the Third Twin (1996)

by Ken Follett

  “Washington, D.C.”

  “Give me your phone number, I’ll call you up.” Jeannie offered a ballpoint and Penny wrote her phone number on one of Jeannie’s file folders.

  “We’ll have lunch,” Penny said. “It’ll be fun.”

  “You bet.”

  Penny moved on.

  Lisa said: “She seemed bright.”

  “She’s very clever. I’m horrified. There’s nothing wrong with being a stewardess, but it’s kind of a waste of twenty-five years of education.”

  “Are you going to call her?”

  “Hell, no. She’s in denial. I’d just remind her of what she used to hope for. It would be agony.”

  “I guess. I feel sorry for her.”

  “So do I.”

  As soon as they landed, Jeannie went to a pay phone and called the Pinkers in Richmond, but their line was busy. “Damn,” she said querulously. She waited five minutes then tried again, but she got the same infuriating tone. “Charlotte must be calling her violent family to tell them all about our visit,” she said. “I’ll try later.”

  Lisa’s car was in the parking lot. They drove into the city and Lisa dropped Jeannie at her apartment. Before getting out of the car, Jeannie said: “Could I ask you a great big favor?”

  “Sure. I’m not saying I’ll do it, though.” Lisa grinned.

  “Start the DNA extraction tonight.”

  Her face fell. “Oh, Jeannie, we’ve been out all day. I have to shop for dinner—”

  “I know. And I have to visit the jail. Let’s meet at the lab later, say at nine o’clock?”

  “Okay.” Lisa smiled. “I’m kind of curious to know how the test turns out.”

  “If we start tonight, we could have a result by the day after tomorrow.”

  Lisa looked dubious. “Cutting a few corners, yes.”

  “Atta girl!” Jeannie got out of the car and Lisa drove away.

  Jeannie would have liked to get right into her car and drive to police headquarters, but she decided she should check on her father first, so she went into the house.

  He was watching Wheel of Fortune. “Hi, Jeannie, you’re home late,” he said.

  “I’ve been working, and I haven’t finished yet,” she said. “How was your day?”

  “A little dull, here on my own.”

  She felt sorry for him. He seemed to have no friends. However, he looked a lot better than he had last night. He was clean and shaved and rested. He had warmed up a pizza from her freezer for his lunch: the dirty dishes were on the kitchen counter. She was about to ask him who the hell he thought was going to put them in the dishwasher, but she bit back her words.

  She put down her briefcase and began to tidy up. He did not turn off the TV.

  “I’ve been to Richmond, Virginia,” she said.

  “That’s nice, honey. What’s for dinner?”

  No, she thought, this can’t go on. He’s not going to treat me like he treated Mom. “Why don’t you make something?” she said.

  That got his attention. He turned from the TV to look at her. “I can’t cook!”

  “Nor can I, Daddy.”

  He frowned, then smiled. “So we’ll eat out!”

  The expression on his face was hauntingly familiar. Jeannie flashed back twenty years. She and Patty were wearing matching flared denim jeans. She saw Daddy with dark hair and sideburns, saying: “Let’s go to the carnival! Shall we get cotton candy? Jump in the ear!” He had been the most wonderful man in the world. Then her memory jumped ten years. She was in black jeans and Doc Marten boots, and Daddy’s hair was shorter and graying, and he said: “I’ll drive you up to Boston with your stuff, I’ll get a van, it’ll give us a chance to spend time together, we’ll eat fast food on the road, it’ll be such fun! Be ready at ten!” She had waited all day, but he never showed up, and the next day she took a Greyhound.

  Now, seeing the same old let’s-have-fun light in his eyes, she wished with all her heart that she could be nine years old again and believe every word he said. But she was grown-up now, so she said: “How much money do you have?”

  He looked sullen. “I don’t have any, I told you.”

