Stone Maidens (29 page)

“While Claremont’s is very much intact,” she said. “I took the suspect’s dental impressions myself. Incredible. And Howard’s men have scoured the Claremont farm,” she added, “and have not turned up a hair, fiber, or any bloodstains that tie Claremont to any of these killings.”

“Of course not,” Eisen said. “He’s not the murderer.”

Prusik shook her head slowly. “No. No, he’s not. Thank you, Brian, for bringing this to me immediately.” Silently, she added a thank-you for not filtering it through Bruce Howard first. “Great work.”

“It’s moments like these that I love my job,” Eisen said with a boyish grin, and he left the conference room.

“This mirror-imaging business...” Katz bridged his fingertips, flexing them in and out. “I could tell you a diabolical twin is actually committing these crimes. There are some documented cases of transposition phenomenon, which may be at work here. A Minnesota twin study has reported such occurrences.”

“Translation please, Doctor?”

“It’s one researcher’s description of a psychological state experienced among close family members, not only twin siblings, especially in the context of an emotional crisis.” Katz paused, tapping his fingertips together. “Let’s say someone is involved in a serious car accident. All of a sudden, out of the blue, a sibling or parent in the next town over, or even across the country, has the fear something terrible has transpired. They may even proclaim their fear to someone they’re with, that a family member has been badly hurt in an accident. A call is made that verifies the accident has resulted in serious injuries, even death. Somehow the relative knew this.” The doctor shrugged. “I’ll admit it’s far-fetched, but your David Claremont’s visions may be transposed images.”

“How so?” asked Prusik. “And it wouldn’t be Claremont’s family in trouble, because David is an only child.”

“Assuming Claremont’s visions are not a manifestation of some psychotic episode unique to him, then, hypothetically at least, he could be experiencing an exciting event of this other person—a family member he may not even know exists. In the case of Claremont, it would have to be a twin, a mirror image of himself. Hence”—Katz was nodding to himself—“your young witness’s recognition of Claremont in the
mirror
.”

Christine’s heart pumped faster. “There was precious little about Claremont’s childhood in his file. Might he have had a brother who was given up for adoption?”

“Or might he himself have been adopted?” Katz asked.

“Jesus. If that’s so, how could any reputable psychiatrist neglect to find that out and note it in his file?” She took a deep breath. “Never mind. I’ll have Eisen contact the parents immediately.” She pulled out her cell phone and gave Eisen instructions.

She turned her attention back to Katz. “Could this transposition phenomenon explain Claremont knowing this other man through his visions? He says this ‘other,’ a ‘two-face,’ he calls him, lives inside of him.”

Katz mulled over the question for a minute. “If mirror-image twins are involved, it’s not purely through visions that your suspect has come to know this man he claims is inside him.” Katz tapped his temple with his forefinger. “There is a physical history between them, albeit truncated, leading ultimately to their separation. Whether or not the twin’s the true killer—if there is a twin—well”—Katz shrugged again—“that I cannot know.”

“In your best judgment, realistically speaking, if there is indeed a twin, is this mirror-image twin theory plausible enough for me to go on? Or will Thorne have my badge for it?”

“I can’t advise you as to your next course of action, Christine. I can only say that in my best judgment it is in the realm of possibilities, especially with the fingerprint information from your Brian Eisen. In matters of telepathy the finely tuned psyche is a cosmos we are only now beginning to fathom, scientifically
speaking. Frankly, these areas of consciousness are profound and not at all well understood.” Katz leaned his elbow on the table. “And another thing—transposition phenomenon is reportedly highest among mirror-image identical twins. There is a long-term study on identical twins that has documented this. Oddly, it seems to occur most frequently among identicals separated soon after birth. Something to do with the twinning bond that forms at a very early age, some believe in the womb itself. The need to maintain the connection with a lost part of oneself, if you will, cannot be overestimated.”

Prusik thought about the lineup. It wasn’t a code that Joey Templeton had had going with his grandfather. The boy’s initial wavering as he stared through the one-way glass at number four had shifted like day into night, into unspeakable terror. When he spotted Claremont’s mirror-image reflection, Joey recognized the real killer, she was certain.

