The Man Who Cast Two Shadows

by Carol O'Connell

  “My dog—”

  “You were walking the dog that morning. That was your excuse for going out to meet her in the park. The dog was running loose. While you fought with Amanda, he got his leash caught in the bushes when he was heading north over the rise. You’re probably wondering how I know that. So you found the dog and took it home. Then, about thirty minutes later, you came back to drag Amanda’s body into the woods—”

  “You couldn’t—”

  “—and you smashed up her hands, her fingerprints. You made so many stupid mistakes, Harry.”

  He moved toward her and away from the knife. Good. Now she was circling around him. The way to the door was almost clear. His hands were rising now, the hands which had snapped a woman’s neck. It was panic time again for Harry Kipling. He was rushing toward her. She reached out to grab his outstretched hand, struck one long leg across his path, and pulled hard on his hand to guide all of his weight to the floor.

  Big he might be, but not terribly graceful.

  He was looking for his large feet when she kicked him in the groin to double him into a fetal position. Then she rolled him on his stomach and pulled one arm up behind his back until he screamed.

  “You’re going to break it!”

  “Then hold still!”

  With her free hand, she reached for the heavy drapery cord and yanked on it, bringing down drapes and curtain rod.

  His running was hampered by the dense crowd of people on the sidewalk. It wasn’t fair—the streets should be deserted. Couldn’t all these people have waited one blessed day before racing out to return their Christmas gifts and exchange them for the right sizes?

  Charles dropped the gun, and an old woman kicked it out of her way. He wondered if she could not see it over her packages, or did she think it was commonplace sidewalk debris for this part of town? He leaned down and picked it up. He began to make better time now, suddenly not bothered by the crowd anymore. In fact, people were hurrying to get out of his way.

  Well, this was more like it.

  And now it occurred to him that this sudden show of public courtesy might have something to do with the naked gun in his hand. Well, of course they were all being polite.

  Fool.

  Harry Kipling was hog-tied. Hands tied behind him and roped to one leg, he was pulled back in a bizarre bow. He looked ridiculous; he was ridiculous, a pathetic bastard who had struck out in childish fear, in anger, and then tried to clean up his mess, the death of a human being named Amanda.

  He was so disappointing, an unworthy opponent who made so small a noise in the world he had failed to wake the cat.

  The camera was rolling on to the music of cat snores and Kipling sobs. With a critical eye, Mallory looked at both her hog-tied trophy and her weak criminal case. An assault on a police officer was not hard evidence for murder. There were loose ends to be tied, better evidence to be gotten, something with more weight for a DA who chickened on every case with less than a complete set of prints and a smoking gun in evidence.

  Whatever she might have to do, Kipling wasn’t going to get away with this.

  “Stop crying. It’s not like I really hurt you. What did you do with my gun?”

  But he would not stop crying, and she was not taking much satisfaction in this.

  She lifted her head and turned toward the door with the first sound of metal on metal. The door was being unlocked. Charles? No, it couldn’t be.

  It wasn’t.

  Someone else was standing in the foyer, alone but for the long shadow extending back into the outer corridor.

  Now this was more like it. This was walking death.

  She was staring into mirrors of her own eyes above the barrel of her stolen .357 revolver. “Murder is the best game, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is,” said Justin Riccalo, leveling the gun at her head. Now he pulled the barrel up slightly. “Oh, that’s wrong, isn’t it? You’re supposed to aim for the widest part of the body.” And now the barrel dropped to the level of her chest, her heart.

  Perversely, she smiled. He didn’t like that. She knew he wouldn’t.

  “Kill the bitch!” yelled Kipling, not sobbing anymore but frantic in the eyes.

  “All women are bitches,” said the boy in the monotone of a litany.

  “Yes, yes, they are, all of them,” said Kipling with the fervor of a television evangelist playing the crowd. “Kill her now!”

  “Lighten up, you idiot,” said Mallory to the man at her feet. “He’s going to kill you next. I thought you understood that.”

  Kipling’s mouth hung open, and no more words came out.

  All the words she heard were toward the back of her mind where Markowitz lived with Helen. Get him to talk to you, kid, said a memory with a Brooklyn accent.

  “Tell me, Justin, what kind of a bird did you kill to make the bloody X on my door?”

  “It was a pigeon,” said Justin with a hint of a query at the end of his words.

  “I love all the little details,” said Mallory. “How did you rig the glass of water in the kitchen?”

  Prime the pump, get him talking and he won’t be able to stop.

  Justin smiled. “I set the glass near the edge of the table, and then I put pennies under the back legs to make it slant, but only a little. The glass was leveled on a sliver of ice. When the ice melted, the glass crashed and the evidence was gone.”

  He looked up at her with the expectation of being petted and admired for this.

  “Nice job, Justin. Same thing with the vase?”

  “Yes, it had to be something with water to explain away the slick of the melted ice.”

  “I thought your best trick was the knife in the target. You even fooled Charles, and that’s not easy. I’m betting you rigged the spring-load.”

