the Third Twin (1996)

by Ken Follett

  “And if mothers two and three don’t happen to be acquainted, no one ever observes the startling resemblance between babies two and three.”

  “It’s the old staple of the romance writers,” she admitted. “But it’s not impossible.”

  “Is there a book on this twin stuff?” he said. “I’d like to know more about it.”

  “Yeah, I have one.…” She looked along her bookshelf. “No, it’s at home.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “Close by.”

  “You could take me home for that drink.”

  She hesitated. This one is the normal twin, she reminded herself, not the psychopath.

  He said: “You know so much about me, after today. I’m curious about you. I’d like to see where you live.”

  Jeannie shrugged. “Sure, why not? Let’s go.”

  It was five o’clock, and the day was at last beginning to cool as they left Nut House. Steve whistled when he saw the red Mercedes. “What a neat car!”

  “I’ve had it for eight years,” she said. “I love it.”

  “My car’s in the parking lot. I’ll come up behind you and flash my lights.”

  He left. Jeannie got into her car and started it. A few minutes later she saw headlights in her rearview mirror. She pulled out of her parking space and drove off.

  As she left the campus she noticed a police cruiser tuck in behind Steve’s car. She checked her speedometer and slowed down to thirty.

  It seemed Steven Logan was smitten with her. Although she did not reciprocate his feelings, she was kind of pleased. It was flattering to have won the heart of a handsome young hunk.

  He stayed on her tail all the way home. She pulled up outside her house and he parked right behind her.

  As in many old Baltimore streets, there was a row stoop, a communal front porch that ran the length of the row, where neighbors had sat cooling themselves in the days before air-conditioning. She crossed the stoop and stood at her door, getting out her keys.

  Two cops exploded out of the patrol car, guns in their hands. They took up firing positions, their arms stretched out stiffly, their guns pointed directly at Jeannie and Steve.

  Jeannie’s heart stopped.

  Steven said: “What the fuck—”

  Then one of the men yelled: “Police! Freeze!”

  Jeannie and Steve both raised their hands.

  But the police did not relax. “On the floor, motherfucker!” one of them screamed. “Facedown, hands behind your back!”

  Jeannie and Steve both lay facedown.

  The policemen approached them as, cautiously as if they were ticking bombs. Jeannie said: “Don’t you think you’d better tell us what this is about?’

  “You can stand up, lady,” said one,

  “Gee, thanks.” She got to her feet. Her heart was beating fast, but it seemed obvious the cops had made some kind of dumb mistake. “Now that you’ve scared me half to death, what the hell is going on?’

  Still they did not reply. They both kept their guns pointed at Steve. One of them knelt beside him and, with a swift, practiced motion, handcuffed him. “You’re under arrest, cock-sucker,” the cop said.

  Jeannie said: “I’m a broad-minded woman, but is all this cursing really necessary?” Nobody took any notice of her. She tried again. “What’s he supposed to have done, anyway?”

  A light blue Dodge Colt screeched to a halt behind the police cruiser and two people got out. One was Mish Delaware, the detective from the Sex Crimes Unit. She had on the same skirt and blouse she had worn this morning, but she wore a linen jacket that only partly concealed the gun at her hip.

  “You got here fast,” said one of the patrolmen.

  “I was in the neighborhood,” she replied. She looked at Steve, lying on the floor. “Get him up,” she said.

  The patrolman took Steve by the arm and helped him stand.

  “It’s him all right,” Mish said. “This is the guy who raped Lisa Hoxton.”

  “Steven did?” Jeannie said incredulously. Jesus, I was about to take him into my apartment.

  “Rape?” Steven said.

  “The patrolman spotted his car leaving the campus,” Mish said.

  Jeannie noticed Steve’s car for the first time. It was a tan Datsun, about fifteen years old. Lisa had thought she saw the rapist driving an old white Datsun.

  Her initial shock and alarm began to give way to rational thought. The police suspected him: that did not make him guilty. What was the evidence? She said: “If you’re going to arrest every man you see driving a rusty Datsun …”

  Mish handed Jeannie a piece of paper. It was a flyer bearing a computer-generated black-and-white picture of a man. Jeannie stared at it. It did look something like Steven. “It might be him and it might not,” Jeannie said.

  “What are you doing with him?”

  “He’s a subject. We’ve been doing tests on him at the lab. I can’t believe he’s the guy!” Her test findings showed that Steven had the inherited personality of a potential criminal—but they also showed he had not developed into an actual criminal.

  Mish said to Steven: “Can you account for your movements yesterday between seven and eight P.M..?”

  “Well, I was at JFU,” Steven said.

  “What were you doing?”

  “Nothing much. I was supposed to go out with my cousin Ricky, but he canceled. I came here to check out where I had to be this morning. I had nothing else to do.”

  It sounded lame even to Jeannie. Maybe Steve was the rapist, she thought with dismay. But if he was, her entire theory was shot.

  Mish said: “How did you spend your time?”

  “I watched the tennis for a while. Then I went to a bar in Charles Village and spent a couple of hours. I missed the big fire.”

