Again
"For she's a jolly good fellow that nobody can deny!"
Applause followed the final chorus of the song, and fellow officers, both veteran and rookie alike, patted Detective Irene Wirt on the back. Not only was she a well-liked member of the force, but she was a damned good cop as well. There was little doubt among the attendees at her retirement party that she would be missed.
"I hope you're still going to bake cookies for us at Christmas time," Lorenzo Spinelli, the chief of detectives, teased.
"I suppose I can send them up from Florida by FedEx," the fifty-five-year-old soon-to-be-ex-detective replied.
"Why wait until Christmas? You'll have plenty of time on your hands now that you won't be working. You can make them for us several times during the year. Hey. What's the next holiday? Easter. Right? Why don't you make us Easter cookies?"
"You have to give me the chance to get settled in to my new home first, chief. Once I'm unpacked, I'll make a big batch of brownies for you. I promise."
"And those lime cookies with the white chocolate chips?" Lorenzo said with a smile. "They're my favorite."
"Yes. Of course."
The celebration went on for several hours. At some point, a number of the attendees left and new ones joined in as the former had to go on duty and the latter got off. Work shifts aside, every member of the force made an appearance at the party. Finally, at midnight, the married celebrants had to return home to their families. Not long thereafter, the single officers, too, decided to call it a night.
When the final goodbyes were said, hugs and kisses far outnumbered handshakes; and in many cases, there were tears. Irene would be seeing many of these same men and women the following day when she went to the police station to clean out her desk and locker, but the station house was not the place for a display of affection. Rather, her coworkers would send her off with a joke or a promise to stay in touch.
"Well, I'll see you tomorrow," Horton Farnon, Irene's partner for the last fifteen years, announced when the two of them walked out to the parking lot together.
"You okay to drive home?" the guest of honor asked, knowing he had had several drinks during the course of the evening.
"You want to give me a breathalyzer?" he laughed and then became serious. "Yeah. I'm okay. How about you?"
"Sober as a judge."
"That's not much of an endorsement. I've known lots of judges who only avoided DUIs because of their positions."
After several minutes of assuring each other that they were not too drunk to drive, Horton phoned his college-aged son to pick them both up and drive them home. It was always better to be safe than sorry.
The following morning, Irene got a ride into town from her next-door neighbor. She picked up her car at the restaurant parking lot and then drove to the police station. Since making detective twenty years earlier, she had always worn a suit to work. Today she had on sweatpants and a matching fleece shirt. She brought with her an empty Amazon box in which to put her personal belongings.
As she walked to her cubicle in the room she shared with seven other detectives, she greeted the officers she passed, many of whom were nursing hangovers from the night before. The mood was somber. No one likes to say the final goodbye to a cherished friend. In a way, it was like a funeral, and she was the corpse.
"Need any help?" Mila Hartag, a young secretary, new to the force, asked.
"Sure," Irene replied, forcing a smile. "Can you put the stuff on top of the desk in the box while I clean out the drawers?"
Working together, the two women quickly completed the task.
This is it, the detective thought. There's no reason for me to stay any longer. I'll just get in the way.
"Thanks for your help, Mila."
"No need to thank me. I was happy to do it. Want me to get one of the guys to carry that box out to your car for you?"
"Nah. I've got it."
She was halfway to the door when Mila called to her.
"Detective Wirt, you forgot your picture."
When Irene turned and saw the framed photograph of Ashley Duryea, the tears she had been holding back all morning came down like floodwater through a broken dam.
"Here, let me get you a cup of coffee," Mila offered as she quickly ushered the detective into the empty breakroom. "I imagine it must be hard for you to leave after being on the force for thirty years."
"It's not that," Irene explained, wiping the tears from her eyes with a paper napkin. "It's the photograph."
"Is she your daughter?" Mila asked, judging by the age of the photo.
"I never had children. That's a picture of Ashley Duryea."
The name meant nothing to the young secretary.
"It was one of my first cases. I had only been a detective for three months when she went missing."
"And you've kept her photo all this time?"
"I swore to her mother that I would catch the person who abducted her. That's the one thing I regret most about leaving the force. I wasn't able to keep that promise."
This admission was accompanied by a renewed bout of tears. Mila placed two cups of coffee on the table and sat down beside the crying woman.
"Ashley was only five years old when she was taken," Irene explained, reaching for another napkin. "She was the most beautiful little girl. Blond hair, blue eyes and the face of an angel."
