Sibs F Paul Wilson

by Sibs (lit)

"And I suppose you were a barrel of laughs back in October of '87?"

  She laughed and punched him on the arm.

  He'd met Connie during a robbery investigation when he'd been assigned to the Upper West Side. Her apartment—condo, rather—was next door to the scene; she'd heard noises and knew her neighbors were in Tortola for the week, so she called the police. Rob had questioned her and learned that she was an investment banker with Saloman Brothers. A few days later she had called him back to her apartment, saying she'd remembered a few more details. She'd greeted him at the door… nude. They'd been seeing each other ever since.

  Neither of them had any illusions that this was going anywhere. There were no problems in bed. That was fine. Connie wasn't easy to keep up with, but Rob managed. It was out of bed that they ran into problems. They moved in radically different circles. Rob had taken her once to Leo's, the watering hole where most of the Midtown North cops did their post-shift relaxing. She'd loathed the place. And Rob felt far out of his depth with her yuppie friends.

  "How about going out for brunch?" she said.

  "Brunch? I don't do brunch."

  Connie hopped out of bed and went over to the mirror above the dresser. Rob had never met a woman so totally unselfconscious about nudity. Maybe that was because she had a great body and knew it. She pulled a brush out of her purse and began working on her hair.

  "Sure you do. Every time you order breakfast when you're supposed to be having lunch, you're doing brunch."

  "Oh. Okay. Let's do brunch."

  She turned to him, her eyes bright.

  "I got a great idea! We'll go to this place Pete McCarthy and I found up on Columbus Avenue.. It's called Julio's."

  "Not another yuppie eatery!"

  "No. This place is really declasse—determinedly so. It's a working man's bar left over from pre-gentrification days. It's grungy, the owner's the bartender, and the service is surly at best."

  "Doesn't sound like your kind of place."

  "It's not, but then again it is. Actually, it's a little like Leo's, but the hamburgers are great. Pete and I are keeping it a secret. We're only telling our closest friends, otherwise this place will be overrun."

  "Just what I want to do on a Sunday—listen to your friends talk about money," he said, jabbing out his cigarette. "Almost as much fun as a tetanus shot."

  "No, really." She began slipping into her bra and panties. "You'll like it."

  Rob shook his head. "Sounds like too much fun for me. I think I'll pass."

  It wasn't that he was into the anti-yuppie vogue. Sure, they seemed like a pretty empty-headed bunch, but He wasn't all too sure that if he had an income well into six figures that he wouldn't be just like them. It was just that he never seemed to have anything to say to her friends. They all liked to hear him talk about police work, but that was the last thing he wanted to discuss during his off hours.

  "No, you won't," she said as she buttoned up her silk print blouse. "You can come back to my place while I spruce up, then we'll head for Julio's."

  Rob didn't move.

  "Are you coming?"

  "No, Connie," he said. "Really. It sounds like a drag."

  Suddenly, she was angry. Her eyes flashed.

  "No! You're the drag, Rob! You've been moping around for a couple of days now! What's wrong with you?"

  The last thing Rob wanted this morning was a fight.

  "Nothing, Connie. Let's drop it, okay?"

  "Drop it?" she said. "I'll drop it! But that's not all I'm going to drop! You're no fun anymore, Rob! And you weren't so hot in bed last night either!" She turned and headed for the bedroom door. "See you in the movies, Rob!"

  "Say hello to Peter McCarthy for me," he said to her retreating back.

  A few seconds later, the walls of the apartment shook with the booming slam of the front door. Rob sighed.

  "Women."

  He lit another cigarette and stared out at the Sunday morning sky.

  February 9

  9:47 A.M.

  "It smells in here, Mom," Jill said, her nose wrinkling at the rancid odor.

  Kara coughed. "That it does, Jill. That it does."

  Smells like something died in here.

  Which wasn't a very comforting thought, seeing as this was Kelly's apartment. Kelly had given her the key years ago, telling Kara to feel free to come visit and stay any time she was in the city.

  Kara left the door open. "Wait here," she said.

