“All the world is a stage, and someone just stole my spotlight.”
~ Comedian Willado Shakesbeer at the Florida Renaissance Festival I2—2068
Wednesday March 19, 2070
Florida District 8
Commonwealth of North America
Iteration 2
Ivy stepped in front of the poster of Agent Rose as she lined up her gear. The Hello Kitty pocketknife, her flashlight, that she was thinking of naming Skullcrusher, and the semi-illegal phone Miss MacKenzie had given to her when she went back to California. In case she needed to call, Miss MacKenzie had said. She wasn’t comfortable taking the gun with her. It was hidden behind her nightstand, and if she had it her way, it would stay there until she grew old and died.
Technically, the Caye Law allowed her to own a phone just like it allowed her to own an apartment. But most of the major phone providers required a gene scan for their accounts, and clones—being the duplicate of someone else’s priority genetic code–couldn’t have a gene scan unless their genetic donor created and controlled an account with them.
Jenna Mills, Ivy’s original owner, was dead, but her genetic code was on file with all the good carriers. The one Miss MacKenzie had provided was some rugged-looking knockoff of a designer brand. It was heavy as a half brick and probably counted as a lethal weapon in most of the country. She fixed a lanyard around it and stuck it in her pocket.
Miss MacKenzie wasn’t likely to ever call, no one called Ivy, but she’d take any improvised weapon she could find.
Her work phone rang, and she turned on the speaker as she tied her boots. “This is Officer Clemens.”
“This is Dispatch Operator Bogomil. We have a report of a dead body floating in the water south of Twenty-seventh Avenue Park.”
“That’s great . . . why aren’t you calling a patrol car?”
“I did, they told me to have a drone take care of it. A drunk swimming into a riptide is a waste of an officer’s time. That’s a direct quote.”
Drone. Of course. She ground her teeth together. Taking a deep breath, she looked at the angry-eyed poster. What would Agent Rose do? Silly question. Agent Rose would handle it. Agent Rose could handle anything. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
“Better make it ten,” Bogomil said. “The news crews got a tip-off, too, and we want a sheet over the drunk before they get there.”
“Is there an ambulance on its way?”
“Yes, ma’am. I told them you’d meet them there.”
She took the “ma’am” with a smile. At least some people were willing to treat her like a human being. “On my way.”
The park at the corner of 27th and A1A was nothing more than a parking lot with a few amenities, so the locals had a place to pee between building sand castles and being chased by sharks. At least that’s what the locals liked to tell the tourists. New Smyrna Beach enjoyed a relatively idiot-free existence.
She parked next to the tennis courts and the ambulance before hiking up over the boardwalk protecting the dunes. A red flag waved in the breeze, warning everyone to stay out of the water because of riptides.
Apparently, someone hadn’t gotten that message.
Two EMTs were carrying a covered body while a nervous retiree and his tiny dog looked on.
“Are you the one who called the police?” Ivy asked.
“Oh.” He startled, and the tiny fuzzball on a leash yapped. “Yes. Sorry. John Watson. I live over there.” He gestured across the street to a set of apartments undergoing renovation. “Sherlock and I were out for our morning constitutional.”
The dog yapped.
“John Watson . . . and Sherlock the dog?”
He shrugged with an apologetic little smile. “I can’t help what my parents named me, and playing to type doesn’t hurt when I’m looking to meet new gentlemen friends. A little tea and polish impresses boys who’ve ever only known overly muscled surfers.”
Watson was wearing stained khaki shorts with an equally stained shirt from the Riptide Surf Shop that had a bright pink silhouette of a woman surfing over their motto: CURLS AND GIRLS! Far be it from her to say that mismatched socks with flip-flops and a hole in the pocket didn’t look polished.
Sherlock stepped forward and sniffed her shoe.
“Right,” Ivy said, nudging the dog aside. “You were out for your morning walk, and you saw the person on the beach.”
He shrugged. “Sherlock and I usually walk down to The Wind Chaser for breakfast. They’ve got a very nice staff, and the kitchen boy always brings Sherlock his own sausage and water.”
“What time do you usually have breakfast?” Ivy asked as she pulled out her pen.
“We leave at seven, and toast and tea is served at quarter after promptly. Earl Grey. Hot.” He smiled as if he were anticipating a laugh.
Ivy raised her eyebrows.
Watson rolled his eyes dramatically and folded hairy arms over his stained surf shirt. He huffed.
