Trace of Doubt (10 page)

Ben nodded, encouraging Daniel to go on.

“Then, of course, they found her, God rest her soul. I went to the funeral. I was married by then, but I took it very, very hard. I offered your father my condolences, Billie. I could see how torn up he was.”

“Is there anything at all you can remember that might help us?” I asked.

“I would lie awake nights going over every conversation, every nuance, but nothing. Nothing came to me then. Or now.”

“What about the name Andrew? Does it mean anything to you?”

He looked like he was struggling to remember something.

“Another boyfriend, maybe?” I asked him.

He shook his head. “No. But…something. Give me a minute.” He leaned back in his immense leather chair and pressed his index fingers to his temples and rubbed in a circular motion, in deep thought.

“You know, I think there was someone who had a crush on her. She told me. I mean, it was from when we were still together, maybe. Made her uncomfortable. But for the life of me, I can’t recall.”

“Did you mention it to the police?”

He shook his head. “It was…like a schoolboy crush. But hearing the name, I do recall her one time saying he…what was it? Had some fairy-tale dream of marrying her. I took it to be a childish thing. Like some kid from the Sunday school class she taught at St. Joan’s before she had you kids. Like I said, it was a while ago. But—”

“What?” I leaned forward in my seat.

“I…think she may have been afraid.”

“Thank you, Mr. Carter. Thank you,” I breathed out. This was something. A sliver of something.

“Have I helped?”

“A little. It all helps. It’s like putting together a giant jigsaw puzzle.”

“Can I tell you one story about her?”

“I’d love it.” I leaned forward a little. Tidbits about my mother were rare.

“Well…I was going through my first divorce. I ran into her at the Paramus Park Mall. She was pregnant with you, and she had your brother in a stroller. And I was there buying a Valentine’s gift for the woman who would be my second wife. I was still wistful for your mother. I had her up on a pedestal. And she smiled at me and said something very wise. ‘Daniel, you think you love me with all your heart, but when you have children, you will understand what it means to love with all your being.’ Billie…you and your brother were her soul. She loved your father—much to my chagrin.” He smiled. “But you were her soul.”

I smiled at him. “I can see why she loved you.” I looked over at Ben.

“Thank you for your time.” Ben stood, gave a small bow and turned to leave.

“Thank you,” I said to Daniel. “I really appreciate it.”

Ben left the office leaving me alone with Daniel.

“You know, Billie…I can’t claim that I suffered from her death a fraction of your family’s suffering, but I don’t know as I ever got over the thought of her last hours being horrible like that. Hope you get the bastard.”

“Thanks.”

I left his office and met Ben in the lobby, where he was waiting. He didn’t say anything until we climbed in his car.

“We need to get your father’s DNA.”

“I don’t want him to know. It would break his heart. Let’s drive by his house and see if he’s home. I have the key. I can sneak in and get his toothbrush, or something else.”

“Good. Let’s go.”

I tried to quell the guilty feeling in my stomach. How could I be doing this to my dad, the man who taught me to tie my shoes, who taught me to swing the bat at t-ball?

I gave Ben directions. I noticed he was even more silent than usual.

“What are you thinking?”

“That’s a very American habit.”

“What is?”

“Wanting to know someone else’s thoughts.”

I didn’t reply.

“I think the answer is in front of us, but we just don’t see it yet.”

A short time later I instructed him to turn off the main road, and through a series of left and right turns we ended up in front of my father’s darkened house. He wasn’t home. But I was convinced I would soon be rousing old ghosts.

Chapter 16

“W
ait in the car,” I told Ben. I let myself into Dad’s house with a key, but didn’t turn on the lights. I didn’t want the neighbors to see a strange car in the driveway and tell him someone had been there. I let my eyes adjust to the darkness. He always keeps a small lamp lit on a desk in the den, so the place was dim but not pitch-black. The stairs were directly in front of me, and I took them one at a time to the second-floor landing. Once there, I turned on the hall light and moved down to the master bedroom.

After Mom died, he hadn’t changed much about our house. He still had a king-size bed with a white chenille bedspread, an oak dresser and two oak night stands. They were heavy pieces of furniture and had belonged to my maternal grandparents. Pictures throughout the room were of Mom, Mikey and me. I walked over to his dresser.

I guess you can tell a lot about a man by what he keeps on his dresser. David keeps a copy of the first-edition Camus I gave him, and a photo of me and Bo. My dad had a small crystal dish where he kept his keys and change. Next to it was a wooden box. I lifted its lid and inside were my baby teeth and locks of hair from my first haircut, Mikey’s baby shoe and photos of my mom. I closed the box.

