Fullepub 
Chapter 60
60
The following morning is Monday, and there’s a crowd of press outside the police station wanting answers. Reyes has no answers to give them. He brushes past them with a terse “no comment” and makes his way inside. It’s been frustrating, this entire case.
And then finally, midmorning, a break. Some actual physical evidence has been discovered.
Reyes and Barr lock eyes when they get the news.
Reyes says, “Let’s get all of them—Dan, Catherine, and Jenna—in here to give DNA samples. See if we get a match.”
• • •ted sits at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, staring at the newspaper. He’s not going in to work today. He feels like something dark and heavy is crouching on his chest. Two nights ago Irena had been arrested, and he thought this nightmare was over. Then yesterday they let her go. No explanation as to why either of those things happened, from the detectives or in the news. Catherine has tried to call Irena repeatedly, but she isn’t answering, and they know she has caller ID. Irena doesn’t want to talk to her. They need to know what the fuck is going on. Ted feels like going over there and pounding on her door himself.
Catherine wanders into the kitchen, her hand resting protectively on her entirely flat stomach. He feels a twinge of anger. She wants sympathy and support, but he’s not sure he can give her that, baby or not.
The phone rings, piercing the silence. Neither one of them has said much to the other yet this morning. He gets up and grabs the phone on the wall. His heart plummets when he recognizes Detective Reyes’s voice.
“May I speak to Ms. Merton?” Reyes asks.
“Just a sec,” Ted says, and hands the phone to his wife.
He watches her as she listens, his heart rate escalating painfully. What might Irena have told them, he wonders, for them to let her go? Catherine’s face is very still as she listens, and the fingers of the hand not holding the phone grip the kitchen counter.
“Now?” she says. Then, “Fine.” She hangs up the phone.
“What does he want?” Ted asks.
She looks at him, then quickly averts her eyes. “He says they’ve found some physical evidence. They want me and Dan and Jenna to come in to provide DNA samples.” She swallows and whispers, “Ted, what if they found the disposable suit, and Dan’s DNA is all over it?”
The dark thing crouching on Ted’s chest shifts and settles, heavier than before.
• • •lisa knows it will all soon be over, one way or another. The detectives have found physical evidence related to the crime. They must have found the bloody clothes, or the suit. They have called Dan to come in to provide a DNA sample.
Once Dan leaves to go to the station, pale but strangely calm, she calls Catherine.
But it’s Ted who picks up the phone. “Hello?”
“Ted. Is Catherine there?”
“No. She’s at the police station.” She can hear the panic in his voice. “She has to give a DNA sample.”
“Dan too.”
“And Jenna. They’re doing all of them.”
“What did they find, do you know?” she asks anxiously.
“No idea.”
They share a long, uncomfortable silence over the line, but neither one reaches out to the other; they are both too frightened.
“Goodbye, Ted,” Lisa says, and hangs up the phone. She suddenly has to sit and put her head down between her knees to keep from fainting.
EASTER SUNDAY, 11:02 P.M.
Sheila sits up in bed, trying to read, but the book isn’t holding her attention. Her mind keeps returning fretfully to earlier that evening. Fred has already fallen asleep beside her, snoring irregularly, in fits and starts. She looks over at him, annoyed. She watches him with loathing. It’s hard to feel anything else for him, even though he’s dying. He’s been such a bastard. Why did she ever marry him? He’s made everyone’s life a misery.
He means to change his will in his sister’s favor—he’s getting his affairs in order. He always wants to hurt the kids. And she’s never had the power to stop it. She hasn’t been a very good mother.
She’s been so anxious these last few weeks, knowing what Fred is going to do. She’s worried about how the kids will react when Fred dies soon and they find out. They’ll be so angry. And there’s nothing she can do about it.
She hears the doorbell ring downstairs. She looks at the clock radio on her bedside table. It’s late—11:03. She freezes and waits. Who would come at this time of night? But the doorbell rings again. And again. She can’t just ignore it. She pushes back the covers and slides her feet into her slippers, grabbing her housecoat and pulling it on as she leaves the room, Fred still sputtering behind her. She turns on the light switch at the top of the stairs, and it lights up the staircase and the front hall. She holds the smooth handrail as she makes her way down the carpeted steps. The doorbell rings again.
She opens the door and stares, confused by what she sees. There’s someone in a hazmat suit standing on her doorstep. She’s so surprised she doesn’t recognize who it is at first. She notices the cord in the person’s right hand. It happens almost too fast for conscious thought—the recognition, the horror of suddenly understanding. And then she turns and tries to get away. She’s not fast enough and is yanked backward by her neck. As she feels the cord squeezing tightly around her throat, Sheila tries to grab her cell phone on the end table, but it gets knocked away. . . .
