Twisted Path

by Melissa F. Miller

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Standing over my shoulder and growling doesn’t make the computer work faster. You know that, right?” Chrys didn’t turn to look at him as she said the words.

  Burton ignored her grumbling and watched her fingers fly over the keyboard, typing in combinations of names, addresses, dates, and Social Security numbers.

  “Lewis must be confused,” Chrys continued for the umpteenth time, still staring at the monitor. “Tenley doesn’t have a sister. He’s an only child.”

  A thought buzzed in Burton’s ear, like a bee. Or like Chrys’ barely restrained irritation.

  He snapped his fingers. “Hang on. Lewis also said Tenley’s parents died of cancer, but they died in a car crash when he was just a kid.”

  This time, she craned her neck to meet his eyes. “You think Tenley invented a personal history for his Army buddies? Could be, if he leans toward the sociopathic.”

  “That’s a possibility, but no. I’m thinking Tenley was raised by this distant cousin of his mom’s from the time he was, what, four? He probably considered her and her husband to be his parents, even if they never formally adopted him.”

  “And that would make their kid his sister in his mind. You might be on to something, old man.” Her eyes sparked with excitement, and her fingers moved even faster, blurring as she typed furiously.

  Old man? What the … no time for it now. He’d have to lick his wounds later.

  “Did the people who raised Tenley have kids of their own?”

  “Hold your horses, I’m looking.”

  He clamped his mouth closed and waited, listening to the clicking of the keys and the faint whine of the desktop computer’s fan. After a minute, she used the mouse to pull up a file and hit print.

  He walked over to the printer in the corner of the room and caught the page as it emerged.

  “Hot off the presses.”

  She joined him and pointed to a line about a third of the way down the page. “The Kesslers had one biological child. A girl, five years younger than Damon Tenley. So she would have been born about a year after Tenley came to live with them.”

  “They might be close. Big brother and baby sister.” He slapped his thigh. “Let’s go talk to her.”

  “Minor problem. The girl, Anastasia H. Kessler, dropped off the map in late 2011, after her mother died.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  Her right eyebrow shot up to her hairline, and she pinned him with a sour look. “Yeah, Burton. This is my idea of a joke. Isn’t it hilarious?”

  He leveled her with a look of his own. “What’s her last known address?”

  “The house in Stanton Heights.”

  “Where Tenley stayed when he came back to town?”

  “Yeah. She cleared out in 2011 and left no forwarding address. That squares with Tenley asking Van Lewis to bring in his mail. He was living there alone. The house was on the market for all of 2012 and 2013.”

  “Did it sell?”

  She shook her head. “No record of a transfer. But Lewis had that part right. The house is in his name, not hers.”

  “They left the house to Tenley, not their own daughter?”

  “I’m sure they considered him a son, Burton. And he’s five years older. So when the mother died, Anastasia would’ve been twenty or twenty-one, give or take. That’s a lot of responsibility to dump on a college-aged kid.”

  “I guess. Pretty curious this kid disappeared without a trace. You’re sure Anastasia Kessler wasn’t on Tenley’s visitors list at the prison?”

  “My guy said Van Lewis was his only visitor.”

  Burton was about to suggest paying a visit to Tenley’s house when his cell phone rang in his pocket.

  He pulled it out and barked, “Gilbert.”

  “Detective Gilbert, it’s Bodhi King.”

  The pathologist sounded winded.

  “Everything okay, Dr. King? It sounds like you’re out of breath.”

  “Just pushing my bike along while we talk. I’m not coordinated enough to talk and ride.”

  “Sure. What can I do for you?”

  “I was talking to Hope Noor at her home.”

  “Yeah? Did she have any ideas about how Tenley’s DNA got there?”

  “Not that she shared. I’m calling to ask whether anyone’s interviewed the neighbor who lives across the street?”

  “Mrs. Remmy? Yeah. Uniforms canvassed the entire block. Why? What about her?”

  “Mrs. Noor mentioned an argument she and her husband had the night he died—”

  “A fight?” Burton’s blood pressure surged. Vitanni’s notes from the interview with Hope Noor didn’t reference a fight.

