Drawing Conclusions (6 page)

ten

DeRosa came by my
studio the next morning. He carted in a carafe of coffee, two mugs, and some pie as a peace offering. I laid my brushes down and made room on my sketch table for the food.

“I'm sorry I walked out yesterday.” I reached for a steaming mug.

“I'm sorry I'm about to eat a piece of pie recovered from a Dumpster.”

I lifted the piecrust with my fork and spotted chunks of apples and whole raspberries. “You're in luck. Looks like Trina made this one from scratch, although who knows where she got the fruit.”

“I'm hoping you have some leftover stomach medicine.” DeRosa balanced an enormous scoop on his fork, as if the size of the mouthful was correlated to the depth of his authenticity. He swallowed and carefully wiped his mouth with a napkin, then turned serious. “I'm not going to pretend I understand your grief, but we need to find some common ground if we are going to work together. Help me understand how we can do that.”

“Frank, I like people who own up to something. I'm drawn to people who pick a life philosophy, stand by it, and consider their personal impact on society as they act out their choices. I don't get any vibe from you. There's something you're keeping from me. It's either something about you personally or something you know about my brother.”

“It's not the first time I've been accused of playing it too close to the vest. Luckily for me, a detached persona is a good fit for a cop's life.”

He didn't get it. “Look. Charlie and I are pretty smart. Same goes for Trina and Jonathan, although the jury is still out on Becky. You have to give us some credit. You can't entertain subsistence living without half a brain. I'm less concerned about my fate than understanding what happened to my brother. Not to be melodramatic, but Teddy was the most important person in the world to me. I want to help the investigation.”

“I think you can.”

“Then let's finish this slice and I'll help you get to know Teddy. I'll fill you in on everything I know about my family and the labs.”

He took another bite of pie, and then, finally, nodded to seal our bargain.

I looked out the window and saw a gathering around the barn. A team of forensic specialists was sorting, examining, and labeling my brother's garbage on large metal tables. I consider myself an expert on garbage, but the sight of Teddy's final refuse now seemed a perverse intrusion. I'd be surprised if in the history of police investigations a recycled
People
magazine had ever cinched a big case.

“I can't watch this,” I said. “Can we get out of here?”

“How about a drive?” DeRosa suggested.

“Where to?”

“You're in the driver's seat, CeCe.”

“Where are you from?”

“Freeport.”

“Tough town,” I said. “Care to be my guide?”

eleven

It took approximately ten
miles of Long Island stop-and-go traffic, a quick gas refill, and about twenty-eight traffic lights for Detective DeRosa to defrost from frozen solid to lukewarm. Still on the defensive, he peppered me with questions about my family and childhood. I was honest, albeit slightly biased in my favor.

“So what's the great divide between you and your father?” he asked.

“Why? Did my father say something to you?” I asked.

“He said the two of you hadn't always seen eye to eye.”

“That would be an understatement.” I laughed, remembering the endless arguments I'd had with my father as a teenager.

DeRosa pointed to a small gap in the next lane and I darted in with inches to spare. I discovered it was impossible for him to sit passively in the passenger seat. I pretended to follow his driving suggestions, hoping a transfer of control would loosen him up.

“Give me one childhood memory that describes you,” he said as he readjusted the passenger side mirror.

I continued to drive, moving the car to mimic DeRosa's hand signals. “I do remember once in kindergarten, my parents hired a seamstress who sewed her fingers to the bone making an elaborate replica of a Snow White costume. The day before Halloween, I hid it under my bed and begged an old white sheet off the cleaning staff. I poked two holes for eyes and used an old stocking to tie it around my neck.”

“And the first Freegan ghost was born.”

“A memorable day,” I replied. “Then I hit my teens and my grades took a nosedive. Charlie and I went full throttle into a series of unforgivable teenage hijinks.”

“The current police term is
antisocial personality disorder
or APD.”

“Really? Well, here's the catch when it comes to
my
APD. My father is the guru of DNA. He's invested the better part of his career studying the impact of DNA on human development. In the nature versus nurture wars, my father is on a third team. His team believes DNA can be manipulated and reformed. Left alone, DNA is your destiny. With proper social and medical intervention, Dr. William Prentice believes entire generations of people can outsmart their DNA.”

“How so?”

“One of the first studies my fathered pioneered was in the 1960s, and it concerned the effect of folic acid on prenatal brain development. Now, everyone takes prenatal vitamins. His study evened the playing field.
”

“I'm starting to like your father even more.”

“You should. He's pretty amazing,” I agreed. My credibility seemed to be slipping. “But family and work are two different things, and I don't think I interested him as much as his next scientific breakthrough.”

