Gene Defense: A Fictional Genetic Thriller

By Joy Ashe

This fast-paced genetic thriller with a strong political undertow begins with a
phone call plea for help to Boston-based attorney Paeton Weaver by her sister,
Casey Bell, after the discovery of her philanthropist husbands bloodied body,
supposedly, by his own hand. Local Florida authorities are suspicious about the
circumstances of Leonard L. Bells death. His death comes in the year 2013,
post the U.S. presidential inauguration. Paeton Weaver takes the reader on a
disturbing journey to examine the social, psychological and legal ramifi cations
of genetic social engineering when under new US leadership, citizens become
valued based on genetic characteristics. Paeton discovers a dark Weaver family
history through a series of nightmares. Secrets kept hidden over two hundred
years reveal ghastly murders. She ponders her own genetic fate. In 2013, the
American way of life, from our health care provisions, justice system, medical
outcomes, jobs, friends, family, water, food supply and our very own fate,
depends upon our DNA. No one can hide from their genetic history. What
defense do we have against our genes?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 22, 2010
• ISBN: 9781456804565

Joy Ashe

Joy Ashe (pseudonym) has had a life-long dream to write fi ction novels, captivated in her pubescent days by Nancy Drew novels. These mysteries became a diversion during Sunday morning church services. With her undergraduate and post-graduate work in Psychology and a twenty-eight year career in technological sales and marketing management, human behavior analysis has pushed her from that vocational path to delve into the fi ctional world. Characters parade in her mind prepared to dive into future novels. An amateur genealogist having inherited over four hundred years of family genealogical records from her father, she has a strong interest in genetic infl uence over human behavior. She has spent days-at-a-time studying old chancery records, sloshing through red-clay soaked cemeteries and traveling to remote locations in search of her roots. In the course of those journeys she has made many new acquaintances, found shocking stories of times past and been inspired to bring human foibles to life.

Book preview

Copyright © 2010 by Joy Ashe.

ISBN:          Ebook                                      978-1-4568-0456-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used factiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, government entities, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was created in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

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Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1 The Unexpected Demise

Chapter 2 Sacrifice Begins at Home

Chapter 3 Sad Trip South

Chapter 4 A Swabbed Cheek, A Bagged Body

Chapter 5 Gotta Lawyer Up

Chapter 6 The Fog: Let the Nightmares Begin

Chapter 7 If You Think You Know Someone, You’re Wrong

Chapter 8 Unfamiliar Voice from the Past

Chapter 9 Progressives Tout Eugenics

Chapter 10 You Can Teach an Old Dog New Tricks

Chapter 11 The Fog

Chapter 12 Flaunt or Bury

Chapter 13 Nothing Stays the Same

Chapter 14 Stark Realities, Drastic Changes

Chapter 15 There’s Gold in Them There Hills

Chapter 16 Just Between Us, Ya Know Ya Wanna Tell Me

Chapter 17 Sad to See Ya Go

Chapter 18 Name the Occasion, Southerners Love to Eat!

Chapter 19 Rich Man, Old Man, No Mind, Doesn’t Matter

Chapter 20 Ray’s Bad News

Chapter 21 Let’s Hope All Dreams Don’t Come True!

Chapter 22 Tough Start as Kids

Chapter 23 Casey’s Arrest

Chapter 24 Selective Breeding

Chapter 25 The One in Charge Is Not Always Right

Chapter 26 To Build a Defense on Shifting Sands

Chapter 27 Death Is So Often Unexpected

Chapter 28 The Fund-raiser

Chapter 29 Confessions to a Friend

Chapter 30 Skeletons in the Closet

Chapter 31 Get a Defense, Man!

