Identity (5 page)

“What about him?”

“What’s his status?”

“I’m ignoring his existence right now.”

“That sounds like a very mature approach.”

“I thought so.”

Cristian finished his coffee and reached for his wallet. Fina waved him away.

“Fine, but when you get the info, I’ll take you out to dinner,” he said.

“On a date?” Fina asked teasingly. Cristian and Fina hooked up occasionally, but their relationship was largely undefined. For the time being, both of them seemed to like it that way.

Cristian stood and shrugged. “If you want to call it that.”

She watched him walk away and noticed a table of twenty-something women checking him out.

Maybe she should call dibs on such a catch.

•   •   •

After eating some leftover Chinese food at home, Fina started digging into the details of Brad Martin’s life. Arrests and convictions, job history, education, driving record, civil court files, and property ownership were the pillars of a basic background check. That information was part of the public record and relatively easy to access now that so much could be found online.

Next, she turned to the Sanchez case. Fina called a friend at UMass and tried to finagle a list of graduates from 1972. Apparently, the class list was a closely guarded state secret, but her contact promised to do his best.

Since free information wasn’t a sure thing, Fina went online and signed up for a few paid sites that promised to connect her with her long-lost classmates. She searched Joliet, Illinois, for male high school graduates in 1969 and watched a long—albeit incomplete—list unfurl from her printer. Fina considered looking for online yearbook pictures, but it would be a waste of time until she had pictures of the cryokids for comparison.

Fina poked around the online single mothers’ community, in which Renata Sanchez was very active. Twenty years ago, it wasn’t easy to find
a like-minded group of single women craving motherhood, but today, all you had to do was hop online to do everything short of the actual insemination. Information on cryobanks, advice for choosing a donor, referrals to open-minded doctors, support networks for dealing with the questions posed by donor offspring—it was all there. Fina thought research and careful consideration were good policies, but it was a wonder anyone had kids after surfing the Net. Sleepless nights, saggy cervixes, vaccinations, play-group politics. It was a jungle out there.

Renata was the president of a local group of SMCs, single mothers by choice, and it seemed to be an active community. Fina clicked through a monthly calendar filled with potluck dinners, apple-picking outings, and discussion groups for tweens before landing on the list of other board members. Renata had suggested she speak with those women, particularly the one whose children shared the same donor as Rosie, Marnie Frasier. It wasn’t unheard of for half-siblings to live in the same area, particularly in the early days of sperm donation when most sperm was acquired locally. It was only in the past decade or so that prospective parents had culled swimmers from a nationwide marketplace courtesy of the growing cryobank industry and FedEx Overnight.

Marnie’s home was in Arlington on a pretty street lined with oak trees and single-family colonial-style houses. Fina rang the doorbell of her yellow house and peeked through the glass panel on the front door. After a moment, a pair of legs trotted down the stairs from the second floor, and Fina was greeted by a cute young man. He was tall and muscular with a swimmer’s body, and his hair was growing out from a Mohawk.

“Hey,” he said, and surreptitiously gave Fina the once-over.

“Hey. Is Marnie Frasier home?” She handed the young man her PI license and watched him scan it.

“Ahh, sure. She’s out back.”

“I’m Fina Ludlow.” Fina offered her hand.

He had a firm handshake. “Tyler. Come on in.” He held open the screen door for her, and they walked through the house toward the back. His walk was loose and confident. Coupled with his sandy blond Mohawk, he looked like he should be paddling a surfboard in the Pacific.

“I’ve never met a PI before. What’s it like?” he asked.

“It’s great. Never boring. I don’t have to work in an office. I carry a gun.” Fina patted her bag.

Tyler turned to her and laughed. His teeth were bright white and straight, and when he smiled, dimples emerged on his cheeks. Fina knew from the background info that Tyler was nineteen. Good thing; it was creepy when you started admiring the physical attributes of the underage.

