Whoever and whatever that was.
SEVENTEEN
"I need your help," he began. "Don't panic. Please." During the few moments that had passed between her realizing who he was and the moment he began to speak, a parade of deficiency diseases and illnesses marched through her mind. The three young women she had seen degenerate right before her eyes were sharing the Grand Marshal position, waving their dead hands in warning.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"You knew I wasn't really a state detective when I met you at the hospital the other day, right? I sensed that, but I was hoping you would be cooperative anyway.
"I'm not picking on you, Doctor. I had to visit you after the first death to be certain I was on the right track, that the M.O. fit, and I had to see just how much you really knew and understood.
"I'm sorry about frightening you before, and I'm sorry about your fiance, but I don't have much time to waste, and now that the rather good rendition of his face and mine is on the front page of the newspaper and undoubtedly being broadcast periodically on television stations, there is even more urgency. He'll become more dangerous, more like a cornered rat.
"He's very smart, very intelligent, and he will find a way to avoid detection. He will go on and he will, as I fear he has already, find new victims at a geometric level of activity. He's obviously growing more desperate. Something is happening to him. He might die or he might kill at a rate that will create panic in the streets... literally," he concluded and turned down a side road that degenerated into a gravel one.
He stopped the car and turned off the engine.
"Where is the policeman who was with me?" she asked.
"He's in the trunk," he replied. "Don't worry. He's still alive, only sedated." She reached back, behind herself to fumble for the door knob.
"Don't," he said quickly realizing what she was doing. "Where are you going to run to anyway? And don't you think I could catch you? Settle down, Dr. Barnard. You are a very intelligent young woman, my best hope so far. I need to know what you do know, what that second victim told you before she expired. I need to know his whereabouts or anything that might lead me to him. I need to find him before anyone else does and I need to destroy him before anyone discovers what he is," he continued.
"What are you telling me?" Terri asked realizing what he had said about the picture on the front pages of the newspaper. "That he's your twin brother?"
"Not in the traditional sense, no," he replied. "And I'm not a schizophrenic. I assure you. He is a separate entity. I'll tell you what I can, if you tell me everything you know about him. I'm sure he's said something I can use. He's very arrogant. He would not hesitate to tell one of his victims things about himself so he most probably revealed important information to the woman you began to examine.
"He has anticipated my every move so far and is always a step or two ahead of me. Part of his brilliance, you see. He possesses qualities we cannot fathom."
"How do you know so much about him?" she asked. She had found the door knob, but she was drawn to remain both out of curiosity and fear he was right --
she would not be able to get away.
"I created him," he replied. "I'm Dr. Garret Stanley. I work for a research corporation that is hidden within layers and layers of legal detours, so sophisticated even the CIA would have trouble getting to the heart of it." He smiled. "There's that arrogance showing, I'm afraid. He shares my best and worst qualities."
She narrowed her eyes.
"Are you telling me... are you saying, he's a clone of you?"
"Precisely," he replied. He put up his hands. "I know, I know. Cloning human beings has been outlawed by our government, but believe me, there are people in our government who are not only aware of my work, they find ways to support it."
"How do I know you are not simply a madman, a schizophrenic?"
"If I were, I would have killed you by now," he said, "especially if you consider how quickly he's accumulating new victims."
"Why is he doing that?"
"What can you tell me, Doctor?" he asked instead of replying.
"I wasn't lying to you. That young woman I examined, Kristin Martin, was unable to speak intelligibly. She went into cardiac arrest almost immediately. She mouthed something that sounded like he, and that's it."
"He?"
"I think she was trying to tell me her situation wasn't caused by any allergy or the like. He... whoever he is... caused it, but how, why?" she asked. He looked pensive.
"Maybe she was trying to tell me her grandmother was in danger. The tourist house they owned burned down and she died in the fire. That's all I can tell you. That's it."
His face grew gray with disappointment, but she also recognized a fury in those penetrating eyes. Despite what he was telling her, was he really a schizophrenic? He looks capable of violent rage, she thought.
"The FBI is here," she said, making it sound like a warning.
"I would expect so. They were in Pennsylvania, too. There were only two killings in the whole state, so you see what I mean. He's already killed three here in this New York county and by now, I fear a fourth and maybe even a fifth. Whoever dies after today might very well be on your conscience, Doctor."
"They might have his fingerprints on a glass," she warned. "Which, if you're telling me the truth, would be your fingerprints too," she said, still hoping to make him back off.
He smiled.
"Fingerprints from what? The bar at that tavern? Well? Are you saying the bartender didn't wash the glasses before she left for the night? Well?" She sucked in her breath. Of course he would know about the story in the papers.
"You were there already?"
"No. Forensic evidence is a waste of time. Forget about that. What else were you told about the events at the tavern?"
"Nothing. I'm not part of a police team. I'm just..." He shook his head.
"Doctor, you're wasting precious time. There is a significant witness you're protecting." He smiled. "This drawing in the paper wasn't done only from your description of me in the office. I know he spent significant time with that bartender and I know her name, Darlene Stone. She knows more than she has told the police at this point. I'm sure of that. They're incompetent, especially when it comes to something like this. Only I can find him." She was afraid to say another word. Stall him, she thought.
"I don't understand how he causes deaths through vitamin deficiencies," she said. And then she added, "I don't trust you, trust what you're telling me." He looked away, took a deep breath, and looked back at her.
"Okay," he said, "this is what happened." Despite how drawn she was to what he was saying, as he spoke it occurred to her that if he was telling the truth, if he was this research scientist and if he did indeed work for a powerful, clandestine corporation, she would now be in a different sort of danger, but one perhaps just as potentially fatal.
"I'm sure you know that toward the end of the twentieth century, there were basically three types of cloning: embryo cloning in which one or more cells are removed from a fertilized embryo and encouraged to develop into one or more duplicate embryos; adult DNA cloning, cell nuclear replacement producing a duplicate of an existing animal; and therapeutic cloning in which the stem cells are removed from the embryo with the intent of producing tissue or a whole organ for transplant.
"My work centers around adult DNA cloning, but the production of an identical twin without the use of sperm, although successful, had one drawback: time. It took too much time before the twin would develop into a mature adult, capable of utilizing all the talents and knowledge of its host. By the time it reached that capacity, what it knew could not only be obsolete, but what is more important, not further developed, not benefiting from that time, understand? I mean, reproducing Einstein at the point when he made his important discoveries, but having that reproduction spend years to get to that point, makes no sense. What I have been working on is speeding up the growth, accelerating the development of the duplicate.