“Well, this was an unexpected surprise seeing you,” Carl said. “What brought you here?”
“I wanted to try to talk with Madison,” Aria said. “Is she capable?”
“Oh, that’s right,” he said. “No, she’s not. At least not now. Maybe tomorrow or the next day. She’s been severely traumatized. But on a more positive note, I was going to get in touch with you this afternoon. I checked the literature and there is no information about channelopathies and fentanyl.”
“I’ve kind of lost interest in looking into channelopathies on this case,” Aria told him.
“That’s probably appropriate,” Carl said. “And how is the forensic investigation going about finding the father?”
“I’ve hit the proverbial brick wall,” she said, again borrowing the term from her night’s reading. “But I have a new idea, and that is to see if genetic genealogy can help at all.”
“Now, that is an interesting concept.” Carl nodded several times, obviously giving the idea some thought. “Very creative! That would mean essentially trying to construct the father’s DNA, or at least part of it from the fetus, and then use that like they did with the Golden State Killer.”
“That’s more or less the idea,” Aria said. She was duly impressed that he saw the concept had at least some possible merit, although how much, she really didn’t know herself.
“I can’t imagine it will be easy,” Carl said. “But good luck. As I said yesterday, I think you’re getting more out of your forensic rotation than most pathology residents. I commend you.”
“Let’s see where it leads before offering any kudos.”
“Please, keep me informed of your progress,” Carl said. “I find it fascinating.”
“Yeah, sure,” Aria said. “But I have a sense that Vernon Pierce wouldn’t find it so fascinating.”
“Why do you say that?”
“If the father is located, it could draw general attention to the case,” she said. “Especially if it turns out the father was involved with the drugs Kera Jacobsen was using.”
“I see your point,” he said. “That’s true, but Vernon isn’t trained as a doctor but rather as an administrator. He’s not as aware as he should be of how DNA science is changing medicine and law enforcement. But let’s not worry about his attitude at the moment.”
“Believe me, I’m not,” Aria said.
Carl reached out and gave her shoulder a quick, reassuring squeeze. It happened so fast that she didn’t have time to duck away. She didn’t like to be touched like that.
“Keep up the good work!” Carl said, totally unaware of Aria’s reflex reaction. “Are you going to stay here and try to talk with Madison? I really don’t recommend it.”
“No, I think I’ll come back tomorrow,” Aria said.
“Probably best,” he said. “Anyway, stay in touch.”
With that, he returned to where Vernon was talking with several men. In contrast to Vernon, these men looked perfectly cast as NYPD detectives according to their dress and seen-it-all attitudes. For a beat she watched Carl as he joined the conversation. She briefly wondered if she had been too hasty in her judgment of the man. Perhaps he was acting more like the father figure she’d always wanted but never had.
Chapter 21
May 9th
12:45 P.M.
As Aria approached the front entrance to the old, ramshackle OCME Forensic Pathology building, she had to pass under scaffolding, the presence of which was odd since there didn’t appear to be any construction going on. To Aria it was a curious New York phenomenon that she had noted since becoming a Manhattan resident. There was scaffolding spread all around most NYC neighborhoods, and it stayed up for years without any apparent rationale. Nobody seemed to question it. There was even semi-permanent scaffolding with electric lighting around the Plaza Hotel building with no apparent construction that she passed most mornings on her way to the Langone Medical Center.
Once inside she flashed her ID card to the receptionist, Marlene Wilson, who manned a high-topped counter and guarded entrance both into the identification area, where most visitors were directed to identify the dead, and into the building proper where the chief and deputy chief had their offices. Except for all the medical examiners and the Department of Toxicology, most other OCME functions had been moved to the much more palatial high-rise building at 421 East 26th Street. Hoping to avoid running into Dr. McGovern, Aria used the stairs rather than the elevator to get up to the second floor.
As she passed through the area charitably labeled lunch room with its sad Formica-topped card tables and molded plastic chairs, she tried to be as unobtrusive as possible since Dr. McGovern was a frequent visitor, particularly at lunchtime. Although the room was reasonably crowded, Dr. McGovern wasn’t one of the patrons, but Dr. Tad Muller, Aria’s resident colleague, was. Despite her efforts, he caught sight of her and called her over to his table. He was lunching with several of the mortuary techs. Reluctantly, she veered in his direction.
“Hey, Aria,” Tad said, leaning in her direction and speaking under his breath. “I’m glad I saw you. I wanted to warn you that Dr. McGovern is looking for you, and he’s not all that happy. He said you weren’t answering any texts or voice mail.”
“If you run into him, don’t tell him that you saw me,” Aria said. She briefly looked at the mortuary techs sitting with Tad, daring them to say anything as they had undoubtedly heard the exchange.
“He seemed pretty uptight,” Tad said in a more normal tone. “I’d recommend you call him. I know there are some interesting cases that came in during the morning that he wants us to observe.”
“I’m sure there are,” she said. “But I’m flat-out busy on the one that I actually did yesterday, rather than merely observe, and that promises to teach me more about forensics than standing around holding the dick I don’t have, watching a couple more autopsies.”
“I think you’re making a mistake,” he said, clearly offended.
“You’re entitled to your opinion.” She was tempted to add and you’re a hopeless ass-kisser, but she restrained herself. She glanced briefly again at the mortuary techs, whose bored expressions had changed to smirks. They at least seemed to have a sense of humor.
Once inside the residents’ office, which was again a charitable designation considering its size and décor, Aria took off her white coat, hung it over the back of the aged desk chair, and sat down in front of the monitor. A moment later she was on the internet. Her goal was to try to figure out which of the major ancestral DNA companies might be the best for finding Lover Boy now that Madison Bryant had made herself incapable of lending a hand. Deciding on which DNA company to use was going to be up to Madison, at least in the beginning.
From Aria’s reading she knew that Ancestry.com had the largest database, which might turn out to be a benefit since matches — people who shared segments of DNA of varying length with the dead fetus — were going to be what she needed. As she scrolled through the website, she saw that it was essentially divided into two parts. One part would help build a family tree through various and sundry records. Almost immediately Aria recognized that this service might provide information about Kera’s family but wouldn’t help with the father’s, so Aria avoided that selection and clicked on TAKE A DNA TEST AND UNCOVER YOUR ORIGINS. That got her to a page where she could click on WHAT YOUR RESULTS WILL INCLUDE. Clicking on this allowed her to scroll through ETHNICITY ESTIMATE, which she wasn’t particularly interested in, until she got to DNA MATCHES. This was what she needed, and the screen looked like the result some previous individual had obtained from Ancestry.com. It showed seventy-two matches with people who were either first or second cousins.