by Brian Parker
“I can’t risk you getting picked up. If the mayor’s people pick you up off the street, we’re both done for. They’ll make you talk, and that puts both Rebecca and Teagan at risk as well.”
She set her jaw and nodded. Staying inside and out of sight was no longer simply a matter of personal preference for her. Now our future was in Sadie’s hands.
I glanced over at the girls in the kitchen cleaning up from breakfast. “Thank you for letting us stay,” I said. “It means a lot to me that I can rely on such good friends.”
Teagan smiled, but didn’t say anything, which left a gap that Rebecca was more than glad to fill. “You’re welcome, Zach. You guys weren’t any trouble at all. Besides, we love having guests over and entertaining.”
I planned to go back down to the Dockyards to talk to Tommy Voodoo about why he was cloning businesspeople and I needed to follow up with Chris Young to ask him a few things.
The vid screen in the living room flashed a few times with the words, “Killer Cop on the Loose.” The bottom of my stomach fell away and my fears were confirmed when my picture came up. “What the hell? Hey, how do you turn on the volume?”
“Volume on,” Rebecca called from the kitchen.
A female reporter’s voice filled the room. “Last night, at approximately 1:38 a.m., New Orleans Police Department Detective Zachary Forrest shot and killed another police officer in Easytown. Channel 12 News obtained the following video footage through the Consent to Surveil Act.”
The scene switched to street light footage of me jogging through Easytown. “That’s from last night,” I muttered. I slowed as I neared the female officer and pulled a gun out of my pocket. “That was my phone, not a gun.”
“As you can see,” the reporter said, “Forrest walked up and calmly shot Officer Karen Goldman, a mother of two, in the back of the head. He can be seen saying something to her, but she doesn’t appear to be able to hear him.”
“That’s because the footage is doctored!” I shouted uselessly at the screen.
Councilman Jefferson’s image appeared as he highlighted some of my past misconduct during a press conference. Mayor Cantrell was off to his right, visibly angry that one of his police officers would murder another.
My picture returned and the reporter said, “The NOPD has issued a warrant for Forrest’s arrest. Anyone with any information is requested to call…”
I turned back to the women. The looks on their faces must have mirrored mine. Shock. Anger. Disbelief.
“You guys know I didn’t do that. I was here for Christ’s sake.”
Rebecca was the first to speak. “I can’t believe they would do that. It’s illegal. We can all testify that you were here in the apartment after midnight.”
“Zach, what are you going to do?” Teagan asked.
“I’ve got to try and clear my name.”
“You can’t go down to the police department,” Sadie cautioned. “They’ll arrest you and put you away without any type of trial. You’ll be out on that island before the day is over.”
“I can handle myself inside Sabatier,” I responded. “But I’m not going to turn myself in. I know a witch hunt when I see one. I’ve got to get to the bottom of this and it looks like my timeline just sped up.”
I put my Oxfords on and slid my arms through the sleeves of my coat.
“Zach?”
“Yeah, Teagan?”
She came around the kitchen island to the little square of tile by the front door where I stood. “Be safe. Please.”
“I always am.”
“No, I’m serious. You’ve always had support from other officers in the police department. You don’t have that right now. Your chief may be on your side, but he’s got a career and a family that he has to worry about.”
“Chief Brubaker would never do anything to hurt me.”
“Maybe he wouldn’t, I don’t know him. What about all the others; the ones who don’t know the truth and think you’re a cop killer? Will they protect you?”
“I’ll watch my back,” I replied, opening the door and ignoring her question. What did the damn kid know about anything out there in the real world? I’d proven myself time and again to the other cops; they knew that I didn’t do what the video showed me doing.
Geez, I can’t even explain it to myself without sounding guilty.
Teagan grabbed my arm and pulled me back inside, wrapping me in a hug. For the first time, I didn’t hesitate when I hugged her back.
I tried to get in touch with Andi, but there wasn’t a response from her. They must have already went into my apartment and shut everything down. I hoped that she’d deleted the files from last night where she told me how to get to Teagan’s house. I just needed her to remove the reference to where we were going, anything else about Sadie’s escape or me driving manually wouldn’t matter.
The drive to the docks went slowly as I sat in morning traffic. The Jeep had deep tinted windows, but I still tried to sink low whenever I passed by other cops. I hated doing it because it wasn’t like me. I was used to being the guy in charge of the situation, not an accused murderer slinking from place to place.
After what seemed like hours, I finally reached the headquarters building for the Marie Leveau Shipping Company. I parked the Jeep out front and rushed inside.
“Detective Forrest! Tommy isn’t expecting you,” Anastasia exclaimed, jumping to her feet.
“Well I’m here,” I retorted. “If he’s really as innocent as he claims, he needs to talk to me. Now!”
“I—”
“Don’t give me any shit. I know the way.”
I stormed down the hall toward the secret passageway. The unmistakable click of a safety being released on a weapon made me stop and raise my hands.
“You are not authorized to see Mr. Ladeaux this morning.”
I turned slowly back toward the receptionists. Betty stood behind her desk and held a giant pistol in her hand. The damn thing was pointed at my forehead.