Chapter 32 Taken Down in Your Prime

Chapter 33 Dad’s Funeral

Chapter 34 George’s Last Refuge

Chapter 35 Robbery Redux

Chapter 36 Sacrifice for the Greater Good

Chapter 37 The Actuarials

Chapter 38 Only for the Ideal

Chapter 39 The Wicked Witch or Warlock Is Not Dead

Chapter 40 GPL: We Did It Again

Chapter 41 The Criminal Gene

Chapter 42 Willful Blindness

Chapter 43 The Sokolov Case

Chapter 44 Sokolov’s Trial

Chapter 45 Fraternizing with the Opposition

Chapter 46 Brown’s Boston Tavern

Chapter 47 Bad Juju

Chapter 48 Sokolov: The Final Sentence

Chapter 49 DF

Chapter 50 Perilous Times, Drastic Measures

Chapter 51 Freedom? Or Weed the Herd

Chapter 52 ESI: We’re Going In

Chapter 53 Kept Secret in a Highly Public World

Chapter 54 Missing Persons

Chapter 55 Things Aren’t Always as You Are Told

Chapter 56 Strategizing at the Ole’ Forge Diner

Chapter 57 Game Changer

Chapter 58 Questions, More Questions

Chapter 59 Was This the Final Visit?

Chapter 60 The Casey Bell Trial

Chapter 61 Good Genes or Luck? Take Luck

Chapter 62 Before It’s Too Late

Chapter 63 Just in Time

Chapter 64 Don’t See the Light, Please

Chapter 65 The Holiday

Chapter 66 End of the Road

Epilogue

Author’s Note

Acknowledgments

I WISH TO extend my deepest thanks to HB and Lucy for their endless patience for nearly four years while it seemed my every non-business minute was spent in solitude working on this book. To their question Is the book finished yet? my response Getting there lost appeal.

To Hank Phillippi Ryan, renowned Boston investigative reporter and Emmy and Agatha Award-winning author, thanks for your initial edits to my first-round script in November 2009 at the New England Crime Bake weekend event. Without your insights pointing me in the right direction, this work might not have come to fruition.

To Deb and Greg, thanks for being my genealogical research pals, friends, and fam. You’re the best! Greg, thanks for your research on the rifles and the guns.

To HA, JC, Chris, Tuck, Amy, and Betsy, thanks for influencing my life.

To Sue, I think this is the kind of book you’ll love diving into.

To Janis and Bruce, Suzanne and David, Sarah and Jack, Bruce and Karen, Sheri, and Chuck, thanks for being my friends.

To the incredible team at Xlibris: Archie Kent, Rose Alconga, Gail Lim, Lani Meyer, Hannah Teves, and the Corrections, Manuscript and Production teams, thanks for your efficiency and professionalism.

My most important thanks go to two individuals who had the greatest influence on my life, Mom and Dad. If only they were around to see me finally accomplish what I told them I wanted to do at the age of eight: to write a book. Two of the most important lessons they taught me as a kid were reading and writing. Mom used to read passages at the dinner table from Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Dad taught me my ABCs.

_______________________________

Ten percent of all the proceeds from the sales of Gene Defense will be contributed to the American Alzheimer’s Association and the American Parkinson Disease Association in honor of my dad and Fernando.

Introduction

WHAT IF YOU discovered a member of your family has a criminal gene? What if the federal government required all citizens and residents to be DNA tested for genetic vulnerabilities? What if in the course of that DNA collection process, the examiners determined you were prone to murder, violence, or other criminal acts? What should happen to you as a genetic mutant? Undergo gene therapy, elimination, or other measures?

After the 2012 presidential election, in an effort to build a more efficient, superior country, America led the cause full speed ahead on a collision course. Eugenics measures were reintroduced on a populace enmeshed in their own economic survival. Humans can’t seem to resist mixing science, law, religion, and politics, particularly when money is behind the cause.

In 2013, while citizens were distracted by the minutiae of their existence, a new radical political infrastructure manifested itself from the collapse of the economy in an attempt to rebuild on a whole new social ideal. Extreme secretive actions, if not stopped, would change how human worth was measured under the guise of improving the American society.

In Gene Defense, Boston attorney Paeton Weaver takes the reader on a journey, written by her hand late in the year 2013, to examine the social, psychological, and legal ramifications of genetic social engineering when under new U.S. leadership, the citizens become valued based on individual genetic characteristics. This journey commences up close and personal with the apparent suicidal death of Paeton’s brother-in-law, Lenny Bell. Paeton’s sister, Casey, becomes a person of interest in his demise.