She took a sip of her coffee. As usual, it was way too strong and left an unpleasant taste in her mouth, but she drank it nonetheless.
"We never found her, alive or dead. She seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth."
Another sip of strong, bitter coffee. More tears. Another napkin.
"I nearly quit the force then. It was Gwen Duryea, the child's mother, who changed my mind. Her whole life revolved around her daughter, and that light was forever extinguished. My heart broke for her, and I swore I would remain on the job until I solved the case. Months went by without any viable leads, and then years. We kept in touch at first, but there was little I could offer her in terms of information or hope."
"Does she still reside in the area?"
"Last I heard, she and her husband were moving to Virginia. That was seven, no eight, years ago. I don't know if she's still there or not."
When Irene returned to her apartment later that morning, she made her way through the boxes—some destined to be picked up by the movers and transported to Florida, the others to be taken to Good Will. Her laptop computer was one of the few things that had not been packed.
She took a drinkable yogurt out of her near-empty refrigerator, sat down at the table and googled Gwen Duryea's name. There was a person with that name living on the outskirts of Charlottesville.
That must be her. Her husband was a college professor. He must have gotten a job at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
She wrote the address down on a slip of paper and tucked it into her purse. Perhaps once she was settled into her new home, she would write to Gwen and see how she was doing.
The least I can do is apologize for my failure to find Ashley's killer.
After sorting the box of belonging she had brought back from the station, keeping most of the things and donating the rest to charity, she began carting the donation boxes out to her Subaru. Even filling the cargo area and passenger seats, it took three trips to get rid of all the stuff.
The Mayflower truck arrived early the next morning, and the team of movers emptied her house of both boxes and furniture. When the truck pulled away, all that remained were the kitchen appliances, which would stay in the house, and a suitcase that contained the clothing and toiletries Irene would need for her drive south. Although she knew the movers had taken everything, she walked from room to room on the pretense of "doublechecking." What she was actually doing was getting one last look at her home before leaving it.
As per the realtor's instructions, she placed her housekeys on the kitchen table and locked the door behind her as she left.
"No going back now," she said, heading toward her Subaru.
Irene had originally planned on driving down I-95 from Massachusetts straight to Florida, but on impulse, decided to take I-81 in Pennsylvania. From I-81, she could get on I-64, which would take her into Charlottesville.
If I'm going to apologize to Gwen Duryea, I'll do it face-to-face.
* * *
After spending the night at a Holiday Inn in Maryland, Irene continued on her journey and soon crossed over into Virginia. By late morning, she arrived in Charlottesville. Following the directions of her navigator, she found the Duryea home, a cozy little Cape Cod in a small development, roughly five miles from UV's campus.
Maybe I should have called first and let her know I was coming, she thought as she pulled up in front of the house. Oh, well. It's too late now. I'm already here.
When she got out of the car and walked up the driveway, the first thing she noticed was the swing set in the back yard. It looked new.
Why do the Duryeas have a swing set? They don't have any children.
The former police officer knocked on the door and braced herself. She had no idea what the homeowner's reaction might be. When Gwen answered, her face registered fear rather than surprise.
"Detective Wirt! Don't tell me you've found my daughter's murderer after all this time!"
"I wish I could tell you that, but I can't. I just retired from the force. I'm driving to Florida where I bought a home in a retirement community. Since I was passing by this way, I thought I'd find out how you were doing."
Gwen invited her unexpected guest inside and offered her a glass of iced tea. Irene was just about to take a sip when a little girl entered the room. The former detective's hand stopped in its upward motion, and her eyes widened in amazement.
Ashley! she thought. But that can't be. She would have been a grown woman by now.
"Kerry, come here, sweetheart," the mother called. "Come and meet an old friend of Mommy's. This is Detective Wirt, and this is my daughter, Kerry."
The little girl smiled and then hugged her mother.
"You have another child."
Even as the words passed her lips, Irene knew it was a foolish thing to say. After all, the woman was well aware of the fact. But she needed to say something, and it was the first thought that came to mind. No. It was actually the second. The first thought was that the child was the spitting image of her deceased sister.
"They look a lot alike. Don't they?" Gwen said, as her daughter skipped out of the room.
"Like identical twins."
"You can imagine how surprised I was when I found out I was pregnant. Having a child at my age! Greg didn't want me to have it. That's why we split up."
"Oh, I didn't know. I'm sorry."
