The Last Hope

by C. C. Jameson

  Fuller nodded at Wang, then said, “O’Brien will call me as soon as they match a third case. Hopefully today. Their team has already gone through five of the twenty-six samples, so we’ll see. With any luck...” Fuller surveyed the room. “Rosebud and Chainey, pair up and split the tasks for Westbrook. Wang and Wallflower, dig up everything you can on Pledger.”

  Kate and the detectives nodded at his order.

  Fuller continued with his task delegation. “Dr. Davis, I need you to perform a more detailed autopsy on everything weird about these guys. Fuck, anything that could show they are not the ‘originals,’ but rather ‘copies.’ I’m not even sure what you’d look for. Whatever looks suspicious.”

  “Sure. Will do, Detective,” Dr. Davis said before leaving the room.

  Being on the East Coast, Kate knew that calling California at this hour would be futile. They tried nonetheless, and all they got was voicemail everywhere. So Kate and Detective Wang used their time to dig up a list of people, offices, and organizations they could contact in a couple of hours to help build their case.

  By the time noon rolled around, everyone was on the phone or busy writing notes. The fax machine and printer were spitting out sheets of paper as fast as they could. A timeline had been created for both accused, with documents pinned along it and flashcards with locations and dates: birthdate, school records, change of addresses on file, crime date, incarceration date, current location. Parallel to each accused’s timeline ran a second line, with very few items on it. Date and place the body was discovered as well as its current—and final—location.

  At this point, it was impossible to determine where the two lines had intersected.

  With birth records, they pinpointed the start of the two original lines, with branches going to people and organizations who could confirm there were no identical twins: parents, birth records, and hospital records.

  They had checked every box that could be ticked, but they only had two cases.

  Fuller walked around, his confidence rising with every note he read, but it was already five o’clock, and there was still no third case.

  “O’Brien,” he said on speakerphone, “Where do you stand with the samples?”

  Luke’s voice echoed out in the room. “We’ve gone through all of them, but only the initial two came back as a match. We’ve triple-checked those. We’re double-checking all of the unmatched samples just to be safe, but it doesn’t look good.”

  Fuller hung up without thanking Luke or saying goodbye. “Shit.”

  After about twenty seconds, Fuller scanned the now silent room. “Any thoughts? Anyone?”

  Chainey spoke up. “We’ve only tried to match our John Does. Maybe we’ll find matches with other districts. New York would probably have a shitload of John Does sitting there.”

  “That would take forever, and it would definitely take the secrecy out of this situation,” Fuller said. “Anything else? Fuck, we need something fast. The district commander is breathing down my neck.”

  Kate raised her hand.

  “It’s not third grade here, speak up,” Fuller said.

  “What about Montague?” she asked.

  “What about him?” asked Rosebud.

  Kate sat tall as she spoke confidently. “This whole thing started because of him. Sure, he’s not in jail, he’s not accused of murder, but he’s got a dead doppelgänger in Ohio. The sheriff couldn’t find any birth or adoption records, but he only checked Massachusetts. Not sure if they’ve buried the body already.”

  “Can you call that sheriff?” Fuller asked, hope in his eyes.

  “Yes, I have his number.” Kate took out her phone, scrolled down through her call history, and found the Ohio area code. She hit the dial button and waited with the phone against her ear.

  “Speakerphone,” Fuller ordered.

  Kate nodded.

  “Hi, Sheriff? It’s Officer Kate Murphy in Boston. I’m putting you on speakerphone, hold on,” she placed her phone on the table in front of everyone and hit the button.

  “Can you hear me?” Kate asked.

  “Yes, what’s going on?” asked Sheriff Wallace.

  “Your John Doe. Could you share every little detail you found out about Montague’s birth records and hospital records? Everything you know?” Kate asked.

  “Sure. As I already told you, birth and adoption records led me nowhere. No sign of a twin brother. Then I tried to get a copy of the hospital records, and I reached another dead end,” the sheriff said. “He was born in a small town called Flagstone, and half the town burned to the ground in 1973. The fire unfortunately included the hospital and all of their records. As far as I can tell, that was before they could transfer the records to microfiche or anything, so I got nothing. I tried calling Montague again, but he hasn’t returned any of my calls. Other things have come up, so I haven’t gotten around to closing that case.”

  “Sheriff, Detective Lieutenant Fuller here. Your John Doe could be an important part of our investigation. We’ll follow up with Montague here, in person, but could you initiate a transfer and send the body to our morgue here in Boston?”

  There was a momentary pause before the sheriff answered. “I’m afraid he’s been buried already.”

  “What?” Fuller exclaimed.

  Kate was surprised as well, but not angry like Fuller seemed to be.

  “Little room here, and we got another body. Some old lady took pity on the man when she saw him on the evening news. No relations or anything. Just filthy rich and felt it was wrong for anyone to not get a proper burial, so she forked out the money, organized it all, and it freed our morgue.”

  Fuller growled. “Dig him up.”

  “No can do, I’m afraid.”

  “We’ll fill out the required paperwork, just send it to us.”

  Fuller proceeded to give the sheriff his fax number and said he’d be in touch. Kate pressed the icon to end the call and returned the phone to her pocket.

