The Screaming Room jd-2

by Thomas O`Callaghan

  Driscoll spotted an opening at the top of the U, next to the service bar, and made his way toward it, sidestepping another waitress on the run.

  “Your girls should be on Rollerblades,” Driscoll said to Kevin Conlon, the tavern’s proprietor, at the bar.

  “Now there’s a novel idea. Meals on wheels!” Kevin smiled broadly at the suggestion. “What’ll it be? Your usual?”

  “That oughta do it.”

  Kevin gestured to Chris, the bartender.

  “A Harp for the Lieutenant.”

  Kevin Conlon, with his grizzly white beard and gravelly voice, seemed more suited for a Gabby Hayes Western than as a restaurant owner here in suburban New York. A well-bred Irishman and true wine aficionado, he prided himself on offering gourmet meals and gracious service at an affordable price.

  “The bad guys still one step ahead of the posse?” Conlon asked, offering Driscoll a Macanudo.

  “And then some,” Driscoll frowned, stuffing the cigar in his shirt pocket.

  “Any truth to the rumor?”

  “Which one?”

  “That the police have made a breakthrough in the case.”

  “Ah, that Matt Lauer report. He should stick to the Thanksgiving Day parade.”

  The bartender returned with a frosty mug of Irish brew and placed it on the bar in front of the Lieutenant. “Why can’t Monica Lewinsky make it as a surgeon?” he asked with a sardonic grin.

  “I’ll bite,” said Driscoll.

  “Because she sucked as an intern,” came the reply.

  A whisper of a smile creased Driscoll’s face.

  “You’ll have to excuse our staff’s highbrow sense of humor,” said Conlon. “It comes from cutting too many classes at Bartending 101.”

  Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of Driscoll’s cell phone purring inside his breast pocket. The Lieutenant answered it.

  Criminalist Ernie Haverstraw’s voice echoed in his ear. “The DNA is back on the traces of skin and blood we found under the last victim’s fingernails.”

  “And?”

  “Are you sitting down?”

  “That I am. At Sullivan’s.”

  “You finished your drink?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “You’d better order another. Make it a double.”

  “Why? You don’t like me sober?”

  “Okay. Have it your way. The DNA is a perfect match to the male’s blood on the torn fingernail we found entangled in the brake assembly of the bike.”

  “Yeah. Yeah. Our male serial killer. Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “Like I said, Lieutenant, it’s a perfect match to the male’s blood. Only thing is, this DNA is female.”

  Chapter 23

  “Whaddya mean the DNA is female?” Driscoll asked as he stormed into Haverstraw’s lab.

  “Tests don’t lie, Lieutenant.” The criminalist pointed to a collection of illuminated data on the monitor of a desktop computer.

  “Break it down for me, will ya? Using layman’s terms.”

  “The geneticists ran the usual chromosomal scanning, utilizing the Polymerase chain reaction-short tandem repeat methodology,” said Haverstraw.

  Driscoll shot him a glare. “Layman’s terms,” he repeated.

  Haverstraw shrugged and continued.

  “They got an exact match to the DNA sample on file in the database.”

  “You mean the blood on the fingernail of our male suspect.”

  “That’d be the one.”

  “But you’re telling me this specimen is female. That would be impossible.”

  “Oh, it’s possible. Let’s have a cup of coffee and I’ll explain.”

  Haverstraw sauntered over to an aluminum table that supported a Bunn double-burner coffee server, some Styrofoam cups, and a half-eaten Entenmann’s Danish ring.

  “Still take yours black, Lieutenant?”

  Driscoll nodded.

  “Want some cake?”

  “I’ll pass.”

  The two men took a seat opposite each other at a wooden workbench next to a full-sized rolling blackboard. A chalk-scrawled formula for who-knows-what was strewn across the hardwood-encased slate. Haverstraw took a sip of his coffee and stared fixedly at Driscoll.

  “Lieutenant, there is no mistake in the DNA. The killers you’re looking for are a set of twins.”

  “Twins?”

  “Identical twins.”

  “Male and female twins?”

  “There are three types of twins,” said Haverstraw. “Identical, fraternal, and conjoined. I’m not the street sleuth, but I think we can rule out conjoined. Fraternal twins wouldn’t match genetically. And these two match.”

  “An exact match?”