Paeton discovers the dark Weaver family history through a series of nightmares. Secrets kept hidden over two hundred years reveal ghastly murders. She ponders her own genetic fate.

She hears from her long-lost cousin, Barry, who becomes involved in a dangerous scheme to right extreme wrongs. He risks his own life to save the country from a power-hungry president and obedient directors.

In 2013, our whole way of life, from our health care provisions, justice system, medical outcomes, jobs, friends, family, and water and food supply to our very own fate, depends upon our DNA. No one can hide from their genetic history. What defense do we have against our genes?

Paeton asks the reader to ponder numerous complex questions in a mission of self-examination. Once you see the whole picture, then you will wonder why we didn’t see it all along.

Joy Ashe presents Gene Defense.

Chapter 1

Shared joy is doubled joy; shared sorrow is half the sorrow.

—A Swedish proverb

Saturday, September 7, 2013

The Unexpected Demise

HELLO, PW? I need your help! my sister frantically screamed through the phone. I heard indistinguishable voices in the background.

Casey? What’s wrong? Hunched over the stack of evidentiary papers on my latest insurance and financial services fraud case, I snapped to attention. I had taken advantage of this dreary Saturday morning to work in solitude at the office.

It’s Lenny. He shot himself. Blood’s everywhere. His brains are splattered all over the bathroom mirror and floor. What a mess to clean up! She paused for a breath. The police are here, asking me lots of questions.

I braced myself against the credenza, only imagining the strength to stand on my own two feet. Fond of my brother-in-law, I clenched the phone in my left hand while vacantly staring upon the cobblestoned North Street from my quaint, historic third-floor Faneuil Hall office.

Oh my god! Why, Casey? How did this happen? Were you there? When did he do it? Is anyone, besides the police, there with you?

Stunned by Casey’s shocking news, I gazed at the two-week cloud cover due to constant rain showers that had deterred tourists from the otherwise-bustling Boston street. A couple, protected by an oversized umbrella, tried to dodge the torrential downpour. Another couple was disengaged with each other as they texted on their cells, under the protective awning of the pink brick building across the street.

This morning, he shot himself. Tara and Ed are on their way over. Tara had been an old high school chum from Virginia who had in recent years married husband number three, who had also been boyfriend number one, Ed Johnson. They moved to a country-club community on Merritt Island, Florida, within a half-hour drive of Casey’s.

My heart sank as I quickly shifted gears from professional to personal mode. Time and distance collided as twenty years flashed before my eyes.

We were supposed to go to lunch on their yacht, but Lenny wasn’t feeling well the last few days. Can you come down here right away? I need you.

Uh, Casey, I have a big case coming up, but I’ll make a rez and get there as soon as I can. What can I do for you right now before I leave?

Just come now, she spoke firmly.

Hang in there. I was born a mere ten months before Casey. We shared many similar traits, although my younger sister often took advantage of my maternal influence.

Casey had been the pretty, flashy, tall one. As a teen, she gravitated to beauty contests and read Cosmo to catch tips on beautifying techniques. The phone rang off the hook for her from hopeful suitors. In high school and college, her toughest decision was deciding between beaus for Friday nights. Money and things impressed her. To this day, she didn’t have to work at being pretty.

I wasn’t all that bad-looking as a kid. Having physically developed a little late, my frame was and remains five one and a half, shorter by four inches to Casey’s. I wasn’t accused of being pretty but was told I had classic attractiveness—whatever that means. We share Nordic-like blue eye, blonde traits, and good skin.

As small children, adults patted Casey’s head and pinched my cheeks. Old ladies at church referred to me as smart. Boys said I was nice. I didn’t have trouble getting dates but preferred to stay aloof and keep my options open.

Casey chose a Virginia junior college and earned a home decoration certificate. My lifetime goals were considered lofty by some, heady by others. I wanted to earn my way and be somebody without ties to our family’s accidental wealth.

