by John Lutz
He smiled. “In equal measures?”
She thought about it. “Yeah, I’d say. Only one complaint.”
He appeared startled and hurt. “Oh? What’s that?”
“Your hair didn’t get mussed. Not one single hair on your head.”
She turned to him, laced her fingers through his thick white hair, and made it a wild tangle.
She was amazed to see that he had dark roots.
26
Holifield, Ohio, 1994
It had taken forever for night to fall. Jerry and his mother were the only ones in the house.
Jerry Grantland’s father seldom bothered to show up on his scheduled visitation days. This day had been no exception. It had passed without explanation, without even a phone call, without Jerry or his mother even mentioning his father.
Jerry lay silently in bed, waiting for his mother to turn off the Jeopardy! rerun on television in the living room. He could barely hear the low murmur of voices and rustle of applause from the TV, but he could see the crack of light beneath his bedroom door and knew she was still up. Probably she was drinking another of the mixture she made from club soda and the bottle of gin she kept in the cabinet above the sink.
An hour passed. Two. He could hear his mother snoring now and thought she’d probably sleep all night where she lay on the sofa. That was how it usually worked when she watched Jeopardy! and drank the gin drink.
Jerry rolled over onto his side and checked the clock with its flipping lighted numbers by his bed. It was twenty minutes past midnight. Jerry knew he should wait until about one a.m. That was usually the time it happened, when Mrs. Keller was asleep. Of course, if you watched the clock it would never flip to the next minute. Instead of watching, he closed his eyes and thought about Mrs. Keller. Jerry realized he had an erection, and he wondered, with a wife like Mrs. Keller, why did Mr. Keller do the things he did?
But then, why did Jerry’s mother do some of the same things? Adults were a mystery to Jerry. Someday, he was sure, the mystery would be solved. When he was an adult.
At ten minutes to one he could no longer stay in bed without jumping clear out of his skin. He got up, slipped into his jeans, and put on his tennis shoes without socks. Though it was a hot night, he got a dark shirt from his closet and wore it untucked over the white T-shirt he slept in.
Silently, he went to his bedroom window and raised it. The window moved smoothly in its wooden frame and made no sound. Two days ago, while alone in the house, Jerry had lubricated it with some of his mother’s Crisco from the kitchen.
The window screen unlatched from the bottom and swung upward, allowing him room to slip beneath it and drop the few feet to the yard.
It was a moonless night and dark, just as he liked it. The mosquitoes were out, but they didn’t bother him much. Off in the distance he could see a shimmering cloud of moths circling a street light. They looked oddly like snowflakes caught in a whirl of wind.
He crept a few feet away from the window, then ran and disappeared into the dark void that was the unbroken lawn between his house and the Kellers’.
Then he was in the blackness and shrubbery at the side of the Kellers’ house, near the twins’ bedroom window. Sharp-edged holly bush leaves scratched his bare arms as he moved sideways into the comparative softness of the yews.
The yews were his cover and his shelter. He’d come to feel as at home in them as if he were some wild and nesting animal. Though he knew he was risking everything by being there, he still somehow felt more secure where he was than anywhere else in his world. He belonged there, in the concealing blackness and cover of the shrubbery. What he was doing couldn’t be so wrong if he belonged there.
As if on signal, katydids in the surrounding trees began to sound their ratcheting shrill mating call. Jerry was glad. The racket made it less likely that he’d make some slight noise and be discovered.
He was at the window now. The shade was lowered almost all the way, as it usually was. A gap was left so it wouldn’t knock over Tiffany’s collection of ceramic animals on the inside sill. The bottom of the shade was an inch above the giraffe, leaving plenty of room for a view.
