“You done with that newspaper?”
“Sure thing.” The officer handed over the newspaper. Detective DeRosa perused the paper like a speed reader on crack, but I could tell one article intrigued him because he folded the paper inside itself a few times until it was as stiff as a board.
“CeCe, how’d you do that?” DeRosa asked. “The sketch?”
“That’s what I do. I’ve been drawing and painting since I was a kid. I did go to art school, after all.”
“No, I mean how did you remember the details of Igor’s face so clearly?”
“I didn’t. I don’t have a photographic memory or anything like that, but when I paint I practice grouping common facial characteristics. Like Igor, there’s a typical Russian nose and few variations of that feature.” My explanation did not satisfy DeRosa. “Charlie, help me out,” I said.
“What can I say? Everyone’s got a thing. I’m into computers, she’s into facial features.”
“Charlie dropped out of MIT,” I said to fill in the blanks for DeRosa. “Computer Science major.”
DeRosa looked at Charlie. “MIT?” he asked.
Charlie nodded.
DeRosa got out of bed, grabbed the remote from Charlie and turned off the television. With his good arm he swung a plastic chair into place between Charlie and my bed.
“The two of you need to cut the act.” DeRosa slammed the wadded newspaper on my bed to reveal a single story dominating the front page.
“Read it out loud,” he commanded, “and stop pretending you don’t know anything.”
I cleared my throat with a sip of water from a paper cup. That bought me just enough time to scan the article in front of me and prepare for the volcanic explosion bubbling up from DeRosa’s chest cavity. I tried to breathe deeply in an effort to steady my voice, but my cracked ribs and still-healing stomach allowed only for a shallow huff.
“Bethesda, Maryland. National Institute of Health grant coordinator, Dr. Naomi Gupta, commits suicide.” I eyed Charlie and watched as his features froze faster than a kid’s tongue on a metal pole in December. I continued. “Dr. Gupta, a former researcher at Sound View Laboratories and current NIH employee, was found dead by hanging in her apartment. Sources assert that the recent NIH rejection of a twenty-million-dollar grant proposal submitted by Sound View Laboratories, Dr. Gupta’s former employer, may have caused undue professional and personal stress.”
DeRosa shoved the paper at me, his thumb pointed squarely at the photo of the deceased grant coordinator, Dr. Naomi Gupta. “I saw this woman in your studio the first night we met. In fact, I saw at least ten portraits of this exact face lined up on the wall of your attic.”
I glanced over at Charlie, who was trying very hard to melt into the folds of his sheets. I broke the silence with the truth. “Naomi and Teddy were engaged.”
“And?” DeRosa pushed.
“They ended it more than a year ago,” I answered. “I was painting her as an engagement gift, but after Teddy and Naomi broke up, there wasn’t much motivation to finish.”
“Did she sit for the portraits? Was she at Harbor House at any time?” DeRosa grilled.
“She didn’t need to sit. I knew her face and frankly I couldn’t stand her long enough to entertain the idea of a sitting. I painted her for my brother. He asked.”
“Were you jealous of her?” DeRosa probed.
“No, we were just different people. She was all about the purchases that come with making money.”
“When were you two going to tell me that your brother was at the tail end of a break-up? If we’re looking for suspects, the ex-fiancée would be a good place to start.”
“Come on Frank. You’re grasping on this one,” Charlie said. “They dated, they got engaged, they broke up. Like CeCe said, Naomi was materialistic but not a killer.”
“Who broke up with whom?” DeRosa asked.
“Teddy dumped her,” Charlie said. “She fled to the NIH about six months ago. I think Teddy was relieved to have her off the campus.”
“He was? How have we not talked about this, Charlie?” I remember being so thrilled the engagement had ended that I didn’t even bother to pump my brother for details.
“Guy stuff,” Charlie replied. “Anyway, something happened that made Teddy question her ethics and Teddy was all about doing the right thing. I think he started to see Naomi the way the rest of us saw her.”
DeRosa turned to Charlie. “I need you to clear one thing up relative to ‘doing the right thing.’ You ate the eggs after midnight and no one saw you until the next day, and you were the only resident who didn’t get sick. I looked back at the report of the poisoning earlier. Trina said you weren’t at breakfast. You caught up with me at the hospital that afternoon. I gave you the benefit of the doubt and figured you needed some time after finding out your best friend was dead. Now I may think otherwise. So I’m asking you, where were you from two a.m. until the next afternoon? Is there any chance you drove to Bethesda, Maryland, and back?”
Charlie fiddled with his bed sheet and readjusted his pillow to buy time.
“Charlie, I’m kind of curious myself, and I won’t be hurt if you say you were with Becky,” I said.
“I was Dumpster diving,” Charlie admitted.
“That was earlier in the evening,” DeRosa corrected.
“Yeh, and after the house quieted down and everyone went to sleep, I went to Teddy’s place and rooted through his garbage.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I guess I thought I’d find something.”
“Did you?”
“Not really. I sat in the barn until the sun came up with two bags of garbage, but I couldn’t bring myself to go through them. The bags are still in the barn.” Charlie adjusted the gauze pad on his head and directed his confession to DeRosa. “I swear I didn’t know about Naomi, but I did go through Teddy’s mail and noticed her return address on an envelope. It looked like a Hallmark card.”