  “A fight sounds like it might be physical. My takeaway from Mrs. Noor was this was a verbal altercation. And I have a suspicion the neighbor may have overheard some or all of it.”

  Burton gritted his teeth. After thirty-four years on the force, he knew he shouldn’t be surprised to learn that even the most law-abiding citizens seemed to have selective recall when it came to telling law enforcement what they knew. But it burned him up every time.

  Odds were, the argument was innocuous and unrelated to Giles Noor’s murder. Odds were, Hope Noor was embarrassed to mention it, and the neighbor didn’t want to come across as a busybody. But there was a reason Burton never played the lottery: a homicide detective knows better than to trust the odds.

  He sighed. “Thanks for passing it along. We’ll send a unit out to reinterview the neighbor.”

  “Great. Will you do it soon? She kept watching me from her window. I think she’s in the mood to talk. Might as well strike while the iron’s hot.”

  “We’ll get someone out there as soon as we can. Right now our priority is finding Anastasia Kessler.”

  “Who?”

  Why did he open his big trap?

  “Anastasia Kessler. The family who took Tenley in after his parents died were named Kessler. They apparently had a daughter five years younger than Tenley. One of Tenley’s Army buddies mentioned a sister he was close with, so we need to run her down. Any other questions?”

  Chrys’ eyes widened at his snotty tone. He shrugged at her. Did she see him calling Bodhi King up and telling him how to remove eyeballs from corpses or how to weigh livers?

  “No. Sorry to have bothered you, detective.”

  “No problem.” He ended the call and pocketed the phone.

  Chapter Nineteen

  That neighbor of Hope’s knows something. The thought circled around Bodhi’s brain to the rhythm of his pedaling. But Detectives Burton and Martin hadn’t taken him seriously.

  He tried to shrug it off as he coasted down the hill to Shadyside’s business district. He’d passed along the information. That was all he could do.

  He stopped in front of the combination tea shop/bookstore that was, conveniently enough, located around the corner from Maisy’s loft apartment. He checked his watch. He had a half an hour before he needed to meet Maisy. Definitely enough time for a cup of oolong tea and a spin through the used mystery section.

  He locked his bike to the rack at the edge of the parking lot next to the building and jogged down the stairs to the shop’s entrance, one story below street level. He opened the door, stepped inside, and inhaled the heady perfume of old books and fragrant teas. Warm air drove away the chill outside, and the shop hummed with low voices as people browsed the shelves or sat at overstuffed couches or small tables and nibbled on treats from the cafe while they sipped tisanes, teas, and hot chocolate.

  He had it on good authority that nobody drank the coffee as it was “slightly stronger than brown water.” But everything else on the menu ranged from serviceable to great.

  He ordered a mug of tea and a sesame cookie and thumbed through the stack of graphic novels by the register while he waited for his order.

  “As I live and breathe, is that Bodhi King?” a syrupy voice gasped behind him as he juggled his tea and treat through the short line at
the counter.

  That Southern fried voice could belong to only one person. He pivoted and nearly spilled scalding hot tea down the front of Pittsburgh’s most-beloved weather girl turned investigative reporter as she flung her arms around his torso and squeezed.

  “Maisy, what are you doing here?” he wheezed.

  She released him and pointed to the cushioned window bench. “I’m meetin’ a source, sugar. What are you doing here?”

  “My interview ended early, so I thought I’d hang out here until it was time for us to meet.”

  “Too funny. Well, come on, you can meet Penny.” She hooked her arm through his and started to tug him toward the built-in window seat.

  “Aren’t you working?”

  “She’s sort of a dud,” Maisy whispered near his ear. “She’s a lawyer, and, just like a lawyer, she qualifies everything she says with ‘ifs, purportedlys, and for the sake of arguments.’ Talk about a snoozer of an exposé.” She faked a dramatic, wide yawn.

  He laughed despite himself. “What are you exposing?”