  “Me either. So we can’t eat out.” She opened the refrigerator. She had an iceberg lettuce, some fresh corn on the cob, a lemon, a pack of lamb chops, one tomato, and a half-empty box of Uncle Ben’s rice. She took them all out and put them on the counter. “I tell you what,” she said. “We’ll have fresh corn with melted butter as an appetizer, followed by lamb chops with lemon zest accompanied by salad and rice, and ice cream for dessert.”

  “Well, that’s just great!”

  “You get it started while I’m out.”

  He stood up and looked at the food she had put out.

  She picked up her briefcase. “I’ll be back soon after ten.”

  “I don’t know how to cook this stuff!” He picked up a corncob.

  From the shelf over the refrigerator she took The Reader’s Digest All-the-Year-Round Cookbook. She handed it to him. “Look it up,” she said. She kissed his cheek and went out.

  As she got into her car and headed downtown she hoped she had not been too cruel. He was from an older generation; the rules had been different in his day. Still, she could not be his housekeeper even if she had wanted to: she had to hold down her job. By giving him a place to lay his head at night she was already doing more for him than he had done for her most of her life. All the same she wished she had left him on a happier note. He was inadequate, but he was the only father she had.

  She put her car in a parking garage and walked through the red-light district to police headquarters. There was a swanky lobby with marble benches and a mural depicting scenes from Baltimore history. She told the receptionist she was here to see Steven Logan, who was in custody. She expected to have to argue about it, but after a few minutes’ wait a young woman in uniform took her inside and up in the elevator.

  She was shown into a room the size of a closet. It was featureless except for a small window set into the wall at face level and a sound panel beneath it. The window looked into another similar booth. There was no way to pass anything from one room to the other without making a hole in the wall.

  She stared through the window. After another five minutes Steven was brought in. As he entered the booth she saw that he was handcuffed and his feet were chained together, as if he were dangerous. He came to the glass and peered through. When he recognized her, he smiled broadly. “This is a pleasant surprise!” he said. “In fact, it’s the only nice thing that’s happened to me all day.”

  Despite his cheerful manner he looked terrible: strained and tired. “How are you?” she said.

  “A little rough. They’ve put me in a cell with a murderer who has a crack hangover. I’m afraid to go to sleep.”

  Her heart went out to him. She reminded herself that he was supposed to be the man who raped Lisa. But she could not believe it. “How long do you think you’ll be here?”

  “I have a bail review before a judge tomorrow. Failing that, I may be locked up until the DNA test result comes through. Apparently that takes three days.”

  The mention of DNA reminded her of her purpose. “I saw your twin today.”

  “And?”

  “There’s no doubt. He’s your double.”

  “Maybe he raped Lisa Hoxton.”

  Jeannie shook her head. “If he had escaped from jail over the weekend, yes. But he’s still locked up.”

  “Do you think he might have escaped then returned? To establish an alibi?”

  “Too fanciful. If Dennis got out of jail, nothing would induce him to go back.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Steven said gloomily.

  “I have a couple of questions to ask you.”

  “Shoot.”

  “First I need to double-check your birthday.”

  “August twenty-fifth.”

  That was what Jeannie had written down. Maybe she had Dennis’s date wrong. “And do you
happen to know where you were born?”

  “Yes. Dad was stationed at Fort Lee, Virginia, at the time, and I was born in the army hospital there.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Certain. Mom wrote about it in her book Having a Baby.” He narrowed his eyes in a look that was becoming familiar to her. It meant he was figuring out her thinking. “Where was Dennis born?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “But we share a birthday.”

  “Unfortunately, he gives his birthday as September seventh. But it might be a mistake. I’m going to double-check. I’ll call his mother as soon as I get to my office. Have you spoken to your parents yet?”

  “No.”

  “Would you like me to call them?”

  “No! Please. I don’t want them to know until I can tell them I’ve been cleared.”

  She frowned. “From everything you’ve told me about them, they seem the kind of people who would be supportive.”

  “They would. But I don’t want to put them through the agony.”

