a hodgepodge of genes from both twins.”
“Yes.”
“Holy crap,” Lo said. “These people must look weird.”
“Many chimeras exhibit no overt signs of their condition. Or there may be minor peculiarities, differences in eye color, differential hair growth, that sort of thing. Others aren’t so lucky. Doctors at the University of Edinburgh treated a man who complained of an undescended testicle. When they examined him, they found he had an ovary and a fallopian tube.”
On-screen, Schoon was asking why Face Mask had been sent to Long Binh Jail.
Ryan cocked his chin toward the monitor. “What’s this got to do with Lowery?”
“He’s not Lowery.”
“Where’s Lowery?”
“Dead in Quebec.”
“The DNA says no.”
“Harriet Lowery was a chimera. She had one brown eye and one green eye. And Blaschko lines.”
No one asked, so I surged on.
“Blaschko lines appear as V’s or S’s or loops on the skin in specific parts of the body. They’re invisible under normal conditions, but certain diseases of the skin and mucosa manifest themselves according to these patterns.”
“Making them visible,” Ryan guessed.
“Yes.”
“They’re like, what? Stripes?” Lo asked.
“Blaschko lines are thought to represent pathways of epidermal cell migration during fetal development. The point is, chimeras often have them, and in one picture in Plato’s album, I could see them on Harriet Lowery’s chest.”
“Was she sick?”
“That I don’t know. But she had Blaschko lines. And according to Plato, Harriet also had mismatched eyes.”
“If she was a chimera, that would explain why her DNA didn’t match that of her sons.” Ryan was clicking.
“Exactly.”
“Meaning the guy in the pond was Spider after all.” Again, he indicated the screen. “Meaning this turkey isn’t.”
“Bingo.”
“So who is he?” Lo asked.
I rotated the team photo.
All three bunched close.
I tapped a boy standing in the back row. “This is Spider Lowery.”
“Agreed,” Ryan said.
I tapped a boy kneeling in the front row. “This is his cousin.”
“Sonofabitch,” Lo said.
“They could be twins,” Cotton said.
“Who is he?” Ryan asked.
“Reggie Cumbo,” I said. “Look at the man talking to Schoon.”
Three heads swiveled up.
“What color are his eyes?”
“Brown.”
“According to Plato, Spider’s eyes were green.”
Ryan worked it over in his mind. Then, “You’re thinking the cousins traded places back in sixty-eight. Spider went to Canada. Reggie went to Nam.”
I nodded. “The physical resemblance was good enough to fool anyone who didn’t really know them. They either swapped dental records, or somehow Reggie removed them from his file.”
“I’m lost,” Cotton said.
“I’ll fill you in later,” Lo said.
“Why?” Ryan asked me.
“I don’t know. Probably Spider got drafted and didn’t want to go. Reggie was always the more aggressive and assertive of the two, according to Plato. He may have wanted to join but couldn’t get in. He’d been arrested several times, hadn’t graduated high school. Unless Reggie tells us, we may never learn precisely why they did it.”