Squatting on the soft earth, Jerry settled into a comfortable position so he could peer into the bedroom without moving or making a sound. He wasn’t worried about being noticed; there was always a night-light glowing softly in the twins’ room, making it brighter inside than out. If somebody inside did happen to glance his way, he was sure that if he didn’t move he’d be invisible behind dark reflecting glass. Experimenting with his own bedroom window had taught him that much. Night turned bedroom windows into the kind of mirrors you saw in the movies and on TV, where the police questioned suspects and then left them alone to comb their hair or examine their teeth, but they couldn’t see the cops standing behind the mirror looking right at them.
Jerry was where the cops usually stood. Safe unless for some reason the light changed.
Mr. Keller had begun early tonight. He was already in bed with Tiffany. The bedroom was shadowed and dimly lit, so that Jerry couldn’t make out exactly what was going on. But the shadows writhing on the wall beside Tiffany’s bed made it obvious what was happening. As Jerry watched, breathless, he moved his hand down to caress himself.
The shadow show became more frantic and violent, and Jerry was sure he could actually hear the squeaking of bedsprings.
Mrs. Keller has to know what’s going on. She has to���
All the time Mr. Keller was doing things to Tiffany, Chrissie lay curled on her side, facing away from her sister’s bed but not seeing Jerry. Her eyes were open and blank, and she was sucking her thumb. As old as she was, she was sucking her thumb.
When Mr. Keller was finished with Tiffany he got up from his bed and adjusted his white boxer shorts. He moved toward the window, and Jerry’s heart leaped and he drew back, ready to bolt into the shadows between the houses. He held his breath and made himself be still.
But Mr. Keller wasn’t looking at the window; he was looking at Chrissie. Jerry saw something looped in his hand. His belt. He hadn’t worn his pants to the twins’ bedroom, but he’d brought his belt.
He yanked Chrissie roughly so she lay flat on her stomach, then raised her nightgown and pulled her panties down. She didn’t resist or change expression.
Mr. Keller bent low and said something to her, probably warning her to be quiet. Then he began beating her bare buttocks and the backs of her thighs with the belt. With each blow her body tensed and relaxed, tensed and relaxed, and then it stayed tense as the beating continued. Jerry understood how she must feel. He realized he was weeping silently, and his fingernails were digging into his palms so deeply that it hurt.
When Mr. Keller was finished, he worked Chrissie’s nightgown back down so that it covered her buttocks. Then he sat on the edge of the bed, leaned down so his face was near hers, and kissed her cheek. He stood up, caressed her hair, and then turned and walked from the room. He closed the door slowly and carefully behind him.
Jerry wondered where Mr. Keller was going now? To Mrs. Keller? They slept together, Jerry was sure, but their bedroom was upstairs, impossible to see into from outside. He could only guess what they might be doing.
Chrissie lay motionless for a while, and then she turned onto her side, facing away from Jerry. Across the room, Tiffany was lying on her side, facing Chrissie and the window where Jerry watched. The twins lay that way and stared at each other, their expressions blank. Jerry didn’t think either of them spoke.
He’d reached a climax. He could feel the wetness at the crotch of his jeans.
Controlling his shakiness and shortness of breath, he backed away from the window, into the scratchy holly bushes. Sweat beaded on his face. Perspiration or tears stung like acid at the corners of his eyes.
Everywhere in the night the katydids screamed their relentless mating call.
Jerry turned and ran into the darkness, toward his own window, his own home.
T
he screams of insects followed him. As did the darkness.
27
New York, the present
“I suppose you’re mad at me,” Chrissie said, standing before Quinn’s desk.
Her attitude seemed that of a teenage girl caught breaking curfew, rather than that of an avenging huntress talking to hired help.
They were in the office alone. Quinn had looked up, surprised, when she’d entered. She was slightly bedraggled from the heat, and at first he hadn’t recognized her. Her sleeveless white blouse clung to her narrow upper body, and a strand of her dishwater-blond hair dangled over one eye. She was wearing jeans that looked genuinely well worn, and brown leather sandals that looked brand new.
In the vacuum of his surprise, she managed a half smile and said, “I could never do that.”
He didn’t know what she’d meant at first, and then realized she was referring to what he’d been doing at his desk-trying to balance a checkbook. “Seems I never could, either.”
