by K. J. Emrick
Grace exchanged a glance with her. “I have to agree with Darcy,” she said. The family gift was nowhere near as strong in Grace. If Darcy had a river of paranormal abilities running through her, Grace’s gift was a drop in the bucket by comparison. She was a very talented police officer even without the gift, and she didn’t always have to sense things to be right. “Charlie’s guilty of aiding and abetting a kidnapping, if nothing else. Using a stolen debit card, too, even if his explanation means it was for a good reason.”
“That’s right,” Wilson added. “To have that poor girl in his basement all that time and not say or do anything to help? Makes him a criminal in my book.”
They could speak freely out here without worrying about Charlie hearing them inside. The room was soundproof for a reason. Darcy watched him through the window again, still hunched over the table, his shoulders shaking as he cried. What was it that bothered her about what he’d said? It did kind of make sense, even if it didn’t completely fit what they knew. Maybe they had to look at things differently. Change their perspective somehow.
“That’s all true,” Jon was saying. He rubbed at his temple, thinking as he talked. “I think we have to arrest him for what happened, regardless of whatever else comes out of this. I mean, Samuel didn’t just show up one night and lock Annie away in a convenient room set up for just that reason. That room had to be built ahead of time, and that chain sunk into the concrete, and that all points to premeditation. Charlie’s still not telling us the whole story.”
Darcy knew that was true. Something was missing. Something that should have been obvious to her but wasn’t. Something right in front of her face.
What was it?
“For now,” Jon continued, “we’re going to treat him like a victim in all of this, too. He was terrorized by his brother, forced to keep Annie in the basement. We’re going to need his written statement before anyone even mentions charges, or he’ll likely clam up again. He’s in a pretty fragile emotional state. After that we’ll put out a warrant for Samuel Huntsman, if we can find a judge that will understand this tangled web.”
Something Jon said caught Darcy’s attention. Fragile emotional state. That described Charlie, all right. Described him to a T. What else could you say about someone who wore a windbreaker and those gloves in the middle of a heatwave. Someone terrorized by his twin brother, maybe all of his life. His mother too based on what he’d just said in the interview. Just when he’d had enough of it and moved him and his girlfriend hundreds of miles to get away from his brother’s abuse, his twin shows up and starts the terror all over again…
That was it!
Darcy stepped closer to the window. She peered in at Charlie. Change her perspective, she’d told herself. They just needed to change their perspective to see this case clearly.
She took two steps to her left, changing the angle she had on Charlie, sitting there in the room, hands in his lap, head on the table.
And then she saw it.
“Jon,” she said, interrupting whatever he’d been about to say. “Do you have the death certificate for Samuel Huntsman in that folder? The one that said he died in the hospital?”
“What? Sure I do, but like I said we need to have the hospital explain those discrepancies yet. No way did Samuel die in childbirth if he’s been here, keeping Annie locked away in a room.”
“I know. That’s my point.”
She accepted the folder from him, and flipped through until she saw the death certificate with the official hospital seal in the corner. She scanned through it until she found what she was looking for. Then she turned it for Jon to see and tapped her finger against that one line.
Cause of Death: Severe Birth Defects.
Chapter 11
They were back in the interview room twenty minutes later. Even though Charlie had said he didn’t want a glass of water, Jon figured he’d bring one anyway. Something had told him the man was going to need it. After Darcy had explained everything she had figured out, and they had seen the answers start to unravel, Jon made the comment that when this was all over, he was going to need something a lot stronger than water.
But right now, he was on duty.
They took their seats in the interview room again. Jon put the glass of water down in front of Charlie as he lifted his head up again. This time he’d left the case folder outside. He had a yellow notepad with him instead, with several pages filled with a handwritten version of Charlie’s confession, ready for him to read and sign.
“All right,” Jon said, all business as usual. “Let’s go over this again.”
Charlie rubbed the wet tears away from his eyes with the heel of one hand. “Chief, I don’t know what else to tell you. You need to stop Samuel. He needs to be stopped before he hurts someone else.”
