Twisted Path

by Melissa F. Miller

  Bodhi and Tory sat in silence and listened to the clacking of the detectives’ footsteps grow fainter as they walked down the hallway. After the chime sounded to announce the arrival of the elevator, Tory turned to Bodhi and grinned.

  “Do you want to drive or do you want me to?”

  He blinked at her. “Are you suggesting we ignore the homicide detectives’ order to stay put?”

  “Last time I checked, neither of us report to them.”

  “Fair point, but I don’t know where Hope Noor grew up. Do you?”

  “The address’ll be in the Raina Noor case file. It’s where Tenley was staying when they arrested him.”

  Bodhi considered the possible ramifications of turning up uninvited at an active crime scene. Then he returned Tory’s smile. “Bring your car around. I’ll dig up the address and meet you in front of the building.”

  She grabbed her purse, coat, and scarf and hurried out of the lab.

  Bodhi turned out the lights and walked along the hallway to the small office Saul had loaned him. He paged through the Raina Noor files until he reached the police report; then he copied the defendant’s address onto a sticky note and returned the files to the metal filing cabinet.

  He was buttoning his coat when Saul poked his head into the office.

  “Oh, are you heading out?”

  Bodhi reminded himself about forgiveness, not permission. “Yes.”

  Saul cocked his head. “Early lunch?”

  “Um, no.”

  They looked at one another for a long moment. Saul pursed his lips. “Hmm. Be careful … you know, the streets might be icy.”

  “Right.”

  “Right.”

  “Well, I should get going.” Bodhi nodded and ushered Saul out of the office. Saul shook his hand before they parted ways.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Burton parked in an alley that ran behind the street. After some debate, he and Chrys agreed to approach the house on foot.

  They climbed out of the sedan and started tromping through the slushy snow. When they reached Mrs. Antolini’s back gate, he stretched out an arm and stopped Chrys.

  “What?” she hissed as she bounced off his forearm.

  “I have some rapport with her. I’ll go to the front door and knock. You cover the back exit.”

  “I don’t think she’ll run; she’ll try to talk her way out—”

  “She’s cornered now, Chrys. And she’s probably heard by now that Damon’s dead. We can’t predict how she’ll act.”

  Chrys shrugged. “Fine. We’ll play it your way.”

  She crouched behind Mrs. Antolini’s shed and checked her weapon. Burton walked to the end of the alley, turned left on the cross street, then made another left onto the Kesslers’ street, and walked briskly up to the house, which, if anything, looked more dilapidated in the daylight.

  He rapped on the door. No response. He knocked again, harder this time. Mrs. Antolini’s face appeared in her living room window. He motioned for her to back away and thanked the stars when she did.

  “Hope? Anastasia?” he called loudly. “It’s Detective Burton Gilbert. I understand you’ve been in an accident. Are you okay?”

  He listened hard but heard no movement inside.

  Then, the slightest creak sounded from within the house.

  He turned his ear toward the door and heard the sound of a window pane being raised on the second floor.

  He stepped to the edge of the porch and craned his head back to look up. That’s when he spotted the barrel of a gun protruding from an open second-story window. He dove and rolled across the porch floor until he was flush with the front wall of the structure.

  She fired. The bullet struck a cement birdbath and shattered the base.

  She was a lousy shot, which, unfortunately, didn’t make him feel any better about his odds. A cornered, erratic woman with poor gun-handling skills was a disaster waiting to happen.

  Chrys came pounding up the walkway from the back of the house, shouting his name as she ran.

  “Get down!” he screamed.

  She hit the ground on her belly and army crawled through the snow-covered shrubbery on her elbows. Then she crouched low and ran up the stairs to press herself up against the facade next to him.

  “Why is she shooting?”

  “Because she’s a cornered killer. Call for backup.”

  “Already did. As soon as she fired the first shot.”

  They sagged against the house, breathing hard.

  An SUV pulled up directly in front of the house and parked. Burton blinked, looked again, and swore under his breath.

  “We’ve got company.”

  Chrys squinted. “Is that … Bodhi King and Tory Thurmont?”

  Bodhi ducked his head to peer through the windshield of Tory’s SUV.

  “Are you sure this is the right address?” Tory asked.

  “It’s the address that was in the file. And judging by the two homicide detectives with their guns drawn on the front porch, she’s here.”

  Tory removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes with her fist. She replaced the glasses on her face and focused on the porch. “Oh, yeah.”

  “Get out of here,” Detective Gilbert roared from the porch.

  An instant later, the crack of a gun ripped through the air and a bullet tore into the retaining wall that fronted the yard, sending plaster and brick dust into the air like a water spout.

  Tory put the SUV in reverse and backed away from the house. Another shot hit the street in front of the car.

  “This may have been a bad idea,” Tory said.

  Before Bodhi could respond, his cell phone rang. He dug it out of his coat pocket and hit the speaker button.

  “Hello, this is Bodhi King.”

  “Dr. King?”