  “Sure it would be painful for them. But they might prefer to know, so they can help you.”

  “No. Please don’t call them.”

  Jeannie shrugged. There was something he was not telling her. But it was his decision.

  “Jeannie … what’s he like?”

  “Dennis? Superficially, he’s like you.”

  “Does he have long hair, short hair, a mustache, dirty fingernails, acne, a limp—”

  “His hair is short just like yours, he has no facial hair, his hands are clean, and his skin is clear. It could have been you.”

  “Jeeze.” Steven looked deeply uncomfortable.

  “The big difference is his behavior. He doesn’t know how to relate to the rest of the human race.”

  “It’s very strange.”

  “I don’t find it so. In fact, it confirms my theory. You were both what I call wild children. I stole the phrase from a French film. I use it for the type of child who is fearless, uncontrollable, hyperactive. Such children are very difficult to socialize. Charlotte Pinker and her husband failed with Dennis. Your parents succeeded with you.”

  This did not reassure him. “But underneath, Dennis and I are the same.”

  “You were both born wild.”

  “But I have a thin veneer of civilization.”

  She could see he was profoundly troubled. “Why does it bother you so much?”

  “I want to think of myself as a human being, not a housetrained gorilla.”

  She laughed, despite his solemn expression. “Gorillas have to be socialized too. So do all animals that live in groups. That’s where crime comes from.”

  He looked interested. “From living in groups?”

  “Sure. A crime is a breach of an important social rule. Solitary animals don’t have rules. A bear will trash another bear’s cave, steal its food, and kill its young. Wolves don’t do those things; if they did, they couldn’t live in packs. Wolves are monogamous, they take care of one another’s young, and they respect each other’s personal space. If an individual breaks the rules they punish him; if he persists, they either expel him from the pack or kill him.”

  “What about breaking unimportant social rules?”

  “Like farting in an elevator? We call it bad manners. The only punishment is the disapproval of others. Amazing how effective that is.”

  “Why are you so interested in people who break the rules?”

  She thought of her father. She did not know whether she had his criminal genes or not. It might have helped Steve to know that she, too, was troubled by her genetic inheritance. But she had lied about Daddy for so long that she could not easily bring herself to talk about him now. “It’s a big problem,” she said evasively. “Everyone’s interested in crime.”

  The door opened behind her and the young woman police officer looked in. “Time’s up, Dr. Ferrami.”

  “Okay,” she said over her shoulder. “Steve, did you know that Lisa Hoxton is my best friend in Baltimore?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “We work together; she’s a technician.”

  “What’s she like?”

  “She’s not the kind of person who would make a wild accusation.”

  He nodded.

  “All the same, I want you to know that I don’t believe you did it.”

  For a moment she thought he was going to cry. “Thank you,” he said gruffly. “I can’t tell you how much it means to me.”

  “Call me when you get out.” She told him her home number. “Can you remember that?”

  “No problem.”

  Jeannie was reluctant to leave. She gave him what she hoped was an encouraging smile. “Good luck.”

  “Thanks, I need it in here.”

  She turned away and left.

  The policewoman walked her to the lobby. Night was falling as she returned to the parking garage. She got onto the Jones Falls Expressway and flicked on the headlights of the old Mercedes. Heading north, she drove too fast, eager to get to the university. She always drove too fast. She was a skillful but somewhat reckless driver, she knew. But she did not have the patience to go at fifty-five.

  Lisa’s white Honda Accord was already parked outside Nut House. Jeannie eased her car alongside it and went inside. Lisa was just turning on the lights in the lab. The cool box containing Dennis Pinker’s blood sample stood on the bench.

  Jeannie’s office was right across the corridor. She unlocked her door by passing her plastic card through the card reader and went in. Sitting at her desk, she called the Pinker house in Richmond. “At last!” she said when she heard the ringing tone.

  Charlotte answered. “How is my son?” she said.

