Alter Ego

by David Archer

  Jade wrote down the names. “Do you have addresses for May and Sandy?”

  “Yes, up in my office.” Jaynee put the papers back in the folder, then put the box away. “Come on, I’ll get them for you.” She started leading the way toward her office, then glanced at Jade. “Can I ask what this is about?”

  Jade nodded. “There were three baby boys born that night,” she said. “A pair of twins and another single birth. One of the twins is supposed to have died, a heart defect, but the other was perfectly healthy. Trouble is, we now have evidence that it was the other baby who died and one of the staff switched him for one of the twins.”

  Jaynee stopped and stared at her. “Oh my God, are you serious?”

  Jade nodded again. “I’m afraid so,” she said. “We know for sure that the twin who supposedly died is alive, and was raised by the other mother. We got a tip that it was one of the nursery staff who did the switch, so that’s why I’m here.”

  Jaynee looked at her for a moment, then bit her bottom lip. “May is actually on duty now,” she said. “She’s still in the nursery, but she’s on days now. Come with me, maybe she can tell you what happened.” She started walking, but left the hallway and started down another one. They came to an elevator and she pushed the up button.

  “I don’t know if May will remember anything about that night,” she said as they waited for the car to arrive, “but if she was aware of a switch, I think she’ll tell you that. I’m sure she wouldn’t have had anything to do with it herself, but maybe she’ll have some idea of what happened.”

  “It would help if she can tell me anything,” Jade said. “There are two families who need to be able to understand how something like this could even happen, and there are things about it that make it even more tragic than just a case of switched babies.” She hesitated for a moment, then went on. “It turns out that one of the twins, the one who got switched with the other baby who died, has turned out to be a serial killer. Needless to say, his family wants answers.”

  “Oh, that’s terrible!” Jaynee said. The elevator opened at that moment and they stepped inside. She pushed the button for the third floor and turned back to Jade. “Has he been caught yet?”

  Jade shook her head. “No, not yet,” she said. “We’re working on it, though, with the police.”

  “Well, that’s good, anyway. I just can’t imagine how anybody could do something like this. To just steal someone’s baby, and switch it for another one?”

  “According to the tip we got,” Jade said, “whoever did it was probably trying to be compassionate. The Willis baby, that was the single, apparently died and someone in the nursery felt it was unfair for the Prichards to have two babies that survived. A quick switch, and Mrs. Willis probably never knew that her baby had passed away. Mr. and Mrs. Prichard were told that one of their sons had died of a defective heart condition, but that the other was perfectly healthy. They buried what they thought was one of their own twins and raised the other one, but now Mrs. Prichard knows the truth. Her husband passed away many years ago, and she raised her children alone.”

  Jaynee looked at her, her eyes wide. “You said Prichard? Are you talking about Sam Prichard, the detective? I’d heard about him being arrested for murder, but I’ve been following his blog for more than a year and I just can’t believe he would do something like that.”

  “He didn’t. Unfortunately, his identical twin brother did, which is why the DNA seemed to point to him. We are all working on trying to prove that, now. That’s why this is so important.”

  The elevator stopped and the doors opened, and they stepped onto the maternity floor. Jaynee led the way to the nursery, where a woman in her fifties was sitting at a desk.

  “May?” Jaynee said. “May, this is Jade Miller. She is a private investigator, and she has something she needs to talk to you about.”

  May looked up with a smile. “Goodness, a private investigator? What can I do for you?”

  “May, I want to ask you about something that happened about thirty-six years ago. I understand you were fairly new back then, but I’m hoping you’ll be able to remember it. There was a night when twin boys were born, and another couple had a single baby boy. One of the babies died. Does that sound familiar?”

  May’s eyes darted toward Jaynee, then back to Jade. “I remember that night,” she said. “It was terrible.”

