Drawing Conclusions (21 page)

thirty-two

Becky was emotionally spent,
which gave Lamendola an advantage. Once her own secrets were out, there was no reason for her to lie. It was like the end of Halloween, when everyone takes off their costumes and returns to their regular selves. Becky's face was relaxed and she was resting her elbows on the table in a sign of defeat. At this point, it was likely she'd say anything just to get out of the interrogation room.

Without mincing words, Lamendola asked, “Why did your uncle want Teddy dead?”

“I don't know,” she replied, shifting her eyes, hazy with grief, upward as if the answer were pasted on the ceiling tiles. “I really don't know.”

“You never asked your uncle?”

“I didn't know he wanted Teddy dead. I thought he wanted information from Teddy, but he never said he wanted to kill him. He didn't speak to me of these things. He only spoke to my father about business,” she said, using the word
business
loosely.

I leaned into the microphone to speak to Lamendola, “We need to locate Igor. Find a way to ask her without letting on that we don't have her father in custody.”

Lamendola pretended to take copious notes, giving him time to phrase his next question.

“You and your father were staying at a house located on a hill above Harbor House,” he said, “You vacated the residence recently. I need the exact address of your next location.” Becky offered up an address in Brighton Beach, assuming that her father was also being detained. Within seconds of stating the location, Cheski was out of the room, calling for two cars and backup. I grabbed the microphone and spoke once more to Lamendola.

“Ask about my father. Now.” I barked loudly enough that the policeman covered his ear reflexively.

“Did your uncle have a business relationship with Dr. William Prentice?”

“Dr. Prentice helped my uncle come to the United States,” Becky replied, avoiding the camera as if she were about to be punished. “I wasn't supposed to know that, but I heard my uncle and father talking about it once.”

There it was. The connection. There was now no doubt my father and Peter Dacks had a personal relationship. I was startled and yet not at the same time. I knew the truth would surface at some point. My father knew Peter Dacks, and Peter Dacks had arranged to kill my brother.

“When?”

Becky bit her bottom lip like a child and held out her fingers one by one. “I'm guessing thirty, maybe thirty-five years ago?”

Lamendola called for a uniformed cop to cuff and process Becky. In a poorly planned move on my part, I exited the room at the exact moment she was being led away. She made a vain attempt to plead her innocence mouthing the words
I didn't know
in my direction, but it was useless. Her words hung in the air like moist droplets falling precipitously to the floor. No matter what she wanted me to believe, Teddy was still dead.

Lamendola met me in the hall and escorted me to Frank's temporary office, the converted butler's pantry off the main room of the Laurel Hollow Police Station. The last time I had visited the room, I'd regurgitated into the waste-paper basket. I felt the same heave of nausea as I struggled to process Becky's confession. It had left me unsatisfied. Becky was a pawn in a bigger plan. She was weak and desperate and although her confession was helpful, it didn't uncover the root of the issue.

“DeRosa is holding on the line,” Lamendola opened the door, motioning to Frank's desk. He picked up the phone. “Okay, I've got CeCe, here.”

“Hey,” I said, sinking onto his swivel chair. “Where are you?”

“I'm on my way home,” he said, and I secretly hoped that when DeRosa said
home
, he meant Harbor House. “Lamendola filled me in already. I'm sorry you had to hear Becky's statement firsthand.”

“I'm okay,” I lied, feeling as if I had been pummeled by an overly aggressive masseuse. I had actually had more energy after my frenetic bike ride through the pouring rain than I did at this particular moment. The gaps in Becky's confession were the source of my energy drain. “It's not enough,” I said to DeRosa, “is it?”

“It's not,” he replied. “Becky's confession gives us a reason to pick up Dacks, but it's not enough for a conviction. I don't want to bring him in unless we've got something solid.”

“I'm tired,” I moaned into the phone.

“I know. But I need you to hold on just a little bit longer.”

“So what are we up against?” I asked.

“Well, according to Becky, she had no idea she was being sent to kill Teddy. Knowing what she knows now, she can assume that was her uncle's intent. But it's her word against Dacks's, and he will portray himself as a successful businessman while Becky will come off as a prostitute. And both parties will claim they had no idea that Teddy had an allergy to macadamias. We need to know what Dacks has on your father.”

I countered, grasping at straws. “Dacks was taking DNA from the labs, and Teddy wanted it stopped. That's not enough?”

“I know you're disappointed, but the fact is, your father allowed it. There's no law against transferring DNA, even if your brother didn't like it.”

