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“Did Mr.Harris say why he was asking about her?”
“He was trying to find records of an old adoption.”
“He made a note that you’d asked about old belongings he might have found. What was that all about?”
Roger swept his hand around the cluttered space. “I sell old things for a living. I didn’t want to waste an opportunity to get business.”
“Your sister said you have some files from the orphanage. Have you seen anything about an adoption?”
Roger bent over and moved a box. “Not much. I tried to find out a bit about it and thought I’d found someone related to the Balandin family, but it turned out she was just a cousin and didn’t know anything about them.”
His cagey actions and reply aroused suspicion, and Lucas studied his expression when Roger rose without meeting their gazes. “Was that person you found Anna Martin?”
“Yeah. So what? It was a dead end.”
“She was murdered by a burglar.”
Roger’s eyes widened and unease flickered in his gaze. “You’re kidding. Any idea who killed her?”
“Not yet. You weren’t looking for anything specific that Mr.Harris might have found?”
Roger finally stared at him and lifted a brow. “Like what?”
“You tell me.”
“I got nothing to say. It’s all old history. Look, I got a client coming any minute, and the last thing I need is to be found talking to cops. Scram, why don’t you?”
Lucas shrugged and handed him a card. “If you think of anything, give me a call.”
Roger didn’t look at the card but stuffed it into his shirt pocket. “Sure.”
Lucas and Vince headed for the exit. “He knows more than he’s saying,” Lucas said when they got outside. “I’ll bet he ran across something in the files about the egg, and he’s been curious ever since. I suspect his lead to Anna Martin alerted the Russians to her connection to the Balandin family, so they decided to search her house. Unfortunately, she walked in on them.”
Lucas glanced at his watch. “It’s been long enough that Grace’s daughter should be back. Let’s go see if she’s seen anything of interest in the files.”
The men drove back to Grace’s house, and a white sedan was parked in the drive. They went to the front door and rang the bell.
Grace answered the door. “I was just telling Jessie about your questions. She’s happy to talk to you about the files. Come with me.”
She led them through the entry to the living room, where a woman in her late twenties sat with a box at her feet. Papers were strewn on her lap and across the sofa. She looked a lot like her mother with dark curls and a heart-shaped face.
She looked up with a smile when she heard them enter. “Mom told me about your questions, and I was pulling some papers for you. Have a seat and we can talk about it.” The men settled on chairs across from her, and she pulled out a wrinkled paper. “I had these in my car, so the burglar didn’t get them. It was an interesting time back then. My great-grandmother Natalie was a nurse at a small orphanage in Savannah. There are so many heartbreaking stories.”
“How long did your great-grandmother work there?”
“Twenty years or so?” She glanced at her mother for confirmation, and Grace nodded. “My great-grandfather died when my grandma was two, and my great-grandmother went to work there for her kids. There were four of them.”
Lucas leaned forward. “We’re particularly interested in twin girls who were left at the orphanage about seventy years ago. Last name of Balandin.”
“I read something about that adoption. It’s sad, really. Some of the information is missing. Uncle Roger has some of the boxes from back then so I don’t have the full story, but there’s an old diary of Granny’s that talked about a Russian girl who came in. She’d been working at one of the big plantations and had gotten pregnant. No one realized it, and she delivered twin girls in an old smokehouse. Another employee told her about the orphanage, and she brought the babies there. Granny was working that day and said it broke her heart at how much the mother wanted to keep them.” She shook her head. “So sad.”
It sounded right. “Can I see the diary?”
“Here it is.” She handed over an old leather journal. “It’s marked with the yellow sticky note.”
Lucas flipped to the page and read the entry. “Your granny said she wished she could adopt the girls to keep them together. So she knew they’d have to be split up.”
Jessie nodded. “On the next page, Granny mentions the mother left some belongings to help the girls find each other. An old egg and a pendant. I never found anything like that, though.”
