No Rhyme or Reason

by Mairsile Leabhair

  “Yes, but look at the person standing next to me.”

  “Oh, my God!” she exclaimed. “Is that you?”

  “They both are, apparently,” I replied. Standing next to me in the photo was my exact double. My twin. “Is that possible? I mean, I know it’s possible. But, is that my sister? Am I… could I be a twin?”

  Trina handed the photograph back to me and picked up another picture. “Your ID was the only profile that came up in our database,” she said as she picked up another picture. “That covers the DMV and criminal records databases.”

  “Then why didn’t your search turn up this?” I asked, handing her another picture of me with my doppelganger.

  “That’s a very good question,” Trina answered. “Do you recognize these people?” She handed a picture to me. “This looks like it was taken at the same time the other photo was.”

  “Could those be my parents?” A man and a woman stood behind me and my twin in front of a church. My twin and I looked to be in our early twenties. The woman, who was small like me, also looked like me… us. The man was maybe a foot taller, handsome, with a broad smile.

  “It could be.” Trina laid the picture on the bed and pulled out her cell phone. “Would you mind if I keep these? I can have Paul run them through facial recognition and see if we get a hit.”

  “Will I get them back?” If those were my parents, who I’d been told were dead, I wanted the photos so I could at least have something of them.

  “Of course,” she replied, snapping pictures of the photo. “And I’ll have a copy on my cell phone to show around the neighborhood.”

  “But we don’t know which neighborhood to look in?”

  Picking up the photo, she examined it and then grinned. She handed it to me. “See the church they’re standing in front of? Look at the name on the sign to the right.”

  “My, God. We were just there.”

  The sign read Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Mother Mary Church.

  Chapter Eleven

  Maybe, Maybe Not – Sister Emily aka Joyce

  Sitting on the bed with my legs crossed, I looked at the clock again. Three in the morning and I couldn’t sleep, and for a change, it wasn’t due to a nightmare. I was too excited and eager to get out there and learn who I was. Knowing that I had a sister, and a twin at that, made me feel almost desperate to find her. To know her. To protect her, although I wasn’t sure from what.

  I had immediately wanted to canvas the neighborhood, as Trina called it, but she said the kind of people we’d find at that late hour probably wouldn’t know anything about my parents, if, in fact, that’s who they were. I didn’t want to set myself up for a letdown, so I told myself that they probably weren’t my parents. Just some nice looking-people posing with a set of twins. My twin. My identical twin. Maybe I could use ESP to contact her. Trina explained that it was a myth, but I’d try anything at this point… No. If I had telepathy with my twin, I would have already felt her presence.

  Ruby Grace. That was my sister’s name. Ruby Grace and Emily Ann. I liked her name better. I wonder if she became a nun, too. Maybe she was on a retreat somewhere and that’s why I couldn’t feel her.

  Maybe I should stop thinking so much, it’s starting to give me a headache.

  There was a tap at the door. “Trina?”

  “Yeah, are you awake? Uh, that was a dumb question. I saw the light on. Can I come in? I have something I want to show you.”

  “Of course. It’s your room,” I said, at a loss for something more intelligent to say.

  She opened the door and looked at me, surprised, I think, that I was sitting up. She was carrying a laptop.

  “I was doing some research and found this.” She handed the laptop to me, and I placed it on the bed.

  “What am I looking at?” I asked.

  “It’s a study on identical twins. Did you know that you and your sister don’t have the same fingerprints?”

  “We don’t?”

  “But identical twins do have the same DNA,” she continued.

  Frowning, I shook my head. “Okay, so… I’m confused.”

  “My first year following Paul around I learned the most important part of being a detective. How to rely on my sixth sense, my gut feelings, when something doesn’t add up.”

  “Sorry, still confused,” I admitted.

  “Something hasn’t been adding up for me. Like, why were your fingertips burned off?”

  I looked at my fingers, at the reddish-brown scabs. “Is that a rhetorical question? Because I really don’t know.”

  “Okay, bear with me on this.” Trina’s eyes sparkled with excitement as she talked with her hands. “Identical twins share the same DNA, but their fingerprints are different. That might be the reason your prints were burned off. You said that you didn’t feel like a nun. Maybe you’re not one. Maybe your twin is. We can’t be one-hundred percent certain who you are; Emily or Ruby, but they want us to believe you are Emily, the nun.”

  “Why would it matter?”

  Trina looked at me as if she were making a decision. She sat down on the bed and pulled her legs up under her. “Your rapist left a message.”

  “He did?”

  “On your underwear.”

  “Yeah, isn’t that expected?”

  She shook her head and rested her elbows on her knees. “Yes, but this was a word spelled out on your panties.”

  “They raped me, drugged me, and then took the time to write a word on my underwear?” Reverend Mother was right, not having a memory of the attack is a blessing.

  Her head flew up, and she held up her hand. “Wait, you said they. Did you remember something?”

  “Yes, in my dreams. One man held me down while the other one raped me. What was the word?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked indignantly.

  “Because I don’t want to remember it,” I barked back.

  “You have to, damn it!”