“I’m sorry,” Ivy said.
“You need to catch up on your classics, young lady.”
“Officer.” Her smile dropped a few degrees of warmth. “Breakfast at seven fifteen. When did you start walking back?”
He gave her a pouty little frown. “Sherlock and I walk along the avenue to see Shakespeare at eight every morning. He’s Mrs. Hawkins parrot.” Again, he waited as if she should know who he was talking about. “Jamie Hawkins? She runs the Treasure Chest. On Orange Street.” Brown eyes bored into her. “Do you not shop? At all?”
“No. I really don’t. At all.” She dropped her smile entirely. The city didn’t pay her enough to go shopping unless she ran out of socks. “At eight you talked to Shakespeare.”
“Mrs. Hawkins is doing inventory this week, so he has to stay home. I talked to him through the window. Then we continued on our way home.”
“How long did you talk to the parrot?” She hated herself for asking that question.
Watson shrugged. “Maybe five minutes. He’s not a very eloquent old bird. Then Sherlock and I wandered onto the beach.”
“That’s illegal,” Sam said. “The whole coast is pet-free.”
“We were chasing a plastic bag!”
Which sounded unlikely. New Smyrna businesses didn’t offer plastic bags anymore, except for the recycled ones that felt like satin and cost half her day’s wages. “Right, you chased the bag.”
“And saved a turtle!” Watson said vehemently. “The poor idiots will eat anything. Not the brightest crackers in the drawer.”
“Uh-huh. And then?”
“Since we were already there, I decided to collect the rest of the trash that washed up with the tide. I blame the cruise ships, personally. Full of tourists, and where does their trash go? Straight overboard! Every time! Like a drag queen on Halloween!”
Since tourists were the major cause of every problem in New Smyrna, from pollution to the lack of school funding, Ivy zoned out while Watson ranted. When he said “body,” she tuned back in.
“I thought it was a sea turtle,” he said. “It’s a little early in the season for them to arrive, but with the way the weather’s been the past few years, who could blame them for arriving early. I blame—”
“Tourists,” Ivy said. “Back to the body.”
“It was rolled up in some sea grass. We went over, and there he is. Dressed and everything!” Watson sounded offended that the deceased was dressed.
Ivy’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “Did you check for a pulse?”
Watson’s eyes went wide. “Ewww! His neck was sliced open! I wasn’t touching that.”
“Sliced?” Ivy stared at him, trying to process the information. “I thought he was drunk.”
“He might have been,” Watson said placidly, “but that’s not what killed him. Someone took a chain saw to that boy’s throat.”
As it turned out, it wasn’t a chain saw. Something thin had choked him, then the crabs and fish had helped muddy the crime scene by trying to eat the deceased. Ivy followed the ambulance to the CBI building and escorted the victim up the public elevator in full view of the local WIC office, where a little boy watched with wide eyes. The poor kid would probably grow up to write cheesy horror movies.
The CBI morgue was usually locked down when they dropped someone off—District 8 didn’t have its own ME–but there was someone there today. He was a handsome man, slightly older than she preferred, but with an easy smile. It didn’t quite reach his hazel eyes.
“Officer Clemens,” she said by way of introduction.
“Agent MacKenzie.”
She couldn’t hide the surprise. “MacKenzie?”
He froze and looked a little wary. “Whatever you heard, it’s not that bad.”
“No, it was just that I met a Miss Mackenzie a few months ago. Missus, technically. From California. Her name was Rose . . .” She trailed off, realizing she sounded like an idiot. “Oh, I’m sorry. It’s just not the most common name here. It’s funny running into two MacKenzies in such a short time. Rose was real nice.”
His frown wasn’t encouraging. “You mean Agent Rose?”
“Oh! No.” Ivy smiled and told herself not to fangirl like Rosie Girl. “Rose MacKenzie. She came out to work a case, and I helped her.” Time to shut up. She’d been in a very gray area verging on illegal with Miss MacKenzie. Half those records were Eyes Only, and her security clearance was still lower than a meter maid’s.
He laughed. “Right. Sorry. My partner is Agent Rose and . . .” He shook his head and laughed again. “I’ll have to tell her that one. She’ll get a kick out of it. Last August, she introduced us as MacKenzie Rose. Took half the day before the clerk helping us out realized her name was Sam Rose.”
Ivy pressed her lips together and rocked back on her heels. Agent Samantha L. Rose! She felt light-headed.
