The Case of the Red-Handed Rhesus (A Rue and Lakeland Mystery) by Jessie Bishop Powell

Nana didn’t have a spine tougher than the rod they’ve got jammed down my back and her own mother wasn’t exactly the same way, your mama might have been somebody else’s baby. And your dad . . . when did he ever take sudden news well?”
    “Never,” I had to admit. He had greeted Mama’s ghastly new hair color by practically moving into the garden shed for a month.
    “There you go. Now listen, this social worker sounds like a real number. There’s bad ones, and there’s good ones, and she sounds like she’s a category all her own. Even the foster dad says this won’t be easy.”
    In fact, while we helped Adam buckle Sara into her car seat, he had told us, “You’re going to need an advocate. It’s a free service, but you have to go down to Columbus. Merry’s liable to squirrel everything around. If you’re serious about this, you’ll have to keep setting her straight.”
    “True enough,” I told Stan.
    “Here’s what you do,” he began, “this is our lawyer from when that son-of-a-bitch . . . what was his name, sweetie?”
    “Terry.” Natasha stared out the window as she spoke. “Terry Dalton.”
    “Yes. That Terry fellow tried to claim he was Tasha’s father, and we had to get DNA tests before we could prove he didn’t even have the legal right to be visiting her. It was my man Jacob Alston got everything taken care of quick. You go down and see Jacob, and tell him I sent you. Have him send all his bills to me . . .”
    “This is getting out of hand, Stan,” said Lance. “We shouldn’t need a lawyer. You bought us a house, and we’re still trying to figure out how to pay you for it. You can’t go around and buy—”
    “Yes I can, and I will!” It was as close to heated as Stan had become for the entire visit. “Art set so much stock by the two of you. You have got no idea . . .
no idea
what it means to Gert and me to know Tasha’s with you all when she’s not with us. This little baby is all we’ve got left, and knowing she’s safe,
completely
safe, when Gert and I can’t even get to see each other . . .
that’s
what I can’t buy. I know you didn’t take her in expecting things out of me, and I know it because I know how much Art loved you.
    “The first thing I said . . . tried to say . . . when I came around in the hospital with my jaw wired shut, the first thing I wanted to know was, ‘Did Tasha get away? Did I at least buy her time enough to pick the padlock?’ And when the nurse told me she was with you, I said, ‘Thank God, because they’re the only people on the planet Art would have trusted right now.’ Of course, I didn’t make any sense to her because she didn’t know Art at all, and I was all woozy and muddleheaded, and I couldn’t open my mouth to talk, so she didn’t give it much stock anyway. It was the next day when I actually saw you all three together before I realized if she was with you, something must have happened to my Gertie.
    “Art
always
wanted you to have babies. He wouldn’t have cared a whit how you got them. He’s up in heaven right now dancing with the angels and throwing you a big old shower. Your folks will come around, Noel. Not everybody in our generation is as adaptable to change as this old geezer.” He swung a finger toward his bed stand to indicate the host of electronic devices technically prohibited by hospital policy, but overlooked by the staff because about the only people Stan couldn’t bully into giving him his own way were his doctors.
    “And I’m telling you,” he went on, “a bad social worker can throw the whole thing off if she wants to.”
    “But she’s so eager to get these kids a home,” Lance protested. “Surely she wouldn’t do anything to impact it.”
    “Not on purpose,” said Natasha. “But she’s awful. Aw. Ful. Granddad’s right. She’ll mess everything up by accident and make it out to be your fault.”
    “There’s my girl!” said Stan.

C HAPTER 8
    Dear Nora:
    I can’t stop lying.