“Doing that would have been a bit obvious, wouldn’t it?”
“Not really. And, besides, if you’re going to tamper with evidence, you sure don’t want to get too complicated. The KISS principle is usually the best way to keep from getting caught.”
“Okay, but let me ask this. You’re telling me the mitochondrial DNA actually was a full match across the board. I understand it won’t work for positive identification, but isn’t it pretty damning?”
“All it really means is that the killer and Felicity share a maternal link somewhere in their ancestry. That’s not actually as uncommon as you might think, especially when you consider ethnic origin and those sorts of factors. Still, you could be talking about a relative, close or distant.”
I let out a frustrated breath and sat back in my chair. “I’m really afraid all this conversation has done is…”
I wasn’t allowed to finish the sentence. The angry pounding that suddenly issued from my front door didn’t let me.
CHAPTER 19:
The dogs began barking immediately; vociferously defending their territory against the mysterious would be intruder. However, my gut suspicion was that they could bark until they were hoarse, and it wasn’t going to scare away the person on the other side of the door.
“That don’t sound like a very happy knock,” Ben ventured. “You expectin’ company, or did ya’ just piss somebody off?”
Now it was my turn to give an ambiguous answer. “Yes and no.”
“Yeah, and that means?” he prodded.
I was already getting up from my seat. “It means no, I wasn’t actually expecting anyone. Well, not that I invited, anyway. But, yes, I’d say it’s a good bet he’s angry with me.”
“Sounds like you think ya’ know who it is.”
“Judging from the knock, I’d say it’s probably my father-in-law.”
“I’ll bite. Why’s he pissed at you?”
“Other than the fact that he just generally hates me? At the moment, he blames me for Felicity being in jail.”
Constance gave her head a confused shake. “He blames you for this? Why?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Well, if you’d rather not deal with it, I’ll be happy to get the door for you,” she offered.
“No, better let me,” I replied. “If it’s him, there’s no reason for you to be stuck in the middle of a family squabble. I know how you law enforcement types feel about those things, and I don’t blame you.”
The hammering echoed through the house once again, coupled with a muffled shout that sounded something like my name. The dogs had quieted momentarily during the brief lull but now renewed their bid to repel the noise with some of their own.
Giving my head a shake that was the obvious product of embarrassment, I strode out of the kitchen and through the dining room. Both Ben and Constance followed along a few paces behind. I guess if I took into account the concern they’d shown for whether or not I’d been eating, their watchful attitudes in this situation were to be expected.
Shushing the canines as I waded between them, I reached for the lock. Out of habit, before turning the deadbolt I put my eye to the peephole even though I was certain I knew whom it was I would see. However, the distorted countenance on the other side of the fisheye came as a total shock. Instead of finding my father-in-law as I had expected, there was someone else entirely standing on my front porch, pummeling my door.
“What the…” I mumbled.
“What’s wrong, Row?” Ben asked.
“Well, apparently I was wrong,” I replied. “It’s not Shamus; it’s Austin.”
“Who’s Austin?”
“My brother-in-law.”
“That a good thing or a bad thing?”
“Actually, besides Felicity, he’s the one member of that family who doesn’t seem to hate me,” I said with a shrug.
Under the circumstances, I don’t suppose Austin’s presence really should have come as that big a surprise. He was, after all, Felicity’s older brother, and he had a habit of being very overprotective of his “kid sister.”
However, there was also the glaring fact that he made his home almost four thousand miles away in Ireland. I remembered Felicity having made mention that he was planning his vacation around the Thanksgiving holiday in order to visit with family, but I also seemed to recall he was supposed to be arriving late in the coming week. Friday, I thought.
Of course, I suppose it was a good bet he had received a call from Maggie or Shamus telling him of his sister’s current plight, and that may have prompted him to re-arrange his travel plan. Something he would have had to do in a huge rush, but that wasn’t something I would put past him. Whatever the reason however, obviously he was here sooner rather than later.
Rather than stand there trying to reason out the logistics that now brought him to my doorstep, I twisted the lock and unlatched the door then pulled it open wide. In retrospect, I probably should have taken the time to do some of the pondering I had so quickly dismissed.
Just as I had told Ben, Austin and I had always gotten along famously. Other than my wife, he really was the only member of the O’Brien family who accepted me for who I was and didn’t pass judgment on my religious path or lifestyle. In fact, he had even gone toe to toe with his father in my defense on more than one occasion. Therefore, I can honestly say his fist racing toward my jaw was absolutely the last thing I ever imagined would happen. Of course, my imagination had been running incredibly rampant as of late, so possibilities that would have been obvious to others simply didn’t fit within its outlandish scope.
An almost sickeningly strong smell of whisky flowed in on the wake of the opening door and thrown hand. The odor served as a good indicator of how Austin had come by the mood he was presently wearing. Truth is, he tended at times to fall into the negative stereotype of the drunken Irishman who was happiest when in the middle of a bar room brawl. Not that he spent all that much time drunk, mind you, but whenever he did set about imbibing alcohol, he wasn’t one for temperance. And, unfortunately, violence often ensued.
My ears detected something that may or may not have been a curse echoing through the room, but at this point whatever he was actually saying was completely obscured by the alcohol slur that permeated his speech. The intent in his tone, however, was unmistakable, so I didn’t waste time trying to figure out the actual verbiage.
A strong sense of deja vu invaded my brain as my brother-in-law’s fist arced through the air between us; however, in this instance I could actually explain why I felt like this had happened before-because it had.
Ben had done exactly the same thing only a couple of years back, also while in a similarly inebriated state. In his case, while the punch landed with far more force than he’d intended, there had been no malice attached. I was reasonably certain I couldn’t say the same for Austin.
Unfortunately, my brother-in-law’s speech seemed to be the only thing impaired by the whisky. Both his coordination and depth perception appeared to be perfectly sober. Of course, I suppose it could have been that his aim was off to begin with, and I simply chose the wrong direction to dodge. In any event, his incoming knuckles glanced across my jaw, and my head snapped back as an altogether new pain inflicted itself on the lower half of my face. Literally reeling with the force of the blow, for the second time in the past two days I staggered backward across my living room.
Rattled though I was, I managed to catch the fact that Austin was quickly following the punch through the door and had already cocked his left arm in preparation to launch another fist. Of course, with his anger focused so intently upon me, the thing that was escaping his attention was the fact that I was more or less flanked by a cop and an FBI agent who had already demonstrated that they were more than just a little concerned about my continued well-being.