“Seriously? Are you saying that I don't own my DNA?”

“It's a gray area,” he said, “but let me explain it this way. As long as something is attached to your physical body, it's yours. Once an organ or a tissue sample or swath of DNA is removed from your body, it's finders keepers.”

“Frank,” I shot back, “why are you working against me?”

“I'm not. But I know what it takes to win a court case.”

“And what does it take?” I demanded.

“With no eyewitnesses and only circumstantial evidence, the district attorney will need something airtight to put Dacks behind bars for Teddy's death.”

“So what's your theory?” I asked over the din of airport sounds. I assumed Frank was working his way through Customs as I heard a sea of voices in a cacophony of unrecognizable languages. As if the noise were not enough, the phone reception started cutting in and out, increasing my frustration.

“Peter Dacks was blackmailing Dr. Prentice,” he started. “Instead of money, your father handed over DNA and potentially the result of Teddy's research, the decoded genome. Your father has been acting like he's trying to protect the labs, but he's really trying to protect himself because Dacks knows something very damaging about him. Teddy figured it out and confronted your father. With pressure from Teddy, your father probably tried to call Dacks's bluff. Dacks retaliated by killing Teddy, allowing him to resume his blackmail against your father. The threats against you were a message to your father that Dacks was serious.”

“Where does that leave us?”

“We need to find Igor and get him to talk. We'll offer him and his daughter a plea bargain if he throws Dacks under the bus,” he wrapped up.

“Don't hang up yet, Frank,” I urged. “Did you find something in Italy?”

“I found what I was looking for,” he replied. “And some things I didn't expect to find.”

thirty-three

Cheski heaved the last
of the boxes onto the kitchen table. He was skeptical but open to trying anything. “They say twins have an ESP thing.”

“Well, since the police haven't picked up Igor yet, my medical files are all we've got,” I said, as I lifted the lid on the first box. Jonathan was just making his way downstairs, having slept a full ten hours after his almost-hostage situation. “Jonathan, we need you.”

“Again?”

“Yes, but first you need to fill us in on the interview.”

He rubbed his eyes, thick with sleep, and looked around the room. “Those FBI guys kept me up half the night and then they cleared out like they were never here. Unbelievable.”

I poured him a cup of coffee and motioned him to sit down. “So Teddy's work on the human genome is really linked to Relativity.com?”

Jonathan sighed with an enormous sense of loss. “It's hard, you know, to see good work, genuine work, gone bad. It's like when giant corporations co-opted the Green movement. They end up getting it all wrong but with some decent packaging, they can dupe the public.”

“You wanted this job, didn't you? You wanted it to be real.”

“Relativity.com is real. The problem is that it's a perversion of reality. There's no doubt the company is actually collecting and tracking DNA. And they are producing sellable products. But Dacks is a megalomaniac.”

I handed Jonathan his coffee. “I'm sorry, I know you're disappointed.”

“It's okay. I'm trying to take this development as a sign that I've reached a juncture in my life. I'm more than a farmer.”

“You are, Jonathan,” I said, wrapping an encouraging arm around his shoulder. “In fact, you're Houdini. Tell us how you got off the boat so easily.”

“Well, except for Peter Dacks, everyone else was a scientist—a believer, shall we say. Most of the time, we were caught up in the beauty of work, the possibility that the human genome could be uncovered, ultimately saving millions of lives through the early intervention of gene therapy. That is, until dinner was served and Dacks joined us. What a sleazeball. The way he treated the waitstaff was deplorable, barking orders like he was Henry the Eighth. I don't think the others were on to Dacks's master plan.” Jonathan paused for effect. “His plan was to be the sole source of decoded DNA.”

“Frightening,” I said.

“Also, I'm not convinced the employees are even aware of any link between their company and Sound View Laboratories. But Dacks, he's a piece of work. He grilled me without mercy.” Jonathan scratched his head as if he just realized his hair had been cut.

“Tell me what the scumbag did,” Cheski said.

“Well, he seemed to know I had worked briefly at the labs. That concerned me because he kept pounding away at how much I knew about the place. He kept trying to trip me up with dates and then he'd make off-handed references to the Prentice family to see if he could catch me. But I didn't give in.” He smiled. “Slinging manure around a farm for a few years builds up a certain type of endurance. I guess by the end of dinner he realized he couldn't break me, so he didn't have a reason to keep me. Trina's phone call, staged loud enough for the entire table to hear, was a wake-up call for all the guys around the table who had families. It was like the school bell went off. They all got up to leave, and I blended in with the crowd. Simple as that.”

