by Tom Swyers
“I asked around, talked to a cashier at the convenience store on the corner.”
“Never heard of Edith Nowak.”
“You’d have no reason to know her. She worked in the prison’s administrative offices.”
“What’s her daughter have to do with me?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe nothing. But we still gotta check this out. We don’t have much else to go on at this point.”
“Check what out?” Phillip asked.
“We’re going dumpster diving tonight.”
“What does that mean?”
“We’re going to pick through Janet Nowak’s trash.”
“Isn’t that against the law?”
“No, not really. Everyone here uses a commercial garbage service that owns the trash containers and loans them out to customers. Tomorrow is garbage day. Once Janet takes out the trash to the curb, it’s considered abandoned property. So we can take her garbage and do whatever we want to with it.”
“Really?”
“Yep. Further up the hill, where the B&Bs are, the college students make quite a killing picking through the stuff they put out for the trash.”
“Why would we want her trash? What are we looking for?”
“Her DNA.”
“Really? I don’t understand. How do you get that in the trash?”
“We find something with blood on it, some hair, a Q-tip with earwax, dental floss, a discarded toothbrush, some other bodily fluid.”
“That’s crazy. Why are we looking for her DNA?”
“I think she’s Commissioner O’Neil’s daughter.”
Phillip thought for a second. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“No, I’m dead serious. O’Neil has been married to the same woman for decades. Has four children by her. Janet would make five. Her mom tells me that Janet doesn’t know who her father is and this has caused a rift between the two of them. It sounds like Edmund O’Neil and Edith Nowak have a secret to hide. I think he’s the father.”
“I still don’t get what that has to do with me. It seems like such a waste of time. I just want them to leave me alone, so I can cut hair for a living.”
“It’s not a waste. Trust me. Remember, I know best for things that take place outside of the prison walls.” David was not laying all of his cards out on the table for Phillip. He had figured out another possible angle to the relationship between Edith Nowak and Edmund O’Neil earlier that day. It was so salacious and provocative that he hesitated to tell Phillip about it at all. One thing he knew for sure: now was not the time or place to get into that discussion.
Phillip crossed his arms, shook his head, and his voice took on a petulant edge. “Did you get O’Neil’s DNA already or do we have to stake out his house and pick through his trash too?”
“Fortunately, no need to go there. Picking though his trash would be problematic. He’s got a wife and children who all still live with him. I couldn’t isolate his DNA in his trash. It could belong to anyone in the house. Even his pets. I had to come up with a different plan for the commissioner.
“So I followed him yesterday out of his office. Same building as the Bureau of Licenses that we were at for the hearing. The building directory listed him as being on one of the top floors. I took a trip up to his floor just to scope it out. It looked like the agency had just moved into that space. Workers were hanging a big sign that said ‘Bureau of Prisons’ in the corridor right off the elevator. There were a bunch of suits coming and going, mostly men. They had security buzzers on the office doors that could only be activated by a state swipe card.
“Here’s the thing--I saw employees hold the door for others so they wouldn’t have to pull out their cards. So you can beat that system if you have to. But there really wasn’t much I could do up there.
“I guess I could have loitered in the halls, wait for him to come out, and follow him to the bathroom to see what developed. But I’d stick out if I just hung around and had no place to go. I wouldn’t look like I belonged. I’d stick out and draw someone’s attention. Besides, getting his DNA from the bathroom didn’t sound too appealing or too promising either. I wasn’t going to swab his toilet or urinal. I could be getting anyone’s DNA or nothing at all.
“So I left and waited in the lobby for lunch time. When I spotted him as he got off the elevator, I trailed along to the cafeteria hoping to get a utensil or a piece of food with some saliva. Sadly, no such luck.
“But after lunch, I saw him pop a piece of gum in his mouth. He talked awhile with some other suits at his table before getting up to leave. I followed him out. I wanted that wad of gum. Yet I thought it was hopeless to expect he’d toss it out before he hit the elevator. Then I got lucky.
