Just One Look

She slid it toward him. He opened it. Grace leaned in next to him. On the top were the words DUNCAN, GERI. There were photographs too. Grace spotted one, a brown skeleton lying on a table. She turned away, as if she’d been caught invading someone’s privacy.

Sally Li had her feet on the desk, her hands behind her head. “Look, Scott, you want me to go through the rigmarole of how amazing the science of pathology has become, or do you want me to bottom-line it?”

“Skip the rigmarole.”

“At the time of her death, your sister was pregnant.”

Duncan’s body convulsed as if she’d hit him with a cattle prod. Grace did not move.

“I can’t tell you how long. No more than four, five months.”

“I don’t understand,” Scott said. “They must have done an autopsy the first time around.”

Sally Li nodded. “I’m sure.”

“Why didn’t they see it then?”

“My guess? They did.”

“But I never knew…”

“Why would you? You were, what, in law school? They may have told your mom or dad. But you were just a sibling. And her pregnancy has nothing to do with the cause of death. She died in a dorm fire. The fact that she was pregnant, if they knew, would be deemed irrelevant.”

Scott Duncan just sat there. He looked at Grace and then back at Sally Li. “You can get DNA from the fetus?”

“Probably, yeah. Why?”

“How long will it take you to run a paternity test?”

Grace was not surprised by the question.

“Six weeks.”

“Any way to rush it?”

“I might be able to get some kind of rejection earlier. In other words, rule people out. But I can’t say for sure.”

Scott turned to Grace. She knew what he was thinking. She said, “Geri was dating Shane Alworth.”

“You saw the picture.”

She had. The way Geri looked up at Jack. She had not known the camera was on her. They were all still getting ready to pose. But what was captured, the look on Geri Duncan’s face, well, it was the way you look at someone who is much more than a friend.

“Let’s run the test then,” Grace said.

chapter 34

Charlaine was holding Mike’s hand when his eyes finally fluttered open.

She screamed for a doctor, who declared, in a moment of true obviousness, that this was a “good sign.” Mike was in tremendous pain. The doctor put a morphine pump on him. Mike did not want to go back to sleep. He grimaced and tried to ride it out. Charlaine stayed bedside and held his hand. When the pain got bad, he squeezed hard.

“Go home,” Mike said. “The kids need you.”

She shushed him. “Try to rest.”

“Nothing you can do for me here. Go home.”

“Shh.”

Mike began to drift off. She looked down at him. She remembered the days at Vanderbilt. The range of emotions overwhelmed her. There was love and affection, sure, but what troubled Charlaine right now-even as she held his hand, even as she felt a strong bond with this man who shared her life, even as she prayed and made deals with a God she’d ignored for far too long-was that she knew that these feelings would not last. That was the terrible part. In the middle of this intensity Charlaine knew that her feelings would ebb away, that the emotions were fleeting, and she hated herself for knowing that.

Three years ago Charlaine attended a huge self-help rally at Continental Arena in East Rutherford. The speaker had been dynamic. Charlaine loved it. She bought all the tapes. She started doing exactly what he said-making goals, sticking to them, figuring out what she wanted from life, trying to put things in perspective, organizing and restructuring her priorities so that she could achieve-but even as she went through the motions, even as her life began to change for the better, she knew that it would not last. That this would all be a temporary change. A new regimen, an exercise program, a diet-that was how this felt too.

It would not be happily ever after.

The door behind her opened. “I hear your husband woke up.”

It was Captain Perlmutter. “Yes.”

“I was hoping to talk to him.”

“You’ll have to wait.”

Perlmutter took another step into the room. “Are the children still with their uncle?”

“He took them to school. We want things to feel normal for them.” Perlmutter moved next to her. She kept her eyes on Mike. “Have you learned anything?” she asked.

“The man who shot your husband. His name is Eric Wu. Does that mean anything to you?”

She shook her head. “How did you figure that out?”

“His fingerprints in Sykes’s house.”

“Has he been arrested before?”

“Yes. In fact he’s on parole.”

“What did he do?”

“He was convicted of assault and battery, but it’s believed that he’s committed a number of crimes.”

She was not surprised. “Violent crimes?”

Perlmutter nodded. “Can I ask you something?”

She shrugged.

“Does the name Jack Lawson mean anything to you?”

Charlaine frowned. “Does he have two kids at Willard?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know him personally, but Clay, my youngest, is still at Willard. I see his wife sometimes when we do pickups.”

“That would be Grace Lawson?”

“I think that’s her name. Pretty woman. She has a daughter named Emma, I think. She’s a year or two behind my Clay.”

“Do you know her at all?”

“Not really, no. I see her at the school holiday concert, stuff like that. Why?”

“It’s probably nothing.”

Charlaine frowned. “You just picked that name out of a hat?”

“Early conjecture,” he said, trying to dismiss it. “I also wanted to thank you.”

“For?”

“For talking to Mr. Sykes.”

“He didn’t tell me much.”

“He told you that Wu used the name Al Singer.”

“So?”

“Our computer expert found that name on Sykes’s computer. Al Singer. We think Wu used that alias for an online dating service. That’s how he met Freddy Sykes.”

“He used the name Al Singer?”

“Yes.”

“It was a gay dating service then?”

“Bisexual.”

Charlaine shook her head and came close to chuckling. Ain’t that something? She looked at Perlmutter, daring him to laugh. He was stone-faced. They both looked down at Mike again. Mike startled. He opened his eyes and smiled at her. Charlaine smiled back and smoothed his hair. He closed his eyes and drifted back to sleep.

“Captain Perlmutter?”

“Yes.”

“Please leave,” she said.

chapter 35