Thomas O`Callaghan - The Screaming Room

“A Harp for the Lieutenant.”

Kevin Conlon, with his grizzly white beard and gravelly voice, seemed more suited for a Gabby Hayes Western than as a restaurant owner here in suburban New York. A well-bred Irishman and true wine aficionado, he prided himself on offering gourmet meals and gracious service at an affordable price.

“The bad guys still one step ahead of the posse?” Conlon asked, offering Driscoll a Macanudo.

“And then some,” Driscoll frowned, stuffing the cigar in his shirt pocket.

“Any truth to the rumor?”

“Which one?”

“That the police have made a breakthrough in the case.”

“Ah, that Matt Lauer report. He should stick to the Thanksgiving Day parade.”

The bartender returned with a frosty mug of Irish brew and placed it on the bar in front of the Lieutenant. “Why can’t Monica Lewinsky make it as a surgeon?” he asked with a sardonic grin.

“I’ll bite,” said Driscoll.

“Because she sucked as an intern,” came the reply.

A whisper of a smile creased Driscoll’s face.

“You’ll have to excuse our staff’s highbrow sense of humor,” said Conlon. “It comes from cutting too many classes at Bartending 101.”

Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of Driscoll’s cell phone purring inside his breast pocket. The Lieutenant answered it.

Criminalist Ernie Haverstraw’s voice echoed in his ear. “The DNA is back on the traces of skin and blood we found under the last victim’s fingernails.”

“And?”

“Are you sitting down?”

“That I am. At Sullivan’s.”

“You finished your drink?”

“Yeah, why?”

“You’d better order another. Make it a double.”

“Why? You don’t like me sober?”

“Okay. Have it your way. The DNA is a perfect match to the male’s blood on the torn fingernail we found entangled in the brake assembly of the bike.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Our male serial killer. Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Like I said, Lieutenant, it’s a perfect match to the male’s blood. Only thing is, this DNA is female.”

“Whaddya mean the DNA is female?” Driscoll asked as he stormed into Haverstraw’s lab.

“Tests don’t lie, Lieutenant.” The criminalist pointed to a collection of illuminated data on the monitor of a desktop computer.

“Break it down for me, will ya? Using layman’s terms.”

“The geneticists ran the usual chromosomal scanning, utilizing the Polymerase chain reaction-short tandem repeat methodology,” said Haverstraw.

Driscoll shot him a glare. “Layman’s terms,” he repeated.

Haverstraw shrugged and continued.

“They got an exact match to the DNA sample on file in the database.”

“You mean the blood on the fingernail of our male suspect.”

“That’d be the one.”

“But you’re telling me this specimen is female. That would be impossible.”

“Oh, it’s possible. Let’s have a cup of coffee and I’ll explain.”

Haverstraw sauntered over to an aluminum table that supported a Bunn double-burner coffee server, some Styrofoam cups, and a half-eaten Entenmann’s Danish ring.

“Still take yours black, Lieutenant?”

Driscoll nodded.

“Want some cake?”

“I’ll pass.”

The two men took a seat opposite each other at a wooden workbench next to a full-sized rolling blackboard. A chalk-scrawled formula for who-knows-what was strewn across the hardwood-encased slate. Haverstraw took a sip of his coffee and stared fixedly at Driscoll.

“Lieutenant, there is no mistake in the DNA. The killers you’re looking for are a set of twins.”

“Twins?”

“Identical twins.”

“Male and female twins?”

“There are three types of twins,” said Haverstraw. “Identical, fraternal, and conjoined. I’m not the street sleuth, but I think we can rule out conjoined. Fraternal twins wouldn’t match genetically. And these two match.”

“An exact match?”

“We snip off the tail from the letter e in ‘exact.’ Voila! We got a match.”

Driscoll envisioned a circumcision. Had no clue as to why. His expression said: What?

Haverstraw wondered why he felt obligated to explain his sense of humor to everyone. “For where it’ll lead you, they match.”

“I thought all boy-girl twins were fraternal,” said Driscoll.

“They usually are. Identical twins come from the same egg. Follow me on this one. The twinning begins when it separates after fertilization. It’s possible for one twin to have the full complement of forty-six chromosomes, including the XY sex chromosomes of a male, while the other twin has only forty-five chromosomes. Either the Y or one of the X chromosomes is missing. If it’s the Y that’s missing, the twin is left with a single X chromosome. Bingo! Dad gets his little girl. But not without a cost. Although the partner twin, having the X and the Y chromosome, becomes a healthy baby boy, the female is born with Turner syndrome. It’s a rarity of nature.”

“How rare?”

“Very! With a capital V. Take the United States for example. You’re likely to have one such birth every twelve to fifteen years.”

“In the entire country? That is rare. What else should I know about this syndrome?”

“There are some medical indicators. They only apply to the female. She’s likely to be short in stature, an average height being four-foot-seven. She may have webbing of the neck. Additional folds of skin cascading onto her shoulders. Her eyelids may droop. Her ears may be oddly shaped and sit lower than normal on the side of her head. Sometimes a low hairline is present at the base of the skull. The arms may turn out at the elbow. She may have an unusual number of moles. Might also be infertile. She could develop high blood pressure and diabetes and be at extra risk of ear infections and cataracts. Heart, kidney, or thyroid problems can also develop. She may be flat-chested, her nipples widely spaced. If she has breasts, they’re likely to appear undeveloped. Her chest might also appear shieldlike. Obesity is another possibility. Or, Lieutenant, she may have no apparent physical abnormalities at all. Unless she’s diagnosed by a doctor, she might not even be aware of her condition.”

“Great! She might have a target on her, and she might not.” Driscoll groaned.

Haverstraw shook his head sympathetically. “Well, at least you know what her accomplice will look like.”

“I don’t even know what she looks like!”

“Consider this. You may know more about her than she does.”

“What I need to know is who she is, not what she is.”

Haverstraw gulped down the remains of his coffee.

“Do you think there’d be records of such rare twins?” asked Driscoll.

“Depends,” said Haverstraw.

“On?”

“On whether they were ever tested. Oh. And there’s one more thing. Although Dr. Henry Turner first described the condition in 1938, it wasn’t until karyotyping was discovered in 1959 that the medical practitioners had a way to detect it.”

“Karyotyping?”

“A chromosome analysis. A blood test.”

Driscoll stood and smiled at the criminalist. “Ernie, you’ve been a big help. I now have a place to start.” On leaving, the Lieutenant’s eyes drifted to the desktop’s LCD screen. Its scientific hieroglyphics stared back. He pointed to them and cast a quizzical look at Haverstraw.

“Like two peas in a pod,” said the criminalist, leaning back in his chair.

Cedric Thomlinson was always thrilled when an investigation required him to visit CyberCentral, the tiny wood-paneled technical support room on the fourth floor of Twenty-six Federal Plaza. Was it the humming sound emanating from the room’s sophisticated computer equipment that hypnotized him, quelling his impulses, inviting the most pleasant euphoria? Was he, perhaps, overwhelmed by technological advances that allowed the pooling of infinitesimal and very personal information on the average citizen culled from every government agency, foreign and domestic? Or was he simply a willing victim to a flight of fancy at the mere glimpse of Leticia Hollander, the vivacious, soft-spoken Caribbean woman who was the center’s enticing technician?