  “Yes. I was surprised to see that old carnival prop in the basement. As you may have guessed, I have a passing interest in magic. The spring was easy. It was old. You could see the rust, even in bad light. After I pulled the spring over the edge of a gear, I only had to keep Mr. Butler talking until it broke and released the fake knife.”

  “Then later, you went back to the cellar and pushed the fake blade back into the target compartment, right? Then you stuck one of the real knives into the face of the target.”

  Justin nodded.

  “How could you count on getting back to the building in time to change the prop for the real knife?”

  “It was easy. He goes everywhere in cabs. I’ve watched him from the street. I gather he doesn’t like subways, and probably has so much money it never occurs to him to take one. I took the subway back to SoHo after he walked into the park. I had all the time in the world to change the knives.”

  The gun was heavy in the child’s hands. He corrected the dip of the barrel which aimed at her heart.

  “Don’t you have any questions for me, Justin?”

  “You weren’t surprised to see me, were you?”

  “No.”

  “When did you begin to suspect me?”

  “From the first. Violence was coming, I knew that. You’d gone to a lot of trouble to set it up. You were the brightest one in the family. I always knew you’d be the last one standing.”

  Justin moved the gun to point at Harry. “If you like, as a last request, I’ll kill him first.”

  “He is annoying, isn’t he?”

  “No! I can help you,” he said to the boy.

  “You’re trussed up like a hog,” said Justin. “You can’t even help yourself. Do you have any idea how silly you look? They’re going to find your body that way. Does that disturb you?”

  “Listen to me, boy. I can help you. I have an idea. It’s foolproof. I’ll back you up if the cops get onto it. She wants to arrest me for killing a woman, a bitch. You need me, and now you have something on me. I can’t tell on you, can I?”

  Justin looked to Mallory. “Did he really kill someone?”

  “No. I don’t believe he’d have the nerve. Do you?”


  “Why did you tie me up, then? Explain that one to the kid.”

  The boy looked to Mallory for his answer.

  “I tied him up because the twit pissed me off, and the Civilian Review Board won’t let me shoot him.”

  She made a mental note to edit that out of the videotape.

  “You heard about the unidentified woman who died in the park?” Kipling raised his head and yelled, “Well, I killed her!”

  Mallory shook her head. “We call this a confession under duress. It’s worthless.” And now she turned her eyes down to Kipling. “I don’t think Justin’s buying it either. You’re a documented liar, Harry. Now this kid is smart. He’s probably going to make it look like he was trying to defend me against you.” She turned back to the boy. “Right, Justin?”

  The boy nodded. Mallory looked down at Kipling, who was squirming on the floor. “Harry, I just don’t think you’ve got a handle on the situation. You’re an adult, you’re bigger than he is, or to put it briefly, a dead man. Right again, Justin?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Damn straight. Not too bright, is he, Justin?”

  “I did kill her! I killed Amanda Bosch because she was a bitch,” said Harry, in his best attempt to pass for a fellow disciple in the hatred of women. And the boy who believed all women were bitches seemed to be weighing this.

  “Well,” said Mallory, “let’s have some details that weren’t in the papers. In my case, it’s professional interest. Now Justin’s killed twice before. We can’t call him an amateur. But you are, Harry. Details. Did Amanda cry? Or did she take it like more of a man than you are?”

  “Hey, it was her own fault. If she hadn’t threatened me, it wouldn’t have happened. The bitch brought it on herself.”

  “All women are bitches,” said Justin, in the descending note of an amen.

  “Details, Harry.”

  “I hit her with a rock, and then I snapped her neck. That wasn’t in the papers.”

  “Did you grab her by the throat and strangle her?”

  “No, I twisted her head until her neck snapped.”

  “How long did it take you to teach the cat to dance?”

  “Four days! Okay, kid? Now untie me!”

  “No,” said Justin, “I don’t think so.” He pointed the gun at Kipling, and the man froze. Then the gun turned slowly back to Mallory. “It would be more logical to kill Mallory first. She’s the dangerous one. You, sir—you’re pathetic. You didn’t even hate that woman, did you?”

  “No, he didn’t. It was a panic kill,” said Mallory. “And then he ran away. Not your style, Justin.”

  It was like Markowitz was in the room with her. They like to talk, Kathy, the old man had told her. Even after you read them their rights, you can’t shut them up.

  The boy giggled, clearly enjoying this power over two adults.

  “I’d bet even money you put more thought and planning into your murders,” said Mallory. “Or maybe I overestimated you. Your mother and stepmother died alone. Maybe you’re blowing smoke here too.”

  “You know better than that. You were close, weren’t you? You must have been. You were planning to dig up my mother. I heard you say that to Mr. Butler.”

  “If I had dug up your mother, what would I have found?”

  “You might have found out that I replaced her heart medication with vitamin pills the same size and color. The absence of medication might have been noticeable.”

  “Why did you kill her?”

  “Well, let’s say I never miss an opportunity for fun.”

  “So she died for lack of proper medication? That’s pretty boring.”

  Arthur was holding the door for a tenant, when he saw the large man running at him, clutching some object to his chest and then concealing it in his pocket. Now the man was close enough to identify as Miss Mallory’s friend. And as the man drew closer still, Arthur could see the twenty-dollar bill extending out from the man’s hand. The bill hung in the air as Charles shot past him, and Arthur clutched the twenty before it hit the ground.

