A Course of Passion

42: Brotherly Connections

Fin, Olivia and I all watch Sonny and Mike try to get the confession out of Robby. As we watch him slowly start to agree to what they've been saying, Melinda comes into the room, "they aren't your guys." She starts off with.

"Neither are a match?" Olivia questions and Melinda shakes her head, "get em outta there." My boss tells me from where she is sitting at her desk, her head now in her hands. I knock on the window and wait, but they keeping interrogating Robby. I knock again, a bit harder this time, "we're done with him." Olivia tells them once they are out of the room and the door is shut.

"Did you hear what he was saying?" Sonny goes to argue.

"He's not our guy," she insists again.

"Sergeant" Mike speaks up as well

Melinda finally jumps in, "the DNA on Lily's body doesn't match either of these brothers."

"Are you sure?" Sonny asks, his forehead creasing with concerned wrinkles.

"Positive." She confirms

"Okay. Then... then who? Are we back to the half-brother Brendan?" Mike puffs out hair, leaning against a chair.

"No, none of them. I do think these three are related to the killer, possibly another half-brother." Melinda returns to us.

"And Ray Marino fathered them all?" Sonny questions.

She answers the best she can as our M.E, "I can't be sure. I need Ray Marino's DNA."

"Melinda, he's been dead five years." Finn tells her.

"Well, maybe his widow kept a hairbrush, a razor... something." She offers.

Mike denies that option, "no, she doesn't even want to talk to us."

"Well, there is another option." I look to Olivia, who looks back to me.

She nods and already figures out what I was thinking, she finishes my thought and says out loud, "was he buried or cremated?"

Mike exhales and nods, having looked over his file, "buried. City Island." He tells us.

"Well, let's get on the paperwork, Maddison." She directs that to me, letting the other three know they'll be the ones going to the exhumation when the time comes.

I manage to get it scheduled for Friday morning and Sonny stops by my apartment before heading over there, "Sonny, you have to be there in like an hour, there might be traffic." I sort of yell at him when the door opens and he walks inside. I'm happy to see him but he didn't have to come by.

"I just wanted to give you something!" He smiles, coming into the kitchen where I am making myself breakfast.

"and what's that?" I question. I put the milk in the fridge and when I turn around he is standing closer to me with a bouquet of flowers, his smile large and beautiful just like the roses, "what's this for?" I ask him, grabbing them so I can put them in water. Sonny's always bringing me flowers, sometimes even before the other ones he bought for me are even dead.

He shrugs one shoulder and says, "we're into the third trimester now!"

"Wow, already?! I can't believe we're this far into it." I open the cabinet my vases are in but know I can't bend down to get it, "will you?" I ask him, putting my hand on my back for support.

He comes over, gets the vase and takes the flowers from me. He fills them with water and cuts off the stems as I bring my plate of food to my table, "how you are feeling today?" He asks me.

"I feel alright, it's getting really hard to sleep at night." I tell him.

He comes over and starts to rub my shoulders, "babe, I told you. You don't have to stay up alone, stay over with me, I'll keep you company."

"The last thing we need is to have two exhausted detectives at work. No way, I'm doing just fine the 2-3 nights a week I'm even at my apartment. Besides, you're not even there those nights, you're at law school!" I decline his offer, again. Also reminding him of his busy schedule.

He leans down to kiss me on the cheek, "well, fine. I love you, see you in a couple hours." He whispers.

I turn my head to meet his lips and we kiss for a few seconds before he pulls away to leave, "love you too, Sonny!" I call after him.

On Saturday, Olivia calls us all in because Melinda has the results of the blood work done on Mr. Marino's body, "Maddison, glad you're still able to make these calls." Melinda smiles at me when we walk into her office.

"I'm not putting these feet up until the doctor forces me too!" I comment back, knowing exactly what she is referring to.

Olivia anxiously asks, "so Ray Marino. Do we got a match?"

Melinda holds the chart open, "yes. Ray Marino fathered Brendan Cahill, who was adopted, the two City Island brothers, George and Robby Marino, who are cleared."

Mike reiterates it in terms for us, "so somewhere at some point, he had at least one other son with a third woman."

"Okay. So Ray was a player. Anything else that we can go on?" Sonny asks "height, eye color?"

"Nothing definitive. Male Caucasian. European descent. Mother isn't Asian or black." Melinda explains to us.

"What about the timeline? Like, can't you tell age with that epigenetic stuff?" Sonny then questions next.

She shakes her head, beginning to take a seat at her desk. I'm already seated but everyone else starts to sit as well, except Mike, "the science isn't really there on specifying age from DNA, but I did take another look at the semen on the body."

"You can tell age from semen?" Mike asks shocked.

"Not precisely, but if I had to guess, I think your killer is the last born of the four. He's closer to 20 than 40." Melinda rounds around for us. "Given the age spread, it's likely a second or third marriage."

"It's not. Ray Marino was married to the same woman till the day he died." I tell her.

Sonny argues out "yeah, but he was a dog. I mean, he fathered Brendan out of wedlock. Now we know he fathered somebody else."

Fin speaks out from the back of the room, "so we're looking for the illegitimate son of a dead man."

"That'll be easy." I roll my eyes and utter under my breath.

"Thanks Melinda." Olivia says with a curt smile. We all stand up to leave, Mike taking the file and head back to the precinct.