“Yes,” she said, finally looking at Ryan. “Good thing he was in the backseat.”
Ryan wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly, and it took a moment for the words to force their way out of his mouth.
“Are you saying—” He had to stop to catch his breath. “Did you just say Babes was there?”
She lowered her eyes again, toward the box of broken pieces. “It was World War III here when Babes found out he wasn’t going. The thought of missing the last game of the season sent him into a major meltdown. When Chelsea came home from school to pick up Ainsley, I begged her to hold Ainsley in her lap at the game and let Babes use the other ticket.”
Ryan was still incredulous; it just didn’t compute. “So Babes was in the car when it crashed?”
She nodded. “Chelsea put him in the backseat to keep Ainsley entertained.”
Ryan felt everything from betrayal to outrage, making it difficult to think, but one question cut through the emotions: “Did he see the car that ran her off the road?”
“No. He was playing itsy-bitsy spider with Ainsley, and all he saw was Chelsea’s reaction. She swerved, lost control. The next thing Babes knew, the car crashed into an oak tree.”
“Babes looked fine to me at the funeral.”
“He wasn’t hurt. Neither was Ainsley. It was the tree branch through the windshield that killed Chelsea. When Babes saw all the blood in the front seat, he freaked and jumped out of the car. He left Chelsea and Ainsley there and ran all the way home.”
“Why has this been kept secret? Why haven’t I heard this before?”
Rachel’s voice began to quake. “Babes didn’t want anyone to know he was a passenger in the car. He’s ashamed of the way he lost it when he saw Chelsea’s injuries.”
“Well, too bad. We’ve been spinning our wheels for three years trying to find out what happened that night.”
“Don’t be angry. You know how fragile Babes is. He actually considered himself responsible for Chelsea’s death. In his mind, he could have saved her if he had kept his cool and called the ambulance. She might have lived.”
“He told you that?”
“Yes.”
Ryan looked at Paul. It had always been obvious to him that Paul and Rachel treated Babes differently. This revelation didn’t explain everything, but it meant something.
Paul said, “That night he ran home, Babes was hysterical. He was screaming that Chelsea was dead, and I—” his voice broke.
“It’s okay,” said Rachel.
Paul went to his wife, sat beside her on the bed, and pressed her hand into his. It was the most intimate contact Ryan had witnessed between them since Chelsea’s death.
“We didn’t know what to do,” Rachel told Ryan. “Babes had nothing to add to the investigation, other than his own sense of guilt. So I…Paul and I decided to keep Babes out of it. Nobody knew that he was in the car, so we didn’t even let the police talk to him. I know that must sound terrible to you, but we’d already lost a daughter. We didn’t need Babes seeing his name in the newspaper, hearing people call him a coward for running from the scene, and then doing something horrible to himself out of shame.”
Paul lowered his gaze. “Intellectually, at least, that’s where I was. But something in my heart wouldn’t let me forgive Babes for losing his head and not doing everything I would have done to save Chelsea. Until now. Now that we’re in danger of losing him, too, I realize what a fool I’ve been. I love Babes. I really do. It wasn’t his fault that Chelsea died. He wasn’t even supposed to be in the car.”
Rachel started to cry quietly, and Paul put his arm around her.
“You can’t fault Babes for just being Babes,” she said.
“No,” Paul said sadly. “You can’t ever do that.”
Ryan gave them a moment, but then he had to ask: “Do you think this is what Babes’s confession is about? Is that why he called me on the air to tell the world he killed his sister?”
Rachel wiped away a tear.
Paul said, “I’m hard on Babes sometimes, but I know my son. I think that’s exactly what’s going on. It all goes back to him saying ‘it was no accident.’”
Ryan rose. “Rachel, are you going to be okay here alone?”
“Yes,” she said, sniffling. “Where are you going?”
“Where else?” he said, as his gaze shifted to his father-in-law. “Paul and I have to keep looking.”
The Checker was alone in his hotel room.
From his standpoint, the day was a complete success. The long wait in his car had been worth it, and he’d gotten exactly what he’d set out to get. He didn’t fancy himself an expert photographer, but this was a fine piece of work. The fact that everything was now on hold was actually a disappointment.
He got up from the bed, went to the sink, and washed his face. He’d seen enough of the newscasts on television about Ryan’s brother-in-law, Babes. Something told him that this was not going to go as smoothly as some people thought. His photograph might yet be useful. The Checker was most definitely a betting man, and his money was riding on Ryan James needing another jolt of cold reality—one that would make him realize that the search for the truth was not without danger.
He crossed the room and switched off the light. The LCD on his laptop computer glowed in the darkness. He went to his electronic collection of digital photographs and retrieved the best one that he’d taken earlier in the day. He attached it to a draft e-mail, and in the TO box he typed the address for Ryan James’s radio station. It took a moment to come up with the proper subject line—he wanted a real grabber. Then it came to him. He typed it out, but he didn’t hit the Send button. He took another look at the attachment. He’d snapped the photograph from across the street, but the image was unmistakable, especially with the halls of prestigious Brookline Academy in the background.