Next to it, in a five-by-seven frame stood a photo of my mother holding me in my christening dress, and next to it was a smaller photo of her on her wedding day. Next to that picture was one of Mikey and her on his first day of kindergarten. My eyes grew moist. I looked away. A wood and pewter crucifix hung on the wall next to the door to the bathroom. I needed to get his toothbrush and just leave.

I walked into the blue-and-white-tiled bathroom, which overlooked the backyard and turned on the light. There, resting in the toothbrush stand, was my dad’s toothbrush. I took it out and felt another tidal wave of guilt swamp me. He would wonder what happened to his toothbrush, wonder how he could have misplaced it. I despised the subterfuge, but I knew if he thought I doubted him, doubted who my father was, I would break his heart.

I shut off the bathroom light. Looking out in the backyard, a silvery sliver of moon hung in the sky. I blinked hard twice. I thought I saw a flashlight in my old treehouse. I looked closer, and I was positive someone was in the treehouse, a ram-shackle old thing built of plywood and two-by-fours by Mikey and me the summer I turned eleven.

I fled from the bathroom and took the stairs two at a time. I ran out the front door, which locked behind me, and raced to the car.

“Ben,” I said, leaning through the passenger window—it was a hot night and he had the windows rolled down. “Someone’s in the backyard.” I put the toothbrush on the passenger seat as he climbed out.

“Stay here!” he commanded.

“Not on your life.” I took off in the direction of my old treehouse. Ben wasn’t far behind me—but I did have a head start on him—and I knew where the treehouse was in the yard. I could have found it blindfolded.

As I neared the treehouse, I could see someone jump down from it.

“Freeze!” I shouted, running faster. My lungs felt like they were bursting, and I started sweating right away in the heat.

The figure, dressed in dark clothes, ran toward the woods. I dashed after him, the underbrush scratching my face and tugging at my pant legs.

My childhood neighborhood is set up with about forty houses backing up to woods, beyond them is a Little League field, and past that is a chain link fence. Beyond that is a horse farm and riding ring. My parents chose it for its bucolic setting but convenience to highways. The woods are dense, and because it was summer, everything was in full bloom, lush, and prickers and sharp leaves clawed at my clothes and hair.

I could hear the man ahead of me—his breathing. I could hear us all crashing through the brush. I held my arms in front of me, feeling like I was running completely blind, but having no choice. Behind me, I heard Ben stumbling through the woods, just like me, grunts and exhales as he pushed through leaves and branches.

“Police! Freeze!” he shouted. “Freeze!”

But the dark-clothed figure ran on. Eventually, the man got to the Little League field. He seemed to get an inhuman burst of energy, and he sprinted across the field and bolted toward the fence, starting to scale it like Spider Man. I ran as hard as I could, turning back once in time to see Ben stumble on a large tree bough.

I raced on. Ben called out to me, “I’m calling for backup. Let him go.”

But I thought this might be my one chance. Ignoring Ben, I sprinted as hard as I could, scaling the fence and managing to grasp the very bottom of the toe of his shoe. He kicked my fingers into the chain-link fence—I felt like he broke them—and then threw one leg, then the other, over the fence. He dropped down and took off toward the horse farm. I got to the top, then fell on the other side with a loud thud. My shoulder registered pain, and I wondered if I had dislocated it.

I rolled over and very slowly stood back up again, shaking my head as if dazed. I could barely make out the man running across the horse field. I couldn’t let him go.

“Shit!” I cursed. I started sprinting toward the horse farm. The barn doors were unlocked and I entered the stable. I could hear the horses were agitated. One was rising up on its hind legs in his stall. I heard someone moving around in the hay in the loft.

“Come out, you bastard!” I shouted up at the rafters.

I ran over to the ladder that went up to the loft. I wasn’t keen on being at a disadvantage—the person on the second floor of a stairwell is always in a better position than the person ascending the stairs. Still, with Ben and backup coming soon, I was less afraid. I started up the ladder and could see him moving toward the open end of the loft.

“Stay right there,” I warned him as I reached the loft.

He looked back at me. No mask, but his face was obscured by the sweatshirt hood he wore. Then he calmly leaped off the edge of the loft and into the hay of the stall below.

I ran toward the edge. He was unhurt, and I wanted to chase him as I saw him get up and head out the barn door, but I was already aching from my fall from the fence.

I ran back to the ladder and started downward. When I reached the bottom, Ben was there.

“Any sign of him?” I asked him in between gasps for breath from the exertion and pain.

