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The next morning, Lili and Gil were searching the Lincoln Street tunnel from Cheryl Needham’s basement. Lili’s phone warbled. When she hung up, she said, “That was Cherise, from the Crime Lab. She said that the tunnel victim was killed by a twenty-two caliber bullet to the brain. He died a couple of days ago. No ID yet, but they’re working on it.”
“I found something here. It’s small and I’m trying to dig it out. There, let’s take a look.” Gil zoomed the camera in. “It’s just a little old tractor toy.”
Lili smiled. “Well, maybe that’s the artifact they’re after.”
“Well, it might be worth something.”
Lili’s phone rang again. After she hung up, she said, “That was Jeanie Peridot, the genealogist. She says she has some interesting results from Martha’s DNA search. I told her we could meet for dinner in Northampton. Fitzwilly’s at six.”
The most interesting find from the Lincoln Street tunnel seemed to be a musket. It was very rusty and the wood was almost all gone. Lili bagged it as evidence. “I don’t think this was the murder weapon.”
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LILI AND GIL STOPPED by the Greenfield Police Station so Karen could book the musket and the toy tractor into evidence. “Not as interesting as yesterday’s find,” said Karen. “AFIS shows that our murder victim was a guy named Paul Combs. A suspected hit-man. He’s got a couple of violent crime convictions. He was a white supremacist out of northern New Hampshire.”
“I guess we won’t be sending flowers,” said Gil. Lili chuckled.
“I doubt that Katrina Ryu knew the victim. He was killed around the time Katrina turned herself in. We’re looking for her other partner in crime, Evan Melsty. He’s a college student with no online presence at all, which is very unusual. No license, no credit card, no social security number. Probably a false name. He doesn’t answer his phone.”
“Did you get a warrant to track his phone location and get his phone data?” asked Lili.
“Working on it.”
“We’re planning to inspect the last tunnel tomorrow,” said Gil. “Will there be anything else you need from us?”
“Not that I can think of, right now. We might need your robot again later, though. Now that this is a murder investigation, I can’t close up the tunnels for a while.” Karen’s phone rang and she answered it as Lili and Gil started to leave. She held up a finger so they would wait, and then ended the call. “That was Special Agent Davis. Kevin Clarion died today.” She paused to let that news sink in. “But, there’s some good news. The daughter of the nurse who killed Kevin was released. She’s being checked out at the hospital, but she appears to be okay, physically anyway. The FBI is trying to find out where she was held, and by whom.”
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JEANIE PERIDOT HAD taken a table for them at Fitzwilly’s, and had spread her papers out for their discussion. Gil found her extreme attactiveness distracting, and it made him uncomfortable. They ordered drinks, nachos, and pot-stickers, to start.
“Okay. I shared Martha’s DNA results with the other major testing companies and I got some very interesting results. Here are the main ones.” She showed them a basic chart.
“We have a woman named Morag Wilson in Scotland, who may be a first cousin or a half niece. We have a Jonas Mauk in Brazil who may be a first cousin or a half nephew. We also have a Talya Narkis in Israel who may be a second cousin or a first cousin once removed.”
“What’s a cousin once removed?” asked Gil.
“That’s the child of a cousin or the parent of a cousin. It’s one generation apart from the cousin,” said Jeanie.
“Why do you say they may be this or may be that?” asked Lili.
“Once you get into the realm of the children of half-siblings or cousins, it gets harder to distinguish the exact type of relationship. It’s very complicated, and has to do with the amount of overlap between the DNA of two related people. That’s why it’s necessary to delve into the family tree and genealogical records of these people to figure out the actual relationships. But Lili, there’s a real ho-hum-crasher in all of this data. Martha has a daughter.”
Lili almost choked on her pot-sticker and yelped. “What? No way!”
“Yes way. There’s a woman named Gemma Wells who lives in England with her husband Stephen. Gemma’s profile says that she grew up knowing she was adopted, and she’s been looking for her biological family. Because of this search, she now knows about Martha and is probably trying to get in touch with her.”
“Oh jeez,” said Lili. “She can’t get in touch because Martha’s off the grid.”
The three of them ordered light dinners. “We’ve been lucky with the amount of family tree information these people have posted online. We’ve got these relatives in the UK, Brazil, and Israel, and I think we’re starting to get a picture of what happened. I think Martha was born in Europe during World War II. One parent was Jewish and the other was a non-Jewish German. Both of Martha’s parents had children from other partners, some in the UK, some in Brazil. Her Jewish parent also had at least one sibling who survived the war and ended up in Israel. I bet that Martha was born, or at least conceived, in continental Europe before moving to the UK.”
“If Martha was the child of a Non-Jewish German and a Jewish parent, that would not have been kosher during World War II,” said Gil.
“Definitely not kosher, and very dangerous. There could be several scenarios for that situation, some of which are very bad. It could end up being similar to what many African-American people find. A lot of us, including me, have at least one ancestor who was a white slave owner that had a child with one of his slaves. It’s very strange to think about, but one of my ancestors was a slave owner and maybe a rapist. Or, maybe not a rapist.” She paused to let them consider that. “Anyway, I’ll need to do more document research on Martha’s family. I’d like to keep working on this because we need to get more information so Martha will know who she’ll be contacting. And besides, it’s very intriguing.”
“Will people know you’re researching this? We can’t let Martha be exposed.”
“No, they won’t see what I’m doing, since I’m only gathering information that’s openly available. But some of them may be trying to contact Martha. Are you sure she’s off the grid?”
“I hope so,” said Lili. “I’d better confirm it. I’d like you to keep going on this. We should get a more complete picture before we try to connect with Martha. I don’t even know when it’ll ever be safe enough to connect with her.”
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THAT EVENING, LILI and Gil met up with Gil’s old friends Micky and Jane Tindall, as well as Eddie Locke at the Hawks and Reed Performing Arts Center in Greenfield. Eddie’s girlfriend Pam was appearing there with her band, Soundslip. They set the tone for the evening with a haunting alternative rock song called 6 Underground, originally by the Sneaker Pimps. Definitely not country & western that evening.
When the band took a break, Eddie said, “I’ve heard more live music in the past year than I had in my entire life before. I like their music, but I don’t think it’s helping my hearing.”
“Does Pam wear hearing protection?” asked Jane.
“She does. She has custom earplugs that block out a lot of the volume, but allows her to hear the music, her own singing, and a metronome sound.”
“Maybe you should get some earplugs,” said Jane.
“Every year I have to do more things to try and keep myself healthy, but I still have more and more health problems anyway,” said Eddie. “So many parts of me hurt that it’s hard to keep track of.”
“Just think, when all the pain suddenly goes away, you’ll know you’re dead!” said Micky.