by MK Alexander
My thoughts then turned to Inspector Fynn. Something was weird about this guy to say the least. How the hell could he have known about the old county files? He would be my next task. I’d search the internet for anything that could be found. On my way downstairs a thought struck me. I continued across the landing and walked to the basement door. I peered down the steps. There was a light on and I could hear music blasting through tiny headphones. I called out: “Jason?”
The was a long delay. I heard some scuffling noises, a chair moving and feet hitting the floor.
“Jason?” I called out again.
“Hey, Mr Patrick. I didn’t know anybody was here.” A figure appeared at the basement door. Jason was about twenty-two, just out of college, tall, and very presentable. He had short brown hair, gold framed glasses, and an oddly sullen personality. “What’s up?” he asked. His expression was glum as usual. He rarely smiled.
“Hey Jason… how are you? Update went okay?”
He nodded.
“Listen, I need your help on something.”
Jason made a face. “What, the Treasure Hunt thing? It’s going to be a pain in the butt to do.”
I agreed with a look. “I know… for you and me both. Can’t we do it in Flash?”
“Flash? I wish… no, all the f--king tourists have iPads— no flash— going to have to use html five. I’m telling you, it’s a nightmare scenario, if—”
“Um, it’s not really about that,” I cut him off, knowing he might talk for another ten minutes on the subject.
“Oh,” he said.
“If I wanted to find somebody on a passenger list, you know, like on a flight… is there a way?”
Jason almost smiled. “Sure, I can do that.”
“Can you show me?”
“It’s easier if I do it myself.”
I considered this for a moment and felt my options narrowing. “Okay, that’d be great…” I took out my notebook and jotted down a name. “This guy… he probably flew in from Amsterdam, or maybe any other big city in Europe. Say within the last two weeks.” I paused. “Make that, within the last month…”
“Tractus Fynn,” Jason read the name. “Where did he land? You got a passport number? A photo?”
“No, that’s all I’ve got… he could have landed at any major hub: Logan, JFK, Philly, I don’t know. I don’t have a picture either, but he’s an old guy, maybe seventy.”
“Okay, I’ll do it now.”
“That’s what I like about you, Jason.”
“What?”
“You always say that: ‘I’ll do it now’ … and you do. Thanks.”
Jason looked at me. “I’ll shoot you an email.”
“Later.”
I decided to drive over to see my buddy Eddie, at Fish City Seafood, the wholesale packing plant. It was a ten minute ride down Long Neck to the Marina. Eddie Hernandez usually worked the second shift, seven to three, and we were pretty tight. He plays a mean bass and we had jammed together more than once. I forgave his one obvious failing: an over-devotional attachment towards the Who. The Who? Not my favorite band of all times. I saw his monster truck in the parking lot and pulled in beside it. Not fair to call it a monster truck, I guess. It was really just a pickup with huge tires. Like a lot of Sand City locals, he had a permit to drive along the ocean beaches. Something about riparian rights. This was his four by four.
His story came to mind as well, not a story that ever made it into the Chronicle, but he was very fond of telling it: A few years back Eddie was out on a trawler, working the banks with his uncle, I think. They were way off-shore, and hauled up a giant bluefin, maybe five hundred pounds. A call comes up on their radio, a mayday from a Japanese factory boat. “Shit, we could beat the Coast Guard there no problem,” he told me more than once. Turns out there was no problem, no mayday anyhow, but it was a good enough excuse to drift into the two hundred mile exclusion zone. It would take some time for a cutter to actually get there. The Japanese crew was happy to take that tuna off Eddie’s hands for forty-thousand dollars. Forty grand for a fish? Alright, it was a big fish. I was always a little dubious. Do Japanese fishing boats always carry that much cash? Was that yen or dollars?
“Hey Eddie,” I said as I opened the door to his tiny paneled office.
He was sitting with his feet up, mindlessly watching a television set mounted from the ceiling.
“Whoa, Jardel… long time. What’s up, my man?”
“Not much. Working hard?”
“Hard as I can.”
“I need a favor.”
“More fish sticks?”
“No, no thanks. I’m good, but I need your expert opinion for a story I’m working on.”
“Expert opinion, huh? What, like who’s the greatest bass player of all time?”
“Ah no.” I laughed. “More along the lines of frozen food.”
“Frozen food?”
“It’s simple really. How long can you keep something frozen?”
“What do you mean, how long?”
“I mean weeks, months… years…?”
“I dunno, forever, I guess… so long as your freezer is cold enough.” He sat up suddenly. “Want to see?”
“Huh?”
“Take a stroll…” Eddie reached behind the door for an arctic parka and handed me one as well. He led me through a narrow corridor out past the loading bays. I heard some machines clattering repetitively in the background. He took me to one of two giant freezers. “Better zip up,” Eddie warned and pulled his hood up over his crazy curly hair. A blast of numbingly cold air hit us hard when he opened the giant door. There was an odd smell inside, and the hairs in my nose froze instantly. It was seemingly very dry.
