Chapter 2
Hodges turned the corner and down the hall saw Wendy sitting on a bench, staring into a coffee cup with a lost look on her face.
He stopped in front of her but she didn't appear to notice.
"Are you okay?"
Wendy looked up. She had this blank, distant look on her face, like she was seeing a stranger.
"There's a woman in the morgue that looks like me. She could be my twin."
"I'd heard about Nick's twin, but not yours."
She looked into her cup again.
"Do you know her? Is she your twin?"
"No."
Hodges sat down next to her. "Are you sure? Were you adopted? Or—"
Irritated she exclaimed, "Hodges!"
He stopped asking.
Wendy shrugged. "She's just some Jane Doe that everyone will soon forget about."
"That's no good."
She looked oddly at him. "What's no good?"
"She has to have a name."
"We don't know what it is."
"Well she's not going to be called Jane Doe. I won't stand for that."
"We call all unknown fe—"
"We are going to call her something else."
"Like what?" Wendy asked her cup.
Hodges thought for a moment. He leaned in, laying his hand over her hand. She looked into his eyes.
"I'm going to go ask Catherine to change her name to Mindy Bimms. Just until we can find her real name."
Wendy brightened a little. "Really? You'd let me do that?"
He smiled, brushing some hair away from her face. "Yes. I'd do that for you. She deserves a proper name."
Wendy threw one arm around him, hugging him. "Thank you!"
Hodges smiled, holding her. It took him a few minutes to realize she'd begun crying. He took her cup and sat it on the floor before he held her tighter.
"Every time I see her face – what if I die like that? Shot and nameless?"
"That would never happen."
"It could."
"If you went missing, I'd never stop looking for you."
His promise made her cry harder.
#
Catherine looked up when Sara walked into her office. She sat down in a chair before her desk and smiled. The papers in her hand fluttered against her leg with a soft rustle. Catherine returned it the smile but only because she knew what Sara's meant.
"What do you want?" Catherine asked.
"So Ecklie's memo said that due to budget cuts we need a supervisor's approval to run DNA tests until further notice."
"Yes."
"Well," Sara sat the papers on the desk. "Meet Dean Parker Nolan."
"Dean Parker Nolan, huh?" Catherine picked up the papers, looking at the photograph of Nick's look-a-like paper clipped to the top. She thumbed through the rest of them. "Came from South Carolina, has a couple assaults, a B&E and a larceny, but those are from South Carolina. No warrants, never did jail time. Nothing major for twelve years, just a parking ticket in Austin, Texas. So far he looks as harmless as Nick. Why do you need a DNA test?"
"I have a hunch that his DNA might give me more to go with. Maybe he's done some crimes that he might have gotten away with. Something that might be worth killing him for."
"You're thinking drugs or guns?"
"I tracked down his last employer, a local HVAC company. The owner said he was a good employee, but he had to let him go because he couldn't pay him.. He and his wife have a mortgage on the house and I found a statement that said they're a month behind. That's enough to make a man do things he wouldn't ordinarily do. All the utilities and mail in the house, however, are in Alice's name. I find that a little curious."
"Nick can approve a DNA test. Why didn't you ask him?"
Sara grinned. "Well, you see, Nick thinks a DNA test is a waste of time. He thinks the guy's just a petty criminal and that a DNA test won't help. And, of course, there's also the… Bet."
Catherine rolled her eyes. "You two know the rule about betting on crimes."
"I only bent it. I know I'm going to lose."
"Do either of you even have a suspect in mind on this?"
"We're both leaning toward Alice right now. When we spoke to the neighbors, they said they got along with him and really liked him, but they had some stories to tell about the fights the two would get into. One even told us she stabbed him once, but he apparently didn't press charges. There was no record of it. Nick found she's been in every psychiatric hospital, clinic, and ward in the city. She's diagnosed as bi-polar and schizophrenic, and has her own rap sheet. It's a long list of assaults and battery. He spoke to her doctor and he said she hasn't been in to refill her medications for almost a month and she would have run out two months ago."
"So she might have fallen off the wagon and killed her husband and the hooker?
"Assuming she did it, yes. But I want to make sure Dean hasn't done something else that might have made him a perfect target. Especially since he looks like Nick."
"Did Robbins say he found any plastic surgery on him? I know when you two started the case Nick thought the guy had been trying to steal his identity."