  “We snip off the tail from the letter e in ‘exact.’ Voila! We got a match.”

  Driscoll envisioned a circumcision. Had no clue as to why. His expression said: What?

  Haverstraw wondered why he felt obligated to explain his sense of humor to everyone. “For where it’ll lead you, they match.”

  “I thought all boy-girl twins were fraternal,” said Driscoll.

  “They usually are. Identical twins come from the same egg. Follow me on this one. The twinning begins when it separates after fertilization. It’s possible for one twin to have the full complement of forty-six chromosomes, including the XY sex chromosomes of a male, while the other twin has only forty-five chromosomes. Either the Y or one of the X chromosomes is missing. If it’s the Y that’s missing, the twin is left with a single X chromosome. Bingo! Dad gets his little girl. But not without a cost. Although the partner twin, having the X and the Y chromosome, becomes a healthy baby boy, the female is born with Turner syndrome. It’s a rarity of nature.”

  “How rare?”

  “Very! With a capital V. Take the United States for example. You’re likely to have one such birth every twelve to fifteen years.”

  “In the entire country? That is rare. What else should I know about this syndrome?”

  “There are some medical indicators. They only apply to the female. She’s likely to be short in stature, an average height being four-foot-seven. She may have webbing of the neck. Additional folds of skin cascading onto her shoulders. Her eyelids may droop. Her ears may be oddly shaped and sit lower than normal on the side of her head. Sometimes a low hairline is present at the base of the skull. The arms may turn out at the elbow. She may have an unusual number of moles. Might also be infertile. She could develop high blood pressure and diabetes and be at extra risk of ear infections and cataracts. Heart, kidney, or thyroid problems can also develop. She may be flat-chested, her nipples widely spaced. If she has breasts, they’re likely to appear undeveloped. Her chest might also appear shieldlike. Obesity is another possibility. Or, Lieutenant, she may have no apparent physical abnormalities at all. Unless she’s diagnosed by a doctor, she might not even be aware of her condition.”

  “Great! She might have a target on her, and she might not.” Driscoll groaned.

  Haverstraw shook his head sympathetically. “Well, at least you know what her accomplice will look like.”

  “I don’t even know what she looks like!”

  “Consider this. You may know more about her than she does.”

  “What I need to know is who she is, not what she is.”

  Haverstraw gulped down the remains of his coffee.

  “Do you think there’d be records of such rare twins?” asked Driscoll.

  “Depends,” said Haverstraw.

  “On?”

  “On whether they were ever tested. Oh. And there’s one more thing. Although Dr. Henry Turner first described the condition in 1938, it wasn’t until karyotyping was discovered in 1959 that the medical practitioners had a way to detect it.”

  “Karyotyping?”

  “A chromosome analysis. A blood test.”

  Driscoll stood and smiled at the criminalist. “Ernie, you’ve been a big help. I now have a place to start.” On leaving, the Lieut
enant’s eyes drifted to the desktop’s LCD screen. Its scientific hieroglyphics stared back. He pointed to them and cast a quizzical look at Haverstraw.

  “Like two peas in a pod,” said the criminalist, leaning back in his chair.

  Chapter 24

  Cedric Thomlinson was always thrilled when an investigation required him to visit CyberCentral, the tiny wood-paneled technical support room on the fourth floor of Twenty-six Federal Plaza. Was it the humming sound emanating from the room’s sophisticated computer equipment that hypnotized him, quelling his impulses, inviting the most pleasant euphoria? Was he, perhaps, overwhelmed by technological advances that allowed the pooling of infinitesimal and very personal information on the average citizen culled from every government agency, foreign and domestic? Or was he simply a willing victim to a flight of fancy at the mere glimpse of Leticia Hollander, the vivacious, soft-spoken Caribbean woman who was the center’s enticing technician?

  “Cedric, what brings you into my den of data?” Leticia cooed, eyes fixed on a computer monitor.

  “Duty calls and I am a slave to my job.”

  “Slavery was abolished. No?”

  “Not at the New York City Police Department. We’re just not shackled anymore.”

  Leticia allowed her eyes to drift upward to the meet the detective’s gaze.

  “So, what’ll it be today?”

  “I’m looking for twins, where the pair is listed as identical yet of opposite sex.”

  “You mean fraternal.”

  “That’d be too easy. We’ll stick with identical twins of opposite sex.”

