Nobody's Child (26 page)

S
EPTEMBER 16

Laura Ann's heart raced as she approached the historic Tyler County Courthouse in Middlebourne on Thursday morning. Like the warm Judge O'Dell, something about the 150-year-old place gave her a sense of hope. A steeple rose from the center of the two-story brick and limestone building, its four faces announcing the time in every cardinal direction. A copper wind vane on a green copper roof pointed to the west. The direction of storms.

Ian laid a hand on an old artillery piece as they strode up the courthouse steps, patting it on the side. “We have the ammunition now, Laura Ann,” he said, his fist like a gavel on the grey paint of the retired gun.

“Got that right,” Stefany replied. “Remember, act natural and pretend you don't see it coming. The Department of Agriculture will have a welcoming committee waiting inside. Federal agents will question your uncle Jack about irregularities with his crop insurance policies. I told them there was a good chance they'd find him here this morning.”

“That ought to keep him off-balance,” Mr. Brewer said, offering an arm to Stefany when they reached the door. Ian
steadied Granny Apple as he held the door open for her and for Laura Ann.

Inside the foyer of the courthouse, Laura Ann spied Uncle Jack, hunkered in a corner, talking to a gathering of friends. Someone whispered
“shhh”
and Uncle Jack's group turned, mouths agape. Perhaps he'd expected one or two people, but Laura Ann strode in with a team of five. He ducked her glance — her uncle the rat.

Halfway across the foyer, their footfalls echoing in the old stone building, she saw his welcoming committee: Stefany's friends from Agriculture and the IRS. Dressed in suits, two men surprised her uncle from behind, one flashing a badge, the other motioning him toward the main door with a firm grip on Uncle Jack's elbow. All attention went from Laura Ann and her team to the agents. The crowd watched her red-faced uncle escorted ingloriously to the door.

Tingles ran down Laura Ann's spine. Someone else watched her. She turned and, to their left, Mr. Mendoza stood with Deputy Rodale. Mendoza's eyes were wide, glancing between her team of five and Uncle Jack headed out of the courthouse with an official escort.

A scant two or three minutes after arriving with Ian, she found her seat in the courtroom, Mr. Brewer and Ian flanking her at an aged oak desk. Stefany and Granny Apple sat behind her on benches that reminded her of church pews. Perched in the equivalent of a choir loft, Laura Ann felt like she was on display.

They'd arrived early. A few people found seats behind her, most of them folks she recognized, no doubt all of them friends of Uncle Jack—and most of them whispering, probably about him. A deputy arranged papers on the judge's bench, preparing for the day's case. Laura Ann said a quiet prayer for James.

“Do you know him?” Mr. Brewer asked, pointing with a
discrete finger in the direction of the lawyer who accompanied Mr. Mendoza into the courtroom.

“No,” Laura Ann replied. “Granny Apple said his name is

Daniel Whitt.”

“I heard he's local,” Brewer said. “May have been hired by your uncle, if Stefany's instincts prove correct.”

“They usually do,” Ian said with a quiet chuckle. “Prove to be correct, I mean. Her cousin's a young Granny Apple.” Laura Ann saw him look back. Stefany winked, her red pen raised in a mock salute.

“Ten o'clock.” Mr. Brewer looked down at his watch, then back at the gallery. “No crowds. That's good.”

“All rise,” a deputy bellowed as the judge sauntered through a door at the far left. The room rustled with moving chairs and the
whoosh
of padded seats, then went quiet.

“Judge Dennis O'Dell.”

“He wasn't supposed to sit on this case,” Laura Ann whispered. “I talked to him at length. Will it be okay?”

“No problem,” Mr. Brewer replied. “This may work out well for us.”

Judge O'Dell took his seat and motioned everyone to sit down. He conferred for a long time with his deputy, and with a clerk at his right. She ran out, brought back more papers, ran out a second time, and at last, he addressed the courtroom.

“Mr. Mendoza and Mr. Whitt?” he asked, waving in the direction of the oak desk to her right.