"No need to be. It was an amicable parting of the ways. He agreed to pay the bills while I stay home with Kerry. And he comes to see her. He just doesn't want the responsibility of being a full-time father. That's what he says anyway. I think he's just afraid."
"Of what?"
"Of getting too close to her. It broke his heart when Ashley ...."
After all these years, Gwen still could not bring herself to say it.
The visit was short. The two women were not exactly old friends. The tie that bound them was a sad one that involved a dead child and an unfulfilled promise.
After finishing her iced tea, Irene stood up and announced, "I really ought to be going. I have a long drive ahead of me."
"Are you planning on getting to Florida tonight?"
"No. I'll probably stay at a motel in South Carolina or Georgia and finish the trip tomorrow. Frankly, I'm not in any big rush to start unpacking."
"Well, thank you for stopping by. It's been nice seeing you again."
"If I can ever do anything for you, just give me a call. Here's my cell phone number," Irene said, handing her the last of the business cards the police department had issued her.
"Thank you. You enjoy your retirement, and good luck with the move."
As she drove along I-64 to I-95, the former detective could not get the image of the little blond-haired girl out of her mind. She and her late sister looked like two peas in a pod.
It must be bittersweet for Gwen to look at her child. How could Kerry not be a constant reminder of the horrible ordeal she went through?
* * *
It was hot and humid in Florida. No surprise there. Once Irene arrived, she immediately exchanged her sweatshirt for a short-sleeved T-shirt and then turned on the air-conditioning unit in her home.
I'll get used to the weather, she told herself. The heat sure beats the cold and snow of New England.
The furniture was in place, according to the floorplan she had provided the movers. The boxes were also located in the appropriate rooms. All she had to do was empty them and put their contents away.
"I suppose I should start with the kitchen," she said aloud, her voice echoing through the empty house.
Pots, pans, dishes, cutlery. It was a lot of stuff for a single woman who, for the past thirty years, had eaten takeout more than homecooked meals. Now that she was no longer working, she anticipated cooking a lot more. Once the kitchen was in order, she tackled the master bedroom. The winter clothes were destined for the attic—should she ever need them again—and the summer things went into the closet and drawers. Next came the master bathroom. Not much to do there. She only had to empty one box, and most of the contents went into the medicine cabinet with the exception of the body wash and shampoo that she placed on the ledge of the shower.
"I'll tackle the other rooms tomorrow," she vowed, and then after calling Domino's for a pizza, she picked up her paperback novel and sat down in her recliner to relax.
Irene could not remember the last time she read a book. She picked them up occasionally but never finished one from cover to cover.
This is my new life. I'm going to read, watch movies on Netflix, keep up with friends on social media and, best of all, sleep late in the mornings.
It took her all of six days to get bored.
Having finished the last chapter of the novel, she began looking for something to do. She went to the grocery store for the second time that week and bought baking supplies. She had just taken Lorenzo's lime and white chocolate chip cookies out of the oven when her cell phone rang.
"Hello," she said, not bothering to look at the caller ID on the screen.
"Detective Wirt?"
The voice sounded vaguely familiar, but the dull monotone held no emotion. It might as well have been a computer-generated message. She glanced at the screen and saw Gwen Duryea's name.
"Are you all right?" Irene asked.
"When Ashley went missing, I thought it was the worst thing that I had ever experienced."
"Is something wrong, Gwen?"
The woman seemed not to hear her because she continued on in her narrative, not bothering to answer questions.
"I didn't know how I would survive. But I did. I survived the worst thing that could happen to a parent."
"Maybe it isn't me you should be speaking to," the former detective said, fearing for the other woman's state of mind. "Perhaps a doctor might be ...."
"No person should have to go through such hell. Once was bad enough but ...."
"What is it?" Irene cried. "What's wrong?"
"It's happened ... again."
* * *
The following morning, Irene was up before sunrise. After a quick cup of coffee, she got into her car and headed north, arriving in Charlottesville late in the afternoon. When she pulled in front of the Cape Cod house, she immediately noticed an unmarked police cruiser in the driveway.
"Who are you?" a large man, who resembled a young Denzel Washington on steroids, asked when he answered the door.
"It's okay," Gwen said, wiping the tears from her eyes with a dishtowel. "This is Detective Wirt from Boston. I called her last night."
"I'm Terry Scholes, the lead detective on this case. Let me remind you. This isn't your jurisdiction."
"I'm here as a friend, not as a police officer. Besides, I'm retired from the force."