  “No time to be announced—I’m late!” yelled the large man in passing. “She’ll kill me if I’m any later.” The words trailed behind the man as he ran past the occupied elevator and pushed through the side door and into the stairwell.

  Arthur nodded his understanding at the closing stairwell door as he pocketed the twenty. He would not like to cross Miss Mallory either.

  “Oh no. I killed her,” said Justin.

  “She died of a heart attack,” said Mallory. “I’ve seen the death certificate.”

  “Yes. I suppose you could say I scared her to death. Once she was weakened by the lack of medication, it wasn’t all that difficult. I did the sort of things that would make her seem crazy if she told anyone. She was hardly going to tell my father she saw things flying through the air. You’ve met my father. A bit intractable, wouldn’t you say?”

  “You are an interesting kid, I’ll give you that much, but this still sounds very tame as murders go.”

  “Oh, it wasn’t tame at all. She crawled from room to room following that bottle of worthless pills. I walked along beside her kicking the bottle out of her reach. She screamed, she cried. She was terrified. It was glorious. You should have seen her face as she was dying. She just could not believe this was happening to her.”

  “And what about her replacement, the first stepmother? I suppose you killed her, too?”

  “Yes. I also made things float through the air for her. She never told anyone, either. She thought she was going crazy. In my opinion, she was half-crazy when I started to work on her.”

  “But there was nothing wrong with her heart.”

  “No. But with her brief stay in the psychiatric hospital, the suicide was quite believable. They should have had a child guard on that window, you know. It’s the law.”

  “According to the ME investigator’s reports, both women were alone when they died.”

  “School was in session both times. I’m afraid the Tanner School doesn’t keep very good track of children. They’re very progressive—attendance is on the honor system. But I don’t think anyone bothered to check. They just assumed I wasn’t in the apartment. They also assumed neither death was all that suspicious.”

  Amanda was less the thing of solid stuff as she floated up the stairway beside him. “It’s three more flights. You should’ve taken the elevator, Charles.”

  “Now you tell me.”

  His side hurt from the unaccustomed exertion. He could feel a searing in his lungs, as though he had swallowed fire.

  “Did you keep any trophies, Justin? It’s just professional curiosity on my part. All the big names in serial killing kept trophies of every murder.”

  “I kept the bottle of doctored pills, and the tricks I used on my first stepmother.”

  “How did you get her to jump out the window?”

  “Well, she didn’t actually jump. I had the window open. It was a large window. Then I took the knife and ran the cord to follow the bars of the track lighting system that runs across the ceiling. I only had to maneuver her into line with the window and make her back up. When you see a knife floating toward you, you do tend to back up in a hurry. When she was at the window and off balance, I only had to run at her to give her a push in the direction she was going in. That was the tricky part. There was a moment when she understood what was happening to her, and she was reaching out to take me with her. There was a bit of a risk in that one.”

  “But your new stepmother told your father about the floating objects.”

  “Yes, and I blame myself for that. I should have spent more time with Sally, gotten to know her better. I had no idea she was one of those pathetic New Age freaks, a paranormal obsessive. But it’s working in my favor. Now she’s a documented hysteric.”

  “So you’re still planning to kill her.”

  “Well, of course. You can kiss that bitch goodbye. And now I’m going to kill you. It’s been fun, Mall
ory. Really it has.”

  The boy was raising the gun.

  “Look, kid, the gun won’t fire,” she said. “The safety is on.”

  “A revolver doesn’t have a safety. Good try, Mallory. What else have you got?”

  “Have you ever heard that old standby, ‘Look, someone’s coming up behind you’?”

  “Once, I think. It was a television rerun from the seventies.”

  Charles Butler was standing in the foyer on the far side of the room, which seemed miles wide to her now. Markowitz’s Colt was in his hand. His head was turned to the side and down as though he were distracted by someone or something unseen. What was wrong with him?

  Charles, don’t fail me now.

  “So if I tell the guy behind you to shoot you, there won’t be any hard feelings?”

  Charles was staring at her now, eyes wide, head shaking slowly from side to side.

  Charles, don’t fail me.

  The boy was smiling. “They’re your last words, Mallory. Say what you like.”

  The barrel was rising, aiming at her face, when she yelled, “Charles, shoot him!”

  Charles raised the Colt and fired on the boy, not once, but pull after pull on the trigger, walking the length of the room on shock-slowed feet, firing and firing.

  The boy’s head had turned quickly with the first click of the empty gun, and now he stared at the crazed giant with the wide eyes, sad eyes, advancing on him, clicking and clicking and clicking.

  Mallory moved and the boy’s head snapped back. She watched his eyes making choices. He was opting for the larger threat. The barrel was turning to Charles as the cat ran out from under the couch and stepped lightly, delicately on its hind legs, dancing up to the gun. The boy stared. Mallory dived for the gun. It went off. The bullet spun the cat in a wicked turn, and blood splattered the rug.

  Kipling’s body went limp as his eyes rolled back, lids closing, chin falling to his chest, mouth hanging open, all still now.