She went from smiling to looking guilty. “I know you’ve been trying to get in touch with me.”
“You have blue eyes now,” Quinn said. “And short blond hair.”
“Before, I was wearing brown contact lenses and a brown wig. There was a certain facial resemblance to begin with, don’t you think?”
“Not really,” Quinn said.
He sat calmly, trying to figure out her game. He couldn’t.
“Usually it’s the other way around,” he said. “The client is too available and badgers the detective agency for reports on any kind of progress.”
She nervously shifted her weight from one foot to the other, like a tennis player anticipating a serve. Seeking a point of balance.
“I’m sorry for making myself scarce,” she said. “Really.”
“Maybe you had a good reason for disappearing.”
“I’m not sure it was good enough. I knew after a while that you’d probably looked up photos of all the Carver victims and figured out that I’d sort of misled you into thinking Tiffany and I are-were-identical twins. What scared me was that it might not have occurred to you that we were fraternal twins. That you might simply think I was an imposter. That I’d lied to you.”
“That’s what you did,” Quinn said. “You lied.”
“More like misled you.” She gnawed on her lower lip for a moment with her overbite. “Misled?” She tried the word again.
“We won’t quibble over it,” Quinn said.
“But then I ran. I’m not very brave lately.”
“But you came back.”
“When I saw in the news that the Carver had killed that woman down in Chelsea, Maureen Sanders, and then attacked that other woman, I couldn’t stay away. I had to find out what you’d learned.”
“It’s pretty much all in the news.”
She stared at him. “You’re playing it closed-mouthed. Now you don’t trust me.” Her contriteness had disappeared to be replaced by anger.
He had to grin. “Should I trust you?”
“Maybe not. But I am your client. Don’t you have some kind of legal obligation to tell me everything you know?”
“Legal and ethical. Unless there are special circumstances.”
“Such as?”
“The client disappearing.”
She tucked her fingertips into her jeans pockets and looked glum as well as bedraggled. The blond hairdo he couldn’t get used to looked damp and stuck to her head.
“You know the police are actively involved now,” he said.
“Yeah. I didn’t want that to happen. They’ll screw things up, don’t you think?”
“Possibly they will.” He toyed with the ballpoint pen he’d been holding during his assault on the checkbook and bank statement. “But we didn’t have a choice. When Maureen Sanders was killed and sliced up using the Carver’s M.O., the police naturally made the connection and reopened the investigation. And that includes all the Carver murders, including your sister’s.”
“They couldn’t catch the Carver the first time around, so I don’t have much hope they’ll do any better this time. They should have stayed out of it.”
“Politics are involved,” Quinn said. “As well as that pesky thing called the law.”
“Well, I don’t see much point to it. Maybe you can explain to me all that’s happened, tell me what my money’s bought.”
Quinn studied her, not wanting to be taken in again. Her sudden mood changes and apparent ignorance of the law didn’t fool him. He knew she wasn’t nearly as naive as she appeared.
He put down the pen and pointed to the nearest desk chair, Pearl’s. “Roll that chair over here and sit down.”
She did, and he brought her up to date on the investigation.
“So who’s this mystery woman who’s been shadowing the investigation?” Chrissie asked, when he was finished. “Any ideas?”
Quinn had deliberately mentioned Pearl’s shadow woman. “One theory is that she’s you.”
Chrissie seemed surprised, but she might be good at that. She appeared to think about what he’d said, absently rubbing her chin. It might have been a feigned gesture, but he’d seen her do it before, unconsciously. Quinn noticed that she wore no rings on either hand-no jewelry at all, at least that he could see.
“Well, I can understand why you might have thought it was me,” she said, “since you couldn’t get in touch with me for a while. But I can tell you honestly it wasn’t me.”
“It also occurred to us that something bad might have happened to you and you couldn’t contact us.”