“We got this baby set at thirty below. Everything in here is frozen like a rock.” Eddie picked up what looked like half a fish wrapped in plastic and dropped it to on the floor. It didn’t exactly bounce, but it didn’t shatter either. He picked it up and tossed it to me. “Hard as a rock, see?”
He was right. It was. “How long can you keep it like this?”
“Long as you want, so long as the juice stays on.”
“Right… What happened with the storm when we lost power for three days?”
Eddie gave me a look, almost a panicked look. “That was bad. We could’ve lost our whole inventory. But the bossman gave the orders: Don’t open the freezer door for nothing. He locked it up tight and then brought in a couple of generators the next day. Everything was fine.”
“You guys should have a back up, like batteries, or... a solar panel or something.”
Eddie nodded his head. I’m not sure he was even listening.
“How long does it take to thaw something out?”
“You with your questions…” Eddie paused to consider. “I guess that depends…”
“Depends on what?”
“How big your fish is, and how hot it is.”
“Say... room temperature… and a big tuna, like a hundred pounds or so.”
“I dunno, two or three days, maybe?” He turned to me. “These are weird questions, dude. What kind of story are you writing?”
“For the Chronicle.”
“I figured that.”
“Well thanks for the info, Eddie.”
“Hey, did you talk to Murray?”
“Not yet.”
“Are you going up Thursday… open mic?”
“Might.”
“I was thinking about coming, bringing my standup bass. We could do that tune of yours… the one we jammed on before.”
“Yeah, that’d be cool.”
“Okay. Later.”
I got back to my apartment around nine. I’d forgotten to eat dinner and looked in my own freezer. Not much at hand. The refrigerator was even emptier. Fish sticks? I asked myself but couldn’t bring my stomach around. Luckily I found a frozen spinach lasagna entree hidden in the back. I crammed it into the microwave then turned my attention to Chief Inspector Tractus Fynn. Couldn’t hurt to
do a little research. First, I found a bad Wiki page. Incomplete and not up to standards: Amsterdam Police, Second prefecture, awarded Interpol Investigator of the year, 2011… Fynn seemed to be a detective with the National Crime Squad, or a Captain, a Chief Inspector in the Special Investigative Services. Aside from the usual biographical information, there was a startling lack of objectivity on the page. It almost seemed like the editor was out to get him, or impugn his credentials…
The word aspersion came to mind, as in casting them. I had no luck tracking the sources. There was nothing on Facebook— no surprise there. No Twitter feed either. His Linked-In profile was rather sparse; in fact, he hadn’t connected to a single person. Then I found a more obscure listing on EuroTrader-dot-org. It seemed to be in Dutch and the auto translator was not all that effective. I could recognize the word dilettante, and something about uncanny investment abilities. Nonetheless, it said nothing good about this guy, and even claimed that he was a fraud, an impostor. I couldn’t make out exactly what that meant.
My next project was a little more complicated. I gathered all the photos I had. I scanned in what I needed quickly enough and started with Jane Doe number two. I singled out three crime scene shots from yesterday: a profile, a full frontal face, and an angled shot. I compared these with what I had from the county records and from the old issues of the Chronicle. I brought all the pictures into Photoshop. After a little resizing, a little rotating, and playing with the layers, I got them to match up perfectly. I super-imposed the shots on each other, taking special care to align them by the eyes. The final result: an exact match… eye to eye, chin to chin, freckle to freckle. Jane Doe number two was Debra Helling. Impossible.
I didn’t have as much to work from for the first victim. Still, Clara’s face from 1975 also seemed to be a near match to Jane Doe number one. I’d have to call Durbin, but then I started thinking about Clara’s dog, Roxy. I reached for my phone and dialed the animal shelter. A recording answered. Damn. Why am I not surprised? It’s almost ten o’clock. I was about to disconnect when the message machine was interrupted by someone picking up.
“Patrick?’ the voice asked.
“Yeah, hey… this is Patrick…”
“It’s me, Alyson.”
“Alyson, how are you?” Oh my god, Alyson, I thought. We had a brief but passionate fling last season. She was a waitress at the Oyster Bar. Dark, pretty, voluptuous, and if I recalled correctly, kind of skittish. She was one of the few people who had seen the inside of my apartment.
“I’m good… saw your caller ID, so I picked up.” She giggled nervously.
“I had no idea you worked at the shelter now.”
“Oh… yeah, about three months. So, what’s up? Why are you calling? Not to talk to me, I’m guessing.”
“Alyson… how can you say that?”
She giggled again. “I know you all too well, Patrick.”
“Huh, okay, I am surprised you picked up— but I’m glad, really.”
“Patrick, what do you want? I’m closing up now and I need to go home to bed.”
“Sorry darling, and yes, I do have a question.”
“What?” she asked impatiently.
“Um... any strays picked up in the last couple of weeks?”
“Strays?”
“Yeah.”
“Just the one.”
“Not a yorkshire terrier by any chance?”
“Well yeah… why is he yours?”
“No, not mine… Alyson, can you do me a huge favor?”
“What now?”
“Just go to his cage and say, Roxy.”
“What?”
“Roxy. See if he answers to that name.”