"No plastic surgery. Mother Nature made Dean look like Nick. But he did have cancer. Doc said it wasn't advanced yet, but it was incurable. As long as Dean's been in town, Nick began to wonder if whoever killed Dean might have meant to kill him. He's going over his old cases now to see if anyone we should be concerned about has been released recently. I think Dean was pretty good at getting himself in trouble whether he looked like Nick or not."
"I'll approve the DNA test, on one condition. I don't want either of you to talk to anyone about this bet, including me."
"Deal."
They both looked at the door when Hodges came in saying, "Catherine, I want to talk to you about my request."
"Good evening to you, too, Hodges. How are you tonight?" Catherine asked.
"Fine. I spent all day reading handbooks and procedure manuals. Nothing in them indicates that while a deceased victim's identity is unknown that a name other than Jane Doe cannot be used."
Catherine heaved a sigh. "Hodges, I am not changing this woman's name to Mindy Bimms."
Sara smiled. "Who are we talking about?"
"Your Jane Doe. Oh, by the way, I assigned her to Ray. Wendy's taking it pretty hard; I thought giving it some personal attention might help."
"Why is she taking it hard? Did she know her?"
"She says no. I think that whole staring at her own face, dead, is what's getting to her."
"Nick doesn't seem to care."
"Nick's a different person."
"That's why I want the name changed," Hodges said.
"Because Nick doesn't care?" Catherine asked.
Hodges shook his head. "No! Why would that matter?" He moved on without waiting for an answer. "It's because Wendy does. I think it would help Wendy if we could give this woman a little identity."
"How is Mindy Bimms better than Jane Doe?" Sara asked.
"It's a long story, but trust me, it is. Please, Catherine?"
Catherine's eyebrows lifted. "Did you just… Beg?"
Hodges tried to answer the question, but his blushing did a better job. The women laughed.
"Okay. Okay. For Wendy, I'll change the name. You should have started there, Hodges. That was much more convincing than that attempt you made earlier."
"Thank you. I can expect it to be changed promptly?"
"Soon."
"I'll let her know."
Hodges left. Catherine leaned over her desk.
"Do you think Hodges might know this Mindy Bimms?"
"Why do you ask?"
"She looks like Wendy, and you suspect she was a prostitute."
"Hodges? Cheat on Wendy? Never!" Sara got up.
"Cheat on her? Are they dating?"
"Doubt it. That would make things too easy on us. Just wishful thinking from them both. Still." Sara headed for the door. "Thank you for the approval, Catherine."
#
Hodges and Langston walked hooker to hooker, showing them pictures of Mindy Bimms and Dean Nolan. Wendy worked the opposite side of the street, asking if anyone knew someone who looked exactly like her. But all they were getting was headshake after headshake.
Wendy joined Langston and Hodges "I need a break. How about—"
"Bernadette?"
Wendy turned. A young Latino boy stood at the end of an alley, staring at her. Wendy cautiously approached him.
"Do you know a woman who looks like me?" Wendy asked.
He nodded. "You look like Bernadette."
Wendy smiled. "Can you tell me about Bernadette?"
"Sometimes she'd take me to the diner down a block and get me something to eat."
"Are you homeless?"
He didn't answer.
"Was Bernadette her real name?"
He shook his head.
"Did she ever tell you what her real name was?"
He shook his head. "We just called her Saint Bernadette. She told me that Saint Bernadette was a nun who lived a long time ago and helped people. I guess that's why we called her that."
"Can you tell me who else she helped?"
He glanced down a nearby alley. "Ask anyone down here. I gotta go."
He took off at a run down the street. Wendy started down the alley, trailed by Langston and Hodges. Hidden among the trash and in the shadows were vagrants, homeless people, the forgotten. In the dim light of the streetlights, it looked like the very shadows were alive, but they were only hulks of humans trying to etch out a meager existence. She stopped at the first person and began asking about Saint Bernadette. A lot of the people in the alley knew her, but no one knew her name.
One man told them, "She'd give me clothes some times. Nice girl." He snarled toward the street, at the other hookers. "Not like those tramps! She didn't hoard her money like they do."
Langston quietly commented, "It doesn't sound like she had a pimp."
Wendy mentally noted that and moved on. As she worked down the alley she discovered that Bernadette really was a saint. She used some of her money to buy these people clothes and food. When the money ran out, she was resourceful and found ways to take care of them. Wendy was beginning to see that the woman she'd pictured was not who Mindy Bimms really was.