Now she seemed embarrassed, and not a little bit pleased. “I hadn’t thought of that, truly. It didn’t occur to me that my disappearance might alarm you. But I am touched by your concern.”
She wasn’t being sarcastic. She’d meant it, he was sure.
Don’t be sure. Don’t take for granted that anything this woman says is true.
“So where were you?” Quinn asked.
“Oh, nowhere or not doing anything that has anything to do with any of this,” Chrissie said.
While Quinn was mentally diagramming her sentence, Chrissie stood up from Pearl’s chair and tapped the side of the small brown leather purse she was carrying.
“I’ve got my cell phone turned on again,” she said. “You have my number.”
“Where are you staying?”
“I’m looking for a new place now. I’ll let you know.” She exhaled loudly and smiled. “I’m glad we’re on the same page again. Do you need any more money?”
He shook his head no. “We’re fine for now.” He tapped a knuckle on the checkbook and statement spread out before him on the desk. “I think we are, anyway.”
She took a step closer to the desk. “I do want, more than anything, for my sister’s killer to be brought to hard justice.”
“We all do.”
She nodded, shifted her weight awkwardly, and made for the door.
“By the way,” Quinn said, “you needn’t have worried. We had it figured that you were a fraternal twin.”
“I should have known,” she said. “You do have a reputation.”
“Pearl suggested it.”
“Cherchez la femme.”
She was smiling as she went out.
28
A woman who lived in the building where Mary Bakehouse had been attacked contacted the police. She claimed to have remembered something that might be important. Her name was Ida Frost. Mishkin had interviewed her before and was skeptical.
Still, any lead might be worth following.
Vitali knocked on the apartment door. Mishkin moved closer so if she was looking through the peephole Ida Frost might recognize him.
She opened the door almost immediately. She was a small, stooped woman close to eighty, with gnarled teeth that didn’t spoil a bright smile. As she peered up at Vitali and Mishkin, her eyes were bright and alert.
She stood back so they could enter. It was warm in the apartment but not uncomfortabl
e.
“I made brownies,” she said.
She left them abruptly and scurried toward what they assumed was the kitchen.
Vitali and Mishkin exchanged glances.
Then Ida Frost was back, using two hot pads to hold a large rectangular pan of brownies generously dusted with powdered sugar. They smelled delicious.
“Hot from the oven,” she said. “My mother’s recipe and her mother’s before her.” She offered the pan.
“Can’t say no to all that history,” Mishkin said. He delicately lifted one of the end brownies.
Vitali, thinking that for all they knew the brownies could be poisoned, smiled and shook his head no. Ida Frost moved in on him with the brownies. He raised a hand, still smiling. The edge of the hot pan was almost touching his tie. She was smiling up at him insistently, still advancing. If he didn’t back up he’d have a brownie pan scar on his stomach.
“These are great, Sal,” Mishkin said. There were brownie crumbs and powdered sugar in his bushy mustache, on his tie. “You oughta try one.”
Vitali gave in and helped himself to a brownie. Ida Frost withdrew from his personal space.
“You said on the phone that you recalled something,” Mishkin said, and took another bite of brownie.
“Did I? Oh, yes.” Ida Frost looked at Vitali and at the half a brownie in his hand. “Do they meet with your approval, Detective?”
Vitali growled around a mouthful of brownie that they did.
“What was it you recalled?” Mishkin asked.
Ida Frost appeared puzzled.
“You called the precinct house and asked for Detective Mishkin,” Vitali reminded her. “You left a message saying you remembered something about the Mary Bakehouse case and were calling as we’d requested.”
“I liked Mary,” Ida Frost said. “I wish she hadn’t moved away.”
“Probably it’s better for her that she went somewhere else,” Vitali said.
Ida Frost seemed to consider that; then she smiled. “Yes, she’s probably safer if she moved out of the city. People in these big apartment buildings don’t seem to know each other, don’t have the time. Everyone’s always rushing around wrapped up in their own thoughts, busy, busy. I’m afraid we lead very insulated and uncaring lives.”
