Alter Ego

by David Archer

  Sam had agreed, and then thought about how best to accomplish the job. He didn’t want to draw any attention to himself, so he bought an old, gray Chevy van from some guy on Craigslist. He bought new tires and had it checked out to be sure it would make the trip, and the next morning, he stopped by the Windlass office to pick up cash for expenses. Everyone was delighted to see him again, and they all came out to say hello while Eileen Thomas, Ron’s mother and the office manager, counted out a couple thousand dollars in cash for him.

  Sam chatted with everyone for a few minutes, then left and drove north on I-25. Five days later, he delivered his living cargo to the capitol police, so that the guy could testify before a Senate committee, then worked his way back home.

  By that time, the old van was running on five of its eight cylinders, the transmission was refusing to shift into high gear, and he was getting four miles to the gallon. The day after he got home, he drove it to the scrapyard with Indie following. He happily collected the couple of hundred bucks they gave him for it, then stood and watched as it was dropped into a giant machine that chopped it into billions of tiny pieces.

  Things settled into a routine, and Sam was relaxing into his new life as a semi-retired courier. He didn’t really need the money, but Indie understood that he needed something else. Doing these little jobs helped him to feel like he was still contributing to the world around him, and while it wasn’t as exciting and dangerous as what he had done before, the little risk that somebody might try to take whatever it was he was carrying was enough to fill his need for excitement.

  It had been almost a month since his trip to the nation’s capitol and Sam had made a few more simple runs. He went to Tokyo, once, to pick up a prototype of some device that Sony was working on with Google, and he’d bought Indie a ticket for that one. They spent an extra day in Japan sightseeing and just got home when the grandmas came to drop off the children.

  Kim, his mother-in-law, was looking at him strangely when she came in. Sam noticed and narrowed his eyes at her.

  “Kim? Something wrong?”

  “I don’t really know, Sam,” she said. “You know, Beauregard has been pretty quiet lately. I was starting to worry that he might have finally left me, but this morning I woke up dreaming about him. When he kept talking, I knew it wasn’t just a dream.”

  Knowing he was going to regret it, Sam asked, “And he had something important to say?”

  “Something weird, I guess,” she said. “I don’t know what it means, and he says he can’t explain it, but he told me to tell you that he knows you’re not guilty. When I asked him to tell me more, he said that was all he got. I haven’t been able to get him to say anything else at all since then.”

  Sam’s eyebrows went up. “He knows I’m not guilty? Guilty of what?”

  Kim shrugged. “That’s what I mean, he says he doesn’t know. He just said to tell you that he knows you’re not guilty.”

  Indie was looking at her mother, but she turned to Sam. “Do you have any ideas what he means?”

  Sam shook his head. “Not a clue. I can’t think of anything somebody might think I was guilty of.”

  There was a sound outside and Kenzie looked out the window. “Daddy? Aunt Karen is here.”

  Indie grinned and went to the door, but her grin faded suddenly. She turned and looked at Sam, then opened the door for Karen Parks, the homicide detective Sam had worked with on many cases. She was flanked by three uniformed officers and another man wearing a suit, and none of them were smiling.

  “Karen?” Indie asked.

  “Where is he, Indie?” Karen asked.

  “I’m right here,” Sam said. “What’s all this about, Karen?”

  The man in the suit shoved past Karen and Indie, and Sam realized he was keeping a hand on the gun at his belt.

  “Sam Prichard?” he asked.

  Sam got to his feet, keeping his hands in plain sight. “That’s me,” he said. “What’s going on?”

  The fellow’s eyes were glaring at Sam. “I am Sheriff’s Detective David O’Rourke, from Laramie County. Sam Prichard, you are under arrest for the rape and murder of Brenda Starling in Wellington, Colorado. You have the right to remain silent. If you give up the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney present during questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. Do you understand the rights I have just explained to you?”

  Grace, her mouth falling open, said, “What? What are you talking about?”