Can you come right now, PW? I’ll pay. Please. Come now! The nickname PW had stuck when I moved above the Mason-Dixon to attend Harvard Law. I majored in psychology and history at George Washington University and graduated with honors prior to my attendance at Harvard. The field of genetics introduced several judicial opportunities for legal minds, but I settled on general criminal and civil law.

Often on paper, my name is mistaken for a guy, and probably six pieces of mail a week are addressed to Mr. Paeton Weaver. Not kiddin’. I’ve been teased senseless about the nick PW. Yea, whatever, I got sick of it but still chose not to change my name.

Casey doesn’t value other people’s time and is habitually late for all occasions. A painful passive-aggressive pattern between us developed over the years, and I succumbed once again.

Right now? Okay, Casey. I’ll check out the flights as soon as we hang up. I’ll grab a cab and head to Logan. I’ll call you right before the plane takes flight. I immediately stuffed my overnight bag, dormant in the corner of my expansive executiveofficesharing suite, kept handy for after-gym dates. My case papers were thrown in my already-stuffed business case.

Paeton, there’s something you should know.

What’s that, Sis? I asked, hoping my tone did not betray my anxiety.

I touched the gun.

Chapter 2

It is not what we take up, but what we give up, that makes us rich.

—Henry Ward Beecher

Sacrifice Begins at Home

CASEY NEEDED ME, and I had a family obligation to go. The self-sacrifice over the years for familial issues had sometimes taken its toll on my sleep, but I tried to keep my priorities straight. Once the flight was arranged, I placed another call.

Evelyn, I’m glad you answered. Hate to tap your good nature on such a short notice, but I need a favor.

I multitasked the call while texting my paralegal and office manager, Monica, with some quick updates on the current fraud case. She was out of the office due to illness.

The feds had resurrected some old choice dirt on a financial insurance conglomerate veteran. The rampant honest services fraud, RICO, and mortgage fraud chaos over the last several years had handsomely increased my firm’s coffers. This one proved to be no exception. After all, the last decades belonged to the attorneys.

Seventy-three-year-old Evelyn Powell was a retired First District judge. Paeton, my dear, I just finished on the treadmill and was going to cool with some liquid electrolytes. Glad to help you. What’s up?

Casey’s in trouble. My brother-in-law killed himself. I can hardly believe it, but it’s true. Could you please take Sigmund?

Sigmund is my four-year-old cockapoodle, a cross between a cocker spaniel and a poodle. He was named after the famous psychiatrist Sigmund Freud. His beautiful black coat, white rear stocking feet, bright shiny charcoal eyes, and willful expression that resembles a constant grin contributed to love at first sight. I adopted him three years ago as a pup from the city pound after he was abandoned by an unfortunate family who lost their home to foreclosure. He developed abandonment anxiety disorder (ADD), which had gradually healed through Evelyn’s secondary care.

Evelyn had proven to be an incredible neighbor, friend, confidant, professional mentor, organic food expert, and reliable dog shrink. She lives in the fourth-floor two-bedroom condo right above mine on Beacon Street. She awakens most days at four thirty and gathers Boston newspapers stacked outside the black grated front door to the Back Bay Brownstone and distributes them to the individual units.

Paeton, that’s horrible. Your sister must be devastated, she said with a startled tone.

Yea, I was crazy about my brother-in-law. I’m shocked too. He’s one of the least likely people to take his own life. So can you use your key? I headed to the elevator, cell in hand.

Don’t worry about Sigmund. I’ll let myself in, feed him some organic dog food, and take him for a walk. We’ll be fine.

Thanks, Evelyn, I said, doing my best to keep my voice even. You have been one of my greatest discoveries in recent years. I’m grateful to have you in my life. And by the way, don’t spoil my dog on that organic stuff!

Not to worry, Paeton. Go deal with your family issues. Call me, and let me know how I may be of further assistance.

Thanks again, Evelyn.