Once he had established that a cop from the North was not going to try to interfere with his investigation, Terry became more civil. When the grieving mother went to the kitchen to make coffee—anything to take her mind off what had happened—he spoke to Irene as one detective to another.
"Did you work on the previous case?" he asked.
"Yes. That's how I came to know the Duryeas."
"I may have some questions for you."
"Anything I can do to help. Tell me, are you working under the assumption that the two kidnappings are connected?"
"There's no evidence of that—yet."
"But you suspect they are?"
"What I think is that it would be one hell of a coincidence for two separate kidnappers in two different states to target the daughters of one family."
"I'm willing to share everything I have on the first case."
"Good. Do you live in the area?"
"No. I just moved to Florida. I drove up her because Gwen phoned me last night and told me what happened."
"I would appreciate it if you could stay here for a week or so. I could use your help—unofficially, that is."
"I'm sure I can find a cheap hotel close by."
"Hotel?" Gwen echoed, as she entered the room with a tray of steaming coffee cups. "You can stay right here with me. I have a spare bedroom."
"I appreciate the offer," Irene replied, "but I don't want to be an inconvenience, especially at a time like this."
"I think it would be a good idea," Terry said. "That way if the kidnapper tries to make contact in any way, you'll be here."
The detective's explanation for wanting Irene in the house seemed plausible, but she sensed there was another reason. Could it be he wanted a spy in the house?
"I have my suitcase in the car."
"You can bring it in later and put it in the guest room upstairs," Gwen declared, considering the matter closed. "If you'll excuse me, I'll go up and put clean sheets on the bed."
Once the missing child's mother was out of the room, Detective Scholes reached into his pocket for a card.
"Here's my phone number," he said, handing the card to Irene. "You'll let me know if anything out of the ordinary happens here; won't you?"
"Of course. But surely you don't think Gwen is involved?"
"Until I have something concrete to go on, I suspect everyone."
* * *
Approximately two hours after Irene arrived in Charlottesville, a Honda Accord pulled into the Cape Cod's driveway. Greg Duryea, looking every inch the distinguished college professor, stepped out of the vehicle, crossed the lawn and walked up to the front door.
"It's the father," Irene whispered to Detective Scholes.
"Good. Just the man I wanted to talk to."
Gwen rose from the couch and ran to her husband (they were still married but living separately). Although she threw her arms around him, crying hysterically, he seemed hesitant to touch her.
Guilty conscience? Irene wondered.
"Our baby is gone!" she sobbed.
"I can't believe it's happened again," he muttered.
Terry waited several minutes, watching the couple intently. As soon as Gwen stepped away from her husband, he sprang into action.
"Mr. Duryea, I'm Detective Scholes. I'm in charge of the investigation. I'd like to ask you a few questions."
A quick, guarded look passed between the estranged couple, a look that was not missed by either detective.
Terry did not waste his time on niceties. He did not offer any condolences to the father. Once the two men were alone in the kitchen, out of hearing range of the women in the living room, he began to question Greg Duryea.
"You're a professor at UVA, and you live right here in Charlottesville."
"That's right," the father replied, although Terry's words were a statement of fact, not a question.
"Your wife discovered your daughter was missing yesterday, and yet you show up here the following day. Detective Wirt drove all the way up from Florida, and she still managed to get here before you did. Why is that?"
"I was in London when my wife phoned me. I wasn't able to get a flight out until this morning, and then I had to drive here from Richmond."
Once Terry established that Greg was nowhere near Charlottesville when Kerry went missing, he eased up on him.
"Can you think of anyone who might want to harm your daughter?"
His voice may have said, "No," but his eyes said, "Yes."
He knows something, the detective thought. Now, what do I have to do to get it out of him?
* * *
Irene experienced a feeling of déjà vu as she watched Detective Scholes take the same steps she had taken when Ashley went missing. An Amber Alert went out to the radio and television stations, a social media page was created and posters were put up throughout the town. Again. The community came together. Volunteers manned phone lines and actively searched for the child. Again. Police questioned the usual suspects, paying close attention to those who were on the registered sex offenders list. Again. The parents appeared on the local news station where the tearful mother made an emotional plea for the safe return of her daughter while Greg stoically stood at his wife's side, lending moral support. Again.
And, like before, there were no useful leads, just the usual crackpots who responded with wild accusations and farfetched stories fit only to be printed in the supermarket tabloids.