“Near the elevators, he stopped at the barbershop in the lobby for a trim—he’s got quite a head of white hair. It was a one seat shop. I followed him in and sat down like I was a customer in waiting. He tossed the gum out in a tissue before he sat down in the chair. When it was my turn, after O’Neil left and the barber was distracted, I went to the garbage pail, pretended to throw something out, picked the gum in a tissue up, and stashed it in my pocket.”
Phillip’s jaw dropped at David’s lengthy explanation. “Couldn’t you have gotten a lock of his hair and get his DNA from that?”
“No can do. You’d need a hair follicle—the root—to get any usable DNA, and O’Neil didn’t go to the barber to get his eyebrows plucked.”
“What did you do with the gum?”
“I had to send it in to a commercial testing service. It’s not as if Ancestry.com or 23andMe runs DNA testing on gum.”
“What’s Ancestry.com or 23andMe?”
“People buy a kit and send in their DNA through spitting in a tube. They use it to develop their family tree or to discover their ethnic or racial origin.”
“We’re not doing that, though, right?”
“That’s correct. We are doing something like a secret paternity test for now.”
A rumble sounded in the distance. David held his index finger to his lips with one hand, while he rolled down the window with the other. The rumble turned into a scraping sound coming around the corner of Janet’s building, down her driveway. The other half of the two-family home had a separate driveway off on the far side. From around the corner of the building a silhouetted figure appeared dragging out a garbage can to the curb. David could see the figure was wearing a dress and heels. It had to be Janet. She set the garbage can off to the side of the driveway and looked up the street toward the city before turning toward the river and facing David and Phillip. They both froze, hoping that the darkness would shield them. But she continued to look in their direction.
David started to sweat bullets. He kicked himself for bringing the Mustang. Not many cars park on a dead-end street to begin with. Even fewer people choose to park on one lined with condemned houses. The Mustang stood out like a nightlight in a dim hallway. It was a white 1974 classic. David imagined Janet was thinking that she had never seen his car parked on the street before. I should have brought Annie’s Prius. If only she didn’t have a bloodhound nose. She’d pick up the lingering smell of garbage in it instantly.
But a second later Janet turned around, walked back up the driveway, and disappeared. The echo of her heels clicking against the asphalt faded before David heard a house door slam shut. Then there was only the sound of crickets.
David wiped the sweat from his forehead and brow. She’s got just one can. All the more reason to believe she lives alone. “Okay, Phillip. We’re on. It’s show time!”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Here, take the keys. Open the trunk. Make some room. Throw some stuff in the back seat if you have to.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll get the can and bring it back here and we’ll empty it into the trunk.”
“We’re taking all that trash with us?”
“It’s not like we have the option to pick through it here.”
“I guess not.”
“Let’s go. Don’t slam your door shut. Just ease it closed enough to turn off the overhead light and keep quiet.”
“Okay.”
Phillip slid out and circled around back to pop the trunk while David skulked down the sidewalk to get the can. The glow of blue light from a computer shone through the drawn curtains in Janet Nowak’s front picture window. Slinking softly like a ninja in his cocaine-white New Balance cross trainers, David moved under the window sill and slipped past the front porch. Christy had been after him to get a pair of kicks that weren’t so white. “Those are old man kicks,” Christy opined. Now David wished he had taken his advice.
David bent at the knees, clasped his arms around the plastic can, and lifted it. Holding his breath against the odor, he strolled casually back to the car like he was carrying Annie’s grocery bags. Phillip already had the trunk open and had made plenty of room.
“Left to right,” David said, holding the can
“What do you mean?” Phillip asked, while removing the can’s lid.
“Let me do it,” David said. He lifted and tipped the open can to let a series of white trash bags plop one by one into the trunk. “Freshest trash—the bags on top—starting left, and flowing to the oldest stuff, from the bottom, on the far right.”
