Cynthia blinked. So Clayton Bigge’s body was not one of the two in that car.
“As for the dentist your brother and mother went to, he passed away many years ago, the practice closed down, and all the records were destroyed.”
I glanced at Cynthia. She seemed to be steeling herself for disappointment. Maybe we weren’t going to learn anything definitive.
“But the thing was, even if we didn’t have dental records, we still had teeth,” Wedmore said. “From each of the two bodies. The enamel on the outside, there’s no DNA there, nothing to test, but deep in the center of the tooth, in the root, it’s so protected in there, they can find nucleated cells.”
Cynthia and I must have both looked lost, so Wedmore said, “Well, the bottom line is, if our forensic people can get in there, and get to those cells, and extract sufficient DNA, the results will show a unique profile for each individual, including sex.”
“And?” Cynthia asked, holding her breath.
“It was a male, and a female,” Wedmore said. “The coroner’s analysis, even before DNA testing, suggests a male in his midteens, most likely, and a woman probably in her late thirties, maybe early forties.”
Cynthia glanced at me, then back to Wedmore.
Wedmore continued. “So, a very young man and a woman were in that car. Now the question becomes whether there’s a connection between them.”
Cynthia waited.
“The two DNA profiles suggest a close relatedness, possibly parent-child. The forensic results, coupled with the coroner’s findings, do suggest a mother-and-son relationship.”
“My mother,” Cynthia whispered. “Todd.”
“Well, here’s the thing,” Wedmore said. “While a relationship between the two deceased has been more or less determined, we don’t know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is in fact Todd Bigge and Patricia Bigge. If you still had anything of your mother’s that might provide a sample, an old hairbrush for example, with some hairs still caught in the bristles…”
“No,” said Cynthia, “I don’t have anything like that.”
“Well, we do have your DNA sample, and additional reports are pending with regard to any possible relationship you may have to the remains we took from the car. Once your sample is typed-and they’re working on that now-they’ll be able to determine the probability of maternity, regarding the female deceased, and the probability of a sibling relationship to the male deceased.”
Wedmore paused. “But based on what we know now, that these two bodies are related, that it’s a mother and son, that the car is in fact your mother’s, the working assumption is that we’ve found your mother and your brother.”
Cynthia looked dizzy.
“But not,” Wedmore pointed out, “your father. I’d like to ask you a few more questions about him, what he was like, what kind of person he was.”
“Why?” Cynthia asked. “What are you implying?”
“I think we have to consider the possibility he murdered both of them.”
29
“Hello?”
“It’s me,” he said.
“I was just thinking about you,” she said. “I haven’t heard from you for a while. I hope everything’s okay.”
“I wanted to wait to see what would happen,” he said. “How much they might find out. There’s been stuff on the news. They showed the car. On TV.”
“Oh my…”
“They had a picture of it being taken away from the quarry. And they had a story today, in the newspapers, about the DNA tests.”
“Oh, this is so exciting,” she said. “I wish I was there with you. What did it say?”
“Well, it said some stuff but not others, of course. I’ve got the paper right here. It said, ‘DNA tests indicate a genetic link between the two bodies in the car, that they are a mother and son.’”
“Interesting.”
“‘Forensic tests have yet to determine whether the bodies are genetically linked to Cynthia Archer. Police are operating on the assumption, however, that the recovered bodies are Patricia Bigge and Todd Bigge, missing for twenty-five years.’”
“So the story doesn’t actually say that’s who was in the car,” she said.
“Not quite.”
“You know what they say about ‘assume.’ It makes an ass out of you and-”
“I know, but-”
“But still, it’s amazing what they can do these days, isn’t it?” She sounded almost cheerful.
“Yeah.”
“I mean, back then, when your father and I got rid of that car, who’d even heard of DNA tests? It boggles the mind, that’s what it does. You still feeling nervous?”
“A little, maybe.” He did sound subdued to her.
“Even as a boy, you were a worrier, you know that? Me, I just take hold of a situation and deal with it.”
“Well, you’re the strong one, I guess.”
“I think you’ve done a wonderful job, lots to be proud of. Soon you’ll be home and you can take me back. I wouldn’t want to miss this for the world. When the moment comes, I can’t wait to see the expression on her face.”
30
“So how are you dealing with this?” Dr. Kinzler asked Cynthia. “The apparent discovery of your mother and your brother.”
“I’m not sure,” Cynthia said. “It’s not relief.”
“No, I can see why it wouldn’t be.”
“And the fact that my father was not there with them. This detective, Wedmore, she thinks maybe he killed them.”
“If that turns out to be true,” Dr. Kinzler said, “are you going to be able to deal with that?”
Cynthia bit her lip, looked at the blinds, as though she had X-ray vision and could see out to the highway. This was our regular session, and I’d talked Cynthia into keeping it, even though she’d been talking about canceling. But now that Dr. Kinzler was asking such probing questions, that to my mind just opened wounds as opposed to healing them, I was second-guessing myself.
“I’m already having to come to terms with the idea that my father may have been something other than the man I knew,” Cynthia said. “The fact that there’s no record of him, no Social Security number, no driver’s license…” She paused. “But the idea that he could have killed them, that he could have killed my mother and Todd, I can’t believe it.”
“You think he left the hat,” Dr. Kinzler said.
“It’s a possibility,” Cynthia said.
“Why would your father break in to your house, leave you a message like that, write a letter on your own typewriter with a map leading you to the others?”
“Is he…is he trying to settle things?”
Dr. Kinzler shrugged. “I’m asking you what you think.”
Standard shrink procedure, I thought.
“I don’t know what to think,” Cynthia said. “If I thought he’d done it, then the notes, everything, it might be him trying to set the record straight, to confess. I mean, whoever left that note had to be involved somehow in their deaths. To know those kinds of details.”
“True,” Dr. Kinzler said.
“And Detective Wedmore, even though she talks like my father killed them years ago, I think she thinks I wrote the note,” Cynthia said.
“Maybe,” Dr. Kinzler speculated, “she thinks you and your father are in this together. Because his body wasn’t found. Because you weren’t in that car with your mother and your brother.”