“I'm on the edge of my seat,” DeRosa deadpanned.

“Ever heard of epigenetics?” I asked.

“Nope.”

“I'll tell it the way my brother explained it to me. He and my dad were entrenched in the study of changes in genetic code. Not the type of changes that occur over multiple millenniums—like fish to cave man to human. It's the study of DNA changes within a generation.”

“I thought DNA couldn't change.”

“Technically, it can't. But apparently super-scientists, like Teddy and my dad, have found a lever on the DNA that can be turned on or off, and that lever can be affected by external forces like nutrition, stress, and the environment.”

“Give me an example.”

“Let's say that your DNA has predetermined your ability to positively process stress,” I said, finally swatting DeRosa's hand away from the dashboard. In the last minute, he had readjusted every dial on the Gremlin. I returned all the dials to their original position.

DeRosa opened and closed his window a few times while I continued.

“As I was saying, your stress control gene is turned on, and that's why you can take a bullet to the shoulder without running to a therapist. But imagine if you were raised in a low-income, crime-ridden area that overpowers your natural instinct to process stress positively. Your lever, also called an epigenome, could easily turn off. Your DNA combination hasn't changed, but the lever is off. Your kids will inherit your DNA, which is programmed for positive stress. However, given your crappy environment, you will now pass on good DNA with its levers turned off. The DeRosa rugrats, no matter how much love and attention you and your wife give them, will have a meltdown at the sound of a balloon popping.”

“I'm assuming you used that particular example because I grew up in Freeport dodging drug addicts and random bullets. Should I schedule my vasectomy now?”

“I may have been a bit insensitive. My father's problem is that I've disappointed him on both the nature
and
nurture perspectives. In his eyes, I'll never live up to my inherited traits, which are a direct reflection of his own DNA. How embarrassing for an overachiever to raise a slacker. To make matters worse, I grew up in the lap of luxury with every opportunity handed to me on a silver platter, yet according to my father, the only thing royal is my ability to screw it up.”

“You're his life's work gone bad,” DeRosa summarized.

“I'm his outlier. If you can repeat a science experiment with ninety-nine percent confidence, it still means there's a one percent chance of failure. And that's me.”

“And Teddy was his success.”

“Teddy was the best son a parent could imagine.”

Frank pointed to the next exit. “Get off at Roosevelt and we'll head south toward the water. And lock your door.”

“Is this excursion going to challenge my DNA?”

“CeCe, something tells me World War III couldn't put a dent in your constitution.”

We drove aimlessly through Freeport, partly because I was out of my element. The north and south shores of Long Island are so distinctly different a tourist might half expect to pass through a passport control booth at the end of an exit ramp. The differences lie in the physical geography. A glacial slide from the last ice age deposited a pile of rocks in the northern half of the island, washing the remains southward to create miles of sandy shores, almost like a melting ice cream cone on its side. North Shore inhabitants travel south for the beaches and the airport, while those on the South Shore find little reason to travel north. Unlike the east/west parkways famous for their congested traffic, the north/south venues are virtually empty.

“It's so flat.”

“Like a pancake,” DeRosa responded. “Freeport literally spills out into the Great South Bay. There isn't even a land boundary to mark the end of the town. Let me guess: you've been to Jones Beach a million times but never stopped along the way.”

“Guilty of day-tripping.”

Frank thumbed left to a sign advertising the Nautical Mile, a tourist area nestled in one of Freeport's many canals. It was early in the season, but a few hearty beachgoers were dragging their aluminum chairs across the boardwalk to enjoy the surf close up. I turned into municipal parking, picked a spot, and scrounged around for quarters.

“I got this one.” Frank pulled out a county police card and placed it under the windshield.

“Didn't know the good old boy network traveled this far south,” I said squinting to see DeRosa's name on the card.

We exited the Gremlin and Frank gave a passing patrol car the thumbs up.

“I'm not a Cold Spring Harbor cop. I work for the county and got pulled in for the case.”

“How so?” I asked.

“Two weeks ago, a row of ten potted hydrangeas was stolen from the plant nursery about a mile from the labs,” DeRosa said.

“So the men in blue are searching for a thief concerned with curb appeal?”

“Cheski and Lamendola will solve the hydrangea case within the week, but their experience is limited and correlated directly to the amount and type of crimes in wealthy areas on the North Shore. It's common practice to bring in a county expert on bigger cases.”

“And your expertise is?”

“Anything out of the ordinary,” DeRosa said as he tapped his hand along the dock's railing. He pointed to a fleet of boats bouncing gently on the water. “Remember the senior couple from the South Shore found murdered in their leisure cruiser off the Bahamas?”