"Did they behave like this the first time?" Terry asked Irene in confidence, nodding his head toward the parents.
"Pretty much. Gwen wept and carried on a lot while her husband internalized his emotions. It seemed to me at the time that he was one of those old-school males who believe men shouldn't cry."
"And now? You're been staying at the house. You've had an opportunity to observe how they act."
"Gwen is optimistic. She holds out hope that Kerry will be found alive. Greg, on the other hand, speaks of the child in the past tense as though she were already dead. Perhaps that's just his nature, though. He might be a pessimist at heart."
"Yeah, well, given the fact that there has been no ransom demand and that the Duryeas are not wealthy people, it's fairly obvious the girl was abducted by a pedophile. You and I both know these cases usually don't end well."
Four days later, Detective Scholes's words were proved prophetic. The body of a four-year-old child was found by two UVA students hiking the Saunders-Monticello Trail. Even before an official identification was made, the police assumed the remains were those of Kerry Duryea.
"That poor family," Irene said when she heard the news. "My heart goes out to them."
"You're thinking like a woman, not a cop," Terry told her.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Parents sometimes murder their kids. Susan Smith strapped her two boys in their car seats and sent her vehicle into the water. John List shot his three kids in addition to his wife and mother. And you'll never convince me that Casey Anthony was innocent of killing her daughter, Caylee."
"You think we didn't look into the Duryeas when Ashley went missing? We did, but we never found any evidence that they were involved. I may be a woman, but I did my job, Detective."
Terry apologized for casting doubt on her professionalism.
"Now that Kerry has been found, I suppose you'll be heading back down to Florida."
"Gwen has asked me to stay until after the funeral. She apparently sees me as some sort of mother figure."
"You got any kids of your own?"
"No. I don't have a husband either. I was married to the job. What about you?"
"I've got two boys and a girl. My daughter is about the same age as Kerry, so I have a personal interest in finding the killer."
* * *
Terry was just wrapping up an interview with a former middle school gym teacher who had been put on the sex offenders list after being accused of molesting a student when he received a phone call from the medical examiner.
"What have you got for me, Doc?" the detective asked.
"I think you should come over here. I'd rather not tell you over the phone."
"Give me about twenty minutes."
He quickly concluded his questioning and went to see Dr. Ricardo Guerrero. He felt a queasiness in the pit of his stomach when he saw the little girl's body on the examination table and quickly turned his head away.
"Cause of death?" he asked.
"Suffocation."
"Did you find any foreign DNA on her body?"
"That's what I wanted to see you about. Look here," Dr. Guerrero said, showing DNA results. "What I have here are three tests, labeled Samples 1, 2 and 3. Look at them and tell me what you see."
"You know I can't make heads or tails of these things."
"I'm not asking you to analyze them, just examine them as though they were lists of telephone numbers or bank account entries."
Terry studied the three sets of data more closely.
"Samples 1 and 2 seem completely different whereas 1 and 3 are the exact same."
"Correct. Sample 1 was taken from Gwen Duryea, Sample 2 from Greg and Sample 3 from Kerry."
"I'm no forensic expert, but shouldn't the father and child have some markers in common?"
"Yes, they should. These tests tell us that Greg Duryea is not Kerry's father."
"No wonder he left. He must have found out his wife was having another man's child."
"This is where it gets tricky," Ricardo announced. "Children get half their DNA from their mothers, the other half from their fathers. It's impossible for a child's DNA to be identical to the mother's."
"A mistake was made. The samples got mixed up."
"That's what I thought, so I reran the tests. I personally got a fresh sample from Mrs. Duryea and a second one from her daughter. And I got the same results."
"So, what does that mean?"
"Kerry Duryea is not her biological daughter; she's her clone."
Detective Scholes suddenly felt as though he left the real world behind and took that one step beyond into the Twilight Zone.
"A clone?" he cried. "How the hell did that happen?"
"Some geneticist in a lab took her DNA and made her a baby. It's been done before, only with animals. In Scotland, in 1996, a lamb called Dolly was created from an adult cell using a process called nuclear transfer. Dolly had three mothers: one provided the egg, another the DNA and a third carried the cloned embryo to term."
Terry threw up his hands and cried, "I can't take any more of this Isaac Asimov crap! I'm a detective. I want evidence that will lead me to uncover this child's murderer."
"Technically, I'm not sure a murder has been committed."
"What are you saying? Just look at that poor little girl on your table."
