by Rick Mofina
She could not lose Polly again.
Emma’s heart was beating wildly. What if this was as close as she ever got to knowing what happened to Tyler that day on the highway near Big Cloud?
Emma wanted the truth.
She’d paid for it, suffered for it, bled for it. If she had to reach through Polly Larenski’s psychotic fog and into her tortured soul to get it, then that’s what she would do. Emma’s grip on the phone was so powerful she swore she heard the handset crack.
“Polly,” Emma softened her taut tone, “please, just talk to me. I need you to tell me what happened.”
Emma heard Polly’s measured breathing, heard her thinking.
“Polly, you are the only person who can help me. Start at the beginning and tell me what happened.”
Emma heard the faint rattle of a pill bottle being uncapped, heard Polly swallow then exhale.
“I already told you that Brad’s gambling was out of control,” Polly said. “He owed a lot of money to a lot of bad people. I was using new credit cards to pay off old ones but it was not going to work forever. I had to do something, don’t you see?”
“Yes.”
“Some time ago, the company sent me to be its rep at a big international conference for lab technicians in Mexico.”
“Mexico?”
“Mexico City. When I was there, I overheard some delegates talking about rumors of new cutting-edge genetic research. It sounded interesting. Later, a woman from that group approached me privately in the lounge. She saw my delegate badge and that I was with Golden Dawn Fertility and asked for my card. Then she asked if I’d be interested in ‘confidentially contributing to an important study.’ She said I’d be well paid.”
“What sort of study?”
Polly coughed and Emma heard her light a cigarette then draw on it.
“She was vague, but something to do with genetics.”
“Who was she with?”
“I don’t know. I think it was a corporation on an island somewhere in the Indian Ocean or Caribbean. She took my card and told me to think it over.”
“Did you tell your bosses about this?”
“No. Because later I got a follow-up call from a stranger, who told me that if I confidentially supplied them information, I would be extremely well paid. We needed the money, so I agreed.”
“How much did they pay you?”
“Five thousand dollars for the first batch of data.”
“What was the data for?”
“They said it would lead to a cure for major diseases.”
“Why did they have to be so secretive?”
“They said other corporations were trying to duplicate their work. They said they didn’t have time to comply with international rules and regulations. They had to take steps now to protect their research.”
“What did you have to do?”
“At first I just provided generic information. You see, Golden Dawn collects DNA from all donors and all clients, to ensure quality and avoid the rare chance of well, inbreeding-you wouldn’t want to be using your long lost brother’s sperm, that sort of thing.”
Polly exhaled.
“We have a complex screening process, one of the world’s best. It eliminates abnormal DNA, bacteria, infections and viruses from the samples. At first, the ‘researchers’ asked for general information on our clients. It involved no privacy concerns, so I ran a computer scan and gave them generic information. I thought it was for statistical analysis, demographic tables.”
“How did you give them information?”
“They would tell me to go to a branch of the L.A. Public Library at a specific time and leave a memory card in a certain book. I would get an envelope of cash the same way.”
“So you never saw anyone?”
“No. I was called at home by different people from ‘the study team.’ I never knew who or where they were based. They had accents, they said they were contractors. The numbers were blocked. I figured the calls came from all over the world.”
“How did this involve Tyler?”
“They started to ask for specific DNA sequences, profiles. I got nervous. This was crossing a line, but they offered more money, so I agreed.”
“What did you give them?”
“Samples of your baby’s DNA, your DNA, the donor’s DNA, your husband’s, too. They got very interested in Tyler’s DNA, they said it was exactly what they needed. They asked for all of your private information-names, address, and your complete files.”
“What did you do?”
“I told them I was uneasy and they offered me fifteen thousand dollars.”
“You took it?”
“I thought this was a start at clearing some of Brad’s debts and rebuilding our lives, so I took the money and I gave them everything. I kept working with them until your tragedy.”
“What happened?”
Polly pulled on her cigarette.
“I was getting so scared. I knew I was acting in denial, that I didn’t want to know what was going on because I needed the money. But my conscience ate at me. Finally, I demanded to know what was happening. They said their ‘research’ was going on around the world, that it was part of a ‘major operation’ and that I couldn’t tell anyone because I was implicated and there would be consequences.”
“What did you do?”
“I started freaking out, asking, What did I get myself into?”
“Did you go to the police?”
“I was afraid. I was sure I was being followed, the house was being watched. I started making errors at work. But I thought I was okay when the clinic got your notification.”
“My notification?”
“We monitor and update all of our client files, like whenever there’s a miscarriage, a stillbirth or a crib death we update the file. When your doctor alerted us to your terrible crash, your husband’s death and Tyler’s death, I was sad. But also-and oh, God forgive me-I was relieved because I thought that this would end my dealings with the study group.”
“What do you mean?”
