Cold Pulp Trio

  *****

  I got back to Charlotte mid-afternoon. I went to my office and to backfill Ernie. He was in his early fifties then, and as always, fat and ugly. He was sitting behind his desk reading the paper when I walked into his office. Ernie dropped the paper on his desk and looked at me.

  “How’d it go?”

  “Let me tell ya right off the bat, she was banging a congressman right before she up and left school.”

  Ernie rolled his eyes. “Shit, that’s all we need. You sure?”

  “Positive. Guy is Marc Graves. Might want to give Sandy Milton a call. We’re going to need him to play the intermediary if we go down that path.”

  “Yeah—anything else we can hang our hat on?”

  “Her freshman roommate said that the Myra chick was originally a foster child with the Kincaids and was later adopted. She also said the same was true for all of Myra’s sisters. Foster kids, then adopted.”

  “That’s a tough nut too. The state seals all those adoption cases. Did the Kincaid girl say anything about her biological parents, names, hometown?”

  “Nope. I asked that to the roommate, and apparently the Kincaid girl didn’t want to talk about it.”

  “Damn. I know Social Services. They won’t cough up anything about her or her sisters’ background. That shit is locked up tight as a nun’s ass. The only way they’ll open the books is with a court order and there ain’t a court in the country that will touch it just because one of the kids beat it once they were of legal age. Unless the Kincaids can shed any light on it, that leaves the congressman as our only real lead. That means Kincaid is going to have to cough up some dough. You want to call Sandy or do ya want me to?”

  “You do it. I’ll call Kincaid up and tell him if he wants to keep this alive, it’s gonna cost him. I’ll tell him it could get expensive. I’ll also ping on him about his daughter’s life before they took her in.”

  “Ok—How much do we ask Kincaid to put up front if we take on the politician?”

  “Ask for 25 and settle for 20 large. That should do it.”

  Ernie nodded, hit the intercom switch and asked Maisy, our secretary, to call Milton’s office and arrange a call.

  I left, got a soda from the office fridge, went to my desk and looked up Malcolm Kincaid’s office number and called it. After a few minutes, I was talking to him.

  “Mr. Kincaid, I found out your daughter is adopted. I know it’s painful to ask about, but I’ll be honest, you should have told us when we first talked.”

  I heard him take a quick breath and then slowly inhale.

  “Myra was put up for adoption when she was four by her birth mother, who we gathered was unmarried and had some serious alcohol issues. That’s as much as the state would let us know. The mother asked for anonymity, as is her right, and the state has to respect that demand. If you are wondering about her biological family, there isn’t anything we can do to help you on this. All of our girls are adopted. Sandra and I—well just say adoption was our only way to have and raise a family.”

  I told him I understood. I then broke the news about his daughter and the congressman. At first, he wanted to confront the representative directly, so I had to set him straight on that issue.

  I made it painfully clear that if he wanted results, he was going to have to cough up some serious campaign cash on the sly for Marc Graves, because money is the only thing that will get a U.S. congressman to talk about an issue like this. He agreed to spot us the entire 25 grand as up-front money. No questions asked.