The Perfect Marriage(61)
“Expending all this energy on motive doesn’t really matter at the end of the day,” Asra said. “It’s going to come down to the DNA match. Whoever left their blood when punching James Sommers is going to be our killer. We should just get subpoenas to collect DNA from all of them.”
If only police work were so simple, Gabriel thought. He often believed crime could be eradicated if it weren’t for the Constitution.
“No judge is going to give us a warrant to take DNA from every one of our suspects,” he said. “But I was thinking that maybe we could use one of those ancestry websites. We take the DNA we have and see if it matches anyone in their database. My guess is that it’s much more likely that our murderer has a relative who got into genealogy than one who’s a felon.”
“There’s no way the websites cooperate with us,” Asra said.
Gabriel knew that was true. Ever since the Golden State Killer was arrested in 2018, after police had tracked the DNA left at old crime scenes to the suspect’s relatives using such sites, the technique had been at the intersection of civil rights and criminal investigation. The problem was that the major corporate players—Ancestry.com and 23andMe, among others—had vowed not to cooperate with law enforcement. It wasn’t good for their business model if, in addition to helping people find unknown relatives, they were also making it easier for those relatives to be arrested. Which was why they refused even in the face of a subpoena. And so far, most courts had sided with them.
Gabriel had the distinct feeling they were running out of time. They had collected all the evidence by now. They had the forensics, they’d canvassed people in the area (which was how they knew about Haley’s proximity to the murder scene that day), and they had timelines establishing the whereabouts of their people of interest. And yet no one stood out as any more likely a suspect than anyone else.
After a week, cases got cold. After two weeks, they were frozen solid.
Jessica spent the main part of her days at the hospital. Her visits with Owen were limited to ten minutes every two hours, but rather than go home in between, she stayed in the waiting area. She preferred to spend the time in the company of others, even if they were nurses or family members of other cancer patients, none of whom she knew. At least that way she didn’t feel so alone.
Wayne would arrive after school let out, around four. Sometimes they would sit together for a while. So far, not a day had gone by in which he hadn’t offered to take her to dinner. Either at the diner across the street for malts or someplace else.
Twice she accepted. Twice she declined.
She knew that her ex-husband was hoping that it was the beginning of something more for them. She laughed at the irony that he could so easily sweep away what she had done, when it was impossible for her to do likewise. Her affair with James would forever define her, and she could not imagine living a life in which her partner pretended that it had never happened. Or that it had simply been an inconsequential detour in her life’s path, rather than the most actualizing choice she’d ever made.
The biggest reason, of course, was that James had showed her what true love was, and going back to anything less was unfathomable. Still, Wayne remained the one person who understood what she was going through. Not entirely, of course. He hadn’t lost his spouse. But she knew that they were of one mind when it came to Owen, and that brought her the sole source of comfort she experienced these days. Like her, Wayne would do anything for their son, and that she did love about him.
Sometimes Owen couldn’t remember if he’d been in the hospital for a day or a month. Nothing ever changed except the sky outside his window, and that only went from blue to black and back again.
He continued to follow his friends’ group chats, which gave him a window into the life he had left behind. Occasionally he’d get a text from someone from school, checking in on him. Zoey Sanderson had actually DM’d him last week. It was only a heart emoji and a “feel better,” but it had come with three exclamation points. Owen hadn’t thought she’d even notice his absence. She certainly didn’t talk to him much when they were in school, outside of sometimes asking him about the chemistry homework.
Maybe if he ever got out of here, he’d ask her out. Assuming, of course, that Zoey had a thing for bald teenagers who might die at any moment.
The other day he had tried to play a little violin. Nothing fancy, but it had felt good to have the bow in his hands again, the chin rest against his jaw. He thought that with the door shut no one could hear, but the moment he was finished, Owen heard the applause from the nurses’ station and even some calls of “Bravo!” That felt good too.
Reid was holding tight to the portfolio case, a big black leather number he’d purchased for the occasion.
Allison had selected the St. Regis again. “I’ll even cover the fifteen hundred dollars for a suite out of my end,” she’d said with a smile.
Reid wondered if maybe they’d be able to use the room for more than selling some art. He even had visions that, after Allison’s client left, the two of them would pour the cash out onto the bed and roll around in it naked, like they did in the movies.
Allison opened the door after a single knock and smiled when she saw Reid on the other side. She was dressed in a conservative suit but still looked stunning, which caused him to smile too.