  “Montague. Okay, let’s make this our third official case. Rosebud and Chainey, track him down. Wang, go upstairs to get a warrant and meet up with them. Take him in for questioning again, get his birth certificate if he has a copy of it. Get his parents’ address and phone number.”

  “And me?” Kate asked.

  “Man the phones,” Fuller ordered, smirking.

  Although the task itself was demeaning, Kate beamed with pride. After all, it was her idea that had unblocked the real detectives.

  Between calls, Kate refilled the paper tray and sorted the pages coming out of the fax machine. She finally received the form the sheriff had sent for exhuming the body. She also found the one they’d need to transfer the exhumed body to their jurisdiction.

  She photocopied both, in case she made a mistake, then proceeded to fill them out the best she could. The sheriff had already entered some information, so she added the rest. She was about to send it when the other detectives came back.

  “No twin brother,” Wang said, hand raised, ready to be high-fived.

  Kate’s palm met hers. “Good! Could you look at this before I send it out?” Kate handed Wang the paperwork she’d just filled out.

  “Looks good, Kate.” She added a small note and passed it back. “Fax it to them right away.”

  Kate looked at the clock: 6:30 p.m. Sheriff Wallace had probably already left his office. She fed the machine, entered the fax number, and sent it. Then she called him and left a voicemail, just to make sure he’d check his machine.

  By the time 7 p.m. rolled around, Fuller called a meeting for everyone. Even Capt. Cranston was in attendance. Although Dr. Davis had yet to find abnormalities with the two cloned bodies she had in her morgue, and the third body had yet to arrive, they had everything they needed to support their claim about cloning.

  “Okay, folks,” the district commander started, a large smile on his tired face. “Excellent work. Expect all hell to break loose now. I’ll go and call in the Feds. As discussed yesterday, this case is
on a strict ‘need-to-know’ basis. Keep it under wraps. I expect they’ll just take over, but they may want to interview each one of us tomorrow morning, so meet up here at 8 a.m.”

  Kate was exhausted but had never experienced such a high in her work life. Is this what real detective work felt like? If so, she had an insatiable craving for more.

  At least twenty FBI agents were dispatched to their station, and from what Kate could see, all of them were men. So much for the equality ratio. The district commander hadn’t lied about what to expect. It felt like chaos had taken over their case.

  When Kate arrived in the conference room, Luke was talking with an old man in a white lab coat. He had a gray beard and wore tiny round glasses. The older man even had a pocket protector to hold his pens. Kate smiled and wondered if that’s what Luke would look like thirty years from now.

  The two of them walked toward her, likely on their way out of the room. Luke winked at Kate as he passed by and she realized his hair was messy just like she’d dared him to wear it.

  “Hey,” she said, smiling as they crossed paths.

  Kate was interviewed by three different FBI agents at once; each seemed to have a different specialty. Although they were on the same side here, the interview felt like she was being grilled, like she’d been caught doing something wrong.

  By the time 5 p.m. rolled around, Kate’s head was spinning. She was getting ready to leave and looking forward to going home to her private retreat where nobody would be around. She’d had enough of a “social bath” for today. Too many people. Too many conversations. She was drained.

  “Wallflower, before you go,” Fuller said, grabbing her by the arm and handing over a file. “Fill these out.”

  “What is it?”

  “Paperwork. You got to play with the big detectives on this one, so here’s where you thank us back. Fill these out. I want them completed tonight before you go. Slide the file under my door since I’m leaving; my office will be locked.”

  Kate kept quiet. She flipped through the file and saw one blank report form with a Post-It Note that read, “Five copies.”

  “Why five?”

  “We need a statement from you and each of us real detectives. Look at the form number online. Make them sound a little different, so they don’t look like they were written by the same person. Print them, sign yours and slide all five of them under my door. We’ll review and sign them in the morning. Better make them good and complete, or you’ll have to redo them tomorrow.”

  She wanted to tell him to go fuck himself, but who was she? She had enjoyed playing along with them, doing real detective work. So instead, she kept quiet, smiled, then headed to the lunchroom with her laptop. The room was empty, so she could at least concentrate. Next stop: coffee machine. She was going to be here for another three hours, so she’d definitely need the extra mental fuel.

  Chapter Nineteen

  July 30, 2015

  Christopher Kirk

  The Colony

  “Turn on the telly. We may see tonight’s kill on the news,” Christopher said, popping his head out of the fridge for a second to look at Stéphane, who was sitting crossed-legged at the end of the dining room table, his head tilted to the left as he scribbled something into a notebook.

  Christopher grabbed a wedge of Brie and some red grapes then closed the stainless steel door with his foot.

  Stéphane put down his book and reached for the remote. “What is your channel of choice?”

  “The one with the blonde lassie with the full lips. Don’t mind looking at her. She’s real fit and gets my imagination going.”

  Christopher took out the wooden cutting board and placed the cheese on it. He rinsed the grapes and put them on a paper towel in a bowl then brought the snacks to the dining room table. He grabbed the baguette that Stéphane had baked earlier and added it to the selection before kicking his boots off and setting his feet on the table.