  She left Jill standing in the hallway by their overnight bags while she made a quick round of the rooms. Empty. Good. No one here who shouldn't be here. The odor was strongest in the kitchen. Kara opened the door under the sink and found the cause: rotten leftover Chinese take-out in the garbage sack. She tied the bag closed and brought it out to the hall. She'd throw it away later.

  "All clear," she told Jill.

  "What was it?"

  "Week-old egg foo yung and fried rice, I think."

  "Ugh!"

  "You said it."

  Kara helped Jill off with her coat and shrugged out of her own. She felt uneasy here, like some sort of grave-robber, or a vulture picking at the bones of the dead. But something had to be rotten here besides egg foo yung. Something had gone wrong in her sister's life. Kara wanted to know what.

  She stood in the center of the main room and did a slow turn, taking in everything around her.

  So ordinary.

  Kara found that very ordinariness reassuring, but it didn't answer the questions that had brought her here.

  The furniture was a motley assortment of new and good quality used. There were a couple of original watercolors of flower-filled fields on the walls along with a few framed posters from the Metropolitan Museum's Van Gogh in Aries show. A selection of photos of Jill and Mom and Kara herself stood on one of the end tables. The big thick The Art of Walt Disney sat right where it belonged—on the coffee table. Beside it was a stack of nursing journals.

  This was the Kelly she knew. Not a swinger, not even a terribly exciting person, but a rock solid, steady, reliable professional who loved nursing and loved the throb and rattle of New York. Sweet and attractive. Although they were identical twins, Kara had always thought of Kelly as the better looking one. She'd had her love affairs, and she'd told Kara all about them when they got together. Once or twice she thought she'd found Mr. Right, but one had turned out to be not-so-Right, and the other, Tom, the most recent, had been keeping a little secret from her: his wife and child on Long Island.

  But Kelly seemed to bounce back from those traumas like she bounced back from everything. Kara had often wished she could be as flexible, as resilient as Kelly. Which was probably why Kelly had been able to stay on in New York and Kara hadn't: Kelly could accept the city on its terms, Kara could only accept it on her own.

  Which was why Kara lived in Pennsylvania and Kelly lived in New York.

  And maybe why Kelly had died in New York.

  So why am I in New York now? Kara asked herself.

  To find a reason, some sort of hook that would help her understand what had happened. Damn it, she was going to find out why and how Kelly had changed or go half crazy trying. And she was going to tear this place apart in the process.

  "When are we going to Aunt Ellen's?" Jill asked.

  "Soon, honey. I've just got to look around here for a while, okay?"

  Kara found something on the tv for the child to watch, then she headed for the bedroom. She'd start there.

  ▼

  Nothing.

  Kara had to admit her twin sister was boring. Not that that was bad. In this case, it was good. But puzzling.

  How could a woman who liked New Amsterdam Beer, read Agatha Christie, Ed Gorman and John D. MacDonald, dressed in flannel nightgowns, and was voted Nurse of the Year at St. Vincent's twice in the last five years come to be a legend in the Oak Bar? Her major vice seemed to be Creamette pasta.

  Drugs? In the night stand drawer was a prescription bottle from a Dr. Gates label
ed: "Halcion 0.25 mg. One tablet at bedtime as needed for sleep." Twenty or so blue ovals rested in the bottom of the amber plastic container. It looked as if Kelly had suffered from insomnia. That might be important, but probably not. The medicine cabinet in the bathroom yielded even less. Midol was the most potent pill there, followed by Tylenol.

  As she looked over the collection of lotions and creams and powders and scents lined up in the cabinet, arrayed around the sink, and clustered atop the tank lid of the toilet, Kara shook her head in wonder and dismay.

  Look at this!

  From Giorgio there was Red Extraordinary Perfumed Body Moisturizer; from Lancome there was Progres, Savon Fraichette, Savon Creme Exfoliante, and Effacil; Sebastian contributed Hi Contrast Gel, Sheen, and Cello-Shampoo; but Chanel had hit the jackpot: Lotion No. 1, Creme No. 1, Fluide No. 1, Creme Exfoliante, Lift Serum Correction Complex, Lotion Vivifiante, Demaquillant Fluide, Huile Pour Le Bain, Poudre Apres Bain De Luxe, Creme Pour Le Corps No. 5, and of course, the indispensable Mask Lumiere. Something called Summer's Eve Feminine Wash—"the intimate cleanser"—sat on the edge of the tub. The drawers were filled with different shades of eyeliner, eye shadow, lipstick, and make-up.

