Genesis

Chapter 33

May 10th

7:30 P.M.

Following the highly auspicious meeting with Dr. Henderson, Aria’s mood had completely changed. For the first time since she’d started her quest to find Lover Boy, she felt confident she was going to be successful and had even begun imagining what her next step might be. The easiest would be to involve David Goldberg but that would hardly be satisfying as the MLI would undoubtedly merely dump the information into the laps of his police contacts, which were surely extensive. Instead Aria began to fantasize about learning something about the individual, even possibly somehow arranging to meet him and talk with him with the knowledge that she had the power to throw a good bit of sand into the workings of his life, especially if he was married with children as she had imagined. At the same time, Laurie’s admonishment about possible danger if he had played a role in Kera’s overdose came to mind, so it wasn’t an easy decision. Yet the mere fact that she was going to have a choice was a source of great satisfaction.

As soon as she got home after the meeting with the Pathology chief, she took a shower and got into clean jeans and a sweatshirt. Armed with one of the genealogy books Madison had loaned her, she walked two blocks west to one of her favorite neighborhood eateries, Cafe Luxembourg, for some grilled Loup de Mer and quinoa salad.

After her meal, Aria returned to her apartment to watch PBS NewsHour, which she recorded nightly. By 10:30 she decided to have a bit more to eat prior to getting into bed to read. All in all, it was a typical night until her door buzzer sounded.

“What the hell?” Aria mumbled. It was rare for her to have visitors, especially after eight in the evening unless she had called for takeout food. Her first thought was to ignore it as it was probably someone pressing the wrong button. Her building had a total of six units, and since the light on the address panel was notoriously unreliable, she’d had her share of mistaken calls. But then her curiosity got the best of her so she went to the intercom and answered by merely saying yes.

“Is this Aria?” a crackly voice asked.

“Who wants to know?” she said.

“It’s me, Carl. I know it’s late, but I just came from Paul Sommers’s. Since I was in the neighborhood, and since I promised to tell you the moment I had any information about the possibility of unsealing the Carlson adoption case, I thought I’d take a chance you’d still be up.”

A smile broke out on her face. She’d had a positive inkling of success leaving his office, and suddenly it seemed entirely justified. Quickly she pressed the buzzer, allowing him into the building’s common hallway. Now she was glad she’d not gotten into her jammies and robe as she’d been tempted to do when she’d returned from dinner. Crossing her living room area, she went to the door to the hall and opened it. Carl, carrying a shopping bag and dressed in a dark overcoat and a fedora despite the balmy temperatures, stood just beyond her threshold.

“Success!” he said with a broad, self-congratulatory smile. “It’s a done deal.”

“He’ll get us the names of the adoptive parents?” Aria asked, just to be a hundred percent certain.

“Yup, no problem,” Carl said. “Can I come in and tell you the details?”

“Sure,” Aria said. She stepped out of the way and he entered. After only a few steps he stopped and gazed around. “Nice pad.”

“It’s not bad,” she said as she closed the door. She had the sense Carl was trying to sound hip. Inwardly she smiled. It sounded pathetic. “Can I take your coat?”

“No need,” Carl said. “I can’t stay but a minute. But I would like to sit down.”

“Why not?” Aria said. She gestured toward the couch, and after he sat down, she sat in an easy chair facing it. A coffee table separated them. The two dog-eared genetic genealogy books were on the table.

Carl put down his shopping bag and looked across at Aria. “Paul and I ended up having dinner together, so thank you for being the instigator. And I have to say his apartment is to die for.”

“How did you bring up the issue about the sealed adoption case?” Aria asked. She had zero interest in his evening other than how it related to getting the information she needed.

“It was easy,” Carl said. “I showed him the family trees you had created and told the story. It’s gripping. Truly! And he was immediately enthralled. I did leave the family trees with him. I hope that was all right. Which leads me to question if we can get additional copies.”

“I don’t see why not,” she said. “GenealogyDNA surely has it in their database.”

“Paul did have a question about GenealogyDNA,” Carl said. “He wants to know if they are aware of Kera Jacobsen’s death.”

“They do not know the name,” Aria said. “Right from the outset I told them the name was protected by HIPAA rules.”

“That’s good,” he said. “It was one of Paul’s concerns.”

“They don’t even know that the subject of the family trees is a dead fetus,” Aria said. “To spark their interest and get them involved I concocted a completely different scenario.”

“That was clever,” Carl said. “Do you mind telling me the story you used?”

“I felt it had to be more compelling with a time constraint,” Aria said. “Instead of a dead fetus coming from a woman who had overdosed, the subject was a toddler conceived by sperm donation with aggressive myeloblastic leukemia that had been unresponsive to treatment. The only hope was a bone marrow transplant. Since the mother had died and there were no siblings, the sperm-donating father had to be found as soon as possible to save the child.”