“What for?”
“Not now, Phillip. Let’s just get this done and get out of here. Quietly close the trunk.” David took the empty can in one hand, the lid in the other hand, and skittered back to the end of Janet Nowak’s driveway. He set the can back down on the curb at the same spot where he took it. He put the lid back on exactly the way he’d found it. Then he scampered back to the car, quietly clicked his door shut, and told Phillip to do the same. David slowly drove off—turning on his headlights only when the Mustang reached the end of the block.
Thirty minutes later, six white trash bags were lined up in the Thompsons’ two-car garage like giant marshmallows. David was undoing the red ties for the first one in line. Phillip was at the other end of the production line.
“Put on those latex gloves, Phillip, and we’ll dig through the most recent trash first.”
“Okay. But can you explain—”
Just then Annie poked her head into the garage through the door that led to the kitchen and eyed David.
“Oh, it’s you, David. I thought I heard something. I didn’t know you were back. What are you up to?” she asked before spotting Phillip standing off to the side.
“Ah . . . Phillip is helping me with the trash.”
“Hi, Phillip, I didn’t see you standing over there,” Annie said, as she stepped down into the garage. She scurried toward Phillip. “I’m so sorry about the barbershop,” she lamented as she extended her arms to embrace him. Phillip stood stiffly at attention as Annie hugged him. “We’ll get your shop going, Phillip, don’t worry. David will figure it out.”
David could not take his eyes off of Phillip’s hands. They quivered as he slowly brought them up from his side to place them on Annie’s shoulders to hug her back. David felt some vomit pop up and coat the back of his throat. He didn’t know if it was the odor from Janet Nowak’s trash or the sight of a murderer hugging his wife that almost made him throw up.
Phillip looked at David and nervously smiled. As Annie held him, he lifted his hands from her shoulders and shrugged while opening his hands, palms upward. David’s eyes narrowed as he shot the other man a sharp stare. He wanted to believe Phillip’s insistence that he was no longer the same man who killed Pete Carlson. At the same time, he feared for Annie’s safety. He didn’t want her to be a test case to see if Phillip truly had a change of heart and was no longer a killer. On top of it all, David wanted to smack Phillip for taking even the slightest pleasure in hugging his wife, the love of his life.
Then David remembered that he had only himself to blame for the situation. Days had passed since the raid and he still couldn’t bring himself to tell Annie about Phillip’s confession. He had no intention of doing so and it wasn’t attorney-client privilege holding him back. He knew that Phillip would not mind if he disclosed it and might even tell her himself. I need to stop bringing my work home with me—need to separate my work life from my family life if it’s at all possible. Is it for me, though?
He was keeping secrets from Annie again despite promising himself he wouldn’t do it anymore and despite hating himself for doing it. Some things never change; I’m one of those things.
Annie pulled away a bit, her arms still around Phillip’s ribs. She backed her hips up into Phillips hands as she peered up at him. “We’ll get through this together.” Just then Christy popped his head out of the door leading to the kitchen. Annie didn’t skip a beat, “Don’t worry, Phillip.”
“I’ll try not to, Mrs. Thompson.”
“Please call me Annie.”
“Okay.”
David had seen and heard enough. His eyes locked on Christy’s. He touched his belt buckle with his right hand. It was an indicator signal David always used to fall back on when he coached Christy’s baseball team. The sign indicates to the players on base or at bat that the next signal was the instruction: take a pitch, hit and run, or steal the base. With Annie’s back to them, David touched his belt buckle, then pointed at her, clenched his fist, hammered it, looped his index finger around in the air, and pointed toward the kitchen.
Christy looked at his dad’s hand gestures in total amazement. The signals were a mix of an umpire calling a runner out or ejecting some fan, coach, or player from the ballpark. But Christy got his dad’s message loud and clear. He wanted his wife out of the garage. Now.
