Alter Ego Read online

  Sergeant Rogers: Yeah. Seems like you’ve been here for a few days, though. What made you stick around?

  Benson: Mechanical problems. My steering has been acting up. Couldn’t drive at highway speeds, so I had to find a junkyard that had a steering box that would fit my van. I got one yesterday at some little yard a couple towns over, can’t remember the name. It’s all fixed, now, so I’m ready to head out.

  Sergeant Rogers: I want you to take a look at this picture. You ever see this girl?

  Benson: Can’t say that I have. Kinda reminds me of my cousin Judy. She run away or something?

  Sergeant Rogers: Actually, she was found dead this morning. Some kids found her body in an old house outside of town. She was stabbed to death, but it looks like she went through some pretty rough torture before that. You sure you never saw her?

  Benson: I already told you. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her before. Pity what happened to her, though.

  Sergeant Rogers: Mr. Benson, I don’t think I believe you. I think maybe you spotted her out walking last night and maybe grabbed her up into that van of yours. I think maybe you took her out to that old house and had your way with her, and then killed her so she couldn’t talk about it.

  Benson: Are you serious? Do I look like the kind of man who would do something like that?

  Sergeant Rogers: Well, I don’t know what that kind of man would really look like. In my experience, you just never know what somebody can do, not just by looking at them. The thing is, we’ve got a few people who think maybe they saw you watching girls over by the high school the last few days. That makes me wonder if maybe you were trying to pick one to have some fun with.

  Benson: Bullshit. I haven’t been anywhere near the high school. Anybody saying that is just trying to get themselves a little bit of attention. All I’ve done is camp over in the park while I was looking for a steering box. Hell, you can ask around, I couldn’t even drive my van over twenty-five miles an hour, because it kept swerving all over the road.

  The transcript went on for about three pages, and then there was a note that Sergeant Rogers had been able to confirm the purchase of a steering box from a junkyard about twenty miles away. Benson had allowed the police to look through his vehicle, a light blue 1983 Chevy van, but they hadn’t come up with anything to link him to Belinda Carter. Without positive identification and no other evidence to go on, Rogers had been forced to let him go. He left town that day and seemed to have completely disappeared after that.

  Another note under that one said that Rogers had run a background check on Benson and found that his appearance had changed considerably. It was Rogers’ opinion that the man he had interviewed was not Benson at all, and that he probably changed his name again after being released.

  Sam looked up at Denny. “If this is the killer,” he said, “then we may be dealing with a true professional. We know that he’s killed multiple victims, and he seems to be able to change identities pretty much whenever he wants to. We are dealing with a true serial killer, Denny.”

  “No doubt in my mind, Sam. You’re preaching to the choir, mate. Now all we have to do is figure out how to convince that bloody detective and his prosecutor.”

  “Well, don’t let them see this picture,” Sam said. “O’Rourke would think it was me, trying to look a little different. If this really is our guy, then I’m doubly glad they didn’t get a good picture of his face.”

  “I can agree with that,” Denny said. “On the other hand, it means we are probably looking for a 1983 Chevy van, light blue in color. That van would have looked gray on a black and white video, so it’s likely the very one O’Rourke saw.”

  Sam nodded. “Very likely,” he said. “Since we know that’s the kind of vehicle our killer drives, it would have to be a pretty big coincidence for this not to be our guy. The fact that he was using a fake name and has never turned up again only increases the chance that this Benson was the one who killed the girl in Tupelo, and that means it’s likely he’s the killer we are looking for now.”

  “Too right. And we will know for sure in just a bit. If Jeremy finds any matches on the recovered DNA from the old cases, and if they come out somewhat similar to yours…”

  “Then the man we are looking for was once known as Boyd Benson,” Sam said. “And I intend to find him, no matter who he is today.”

