by Grant Pies
“C’mon, that’s where they attacked me first. They want to steal them, burn them. It’s not Kingsley or a pissed off spouse. It’s the records, gotta be. If we find something, we turn it over to the police.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “I’ve heard that before…” He leaned back in his seat and sighed deep. “Plus, what’re we going to do if there’s something in these records? We can’t explain to the cops how we got them. I’ve already used up all the goodwill I’ve got to keep our names out of the police report at Orcheck’s house—which, by the way, was when we were supposed to be done with the case. We found the father of Rose’s kid.”
“Fuck,” Carter mumbled. He wanted to think he’d do this without Sam, but convincing Sam meant someone else was on board, corroborating Carter’s thoughts, giving credence to his persistence. It would be a peer reviewed thought process.
He tried a different tactic. “We have to know we’re safe, find who started the fire. That means we have to rule out suspects. Let’s go through the records. If there’s nothing there, then we move on, look into who else it could have been … let the cops deal with Orcheck. Deal?”
The train stopped, brakes hissing. The rhythmic rocking came to an end. The doors opened, and humid air rushed in. Carter stood, wincing when he put weight on his ankle. He lifted the box of records and hugged it against his chest.
“You coming or not?” he asked.
Sam nodded and let out a short huff. “I think it’s time I get a raise.” He stood slowly and they left the train. The homeless man still slept.
“Let’s get the safe opened, see if any of the cash survived, then we’ll talk.”
The two of them limped down stairs from the elevated train platform, soot covered and bloodied. The train doors closed, and the train left the station.
Empty By Design
Once they arrived, the office was still smoking, and firemen were still there. After picking up Sam’s car, they drove in circles for an hour to make sure they weren’t being followed, then stopped at a motel to rent a room.
They stood next to each other, arms crossed, looking down at the records spread across the motel bed. They had lugged the donor records and police files around with them from the sperm bank, to the office, to the hospital, back to the office, and now to here. Pages of sperm donor records were scattered at the head of the bed, and the old police files of missing persons at the foot of the bed.
“So, is this at least most of ‘em?” Sam asked.
Carter scanned them, putting most of his weight on his good ankle. “Between what burned up, and what blew away down the alley when I was attacked, I’d guess this is maybe half of what we started with?”
“Any ideas where to start? After all, this is your rodeo.”
“First things first, we find a name on Rose’s biological father.” Carter pointed at the donor records near the headboard. “It looks like the records are separated by year and listed alphabetically by recipient.” Carter grabbed a handful of papers and handed them to Sam. “We each take some. Look for Claire Bishop. Rose was born in ’04, conceived in ’03.”
Sam took the records and sat at a small round table, moving an amber colored ashtray off to the side. Carter took the rest of the records and sat on the other bed.
Sam shuffled and sorted the papers. “What if what we’re looking for was lost?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”
For some time, there was no sound but the rustling of papers and an occasional groan of displeasure coming from Sam. They each worked on organizing the records as best they could, separating them into piles by year.
Carter twirled a pen in his hand and chewed on the cap. Sam ran his finger down the list of names, his hand trembling. It had been too long since he had a drink. He pressed his hand into a fist and spread his fingers back out, but the trembling remained.
Sam puffed clouds of smoke around his face and filled the amber ashtray with several cigarette butts. He’d said it wasn’t safe for him to smoke outside, in case whoever torched the office was surveilling motels across the city. It seemed far-fetched to Carter, an excuse to smoke inside, but the slim possibility Sam was right forced him not to protest.
As he ran his pen down the list of sperm donors and recipients, Carter figured the worst-case scenario was not finding Claire’s name, that the page with her name on it had been lost in the fire. It would be an end without an answer.
“Got it!” Carter blurted out, sitting up straight and gripping a single sheet of paper in his hand. “James Miller!”
“You got an address?”
“No, but a phone number.”
Carter opened his laptop and started typing the name and number into one of the several databases he subscribed to.
“So, you’ve got a name that might as well be John Smith and a phone number that’s fifteen years old. All for a guy who probably has nothing to do with this. Psssh!” Sam threw his hands in the air.
“So, what?” Carter said, waiting for the results from his search.
“So, I’m just saying, don’t get your hopes up too much.” Sam shook his head and jabbed another cigarette butt into the ashtray. He stood and stepped over to Carter. “What do you got?”
“Well…” Carter scrolled through the results. “There’s almost nine hundred James Millers in Chicago.”
“Would’ve guessed more,” Sam muttered.
“None of them currently have this phone number.”
“Figures.”
“But … a company name also shows up as associated with that number.”
“Maybe an employer?”
“Biolife. Biolife. Why does that sound familiar?” Carter paused, then he reached in his back pocket. The brochure to Bridgeport Cryobank was still there from when he visited. “Bridgeport!” Carter pointed at the fine print on the back of the brochure. It read Bridgeport Cryobank is a subsidiary of BioLife. “Look.” He handed it to Sam.