When she finished her story, a silence hung over the room for almost a full minute. Aria and Carl stared at each other, with Aria wondering if she’d told too much, thereby dumbfounding him by the sheer creativity of the scenario and the impressive manipulative ability of its author.

“Wow!” Carl commented at length.

“It normally takes weeks for commercial genetic DNA companies to process samples,” she explained. “I had to make it an emergency situation.”

“I understand,” Carl said. “And it certainly worked, considering what was accomplished in so little time.”

“There was luck involved,” Aria said. “It all depended on relatives having joined the genetic DNA bandwagon on both sides of the missing father’s ancestry.”

“I understand,” he said. “Paul will be interested to hear that GenealogyDNA is not aware of the real-life story involved here, which was his only concern. What that means is that he will get us in short order the name of the adoptive parents.”

“Good,” Aria said.

“I think it’s more than good,” Carl said. “In fact, I think it calls for a celebration. And to that end I’ve come prepared.” He moved the shopping bag he’d brought closer and proceeded to extract two cut-crystal, fluted champagne glasses, which he placed on the table, one directly in front of her and the other in front of himself. Next, he pulled out a wine bottle nestled in an insulated sleeve.

“Do you like prosecco?” he asked.

“I like it okay,” Aria said as she watched these unexpected preparations. Normally she didn’t like people doing her favors, particularly men, because she always thought they wanted something in return. But on this occasion, she was comfortable with it as there was reason to celebrate.

With a flourish as if he were a sommelier, Carl pulled the chilled bottle from its insulated covering and presented it for Aria’s appreciation. “It’s called Bortolomiol Filanda Rosé. I don’t have any idea why it’s called Filanda, which sounds like Finland, because the vintner is from the Veneto region of Italy. What I do know is that it is terrific prosecco.” He untwisted the wire cap and then removed the lead covering. He carefully dropped both back into the shopping bag. He then loosened the cork and allowed some of the contained gas to escape before a final explosive pop.

“Okay,” he said. He leaned forward and filled her glass first with the effervescent wine and then his. Putting down the bottle, he lifted Aria’s glass and extended it to her, then picked up his own. “Cheers, and once again, great job!”

Aria took the glass, clinked it with his that he had outstretched, and took a sip.

Carl hesitated, watching her. “What do you think?” he said. “How is it?”

“It’s all right,” she said. Actually, it was tasty, and it was a pleasant shade of pink, to boot.

“To me it is the best one I have ever had,” Carl said. “And I’ve had a lot of prosecco because I’m not a champagne fan. Even the best champagne doesn’t do much for me, whereas a nice prosecco is like a bit of summer in a bottle.”

Aria took another drink, with more volume. After the marked ups and downs of the day, it was a pleasure to feel the wine’s effervescence in her mouth along with its subtle taste. Whether it was more suggestion or reality, it did seem to have more flavor than the prosecco she’d had at Nobu, making her wonder if it was because it was rosé or because she was in a different frame of mind. When she’d been at the bar in Nobu, she’d just had two disheartening conversations, first with Madison Bryant and then with Evelyn Mabry. Both of those talks had made her feel that she’d already hit up against a dead-end of finding the fetus’s father. In contrast, she was now enjoying the high of success.

“Don’t hold back,” he said. “We have a whole bottle.” He was already pouring himself more. He then gestured toward Aria with it, and she allowed him to top off her glass.

“How did you come up with the clever idea of using genetic genealogy to find the father?” Carl asked.

“It was Madison Bryant’s idea,” she admitted. “It wouldn’t have occurred to me because I thought you had to have an individual’s DNA if the process was going to help find someone.”

“That was my understanding, too,” Carl said. “That’s interesting you got to talk with Madison Bryant. Was that after you and I spoke when she was in the Bellevue ICU?”

“No, it was the night before,” Aria said. She took yet another healthy drink while settling back comfortably into the club chair as if it were enveloping her. The wine was providing her with a wonderfully relaxing sensation, as if there was a sudden increase in the force of gravity. All at once the idea of going to bed sounded immensely appealing.

“That means you saw Madison Bryant after you and I talked in my office,” he said. “My, my, you were motivated, which begs the question...”

Once again Aria took an ample drink of her pleasantly bubbly wine, and as she swallowed, she felt a new sensation. Suddenly a dizziness spread through her that wasn’t so pleasant. At the same time Carl’s words seemed to have no meaning. She could see he was still speaking, and she heard the words, but they made no sense. Then her vision blurred. Blinking repeatedly in an effort to clear her vision, she put her glass down on the coffee table and in a mounting panic, tried to stand.

“What’s the matter?” he questioned. He moved to the edge of the couch and reached toward her with his hand. He was afraid she was about to pitch forward and fall out of the chair.

“I need...” she mumbled, but she didn’t finish her sentence. In slow motion, she sagged to the side and would have tumbled from the chair had Carl not stood up and eased her back against the rear cushion. Then he got out a pair of surgical gloves and put them on.