  TWELVE

  The two of them sat in the café while they waited for Jeremy to complete his DNA testing, finally breaking down and ordering sandwiches as it got closer to lunchtime. Neither of them was terribly hungry, but the irritated looks from the waitress was enough to make them feel like they should spend a little more money.

  Afterward, they paid their tab and left a nice tip, then walked across the street to the lab. Jeremy looked up as they entered the waiting room outside his workstation, and Sam wasn’t sure how to read the expression on his face. It almost looked like a smile, but there was something off about it.

  “Jeremy?” he asked. “Did you find something interesting?”

  “You could say that,” the young man said. “I ran tests on a lot of the samples that came from the old cases today, and I can tell you that all four of them were the work of a single killer. At the same time, I ran the sample I took from you this morning and sent it through the CODIS database. At first I got a little upset, because it still came back with you as the best possible match; I was hoping there was something wrong with your profile in the database, which would make it fail to match. Since it did match up perfectly, that made me think maybe my test was done wrong, or that I somehow contaminated the sample, but that turned out not to be the case.”

  “So the database still says I’m the one who killed this girl?” Sam asked.

  “That’s not what I said,” Jeremy replied. “I said the system still comes back with you as the best possible match from the people in the database for the sample I tested. In fact, it’s still reading the same ninety-nine point nine percent probability that the DNA sample I tested came from you. Since we know that it did come from you, because I took it personally this morning, that’s a good thing. However, it also means that the DNA profile on you in the database is probably completely accurate.”

  “You’re losing us, mate,” Denny said. “You’re talking like this is some sort of a good thing.”

  “Oh, but it is. You see, after I got the results on the three cold case DNA samples, I ran them through the same database. Guess who they came back to.”

  Sam’s face took on a sickly expression. “I don’t think I need to guess,” he said. “It was me, right?”

  “Bingo,” Jeremy said. “Ninety-eight point seven percent chance that all of those samples, old as they are, match your profile. I got clear matches on nineteen out of twenty core loci, which would be enough to convict you in almost any court, except for one little detail.”

  “And what’s that?” Sam asked.

  “Cheryl Heathcote, Robin Shaw and Rita Wasserman were all killed by the same person, and in all of the cases, the DNA match came back to you. However, I can now say that it’s absolutely impossible for you to be the killer in those cases. I checked the records that came with the evidence to see when each of them was killed, and then I was able to determine where you were at the time each of those murders took place. Mr. Prichard, Cheryl Heathcote was killed seven years ago in Charlotte, North Carolina, on August tenth. You were still with the police department back then, so I was able to get hold of a friend of mine down in the department who could check some of the older records. On August tenth of that year, you were testifying in court right here in Denver, on a case involving street gangs recruiting kids as drug mules. Remember that?”

  Sam’s eyes lit up. “Actually, I do,” he said. “I was in court for three solid days on that case, because they kept calling me back. Karen Parks was with me at the time, she was my partner back then.”

  “Exactly,” Jeremy said with a smile. “Now, the next case, Robin Shaw. Robin was killed in J
acksonville, Florida, on July twenty-seventh the following year. Can you remember where you were on July twenty-seventh six years ago?”

  Sam narrowed his eyes in concentration, but finally he shook his head. “No,” he said. “But I suspect you know?”

  “I sure do. You were in Petaluma, California. Now do you remember?”

  “Petaluma? I’ve only been there once, and that was to question a potential witness in a gang murder case. He turned out to be the witness we had been looking for, and I drove him back to Denver to testify against three members of the gang he used to run with.”

  “Right, so you couldn’t have been in Florida. Next, the killer struck in Tupelo, two years after Robin Shaw, on June fifth. The victim was Belinda Carter, and the rope fibers confirm that it was the work of the same perpetrator. Where were you on June fifth?”

  Sam thought for a moment. “I was already off the force, then, going to physical rehab four days a week. I had just gotten to the point where I could manage to walk with just a cane. That was just a few months before I got my PI license.”

