Dead Wrong

Chapter 19

With their copy of the security tape in hand, Joanna and Frank sat in his car in the Target parking lot and discussed what to do next. “I think we should go talk to her,” Joanna said. “Do we know anything else about Dolores Mattias other than the fact that she purchased the primer?” Frank asked. “How do we know that was the primer used on Evans’s vehicle?”

“According to Leslie, Dolores and her husband have been living on the Triple H since about the time Leslie was born.”

“Do you think Dolores may have some knowledge about what went on between Aileen Houlihan and Lisa Marie Evans back in 1978?” Frank asked.

“Maybe,” Joanna replied. “And that’s probably where we should start. We’ll go see her. We’ll bring up the primer to begin with, then we’ll switch over to what happened to Lisa. Dolores most likely won’t be expecting questions on something that happened that long ago. We may surprise her into saying something she shouldn’t.”

“What about Leslie herself?” Frank asked. “Does she have any idea that Aileen may not be her biological mother?”

“I certainly haven’t told her,” Joanna returned. “And from what she told me, I don’t believe she has a clue. She’s fully expecting that she’ll end up just like her mother, bedridden with HD.”

“Are you going to tell her?” Frank asked.

Joanna shook her head. “Not until we have DNA evidence to substantiate that theory.”

“You must be getting older,” Frank said.

“What do you mean by that?” Joanna demanded.

“You’re sure as hell getting wiser. So do we need backup to go see Dolores Mattias, or are we doing this on our own?”

“Between the two of us, I think we can probably handle Dolores Mattias,” Joanna said after a moment’s consideration. “Besides, at this point all we’re going to do is ask her a couple of questions.”

“Where to, then?” Frank asked, turning the key in the ignition.

“The Triple H. Dolores and Joaquin have a place on Triple H Ranch Road.”

The Mattias place was easy enough to find. It had apparently started out as a double-wide mobile home, but with the addition of a screened front porch and a covered back patio, there was no longer anything mobile about it. The Dodge Ram Joanna had seen earlier in the day was nowhere in evidence as they drove up to the house. A dog, a shaggy black and white mutt, raced out to meet them, barking furiously. By the time Frank stopped at the front of the house, the front light had switched on and the door to the screened porch slammed open.

“What’s happened?” Dolores Mattias called before Joanna had even set foot outside the car. “Has there been an accident? Is Joaquin hurt? Where is he?”

Joanna switched gears. “Your husband is missing?” she asked.

“He was supposed to come up to the house to get me when my shift was over, but he didn’t. I had to ask the night nurse to give me a ride home.”

“Have you tried calling him?”

Dolores shook her head. “He doesn’t have a cell phone.”

“When did you see him last?”

“This morning,” Dolores said. “When he dropped me off at Aileen’s place.”

“Did your husband have plans for the afternoon?” Joanna asked. “Have you checked with his friends?”

“He said he was going to be working around here,” Dolores asserted. “At least that’s what he told me at breakfast- that he wanted to finish painting the front gate. That’s one of the reasons I’m worried. Nothing’s been done on the gate- nothing at all. It’s not like him to go off somewhere without letting me know. But if you’re not here about Joaquin, why did you come?”

“To speak to you, Mrs. Mattias,” Joanna said.

“Me?” Dolores asked. “Why me?”

“This is my chief deputy Frank Montoya. We’re investigating the homicide of someone named Bradley Evans. May we come in?”

Dolores Mattias gave no sign of recognition at hearing the murder victim’s name. Instead, she opened the door wide enough to allow them entry to the screened porch and then escorted them into the living room.

“How can I help you?” she asked, seating herself and motioning for Joanna and Frank to do the same.

“We understand you purchased some automobile paint primer a week or so ago,” Joanna ventured.

Dolores nodded. “Yes, I did.” She made the admission easily, as if it were of no consequence at all. “Joaquin had agreed to help a friend paint his car that weekend. My husband was supposed to pick up the primer, but he ran out of time. Since I was going to town any way, Joaquin asked me to pick it up, and I did.”

“What friend?” Joanna asked.

“Someone who works at the restaurant in Sonoita.”

“What’s his name?”

“I don’t know,” Dolores said. “Joaquin didn’t say. As moody as he’s been lately, I didn’t press him. He’s been so upset that he’s been almost impossible to live with.”

