Moonbird Boy by Abigail Padgett

Dickinson, too."
    Estrella's dark eyes widened in alarm. Actually in panic, Bo thought.
    "Bo, it's too soon for you to come back to work," Estrella said. "I knew it yesterday when you were in such a rush to get your hair repaired. Look, I know you want to help Mort's little boy, but why don't you just let me do that while you... you know, stabilize for a few more days?"
    "Stabilize?" Bo repeated dramatically, pushing her dark glasses down her nose in order to glare over them. "If I were any more 'stable' I'd have to become a right-wing religious fanatic with a petition to abolish votes for women. Surely you don't want that."
    "No," Estrella agreed. Her manicured fingers drummed thoughtfully on her abdomen. "The baby can't have a right-wing godmother."
    "There you have it then. So who got Bird's case?"
    The little office felt at once familiar and hostile, Bo noticed. As if the walls and utilitarian furnishings had taken her absence personally and were at best ambivalent about her return. The awareness, if permitted to expand, could become paranoia. But the medications would control that, Bo reassured herself. In the meantime she rearranged items on her desk with large and proprietary movements, dramatizing for the furniture her right to be there.
    "You're in luck; it's Nick Paratore," Estrella answered. "The case file's on his desk across the hall, but he isn't in yet."
    Bo sank into her swivel chair with a determined smile. Things were falling into place. "Does Madge know anything about Mort, about Bird and his dad being at Ghost Flower with me?" she asked. If their supervisor, Madge Aldenhoven, knew anything of the connection there would be no chance of getting the case. It was a flat rule that investigators with any connection whatever to a child could not investigate that child's case. Not that it mattered in this situation, Bo thought. There were no allegations of child abuse, just a need to locate the family. No conflict of interest.
    Estrella stood and faced the window as if modeling her layered maroon knit maternity ensemble for the eucalyptus tree outside. "Bird's file says he was picked up from Ghost Flower Lodge after the death of his father," she answered slowly. "Does Madge know that's where you were?"
    Bo remembered an absence of get-well cards from her supervisor during her recuperation, a complete dearth of concerned phone calls. "Not unless you told her."
    Estrella adjusted a carved wooden comb in her upswept hair and then sighed. "She didn't ask."
    "Well, then," Bo grinned, rubbing her palms together, "where's Nick?"
    "At a save the sharks demonstration," Estrella whispered, eyeing the door as if Madge Aldenhoven were glued to its other side. "You know how he's into diving and snorkeling and all that? Well, after the death of that woman yesterday, shark-hunters descended on San Diego in droves. And this marine life protection group Nick's in—it's called Scales of Justice if you can believe that—is sponsoring a demonstration against the big hunt that's going out this morning. Nick and the others are in the water in wetsuits waving white flags at boatloads of heavily armed shark haters. He told Madge he had to go to the dentist."
    "What does Nick's group think..." Bo began and then stopped as the door swooped open, propelled by Madge Aldenhoven in an astonishing navy silk blouse with huge white polka dots. The blouse's floppy bow completed a look Bo associated with clowns.
    "I see you're back early," Madge addressed a space two inches to the left of Bo's broad grin. "And dressed as a bride. No doubt this has something to do with your illness and so everyone is expected to ignore it. But most people don't wear white after Labor Day, Bo. Surely you'd be more comfortable if you made some attempt to fit in."
    Bo couldn't stop envisioning Madge in a sawdust ring, juggling bowling pins. "The Labor Day rule doesn't apply in the tropics," she replied. "Everyone in Boston knew that when I was a kid."
    Madge