  Jeremy grinned. “Right,” he said, “and you signed in for physical therapy the morning of June fifth, so we can confirm that you were not anywhere near Tupelo. Now, the last one, Rita Wasserman. Rita was killed in Pine Bluff, Arkansas almost exactly two years ago. I will bet you can remember where you were two years ago this week.”

  Sam nodded vigorously. “I sure can,” he said. “Two years ago this week, I was in Rome. That’s where I was when we brought down Grayson Chandler.”

  “Which means you were not in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. You couldn’t possibly have committed any of these murders, and yet all three of them were committed by the same person, whose DNA tests out as virtually a perfect match for your DNA profile.”

  “But, Jeremy, how is this even possible? I thought you said using twenty points made it really completely accurate.”

  “Oh, it does, Mr. Prichard. The only possible way this person’s DNA could match yours so precisely is if we are looking at someone who is very closely related to you. The match is so close that I would normally think it would have to be an identical twin, but at the very least, we are talking about a brother. I realize you officially only have a sister, but I can tell you from the evidence in front of me that you have a brother running around out there somewhere, and he’s killing people.” He gave an apologetic grin that was tinted with sadness. “That’s the part I didn’t want to have to tell you.”

  “Wait a minute,” Sam said. “You named off three of the victims. What about the fourth one? You said all four of these girls were killed by the same person, but now you say he only killed three of them.”

  “That’s not what I said. I said the DNA evidence from those three cases matches your DNA sample in the data, but you obviously could not have been the killer. For the fourth one, Linda Carter, there was no DNA recovered from the killer, but I was able to find tiny traces of her DNA on strands of rope fibers that came from Rita Wasserman. That means Belinda Carter was tied up with the same rope that was later used on Rita, and it’s the same rope that was used on both of the other two girls. There’s other DNA on it, as well, probably from other victims.” He grinned. “There were even traces of DNA on the rope from the killer, because it also matched your profile.”

  Sam stared at him for a moment, then turned to Denny. “I think I need to go have a talk with my mother,” he said.

  Denny, his own eyes wide, nodded. “Yeah, too right,” he said. “You go on, Sam. I’m going to get a statement on all this from Jeremy and take it back to HQ. I’ll meet up with the rest of the team and see where we go from here.” He reached out and touched Sam on the shoulder. “Let me know how it goes, will you, mate?”

  Sam nodded, then shook Jeremy’s hand and walked out of the building. He went back to the Mustang and climbed in, then started it up and headed toward home. As he drove, he took out his phone and dialed his mother’s number.

  “Samuel? Is everything okay?” Grace asked as soon as she answered the phone.

  “I’m really not sure about that, Mom,” he said. “You and I need to have a talk. Are you at home?”

  “No,” she said. “Kim and I are on the way over to your house with a surprise. What’s going on?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it over the phone. I’ll meet you at the house, and we can talk there. I’ll see you in a few minutes, okay?”

  “Sam? You’re worrying me.”

  “Mom,” Sam said, “that may be a very good thing.” He ended the call and dropped the phone into his pocket, then took it right back out and called his wife.

  “Indie? Our mothers are on the way over, and I’ve got to have a serious talk with mine. Do you think maybe Kenzie could go down and play with the Mitchell kids for a while?”

  “She’s already there,” Indie said. “Anita Mitchell called earlier to tell me that she and Jim don’t believe you did it, and she asked if Kenzie could come down to hang out with the twins. Why, Sam? What’s going on?”

  “I just told Mom, I don’t want talk about it over the phone. I’ll be there in a few minutes, and you can listen in.”

  “Okay, Sam,” Indie said suspiciously. “Hurry up, the suspense is going to kill me.”

  They hung up and Sam put the phone in his pocket once again. He drove toward the house and arrived just after his mother and mother-in-law. He parked his car on the street since they were in his driveway spot and made his way up the steps to the porch.

  Indie opened the door before he could reach the knob. He stepped inside and found all three of the women in the living room, so he sat in his recliner.