Being involved in a murder is upsetting, Joanna thought. “Upset about what?” she asked.

“The survey,” Dolores answered. “Ever since Joaquin found out about it, he just hasn’t been himself.”

“What survey?”

“He was going around the ranch in late January, checking fence lines. That’s one of his jobs-making sure the fences are okay. He was down at the far western corner of the ranch when he came across a survey crew. He asked them what they were doing. They told him they were working for Mr. Markham and doing preliminary survey work in advance of subdividing the ranch-this part of the ranch,” Dolores added. “The part closest to the road. It’s going to be called Whetstone Ranch Estates.”

Joanna sent Frank a questioning look. For the last several months, he’d been the one attending the board of supervisors meetings. Perhaps this proposal had come up in one of the Planning and Zoning reports. In answer to Joanna’s unspoken question, her chief deputy shrugged his shoulders and gave a slight shake to his head.

“Joaquin was very upset to hear it,” Dolores continued. “Senora Ruth promised that we’d always be able to keep our place here, no matter what. So did Aileen. Naturally, Joaquin went straight to Mr. Markham and asked him about it. He said not to worry. That he’d see to it that, no matter what happened to the Triple H, we’d be taken care of.”

Joanna thought back to what Leslie had said earlier, about her planning to give up her career in real estate in order to focus her attention on running the ranch once her mother was gone. It sounded as though she and her husband were of two different minds on the subject.

“Does Leslie know anything about this?” Joanna asked.

Dolores shook her head. “I don’t know. She’s already dealing with so much concerning her poor mother that it didn’t seem fair to ask. I told Joaquin not to worry-that we’d be fine. We’ve saved our money over the years, and we haven’t had to pay rent. Maybe we’ll be able to buy a place in town.”

“How did your husband react when you told him that?” Joanna asked.

“He was fine. At least I thought he was fine, but then last week, he was all upset again. He couldn’t eat. Couldn’t sleep. I asked him what was bothering him, but he’s a man. He told me nothing was bothering him and that I should leave him alone, so I did.”

“It sounds as though you and your husband have lived and worked here on the Triple H for a very long time,” Joanna ventured.

Dolores nodded. “The whole time we’ve been together,” she answered. “Joaquin was working here when we first got married. He wasn’t the foreman then, just a hand. He wasn’t even legal. When Leslie was about to be born and they wanted someone to help out, Joaquin suggested that I go to work for them. I’ve been working for the Houlihans ever since. I took care of the house and looked after Leslie when she was a baby. Then when first Senora Ruth and later Senora Aileen got sick, I took care of them as well, and I pray every day that the same thing won’t happen to Leslie.”

“You mean Huntington’s disease?” Joanna asked.

“It’s a terrible thing, that disease,” Dolores replied. “It’s something that passes from one generation to another, from parent to child. I would not want to live and die that way. Now that I’ve seen what’s happening with Aileen, I can see why her mother did what she did.”

“Have you ever noticed that Leslie doesn’t look very much like her mother?” Joanna asked.

“Yes,” Dolores said. “I always thought maybe she took after her father’s side of the family. Mr. Tazewell left soon after Leslie was born, though. I never knew very much about him.”

“What if I told you that perhaps Aileen Houlihan isn’t Leslie Markham’s mother?”

“It wouldn’t be true,” Dolores Mattias declared. “Couldn’t be true. She had the baby here at the ranch. Joaquin told me all about it-how Senora Ruth took Aileen and the baby to the hospital after Leslie was born.”

“You’re sure Aileen Houlihan was pregnant?” Joanna asked.

“Of course I’m sure.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I came to the ranch with Joaquin one day and saw her,” Dolores retorted. “I knew Aileen was pregnant with Leslie the same way I know you’re pregnant-just by looking.”

“Didn’t you think it was odd that Leslie was born at home?” Joanna asked.

“Senora Ruth said the baby came too fast, that there wasn’t time enough to get to the hospital. They were up at the other house-at the house where Leslie and Mr. Markham live now. But Senora Ruth was a nurse, you know. She was able to take care of things just fine.”

“Having a baby can be very messy work,” Joanna said. “Who cleaned up the mess afterward? Did you ever wonder about that?”

Dolores shook her head. “No. I told you, Senora Ruth was a nurse. She took care of it all-Aileen, Leslie, and everything.”