  Jade nodded. “I’m sure it was,” she said. “May, the problem is that we just learned that it wasn’t one of the twin boys who died that night. It was the other baby, the single birth. Someone working in the nursery that night switched the two of them.” She watched May’s face closely. “Do you know anything about that?”

  May lowered her eyes to the desk and tears began to run down her cheeks. “I remember,” she said. “I’ve been waiting for this ever since.” She swallowed hard, then forced himself to look back into Jade’s eyes. “It was the man, you see. He had come down to the nursery to see his son, and he was standing there when the baby suddenly had a seizure. I was the only one in the room at the time, the other girls were dealing with a couple of deliveries. I hurried over to the baby, but he was already gone by the time I got there. There was no response when I tried CPR, and I was about to call for a doctor when the man came bursting into the room. He wanted to know what had happened, and I had to tell him that the baby had died.” She sobbed and closed her eyes. “He stood there, he just stood there and looked at me for the longest moment. I said I needed to call the doctor, and he grabbed me by the arm. He—he told me that it was going to kill his wife, that she had a bad heart and wouldn’t survive it if she knew her baby died. I said there was nothing I could do, and then—that’s when he pointed at the twin boys.”

  She paused and Jade looked at her. “Are you trying to tell me that he forced you to make the switch?”

  May stared at her for a few seconds, then slowly shook her head. “No,” she said sadly. “He just pointed at them, and I knew what he was asking. I looked around and there was nobody watching, so I—I picked up his baby and switched the bands with one of the twins and put him in the isolette.” She swallowed again. “And then I called the doctor and said one of the twins had died. They looked a lot alike, most newborns do. Nobody even questioned it.” She turned and looked at Jaynee. “Am I going to be in trouble?”

  “I think probably,” Jaynee said, her face showing shock. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to let you go, May, no matter what else happens.”

  May nodded. “Of course,” she said.

  “Wait,” Jade said. “May, was that the only time? Did you ever switch any other babies?”

  May looked at her. “Yes,” she said. “But I think maybe I better talk to a lawyer now, before I say anything else.”

  Jade nodded. “That’s probably smart,” she said. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to place you under citizen’s arrest.” She took out her phone and called the police department. “This is Jade Miller, private investigator. I have just made a citizen’s arrest, and need police to come to St. Thomas’ Hospital and take my suspect into custody. The charge? I’m really not sure what it is just yet, but we can start with kidnapping and go from there. The DA will have to figure out the rest.” She listened for a moment, then said, “Thank you.”

  She looked at May. “Let’s go,” she said. “The police are on the way now, they will meet us in the lobby.”

  Jaynee called another nurse over to take charge of the nursery, while May got up from behind the desk and walked dejectedly beside Jade. They rode the elevator together with Jaynee and went toward the front lobby. They sat in a couple of chairs to wait for the police.

  “What’s going to happen to me?” May asked.

  “I honestly don’t know,” Jade said. “This is a very serious thing, May. You have caused a great deal of harm to many people’s lives. The baby you switched in this case? He grew up to become a serial killer, and his twin brother, who didn’t even know he existed, was arrested for his crime
s.”

  May nodded. “I wondered if that might be the case,” she said. “I heard about Sam Prichard being arrested for murder, based on DNA. Of course, I recognized the name, so I couldn’t help but wonder.”

  Jade looked at her and the little bit of sympathy she had felt for the woman vanished. “And you were willing to let him face those charges, without coming forward?”

  May shrugged. “I didn’t even know if anyone would believe me,” she said. “After all, that was a long time ago.”

  The squad car pulled up a couple minutes later, and May was arrested. The officer told Jade she would have to come to the station to make a statement, and she agreed. As she walked to her car, she took out her phone to call Sam.

  “I found her,” she said. “The woman who switched your brother for the dead baby. She’s in police custody now, and it turns out she may have done it other times with other babies.”

  “She was still there?” Sam asked. “After all these years?”

