Finding Jessie: A Mystery Romance (29 page)

“I stole it from the desk of the unwed mothers’ home, with the intention that I would adopt you myself and raise you as our youngest daughter.”

“Oh, Grandma! That’s beautiful.”

“Your grandfather was still alive then, before the cancer got him. He was not so keen on the idea of adopting you, because he was a rising television minister and oh so proper. He had just gotten a new big TV show contract, but I went against his wishes and I finally talked him into it. Adopting you, I mean. The shame that he had wanted to hide was the joy that I had wanted to know.
You.
”

“Thank you, Grandma.” Tears shimmered in her eyes.

Beth patted her hand. “I would have walked through fire for you, Jessie. We went there to the home to arrange the adoption, but when we got there, you were gone.
Adopted.
And in those days, adoptions were closed affairs. Not like now, when many who are adopted are finding their birth parents to connect with them.”

“Where’s my biological mom?” Jessie said.

“That is a very sad story. They told us our daughter had run away due to being upset about giving her permission for the adoption. There was a lot of conflict at home with her dad and it was the final straw, that argument with him. We never saw her again. It was a double heartbreak for us and for her sister, who you haven’t met yet.”

Jessie burst into renewed tears. She didn’t know how she could now tell Beth that she had been in the police station with Jessie Alden, and had been treated like a pariah by her. Obviously, she had not mentioned to her mother that she had met her long-lost niece.

Beth said gently, “You were adopted by a nice couple, I hope?”

“No, Grandma. I’m sorry to say that I wasn’t adopted at all.”

“I don’t understand, Jessie. Where have you
been
?”

Sam cleared his throat. “Mrs. Conyers?”

“Yes? And call me Beth.”

“Beth, I’m not just Jessie’s boyfriend. I’m not just a bookseller. I’m an attorney on occasion and it is my professional opinion that you, Jessie, and me need to go to the police station with that document.”

Chapter Twenty-five

A week later, Jessie and Sam sat across from Detective Jacobs, just another of the many times they had been in to see him, both with and without Beth Conyers.

“I’ve asked Beth Conyers to come in about an hour because I need to tell you something before she gets here.” He took a deep breath and let it out.

“Can I ask if you have the results of the DNA testing?” Jessie asked.

“Yes, I do, Miss Conyers.”

“Wow, am I really Jessie Ann Conyers?”

“Yes, you are. Congratulations.”

“Thank you. I finally know, for sure, who I am.”

“With your lawyer’s help for some court petitions, and some documents from us, you should be able to apply for a birth certificate, a Social Security number and a driver’s license. And now, you’ll start paying income taxes.”

“Income tax?!” she blurted.

Sam chuckled. “What did you think would happen, Jessie?” He winked at her. “I’ll help you get something prepared for each year. We’ll do estimates of your cash income for all of the years you were self-employed. Don’t worry about that part.”

“Thanks, Sam. Please continue, Bob. I mean, Detective.”

Detective Jacobs said, “I have two more bombshells to drop. Actually, three or four.”

Sam put his arm around Jessie. “Be strong, Jessie. I’m right here for you, too.”

“Okay, let’s hear it,” she said.

He scratched his bald spot and then put his hand down. “It’s been hard for me to decide what I would tell you first. I decided to tell you in the order that it makes the most sense. At least, from a police department standpoint.”

He looked at some papers on his desk and then put closed them inside of a case folder. “First, I want to commend Sam for asking Mrs. Conyers to bring the birth certificate application that the midwife filled out. We were able to lift a very old fingerprint from it and it enabled us to tie two cases together: the trafficking of baby Jessie Conyers and Tansy Armstrong, who both worked as a domestic at the unwed mother’s home
and
who was also your co-captor for some dozen years. She handled that document.”

Jessie was floored. “Oh my! That places Tansy at the scene of both crimes.”

“It sure does,” Bob said.

“That was some incredible police work,” Sam said.

“Stanton’s finest couldn’t have done it without you, Sam. And Jessie and Beth. And now, I need to tell you that a curious thing arose in the micro inspection of that document. Jessie Conyers Alden’s fingerprints were also all over that document--she actually used typewriter correction fluid and an eraser and she changed the name of the mother to her sister, Virginia’s name.”

“What?!” Jessie said.

“I’m not finished yet. Hang on.”

Jessie took a deep breath. “Sorry. Please go on, Detective.”

“The DNA tests revealed that your mother was not Virginia Conyers, the deceased victim whose body was found under the bed and breakfast, and who has been positively identified by DNA tests and further, by old dental records.”

“I don’t understand,” Jessie said. “How can Virginia not be my mother, but I am still a Conyers?”

“I don’t get it either,” said Sam.

“Jessie, your mother was—is—Jessie Conyers Alden.”

