He thought about it for a moment. “Yes, you’re right. I’d like you to press on if you would.”
“There’s no indication of where this will was signed. Can you to find out from Gloria’s attorney who the witnesses are? I will need to see them if it can be arranged, to try to determine what her mental state was at that time. I’d also like to know if there was a prior will. It may be important if there’s doubt as to the validity of this one.”
“Very well, I’ll look into it. How long do you think it will take for the DNA analysis to be done?”
“I have a private lab where I take my work. Hopefully we can get something within ten days – maybe less if they work over the weekend. The thing is that the actual testing can be done in less than five days; the rest of the delay is because of the workload at the lab. They always have a significant backlog – all the labs are the same – and I can’t really tell them that this is especially urgent. But I use this lab quite a lot and they usually do their best to accommodate me. Of course, even if it is possible to obtain a satisfactory profile we shall still need something from Susan’s to compare it with. I can’t insist on that; it can only be obtained with her consent.”
I stayed with him for another half hour or so, but we had no further discussion about the case. He was paying my fee and if he wanted me to share a bottle of wine with him it was fine by me. Although I’d spent relatively little time in his company over the past few days I had grown to rather like him. He had an apparent naivety that belied his physical appearance, and a dignity and simplicity about him that was disarming. He wasn’t exactly a bundle of laughs though.
Greg handed me the box of orchids as I left. As I took the box from him he held onto it for a moment and looked me in the eye.
“When there’s someone in your life that’s important to you,” he said, “there’s no harm in letting it show occasionally.” He smiled, and I nodded. “Life’s unpredictable,” he said, as I placed the box in the trunk of my car, “no-one knows that better than me.” He handed me the bag containing Gloria’s hairbrush.
Immediately after leaving Philips I headed straight for Cambridge with the contents of the plastic bag. I doubted whether I would get the DNA results for more than a week, but I knew that Jill Bloom, who ran a private forensic laboratory called Complete Forensics in Cambridge, would pull out all the stops for me. I called ahead, but Jill wasn’t available until late afternoon and as I wanted to see her personally I drove home. Testing for DNA would take at least seven to ten days and I needed to make progress as quickly as possible, but a few hours wouldn’t make much difference. I had made a call and arranged to visit Susan again, this time at her home. I called Lucy to see if she’d had time to research the plane crash. I made myself a sandwich and coffee, as much to kill time as anything else. At four o’clock I fired up the Chevy and headed for Cambridge.
Over the years Jill had handled a lot of work for me. She’s a meticulously thorough researcher and a fearsome expert witness with the ability to turn a prosecution case on its head. Her strength is her ability to think outside the box; she’s highly adept at lateral thinking. She’d helped one of my clients who had been charged with arson. He’d been arrested in the vicinity of a warehouse fire and forensic tests showed that there were traces of a fire accelerant called toluene on his shoes which the fire department examiners confirmed was the same accelerant used to start the fire. As far as the police forensic laboratory was concerned it was powerful evidence against him and the DA was confident of a conviction. The client was adamant that he’d never knowingly been near anything containing a fire accelerant. Through meticulous research and correspondence with the manufacturer of my client’s shoes Jill discovered that toluene was used in the formula for the adhesive used to attach the sole to the upper part of the shoe. The prosecution was abandoned.
I knew that if DNA could be extracted from Gloria’s hair by anyone then it would be her. If she was unsuccessful then nobody else could do it either. I’d arranged to see her at five but I was late because of unusually heavy traffic. I had a security pass into the car park and into the building itself because I was a regular visitor. Jill was tied up in a meeting, so I waited in the reception room and tried unsuccessfully to find something interesting to read. She came down to the reception at five forty five to receive the sample. She knew that I needed no advice relating to the DNA test itself since she had performed other similar tests for me before, but she had thoughtfully prepared a typed leaflet for my client to explain the intricacies of testing for DNA on hair samples.
In particular her leaflet pointed out that although it is sometimes possible to extract DNA from a shaft of a hair it is far more likely to be successful if the root is present, because that’s where the blood supply was. Even then experience has shown that chemical treatments, including dyes, can alter the hair cuticle. Dyes can easily penetrate the spaces between the scaly cells forming the hair cuticle or even raise them in order to be better absorbed by the hair. Peroxides, one of the main constituent chemicals in hair dyes, heavily contribute to the degradation of DNA in hair. Peroxides act by specifically breaking the bonds in DNA, once the hair is exposed to water on washing; the DNA is then easily washed out of the hair fibers. The greater the number of washes, the more DNA is lost from the hairs. This loss of DNA is not only due to the degradation and breaking down of the bonds in DNA but also to the damage caused to the hair by simply washing it.
I was well aware of the limitations so I was hopeful rather than confident of a positive result. Jill told me she would call as soon as she had fully analyzed the samples. There were probably hundreds of hairs in the bristles, she said, so it might take quite a while. If it was necessary to test every strand then obviously it would take a lot longer, but she would start by examining the hairs to see if any of them had the follicle intact. We didn’t waste time with any small talk, so less than five minutes after giving her the samples I was climbing back into the Chevy and heading home.