It was the last person that had a story that piqued their interest.
"You should find Maureen," a woman told Wendy.
"Who's Maureen?"
"Don't know. Saint Bernadette spent the most of the time with her. Once, I even heard her call her mom. She took good care of that damned drunk, but the woman was a witch to her. We felt sorry. Hope that wasn't the little girl's mom. She didn't deserve someone like that. And as smart as Bernadette was, she should'a been doing something other than sleeping around for money. Smart as a whip."
"Do you know what Maureen looks like?"
"Black hair. Dirty. Can't tell you much else. After you get enough dirt on ya, you just look like everyone else down here."
Wendy looked around her. She could tell the different faces, but to someone not used to looking for differences, one homeless person looked like the next.
Langston handed the woman one of his cards. "Let me know if you see Maureen or remember anything else."
Wendy dug a handful of change from her pocket, putting it in the woman's hand. "Please call us."
Wendy and the men headed back up the alley.
"It sounds like the mother might have fallen on hard times and the daughter might have come to help her," Hodges commented.
"Maybe. We'll need to find Maureen to find out," Langston said.
#
Nick walked down the hall reading through a file in his hands. Without looking, he turned into the DNA lab.
"You wanted to see me Catherine?" he asked as he stopped. He looked up with a smile.
It faded when he found Wendy sitting on a stool crying silent tears. Catherine stood nearby, holding a box of tissues in one hand and papers in her other. Wendy took the box from her, saying something so quiet Nick couldn't make it out.
"What's wrong?"
"I'm pulling you off the Dean Nolan case," Catherine told him. "Is that the case file?"
Nick closed the file. "No. It's another case. Why are you pulling me off the Nolan case?"
"Did you know Sara requested a DNA test on Dean Nolan?"
"Yeah. I still think it was a waste of time. We got what we needed on his fingerprints."
"Well… It's a good thing she did." Catherine shook her head a little. "Or not." She hesitated. "The results are… Surprising."
Nick glanced at Wendy. "Surprising how?"
"Dean's DNA matches yours. He's your twin."
Nick laughed at the joke. "Catherine, I do not have a twin. I would know if I did, and I don't."
"Wendy ran the test four times, Nick." Catherine held the sheets out. "I can't have you working a case of someone you're related to, even if you've never met them."
Nick pulled the papers away and read them. He could feel his anger rising. It started in his legs and moved at a steady pace into his face.
"Nick?" Catherine said.
"What?"
"Are you okay?"
Nick glared at her – although the glare was intended for someone else. "I just found out I have a twin brother and my parents have lied to me for thirty-seven years." He threw the papers on the counter and walked out, adding, "I'm just great!"
Catherine turned to Wendy. The tears had stopped at least.
"Now you. What's going on, Wendy? Why are you upset about the Mindy Bimms results?"
She looked at Catherine. "We didn't get any hits on her." She started crying again. "We still don't know who she is."
Catherine put her arm around her, trying to comfort her even if she didn't understand why the lab tech was so upset by the lack of results.
"We haven't given up yet, Wendy. Hand in there."
#
Sara found Nick at the end of the top deck of the parking garage, sitting on the corner the guard wall with his feet dangling over the ground five stories below. She hated when he sat on ledges like that, but she admired his lack of fear. Sara leaned on wall, staring at the street under his feet. There were few people out in the early morning hours.
"Word's spread fast," she told him. "Wendy told Hodges, he told everyone."
"You won the bet, I guess."
Sara shook her head. "Forget the bet. That was just us joking around. You were convinced there was no relation, so I was too. I ran his DNA because I thought he might have done some larger crime that wasn't showing up on his record. I'm sorry, Nick."
"I'm not mad at you, Sara. You were just being thorough."
She looked across Las Vegas. She realized they were facing east and in an hour, the sun would start rising above the hills.
"His parents finally contacted me," Sara told him. "They are in Sydney and should be here in two days."
"Why didn't they adopt us both?" Nick whispered. "His parents or mine. Why did they split us up?"
"Maybe you should ask your parents."
He sat up straight like she'd smacked him. He looked at her. "Go get the case file. We're going to Texas." He swung his legs around and hopped off the wall, heading for the door.
Sara stood for a minute.
She trotted to catch up. "Nick… We can't go to Texas."
