No One Left, page 12
Molly scribbled it all down. The vague timeline, the anger.
“I knew who the father was,” Willa went on. “A real piece of shit. And me.” She snorted. “Maybe a bigger piece of shit. Neither one of us could take care of ourselves. A child was a definite no. I knew what I had to do, but I was sad. Disappointed in myself. For not being more careful. For not being the type of woman who could even consider keeping it.”
She shook her head again. Looked down at the floor.
“Anyway, Linda is the only person I told. Which seems dumb, right? Like, if anyone was going to try to talk me out of it, it’d be her. She saw good in me when there wasn’t any. She had found Jesus. But she was also the best friend I ever had. The people I had been hanging out with at the time were not friends. Drug friends aren’t real friends. We all know it. Any one of them would have understood why I needed to get rid of the baby. But I didn’t tell them. I told Linda. I guess I trusted her.”
“What did she say?”
“She was surprisingly cool. She said kids were hard. A huge responsibility. Yes, she turned her life around for Adriel, but it was the hardest thing she’d ever done. I thought maybe she understood. It felt good to talk to her.”
“But then . . . a few weeks later, you were angry at her?”
“Well.” Willa pointed at the sketch of Janice. “That bitch shows up at my house. Tells me Jesus loves my baby. Tries to make me feel real guilty. Asks if I wouldn’t like to give it to a nice Christian family in the suburbs of Albuquerque instead. No, I fucking wouldn’t. That would mean I’d still have to get clean, and I wasn’t ready for that.”
“She works at an adoption agency,” Molly said. “Janice Stone does.”
“Figures.”
“She said she didn’t know Linda. She only knows George.”
“So, she’s lying,” Willa said.
“Or maybe Linda told George, and George told Janice.”
Willa shrugged.
“So, you went to Linda’s house after that? When you were angry?”
“Furious,” Willa said. “Linda acted all surprised. She kept telling me to slow down. She didn’t understand. I was just so pissed that she’d told someone. After she promised she wouldn’t. It seemed like she was making plans for me. It’s my life. It wasn’t her place to do that.”
“That makes sense.”
Willa bit her lip. “How does George know this woman, anyway?”
“We don’t actually know.”
“You can see how I wouldn’t have looked so great if I’d told you all of this before. You all would’ve thought I’d been mad enough to kill her.”
“Probably,” Molly conceded. “Did you ever remember anything else about that last conversation with Linda?”
“No. I try not to think about it.”
“Were you still mad at her?”
“I don’t know. I was high. I didn’t feel much of anything.”
“We found him, you know. Assman.”
Willa nodded. “Wayne told me.”
“Do you still want me to leave you alone? Or can I come see you if I have more questions?”
Willa shrugged again. “You can come see me.”
“Can I bring my dad?”
“Bring Wayne.”
Molly couldn’t bring Wayne. Not until he got back. Still, she nodded. “Okay.”
34
JAMES
Judge Winters seemed convinced in his drafted letter to the US attorney that Forever Families Adoption Agency was purposefully violating ICWA. But it seemed as though he was struggling with how exactly to prove that.
James thought he understood the process. A child was taken away from unfit, neglectful, or abusive parents by New Mexico’s child services. The child was then put into a foster home or a group home—like Children of God—until an adoption could be arranged. If Donald Andrews was violating ICWA, it meant that child services had not done their due diligence in looking for an Indian home for these children. And so, though James was scheduled to have dinner with Sanchez, he’d left for Albuquerque early in the morning to pay a visit to child services.
It was a typical two-story government building. Ugly as hell to look at. James arrived early enough that he wasn’t interrupting anyone’s lunch hour. And yet, the office was eerily quiet. There was a woman at the front desk, though, so he stopped to check in with her first.
“Hey there.” He smiled at her. She was young with a round face and wide eyes. Her brown hair was cropped in a severe line just below her jaw and her bangs hung just past her eyebrows.
“Yes?” she asked. “Can I help you?”
“I’d like to speak with the person who handles foster cases.”
“Like, all of them?”
“Sure,” James said. The young woman shook her head. “Joan is out today.”
“All right, so who is here?”
The woman bit her bottom lip. “Mr. Turner is here, I think.”
“Great, and what does Mr. Turner do?”
“Accounting.”
“How about the folks who go into the field? Agents, maybe? You know, whoever you’ve got that goes into the homes of the kids.”
The woman blinked. “Most of that is done by our partner agency.”
“Partner agency? Isn’t this New Mexico’s Children and Family Services Protective Division?”
The woman nodded.
“But you don’t have agents who go out and visit people’s homes?”
“Well, I think we used to. I’m kinda new here. We do a ton of paperwork. Mr. Turner and Mr. Howard handle that.”
“All right, so this partner agency, do they also work with Joan on the foster side?”
The woman smiled and nodded vigorously, probably pleased that James was finally absorbing into his thick skull what she was trying to tell him. “That’s right. It’s been real nice, because they don’t have all this red tape that we have. We kinda just pass off the money and the work, and they get things done real quick. We’re able to help, like, way more kids this way.”