I stopped at a grocery store on the way home and stocked up for the week. Liquor and food. After all, a balanced diet is good for you. I took the box of orchids out of the trunk and placed them on my dining table in the living room. I decided I deserved a barbecue so I lit the burner and prepared some dogs and home-made patties and put the buns on the heat to toast. I cracked open a Budweiser and treated myself to a cigarette. I couldn’t invite Lucy because she would go on and on about it. The cigarette, not the beer; or maybe both. Anyway, I’m one of life’s curiosities: I often like to be alone. I’ve never been to a party that I’ve enjoyed and I even prefer to watch the Red Sox and the Patriots on TV rather than sit amongst the hordes. The great thing about being by yourself is that you don’t have to please anyone or moderate your behavior. And there’s another thing: I talk to myself. And I sing to myself too, sometimes. Now who else would want to listen to that?
All my instincts told me that Susan wasn’t the genuine article. I would visit her again tomorrow to try to get a DNA sample from her, even though I was far from certain that it was going to be any use. If Susan was really Gloria’s daughter then she wouldn’t hesitate to provide a sample. Even if my instincts were right, however, I figured she would be savvy enough to believe that her DNA sample was no use. Maybe I’d telephone her in the morning and tell her about the request before our meeting; that would give her plenty of time to trawl the internet. On the other hand I’d prefer to see her unrehearsed reaction when I made the request. She knew already that Gloria had been cremated and that there were no other blood relatives for a comparison, so she would probably query the point of my request. I’d tell her it was routine for probate consultants to make such requests in the circumstances, and she’d also know that a refusal to comply with such a request would only bring suspicion. If I was right in my analysis of the situation then whether or not she was really who she said she was I was confident she’d agree. I told Philips that I would drop by on my way to Concord which involved a bit of a deto
ur, but I wanted to know what he had been able to find out about the signatories on the will, and anyway, as a matter of professional courtesy I prefer to speak directly with clients whenever possible rather than over the telephone.
I finished eating, drank a couple more beers and headed to the bathroom and bed. On the way I realized I was singing to myself: “If you knew Suzie, like I know Suzie…”
Chapter Nine
If You Knew Suzie
Greg’s dress was smart casual as usual and again the sun was shining. This time we didn’t linger over coffee or wine. I explained my proposed plan of action and the reason why I was confident that Susan would comply, and I gave him Jill’s leaflet with a brief but detailed explanation about the possibilities of extracting DNA from hair. He had already been in touch with Bill Saunders and determined that the signatures of the witnesses on the will were genuine. Bill had contacted both witnesses and they confirmed that they were casual acquaintances of Gloria’s from the Boylston club. Gloria had simply told them that she needed her signature to be witnessed. They were not shown the contents of the will itself, and there was no requirement that they had to be. They confirmed that only the three of them were present when they signed the will.
I told Greg that until we got the DNA analysis result I would have to work on the assumption that it may not be helpful.
“I’m seeing Susan at her home today and will have time to delve more deeply into her background: where she grew up, where she went to school, whether she had any friends or contacts from her childhood days. My assistant has drawn a blank so far in her search for newspaper coverage of a plane crash in Idaho in late 1989. She’ll keep digging.”
Greg said that he would try to arrange a meeting with the signatories to Gloria’s will and try to get more details of the circumstances at the time, and specifically to see if either of them had felt she was acting at all strangely: he’d arrange for me to meet with them myself if I thought it might be helpful.
“During that time we hadn’t told anyone about Gloria’s problem. If she was at the club that day then it’s likely she was feeling alright. I don’t personally know either of the witnesses but I expect I’ll recognize them when I see them. Golf widows probably; there are lots of those in the club.”
I left Greg shortly after nine and hoped the sun would continue to keep me company after I left the Philips house. It did. I headed for Concord. There are few parts of Concord that aren’t picturesque, but Susan had found one of them. She lived in a single room on a second floor walk-up in a nondescript clapboard duplex on the outskirts of the small town. Nobody had apparently thought it worth lavishing loving care on the outside of the building since the Civil War. The house had once been painted white but what was left of the paint job was patchy and peeling. The only exception was the front door which was scabbed with blisters of paint that can’t have been more than twenty years old. Susan was outside washing her car when I arrived. It was a two door Plymouth sedan from the nineteen seventies, painted lime green with a black vinyl roof. Unlike the house it looked to be in almost pristine condition. She wore the same outfit as the first time I saw her, although it was probably a duplicate. She obviously hadn’t made an effort to smarten herself up for my visit. Some women can look smart effortlessly; Susan wasn’t one of them.
She led me up to her room, telling me as we climbed the stairs that it was a furnished rental and that she’d lived there for about six months, but she’d been in Concord for more than a year. “Because of Gloria,” she said. Unsurprisingly there was nothing in the room that told me anything of significance about its current occupant; thrift shop furniture and walls unadorned by any personal decorative touches. There was a single bed in the corner over by the window and a small cluttered kitchen annex on the other side of the room. There was a single bookshelf well stocked with paperbacks. A computer and aging plasma TV were the only signs of the twenty first century. There was a single armchair and no sofa, so we sat at the small dining table which was flanked by two straight-backed cane chairs.