"My parents have information important to this case. We have to talk to them."
"Nick, we can't just go to Texas! Catherine will never—"
"We'll call her when we're there."
"We have no jurisdiction in Texas."
He stopped, staring at her. She wasn't sure what he was capable of doing right now but didn't move away.
"His parents are two days away; mine are three hours. And I don't need jurisdiction to grill my parents about keeping a secret from me."
"Let's just wait for Dean's parents."
"I'm not pissed at Dean's parents."
She heaved a sigh. "So this is a personal vendetta, not actual evidence collection?"
"For me, yes; for you it could be evidence. So anything I find out without you present you can't use." He started walking again. "I'm going to Texas. You want to come, fine. You want to wait and talk to Dean's parents, that's fine too."
She looked out across Las Vegas. Sara turned and followed him. They could be in Texas in three hours, and they might be able to figure out who murdered Nick's twin sooner.
"We're telling Catherine before we leave, Nick. At least can you do that?"
"Make it quick. I'll wait out front for twenty minutes."
Sara jogged to catch with him.
#
Wendy trotted up to Langston. He was looking at something through the microscope.
"Yes, Wendy?" he asked.
"How… How did you know who I was?"
"Your shampoo has a very distinct smell of lilac. You're the only woman in the lab that uses it."
She smiled. "Oh. Hey, I was wondering if you'd tried her prints in the international database."
He glanced at her. "I have not."
"Oh. Well, could you?"
He smiled. "No. I have to finish this trace sample first. But I would appreciate it if you could do it for me."
"Really?"
"Really."
"Can I run her DNA profile through the other databases too?"
"Wendy," Langston stood up. "I would appreciate any help you could give me on Mindy Bimms' case. Just don't take the initiative to interview to anyone. I have to do that."
"I won't. Thank you, Doctor Langston."
He nodded once with a smile. She turned and trotted away. Across from him Henry appeared from behind a gas chromatograph.
"I thought you said the case was a dead end?"
Langston turned back to the microscope. "No. I said that I had reached a dead end. But I'm open to any avenue of assistance I can get."
"You never ordered a tox screen on her."
"We have no reason for one."
"Yes, but it might be helpful."
Langston pulled his head back and smiled. "Henry, why don't you go run a tox screen for me?"
He jumped up and left to do that.
Langston chuckled a little and went back to work.
#
Jillian and Bill Stokes walked into the restaurant together. The hostess greeted them with a smile.
"Hello, Judges Stokes. Nick's here, back at your usual table."
"Thank you," Bill said and the two wove their way through the room.
Several regulars and waitress greeted them with a smile. The Stokes had come here for years and they knew most of the family.
At the back in a corner booth sat Nick and Sara. The couple stopped at the table.
"Good morning," Jillian said. "We were surprised to get your call, Nicholas. How are you doing?"
Nick didn't reply. He didn't look up from the spot he was glaring at on the table.
Jillian glanced at Bill. He made a slight head nod toward the opposite side of the booth. The two slid into the booth. Jillian held out her hand to Sara.
"Jillian Stokes."
Sara shook it. "Sara Grissom."
"Grissom… Doesn't he work at your lab?"
"He did. He's my husband."
She noticed the raised eyebrows on both parents.
"We're here about a case we hope you can help us with."
"A case in Las Vegas?" Bill asked.
"Yes." Sara pulled the Dean Nolan case file from her bag. Before she could even get it to the table Nick took it from her.
He pulled out the six eight by ten glossy photographs of Dean at the crime scene and morgue and slapped them down on the table.
"Nick—" Sara began
"Explain this," Nick ordered his parents.
A waitress came up to the table. Only Sara acknowledged her.
"We aren't ready," Sara told her.
The waitress started to reply.
Bill reached inside his jacket pocket, took out his wallet, and thrust a $50 at her. "We need the table."
She took it and walked away.
"Where did you get these?" Bill asked.
"Where the hell do you think we got them, dad? Does Dean look alive?"
Jillian's head popped up at the mention of the name. Bill didn't react.
"He's the victim in a case you're investigating?" Bill asked.
Nick didn't answer.
"Yes," Sara answered.
Bill picked up the morgue photograph, looking at the face. Sara noticed a couple of tears drop down Jillian's face. She looked at her husband. Sara looked at Bill. Nick never looked away. Bill slowly sat the photograph down.
