Tangled Roots

by Marcia Talley

  She shrugged. ‘They have different class schedules, but I expect them both for dinner.’

  ‘Julie?’

  ‘Who knows? Why do you ask?’

  ‘We need to have a family meeting,’ I said. ‘And it needs to involve an attorney. Do you have one?’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about, Hannah?’

  ‘I was just talking to your backyard neighbor, and—’

  ‘Claudia Turner?’ she interrupted. ‘Let me guess. Our dog’s gotten into her garbage again.’ She reached for the wine bottle and started to refill her glass. ‘Buster has been dead for over a year. The woman’s a kook.’

  ‘Well, that kook just told the police that she saw one of the twins arguing with his father in the backyard on the day of Scott’s murder.’

  Georgina’s hand began to shake. She set the wine bottle down. ‘But that’s crazy! Both of the boys were in Cape May that day. You know that. She’s making it up.’

  ‘The Turners have a security camera, Georgina. The police have a tape.’

  Georgina stared at me, eyes wide and frightened. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Call your attorney, Georgina. And text the boys. They’re needed at home. Now.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  That evening, the Church of the Falls meal train ordered Pepe’s pizza to be sent over to the Cardinale home. Pepe’s pies are eleven on a scale of ten, but the funk I was in, even the Hawaiian Delight tasted like cardboard. I sprinkled hot pepper flakes on my slice. Result? Extra spicy cardboard.

  The five of us perched uneasily on high stools around Georgina’s kitchen island which was strewn with paper plates, plastic cups and half-eaten pizza. A sixth stool, still empty, was reserved for the family attorney, Tim Keane, one of Scott’s Cosmopolitan Forum mates who specialized in tax law. He was running late. Neither was a good sign.

  ‘Might as well get started,’ Georgina said, officially bringing the family meeting to order. Skewering the twins with a penetrating, ice-green glare, she said, ‘If what Claudia Turner told your aunt is true, the police already have, or are about to have, in their possession, a videotape of one of you arguing with your father in the backyard on the day he was murdered.’

  Julie gasped. ‘That’s bogus! They were in Cape May.’ She leaned into the island and addressed her brothers. ‘You were in Cape May, right? Tell her, you guys.’

  To my astonishment, the twins exchanged uneasy glances.

  ‘OK,’ I said, picking up on their body language. ‘Which one of you was it?’

  After a moment of nerve-wracking silence, Sean finally spoke up. ‘We were both in Cape May, Aunt Hannah. An entire week, Saturday to Saturday. Sharing a condo. Partying at the beach with a bunch of fraternity brothers. That’s what we told the police when they interviewed us last week, and it’s the absolute truth.’

  ‘But …’ Dylan began, only to be interrupted by the jangle of the front door bell.

  ‘Must be Tim,’ Georgina said. ‘Go let him in, please, Julie.’

  Minutes later, Julie returned to the kitchen leading a dark-haired, stylishly-bearded man I guessed to be in his early forties dressed casually in deck shoes, chinos and a navy-blue V-neck sweater. He sported a bow tie spotted with fleur de lis, which in spite of the dark mood I was in, made me smile. ‘Sorry,’ Tim apologized as he joined us at the island. ‘Parents night at my kid’s school. Skipped out on Nora’s study hall. Was the soonest I could manage. Blythe wasn’t thrilled but agreed to cover for me.’

  ‘Dylan was about to explain how he and Sean spent beach week,’ Georgina said in a small, unsteady voice.

  ‘What does it matter what we did?’ Sean said, appealing to the attorney directly. ‘What’s important is we were in Cape May, New Jersey, not here.’

  ‘Cape May’s not that far away,’ Tim Keane pointed out. ‘You could get here from there in what, two and a half hours? I think we’ll need to drill down a bit on your exact whereabouts on the afternoon your father died, don’t you?’

  ‘I can tell you what I was doing,’ Dylan volunteered. ‘Around ten, we hosted a kegger on the beach. Beer, barbeque from the Surfing Pig, the works.’

  ‘Who is “we”?’ Tim wanted to know.

  ‘Sean, me, some frat brothers. Mike, Duke, Mac, Griff. Jeff was there for a couple of hours, too, but he had to leave early to go to work.’

  ‘These guys have real names, I suppose?’ Tim slid a small notebook out of his back pants pocket and extracted a slim, gold pen from its elastic pen loop.