Jon’s expression showed an almost comical surprise at that statement. “Has Samuel ever hurt you before, Charles?”
“Yes, I’m embarrassed to say. He’s deranged. We’re like the old story of Cain and Abel in the Bible. One good twin, one bad twin. Samuel has tormented me all my life. Made my life a living hell. He knew I liked Annie first, but he still had to take her from me and the only way I got her back was when he… when he…”
His voice trailed off, and he blinked at them, like he’d forgotten the question.
“Disappeared,” Jon supplied for him. “That’s what happened, wasn’t it? He disappeared after an argument with Annie. He disappeared and you moved in. She began dating you right after that.”
“Yeah. That’s right.”
“But then, she reported him missing.”
Charlie shifted uncomfortably. “Yes. I mean, I guess so. That’s what you guys said she did. She never told me that. She loves me, you know. She loves me. She wouldn’t want Samuel back.”
Jon didn’t argue that point. In fact, he sort of ignored it. “So, the brother that had been a problem for both you and Annie had disappeared, you were with the girl of your dreams, and everything should have been perfect back in Boston. So why’d you move?”
“Uh. What?”
“Why did you come to Misty Hollow? If things were finally looking up for you in Boston why’d you come here?”
“Uh, uh, uh,” he stuttered, but not like he was stalling. It seemed to Darcy like he was honestly trying to remember the answer… which fit with what she had figured out. “Uh. We just wanted to get away. My brother was missing but Annie kept saying that she knew he was coming back. She knew he wasn’t done with us. We were still in danger.”
“Then why did she call the police to report Samuel missing? Wouldn’t she want him gone, too?”
He blinked rapidly for a moment. He grabbed the glass of water in his one shaky hand, keeping the other fisted in his lap. Half the glass was gone before he put it down again. “I don’t know why she was looking for Samuel,” he said at last.
Darcy blew out a loud breath between her lips, making it intentionally noisy. “Jon, don’t waste your time. We’re obviously talking to the stupid brother. No wonder Samuel took Annie away from him.”
Charlie blinked at her. His hand jittered on the table. “That’s not… that’s not fair. Samuel didn’t take Annie from me. I took her from him.”
“Oh, sure. I’m supposed to believe that?” Darcy looked at him with disdain. “What could Annie possibly see in a guy like you? You’re pathetic. You couldn’t even keep Annie safe in a town like Misty Hollow. No wonder Samuel picked on you. You’re weak.”
“What are you…?” He looked from her to Jon, obviously waiting for Jon to stop this.
But Jon didn’t say a word. He let her continue.
“Don’t look at him. Look at me. I’m just saying what’s true.” Darcy folded her arms, and leaned back in her chair, and glared at him. “You’re a loser. You’re a failure. If Samuel was here, he’d put you in your place, wouldn’t he? You know he would. He’d protect Annie.”
“No… no you’re wrong.”
“He’d keep her saf
e.”
“Stop it. Stop it. No!”
Darcy didn’t stop it. She pushed harder. “The only one who Annie could depend on was Samuel, wasn’t he?”
“No. No. No…”
His eyes narrowed and his eyebrows scrunched down tightly. Every muscle in his body tensed.
“You’re nothing,” Darcy told Charlie. “Samuel is the one Annie needs. He’s the one she wanted. She’s lying in a hospital bed and no one’s there to help her because you’re here, and we need Samuel!”
Charlie launched himself up from his seat.
“You want Samuel!” he screamed.
Then he raised both of his hands and slammed them down on the table.
“Then here I am!”
There was hatred in his eyes. His chest heaved with every breath as he turned his glare on Darcy.
“You leave Charlie alone.” His voice had changed. It was deeper, rougher… darker. “He’s not here. He’s not a part of this. He’s weak. Useless. He couldn’t keep Annie safe. Only I can do that. Annie is mine, do you hear me? No one gets to take her away from me. Not that idiot brother of mine, and not you!”