“Peter Dacks is going down,” Cheski threatened, “and the faster we dig into these files, the faster we can bury him.”

Trina and Charlie joined us at the kitchen table, and I willingly allowed my personal information to be shared without discretion.

“May I start?” Jonathan said.

“Go ahead,” I replied.

“CeCe, you're a healthy twenty-eight-year-old female with no prior medical issues?”

“That's me.”

“So I can't understand why there are four full boxes. I should be able to slide your file under a closed door.”

“That does seem odd,” I noted, remembering the Records guy's comment about my precarious health.

“Well, let's get started,” Trina said as she popped a top off one of the boxes.

The volume of papers did confirm my earlier assumption. Apparently, Teddy and I had been tested for everything from diphtheria to lice on a quarterly schedule. Dr. Grovit's notes were copious, and I had to imagine that even he thought the level of detail requested by my father was unusual. That may have been the reason he so easily released me from the grips of the labs.

“I see you got your period at thirteen,” Trina remarked with a giggle. “A late bloomer.”

“Thank you for notifying the entire table,” I responded. “I'd like to think of myself as a work in progress as opposed to a late bloomer.”

“Call me when you're in full bloom,” Charlie said.

“All right, enough jokes about me. Focus on the files.”

We spent a good hour poring over my paperwork. Random remarks about my health were tossed around the table, and I allowed for some level of mirth at my expense. I had to admit that as much as I thought my father didn't know me, from a medical perspective, nothing seemed off-limits. After reading a short narrative on a series of nightmares I'd had in fifth grade, I came upon a one-pager with a diagram made up of circles, arrows, and numbers. At the top of the page, was a notation:
T to C
.

“I think I just hit paydirt,” I said waving the paper. “Look, there's a note from Teddy at the top. T to C. That's Teddy to CeCe. It's from him.”

I laid the paper on the table for all of us to study. The diagram was fairly simple. There were two circles with a line connecting them, almost like a dumbbell. Inside each circle were two, single-digit numbers. Extending vertically from the line were more circles hanging like upside down lollipops. Again, the circles each contained two numbers.

“What is it?” Lamendola asked, and we all looked to Jonathan.

Jonathan crumpled his bottom lip and tossed his head back and forth like a pendulum. He held the paper up for a closer look and then traced the lines with his finger. He flipped the paper over, looking for additional information, and found another series of numeric notations on the back.

“It's the result of a paternity test,” Jonathan said with controlled composure, but his chest was expanding and deflating too quickly for my comfort.

“Can you interpret it?” Trina asked.

“Well, the two larger circles at either end of this line are the parents.” Jonathan pointed to the slightly larger circles so everyone could get acclimated. “Here, this is an allele. It's used to determine paternity since a child must share one allele with each of his parents. We each have two alleles, one allele from each parent. The numbers in the circles are the allele indicators. This parent, for example, has a 3 and a 7. Any child related to this parent must have either a 3 or a 7 as one of their two alleles. The child's other allele must be a match from the other parent.”

“So each person has two alleles,” I confirmed. “One from one parent and one from the other. That's why each circle has two numbers.”

“Yes,” Jonathan said.

“Well, I'm no rocket scientist,” Cheski admitted, “but based on these number combinations, some of the people in this diagram are not related. There are way too many different numbers.”

Jonathan hesitated, and I could tell we were getting drawn into murky waters. “That would be correct.”

“Can you interpret it for us?” I asked Jonathan.

“As Cheski pointed out,” Jonathan said, pointing to the circles, “reading the diagram is fairly easy. If Teddy meant this as a message to you, then he ensured it could be read by a layman.”

“So with one parent providing a 3 and a 7 and the other parent providing a 1 and a 2, the children would all need a mix of only these numbers.”

“Yes,” Teddy said.

“The two circles to the left have the numbers 4, 5, and 8,” I remarked. “The circle on the right has a 1 and a 9.”

“That's right. There's a story here and you can read it,” Jonathan said, “The note was in your file and it's meant for your eyes. Before you begin, let me mention that just because this paper is in your file, it may have nothing to do with you.”

“Bullshit,” I said, “but I admire your diplomacy. I'm pretty sure that both Teddy and I are represented in this diagram.” I grabbed a pencil off the kitchen counter and jotted down the numbers. I was buying time because it was easy enough to see the outcome of the diagram. My hand was shaking slightly, and I decided to dispense with the charade and state the obvious.

