Genesis

Chapter 31

May 10th

5:35 P.M.

Emerging from the Hanna apartment building onto a Fifth Avenue clogged with rush-hour traffic, Aria stopped at the curb just under the very end of the blue awning. She needed a moment to take a few deep breaths and allow herself to calm down. Diane’s intransigence to even speak about her adoption experience seemed like the final nail in the coffin of Aria’s commitment to expose Kera Jacobsen’s homicidal-at-worst, inconsiderate-at-best lover. It was particularly frustrating after having spent all afternoon closeted at GenealogyDNA with a bunch of arrested-development nerds.

Gazing at the beckoning park greenery over and through a rising haze of exhaust coming from the slowly passing cars, taxis, and buses, Aria thought she should walk home rather than trying to languish in traffic. Not only would it be more pleasant, walking across town would undoubtedly again be faster.

Just when she was about to cross the street, Vijay’s comment about the district attorney having the power to unseal adoption records popped back into her consciousness. What brought the thought to mind was having learned during her first week at the OCME how close a working relationship the OCME had with the district attorney’s office. On many cases of homicide, of which there was almost one a day in New York, both organizations had to collaborate closely for justice to prevail. What that said loud and clear to Aria was that Dr. Montgomery, as the OCME chief, would undoubtedly know some of the DAs personally and thereby could have significant clout. Maybe there was a way to get around the problem of sealed adoption records. One way or the other, it suddenly seemed to Aria to be worth trying.

Quickly Aria got her phone out and checked the time. By coincidence it was almost the same time as yesterday when she found Laurie Montgomery alone in her office. Gambling that might be a regular occurrence for the chief, Aria opened the Uber app. Just as she was about to order a vehicle, a taxi pulled up directly in front of her and disgorged a resident of 812. After checking with the driver to ascertain that he was free, Aria jumped in.

A little after six Aria paid the fare and got out in front of the OCME at 520 First Avenue. After being buzzed in by a uniformed security man, she headed directly into the front office. To her encouragement, the scene was almost an exact visual repeat of what she had encountered a bit more than twenty-four hours previous. Once again, the only artificial light was spilling out of Dr. Laurie Montgomery’s office, suggesting that all the secretaries had departed and the chief was still toiling away. Advancing to the open inner office door, Aria saw that even Dr. Montgomery was in the same position, elbows on the desk, hands supporting her head, studying what might have been the same architectural plans.

“Hello, hello!” Aria called out as she walked in, which Laurie had specifically asked her to do rather than sneak in and surprise her like she’d done the night before. Since she was going to be essentially asking Laurie for a favor, Aria felt compelled to be more considerate, despite the fact that to her an open door was both literal and figurative.

“Come in and have a seat, Dr. Nichols!” Laurie said, even though by then Aria was already nearing the desk. “Seems that you and I are on the same schedule.”

“It does appear that way,” Aria said, choosing initially to remain standing rather than sitting down. “I wanted again to bring you up to date with my progress or, sadly enough, the lack of it. A lot has been accomplished, but I’m afraid we’ve hit up against that brick wall we spoke about earlier.”

I’m sorry to hear,” Laurie said. She took her hands away from supporting her head and sat back, studying Aria. To her there seemed to be a subtle change in the woman’s projected persona, with less of the in-your-face defiance than she’d exhibited on previous occasions. “What’s the latest?”

“First let me show you some family trees,” Aria said. She reached across the desk with the two that she’d brought and positioned them in front of Laurie. “The first one, as you can see, is of the Thompson family, which is the genetic family of the fetus we found at Kera Jacobsen’s autopsy, going all the way back to a great-great-grandfather. That takes it back to the late eighteen hundreds. And just so you know, the fetus was male.”

“Interesting!” Laurie said while studying the Thompson family tree, as Aria took a seat in the desk chair facing her. “So, you believe the surname of the individual you are calling Lover Boy is Thompson.”

“That was what was thought initially,” Aria said. “Unfortunately, that’s where the genealogical brick wall plays an unwelcome role. As you can see from the Thompson family tree, Eric Thompson is the father of Lover Boy. But today, when Eric Thompson was called, he wasn’t all that cooperative, but he was cooperative enough to deny absolutely that he had any other children other than the three you see on the family tree with his wife, Clara.”

“I hope you weren’t the one who spoke with him,” Laurie said.

“No, I wasn’t,” Aria said. “It was one of the principals of GenealogyDNA. But what difference would it have made if it had been me?”