  A pair of hands suddenly came around from behind the chair and covered his eyes. “Guess who,” he heard a familiar voice say.

  Sam reached up and took hold of the hands and pulled them away. “Carrie?”

  His sister stepped around from behind the chair where she had been hiding and sat down on the arm, leaning down to pull him into a hug.

  “Of course,” she said. “I heard what was going on, so I got on a plane. Mom and Kim just picked me up at the airport. I made them promise not to tell you, because I wanted to surprise you.”

  Sam couldn’t contain the smile. He hadn’t seen his sister Carrie since he and Indie had been married, and he was delighted.

  “I’m sorry it took something like this to get you to come visit me,” he said, “but I’ll take what I can get. It’s great to see you, sis.”

  “Yeah, well, it hit the news even out in Hollywood. At first I thought there had to be some kind of mistake, that they just got the names mixed up or something, but then Mom called and told me it was true. You’d been arrested for rape and murder, and I know damn well you couldn’t do something like that, Sam.”

  “Thank you,” Sam said. “No, I didn’t do it, but I think we might be making some progress on that. And it’s kind of fitting that you’re here, considering what I need to talk to Mom about.”

  Carrie got up and moved over to sit on the couch beside their mother. All four women looked at Sam, waiting to hear the big revelation.

  “All right, Sam, what’s going on?” Indie asked. “Your mom says you’ve got her half scared to death.”

  “And Beauregard says you’re about to blow the whole world wide open for us all,” Kim said. “I asked him what he’s talking about, but he won’t say.”

  “If it turns out he knew about this and didn’t tell me,” Sam said, “I’m going to call an exorcist. That would be the last straw, it really would.”

  Kim shook her head. “He says he doesn’t know what you’re going to say, just that it’s going to change the world for us all. What is it, Sam?”

  Sam sighed deeply. He looked at his mother and opened his mouth, closed it again, and then decided to try one more time.

  “Mom? We need to talk about my dead twin brother.”

  “Cameron?” Grace’s eyes narrowed. “What about him?”

  “Sam?” Carrie asked. �
��You know that always tears Mom up, why would you bring that up now?”

  “Because it’s important,” Sam said. “Mom, I need you to tell me everything you can remember about what happened with him and how he died. Every detail, Mom. It’s very important.”

  Grace was staring at him. “Samuel? Are you about to tell me that he might not be dead after all?” Carrie’s mouth fell open, but she only looked at her brother.

  Sam sat quietly for a moment, then slowly nodded his head. “According to the lab technician that I spent the morning with, the DNA matches because it’s coming from a very close relative of mine. He actually said that he would suspect an identical twin if he didn’t know that I was supposed to be an only son, but that I have to have at least a long-lost brother out there somewhere who is committing these crimes. Since I know you didn’t have any more boys, it has to be him.”

  Grace locked her eyes on his for a long moment and tears began to run down her cheeks. Carrie and Kim both moved closer to her and each of them took one of her hands.

  “I always thought… A mother, she knows sometimes. When they came in to tell us that he had died, I just—I couldn’t believe it at first, I just refused to believe it. Your father went with the doctor down to the nursery, and they already had him out of the isolette. He was blue, your father said, he was already gone.”

  She paused and licked her lips. “For the longest time, I kept insisting that I knew they were wrong, Cameron was still alive. I said I could feel him out there, I just didn’t know what happened to him. They finally gave me sedatives to help me cope, and we had a little funeral service for him a couple of days later. The autopsy said he died because of a heart defect, something about the nerve that controlled his heart not being fully developed. I didn’t really understand it all at the time, but then it turned out that my father had had a similar problem, so we tried not to have any more children. I had you, and the doctors all said you were perfectly healthy, so I didn’t want to risk ever going through that again, but then Carrie was born. I was scared to death at first, but they checked her over and said she was also fine. I had my tubes tied then, so there couldn’t be any more accidents.”