It was Ainsley James, dressed in her school uniform, caught in one of those rare but inevitable moments in her young life when there seemed to be no adult around.
Accidents Happen, the message read.
He would have loved to send it now, but timing was critical. The Checker was a patient man. This holding pattern was not going to last. The right moment would surely come—and the Checker would know exactly when.
He saved the e-mail to his Drafts folder and switched off the computer. The room fell into darkness.
30
ON TUESDAY AT 1:00 P.M. EMMA LEFT THE COURTHOUSE. BABES had yet to turn himself in, and Chief Garrisen’s twenty-four-hour deadline had expired.
A warrant was issued for his arrest.
The chief still had the office operating under a strict no-comment rule, so Emma had to duck the media on her way to her car. Her cell phone rang as she was driving out of the parking lot. She recognized the number from the Rhode Island Department of Health Forensic Laboratory. It was the head of DNA testing, Bob Entwistle.
“Got some bad news for you,” he said.
Emma stopped at the red light. “I heard last night,” she said. “You can’t construct a reliable DNA profile from the hair strands I gave you.”
“That’s not the problem anymore. The kit that arrived this morning took care of that.”
She’d been awake most of the night thinking about what Lomax vowed to do during his visit to her apartment, but it was still hard to believe that he’d gone through with it. “So Brandon Lomax actually submitted a DNA sample?”
“Not only that, but he told me to call you directly with the results.”
“And now you’re telling me that the news is bad?”
“I’m afraid so,” said Entwistle.
“Are you saying there’s a match?”
“No, not that,” he said with the distinct chuckle of a know-it-all scientist. “We can work pretty fast if we drop everything and focus on a single case, but getting results this quickly would be TV-crime-show fast.”
She was relieved but confused. “So what’s the bad news?”
“Well, as you
know, in order to create the original DNA sample three years ago, we extracted saliva from the vomit that was collected at the scene of the accident.”
“Yes, and that was a fine piece of work.”
“You bet it was,” he said. “Not all departments have the equipment to extract DNA from vomit, and if I hadn’t lobbied for the purchase of that new extraction kit with paramagnetic particles to isolate extremely pure DNA for use with STR analysis, we never would have had a sample in the first place.”
Emma rolled her eyes. Whenever scientists felt challenged, they seemed to lapse into a level of detail more suitable for a rocket-science manual.
“Relax, Bob. I wasn’t being condescending. It was a fine piece of work.”
“Oh,” he said, backpedaling. “Thanks. But now I’m even more embarrassed to tell you the news: we never got around to constructing a DNA profile from that sample. I’m sorry about that, but this was effectively a cold case with no suspects. You know how busy the lab has been with everything from forensic files in active investigations to criminal offender files for convicted felons, and we—”
“Bob, it’s okay,” said Emma. The guy was beyond defensive. “So there’s no DNA record in the computer; is that what you’re telling me?”
“That’s correct.”
That explained the foot-dragging Emma had encountered when she’d submitted the hair sample. “So you have to go back to the original sample in the state data bank and construct a DNA profile, then compare it to Brandon’s DNA. How long is that going to take?”
“There’s the problem,” he said.
“Weeks or months?”
“We can’t locate the original sample.”
A car horn blasted behind her. Emma had watched the light turn green, but it was as if Entwistle’s words had prevented her brain from telling her foot to press the accelerator.
“It’s lost?” she asked, as she drove through the intersection.
“I won’t say lost. It’s…missing.”
“How can that be?”
“I don’t know.”
“But if there’s no sample and no previously constructed DNA profile in the computer, there is no way to compare Brandon Lomax’s DNA—or anyone else’s DNA—to the DNA found at the crime scene.”
“That would be correct,” he said reluctantly.
Emma had tremendous respect for the professionals in the lab, but every now and then a case would deliver a painful reminder that Rhode Island had been the last state in the union to create a DNA data bank. “Where do we go from here?”
“I’m double-checking. Since a drunk driver may have been involved in this crash, it’s possible that someone sent out the vomit sample to test for alcohol levels.”
“You can’t get a reliable blood-alcohol level from vomit.”
“I know, but I’m just theorizing here. I’m also going to check to see if somewhere along the line the department contracted with an outside lab to do DNA testing in this case or another one. Maybe there was a mix-up.”
She stopped at the next traffic light, and the car behind her nearly rear-ended her. That would have been today’s icing on the cake.
“Do me a favor and sort this out as quickly as you can,” she said.
“Will do. Like I said, I’m sure it’s just a mix-up.”
“I’m sure,” she said, wondering if for a certain former attorney general, the mix-up was a highly convenient one.
Ryan finished his morning radio show and went straight to Cambridge. If Babes’s friend Tom wouldn’t answer his cell, Ryan would go find him.
Ryan took the same subway that had taken him to MIT last week, but this time he walked away from campus, toward Tom’s apartment. He should have been planning his conversation with Tom, but he was still preoccupied with this morning’s radio show and one of the biggest jerks ever to call in to Jocks in the Morning. The conversation replayed in his head as he walked down Kensington Avenue.
“Hey, sport. How are you?”
Sport? Who does this guy think he is, Robert Redford in The Great Gatsby?