“Early in my career as a medical examiner I learned the hard way that doing my own investigating can be dangerous if there’s strong emotion or potential criminality involved.”

“Oh, for shit sake,” Aria said. “That’s the last thing on my mind.”

“I thought the same way until I managed to almost get killed by some organized-crime people,” Laurie said. “It’s just a word to the wise. You can take it or leave it.”

“Whatever,” Aria said with a wave of her hand. “The brick wall is that it seems that Lover Boy was adopted, ergo has a different surname than that which his Y chromosome would suggest.”

“Okay,” Laurie said. “I understand. Adoption can cause a break in a family tree, and in this instance it means that it’s the end of using genetic genealogy to find the father of the fetus. I’m still impressed. There’s no doubt genetic genealogy will be useful to forensics.”

“It was my fear it was the end, too,” Aria said. “But GenealogyDNA had more to offer, and that was to create a family tree of the fetus’s paternal grandmother. That’s this one. You understand who the fetus’s paternal grandmother would be?”

“I think so,” Laurie said. “She would be Lover Boy’s mother.”

“Exactly,” Aria said. “The thought was that maybe Eric Thompson wasn’t lying when he said he only had three children. There’s a definite possibility he could have sired a son as a young teenager and never knew about it. Although that is not the rule, we all know it happens.”

“True,” Laurie said.

“So GenealogyDNA put their entire team into seeing what they could find out about the paternal grandmother’s side of the family. With a bit of luck, they did find a distant match, but while trying to follow up on that, they struck gold, as they called it. Like pennies from heaven, they came across a thirtysomething woman named Patricia Hanna, who’d just uploaded her genealogical kit and who turned out to be a half-sibling with Lover Boy. That meant that her mother, Diane Hanna née Carlson, was Lover Boy’s mother and the fetus’s paternal grandmother.”

“I see that,” Laurie said, studying the second family tree. She then looked up at Aria. “So, did someone try to call her?”

“I called her,” Aria said. “But I didn’t try to talk to her over the phone. I wanted to do it in person, which I did. In fact, I just came from her posh Fifth Avenue apartment overlooking the park.”

“Good grief,” Laurie said. “I hope you weren’t misrepresenting yourself as a medical examiner.” The idea of Aria out in the field, visiting well-connected people and perhaps posing as a representative of the NYC OCME, could have disastrous legal ramifications besides being possibly risky. Issues surrounding out-of-wedlock pregnancy and adoption were potentially emotionally explosive even with today’s mores.

“Absolutely not,” Aria said. “I was representing myself as a resident in Pathology at NYU.”

“What happened?” Laurie asked, with rising concern. “Were you well received, I hope?”

Aria laughed hard enough to need a minute to regain control even though her laughter wasn’t completely mirthful. “Sorry,” she said. “No, I was not well received. Well, that’s not entirely correct. Initially, I was well received, but that changed one-hundred-and-eighty degrees when I got around to bringing up the issue that I was there to talk about, namely that she had had a son with a man named Eric Thompson some fifty years ago.”

“I can imagine how that went over,” Laurie said with a sense of dread, suddenly regretting that she’d encouraged Aria to follow up on the Kera Jacobsen case. Knowing what she did about city politics, she started to worry whether she was going to hear about this episode from the mayor’s office. There was little doubt in her mind that if there was a formal complaint followed by an investigation, the incident would be traced back to the OCME.

“She went ballistic,” Aria said. “She practically threw me out into the street.”

“I’m not surprised,” Laurie said with a sense of alarm. “Will I be hearing any fallout from this? Did you mention the OCME or anything about Kera Jacobsen’s death?”

“No! Don’t worry,” Aria said. “I didn’t involve the OCME or Kera Jacobsen in any way. If you want to know, I concocted a story about me being the product of a sperm donation with the source of the sperm being her unacknowledged son, and I was just trying to find out something about my heritage. I made an effort for the news to be as benign as possible, maybe even a little complimentary because if it were true, she’d be my grandmother. But it didn’t work. The bitch of a woman who apparently thinks of herself as a socialite is a total fake who’s had enough plastic surgery to make her lips look like a fish.”

“Okay,” Laurie said, trying to calm herself. With the concern of having her surgery the next day, she was having trouble dealing with this new, potential problem and Aria in general. “Perhaps we should try to think of how we might mitigate any fallout. How angry would you guess Mrs. Hanna was? Do you think there’s any chance she’ll be vindictive enough to possibly have you investigated or censured?”