“Excuse me, Mr. Dawkins,” Christy interrupted. “Mom, can you come in and proof my English essay before I go to bed?” Christy knew that making his mom feel wanted and useful was the easiest way to get her back in the house.
“Sure, honey,” she said, following Christy inside. She looked over her shoulder at Phillip. “We’ll have you over to dinner soon and we can talk more.”
David rolled his eyes. A family dinner with Phillip was the last thing he wanted. When Phillip was with the family now, it put David on high alert for the safety of Annie and Christy. Phillip’s presence also served as a constant in-your-face reminder to David about all his mistakes and shortcomings.
“That would be nice, Mrs. Thompson . . . I mean, Annie. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Are you going to clean this mess up, David?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
After Annie left, the two men again stood over the line of garbage bags.
“Let’s get to work, Phillip.”
“Okay. Can you tell me now why we put the garbage bags in the order they fell out of the can?”
“Sure. The more recent the garbage is, the fresher the DNA in it will be. We want the freshest DNA possible to get a valid reading.”
“I guess that makes sense.”
“Could you get the wheelbarrow leaning against the wall over there? We’ll dump one bag at a time into it and sort through it in there.”
“Okay.”
While Phillip fetched the wheelbarrow, David undid the red tie and opened the bag. When Phillip returned with the wheelbarrow, David dumped the bag into it. Instantly, a putrid odor flooded the garage. David turned his head away in disgust. Phillip started to gag and then coughed up some phlegm.
“I’ll open the garage door,” David said. “There’s a tissue box on my workbench for you.”
David pushed a button and the opener motor overhead began to hum as it lifted one of the two garage doors. Phillip spat his loogie into the tissue and folded it up.
Gingerly, David started to pick through the accumulated trash with his latex-gloved hands. “Check this out, Phillip!”
“I’m coming.”
He looked around for a garbage can but couldn’t find one.
“Jackpot!” David exclaimed.
Phillip set his used tissue on the workbench and hustled over to see wh
at he had found. David opened his latex-gloved hand to reveal a small, opaque object in the shape of a crescent moon.
“What is it?”
“A nail clipping.”
“That has DNA in it?”
“Yes, but let’s see if we can find some more. I’d imagine a person trims their finger nails or toe nails all at once . . . .”
“I guess.”
David put the nail clipping in a miniature paper envelope from the DNA kit, while Phillip poked around. He moved a crushed toothpaste carton and some tissues smeared with flesh-toned make-up and bright red lipstick.
“There’s another one,” David exclaimed.
“Where?”
“There, by your pinky finger. I’ll get it.” David picked up the next nail shard and tucked it in the envelope.
Ten minutes later, they had collected seven nail specimens.
“That should be enough. I’ll ship it off to the commercial testing service tomorrow and we’ll see if we have a match with Edmund O’Neil’s gum.”
“How long should that take?”
“Not more than a few days. I paid extra to get an expedited report.”
“All right. I still don’t see what this has to do with me.”
“If I can establish that O’Neil and Edith Nowak are Janet’s parents, perhaps I can use that as leverage somehow to get O’Neil to leave you alone. It’s obviously something that O’Neil wants to keep secret.”
“But Janet Nowak is a woman now. Maybe keeping the secret doesn’t mean as much anymore to him.”
“He’s one part of the equation. The other part is the mother, Edith Nowak. She doesn’t want her daughter to know about this. Then there’s another part of the equation I haven’t told you yet.” David had withheld this information from Phillip while he tried to figure out if there was any reason why he shouldn’t disclose it. He couldn’t think of any, so he figured it was as good a time as any to tell Phillip now. “Edith Nowak is forty years old. She told me that and I confirmed it. She has her birthday posted on her Facebook account.”
“So what?”
“Janet Nowak is twenty-four years old. That’s what her mother said when I visited with her. I ran a background check on Janet this morning using a website and I double-checked her age.”