  Sam stared at O’Rourke as two of the uniform officers stepped beside him and took hold of his arms. He didn’t resist as they pulled his hands behind his back and applied the handcuffs.

  “Indie?” Sam said. “Call Carol Spencer. Tell her I need an attorney, now.”

  “Sam,” Karen said, “I don’t know what to say. They have your DNA on a murder victim, a fourteen-year-old girl.”

  Sam looked at her, his eyes growing even wider. “That’s impossible,” Sam said.

  “Really?” O’Rourke asked. “We got three different samples, Prichard, and they all came back as a match to you. You want to tell me how you would explain that?”

  “I don’t know,” Sam said, “but I know that I didn’t rape or murder anyone. You said this happened in Wellington? When?”

  “Sam, the murder took place outside Fort Collins, but the body was found near Wellington. The murder happened on a Thursday evening, about three and a half weeks ago,” Karen said, looking him directly in the eyes. “That was the same day you left on that trip to D.C.”

  “Yeah, I heard about that trip,” O’Rourke said. “Detective Parks has been helping me fill in some blanks the last couple days. We have video of that old, gray van you bought. As soon as we find it, that’ll just be another nail in your coffin.”

  Sam started to say that the van had been crushed and shredded, but suddenly realized just how that would look. He looked at Indie, who was staring at him, and then at Kenzie. The little girl was glaring at O’Rourke, but she was smart enough not to say anything.

  Sam looked back at his wife, and the look in her eyes told him that she was shocked at what she had heard. He started to speak, but Kim put a hand on Indie’s shoulder and said, “Indiana! Remember what Beauregard said. I think we know now what he meant.”

  Indie looked at her mother, then turned back to Sam. She blinked a couple times, tears leaking out of her eyes, then put on her bravest smile. “We’ll get through this, Sam,” she said. She turned to Karen. “Karen? You know Sam better than this, don’t you?”

  Karen grimaced. “Three days ago I would’ve said so,” she said. “I’m sorry, Indie, I had to see the DNA evidence for myself. It’s a ninety-nine percent match, and that’s too much to be coincidence.” She shrugged. “For what it’s worth, I wanted to ask Sam to step outside. I didn’t want to do this right in front of you and the kids, but O’Rourke wasn’t willing to play along.”

  Indie swallowed hard, but didn’t lose her smile. “You’ll see,” she said. “I don’t know how, but this is a mistake. There’s no way Sam would do something like that.”

  “That’s enough,” O’Rourke said. He motioned at the officers holding Sam, and they walked him out the door and put him in the back of a squad car. O’Rourke and the other officer followed, but Karen stood where she was for another moment. She looked at the floor at first, then turned and forced her eyes to meet Indie’s.

  “They’ve got semen, pubic hair and whiskers,” she said. “All three samples come back matching Sam’s DNA profile.”

  “But how could it?” Indie asked. “Sam never had a DNA test.”

  “Yes, he did,” Karen said. “Remember when he was arrested over murdering that dentist’s wife? During the booking process, they took swabs from his cheeks for the DNA registry. It’s standard procedure, nowadays.”

  Indie stared at her. “I don’t care,” she said. “First off, I know Sam
couldn’t have done this. But second, and you understand what I’m saying, Beauregard warned us. Mom?”

  Karen was aware of Beauregard, the probably-imaginary Civil War ghost that had a tendency to predict the future. Kim called him her “spirit guide,” and he had never been known to be wrong in his predictions.

  Kim cleared her throat and looked at Karen. “Just this morning,” she said, “Beauregard told me to tell Sam that he knows Sam isn’t guilty. We didn’t have any idea what he was talking about until now, but you know enough about Beauregard to know that he doesn’t make mistakes.”

  Karen looked at the woman for a moment, then shrugged her shoulders. “I wish I could say that makes me feel better,” she said, “but it doesn’t. I’ve never seen so much DNA evidence, and they checked it three times. All the samples came back with the same profile, and the only one it matches up to is Sam.” She looked at Indie again. “I’m really sorry,” she said, and then she walked out the door and got into her car.