“Two of the children, the circles to the far left, are not related to these parents because neither child shares that cell thing with either parent,” I said.

“An allele,” Jonathan said. “It's called an allele.”

“Okay. But, this child, to the right, is related to one of the parents because they have one allele matching one parent. If Teddy and I are the circles to the left, then this diagram would show that my parents adopted twins.”

“Oh CeCe.” Trina gripped my arm. “I'm so sorry.”

“Are you kidding? That may be the best news I've heard in weeks,” I laughed. The revelation, although astonishing and completely unexpected, was encouraging, if only because it would explain a lifetime in exile. Of course my father disliked me. We weren't even related! And as for Mom, her lack of maternal instinct now had meaning. Maybe these were just two wealthy people who adopted simply to fill up space on their annual Christmas card.

“But,” Jonathan said, giving me a nudge to continue.

“Well, I guess it also shows that one of my adopted parents had another child by birth. This is just supposition, but I'm wondering if my mother may have come to the marriage pregnant, lost the child and then adopted Teddy and me with my father. Her depression may have come from this loss. Or maybe she gave that child up for adoption, yet another possible reason for her depression.”

Cheski turned the paper over and pointed to the markings on the back, “How 'bout this, Einstein. What do you make of all these Xs and Ys.”

“Basic biology,” Jonathan answered. “Male DNA contains an X and a Y chromosome. Females have two Xs.”

“I was hoping for a triple X.” Charlie smirked.

“Do you ever stop?” I reprimanded him. Then I turned to Jonathan. “So basically, this key on the back shows which circles are males and which are females. I'll be able to find out if Teddy and I had a stepsister or stepbrother. Is it step? Or half? Whatever.”

Jonathan turned the paper front to back a few times, making mental notes of the chromosomal key. He grunted a few times, seemingly lost in his own thoughts. “Maybe.”

“Here, let me do it.” I grabbed for the pencil again. The Xs and Ys were multiplying, and it was no longer as simple to decipher the diagram. I flipped the paper over a few times, making notations of gender in each of the circles. As I penciled in the last of the circles, my hand slowed to a screeching halt.

“Oh my god, this can't be,” I said as the room spun around in a blurry haze. I was stumbling and falling despite being seated and felt as destitute as I had the night I found out Teddy was gone. Even that could not match the depths of my sorrow at this particular moment. “Jonathan,” I wailed, “tell me I'm wrong. Please.”

“I can't.” Jonathan opened up his arms and let me fall into his chest. “I'm sorry, CeCe. I wasn't expecting this.”

Charlie was the first to break my grip on Jonathan. “Come on. Don't hold it in.”

I read the diagram, my voice weepy and thin. I wanted my friends to be the first to know what had struck me so hard.

“The circle to the left is my father,” I began. “He's not related to any of these children. Not one of his numbered alleles is shared by any of the children.” The first bomb dropped without protest from my friends. “The circle to the right is my mother. She is related to one of the children. That child is a girl and that child is me.” I paused for a second, allowing my friends to digest the information. “The two children to the left are boys. They're not related to these parents. One of the boys must be Teddy. Teddy has a brother, but he doesn't have a sister.” I wiped my face with a dishtowel; there was no tissue with enough absorbing power to soak up my tears. “I don't have a brother. I'm not a twin. Teddy's not my brother.”

The room exploded in chaos. The news was shattering. Everyone seemed agitated and at a loss for words. Trina simply cried, while Charlie stared into space, his entire childhood landscape upended. Lamendola and Cheski communicated in police terms I did not understand. Everyone seemed as disoriented as if we had been deposited in a circus funhouse. I could only speak for myself, and I felt as if I had lost my brother twice—once to death and once to genetics. Most importantly, none of us knew what to do with this new piece of information. What was Teddy trying to tell me with it? We weren't twins, but that information alone was not enough to complete the picture. So my father adopted twin boys? Since when was that a crime? What happened to the other boy?

“Stop. Everyone stop,” I yelled. “Charlie, go get me your laptop.” I jolted back from the table with supreme purpose and ran upstairs to my studio. I rummaged through a pile of junk at the foot of my futon and located the still-drying satchel I had carried yesterday as I bicycled home from my parents' house. At the bottom of the bag was the DVD my mother had been watching when I checked in the other day. I charged back down the stairs and instructed Charlie to insert and play the disc.

“My mother was watching these home movies when I went to check on her yesterday. I didn't see the whole thing, but I thought it was strange that I wasn't in the film. Most of what I saw included only Teddy and my parents.”