“Yes, Your Honor,” replied the man next to Mendoza, a medium-height attorney with a starched white shirt. He stood to address the judge.

Judge O'Dell nodded in Laura Ann's direction and rattled off three names. “Mr. Brewer, Ms. McGehee, and Mr. Stewart?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” Mr. Brewer replied, standing at their desk.

Judge O'Dell waved his hand again in the direction of the assembled teams. “Counselors, please approach the bench.”

Mr. Brewer smiled and pushed back from the table, touching Laura Ann on the forearm. “Here we go. Keep praying.”

Both lawyers approached the judge, leaning into a tall wooden bench adorned with carvings on both ends and a thick walnut top. She'd seen this scene on television — but it went nothing like TV. She could hear every word. Perhaps Judge O'Dell wanted it that way.

“Alright, gentlemen. I know you expected Judge Spencer on this case, but Roger's out of circulation for a while. Health issues. I've prepared a summary of the conversations I had with both of your clients over the past week, to keep everything aboveboard.” He handed a sheet of paper to each attorney, and then continued. “I think we're clear on any conflict of interest.” He looked at both for a response.

“No complaints? Very well. So, let's get right to it.” Judge O'Dell leaned forward over the bench. “Mr. Whitt, I've reviewed this case and find that your client has failed to provide evidentiary proof of his alleged parenthood. Do you have state-certified documentation that proves the putative father is in fact the donor in the assisted reproduction of James McGehee McQuistion?”

The lawyer fumbled with some papers, then replied. “Yes, Your Honor. We submitted that as part of the initial filing.”

Judge O'Dell pursed his lips. “I see documents from a fertility clinic in Morgantown that state Mr. Mendoza donated his sperm, and more documents from the gestational agreement that affirm Ms. McQuistion requested to be inseminated with the same. But no sperm donor contract in this filing, and nothing that proves he is the true biological father.”

“Your Honor, this filing is very clear,” Mendoza's lawyer argued. “Clinic records show that Sophia McQuistion chose the plaintiff, Felix Mendoza, as her sperm donor. The physician at
the clinic used a fresh semen sample that traced directly back to Mr. Mendoza. She became pregnant through the process of in vitro fertilization, and — “

“I can read, Mr. Whitt,” Judge O'Dell quipped. “I don't need a lecture on insemination, thank you.”

“I'm sorry, Your Honor,” the attorney replied. “Nevertheless, we have solid evidence, as you see, that Ms. McQuistion visited Mr. Mendoza to thank him for his role in her pregnancy. She sought him out as the father of her child.”

Judge O'Dell waved his head from side to side. “Do you watch television, Mr. Whitt?” he asked, setting the papers down.

The attorney ran a finger under his collar. “Yes, sir. On occasion.”

“Well, let me give you some down-home advice, from a man who loves his recliner and a good TV show. Every day I see this ad for a genetics company out in Utah. It sickens me, to tell you the truth. They offer paternity testing, as if a woman needs a test to tell her who the father of her baby is. But I guess that's where our country is headed. Men and women sleeping around so much they don't know who the baby's daddy is.” He stopped, looking out at the audience, then lowered his voice. Even in his quiet tone, Laura Ann could understand him.

“So, you ask, where am I going with this little rant? I'll tell you, Mr. Whitt. You and your client worked some unexplainable magic with our county's social services and ripped a child away from a nursing mother. She'd been in that house caring for that child, not bothering anyone, for a long time before you showed up. I disagree completely with the county's decision to remove the child. Unfortunately, that's their domain, not mine.” He frowned, bushy eyebrows furrowed over his glasses. “But your case
is
my domain, and I'm trying to tell you that it's incomplete.”

He waved at Mr. Mendoza, and then toward Laura Ann.

“I'm ordering a state DNA test for Mr. Mendoza. You can buy a paternity test over at Prunty's Pharmacy, a block down the street, for a hundred and fifty bucks. I couldn't have accepted it as evidence, but you might have at least tried for some kind of solid proof. You've had plenty of time to prepare your case, and you can't even come to my court ready to argue it?”