“Bridgeport? The sperm bank? Owned by BioLife? So, Rose’s biological father, Miller, worked for the company that owns the sperm bank?” Carter nodded. “Maybe they gave him a better deal since he worked for their parent company.”
“That’d be a weird perk.” Carter typed the company name into another search engine. “Got an address for Biolife.” He jotted it in his notepad. Reading from BioLife’s website, he said, “‘…Biolife develops plasma into high quality plasma-based therapies…’”
Sam scratched his chin. “Sounds like a scam.”
“Says they operate state of the art plasma donation facilities in multiple cities throughout the United States, but they don’t list any of them.”
“If they don’t list them, how do you have an address?”
“LLC filings on the Illinois Department of Corporations site. The company is still active. The address is listed on their filings. Maybe they have a last known address for James Miller.”
Sam groaned. “Okay, well let’s get this over with. Chase this lead down so we can move on to something else. Something that actually pays. How exactly are you paying your bills? Second job?” Sam made his way to the door.
“It’s called savings and a budget.” Carter shut his laptop and shoved his notepad into his back pocket. “And not throwing money away on whiskey and cigarettes.”
The two men sat in the car stuck in traffic, rain pelting down.
“Jeez, is it hailing!” Sam said, twisting his neck to look up at the sky through the windshield.
“Should we talk to Claire and Robert?”
“Who?” Sam said, still looking up at the sky. The wipers flicked across the windshield but more water dripped and blurred just as the wipers pulled back to start over again.
“The parents! Rose’s parents!”
“Oh!” Sam sat back in the driver’s seat. “Does that mean you don’t think it was Claire who sent those men after you?
“Well, until it’s more than a hunch, I figure we should keep them in the loop.”
/> “I wouldn’t talk to them until you had anything more. You talked to Claire after they arrested Orcheck. The police have updated them on the case. Other than that, we’ve got nothing to tell ‘em.”
“Yeah, I just feel like they should hear from us. Let them know we’re still working the case.”
“Maybe they don’t want you working the case anymore.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know why the police pass those cases off to the task force so quickly?”
“Laziness?”
“The detectives have seen enough of these cases that they can tell if there’s a chance of solving it or if it’s hopeless. And when it’s hopeless, telling the parents they’re doing everything they can and not to give up hope, it’s not fair. They’ll hold on forever. Passing it on to the task force is like ripping off a Band-Aid.”
“Oh, is that what it is?” Carter rolled his eyes. “They do it for the good of the parents. Psssshhh. What’s unfair to the parents is giving up on a case that clearly could have been solved.”
“Okay, okay.” Sam nodded. “Granted, this case could have benefited from more work.”
“That’s an understatement,” Carter mumbled.
The car eased forward through the traffic. They had been at a near standstill for the last twenty minutes.
“But now it’s solved! At least ninety-five percent solved. Look at it from the Bishops’ perspective. The cops told them they have to move on to other, more promising cases. But the parents didn’t give up. They kept fighting for their daughter. Good for them, right? They hired us. We found Orcheck. Now, the cops take over, tell Claire and Robert that a creepy teacher at Rose’s school preyed on her and got her pregnant, but they got the teacher.” Sam nodded. “They caught the guy! Detective Shaker will call me if they get anything more from Dennis.”
“So?” Carter said. The sound of the rain banging on the roof was like static, white noise filling the car. Through the rain-soaked windshield Carter saw cars ahead pulled off on the side of the road.
“So, right now that’s a conclusion. That’s closure. But you want to tell them it’s not really over? That you’re chasing down hunches? That two men in a van have been following you and burned your office down? What good would that do?” Sam inched the car forward.
“It’s the truth,” Carter said.
“It’s not the truth, it’s your feeling. There’s a good chance the case is as solved as it’s gonna get. That’s what Claire and Robert think now, and if you go tell them otherwise it’s just gonna send them down the same path they were on before they came to see us. We made a difference in their lives. Leave it at that. You go talk to them now, and you undo what it was they were after when they came to us in the first place.”
A police car zipped ahead of the traffic, sirens blaring, lights flashing. The car kicked up water behind the tires.
“What they were after was their daughter.”
“They were after answers. You heard Claire when she brought up the Beth Friedman case. She didn’t see that case as a failure because she was dead. She saw success in that case, because the parents got answers. We gave them permission to move on with their lives. To start the grieving process. Don’t take that away from them.”
Carter knew Sam had a point, but it still didn’t sit well with him. It wasn’t how he would want things to end if he were Claire or Robert. But maybe it was time for some of Sam’s cynicism to guide his ways. Maybe the truth, as Carter knew it now, wasn’t something worth telling the Bishops.
They passed a wreck on the side of the road. One car had rear-ended the other. The policeman that flew by them was directing traffic. He stood in a poncho waving a flashlight, while the drivers stood in the rain, exchanging information. The slow traffic broke free, and the cars sped up. Sam drove through puddles. The headlights and brake lights were just red and white blurred dots floating above the asphalt.
“It’s just up here.” Carter pointed to the right. Sam slowed and pulled into an open spot.
“Why’s it always raining when we have to go somewhere?” Sam said.
