Elizabeth Bevarly - Father Of The Brat

“Can I get you anything?” he asked her as he headed into the adjoining kitchen. Although he felt as if a good, stiff shot of whiskey was probably more appropriate for the bomb she had just dropped, coffee was what he was craving most. “Coffee? Tea? Soda?”

“Whatever you’re having will be fine,” she said.

“I’ll just be a minute.”

While the coffeemaker wheezed and dripped laconically, Carver returned to the living room to find the infuriatingly familiar Ms. Garrett reading over a file. He wished he could remember where he knew her from, couldn’t quell the certainty that the two of them shared some kind of significant history. But her name was in no way recognizable, and she wasn’t at all the kind of woman he normally dated. He’d never had any cause to work with the Child Welfare Office, and couldn’t imagine anyplace else he might have met her. Maybe she was a friend of one of his sisters, he thought. Though even that seemed unlikely. She just appeared to be too straitlaced to be someone who would run around with Livy or Sylvie.

He stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray after using it to light a second. “I’m sorry,” he said as he expelled an errant stream of smoke from his lungs, “but I just can’t shake the feeling that I know you from somewhere.”

The woman glanced up quickly at his statement, and he could almost swear she looked panicky again. Her reaction made no sense, but he couldn’t dissuade himself of the feeling that he’d put her on edge somehow. Then she frowned, waving her hand in front of her face to dispel the cigarette smoke he had inadvertently sent her way, and he understood her agitation. Mumbling an apology, he stubbed out the second cigarette, as well.

“And where might we have met, Mr. Venner?” she asked as she watched him perform the action. He could almost feel her disapproval of what was only one of his many bad habits, and he wondered why he cared.

“See, now that’s the sixty-four thousand dollar question,” he told her as he took his seat in a chair opposite the couch. “Can you help me out?”

She smiled briefly and looked back down at her pile of information. “No, sorry, I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?” Somehow, he suspected the latter was true.

Her head snapped up again, and she glared at him. That glare, more than anything else she had done since he’d opened his front door, made Carver even more certain that he did in fact know her. Unfortunately, a lot of women had glared at him in his time. For some reason, this woman just seemed to be better at it than most.

“I have a copy of Rachel Stillman’s birth certificate along with some other documents,” she said, ignoring his question. “From the state of California. They clearly indicate that you are the girl’s father.”

Carver frowned. “Let me see those.” He took the collection of papers she extended toward him. They, too, appeared to be legitimate documents, complete with raised seals and indecipherable signatures. The birth certificate stated quite clearly in black and white that a female child named Rachel Carver Stillman had been born into this world a little over twelve years ago, that she had weighed seven pounds, fourteen ounces and had been twenty-one and a half inches long. It also indicated that her mother’s name was Abigail Renée Stillman. And that her father’s name was Carver Venner.

“Nevertheless,” Carver said, “this doesn’t prove anything.”

“It proves that you’re the child’s father.”

“No, it proves that Abby Stillman filled out a form and said that I’m the child’s father. Hell, it could have been any number of men. Abby was a great girl and a lot of fun to be around, but she wasn’t exactly a one-man woman. I wasn’t the only guy she ever dated.”

“But you are the one she said is the father of her child.”

“That doesn’t prove anything,” he repeated.

Mostly Harmless Garrett, who was proving to be anything but studied him some more. He was starting to feel like some kind of lab specimen the way she kept staring at him like that. Her eyes were so dark, he could scarcely tell where the brown of her irises ended and the black of her pupils began. Those eyes, like the rest of her, haunted him.

“Nevertheless,” she said, taking the birth certificate back from him, “you’re the one who’s responsible for the girl, now that her mother is dead.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Carver countered. “She’s not my daughter.”

“What year did you meet Abigail Stillman?” the caseworker asked in an obvious effort to try a different route.

Carver thought for a moment. “Let’s see now…I was down in Guatemala working on a story for Mother Jones about how American businesses were taking advantage of the local labor. Abby, if I recall, was covering the local elections for UPI. That would have been…” He ticked off the years on both hands, then started over, touching three more fingers. “Almost exactly thirteen years ago.”

“So the timing would be about right.”

He shook his head. “No, it wouldn’t, because you said this kid is twelve, right?”

M. H. Garrett nodded. “Twelve years and three months. Add to that nine months of gestation, and her date of conception would be…almost exactly thirteen years ago.”

Carver didn’t like that line of reasoning one bit. And it still didn’t prove a damned thing. Abby Stillman had been a real party girl. She hadn’t exactly been promiscuous, but she had liked men. A lot. And there had been plenty of men in Guatemala besides him back then. Any one of them could be this Rachel kid’s father. His name on an official document didn’t mean anything, and he told the caseworker so.

Unfortunately, M. H. Garrett and the state of Pennsylvania saw things a little differently. “Sorry,” she told him, “but as long as you’re listed as Rachel Stillman’s father on her birth certificate, the law says you’re responsible for her now that her mother is dead. Unless you go to court and prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the girl is not your daughter.”

“Then I’ll go to court and prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.”

“Fine. In the meantime, just make sure you show up at the airport tomorrow morning at eleven-thirty, a half hour before Rachel’s plane arrives. You and I are both going to be there to meet her.”

That said, M. H. Garrett, Caseworker, scooped up her impressive array of documents and stuffed them back into her satchel, snapping the briefcase shut with all the aplomb and confidence of Clarence Darrow. Then she stood and collected her trench coat from the rack by the door and shrugged back into it.

“USAir flight number 422,” she said as she turned up her collar. “Arrives at 12:04 p.m. Be there, Mr. Venner, or risk the wrath of the Child Welfare Office.”

He chuckled, a derisive sound completely lacking in mirth. “Oh, and I’m supposed to be terrified of a bunch of overextended social workers who don’t even have the time or organization to tell me I’ve become a father.”

At his assertion, M. H. Garrett slouched a little, looking even more tired than Carver felt. “Yeah,” she said. “You’re supposed to be terrified of us. Maybe we’re overextended, disorganized and pressed for time, but at least we care about our kids. And maybe we don’t always get the job done right, but we do our best.”

She reached behind herself for the doorknob and pulled the door open, but her gaze never left his. “I’ve been assigned to your case, Mr. Venner, and I’m going to do my best to make sure that you and your daughter get situated properly. If you need counseling, I’ll arrange it. If you need financial assistance, I’ll see what I can do. If you need help getting her enrolled in school, I’ll take care of it.”