“Certainly not,” Aria said with a wave of her hand. “And her overreacting guarantees it. She knows that if she were to make any kind of stink, like complaining to someone about my visit, the truth would come out. She doesn’t want that. She wants the whole issue just to go away so it doesn’t mar her fake life. There’s no doubt in my mind, and there shouldn’t be in yours, either.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Laurie said. The idea did make sense, and it did provide a modicum of relief. “Can I assume now that since neither the mother nor the father are willing to acknowledge the son, you won’t be harassing them anymore?”

“I’m done with them,” Aria said. “Actually, I never had much hope either one would be able to help, particularly not the father. The only way they might have been useful was if the adoption had been an open adoption, at least from the mother’s side. In retrospect, the chances of that were extraordinarily slim, but I had to try.”

“What exactly did you intend to do if you had discovered Lover Boy’s identity?” Laurie suddenly asked. “I hope you weren’t entertaining any thoughts of confronting him.”

“What would I have done personally?” Aria questioned. She pondered the question for a moment and then shrugged. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead, but I’d have to say no, I wouldn’t have confronted him. I just want the guy exposed. It irks me to death that he is free and clear without having to face any questions about Kera Jacobsen’s death. In my experience, it happens too often. Too many men get away with fucking up women’s lives and walking away. I still feel that way, which is why I came over here to see you tonight.”

“What do you mean?”

“The only thing that stands between my finding out Lover Boy’s identity is the strict adoption laws here in New York State,” Aria said. “The records are sealed, but I was told that a district attorney can unseal them. What I’m hoping is that you might persuade the Manhattan district attorney to do it. I know you and the DA’s office have to work together closely so it occurred to me...” Aria let her voice trail off.

For a moment Laurie averted her gaze to give herself the opportunity to let the idea percolate. She wasn’t completely averse to mentioning the problem to one of her frequent contacts in the DA’s office to get a sense of their interest, yet with her impending surgery the timing was hardly opportune. Redirecting her attention back to Aria, she said, “All right. I’ll talk to someone at the DA’s office. But to be completely open, there are two problems that immediately jump out. First is that our relationship with the DA is dependent on facts, not conjecture. What I’m saying is that the idea that Lover Boy had something to do with Kera’s overdose is conjecture, not fact. Second is that there is a specific reason adoption records are sealed, and that is to protect people’s lives from information that can sometimes be disruptive. On top of these two issues, there is a timing circumstance that I will share with you. Tomorrow I’m scheduled to have major surgery here at NYU, which is certainly going to keep me mentally occupied at least through the weekend. Physically a bit longer. Be that as it may, let’s plan on talking again by phone on Monday or Tuesday. That will give me a chance to think about everything you’ve told me. Does all this sound acceptable to you?”

“I suppose,” Aria said without a lot of emotion. Although what Laurie was saying did sound reasonable, Aria wasn’t convinced of Laurie’s sincerity, thinking that maybe she was merely putting her off. “What kind of surgery are you going to have?”

“I don’t think that’s relevant,” Laurie said calmly and without rancor. “I’m already sharing privileged information with you. Let me add that my surgery plans are for your ears only and that you don’t say anything to anyone, although there will be a general announcement. And I have another request: I’d like you to give the Jacobsen case a rest until we talk.” Laurie handed Aria the family trees across the desk. “Is that a deal?”

Aria took them back, nodded several times, and then started for the exit.

“Wait!” Laurie suddenly called out, halting Aria halfway to the door. “I wanted to ask you how the autopsies went this morning. When I was in the pit doing my rounds, you were totally absorbed in dissecting a heart.”

“They went fine,” Aria said. “A subway accident and a commotio cordis.”

“I heard the subway accident victim was Madison Bryant, Kera’s friend. That’s quite a coincidence, and a tragedy.”

“I guess,” Aria said. And then she was gone.

For a time Laurie continued to stare at the open doorway, marveling at how strange and complicated a person Aria was and how smart yet disruptive she could be. For a moment she felt sorry for Carl Henderson, because Aria was his problem, not hers, provided she could be shepherded through the rest of her time at the OCME. Laurie also realized that Jack was right; although Aria had a lot of antisocial symptoms, including her obvious disrespect for others, her manipulative behavior, and her lack of empathy, to name a few, all of which made her difficult to deal with, she certainly didn’t have an antisocial personality disorder. She was much too high-functioning. It seemed to Laurie that a good psychiatrist or psychologist could have a ball trying to get behind her insufferable shell.