“Alright, but this is weird. Hang on.” The line went dead for a couple of minutes. In the meantime my email chimed. It was Jason. He had found Inspector Fynn on a flight manifest. I was starting to read the details when Alyson came back to the line. “Well, I’ll be damned. His name is Roxy.”
“Are you sure?”
“He turned his head to the side, pricked up his ears and started barking.”
“No way.”
“But this is very weird, Patrick.”
“What?”
“I’m looking at his collar.”
“And?”
“And he has a license from nineteen seventy-five.”
“Are you sure?”
“Maybe it’s a retro-chic thing. I gotta show this to Doctor Samuels.”
“Does it say anything else?”
“His name… oh, and on the back, the owner: Clara Hobbs, Fourteen Breezy Way… that’s in the Village.”
“Wow.”
“What’s this about?”
“Oh, just a story…”
“Do you know the owner?”
“Sort of… all I can say is she won’t be picking up Roxy anytime soon.”
“Too bad, he’s a cute little guy, looks like a mini Chubaka.”
“Who?”
“The famous wookie…”
I tried to think what she meant. There was an awkward pause.
“Is that it?” she asked.
“I guess. But thanks, Alyson, thanks a lot. Maybe we could hook up for lunch or coffee or something.”
“I’d like that. Why don’t you give me a call tomorrow?”
“Definitely. Hey, talk to you later, and thanks again.”
As soon as I hung up I turned my attention to Jason’s email. There it was, Tractus Fynn, passenger on KLM flight 6051. Arrival, JFK, February 28. Jason, with his ruthless efficiency, also added rental car records and a hotel booking. It seems the inspector had been staying at the Fairhaven Holiday Inn since March second. I immediately called Eleanor Woods and sincerely hoped she hadn’t retired for the evening. I needed Durbin’s home phone.
“Hey detective, sorry for calling so late,” I said hesitantly. I had never called his house before in eight years. “Um, Eleanor gave me your number.” I could hear the muffled sound of a little kid crying in the background.
“Patrick?” Durbin asked and seemed very surprised. “What’s up?”
“Did you talk to the inspector yet?”
“Fynn? No, not since this morning.”
“He didn’t call you?”
“No… what’s up?”
“Wow, I don’t know where to start… we went through missing persons, nineteen seventy-five, nineteen seventy-six, and we found a match, two matches… and there’s a third girl—”
“What the hell are you talking about, Jardel?”
“A match. The photos... they match your victims.”
There was along silence on the other end of the line.
“You still there?”
“I’m here. I’m just not understanding what you’re saying. How can there be a match? It’s impossible.”
“That’s what I thought too.” I laughed nervously. “Let me ask you a question.”
“What?” the detective shot back, clearly annoyed.
“Jane Doe number one… the crime scene— any dog prints show up? Like, really small paw prints?”
“How the hell did you know that, Jardel?” Durbin asked almost with anger. “We never released that to the press.”
Given his response, I decided not to use Roxy as my lead. I changed tacks. “Well, I’ve been doing a little research and came up with a few things that you should probably know about.”
“What, these murders?”
“Yeah that, and about this inspector.”
“Can’t it wait till tomorrow?”
“I guess… when are you meeting with him again?”
“In the morning, around nine thirty.”
I paused. “Then you should know now... or at least before you see him again.”
“What’s this about?”
“It’s a little complicated.”
“Go on…”
“Okay well, first on the murders. I did this Photoshop thing on the last victim.”
“Photoshop thing?�
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“Yeah, I matched the missing person’s photo to the one I took yesterday at the scene. Super-imposed one face onto the other.”
“And?”
“It’s the same person. I’m absolutely sure. Their faces match exactly, freckle to freckle.”
“Where are you going with this?”
“Not sure, but I thought it was important.”
“I guess it is, but how do you explain it? Assuming you’re correct.”
“I can only come up with two good explanations.”
“And they are?”
“Don’t laugh…” I did, nervously. “They’re either clones, or their bodies were frozen for thirty-odd years.”
“What the f---, Patrick?”
“I know, I know— sounds crazy, right? But how else can you explain it?”
“You could be wrong.”
“I’m not, I promise.” I paused. “How about Doc Hackney, the coroner? Did he find anything weird?”
“Like what?”
“Like maybe freezer burn?”
“What the hell?
“I’m grasping at straws here. I can’t really explain—”
“Alright, thanks Patrick.” Durbin cut me short. “I’m gonna have to sleep on this.”
“Wait, there’s something else.”
“Like that’s not enough?”
“It’s about the inspector.”
“What about him?”
“I did some checking on this Fynn guy.”
“And?”
“Well, I’m not sure he’s who he says he is.”
“What the hell do you mean?”
“Did you check his ID and everything?”
There was a long silence. “No, actually I didn’t give it a close look. I just assumed…” his voice trailed off.
“Okay well, the thing is, I checked the flights, the passenger lists.”
“And?”
“Inspector Fynn arrived here over two weeks ago. He’s been staying at the Fairhaven Holiday Inn ever since March second.”
“Holy crap.”