"I did some checking. She has no birth certificate. There's no record of Mrs. Duryea ever giving birth to her. There was no pediatrician to care for the infant. It's as though Kerry Duryea never existed."
"We have a body; ergo, we have a murder," the detective argued.
"I'm only saying the legal system may not see it that way," Ricardo explained. "To my knowledge, there's never been a cloned human before. Will they be seen as human beings or simply the product of some science experiment, like a sophisticated android or robot? If you do find out who destroyed ...."
"Murdered," Terry insisted.
"... this poor little thing, the Commonwealth's Attorney would have one hell of a time prosecuting the case. It would mean years, possibly decades, of legal battles. And, in the end, Kerry Duryea would still be gone."
"So, what are you saying? That I should not pursue this case? What kind of a cop would I be?"
"I suggest you go through the motions, and then gradually let the case go cold."
"Like the first one?"
No sooner did those words leave the detective's mouth than an even more important question entered his brain: was Ashley, Gwen Duryea's first child, also a clone?
* * *
It took a good deal of convincing, but Detectives Scholes and Wirt talked Irene's former chief, Lorenzo Spinelli, into reopening the Ashley Duryea case. Rather than reinstate the retired detective, she was hired as a consultant.
"You'll work with the Charlottesville police," Spinelli told her. "Meanwhile, Horton Farnon will see what he can find out here in Boston."
As was the case with Kerry Duryea, there was no record of Ashley's birth.
"I don't understand," Irene said as they were flying back to Virginia. "Gwen had a baby, why didn't she get a birth certificate? She could have claimed she gave birth at home."
"She probably didn't want anyone asking any questions. After all, human cloning is illegal."
"But she must have known at some point she would need one."
"I would imagine so. Her husband was a college professor. Surely, he would know you need a birth certificate and a record of immunization to enroll a child in school in Virginia."
"It's the same in most states, I would imagine."
"How old was Ashley when she went missing?" Terry suddenly asked.
"Five. A year older than Kerry."
"And what's the mandatory age for starting kindergarten in Massachusetts?"
"Six, I believe."
"Is it only a coincidence that these girls were killed just before they reached the age when they had to start school?"
"What are you getting at?"
"Greg Duryea is a professor, right? What if he was some kind of Dr. Frankenstein and these girls were nothing more than experiments to him? Maybe that's why he appeared unemotional when they went missing. He doesn't see them as human at all."
"There's one thing wrong with your theory."
"What's that?"
"He teaches British literature, not science. His only connection with Frankenstein would be the novel by Mary Shelley."
Once they returned to Virginia, Terry brought Greg Duryea down to the station for questioning.
"You know Detective Wirt," he stated when they were sitting in the interrogation room. "She's now officially part of the investigation."
As usual, the look on the professor's face was one of stoic acceptance.
"We got Kerry's DNA results back from the crime lab. We know you're not her father, and we suspect Ashley wasn't your child either."
"Why don't I save you some time, Detective, and just acknowledge that neither child had a biological father?"
"So, you know they were clones?"
"Of course, I do. We tried to keep the circumstances of the children's births a secret, but ...."
Irene had previously been content to let Terry take the lead in the interrogation, but now she spoke up.
"Did you kill those little girls?" she demanded to know.
"No."
"And we're supposed to take your word for it?"
"Why don't you tell us the whole story?" Detective Scholes suggested, taking control of the interview again.
"Actually, that's exactly what I planned on doing. I just had to work up the courage. If I might have something to drink before I begin?"
"Water? Coffee? Soda?"
"A Coke would be good."
Once a can of Coca-Cola and a glass of ice were brought in, Greg began his tale.
"The only thing my wife ever wanted out of life was to be a mother, but she was unable to conceive. We looked into finding a surrogate, but as luck would have it, I discovered I was sterile."
"Didn't you consider adoption?"
"Yes, but it's a long process, and there are no guarantees we would get a child."
"Tell us about the cloning. Where was it done? Who performed the actual procedure?"
"Gwen and I were leaving an adoption agency in Boston when this man approached us. He commiserated with our situation and offered to help. At first, we were skeptical. We thought he might be a scam artist. But then we gave him the benefit of the doubt. He took us to a small clinic and showed us his credentials. He had diplomas from both Harvard Medical School and MIT. They might have been fake, but they looked real."
"What was his name?" Irene inquired, wanting to pass it on to Horton back in Massachusetts to investigate further.