  Kara never ceased to be amazed at the gullibility of her sex. It seemed to know no bounds. Even the monstrously cynical and endlessly voracious cosmetics industry, despite decades of unrelenting effort, had yet to find its limits. This collection was proof.

  She had long lived with a smoldering anger toward the cosmetics industry for its alluring hype and empty promises of eternal youth and beauty. She had even sold a few articles on the subject—all to feminist magazines, of course. Magazines with no cosmetics advertisers to lose. She had wondered as she was writing them why she bothered. She was, after all, preaching to the converted. But the articles weren't totally useless: they kept her name in print, kept a little cash flowing through her checking account, and gave her credibility as a writer when she'd approached the book publishers. And her articles had been somewhat unique in that her venom hadn't been directed solely at the cosmetics industry. She'd also taken the modern woman to task for allowing herself to be so continually duped.

  She was chagrined to see the extent to which her twin had bought into the Big Lie. And bought was the word! This junk must have cost a small fortune!

  Kara guessed it was a barometer of how well skilled nurses were being paid these days.

  So. There was evidence that Kelly had been moisturizing herself into Nirvana, but nowhere could Kara find a trace of illegal drugs or their paraphernalia—no joints, no unlabeled capsules, no powder-smeared mirrors, no coke spoons, no rolled-up bills, not even a razor blade.

  She had ransacked the bedroom, pulled the living room furniture apart, gone through all the cereal boxes and flour canisters in the kitchen.

  Nothing.

  The closets were racked with Kelly's nurse's uniforms and an array of trendy outfits, some mildly sexy, but nothing blatantly provocative.

  She found a couple of well-used but unlabeled videotapes under the tv. She bit her lip, wondered what was on them. Porn? Maybe even Kelly doing… things?

  Kara glanced at Jill. She was watching The Price is Right. "Jill?" she said. "Can I use the TV for a couple of minutes?"

  "Sure. This is boring. Besides, it exploits women."

  Kara had begun raising Jill's consciousness at an early age. Occasionally she wondered if she'd started Jill too young, or perhaps done too good a job. Sometimes Jill was too aware.

  "The Price is Right?" Kara said, glancing at the screen where an overweight matron was jumping up and down and clapping her hands. "Do you really think so?"

  "It makes all these ladies look dumb. Isn't that exploiting women?"

  "Not really. Those ladies are making themselves look dumb. I think The Price Is Right exploits materialism more than anything else."

  "What's materialism?"

  Kara had a sudden inspiration as to how to get Jill away from the TV set for a few minutes.

  "There's a dictionary over there. Why don't you look it up? Sound it out."

  "Okay."

  As Jill trotted over to the book shelves, Kara slipped the tape into the VCR and started it running. When the opening credits for Desk Set came on, she wanted to cry with relief and nostalgia. Kelly's favorite movie. The second tape was Father of the Bride, another of her favorites.

  She swallowed the lump in her throat and called to Jill.

  "Here's something better than a game show. Watch this instead."

  Kara went back to the bedroom and stripped the bed, then lifted the mattress to see if something was hidden between it and the box spring.

  That was when she found it.

  Not under the mattress. Under the night stand. When she lifted the mattress to look beneath, it slipped off the box spring and struck the night stand, knocking it over along with the lamp atop it.

  And there was the cache.

  Kara had checked the night stand drawers the first time through and had found nothing but old paperback mysteries in them. But she hadn't pulled the bottom drawer all the way out. If she had she would have found this little trove.

  Sleazy underwear here. More Frederick's of Hollywood type stuff—lacy open-front bras and matching slit-crotch panties in scarlet and lavender. The same under the other night stand.

  Feeling slightly queasy, Kara went to the big dresser and pulled the two bottom drawers all the way out and set them on the floor. Laid out in the space under the drawers was an array of slit-sided leather skirts and low-cut blouses.

