David Morrell - Black Evening

"I don't offend easily."

"Your last name is Weinberg," Becky says. "Jewish. Back in the thirties, the same as now, the majority of parents wanting to adopt were Protestants, and they wanted a child from a Protestant mother. If you were put up for adoption, even on the gray market, almost every couple looking to adopt would not have wanted a Jewish baby. The prospects would have been so slim that your mother's final option would have been…"

"The black market?" Your cheek muscles twitch.

"Baby selling. It's a violation of the anti-slavery law, paying money for a human being. But it happens, and lawyers and doctors who arrange for it to happen make a fortune from desperate couples who can't get a child any other way."

"But what if my mother was Scot ?"

Becky blinks. "You're suggesting…"

"Jewish couples." You frown, remembering the last names of parents you read in the ledgers. "Meyer. Begelman. Markowitz. Weinberg. Jews."

"So desperate for a baby that after looking everywhere for a Jewish mother willing to give up her child, they adopted…"

"WASPs. And arranged it so none of their relatives would know."

All speculation, you strain to remind yourself. There's no way to link Mary Duncan with you, except that you were born in the town where she signed the agreement and the agreement is dated a week before your birthday. Tenuous evidence, to say the least. Your legal training warns you that you'd never allow it to be used in court. Even the uniform presence of Jewish names on the birth certificates from Redwood Point that August so long ago has a possible, benign, and logical explanation: the resort might have catered to a Jewish clientele, providing kosher meals for example. Perhaps there'd been a synagogue.

But logic is no match for your deepening unease. You can't account for the chill in the pit of your stomach, but you feel that something's terribly wrong. Back in your hotel room, you pace, struggling to decide what to do next. Go back to Redwood Point and ask Chief Kitrick more questions? What questions? He'd react the same as Becky Hughes had. Assumptions, Mr. Weinberg. Inconclusive.

Then it strikes you. The name you found in the records. Dr. Jonathan Adams. The physician who certified not only your birth but all the births in Redwood Point. Your excitement abruptly falters. So long ago. The doctor would probably be dead by now. At once your pulse quickens. Dead? Not necessarily.

Simon and Esther were still alive until three weeks ago. Grief squeezing your throat, you concentrate. Dr. Adams might have been as young as Simon and Esther. There's a chance he…

But how to find him? The Redwood Point Clinic went out of business in the forties. Dr. Adams might have gone anywhere. You reach for the phone. A year ago, you were hired to litigate a malpractice suit against a drug-addicted ophthalmologist whose carelessness blinded a patient. You spent many hours talking to the American Medical Association. Opening the phone-number booklet that you always keep in your briefcase, you call the AMA's national headquarters in Chicago. Dr. Jonathan Adams? The deep male voice on the end of the line sounds eager to show his efficiency. Even through the static of a long-distance line, you hear fingers tap a computer keyboard.

"Dr. Jonathan Adams? Sorry. There isn't a… Wait, there is a Jonathan Adams Junior . An obstetrician. In San Francisco. His office number is…"

You hurriedly write it down and with equal speed press the numbers on your phone. Just as lawyers often want their sons and daughters to be lawyers, so doctors encourage their children to be doctors, and on occasion they give a son their first name. This doctor might not be the son of the man who signed your birth certificate, but you have to find out. Obstetricians ? Another common denominator. Like father, like…?

A secretary answers.

"Dr. Adams, please," you say.

"The doctor is with a patient at the moment. May he call you back?"

"By all means. This is my number." You give it. "But I think he'll want to talk to me now. Just tell him it's about his father. Tell him it's about the clinic at Redwood Point."

The secretary sounds confused. "But I can't interrupt when the doctor's with a patient."

"Do it," you say. "I guarantee he'll understand the emergency."

"Well, if you're – "

"Certain? Yes. Absolutely."

"Just a moment, please."

Thirty seconds later, a tense male voice says, "Dr. Adams here. What's this all about?"

"I told your secretary. I assumed she told you . It's about your father. It's about nineteen thirty-eight. It's about the Redwood Point Clinic."

"I had nothing to do with… Oh, dear Jesus."

You hear a forceful click, then static. You set down the phone. And nod.

Throughout the stressful afternoon, you investigate your only other lead, trying to discover what happened to June Engle, the nurse whose name appears on the Redwood Point birth certificates. If not dead, she'd certainly have retired by now. Even so, many ex-nurses maintain ties with their former profession, continuing to belong to professional organizations and subscribing to journals devoted to nursing. But no matter how many calls you make to various associations, you can't find a trace of June Engle.

By then, it's evening. Between calls, you've ordered room service, but the poached salmon goes untasted, the bile in your mouth having taken away your appetite. You get the home phone number for Dr. Adams from San Francisco information.

A woman answers, weary. "He's still at… No, just a minute. I think I hear him coming in the door."

Your fingers cramp on the phone.

The now-familiar taut male voice, slightly out of breath, says, "Yes, Dr. Adams speaking."

"It's me again. I called you at your office today. About the Redwood Point Clinic. About nineteen thirty-eight."

"You son of a – "

"Don't hang up this time, doctor. All you have to do is answer my questions, and I'll leave you alone."

"There are laws against harassment."

"Believe me, I know all about the law. I practice it in Chicago."

"Then you're not licensed in California. So you can't intimidate me by – "

"Doctor, why are you so defensive? Why would questions about that clinic make you nervous?"

"I don't have to talk to you."

"But you make it seem you're hiding something if you don't."

You hear the doctor swallow. "Why do you… I had nothing to do with that clinic. My father died ten years ago. Can't you leave the past alone?"

"Not my past, I can't," you insist. "Your father signed my birth certificate at Redwood Point in nineteen thirty-eight. There are things I need to know."

The doctor hesitates. "All right. Such as?"

"Black-market adoptions." Hearing the doctor inhale, you continue. "I think your father put the wrong information on my birth certificate. I think he never recorded my biological mother's name and instead put down the names of the couple who adopted me. That's why there isn't a sealed birth certificate listing my actual mother's name. The adoption was never legally sanctioned, so there wasn't any need to amend the erroneous birth certificate on file at the courthouse."

"Jesus," the doctor says.

"Am I right?"

"How the hell would I know? I was just a kid when my father closed the clinic and left Redwood Point in the early forties. If you were illegally adopted, it wouldn't have anything to do with me ."

"Exactly. And your father's dead, so he can't be prosecuted. Besides, the statute of limitations would have protected him, and anyway it happened so long ago, who would care? Except me . But doctor, you're nervous about my questions. That makes it obvious you know something . Certainly you can't be charged for something your father did. So what would it hurt if you tell me what you know?"