“Sure,” I said, easily recalling the highly publicized case about a seemingly ordinary businessman who was covering up a lifetime of affairs and crooked business deals. “Didn't the wife hire a hit man to kill her husband and his lover only to be mistaken as the girlfriend herself?”

“Almost. The twist was that the wife was having an affair with the hit man. The hit man was trying to dump her and figured it would be easier just to kill her along with the husband. He farmed out the hit to some loser who couldn't swim. Apparently, the second hit man killed the wife and husband, fell off the boat, and then washed up in the Caribbean. Problem was, we couldn't make the connection between the first hit man, the second hit man, and the wife.”

“How did you break the case?” I asked.

“Both men ate lunch at the restaurant across the street.” DeRosa pointed with his chin to an unremarkable fish restaurant. “Every Tuesday for three straight weeks. The restaurant owner had credit card receipts. Then we found a bank envelope with a wad of cash in the second hit man's car. The envelope was from the wife's bank, and the fingerprints of all three were on the envelope, indicating that the money had been passed from the wife to each of the men.”

“That's a good story,” I said.

His face registered insult. “It's not a story. It's real. And it's interesting because it has layers.”

“And Teddy's case has layers,” I replied.

“You said it yourself: young men do not drop dead without a reason,” he said, confirming my earlier suspicion.

“I guess my father is pleased the department brought in the big guns,” I said as we walked along the boardwalk.

“Powerful men like him come to expect service and attention.” He led me to a fishing shack with five small tables. He signaled the waiter and called for two beers and a plate of steaming oysters. “Unfortunately, people in your father's position also expect complete control, and in this case, he's just a civilian. He's in a tough spot because he still has a company to run and a board to answer to. The fact that your brother was an employee of the organization, and an important one, complicates your father's role.”

“What's my father attempting to control?”

The waiter brought the drinks and oysters. I eyed the beer.

“Are you on duty?” I asked.

DeRosa looked at his watch and paused. “Not now.”

I smiled. Maybe there was something real about Detective DeRosa.

“Your father has given us access to the labs, but only under his careful supervision. Teddy's death puts the labs under a microscope. The longer the case drags on, the more negative exposure there is.” DeRosa took a swig of beer. “Your father wants this to come to an end quickly. On a personal level, however, he won't allow your mother to be interviewed. He insists there is nothing she can add that he hasn't already covered.”

“My mother hasn't been sober since the early eighties,” I said as I picked at the label on the ketchup bottle.

“That might explain his hesitance. And since she's not a suspect, technically she doesn't have to speak with us.”

“Maybe.” I felt the foam popping on my upper lip as I took a sip of beer so cold I could feel its tracks down to my stomach. “There may be layers there, too.”

“How so?” he asked.

I tilted my head back and let an oyster slither along my tongue. I was hesitant to explore my relationship with my mother, but if it helped find Teddy's killer, it was worth it.

“My mother earned a master's degree in art. Before she married, she had built a following in Europe and traveled extensively.”

“So your artistic talent comes from your mother.”

“A direct DNA transfer. And by all accounts, she was as carefree as I am when she was young.”

“I guess
carefree
is the new word for
rebellious
?” Frank tapped his beer mug and a waiter filled it instantaneously.

“I'm being generous in my descriptions.” I rolled my eyes. “Anyway, something derailed her along the way, although the source of her troubles has always been a mystery to me. I can't tell you how many times I studied photos of her face from earlier periods of her life trying to recapture a moment from my youth when she appeared genuinely happy.”

“What was she like when you and Teddy were growing up?” DeRosa asked.

“My mother wasn't hands-on,” I replied, remembering the rare occasion she would tuck us in and kiss us goodnight. “The day-to-day care was provided by nannies and the house staff. She was reserved, somewhat distracted, as if she had lost her focus. In fact, as a child, I never saw her paint.”

“It's odd she stopped painting. Is it possible she had a breakdown of some kind?” DeRosa barely gave me enough time to reflect on my youth. “Did she leave the home for any period of time?”

The truth was in my pause. My mother had in fact left the house, and more than once. Yet in all these years, I had never examined her absence out of the context it had been presented. “We were told she had chronic fatigue syndrome.” My answer surprised even me.

“And you never questioned it?”

“I was seven years old, and my father is a doctor.”

“Did Teddy ever mention your mother's illness after he received his medical degree?”

“Damn, Frank, you really are good at this.”

“So he did?”

“About three months ago, he scheduled a round of blood tests for my mother. Honestly, I thought he was concerned with her liver. He told my mother he wanted to check up on her chronic fatigue.”