  “Yeah,” Jade said. “She said it was C.J. Willis’s father who suggested the switch, but that she did it voluntarily. She even told me that she figured out what happened when you were arrested. She just didn’t think it was important enough for her to come forward and tell the truth at the time.” She growled. “Anyway, I have to go down to the PD and make a statement. I don’t know how long that’s going to take, but I’ll be in touch when it’s over.”

  “Okay,” Sam said. “Thank you, Jade.”

  FIFTEEN

  Sam walked into O’Rourke’s office minutes before his scheduled appointment at three thirty, and the detective looked up at him. Denny suggested that they send the Caldwell Laboratory report ahead, so Indie had scanned it and emailed it to him. She had included a statement about Sam’s presumed-to-be-dead twin brother and another regarding the confession of May Benjamin. The printout was laying on his desk, which accounted for the look of shocked disbelief O’Rourke was wearing.

  “Prichard,” he began, “I—I don’t know what to think about all of this. Are you going to tell me this is all true? You’ve really got a long-lost twin brother who is murdering young girls, and you never even knew about him?”

  Sam sat in the chair beside O’Rourke’s desk. “I’m as shocked about this as you are,” he said. “Until this morning, I literally believed that my twin brother died the day we were both born, but it’s the only possible way to account for all the facts. Now that we know who switched him for another family’s dead baby, there’s really not any doubt.” He took the photo of C.J. as Boyd Benson out of the folder he was carrying and handed it to the detective. “That was a photo of a suspect in an almost identical murder in Tupelo, Mississippi a few years ago. Except for the fact that I was signing in at the physical therapist every day during that time, even I would think that was me.”

  O’Rourke took the photo and looked at it closely, then looked at Sam. “Very slight differences,” he said, “but yeah, I’d have thought this was you.” He looked at the printout again, then raised his eyes to Sam’s. “It also explains why an eyewitness picked your picture out of a photo lineup. I don’t know what to say, Prichard. This doesn’t completely clear you on Brenda Starling, but it’s a compelling case for reasonable doubt. I’ll admit that, if this twin brother of yours really exists, which he obviously does, and we can link him to these other murders...”

  “We already did,” Sam cut in. “There’s no other possibility for how the recovered suspect DNA in those cases could match mine as closely as the samples you got. And Jeremy at Caldwell says he can positively match them to my brother when he’s caught, which will exonerate me completely.”

  O’Rourke cleared his throat. “What I was trying to say is that you have enough evidence now to make me a believer. You didn’t do it, and I don’t know how to apologize enough over this.”

  Sam waved the apology away. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “It’s like I told Karen Parks, I would have thought the same things you did. The evidence was clear and absolute, until we account for how another person could have such a close match to my DNA. Now that we know about him, we have to concentrate on bringing him in.”

  “But I screwed up,” O’Rourke said. “I was so sure it was you that I wouldn’t even consider any other possibility. I haven’t been looking for the killer, I’ve been looking for more evidence to put you away.”

  “Hey,” Sam said. “Remember what I told you the other day. You can’t let this ruin you, you’re still a good cop. Let’s just put this behind us as soon as we can, and get on with catching my brother. He has to be stopped, and he has to be stopped soon. He struck again last night, and two more victims were found in Illinois today.”

  “I agree,” O’Rourke said. “But first, we need to get you cleared.” He picked up the phone on his desk and hit a button. “Gina, get me Leon Jamison over at the DA’s office.” He held the phone to his ear and waited a moment, then cleared his throat again. “Leon, it’s Dave O’Rourke. We’ve got us a situation, and I need to see you now. Yes, now. I’m sitting here in my office with Sam Prichard, and I’m looking at iron-clad proof that he didn’t kill Brenda Starling. Yes, dammit, we know who did, but I’m not gonna go into it over the phone. Get hold of Judge Kaufman and let’s meet in his chambers, ASAP. Yes, in his chambers! Trust me, he’s gonna want to hear all of this right now!”

