Read Chapter One of Baby Crimes
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"IT'S NOT LIKE we stole our daughter. We just. . . "
     The female side of the white bread Bonnie and Clyde duo sitting in front of me faltered and her husband picked it up. He did look a bit like a young Warren Beatty. Lucky bastard.
     "We just didn't adopt her in the traditional way," he said, flashing me a TV teeth smile, followed by a wink that said "we're pals." They'd strolled into my office thrity minutes ago like Grand Marshals in a parade, missing only the "Don't hate us because we're beautiful" banner preceding them.
     The she we were discussing was my tennis student, Lynn. Of course, they likely thought of her as their daughter. And they also likely preferred the names Nevin and Catherine Handley to Bonnie and Clyde. He was a millionaire fifty times over, a retired-at-forty-something dot-comer, and was just elected as a County Supervisor on a "giving back to the people" platform. Officials like mayors and senators got the glory, but supervisors had the power,

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each one of San Diego county's five supervisors dividing up a section of the county as their own private fiefdom.
     When Lynn's mother had called me yesterday to ask to chat privately before Lynn's lesson, I'd assumed it was to discuss tennis. Lynn had quickly risen to the number four ranking in the 16-and-under category in California and I'd guessed they were moving her to a big name coach. I wouldn't have blamed them, but it turned out they weren't here to see me as a coach.
     The thing is, I wear two hats. By day I'm an attorney, specializing in adoptions, at least as much as one can specialize when you've been an attorney for all of eighteen months. By, well, the rest of the day, I'm a tennis pro. Assistant tennis pro, actually. The operative word being assistant, denoting as much importance as when used in the title "Assistant Manager at McDonalds." At age thirty-three I just had fewer pimples.
     At the moment we were sitting in my office, the former storage room of the Pro Shop of the Coral Canyon Country Club, now the domain of Toby Dillon, Esq. I never quite got what the word Esquire had to do with being an attorney, but then there's a lot I can never figure out about my own profession.
     "Do you mind if we back up a step?" I asked, picking up my legal pad. This was intended to make me look more lawyerly, and to mitigate the fact I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt emblazoned with "WILSON: Get extra fuzz on your balls."
     Nevin gave me a magnanimous nod and surreptitiously glanced at his watch. I guess straightening out your daughter's adoption mess had time limits.
     "Okay," I recapped. "Sixteen years ago the two of you were newly married, didn't have much money and were just starting your own computer software business."
     Nevin shot me the teeth again. "You know what they say, Toby. The first million's always the hardest." Thank goodness he didn't forget the wink at the end. He used it like punctuation.

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     "Right. A girl was working for you—"
     "Melanie," Catherine interjected. "Melanie Dubravado. She was a sweet girl. I really don't think we're going to have any trouble."
     "Uh huh. And when she got pregnant and told you she wasn't ready to be a mom, you agreed to adopt the baby."
     Fear of a wink, or the teeth, kept my eyes on my legal pad and I pressed on.
     "But Melanie didn't have any health insurance, and you did, so you had her check into the hospital," I looked up at Catherine, "under your name."
     She nodded and didn't look the least bit embarrassed. "It wasn't just about the insurance, Toby. It just seemed so unnecessary to have to go to an adoption agency and go through a home study, like something was wrong with us. Imagine."
     They shared a chuckle over that and I stole a glance to see if they were winking at each other.
     "So Melanie," I plowed ahead, "gave birth as if she were you. And listed her husband—meaning your husband—Nevin, as the father."
     Catherine nodded. "Well, of course. Who else would we put? He's my husband."
     Who indeed, I thought. "But he's not the biological father, any more than you're the biological mother. Right?"
     "Yes."
     "So Melanie checks out of the hospital, gives you the baby—Lynn—and because everyone thinks it was you who gave birth, you end up with a birth certificate naming you as the legal mother and father. Just like if you gave birth to her yourself."
     Nevin cleared his throat. "So you see, Toby, it's already legal really. We just need you to go back and dot the i's and cross the t's. You know, do whatever it is you adoption people do."
     You adoption people, huh. Well, Mister i-dotter and t-crosser, think again. My eyes went to my tennis racquet leaning against the