He stared at Mr. Whitt, the red of the attorney's neck deepening.

“Yes, Your Honor. We can do that. But we—we'll also need access to the child.”

“Agreed. The court orders a state-administered DNA test for the child in foster care, James McGehee McQuistion. The court will coordinate a cheek swab test for the infant. Now, do you think you can come prepared next time?” Judge O'Dell stared down the gun barrel of his nose for a long pause, waiting on the sweating attorney to answer.

Mr. Whitt turned around, glancing toward Mendoza, who shrugged, a bored frown crossing his face. Mr. Whitt turned back to Judge O'Dell. “Yes, sir. We'll need a few weeks.”

Judge O'Dell looked back to the papers and started to stack them, then handed the pile of materials to his clerk. He never looked back at Whitt. “No, you won't. I made a trip to the drugstore to read the instructions on the paternity test myself. Doesn't take weeks. Not at the pharmacy and not in my court. Easy as pie, Mr. Whitt, and ninety-nine point nine nine percent accurate. If Mr. Mendoza is the father.” His emphasis on the word
if was
impossible to miss.

Judge O'Dell looked up, and then stood in front of the attorneys. “You have one week.” He raised a gavel and slammed it into the wooden base on his desk. “Court's in recess until this time next Thursday.” He lowered the gavel to the desk and bent over toward Mr. Whitt.

“Don't be late.”

S
EPTEMBER 17

“You'll never win.” Uncle Jack wagged his head, a frown his only expression. “It's Mendoza's kid, so you may as well save your pennies and quit.”

Laura Ann sighed. Just her luck to run into her uncle at the Witschey's Market parking lot a day after the scene at the courthouse. Auntie Rose huddled in the front passenger seat of his pickup, hands folded in her lap. Uncle Jack wouldn't let his wife speak, so deep ran his emotional abuse. In the two weeks that James spent at the farm, she'd never heard from her aunt. Not a call, not a visit. “Good or bad, he's my husband, and Jack's the boss,” she'd said once. His wishes always came first.

“What makes you think you'll beat me?” Laura Ann asked, moving toward him. An occasional pickup circled past them in the parking lot. With Ian back at work the day before their wedding, and she afoot with bags of groceries in her arms, she battled her uncle alone.

“Beat
me?”
Uncle Jack asked with a laugh. “It's not about me. That suit was filed by the Mendoza guy.”

“Everything's about you,” Laura Ann shot back. “I know how Mendoza found out about Sophia. You located him and brought him here. You bribed the child protection office to take my son away. You're in this paternity suit up to your ears.”

Uncle Jack fidgeted. “You have no proof.”

“Proof? I have witnesses, Uncle Jack. You were at the hospital in Wheeling, digging around to find some dirt to give you leverage.” She gripped her bags tighter. “The nurses told us.”

“This is a waste of time. Just remember who offered you a way out of that mortgage.” He put the truck in gear, leering at her, his face flushed. “You snooze, you lose.”

Laura Ann shifted the grocery load in her arms again, sweaty palms threatening her grip on the paper bags. “Then you'd better not sleep, Uncle Jack. ‘Cause I'm on to you.”

He hesitated just a moment, but she could see it in his darting eyes: the squint. His dread that she really did know of his role and would make it public.

But that wasn't what she meant.

Proof of her maternity would trump Mendoza. Question was, could she muster the courage to share it?

S
EPTEMBER 18

“Forget it, lover boy,” Stefany said, pushing Ian through the doors of the church. “You're not supposed to see the bride before she enters.” Laura Ann stifled a laugh, watching through a space in the door that led out the side of the reception area at the front of Pastor Culpeper's church. She kept the door barely cracked, sure that her game-tracking soon-to-be husband would find her out. Stefany pulled his attention in the opposite direction, and gave him another shove toward the chapel.

“Come on, Stef. Don't get superstitious on me,” Ian objected, dragging his feet while Stefany prodded him into the church. “Laura Ann and I were going to walk down the aisle together.”