“And the partner agency’s name is . . . ?”
“New Mexico Children’s Agency.”
“Huh,” James said. “Well, there ya go. You know, maybe I will talk to Mr. Turner.”
The woman smiled again. “Second door on the left.”
“Thanks.”
James walked the full length of the hallway, noting all the empty desks in all the empty rooms before turning back around to find Mr. Turner’s office.
He knocked on the doorframe. Mr. Turner was an older, balding man wearing thick glasses. He peered over them to size James up.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
“I hope so,” James said. “You see, I’m down from Santa Fe today, from the state house. Name’s James Smith.”
He walked into the office and stuck out his hand. Mr. Turner shook it.
“Please take a seat,” Mr. Turner said. “What can I help you with today?”
“We think this spending bill allocating money to y’all and to NMCA has been working well. Real well, in fact. I’d like to see some numbers. How much the state’s savin’ with this, uh, relationship. Bring those numbers back to the committee, so we can put together a bill for next year.”
Mr. Turner nodded. “They’re certainly doing an excellent job keeping track of spending. Makes my job easier than it was when I had to wrangle all these cases myself.”
“Can you show me an example?” James asked. “Maybe last month’s reports?”
Mr. Turner got up and rummaged through a filing cabinet for a moment, muttering to himself. He sat back down and placed a stack of papers in front of James. “So, this first sheet reports salaries,” he said. “Field agents, case managers, foster families.” He paused. “The number of which has gone down drastically. The Children of God home takes the bulk of our cases now—they do a lovely job—and everyone seems to be pleased with that. Well, except maybe the foster parents, who used to receive a check for their services. But not all those families were good families, and it was a headache to check up on them.”
James nodded. “Makes sense.”
“So that’s what you see here.” He pointed farther down the page. “The money that gets allocated to Children of God Home. That’s a large number, but still significantly less than it was when we had to pay separate foster families.”
“I can see that.”
Mr. Turner flipped to the next sheet. “Here’s the breakdown of the Children of God Home’s expenses, which is also incredibly helpful. We don’t get this sort of thing with foster families. Foster families get a check, and how they spend it is unknown to us.”
“Huh. Helpful,” James said. He pointed to a line item that said SN. “What’s this designation?”
“Special needs,” Mr. Turner said. “The state allocates a certain amount of money toward caring for special needs fosters. And we get grant money from the federal government for that, as well.”
“Seems like a high number.”
Mr. Turner frowned. “You can imagine that special needs children are already difficult to care for with the best parents and the greatest resources. Now imagine the families we deal with here in Child Protective Services. Some of these kids check multiple special needs boxes. Each one of those boxes gets additional funding.”
“I see,” James said. “So, if a special needs kid has multiple issues, y’all get funds for each issue.”
“Correct.”
Mr. Turner showed him a few more expense sheets. Lawyer fees was another large number. James didn’t see any money going to Forever Families Adoption Agency, which he supposed made sense. He remembered from the financials that it was the only entity of Andrews’s designated as for-profit. Parents interested in adopting paid big money.
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Turner,” James said on his way out. He had copies of the expenses in hand. “This sheds a light on the important work NMCA is doin’. It’ll help us pass that bill.”
Mr. Turner shook his hand again. “Happy to help.”
Sanchez’s backyard chairs were the fold-up kind with aluminum frames made from woven strips of brown and white plastic. He and James sat next to one another on the small patch of concrete, sipping beers and thinking their own thoughts about what they needed from each other.
“So, updates on the case,” James said. “Seems that both the judge and his wife made enemies of a man named Donald Andrews. You know him?”
“Can’t say I do,” Sanchez said.
“Donald Andrews has got the biggest operation in the state concerning children without parents. He’s got a group home, an adoption agency, and a so-called nonprofit that supposedly assists where the state’s child services fall short.”
“Supposedly?” Sanchez asked.
“It seems Andrews has got a whole bunch of state politicians in his back pocket. He’d have to in order to pull off what he’s doing. Everything child services ought to be doing has been transferred to his organizations. Federal grants are going straight to Andrews. In return, I can assume he helps to fund these politicians’ campaigns and most likely endorses them publicly, too—something that goes a long way coming from a guy who seems to be savin’ the state a hell of a lot of money while also saving children. New Mexico Child Services is operating bare bones, but only because Donald Andrews has made it that way. And Cathy was on to him. She was diggin’ through his financials.”
“Well, shit, Pinter.”
“Add to that, the judge was ready to tell the US attorney for the state of New Mexico that Andrews was violatin’ a federal law through a system Andrews himself created. I found a draft of a letter Judge Winters wrote. Never sent it, though.”
“They were attacking him in a concerted effort,” Sanchez said.
“Not exactly. Found a recent correspondence between Cathy and the AG. She says, ‘Best not tell Bart quite yet.’”
“Yeah, but he still could’ve known she was looking into it. Maybe he just didn’t know what she had concluded.”
