by Kathy Reichs
“A couple of hours.”
“How do you feel?”
“Thirsty.”
I filled and passed him his water tumbler.
“How much do you remember?” I asked when he’d finished sucking on the flexible straw.
“The red dress.” Groucho-flicking his eyebrows, then wincing at the effort.
“Sadly, it was DOA.”
Ryan pulled a face. With the black eyes and prickly hair, he looked like a B-movie serial-killer clown. Which reminded me of the date.
“Tomorrow is Halloween. I’ll bring you jelly beans.”
“I’ll be out of here by then.”
“In your dreams.”
“The doc says I’m making remarkable progress.”
“For a guy with a wee hole in his head.”
Ryan ignored that. “Claudel and Charbonneau came by earlier.”
“Itchy and Scratchy. They questioned me last night.”
“Charbonneau’s a good guy.”
I said nothing.
“Claudel’s solid.”
“Right. Deadline Hollywood described him as zany.”
“Dead-on.”
Now I made the face. “They shouldn’t be bothering you so soon.”
“You know the old cliché.”
“The first forty-eight,” I said.
“Time is the enemy.”
“Another good one. Still.”
“It was fine. Though I couldn’t tell them dick.”
“You don’t remember?”
“Bits and pieces. I’ll jot things down as they come to me.”
“Did you get any sense of the car?”
“Something fast. Maybe a Porsche.”
“That was my impression, too.”
“And hard.”
“All cars are hard.”
“Very, very hard.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Whatever the model, the psycho driving it needs his head ripped off and shoved up his ass,” Ryan said.
“You really mustn’t hold back on your feelings.”
“I’ll work on it. Any developments on your container cases?”
“You really want to hear about that?”
“I do.”
I told him about Vislosky’s call.
An odd look crossed Ryan’s face. Before he could respond, a nurse entered. Not S. Beauvais. This one was tall and bony, with oversize black-framed glasses. She went through the drill with charts and monitors and tracings.
Then, turning to me, “We have had a very full morning. We mustn’t overtax the patient.”
When she’d gone, I asked Ryan, “Seriously. How do we feel?” Imitating the nurse-speak.
“Like someone who’s had the snot beat out of him.” This time, the smile didn’t make it to the purple-rimmed eyes.
I stood and took Ryan’s hand. “Call me when you’re rested. I’ll be here in a flash.”
“What will you do without me?” Groggy.
I had a plan.
* * *
My mobile rang as I was exiting I-720 onto rue Guy.
“Annie Fanny!” Summoning a cheeriness I didn’t feel.
“What the sweet baby Jesus is going on?”
“What?”
“You sounded like death on that voice mail.”
I unloaded all the way to the condo. When I stopped talking, the line was silent for so long I thought we’d been disconnected.
“Anne?”
“I’m here. How’s the little buckaroo doing?”
“He’s hurting but out of danger. And already antsy. He thinks they’ll discharge him tomorrow.”
“Is he planning a Halloween costume?”
“Trust me, he doesn’t need one.”
“He looks that bad?”
“Worse.”
“Will they?”
“Will they what?”
“Discharge him.”
“No.”
“Is he on painkillers?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“What do you think happened? Accident or attack?”
“A deliberate hit, but I have no idea why.”
Another long pause, then, “Need a distraction?”
“Sure. But I’m about to enter the garage and may lose signal.”
“I might have a lead on Beecroft’s mask.”
“I’m listening.”
Anne launched into a dialogue on ancestry and descent and family resemblances, cut off when I dove underground.
Upstairs, I coaxed Birdie from beneath the bed with his favorite Greenies treats. Too many for his own good. Or for that of the white carpet. A guilty conscience is a powerful force.
Next, I made myself peanut butter toast and washed it down with a Diet Coke, all the while thinking about one of Anne’s comments.
Kicking back in a living-room chair, I hit redial, idly observing the bundled figures below on rue Sherbrooke. Shoppers, tourists, mothers or nannies pushing strollers. Everyone more tolerant of cold than moi.
“Sorry.” When Anne answered. “Lost signal in the garage.”
“I figured.”
“Listen, can I roll something by you?” Not sure why I was bouncing the idea off Anne. To see how plausible it sounded when spoken aloud?
“Rock and roll.”
“You said your research on Beecroft’s mask led you to some genealogy web pages.”
“Not on purpose. It’s like falling down rabbit holes. One leads to another, then another. I stumbled onto a boatload of sites offering to profile my genes.”
Anne was right. In the past decade, a vast array of companies had sprung up offering users the opportunity to test their own DNA. Purchase the kit, mail us your spit. We’ll tell you where Great-great-grandma and -grandpa were born. Easy-peasy. Some of them, such as AncestryDNA, were geared mostly toward family-tree building. Others, such as 23andMe, were more medically focused.
Not long after the appearance of these direct-to-consumer DNA services, amateur cyber-sleuths began to explore whether they might be of value as investigative tools for law enforcement. Specifically, could their databases be used to identify unknown crime victims and suspects? To put names to unknown dead?
