Rewriting Singularity Ch. 19

"How about another?" Char asked.

"Thank you," Jorge said, "but we did come here for a purpose, and it is time we discussed that purpose. Hec? Jake?"

I nodded and so did Hec.

Linden turned to Jorge, then to Hec and his sisters. "There's something we just learned that we need to share with you."

"What's that?" Kate asked.

"My suspicions about Emily Liebowitz and your family were correct."

"But-- it seems like you would have figured it out long before this," Kate said.

"We spent most of our time on Henry Lester not Johann Galle," he said to her. "We got the usual historical information but came to a dead end when we looked at your family. At first we thought it was the usual suspects: no one left to remember and poor small-town record keeping, but we're positive now that it was your parents who erased their own tracks years ago."

Kate sighed while Hec rubbed his temple with the palm of his left hand.

"I was pretty sure it was more than a coincidence that you and Johann's wife had the same last name. Hers was a sad story too. She died not long after Johann did-- she was much older than him you know. Jorge visited Ralph Galle, Johann's brother's great grandson."

I nodded. I'd told Hec about it, and he'd passed the information to his sisters.

"Well, we proved it," Linden explained. "All it took was a few hairs that Jorge procured from an old antique brush of Emily Liebowitz's, and a few from Hec's comb."

"And a few connections to a genetics lab specializing in non-invasive chromosome testing," Jorge added.

"Y-chromosome testing is more accurate since the Y remains pretty much unchanged when it's passed down-- but in your case," Linden said, shoving his left hand in his coat pocket, "we only had Emily. Still, it was a good match-- enough to prove relationship."

"Do you think Henry is haunting us because they are related to Emily?" I asked.

"Quite possibly," Isadora said. "I've witnessed this happening before. As a relative you are more sensitive to the spirit, and the spirit would be more inclined to reach out to someone to whom they are familiar."

"A familiar spirit," I quipped.

Isadora laughed. "Yes, you could say that. It is also true that the spirit would be more inclined to listen to you and be released from earthly bonds if you were present."

"It's too bad that hasn't worked," I said.

"To the contrary," she said, "I believe it has."