“Whoa! Let’s take a step back from the situation, Betty,” I said coolly, and then felt like an idiot. The droid didn’t need to be calmed down; she was simply following her programming. I took a few slow, tentative steps back toward the desk and when I passed whatever line she’d been instructed to guard, she sat back down and began typing once again. I had no idea where the gun went.
“So, what am I supposed to do?” I asked, ambling slowly the rest of the way to the desk.
“You may have a seat in our waiting area, sir,” Betty responded. “I will attempt to find space on Mr. Ladeaux’s calendar this morning.”
“Let me call Tommy,” Anastasia suggested. “I’ll let him know that you’re here.”
With nothing better to do, I sat in the waiting area. The vid screen showed me killing Karen Goldman repeatedly. It was horseshit. I’d pulled my phone out of my pocket when I passed her last night, not a gun, and they killed her because she was in the video. That poor family.
How many more people had died because of this torture tourism ring? Voodoo said it was worth billions, but there were some hefty players involved here, was the money worth it to them? What did the mayor—a rich man by all accounts—have to do with this? Was it purely that he liked to torture people or was there something else, something even more sinister than that going on?
A pair of long, cream-colored legs invaded my line of sight as I stared blankly at the floor in thought. “Mr. Ladeaux has graciously made room in his schedule to see you, Detective,” Anastasia said. “Please follow me.”
I stood and followed her, glancing back at Betty when I crossed the point where she’d drawn on me before. The droid typed merrily away at a document, not paying any attention to me whatsoever.
“This goes deeper than just torture,” Anastasia mumbled.
“What was that?” I asked, catching up to her.
“I said you’re lucky that Mr. Ladeaux could see you. He’s a very busy man.”
Did I hear her right the f
irst time?
“No, the other part.”
She looked at me and shook her head. “I don’t know what you mean, Mr. Forrest.”
I knew what I heard, but she wasn’t going to say it again. She had the one opportunity to pass along a short message and I’d received it. What did she mean that it went deeper than torture? Who was she afraid of? Was it Voodoo or someone else?
We went to Ladeaux’s decoy office.
“Good morning, Detective Forrest,” Tommy Voodoo greeted me when we arrived. “I hear you’ve been a busy man.”
“Not half as busy as someone wants people to think.”
“Anastasia, please bring the detective some coffee. I believe you take it with cream and sugar, correct?”
“I’m not going to be here long enough for a drink,” I replied. “I need info and I need it quick.”
Voodoo leaned back and put his hands behind his head. “You see, we have two problems with your request.”
“What’s that, Ladeaux?”
“One, you’re no longer on the force. The mayor had you kicked off when you shot that other cop.”
“It wasn’t me. Anyone with even half a brain knows that.”
“They only know what the vidfeeds tell them. It’s too hard for the masses to form their own opinion. With ‘indisputable’ video evidence like the news showed this morning, you’re already guilty.”
“Hmpf,” I grunted. It was bullshit, but essentially true. It seemed like hardly anyone researched topics for themselves or thought too hard beyond what the media spoon-fed to them and public opinion was easy to manipulate.
“The other problem is that you lied to me. You told me you found nine dead clones. Who is this Sadie person?”
“She’s a clone.”
“I know that. The original version of her runs my company. What I want to know is why you kept her a secret from me. We were supposed to be in this together.”
“Wrong. We aren’t in anything together, Ladeaux. I’m trying to recover your prop—No, that’s not right. I’m trying to find missing persons and you’re the one giving me the information in exchange for keeping my friend’s rent affordable.”
He picked at a piece of lint on his tailored suit. “You see it one way; I see it another.”
“So Sadie is a businesswoman? She said she remembered being in board meetings and speaking in front of large groups.”
“She’s modeled after Kelsey Bloomfield, the Chief Operations Officer of Biologiqué International. No children. Has a few animals—maybe a dog? I can’t really remember.”
Voodoo leaned forward once more. “There, I just told you exactly what you wanted to know when you went to the media to ask for their help. If you’d simply come to me with the truth that the clone was alive, we could have avoided this disaster.”
“Well, shit, Ladeaux. You don’t have the best reputation. And to be honest, I’m still not entirely sure what your role is in all of this. Your company made these clones, they got away from you somehow, inexplicably, and instead of going public with the info, you wanted to keep it quiet that there’s a multi-billion dollar torture industry in New Orleans. Add to that the fact that you coerced me into finding the clones by purchasing the building where my lifelong friend’s business is located… Do you think I can trust you?”
“Please, Detective. Let’s be civil,” he protested against my questioning of his credibility. He squirmed in his seat for a moment before turning to the computer screen and tapping a few icons. The familiar absence of noise descended upon the office as a white noise generator enveloped the room.
“Have you ever stopped to wonder why the bodies of clones are destroyed immediately?” he asked. “Why the mayor is explicitly clear when it comes to clone politics, and not much else?”
“I think it’s complete and utter bullshit. You don’t destroy evidence, ever. And doing so before a case is closed makes me think they’re hiding something—like being involved in the torture tourism that Sadie accused him of. But I’m not sure I’m following you on the politics piece,” I admitted.