  ‘Sure.’ Dylan scooped up his cell phone from the countertop and tapped the screen.

  While Tim scribbled rapidly, copying down the twins’ fraternity brothers’ contact information as Dylan thumbed through the screens, Sean said, ‘There were girls, too. But they weren’t part of our usual gang, so we can’t help much with that.’

  Tim looked up. ‘So, you were partying on the beach with a bunch of girls.’

  ‘Yup. They just kinda showed up.’

  ‘It’s been a while since I graduated from college,’ Tim said, ‘but isn’t the whole point of throwing a kegger on the beach that girls in bikinis will show up?’

  ‘Busted,’ Sean said.

  Tim didn’t smile. ‘How long did this beach party go on?’

  ‘Most of the day,’ Dylan said. ‘I left with Mike around three. A couple of the girls invited us to a poetry slam at The Magic Brain, so we went and hung out there until dinner time. I can’t vouch for Sean.’

  ‘Magic Brain?’ Tim raised an eyebrow. ‘Help me out here.’

  ‘Awesome coffee shop,’ Dylan explained. ‘The kind of joint that whips up an oat milk iced dirty chai without breaking a sweat.’

  ‘So, what’s your story?’ Tim asked, turning to Sean.

  Sean shifted uncomfortably on his stool.

  ‘He’s about to lie,’ Julie piped up unexpectedly. ‘The tips of his ears are red.’

  ‘Sean!’ Georgina shrieked. ‘This is important!’

  Sean’s face flushed the same color as his ears. ‘I’m afraid I got wasted, Mom. I remember Dylan leaving the party, but it’s hazy after that. There was this girl …’

  ‘Says her name was Lacey,’ Dylan supplied.

  ‘Lacey, right. She’d remember me, but so would a lot of other people. What do you expect? We were out on the beach. There were a lot of party crashers.’

  ‘Lacey who?’ Georgina asked.

  Sean shrugged, looking like a lost child. ‘I don’t know.’

  Georgina’s eyes narrowed dangerously. ‘You don’t know?’

  Before the situation could escalate into full-blown war, Tim moved on. ‘When did you last see your brother, Dylan?’

  ‘He was there at noon, for sure, but after that …’ His voice trailed off. ‘As Sean said, the party attracted a lot of people.’

  ‘Dylan! You have to vouch for Sean!’ Julie cried.

  ‘You want me to lie, Jules?’

  ‘Of course not, but you know Sean didn’t kill our dad.’

  ‘All I know,’ Dylan said, turning to address his twin, ‘is that you disappeared from the party around noon and I didn’t see you until the next morning when you staggered back to the condo, hungover and stinking of hops.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Georgina whispered.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mom. I must have blacked out. I remember playing a couple of rounds of beer pong …’ Sean rested his head in his hands, wagging it slowly as if still nursing the massive hangover he must have had that day. ‘I woke up around ten in a motel room with this girl. She didn’t seem in any hurry to leave …’

  ‘So. What. Could. You. Do?’ Dylan sneered.

  Tim held up a cautionary hand, then turned to Sean. ‘What motel?’

  ‘Three stories, balconies overlooking the beach. Might have been blue. God, I don’t know, Mr Keane! They all look the same!’

  ‘No sign out front? In the lobby?’

  Sean shook his head. ‘I left out the back, via the beach.’

&nbs
p; ‘If you show up on that surveillance tape, you’ll need to beef up that alibi,’ Tim warned.

  ‘Wait a minute!’ Sean said, his face brightening. ‘How was I supposed to get here, huh? Walk? You can check out my car. It never left the parking garage. Check the EasyPass records. Any route you take, there’d be a toll. Interstate 95, the Bay Bridge, the Lewes ferry. All tolls.’

  ‘Good point,’ Tim said.

  ‘Are we supposed to know about this security tape?’ Georgina asked me, sounding eager to change the subject.

  ‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘I didn’t exactly lie to Mrs Turner, but I didn’t correct her when she mistook me for a police officer, either.’

  ‘It could be anybody on that tape,’ Georgina insisted. ‘Scott met lots of clients at the house. And Mrs Turner is blind as a bat.’ She turned to me. ‘You must have seen her glasses. And she mistook you for a woman at least twenty years younger.’

  ‘Thanks, Georgina,’ I said. ‘I wonder where I stashed my cane?’

