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Liz checked the address Alice had given her for Jessica Carson. She knew the street; it was in an older neighborhood. She pulled up in front of a small house painted blue with orange trim. The small front yard was full of bushes and flowers that exploded with color, even in November. She went to the front door and rang the doorbell.
The door opened to reveal a woman who was, by Liz’s estimate of the dates she had worked for the doctor, 65 years old. She looked at least 15 years younger. She was tall and very thin; her legs looked like sticks, yet corded with muscles. She was wearing a long-sleeved white T-shirt under a dark green plaid jumper dress. Her legs were bare and she had white cotton ankle socks and white tennis shoes on her feet. Her eyes were blue and her bifocals had purple plastic frames. She smiled and held her hand out; her were long and her nails short, blunt, and clean.
“Detective Roberts? I’m Jessica Carson. Please come in.”
Liz shook her hand and followed her inside. The living room was small, decorated with a purple theme. Floor to ceiling built-in bookcases in dark wood flanked the small stone fireplace on one wall. The other walls were painted dark purple. The sofa was covered in a print with dark purple running through, the two chairs were a lighter shade of purple, The rug on the hardwood floor was a deep, soft pile in squares of colors matching the colors of the sofa. Liz and Jessica each sat in one of the chairs.
“I was noticing all the flowers in your front yard,” Liz told her. “Very colorful... beautiful.”
“Thank you. I decided when I bought this house 30 years ago that if it’s not pretty, it doesn’t go in my front yard, and if it’s not edible it doesn’t go in my backyard. I don’t have much of a yard in back or front, but in back I’ve got dwarf fruit trees and my vegetable garden.”
“Sounds like a lot of work.”
“Yes, it is... especially canning all the fruits and vegetables I grow. But it’s what I love. I’m a product of the sixties...I was a true flower child. Grow your own food, love and peace.”
Liz smiled, liking this friendly woman.
“That’s something Ellen and I have in common,” Jessica went on. “Being vegetarians and growing our own food, that is.”
“She’s a vegetarian?”
“Oh yes, all her life. Of course, for me it’s about not killing animals. I don’t even wear leather. For Ellen, it was more of a religious thing.”
“Religious?”
“Sure. She told me her mother was a devout Seventh-day Adventist, although her father wasn’t. But her mother raised Ellen and her brother in the church... and as vegetarians. I never knew Ellen to go to church, but evidently the vegetarian thing stuck.”
“Were you close?”
“As close as Ellen ever let anyone get. I think she was hurt sometime and she has always kept a wall around herself. But she has been a good friend to me. I go to see her at least once a week.”
“When did you start working for her?”
“In 1970. In the ‘60s, I dropped out of college and went to San Francisco... Haight-Ashbury. I’m telling you,” she said with a smile, “I was a real flower child.”
“Did that include drugs?”
“Some... but I never got into them too much. It scared me to see what happened to some of my friends. I ended up back in Fresno in 1970, broke, disowned by my family, no job skills. Ellen hired me as a receptionist. Later she helped put me through business college and made me her office manager. I owe her a lot... and I’m not the only one.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ellen helped a lot of people. There were her charities, of course... anything involving children. But she helped other people go to school, too. Especially minorities; black kids, Hispanic kids. She was big on education and downright passionate about civil rights. She gave money to several organizations. She and I went to hear Martin Luther King Jr. speak once. It was down in Anaheim, just a couple of weeks before he was assassinated.” Jessica stopped and peered at Liz over the top of her glasses. “Is this the kind of thing you were expecting to hear about her?”
“I honestly didn’t have any expectations,” Liz said with a chuckle. “And what you’ve told me fits with the newspaper articles I’ve found about her work with charity.”
“So what is it that you are investigating, and how does Ellen tie into it?”
“A woman named Linda Graly came to me last week and said that before her mother died, she told her that she didn’t give birth to her and that they had bought her as a newborn... from Dr. Goodman.”
“Linda Graly?” Jessica wrinkled her forehead in concentration. “Wasn’t her maiden name Thomas? I went to school with Linda Thomas... we graduated the same year.”
“Yes, that was her maiden name.”
“Her parents were rich... and she says they bought her? From Ellen? That’s ridiculous!”
“Maybe,” Liz told her, “but there is something to her story. She had a DNA test done and her mother was not her birth mother.”
“Well, then, maybe she was adopted and they never bothered to tell her. And maybe Ellen even helped with the adoption... she did facilitate a few private adoptions. But to sell a baby? Not Ellen. She loves children, adores them. She would never be involved in any baby selling ring.”
“She never had any children of her own?”
“No, and she never married. Something else we have in common.” Jessica laughed. “But that’s not to say she didn’t have male companionship. She had a long-term relationship with Angelo, even if they weren’t married.”
“Angelo Goldberg? The contractor? I saw pictures of them in some old newspapers.”
“He’s the one. Fresno was still fairly small back when they met... sometime in the 1950s, I think. Anyway, they had been together a long time by the time I met Ellen. It was still quite the scandal to be so openly dating a married man. But Ellen never cared what people thought of her and even if the society ladies gossiped about her, it didn’t stop them from coming to her to deliver their babies.”
“You said that she facilitated some private adoptions. Tell me how that worked.”