  “Can anyone corroborate what you say?”

  “Well, I spoke to Dr. Ferrami, although at that point I didn’t actually know who she was.”

  Mish turned to Jeannie. Jeannie saw hostility in her eyes and recalled how they had clashed, this morning, when Mish was persuading Lisa to cooperate.

  Jeannie said: “It was after my tennis game, a few minutes before the fire broke out.”

  Mish said: “So you can’t tell us where he was when the rape took place.”

  “No, but I’ll tell you something else. I’ve spent all day giving this man tests, and he doesn’t have the psychological profile of a rapist.”

  Mish looked scornful. “That’s not evidence.”

  Jeannie was still holding the flyer. “Nor is this, I guess.” She balled it up and dropped it on the sidewalk.

  Mish jerked her head at the cops. “Let’s go.”

  Steven spoke in a clear, calm voice. “Wait a minute.”

  They hesitated.

  “Jeannie, I don’t care about these guys, but I want to tell you that I didn’t do this, and I never would do anything of the kind.”

  She believed him. She asked herself why. Was it just that she needed him to be innocent for her theory? No: she had the psychological tests to show that he had none of the characteristics associated with criminals. But there was something else: her intuition. She felt safe with him. He gave out no wrong signals. He listened when she talked, he did not try to bully her, he did not touch her inappropriately, he showed no anger or hostility. He liked women and he respected her. He was not a rapist.

  She said: “Do you want me to call someone? Your parents?”

  “No,” he said decisively. “They’d worry. And it will all be over in a few hours. I’ll tell them then.”

  “Aren’t they expecting you home tonight?”

  “I said I might stay with Ricky again.”

  “Well, if you’re sure,” she said dubiously.

  “I’m sure.”

  “Let’s go,” Mish said impatiently.

  “What’s the damn hurry?” Jeannie snapped. “You have some other innocent people to arrest?”

  Mish glared at her. “Do you have anything mo
re to say to me?”

  “What happens next?”

  “There’ll be a lineup. We’ll let Lisa Hoxton decide whether this is the man that raped her.” With facetious deference Mish added: “Is that okay with you, Dr. Ferrami?”

  “That’s just fine,” Jeannie said.

  9

  THEY TOOK STEVE DOWNTOWN IN THE PALE BLUE DODGE Colt. The woman detective drove and the other one, a heavyset white man with a mustache, sat beside her, looking cramped in the little car. No one spoke.

  Steve quietly seethed with resentment. Why the hell should he be riding in this uncomfortable car, his wrists in handcuffs, when he ought to be sitting in Jeannie Ferrami’s apartment with a cold drink in his hand? They had just better get this over with quickly, that was all.

  Police headquarters was a pink granite building in Baltimore’s red-light district, among the topless bars and porn outlets. They drove up a ramp and parked in the internal garage. It was full of police cruisers and cheap compacts like the Colt.

  They took Steve up in an elevator and put him in a room with yellow-painted walls and no windows. They took off his handcuffs then left him alone. He assumed they locked the door: he did not check.

  There was a table and two hard plastic chairs. On the table was an ashtray containing two cigarette butts, both filter tips, one with lipstick on it. Set into the door was a pane of opaque glass: Steve could not see out, but he guessed they could see in.

  Looking at the ashtray, he wished he smoked. It would be something to do here in this yellow cell. Instead he paced up and down.

  He told himself he could not really be in trouble. He had managed to get a look at the picture on the flyer, and although it was more or less like him, it was not him. No doubt he resembled the rapist, but when he stood in the lineup with several other tall young men, the victim would not pick him out. After all, the poor woman must have looked long and hard at the bastard who did it: his face would be burned into her memory. She would not make a mistake.

  But the cops had no right to keep him waiting like this. Okay, they had to eliminate him as a suspect, but they did not have to take all night about it. He was a law-abiding citizen.

  He tried to look on the bright side. He was getting a close-up view of the American justice system. He would be his own lawyer: it would be good practice. When in the future he represented a client accused of a crime, he would know what the person was going through in police custody.

  He had seen the inside of a precinct house once before, but that had felt very different. He was only fifteen. He had gone to the police with one of his teachers. He had admitted the crime immediately and told the police candidly everything that had happened. They could see his injuries: it was obvious the fight had not been one-sided. His parents had come to take him home.

  That had been the most shameful moment of his life. When Mom and Dad walked into that room, Steve wished he were dead. Dad looked mortified, as if he had suffered a great humiliation; Mom’s expression showed grief; they both looked bewildered and wounded. At the time, it was all he could do not to burst into tears, and he still felt choked up whenever he recalled it.

  But this was different. This time he was innocent.

  The woman detective came in carrying a cardboard file folder. She had taken off her jacket, but she still wore the gun on her belt. She was an attractive black woman of about forty, a little on the heavy side, and she had an I’m-in-charge air.

  Steve looked at her with relief. ‘Thank God,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “That something is happening. I don’t want to be here all damn night.”

  “Would you sit down, please?”

  Steve sat.