He nodded. “You’re exactly right. It’s all about the destruction of evidence. Covering up the lie.”
He adjusted in the chair once more and pointed at the sound-dampening equipment in the corner. “Do you really think I’d be concerned about gamblers and two-bit street thugs? There’s more security in this building than you could imagine, I’m quite secure against common criminals. This goes much higher than you’re thinking—and they’re certainly willing to kill a few cops and sweep aside investors like me to make sure they keep a good thing going.”
“Do you mean the mayor is involved like Sadie claims?” If I could get a second person to come forward, we might have a chance of opening an actual investigation against him.
Voodoo tapped the side of his nose. “More than involved, Forrest. Mayor Cantrell is the architect of this scheme. When it all started out, he commissioned a clone of himself. It was supposed to be used as an organ donor in case he ever became ill. I knew about it and I even agreed with it. Then, about a month ago, I learned that he’d made an arrangement behind my back with Kelsey Bloomfield. She began cloning government officials, businessmen and women, and influential people in the state. They weren’t willing participants.”
“What do you mean?”
“She sent me a few documents, trying to play both sides I imagine. Her paperwork told me about the thirty-eight clones—but there’s probably more. Then all communications from Bloomfield ceased. I didn’t know what they were truly after by cloning those people until I watched the video of Sadie. Now I know.”
Everything clicked in my mind. “Kleer didn’t buy the clones from you,” I interrupted him. “He took them. This isn’t about recovering the clones for humanitarian reasons. This is damage control. You’re worried that this is going to get out and then everything will come crashing down. Billions in potential revenue, gone.”
“Of course it is,” he snapped. “I think it’s despicable what they’re doing to those poor clones, but people get murdered all the time. I told you, this is worth trillions of dollars, I’m not going to let some fucking piece of shit mayor ruin this deal because he wants to increase his local power base.”
“Your true colors are showing.”
“Don’t fuck with me, Detective,” Voodoo sneered. “We both know that I need this to go away quietly, you need your friend’s business to remain affordable and we get to save the lives of clones. What else do you need from me for your investigation?”
“First off, why does she remember everything except personal details? Can they selectively upload the brain scan?”
“It’s because her memory’s been wiped,” he replied. “And then there’s Dr. Grubber, the geneticist that your reporter friend interviewed. He stated that Sadie was an exact match for a human. My clones aren’t exactly the same as you or I. We clean out any resemblance of any type of disease or malformity at the cellular level before they’re grown.” He paused once again. “We also keep a close eye on our clones by making them chemically dependent on a compound to stave off rapid cellular deterioration. Within five days of not getting the compound the clone begins to die. They’re dead by the end of a week or two without the injection.”
“And that is noticeable in a DNA test?”
“It’s crystal clear if you know what you’re looking for—and Dr. Grubber is the best in the business. I checked into him.”
“So all this means?”
“That Sadie is not a clone. She’s Kelsey Bloomfield. Why they swapped her out, I don’t know, but I bet it has something to do with her trying to blackmail me. She probably tried the same thing with the mayor.”
“It also means that the dead clones I’ve been finding…”
“Were likely the original people, not clones,” Voodoo finished. “Think about it, tattoo a few numbers on their ear, make sure the coroner or investigator notices the clone serial number and couple that with the state’s
harsh penalties against those who choose to assist a clone and we’ve got a coup that was staged by the top people in the government.”
“And the clones are loyal to the mayor since he has the juice to keep them alive.”
“Exactly,” he shouted, slapping the table in his excitement. “Of those that I know about, the mayor seems to have set himself up to run the city for a long time. My information is dated, but there are a few state officials and one federal judge on Bloomfield’s list. He’s going to make a play for something bigger.”
The implications of what he alleged were enormous—and totally unprovable without isolating the potential clone for several days. The only way I would even be able to begin the conversation would be to bring in the double, dead or alive, and compare them to the person living and working in our society. How would the average citizen view that?
“Why is it that every time I talk to you, I get into deeper shit?” I mumbled.
“It must be my good reputation with the city leadership,” Voodoo answered with a sly grin.
I regarded him for a moment before answering, “You coulda fooled me.”
“Not exactly laying low, are you, Chris?” I asked as I stared out over the wrought iron railing of his hotel balcony across Frenchmen Street toward the French Quarter.
“What can I say? I enjoy fine hotels, fine dining, and fine women.”
“I can say that you’ve got a target on your back because of that story you ran on Sadie.”
“Just like you do, eh?”
I leaned back and sipped the Brandy Crusta that the hotel’s bar staff made. It was good, but not like the one they served over at the Carousel Bar. I was glad that the reporter had decided to leave his house for a few days, but he was taking a chance by flaunting his newfound fame at the Frenchmen Hotel.
“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” I replied. “It’s more like a death sentence.”
“You’re officially on the outs, my friend.” He leaned over to me and whispered, “But I don’t believe them. I’m still in communication with a lot of past informants. Somebody has put a price on you and Sadie both.”
