Brett Asks Brad to Investigate Johnny Manns

Brett Bohlinger’s decision to ask Brad Midar to investigate Johnny Manns turns a secret uncovered in her mother’s journal into a search Brett claims as her own. It follows the revelation that Charles Bohlinger was not her biological father and marks a shift from grieving a father who rejected her to seeking the possibility of a relationship with the man she believes is her birth father.

The Journal and the Paternity Revelation

Brett tells Brad that she has made her last visit to Charles Bohlinger’s grave, not because she has made peace with him, but because she now understands that he was not her real father. Her mother’s journal identifies a romance with Johnny in the summer before Brett’s birth. Its final entry is dated August 29, the day Charles discovered the affair and Johnny left town. Brett relates that her mother had been devastated and wanted to leave Charles, but Johnny made her stay. Although he loved her, he had musical ambitions and could not settle down.

The journal does not settle every part of the story. Brett cannot know whether her mother realized she was pregnant when Johnny left, but she estimates that her mother was about two months along with Johnny’s child. She is nevertheless certain that Johnny Manns was her father. She points to the lack of resemblance and connection between herself and Charles, and to the new explanation the journal offers for Charles’s dislike of her.

From Explanation to Search

Brett describes her response as a mixture of hurt, deception, and fury that her mother never told her, even after Charles died. The discovery also brings relief: for years she had interpreted her father’s rejection as evidence that she had been a bad girl. Learning that she was not his daughter changes the meaning of that rejection and begins to loosen her anger toward him. The revelation does not remove the injury, but it gives Brett another way to understand it.

That explanation immediately opens a new uncertainty. Brett has a father somewhere, but she does not know how to find him or how he will react if she appears at his door. Brad takes her hand and tells her he will love her. The reassurance affects her, though she folds her hand back in her lap before asking Brad to help locate him. The search begins not with a confident plan but with Brett’s fear and a request for support.

Clues and Failed First Leads

Brad first proposes searching online, and Brett responds with teasing skepticism. The practical problem soon becomes clear: her mother wrote the surname as Manns, but Brett is willing to consider Mann, and has also tried John, Johnny, and Jonathan. The sheer volume of search results—more than ten million—makes an unrefined search useless.

Brad asks what else the journal says and whether Johnny came from Chicago. Brett supplies a more distinctive cluster of clues: he was from North Dakota, probably around her mother’s age, and sublet the apartment above her parents’ home on Bosworth Avenue in Rogers Park. He was a musician and worked at Justine’s, a nearby bar. Brad seizes on the bar as a possible place to ask about him and suggests going there. Brett’s response makes clear that this is not enough; she says she has already checked it out and that they need an expert. The exchange shows both the limits of an impulsive search and Brett’s growing determination to pursue leads beyond the first obvious possibility.

Brad’s Investigation and Brett’s Goal

Brad offers the help of Steve Pohlonski, a detective he sometimes uses for divorce cases. He considers Pohlonski good at investigative work but cannot guarantee that he will find Johnny. Brett rejects the possibility of giving up: if Pohlonski cannot locate him, she will find someone else and continue searching. Her insistence makes the request more than a casual inquiry or a tentative experiment.

Brad recognizes the difference, telling Brett that this is the first time he has seen her embrace a goal with enthusiasm and that he is proud of her. Brett understands that the search has changed ownership. Finding her biological father had appeared on her mother’s list of goals, but Brett no longer experiences it as an assignment imposed from beyond the grave. A relationship with her father is something she wants deeply and has wanted throughout her life. The episode therefore joins a practical investigation to a personal turning point: the journal gives Brett the name and clues, but the desire to pursue them is now unmistakably her own.