Dual Identity - Chapter 9

Friday, September 13th 5:51 P.M.

“I’ve got to call Todd.” Mom snatched up the landline sitting hanging above the laptop. “See if you can get a hold of Paul.”

Lara scrambled for her purse, dropping her phone on the countertop, it's white bling case standing out against the dark granite.

“Todd.” Mom was quick and efficient, while Lara’s hands were shaking so bad, she could hardly swipe the screen to unlock. “Are you at the memorial? Listen, Lara and I spotted a picture of Amy behind Channel 4’s news anchor . . . No, not of Amanda De Saberio. It was of Amelia Landers when she was a pre-teen maybe?” Mom listened for a moment, then fiddled with the computer, drawing it back to full size. Playing it back, she watched for a moment as the camera panned the memorial. “Yes, it’s down near the north end. Do you see the little bouquet of Zinnias? . . . No, they look like little yellow-orange flowers with stout, wide little petals . . . No – wait, just past the little white bear with the heart on it . . . I know there’s hundreds of them out there, but just look for one that has a little bow . . .”

“Paul, please!” Lara was pleading, slouched over a bar stool as if the bones had suddenly dissolved right out of her. Tears were streaming down her face. “But you have, too! I know you trusted her with me just for one night, but I have to stay with her and you have to go find the picture. Please!”

“You found it? You got it?” Mom exhaled shakily and closed her eyes, slumping back in her chair. “Yes, I can. I know. I’ll get it right now.”

Jimmy suddenly realized that Amy’s hand was on his shoulder, her fingers digging deep into his shoulder and the back of his throat.

“What am I wearing.” She whispered.

It took him a minute to realize she meant in the picture. Jimmy leaned forwards and squinted at the fuzzy image.

“A pink shirt, maybe some kind of skirt thing. I can’t really tell.”

“What does the shirt say?” The fingers bit deeper and Jimmy winced.

“Maybe something about Taylor Swift?”

The fingers instantly released. “Oh, Lord God.” Jimmy turned just in time to see Amy stumble backwards. He reached out and grabbed her arm, nearly spinning her around. Her wide, blind eyes bored right into him. “That’s my sixth grade school picture.”

Jimmy was about to speak when his mother suddenly appeared, carrying a gun the way they usually do in cop shows, the barrel pointed down while both hands poised a firm grip, ready if needed to shoot. He had seen his dad do that only once, years ago.

“Jimmy, get your sister and Amy downstairs into the storm cellar. And don’t come back up until I say.” Mom turned back to the kitchen table where Lara sat staring at her gun. Jimmy didn’t quite blame her. “Lara! Lara, focus! I need your help!”

Jimmy grabbed his little sister, who was clutching him around the waist for dear life, her eyes wide as she stared at her mom. “Come on, girls, let’s go.”

But while Violet readily followed him, Amy seemed glued to the floor in some sort of trance. Not knowing what in the world was going on, but wanting to obey his mom - who would argue when she held a Glock 40, anyway – Jimmy did his best to lead Amy downstairs with the help of the dog.

When they got made it down the stairs, Violet climbed into her purple bean bag chair and perched facing her fluorescent pink dollhouse. Amy just felt her way to the couch and took a seat, looking absolutely lost but gripping onto Jasper’s harness for dear life.

“Poor Amanda.” Jimmy almost didn’t hear it she said it so low. He sank down next to her and she tipped her head his direction. “A poor baby shouldn’t have to suffer like that. She must have been terrified. She was terrified.”

“What?” Jimmy was confused. “Amy, what are you talking about?”

“It was my fault, all my fault.”

“Amy?” Jimmy reached out and touched her arm, but she didn’t even twitch. Instead, she looked like she was going into hypnosis. “Amy!”

“Stop!” She screamed, writhing away from him. “Get away from me! Get away from her! CeCe, no!”

Amy clawed at her face and hair as she doubled over, sliding off the couch and falling into the coffee table with a crash. Slipping to the floor she suddenly slumped, laying still. All the while she muttered incoherantly and shook uncontrollably.

Jimmy glanced over at Violet, who stood with a Barbie doll in her hand looking like she was going to burst into tears herself. Jimmy did his best to smile at her and motioned for her to go back to her playing. Then he lowered himself to the floor beside Amy, a little hesitant as what to do.

“Amy?” He touched her gently on the shoulder and she turned, half falling on top of him, half tackling him.

“Bentley, do something!” She shrieked, slugging him full in the face.

Jimmy choked as an elbow caught him in the throat. Was he really getting creamed by a 110 pound blind girl? Glancing over, he saw Violet staring, unmoving at the two of them. Great, it just had to be in front of his kid sister. With any luck, she would forget about it, but that might be a bit much to ask for.

Grabbing both of her arms, he pinned them together and succeeded in half pushing her off of him. Amy suddenly went limp again as if submitting to the power play and reached over to shake her. She kept mumbling to herself.