Frank Montoya’s “older and wiser” comment was still fresh in Joanna’s ears, so she didn’t glance in her chief deputy’s direction as she opened her briefcase and pulled out the envelope containing the photos. She removed the high school graduation picture of Lisa Marie Evans and passed it over to Dolores. She looked at it for a moment through squinted eyes, then she located a pair of reading glasses under the top of her dress.

Dolores Mattias examined the picture for a very long time, then handed it back. “She does look like Leslie. And I’ve seen that picture before,” she said quietly.

Joanna felt her heart quicken. “When?” she asked.

“When that man came to the house.”

“What man?” Joanna asked. “And which house are you talking about? This one?”

“No, to Senora Aileen’s house. I was there. It was late in the afternoon some day the week before last, maybe Wednesday or Thursday. A man drove up to the house in a red pickup truck.

When he knocked on the door, I thought maybe he was one of those missionaries that are always coming around, but he wasn’t a missionary at all. Instead, it was some crazy man who came storming up onto the porch and started pounding on the door. I was getting ready to give Aileen her bath. When I came to the door, the man told me he was there to see his wife, Lisa somebody. I don’t remember the last name. He said he wanted to talk to her.

“I told him he was mistaken-that the only person living there was named Aileen Houlihan and that she was very ill, too ill to see anyone. Then he said, ”Is she Leslie Markham’s mother?“ I said, yes, of course she was. At that point he pulled out this picture-maybe not this exact one, but one just like it. He waved it at me and said, ”Isn’t this Aileen?“ And I told him no, it wasn’t. Not even close. Then he just went nuts. He pounded his fist on one of the posts so hard that it made the whole porch shake. It scared me to death. I was afraid he was going to force his way into the house no matter what I said. I don’t know what would have happened if Mr. Markham hadn’t driven up right then. He had come to deliver a prescription he had picked up in town. He came up on the porch and asked what was going on. I told him. He said I should go inside and that he’d handle it. And he did.”

“What do you mean, he handled it?” Joanna asked.

“I don’t know exactly. I went back inside to take care of Aileen. When I came back out, the man was gone along with his truck. So was Mr. Markham.”

Once again Joanna reached into the envelope. This time she pulled out the enlargement of Bradley Evans’s ID photo. “Is this the man who came to the door?”

Using her reading glasses again, Dolores Mattias studied the photo. “Yes,” she said finally. “This is the man from the porch. Who is he?”

“His name is Bradley Evans,” Joanna said. “He’s the man we told you about when we first got here, the man who was murdered. His body was found on Friday morning out near Paul’s Spur. A few days later his pickup was found with a For Sale sign on it in a vacant lot in Huachuca City. The truck was red at one time, Mrs. Mattias, but it had been painted over with gray primer.”

Dolores Mattias sucked in her breath. “And so, because I bought primer, you think I had something to do with this?” she demanded. “Or that my husband did? You tricked me into talking to you, Sheriff Brady. I think you should leave now.” Then suddenly she stopped speaking. After a long pause, her face seemed to collapse on itself as she reached some appalling conclusion.

“No,” she said.

“No what?” Joanna asked.

“Joaquin is involved, isn’t he!”

“Why would you say that?”

“He must be. That’s why he was so upset this morning when he dropped me off. When we drove up and he saw the cop car there in front of the house, he almost drove right past. When I asked him what he was doing, he said…”

Sobbing uncontrollably now and too overcome to continue, Dolores Mattias paused again.

“What did he say?”

“It wasn’t just what he said. It was how he looked. His face went pale; his hands shook. I was afraid he might be having a heart attack or something. I asked him if he was okay and he said, ”No matter what happens, I love you.“ I thought it was odd- strange even. Joaquin isn’t sentimental. My husband says he loves me sometimes-on my birthday or our anniversary or on Valentine’s Day, but not out of the blue like that, for no reason. He was really telling me good-bye, wasn’t he! Joaquin saw the cops were there and he was afraid because he was involved in whatever happened to that man. What if Joaquin’s dead now, too?”

“Please, Mrs. Mattias,” Joanna said. “You mustn’t jump to conclusions. Your husband is probably fine. He’s just gone off somewhere and we have to find him, that’s all. But what makes you think Joaquin may be involved?”