Fall in New England had become progressively mild over my twenty-three years here. The weather in Massachusetts isn’t much different to Virginia. Each has four beautiful seasons. Boston unveils a gorgeous spring, albeit short, followed by a mild summer. The spectacular fall of vibrant leaf-peeping hues of goldenrod, apricot, crimson, orange, and olive rivals the dogwood state.

I chose to stay in Boston after grad school to pursue my legal interests. My criminal and civil defense career started with my private boutique law firm, Mueller and Weaver, PC. Eric Mueller and I started our firm at Boston’s Faneuil Hall, although the business didn’t afford much free time to enjoy the surroundings.

The cases I take put most juries to sleep. The sheer volume of insurance and medical legal actions, bankruptcies, bank fraud, mortgage fraud, employment discriminations, and immigration plights has made us as busy as we want. These legal actions afford me an enhanced lifestyle beyond that offered by a sizeable yet untapped family trust fund. I choose the more conservative life.

Drug cases are a little less cumbersome and more provocative, but you take the cases that come your way. I’ve got bills to pay, and besides, my clients bathe.

Our partnership opened on the third floor at Six Faneuil Hall a decade ago. The convenient cab ride to the financial district, the buzz of restaurants and bars at this tourist location, and the close proximity to the airport through the Ted Williams Tunnel have made this location a ten-year hit, even in these dire financial times.

The Faneuil Hall Marketplace, which includes three long granite structures called North Market, Quincy Market, and South Market, is the home for several entrepreneurial businesses on six upper floors of these charming redbricked buildings. The complex was built by artist John Smibert from 1740 to 1742 in the style of an English country market. The funding was made by a wealthy Boston merchant, Peter Faneuil, who contributed the real estate to Boston in 1742.

Active, domiciled businesses include lawyers, community leaders, academicians, and entrepreneurs who love the city life. On the street level, an outdoor-indoor mall and food eatery are a hot attraction. The Faneuil Hall boasts inclusion in the top-ten list of tourist attractions in the Boston area.

Chapter 3

Never believe on faith: see for yourself. What you yourself don’t learn, you don’t know.

—Bertold Brecht

Sad Trip South

AFTER CASEY’S CALL, I was lucky to find a Boston Logan Delta flight to Orlando departing in less than two hours. I took a chance to make this flight. My gratitude for individual safety placed aside, three hours prep for a domestic trip was never fun and became a crapshoot to make tightly scheduled flights.

I dreaded the delays in the Logan Airport Terminal C TSA security process in full force twelve years to the month after terrorists struck downtown New York, a cornfield in rural Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. Travelers now were forced to endure full-body scans, baggage searches, presentation of our national identification cards, and personal interviews.

To my surprise, the TSA inspection was fairly uneventful as I dashed through the terminal to gate C24. I even had time to grab a Double D coffee and muffin before bustling to the bridgeway.

The cockpit of the aircraft was not yet closed. The pilot was six feet tall, handsome but worn-out, and bushy eyebrowed, with obviously dyed black hair and full black mustache. I’d say he was in his early fifties, with a well-nurtured paunch. He was short of breath, popped Tums, and created quite a pile of Kleenex. Allergies? Maybe nursing a cold? Without delay, he settled in the first captain’s seat before they shut the pilot’s quarters.

I had time to stare at other passengers in line before me. Men and women jostled for their appropriate seats while situating their overhead bags. It paid to be a keen observer of individuals on flights and that includes the pilot.

The flight took us over dark, cyan waters. The sky was clear and powder blue. Scattered white sailboats created an immense Atlantic Ocean canvas. Dozens of oval and round teal swimming pools neatly dotted backyards as we passed over New Jersey. The occasional small islands, large caps, and toylike airplanes in the distance offered distractions from my papers.

The three-hour flight gave me time to work on my latest honest services fraud case. The guilt or the innocence of this global financial conglomerate chief executive was not my greatest concern. The due diligence required to get up on the facts caused me to look underneath the covers of the health care, insurance, and financial services game. The picture was nothing pretty and got dreadfully scarier each day.

