Daisy cleaned her apartment that afternoon, walking around with an energy that surprised her, since she hated cleaning.
It wasn’t until evening, when she had settled down on the couch with a good book, that the phone rang.
It was Jude.
“Hi, Jude. What’s up?” Daisy asked.
“I just called to tell you about something weird that I found in Mark John’s house. Well, two things, actually,” she said in a low voice. Something in her tone suggested that all might not be well.
“What are they?” Daisy asked, her curiosity piqued.
“He ran out for a minute, so I thought I’d call you and ask your opinion.”
“Okay. What are they?” Daisy repeated, the hair on her neck prickling.
“It looks like a family tree.”
“That’s not weird,” Daisy said.
“I know, but it’s annotated. Heavily. And there’s an article stapled to it.” Daisy could hear paper rustling.
Jude gasped. “It’s…Mark John’s back. Gotta run.”
“Wait! What else did you find?” Daisy asked. But Jude had hung up.
Something’s wrong, Daisy thought. A frightening thought was beginning to take shape in the back of her mind. She scrolled through her cell phone contacts and pushed the call button.
Brian answered right away.
“Hi, Daisy.”
“Brian, I need to talk to you about that diary. I know you’ve been reluctant to tell me where you got it, but it’s time. Right now.”
She heard a sigh on the other end of the line.
“I really wanted to talk to you about the diary before we discussed its provenance,” he said.
“Yeah, I know that. But we just haven’t had a chance and I think it’s going to have to wait.”
“Tell me why you need to know right now where the diary came from.”
“It’s just a hunch I’m following. I’d rather not say.”
“Fair enough. At least tell me what you thought of the diary and the dime novel, taken together.”
“It seems obvious that they’re connected,” Daisy said, wondering if Brian knew of the Adelaide connection.
“It does.”
“So please tell me where the diary came from.”
He took a deep breath. “It came from Fiona.”
“Fiona? Was it hers?” That wasn’t the answer Daisy had expected, but she realized she didn’t know what she had expected.
“It was not hers.” That makes more sense.
“Whose was it?”
“It belonged to Mark John’s mother. So did the dime novel.”
“So how did Fiona end up with it?”
“It was in a big box of stuff Mark John’s mother had left in his house before she passed away. Fiona was cleaning out the attic one day and found it. She asked Mark John if he wanted it. He didn’t even know what was in the box, and he told her she could get rid of it.”
“And then she gave it to you?” Daisy was confused.
“She gave me the diary and the dime novel along with a few other items. She thought I might be interested in reading them because I have such a keen interest in American history.”
“And you read them and started to wonder why Mark John’s mother would be in possession of such a strange diary,” Daisy prompted.
“Exactly. There’s something about Mark John that makes me uncomfortable, Daisy.”
“So why did you ask him to read the diary?”
“I wanted to see what kind of a reaction he had to it. But he doesn’t like to read things that aren’t related to his job.”
“So why did you ask me to read it?”
Another sigh. “Because you don’t know Mark John that well and I wanted to see if you arrived at the same hunch that I did. And it looks like maybe you have.”
“You mean that Mark John is somehow connected to Trudy and Adelaide,” Daisy said.
“Yes.”
“But what’s the big deal about that?” She knew where this conversation was headed, but she wanted Brian to say it.
She could sense him hesitating. Finally he spoke. “The big deal is the other hunch I have.”
“Which is?” she prompted.
“I think it’s possible that Mark John murdered my sister.” His voice was low and filled with pain.
Brian had just confirmed her suspicion.
He continued. “It’s hard for me and my wife to imagine that Mark John could have killed Fiona, so I needed the opinion of someone who doesn’t know Mark John very well. I needed to know if you arrived at the same conclusion that we did.”
“I did,” she said. “Now that I know where the diary came from, I’m sure that Mark John is related to Adelaide somehow. And we can be fairly certain that Adelaide’s father, Thomas, was a murderer, as was her grandfather. And Mark John would, of course, be related to both of them.”
“Have you ever heard of the warrior gene?” Brian asked.
Daisy remembered reading something about violence that ran in families, but wasn’t otherwise familiar with the concept.
“That’s a pop psychology name for it, of course, but it’s a gene that can lead to violent behavior. Since it’s a gene, that means it’s hereditary and can obviously be passed down in families. There’s plenty of evidence that generations of families can suffer from the same types of violence.”
Then it hit Daisy. The gruesome story by Harold Henderson/A.S. Hightower about hereditary violence--that was a memoir and she hadn’t realized it when she read the story.
“It makes total sense now,” Daisy said, half to herself. Then she remembered Jude’s words.
“Brian, Jude called me a while ago. She’s moving some of her stuff into Mark John’s house this weekend and she found something that she thought was a family tree in his house. She said it was weird because there were so many notations on it.”
“Is she at his house now?” Brian asked, his voice taking on a new urgency.
“I think so. She had to hang up because Mark John had just come home.”
“Whatever was on that piece of paper, she must not have wanted him to know she had seen it. We need to go over there,” Brian said. “Can you meet me there? You probably know Jude better than I do, and she may need someone there for moral support.”
“Sure. I’ll meet you there.” Daisy was already thrusting her feet into shoes by the front door. She hung up with Brian and used an app on her phone to call for a car, which arrived at her front door mere moments later.
She gave the driver Mark John’s address and the car sped through the night as she sat in the backseat, staring grimly out the windows as the scenery became more suburban along the streets. There was no traffic.
She wondered how Jude would take the news.
She texted Jude to tell her to hide the family tree, that she would explain when she got to Mark John’s house. When Jude hadn’t replied a few minutes later, Daisy tried calling her. The phone went straight to voicemail.
It didn’t take the driver long to get to Mark John’s house. After he dropped her off, Daisy scanned the street; she didn’t see Brian and there were no cars parked nearby. She shivered, though the night was warm and muggy.
A sound in a nearby yard spooked her and she ran lightly up the front walk to the door. She raised her hand to knock and the door swung open.