In one fluid motion, DeRosa commandeered every electronic device in the room. Calls were being made, buzzers were being buzzed, and stuff was starting to go down.
“Is there anything else you want to add?” DeRosa asked Charlie. He had a cell phone hanging off one ear and a hospital phone off the other. Charlie grabbed his torn jeans, which were hanging over a hospital chair, and tossed a set of keys over.
“These keys are for the large cupboard at the back of the barn. I threw Teddy’s garbage in there.” Charlie fished around his jeans once more and produced a thin wafer of metal no larger than a quarter. “And here’s the data card from Igor’s GPS.”
nine
DeRosa had us all released from the hospital within the hour. We were escorted back to Harbor House, where the police set up shop in one of the empty bedrooms on the second floor. The room offered a lovely view of the sound with a clear shot of our gardens and farm below but was quickly transformed into a makeshift headquarters—an extension of the Laurel Hollow Police Department on Shore Road. A truckload of computer equipment was carted in, and we did our best to dig up a conference table, a few desks, and at least six mismatched chairs. Trina cleaned out a small storage closet across the hall from the makeshift police office, and we shoved an old bed in the corner for DeRosa. Although unorthodox for the police department to establish camp in a private home, it did create a false sense of security that I was happy to indulge. Having the police on premise also defused my father’s demands for increased security, thus reducing his incessant calls to DeRosa.
My life had been threatened twice, my twin brother was dead, and his ex-fiancée was cooling down in a morgue about three hundred miles south of this room. None of this sat well with me. Worse, I had missed my brother’s funeral. Closure and safety had replaced mourning.
Information trickled in slowly, and piles of papers formed mountains on the Formic
a conference table. The official autopsy report appeared inconclusive, revealing only that Teddy suffered an extreme loss of oxygen in a short period of time. For lack of a more accurate label, the coroner used the term asphyxiation, although no external bruising was identified around the mouth or neck area. Residual bruising was discovered on Teddy’s chest, but the coroner suspected my brother caused it by pounding on his own chest, as if he knew he was choking. Both of Teddy’s hands were balled in tight fists, but nothing was found in his esophagus. The results were disappointing and if not for the attempts on my life, the case would probably have been shelved. In light of recent events, however, the autopsy report could not be disregarded. Something or someone had prevented Teddy from taking the hundreds of millions of additional breaths he deserved over a lifetime that would have easily spanned another fifty years.
“Let’s take it from the top.” DeRosa had gathered his team, including two cops from the station and me.
As he revisited the facts of the case, I picked up my pencil and started to doodle. I did a quick sketch of Officer Cheski and then started in on a profile of Officer Lamendola. The two turned out to be decent men. Sergeant Cheski hailed from Queens, an ex–New York City street cop who thought the tony suburbs of the North Shore would increase his chances of seeing his children grow up. That was until Igor unloaded a magazine in his direction. His partner, Lamendola, was a rookie who had just graduated at the top of his class from the academy.
“Are you paying attention?” DeRosa asked.
“Sure,” I said.
He reached over and slid the pencil out of my hand. “You realize how unusual it is for the police to actively involve a citizen in a case.”
“My fault,” I apologized. “I’m just trying to get a handle on everyone in the room.”
“What do you need to know?”
“Do you have a brother?”
DeRosa hesitated, though there was no right or wrong answer.
He tapped the pencil on the table before saying. “I’m an only child.”
“That makes two only children in the room,” I said, wanting my comment to make all of them uncomfortable. I rose from the table. “If it’s okay with everyone, I need a break.” Before I left the room, I gathered up a pile of my doodles. The incessant sketching had been with me for as long as I could hold a pencil. This current mass of swirls and curves gave way to yet another face. The same face littering my attic with paint still wet from recent brushstrokes. I felt close to this man filtering out of the tip of my brushes and pencils, but the more I drew, the less it looked like my brother. I let the papers slip from my hands and drop into the nearest waste-paper basket.
ten
DeRosa came by my studio the next morning. He carted in a carafe of coffee, two mugs, and some pie as a peace offering. I laid my brushes down and made room on my sketch table for the food.
“I’m sorry I walked out yesterday.” I reached for a steaming mug.
“I’m sorry I’m about to eat a piece of pie recovered from a Dumpster.”
I lifted the piecrust with my fork and spotted chunks of apples and whole raspberries. “You’re in luck. Looks like Trina made this one from scratch, although who knows where she got the fruit.”
“I’m hoping you have some leftover stomach medicine.” DeRosa balanced an enormous scoop on his fork, as if the size of the mouthful was correlated to the depth of his authenticity. He swallowed and carefully wiped his mouth with a napkin, then turned serious. “I’m not going to pretend I understand your grief, but we need to find some common ground if we are going to work together. Help me understand how we can do that.”
“Frank, I like people who own up to something. I’m drawn to people who pick a life philosophy, stand by it, and consider their personal impact on society as they act out their choices. I don’t get any vibe from you. There’s something you’re keeping from me. It’s either something about you personally or something you know about my brother.”
