and father had both received promotions involving higher pay and additional responsibilities to work at the Seabrook nuclear plant located up Interstate 95 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

The incident occurred at the end of the family’s first day in Massachusetts. Everyone was exhausted from the move, hunkered down in a motel for the night, in bed early because the following day was to be spent conducting a lengthy house-hunting search. Milo lay in the room with his father and mother, almost asleep in his rollaway bed despite the discomfort of the lumpy mattress, when into his head blasted a strange, frightening vision, almost, but not quite a dream.