Gemini Rising (Mischievous Malamute Mystery Series, Book 1) (8 page)

Chapter Eighteen

I awoke the next morning with a sense of anticipation and purpose. Despite the fact we hadn’t gleaned much information up to this point, I was convinced we were on the right track, and once we toppled that first hurdle, there would be no stopping us.

I reflected on the events of the past several weeks as Nicoh and I walked briskly through the neighborhood. I was so deep in thought I failed to see my next-door neighbor, Suzy Kemp, waving as we passed her house. Nicoh, however, was on full alert—Suzy typically had snacks in her pocket—and suddenly stopped short, forcing the lead to strain between us. Suzy chuckled as I gasped in surprise, barely catching myself before I face-planted into her ocotillos.

“I’m so sorry, dear. I didn’t mean to alarm you.” She patted Nicoh on the head and reached into her treasure trove, better known as the snack pocket, as his tail thwapped wildly on the ground. As usual, he was oblivious to the fact he’d nearly graced me with multiple face-piercings—compliments of the ocotillos—in his lust of the elusive Suzy snack.

“It’s ok, Suze, it’s not your fault.” I glared at Nicoh. “I was distracted, though it also appears we both need training.”

Suzy laughed. “You were pretty focused. I called out a few times and flopped my hands about like a crazy chicken, but only Nicoh seemed amused.”

It was my turn to laugh. “I’m sure your crazy chicken routine was quite entertaining, but I have a sneaking suspicion it was the never-ending supply of snacks you keep in your pocket that drew his attention.”

“Oh, that reminds me, I meant to give you this.” She reached into the non-snack pocket of her hoody, pulled out a small white envelope and handed it to me.

“As you might remember, I was out of town visiting my sister for the past several weeks.” At my nod, she continued, “I had my mail held at the post office and didn’t have time to go down and pick it up until now. Anyway, looks like they inadvertently put this in my box.” I briefly looked at the envelope. I didn’t recognize the handwriting, and there was no return address, though it had been postmarked in Phoenix a few weeks earlier.

“Thanks, Suze, probably an exclusive offer to refinance, or better yet, I’ve won all-expenses paid trip to the Bahamas.”

“Well now, perhaps I should take that back?” Suzy teased.

“Weren’t you just out of town?” I teased back.

“Honey, did I fail to mention I was with my sister? I believe I’ve earned that vacation.”

We both laughed as I thanked her and we headed home. A FedEx package was waiting on the front step when we got there. It couldn’t be the information from Cheryl Earley at UCMC already, could it? I could barely contain my excitement as I hustled Nicoh in to the house and threw everything on the counter. After a deep breath, I ripped the box open and whooped at the top of my lungs. It was from Cheryl.

My hands shook as I read the note she had enclosed, which simply read:
AJ—it was truly a pleasure talking to you earlier this week. Enclosed are the documents we discussed. I hope they help you find what you are looking for. Keep in touch—Cheryl
.

Before delving into the contents, I gave her a quick call, and upon receiving her voicemail, left her my thanks. I then called Leah and shared my good news.

“I’ll be over in ten,” she squealed.

“Really? Are you sure?”

“Are you kidding? This could be more exciting than a Duran Duran reunion tour.” I shuddered. Depending upon whose mouth it was coming out of, an exclamation like that could go either way. Fortunately, Leah had been my best friend since we were six, so it was definitely leaning toward the positive.

As promised, she arrived with two minutes to spare, though I hated thinking how many laws she’d broken along the way, especially considering her office was at least twenty minutes from my house, without traffic. I could only stare as she bustled through the door, two Starbucks in hand. My estimate of roadway violations increased two-fold.

“Where is it?” she blurted out as she plunked a beverage in front of me.

“Holy crap, Leah—are you sure you haven’t already had enough caffeine?” I began to feel a bit of remorse for her co-workers.

“Sorry, sorry.” She dabbed at the liquid she’d slopped on the counter. “I’m really excited!”

“Hmm, I couldn’t tell.”

