Chapter 37
My presentation landed.
I hit Ronnie out of the gate with the big reveal, and after that she didn’t take notes, simply listened with the correct amount of shock and awe. I loved a good audience.
She said she needed to think on my proposal, but before I left the parking lot she called to announce she was adopting my plan, my gorgeous plan, but she needed a day to arrange her legal ducks into a row. GPA and I drove away pleased, her sniffing suspiciously at the vegan leather upholstery.
The next day after work, Ronnie, Manny, and I loaded into the electric car and zipped north.
Manny demanded he drive so he could more accurately point out the Tesla’s flaws.
It became obvious, however, that the ride was smooth as silk, the car quiet, the land racing by effortlessly at nearly a hundred miles per hour.
The effect that this had on Manny was less obvious.
Did the easy power bring him joy, or was this innovation deepening his displeasure?
His anger at the world had become more obvious as the days passed.
Outrage at the delinquent furries terrorizing their community and soaking up taxpayer dollars because they were bored, his disappointment with himself at impregnating Noelle (and his indignation that maybe it had been Junior), the grief at giving the child away to better prepared parents, the recent political wins socialists had been scoring, last week's luxury tequila purchase that he said tasted like nail polish, and now Elon Musk’s apparent triumph in creating a high-performance car that thumbed its nose at fossil fuels, one of his passions.
A man of action, he found no outlet for his rage.
We parked near the Cardot’s house in Alexandria, Ronnie oohing and aahing over the quaint hamlet and its obvious wealth. The big houses and lush lawns and luxury cars and cheery lights and tidy sidewalks. Even at night, it hummed with order and overflowing coffers.
This was my third trip to Theo and Piper’s house and I was weary of it. The reminders of their negligence weighed on me. The water level of the pool had fallen beneath the jets, and they’d turned off the pumps. Now it stagnated. The full hot tub still bubbled, wafting steam into the night.
As I expected, the back door was open so we walked in unannounced.
The kitchen stank of old meat in the garbage bags by the door waiting for a responsible person to haul them to the trash can.
Piper and her daughter were watching television in the big living room.
Piper jerked when I walked in and she tried to stand up but she was planted too deeply on the couch, her body too heavy.
“Piper,” I said. “I bring good news.”
“You can’t come in here! Get out. Get out right now or I’ll call the cops.”
“That’d be the worst-case scenario for you.” I indicated my watch. “It’s late. Past time for elementary school students to be in bed.”
“What the hell do you want?” said Sophia, with a sneer most teenaged girls would be envious of. “This is our house.”
“Piper, this is Ronnie, an attorney, and you’ve met Manny the Deputy US Marshal before. If you call the cops, tonight is the end of your attempts at a fairytale. If you cooperate, maybe there’s hope.”
Piper had been holding a Mountain Dew. She carefully screwed the top back on, watching me.
“What the shit do you want in my house?” said Sophia.
“Ay caramba,” muttered Manny.
“You have a lovely home, Ms. Cardot,” said Ronnie and she meant it. Beneath the dilapidation and bad furniture and trash, it was dynamite.
“Call Theo,” I said. “Get him here quick. We have much to discuss.”
“Soph,” said Piper. Sounded like soaf. “Go put yourself to bed.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
“You’re not the boss of me, you fat old bitch,” said Sophia.
“Sophia, you can’t talk to me like that. I keep telling you. Go take the cough medicine and go to sleep.”
“Oh my god, whatever, I’ll watch TV upstairs,” said the girl. She was tall and showed signs of cookie and soda consumption. “Are you ordering a pizza or not?”
“It’s past your bedtime, sweetheart.”
“I haven’t had a bedtime in years, this sucks, I hate you,” said the girl and she stomped upstairs.
Piper made an awkward laugh. “Kids. What can you do?”
“You can whip their ass when they talk back,” Manny said.
“Spank? We’d never spank. We’re good parents.”
“Tell Theo to get himself out of his treehouse or whatever and get here now,” I said.
Piper picked up her phone but she was so nervous she dropped it.
We were sitting at the kitchen table when Theo walked in, cautiously and with as much umbrage as he could muster.
“If you touch me,” he said, “I’ll sue you for every penny.”
“Have a seat, Theo.”