The man drew a deep breath and looked his son in the eye. "I'm sure you've come across situations like this in your work. I know I have."
"Dad, you're stalling."
Bill smiled a little. "You should have stayed here, in Austin. Stayed close to us."
"Now you're avoiding," Nick snarled.
"There's no proof he's related to you. With plastic surgery, anyone could—"
Nick pulled the DNA tests from the folder and slapped them in front of Bill. "Dad, there is a one in a fifty-thousand chance someone has similar DNA as me. That number doubles, maybe triples, when you take into account this man also looks just like me. Which leaves us with the more logical and reasonable explanation: this man is a twin brother who, in my thirty-seven years, you and mom never told me about. I want answers, dad. I want to know who this guy is and I want the truth!"
No one spoke for several minutes.
"I've heard so many people say 'it's complicated' in situations like these. They draw out some long winded story about how this happened and that happened." Bill paused.
Nick jumped into the pause. "Is that what you're doing now? Telling me how complicated this is? How you and mom abandoned my brother over me?"
Bill looked at the photographs, shaking his head. "No."
"We adopted you because you wouldn't stop crying," Jillian quietly told Nick.
Everyone looked at her. She was playing with a spoon, or perhaps staring at her reflection in the back of it.
"I wouldn't stop crying?" Nick asked.
She nodded. "I was working a pro bono case for the state. This horrible man tried to poison his family; he killed his wife, but the children survived. They were in foster care and I was building the case. I went to the foster home to interview to them. The woman had these three and two babies – one of them was you. You were crying and crying. I finished with the children's interviews and asked her what was wrong with you. She said five days ago your brother and older sister had been adopted and you hadn't stopped crying since." She smiled at the spoon, perhaps seeing the memory in it. "I asked if I could hold you. You quieted right down for the first time in five days. And your eyes, Nicholas… You were so alert. It's no wonder you knew he was gone. So I talked with your father and we adopted you, our last child." She looked up at him. "There has never been a reason to tell you about the adoption, Nick."
Under his breath Bill muttered, "Till he came along."
"Till who came along?" Nick asked Bill.
"If your brother had been there…" Jillian hesitated. "I think about that day sometimes. If you hadn't been crying, I never would have noticed you. Our family wouldn't be the same, and neither would you. That's just the way God arranged things, honey. He made sure I noticed you to bring you into our lives."
Sara watched Nick's glare harden. He looked like he wanted to jump across the table and strangle his mother. Instead his hands clenched into fists.
"God didn't keep this secret from me, mother. You did. And now half of that secret is lying dead in a morgue in Las Vegas. Did Dean come here looking for me?"
The two didn't answer.
"Was Dean Parker Nolan looking for me?"
Jillian burst into tears. Bill's face tensed.
"God damnit! He was, wasn't he? And you two knew and you kept that from me too! What the hell is wrong with you two?"
"Don't you use His name in vain, Nicholas," Bill snapped.
"Don't use… Are you fucking kidding me?" Nick laughed out of anger. "You never tell me that I was adopted, that I have a twin, and now I even find out I have a sister I didn't know about, and all you can do is lecture me about using God's name in vain!" He stood up suddenly. "I gotta… I'll be at the airport, Sara. I can't talk to these people anymore!"
He stormed off, leaving Sara with the devastated couple.
She collected the photographs and printouts, put the folder back together, and slid it into her bag.
"We never asked about his brother and sister. I can't tell you anything about them, Sara," Jillian said. Sara looked up. Jillian added, "And I don't know if Dean was looking for him."
Sara looked up, finding the woman staring at her. She looked at Bill.
"What about you, sir? You said 'till he came around.' What did you mean?"
"Nothing."
"Are you sure about that?"
Bill looked at her. "We love, Nicholas. We do these things to protect him."
Sara shook her head. "I am not your ally, Mr. and Mrs. Stokes. I think what you did is wrong. You think you were protecting him by keeping this all secret, but you weren't. You were just being selfish." Sara pulled herself out of the booth and stood. She reached in a pocket in her bag and sat her card next to Jillian. "Keep this in mind: Dean's killer is still at large, that person may not know they actually killed him, and they may mistake Nick for him. We've all seen how deadly family secrets can turn out; in this case, your secrets could cost you a son."
The two looked up at her.
"Sleep well on that thought tonight." Sara tapped her card and walked away. "Call if you suddenly remember details about when you last spoke to Dean."