“Aren’t you excited?”

“Yeah, though I’m not sure it necessitated defying the laws of motion.”

“Well, I do,” she huffed, but then laughed. “Let’s get this show on the road—no pun intended.”

We grabbed the FedEx box and settled on my living room floor. Nicoh thought it was some sort of game, so he situated himself in the middle of the action, which meant across both our laps. Did I mention Nicoh is not a lap dog?

Anyway, working around said canine, we pulled the documents out and reviewed them one-by-one as Leah took notes. There wasn’t as much in the box as I would have anticipated coming from an organization like UCMC, but it was still a pretty healthy-sized stack. Enough to take us through the end of the afternoon, anyway.

During that time, we managed to weed through enough standardized hospital forms to uphold my conviction of a child-free existence. If Leah had been on the fence about wanting children, she wasn’t by the time we managed to make it halfway through the stack. It wasn’t all for nothing, however.

We located the requisite medical insurance forms, which contained employment information that would be useful. Martin Avery Singer, MD/PhD, was a Geneticist, employed by GenTech. Alison Marie Anders, was employed as a Research Assistant of Developmental Biology, Gene Expression and Histopathology at Alcore Ltd.

Crazy titles aside, one thing was for sure, I found it hard to believe two extremely left-brained individuals—scientists, to boot—managed to produce a severely right-brained photographer. I mean, seriously? If I remembered correctly, Victoria’s undergraduate degree from Columbia had been in Biomedical Sciences, so one out of two wasn’t bad.

Leah immediately noticed the same thing and commented, “Gosh, if it wasn’t for you, they would have had the ideal gene pool.”

“Sensitive, Leah, real sensitive,” I replied sarcastically.

“Sorry, that was bad.” In all honesty, her words hadn’t offended me. I simply had to take the opportunity to yank her chain when the occasion presented itself.

“There’s the soap, should you feel so inclined.” I pointed to the pump container on the counter.

“Perhaps I should pace myself,” she retorted. “In the meantime, should I add GenTech and Alcore to my research, to find out what they do and what, specifically, your bios did for them?”

“Bios?” I asked.

“Yeah, I figured we could come up with a shortened version of biological parents—a sort of code—to reference them,” she replied.

“Ahh, gotcha. Bios works for me, but are you sure you haven’t already got enough on your plate? I mean, we haven’t even breached this pile yet.” I gestured to the plethora of documents in front of us.

“No worries, it might actually help me in researching Martin’s suicide. Might give me another angle, too.”

We moved on to the medical history forms, which, for our current exercise, contained nothing of merit. Next was the mass of legal documents—living will, things of that nature—you could literally hear the trees crying.

I was glazing over when Leah commented, “I don’t understand most of this mumbo-jumbo, but have you noticed what all these documents have told us so far?”

“Do tell,” I responded, eager for even a remote break.

“Even though Martin Singer and Alison Anders claimed one another as beneficiaries, they weren’t married, nor did they reside in the same location.”

“So they conceived out of wedlock. Big whoopee.” I had noticed that too, so my response came out a bit more snarky than I’d meant it to.

“I think it’s interesting. Could be something there.” She pouted.

I’d hurt her feelings. “No, you are absolutely right. It could tie into the bigger picture. What if they worked for competing companies or something?”

“Exactly.” She brightened at the thought.

The legal documentation also included final requests and wills, which is where things got interesting. Martin and Alison had included a legal document that expressed their wishes in the event they both passed. In that document, the Sterling Joy Agency would serve as guardian to any living minor children of the couple upon death.

As we read through it, I asked, “Do you think this is the standard procedure, to give something like this to the hospital?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they provided it because neither had family,” she replied as she wrote on her notepad. I nodded, and we continued reading through the pages, which from both of our expressions, were above both of our legalese-comprehension levels. The last page was signed by Martin and Alison; the Sterling Joy Agency representative, Mavis Baumgardner; a witness named Sophie Allen and finally, the lawyer, Jonathan Silverton.