She laughed, and made one more valiant attempt to get him through the double doors at the front of the little Baptist church in Pursley. Ian complied, and when he turned his back, Stefany threw a wink in Laura Ann's direction. “No can do,” she said. “Get up there with Pastor Culpeper. Mrs. C is going to play the piano and I'll follow your lovely bride with the flowers. Now scram!”

Ian saluted Laura Ann's redheaded tempest of a cousin, and marched through the doors. Stefany gave a thumbs-up sign.
Laura Ann dashed in the side entrance, peering through narrow windows in the main doors to watch him stride down the aisle. Granny Apple, Pastor Culpeper, and his wife Pamela waited at the front of the church, a standing ovation of three. One witness, Granny. One pastor. And one pianist. Just enough, and not a day too soon. Clad in his new suit, Ian reached the front of the church, beaming.

“Good job!” Laura Ann said with a high-five to Stefany, her redheaded relative decked out in the prettiest dress Laura Ann could remember seeing. Except for what she had on … her Momma's wedding gown.

“No problem. He may be a lawman, but he's still just a guy. You ready?”

“I've been ready, Stefany. For a very long time,” Laura Ann said, touching her cousin's forearm.

“No regrets?” Stefany asked, a hand on the door. “None.”

Stefany wiped at her eyes, releasing the door just a moment to arrange something on Laura Ann's white gown, an elegant but simple throwback to the grace of a bygone era, a return to simpler times. “You're beautiful,” she said, brushing back one of Laura Ann's bangs. “Just so you know, I envy you. Ian. The farm. Something stable.”

“Envy
me?”
Laura Ann exclaimed.

“Uh-huh,” she said with a little laugh. “I know I bounce around a bunch, full of energy and all. But a lot of it's just a show, cousin. There's a part of me, a part that grows bigger every day, that just wants to settle down. Wants to find someone,” she said, her voice drifting off, a hand adjusting Laura Ann's tiny veil.

“And you will, Stef.” Laura Ann leaned forward and gave her a hug. “But don't envy me too much. Next week I'm back in a
courtroom, fighting for James.” A shadow passed over her face. “Maybe more.”

Stefany nudged her. “That's in the future. But you're here now, girlfriend, and it's your wedding day. Mr. Wonderful is waiting for you at the end of that aisle!”

Laura Ann took a peek through the windows again, the piano accompaniment by Pamela her cue to start walking. But something remained unsaid. She wiped at her eyes, determined that this be her happy day.

“God put you here for me. You know that, right?”

Stefany shrugged. “We've had that conversation,” she said, her smile fading. “You know how I feel about all that stuff. Let's don't go back there.”

“I know. But with the music playing, and Ian waiting, I still need you to know something.”

Stefany shrugged and Laura Ann took her hands in her own.

“You see things that most people don't, Stefany. In people. In situations. You might not realize it, but you're like a key — you unlock secrets. You help people.” She pulled their clasped hands up, drawing her cousin close. “You helped me.”

Stefany's smile returned with a silent nod that said “thanks.”

Laura Ann released her embrace. She took a deep breath, adjusting her veil, then pushed on the door. “You ready?” she asked.

“Got your back, cousin. Lead on.”

S
EPTEMBER 23

Laura Ann pressed Ian's hand. From honeymoon to courtroom. The wonder of their two days away in Parkersburg seemed so
very distant. Like ripping off a scab, every moment of this trial drew pain.

“How did you learn of Ms. McQuistion's death?” Mr. Brewer asked, leaning into a walnut rail that stretched around the witness box in Judge O'Dell's courtroom. Felix Mendoza squirmed on the stand, half an hour into the questioning by Laura Ann's attorney.

“Relevance?” Mr. Whitt blurted out, his hands raised.

“Relationship to the deceased, Judge,” Mr. Brewer answered without looking up.

“Proceed.” Judge O'Dell waved him on as Mr. Whitt lowered his head.

“She came to thank me for knocking her up.” Mendoza's eyes darted about the room, avoiding Laura Ann's glare. “Me and her, we were tight.”

“You got her pregnant?”