  ‘If the Turner tape has any evidentiary value, and we’re just guessing here, I’m sure the police will want to talk to you about it,’ Tim said, moving on. ‘But let’s not jump the gun.’

  ‘Mrs Turner told me her husband installed the security system himself. We can always hope he wasn’t very good at it,’ I said wryly.

  ‘You need to alibi for each other,’ Julie urged her brothers. ‘Nobody can tell you apart, so if the tape shows one of you arguing with Dad, there’s no way anyone could tell which one of you it was.’ She managed a lackluster smile. ‘I read that in an Agatha Christie novel once, or maybe it was Mary Higgins Clark.’

  I wasn’t so sure about that. Sean wore his hair parted on the left, his bangs swept casually to one side, while Dylan preferred a French crop, rocking that tousled, just-climbed-out-of-bed look. If they both opted for crew cuts, however, it would definitely take a family member to tell them apart.

  Sean bristled. ‘But, Jules! I don’t care what’s on the tape. I was nowhere near Baltimore when Dad died!’

  ‘I can definitely prove where I was,’ Dylan cut in. ‘Sean needs to be held accountable for his own actions. Getting blind drunk and shacking up with a woman he doesn’t even know …’ He paused. ‘What happened to your Virginity Pledge, Sean? Huh?’

  Sean recoiled as if he’d been slapped.

  ‘True love waits,’ Dylan recited. ‘I am making a commitment to myself, my family and my creator that I will abstain from sex before marriage. I will keep my body and my thoughts pure as I trust in God’s perfect plan for my life …’

  ‘Total bullshit,’ Sean growled. He picked up a piece of pizza, considered the cheese congealing on top like a sheet of blistered plastic, frowned and dropped it back on the paper plate.

  ‘“Flee from sexual immorality”,’ Dylan sputtered, rising from his stool. ‘First Corinthians. “Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body”.’

  ‘“He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone”,’ Sean shot back. ‘John eight seven. Remember Kayla Mills? Senior prom?’

  Georgina pressed her palms flat against her ears. ‘La, la, la, la, I can’t hear you!’ she sing-songed.

  I snatched my sister’s hand away. ‘Not listening isn’t going to help, Georgina.’ I turned my attention away from Georgina long enough to give the evil eye to my nephews. ‘And hurling Bible verses at one another like rival evangelicals isn’t going to help either, dammit.’

  Aunt Hannah’s curse seemed to have a sobering effect on the twins.

  ‘I have a rock solid alibi,’ Dylan said after a moment of quiet reflection.

  ‘And I don’t,’ Sean said, finally admitting the truth.

  ‘Unless we can find Lacey,’ I said.

  ‘Facebook?’ Julie suggested.

  ‘Did anybody take pictures at the beach party?’ I asked the twins.

  ‘I imagine so,’ Dylan said. ‘Everyone has a cell phone.’

  ‘Do either of you have a picture of Lacey?’

  ‘I do!’ Sean said, bending over to retrieve his cell phone from the backpack at his feet. ‘I can’t believe I forgot about that. We took a selfie at Uncle Charlie’s Ice Cream.’ While Sean brought his cell phone to life, I turned to his brother.

  ‘Did any of your friends – Griff, Duke, whoever – hook up with any of the girls in Lacey’s group, Dylan?’

  ‘Maybe. Dunno.’

  ‘Here it is!’ Sean said, rotating the screen of his cell phone so we could all see the photo.

  The young woman glancing sideways at the camera – lush lips puckered, caught in the act of planting a kiss on my nephew’s cheek – wore her dark blond hair in a tousled, jaw-length bob. The straps of a flowered, halter-style bikini top were tied loosely around her neck. The waffle cone she held out – two scoops of chocolate topped with a rainbow of sprinkles – loomed gigantically in the foreground.

  ‘Lacey’s cute,’ I observed.

  Sean flushed. ‘I thought so, too.’

  ‘Email that photo to your pals,’ I said.

  Sean cradled his cell phone in his left hand. ‘What am I supposed to tell them?’

  ‘Don’t mention the police, that might scare them off,’ Tim suggested. ‘Say that you met this girl, Lacey, you really liked her, but because of what happened, yadda yadda, you forgot to get her contact information.’

