Trace Of Doubt

“Cards and letters she kept—letters I sent. I guess letters from her mother and sister. Birthday cards. Valentine’s Day. I couldn’t stand the idea of reading them, so I stuck them in the box and forgot about them. You’re the one who wants…you know…to figure it out. I thought you should have them.”

My father never could bring himself to say, “Your mother was murdered.” He always said she “passed away,” conjuring images of a woman who went to bed one night and didn’t wake up. And I was the one obsessed with solving her murder. I had files of evidence and theories. My very job was, on some level, chosen because it would enable me to learn more about her death.

“Dad?” I asked, “How come you never gave me these before?” I could only imagine what clues the box might yield.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I kind of thought it was disrespectful to…you know…invade her privacy like that.”

I nodded.

“Why are you giving us all this stuff, Dad?” Mikey asked.

Dad sighed. “Well, with you two living on your own, I been thinkin’ that maybe it’s time I sold the house. I’ve got the condo in Florida and the place at the Jersey shore. Been thinking I might just get a condo around here. Don’t need a big old house anymore.”

“But…” I looked at him. I’d always imagined a someday when I would come home to the house I grew up in with my own children. I mean, I wasn’t anywhere close to having kids myself, but that didn’t preclude the idea from being there. My childhood home had a treehouse in the big oak tree out back, and Mikey and I used to play catch out in the yard. Like every boy, he dreamed of the majors, until, unlike every boy, he started dreaming of hot-wiring cars. “The house?” I swallowed hard.

“I’m just rattling around in there. I mean, there’s no sign on the front lawn yet, but I figured I better finally go through her things.”

I held the box on my lap and nodded. We drank some more, watched the TV set over the bar. When Lewis and I were ready to leave, I kissed my dad goodbye and gave Mikey a hug. Lewis didn’t say anything to me as we walked to where I had parked. When we got to my car, I unlocked it and put the box in the backseat. I climbed behind the wheel, and the first thing I noticed was the glint of the diamond in the sun as I gripped the wheel.

“You okay?” Lewis asked.

I nodded. “I think so. I just don’t know why, after over two decades, my father has suddenly decided to deal with her murder.”

“Maybe he finally needs some closure. Or maybe he can finally face looking through her things. You told me she was the love of his life.”

“She was.”

I looked over my shoulder at the box in the backseat. It felt sacred. I wondered, did that box of relics contain clues that would finally let me put her ghost to rest?

Chapter 3

That Friday at the lab, a television crew watched me analyze the tiny blood sample from the victim in the Marcus Hopkins case.

The crew was part of a news magazine following our investigation of the Hopkins case from start to finish—however it turned out. They filmed me looking through my microscope, and then they taped a mini interview in which I explained how a single blood sample was better than a fingerprint, and how it could unmistakably identify a killer.

When I lectured to college students on occasion, I liked to use the analogy of a bar code, and I used it again with the film crew. Every human being has a unique bar-coded label that is our DNA. The human bar code is different from a dolphin’s. And my personal bar code is different from Lewis’s, but it shares some properties with my brother’s, just like all dresses in a department store have bar codes defining them as “clothing.” But just as a BeBe dress is inherently different from a Dior gown, my bar code isn’t exactly the same as my brother’s, and it is completely unique, unless I happen to be an identical twin—which most of us are not.

After the film crew finished taping me, I went to visit Lewis, who was staring intently out the window of his office with an expression somewhere between angry and depressed.

“What’s got you so glum?”

“I just got a call from Larry Harmon in the district attorney’s office, who was calling after he got his ass reamed by the governor.”

“And?” I sat down.

“And they want us to try to get through the backlog of rape kits. You’ve heard of Scottie Hastings. He’s up for parole.”

“Shit.” Scottie Hastings was an acquaintance-rapist. However, he had a predilection for S&M that truly turned the women’s ordeals into far beyond whatever their worst nightmares were. However, he was also very rich, heir to an immense private fortune—part of the Hastings candy empire. Plus, he had an IQ as high as Lewis’s and read law books and texts on DNA evidence for fun. His dream team hired the most expensive jury analysts money could buy—and they were worth it. He got acquitted on nearly all counts in the only case that even made it past the grand jury. He was serving the end of a short sentence for sexual battery. No one had any doubt that as soon as he got out he would resume his sick hobbies.

“What does the D.A. want you to do?”

“Jailhouse informant says the guy brags he’s got tapes. That he didn’t only rape acquaintances. I guess raping people he knew got old. So he started raping and torturing strangers. Wore a mask. The D.A. is hoping he got sloppy somewhere and we can pin a rape on him. Preferably before he’s out on the streets. The D.A. hopes there’s a match in one of those kits.”

“But the backlog is immense.”

“Yeah, well, we just have to do it. I don’t want this sick bastard out there.”

I stared at Lewis. He rarely cursed, and the anger on his face was visible. “Okay…” I said slowly. “But something else is bothering you. I can tell.”

He shrugged.

“Out with it.”

“All right,” he sighed. “Mitch Stern just offered me my own television show. A cold-case kind of program on their cable network. Five times the money I make here and probably a tenth of the aggravation. Says my appearances as a talking head are getting me network notice.”

My mouth dropped open. “You wouldn’t consider it, would you?”

When we were trying to secure David’s release from prison, Lewis and Joe Franklin went on a number of legal analysis shows and cable programs to tout his innocence. Lewis on television was pretty much the same as Lewis in real life—dry humored, urbane, witty and at times mischievously ghoulish. He was also very telegenic, with his head of silvery hair and pale eyes, and that rascal-imp smile of his.

“‘Consider’ is too strong a word.”

“Oh, God,” I felt myself panic a bit, “you are thinking about it, aren’t you?” My voice was a little accusatory.

“Billie, every day someone at this lab is bitching about something—you being the lead bitch at times. We’re underfunded, overworked and then we get calls like today asking us to do the impossible. Our testing is scrutinized more closely by the second because no D.A. or attorney wants to go to court and endure another OJ fiasco, and thanks to CSI and a half-dozen TV shows, everyone thinks he or she is a DNA expert, including juries. I’d be crazy not to think about it.”

“But you’re the driving force behind this lab.” Lewis never lost his dedication to science.

He slumped in his chair. “I don’t know what drives me anymore.”

I thought about turning on my television and seeing Lewis, with Ripper on his desk, discussing maggots and blowflies with visiting experts, or maybe leading a roundtable discussion on how to dismember a body. What was the world coming to?

“Enough of my miserable existence. You read any of your mother’s letters yet?”

I shook my head. “It feels creepy. I will, though.”

“Want to grab some dinner tonight?”

“Can’t. I’ve got to meet Joe and go over the Hopkins case with him. Want to join us?”

“Sure.” He sighed.

“You know, Lewis, you’re worse than a hound dog with those expressions. Unrequited love on you is ugly.”

I stood and left his office, saying over my shoulder, “I’ll let you know where and when for dinner when Joe calls me.”

I walked back to my desk and answered e-mail. Then I called up the schedule to see where I could squeeze extra hours from the criminalists and technicians I supervised to process more rape kits.

About a half hour later, Ziggy came by with the mail. I’m not sure what Ziggy’s real name is. It could be Ziggy, I suppose. I just know he’s a major Bob Marley fan, and by attrition loves Ziggy Marley, too. At some point, with his dredlocks and faintly Caribbean accent, someone probably called him Ziggy and it stuck.