brother followed Dad into the family business, but I tested off the IQ charts and was soon attending a snooty private school, with my father pushing me to go for it and become a doctor with my straight-A average and love of chemistry and biology. For me, science was about escape. And facts. I could write down a formula in black and white, and it was irrefutable. DNA fascinated me. And in that fascination was born an idea. I could become a criminalist…and maybe someday solve her murder.
Dad was disappointed. But I’m nearly through with my doctoral thesis, so I tell him that he’ll have a Dr. Quinn in the family, anyway.
After most of the lab had gone home that evening, Lewis came to collect me.
“Why don’t we go park your car at your place? You leave your car there, and I’ll drive us to the restaurant. You can get good and drunk. I think you need to.”
I was too drained to argue and nodded.
“Is David home? Why don’t you call him and see if he’ll join us?”
“No. He’s drywalling his father’s basement. Finishing off an area for his dad to do some woodworking.” David’s mother had died of cancer while he was in prison, but he and his father were exceedingly close. His father had never once given up hope that the real Suicide King killer would be found.
I followed Lewis to my place, then got in his car, and we took the New Jersey Turnpike and headed to Ft. Lee, a bedroom community for Manhattan just across the Hudson via the George Washington Bridge.
“Are you going to tell your father and Mike about the letter?”
“I have to. I just have to figure out how. You know how Dad gets.”
Lewis smirked. “Yes, I do. Two words—Tommy Salami.”
Tommy Salami was the overgrown steroid-huge pit bull of a bodyguard my father saddled me with when he was worried about me. When we were working the Suicide King case, Tommy had even taken a bullet for me. Which meant I was now forever indebted to a man who loved salami, as well as all other Italian cuts of meat. I often sent him gift baskets as a way of still trying to say thank you. But the last—and I mean the very last—thing I wanted to have happen was for my father to decide my mother’s murderer was after me. If Dad thought I was in danger, I’d once again be riding to work with Tommy Salami in my passenger seat—I refused to let him drive.
“We’ll have to call the police, too,” Lewis said. “We can run the tests, but you know, tracking down the postmark and so on, we’ll need to involve them.”
I sighed.
“What?”
“Trust me. Finding anyone on the police force interested in solving my mother’s case will be impossible. No man hours will be devoted to it. Nothing. Why? Because her last name, and mine, is the same as Dad’s. And Mikey’s. And their collective rap sheet is miles long. The Quinn name means they won’t be looking to help us, Lewis.”
“But it’s a murder.”
“An old murder. A cold case. You see how many rape kits we need to process. There are more pressing things for the police to do than find her killer. And to be honest, they botched it. When the trail was fresh, they should have looked more intensely for her. You know the department is loath to admit mistakes.”
He pursed his lips. “What if I try to find a cop to help us? I’m not director of the lab for nothing. More than a few detectives owe me.”
I shrugged. “You can try.”
“Good. Because I was going to whether you agreed or not.”
I smiled to myself and looked out the window. We arrived in Ft. Lee and spied the Japanese place Joe loves, and then circled the block four times until we found a spot.
We put change in the meter and entered the restaurant. Joe waved to us from the back. He’s hard to miss. He used to play football for the New Orleans Saints. A bum knee meant he was sidelined permanently, but they still had to pay out his contract. Unlike a lot of guys who might blow their proverbial wad on women and cars and bling, Joe