“Mirror image—would that include other opposing physical attributes?” she said. “Such as being left-handed or right-handed? Claremont is a lefty, but the killer without a doubt strangles and cuts with his right.”

“Yes,” said Katz, “it can describe opposing physical attributes and even disparate temperaments. One could be active, the other passive. One an extrovert, the other quiet as a mouse. Reversals of hair whorls and cowlicks on their heads and physical abnormalities such as the reversed placement of internal organs. Particularly notable is the configuration of facial biometrics—they could be exact opposites down to the placement of dimples on different cheeks.”

“One good, the other evil,” Prusik said.

“Quite provocative. And not entirely out of the question.” Katz cocked his head. “Psychopathology among monozygotic twins—genetically identical and formed by a single divided egg—is quite significant. But even among siblings who share the same exact genes, one may suffer from, let’s say, schizophrenia, and the other may not.”

“So, the killer could be deranged and his identical twin normal?” Prusik said.

Katz danced his head right and left. “Quite possibly. You should also be aware of another very remarkable trait that could be at work here. This twinning bond has another equally compelling feature that frequently causes separated twins to search out each other’s existence. The mind picks up signals. Signals from a twin may be the strongest link of them all.”

Prusik removed a vial from her lab coat and placed it on the table.

“The killer deliberately places carved stones inside his victims. It’s his marker. He’s saying, ‘She’s mine.’ I found this stone in the esophagus of one of his victims, Missy Hooper. I retrieved a nearly identical one from the body of another victim, Julie Heath.”

Katz twirled the vial above his face. “Looks something like a chess piece.” He held it closer to his eye, as if under a microscope.

Prusik took another vial from her pocket, this one containing a cruder stone figurine similar in height and size to the first.

“This other one is made of a local mineral called chert. I understand that it is commonly found in limestone formations, which form the bedrock of southern Indiana. It’s David Claremont’s handiwork—a pretty amazing parallel to the genuine article, don’t you think?”

“A very close match, indeed,” the doctor concurred.

“What’s more, last March five museum artifacts including this one and the one from Julie Heath were stolen from the Chicago Museum of Natural History. Oddly, around this same time period, David Claremont took a bus to Chicago without telling his parents, a very uncharacteristic act. Claims it was to get hobby supplies for stone carving.”

“You’re the anthropologist—what do you make of it?” Katz said.

“Ultraviolet light identification establishes that this stone is, in fact, one of those stolen from the museum. An encoded number is
etched on its base, invisible to the human eye under normal light. It’s a highland New Guinea charm stone, which had been on display at the museum’s Oceania exhibit when the thefts occurred.”

Her pulse quickened. She combed her fingers through her hair. “No question some kind of advanced ritualistic behavior is at work, Doctor. I don’t believe the killer is the least bit interested in his victims’ souls, though.” She cleared her throat.

The bank of overhead lights suddenly glared harshly. Prusik felt the heat. Her ears filled with the sound of mud sucking at her back. She pressed two fingers to the inside of her wrist, checking her pulse: shallow and rapid. She couldn’t slow the beats.

“What seems to be the matter, Christine?” Katz asked, concerned.

“Nothing, I’m just a little tired.”

Katz stood. “Come, come, I’m not so stupid as to not recognize an anxiety reaction when I see one.” He rested his warm palm gently on her forearm. “Please, lie down on the sofa. I often take naps here when the world won’t leave me alone.”

Prusik didn’t resist. Katz’s fatherly concern helped ease her mind. She laid her head back against the leather armrest. The doctor draped a mohair shawl over her shoulders and dimmed the overhead lights.

“One of the virtues of our both being government employees is that we’re well acquainted with the stresses of working on nightmarish cases that won’t go away.”

Prusik held out a hand. “Dr. Katz?” He pulled a chair beside the couch and gently squeezed her hand.

“Whatever is on your mind I assure you won’t go any further than these walls. But then you already know that.”

She glanced back at the vial, at the charm stone that had been gripped in the killer’s hand, then shoved inside a still-warm throat.