“Sorry, it’s a bit of a dump, but I don’t usually have visitors,” she said.
“I live alone so I know what you mean,” I said.
“I’ve got the copies you asked for; my birth certificate and stuff.” She indicated a brown manila envelope lying on the table between us. I opened it to take a look.
“I can make some tea if you like. I’m out of coffee.”
“Tea will be fine, thanks.”
She busied herself in the kitchen while I looked at the documents she had provided. There was everything that I’d asked for that she said she had. The birth certificate named her place of birth in a small town in California, her date of birth as 21st June 1971. I strolled over to the bookshelf. It was the only thing in the room that might tell me something about herself, if only her taste in literature. Most of the books were new, in the sense that they were recently published novels by mostly well-known authors, some of them in the mystery crime vein, and some romances. I looked inside some of them to see if Susan had written her name inside the front cover or on the flyleaf. Some of the books had a single name, Josette, written inside, and one had ‘Josette, with love.’ I couldn’t find any with the name Susan, or Granger. There were some older books but none of them had anything written inside.
Over my shoulder I said, “You may be interested to know that I’ve seen the will now. It was apparently signed at the Boylston Recreation Club and witnessed by two of Gloria’s friends there. So now I can make some progress by visiting the various beneficiaries. Gloria was fond of birds I understand. She’s made a small bequest to an ornithological society that she belonged to.”
Susan gave no indication that she had listened to anything that I had said so far.
“Do you have cream and sugar with your tea?” she asked, without turning around to look at me.”
“I’ll have it black please, no sugar.”
I strolled back to the table. Susan brought two mugs over to the table, laid them down on the bare wood and sat down opposite me.
“I’ve a few more questions about your background, Susan. It won’t take long, but Gloria’s attorney is a bit of a stickler for details. Can you tell me where you lived when you were growing up and where you went to school?”
“We lived all over the place. My father was constantly relocating because of his job. I had a disruptive childhood because of that, always changing schools. Sometimes I would only be at a school for one semester. When my parents died they were living in Denver. I was in Boulder at that time, but I hadn’t lived there long.”
“Are you still in touch with any friends from your childhood?”
“I was never in one place long enough to make any friends. It wasn’t like today, with Facebook. There weren’t any computers when I was growing up, no emails, nothing. After my parents were killed I moved from place to place. I suppose I was used to it. I’ve probably lived in more places over the years than most people visit in a lifetime.”
“Do you know where your parents were living when you were adopted? Did they ever tell you that?”
“I told you, I didn’t know I was adopted until I was sixteen. It didn’t seem important to me then.”
“But before you found out you were adopted, wasn’t there any discussion about where you’d been born?”
“I know from my birth certificate where I was born, but I never saw that until I was sixteen. That’s when I found out that Joyce and Richard weren’t my real parents. My earliest memory was when we were living in Tulsa I think. That’s before I went to school.”
“Where were you when you first went to school? I expect you can remember that. It’s a big milestone in most children’s lives.”
“I don’t have any impression about that. It’s quite disorienting you know when you’re always on the move.”
“How about photographs? Do you have any pictures from the period before your parents were killed?”
“Look around you. I
travel light. I guess I would have if there’d been digital photos in those days. I didn’t even have an Instamatic.”
I’d already noticed the lack of any photographs hanging on the wall or displayed anywhere else.
“You don’t seem to harbor the memories of childhood and adolescence like most people do.”
“It was a long time ago. I’m a different person now.”
I wondered if that was a Freudian slip.
“How was your relationship with your parents? I mean before you learned you were adopted and afterwards? Were you happy?”
“We weren’t close, if that’s what you mean. It got worse after I found out because as I told you last time I felt different towards them and they lost their sense of authority. If we had arguments I would remind them they weren’t really my parents, that sort of thing. I wasn’t a monster, just a teenager. When I was seventeen I took off.”
“No boyfriends who might still hold a candle for you?”
“No,” she said, and laughed drily. “I’ve never been interested in accumulating things. When you travel from place to place as often as I do it would be too much of a hassle anyway.”
“Is there any reason that you have never put down roots somewhere?”
“I like seeing new places and I get bored easily. I don’t have anyone else to worry about. I’m not interested in men; I like girls as a matter of fact if that doesn’t completely freak you out”
“I like girls too so it doesn’t freak me out at all.” I grinned at her. I wondered if the Josette, whose name I’d seen inside some of the books, was her girlfriend or lover.
“When I get bored I sling my stuff in the trunk and head off somewhere else. My car’s the only thing I care about really, we’ve been together years. Funny how you can get attached to something like that. I even have a name for her.”
“I thought about my old Chevy that my brother had gifted to me many years ago. As if she was reading my thoughts she said:
FORGET ME NOT (Mark Kane Mysteries Book One) Page 7