“Hey, the phones aren’t hooked up here, and my cell battery is low. Would you mind running to the CBI office and grabbing Sam?”
“Sure!” Ivy said in a squeaky voice that sounded like she’d swallowed helium. “No problem.” She stepped backward. “Not a problem at all.”
She was going to meet Agent Rose!
In the hall, she stopped to check her reflection in the glass of a Realtor’s office. Her hair was pinned back neatly, just like Agent Rose’s. She’d never figured out makeup, or how or why she was supposed to hide her freckles, and now she was suddenly conscious of them in a way she’d never been before.
Touching her nose, she wondered if Agent Rose liked freckles.
No.
Deep breath.
Agent Rose was a clone. Like her. She would understand.
By the time she reached the CBI office, she had her game face on. Calm, composed, and utterly in control. Exactly like her hero. She stepped into the room, swept it with a haughty glance, and caught on the eager smile of a ginger giant perched behind a ridiculously small desk.
“Hello, ma’am. I’m Junior Agent Dan Edwin. Can I help you today?” He reminded Ivy of the Irish setter that had gotten loose at last year’s dog show: energetic, eager to please, and too large for Ivy’s safety.
She had an insane urge to throw a ball to see if the junior agent would chase after it. She shook the image of a large red-haired puppy running down the hall from her head.
“I’m Officer Clemens from the local precinct. I rode in with a murder victim we found down on the beach. Agent MacKenzie upstairs asked if I could see if Agent Rose was available.” There, cool and calm as the Pacific.
“Oh! We haven’t fixed the phone since the rats got into it.” He stood up and towered over the room. Everything around him shrunk.
Ivy sat down from the shock, bouncing on the little office chair.
Edwin smiled, sidled across the room with an apologetic hunch, and knocked on the door.
A voice Ivy had only ever heard in news recordings came from the other room. “Yes?”
Edwin ducked inside and closed the door behind him.
Ivy’s hands started to sweat. Her face was going numb. She started counting breaths, five in, six out. Agent Rose was only one room away!
The door opened, and Ivy popped to her feet.
“Next of kin?” Agent Rose said as she stepped out of the office.
She looked exactly like her poster: crisp white blouse, navy blazer and skirt, black hair in a flawless, shining bun, and just enough mascara to capture the attention while maintaining a I-Woke-Up-Like-This freshness.
Ivy’s knees wobbled.
Agent Rose looked at her expectantly.
“This is Officer Clemens, ma’am,” Edwin said with a cheerful smile.
Agent Rose nodded. “You have a corpse for us?”
“Yes, ma’am. He washed up with the tide this morning, and I escorted him to the morgue. An Agent MacKenzie asked me to come ask if you’d be available to view it.”
Her smile was humorless but patient. “Well, if I didn’t find him a body to play with soon, he’d get bored. Edwin, I’m going to go see our new customer.” She turned to Ivy with a much friendlier smile. “Can you fill me in on the details as we walk to the morgue, or is the chief expecting you back before lunch?”
“No one will miss me,” Ivy said. She hurried after Agent Rose, almost stepping on her heels.
Agent Rose paused at the elevator and turned with another polite smile.
Ivy made a note to practice her smiles so she could put so much meaning into the look.
“First DOA case, Officer?”
“Yes, ma’am! My first real case.” She was hyperventilating.
They stepped into the elevator, and Ivy could smell her soap. She was going to faint from happiness.
“And they’re letting you handle it alone?”
“Oh, yes. I’ve been with the force for ten years now, as a drone. I’m a clone.” Ivy squeezed her hands together. They were clones together. Doing something important. Together. It was the happiest moment of her life. “I’ve always wanted to meet you,” she blurted out. “You’re amazing. A clone in the CBI. That’s amazing. All of us look up to you.”
Agent Rose sighed and squinched her eyes shut. When she started rubbing her temples, Ivy realized something was wrong.
“Um . . .”
Agent Rose shook her head. “It’s not your fault. The rumors were all over the place. But . . .”
Ivy held her breath, not sure what was going on.
“But I’m not a clone. I don’t have a clone. I do not support cloning or the harvesting of clone organs.” She looked sideways at Ivy as the elevator pulled to a stop. “I’m sorry.”
Ivy felt her world crashing down around her. “B-but, what about all the reports from this summer? Everyone said the bureau was covering up the fact that a clone was working as an agent.”
