Chapter 18. Justice Hurts by Igor Yevtishenkov

CHAPTER 18

Sgt. Huston announced that he'd received the results of the exhumation, when Tom and William were away in the city. William could not even begin to imagine that he'd have to go on a hunt for masks and negotiate with suppliers. In the last week, life both in the city and in the whole country had 'gone bananas' as Tom put it.

'Come on, talk to the Sergeant,' William shouted, gesturing to Tom. His boss nodded his head, moving the mask away from his mouth.

'Speak, Jimmy!' Tom shouted, feeling the Sergeant's hesitation on the other end of the phone.

'This is confidential information, Sir, and discussion over the phone isn't…'

The black inspector shrugged.

'Okay, you're right,' he admitted. 'More generally speaking, what's happened?'

The sergeant replied in an even tone: 'In general? The tests have been done and results are ready.'

'I'm going to go, Tom,' William got up and shoved his phone into his pocket, but it clipped his pocket and fell to the floor with a minor crack of the screen.

'You're nervous, Bill, I can tell. Jimmy's a little asshole! Let's go together,' Tom took a glass of unfinished coffee and the pair headed for the door.

Weirdly, there were a lot of people in the office. Everyone was wearing a mask, behind all of them were annoyed, sweaty faces.

Sergeant Huston arrived and closed the door to Tom's office behind him.

'Here are the results, Sir,' he said, handing a folder to Tom. The inspector looked at William and gestured towards two chairs. The pair of them sat down.

'Tell me everything. I've not got the time to read,' Tom exclaimed, wiping the sweat from his forehead with a napkin. The air conditioning in his office had never been repaired.

'The hair in Woodruff's house is a young girl's, but the body in the grave is different. According to the results, there's no cross-over between the two. The burnt corpse belongs to Samantha Takeros, who had been killed and buried the week before. We'll have to order the opening of her grave as well to confirm this, but we can discuss it in more detail later. It looks like four years ago someone's dug up Samantha's corpse and put it in a car to mislead us. For now, we're assuming that this was the driver of the car. Now we just need to get permission to visit the clinic. The deception must've happened there.'

'That's for sure. It can't be anywhere else. They've already taken tests there, I'm sure of it!' William exclaimed louder than usual, not taking any notice of Tom's raised hand. 'If we have to wait for permission, this will stall the investigation. Do you get what I'm saying? Right, what's happening on the matter of patrols? I can call the head physician and department head. We can…'

'Wait! He's got more to say!' Tom stopped him and looked at Huston.

'We've got access to the archives for this case. By tomorrow, I'll have the names of employees who've worked in the morgue and been identified. Also, I've sent another request to the clinic for information. No one's confirmed when they'll get back to me yet, as they're busy with a government assistance program. We'll have to wait for a reply to my email, it'll take as long as it takes.'

'Ah! The clinic! We've got to get there urgently,' William took off his mask and pushed his collar down. Even though he felt a rush of blood to the head, his thoughts remained clear. 'Get some water, would you?' he requested and soon enough, he took out some soothing pills and washed them down from the plastic cup Tom was wielding in front of him. The inspector shook his head and sighed, whilst Sgt. Huston didn't react at all.

'However, this information just doesn't add up,' Huston added. 'When we inspected Woodruff's car, other several long hairs were found. Bryson found that, as if by magic, there were some with hair roots, which will help to make a DNA-test, although the rest has been cut off. All of our samples are completely identical to those found in Woodruff's house. Therefore, we've got reason to believe that a trace of hair has gone from his house to his car that was found in the parking lot, and we need to trace whoever this is to find out if they were alive. I highly doubt they were, given the fact that most of the hair has been cut off and just a few with roots were found on it. It's not plausible that whoever was in the car got their hair cut whilst on the move.'

'Maybe Woodruff drove around with this person's head? It's just an idea.'

William appeared critical in his response.

'Are you mad? Sofia's head? Where did you get that idea? Could it just be a soccer ball that's been covered up? But..!' an idea had soon shot into William's head. 'It could be a wig. That's it! It's definitely a wig! If there's no fingerprints and the hair is scattered all over the place, then it must be a wig.'

'It sounds plausible. Then we've got to assume that Sofia came here to meet her mother, and also that this meeting was arranged by Woodruff. What do you think? Did that idea not occur to you?' at this moment, Tom raised his eyebrows inquisitively, whilst everyone remained silent.

'Can I please go on?' Huston asked, whilst Tom gestured for him to continue. 'The most interesting find we've got is a handkerchief, made of old cotton. It's embroidered too. If it's needed, we can find out where the threads are from. Of chief importance, though, is the fact that dried saliva was found on it and it's not Woodruff's. Sam did his best to examine it, and he found out who it belongs to.'

'Can you cut this down Jimmy?' William begged to the Sergeant.

'Of course, I can. The DNA found matches both you and your wife's, as well as that of the hair. It's not exactly identical, though, meaning that we're dealing with a third person in all of this.'

'Oh, good Lord, what does that mean? One of them must've been cloned then!' William proclaimed stupidly. Tom waved his hand dismissively and attention turned back to the Sergeant.

'It's not a clone of yours, most likely a child. Sam has said he'll have to do another test. There isn't a way at the moment because of the hysteria with the virus, but later on he'll be sure to find out how to contact the lab.'

'That's a pain. How could we do that?'

'Bill, if you want a simple explanation,' Tom began, 'We've got reason to believe Sofia's alive and she's got a child. The burning question at the moment is why they were or weren't in Woodruff's house and why they were in his car.'

'Woodruff may not have taken them in a car,' the sergeant declared. 'There aren't any prints inside his car, so we can only discuss the handkerchief, the hair and test results at this moment. As the lieutenant said, it might be a wig. In addition, the handkerchief could be something that Woodruff was carrying in his car for some reason.'

'Come off it! He must've done all this for fun and then given the wig, as well as his laptop and phone to this mysterious third person to take elsewhere. This just doesn't add up,' Tom scoffed. 'Jimmy, let's do this by the book. What needs to be done? Today I've spoken with the mayor, and she believes that there'll be a state of emergency soon – you know what this will mean for the city. It'll become paralyzed. Look, I know what you want me to say – every case is just as important as the next one. Seriously, though, what can William and I do without impeding on your progress? Think of it as us working simultaneously.'

'That's the only thing – bring me a list of employees and those who work at the morgue or the documents from the archive. All the information we need will definitely be there. Following that, we'll immediately call those listed for questioning, but if quarantine is introduced, we won't be able to do a thing. Everything will be at a standstill.'

'Right, now I get it!' William declared with a renewed vigor. 'No one can stop me from asking questions to the director and head physician about how they've treated my daughter, right? By the way, I've also got official permission to interrogate that woman in the clinic, Laura Median.'

'It's not an easy case either, quite the confusing one. Her husband has disappeared, yet all the bills for the clinic have been paid,' Huston scratched his head, looking puzzled. 'New evidence has emerged, so I don't know if it's worth using Laura Median for questioning. It seems like a bad idea, but it's not illegal.'

'I've got to go now. Jimmy, I owe you one. Could you print all those documents for me whilst I'm calling the director or head physician? I hope the two of them won't need to get approval from the court or the clinic's board of directors first.'

'Well, don't mind me. I'll just be sitting here!' Tom joked.

William sounded sincere in his response. 'Boss, you're always right and cover our asses. Thanks for that!'

Neither the director nor the head physician could answer the call, and it was only the head of department, Theresa Fly, who was free to listen. She answered briefly with a simple 'Yes, come down,' and after that, she hung up.