"Algernon Van Eyck, but I suspect that was an alias."
"And what exactly did he tell you he could do to help you?"
"I don't understand the process, but he claimed he would take an egg cell from another woman, remove the nucleus and somehow use electrical impulses to fuse my wife's DNA and mine into that cell. Once that was done, the cell would divide. He would then place the embryo in a surrogate's womb. He must have known what he was talking about because nine months later, Ashley was born. I realize this was an illegal procedure; but at the time, it didn't seem that much different from an ordinary in vitro fertilization."
"You say this Algernon Van Eyck used DNA from both you and your wife," Terry said.
"That's what he claimed, but there was nothing of me in that child."
"And Kerry?"
"I didn't participate in that procedure. About six years ago, while we were still living together, my wife spent a week in Boston, supposedly to visit her mother. Nine months later, she went back and brought Kerry home with her. Without my knowledge, she had visited Dr. Van Eyck and created another clone."
"What I don't get, Mr. Duryea," the detective said, ready to deliver the coup de grâce, "if your wife was so desperate to have children that she would risk arrest and a possible prison sentence on an illegal, experimental procedure, why did she kill the girls once she had them?"
Irene was more surprised by the detective's question than Greg was. She was certain that the father was the suspect, not the mother.
"Was your wife that desperate to keep the children's bizarre creation a secret?"
"That wasn't it at all. Dr. Van Eyck had given us paperwork so that Ashley could start school: a birth certificate and a record of immunizations."
"Which must have been counterfeit, since they were never on file with the county," Irene pointed out.
"If it wasn't to protect your privacy, why did the children have to die?" Terry pressed.
Greg began to perspire. Perhaps he was involved, at least in Ashley's disappearance if not Kerry's.
"We noticed Ashley's behavior began to become erratic around the same age she learned to walk. It wasn't just a matter of her going through the so-called terrible twos. She was extremely difficult."
"In what way?"
"She was prone to severe temper tantrums. We—I—thought she might have emotional problems. Rather than take her to a pediatrician, we contacted Dr. Van Eyck. That's when we learned only Gwen's DNA was used. It's long been believed that when close relatives have children, their offspring are not born 'normal.' In cases of incest, there are a large number of birth defects, both physical and mental. He attributed Ashley's behavior to her having only one parent, which proved to be far more dangerous than if a brother and sister or father and daughter had a child."
"Good God!" Irene said beneath her breath.
"If I had known that might be the case, I certainly would never ...."
"Never mind that, Mr. Duryea," Terry pressed on. "What happened to Ashley?"
"By the time she was four, she became violent. She pulled the wings off a butterfly and threw a spider into the fireplace. She had no respect for life. We sent our cat to live with my mother after Gwen found Ashley trying to strangle it with a belt."
"Did you try to get treatment for her?"
"Dr. Van Eyck prescribed a mild form of medication used for ADHD. It seemed to work at first, but her system must have gotten used to it because she grew worse. Then there was an incident. Ashley attacked the boy next door with a hammer. She wanted to hit him over the head but since he was taller than her, she could only reach his shoulders. Still, she managed to break his collarbone."
"And that's when you decided she had to die."
"Not then. We took her back to Dr. Van Eyck first. He ran a series of tests on her. His prognosis was that she was a sociopath. I had another word for her: a monster."
"So, was it you or your wife who murdered Ashley?" Irene asked. "And where is her body?"
"Neither of us killed her, but we did give Dr. Van Eyck permission to euthanize her."
"You're talking as though she were a dog to be put to sleep."
"That's the way I thought of it. At the end, she behaved more like a rabid animal than a human."
"We've got to find this Dr. Van Eyck," Terry told his colleague.
"I'll relay this information to my former partner as soon as this interview concludes."
"And what about Kerry?" Detective Scholes asked, resuming his interrogation.
"When Gwen brought her home, I left. I admit it was the coward's way out, but I didn't want to have to go through that again. I did agree to give my financial support, but I didn't want to hang around and be her father. Since she wasn't really mine, anyway, I ...."
"How was Kerry's behavior?"
"From what Gwen told me, at first, she was an angel, the perfect child. Then, like Ashley, she began to act out. I was prepared to divorce my wife and wash my hands of the whole mess. However, I was asked to go on a lecture tour of Europe shortly thereafter, and I didn't have time to pursue legal action."
"When did you leave for Europe?"
"In July."
