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August 2021—Saratoga Springs, New York
It was two months since his accident, and Gil finally felt ready to head back to Greenfield for a visit. He’d gone stir-crazy because of the limitations on his physical activity, so he was anxious to travel. Before leaving, Gil went to a morning appointment with his sleep doctor. Gil discussed the last couple of weeks from his sleep log with Dr. Manomoney.
“Still no problems falling asleep, I see. It seems that you are getting more deep sleep, but you are not sleeping very long—only about four and a half hours. How do you feel?”
“Well, I’m not waking up with nightmares anymore. It’s amazing! I feel a lot better than I did. I don’t get drowsy during the day, but I still struggle to stay awake in the evenings.”
“What do you do when you wake up at three in the morning?”
“I lie in bed, hoping I’ll fall asleep again.”
She thought for a few seconds and said, “Okay, I want you to try making two changes. The first is that, instead of going to bed at eleven, I want you to go to bed at one. Do you think you can do that?”
“I’ll have to do something that keeps me more awake at night. Reading and watching TV definitely are not working.”
“People have had the most success with activities that use their hands, like knitting or doing puzzles. But as we discussed before, stay away from using blue screens for an hour before bedtime. Let me know what you come up with. The other thing I want you to do is, when you wake up before, say, six, if you can’t get back to sleep within about twenty minutes, get out of bed and go do something else like reading in another room for about a half hour. Still no blue screens. Then go back to bed and see if you can fall asleep.”
“I think I’m okay to drive in the afternoons now, but not at night. Can we relax my driving restriction?”
“Yes, I think it’s reasonable for you to just restrict your driving to daytime. If daytime drowsiness becomes an issue, we’ll have to go back to more restrictions.”
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This time, Gil took his motorcycle on a different route to Greenfield through Hoosic Falls, down to Williamstown, then east on the Mohawk Trail through North Adams. He headed up into the Berkshire Mountains, past the hairpin turn, then up to the Whitcomb Summit, where he stopped for a break. In the mountains, the August air was starting to smell a little bit like fall, and a few of the trees had tinges of red and yellow. Gil chatted with a couple who pulled in next to him on their Harley. Coincidentally, they were heading to Saratoga Springs to watch their granddaughter in a rowing regatta. Gil gave them some restaurant tips and headed on his way.
When Gil got to Greenfield, he headed right to the police station to see Karen, who was expecting him. She said, “Perfect timing. I just started to look at some DNA results. The DNA from the remains shows several genetic defects that were responsible for the severe abnormalities in the remains. They’re consistent with the deceased child being the result of an incestuous relationship.”
“Do you have any DNA samples from his family?”
“The lab couldn’t get any DNA from the bullets, so they’re checking the other stuff that was in the bin, the remnants of the child’s clothing, and a few other items found in the cave back in the nineties.”
“I read that paleoanthropologists can get DNA samples from the dirt in caves,” said Gil. “They can even read the DNA from samples that are a hundred thousand years old, to some extent. Maybe we can get one of those scientists to help the crime lab.”
“Huh.” Karen wrote a note on a pad by her computer. “I’ll ask Lili about that. Where did you read that?”
“I read it in New Scientist magazine, which is from the UK. It comes every week.”
She said, “So you’re a science nerd! You don’t strike me as being overly nerdy.”
“Thanks, I think. What else did you get?”
“Well, we tried to trace the rope that was used in your attempted murder, but it’s a common product found in every hardware store. We’re checking the rope for DNA. Oh, and I did interview Ms. Florakis in New Hampshire. The main thing I found out is that New Castle, New Hampshire is absolutely gorgeous, and I want to live there. Anyway, she said that she vaguely remembered the family with the very young mom, but that they came in for a night or two and went right back out. She said that in the early years, their commune, the Leverett Farm, was somewhat militant and sabotaged anything and everything associated with the siting of a proposed nuclear plant. It wasn’t a safe place for children.”
“What did Ms. Florakis do after the commune?” Gil asked.
“Oh, she’s a realtor, but she’s also been involved with environmental activist groups, like Greenpeace, the Sierra Club—those kinds of groups. That’s why she was reluctant to talk to the police. She’s seventy-eight and still working! That’s about all I have. Oh, I tried to track down Seth Wheeler, Astral Plane’s head of security, but he died of natural causes years ago. To tell you the truth, since you were injured, I’ve been tied up with several new cases including an embezzlement and a couple of arsons.”
“That’s not good. What kind of places are being burned?”
“A couple of schools in town, hardly any damage. One in June and one in July. We got a glimpse of the arsonist on surveillance cameras but no clear picture. It looked like an adult or older teenager. It might be a pyromaniac. Anyway, what do you think we should do next on the cold case? I like your idea about DNA from the cave dirt. If we do that, I should get a DNA sample from you since we were in the cave recently.”
Gil thought about it for a few seconds. “Sure, no problem.”
Gil looked at some crime scene pictures of a fire-damaged school room on Karen’s desk. “What if these fires are connected to our case?”
“You mean a diversion?”
“Well yeah, they could be intentionally distracting you from working on the cold case.”
They wandered over to the chief’s office, and Karen told Reyes about Gil’s thought about the arson case. He smiled, gave him a sideways glance, and said, “So far, that’s the only idea that fits. People told me you were a smart son-of-a bitch. Thanks for coming back.”
Gil smiled back. “Thanks for fixing my bike.”