“He was gone Thursday night,” Dolores admitted softly.

“What do you mean, gone?” Joanna asked.

“I mean, he left the house. He was away for several hours- for most of the night. We turned off the TV after the news and went to bed. He waited for a long time-until after he thought I was asleep, then he got up and snuck out of the room. The next thing I heard was him driving out of the yard. He didn’t come back until almost sunup. I was still awake, but I kept my eyes shut when he came in. He snuck back into bed and pretended to be asleep when I got up a little while later.”

“Did you say anything to him about it?” Joanna asked. “Did you ask him where he’d been or what he’d been doing?”

Dolores shook her head. “Joaquin’s a cowboy. He’s always been a handsome man,” she said. “Years ago he had a girlfriend. When I found out about it, he broke it off, but I was afraid it might be happening again-that he had a new girlfriend.”

“And what do you think now?”

“I no longer believe he was using the primer to help a friend paint his car,” she said slowly. “I think Joaquin may have done something far worse than having a girlfriend.” It was a painful admission for Dolores to make. Joanna’s heart went out to her.

“I’m sorry to put you through all this, Mrs. Mattias. Maybe we’re all wrong. Maybe when we find Joaquin, he’ll be able to give us a reasonable explanation for all this. But for right now, we should probably be going. Here’s my card. Please call me if he comes home or if you hear from him. We need to talk to him.”

Dolores Mattias stared blindly at the card without benefit of her reading glasses. Then she dropped it on the table beside her. “Will he go to prison?” she asked.

If Joaquin Mattias was convicted of being involved in a murder, he would certainly go to prison. It was possible Joaquin’s involvement was limited to helping move the body, but these days even that was considered a felony.

“I don’t know,” Joanna said. “That depends on what, if anything, he’s done.”

“Yes,” Dolores Mattias said softly. “I understand.”

As they walked toward the Crown Victoria, Frank made his feelings clear. “What the hell was that all about?” he demanded. “We want to talk to him? It sounds to me as though Joaquin Mattias is in this up to his eyeballs.”

“I didn’t want to scare the poor woman any more than necessary, but what she told us was important. If we play her right, she may tell us even more.”

“For instance.”

“We know from her that Bradley Evans came to Aileen’s house. Given Bradley Evans’s frame of mind at the time, I think it’s fair to assume that he and Rory Markham would have had some kind of altercation. Yet, when I showed Bradley’s photo to the Markhams, Rory categorically denied ever having seen the man.”

“So Rory’s a liar.”

“He’s a liar, all right,” Joanna said. “He lied to me, and I believe he’s also lying to his wife. If we were to ask Leslie about it, I bet we’d learn that she’s entirely in the dark about her husband’s grand plan to subdivide the Triple H. Leslie is young, relatively inexperienced, and susceptible to Rory’s bullying. I’ve seen him do it firsthand. He’s under the impression that the moment Aileen dies, the coast will be clear for him to do whatever he wants.”

“If Hospice is coming in on the case, it probably won’t be long before that happens,” Frank added. “Days or even weeks. What are the chances he’s already greased the skids as far as Planning and Zoning is concerned?”

“Can you check on that?” Joanna asked.

“Will do.”

“So here’s Rory, about to make a killing with this real estate deal. Everything is going swimmingly, then Bradley Evans shows up. Next thing you know, Evans is dead, and Rory Markham seems to be the last person who saw the victim alive. Given the lies he told us about not knowing Evans, that turns him into our prime suspect.”

“But why would Markham do it?” Frank asked. “What’s his motive?”

“Somehow Bradley Evans posed a threat to Rory Markham’s grand design.”

“What kind of threat?”

“That’s what we need to find out.”

“Where to next?” Frank asked, turning his key in the ignition. “Home?”

“Sounds good to me. It’s been a very long day.”

Frank took her as far as the Justice Center, where she moved from his Crown Victoria to hers. By the time she got home it was after eleven and the household was asleep. Only Lady came to the door to greet her, and Butch didn’t budge when she crawled into bed beside him.

She woke up late to the smell of frying bacon and waddled out to the kitchen. “I won’t even ask how your day was yesterday,” Butch said, kissing her good morning. “I think I already know. How’d you sleep?”

“Like a brick. I was too tired to do anything else.”

