Blood Kills by Nanci Rathbun (book club reads .TXT) 📗

Take every precaution for yourself and Debby. Artur will stop at nothing to remain free of the punishment he deserves.

Mikhail Lebedev

Michael L. Swanson

Chapter 44

Precaution is better than cure.

Sir Edward Coke

Debby was quietly weeping into a tissue. I glanced up to see Bart, his eyes closed, arms crossed and thumbs tapping on his biceps. Clearing my throat to pry loose the lump that had formed there as I read, I laid the paper on the desk.

“Well,” I said, my voice sounding tight, “this is unexpected.” Reflecting on my condo building’s recent mailbox break-in, I placed Mick’s letter and envelope on Bart’s desk and snapped pictures of them with my cell phone before asking him, “Would you please keep these in your safe for now? And Debby, I think it would be best if your copy stayed here too.”

“Okay,” she said, adding hers on top of mine. With a sniffle, she dabbed at her eyes and put the used tissue in a nearby wastebasket. “I’m sorry to be so blubbery,” she said, “but I feel even more awful about Mick’s death now, knowing what his cousin did. That… that…” She struggled to find the right word.

“Stronzo,” Bart interjected.

Asshole. I raised an eyebrow and declined to translate for Debby.

“Melinda,” Bart said, “please draw up a letter of agreement for Ms. Hill, for my representation in all matters related to her assumption of the business and personal affairs of Mr. Michael L. Swanson. And Ms. Hill, my normal rate for matters of this type is two hundred and fifty dollars an hour. Because of the risk, you see.” When she reached for her purse, he added, “Ten dollars will suffice for now. The rest is billable monthly. And Melinda, you’ll find a contract for Ms. Bonaparte in the file labeled MARCY WAGNER. Use it as a template for this matter. “

Melinda nodded and left for her desk in the anteroom, returning in under three minutes by the clock on Bart’s wall.

“Very efficient,” I told her.

A one-sided dimple appeared in her left cheek.

As we rose to leave, Bart gave an “ahem”—he was the only person I knew who used that old-fashioned signal for attention—and asked us, “What are your next steps?”

“I’ll ask Wukowski—it’s his case—to retrieve and test the contents of the vials,” I said. “I have no idea how they might clear Mick of the Illinois murder, but given what he wrote, it seems only right.”

“Very good,” Bart said. “Please keep me informed. And please, Angelina, take all necessary precautions and even some you may think unnecessary.”

His use of my full first name signified the level of concern he felt. I assured him that Debby’s personal protection detail awaited us and that I would, indeed, be extremely cautious.

Artur Hunter was a predator in more than name. If Mick were to be believed—and I certainly did—his cousin was a cold-blooded, ruthless killer, a man who took what he wanted without a thought to how his actions affected others. I did not want to be in his crosshairs.

Chapter 45

It is not righteousness to outrage a brave man dead, not even though you hate him.

Sophocles

I slammed the landline set into its cradle and cursed. Wukowski had flat-out refused to retrieve the hidden material from Mick’s home, asserting that the dead man’s claims made no sense in light of the DNA evidence and that he had more pressing cases awaiting his attention.

Stomping into the bedroom closet, I grabbed workout clothes, dressed, and headed for the gym in the building’s basement. Nothing but exhaustion would help to calm the terrible sense of injustice that raged within me.

I rained sweat onto the treadmill and the Gold home gym before cleaning the equipment and returning upstairs for a calming yoga DVD. A hot-as-sin steam shower took the rest of the fight out of me. I sank onto the couch, glass of wine in hand, feeling wrung out and discouraged.

As I watched, the sun set on Lake Michigan, its last rays shooting across the mirror-calm waters in a straight line, aimed like a laser beam right at my little corner of the city. I gazed at the personification of truth, right there in front of me—light breaking through the coming darkness.

“In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity,” wrote Albert Einstein. What was the opportunity before me?

I went into the kitchen, accessed the internet on my laptop, and ran a Google search: Can two people who aren’t twins have identical DNA? The results supported Wukowski’s skepticism: “The odds of someone having the same DNA by chance is like having a deck of twenty million cards, all different, and then drawing the same hand of three million cards twice!”

Well, hell! I thought.

But… the internet is full of fallacy and outright untruth, I told myself, refusing to allow Aunt Terry’s voice to influence me. Don’t be so stiff-necked, she would admonish my teenaged self. I’m not stiff-necked, I would retort. I’m persistent.

And persistent I would be now. What I needed was an independent expert, someone outside of law enforcement.

I found fifteen top names and settled on a professor of biology who’d helped create an open-source platform for persons interested in DNA sequencing. Her website led me to believe that she would not summarily dismiss my question. Using my work email address, I carefully described the conundrum and ended with the sentence, “Is it possible for two people who are not identical twins to have identical DNA?” After reading and rereading the material, I hit Send. If she responded in the negative, I would set Mick’s plea aside, albeit reluctantly. Until then, the evidence he collected could not be ignored.

To bring them up to speed, I sent Bobbie and Bram images of Mick’s letter. Bobbie’s response was an emoji of Munch’s The Scream, Bram’s a single word: Lordy.

Then I texted them and Debby: Meet at the farmhouse tomorrow, 1:00 p.m., to retrieve it?

Debby understood the reference and immediately responded: Yes!

Bobbie’s answer followed closely: I’ll