Buttoning his coat, Carter said, “It just seems that way. You only notice it raining when you’re out. You ready?”
Sam reached under his seat and pulled out his revolver, stuck it in his waistband.
“What’s that for?”
“I’m not going anywhere without it. At least not until the guy who burned your office down is caught … or dead.”
“It’s a business,” Carter said. “What could happen?”
“Could’ve said the same thing about you and that sperm bank.”
“Let’s go.” Carter opened the door. They stepped into the downpour. Carter pulled his coat up, covering his head.
The two men stepped inside and stood in the empty lobby of an apartment building. It was a small four-story walkup. Old emerald green carpet covered the steps and an angular art deco chandelier hung over their heads. To his right was a bank of tarnished brass mailboxes. Twelve altogether.
Looking around, Carter said, “Not what I expected.”
“What did you expect?”
“An office. A receptionist. I don’t know. Something.”
“Yeah, this doesn’t exactly seem like the high-tech plasma center they talked about on their website.”
The sound of water dripping off the two men was the only sound inside the building. Carter looked around, like another wing of the lobby or a doorman would appear. He stepped to the mailboxes. Each small brass door had a slip of paper with an apartment number and business name written on it. Carter ran his hand along the boxes until he found Biolife.
“Apartment four.”
Carter took the steps two at a time. The emerald green carpet looked original to the building, but there were no signs of wear and tear. The bannister was painted a crisp clean white.
They reached apartment four. The door had nothing to identify Biolife was there, or ever had been. No plaque or nameplate. No intercom. Carter looked at the apartment across the hall. It was identical. He knocked and waited. Nothing. He knocked again, and again nothing. He crossed the hall and knocked on apartment five. Nothing.
“What’s up?” Sam asked. “Abandoned?”
Pulling his lockpick set out from his coat, Carter said, “Not abandoned. Empty by design. There’re no businesses here. It’s just a shell, the bare minimum the state requires to operate a business. Physical location. Phone number.”
He slid two thin tools into the lock and fumbled around. There was a click and the lock twisted.
“Got it!”
He opened the door slowly and peeked in, then he threw the door open wide. The apartment was empty.
“Shit!” Carter marched across the hall, jabbed his lock pick into the lock, and, in a matter of seconds, flung the door open to reveal another bare apartment.
Sighing, Sam said, “Well, we tried.”
Carter marched into Biolife’s office and scanned the area, taking in what little surroundings there were.
“Whatever this place is used for, it’s likely unoccupied for long stretches of time.”
“How do you figure?”
Pointing in the direction of the bathroom, Carter said, “Flood sensors in the bathroom. Wireless thermostat.” He pointed at the wall. “The whole place is set up to be monitored remotely.”
He walked through the small office apartment one last time, scanning the room for anything.
“The closet.” Sam pointed at a closet door with a padlock on the outside.
“That’s definitely not a typical closet.”
Sam took his pistol out, held the barrel, and slammed the butt of the gun down on the padlock until it broke off. The two stood in the doorway and peered into an empty closet.
Sam shook his head. “More of the same.”
“Wait.” Carter squeezed past Sam. He knelt down at the back of the closet and picked up a strip of plastic, pinching it between his fingers. “A
zip tie.”
Sam stuffed his pistol back in his waistband. “That’s not creepy at all.”
Carter stood in the closet, looking at each wall and the ceiling. A small black dot in the corner of the closet caught his eye. “Wait a second. Something’s sticking out of the wall here.”
He reached up and wrapped his fingers around the protrusion, and pulled. A small device, less than a centimeter in diameter, came out of the wall. It was a tube two inches long attached to a wire. “I think it’s a … camera.”
“Who’s on the other end watching?”
“I don’t know, but if someone is watching, then they’ve seen us.”
“Come on.” Sam tugged on Carter’s shoulder. “We gotta get out of here. I’m not trying to get arrested for breaking and entering. Cops are probably on their way.”
“You really think these people want the cops poking around here?” Carter stepped out of the closet.
“Well if not the cops, someone else. Someone even you will like less than the cops.”
They walked downstairs to the lobby. Carter looked at the mailboxes and jotted down the names listed for each apartment. “All business names.”
“You know you could just take a picture.” Sam pulled his cell phone out.
Carter kept writing. “Pictures don’t work for me. I have to write it down. I’ll forget I even took the picture. Writing it out solidifies it in my memory.”
“Hmph. I just figured Leland’s distrust of technology rubbed off on ya a little bit.”
“Tell ya what, you take your picture, I’ll write it down, and between the two of us we’ll remember these names.” Carter slid his notepad into his back pocket, buttoned his coat, and nodded. They left the building and jogged back to the car.
Corporate Incest
Back at the motel room, Carter sat at the small round table typing, and Sam laid back on the bed throwing a baseball in the air and catching it just before it hit his face.
“What do you think you’re gonna find on there?” he asked. “This guy worked there over a decade ago.”
“But they still exist. BioLife still exists,” Carter answered without taking his eyes off the computer screen.