“Usually it was some young, unmarried girl who found herself in trouble. If she decided not to abort, but wanted to give the baby up for adoption, sometimes she would just place it with the county adoption agency. But sometimes Ellen knew of couples wanting to adopt privately.”
“How did she know about them?”
“Oh my goodness, we used to get tons of letters from couples wanting babies. Any doctor’s office does, if obstetrics is any part of the practice. The Santa Rosita Clinic used to get them, too. It would just make you cry. They talk about how much they want children and whatever reason it is that they haven’t been able to conceive or carry one. They send pictures of themselves, smiling and posing in front of their houses... sometimes they have their dog in the pictures.”
“There must be a lot of desperate couples out there.”
“Oh yes, a lot. Anyway, one of those couples, or one that her lawyer recommended, would pay for the girl’s medical bills and living expenses. At some point before I met her, back in the ‘50s, I think, she built a triplex... three apartments. She had so many girls coming to her, alone and scared, that she had the apartments built for them to live in while they were pregnant.”
“There were that many?”
“Oh yes, word gets around when there is a doctor like Ellen who helps girls out the way she did. In fact, I believe that’s how she met Angelo... he built the apartments. I know she hired him to do some remodeling. That would have been around ’71 or ’72, I think.”
“Are the apartments still there?”
“Yes, they are over on Church, about five blocks from where her clinic was. She sold them in the eighties. Once it was legal, more girls got abortions and there weren’t as many wanting to put the babies up for adoption. She didn’t need the apartments.”
“Who was her lawyer?”
“John Ramsey.”
“Ramsey... isn’t that the name of the doctor that she worked for during WWII?”
“Yes, this was his son. Ellen said that his father set them up back when she was working for him and they dated a bit, but they were just friends. He was her lawyer and handled the legal stuff with private adoptions.”
“I don’t suppose he is still around?”
“Oh no,” Jessica said. “He passed away several years ago. But his son is a lawyer, too. Hal Ramsey. He knows Ellen and he might know more about the adoptions.”
“Did Dr. Goodman stay in touch with any of the girls, or the adoptive parents?”
“Not too many. Most of the girls just wanted to get on with their lives. The adoptive parents would send Christmas cards and things like that.” Jessica stopped and frowned, thinking. “There was one woman, though. It’s possible she had been one of Ellen’s ‘girls’ a long time ago. Maybe one of her first. She used to come in every year, in January. She never made an appointment; she would just show up and asked to see Ellen. Ellen always seemed so... solicitous of her. She never refused to see her and never complained about the time the woman took from her patients. They would go into Ellen’s office and then the woman would be in there for 30 minutes or so.”
“And Dr. Goodman never told you who she was or why she was there?”
Jessica shook her head. “Nope. Like I said, Ellen is really a very private person and she just doesn’t reveal much about herself personally.”
“Do you remember the woman’s name?”
“I guess I can tell you, since it was so long ago. It was Sarah something... Sarah... Perkins, I think.”
“Is it possible that Dr. Goodman bypassed the lawyer and the legal fees sometimes and just kept the money for herself?”
“Absolutely not,” Jessica stated firmly. “I know she was probably doing some abortions back before they were legal. But anything Ellen Goodman ever did, it was never about the money. It was always to help someone... especially women and children. That’s just how she is.”
“Well, OK, then. Thank you for your time.”
“I remember Linda from high school, a nice girl, very sweet. I hope she finds her answers. But I know for a fact that Ellen wouldn't sell a baby.”
When Liz left Jessica Carson’s house, she called the station and asked Alice to find a phone number and address on Hal Ramsey, as well as who was in charge of Goldberg Construction these days. She also asked her to see what she could find on Sarah Perkins. Then she drove to Kingsburg to pick up lunch from her mother’s favorite restaurant. She took it to the nursing home to have lunch with her mother.
Elaine Roberts seemed to shrink and grow frailer each time Liz saw her. Her gray hair was fine and wispy, cut short. Her brown eyes were still sharp and alert. Liz realized that her mother had always been petite, but she had loomed large and powerful when Liz was a child.
She was no longer the woman who had terrorized Liz and, to a lesser extent, her sister, when they were children. She was in a wheelchair and the Parkinson's tremors made it impossible for her to feed herself, especially soup. Split pea soup was a favorite and this restaurant was one of the few that didn't make it with pork. Liz tried to take some to her as often as possible, She fed it to her as she ate her own soup and sandwich.
“Did you go to Tulare this weekend,” Elaine asked, the tremors present in her speech as well as her body.
“Yeah, it was nice. Did Stacey bring the kids to visit?”
“Yes... they are getting so big. Stacey is a good mother.”
“She is,” Liz agreed.
“You would be, too,” Elaine told her.
“Don’t start, Ma. Steve has grandchildren... he’s not interested in having a baby. And I’m not much interested myself. I like being ‘Auntie Liz’ just fine.”
“You wouldn’t be... like me.”
“Ma, don’t. It’s not that... really.” Liz caught her mother’s doubtful glance. “OK, maybe it was once. But not now. I just turned forty, it’s kind of late to start having babies. And like I said, Steve is a grandfather.” She smiled and wiped her mother’s mouth, gathering up the remnants of their lunch. “I’m fine, I really am. I love Steve and I love his grandkids and I love all the nieces and nephews. I don’t need to have a baby. I’m happy, Ma.”