  Head down, Sean’s thumbs began to dart over the tiny screen. Suddenly he paused and looked up. ‘You actually believe me, don’t you, Aunt Hannah?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Then who the hell could be on that surveillance tape, arguing with Dad?’

  ‘I don’t know, Sean,’ I said, ‘but if the police take the tape seriously, and if we’re allowed to see it, maybe we’ll be able to figure it out.’

  ‘That’s a lot of ifs,’ Georgina said.

  ‘And here’s another if for you,’ Tim said, rising to his feet. ‘If the police come around asking questions about the tape, you’re going to need a criminal defense attorney, and that’s not me.’

  ‘Bite your tongue,’ Georgina said.

  Tim scribbled in his notebook, tore the page out and handed it directly to Sean. ‘Just in case. Call this number. Ask for Sydney Foster.’

  Sean stared at the slip of paper, looking sad and vulnerable. ‘But how can I afford—’

  ‘Hush, Sean,’ his mother interrupted. ‘We’ll pay for it somehow.’ She slid off her stool. ‘Thank you for coming, Tim. I can’t tell you how much we appreciate your advice. Let me know how much we owe you.’

  Tim waved the request for payment away. ‘No charge, Georgina. It’s the least I can do for Scott. He sent a lot of business my way. I’m going to miss him, in more ways than one. Scott was one hell of a bocce player.’

  Georgina escorted Tim out of the kitchen. When she was out of earshot, Dylan laid a hand on his brother’s arm.

  ‘Sorry I lost it back there, bro. Just want you to know that I’ve got your back. Blood is thicker than water, as they say.’

  ‘Damn right,’ Julie said.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Several days went by. No homicide detectives knocked at the Cardinales’ front door and I began to wonder if I’d dreamt up the whole conversation with Claudia Turner.

  Nobody mentioned it, but the specter of the neighbor’s videotape hung over our heads on the slenderest of threads, like the sword of Damocles.

  Yet our lives went on.

  Through daily text messages, I learned that the twins were throwing themselves into their graduate work at Hopkins – Sean in Economics and Dylan in History – while Julie was busily applying for volunteer positions with AmeriCorps, teaching internships in East Asia, as well as exploring missionary opportunities in poverty-stricken Central American countries sponsored by Church of the Falls. At the moment, she was leaning in favor of an international organization that would send her to teach computer skills to children in the Dominican Repu
blic, but according to Julie’s latest Tweet, ‘The jury is still out.’

  Meanwhile, nobody had been able to track down Lacey.

  Nope, sorry. Good-looking chick, though.

  Sweet! But no clue.

  Good luck, dude. She’s hot.

  Hey, babe! You can grab me a beer any time!

  Is she the ice maiden who came with Brie?

  Sadly, Brie had no clue either.

  To keep my mind off looming disaster, I threw myself into work on our family tree, an exercise that I’d sadly neglected in the aftermath of Scott’s murder. I signed up for GedMatch, the most scientific of the publicly available genetic databases. It had been created in 2010 by a Florida grandpa and a transportation engineer from Texas who had no idea that their little ‘side project’ would eventually become the go-to destination not only for serious genealogists, but for investigators across the country to solve the coldest of cases.

  Nick had recommended the site during a FaceTime chat from a state park in Iowa, one of several stops they’d made on their long drive home. He’d recently contributed his own family data to the database, a consolation prize, he soberly claimed, for having to leave town before they’d had a chance to meet the rest of the cousins. In the heartbreak and confusion following Scott’s death, however, it seemed the proper thing to do.

  Nick had warned me that GedMatch was barebones and utilitarian. After I uploaded Julie’s and my raw data and selected the One-to-Many analysis, I could see what he meant. I was presented with a multi-columned table with cryptic headings that went on for screen after screen after screen. The meaning of kit number, name and email were transparent, but the remaining columns? Something only a rocket scientist could love.

  Back in the day, my technical support team at Whitworth and Sullivan had an abbreviation for it: RTFM. As I puzzled over my search results, I decided I’d better Read the F-ing Manual myself.

  I watched the YouTube tutorial three times. I downloaded the GedMatch Absolute Beginners Guide and read it from beginning to end.

  SNP, IBS, IBD and MRCA? The manual lost me at single nucleotide polymorphisms. And the red, yellow, green and blue bars that compared individual chromosome strands like disk fragmentation charts on my old PC made my eyes roll back in my head.