“At that time they’d called demanding more DNA information on Tyler’s file. I told them I was finished with them because Tyler had just died in a car accident. They said, ‘Oh we know about that. Your information is incorrect. We’ve recovered that case.’ And I said, ‘What do you mean you’ve recovered that case?’ and they said, ‘That child is actually alive. Our work continues.’”
“What!”
“I was so terrified, so overcome with guilt. I called you to somehow let you know that your baby is alive.”
“Who are these people, Polly?”
“I’m so sorry. Come back tomorrow, I’ll give you my files. I’m so messed up with Brad and everything. I need to sleep.”
“Wait! Polly, what is this ‘operation’? What are they talking about?”
“I don’t know.” She started to sob. “I’m so scared. All they said was that it was going to change everything and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it.”
46
Santa Ana, California
A stern-faced police officer stood before Emma’s car and pointed at her then at the curb, commanding her to park.
What was going on?
Traffic clogged Third Street. Emma was still a block from Polly Larenski’s duplex when she got out and started walking toward the emergency lights splashing red and blue on the neighborhood. Excited children on bicycles and worried adults hurrying behind them gathered at a cluster of police cars, fire trucks and news crews that ringed a spectacle down the street.
The smell of charred wood permeated the air.
Emma heard the roar of a pumper truck, the bursts of radio chatter. The pavement was wet from water leaking from the lines of fire hoses. As she got to the yellow plastic tape that cordoned the site, she stopped.
Polly’s duplex had burned.
Firefighters hosed the ruins. Spears of scorched walls rose from smoldering heaps of rubble and ash. Emma’s hear
t raced.
Where was Polly?
The boy beside her was sitting on his bicycle and talking to the boy standing next to him.
“I heard the fire guy say that a lady died.”
“Do you know who it was?” Emma’s intensity startled the boys.
“I think it was the lady that lived there.”
Emma cast around the area and rushed toward a firefighter carrying a hose to a truck.
“Excuse me. This is my-my friend’s house. I’m supposed to see her. Was anyone hurt?”
The firefighter’s face was smudged with soot.
“There was a female fatality. Better talk to the captain. He’s in his van over there.”
Emma spotted the fire van and hurried toward it, the ramifications of what happened enveloping her with each step. She felt something fracture, felt something break off and slip away.
She couldn’t believe this was happening.
The captain’s window was down. He sat behind the wheel reading from a clipboard, ending a conversation on his radio.
“That’s right-get back to me. Ten-four.” He clicked his handheld microphone.
“Can you help me, please?” Emma said. “My friend lives here. We’re supposed to meet today. What happened?”
“Your name?”
“Emma Lane.”
He glanced at his clipboard. “Well, Emma, unfortunately a fire started in the garage. We suspect the cause was faulty welding equipment belonging to a neighbor, a male resident working on his car.”
“Was someone hurt?”
“Yes, I’m sorry. One fatality, likely due to smoke inhalation, a female resident. Everyone else got out, both homes were destroyed. We estimate damage at-”
“Polly Larenski? Did she get out? I need to see her.”
The captain checked his clipboard, flipped a page, his chin tensed. Before he flipped it back, Emma glimpsed Larenski on his sheet.
“I can’t confirm anything until next of kin are notified.”
“It is Polly! Oh, my God!”
The earth shifted under Emma; the world swirled around her.
“My baby’s files are in there. My baby was saved from a fire!”
Concern registered on the captain’s face.
“Your baby’s in there?”
The captain seized his microphone, called for assistance then got out.
“Ma’am, are you aware of other people in the residence?”
“No, no! I’ve come here from Wyoming. My husband was killed. My baby was rescued from a fire. Polly knew! Are you sure she’s dead?”
Incomprehension flooded the captain’s eyes.
“Ma’am, you’re losing me. Are you all right?”
“What am I going to do now? She knew about my baby, she knew everything!”
Emma covered her mouth with her hands and gazed at the remnants of Polly Larenski’s home as a circle of faces emerged around her-firefighters, police officers and paramedics. An officer with the Santa Ana police touched her shoulder.
“Do you have any identification, ma’am?”
Emma fumbled in her bag. The officer studied her Wyoming driver’s license. “Will you come this way, please? These folks just want to make sure you’re okay.”
Emma sat in the back of an ambulance.
While paramedics observed her, she told the officer her story. He listened, then went to his patrol car beside the ambulance. The door was open. Emma saw him checking her name through the car’s small dash-mounted computer and talking on his radio.
At one point she heard him say, “Not a relative, a bystander. Wyoming DL. Right. Seems disoriented, overcome. Then it goes to OCSD?”
Some fifteen minutes later, a black-and-white cruiser with a six-point gold star on the door arrived. The new officer took Emma’s license from the Santa Ana officer, then they both approached her.
“Emma, I’m Deputy Holbrooke with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department,” the new officer said. “I’m going to take your information.”
Emma sat in the deputy’s car. Again, she told her story while he entered information into his computer. Then he left the car to make a call on his cell phone, pacing near the trunk where she overheard him say, “Right, not ours. Thanks, Lou.”