A door in the kitchen led outside to a landing and a short flight of stairs. The steps ended at a brick patio on which a table, chairs, and a grill sat. The small lawn looked freshly mown and featured beds of hydrangeas and dahlias and other colorful blooms that Fina couldn’t identify. In one corner of the yard, a woman was kneeling on a pad, her hands encased in gardening gloves, attacking the soil with a small hoe.

“Mom, this is . . . a private investigator.” Tyler smiled at Fina. “Sorry. I’m terrible with names.”

“Fina Ludlow. I’d like to ask you a few questions, Ms. Frasier, if you don’t mind.”

Marnie sighed deeply and sat back on her heels. “Questions about what?”

Fina glanced at Tyler. “Renata Sanchez.”

Marnie gave Tyler a look that seemed to indicate her displeasure with his gatekeeping and brushed a lock of ash brown hair away from her face with her wrist.

“Fine,” she said. “Do you mind if I keep hoeing?”

“Be my guest.” Fina sat down on the grass, and Tyler walked back
into the house. Fina studied Marnie for a moment as she dug into the earth with her hands. She was an attractive woman, her shoulder-length hair intermittently streaked with gray and loosely held back by a black fabric headband. She was wearing jeans that were obviously reserved for gardening, as evidenced by grass and dirt stains, and a faded T-shirt celebrating an event at Lesley University.

“So what can I help you with?” Marnie looked at Fina.

“Renata has hired the law firm Ludlow and Associates to sue Heritage Cryobank. Did you know she was planning this?”

“Yes, because she tried to get me on board. Has been bugging me for months,” Marnie said as she stabbed the hoe into a clump of dry dirt.

“You’re not interested?”

“In suing the cryobank? No.”

“Because?”

“Because I signed a legally binding contract ensuring that the donor’s identity would remain anonymous. Because I don’t want to put my children through the wringer.”

“We’ve told her the chances of winning are slim to none, but that hasn’t deterred her.”

“I wouldn’t expect it to. Renata has fought the powers that be on more than one occasion and won. She believes she can defy the odds.” Marnie paused in her digging. “Why does she need a private investigator for the lawsuit?”

“She wants to sue the cryobank, but she also wants me to try to uncover the donor’s identity through other means.”

“Such as?”

“Standard investigative techniques. Records searches, that sort of thing.”

Marnie shook her head. “She’s really outdone herself this time.”

“What do you mean?”

“Renata has a talent for setting things in motion with little thought for the consequences.” Marnie plunged her hoe into the earth. “Say you discover his identity. Then what?”

“She didn’t say.”

Marnie grinned. “Exactly. She probably has some fantasy about one big happy family. That the man will embrace Rosie as his own.”

“You don’t think that’s likely?”

“Who knows? But she shouldn’t toy with Rosie’s emotions, and I don’t appreciate her involving my kids. If they want to find their dad, it should be their decision when they’re ready.”

“She seems to think they have a fundamental right to know. Like she’s doing them a favor.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So this is typical Renata, stirring things up?”

“Yes, and don’t get me wrong; I like her, and many people have benefited from her zeal, but she has boundary issues.”

Fina nodded knowingly. “When did you learn that you two used the same donor?”

“About four years ago. I didn’t seek out the information. My son has a bad habit of digging around online.” Marnie frowned and flicked a worm away with her gloved hand. “We already knew Renata and her family through the SMC community, but when Tyler got involved with a sibling registry, the biological connection came to light.”

“You didn’t support his research?”

Marnie shrugged. “I just worry, that’s all.”

“Is it a pretty tight-knit group, the SMCs?”

“You can be as involved as you want to be. When the kids were babies, those women were lifesavers, and I’ve met some of my best friends through the group.” She hesitated.

“But?”

“But for some people, being an SMC becomes a cause of sorts, which is fine as long as that’s in the best interest of your kids.” Marnie struggled, to no avail, to pull a thick, gnarled root from the ground.