“Are you going in to work today?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“What about church?” Butch asked.

“I need a robe day,” Joanna said. “Call me a backslider, but I just want to sit around in my nightgown for a change.”

“You’ve certainly earned it,” Butch said, “but you might want to give your mother a call before it gets much later. She phoned yesterday.”

“Annoyed because she hasn’t heard from me?”

“You must be psychic,” Butch said with a grin.

“Are you in labor?” Eleanor Lathrop Winfield demanded as soon as she heard her daughter’s voice.

“No, Mom, I’m not.”

“Oh,” Eleanor said. “Since you couldn’t be bothered to call with the news that you’re having a boy, I thought this must be really important.”

“I’ve been busy,” Joanna said. “I’ve been working.”

“I don’t know why,” Eleanor sniffed. “Someone in your condition shouldn’t be traipsing all over hell and gone and getting involved in shoot-outs, for Pete’s sake. It was all over the news. I can’t imagine what you’re thinking.”

Eleanor’s disapproval of her daughter’s continuing to work during her pregnancy was a long-standing bone of contention between them. Forget the fact that the “shoot-out” had most likely saved a little girl’s life. Detective Newton‘s snide references to Joanna’s condition had been annoying. Eleanor’s were far more hurtful.

“I was doing my job, Mother,” Joanna said. “And I intend to continue doing it.”

“I don’t understand how DNA works,” Eleanor said. “You’re just like your father and nothing at all like me.”

Thank God, Joanna thought.

“But now that I have you on the phone, do you and Butch want to come over for dinner? George is all hot to trot to fire up his barbecue. It’s only March, but as far as he’s concerned it’s the beginning of summer.”

“I’ll check with Butch and let you know.”

Butch, it turned out, was agreeable. “It’ll give us a chance to do a little fence-mending,” he said. “Find out what time.”

After making arrangements with Eleanor for them to go to dinner at six, Joanna spent the rest of the morning at the desk in her home office. She called into the department and talked to Frank, who brought her up-to-date on the latest happenings. There was still no word of any kind from Joaquin Mattias. Dolores had now filed a formal missing-persons report. Antonio Zavala had undergone surgery at UMC to repair his damaged foot, and Jail Commander Tom Hadlock had made arrangements to hire two off-duty Tucson PD officers to stand guard duty at Zavala’s hospital room. Jeannine’s condition, meantime, had been upgraded once again. Frank had even managed to speak to her on the phone. Pain meds or not, Jeannine had been thrilled to hear that Millicent was moving forward with the pitbull rescue project.

“You are coming in, aren’t you?” Frank asked once he finished with his telephone briefing.

“No,” Joanna said. “I hadn’t planned on it. Why?”

“Millicent Ross just came back from Tucson and dropped off her truckload of pet supplies. Tom has guards unloading and distributing those right now. Millicent expects to be back here around two to start delivering puppies to inmates, but the reporters are already here.”

“What reporters?”

“The pit-bull-rescue guy-the guy who paid for all the puppy goodies-evidently has media connections out the ying-yang. He issued some kind of press release. So far we’ve got TV camera crews and print media here from Phoenix and Tucson, but a crew from Good Morning America is supposed to show up as well. They’re all asking when you’ll be here.”

Joanna sighed. “I guess you called that shot.”

“What shot?”

“You said this was going to be a PR bonanza.”

“Remind me to be careful what I wish for,” Frank said ruefully. “This is nuts.”

“All right,” Joanna returned. “I’ll be there about the same time the puppies are, and not a minute before.”

The briefcase she had carried with her from place to place the day before was now a jumbled mess. While sorting through it, she stumbled across the classmates.com printout Frank had given her a good twenty-four hours earlier-the on-line profile for Lisa Marie Bradley’s friend, Barbara Tanner Petrocelli. When Joanna picked up the phone to call the woman, she did so more for the sake of closure than out of any real expectation that the conversation would be of value to the investigation.

As soon as Joanna introduced herself on the phone, Barbara Petrocelli was nothing short of cordial. “I read about Bradley’s death in the paper last week,” she said. “It made me terribly sad. I remember that time like it was yesterday. According to what my parents told me, Lisa left the cleaner’s that day in mid-shift. She left the money in the till, turned off the lights, locked the door, and disappeared. The next thing I knew, Bradley was being charged with murder. It was such a horrible waste. Now he’s gone, too.”