  He recognized the breathy voice at once. “Mrs. Noor?”

  Tory’s eyes widened.

  “Yes. Are you in the silver SUV I just shot at?”

  “Um, yes, I am.”

  “I thought I caught a glimpse of your hair. I didn’t realize who you were until after I took a shot. I’m so sorry.” Her distress sounded genuine.

  “It’s okay, you missed us.”

  “Us? Who’s driving?”

  “Her name is Tory Thurmont. She’s a forensic serologist. She’s helping me understand your condition.”

  “I don’t have a condition. My leukemia’s in remission.”

  Tory looked at him with a question in her eyes. He nodded to go ahead.

  “Mrs. Noor? This is Tory. It seems you have what’s called chimerism. In addition to your own DNA, you have Damon Tenley’s DNA as a result of the bone marrow transplant you underwent.”

  “So … I left his DNA in my bedroom?”

  “Correct.”

  She paused and Bodhi could almost hear the wheels turning in her mind. After a moment, she said, “So whoever killed Giles must’ve worn gloves or cleaned up after himself. Because the only DNA you found was Giles’, mine, and Damon’s, right?”

  Tory rolled her eyes. He nodded. Hope’s explanation strained credulity.

  But it struck him as bad form to call an armed woman a fabulist, so he cleared his throat and said, “That would be one possibility.”

  Bodhi heard a soft tapping sound on the side of his door. He peered down and saw Detective Martin crouched beside the quarter panel.

  “It’s the only possibility,” Hope retorted.

  ‘Keep her talking. We’re going in,’ she mouthed.

  She mimed holding a phone to her ear and pointed to her chest and the house. He nodded his understanding and she duck walked away, sticking close to the car’s body.

  “I heard about Damon’s death. I’m so sorry,” he told her.

  She inhaled shakily. “I went to see him this morning. I don’t know why he did that … killed himself.”

  “You were very close, weren’t you?” he asked gently.

  “We used to be. When I was a little girl, I wo
rshipped him, and he spoiled me. It used to drive my parents bonkers, how he’d give me anything I wanted. They told him he was ruining me for men.” She laughed manically.

  Bodhi and Tory exchanged a look. Hope’s laughter was shrill and almost hysterical. She was teetering on the edge of a breakdown.

  “You said you used to be close. What happened to make you grow apart?”

  He watched the detectives take up positions on opposite sides of the front door with their weapons drawn.

  “He left. When I was thirteen, he joined the Army. He came back whenever he got leave, but it wasn’t the same. He wasn’t around when I needed him.”

  “That must’ve been tough.”

  “I guess. But it taught me to look out for myself and go after what I wanted instead of waiting for someone to give it to me.”

  Up on the porch, Detective Gilbert raised a gloved hand and flashed one finger, then two, and then three. As he pulled back his boot to kick in the door, Bodhi said, “Can you see to the end of the street?”

  “Uh, why?”

  “I thought I heard a siren but I don’t see any vehicles.”

  He watched as she leaned out the second-story window, holding the gun in her right hand and the phone in her left, and craned her head to look around the bend in her street.

  The door gave way, and the detectives sprinted inside.

  “I don’t see any lights,” Hope told him.

  In the background, he heard Detective Gilbert’s deep voice shouting commands. An instant later, Detective Martin appeared in the window behind Hope. The detective used her weapon to chop down on Hope’s wrist and the gun flew from her grip and fell, turning end over end in the air as it headed to the ground.

  Instinctively, Bodhi covered his head with one arm and pushed Tory’s head down with his other hand. But the gun hit the frozen earth with a thud and nothing more.

  Inside, someone disconnected the telephone call from Hope’s end. Bodhi dropped his phone on the seat and turned to Tory.

  “You okay?”

  She nodded.

  They sat in silence and watched as Detective Gilbert and Detective Martin escorted a handcuffed Hope Noor through the broken-down front door. As they passed by Tory’s SUV, Detective Gilbert touched two fingers to his forehead and nodded to Bodhi.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Four days later

  * * *

  The previous week’s snow had melted into a gray slush, helped along by the cold rain that had been falling for the past day and a half. Bodhi turned up his collar and shivered. The weather was fitting for a funeral. Or more accurately, an interment of ashes.

  Penny had handled the arrangements after it became clear that Hope Noor, who’d been taken to the psychiatric hospital for evaluation after her arrest, had no intentions of doing so. Damon Tenley had been cremated. His remains were placed in a basic, simple urn. Saul, who had a good relationship with the cemetery director, convinced him to bury Damon’s remains in Frank and Lisa Kessler’s family plot, between the only parents Damon had ever known.

  And now, Penny, Bodhi, and Saul huddled together under a black canopy to bear witness to the burial of the urn.

  “Does anyone want to say a few words?” the cemetery worker asked.

  Saul and Penny shook their heads.

  Bodhi spoke, “‘The world is afflicted by death and decay. But the wise do not grieve, having realized the nature of the world.’ The Buddha said this in the Sutta Nipata.”