"And did you have any contact with your wife while you were away?"
"No. I didn't speak to or hear from her all that time. Honestly, I didn't think about either Gwen or Kerry until the police called me in London to tell me of the disappearance."
"Did you have any opinions on what might have happened to the child at that time?"
"I thought Dr. Van Eyck had euthanized her as he did Ashley. But then the body was found, and I knew that wasn't the case."
"And now what do you imagine happened?"
"I think my wife put the child out of her misery."
* * *
Gwen Duryea was brought in, and under intense questioning, admitted to smothering her daughter with a pillow. She became so distraught, a physician had to be called in to administer a sedative. Once Detectives Scholes and Wirt had the mother's confession, they met with Madeleine Kirchner, the Commonwealth's Attorney.
"I spoke with the D.A.'s office in Boston," the prosecutor told Irene. "They're not going to press charges against the Duryeas for Ashley's death since they don't have a body. But they are searching for this Dr. Van Eyck—if that's his real name."
"And what about Kerry?" Terry asked.
"I've had a long conversation with Dr. Guerrero. I think he might be correct in saying there's a legal issue here over whether or not a clone can be considered human."
"Don't tell me you're not going to prosecute Gwen Duryea for the murder of her child?"
"I've had to let killers go free in the past because I didn't have enough evidence to prosecute them."
"But we got a confession. We have her husband's testimony. What more do you need?"
"A winnable case. If I take this to court, a defense attorney will undoubtedly open up a whole can of worms by claiming the child wasn't human. And if he does, there is no legal precedent to prove him wrong."
"So, she's just going to walk?"
"This Commonwealth doesn't have the funds to pursue a protracted legal battle that might involve the entire scientific community. Hell, for all I know, the moral and legal question of cloning could go on long after you, me and Mrs. Duryea are gone. Look, I'm a mother myself. Do you think I want to let his woman go free? But I swore an oath, and I will perform my job to the best of my abilities."
"That's it, then," Terry said sullenly when he and Irene left the attorney's office. "I don't know about you, but I can use a drink. Want to join me? My treat."
They went to a nearby bar and grill where, since he was off-duty, the Virginia detective ordered Jack Daniels.
"I'll have something nonalcoholic," his Boston counterpart said. "I'm going to head back to Florida this afternoon. I can't bear staying in that house another night."
"I don't know how she can take it."
"What if ...? No. Forget it. It's a stupid idea."
"Are you kidding? After this case, nothing you say is going to sound stupid."
"What if Ashley and Kerry did not become violent because they were single-parent clones? What if their behavior was not due to some bizarre case of incest?"
"I don't follow you."
"They got Gwen Duryea's DNA. That would mean they acquired all her traits."
Terry's eyes widened as he realized where Irene's thoughts were headed.
"That might mean the mother is a sociopath as well," he concluded. "I could buy Greg being one, given his unemotional behavior, but Gwen? She was the one who carried on when the children went missing."
"They say sociopaths can put on a good act."
"If such is the case, I hope no one else has the misfortune to cross Mrs. Duryea's path," Terry said, finishing his drink and putting the empty glass down on the bar. "But whatever she is, she's no longer our problem. You're going to go home and enjoy your retirement, and I've got a family to raise and other cases to solve."
"It's been a pleasure working with you, Terry."
"Same here, Irene. Keep in touch, okay?"
"I'll send you some of my homemade cookies."
"Better send them to my home address. I don't want those gluttons down at the station to eat them all up on me."
* * *
A year later, Irene was playing bocce with a retired naval officer who she had been seeing for the past six months. According to an old saying, "life begins at forty." In her case, it took a little longer.
"Why don't we go out for burgers after I beat you at bocce?" she asked her companion.
"Were you this competitive when you were a detective?" he laughed.
"I was worse then. I've mellowed with age."
The former Navy captain was just bowling a ball toward the jack when Irene's cell phone rang.
"Wirt here," she said, answering as though she were still on the police force.
"Hi, Irene. It's Terry Scholes."
"It's good to hear from you," she said, but suspected this was not a social call. "How have you been?"
"I saw her yesterday," he said, not bothering to waste time with small talk.
Irene did not ask who the she was; she already had a pretty good idea who Terry was talking about.
"Oh?" the retiree asked, feeling a sense of dread descend upon her.
"Yeah. And she had a baby with her. I've got a feeling in my gut that it's about to happen—again."
Salem once cloned himself, and I had twice the headaches!