In the time since she’d arrived at the fire, Emma had pinballed from the fire department to the Santa Ana Police Department to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, and through a maze of police bureaucracy until she landed in the jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Now here she was in the office of the FBI’s Santa Ana Resident Agency on the top floor of the bronze three-story building on Civic Center Drive. For nearly forty-five minutes, special agent Randy Sikes had listened to her. Occasionally, he’d excused himself to take a phone call on the status of an ongoing identity theft investigation.
Before Emma had arrived at Sikes’s desk, he’d been briefed on the phone by the Santa Ana Police and Orange County.
Sikes was a quiet, cerebral agent in his mid-forties. He wore a suit with a white shirt, conservative tie, and his hair was combed neatly. He said little as Emma spoke, but from time to time he paused to study his computer monitor and the results of his query to the National Crime Information Center, the FBI’s major database known as
NCIC.
It contained records on a range of files submitted by every law enforcement agency across the country. NCIC contained records on subjects such as guns, fugitives, warrants, stolen vehicles, sex offenders, license plates, gangs, terrorist organizations and missing persons.
After Emma had left her home in Big Cloud, her worried aunt and uncle went to the County Sheriff’s Office to report her missing. The sheriff’s office submitted a report to NCIC that contained all the background about the accident: Emma’s reaction, her claims about the phone call. The Big Cloud County Sheriff’s Office had characterized Emma as a traumatized, grief-stricken accident victim who’d refused to accept the deaths of her husband and son.
NCIC security forbade police from sharing the file with unauthorized people. Emma never saw it. After Sikes read it, he said, “You’ve been through a lot lately, haven’t you, Emma?”
“Yes.”
“There are people in Big Cloud worried about you. Why don’t you think about going home?”
“But what about everything I’ve told you about my baby? What about what I told you about Polly, that she said my baby was ‘chosen’? She said someone was planning some kind of action and they chose my baby! Please help me!”
“Yes, it’s quite a story,” Sikes said. “And I understand you’ve been under tremendous stress lately. The tragedy of the house fire today must have subjected you to more anguish.”
“What about what I told you about Polly?”
“We’ll follow that up with authorities here in California and Wyoming, but our first concern is your well-being and getting you home. It might be the best thing, don’t you think?”
She stared at the wall.
“I could call someone for you, if you like,” Sikes said.
Emma shook her head.
He thinks I’m crazy. They all think I’m crazy.
Emma collected her things and left.
47
Santa Ana, California
A smoky haze rose from the blackened remains of Polly Larenski’s house.
Two men in blue coveralls, wearing gloves and surgical masks, used shovels and crowbars to probe the debris. Another man stepped carefully through the aftermath, accompanied by a German shepherd that sniffed the bits and pieces.
It was late afternoon and Emma watched from the yellow plastic tape protecting the site. Much of the commotion had subsided; nearly all of the fire, police and other emergency vehicles were gone. The street was still sealed. A funereal calm had descended upon the scene, scored by the crack-twist-tear of the investigators shifting and lifting pieces.
And there was the eager chink of the panting dog’s collar.
Somewhere in tha
t charred heap was the key to Emma’s search for her baby and she prayed that somehow she’d find it. She noticed one of the men in blue coveralls walking to a van marked Arson Unit.
She followed him.
“Can you help me? Was this arson? I thought this was an accident.”
He shoved his mask down.
“Are you with the press?”
“My name is Emma Lane. My friend died in the fire.”
“Sorry to hear that,” he said. “It’s no secret what we do. Whenever there’s a fatality fire, Arson investigates. The dog is sniffing for accelerants.”
“Accelerants?”
“To tell us if someone used gas or anything to purposely start it.”
“Do you think it was an accident?”
He assessed her before giving her a guarded answer.
“We’re not done.” He rummaged in his truck. “Do you have information about this fire?”
“No. It’s just that Polly had papers she was going to give me today.”
“What kind of papers?”
“Personal records.”
He looked at her for a moment.
“Tell you what, why don’t you show me some identification and I’ll let you know if we find anything.”
Emma showed him her Wyoming driver’s license and a card for her hotel. “Well, you’ve come a long way, haven’t you?” he said as he jotted everything on the back of the card and slid it in his notebook. “Unfortunately, everything in that house is gone.” He dropped some tools into a bucket. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
He ducked under the tape and returned to the scene, where his partner hefted a chunk of wall with a crackling twist that released a small flare.
The dog yelped.
The other investigator doused the fire with an extinguisher. Smoke rose over the site and a gust blew clouds toward Emma, burning her eyes, swirling over everything.
Ashes to ashes.
Death was winning.
Emma’s only hope was gone. Tentacles of smoke pulled her back through the horror that had descended upon her.
Back to the crash, back to Joe and Tyler.
She could not succumb to her pain.