  “He’s in good health,” Jeannie replied. He hardly seemed like a psychopath, she thought, until he pulled a knife on me and stole my panties. She tried to think of something positive to say. “He was very cooperative.”

  “He always had beautiful manners,” Charlotte said in the southern drawl she used for her most outrageous utterances.

  “Mrs. Pinker, may I double-check his birthday with you?”

  “He was born on the seventh of September.” Like it should be a national holiday.

  It was not the answer Jeannie had been hoping for. “And what hospital was he born in?”

  “We were at Fort Bragg, in North Carolina, at the time.”

  Jeannie suppressed a disappointed curse.

  “The Major was training conscripts for Vietnam,” Charlotte said proudly. “The Army Medical Command has a big hospital at Bragg. That’s where Dennis came into the world.”

  Jeannie could not think of anything more to say. The mystery was as deep as ever. “Mrs. Pinker, I want to thank you again for your kind cooperation.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  She returned to the lab and said to Lisa: “Apparently, Steven and Dennis were born thirteen days apart and in different states. I just don’t understand it.”

  Lisa opened a fresh box of test tubes. “Well, there’s one incontrovertible test. If they have the same DNA, they’re identical twins, no matter what anyone says about their birth.” She took out two of the little glass tubes. They were a couple of inches long. Each had a lid at the top and a conical bottom. She opened a pack of labels, wrote “Dennis Pinker” on one and “Steven Logan” on the other, then labeled the tubes and placed them in a rack.

  She broke the seal on Dennis’s blood and put a single drop in one test tube. Then she took a vial of Steven’s blood out of the refrigerator and did the same.

  Using a precision-calibrated pipette—a pipe with a bulb at one end—she added a tiny measured quantity of chloroform to each test tube. Then she picked up a fresh pipette and added a similarly exact amount of phenol.

  She closed both test tubes and put them in the Whirlimixer to agitate them for a few seconds. The chloroform would dissolve the fats and the phenol would disrupt the proteins, but the long coiled molecules of deoxyribonucl
eic acid would remain intact.

  Lisa put the tubes back in the rack. “That’s all we can do for the next few hours,” she said.

  The water-dissolved phenol would slowly separate from the chloroform. A meniscus would form in the tube at the boundary. The DNA would be in the watery part, which could be drawn off with a pipette for the next stage of the test. But that would have to wait for the morning.

  A phone rang somewhere. Jeannie frowned; it sounded as if it were coming from her office. She stepped across the corridor and picked it up. “Yes?”

  “Is this Dr. Ferrami?”

  Jeannie hated people who called and demanded to know your name without introducing themselves. It was like knocking on someone’s front door and saying: “Who the hell are you?” She bit back a sarcastic response and said: “I’m Jeannie Ferrami. Who is this calling, please?”

  “Naomi Ereelander, New York Times.” She sounded like a heavy smoker in her fifties. “I have some questions for you.”

  “At this time of night?”

  “I work all hours. It seems you do too.”

  “Why are you calling me?”

  “I’m researching an article about scientific ethics.”

  “Oh.” Jeannie thought immediately about Steve not knowing he might be adopted. It was an ethical problem, though not an insoluble one—but surely the Times did not know about it? “What’s your interest?”

  “I believe you scan medical databases looking for suitable subjects to study.”

  “Oh, okay.” Jeannie relaxed. She had nothing to worry about on this score. “Well, I’ve devised a search engine that scans computer data and finds matching pairs. My purpose is to find identical twins. It can be used on any kind of database.”

  “But you’ve gained access to medical records in order to use this program.”

  “It’s important to define what you mean by access. I’ve been careful not to trespass on anyone’s privacy. I never see anyone’s medical details. The program doesn’t print the records.”

  “What does it print?”

  “The names of the two individuals, and their addresses and phone numbers.”

  “But it prints the names in pairs.” “Of course, that’s the point.”

  “So if you used it on, say, a database of electroencephalograms, it would tell you that John Doe’s brain waves are the same as Jim Fitz’s.”