He shook his head. “He’s amazingly athletic.”

“I know.” I was panting.

“You’re hurt.”

I nodded.

“Where?”

“Shoulder, mostly.”

He rubbed his hands together and looked intently at them. Then, without another word, he laid his hands on my shoulder. I felt intense warmth. He manipulated my shoulder a bit, and the pain left me.

“What’d you do?”

He just smiled mysteriously at me. “Secret.”

I rotated my arm and shoulder. “It feels okay.”

“Good.”

Backup didn’t arrive for five more minutes. He had called for backup to the Little League field, and one car had arrived—but then hadn’t thought to come to the barn and riding ring.

Ben told the two officers what happened, but it was no use. Our suspect was long gone. The cops dropped us back off at Ben’s car, and we climbed in. I put the toothbrush in an evidence bag, and Ben took me to Paramus where I still had to meet Tommy Salami.

“Thanks, Ben.” I smiled at him as I got out of the car.

“You were a warrior today,” he said.

“So were you.”

My car was in the parking lot, so I assumed Tommy was there. I waved goodbye to Ben and then walked inside. Tommy was waiting at the bar.

“What happened to you?” he asked, pulling a piece of hay from my hair.

“Don’t ask.”

“Why?”

“Because that way, if my father asks you any questions, you can play dumb.”

“Sounds like a plan. I don’t like lying—too much to remember. I always screw it up.”

“Well then, let’s just eat dinner and we won’t tell him anything.”

Tommy and I were seated at a table. But even though I ate and drank wine, I was replaying the night and feeling seriously unnerved. I talked with Tommy, but my mind was already drifting to the world of genetic bar codes. What would my own DNA show when compared with Frank Quinn’s? And who was so interested in me and my family?

Chapter 17

“O
pen wide.” The next morning, at 7:00 a.m., Lewis stood next to me ready to take a swab sample of the inside of my cheek for the DNA testing. I dutifully opened my mouth.

After Lewis was finished, he labeled everything. The lab was silent, and as usual it was just the two of us.

“Wilhelmina, I have something to say.”

“I know what it is.”

“You do not.”

“Lewis, believe it or not, in some sick twist of fate, we appear to be twins separated at birth. I mean, no swab would declare us twins, but I know what you’re going to say and do before you even open your mouth. And you can finish my sentences.”

“Well, I’m going to speak my mind anyway.”

“How uncharacteristically bold of you.”

“Billie, why are you running this test?”

“Because there are rumors that my mother was having an affair. Because there are rumors I might not even be my father’s child. And if I’m not, then that opens up my mother’s murder to a whole new theory. I have to know. Why sign that one letter ‘Daddy’?”

“To mess with you. And beyond that, DNA isn’t parentage.”

“What the hell are you talking about? You’re the leading DNA expert in the friggin’ country, Lewis. DNA is everything.”

“No. I’m telling you I’ve been mistaken all these years.”

I stared at Lewis. I had never, ever known him to say he made a mistake. Our lab,
his
lab, didn’t make them. He didn’t tolerate them. Sloppy lab work or field work was the fastest way to get fired at our lab. That’s why new forensics graduates from across the country flooded us with résumés. They wanted to work for the best. They wanted to work for Lewis LeBarge.

“You don’t make mistakes,” I said evenly.

“I do.”

I exhaled. “What are you talking about, Lewis?”

“Billie…when I hired you, I heard…might as well tell you, from Morris Cheswick, who your father was.”

Morris was this absolutely anal Ph.D. criminalist who was in line for my job before I got it.

“And?” I arched an eyebrow. This was the first I ever heard of this.

“And I decided, out of pure curiosity, that I would interview you. I mean, your academic credentials were impeccable. Your work experience stellar. You were brilliant—that much was obvious. Your letters of recommendation were glowing. All the things I like to see—driven, intense, meticulous, genius. But I had no intention of giving you the job. A daughter of a known felon working in a crime lab. The idea is laughable. And then I met you.”

I recalled my interview. He was maddeningly obtuse and acted bemused the whole time.

“And I decided, dear Wilhelmina, that I would far more prefer to come in at 7:00 a.m. to your sardonic sense of humor and your beauty and charm and charisma, than to come in and face the boring Morris Cheswick. You were smarter and better qualified, anyway.”

“So what does this have to do with the swab you just took?”

“Well, then we became friends. You tolerated my penchant for blood-spatter patterns, and I tolerated your habit of occasionally showing up with Tommy Salami. Then you took me to meet your family. Remember? I couldn’t get back to New Orleans that Christmas—too much of a backlog at the lab to take the week off. You felt sorry for me.”