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wall and I wondered what kind of sound it would make if I hit them on the head with it. But ever the soul of discretion, and not wanting to risk breaking my strings on their pointed heads, I decided to hold off on that option.
     Somehow, these two bozos had managed the perfect fraudulent adoption. I'd have been impressed if I weren't so disgusted. I didn't particularly care about what consequences they were facing; they deserved their headache. My fears were for Lynn. The adage of kids paying for the sins of their parents was too true, too often.
     In a traditional adoption, the birth mother signs a consent to the adoption after the baby is born, and the adoptive parents go through a six month home study. When everything's approved, a court grants the adoption. Later, the adoptive parents receive an amended birth certificate naming them as the biological parents and naming the child as they'd like. They skipped a few steps. Actually, all of them.
     "Okay," I said. "The first problem I see is that you defrauded your insurance company. That's a crime, of course. A felony, actually. Then you falsified a birth certificate. There's probably a conspiracy charge in there too as the three of you were planning this together. You've had a child in your custody who's not legally yours, without a foster care license. Child-abduction charges are a possibility since although Melanie gave you Lynn voluntarily, we don't know if the birth father agreed. That's four crimes, and we haven't even got to the adoption yet."
     I looked up to see how they were handling this so far, but both looked unconcerned. I plowed ahead.
     "You don't have a consent to adoption by the birth mother, and you don't know where she is, or if she'll consent even if we find her. You don't have a consent from the birth father, and you're not even sure who he is to try to get it. You never did a home study. You never filed anything with the court. You. . . " I gave up. "You've got a big mess is what you've got."
     Nice legal summation there, Toby. The good old big mess

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  diagnosis.
     "So you're saying. . ." Catherine's face took on an expression designed to show concern, but clearly a practiced one that wouldn't cause facial wrinkles.
     "What he's saying, honey," Nevin said, reaching into his jacket pocket, "is that this is going to take some work." He had a check pre-written and slid it onto my desk. A glance told me it was for $20,000, or roughly half my yearly income. He'd left the recipient name blank, maybe so I could decide between "Toby Dillon" or "Soul for Sale."
     I ignored the check. "Can I ask why you even want to try to fix this? I mean, Lynn will be eighteen in a couple years. Do you realize all thte things that could go wrong for you? There's always the possibility they could take Lynn away from you, although that seems unlikely. Or that you could go to jail. And the criminal charges would be public, so everyone would know what you did."
     They just looked at me, unconcerned. Then it hit me.
     "Wait a minute. You've already been to an attorney, haven't you?"
     Of course. They weren't about to place all their trust in the hands of some part-time, squeeze-in-a-law-practice-around-tennis-games lawyer, no matter how righteous his topspin forehand may be. Which brought up, why were they here at all? Nevin managed to keep his teeth under control and gave me his sincere face.
     "Toby, no offense, but people like us don't go to jail. Our crime was giving a child a wonderful home. A life no one can fault. Insurance companies can be reimbursed. We were young and made a mistake. No one benefits from disrupting our family."
     What I just heard sounded more like an attorney's closing argument.
     "And that's who speaking?" I asked.
     Nevin seemed a bit put out I didn't accept the words as his but shrugged and answered. "Anton West."
     Yep, that figured. West was one of the top criminal attorneys in the state. Five grand just for a consult.

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     "And let me guess," I said. "He's already brokered a deal for you with the D.A., so you know you'll come out fine on this. And no press guaranteed too."
     He spread his hands. "You do things right, Toby, and everybody wins."
     Yeah, when everybody's rich that is. I had no problem with the rich and beautiful getting favors. I'd just like to see the people sweating under them get a break or two. It was for those kinds of people that I became a lawyer.
     "So why are you here? You don't need me."
     Nevin leaned forward, moving in to close the sale. "Can I be honest?"
     Sure, like you know how. "Yes, please."
     "We're here because we know you care about Lynn. And she's nuts about you. We know because of that no one's going to work harder to get the adoption part of this worked out."
     He reached out and took his wife's hand, the gesture holding all the sincerity of Geraldo Rivera holding an orphaned baby on camera after an earthquake.
     "Plus, adoption is all you do, Toby," he went on. "What big law firm is going to know how to handle these birth parents? To find them, and get them to cooperate? Do you think some five-hunded-dollar-an-hour suit is going to know how to approach them? You're young. You're. . . different."
     He didn't actually make different sould like a compliment. I let it slide.
     I had to admit he had me pegged, about Lynn anyway. If it weren't for her, I'd have kicked them out within minutes of them sticking their rhinoplastied noses in my door.
     He knew he had me and pulled out a pen. "How do you want me to make out the check?"
     But he wasn't the only one who could play games. Last week the club's head tennis pro had given me the assignment of raising

