It is morbid and macabre, but I find this fascinating. I have always found this fascinating. And the truth is, a truth that is both obvious and unspoken, you do too.
We all do.
That is why we have memorials like this, no? It isn’t really a warning of a more dangerous time, though that’s what we tell ourselves. It appeals to us on a much more primitive level. It turns us on. Perhaps, in hindsight, it was my gateway drug. You hear this often enough. One drug is a gateway to the next and the next until you’re a strung-out heroin junkie.
Maybe it’s the same with murder?
I don’t slow down. I just want to drive past this modest monument and the duel grounds. To soak in this feeling. That’s all. Bonus: If the police can somehow trace the exact movements of Marnie’s phone, this small detour, though only minutes out of my way, will make them wonder about Marnie’s mental state. That could help me.
I make the turn back onto Boulevard East and drive to Newark Airport. The quietest terminal today is Terminal B. When I get to the drop-off area, I take out my hammer and smash Marnie’s phone to pieces. When her movements are traced, it will lead to an airport. That will help. I realize that there are probably cameras watching. Eventually they may reach the stage where they look to see whether she got out. But again, that will take time.
With the phone now rendered untraceable, I circle the airport and visit the other terminals, again just to confuse. I head onto Route 78 and take it west. I’ve rented a garage storage unit in Chatham. With my disguise in place, I keep my head down, get out of the car, pull open the roll-up door. I get back in my car, drive it into the unit, and then I shut the door. The storage facility has a powerful air-conditioning system. I made sure already that it was turned up full blast. I’ve read more than my share about rotting corpses and odors. I have time. Days at least. Probably more. Then I can find a way to get rid of the body. I do a light cleanup now and leave Marnie in the backseat. If I had dumped her body, the police would surely and immediately link her to the other murders. Ah, but if poor, beleaguered Marnie is just missing, with all the turmoil in her life, it will be more than plausible that she has decided to run away and hide for a little while. I wasn’t sure how long that would last, but I knew the old credo: No body, no murder.
These moves should buy me days, if not weeks. That’s all I need, really.
There is still work to be done.
Chapter
Thirty-Three
Wilde looked over Matthew’s shoulder at User32894, a twenty-three percent DNA match with Peter Bennett on the MeetYourFamily website.
“Did you check to see if User32894 and Peter had any communication?” Wilde asked.
“No messages at all. According to the website protocols, when you delete your account, all messaging is irretrievably gone. But in case you’re wondering what twenty-three percent means…” Matthew clicked on the link and an explanation came up:
If you are approximately a 25% match （between a 17%-34%）， it means you are genetically related in the following ways: Grandparent/Grandchild
Aunt/Uncle
Niece/Nephew
Half Sibling
“Weird they don’t give you more of a breakdown than that,” Matthew said.
“That’s how DNA works,” Sutton told him. “We learned all this in Biology with Mr. Richardson, don’t you remember? One hundred percent meant an identical twin. Fifty percent would be a sibling or a mother—your father has a little less, like forty-eight percent or something. I don’t remember why.”
“Still weird,” Matthew said. “If Wilde here gets, say, a fifty percent match, he won’t know if it’s his mother, father, full sibling…Wait, when you found your father in Vegas, how did you know? I mean, when you first saw it on the DNA site, how did you know it wasn’t your mother or a brother or something?”
“I didn’t at first,” Wilde said. “But then I found out he was a male more than twenty years older.”
“Could still be a sibling.”
Wilde hadn’t really considered that. “I guess that’s true.”
“It’s not likely,” Sutton said. “If you’re fifty percent, it means full sibling, not half. I mean, sure, mothers give birth over a twenty-year span, but the numbers are probably low. The far higher likelihood is that it’s your father.”
“Okay, true,” Matthew countered, “but let’s face it. Nothing about Wilde falls into the normal spectrum. He was abandoned in the woods when he was too young to remember. What do you think, Wilde? Could that guy you met be your brother instead?”