It turned out the answer was yes. But indirectly. The forensic application relied on the use of another type of open-source database. And on users’ willingness to upload the DNA results they’d obtained in hopes of locating relatives.
“Did you come across any mention of forensic genetic genealogy?” I asked.
“Give me a hint.”
“The Golden State Killer?”
“Sure did. Some genealogist helped the cops nail that turd.”
“GEDmatch was the name of the site used to ID the guy,” I said. “GEDmatch doesn’t offer DNA testing but allows users to upload results from companies like 23andMe or AncestryDNA. They claim to be able to identify a third cousin or closer for more than ninety percent of the population.”
“So how does it work?” Anne asked through the crinkle of cellophane. I wondered what she was eating.
“It’s not so different from, say, an adoptee looking for a birth parent. You do your DNA test—”
“By mailing off a swab.”
“You then upload your DNA results to an open-source database like GEDmatch. In most cases, the matches they find will be distant cousins. That’s where the genealogists come in. They piece together family trees by cross-referencing shared bits of DNA with things like gender, age, place of residence, obituaries, public records, social-media profiles, et cetera. In criminal cases, law enforcement might actually go out and contact family members for additional info or more DNA.”
“To narrow down the possible hits.”
“Yes.”
“You said a database like GEDmatch. There are others?”
“Many. FamilyTreeDNA, for example.”
“Wait.” Loud syrupy swallow. “I’ve seen their ad. The one with the father of that kid who escaped her kidnapper.”
&n
bsp; “Elizabeth Smart.”
“That’s her. The dad urges viewers to submit their DNA to help catch offenders.”
“A good spokesman helps create demand, and there’s a lot of money to be made. I think I read that FamilyTreeDNA recently raised its price to law enforcement from one hundred to seven hundred dollars a pop. And they’re hiring like crazy.”
More cellophane. “Go on.”
“What are you eating?”
“Snickers. I bought a bag for trick-or-treaters.”
God, that sounded good.
“So…” I was searching for the right way to frame it.
“Let me guess. Even with DNA, you’ve run into a wall with your container victims. So you’re thinking you might try forensic genealogy.”
“I am.”
“It’s a long shot.”
“From here to the outer rim.”
“Go for it.”
18
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 30–FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 5
Next, I phoned Claire Willoughby on her mobile.
She answered right away. Sounds of traffic and children shouting suggested she was outside. Panting suggested she might be running.
“I’m sorry to bother you on a weekend.”
“No worries. I’m jogging. I hate jogging.” Her words came out in short little bursts.
I got straight to it, didn’t mention Ryan. “Have you heard of forensic genetic genealogy?”
“Are you joking?”
“No.”
“Of course, I’ve heard of it. Those blokes are on fuego, claiming to be cracking a cold case a week.”
“Could it be done on the bones I exhumed?”
“The container woman and kid?”
“Yes.”
She didn’t hesitate. “Not a chance.”
“Why not?” Fighting to hide my disappointment.
“First off, our lab doesn’t do SNP testing. Only STR.”
“Short tandem repeat.”
“Yes.” I heard her pausing to take a breath. “The kind of profile that goes into a database like CODIS to search for possible matches. Forensic genetic genealogy uses SNP genotype data.”
“Single-nucleotide polymorphism.”
Based on the meager knowledge I’d acquired from reading and from colleagues in molecular biology, I understood that an SNP involved a substitution of a single one of four possible bases, A, T, C, or G, at a particular location on the DNA molecule.
I ran my distilled definition by Willoughby.
“Basically, that’s it. In layman’s terms, at a specific position along the double helix, where most folks have one gene, a minority have another.” Despite the labored breathing, Willoughby’s footfalls sounded rapid and steady. “And such polymorphisms, as we call them, are responsible for individual variations, things like differences in susceptibility to diseases like sickle-cell anemia and cystic fibrosis.”
The footfalls slowed, stopped. I heard rattling, then gulping.
“Look, Tempe, I live for this shit. But no can do. Even if we performed SNP at our lab, which we don’t, the bone you recovered was too degraded. I used up most of the sample for the STR.”
“Who does SNP testing?”
“As far as I know, mostly private labs.”
“Thanks.”
“I did nothing.”
“You took my call on a Saturday.”
“Did I mention I hate jogging?”
“Run, Forrest, run.”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
I gazed out the window at the street below. A light snow was falling. People were still streaming in both directions along rue Sherbrooke. A van was pulling from the curb on rue Crescent beside the Musée des Beaux-Arts. A car was waiting, eager to claim the spot.
A Porsche Panamera. Sleek and low to the ground.
Sudden flashback to avenue Laurier.
All my senses jolted awake.
Body tense, I watched the Porsche lurch back and forth, the driver clearly struggling with the steep downhill incline. After six or seven passes, the ragged maneuvering stopped. A door opened, and a woman got out. She wore a brown overcoat that hung below the tops of her boots, a plaid muffler, and a red tuque rimmed by curly white hair.
I settled back in my chair, embarrassed by the melodrama that had taken hold of my brain.
On to plan B.
Scrolling through my contacts, I thumbed in another number. Far off in Virginia, a receptionist asked my name, then connected me to Lizzie Griesser.