  He slammed the handset down and looked at Sam. “He can be the stubbornest man I’ve ever known, but he’s also honest to a fault. Once he sees all this, he’ll agree that you didn’t do it, so I want the judge in on the conversation. Come on,” he said as he got to his feet. “Let’s head over to the courthouse. Maybe we can get this done today.”

  Sam got up and followed, leaning on his cane, as they made their way out of the office. Harry, Steve, Denny and Summer were waiting in the lobby as they came out, and O’Rourke grinned when he saw the pretty blonde.

  “You said you had something big,” he said, “and you weren’t lying. We’re going to see the DA and the judge right now, if you all want to tag along.”

  “Bloody right, we do,” Denny said, and the four of them got up to follow Sam and O’Rourke out the door.

  Sam rode with the detective and the others followed in Steve’s car. They took Riverside Avenue to Mountain Street, and then cut over to the courthouse and parked in front of the building. Steve pulled in behind them, and they all walked into the building and followed O’Rourke to the third floor, where the judge’s chambers would be found.

  Jamison was waiting for them in the hallway, and he looked worried.

  “Dave,” he said as they came near, “what the hell is this all about? You told me we had Prichard dead to rights, and now you say there’s proof he didn’t do it?” He glanced at Sam, who grinned at him.

  “Is the judge ready for us?” O’Rourke asked. “I don’t wanna go through this twice, so you can both hear it together.”

  Jamison huffed, then tapped on the door beside where he’d been standing. A muffled voice said to come in, and they all followed when the Assistant DA opened the door and walked inside.

  Judge Kaufman looked up in surprise. “Leon? What’s this all about?” his eyes took in the rest of the people following and suddenly got even wider. “Harry Winslow? Are you in the middle of this mess?”

  “On the periphery, Your Honor,” Harry said. “How have you been, Alfie?”

  “Ornery as ever, which I imagine is exactly what you would say in response to that question. How long has it been? Almost three years now?”

  “That would be about right,” Harry said. He looked at Sam. “Alfie was the only judge in the area who knew I was undercover, back when I was running the drug operation. I didn’t want to deal with anybody in Denver because there’s too much corruption down there, but Alfie Kaufman and I served in the Navy together many years ago.” He winked. “So don’t believe any of the stories he tells you about me back then.”

  “And even fewer of the ones he tells you about me,
” Kaufman said. He turned to Jamison and O’Rourke. “All right, gentlemen, what is this all about?”

  O’Rourke laid the file folder he was carrying on the judge’s desk and began explaining what they were looking at, with occasional help from Sam and the others. It took nearly a half hour to convince Jamison and the judge that what they were seeing was real, but at last, the judge nodded his head. He picked up a phone and requested a court reporter to come into his chambers, and began speaking once she arrived and set up her recording equipment.

  “In light of these facts, Mr. Prichard,” he said, “I’m going to take judicial notice of your verifiable innocence in this case and dismiss the charges against you at this time. Mr. Jamison, is the state going to object to this ruling?”

  Jamison sighed. “No, Your Honor,” he said, “the state concurs.”

  “Then it is so ordered. Mr. Prichard, your bond is released and you are free of restrictions.” He glanced at Sam’s leg. “You can get rid of that ankle monitor, now.”

  Sam grinned. “Thank you, Your Honor. May I make one other request of the court?”

  “Certainly, sir,” the judge said. “What might that be?”

  “Your Honor, I’d like to handle releasing this news to the press. What I’m hoping to do is make my brother panic and make a mistake, so we can find him quickly.”

  “So ordered,” Kaufman said. “The court will not make any formal announcement of the dismissal, nor will the state for the Sheriff’s office. You may make the announcement on your own terms, but the state will confirm the dismissal of charges when questioned about it.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” Sam said.

  “Anything else we need to do here?” Kaufman asked, but no one replied. “Very well, then, the matter is settled. Mr. Prichard, you can let your friends at Windlass know that the bond has been released, and you are free to go.”