Майкл Коннелли - Fair Warning

I waited. The bait had been thrown out. He would either bite or hang up on me.

“And this is about my daughter?” he asked.

“Yes, sir, it could be,” I said.

I didn’t fill the silence that followed. I started to hear a background noise, like running water.

“I’m listening,” he said.

“Sir, I don’t want to cause you any more grief than you’re already going through,” I said. “I am so sorry about the loss of your daughter. But can I speak frankly to you?”

“I’m still on the phone.”

“And off the record?”

“Isn’t that what I say to you?”

“What I mean is, I don’t want you to turn around and share this conversation with anyone apart from your wife. Is that okay?”

“It’s fine for now.”

“Okay, well, then I’ll just lay it out for you, sir. I’m looking at — I’m sorry, do we have a bad connection? I hear this back—”

“It’s raining. I stepped outside for privacy. I’ll put it on mute while you talk.”

The line went silent.

“Uh, okay, that’s fine,” I said. “So, I’m looking at four deaths of women aged twenty-two to forty-four across the country in the last year and a half where the cause of death was determined to be atlanto-occipital dislocation — AOD, as they call it. Two of the deaths, one here and one in Florida, have been classified as homicides. One is listed as accidental but I find it suspicious. And then the fourth, which is your daughter’s case, is officially classified as suspicious.”

Flynn took it off mute and I heard the rain before he spoke.

“And you’re saying these four are somehow linked?”

I could hear the disbelief creeping into his voice. I was going to lose him pretty quickly if I didn’t change that.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I’m looking for commonalities in the cases and the women. You could help if I could ask you a few questions. That is why I’m calling.”

He didn’t respond at first. I thought I heard the low rumble of thunder providing a bass line for the rain. Flynn finally replied.

“Ask your questions.”

“Okay. Before her death, had Jamie submitted her DNA to a genetic-analytics lab, whether for hereditary or health analysis?”

Flynn had muted the call. There was only silence in reply. After a few moments I wondered if he had disconnected the call.

“Mr. Flynn?”

The rain came back.

“I’m here. The answer is she was just getting into that sort of stuff. But as far as I know, she had not gotten anything back. She said she wanted to incorporate it into her doctoral program somehow. She said that she was having everyone in one of her classes at the university do it. How does this connect to her death?”

“I don’t know yet. Do you happen to know what company your daughter submitted DNA to?”

“Some of the kids in her class, they’re scholarship kids. Money is tight. They went with the cheapest one. The one that charges twenty-three bucks for the test.”

“GT23.”

“That’s it. What does all of this mean?”

I almost didn’t hear his question. I could hear my pulse pounding in my ears. I now had a third confirmation. What were the odds that these three women who suffered the same kind of death had all sent their DNA to GT23?

“I don’t really know what it means yet, Mr. Flynn,” I said.

I had to guard against Flynn getting as excited over the connection in the cases as I was. I didn’t want him running to the Texas Rangers or the FBI with my story.

“Do the authorities know about this?” he asked.

“There is nothing to know about yet,” I said quickly. “When and if I have a solid link between the cases, I’ll go to them.”

“What about this DNA stuff you just asked about? Is that the connection?”

“I don’t know. It’s not confirmed yet. I don’t have enough to take to the authorities. It’s just one of a few things I’m looking at.”

I closed my eyes and listened to the rain. I knew it would come to this. Flynn’s daughter was dead and he had no answers, no explanations.

“I understand what you’re feeling, Mr. Flynn,” I said. “But we need to wait until—”

“How could you understand?” he said. “Do you have a daughter? Was she taken from you?”

A flashback memory hit me. A hand swinging at my face, me turning to deflect the blow. The diamond raking across my cheek.

“You’re right, sir, I shouldn’t have said that. I have no idea what kind of pain you carry. I just need a little bit more time to get further into this. I promise you I will stay in touch and keep you informed. If I come up with something solid you will be the first person I call. After that, we’ll go to the police, the FBI, everybody. Can you do that? Can you give me that time?”

“How long?”

“I don’t know. I can’t — we can’t — go to the FBI or anybody if we don’t have this nailed down. You don’t yell fire unless there’s a fire. You know what I mean?”

“How long?”

“A week, maybe.”

“And you’ll call me?”

“I’ll call you. That’s a promise.”

We exchanged cell numbers and he needed to hear my name again because he had missed it the first time. We then disconnected, with Flynn promising to sit tight until he heard from me at the end of a week.

My phone rang as soon as I put it back in its cradle. It was a woman named Kinsey Russell. She had been one of the posters in Charlotte Taggart’s online memorial book. I had found her on Instagram and sent her a private note.

“What kind of story are you doing?” she asked.

“To be honest, I’m not quite sure yet,” I said. “I know that your friend Charlotte’s death was listed as an accident but there are three other similar deaths of women that are not. I’m writing about those three and just want to check out Charlotte’s death to make sure something wasn’t missed.”

“I think it was murder. I’ve said that from the beginning.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because she wouldn’t have gone out to those cliffs at night. And definitely not alone. But the police aren’t interested in finding out the truth. An accident looks better for them and the school than a murder.”

I had little knowledge of who Kinsey Russell was. She had written one of the messages directly to her dead friend.

“How did you know Charlotte?”

“From school. We had classes together.”

“So this was like a school party.”

“Yes, kids from school.”

“So how do you jump from her disappearing at the party to it being a murder at the cliffs?”

“Because I know she wouldn’t have gone out there by herself. She wouldn’t have gone out there at all. She was scared of heights. She always talked about all the bridges they have up there where she was from and being too scared even to drive over the Bay Bridge or the Golden Gate. She almost never went into San Francisco because of the bridges.”

I wasn’t sure that was convincing enough to declare the death a murder.

“Well... I’m going to look into it,” I said. “I’ve already started. Can I ask you a few other questions?”

“Sure,” she said. “I’ll help you any way I can because this isn’t right. I know something happened out there.”

“The obituary that ran in the paper up in Berkeley said she was survived by her family and several distant relatives she had discovered in the last year. Do you know what that meant, the part about distant relatives?”

“Yes, she did the DNA thing. We both did, except she was really into it and was tracing her family back to Ireland and Sweden.”

“You both did it. Which company did you use?”

“It’s called GT23. It’s not as well-known as the big ones, but it’s cheaper.”