“Sorry, Amy.” He muttered, then promptly reared back and slapped her right across the face.

Amy sniffled and reached up a minute to touch her cheek. Shaking, she drew in a breath as she slumped against the couch. “Oh, Lord God, he can’t be back.”

“Amy, what is going on?” Jimmy did his best to offer the demand as softly as he could, but couldn’t help it much with all of the confusion mounting up.

She didn’t say anything for a moment and he reached over and pulled a handful of Kleenex from the box she had knocked off the coffee table.

“You want the truth?” She asked after blowing her nose, tears still slipping down her cheeks.

“Well, I would prefer it.” Jimmy searched her face, but as if knowing what he was looking for, Amy ducked her head.

“Truth is - I’m dead.”

Jimmy just kind of looked at her, not understanding her joke. Amy threw her head back and started laughing in a creepy, insane way.

“No, seriously. You want to see the death certificate? Or wait, I have a picture of my tombstone on my phone. Here.” Amy dug in her pocket and pulled out her phone, handing it to Jimmy with a flourish. “It’s under a locked file. The password is ‘carrottop’.”

Jimmy gave her an odd look, but took the phone. He had a feeling he should know better, but something seemed to be pulling at him. A sort of deadly curiosity.

“Go ahead.” Amy sounded dazed and almost high as she giggled. “I promise I won’t eat your brain while you’re not looking. I’m on a diet.”

Jimmy typed in the password uneasily, the phone reciting ever letter to him in a cold and clipped computerized voice. Hitting enter, up popped the pictures of cold granite memorials, shrouded in plastic wreaths and a dusting of snow.

“Gilbert B. Anderson ... Natalie J. Anderson ...” Little pieces were starting to click as he read on. “Amelia L. Anderson.” Jimmy paused.

“Yep, that’s me. Laid to rest right next to my brother and little sister.” Amy laughed. “Bet you never thought you would ever meet a real live dead person.”

“Um, actually, no.”

“I am the only witness to a serial killer’s last rampage. And not the most credible one, if you know what I mean.”.

“Because you’re blind.”

“Uh-huh.” Amy giggled again, tears leaking out of her eyes like a continual faucet, and Jimmy wondered if she was having some sort of mental breakdown.

They sat in silence for a few minutes.

“What was your full name?” Jimmy asked, his hand still resting on her arm.

“Amelia Lynn Anderson.”

Amy had gone back into a blank mode and her face didn’t show anything. Not shock, not pain, not even a realization that she was still in the room. The faucet no longer leaked and it was eerie the way he would have given anything for at least a small display of emotion.

“That’s a nice name.” Oh, God, why do I have to sound like such an idiot?

“I didn’t think so at the time, but yeah, it was. I was named after my grandma, so I naturally thought it was old-fashioned and out of style. What I would have given back then to just be named another Kaitlyn or Ashely.”

Amy was rambling, but Jimmy didn’t quite blame her, at least it kept him from having to come up with much to say.

“He killed them. Then he killed Amanda De Seberio. They say that he’s killed more, but I just don’t remember all of it.”

Suddenly, there was a crack in the reservoir’s dam as a tear leaked out. “And now he’s back.”

~

Saturday, September 14th 4:03 A.M.

Todd Easton took the cup of coffee from his wife, draining half of it in just one gulp. Colleen poured herself less, filling the rest with half and half. In spite of himself Todd cracked a smile. Colleen had obviously made the coffee a few hours ago so it would be ready whenever he would get home and by now was a black muddy sludge.

“Anything?”

A simple question, but it covered so much. “No.”

A comfortable silence ensued as Colleen waited for him to gather his thoughts.

“No fingerprints, no way to trace the picture.” Another swig of coffee. “All we know is someone placed a picture of an eleven year old killed by a serial killer at the memorial of an eleven year old killed in a kidnapping gone wrong.”

Todd swished the coffee around in his mug as Colleen seemed to mull things over. Most didn’t realize how high up her security clearance was.

“He’s clever. Thinks of himself as some sort of higher power. He hid those clues and knew it would take a certain person to figure it out. He had it planned for the affect to be quick and direct. For the impact to go straight to the source.”

James nodded.

Colleen continued. “But what a coincidence that an 11-year-old girl nicknamed Amy was killed and a picture of a totally different 11-year-old girl nicknamed Amy showed up at her memorial. And that this ‘he’ would supposedly resurface at just the right time in the right town.”

This time the silence was a touch more horrific as the two looked at one another.

“He had something to do with it.” James said.

Colleen nodded.

“I’m missing something here.” James swished the coffee around in his cup. “He wasn’t at the house. Both of the ‘confirmed kidnappers’ had plain street rap sheets and no connection to any sweep of the Alabama Brownstone murders.”

“You were played.”

James looked at his wife who rested her chin on her fist and turned mournful eyes towards him.