  As she stared at the tawdry outfits, Kara felt a terrible sadness for her sister.

  What were you looking for, Kelly? What on God's earth did you think was missing from your life that you had to go looking for it dressed up in this… this shit!

  The sadness gave rise to anger. Why hadn't Kelly come to her if she was having a problem? Didn't she think she could rely on her own twin? Why hadn't Kelly sought her out instead of pulling away?

  Or had she pulled away because of the problem?

  Kara stood up and scanned the ransacked bedroom. Maybe she'd never know. But there had to be a reason Kelly would buy these tramp outfits and hide them—

  Wait a minute.

  Hide them? Why on earth would Kelly hide her trashy clothes under her dresser and night stand?

  Kelly lived alone.

  This didn't make any sense at all. Kara had been through all the closets, all the drawers. Everything belonged to Kelly. Nobody else was living here. Just Kelly.

  From whom was Kelly hiding these clothes?

  ▼

  It was around lunch time then, and Jill was hungry. Kara cooked up a packet of Upton's chicken noddle soup she found in one of the kitchen cabinets and she and Jill settled down to a couple of bowls with some Ritz crackers. Kara wasn't in the mood for anything heavier.

  Afterwards, she pulled Rob's card from her purse. This was as good a time as any to give him a call.

  On the third ring, he answered with, "Harris."

  "Rob? It's Kara Wade."

  "Wh—? Kara? Hello! Good to hear from you. Everything okay down there?"

  Down there. He thought she was in Pennsylvania. Good. Let him go on thinking that. If he knew she was here in the city he'd want to get together with her for dinner or the like and Kara didn't think that was such a good idea. Not with Jill along.

  "As well as can be expected."

  "The funeral…?"

  "Bad. But it could have been worse. Thank you for the flowers."

  "I'd have come—"

  "The flowers were enough." Kara paused, almost afraid to ask the question because she already knew the answer. "Have you caught them yet?"

  "No." She could hear the frustration in his sigh. "No, we haven't."

  "I didn't think so."

  "Don't start that again, Kara. It's not fair."

  "It isn't?" She felt her own frustration ballooning within her. "If she'd been Ivana Trump you'd sure a
s hell have somebody in custody by now!"

  "I don't know about that, Kara."

  "You said you had a description of the two men and a set of fingerprints! That was five days ago!"

  "Right. But the two men described were not regulars at the bar, and they haven't been back since. And the fingerprints were no help at all."

  "Why not?"

  "They don't match anywhere. Which is not surprising."

  "Why isn't it?"

  "Well, it goes along with the pick-up theory. I mean, if Kelly picked these two guys at random from the Oak Room Bar crowd, it's very possible that they don't have criminal records. And if they don't have criminal records—or haven't applied for a gun permit or a security-sensitive job—then their prints are probably not on record here or with the Feds."

  "And so you won't be able to match them anywhere."

  "Right."

  She felt the anger rising again. She wanted to scream but kept her voice level, for Jill's sake.

  "So you're no closer to finding Kelly's murderers now than you were on Thursday."

  "I'm afraid that's right, Kara." Rob paused, then said, "I'm afraid we can't even say for sure it was murder."

  "What?" Kara didn't want to believe what she was hearing.

  "Just hear me out," he said quickly. "Forensics says there's, no sign of a struggle in the room. And they can't say for sure whether the two guys she picked up downstairs were even in the room at the time she went out the window."

  Kara felt as if she were turning to ice.

  "Are they saying Kelly jumped?"

  "No. Not in so many words. They're saying there's nothing to support the idea that she was pushed. And the M.E. backs them up. He says she wasn't beaten, and that if she was thrown out the window, she didn't struggle—no broken fingernails, no skin under the nails, no bruises on her palms. And witnesses there say she screamed on the way down, so we know she was conscious."

  "Kelly wouldn't kill herself," said Kara, although she knew her voice didn't exactly ring with conviction.

  After what she'd found this morning, she was no longer completely sure about anything concerning her twin. However, there was most of a bottle of sleeping pills in the bedroom. If she had wanted to kill herself, why hadn't she taken them?