The Perfect Marriage(71)
That was the only conclusion Gabriel could reach after the DNA test showed that Wayne Fiske was only a partial match. Their killer still had to be a DNA-linked member of the Fiske family, and Owen was the only possible relative left.
It also explained why Jessica Sommers and Wayne Fiske had done a complete one-eighty, going from full cooperation to refusing to talk to the police at all. They had closed ranks to protect their son.
“Damn,” was Asra’s reaction upon hearing the news.
Gabriel understood that his partner’s disappointment wasn’t solely because she preferred to send a full-grown man to jail rather than a teenager with cancer, although that might have had something to do with it. More likely, however, Asra was mainly reacting to the fact that it would be much harder to secure a conviction of Owen Fiske based on the DNA match alone.
Gabriel believed Wayne Fiske would have been convicted in a heartbeat if the DNA had matched. After all, his fingerprints were at the scene, he needed James Sommers to be dead so his wife could collect the insurance money to save his son, and he undoubtedly hated the man.
But making a case against Owen Fiske was a tougher sell, even if they could prove that the boy had left his DNA at the scene. The motive, of course, still fit. It was equally logical to assume that a seventeen-year-old would commit murder to pay for his own lifesaving cancer treatment as it was to imagine his mother or father doing it to save him.
But it still took something of a suspension of disbelief to come to terms with a child killing a parent, even if it was for self-preservation. Added to that, the physical evidence linking Owen to the crime was equivocal, as opposed to when it came to his father. For example, there could have been any number of reasons for Owen to have visited his stepfather at work. And Gabriel knew that a smart defense attorney would come up with some innocuous reason for why Owen had left his blood at the scene that didn’t have anything to do with him punching his stepfather in the jaw.
Beyond that, because Gabriel hadn’t considered Owen a suspect, they had no idea where he had been at the time of the murder. They’d never gotten his statement, or even examined his hands. That was on Gabriel . . . A seventeen-year-old boy should have registered as a possible murderer, even if he was white, sick, and a good student.
“I should have thought to question him,” Gabriel said.
“It never occurred to me either. Or Tomlinson,” Asra said. “Why don’t we take a run at him now? Worst thing that happens is he declines.”
Gabriel knew that was a nonstarter. Even if Owen agreed to provide a DNA sample, they’d need parental permission. Same thing even to ask him for an alibi. There was no way that they’d get anything voluntarily at this point. Jessica Sommers and Wayne Fiske had shut it all down even when they knew their DNA wouldn’t be a match; now, they’d be twice as adamant when it came to protecting their son.
“No. We missed the window. We’ll need a warrant.”
An hour later, Gabriel was cooling his heels in the hallway outside the chambers of the Honorable Margaret Martin. Alex Miller sat beside him.
The request for a warrant was usually done ex parte, a Latin term that literally meant “without the other part.” Yet Joe Salvesen had said that the other part—Alex Miller—should be notified so as not to upset the judge. Salvesen then added that he had complete confidence that Gabriel could handle the matter on his own, so there was no need for him to trek to Judge Martin’s courtroom.
It likely didn’t matter who was sitting outside the chambers because no one would say a word, or even be granted entry inside. The process was for the application to be submitted to the judge’s law secretary, who then brought the papers to the judge. A few minutes later, the clerk would be back in the hallway and would hand the warrant to Gabriel, at which time he’d flip to the last page to see if the judge had signed it.
This time, however, when the clerk returned to the hallway, she was empty-handed. “The judge wants to see you both,” the clerk said.
The moment Gabriel and Miller stepped inside her chambers, Judge Martin said, “Lieutenant, didn’t we just go through this exercise not even a week ago?”
“That was for the father. Mr. Wayne Fiske. This is for his son, Owen Fiske,” Gabriel said.
“I know that. The name is on the warrant. What I’m saying is, didn’t you tell me just a few days ago that you had probable cause that it was the father who had left the blood at the crime scene? That’s why the man was arrested, after all. And it was on the basis of that representation that I issued the prior warrant.”
Gabriel figured that this tongue-lashing was likely the reason Salvesen had made himself scarce. With no other option, he apologized, even though he had done nothing wrong. That was what you did with judges when they were angry and you wanted something from them.
Miller took full advantage of having the upper hand. “That’s precisely why this warrant should not be issued, Your Honor.”
“I’ll get to you in a moment, Mr. Miller,” Judge Martin snapped. “Right now I want to hear from Lieutenant Velasquez about the sudden change in direction.”
“We knew the DNA was left by someone related to Howard Fiske,” Gabriel said. “We came to that conclusion, as Your Honor will recall, because a search of a private genealogy database revealed that the blood was a match for someone in the Fiske family. We got the results back of Wayne Fiske’s DNA this morning, and he’s only a partial match. That means that someone else in his family left blood at the crime scene. Wayne Fiske has no siblings or parents and only one son. The pending warrant seeks to allow us to do a DNA test on the son.”