It had gone through a number of iterations over the years, opening and shutting down with astonishing regularity as one owner after another disappeared into some kind of financial black hole. When I stepped inside, I saw that very little of the restaurant identity remained. Just to the left of the front entrance was a small chapel. To the right, where a maître d’ might have stood in the past, was an office with the word DIRECTOR stenciled on the door. Part of the commercial kitchen had been redesigned to function as the source of food for a small communal dining hall where a few residents were still finishing breakfast. Adjoining that was a lobby area with a wall-mounted TV set surrounded by a collection of sofas and chairs. The remainder of the space had been carved up into a series of studio apartments, each containing a bedroom and a private bath.
I turned to the right and knocked on the door to the office.
“Come in.”
The room was small. A well-used wooden desk took up most of the floor space, leaving room—barely—for two visitors’ chairs. Directly in front of me, a large computer monitor sat facing the far side of the desk, with neat stacks of paper situated on either side. At first glance the room appeared to be empty, but then a tiny fist appeared on one side of the monitor, turning it slightly. The motion revealed a woman so small in stature that she’d been completely invisible behind the intervening screen.
“Yes,” she said, “may I help you?”
Reverend Rachel Seymour sat bolt upright on a chair that had been raised high enough to make the surface of the desk workable for her. She was probably somewhere in her fifties. Her dark hair was pulled back in a bun. She wore a black blazer, complete with a white clergy collar showing at her throat, and she was all business.
“My name is J. P. Beaumont,” I explained, handing her one of my cards. “I believe you might have met my wife a few months back at a YWCA luncheon. Her name is Mel Soames. She’s the new chief of police in Bellingham.”
“I remember her,” Reverend Rachel Seymour said. “Mel and I managed to exchange a few words in the course of the luncheon. She’s very impressive.”
“She said the same about you, Reverend Seymour,” I told her.
“Call me Rachel, please,” she said. “Have a seat, Mr. Beaumont. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
In order to enlist Rachel’s help, I needed to tell her the story, and over the course of the next half hour I did exactly that. Well, almost. I might have neglected to say that there was a good chance I was Naomi Dale’s biological father. After all, that had not yet been confirmed. She listened quietly, nodding occasionally as I spoke.
“Your source is correct,” Rachel said when I finished. “I’m familiar with that particular encampment, and it’s definitely limited to women only. Many of the women who find themselves on the street these days are fleeing from domestic-violence situations or have been victimized while homeless. A surprisingly large number of them are suffering from PTSD, and that’s why so many shelters, including this one, don’t take in men, although God knows there are enough men out there who are also being victimized and are in need of help. So what are you asking?”
“I was hoping I could get you to agree to accompany me to the camp and intercede on my behalf in order to verify if Naomi is actually there. With any luck we may be able to persuade her to come speak to her father and perhaps even agree to relinquish her parental rights.”
“And if she refuses?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I suppose that puts us back at square one.”
“Just to be clear,” Rachel told me, “I won’t accompany you to the camp.”
My heart fell. So my pitch hadn’t worked. It was a complete washout.
“Okay, then,” I said, starting to get to my feet. “Sorry to have taken up so much of your morning. I’ll be on my way.”
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t help,” Rachel said, motioning me back into my chair. “I said I wouldn’t take you there. That would be a provocation. I know Dorothy, the woman who’s in charge. We’ve had several previous dealings. If Naomi Dale is actually there and willing to come with me, fine, I’ll bring her here. This might be a neutral place for Naomi and her father to meet