“Mrs. Crystal said you and Lisa Marie were friends.”

“I felt sorry for her to begin with,” Barbara admitted, “but we became good friends.”

“She confided in you?”

“Absolutely” Barbara returned. “The same way I confided in her.”

“Did she mention anything to you about being unhappy in her marriage?” Joanna asked.

“To Bradley? Anything but,” Barbara answered. “She adored him. She may have been worried about his drinking, but she was looking forward to raising a family with the man. She loved him so much. I could never understand how he could betray her like that.”

“As far as you know, then, there wasn’t any particular quarrel that would have provoked him to attack her?”

“Not really, but by the time the murder actually happened, I had been back at school for several weeks. I just wish I had been here. Maybe I could have done something to help Lisa the same way she helped me.”

“What do you mean?”

“If things were going badly with her husband, I could have listened to her, offered her a shoulder to cry on the same way she did for me during my breakup with Rory I mean, if he had been treating her badly and was turning violent or something, maybe I could have helped her find a place to go, a shelter or something.”

At first Joanna was afraid she had been mistaken. “Did you say Rory?” she asked.

“Sure,” Barbara returned. “Rory Markham, notorious snake in the grass, and one of my worst youthful transgressions. I met Claudio and started dating him while I was still on the rebound. Fortunately, it’s a rebound romance that defied all the odds and is still working very well, thank you.”

“Wait a minute,” Joanna said. “You were dating Rory Markham?”

“Yes,” Barbara returned. “And I broke up with him, too. I might not have caught on if Lisa hadn’t warned me about him.”

“Warned you? About what?”

“About his coming into the cleaner’s and flirting with her when I wasn’t around.”

“You’re saying he knew Lisa Marie Evans?” Joanna asked. “That they were acquainted?”

“Of course he knew her,” Barbara said. “I was the one who introduced him to her when he came by to take me to lunch.”

Joanna took a deep breath. No one had ever made any kind of connection between Rory Markham and the long-ago disappearance of Lisa Marie Evans. Now that had changed.

“Did Rory know that Lisa had told you what he was doing behind your back?”

“I may have told him, but it didn’t really matter. I didn’t break up with him because of some harmless flirting. It turned out that was just the tip of the iceberg. He actually had a thing for older women-older married women. One of those Mrs. Robinson deals. I probably shouldn’t be telling you this since he’s still around here and running a real estate office in town, but the woman involved has been dead for a long time.”

“What married woman?” Joanna asked.

“I really shouldn’t say,” Barbara hedged. “Really. People could still get hurt. I mean, he’s married now. Knowing about this would probably hurt her feelings.”

“If it happened long before he married his current wife, why would it hurt her?” Joanna asked.

Barbara sighed. “Because the woman’s name was Ruth,” she said at last.

“Ruth Houlihan?” Joanna demanded. “Leslie Markham’s grandmother?”

“You already know about them, then?” Barbara asked. “In that case I don’t suppose my two cents’ worth will make any difference. Ruth’s husband was a lot older than she was, and Rory was a real hunk back in those days. Old Mr. Houlihan hired Rory to do odd jobs around the ranch, and he ended up balling the missus behind the old man’s back. The two of them would ride up into the hills to an old line shack and screw their brains out. The Houlihans had a daughter named Aileen who was about the same age as Lisa and me. Ruth and Rory both pretended he was interested in the daughter, but that was just a convenient cover.”

Barbara stopped talking for a moment, then added, “I do feel guilty to be gossiping like this, but even after all these years, I’m still more than a little pissed at the man for what he did to me. Thank God I didn’t marry him, though. I can’t imagine what that would have been like. Rory Markham is a real piece of work.”

J couldn’t agree more, Joanna thought.

Her cell phone rang just then. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Petrocelli. I need to take that. Can I call you back later?”

“Sure. Feel free. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

When Joanna picked up her cell phone, Frank was on the line. “When are you going to be here?” he said. “The cameras are ready to roll, and so is the first batch of puppies.”

“I’m afraid you and I are going to miss the puppy party,” Joanna said.

“Why? What’s going on?” Frank demanded.

“We need to pay a call on Rory Markham,” Joanna said. “Because one of Lisa Marie Evans’s friends has just connected some of our missing dots.”