I nodded. “I remember.”

“I tried to kiss you under the mistletoe, but you told me we were better off as friends. I acted hurt, you snapped at me to get over it. And then your brother came and talked me into doing shots called Angel’s Nipples. Only he used a cruder term for the anatomical part.”

“Oh, yeah. What? Sambuca and Baileys? I don’t even remember.”

“Neither do I. Frankly, I barely remember the night, but after that, I was officially adopted by your family.”

“Yes, you’re our long-lost New Orleans brother with the tarantula and brain fetish.”

“Billie…one thing I’ve learned is your family loves you as much as it’s possible for one human being to love another. And even if that swab there says something else in terms of the little spiral ladders of the human genome, you are a Quinn and your daddy couldn’t love you any more.”

My eyes welled a little. “But, Lewis…”

“No, Billie. Is it worth finding out? Frank Quinn is your father. Michael Quinn is your brother. DNA be damned, Billie. That’s reality. Do you really want to know?”

“Yes.” I turned around and left his office before he could see me cry. I did want to know. It wasn’t that his logic didn’t make sense. It did. But I still needed to know. I had learned, over the years, that I shared something with children of people who committed suicide, people whose parents are murdered. The specter of the event cast a long shadow, years and years after the murder, after the death. It colored everything about my life.

When I got to my desk, I saw the framed picture of Mikey and me and my dad from game six of the Mets versus Boston Red Sox game. We had won. What was it, 1987? I remembered that the game had been rained out once, and when it took place the next night, it had been unseasonably chilly with a cold, steady, wet drizzle. And in the euphoria of New York celebrating the sheer joy of winning the series, we hadn’t even noticed how cold we were.

We had cheered and shrieked and danced. We rode the train from the stadium into Manhattan and made our way to Times Square. This was before Disney brought
Beauty and the Beast
and the aura of cleanliness to Times Square. Back then, it was still pawn shops and a few peep shows. But mostly I remember cabbies stopping right there in the middle of the street and getting out and dancing in the sheer jubilance of a city celebrating.

At some point, a cabbie hugged me and Mikey and we were all screaming, “Number One! Number One!” I asked the cabbie to take a picture of Mikey and me and Dad, and he obliged. And that picture, the joy of the night on our faces, sat in a silver frame.

I looked at my computer. Not yet seven-thirty in the morning. I picked up my phone and dialed Mikey.

“Hello?” he answered, his voice croaking.

“Did I wake you?” Of course I had.

“What’s up?” I could sense he was waking himself, worried.

“Nothing. I just wanted to hear your voice.”

“Baby? What’s going on? You and David have a fight?”

“No.”

“What, then? I hear it.”

“Nothing,” I insisted.

“Billie, I’m the guy who used to catch tadpoles and put them in your apple juice glass in the morning. You can’t bullshit me.”

I was silent. Why had I called him?

“Mikey?”

“Yeah?”

“Will you love me always? No matter what? My brother until the day I die?”

“Billie,” his voice was soothing. “Ain’t nothing you can do to chase me away. I’d take a bullet for you, and nothing will ever change that. You want me to come meet you somewhere?”

“No. I just needed to hear that.”

“Billie…I know I’m sometimes more trouble than I’m worth. I know it’s broken your heart when I’m in jail and I make you worry. But you gotta know that I love you so much it hurts. You’re my sister, yeah, but…you know I don’t like to talk about this shit.”

“I know.”

“So I’ll just say it. I was there that night with you, Billie. I was there. I was there when we went to school and the kids stared at us because our mom disappeared. I beat up that boy who teased you about it that time. It goes beyond brother and sister. We’re one heart. We’re like twins.”

Twins. If only our DNA would show that.

“Thanks. I just needed to hear that.”

“Love you, brat.”

“Love you, too.”

I hung up the phone. What would happen to Mikey and me if it turned out we had different fathers? I didn’t even want to think about it. I risked not only breaking my heart, but my father’s and Mikey’s.

I lifted a model of a spiral of a gene from my desk. It was plastic and colorful, a giveaway paperweight from a company that made the swabs we used for testing. It twisted and spiraled looking a little like a ladder made of licorice that’s been twirled around.

Scientists were mapping out the human genome even as I toiled in the lab. Each day brought advances in understanding of who we were as humans. Because of the work Lewis and I did, we tended to believe humans were what their genetic destiny created them to be.

Nature or nurture. I suppose I was about to find out.