“You were all just his pawns. He’s trying to make you realize something in all of this. We just have to figure out what that something is.”

“Colleen, it isn’t that simple.”

“Yes. Yes, it is.”

James sighed. His wife might be short. His wife might be stocky. But she was tougher than a little burro and twice as beautiful.

Colleen reached for his hand. “I believe I already know. He wants you to know that he is omnipotent." She paused, then corrected herself. "He believes he’s omnipotent. And more importantly, he’s issuing you a challenge. I mean, just look at the details of this plan. He found a substitute Amy. She’s eleven, dark haired and in the sixth grade. He arranges for a kidnapping, even hired it out so it couldn’t be traced back to him. Then at the right time, he calls in the tip.”

“Now hold on, we don’t know that it was him. It could have been one of the neighbors noticing some of the monkey business going on.”

"There was a ten thousand dollar reward."

James heart sank a little lower. How much lower it could sink before it hit rock bottom was yet to be determined.

“What fifty thousand dollars could do for a person in that sort of neighborhood . . .” Colleen drew out.

James clenched his fist. “And he called in the tip from a payphone.”

“He was there, honey.” Colleen said. “You know they love to watch their plans unfold. He was there. He wouldn’t have missed it."

A loud, obnoxious ringing sounded from his belt and James scrambled for his cell-phone as his wife glanced nervously at the hall where the kids’ bedrooms were.

“Easton.” As someone chattered quickly his face grew grim. “Is someone with her? . . . I understand. . . And Blanchard I want the report on my desk before I get in.”

He hung up without a word. James sat silently, swirling the coffee in the bottom of his cup. Colleen waited, watching as his neck and face slowly grew red until he blew.

“Well, we’ll just see who the better schemer is. This bastard wanted war and now he has it!” James slammed his coffee cup down on the bar counter and Colleen reached for his arm. “That was Tommy Blanchard calling from Memorial Hospital. Stanley Hayes just died.”

~

Saturday, September 14th 7:14 A.M.

James Easton strode through the office, a man on a mission. The rookies on task to get the morning coffee and the like scurried out of his way like little ants.

He hadn’t had a wink of sleep, although Colleen pushed him towards the easy chair at about five a.m. The way he saw it, he didn’t have time to sleep. If he slept, his people slept, and there wasn’t time to kindle a fire beneath them, he had to have this consume them faster and hotter than the Chicago fire itself.

The M.E. had been up all night after Easton had pulled a few strings and he now held a copy of the autopsy report of the little Saberio girl, but didn’t have time to read it. He had just left Dr. Spandrel with two other bodies and was on his way to the crime lab to see Rachel, the crime technician. The poor doctor and his assistant had Hayes’s body coming in this morning as well and Easton was pressing them for all of the reports.

He didn’t know if anyone on his team had gotten any rest since the kidnapping case was blown wide open the afternoon before.

Entering Rachel Summer’s lab, he drug a chair over to her work-station and plopped the report down. Rachel was firing a gun behind the sound-proof glass, so he figured he might as well look over the report.

Rachel looked up and waved, but took her time to finish up. When she came out of the room, Easton pounced.

“Where’s the knife.”

Rachel laughed, pulling off her special ear-phones. “Let me take a breath will you?”

“You did get a copy of the report, didn’t you?”

“Yep.” Rachel drained the water from her disposable paper cup and refilled it at the Culligan tank. “Dr. Spandrel finished it last night at about midnight.”

“Then why am I just hearing about all of this?” Easton demanded, jumping up. “I was here into the early hours of the morning and yet I’m just now hearing about both of your findings?”

“Dr. Spandrel had a copy put on your desk and I e-mailed you my findings.” Rachel took a seat at a stool in front of her many computers and started tapping at the keyboard.

James ran a hand through his hair and reseated himself on the stool next to hers. His desk was piled high and he probably had at least two hundred unread e-mails in his box alone.

“Well, give me what you got, I guess.”

“Which is not much.” Rachel warned. “None of the knives gathered at the scene matched the victim’s wounds.”

“You’re positive?” James couldn’t help but ask.

Rachel just gave him a look. “Your people gave me everything from butter knives to chef’s knives to hunting knives. Not a one.”

Easton sighed. “So what have you got on ballistics.”

“Since there were so many guns involved I just need to check the shooting patterns and check the bullets that killed our kidnappers. I should be done soon, though.”

“Can you recreate what happened virtually very efficiently in a shorter timeframe?” Easton asked.

Rachel shrugged. “All I need are the floor plans which are probably on file somewhere in the city. If not I’ll have to get the measurements elsewhere and that could take a bit longer. When do you need it?”

“As soon as I get word that the autopsies are all completed I’ll be knocking on your door.”

Rachel gave him another look, but he didn’t know what this one meant and didn’t have time to interpret it. “Good luck, Rachel.”

She gave a curt laugh, but Easton didn’t have time to figure that one out either.

He had a killer to catch.