"Yeah."
"Any leads?"
"We're working it."
"I knew her, you know. Not well. But she covered a few of my cases over the years. She was fair. More fair than most." He took a sip. "Hard to believe someone would do that to an old woman in her own home."
"It's the Adirondacks, Dad. Hard to believe happens all the time here.”
Hugh gave him a look that said he didn't need to be told about his own county. The man had been sheriff for as long as he could remember. He had seen things that never made the papers, handled situations that never left his office. Not everything ended up in a report the way it happened. Noah knew that much.
"How's Mia settling in?" Hugh asked.
"She only left yesterday."
“For Plattsburgh."
"Yeah. She’s taking criminal justice."
"Good school for it. I told her as much when we spoke." He said it casually, as if the phone calls to his grandchildren were anormal thing, which they might have been if the silence between Hugh and Noah didn't make every conversation feel like it was happening around a wall.
"She mentioned that," Noah said.
"And Ethan?"
"Ethan's Ethan."
Hugh nodded. He didn't push. That was one of Hugh's talents. He knew when to ask and when to let a silence do the asking for him.
"Your sister called this morning," Hugh said. "She wanted to know if I'd spoken to you recently."
"Have you?"
"I'm speaking to you now."
Noah let the deflection pass. Hugh was good at this. He could steer a conversation the way other men steered boats, with small adjustments that looked effortless and kept him pointed exactly where he wanted to go.
“So, how's Mia doing with the move?" Hugh asked. His eyes flickered. A small thing. They had just talked about Mia. He picked up the newspaper beside his water glass and refolded it. His hands needed something to hold.
Noah watched him. The early signs of Alzheimer's were all there. The moments where the machinery slipped and Hugh had to reach for the thread he had just been holding. It happened more often than Hugh would admit. Whether the forgetting was real or performed, Noah could never be sure. His father had spent a lifetime controlling what people saw. It wasn't unreasonable to think he would control the decline the same way.
"Dad, I didn't come here about the case."
Hugh set his cup down. His eyes found Noah's and held them. "All right."
Noah reached into his jacket and pulled out the manila folder. He placed it on the oak table between them, centered, the way he might place a piece of evidence in an interview room. He opened it and turned the top page so Hugh could read it.
The Parabon report. The DNA analysis. The familial match. Hugh Sutherland's biological profile aligned with two individuals: Jacob Hale and Liam Hale. Father-child relationship confirmed. 3,400 centimorgans. Statistical certainty.
Hugh looked at the page. His face didn't change. His hands stayed flat on the table. He read the document the way he read everything, carefully, from top to bottom, missing nothing. When he reached the end, he didn't look up. He stared at the numbers for a long time.
The kitchen was silent.
"Where did you get this?" Hugh said. His voice was level.
"That's not the question."
"It's my question."