  Saul turned to him as the man lowered the urn into the ground. “Really? That’s kind of grim, don’t you think?”

  “Damon Tenley lived. He loved the girl whom he thought of as a sister. He served his country. And he killed an innocent woman as she lay sleeping in her bed. Then, unable or unwilling, to help his sister escape justice for her crimes, he took his own life. If the twisted path his life took doesn’t convince you that the Buddha’s correct about the nature of the world, I don’t know what will.”

  They lapsed into silence while the man piled wet earth over the urn.

  After a moment, Penny said, “Thanks for coming. I expected to be here alone, to tell you the truth.”

  “Of course,” Saul answered. He offered the public defender his arm to navigate the slick grass as they walked to their cars.

  Bodhi took a last look at the fresh earth that now marked Damon Tenley’s final resting place and trailed Penny and Saul to the parking pad.

  “Do you guys want to get a drink?” Penny asked.

  “I can’t,” Bodhi said. “In fact, I was sort of hoping I could bum a ride to the airport from one of you.”

  “Headed back to Iowa?” Saul asked.

  “It’s still Illinois.”

  “Same difference.”

  “Really not. And yes. My tenant returned from her business trip this morning, so she doesn’t need a house sitter. I thought I’d get away for a few days.”

  “Just a few?”

  Bodhi shrugged. “We’ll see where my path leads.”

  Penny extended her hand. “I’m going to run, then. I’ve blocked off my afternoon, so if nobody wants to raise a glass to a dead murderer, I’ll see if I can’t squeeze in a visit to my optometrist. Safe travels.”

  They shook hands all around, and she hopped into her car. Bodhi and Saul stood side by side and watched her pull out of the cemetery.

  “Do you think Meghan will charge Hope?” Bodhi asked.

  Saul sucked air through his teeth. “I’m not sure. She’s hyper-concerned about her win percentage, and she knows Hope would make a sympathetic defendant. If she pulled a jury of men, I’m not convinced she wouldn’t walk—despite being responsible for two deaths.”

  Bodhi twisted his neck to look back at the plot of land where Damon Tenley’s remains were buried. “Three,” he corrected his friend.

  “Three,” Saul agreed. “If nothing else, she’s off the streets. Detective Gilbert told me Roland promised to move to have her committed even if she doesn’t stand trial, whether Meghan likes it or not.”

  “That’s something.”

  “It is.” Saul clapped his gloved hand on Bodhi’s shoulder. “Come on. Let’s get you to the airport so you can be on your way to Indiana.”

  “Illinois.”

  “Same difference.”

  Bodhi smiled and said nothing.

  Author’s Note

  As always, Bodhi provided a buffet of tasty research topics for me to dig into!

  I was teaching a homeschool writing class centered on Greek myths when I read about the mythological Chimera, which made me curious about what other cultures had mythology about a hybrid beast. (Turns out, it’s most of them.)

  Shortly after that, I read about genetic chimerism issues in family law cases and as a (failed) defense in a cycling doping case as part of a roundup of odd legal decisions. (Yes, this is the sort of thing a recovering lawyer reads for fun!) From there, I was off to the races researching vanishing twin syndrome, transplant-induced chimerism, and fetomaternal microchimerism.

  From there, I started devouring law review articles, books, and medical journal studies, and my plot developed. Most of this source material is pretty dense, but you might enjoy reading a handful of interesting and well-written articles about the use (and misuse) of forensic DNA evidence here and here.

  If you find the topic as fascinating as I do, I recommend this book, Inside the Cell: the Darkside of Forensic DNA.

  One final note, when Bodhi travels to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to borrow the rapid DNA machine, he’s actually in my neck of the woods! Cumberland County really was an early adopter of the technology, as mentioned here.

  The machine really is housed in the historic county jail, and I think of it almost every time I walk past the building while my kids are in their nearby martial arts class.

  Thank You!

  Thanks for reading Twisted Path! Bodhi will be back in another adventure soon. While you wait, you can always find an up-to-date list of the titles
in this series, as well as my other books, on my website: My Books

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  Keep reading. Check out the first book in one (or all) of my other three series, available here:

  Irreparable Harm (Sasha McCandless Legal Thriller No. 1):

  Sasha’s a five-foot nothing attorney who’s trained in Krav Maga. She’s smart, funny, and utterly fearless. More than one million readers agree: you wouldn’t want to face off against her in court … or in a dark alley.

  Critical Vulnerability (Aroostine Higgins Thriller No. 1):

  Aroostine relies on her Native American traditions and her legal training to right wrongs and dispense justice. She’s charmingly relentless, always dots her i’s and crosses her t’s, and is an expert tracker.

  Rosemary’s Gravy (We Sisters Three Humorous Romantic Mystery No. 1):

  Rosemary, Sage, and Thyme are three twenty-something sisters searching for career success and love. Somehow, though, they keep finding murder and mayhem … and love.

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