Page 113 of The Summer that Changed Everything
She’d wanted to be able to give him even better news, but now...
With a sigh, she carried the mail inside, where she opened it—and began to weep when she saw that he’d written only two words:Thank you.
He was already managing on very little sleep, but it was another late night for Ford. The call he’d received from Lester Friedman had been surreal, unbelievable—except, when he reallythought about it, it became believable. That was the problem. It was more that he didn’t want to accept it. The DNA under Tony Matteo’s nails, which Friedman now believed had come from some clippers Lucy had lent him of her father’s, had led to the wrong suspect. Could the DNA in the sink lead to the wrong person, too?
He dearly hoped so. But he didn’t see how. His brother would’ve had no reason to be in the Shady Lane Mobile Home Park, let alone the old couple’s trailer.
Closing his eyes, he pinched the bridge of his nose as the conversation he’d had with Friedman once again ran through his mind.
Wait, explain that again?
When I couldn’t get a hit on CODIS, I turned to the large genealogical sites, the ones that don’t require a warrant, hoping to get a familial hit.
You were looking for members of the killer’s family.
Yes. I was searching for DNAsimilar tothat of the perpetrator, hoping to find one or more people who were related to him I could use as a starting point. Then I was hoping to narrow the field by using other logic—who in the family lived or was visiting the area, who might’ve had reason to be in the Matteo trailer, etc.
And I’m a relative to whoever left their DNA in thatdrain?
That was what the investigator had said, but here Ford remembered sinking onto the couch because his knees had buckled.
It leads to someone in your immediate family, someone with 50 percent of your father’s DNA.
Ford remembered giving his father the DNA test that’d put his genetic information in the databank for Christmas one year. John had wanted to find a brother who’d run away when they were teenagers and never turned up again. That attempt hadn’t yielded any results—the family assumed he was no longer living—but it was certainly revealing something significant now. A 50 percent match meant the DNA belonged to one of John’s children, and he had only two. That meant it had to beHouston, who’d been running around raising hell at that age—not as bad as Reggie Burton but almost. The only difference was that their parents had the money to bail Houston out of every scrape he got into.
The TV was still on in Christina’s room. Ford had been so blown away by what he’d learned that he’d barely spoken to her all evening, and she’d finally given up trying to engage him, taken Mo and gone off to entertain herself. But she must’ve known something was wrong because she kept coming out to check on him. “Don’t tell me you’re going to do this to yourself again tonight,” she’d said several minutes ago.
He’d told her he’d be getting to bed soon, and she’d once again picked up Mo and gone back to her room. He wasn’t going to tell her he was dealing with an entirely new problem, one he could never have seen coming. But at least in some ways, this piece of the puzzle seemed to fit, and that was what frightened him. Now Ford understood why Houston had never wanted to go back to North Hampton Beach—and why he’d finally returned this summer, determined to get Ford to reconcile with Christina, even though he’d never liked her. Houston hadn’t wanted Ford to remain with Lucy, hadn’t wanted him in North Hampton Beach. He couldn’t allow Ford to continue digging in the past because he’d been hiding a secret as big as Chet’s.
The question waswhywould Houston break into that trailer? And why would he harm those old people?
The TV snapped off. Since Christina generally set a timer, she was probably asleep or she would’ve added more time. Thinking he didn’t have to worry about her coming out to check on him again brought a measure of relief. He was finally ready to talk to his brother, to give Houston the chance to explain. He owed him that much. But he’d been loath to alert Christina to what he’d learned. He knew she’d freak out, claim that being around his brother had put her in danger or something like that—something that would make it all about her. Until he decidedwhat to do with the situation, he wasn’t going to tell anyone. Friedman hadn’t even shared his findings with Lucy. Ford was the one paying his bill, so Ford was the only one he’d told.
Ford had always wished his brother would straighten out his life, become productive, reliable, fully functional. But with a skeleton in his closet like this one, Ford could see why he hadn’t—although he didn’t know which came first, the chicken or the egg. If not for what’d happened at the Matteos’, maybe Houston would’ve straightened up eventually—although a normal person couldn’t do what’d been done to them, so maybe not.
He winced at the vision that popped into his head and immediately shoved it out.
After waiting another ten minutes, just to let Christina sink even deeper into sleep, he went into one of the spare bedrooms on the other side of the apartment, closed the door, sat at the desk and called his brother.
“Yo, Ford.” Houston’s voice suggested he was fully awake, but that didn’t surprise Ford. He was often up late. “You still mad at me, bro? Or are you finally calling to apologize?”
Ford dropped his head in his hands. “Did you do it?” he asked.
The line when silent.
“Houston?” Ford prompted.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
“I’m talking about what happened to the Matteos. I’m talking about the blood in their sink containingyourDNA.”
The resulting silence was absolutely deafening, which made the sick feeling Ford had been battling ever since Friedman’s call even worse. “Please don’t lie to me,” he said. “The DNA proves it.” It wasn’t quite that clear-cut. They hadn’t actually tested Houston’s DNA, so this was a bit of a bluff. But they’d gotten DNA that was darn close, and Ford knewhehadn’t done it.
“The DNA provesMick McBridedid it,” Houston said, but his voice wasn’t nearly as strident as it should’ve been.
“You let an innocent man go to prison!” Ford said. “That’s like takinganotherlife!”
Again, his brother didn’t respond immediately. Eventually, he said, “You provided my DNA for testing?”