“There was a cover-up, but it didn’t involve clones.” Her tone was chilling.
“Not even the Chimes girl?”
With a sigh, Agent Rose said, “Melody had a Shadow, but that clone was never involved with the case.”
Ivy felt hollow. All those hopes and dreams of becoming someone real . . . “I’m sorry to have brought it up, ma’am.” She wasn’t even sure if the agent heard it, as her voice sounded so small to her own ears.
“Don’t be. It doesn’t bother me,” Agent Rose said. “I supported the Caye Law, and I support the integration of clones and Shadows into society. Your humanity isn’t based on how you were born.”
“I hope so,” Ivy whispered. Taking a deep breath, she rolled her shoulders back and put her game face back on. Agent Rose was still a hero of the clone rights movement. It wasn’t her fault she’d come from a uterus instead of a test tube. Still . . . a small part of Ivy wilted. There was no more guiding star in the midnight sky. No road out of the drone life she was trapped in.
“Stop hoping and start proving,” Agent Rose ordered as she keyed in the password for the morgue. “Tell me about our John Doe.”
Yes, ma’am. Ivy snapped to attention. “A little before eight, Mr. John Watson called 911 to report a dead body. Originally, everyone thought it was a drunk who went swimming. There are a ton of bars and hotels there, and the riptides have been bad for the past few days.”
Agent MacKenzie pushed a rolling chair out of the small office attached to the tiny morgue. “Hello.”
“You have a new body for me?” Agent Rose asked.
“No, yours is perfect, but I do have a wonderful homicide that Officer Clemens brought us.” He smiled at Rose, and Ivy blushed.
Agent Rose didn’t seem to notice his flirtation. “You two met already?”
Ivy nodded.
“We don’t usually have an ME,” Agent Rose said, “but Mac’s here on vacation. Trying to avoid the snowy weather in Chicago.”
“Oh.” Ivy didn’t ask why a vacationing ME was in the morgue working. That was CBI business.
He smiled. “Henry Troom is a friend of mine. I was planning to come down for a conference anyway. When he was arrested I was worried. He caught a lucky break, but I thought it would be a good idea to check on him.” Ivy could tell the explanation was for her, but his eyes were on Agent Rose the whole time.
Ivy studied her boots. She’d bet lunch Henry Troom wasn’t the only person this guy had come to District 8 to check on.
“How’d the John Doe die?” Agent Rose asked. “Drowning? Alcohol poisoning? Blow dart?”
“All three, actually,” Agent MacKenzie said with a smile.
Ivy stared at him. “But, I thought—”
He laughed. “Sorry, just joking. He was garroted—strangled from behind by something, I’m guessing a plastic rope or knotted bag. Something that was probably readily available. It certainly wasn’t a professional hit.”
“What?” Only one case came to mind that matched the description, and that had been a public-relations nightmare. “There was a similar case a few years back. Accidental drowning after a fishing line tangled around a boy’s neck. Could it have been something like that?”
Agent MacKenzie stared at her for a moment longer than was comfortable. If he told her she was an idiot and needed to hand in her badge, she probably would. There was something about his stillness that triggered a primeval impulse to flee.
“I think it is very unlikely that this is accidental. John Doe is in his early twenties, has no ID on him, no fingerprints on file, and doesn’t match any known missing-person report in the district. He died midday—between eleven and two I’d say—of asphyxiation when someone wrapped something around his throat and pulled back, choking him. There’s subcutaneous bruising on his back where someone propped a knee to hold him steady. I need to do an autopsy to be sure, but I’m guessing he wasn’t in the water when this happened.”
“You said plastic,” Ivy said. “What makes you think the killer used that?”
“No fibers yet.” He shrugged. “A metal garrote would have cut into the skin, a fabric like a scarf would have left trace, maybe even a dye. There may be some when we do a microscan, but as smooth and as wide as the markings are, it looks like plastic to me. Just a hunch.”
“How long was he in the water?” Agent Rose was taking notes on a datpad.
Ivy pulled out her notebook and started taking notes, too.
“Two hours, tops. And, you’ll like this.” He pulled up an image on the screen showing the John Doe’s wrists. “See the red marks? Like his wrists were bound, but someone cut whatever was holding him off before the body was dumped.”
“Trying to make it look accidental?” Ivy suggested. The only time she’d seen bondage marks were on one of the domestic violence cases several years before.
“This would only look like an accidental death if you’d never worked a homicide before,” Mac said.
