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“I’ll tell her.”
He flipped the phone shut and turned to Josh. Josh was looking concerned and sympathetic. “What was it?”
“My father died.”
“I’m really sorry…”
“Car crash, last night. I need to go tell my sister.”
“You have to leave now?”
“I’ll stop by the office on my way out and send Sandy in.”
“Sandy can’t do this. He doesn’t know the routine—”
“Josh,” he said, “I have to go.”
Traffic was heavy on the 405. It took almost an hour before he found himself in front of a ratty apartment building on South Acre in Torrance, pushing the buzzer for apartment 38. The building stood close to the freeway; the roar of traffic was constant.
He knew Lisa worked nights, but it was now ten o’clock in the morning. She might be awake. Sure enough, the buzzer sounded, and he opened the door. The lobby smelled strongly of cat piss. The elevator didn’t work, so he took the stairs to the third floor, stepping around plastic sacks of garbage. A dog had broken one sack open, and the contents spilled down a couple of steps.
He stopped in front of apartment 38, pushed the doorbell. “Just a fucking minute,” his sister called. He waited. Eventually, she opened the door.
She was wearing a bathrobe. Her short black hair was pulled back. She looked upset. “The bitch called,” she said.
“Mom?”
“She woke me up, the bitch.” She turned, went back into the apartment. He followed her. “I thought you were the liquor delivery.”
The apartment was a mess. Lisa padded into the kitchen, and poked around the pans and dishes stacked in the sink, found a coffee cup. She rinsed it out. “You want coffee?”
He shook his head. “Shit, Lise,” he said. “This place is a pigsty.”
“I work nights, you know that.”
She had never cared about her surroundings. Even as a child, her room was always a mess. She just didn’t seem to notice. Now Tom looked through the greasy drapes of the kitchen window at the traffic crawling past on the 405. “So. How’s work going?”
“It’s House of Pancakes. How do you think it’s going? Same every fucking night.”
“What did Mom say?”
“She wanted to know if I was coming to the funeral.”
“What’d you say?”
“I told her to fuck off. Why should I go? He wasn’t my father.”
Tom sighed. This was a long-standing argument within the family. Lisa believed she was not John Weller’s daughter. “You don’t think so, either,” she said to Tom.
“Yeah, I do.”
“You just say whatever Mom wants you to say.” She fished out a cigarette butt from a heaping ashtray, and bent over the stove to light it from the burner. “Was he drunk when he crashed?”
“I don’t know.”
“I bet he was shitfaced. Or on those steroids he used, for his bodybuilding.”
Tom’s father had been a bodybuilder. He took it up later in life, and even competed in amateur contests. “Dad didn’t use steroids.”
“Oh sure, Tom. I used to look in his bathroom. He had needles.”
“Okay, so you didn’t like him.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” she said. “He wasn’t my father. I don’t care about any of it.”
“Mom always said that he was your father, that you were just saying it, because you didn’t like him.”
“Well, guess what? We can settle it, once and for all.”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean, a paternity test.”
“Lisa,” he said. “Don’t start this.”
“I’m not starting. I’m finishing.”
“Don’t. Promise me you won’t do this. Come on. Dad’s dead, Mom’s upset, promise me.”
“You are a chickenshit pussy, you know that?” That was when he saw she was near tears.
He put his arms around her, and she began to cry. He just held her, feeling her body shake. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
After her brother had gone, she heated a cup of coffee in the microwave, then sat down at the kitchenette table by the phone. She dialed Information. She got the number for the hospital. A moment later, she heard the receptionist say, “Long Beach Memorial.”
“I want to talk to the morgue,” she said.
“I’m sorry. The morgue is at the County Coroner’s Office. Would you like that number?”
“Someone in my family just died at your hospital. Where would his body be now?”
“One moment please, I will connect you to pathology.”
Four days later, her mother called back. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, going down to the hospital and asking for blood from your father.”
“He’s not my father.”
“Lisa. Don’t you ever get tired of this game?”
“No, and he’s not my father, because the genetic tests came back negative. It says right here”—she reached for the printed sheet—“that there is less than one chance in 2.9 million that John J. Weller is my father.”
“What genetic test?”
“I had a genetic test done.”
“You’re so full of shit.”
“No, Mom. You’re the one who’s full of shit. John Weller’s not my father, and the test proves it. I always knew it.”
“We’ll see about that,” her mother said, and hung up.
About half an hour after that, her brother, Tom, called. “Hey, Lise.” Real casual, laid-back.
“Just got a call from Mom.”
“Yeah?”
“She said something about a test?”
“Yeah. I did a test, Tommy. And guess what?”
“I heard. Who did this test, Lise?”
“A lab here in Long Beach.”
“What’s it called?”
“BioRad Testing.”
“Uh-huh,” her brother said. “You know, these labs that advertise on the Internet aren’t very reliable. You know that, don’t you?”
“They guaranteed it.”
“Mom’s all upset.”
“Too bad,” she said.
“You know she’ll do her own test now? And there’s going to be lawsuits? Because you’re accusing her of infidelity.”
“Gee, Tommy, I don’t really give a damn. You know that?”
“Lise, I think this is causing a lot of needless trouble around Dad’s death.”
“Your dad,” she said. “Not mine.”
CH009
Kevin McCormick, chief administrator of Long Beach Memorial, looked up at the chubby figure coming into his office, and said, “How the hell did this happen?” He pushed a sheaf of papers across his desk.
Marty Roberts, the chief of pathology, glanced quickly through the document. “I have no idea,” he said.
“The wife of the deceased, Mr. John J. Weller, is suing us for unauthorized release of tissue to the daughter.”
“What’s the legal situation?” Marty Roberts said.
“Unclear,” McCormick said. “Legal says the daughter is a family member and has a clear right to be given tissues to test for diseases that may affect her. Problem is, she did a paternity test and it came back negative. So she’s not his daughter. Arguably that makes our release of tissues unauthorized.”
“We couldn’t have known that at the time—”
“Of course not. But we’re talking about the law. The only important question is, can the family sue? The answer is yes, they have grounds to bring a suit, and they are.”
“Where’s the body now?” Marty said.
“Buried. Eight days ago.”
“I see.” Marty flipped through the pages. “And they are asking for…”
“Besides unspecified damages, they’re asking for blood and tissue samples to conduct further testing,” McCormick said. “Do we have blood or tissue samples from the deceased?”
“I’d have to check,” Marty said. “But I’d presume that we do, yes.”
“We do?”
“Sure. We keep a lot of tissue these days, Kevin. I mean, everybody that comes into the hospital, we collect as much as we possibly can legally…”
“That’s the wrong answer,” McCormick said, glowering.
“Okay. What’s the right answer?”
“That we don’t have any tissues from this guy.”
“But they’ll know that we do. At the very least, we did a tox screen on the guy because of the accident, so we have his blood—”
“That sample was lost.”
“Okay. It was lost. But what good does that do? They can always dig up the body and get all the tissues they want.”
“Correct.”
“So?”
“So let them do that. That’s Legal’s advice. Exhumation takes time, permits, and money. We’re guessing they won’t have the time or the money—and this thing will go away.”
“Okay,” Marty said. “And I am here because?”