  My anger was simmering just at the surface. It was either fight or flight and I was tired of retreating. “Don’t you yell at me, God damn it!” Oh, shit. “Now look what you made me say. I really don’t want God to damn anything.”

  Trina leaned back, a mischievous grin on her face. “Except maybe for your rapist.”

  Smiling, I nodded. “Yeah. Except maybe for that.” We both paused for a moment, regaining our composure. Finally, I asked for the third time, “What was the word he left?”

  “Snitch.”

  My eyes grew large as the memory from the nightmare came back to me. “That’s what he said in my dream.”

  “What did he say?” she asked.

  “That he was going to show me what they do to snitches.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Like what? I already told you that I couldn’t see his face.”

  “What did he smell like?” she asked, still probing.

  “What did he smell like?” I repeated. Did he smell? I closed my eyes and inhaled through my nose. “Tacos! His breath smelled like he had just eaten Mexican food.”

  “Great. You’re doing great. Now, try not to, and I know this is asking a lot, but try not to see the rapist, try to see what was around you.”

  I closed my eyes again but this time, I saw beady eyes coming at me. “No!”

  She held her hands up. “It’s okay. Try listening instead. Did you hear any noises, like a train or maybe a plane? Or another voice, maybe?”

  I stared at her, wishing she would just leave me alone. I didn’t want to remember. “Why is it so important that I remember this, Trina?”

  She stood up and picked up her gun, checking the safety lock. “My gut tells me that they believed you were dead when they left you,” she said, placing the gun back on the dresser. She turned back to me. “If they find out you’re alive, they will come for you and finish the job.”

  On the Street Where You Used to Lived – Trina Wiles

  Tuesday morning found us standing outside the church where
the photograph had been taken. Joyce was eager to come here but I insisted we eat breakfast first and fried up some bacon and eggs. She teased me about cooking, and I argued that frying was not the same as cooking.

  “So, I was in my own neighborhood yesterday, and I didn’t even know it,” Joyce said, looking around at the street where the church sat.

  It was on the opposite side of the Reverend Mother’s office… and her bedroom. It was actually a cozy neighborhood, with moderate houses, well-kept yards, and a dog barking in the distance.

  “Do you think my parents lived on this street?”

  “According to my research,” I said, looking at my phone, “They lived at 2110.”

  We walked down the sidewalk, looking from house to house.

  “There it is,” I said, pointing at the house across the street.

  “I… I remember it.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “I remember my parents standing on the porch, waving at me and my sister. I think we had just gotten off the school bus.”

  “What else do you remember?” I asked, taking her hand and leading her across the street.

  “My parents stood there, on the porch, waiting for us to come home from school.”

  A breeze wafted through, gusting a wind chime hanging from the porch.

  “Hey, that looks just like the wind chimes we had!” she exclaimed.

  “It might be. Wanna see if anyone’s home?”

  “Oh, do you think that we could go in?”

  “Won’t hurt to ask,” I said and walked up the steps to the door.

  Tapping on the door, I stepped back and stood beside Joyce.

  The door cracked open an inch, and I could see a shadow moving inside. “Whatever you’re selling, I’m not buying,” a female voice said.

  “Ma’am, this woman lived here as a child. We were wondering if we could come in and—”

  “Do you think I’m stupid?” she asked through the doorway.

  “No, ma’am. I’m a detective with HPD,” I said, pulling my jacket back, showing her my badge clipped to my belt. “This is Sister Emily Ann Sutherland.” I looked at Joyce and winked. “She has lost her memory and I thought by bringing her back to where she grew up, she might remember something.”

  The door slammed shut, and I looked at Joyce. I heard a chain rattle and the metallic sound of a deadbolt being released, and then the door swung open.

  “Oh, Sister, you poor thing. Please, come in.”

  Without a search warrant, getting people to cooperate is sometimes difficult. Tell a woman who lives in a Catholic neighborhood that a nun needs her help, and they bend over backward for you.

  “Would you like something to drink?” the woman asked. “I just brewed up some tea.”

  Gray-haired and pudgy around the middle, the woman had a soft, wrinkled face. I placed her at about sixty-five years old.

  “Oh, no, thank you,” Joyce replied. “We don’t want to take up too much of your time. Did you know my parents; Bridget and Samuel Rutherford?”

  “I met them when my husband and I bought this house over five years ago as our retirement home. Now, I’m retired, and Jacob is waiting for me in heaven.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Joyce said, patting the woman’s hand.

  “It was his heart,” the woman explained. “He was sitting right there,” she pointed at the recliner, “watching a football game.”

  “Ma’am, would it be all right if Sister Emily looked around?” I asked, getting us back on task. I knew a talker when I heard one, and this woman was a talker.

  “Of course.”

  Joyce didn’t seem to have any revelations as she looked around the living room. It was larger than I would have thought looking at the house from the outside. The furniture was dated but complemented the room nicely. Family portraits hung on the wall and it smelled like new carpet on the floor. We wandered into the kitchen and again, I watched Joyce for any reaction, but if she recognized anything, she didn’t show it. The nice lady, who introduced herself as Betty Rhodes, chattered on nonstop about how she redid the wallpaper, added little decals to the cabinets, a wine cabinet in the pantry, and had a new linoleum floor put in. She was obviously quite proud of what she and her husband accomplished in the short time they had owned the house.