We looked at one another for a long moment before Leah broke the silence, “Silverton seems to keep popping up all over the place, doesn’t he?”

“You’ve got that right,” I responded. “I hope Anna can track down some more info for us because there was definitely something fishy going on with him ...and the Baumgardners.”

“No doubt.”

“No doubt, indeed.”

We made our way through the rest of the legal documents without finding anything that sparked our interest. Next were Alison’s medical records, charts, etc. while she had been admitted, which I allowed Leah to review. Apparently, reading medical records was a skill she’d picked up during her reporting assignments. Uh, yeah. Let’s just leave it at that.

According to Leah—who paraphrased the documents—Alison had arrived at the hospital late on June 18 with contractions and gave birth to twin girls in the wee hours of June 19. As they were several weeks premature, the twins were placed in intensive care, but were doing fine. Though exhausted, Alison was also resting comfortably. Three hours after giving birth, she complained of chest pains. Minutes later, she went into cardiac arrest, but the hospital staff was unable to revive her. Alison was officially declared dead three and a half hours after she had given birth to her daughters. Someone had noted the father was not present when she had expired. A signed death certificate was enclosed, in which the cause of death was listed as heart failure. End of story. Like I said, Leah had been paraphrasing. I was certain she had done so for my benefit.

We looked at the next set of documents, which included the twins’ medical charts, progress reports, etc. as they stayed on in the hospital. Pretty much what you’d expect until we reached the release forms. The documents indicated a change of guardianship had occurred during their stay. As per the request of Martin and Alison, the Sterling Joy Agency had taken guardianship of the twins, as both parents were deceased at the time. Enclosed was a second death certificate bearing Martin’s name. The official cause of death was listed as suicide by drowning, dated five days prior to the change of guardianship. Martin Singer had taken his life less than two weeks after the birth of his daughters and the death of the mother of his children.

While the situation seemed to become more disturbing and confusing with each document we read, something in particular had been nagging at me.

“When Alison arrived at the hospital, she couldn’t have known she would be giving birth prematurely—the contractions had come on quickly, without warning—yet she and Martin had all the adoption documentation ready to go. It’s almost like they already knew they wouldn’t be alive to care for their children.” Leah shrugged in response, as though there was nothing that would have surprised her.

We continued sifting through the last of the items in the box. At this point, it was mostly notes and follow-up documentation—cover-your-booty type of stuff. One thing that caught my eye was the billing statement. Even with today’s prices, you could have bought a house and furnished it with the amount that had been due. However, the most intriguing thing about the bill wasn’t the total. It was that Martin’s company, GenTech, had paid the balance in full.

When I pointed it out to Leah, the look on her face spoke volumes. Maybe there was something left that could surprise her after all.

Chapter Nineteen

Leah was called back to the office. How she was able to be absent from her job for extended periods of time was beyond me. When I asked, all I got in response was a mumbled “external research.” I sighed. Leah was a big girl and could handle herself.

I looked at the little pig pen we’d made in the middle of the living room floor and decided I’d better get the papers cleaned up before Nicoh went tromping across them. He was currently dozing beyond the periphery of the mess. He’d had a hard afternoon—napping—after all. I marveled at how he could manage to sleep so much. Honestly, I was a bit jealous.

As I reorganized, I found the Sterling Joy guardianship documentation, which made me think—not once had I seen a reference to Martin and Alison’s request. The one where Victoria and I were to be adopted by separate parties. In fact, we only had the Baumgardner’s word for it.

I plopped the repacked FedEx box on the counter, the envelope from Suzy catching my eye. In my excitement over Cheryl’s delivery, I’d forgotten all about it. I looked at the handwritten address again, only this time I noticed the sender’s error. It was addressed using my name, but the street number was off by one house—no wonder it had erroneously been delivered to Suzy. Perhaps I was getting that trip to the Bahamas after all, I chuckled as I ripped the flap.

