“Damn.” Carillo lifted his fist to his mouth after he and Kozak had read the records.
“Horrible,” Kozak said.
“This supports the DNA, and that Heather was Jennifer’s half sister and Bert Cobb is her half brother,” Carillo said.
“Yes,” Kozak said. “We’ll have to work with the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner in Cleveland to let them know our Jane Doe on the freeway is Heather.”
Then Kozak was silent, rereading the report.
“What is it, Claire?” Carillo said.
“It’s so tragic, so sad.” She began closing folders. “Let’s go. We need to tell Jennifer Griffin.”
* * *
Alone at her kitchen table, afraid of what she might find in her mother’s journal, Jenn stared at it.
After nearly two full minutes, she opened it.
A small puff of air, like a gasp, floated up to her, smelling of an old book and charcoal. Jenn fanned the pages then went to the beginning, tracing her fingers over the words, written in clear blue ballpoint pen. Her mother’s handwriting was beautiful. Judging from the dates, she’d made her first entries when she was in high school.
Swallowing hard, Jenn read.
“Toby Wheeler’s in my math class. He’s so cute.” Days later another entry: “Dad’s shouting at Mom again downstairs. I put on my headphones.” Another day and an entry read: “Some kids like the new groups, but I’ll love The Beatles and Supremes forever.” Then later another day: “History test tomorrow yuck.” Then: “Does Toby like me?” Scanning ahead Jenn came to: “Dad shouted at Mom all night. He’s drunk again. He always yells at her.”
Skimming ahead a year or so, turning pages, Jenn stopped cold, reading: “Mom’s dead. I can’t stop crying. The world has stopped turning. I’m numb, can’t think. Dad says she fell down the stairs. Do I believe him? I have to get out.”
Jumping ahead to: “We buried Mom. It hurts so much. My mom is gone. I want her back.”
Jenn snapped through pages of short entries. “Sad.” “Miss Mom.” “Rained all day.” Then she came to: “Dad drunk again. Super mean. Argued with him. It was bad. Left home to live with my friend and her big sister. Dropping out of school. What’s the point? I’m flunking anyway.”
Flipping through years of entries about low-paying jobs and dates with men “who only want one thing,” Jenn read that her mom was working as a waitress in Dombrowski’s Bowling World when: “Started dating Clark Telfer, a heavy equipment operator. Bowling champ. Nice cologne. Nice smile. Really like him. Could get serious.”
Racing ahead Jenn stopped at: “Pregnant. Scared.” Then pages later: “Married Clark at city hall. He says ‘we’ll make it work. It’s all good.’” Scanning ahead to: “Had a perfect baby boy, named him Bertram.” Then several weeks later: “Baby’s crying all night. Clark drinks, shouts at me to shut him up, or he will. I worry about everything.”
Jenn paged ahead, skimming years, reading: “Our money’s stretched. I juggle bills. Yet Clark bought expensive bowling shoes, a ball, and pays league fees. Dreams he’ll turn pro. I beg him to stop drinking. Tell him I’m pregnant again. He shouts at me, blames me, hits me. I slap him back. He goes to the bar.”
Flipping ahead Jenn read: “Our daughter Heather was born yesterday.” Years later: “Clark’s pro bowler dreams are gone because he drinks. His job hangs by a thread. We argue. He hits me. I never tell anyone. All couples fight, don’t they? But it’s getting worse. Some days, I drink to stop all the pain.”
Turning pages, Jenn found: “I told Clark he needs help, AA, a church group, something. I said I’ll go with him. But he exploded, said I’m cheating on him, pushed me to the wall, punching me. I fought back but he knocked me down and dragged me by my hair across the floor. It’s so bad. Later, I hurt everywhere and decided I can’t take it anymore. I can’t fall down the stairs like my mom. I had to leave, right away, bruised and sore. Bert followed me on his bike, crying breaking my heart. I told him I’ll be back to get him and Heather.”
Jenn flips ahead: “At the women’s shelter they urge me to call police and report Clark. My hands are shaking as I write. I can’t believe it. The officers who investigate are Clark’s bowling pals and they believe his lies. Clark says I abused the children, that I was unfaithful, that I drink, that I struck him. Liar!”
In the following pages: “Clark hung himself in the garage. Bert found him...oh dear Lord...my poor boy...he’ll never be the same...”
Then: “They won’t let me see Heather and Bert. Child services have taken them from me. I have to go to a family court thing.” Jenn noticed the next pages were dotted, crinkled, as if they’d been wet then dried. Tears?
She continued reading: “In court the judge believed Clark’s lies and ordered that Heather and Bert be taken from me and placed in foster homes; and that because I may be a danger to them—based on Clark’s lies—I am forbidden to ever see them again. My heart is bursting. It’s just not right. It’s killing me. How can they do this?”
Jenn scans pages of months, years of her mother’s anguish: “No matter what I do, the courts won’t let me be with Bert and Heather.” Then Jenn read how her mother moved to Buffalo, met Leo Korvin: “Such a kind, gentle man.” She got married again and had a “beautiful daughter, Jennifer.”
Jenn read how her mother made several trips to Syracuse to see child welfare people, pleading they help her locate Bert and Heather: “A case worker, who didn’t like me, told me I can stop with my inquiries because Bert had drowned a year earlier and Heather had cancer and died six months before that. They say I collapsed on the floor.”
Jenn’s eyes filled with tears at the cruelty of the system and what it had done to her mother, and to Bert and Heather, too.
Collecting herself, she continued reading some of her mother’s last entries: “After learning about Bert and Heather, my heart had been ripped out of me. I’m going through life like a robot. Alcohol helps. And I have Leo and Jennifer to hang on to, but a part of me is gone forever. I know I can never be forgiven for what I’ve done. I have to carry the pain of the horrible mistakes I’ve made. At times, I light my mother’s chime, the twirling, twinkling angels give me comfort. Because I know who those angels are...”
Jennifer closed her mother’s journal.
She absorbed the truth, her mother’s anguish, her half sister, Heather, lost to the world, her half brother, Bert, destroyed by her family’s tragedy, its tentacles reaching across years, killing her mother, her father, her half sister, reaching to destroy her, Jake, and Greg.