  Joyce was attentive and respectful, but I could tell she was getting tired of making conversation. Rhodes was about to show her the bedrooms when I intervened.

  “Mrs. Rhodes, would it be all right if Sister Emily looked at the rooms by herself? You know, to help her remember it as a child.”

  “Oh, yes. Of course. That would be fine. It’s used more as a storage room now, but it was my husband’s office.”

  As Mrs. Rhodes eagerly explained it, the house had two bedrooms. A master bedroom with a bathroom, and second bedroom without a bathroom. We went to the second bedroom facing the backside of the house. The room that most likely would have been Joyce’s room as a kid. Leaving the door open for the benefit of Mrs. Rhodes, I stayed back and let Joyce explore.

  “It’s smaller than I remember,” she said, walking past boxes of clothes sitting on a small desk.

  “What was it like, living here?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, it’s really vague,” she replied, turning to look out the window. “I remember climbing out this window and up that tree.” She leaned close to the glass and looked up.

  “Did you have a treehouse?” I asked.

  “Yes. Come look at this,” she said, waving me over. She unlatched the window lock and slid the glass up. There was no screen, so she leaned out the window.

  I joined her, leaning close, too close. The tree was oak with thick branches that shadowed the house from above.

  “See that piece of wood sticking out from the second branch there?” she ask, pointing up.

  “Yeah, I see it,” I said, leaning back so I could see Joyce’s face. I was dumbstruck. Her face had softened to that of a ten-year-old, with mischievous eyes and flushed cheeks. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “I’m thinking of climbing up that tree,” she replied.

  “Why, what’s up there?” I asked before I could stop myself. It broke the magical spell she was under and she leaned back inside and turned to the room.

  “My childhood,” she said with a sigh.

  Damn it! If I had only kept my mouth shut, she might still look like a ten-year-old who just wanted to play in her treehouse. I climbed out the window and up the makeshift ladder to the first tree branch. “Are you coming?”

  She leaned out the window, a huge smile on her face. “This is silly. Not to mention dangerous at our age,” she complained, even as she climbed out the window.

  “Girls, be careful,” Mrs. Rhodes yelled out the kitchen window.

  “We will, Mom,” Joyce yelled back, then she giggled, realizing what she had said.

  We climbed up the ladder, and I held out my hand and helped her onto the tree branch. Letting her go first, I watched as she climbed up to the second branch where the piece of wood stuck out.

  The tree branches wound around to the backside of the tree and when I climbed up to the second branch and stepped on a wooden plank that connected it to a third branch. I looked up and there it was, the treehouse, hidden by thick branches and fat leaves. “This is the perfect treehouse,” I said, thinking out loud.

  “I think so,” Joyce said. “I helped my daddy build it,” she added as she crawled into the surprisingly large, round treehouse.

  “Wow, was your dad a carpenter?” I asked, crawling through the small door, a real door with a doorknob, and sitting crossed-legged against the back wall. It was a bit cramped for two adults, but just looking at Joyce running her fingers across the wood and I could totally see her as a kid, hammering the nail she was circling with her finger.

  “Actually, he bought a kit online, but it’s made out of real wood. This was my tenth birthday present.”

  “Did your sister help, too?”

  She frowned and
shook her head. “No, my sister was too much of a girlie-girl. Mom got her a Ken and Barbie dollhouse with all the frills.”

  “Wow, you two were sure different for being identical twins,” I stated.

  “Different as night and day,” she chuckled.

  She looked at the wall beside me and grinned excitedly. “Look, this is where my dad carved happy birthday in the wood. You can still see it.” Her eyes were beaming with pride until a tinge of sadness crept in. She looked at me with liquid eyes. “Why do I remember so clearly helping my dad, but I can’t remember which sister I am?”

  “My guess would be that you don’t want to remember,” I said without thinking.

  “Fuck you,” she snapped, moving away from me. “Why would you say such a mean thing?”

  She’s a fighter, I’ll give her that. “I meant that it’s a self-defense mechanism. Your brain is trying to protect you. Dr. Franks explained it to me. Safe memories surface first, like this treehouse. You were safe here with your dad. But anything remotely tied to the trauma won’t be easy to remember.”

  “Oh, um, sorry,” she said.

  “Nothing to apologize for. I sometimes blurt out stuff that I shouldn’t, and it gets me into all sorts of trouble.”

  “I like that about you,” she said, “Well, I mean usually I do.”

  My cell phone rang, and chuckling, I nodded at her as I accepted the call. It was Paul. “What’s up?”

  “Dead body connected to your girl. Get your ass over here.”

  Chapter Twelve

  We’re Off to See a Dead Body – Trina Wiles

  “Where are you?” I asked calmly. Inside I was quaking. It was never good when a dead body showed up days later in a case I was working. What was worse, it involved Joyce. I wanted to ask Paul for all the details, but I knew from experience he’d rather wait and tell me in person.

  “The church where you found Sister Emily,” Paul replied.

  “Oh, shit,” I gasped, a million things running through my head. “My brother. Is he all right?”