“Doug Wells, here, Action News in Providence. We have a mutual friend in Conradt Garrisen.”
Nobody called him Conradt, especially not his friends. You don’t know Connie any more than I know the Prince of Wales.
Ryan said, “You realize we’re on the air, right?”
“Absolutely,” said Doug. “I hear you’re returning to baseball, so I wanted to call and let your listeners know that we here at Action News in Providence will be following your comeback every step of the way.”
Ryan hated it when people called to promote other networks. This one was particularly bothersome since he had not yet made his comeback a topic of discussion on the show.
“That’s kind of you, Doug. Thanks for calling.”
“Oh, one other thing.”
“Running out of time here, Doug.”
“I’ll be quick. My heart goes out to you and your brother-in-law.”
“Thank you.”
“And, Babes, if you’re listening, I know it can be hard to talk to family about things you have bottled up inside. Sometimes you just want to talk to someone who isn’t going to judge you. So, Babes, if you can hear me, call me at the Action News station or at home, and we can even talk off the record—”
Ryan cut him off.
Asshole.
Tom Bales lived in a two-bedroom apartment just a few blocks from MIT. Ryan went up the elevator and knocked on the door. A young good-looking guy answered. He was wearing torn blue jeans, no shoes, and a T-shirt that read AND YOUR POINT
IS? Not since his own college days had Ryan seen eyes like these, and it was a safe bet that the kid had been smoking some kind of herb since breakfast.
Some of Ryan’s friends had told him to try that, too, for his insomnia.
“Is Tom here?”
“Tom who?”
“Tom Bales.”
“Oh, my roommate,” he said, laughing. For some reason, he thought that was really funny. So did the giggly girlfriend on the couch in the living room.
“Is he here?”
“Uh, no. Hey, you’re Ryan James, right? The sports dude on the radio.”
“That’s me. You a listener?”
The guy fluttered his lips like an overworked horse. “Nah. Tom linked me up with your brother-in-law to do computer support for my paper on thermal plasma outflow and circulation within the Earth’s inner magnetosphere. Babes has been great. This could be one of the most detailed surveys of ion-pitch angle distributions ever done by—”
“I hate to be rude,” said Ryan, “but I really need to find Tom.”
“Honestly, I haven’t seen him in about two days.”
“What?”
“Well, that’s not unusual. When Tom gets into his projects, he could be working nonstop at the lab and sleeping two hours a night on the floor. If he sleeps at all.”
I can relate to that.
“What about his girlfriend? Could he be at her place?”
Now the kid was really laughing.
“What’s so funny?” said Ryan.
“Virgin Tom—a girlfriend?” he said, snickering. “Tom talks a good game, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen him with a woman.”
The image of Tom’s chase after the Tommy Bahama girl on campus flashed in Ryan’s mind.
“I’d like to leave him a message,” said Ryan. He didn’t trust Tom’s roomie to deliver it. “You mind if I put a note in his room, where he’ll get it?”
“Be my guest.”
He directed Ryan to the first bedroom off the hallway, and then went back to whatever he had been doing in the living room with Giggles.
Ryan opened the bedroom door and almost gasped. He wasn’t that many years removed from quirky college living conditions, but this was over the top. A two-hundred-inch LCD screen covered nearly the entire wall. Ryan had seen projection screens that large, but never an LCD. He’d heard of them in sports bars in Japan, and
he checked the brand. There was no label. He inspected the workmanship more closely. This was no factory model. Tom had built the thing himself.
It was getting easier all the time to understand Babes’s friendship with Tom.
Ryan’s gaze drifted across the room to the mirror above the bureau. It was large and had an oak frame, but most of the mirror itself was covered with photographs that Tom had taped onto the glass. Ryan was too curious not to walk over to take a closer look.
They were typical college photographs—Tom with his friends having a good time. True to the remarks of Tom’s roommate, however, Ryan didn’t notice any photographs of Tom alone with a woman. Then his eye caught a photograph of Babes, and the image struck him.
It was a typical picture of Babes. He wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t even looking at the camera. But Tom was beaming. So was the other person in the photograph. It was a woman, and Ryan couldn’t take his eyes off her.
It was Chelsea.
Ryan took a step back and breathed in and out, not sure what mix of emotions was coursing through his body. But he suddenly wanted out of Tom’s room.
He scribbled a note with his phone number—“Tom, call me IMMEDIATELY”—left it on Tom’s pillow, and stole one more glance at Chelsea on his way out the door.
31
BABES SLEPT UNTIL NOON. NO SURPRISE THERE. HE HAD LAIN awake till dawn, afraid to make a move, too frightened to close his eyes.
His unexpected visitor had chewed him out royally for eating his box of vanilla wafers. How was Babes to know that the guy had been living in the Dawes family crypt—Babes’s crypt—for the past six months? Throughout the chilly night, Babes had hoped that the man would be gone in the morning. When he woke, however, Babes saw him seated cross-legged on the floor, studying Babes’s collection of baseball cards. They were still neatly displayed, each team forming its own column, just as Babes had arranged them.
“These yours?” the man asked.
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