The envelope contained a single photo of several unfamiliar faces enjoying themselves at what appeared to be a holiday party. There wasn’t anything written on the back, though the photo lab had graciously stamped their proprietary information in multiple places. I laughed, it appeared the envelope had been meant for Suzy all along. Surely these people were her friends or family. I picked up my cell phone to call her when it rang. Leah’s exuberant voice filled my ear as I answered.

“You were right,” she cheered, nearly bursting my eardrum in the process, “GenTech and Alcore were competitors. Both were into genetic engineering. You know, messing around with genes by introducing new DNA?”

“Uh, yeah, how very Wikipedia of you. Anyway, assuming I understand that, go on,” I urged.

“Well, remember how scientists cloned that sheep back in the late 1990s?”

“Vaguely,” I replied, seriously hoping this wasn’t going to be a science lesson. It hadn’t been one of my stronger subjects.

“GenTech and Alcore were involved in genetic mutation long before that—specifically with regards to cloning—only they bypassed Mary’s little lamb and went directly to Mary.”

“Are you telling me they were able to clone humans nearly thirty years ago? Almost fifteen years before the sheep was cloned?” Now things were getting interesting.

“More like attempting to clone humans, but yes, they definitely preceded the sheep. Anyway, GenTech and Alcore were both privately funded, sometimes by the same benefactors. This created a hugely adversarial relationship between the two companies,” Leah explained.

“Whoever led the human cloning race received the bulk of the funds,” I added.

“Exactly,” she confirmed. “Of course, even back then, cloning was controversial, so they concealed their efforts behind other projects—the ones promoted to the public. Again, the more progress a company made, the greater the assistance they received from the benefactors.”

“Where do Martin Singer and Alison Anders play into this?” I asked.

“Martin was one of five scientists on the human cloning project at GenTech and Alison was the lead researcher on the same project at Alcore,” she replied.

“Wow, that’s a serious conflict of interest—which explains why they couldn’t come out as a couple—it was probably outlined in their contracts, in triplicate. Both of them could have been terminated if their respective companies had found out about their relationship.”

“Interesting choice of words,” Leah mused. “Perhaps they had to give up their first-born children and then they were terminated.”

“Oh my gosh, Leah—do you know what you are suggesting?” I growled at her.

“Calm down, it’s not like it hadn’t occurred to you.”

“True,” I bristled, my voice several pitches calmer. “I hadn’t said it out loud though—that Martin’s and Alison’s deaths were related to the adoptions.”

“Well, I apologize for being insensitive,” she said sincerely, “but now that it’s out there, here’s the real question—were you and Victoria adopted through Sterling Joy because your bios were both dead? Or, did your bios already have to be dead in order for you to be adopted?

“While I’m on a roll, let me add more food for thought. I also researched Martin’s suicide. According to witnesses, he walked off the Skyway Bridge on the morning of July 1 during rush hour.” She paused to allow me to reflect on the fact Martin Singer had taken his life by jumping off a bridge.

“Though his body was never recovered, based upon the eyewitness’ accounts, the location where he went in and the condition of the water, he was officially declared dead and a death certificate subsequently issued. No note was ever found in his apartment or at the lab.”

Leah paused again, before adding, “You know, he could have simply been distraught over Alison’s death and overwhelmed by the prospect of raising twins alone. Of course, no one would have known about either because he and Alison had been careful to keep their lives separate.”

“Someone knew. GenTech footed Alison’s hospital bill,” I reminded her.

“Yeah, there’s that,” she replied.

“So, what happened to the project after Martin’s death?” I asked.

“Interestingly, it immediately fizzled, but not only for GenTech. Within a month, Alcore went out of business altogether. They had essentially put too many eggs in one basket. No pun intended. GenTech, on the other hand, elected to put their focus elsewhere, claiming the timing wasn’t right for human cloning. They are still in the game today, mostly doing medical research, stuff of that nature, but they are nowhere near the industry giant they once were.”

“It’s almost as though the opportunity slipped through their fingers thirty years ago,” I reflected. “Kind of coincidental, don’t you think?”

“I guess it depends. Do you believe in coincidences?”