“Mac,” Agent Rose said with an exasperated tone, “how many people in this district do you think have ever seen a murder before?”
“We don’t get many,” Ivy said. “A few domestic violence calls, and two years ago during the heat wave, two old ladies started a fight at a shuffleboard match. Someone got hit with a stick, and someone else threw a puck for revenge. But other than that, it’s quiet here.”
“There was the Lexie Muñoz case,” Agent Rose said. “Petrilli took that. They said I had too many ties to Henry to be professional.”
Mac sneered. “Petrilli doesn’t know you well.”
“None of them do.”
Ivy cleared her throat. “New Smyrna Beach did an assist on the Lexie Muñoz case. But the newspapers buried it hard. Two people from out of town . . .” She trailed off. The killer still wasn’t in custody, which meant Miss MacKenzie hadn’t caught up with him yet. And that was definitely not something she had the clearance to talk about with the CBI.
MacKenzie frowned. “Right.” Another shrug. “It’s still pretty hard to make strangulation look like an accident.”
“But accidents happen,” she said. “A guy goes out for a swim, gets tangled in the swimming line, manages to keep his head above water as he tries to untangle himself but it cuts off his air supply, and he dies.”
Both agents were studying her like a bug that tried to salsa dance. She shrugged helplessly. “It’s happened before. Last time was in 2067 during a minitriathlon at the beach. Run a mile, bike a mile, swim a mile. Cory Andrews was a seventeen-year-old high-school junior and in the lead until he swam into a fishing line. The crew on the rescue boat got to him in minutes, but he was already unconscious.
“After that, the mayor ran on a campaign to clean up the beaches. It was all over the news during fishing season or whenever the vote to up the cost of fishing licenses comes up.”
Agent Rose grimaced. “So, there’s a chance someone could have tried to copycat the accident? Wonderful.”
“I wouldn’t look at local suspects first,” Mac said. “Whoever did this didn’t check the tide tables to make sure the body was washed out to sea.”
A perfectly shaped eyebrow rose over Agent Rose’s brown eyes. “Unprofessional. Opportunistic. Maybe accidental? A kidnapping gone wrong?”
“Maybe,” Agent MacKenzie said. “The guy was wearing a university T-shirt from one of their intercollegiate teams. I figured he’s probably a student, so I’m checking the class lists now. I should have a name and address within the hour.”
Agent Rose nodded.
Agent MacKenzie leaned his chair back and put his hands behind his head. “Sam, this isn’t a casual killing. It takes a lot of force to choke someone with a plastic bag. You don’t do that to a random stranger.”
Ivy said, “Maybe it was a robbery. Maybe he had something the killer wanted. I mean, I know it’s too early to connect the two, but that home invasion at Basilwood Apartments last week was violent, too. And all they wanted was Dr. Troom’s computer.” Henry had called her first, but she’d been pushed off the case. “Maybe it’s the weather. It seems like the town is attracting crazies lately.
Agent Rose tilted her head to her shoulder and back. “And Henry. If he hadn’t been at work, who knows what would have happened.”
“Who would want anything to do with Henry?” Agent MacKenzie asked. “He’s a nice guy, but it’s not like he’s still working under a defense contract—” He snapped his mouth shut with an audible click.
Agent Rose was giving him a look that said volumes in a language Ivy didn’t know. They were remembering something, a shared something, that was making the pieces fall into place for them.
“It’s not likely,” Agent Rose said.
“Bet you a dollar?” MacKenzie challenged her. He stood up.
Agent Rose folded her arms. “We’ll see. Get the autopsy done and get me this kid’s name.”
He held up a hand in surrender and dragged his chair in the direction of his office. “As you wish.”
“Officer Clemens?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Will the chief object to your working this case? It won’t be glamorous, but this is a quiet district with few resources, and I need someone to check the beach. I don’t want to start a manhunt if this really is just a tragic accident with a fishing line.”
“I won’t be missed.” She was starting to realize just how much she said that, and wondered if it might be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
As if wondering that herself, Agent Rose raised an eyebrow. “I’m sure you would be. Make sure to check in at the precinct and report back here before calling it a day. Even if you find nothing, that matters.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Ivy nodded a quick good-bye to Agent Rose and hurried out the door.
Her hero wasn’t everything she wanted her to be, but then again, heroes probably never were. Agent Rose was still an excellent agent, and it seemed like she was helping open a new path for Ivy.