Lisa Jackson - Born To Die

“Go ahead,” she said, inhaling shakily.

“We interviewed your son-in-law, Tom Alexander. Elle was on the phone to him when the accident occurred.”

“Tom loves Elle. He’s heartbroken. We all are.”

“Tom said your daughter thought another vehicle was driving dangerously. Did he tell you that?” Alvarez asked.

“He said Elle thought the driver was trying to kill her. I don’t know. Sometimes, when you’re driving, you kind of think those things, you know?”

“Yes.”

“He rear-ended her. Tom said she said that. And his lights were really bright. But then, Tom said she must have dropped the phone…. He called nine-one-one. She told him to.”

“Did your daughter have any enemies that you might know of?”

“Oh, no. Not Elle. Everyone loved Elle. Her best friend from high school, Jayne Drummond, still lives around here, and she stopped by and we talked about how much everyone loved her.” Elle’s mother’s voice was growing thick with tears again. “You can talk to her, if you’d like.”

“You have a son, too.”

“Bruce. He’s married. Lives in Florida. I can give you his number, too.”

“Thank you.”

Alvarez wrote down the phone numbers for Jayne Drummond and Bruce Morris as Brenda read them to her. The next questions she wanted to ask were going to sound strange, and she wasn’t quite sure how to approach her with them. “Mrs. Morris, we’re investigating a death in Grizzly Falls of another young woman. She either fell or was pushed over a railing.”

“I’m very sorry for her family,” Brenda said sincerely.

“We would like to help them get closure, as well,” Alvarez said, pushing on. “The woman, Jocelyn Wallis, bore a remarkable resemblance to your daughter. Enough that someone asked if they were related.” A little white lie, but close enough to the truth that Alvarez felt no compunction in using it. “Although I suspect this is just the kind of odd coincidence that crops up from time to time, I wanted to ask about the possibility that they were related somehow. Maybe knew each other?”

It was a total stretch, and Alvarez could hear the embarrassed tone of her own voice. Still, those pictures Trace O’Halleran had discussed with them had offered up more questions than answers. If she could connect any two of the lookalikes, maybe the rest would follow.

“No. .”

“Elle was born in Boise?”

“Yes.”

“Does she have any connection to Helena?”

A sharp intake of breath. “No. .”

Alvarez’s pulse jumped. Something here. “I’m sorry, but it sounds like you are thinking of something?”

“It’s not… I don’t. . I don’t understand how it could.”

“Could you tell me what you mean?”

“Oh, dear. My husband… oh, dear.” She sighed. “We learned that my husband could not father any children of his own, so we went to a clinic in Helena. It’s no longer there. But it was then, and we went there… to find a donor.”

“A sperm donor,” Alvarez clarified carefully.

“Yes. Yes. Both of my children were fathered by the same donor.”

“Elle and Bruce.”

“We never told anyone. Bruce still doesn’t know, and Elle didn’t know. I know I should tell my son, but it never seemed like the right time and now Elle’s gone. . ”

“This clinic. What was it called?”

“I don’t know. We always referred to it as the clinic. I can’t see that this matters.”

“It probably doesn’t. I just want to be sure. Can you tell me anything more about it?”

She exhaled and then inhaled and exhaled once more before saying, “This is… I don’t know. Information you don’t need, I suppose, but all I know is the donor’s number, seven-twenty-seven. My husband and I always remembered because he was a pilot and that was the type of jet he flew when he worked for the airlines. We always thought it was lucky.”

“How did you pick the donor?”

“He was a medical student with dark hair and blue eyes. He was the same height as Keane, and he was athletic. We wanted our children to resemble us both.” Her tone said: “Is that so much to ask?”

“I understand.”

“This other woman… the one who fell?”

Alvarez didn’t want to start answering questions since she didn’t know where they would lead. Needing to cut her off quickly, she said, “I don’t have all the background on Miss Wallis, but I know she was a teacher in Grizzly Falls and very well liked.”

“Like Elle.” She sighed. “I was a teacher, too. It’s all so hard, isn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am. It is.” Alvarez meant it, and the older woman heard her unspoken sympathy.

“If Elle was killed. . if that’s true, you’ll find them and let me know?”

“Yes. I will,” Alvarez promised.

“Thank you,” she said.

Alvarez sat perfectly still for several moments after Brenda Morris hung up.

A sperm donor.

Could it be?

Were these women truly related? It was the theory that had been circling around that no one wanted to really believe. Could Elle Alexander and Shelly Bonaventure and Jocelyn Wallis and Leanna O’Halleran and maybe Kacey Lambert, and God knew how many others, actually be related ? Have the same father? That was the connection?

As fast as she could, she grabbed up her cell phone and punched the button for Pescoli, who answered on the fifth ring, sounding pissed.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve got something.”

“Uh-huh.”

“No, I’ve really got something,” Alvarez told her. “Can you get back to the station?”

“I have a lot of screaming left to do here,” she said abruptly. “A lot of screaming,” she yelled loudly to someone or someones on her end.

“Make it quick screaming,” Alvarez told her, then clicked off, her mind already spinning ahead.

Could all these women — these victims — have been conceived at the same fertility clinic? Could their mothers have all used the same sperm donor? Donor 727?

But what did that mean? Even if it was true, what did that mean? Why were they dying? Why were they being killed ?

If…

If they were being killed.

But that’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? There’s something here. You know there’s something here. Whether Pescoli believes you or not.

She grabbed up her phone and called the lab, annoyed when she was given the runaround. Hanging up with them, she called Ashley Tang direct and said, “I need some DNA results yesterday. Isn’t there someone at the lab you can lean on?”

The forensic investigator answered, “They’re getting to it. You know how it is.”

“I don’t care how it is! I need answers.”

“Well, I’ve got one for you. Not DNA, but an explanation of sorts.”

“Hit me.”

“The poison found in Jocelyn Wallis’s system? We believe it was administered in the coffee grounds.”

“Put there on purpose? It wasn’t something picked up by mistake, somehow.”

“Most likely it was deliberate.”

“Was it meant to kill her?”

“Doesn’t look like it. The dosage was too small at this point, but then, there might be a lot more left in the coffee. We haven’t tested it yet.”

Alvarez jumped ahead to Kacey Lambert. The microphones. Maybe Jocelyn had been bugged, too? But the killer removed them before her place was examined?

“I’m going to check some other coffee, too,” Alvarez said. “Thanks. I’ll get it to you.”

This time when she hung up, she could feel her pulse racing and her breathing was rapid. Was Dr. Lambert in a killer’s sights?

It sure felt that way.

“Pescoli. Get back here!” she said aloud.

“You always overreact,” Jeremy declared, glaring at her from the couch. He held up his phone. “It’s just a picture. There’s nothing wrong with it!”