  The others had waited and followed her as she drove away. Indie stood at the door, staring after them for a long moment, then turned and looked at her mother.

  “I don’t care how you do it,” she said, “you get Beauregard to find out just how this could have happened.”

  Kim gave her a halfhearted grin. “I’m trying, but he isn’t talking.”

  Grace put her arms around Indie. “Indie, call the lawyer. God only knows what they’re going to do to Sam, we have to get started on this now.”

  Indie nodded, then reached into her purse for her cell phone. She scrolled through the contact list for a moment, then clicked a button and put it to her ear.

  “Carol? It’s Indie Prichard. We need your help.” She listened for a moment, then said, “Sam has just been arrested for rape and murder, and they claim they got his DNA off the victim. No, I don’t know any details, just—that’s all they told me so far. They just took him out of the house, I suppose toward the jail. Okay, let me know.”

  She ended the call and put the phone on the coffee table as she sat on the sofa. “She’s going to start making calls now, try to find out anything more. As soon as they get Sam booked in, she will go to see him.”

  Kenzie, who had been standing quietly beside her brother’s playpen, walked to her mother and climbed into her lap.

  “Mommy? Did Daddy hurt somebody?”

  Indie wrapped her arms around her daughter and held her close, shaking her head.

  “No, sweetheart,” she said. “Your daddy would never do what they are saying he did.”

  “Then why did they take him away?”

  “Because somebody has made a big mistake,” Indie said. “And somebody, somewhere, somehow is going to pay for it.”

  TWO

  Because he was Sam Prichard, a dozen reporters and news crews were standing in the foyer at the detention center when they arrived. They were all shouting questions at him, but Sam only shook his head until one voice cut through the din.

  “Sam,” Wendy Dawson called out, and he turned his head toward her voice. Harvey’s camera was pointed straight at him. “Sam, is there any truth to the charges against you?”

  “No,” Sam said emphatically, then closed his mouth. The officers pushed him forward past all of the reporters and into the booking room.

  Sam had been through the booking process before. With O’Rourke and two other officers standing beside him, he emptied his pockets and handed over his belt and shoes, then was led to the shower room. He tossed his street clothes into the basket they gave him, stepped into the shower and lathered up, then rinsed off and put on the bright orange jumpsuit that marked him as being charged with felony crimes. When he was finished, he was handed a stack of sheets and blankets with the pillow he would use while he was there, and then escorted to a cell.

  “You’ll be here for tonight,” O’Rourke said. “It’s late enough in the day that they don’t have a spot for you at Fort Collins, so we will go up there tomorrow. I suggest you get whatever sleep you can tonight, because you probably won’t get much chance to rest up there. Somebody at our jail let out the rumor that we were coming after Brenda’s killer, and an awful lot of the people we’ve got locked up want to have private conversations with you.”

  Sam looked to him. “I’ve been where you are,” he said. “And I’ve arrested the wrong man before. I know you don’t believe me at the moment, but you’re going to find out that I didn’t do this. When you do, it’s going to tear you up. It’s going to make you feel like you’ve lost your edge, like you can’t do your job anymore.”

  “I know my job just fine,” O’Rourke shouted in his face. “Bringing you in is doing my job!”

  “Just remember what I said. You’re probably a very good cop, O’Rourke. Don’t let it destroy you when the truth comes out.”

  Angrily, O’Rourke shoved him into his cell and slammed the door shut. He stared at Sam for a moment, then turned and stomped away as a jailer stood outside the cell.

  “You really do this?” the jailer asked.

  Sam looked at him, and suddenly realized that he knew the man fairly well.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  “I’ve seen people come in here before,” the jailer said, “people I never would have believed could do the things they were charged with. Most of the time, it turns out they were guilty. I know you, Mr. Prichard, so I don’t want to believe this, but everybody says the evidence is absolute.”