His left hand jabbed a finger in her direction.
Darcy stepped back.
His right hand slammed the table again…
Where it hit the metal top of the table, Samuel’s right fist cracked, and fell off his wrist. A leather strap attached to the glove on that side hung limply now, and pieces of a ceramic casting that perfectly matched his skin tone scattered to the floor. It was a perfect representation of a hand. It would have been unnoticeable… if it hadn’t just broken apart.
Samuel Huntsman had been born with severe birth defects, after all.
Including a missing right hand.
“Are you trying to tell me,” Grace said, standing in a corner of Jon’s office with her arms firmly crossed, “that this guy has been walking around town all this time with just one hand and nobody noticed? Nobody?”
“He had us fooled,” Darcy had to admit. She crossed her legs as she resettled herself in the chair. “He came to our house twice, and sure he kept his right hand in a fist the whole time but I really didn’t think anything about it. It was a really expensive prosthetic. It was made to look real, and he knew how to use it like it was real. He balanced the pizza boxes on his fist, he kept that hand in his lap or in the pocket of his windbreaker… he’s lived this way for so long that he knows how to make it look real.”
“Just like Morgan Freeman,” Jon added, giving Darcy a secret smile.
“Morgan Freeman has a fake hand?” Wilson Barton asked. He was standing in front of the door, leaning his back against it. He was having as much trouble as anyone keeping up with what had just happened. “Okay, yeah, I know that’s not the point. So Samuel’s been without his hand long enough to fake it. How long is that?”
“Years,” Jon said. He was sitting behind his desk, filling out paperwork as he and Darcy explained the mystery to Grace and Wilson. They hadn’t gotten very far, but then again there was a lot to explain this time. “It probably helped that he was living here now, where no one knew him. That made it easier to fake it. His real hand got cut off years ago. That’s why it looked the way it did when Darcy found it. Weathered and… what was the word you used, Darcy?”
“Desiccated,” she reminded him.
“Right. That. See, this is what happens when your wife owns a bookstore. You learn big words.”
“You need all the help you can get,” Grace kidded him. “Now, can we get back to this mystery, please? I got to tell you, sis. That was pretty horrible, watching you goad Charlie in the interview room like that to make him switch personalities. Charlie. Samuel. Which is it? I’m still confused. Who exactly is the one-handed guy sitting back there in our holding cell?”
“Samuel Huntsman,” Jon said.
At the same time that Darcy said, “Charlie Huntsman.”
Wilson snickered and looked down at his shoes. “Well, that just clears it right up, don’t it?”
Grace actually threw her hands up in the air. “Not unless you were listening to a completely different conversation than I was. Come on, guys. Fill us in, already.”
Darcy looked over at Jon. He motioned to her to begin. “Go ahead. You figured this out. I’m not sure anyone else has the handle on it that you do.”
“Ugh,” Grace groaned. “No more hand puns, please.”
Darcy organized her thoughts before she began. All of the clues were there but she knew that some of it needed a little more explaining. “Okay. Let’s start with this. The death certificate for Samuel Huntsman.”
“Yeah, what about that?” Grace asked. “This guy was supposed to be dead at childbirth. Now he’s all grown up and in our holding cell? How does that happen?”
Darcy didn’t have all of the details for this, but she knew the broad strokes. “Imagine this scenario. A mother gives birth to twins. One of the babies is strong and thrives. The other one, sadly, is born with severe birth defects and doesn’t live for very long once it enters the world. Those babies were Charlie and Samuel Huntsman. Charlie lives. Samuel dies. His death devastates his mother and she takes it out on Charlie for the rest of his life. He mentioned in the interview that she was a mean woman. Either intentionally or not, she gave Charlie a complex that he hasn’t ever gotten rid of.”
“Which,” Wilson said, “is what you were doing in the interview room. You pressed Charlie’s buttons to expose his mental instability.”
“Yes.” Darcy cringed at the memory of her own actions. She hated doing that to Charlie. It went against everything she believed in to say things that cruel to anyone, even someone like him. But, at the same time, it was the only way they could be sure to bring out his other side.
