Chapter Four
Day 02
"What happened?" Dave asked as he walked into Hotch's office. "You look like you just got run over."
"DC Metro ran a DNA sample on Clara Lee." Hotch said. "It came up a fraternal match to someone in our database."
"Who?"
"Me."
You always expect a big lead up to something like this, Dave thought, some kind or portent or sign or perhaps fanfare. But no, just some guy down in the forensic lab looking at a test result and picking up the phone and there you are. "Well. This is news." He sat on the other side of the desk. "I assume you didn't know?"
"No. I called my aunt, she said about that time Dad was rumored to be having an affair with a debutant, Karen Waller."
Dave checked his file. "Karen Waller married Sam Braxton less than nine months before Clara was born. So either she was more than a little premature or..."
"The DNA test is right." Hotch shook his head. "I can't honestly say this surprises me, not the way Dad treated Mother. Cheating would be the least damaging thing he ever did to her. I didn't even know this woman existed. Now what do I do?"
"Well, if it's any help she's a very well respected school principal; excellent reputation, loved by the community."
"Hopefully I'll have a chance to get to know her." Hotch stared bleakly above his friend's head a long moment. "Which case do I focus on? Clara Lee is my sister, but I don't know her at all. Reid is my friend."
"You work both but take the lead on neither." Dave said. "Turn the investigation for Reid over to Morgan. He's not going to let it go anyway and he's had much better control over his temper lately. I'll keep working the Clara Lee case."
Hotch sighed, "All right. Morgan and JJ are interviewing people at Georgetown."
"We were about to go check out her apartment."
"I'll go."
"I know this place." Hotch said as they stepped off the elevator into the entrance hall. "I think I've been here before."
"I think this place is bigger than my house." Dave said
"I thought you lived in a mansion." Kate replied.
"I thought I did."
"Is this pre-war?" She asked Hotch as she pulled on her gloves.
"Pre First World War. Most of the furnishings are Edwardian." Hotch replied. "I think it belonged to my grandmother, Martha..." For a moment he smiled. "Martha Lee Hotchner. I haven't been here since I was a child; she had some falling out with my father. "
"There's not much in here."
"This is just the entry hall." The office had given them a floor plan, now he started pointing to the rooms, counter clockwise. "The bedrooms are down that way. The parlor is in the center, the library to the right and the dining room to the left. That way is the kitchen wing." All the doors were closed. He moved to the parlor and opened the pocket doors. Beyond was a shadowed room, the curtains closed against the light, the furniture covered in dust cloths. He moved to one and lifted it gently, "Looks like she kept the original furniture."
"But she's not using this room." Dave stepped to the doors that connected to the library and opened them, revealing another shadowed, covered room, "Or this one."
"No." Hotch turned and tried the door that connected to the dining room. It was also secured closed.
Kate came back from the hallway. "It looks like all the bedrooms are closed up. But it looks like there's a dining room table and chairs being stored in there."
"Which makes me think," Dave said from the hallway. He moved to the door to the kitchen wing, stepped into the short hall and then into the dining room. "Bingo."
Beyond was the former dining room, a large space with a working fireplace and ample light. Clara had turned it into a neat living room, a comfortable couch, TV, large desk with space for a computer in one corner, what looked like the original sideboard and china cabinet in another, bookshelves everywhere else. "Innovative." Hotch said.
"She didn't need all that space but she didn't want to sell it." Kate said. "So she set up close to the kitchen. Is there another entry into the apartment?"
"I don't remember." Hotch checked the map the management had provided, "The service elevator. It's off the kitchen."
"She probably uses that for her entryway. There's her collection of teacups." Dave said, nodding at the china cabinet. "That has some meaning to her."
Hotch looked at the collection with one of his inscrutable expressions. "Do we know where she went to high school?"
"No, but I can ask Kevin to look."
"Not yet."
Kate had moved on to the room next door. "Do you remember what this room was?"
He managed another of those small, hard to read smiles. "It's listed as the nursery. I vaguely remember bunk beds."
"Now she's using it as her bedroom."
Dave stepped past them into the kitchen, "I'm impressed, this is bigger than mine. Original cabinets from the look of it, but new appliances. Look at this." There was a lab balance on the counter. "Someone takes dieting seriously. Like the breakfast nook. Is this the hallway to the servant's entrance?"
"Yes." Hotch followed him down. "That would have been the maid's room. These big apartments came with servants.
Dave switched on the lights and stepped out of the way. "Now it's a home gym. Nice place. We should go through her desk, send her computer information back to Kevin." He said.
"This feels wrong." Hotch said, "Like having a phantom limb waking up. She's a part of my life and yet I don't even know her."
"You will. From the sound of it Jack will have one impressive Aunt to add to the ones he already has."
"Hey Hotch." Kate said, coming back through to the dining room. "Does genius run in your family?"
"Why do you ask?"
She pulled out her phone and called Kevin on speaker. "Kevin, can you check Clara Lee's educational record, see if she ever took an IQ test?"
"Sure."
"Why are you asking?" Dave asked. In reply Kate handed him a slender notebook, a Japanese design with colored pages. Dave opened it and found page after page of very familiar mathematical equations. "Zeta functions."
"It was on her nightstand."
"They are supposed to be very relaxing."
"Found it!" Kevin said from the phone. "She took a test back in high school, IQ of 180. Isn't that up around Dr. Reid?"
"Two geniuses go missing from the Arboretum on the same morning." Dave said. "What are the odds?"
Hotch looked even more grim than before. "This is all one case."