  Sam nodded. “That’s what they tell me, too,” he said. “All I know is that I didn’t do it. Either they’ve made some kind of big mistake or somebody is working very hard to frame me for a crime I didn’t commit.”

  The jailer looked at him for a moment, then slowly nodded his head. “I hope you’re telling the truth,” he said. “Otherwise, an awful lot of people are going to be pretty disappointed in you.”

  He turned and walked away, and Sam started putting his bunk together.

  The reporters had left the detention center and were now camped on Sam’s front lawn. Indie had asked the grandmas to stay over, not wanting to be alone while this was going on, and Grace was looking out the window.

  “Indie?” she said a moment later. “Wendy Dawson is coming up the steps. You want to talk to her?”

  Indie was curled up in Sam’s recliner, her eyes red. Kenzie was sitting in her lap, with Bo in the playpen beside her. She didn’t respond for a moment, then looked up at her mother-in-law and nodded.

  “Yes,” she said. “Let her in. The cameraman, too.”

  Grace opened the door to let Wendy and Harvey step inside, and the reporters on the lawn started shouting questions. She ignored them while the pair stepped into the living room, then shut the door firmly behind them.

  Wendy Dawson and her cameraman, Harvey, had known Sam and Indie for several months. Wendy and Harvey were local reporters who managed to work their way into Sam’s good graces and had accompanied him on several of his cases with Windlass. When he announced his retirement, they went back to their regular jobs, working for the local TV station.

  “Indie?” Wendy asked. “How are you holding up?” She glanced at Harvey, who was keeping the camera pointed at the floor, and smiled before turning back to Indie. “Off the record, of course.”

  “I’m in shock at the moment,” Indie said. “I don’t understand what’s happening, because I know Sam couldn’t have done this. The detective said they have his DNA that they recovered from the body, but that’s just impossible.” She sat straighter in the chair and picked up a tissue to dry her eyes. “I need to say that, I need to say it on camera.”

  Wendy nodded, then motioned for Harvey to turn the camera on. He put it to his shoulder and pointed it at Wendy, then waved a finger so she would know he was ready.

  “This is Wendy Dawson,” she said into her microphone, “and I’m here in the home of Sam Prichard, the famous investigator, who has just been arrested for the rape and murder of a young girl in Fort Collins. I’ll be speaki
ng with his wife, Indiana, who has something she’d like to say.”

  She turned to Indie and Harvey aimed the camera at her.

  “Mrs. Prichard, do you believe there’s any truth to the charges your husband is facing?”

  “Absolutely not,” Indie said. “Anyone who knows Sam Prichard would know he is incapable of the sort of thing he’s accused of. While he may be famous for being a tough guy, he’s one of the gentlest men I have ever known in my life. There’s absolutely no way I could ever believe he could do something like this.”

  “But the police say the evidence is overwhelming,” Wendy said. “According to my sources, they have positively identified Sam Prichard’s DNA on the victim. Can you explain how that could happen?”

  “I’m no forensic expert,” Indie said, “but I know that DNA evidence can be flawed. There are lots of things that can happen to a sample that can contaminate it and make it give a false reading. I think that may be what happened in this case.”

  “What about when the crime occurred? Does Mr. Prichard have an alibi?”

  Indie grimaced. While Wendy was friendly, she was also a very professional reporter.

  “At that time, my husband was on a trip for the government, something that is classified. He was unfortunately alone, so there’s no one who can definitively state that he was not there at the time, but he’s just not the sort of man who could do this kind of thing.”

  Wendy frowned. She liked Sam a lot and had been hoping to get something from Indie to help her keep her own faith in him, but Indie was not giving it to her. She thought quickly, desperately trying to find something that would give her a reason to keep believing in him, then looked at Indie.

  “Mrs. Prichard, do you believe someone could be trying to frame your husband?”