“That's what I just said.”

“And you say you were close? In a relationship kind of way?” Mr. Brewer asked.

Mendoza shrugged.

“I'll rephrase. How did you learn of Ms. McQuistion's death? You were ‘tight' as you say, yet you never visited her in the hospital, she made no calls to Cincinnati during her stay in Wheeling, and you never called her.” He lifted some of his own papers, pointing to the judge's desk. “Exhibit seven, judge. Ms. McQuistion's cellular and hospital phone records.”

Judge O'Dell nodded and waved him on.

“So, I repeat. How exactly did you learn of her death?”

Mendoza shrugged again. “Through a friend.” His eyes searched the courtroom gallery, then went back to Brewer.

“Did you visit her, or provide any manner of support during the hospitalization for her heart problem?”

“Heart problem?”

“You weren't aware of her rheumatic fever?”

“No.”

“But we heard from Ms. McGehee — I mean, Mrs. Stewart — that she cared for Ms. McQuistion for the better part of a month, at home and in the hospital, through her last month of pregnancy, a month complicated by heart disease.”

“Again, Judge, what's the relevance?” Mr. Whitt protested, standing at his desk.

“Relationship with the deceased, Your Honor, and justification for the decision about who would care for her child.” Mr. Brewer faced the judge. “Ms. McQuistion chose Mrs. Stewart as a guardian for her son, a woman who demonstrated extraordinary sacrifice to support the deceased during her last days. From Mr. Mendoza's own testimony, he had no idea Ms. McQuistion ever experienced any heart problems, nor did he ever take the initiative to contact her, or provide material support.”

“What difference does it make?” Mendoza asked, turning toward the judge and raising his hands in exasperation. “I fathered that kid.”

“Please, just answer the questions, Mr. Mendoza. Anything else, Mr. Brewer?”

“One more line of questioning, Your Honor. Mr. Mendoza, do you live in Cincinnati?”

“Of course I do.”

“State, for the record, your height, weight, and educational background, please.”

“Judge!” Mr. Whitt exclaimed. “Mr. Brewer?”

“In the absence of a sperm donor contract, Your Honor, I can establish, without question, that Mr. Mendoza had no interest in legal guardianship of this child, or for any other children he might have fathered as a donor.”

“Proceed.”

“Okay. I'm five foot nine, one hundred sixty-five pounds. I attended the US Air Force Academy.” “Did you graduate?”

Mendoza delayed, looking down at his feet, and then answered, “No.”

“State your email address and phone number.”

Mendoza replied with clipped words, his eyes darting from Mr. Brewer to Mr. Whitt and back.

“Thank you. I'd like to submit an additional exhibit, Your Honor. A copy of a posting on the Internet by a party whose data matches the testimony of Mr. Mendoza—exactly.” He lifted a sheet of paper up to the judge who reviewed it, his eyebrows raised, then handed it back.

“Mr. Mendoza,” Brewer asked, “did you compose this posting on the Internet? It lists your email and phone number, just as you've testified.”

Mendoza took the paper, glancing at it for a moment, then gulped.

“Mr. Mendoza?”

He nodded, silent.

“Mr. Mendoza motions assent that this is his posting, an Internet advertisement in which he promotes his role as a qualified sperm donor. That document states, in part,” Mr. Brewer said, turning to face the gallery, “that he seeks mutually fulfilling passionate experiences with women who seek to be inseminated, absent any emotional or legal baggage.” He turned back to face the judge. “I question, why is it, Mr. Mendoza, that you have no interest, as a sperm donor, in what you term ‘legal baggage,' yet today you're here in Tyler County petitioning for custody of a child you purported to father?”

Mendoza shrugged with a loud exhale, shaking his head. His frown deepened by the minute.

“No more questions, Your Honor.” Mr. Brewer moved back
to his desk. He whispered to Laura Ann as he settled into the old oak chair. “We haven't won this yet.”

Judge O'Dell dismissed the witness, paged through his materials, and then addressed Mr. Whitt. “We've heard some interesting circumstantial evidence from your team today, Counselor. But we have yet to review the results of your client's paternity test.”