“What?” Jessie said, her eyes filling with tears. “How could that be? She won’t even look me in the eye!”

“I know. I was there, too, remember? At the same time, she and her sister were both pregnant and staying at that unwed mother’s home.”

“How could that happen? Where they both got preg—”

“I don’t know how it happened, except that Virginia’s baby boy was stillborn according to the records and she named the same father as your mother, Jessie, did.”

Jessie’s mouth opened and closed. She couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Finally, she did. “My grandmother told me that my mother was raped. Where’s my biological father? I want to talk to him.”

“He was a deacon in your grandfather’s TV show church. He died in prison, long ago, while serving a life sentence for the repeated statutory rape of both Jessie and Virginia.”

Jessie sagged against Sam. “Oh, no! He could have answered a lot of questions.”

“We’ll get through this, Jessie.”

“I’m just relieved that Frank, my captor, wasn’t my biological father, nor was my grandfather, my biological father. That truly would have sucked on top of all this.”

“Jessie…such pessimism. It’s not like you to just assume that worst-case scenario.”

“It’s just hard to digest all of this, Sam.”

Sam kissed her on the top of the head. “You’re going to be okay. Now you know the truth about everything. And you can deal with it on your own time.”

“Yes, sure. It’s supposed to set me free.
The truth.
So, why does it feel so heavy? So ominous?”

“Because it is,” Detective Jacobs said.

Jessie put a hand over her heart. “Bob, I know you said that Virginia’s baby was stillborn. Do you have evidence of that?”

“That is an excellent question. You would make a good cop. Actually, Virginia’s stillborn baby boy had a funeral and was properly buried with a headstone and a coffin in a cemetery in Quincy. I guess the family wanted to keep it quiet, so they took that burial out of town. We did not exhume the grave, because we have mortuary records. I’m satisfied that he’s there.”

“Wait a minute. I’m so confused. So, my grandmother thinks that the stillborn baby boy belonged to Jessie Conyers Alden and she thinks I am the daughter of Virginia, like it says on the altered document?”

“I believe so.”

“Poor Grandma. What a mess!” Jessie put her hands over her cheeks for a moment. “I’m so glad you checked that the stillborn baby boy had really died. I would hate to think of my…cousin…being trafficked.”

“He lies in eternal peace and apparently, your grandmother provides the funds to take care of the grave in perpetuity.”

“She’s generous like that.” Jessie paused. “I see by your face that there is more to this.”

“I’m afraid so. Right now, as we speak, Jessie Conyers Alden is going to be picked up and charged as Tansy’s accomplice in the death of her sister, Virginia—Tansy has already plea bargained to turn state’s evidence against Jessie Alden for the murder—and, she will be charged as an accomplice in trafficking babies, including you, and possibly other nameless people who have managed to escape and might perhaps might be matched up to the bodies of their mothers found under the bed and breakfast inn in The Strands.”

“Why? Why would Jessie Alden do that? Kill her sister, alter a birth document, and sell her very own baby?”

“Jealousy, shame, and the fact that she stands to inherit a sizeable fortune, all by herself. Or at least, she did, until
you
showed up. When she goes to prison, which she probably will, and unless your grandmother specifically decides you are out of the will, you will likely get everything when Beth Conyers dies. I can’t see her leaving any of it to Jessie Alden, who wanted to get both her own sister and her own child out of the way of millions of dollars in inheritance.”

Jessie took some deep breaths. “I don’t care about the money. Seriously. This is the only family I have ever known and I am going to hold on to this one truth of my family life: my grandmother.”

“Good for you.”

“Again, your face tells me there is more, Detective.”

“You are so good at reading me. You should know that Jessie Conyers Alden has had some financial and legal problems that have been quite long-term. She may have broken some securities regulations in her job as a broker and may be called to testify, in part, in her own defense. Or maybe she’ll just cop a plea and give the feds a bigger fish to fry.”

“So, you are telling me that Jessie Alden has always been about the money? From teenage years to now?”

He nodded. “This part is off the record.” He took a sip of the bad coffee. “You seem very sheltered. I want you to be aware that just because someone is your mother, that doesn’t make her a nice person. Or a good person.”

“I have a zillion trust issues, believe me.”

“Healthy ones, I hope.”

“If she didn’t love me or want me, why would my mother name me Jessie, after herself.”

“Can I answer that, Bob?”

“Really? Okay, be my guest.”

“Jessie, I have had a couple of inheritance cases where two people in the family had the same name and some malfeasance of funds happened because checks made out to one guy could be cashed by his son, a guy with the same name.”

“So you think that my mother was thinking ahead to if I showed up again that she could execute checks and other things that might have been in my name?”

“Stranger things have happened.”

“Bob?”

“Yes, Jessie?’

“Are you going to tell my grandmother all of this when she comes in to see you in an hour?”