  “My name is Sergeant Michelle Delaware.” She took a sheet of paper from the folder and put it on the table. “What’s your full name and address?”

  He told her, and she wrote it on the form. “Age?”

  “Twenty-two.”

  “Education?”

  “I have a college degree.”

  She wrote on the form then pushed it across to him. It was headed:

  POLICE DEPARTMENT

  BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

  EXPLANATION OF RIGHTS

  Form 69

  “Please read the five sentences on the form, then write your initials in the spaces provided beside each sentence.” She passed him a pen.

  He read the form and started to initial.

  “You have to read aloud,” she said. He thought for a moment. “So that you know I’m literate?” he asked.

  “No. It’s so that you can’t later pretend to be illiterate and claim that you were not informed of your rights.”

  This was the kind of thing they did not teach you in law school.

  He read: “You are hereby advised that: One, you have the absolute right to remain silent.” He wrote SL in the space at the end of the line, then read on, initialing each sentence. “Two, anything you say or write may be used against you in a court of law. Three, you have the right to talk with a lawyer at any time, before any questioning, before answering any questions, or during any questioning. Four, if you want a lawyer and cannot afford to hire one, you will not be asked any questions, and the court will be requested to appoint a lawyer for you. Five, if you agree to answer questions, you may stop at any time and request a lawyer, and no further questions will be asked of you.”

  “Now sign your name, please.” She pointed to the form. “Here, and here.” The first space for signature was underneath the sentence

  I HAVE READ THE ABOVE EXPLANATION OF MY

  RIGHTS, AND I FULLY UNDERSTAND IT.

  Signature

  Steve signed.

  “And just below,” she said.

  I am willing to answer questions, and I do not want any attorney at this time. My decision to answer questions without having an attorney present is free and voluntary on my part.

  Signature

  He signed and said: “How the hell do you get guilty people to sign that?”

  She did not answer him. She printed her name, then signed the form.

  She put the form back in the folder and looked at him. “You’re in trouble, Steve,” she said. “But you seem like a regular guy. Why don’t you just tell me what happened?”

  “I can’t,” he said. “I wasn’t there. I guess I just look like the jerk that did it.”

  She sat back, crossed her legs, and gave him a friendly smile. “I know men,” she said in an intimate tone. “They have urges.”

  If I didn’t know better, Steve thought, I’d read her body language and say she was coming on to me.

  She went on: “Let me tell you what I think. You’re an attractive man, she took a shine to you.”

  “I’ve never met this woman, Sergeant.”

  She ignored that. Leaning across the table, she covered his hand with her own. “I think she provoked you.”

  Steve looked at her hand. She had good nails, manicured, not too long, varnished with clear nail polish. But the hand was wrinkled: she was older than forty, maybe forty-five.

  She spoke in a conspiratorial voice, as if to say “This is just between you and me.” “She was asking for it, so you gave it to her. Am I right?”

  “Why the hell would you think that?” Steve said with irritation.

  “I know what girls are like. She led you on then, at the last minute, she changed her mind. But it was too late. A man can’t just stop, just like that, not a real man.”

  “Oh, wait, I get it,” Steve said. “The suspect agrees with you, imagining that he’s making it look better for himself; but in fact he’s admitted that intercourse took place, and half of your job is done.”

  Sergeant Delaware sat back, looking annoyed, and Steve figured he had guessed right.

  She stood up. “Okay, smart-ass, come with me.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “The cells.”

  “Wait a minute. When’s the lineup?”

  “As soon as w
e can reach the victim and bring her in here.”

  “You can’t hold me indefinitely without some court procedure.”

  “We can hold you for twenty-four hours without any procedure, so button your lip and let’s go.”

  She took him down in the elevator and through a door into a lobby that was painted a dull orange brown. A notice on the wall reminded officers to keep suspects handcuffed while searching them. The turnkey, a black policeman in his fifties, stood at a high counter. “Hey, Spike,” said Sergeant Delaware. “Got a smart-ass college boy for you.”

  The turnkey grinned. “If he’s so smart, how come he’s in here?”

  They both laughed. Steve made a mental note not to tell cops, in the future, when he had second-guessed them. It was a failing of his: he had antagonized his schoolteachers the same way. Nobody liked a wise guy.

  The cop called Spike was small and wiry, with gray hair and a little mustache. He had a perky air but there was a cold look in his eyes. He opened a steel door. “You coming through to the cells, Mish?” he said. “I got to ask you to check your weapon if so.”

  “No, I’m finished with him for now,” she said. “He’ll be in a lineup later.” She turned and left.

  “This way, boy,” the turnkey said to Steve.

  He went through the door.

  He was in the cell block. The walls and floor were the same muddy color. Steve thought the elevator had stopped at the second floor, but there were no windows, and he felt as if he were in a cavern deep underground and it would take him a long time to climb back to the surface.

  In a little anteroom was a desk and a camera on a stand. Spike took a form from a pigeonhole. Reading it upside down, Steve saw it was headed

  POLICE DEPARTMENT

  BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

  PRISONER ACTIVITY REPORT FORM 92/12