“Highland New Guinea tribes carve stone figurines. They believe placing a stone image inside the dead is respectful of the ancestral spirits that live for an eternity.”

Prusik’s eyes remained fixed on the tiny bottle, her mind drifting back to the unending New Guinea heat. “But this charm stone is nothing but an object of death,” she said, her mind exploding with images of thick jungle greenery, brown waters, and the choking Papuan mud. “It’s meat he’s after, plain and simple.”

“I can tell you this much.” He shook his forefinger in a paternalistic scolding fashion. “Two things are distinctly at work. One is this peculiar case of yours. The other is your stress disorder.”

“Come on, Doctor.” Prusik shrugged. “I know the difference between the heebie-jeebies and the normal stresses of work.”

“For sure, you are strong, Christine. You are a forensic investigator, a professional scientist pursuing this killer with the same cunning and zeal with which he enjoys dispatching young women.”

Christine sat up, stung by the doctor’s brutal comparison. “I can’t...I can’t believe you said that.”

“Ah.” Katz smiled. “You don’t see yourself as possessing cunning and zeal? I’m sorry if my comparison upsets you, my dear. Let me just say that I know you are the perfect person to track down this killer.”

Slowly Christine rose to her feet. The doctor followed her out into the hallway. “If it means anything, I would be more than glad to attest to your thoroughness and the logic of your reasoning should it come down to Thorne’s questioning your judgment.” He clasped both her hands in his and squeezed. “And you
are
the perfect person to track down this killer. Both of us know that. But please”—he squeezed her hands again—“please be careful, Christine.”

Prusik thanked the doctor and returned to her office, once again taking the stairs rather than the elevator; no need to run into Thorne or anyone else she didn’t want to make small talk with. She needed time to think, time that she didn’t have. She
was unable to shake the idea that Claremont had a twin: a lurker whose soul was in no way identical to his tormented brother’s. Their paths had very much divided, and puzzling as it truly was, the killer’s grisly actions were dismantling the life of his innocent twin brother.

Tears caused by the wind streaked down Prusik’s cheeks. She pressed the remote key fob, and the dark government sedan whistled back to indicate that it was locked.

Her appointment was at nine o’clock sharp, in fifteen minutes. Brian Eisen and Paul Higgins had done good work. Hilda Claremont had confirmed that she and her husband had adopted David in Chicago when he was eleven months old. Typing David Claremont’s name into an “All State Court” index file search of birth records had turned up the Chicago adoption agency that had the complete files.

A sharp gust of wind mussed her hair as she crossed the street toward a building with the bronze entry of an art deco design bordered by a bold geometric pattern that repeated along the molding inside the front hallway. She fingered her hair back into place. James Branson, the president of the Loving Home Agency, was too booked to see her on such short notice. He’d passed her along to a Joan Peters, his custodian of records.

Pushing open the outer door released a great suction of air, ruffling her hair again. “Damn it,” she muttered.

“Blustery day, ain’t it?” The security guard chuckled. H
ANSEN
S
ECURITY
was stitched above his breast pocket.

Prusik scanned the wall directory behind the guard’s desk. “The Loving Home Agency still on the fourteenth floor?”

The guard leaned over the counter, “Yes, ma’am. Right through there,” he said, pointing to a bank of elevators.

She was in a good mood. Thorne’s keeping her in charge of forensics meant she had time to pursue this information on Claremont’s past. When the elevator doors opened on fourteen, the custodian of records of the Loving Home Agency was waiting there for her.

“Ms. Prusik? I’m Joan Peters. Mr. Branson wanted to make sure you didn’t have to wait.” She walked briskly down the corridor ahead of Prusik. “He’s so particular about his clients.” She dropped her voice. “He didn’t want anyone to think—well, you know, being you’re a policewoman—how it might look. You understand.” She crinkled her nose, gave Prusik a well-practiced smile.

“No, I don’t understand.” Prusik returned the smile. “Unless Mr. Branson has something to hide?”

“Oh, nothing like that, I assure you. It’s just that with all the stresses adoption brings, we try to relax our clients as much as possible.”

“And police trouble isn’t part of the equation,” Prusik said bluntly.