Overworked, my many sleep disturbances pushed me to Starbucks more often than I wanted to admit. Fatigue grasped me hard. White noise, indistinct chatter, and the plane engines’ buzz flushed all conscious thought until my body blithely acquiesced to sleep.

I woke and realized my nap made me miss the beverage round. I held back tears. The thought of Lenny gone forever hit me in the head like a two-by-four. Shaking my sentimentalities, a female voice announced the seat belt restriction in preparation for arrival.

At the end of the ho-hum flight, I retrieved my bags from the baggage claim. The rental car counter was not hard to find. I dreaded the drive from Orlando to Merritt Island though only forty miles. I headed southbound toward the gated community of million-dollar vacation homes.

Early September in central Florida is iffy at best due to hurricane concerns, although the skin season is still alive and well. Days may be hot and delicious or soaked by torrential downpours.

Merritt Island dates back to the 1800s. The island was either named after a Spaniard named Captain Pedro Marratt or a revolutionary Frenchman, Murat. The major growth of this island in the 1950s and the 1960s was due to the NASA space program. With a present-day diverse population of less than forty thousand, the economics changed in 2011 post the dissolution of that program by the previous president, POTUS ’08, president of the United States, 2008-2012.

The Barge Canal to the Intracoastal Waterway has been the major route for those forty years to transport space vehicles to and from the John F. Kennedy Space Center launch pad. People migrated to the area based on offshoot businesses captivated by the 1960s government expansion.

In 2010, the federal government cancelled the program and closed the center due to elimination of federal government funds. Some families stayed after drastic changes to the space program in an effort to retool job skills.

Values were sliced in half on multimillion dollar estates and middle-class residences. That blunt decision shifted some inhabitants to move elsewhere in search of more vibrant local economies. Others stayed and either reduced their quality of life or retired.

Merritt Island has no local government, although there are a few sheriff offices. Governmental matters are centered in Brevard County. Prior to the influence of the John F. Kennedy Space Center, the island was notable for pineapples and oranges. The Indian River oranges are a real prize in this sandy area.

On my December 2011 annual visit two years ago, I remember spotting an incredible sanctuary of spectacular birds of numerous shapes, sizes, and colors—all indigenous to the island. Thousands descended within feet of my car. Bald eagles were eerily close enough to have been fed from my hand had I been so brave. Ospreys dove for redfish, mullet, and sea trout from forty feet above the ground. An elusive cell phone pic was missed at the time because I didn’t act fast enough.

Dolphins fed off squid and fish as they danced through the island’s waters. Sea turtles showed off closer to shore as a source of entertainment.

I had no love for the Florida panthers and bobcats. The black panthers in folklore symbolized death as they roamed through the marshy forestation. The rapacious, dark mahogany bobcats, with their short-bobbed tails, trolled for small animals at night.

That year, I drove the two-day journey from Boston in a rental, with family visits in various states along the way. I spent three days in Xenia, Virginia; two in Greenville, South Carolina; and one in Sandy Springs, Georgia.

That had been Sigmund’s first road trip, and he survived the entire journey without incident, except for one night once we reached Florida. He gave me quite a fright once we reached Casey and Lenny’s sixty-five-hundred-square-foot mansion. My pooch disappeared from Casey’s patio.

A mating bobcat had been baying in the distance. Panicked over the thought of his being snatched for dinner by this native pursuer, I called for Sigmund. My pup had decided to run along the beach, dipping his paws in the slapping waters. After several frightful moments, he obediently returned to the patio and leapt into my arms. The memory of what could have been was still with me to this day.

Scratchy questions repeatedly popped into my head as I drove along. Why hadn’t childless Casey and Lenny chosen Boca or Palm Beach for their vacation home? Now that the space station was deserted, why didn’t they sell and find another semi-permanent vacation spot? Why did they choose to make a summer trip to Merritt Island and stay through late September? After all, in July, the bugs are big enough to fly away with your kids! In September, the entire area goes on hurricane watch.