Grace was getting the picture now, too. “So Charlie grows up hearing what a loser he is, and what a wonderful person his brother would have been, stuff like that, and one day his mind just snaps. He starts thinking that maybe he’s really Samuel Huntsman. Maybe he’s the good twin, and he doesn’t have to be loser Charlie anymore.”
“Exactly,” Jon said. “His brother would have been given a birth certificate along with the death certificate because he was still a live birth, even if he died shortly after. If Charlie got his hands on that birth certificate then he would be able to apply for things like a driver’s license and a social security card in Samuel’s name, and all of that. He was actually creating a life for his brother. The brother he was going to become. At least, part time.”
“Part time?” Wilson asked.
Darcy nodded, and took up the explanation again. “What we just witnessed confirms something else Jon and I were assuming. Charlie switches back and forth between personalities. When he’s Charlie, he wears the hand. When he’s Samuel, he doesn’t. That and the voice change are how we can tell the two personalities apart. So he’ll go for long periods of time being one brother or the other. When Annie first met him, he was Samuel, a man who had been born with birth defects. They started dating. She might have even met him as Charlie sometimes and never made the connection. At least, not at first.”
“But how,” Grace asked, “did Charlie lose his hand? Oh. You don’t think…?”
“That he cut his own hand off?” Jon finished for her. “Yes. We’re sure of it. He had to cut it off to match what he knew of his brother. The prosthetic is expensive looking but there’s shops that specialize in that. With the falsified IDs and the ability to remove his right hand, his mind could switch back and forth from brother to brother.”
“I can’t even imagine,” Grace said. “Cutting off your own hand? Suffering that kind of pain to become someone you’re not… this guy’s a few crayons short of a rainbow, isn’t he?”
Wilson snapped his fingers. “So that’s why the prints on the hand came back to Samuel! He and Charlie are twins. Twins have the same fingerprints.”
Everyone in the room stared at him, until he finally realized what he’d just said. “Uh, well
.” He cleared his throat. “Plus, the hand actually belonged to Charlie and Charlie was pretending to be Samuel. Sure. That too. Continue.”
Grace came over to sit on the corner of Jon’s desk. “So Annie’s dating the one brother’s personality, Samuel, and things are great until they get into an argument and she sees the rage that you got to experience in the interview room. Samuel’s the mean twin. I get that. So they have a fight, and Annie breaks up with him.”
“Yes,” Darcy said, “which is when Samuel switches back to Charlie. I think deep down he really does love Annie, and he couldn’t stand to be without her, even if he had to become the twin he despises to be with her. As Charlie, he consoles Annie over the breakup with his brother, they start a relationship, and they fall in love again. Except, in the back of Charlie’s mind he knows that Samuel isn’t gone. He’s still around, and he might pop out at any time.”
“Ah. And in the meantime, Annie hasn’t seen hide nor hair of Samuel, so she goes to the Boston Police and puts in a missing person’s report.”
“Yes,” Jon agreed. “Except I think it was more than that. Remember Charlie kept saying Annie knew Samuel was coming back, she knew he wasn’t done with them? I think Annie caught on to Charlie’s split personality at some point. Maybe she saw him without his hand on, or wondered why he always wore gloves, or maybe Charlie said something that only Samuel should know. Whatever it was, she starts to suspect. So she calls in a report that Samuel is missing to see what happens. The police investigate, and one of the first things they do is talk to Charlie. He says he doesn’t know where Samuel is, because on a conscious level he really doesn’t. Samuel’s part of his subconscious. I think when Annie wakes up in the hospital, she’ll confirm all that for us.”
“This is getting confusing,” Wilson said. “I actually flunked psychology in college, you know.”
Jon twirled the tip of his pen. “Think of it this way. Charlie keeps his brother’s personality in a box at the back of his mind. He only knows Samuel is there when he takes him out of the box. When that happens, Samuel puts Charlie in the box instead.”