  “Never knew they existed. But you’re the boss. There’d likely be medical records. I don’t suppose you’ve got a judge’s order to authorize such a search.”

  “I’d need fifty. We’ll be checking from Maine to California.”

  They both knew the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, commonly referred to as HIPPA, and a long list of state regulations forbid unauthorized access to an individual’s medical record. They knew of no exceptions.

  “Any leeway under the Patriot Act?” Leticia asked.

  “We’re not after terrorists. At least, I hope we’re not.” Thomlinson gave Leticia a sympathetic smile.

  “Damn! I know that look. You want me to do another news article search.”

  “’Fraid so. Can’t jeopardize the investigation with an unlawful inquiry.” Thomlinson hoped that someone, the twin’s parents, a local support group, a camp counselor, a teacher, or the twins themselves, before embarking on a life of crime, might have brought their uniqueness to the attention of the press. Rarity attracts the curious. The curious buy newspapers. The publisher of Guinness Book of World Records, who has raked in millions on such exclusivity for decades, proves that. Privacy guidelines being what they were, it was his only hope.

  “Damn!” Leticia hated searching newspaper archives. There was no fixed database. It meant hunt and peck through a string of Web sites featuring hieroglyphic-like listings from thousands of papers across the country. From the Oshkosh Gazette to the New York Times, the stories spanned the early 1900s through the present day. What made the task tedious was that the keywords entered came back hidden, though highlighted, in gibberish.

  To dramatize the point, Leticia tapped her fingers across the keyboard, producing this:

  • THE DAILY ESQUIRE, Ross tfes dskk..,, /;’ uu % 16, 1973 Page un

  • Barrelll ill, Rfesmen set Tagge’s inry • gge ir Twins two wins not synergy • Lutb; lltl e’s feeet and tvevvvvh 13th complete gamp an • amp;:::: andell’s wfwfwfees choice vvcdonsin jjids used single • a9werfifth wdffaaslam home | four-hitter thiqdnadmjijd seven loaded the bases in Surdaj’s tallies in the second and iith aa • run ofawfffffaju75tgdgdrst strikeoutssareeagbw eJohn fourth inning andwrrw stanzas toegdn the Satgrday GRrrf B^Y, rvrj (gPdf-cafgff fiff sasresgrorhh4h hbrgr55t5t 7hgert4rrefr34rr tthju • ferewff fwer fgrgre333fvfefdfdde deeefddetrhtyyhuegt ssd fee reeee333 rerefett4rrsrre rereref • 3fr5g Raptts, lo\grtew Twins seven games behinffggfee e wwfr3co grfrr r and ler rn’t seri rrw wurt grme were Uewiueiwweir huhi ew#%YYY amp;$$#EI ›››› UGGY YTTGYuyguhhuh huii • Jujjsjssjsdsd qw w wwwwwww hh loss to Floridae first half • Hsaa jjjj kqqeqhqiw edwo wkkl Twins?? iUUtle 111dfeenda ree walks and a ssssed bsll) bael m two of the hrcc 4c44!@#inced T gtbdj ewwe wwewee233 rff feererwere8884 rirjjijjij%$##Hdefweirrjwkefwe • Twins b erf e ww 44 2 the top of the inning amp; amp; amp; uihjiuhuwef wwww errfet5y ttrtyyeast gonee jjjj because jdfj kfwjejfmm •»ir,,,. ^ Lr4$$ u dd0033 uu 3^^^nuj 88C uuu››››› – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – 7 77ggyg 3@@4g • Galsolie rr Ethl ge • Jjjyh yt amp;…jhgu’’’PP btt?///? ujhhjuiuiuiu

  She grabbed Thomlinson’s index finger and used it to poke at the four highlighted Twins she had unearthed. “You see them? You think we’re gonna have better luck when we type in ‘Turner’?” What came next was placing the cursor on each Twins and depressing both the CTRL and ESC keys, bringing them to mostly remote news articles referencing twins. It appeared that most were about the playing prowess of the Minnesota Twins. “You, Cedric Franz Thomlinson, are goin’ nowhere till this is done! You got that?”

  Yes! cheered Thomlinson. “I won’t budge,” is what he told her.

  Leticia stared at the screen and shook her head. “How far back do you wanna go?” she asked, surrendering to fate.

