Two very long hours later, after we’d been drooled on, kicked, and witnessed a few temper tantrums, Megan’s number flashed above window nine and an electronically generated voice called out the same number over the PA system. We walked up to the clerk together.
“So sorry to keep you waiting, but I never did an adoption certificate before,” the young woman said. She was Hispanic, with flyaway dark hair and giant half-moons of sweat spoiling her burgundy shirt. Definitely frazzled. But she had apologized, and apologies in places like this, where tempers grew short after thirty minutes of waiting and reached the boiling point after two hours, did not come often. We weren’t about to complain.
“You’re very busy. I understand,” Megan replied.
“We will have to assess a search fee,” the clerk said, cringing like she expected one of us to smack her. “It’s because you gave us inaccurate information and—”
“Inaccurate?” I said.
The woman addressed Megan when she answered. “Since you were born in Jamaica, you—”
“Jamaica?” Megan sounded stunned, and I was damn surprised myself.
“Yes. Kingston, Jamaica. Is there a problem?” the clerk asked.
“No,” I cut in, clutching Megan’s arm and squeezing hard. I hoped to convey the message that I would handle this. “She just lost her father a few days ago. That’s probably why she got confused and wrote Kingston Bay rather than Kingston, Jamaica.”
“I am so sorry for your loss, ma’am. Anyway, you must request a certified copy in person in Austin because you were adopted from a foreign country. We can only process certificates for Houston, Kingston Bay, and Brewster at this location.”
“Is there any other information that would speed up the process when we get to Austin?” I asked.
“Well, I’m pretty new here, and I’ve never worked in Austin, so—”
“Maybe the hospital name?” I turned to Megan, who had gone pale as bleached bones. “Do you remember the name of the hospital, Megan?”
She shook her head no, thank goodness.
The woman turned back to the computer. “This may not help, but it’s Duchess of Kent Hospital.”
I stood on tiptoe—the counter separating us was high—and looked at her computer monitor. “You have everything right there, huh?”
“Yes, but we cannot generate—”
“Oh, we understand. You’ve been wonderful,” I said.
The woman smiled with genuine relief. “Thanks. Thanks so much.”
After I paid the search fee at the cashier’s desk, I guided a shocked Megan out of the building and into the adjacent parking garage. When we entered the empty elevator, she finally spoke.
“What the hell does this mean, Abby?”
“It means we might finally get some answers.”
8
We left the elevator and walked to our cars in the garage adjoining the Bureau of Vital Statistics. Megan had said nothing for several minutes, no doubt still trying to make sense of what she’d just heard.
“I don’t understand this, Abby,” she said when we reached our cars. “Why did my parents change the birth certificate?”
“We don’t know if they did,” I said.
She blinked twice, not understanding. “Who else would have done such a thing?”
She was still reeling and this wasn’t a discussion for a parking lot. “I live about fifteen minutes away. Let’s pick up something to eat, sit down at my place, and think this through.”
Megan looked at her watch. “But I have to get home and I have to find out when they’ll release Dad’s body and I—” She stopped talking, and I could see she was fighting tears.
“Are you okay? We could go in my car and I’ll bring you back here later.”
“I’m fine. Really. And I guess I should be happy we found this out, but...”
I squeezed her upper arm reassuringly. “Hey, it’s okay to be confused.”
“I do need time to think before I go home or I won’t be able to look my mother in the eye.”
“There’s a great bakery on the way to my place. We’ll stop there first.”
I didn’t know about Megan, but my kolache calories had dried up long ago and I was starving. Megan had told me she wasn’t hungry when we’d stood in line in the bakery/deli, but I bought her a turkey sandwich anyway. As for me, I couldn’t wait to bite into my shaved ham and cheese on Italian herb bread.
Diva greeted us when we came in through my back door, and Megan knelt to pet her. I set the deli bag on the kitchen table and pulled two Diet Cokes from the fridge. We sat down, and Diva immediately jumped on Megan’s lap.
“I’m still messed up about this, Abby,” she said. “I don’t understand.”
“We can safely assume someone altered your birth certificate to hide the fact that you were born in Jamaica. This new information may lead us to the truth, but we need to find out who made the changes and why.”
“Why is the big question. It doesn’t make sense.”
“You’re right. But it’s my job to find answers.” I removed our sandwiches from the bag and slid Megan’s in front of her. “Let’s eat. You probably haven’t had any real food since Saturday.”
“I don’t think I have.” She touched her fingers to her forehead, making no effort to unwrap her sandwich. She stared at it for a second, then looked at me. “If my mother deceived me all my life, how can I go home and pretend nothing has changed? How can I grieve for Dad if he lied and—”
“Megan, listen to me. We can’t be sure either of them lied to you. They could have been as much in the dark as you were.”
“Did this... this alteration occur sometime between when I was born and when they adopted me?”
“It must have happened about the time of the adoption or after. Sylvia and James named you, and that was correctly entered in the computer.”
“Oh. Right,” she answered. But I could tell she still was having trouble processing this information. She’d been through too much in the last week.
Just then Diva lifted her head over the edge of the table, sniffed at the sandwich, and planted one mottled charcoal and orange paw tentatively in the direction of the food.
“I’ll figure out what happened. That’s what you hired me for. And now, if you don’t eat, someone else will,” I warned.
Megan smiled, opened the wrapper and pulled off a piece of turkey breast. She set it in front of Diva before picking up her sandwich.
While we ate, I convinced her this new information was exactly what we needed if we wanted to find her birth mother and that I would follow every lead as far as it would take me. Soon she was on her way home, but not before we stopped by City Hall to get new notarized authorizations for release of medical information and a letter stating that Abby Rose of Yellow Rose Investigations was acting on Megan Beadford’s behalf in the matter of her adoption.
I returned home and went to my office after we’d parted downtown, hoping to handle a few inquiries by phone. I figured I could fax the authorizations to Jamaica if needed. But by the time I finished talking to the Adoption Board in Kingston, the Registrar General’s office, the Duchess of Kent Hospital switchboard, and the American Consulate, I had a giant headache and exactly zero information aside from my sincere belief that every living soul in that country had inherited the “we don’t know nothing, mon” gene. This pronouncement was always delivered with amazing goodwill and sometimes a laugh, but it still irritated the hell out of me.
I had just hung up after my fifth try at speaking with the hospital medical records department when Jeff arrived.
“You look... stressed out,” he said from the doorway of my office.
“Yah, mon. Maybe if I smoked some ganja like everyone else in Ja-MAY-cah, I could get unstressed.”
“What are you talking about?” He leaned against the doorframe, his wary blue eyes indicating he was unsure
