Heidi looked at me and smiled. “We are certain that you are indeed the biological daughter of a woman named Winona Hidalgo.”
“That was her name?” I repeated it, just to test its impact. “Winona Hidalgo.” I thought maybe it would strike a chord of remembrance, that I would feel something when I heard it. But it was foreign to me, as unremarkable as the name Heidi Morgan or Andy Martinez. It was as if I had never heard it before.
It was Sergeant Martinez's turn to take center stage. He flipped the big file open, and Wilson reached for my hand under the table. I clung to it, breathless.
“Winona Hidalgo was found murdered at the Stowaway Motel on August 5, 1993. At the time of her death she was nineteen years old. In fact, she had just turned nineteen on August the second, three days before.
“She was murdered?” I gasped. I don't know what I'd expected, but it hadn't been murder.
“We found paraphernalia at the scene, and blood work came back that supported drugs in her system, but her purse and her car were missing, and there were contusions to the back of her head. Apparently, Miss Hidalgo had won about five grand from the slots at a local truckstop a couple of days before, and at the time of her death, she had a nice little wad of cash on her. The money ended up getting her killed. From the tox screen, it looks like she was pretty strung out and going for round two. The dealer decided she was easy pickings and took her purse and pounded her head into the nightstand. There wasn't much evidence of a struggle, and we had no witnesses. But we were able to get a visual off a security camera on her car leaving the scene, with a decent look at the driver. The case was pretty cut and dried. Until we found out from extended family that there was a missing child. That's where the case hit a standstill. You had literally vanished into thin air.
“This is a picture of her, taken from her drivers license records, which puts her at about sixteen in this photo.” Detective Martinez slid an 8X10 photo of a smiling girl across the table, and when I let my eyes settle on her face, I saw myself there. Wilson sucked in his breath beside me, and his hand tightened around mine.
“She looks like you, Blue,” he whispered. “The eyes are different, and you have a lighter complexion . . . but the smile and the hair . . . that's you.”
“Yeah. We noticed it right off too, and as a result we were pretty confident when we met with you in October that we had found Winona's baby girl. Of course, we couldn't say anything at the time.” Detective Moody smiled broadly, and I tried to smile back.
Winona Hidalgo's driver's license description said her hair was black and her eyes brown. Her ethnicity was listed as Native American. She was five feet four inches tall and one hundred eighteen pounds. I was taller than she had been but just as slim. I couldn't take my eyes off her. She didn't look evil. She just looked young.
“Initially, we had the notification of death made by local law enforcement, but when the search for the child, uh..when the search for you stalled, Detective Moody and I went and visited with the family personally.”
“I have family?” The churning in my stomach resumed with a vengeance as I felt what little identity I had was being wrenched from my grasping hands.
“You have a grandmother, Stella Hidalgo, who is Winona's mother. You and your mother lived with her until Winona took off with you when you were just shy of two years old. Stella Hidalgo lives in Utah on the Paiute Indian Reservation. We have contacted her, and she is eager to see you.”
“Does my grandmother know who my father is?”
“Yes. Your biological father is a man by the name of Ethan Jacobsen.” Another picture was taken from the file and handed to me. A boy with spiky blonde hair and bright blue eyes stared out, unsmiling. His shoulders were wide and square under a red jersey with a white number 13 displayed proudly on his chest. It looked like a yearbook shot, the kind they take of each football player, where all the guys tried to looker bigger and badder than they really were.
“I've seen that expession before,” Wilson murmured, and when my eyes met his there was tenderness in his gaze. “I saw it the first day I met you. I interpreted it as the 'sod off' look.”
The room grew quiet as everyone seemed to sense I needed a minute to emotionally catch up. Eventually, Detective Martinez resumed speaking.
“According to Ethan Jacobsen, and according to Stella Hidalgo, Ethan wanted nothing to do with Winona when she told him of her pregnancy. His family is on record claiming they begged her to give the baby up for adoption. They did give Winona some money when you were about eighteen months old, which Stella Hidalgo confirmed, but Winona left the area shortly after and none of them ever saw her or you again.