“Let me,” Fina said, and got to her feet. She tugged at the growth and finally loosed it from the earth, nearly falling backward in the process. “You don’t think Renata has the best interest of her kids in mind?”

Marnie slowly stood up. Her knee popped loudly.

“Yikes,” Fina said.

“I know. It doesn’t hurt, but I imagine it’s only a matter of time.” Marnie took off her gloves and smacked them against her jeans to loosen the dirt. “I think Renata is a wonderful mother in many ways, and she loves her kids very much. But do I think involving your child in a lawsuit related to her sperm donor is a good idea? No. Not under any circumstances, but particularly not when the child has no interest.”

“Rosie. Right. I met her earlier today. She was pissed at Renata about the lawsuit. She seemed like a fairly private person.”

Marnie shrugged. “Maybe she gets that from her father. She certainly doesn’t get it from her mother.” Fina watched as Marnie put her gardening supplies into a basket and grasped the handle. “I get the sense that you don’t think this is a great idea, either,” Marnie said.

“I try not to let my feelings come into a case, but it’s not the best idea I’ve ever heard,” Fina admitted.

“But you’re going to do it anyway?”

Fina ground her toe into the soil. “Let’s just say I have my own family-related reasons for taking this on.” Fina swatted a bug from her face. “You aren’t at all curious about the donor’s identity?”

Marnie looked toward the house. “I think it might be Pandora’s box. The only thing that matters to me about the donor is that he made it possible for me to have two wonderful children.”

Fina handed her card to Marnie. “Thanks for talking to me. I’d like to talk to your kids, too.”

“I’d rather you didn’t, but they’re adults.” She smiled ruefully. “Even if they weren’t, I couldn’t stop them.”

“If either of them is amenable, I’d also like to get a DNA swab.”

“I’m sure Jess, my daughter, won’t have any interest. I don’t know about Tyler.”

“I won’t ask this minute. You can try to talk him out of it if you want.”

Marnie snorted. “You think I can sway his behavior? That’s the curse of raising independent, self-sufficient children: They really do have minds of their own.”

“I’ll be in touch,” Fina said, walking away. She opened the side gate and returned to her car.

It was a short drive to Heritage Cryobank, and most of the spaces in the parking lot were occupied. Fina consulted her notes about the bank before heading to the front door.

The same heavily pregnant receptionist was behind the desk, but this time, the waiting room chairs were filled with an assortment of clients, and a few toddlers played on the floor.

“You’re back!” the receptionist chirped as Fina approached the desk.

“I am.”

“Ready to talk with one of our client liaisons?”

“Actually, I was hoping I could speak with Ellen Alberti.” Fina had done a little digging, and Ellen’s name figured prominently in the coverage of the bank.

The receptionist frowned. “Our associate director? She doesn’t generally meet with new clients.”

“I know, it’s just . . . a friend gave me her name, and I’d feel more comfortable speaking with her.”

“I don’t know . . .”

“You know what? It’s okay. I’ll just—I’ll try some other time.” Fina fiddled with her bag.

“Well, hold on there. It’s just a little unusual.”

“I don’t want to put you in an awkward spot. Really. I’ll figure something else out.” Fina turned toward the door.

“Just wait one second,” the receptionist said, picking up the phone. “Have a seat, and I’ll see what I can do.”

Fina took a seat in a stiff-backed chair covered in a nubby mauve-colored fabric. The magazine options on the side table were limited:
Fit Pregnancy
,
American Baby
,
Pregnancy and Newborn
,
Parents
. Fina picked one up and flipped through the pages. Poor expectant mothers: Even they weren’t given a pass when it came to meeting a ridiculous physical ideal. The women gracing the pages were beautiful, with perfect bodies boasting taut round bellies, nary a stretch mark in sight.

Fina was halfway through an article about keeping her nipples moisturized when the receptionist waved at her and smiled brightly.