  “You, as a matter of fact.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Well, not you. The M.E.’s office. And the D.A.’s office. I know, I know, you’re thinking, now Maisy, how could a story that juicy be a dud? Well, I’m here to tell you, Penelope Geoffries manages to suck the excitement right out of it. Like that.” She snapped her fingers.

  “Geoffries? With the public defender’s office?”

  “Oh, you know her?”

  “No, but Maisy. I don’t think this is a good—”

  Maisy came to a sudden stop in front of a freckled woman who wore her hair in a sensible bob. She gave Bodhi a warm smile that lit up her face.

  “Penny, you’ll never believe it, but this here is Bodhi King.”

  “Ms. Geoffries, it’s nice to meet you.” Bodhi returned the smile and gestured with his tea and his cookie in lieu of offering his hand.

  “You, as well.” She flashed Maisy a confused look.

  “Bodhi’s the consultant I told you about—the smart cookie the medical examiner called in to figure out how your client’s DNA results went catawampus.”

  Penny blinked. “I … I don’t think we should be talking about Damon. No offense, Dr. King.”

  “You’re talking to me, sugar,” Maisy pointed out to the public defender.

  Penny gave her a stiff smile. “That’s different. We’re discussing the conditions under which Mr. Tenley would consider sitting down with you for an interview. Dr. King is working against Damon’s interests.”

  “I completely understand. I didn’t mean to intrude on your conversation. Maisy, I’ll talk to you later, the way we’d planned. I really just want to eat my cookie and find some good books.” He started to back away.

  “Wait. Penny, at least tell him what you were just saying to me. That’s not any sort of confidential or privileged client information, is it?” Maisy turned her baby blues on the lawyer and gave her a pleading expression.

  The way the legal terms rolled off Maisy’s tongue gave the lie to her ditzy confusion about legal ethics. Bodhi suppressed a smile. From the look on Penny’s face, she wasn’t fooled either. But she did nod.

  “I’m not going to waste your time or mine trying to convince you my client’s a person. But he is. And, as a citizen of the United States, he has a Constitutional right to any evidence that may prove exculpatory—a fact the district attorney seems to have forgotten.” The color rose in her cheeks, and her eyes blazed.

  “Ms. Geoffries, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know the legal standard that governs here. My role, my only role, is to determine how your client’s DNA could possibly have been found at Giles Noor’s murder scene. And I promise you, if I learn that there was any problem with the original DNA testing, I’ll take it straight to District Attorney Ford. And if she doesn’t turn it over to you, I’ll bring it to you myself.”

  Penny Geoffries rolled her eyes skyward.

  “No, no, don’t go rolling your eyes. Bodhi’s a straight shooter. He’s a Buddhist. It’s against his religion to lie, isn’t that right, hon?”

  “Not … exactly. It’s true that the fourth precept is to refrain from incorrect speech. But the precepts aren’t like the Ten Commandments or anything.”

  “See?” Maisy said triumphantly, as if he’d proved her point.

  Penny laughed grudgingly. “Well, it’s good to know there’s someone like you on the other side.”

  “But, Bodhi, Damon Tenley really doesn’t sound irredeemable. Tell him, Penny.”

  He considered telling Maisy the Buddha teaches that no living being is irredeemable, but the prospect of how she might misinterpret that teaching stopped him.

  “Tell him what, about Damon’s sister?”

  “Yes,” Maisy confirmed.

  “I thought Mr. Tenley was an only child?” Bodhi was careful not to show too much interest in the subject.

  “Yes, biologically, he was. But Frank and Lisa Kessler, the distant relatives who took him in after his mother and father died, raised him from the age of four. Even though they never formally adopted him or changed his name, they were Damon Tenley’s parents. And when they had a baby girl just after he turned five, she was his sister.” Passion flared in the public defender’s voice.

  He remembered the nickname Meghan used in talking about her. ‘Passionate Penny.’ He could see where it had come from.

  “They were close?”

  Maisy broke in, “Close? Sugar, he saved her life!”

  Bodhi turned to the lawyer. “Did he really?”