  Stéphane turned on the TV then rummaged through the bottles in the corner bar. “Beverage?”

  “Scotch. Why don’t we crack open that thirty-three-year-old GlenDronach?”

  “Excellent choix,” he said in French, grabbing the unopened bottle, two tumblers, and a glass of water. He poured an inch of Scotch into each then dipped his finger into the water to collect a drop before letting one fall into each glass.

  He handed Christopher his drink. “Feet off the table. You know the rules.”

  “Nothing to get wound up about,” Christopher said before obeying.

  Stéphane raised his Scotch toward him, “To nearly twenty years of hard work that is starting to pay off, finally.”

  “Cheers,” Christopher said, clinking his drink against Stéphane’s. “The best is yet to come. Hope our chap makes us proud tonight,” he said, pointing his chin toward the television.

  Stéphane grabbed a few grapes and looked around the table, his hand feeling the edge of the cutting board.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “A knife,” Stéphane said.

  Christopher reached down his leg and pulled his Busse Combat Battle Mistress knife out of its protective holder, threw it up in the air, and then caught the handle as it came down, blade facing him. He handed the handle to Stéphane across the table. “Here’s one.”

  “Did you wash it?”

  “What?”

  “I don’t want to develop a taste for blood. I know what you do with your knives.”

  “Of course, I washed it.”

  The news was almost over, and while the fundraiser their clone attended was mentioned, the senator’s death hadn’t been.

  Stéphane glanced at his watch. “Well, it’s 10:25 p.m. The party’s just getting started. It may not happen until later. Maybe we’ll hear about it on the eleven o’clock news.”

  The end of his sentence was punctuated with footsteps coming their way.

  Both men turned toward the clickety-clack of approaching heels. Christopher had fallen in love with the long-legged woman who wore them before Stéphane had married her. A “classy closet whore with Einstein’s IQ” was how Christopher had first described her, although never to her face.

  He enjoyed watching her approach, her magenta dress flowing around her, and her fast pace allowing the fabric to wrap around her curvy figure. She wore a thick black belt around her slim waist, which accentuated her giant knockers. The dress’s scoop neckline showed just enough bouncing cleavage to send him back to his university days. Those humongous breasts. They had given him everything a man could ever want. Comfort, beauty, so much to grab, soft and delicate skin, her nipples pointing to the sky when she rode him, arching her back. Fucking her for a six-month stint had been the highlight of his Harvard days. So perverse, yet so kind. She still haunted his wet dreams.

  “Evening, Juliet,” he said.

  “Good evening, Christopher,” she replied, smiling as she passed, before kissing her husband on the lips. She grabbed a grape, tossed it upward, and caught it in her mouth.

  “I’m heading to bed, honey. I’ll check the Colony on my way.”

  “Oui, c’est parfait, prends ton temps,” he said, suggesting there was plenty of time. “We hope to watch the live coverage.”

  “Boys will be boys. Enjoy the limelight.”

  “Good night,” Christopher said, watching her leave the room, her hips swaying, and her long legs conjuring even more flashbacks of the crazy sex they’d had.

  Chapter Twenty

  July 30, 2015

  Juliet Jackson

  The Colony

  Once she reached the mud room, Juliet took the elevator to the underground level. The doors opened to a small control room that led to an area expansive enough to play football, if it hadn’t been for all the pods that occupied the space, along with the wires and tubes that connected them to the floor and ceiling.

  She traded her shoes for the smallest pair of rubber boots that rested on the shoe rack. The open-grid flooring was no place to wear heels, espec
ially not stilettos.

  She stepped into the Incubator. At first, the endless rows of experimental wombs had freaked her out, their transparent membranes showing the development of the fetuses inside them, with blood vessels working their way around the artificial wombs. The pods worked like the real human parts. Clean blood fed them from the tube connections above, and, after flowing through each pod, the same blood got flushed down through the attachment at the bottom. There were other tubes, as well. One served to regulate the temperature, others were connected to sensors to keep track of vitals.

  Because there was no body responsible for carrying these fetuses, she and Stéphane had managed to keep them in their artificial wombs for two years.

  The birth was always messy. She’d only attended one and hadn’t managed to stand the sight of it. It had become the guys’ job to birth their babies and dispose of those who died before term. A foot below the grid flooring, whatever liquids were discharged during these events merged and followed a slanted subfloor that drained into a large tank. The guys had never told her what they did with the dark brown sludge. A river ran a couple of miles south of the Colony, and the water was always clear whenever she went swimming in it, so she doubted they’d routed it there. She’d never seen a dump truck or any vehicle come to empty the tank, but that was probably good. How would they have explained the contents anyway? Juliet suspected their bloodthirsty guard dogs drank it. There were things she was happy not to know.

  She placed her hand on the womb to her left. She had grown accustomed to the sack’s rubbery feel and its pulsating rhythm that synced with the Mother’s heartbeat. She took out her phone and connected to their music system wirelessly to play a tranquil Chopin nocturne.

  She returned her hand to the womb and spoke to it softly. “Hi, little one. There’s a big world out there, waiting for you to shine. You’ll soon be out, and you’ll join our family. We’re all very excited.”