“It’s not the first time I’ve been accused of playing it too close to the vest. Luckily for me, a detached persona is a good fit for a cop’s life.”
He didn’t get it. “Look. Charlie and I are pretty smart. Same goes for Trina and Jonathan, although the jury is still out on Becky. You have to give us some credit. You can’t entertain subsistence living without half a brain. I’m less concerned about my fate than understanding what happened to my brother. Not to be melodramatic, but Teddy was the most important person in the world to me. I want to help the investigation.”
“I think you can.”
“Then let’s finish this slice and I’ll help you get to know Teddy. I’ll fill you in on everything I know about my family and the labs.”
He took another bite of pie, and then, finally, nodded to seal our bargain.
I looked out the window and saw a gathering around the barn. A team of forensic specialists was sorting, examining, and labeling my brother’s garbage on large metal tables. I consider myself an expert on garbage, but the sight of Teddy’s final refuse now seemed a perverse intrusion. I’d be surprised if in the history of police investigations a recycled People magazine had ever cinched a big case.
“I can’t watch this,” I said. “Can we get out of here?”
“How about a drive?” DeRosa suggested.
“Where to?”
“You’re in the driver’s seat, CeCe.”
“Where are you from?”
“Freeport.”
“Tough town,” I said. “Care to be my guide?”
eleven
It took approximately ten miles of Long Island stop-and-go traffic, a quick gas refill, and about twenty-eight traffic lights for Detective DeRosa to defrost from frozen solid to lukewarm. Still on the defensive, he peppered me with questions about my family and childhood. I was honest, albeit slightly biased in my favor.
“So what’s the great divide between you and your father?” he asked.
“Why? Did my father say something to you?” I asked.
“He said the two of you hadn’t always seen eye to eye.”
“That would be an understatement.” I laughed, remembering the endless arguments I’d had with my father as a teenager.
DeRosa pointed to a small gap in the next lane and I darted in with inches to spare. I discovered it was impossible for him to sit passively in the passenger seat. I pretended to follow his driving suggestions, hoping a transfer of control would loosen him up.
“Give me one childhood memory that describes you,” he said as he readjusted the passenger side mirror.
I continued to drive, moving the car to mimic DeRosa’s hand signals. “I do remember once in kindergarten, my parents hired a seamstress who sewed her fingers to the bone making an elaborate replica of a Snow White costume. The day before Halloween, I hid it under my bed and begged an old white sheet off the cleaning staff. I poked two holes for eyes and used an old stocking to tie it around my neck.”
“And the first Freegan ghost was born.”
“A memorable day,” I replied. “Then I hit my teens and my grades took a nosedive. Charlie and I went full throttle into a series of unforgivable teenage hijinks.”
“The current police term is antisocial personality disorder or APD.”
“Really? Well, here’s the catch when it comes to my APD. My father is the guru of DNA. He’s invested the better part of his career studying the impact of DNA on human development. In the nature versus nurture wars, my father is on a third team. His team believes DNA can be manipulated and reformed. Left alone, DNA is your destiny. With proper social and medical intervention, Dr. William Prentice believes entire generations of people can outsmart their DNA.”
“How so?”
“One of the first studies my fathered pioneered was in the 1960s, and it concerned the effect of folic acid on prenatal brain development. Now, everyone takes
prenatal vitamins. His study evened the playing field.”
“I’m starting to like your father even more.”
“You should. He’s pretty amazing,” I agreed. My credibility seemed to be slipping. “But family and work are two different things, and I don’t think I interested him as much as his next scientific breakthrough.”
“I’m on the edge of my seat,” DeRosa deadpanned.
“Ever heard of epigenetics?” I asked.
“Nope.”
“I’ll tell it the way my brother explained it to me. He and my dad were entrenched in the study of changes in genetic code. Not the type of changes that occur over multiple millenniums—like fish to cave man to human. It’s the study of DNA changes within a generation.”
“I thought DNA couldn’t change.”
“Technically, it can’t. But apparently super-scientists, like Teddy and my dad, have found a lever on the DNA that can be turned on or off, and that lever can be affected by external forces like nutrition, stress, and the environment.”
“Give me an example.”
“Let’s say that your DNA has predetermined your ability to positively process stress,” I said, finally swatting DeRosa’s hand away from the dashboard. In the last minute, he had readjusted every dial on the Gremlin. I returned all the dials to their original position.
DeRosa opened and closed his window a few times while I continued.
“As I was saying, your stress control gene is turned on, and that’s why you can take a bullet to the shoulder without running to a therapist. But imagine if you were raised in a low-income, crime-ridden area that overpowers your natural instinct to process stress positively. Your lever, also called an epigenome, could easily turn off. Your DNA combination hasn’t changed, but the lever is off. Your kids will inherit your DNA, which is programmed for positive stress. However, given your crappy environment, you will now pass on good DNA with its levers turned off. The DeRosa rugrats, no matter how much love and attention you and your wife give them, will have a meltdown at the sound of a balloon popping.”
Drawing Conclusions Page 5
