Forgive Me(81)

“Well then, let me see his Facebook.”

Angie searched Bryce Taggart’s name on her Facebook app, but didn’t find his profile.

“He’s a U.S. marshal,” Angie said. “You’re a DA and have an unlisted phone number.”

“Good point,” Maddy said. “Plenty of creepers out there. Okay, here’s my take. It would be better if you could just grab a coffee. But coming up from Baltimore for a date, we’re talking commitment. You’ve got to plan for at least three hours. Can you handle that? Are you prepared?”

“I already had coffee with him,” Angie said. “He’s easy to talk to.”

“And cute?”

“Yeah, he’s hot.”

“In that case, what are you asking me for? Much as I love you, Ange, I don’t want to be Thelma and Louise: The Geriatric Years. Go out with him.”





Angie had accepted Bryce’s invitation with a text reply and was looking forward to seeing him in six days, but it wasn’t the most important thing on her mind. She was too focused on the call to the ear institute. She held the picture of I.C. in her hand, while holding her breath. Her emotions vacillated between hope and dread.

A voice, noticeably softened with age, answered on the third ring, “Microtia-Congenital Ear Deformity Center. This is Dot speaking. How may I help you?”

“Yes, um, my name is Angie DeRose and I’m calling from Alexandria, Virginia.”

“Yes, Angie, what can I do for you?”

Angie explained the situation. Dot listened patiently then said she would have to check the records and would get back to Angie later in the day.

Later could not come soon enough. Angie managed to catch up on paperwork and completed the expense report for Greg Jessup, who owed them quite a chunk of change for the retrieval of his daughter. Nadine hadn’t called or texted since her visit to the office, but Angie thought about her all the time. She wanted to take Nadine out for lunch, just the two of them. It wasn’t Angie’s place to keep tabs on the girl’s welfare, but she couldn’t help herself. The last time she had gotten that emotionally attached to a case had brought Bao into her life.

At four o’clock in the afternoon, her phone rang.

“Yes, hello. Angie here.”

“Hi Angie, this is Dot from the MCEDC.”

Angie’s heart began to race. A feeling of excitement covered her like a second skin.

“I’m afraid we have no record of your mother making the donation about anyone specific. I’m sorry I couldn’t have been of more help.”

Angie sighed aloud. She felt trapped in a giant maze, with so many dead ends she began to wonder if a way out existed.

“Now you said this was all from a photograph you found, is that correct?” Dot sounded eager to help.

“That’s right,” Angie said.

“Might you send it to me? I’ve worked here for thirty-five years. My son had the condition, and I became a volunteer and eventually an employee. Maybe I’d recognize the girl if she was ever a patient here. I couldn’t give you her name, of course, but I could give her yours and maybe she’d get in touch.”

“I’m afraid she’s deceased,” Angie said.

“Well in that case, we have nothing to lose, do we?”

Angie took a picture of the photograph and e-mailed it to Dot. It was faster than navigating her own mass of e-mails to look for the scan Mike had sent her. Dot received the image across the country about a second after Angie sent the attachment. Technology had made so many things easier, but it couldn’t help her identify a girl solely by her initials and date of birth and death. It was a long shot and she knew it, but Dot had been there for years, and maybe this little girl had been a patient once.

Dot made a sound, something between excitement and shock. “Angie, I know this girl.”

“You do?”

“But not because she was ever a patient here.”

“I’m not following.”

“Oh my,” Dot said. “What is your mother’s connection to her, I wonder?”

Angie wanted to scream, but managed to find the restraint. “I’m wondering the same,” she said, her voice a bit shaky. “Who is she?”

“Her name is Isabella Conti. I remember her only because I and the other parents with children who had Microtia thought we might finally get some much needed attention, some real publicity, which meant more funding for the condition.”

For a moment Angie couldn’t breath. I.C. now had a name. Isabella Conti.

“Why would Isabella get you any publicity?”

“Not the girl,” Dot said. “It was her father. Antonio Conti.”

The name meant nothing to Angie, and she said as much.

“Back in the early eighties, Antonio Conti was a member of the Giordano crime family in New York. It was big news, a national story when Antonio Conti turned state’s evidence against the Giordanos. Antonio had a wife, but I don’t recall her name, and of course he had his daughter, Isabella.”

“What happened to them?” Angie asked. Not a drop of moisture was present in her throat.

“Like I said, there were lots of news stories about the trial, and Isabella’s picture was in the paper and on TV regularly. The reporters made several mentions about her ear. I remember this, of course, because my son, Ronnie—oh, he’s Ronald now, I think I told you—had the same condition. He’s forty-eight now, with three children of his own, but none of them have what he had.”