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money for a free summer tennis camp for all the lower income kids in town. I thought since it had been my idea I shouldn't be saddled with begging for donations to make it happen. I was the idea man, after all. We needed only five grand, but thanks to Nevin, suddenly it was looking like an annual event.
     "Make it out to the Boys and Girls Club of Fallbrook."
     His head jerked up.
     "Hey," I said pointedly. "You may have the criminal side of this all worked out, but at some point we're still going to have to get this approved by an adoption judge. And the judge who has the adoption calendar plays here. Don't you think it's going to look good if he sees your face on the banner reading "Tennis Camp sponsored by Nevin Handley, County Supervisor?"
     Nevin's crap-o-meter was alerting him, but either he ignored it, or I was a better liar than I thought. Actually, I had seen Judge Bornman here once, although it was in the club's restaurant, not on the courts. So it wasn't a complete fib.
     Nevin smiled and filled in the check. As he handed it to me, I was waiting, waiting, waiting. . .
     Then yes! The wink! And a real guy-to-guy, "you are my special friend" wink, too. It suddenly hit me that's why I hadn't made my first million. No winking!
     "I like the way you think, Toby."
     "Thanks. And you can make out a check to me for one thousand. That'll be for twenty hours at fifty an hour." I reached in my drawer for a couple retainer forms.
     "Fifty?" His look said that no self-respecting lawyer charged only fifty dollars an hour.
     "Fifty," was all I said back, though.
     He was the kind of guy who assumed he got more if he paid more, while I felt guilty getting more than I felt I deserved. So in some screwy way, I felt I'd just won a little battle by getting paid less. Besides, who in society decided lawyers should make triple what

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teachers, cops and firemen did? I mean, it's not like they had some world-shattering impressive skill, like a perfectly disguised backhand drop shot or anything.
     Nevin glanced over the retainer before signing both copies, then passed them to Catherine, who signed them without a glance. I signed them as well—meaning for better or worse, I was now their attorney. I gave Nevin their copy. As he took it they started to get up to leave. I thought we had more to cover, but maybe their high breeding could no longer tolerate their shoes' contact with my Astroturf carpeting, and they needed the reassurance of the distressed oak planking and fine Berber awaiting them at home. I wanted to ask at least one more question, though.
     "You still didn't tell me why, after all these years, you wanted to try to make the adoption legal? There's so much to risk."
     Nevin put his copy of my retainer in his jacket pocket, maybe so it would be out of my reach and I couldn't grab it back.
     For once his confidence seemed to sag and he took a second to answer. "Oh, didn't we tell you? The thing is. . ."
     He decided to focus on picking imaginary lint off his slacks and let the words trail off.
     Catherine finished for him. "We're being blackmailed."
     The word hung in the air for a moment.
     "About the adoption?" I asked. Actually, I should have said the lack of one.
     They both nodded.
     Now it was making sense. Here was the motivation for setting the adoption straight. Do it before it possibly became public and got even more complicated. Unlike judges and District Attorneys, a blackmailer wasn't intimidated by their wealth and power. The saddest part of all this was that Lynn's welfare was evidently just a by-product. The issue was damage control.
     "And you think the blackmailer is Melanie."
     "Who else could it be?" Nevin said. "No one else knew."

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She did seem the most likely suspect. Her, or someone she told.
     "How much is she asking for?"
     Nevin again seemed at a loss for words and he looked to Catherine.
     "She's not asking for money," she said.
     And I thought this case couldn't get any stranger.
     "Then what is she asking for?"
     Nevin found his voice, confusion masked with an indignant snort.
     "Justice! Can you believe it? She wants justice!"
     He looked to Catherine, both completely lost in the concept of the word as it applied to them.
     "What the hell does that mean?" he asked.
     I wasn't sure, but it sounded like someone was planning to teach them.

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