Whitt turned to Mendoza and conferred, whispering behind hands that shielded their mouths. Behind them, a door clicked.

Laura Ann looked back, feeling a rush of air into the room. In the open door stood Uncle Jack, slipping into a seat on the back row. She tapped Ian's shoulder, and he spun around. All eyes turned to follow his, Uncle Jack wilting under the glare of court observers.

She turned back to face the judge, breathing deep and gripping her hands while she willed her heart to slow. Her face felt hot, the sounds about her fading into a memory.

In her mind's eye, Daddy sat on the porch steps, his arms resting on his knees. “Don't ever fear the truth, Peppermint,” he said that day. She couldn't remember how old she was, or what season he'd said it. Just Daddy in his overalls, speaking his mind. “Stand up for truth, no matter what the cost.”

Laura Ann looked up, the judge tapping his pen on his desk while the two men to her right conferred. When he spoke, he growled.

“I'll ask again, and only once more, Counselor Whitt. Do you intend to submit the state DNA test as evidence of paternity? Yes or no?”

Mr. Whitt turned to face Judge O'Dell, standing as he prepared to speak. He gulped, looked down at Mr. Mendoza, then back up at the judge. “Yes, Your Honor. We do.”

“Then may I see it?”

Mr. Whitt stood and carried a package to the front. “In
support of my client's case, Your Honor, certified results for DNA analysis of Mr. Felix Mendoza, conducted by the State of West Virginia. Probability of paternity, 99.98 percent.” He faced Laura Ann. “My client is the biological father of the child James McQuistion.”

He turned, seeking out a face in the back of the room, and smiled. He looked back at Laura Ann and her team, raising an eyebrow, then returned to his seat.

Judge O'Dell reviewed the case file, nodded, and handed the materials to his clerk. “It's about time.”

“Your Honor?” another voice asked.

Judge O'Dell looked up to face Mr. Brewer. The attorney stood at Laura Ann's side, a manila folder in his had. She glanced at Ian, who nodded, a small smile on his face. Behind him, Stefany punched the air with her fist.

“The defense wishes to recall a witness, Mrs. Laura Ann Stewart. To allow evidence in rebuttal.”

Mr. Whitt sat up in his chair, shaking his head. He looked to the back again, a clear connection with Uncle Jack.

Judge O'Dell sat back and took off his glasses, then answered. “Proceed.” A head nod between the two of them communicated some unspoken message, and the judge waved her in his direction. “Mrs. Stewart?”

Laura Ann stood up, a lingering grip on Ian's hand before she walked to the front and mounted the witness stand. Seated above the rest of the court, but slightly below the judge, she saw the room from a completely different perspective. When she testified the first time, two hours ago, her heart slammed in her chest. This time, even with Uncle Jack glaring at her from the back of the room, a gentle calm overwhelmed her.

Secrets don't become you, child.
Granny Apple's wisdom floated back, like a thought tossed across the room from her elderly friend sitting in the gallery.
You can do it.

Mr. Brewer approached the bench. “There's one more item of evidence I wish to submit for review, Your Honor. And after this witness, an additional witness I wish to call.” He handed a file folder to the judge. After a brief glance, the judge sat up a little straighter, turning to face her on the stand.

“You don't have to do this, Laura Ann,” Judge O'Dell said.

“I want to, sir,” she said. “I need to.”

“As you wish.” Judge O'Dell held the file out, motioning toward Mr. Whitt. When he shared the papers with Mendoza's attorney, the lawyer dropped the papers on his oak desk, dumbfounded. She watched the reaction as Mendoza picked up the file, wagging his head in disbelief.

The bailiff swore her in, and Mr. Brewer approached the stand, smiling. “Laura Ann Stewart, who is the biological mother of the child, James McGehee McQuistion?”

Judge O'Dell furrowed his brow, lowering his head to look over his glasses. Laura Ann faced Ian for a brief moment, his smile of affirmation spurring her on.

“I am the biological mother.”