“You’re pissed that I haven’t sent your sketches.” Lizzie blew out a breath. “My bad. But we’ve been—”
“That’s not why I’m calling.” Though there was some truth to what she said.
Lizzie waited.
“Does your lab do SNP genotyping?”
“Yes.”
“Forensic genealogy?”
“Oh, my God. Lately, we’re doing a shit ton. So much that we’ve contracted with a forensic genealogist. That’s part of the reason—”
“If I have the Charleston coroner provide additional samples—”
“I never received samples from Charleston.”
“Seriously?”
“All I got were the ones from your Montreal vics.”
Herrin hadn’t followed through on my request. That did piss me off.
“If I have samples sent, can you do SNP genotyping on the two kids found in the container down there?”
“How degraded is the bone?”
“The state lab was able to sequence STR.”
“Doesn’t mean diddly-squat. But I can try.”
“Thanks.”
“And I will get those phenotype sketches to you.”
“Right on.”
* * *
To his dismay, Ryan spent Halloween in his exquisite room, 1807. I brought him a trick-or-treat bag filled with his faves, Hershey’s, Twix, and Kit Kat bars. Actually, my faves. Ryan thanked me, face looking like a Merriam-Webster illustration beside the definition of cranky.
Though Ryan argued, neither his physician nor the surgeon would budge. Concussion. Burr hole. The patient was staying put. I sided with the docs.
* * *
First thing Monday, I phoned the office of the Charleston County coroner. Got voice mail. Left a message.
Herrin returned my call two hours later. The conversation made our last one seem downright effusive.
Sounding exhausted, Herrin apologized for not following through with Griesser. Explained that the samples had been collected but not sent. Same excuse. An explosion in the number of capno cases.
Herrin promised a FedEx shipment would go out by day’s end.
* * *
Lizzie’s email hit my in-box at five p.m. on Tuesday. According to her phenotype report, the woman and the child were both of western European ancestry, with pale skin, blue or green eyes, dark brown to black hair, and no freckles. All predictions were at confidence levels above ninety percent. No surprises there.
I dug out my facial approximations from 2006 and placed them beside my laptop. Then I opened Lizzie’s composite profiles.
The woman’s eyes were large, her nose long and narrow, her jaw tapering to a prominent chin. The child’s forehead was high, her eyes wide-set and slanted obliquely toward her temples.
Both sets of images shared those features. But beyond these vague similarities, I might have been viewing different women and children, those on my screen more realistic than those on the tabletop.
My old facial approximations had been based solely on bone. I’ve never been a fan of the technique. This comparison confirmed that skepticism. And explained why our sketches had produced no results back in 2006.
Lizzie’s reproductions had been generated by digitally combining the lab’s DNA predictions with detailed cranial photos and measurements that I’d provided.
I stared at the images. The faces were so vivid, so real. So young. I felt the old heartbreak rekindle anew.
> Ignoring the black hole burning in my chest, I forwarded Lizzie’s attachment to Ryan. He could view the report while convalescing.
* * *
Ryan was released midmorning on Wednesday. The shaved patch of scalp was now covered with tape, and the shiners were morphing from purple to sickly yellow-green.
After driving Ryan home, I made grilled cheese sandwiches and served them with root beer, Ryan’s choice of beverage. The phone rang before I’d cleared the table.
Charbonneau and Claudel were in the lobby. They’d been busting ass trying to find the guy who’d run us down and wanted to do some follow-up with Ryan. Reluctantly, I buzzed them in.
As I made coffee, Claudel scanned the decor, a look of disdain wrinkling his parrot nose. Fortunately for him, he kept his critique to himself.
We all took our mugs to the dining-room table. When we’d settled, Charbonneau began the interview.
Ryan still remembered little about the attack. I filled in gaps in his timeline. It was just rehash. We’d been over these details.
Then Claudel switched gears, picking up on a thread from a hospital meeting from which I’d been absent.
“We spent yesterday in Ferdinand.”
“Where Rupert and Agnes Schultz lived.” I was playing catch-up. Apparently, Claudel and Charbonneau were talking to people involved in Ryan’s auto death case. Because Ryan was laid up? Unofficially, since the parties all lived in Vermont? Or because they suspected a connection to the attack?
Claudel ignored me. “The town is the size of my left nut.”
“Place must be pretty damn small,” I mumbled, irritated at being dismissed.
Claudel ignored that, too.
“Agnes wasn’t at any address you gave us and didn’t answer any number you provided.” Claudel was directing all his comments to Ryan. “We asked around, finally found this dimwit clerk at the Circle-K who thought maybe she might know the old lady. There’s one chick won’t be getting any invite to Mensa.”
“She directed us to a house,” Charbonneau jumped in.
Claudel mimicked, I assumed, the unfortunate clerk. “Down t’ end of Broadberry. The green one wif t’ white shutters needs painting.”
No one laughed.
“Turned out the house belonged to Agnes’s mother, Mary Gertrude. Lady must have been in her nineties,” Charbonneau said. “Mary Gertrude phoned Agnes, she came, they both had a big cry, then the two of them started pulling out albums to show us photos of Rupert.”