  “He really did. Frank Kessler died in 2010. Lisa died a year later in 2011. By the time Lisa was in hospice care, the daughter—Anastasia—learned she had leukemia. She delayed treatment to care for her mom. Damon, of course, was serving in the army during this time. When he separated from the military in October 2012, Anastasia was very, very sick. The oncologists recommended a bone marrow transplant.”

  “Damon was a match?”

  “Right. He jumped at the chance to help his younger sister. A few weeks after he returned home, they underwent the harvesting and transplant procedures.” Penny’s chest heaved as she recounted the story. “He only told me about it because he was in the county jail when the time came for Anastasia’s second follow-up appointment, and he was so worried she’d have to go alone. He wanted me to go with her.”

  His curiosity got the better of him. “Did you?”

  “I can’t get involved in my clients’ personal lives like that, Dr. King.”

  He waited.

  “But I did call a friend of mine who’s a social worker. She called Ms. Kessler and offered to accompany her. Ms. Kessler declined.”

  “Did Anastasia visit Damon in jail?”

  Penny sighed. “No. She didn’t visit him and she didn’t attend his trial. I’d hoped to call her at trial as a character witness, but the number Damon had for her was disconnected when I tried to reach her. I had my investigator try to track her down, but frankly, we were gearing up for the trial and had bigger fish to fry. The point of the story, Dr. King, is that Damon Tenley, like most people, is complex and contradictory. He’s not just a monster.”

  That may have been the point the attorney intended to make. But Bodhi had a different takeaway. Something she said was rattling around in his brain. There was a connection, an important one, that he needed time, space, and quiet to focus on.

  “Thanks for talking to me, Ms. Geoffries.”

  “Of course.”

  He inclined his head toward Maisy. “Maisy, I’m going to have to reschedule our chat. I’m sorry.”

  She proffered her cheek for a kiss, which he delivered. “I’m gonna hold you to that, Bodhi.”

  “Please do.”

  He drank the last sip of his tea and dropped the mug in the bin near the door. Then he sprinted up the stairs and fumbled with the lock on his bike as he called Saul to cancel their dinner, too.

  Chapter Twenty

 
Hope sat in the chair for a long time after Bodhi King left. She stared absently at the framed photographs hanging on the opposite wall, a collection of memories from trips she and Giles had taken. She ate the buttered toast without tasting it and drank the tea.

  The forensic pathologist wasn’t at all what she’d expected. She’d imagined him as a loud, confident guy with slicked-back hair and bright white teeth who wore a sharp suit and made bold declarations. Instead, she got a soft-spoken, curly-haired man who asked gentle questions and fed her tea and toast. He’d been a comforting presence, for sure, and her home felt empty with him gone. But there was no way that guy—he rode a bicycle, for Pete’s sake—was going to figure out how Damon Tenley’s DNA managed to turn up at the scene of her husband’s murder. Not a chance.

  Finally, long after the weak winter sun had sunk behind a gray horizon, she pushed herself to her feet. She pressed the switch beside the mantle to turn off the fire. Either emotion or exhaustion got the better of her for a moment, and she stumbled.

  She threw out a hand and caught the edge of the bookshelf. When she was sure she was steady on her feet, she picked up the tray and carried it out to the kitchen. As she placed the dirty dishes in the sink, her eyes fell on the family Bible sitting on the counter and her heart thumped against her rib cage.

  How did that get there?

  She never should’ve kept it. She’d tucked it away for years, nestled in the bottom of trunk under a small stack of quilts and blankets her mother had made and some photo albums from her childhood. Family heirlooms—if one used the term heirloom loosely—that she couldn’t bring herself to leave behind when she started her life with Giles but that she hadn’t wanted to see as a daily reminder of her old life.

  She’d been looking for the warm crocheted bedspread her mother had worked on while she was undergoing her final chemotherapy treatments. Mom had used three different shades of blue in the pattern, and Hope thought it would look gorgeous in the bedroom, especially after she and Giles finished remodeling the en suite bath in the colors of the ocean.