Harry Turtledove: Supervolcano: Things Fall Apart

“But you had his DNA!” Two men and a woman bawled the same words at the same time.

Colin glanced over to Dr. Ishikawa. “We had the perpetrator’s DNA, yes,” the coroner said. “We did not know whose DNA that was, however. Unfortunately, samples do not come with name tags. We can say, Yes, this matches that , but when unknown matches unknown… .” He spread his hands.

“Then you arrested his son,” the woman said.

It wasn’t a question. She never would have got away with it on Jeopardy! Colin figured he needed to answer it anyhow. “That’s right. We did, on felony drug-dealing charges,” he said. “In California, anyone arrested on a felony charge has to give a DNA sample. So we took one from Darren Pitcavage.”

“What was his father’s reaction to that? The chief’s reaction?” a reporter asked.

“Mike Pitcavage was upset. He wasn’t just upset because his son had been arrested on a felony charge. He was upset because they were going to take a DNA sample. He told me so, more than once,” Colin said.

“Did he put unusual stress on that?” the reporter asked.

“Looking back, I think he did. At the time, I have to say I didn’t make that much of it. I just figured he’d come a little unhinged because of what Darren had done,” Colin answered. “Then he killed himself that night. At first, we assumed it was because of his son’s arrest and disgrace.” Colin found himself making a small, unhappy noise down deep in his chest. Much the bigger part of the San Atanasio PD had blamed him for busting darling Darren. That was a very bad time. He made himself continue, “Then we found out he had other reasons.”

“When you did Darren Pitcavage’s DNA.” Again, it wasn’t a question. Again, it still needed answering.

Lucy Chen’s turn. “That’s right,” she said. “You need to understand, I am very familiar with the South Bay Strangler’s pattern. When I analyzed Darren Pitcavage’s DNA, I saw at once how close to the Strangler’s it was.”

“Police departments in California have already solved several cases when the DNA from a criminal’s relative led them to the actual perpetrator,” Dr. Ishikawa added.

“But chief Pitcavage was already dead before you tested his son’s DNA?” the reporter from CNN asked.

“Yes. He committed suicide the night after his son was arrested. He must have known Darren’s DNA would point toward him,” Colin said. “He didn’t wait around to see what came of that.”

“Hadn’t Darren Pitcavage been arrested before?” the CNN guy asked.

“Yes, but never on a felony. We don’t take DNA samples after misdemeanor arrests,” Colin answered.

The reporter looked down at his notes. He’d probably carried an iPad before the eruption, but the Net was pretty threadbare these days. Scribbles on paper might not be cool or sexy, but they always worked. “Some of the things he was accused of seem pretty strong for misdemeanors. Did his father have anything to do with the light charges?”

Of course he did , Colin thought. That had pissed him off for years, though he’d chalked it up to nothing more than a prominent man protecting his only son. Mike Pitcavage had had other things on his mind, though—yeah, just a few. Aloud, Colin said, “I know the police recommended felony charges once or twice. The district attorney chose not to file them till this last time. You’d have to ask him about his reasons.” He didn’t usually pass the buck. Today, he did it without the slightest hesitation.

“He’s not here.” The CNN guy stated the obvious. Several reporters asked, “Where do we find him?”

“His office is in the city hall, around the corner from this building,” Colin said helpfully. If the DA didn’t like it, too damn bad.

“How do you feel about this, Lieutenant Ferguson?” one of the locals called.

Colin pursed his lips and blew out a long breath. He’d hoped they wouldn’t ask him that. Talking about what happened wasn’t easy, but he could do it. All he knew about feelings was that he didn’t know much about them. If he hadn’t known that, his ex-wife could have instructed him in great detail on his ignorance.

“You think you know somebody,” he said slowly. “And you do know him. You know him as another cop, and you know him as a guy who puts on a nice barbecue in his back yard, a guy who it’s pretty good to drink a beer with when you’re off duty. But you never imagine the… the monster in the cave down underneath, the monster that only comes out at night.”

Back in the day, he supposed, somebody could have got that kind of shock by suddenly discovering an old friend was gay. People now were harder to stun that way, which was bound to be a good thing. But there were still secrets, dark secrets. Colin was sure there always would be.

“May I speak to that?” Lucy said. Since nobody told her no, she went on, “When I recognized that Darren Pitcavage’s DNA was close to the Strangler’s, I didn’t want to believe it. When I tested the chief’s and saw that it matched the Strangler’s, I felt like the world had come to an end.”

“It felt that way to me, too, when Ms. Chen brought me the results,” Dr. Ishikawa said. “I am a coroner. I work with many things most people do not want to think about. I did not want to think about this. But what choice did I have? What choice do any of us have?”

Colin hoped that would make the reporters shut up and go away. No such luck, of course. One of them asked, “Lieutenant Ferguson, what tipped you off to the fact that Darren Pitcavage was engaging in drug-dealing activities?”

Not drug dealing, mind you. Drug-dealing activities. Didn’t anybody speak English any more? It seemed unlikely. Did the fellow with the sprayed hair know about Marshall? Colin took refuge in officialese of his own: “I’m afraid I can’t comment on that right now. Darren Pitcavage hasn’t gone to trial yet.”

“Let me ask you a different question, then,” the reporter said. “How difficult was it to implement the investigation when the person you were investigating was your police chief’s son?”

“It was awkward,” Colin answered truthfully.

“Chief Pitcavage wasn’t aware of the investigation until his son was actually arrested?”

“That’s correct,” Colin said, and not another word.

The reporter kept prodding: “That was because you didn’t trust him not to inform his son that he was being investigated?”

“Yes.” Colin hoped he could get away with leaving it there, but the way the reporters all stirred showed him he couldn’t. With a mental sigh, he went on, “You have to remember, at that time I had no idea Chief Pitcavage was the South Bay Strangler. I didn’t know he would do anything he could to keep Darren from having to give a DNA sample on account of that. But I did know he was Darren’s father, and fathers are liable to do anything to protect their sons.”

“Suppose the chief hadn’t been the Strangler. How much hot water would you be in now for busting his son behind his back, if you know what I mean?”

That was an honest-to-God shrewd question. With his jaundiced view of the press, Colin hadn’t thought the man capable of such a thing. Fortunately, it was also a question he didn’t have to answer. “I don’t want to deal in hypotheticals,” he said. “Haven’t we got enough real troubles to worry about?”

To his relief, another man asked Lucy Chen, “You had access to Chief Pitcavage’s DNA because of the autopsy after his suicide?”

“That’s correct,” she said. “I didn’t know if Darren Pitcavage had other close male relatives, but I did know his DNA was highly similar to the South Bay Strangler’s. I checked the sample I could get, and I found that it matched the Strangler’s pattern.”