Within three miles of their estate, I passed a beach sign that stated Do Not Disturb, Sea Turtles Nest, Violators Subject to Fines and Imprisonment. The beach and the sun were mesmerizing. The trek was dangerous due to numerous distractions to drivers. Several accidents had occurred over the years from preoccupation over the marshy views.

I scanned the radio for some gentle, happy music but instead was met with weather reports every thirty seconds: Thirty percent chance of showers in the Brevard County vicinity. Humidity, sixty percent. Temperature, ninety-five degrees.

I made the trip to the island over the causeway in record time. Pulling up to the gate that barricaded the estate, I stopped at a CCTV Security System. A fifteen-foot brushed-stone wall covered with ric-rac orchid, fishbone, and climbing cacti prevented interlopers from entering the compound. Hot-red hibiscus dotted every two feet in between the cactus brush.

The black-painted rod-iron gate was the only apparent entrance. The house was not visible from the gate. What a difference between Casey’s lifestyle and mine, I thought, shaking my head in disbelief.

I pushed the buzzer and heard a familiar voice. Paeton, thank goodness you made it. I’ll buzz you in.

I pulled up in front of the stunning, expansive beige and white Southern colonial. Scarlet-flowered day dahlias, Japanese plum Yahudas, and tiger lilies lined the front of the house and the surroundings.

The white-pebble semicircle drive was lined with lavender Japanese crepe myrtles and dwarf sugar palms. The aroma of the crepe myrtle was so fragrant through the car’s air conditioner that a sense of calm defeated my dismal mood. Those white pebbles were an attractive and decorative notion but could be murder under my feet. I removed my three-inch heels, tossed them in my bag, and replaced them with my Cayman turtle sandals.

A black SUV, a gray four-door American-made sedan, a black-and-white cruiser, and an ambulance were parked under a row of shedding palms. I was met at the front door by a brown-suited, bespectacled man, tapping his thumbs on a wireless device.

Paeton Weaver? he asked matter-of-factly. He didn’t look up. Yes, I replied.

Your sister’s in the living room. Do not touch anything. Don’t cross beyond the tape.

I approached the sunken living room decorated with a Victorian antique white and gold sofa, love seat, and side chair perfectly aligned on a plush white carpet. Casey was in a high-back upholstered love seat. Seated on the sofa were friends, Tara and Ed Johnson.

I walked toward Casey but reached my sister’s friends first. Tara, Ed, thanks so much for being here for Casey. How are you doing? Tara stood and approached with a big hug, answering for the pair. Shocked, sad, as best we can under the circumstances. We’re glad you came.

Casey rose from her place. Paeton, I knew I could count on you. Her tone was as formal as the decor. My sister had developed into a striking blonde of forty-three, more beautiful than the good looks of her youth.

Casey, you’re still in your bathrobe. It’s almost six o’clock!

I know. The police and medical examiner have not let me go in the bedroom to change. They’ve been here over seven hours. Lenny is still on the floor in the bathroom! Her voice cracked, but to my surprise, she didn’t appear to have cried. No puffiness around her eyes. No ruddy cheeks. No tissues.

What’s taking them so long to deal with this? Honey, you must be a total wreck! I had denied myself tears during the flight but had cried off and on during the hour trip from Orlando to the house.

I am completely exhausted. I’ve been questioned for hours by three cops—two local and one from Titusville, she remarked.

Sis, do you have a lawyer? What sort of questions have they asked you? Thinking as an attorney, I grew concerned. Tell me everything. I peered down the hall to check on any progress by the local officials.

"Do I need an attorney?" she asked me naively.

I don’t know. You’re telling me law enforcement officers have been asking you questions for hours. You gotta assume all you’ve said is now on record.

Yes, they took my finger and footprints and swabbed inside my cheek.

Swabbed inside your cheek? Finger and footprints? Who’s the official in charge?

DeCampion I think is his name. He’s the one who greeted you at the door.

Hang on, Casey. I’ll be right back. You want a drink? Something from the kitchen? I turned toward the front hallway, took a left, and went to the edge of the police yellow tape.

Officer DeCampion? I shouted. He could have been down the long hallway toward the master bedroom.

The layout of