Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Vol. 101, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 610 & 611, March 1993

Two freeway transitions later, Tom was on the Harbor Freeway southbound for San Pedro. There he took an off-ramp at random, asked directions at a gas station, and five minutes later parked in front of Eileen Farr’s address, 1834 N. Sylvan. It was half of a slightly rundown stucco duplex with a Spanish tile roof and a malnourished little front yard. Lights were on behind curtained front windows. He got out and locked his car and climbed onto the porch, took a deep breath and readied a relaxed smile as he rang the doorbell and stepped back, to be clearly visible and nonthreatening.

After a wait, the barred Judas window in the door suddenly opened.

“Yes?” A woman’s voice, tentative and querulous.

He stepped closer to the door again.

“Ms. Eileen Farr?”

“Yes?”

“Hello. My name is Tom Bell, and I’ve just come from seeing your daughter.”

“Yes?”

“Shannon sends her love. She wants you to know she’s well, and working, and contented.”

“Where? Doing what?”

“I’m sorry — that’s what I promised not to tell you.”

“Who are you? I don’t know you.”

“My name’s Tom Bell, and I work for a lawyer named Scherer—”

“What’s she done? She’s in trouble, isn’t she?”

“No, ma’am, nothing like that—”

“Then what’s this lawyer got to do with anything?”

Didn’t like lawyers. But lots of people didn’t.

“Well, nothing, really.” He wished he knew how firm to be, how accommodating. Instinct said forget firmness. “What happened is this. Someone noticed that Shannon is an almost perfect double for a young woman named McCauley. This young woman stands to inherit a truckload of money. The McCauleys are trying to determine if this is just a coincidence, or if the two young women could be related in some way, or what?”

“How much money?”

Eileen Farr came closer to the window. He saw lively short fair hair framing a face of considerable faded prettiness despite lines and weariness.

“I don’t know, Ms. Farr, but I understand it’s quite a bit.”

“So?”

“So Shannon says she’s no relation, she’s the daughter of Curtis and Eileen Scott Farr, and she was born at the Parker Clinic in Yucaipa on December thirteenth, nineteen seventy-three.”

“Isn’t that enough for you?”

“Actually, yes, it’s enough for me, but my boss says it would be better if we could get official confirmation — if you could show me her birth certificate.”

Tom heard a sharp intake of breath.

“Did that... what’s her name? — did Estelle Marchand put you up to this?”

“Who?”

“You know perfectly well who!”

“Sorry, Ms. Farr, I never heard of her. What’s she got to do with anything?”

“...Nothing,” Eileen Farr said. “Enough questions. Good night.”

The Judas window started to close.

To keep it open a moment longer, he asked the first question that came into his head.

“Did you know that a medical examination can prove conclusively whether a woman has ever had a baby?”

Silence. For seconds he didn’t even hear traffic noises. Then, from behind the little barred window, came a sigh like lost hope.

“I know that,” Eileen said after a moment. “What has that got to do with anything? What do you want?”

“Only to see Shannon’s birth certificate, Ms. Farr.”

“And then you’ll go away and stop bothering me?”

“I promise.”

She left the window. Five minutes later she came back and stuck another copy through the bars. He took it and thanked her and examined it under the porch light and compared it with Katherine’s from his jacket pocket. Except for the parents’ names, the babies’ names, and the times of birth, they were identical, signed by attending physician Dr. Henry E. Palmer and by a registrar or assistant registrar named Clayton Hackett.

Sadness felt like the weight of half the world.

But you never had a baby, did you, Ms. Farr? He had tricked her. Guilt crawled in his gut like maggots.

He handed the copy back through the bars, smiling.

“Thank you, Ms. Farr. That’s just what I needed, and I promise I won’t bother you again.”

“See you don’t.”

He had a glimpse of the faded pretty face clamped in a look of rejection, but in the second before she closed the Judas window he saw the blue eyes jitter, the mouth begin to tremble.

He pocketed Katherine’s photocopy and left the porch and went to his car. He felt lousy. He was doing what Mac had wanted but Mac wouldn’t have been proud of him.

10

Katherine let herself into the house, dropped her keys into her purse, and stuffed her bandanna in on top of them. She left her purse on the hall table, under the mirror, and checked her appearance. Casual, in control. A slick magazine photo of the affluent young college woman moving confidently into a rosy future.

A warm resiny smell drew her to the living room. A fire burned in the grate, and a single floor lamp threw light onto the book her father was reading in the easy chair beyond the fireplace.

He raised a hand to acknowledge her but went on reading. She crossed to the fireplace and extended her hands to its warmth, finally turned her head to look at him.

He closed the book on a finger.

“What have you been up to?”