“Fair enough.”
“Shit, Pinter,” Sanchez said again. “That’s pretty damning.”
“The judge knew Andrews was violating a federal law. He was considering telling the US attorney that Andrews was doin’ it on purpose. But I can tell from the letter he drafted that he didn’t think he had enough evidence. Which is why I don’t think Cathy told him what she had found. Her findings would have supported his theory.”
“What law is this?” Sanchez asked.
“The Indian Child Welfare Act.”
“Don’t know anything about that,” Sanchez said, taking a sip of his beer.
“Well, if you get a chance, read up on it. Let’s just say Andrews shouldn’t be adopting out as many Indian children as he is.” James sipped his beer, too. It was Sanchez’s turn to share now. They both knew it.
“So, ah . . .” Sanchez began. “Lark came to me about the lizard. He noticed it was late going into evidence and then couldn’t find it in the photos.”
James raised his eyebrows. “What did he want with you?”
“He wanted to know if I saw it there. I said no, of course. But he kept pushing. He wanted me to admit I might have missed it, but there’s no way.”
“You think he’s gone to Duncan about it?”
“Hell if I know.” Sanchez spread his palms out over his knees. “You think Lark is setting me up to fail? Getting me to admit that I saw something that wasn’t there?”
“Why?”
“Maybe he doesn’t trust me. He thinks I lied about working with you.”
“Maybe. Lark doesn’t strike me as a dumb man.”
“Fuck,” Sanchez muttered, looking down at his shoes. And then he started to laugh. It started as a chuckle, but then he was grabbing his stomach, throwing his head back. Tears glistened on his face.
“Pinter,” he finally said, catching his breath. He wiped his face. “I’m in way over my head. This shit goes deep. I can’t take down this Andrews. And I definitely can’t take down the head of homicide investigations. Neither can you.”
“You’re gettin’ ahead of yourself,” James said. “For all we know Lark just doesn’t trust Duncan. As far as Andrews goes, it could all be a damned unfortunate coincidence. We still need more.”
“And how are we going to get more?”
“I’m tryna figure that out. We got some key players we haven’t even spoken to yet. The AG, for one. And for two, a lawyer who showed up frequently in adoption cases that Judge Winters presided over and who represented parents who wanted to adopt Indian kids. I’d bet my hat he’s got a relationship with Donald Andrews’s adoption agency. It’s the biggest in the state, and he seems to be the go-to lawyer.”
“I might be able to help with one of those players.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Vasco. The AG. I grew up playing baseball with his son.”
“No shit. Think you can set somethin’ up?”
Sanchez rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sure he’d talk to me.”
“And me?” James asked.
“He might. Either way, if Lark finds out . . .”
“Don’t worry ’bout that now.”
“Easy for you to say. It’s not your job,” Sanchez said.
“I’ll take the fall for diggin’ too deep,” James said. “It’ll be on me. I promise you that.”
35
GEORGE
“Pinter P.I. This is James.”
George was cold. The wind struck his face, and he pressed closer to the payphone, hoping the plastic siding would protect him.
“It’s George again.”
“Hello, George.”
“Did you get my package? I mailed you something.”
“No, I haven’t. When did you send it?”
“You’ll get it soon. Janice Stone did it.” George didn’t want to waste any time. “That’s where Adriel left his lizard. Janice’s office. She killed them and framed me. She was always complaining about the judge.”
“And why were you at Janice Stone’s office?”
“She was trying to take Adriel from me. He dropped Sunny, and there was no time to pick it back up. We had to get out of there quickly.”
“I see. But why did you bring Adriel to her office in the first place?”
George ignored that question. “After that, we went to Judge Winters’s office for help. I knew he helped parents like me. I left him the legal documentation that proved Adriel is my son.”
“What did the judge tell you?”
“He told me where to go.”
“Which you still won’t tell me,” James said. George thought it was supposed to be a question. One they both knew the answer to.
“If you need me, you can call my brother Tony. He’ll pass along the message.” He gave James the number.
“I’m doing what I can, George, but more information is always appreciated.”
“I know.” George hung up. He couldn’t give James more information. He couldn’t tell James anything that would make him look guilty.
36
BARBARA
On her way home that day, Barbara had picked up a burger and some fries at a drive-thru. She placed them on the kitchen counter and hung her purse on the back of the chair. She was frustrated and tired. She popped a French fry in her mouth right as the phone rang. She stared at the phone for a moment as she chewed and swallowed. Then she picked it up.
“Hello, this is Barbara Tully.”
“Hey, Barb,” James said.
“Hey, James. Are you back home?”
“Sure am.”
“I checked on Molly yesterday, like you asked. She was just bursting with updates on Adriel’s case. Have you seen her yet?”
“I have not. I got back here in the middle of the night, and then, by the time I was up, she was already gone for school. Now, she’s out with Paula. She opened the door and shouted that at me.” James chuckled. “Life with a teenager, I guess.”
“Ask her as soon as you see her tonight. She’s got an earful for you.”