We’d cleared the table of trash. Manny had walked six bags of garbage to the trashcans out back and now he was sweeping in the kitchen. His grinding teeth were audible in the next room.
“Okay folks, here it is,” I said.
“Here what is?” said Theo.
“Your future. And shut up. Once upon a time I knew Duane and Emile Chambers, and I was nearby when they died, and so was my client.
Although we held no love for them, we jointly decided to verify that their estate had been handled properly.
To verify that their families had been notified of their deaths, that all parties had found the closure they needed.
“Instead we found Emile’s mother feeding chickens and babbling out of her mind, and Emile’s brother and sister-in-law squandering their inheritance.
None of this is illegal, only heartbreaking.
But a few things about it bothered me. Why did Remi Boscolo warn you I was coming?
Why did you slam the door in my face when I arrived?
Why did Theo jump on my car and yell at me and hire his herd of idiots to scare me away?
Something was being hidden, so I investigated.
“I found layers of unreality. Piper, you are playing the role of an accomplished criminal, but you’re not one.
You grew up a body builder, not a crook.
You’re bad at crime. You wear it like Theo wears his costumes, but in reality you’re likely day trading and pretending it’s criminal.
Theo, you’re bored and listless and pretending you’re a squirrel.
The pair of you are quasi-involved parents but you’re not working at it.
You can’t keep your house clean. Your pool is rancid.
Your beach house is behind on taxes. Your diet is unhealthy.
I assume your matrimonial relationship is strained.
For the sake of charity, let’s blame it on the money.
It ruined you. You’re like gluttons who were given a buffet and you haven’t learned self-control. ”
Theo fidgeted in his chair. “What are we doing, man? Why would we listen to this? I want you out of our house.”
“Shut up, Theo,” said Piper, like a tired and weary woman. “For once, do the right thing and listen and don’t ruin everything.”
Bravely, I carried on. “I recently realized what initially bothered me. If you’re so inept at life, detached from what it takes to be human, why did you seem so affectionate with Sophia?
She’s not your biological daughter. After all, you only accepted her to get Duane’s significant estate.
I know parents can develop the strong, natural, paternal feelings for their adopted children, because I’ve seen Ronnie do it with her adopted son.
But that’s what clued me in—Ronnie is great at everything and you’re bad at everything.
But you’re not bad at affectionately doting on Sophia.
I watched you act like she was the great joy of your life.
You dote on Sophia exactly like a mother would. Which is what bothered me.”
Piper closed her eyes. She knew what I’d say next.
“After looking into this further, I know why you dote on her like she’s your biological daughter,” I said. “Because she is. That’s not Emile’s daughter Sophia. That’s Margaret. Your biological daughter.”
Theo made a half-strangled attempt at protest but none of us cared. Piper’s face had drained into a pale grey. So satisfying for the intrepid investigator.
“That’s what you were afraid of, why you slammed the door,” I said.
“That your con would be found out. You’ve been the beneficiaries of Duane’s estate because you agreed to be baby Sophia’s caretaker, but you haven’t done that in years or maybe ever.
You realized, you could pretend your biological daughter Margaret was Sophia, and you could make the real baby Sophia disappear.
You knew that no one tracks these kids well.
No one is keeping tabs on social security numbers as they grow up, not until maybe boys have to register for the armed forces.
It was simple to make baby Sophia vanish and replace her with your own daughter.
If Social Services did any follow up on Sophia, you simply showed them baby Margaret—look how healthy she is.
It was easy, because you have no friends and no family.
If anyone asked what happened to your daughter Margaret, and I bet scant few did, you told them that Margaret died from SIDS.
No one realized Margaret was still alive.
“In that way, Piper, I must admit. That’s an incredible con to pull off. True criminal mastermind stuff.”
She didn’t respond. She hadn’t opened her eyes in several minutes.
“Any questions so far? Any denials? If not, my attorney will take over here,” I said.
Ronnie began twitching out papers from the stack.
“My name is Ronnie Summers, and I practice family law. If you recognize me, it’s because I used to work in Duane’s world and it’s possible that our paths crossed, though I doubt it.
” She slid across a list. “When the government discovers what you’ve done, here’s a list of criminal charges you’ll face—