Free Moonbird Boy by Abigail Padgett Page B

shuffling of paper could be heard over the phone.
    "There are no relatives of Mr. Wagman listed except for his son, Bird," the woman whispered, obviously hurt by Bo's failure to appreciate her crisp professionalism. "And Bird is the sole inheritor of Mr. Wagman's estate. Mr. Cassidy began making arrangements for the boy as soon as Mr. Reno called yesterday to tell him of the death. But this is a complicated estate to probate. It'll take months."
    Bo sighed.
    "I really can't tell you anything else," the woman insisted. "I'll have Mr. Cassidy phone you when he's free. Thank you for calling."
    "Uh-huh," Bo mumbled into the phone as the connection was severed.
    A subsequent phone call to the Tafel School in Pasadena, where Billy Reno said Bird had attended first grade, revealed nothing that Bo didn't already suspect. No, the principal said agreeably, there were no relatives listed on Bird's registration forms. Neither was any name other than Bird given for the boy. Unusual names were not uncommon among the children of entertainment industry parents, he noted. The school had educated children named Cloud, Dalmatian, and even Broccoli. What was uncommon was that Bird had failed first grade and was considered a discipline problem even by the most tolerant among the staff. A school counselor suspected Bird might be suffering from ADHD and had asked the father to authorize psychiatric testing, but the father refused permission.
    "Thank you," Bo said, and hung up. So Mort had known, or suspected what lay behind his son's unproductive behavior. But he hadn't been able to face it. The man who believed relatives had put animal brains into his head wanted his son to be "normal." Wanted it desperately enough to stand in the way of its happening.
    Bo sighed and took seven pieces of paper from the file drawer in her desk and began filling them out. The legal paperwork that would give San Diego County legal custody of Bird Wagman. The petition would be granted this afternoon, pro forma. There were no relatives, no other option for Bird. Monday morning there would be a detention hearing, also pro forma. There was nobody to protest the seizure of the child by a system.
    Over the weekend Bo would dictate a court report by telephone, documenting the facts of the case. She would ask that Bird be excused from attendance at this and subsequent hearings due to the emotional stress inherent in the setting. She would alert the county's Revenue and Recovery Department of Bird's financial resources, and advise the court that expenses connected to Bird were likely to be reimbursed. A probate judge could order that at any time. Then she'd ask the court to recommend psychiatric testing and to authorize ongoing medical supervision and medication if necessary.
    And it would probably be necessary, she thought, staring balefully at her purse, inside which were her own medications. If Bird did have ADHD he'd be given Ritalin or some other stimulant, which in the neurochemistry of childhood would have a calming effect. And he might grow out of his restless, impulsive behavior at the end of puberty, or he might not. Bo drew a scale in which one side was loaded with rocks as she phoned Eva Broussard, outlined what she needed to know, and agreed to meet the psychiatrist for dinner. Then she drove the few miles from her Levant Street office to juvenile court, filed Bird's petition, and went home.
    Her apartment was palpably empty when she opened the door. Too empty. A queasy wave of grief swept threateningly from her lungs to her stomach, but she stopped it by pounding gently on her belt buckle with both fists. A snapshot of Mildred taken at Dog Beach nearly four years ago when Bo had moved to San Diego rested on an easel in the living room studio. Behind the snapshot was a blank, gessoed canvas.
    Inspired, Bo threw her white outfit on the floor and pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt. She could feel the portrait in her hands. The brush strokes needed to make paint look