  Thomlinson grinned and awarded her a vial of Visine.

  “Cute.”

  “Keep it within the United States. For now. And give the Guinness Book of World Records a sweep while we’re at it. Disregard anyone who would now be over sixty or under twelve.”

  Leticia started counting on her fingers. “A math whiz, I’m not,” she said, catching Thomlinson’s grin

  “Since there’s no way to detect newborns as being identical, I’m hoping for an entry later in life. It’s a long shot, but under the circumstances, our only shot.”

  Manicured fingertips danced across the keyboard, turning the computer’s screen into a kaleidoscope of newsprint.

  After five hours and forty-six minutes of squinting, moving on, and squinting again, their zigzagging cross-country cyberjaunt produced four possibilities. Onetime residents of Ohio, Arkansas, Georgia, and West Virginia would now become the focus of Thomlinson’s investigation.

  Leticia clicked PRINT, and the pair watched as their nearly six hours of arduous labor filled one sheet.

  The Gem City Chronicle Dayton, Ohio: February 4, 1967

  Proud parents, Helene and Paul Matthews of St. Finbar’s parish applaud vigorously as unique identical twins, John and Kathleen, take a curtain call after their school’s performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

  Southern District Gazette DeWitt, Arkansas: June 29, 1964

  Dwayne and Ernestine Parkins mourn the loss of their two-year-old daughter, Connie May. She is also survived by grandparents, Sonia and Sunny-Bob Peters, Claire and Leroy Parkins, and identical twin brother James. In lieu of flowers the family asks that donations be made in Connie’s name to the March of Dimes.

  The Bibb County News Macon, Georgia: January 4, 1987

  Education: Twins magazine reporters expected to arrive at Central High on Thursday to interview Tulia and Earnest Gibbons, our fine state’s unique set of identical twins.

  The Pendleton Press Franklin, West Virginia: November 1, 1996

  Seeing double on Halloween? At St. Elizabeth’s annual jack o’-lantern fund-raiser, the best costume award went to five-year-olds Angus and Cassie Claxonn of Oak Flat, who came as themselves. The youngsters are a rare breed. A set of opposite-sex identical twins. Foster mom, Raven’s Breath, isn’t telling us how that happened. Trick or treat? We’re in the dark on that one.

  “Raven’s Breath? What kinda name is that?” said Leticia.

  Thomlinson wasn’t sure. “Is there any way of telling where these twins are now?”

  “I’ll give it my best shot.”

  Leticia c
ross-referenced the names through every possible entry these twins might have made through life. A kaleidoscope of records was considered. They included twin networking groups and armed forces records, as well as death records. When all was complete, Thomlinson had what appeared to be promising addresses for the Matthews and Gibbons twins. Since Connie May Parkins was dead, James Parkins was in the clear. There was no record of any address for the Claxonn twins. Not even in Oak Flat, West Virginia.

  Leticia loaded the collected data on the three sets of viable twins back into the computer. There was one remaining search to consider. Again, her fingers danced across the keys. She was looking to see if any of the six had ever been arrested for a crime. Both she and Thomlinson were left staring at a blank screen.

  As far as CyberCentral was concerned, the six were as clean as the winds of winter.

  Chapter 25

  Angus was in the shed. The game board, originally designed for Monopoly, now had a New York City tourist map affixed to it, with a cellophane grid of squares overlaying it. One of the sound chips embedded under the surface of the map wasn’t working. The chip, designed for use inside talking or musical greeting cards, and activated when the card was opened, resembled a shiny new dime. Angus studied it closely under the magnifying glass. He’d have to go online, order a new one, download the singing voice of Old Blue Eyes, and slip it back into its sleeve under the Statue of Liberty National Monument. Of course, he’d lay out the extra bucks for an overnight delivery. What good was the game if it didn’t sing?

  “Angus!”

  His sister was a screamer. It usually meant she saw a spider.

  “What is it this time?” he hollered back.

  “It’s got a zillion legs! Come quick.”

  He put down the chip and headed inside to deal with the skittering demon. En route, he remembered the last time he heard those lungs in high-pitch mode. It wasn’t that long ago.

  “Angus!” It sounded more like the shriek of a wounded hawk than a human scream, and it awakened him. It was nearing four in the morning, and the small house was otherwise quiet. Where was his sister? And, more important, where was Father?