Mirror Image

by Michael Scott

  The girl was alive: but barely.

  She was lucky to be alive, too. Two broken legs, broken hip, shattered kneecaps—even if she survived, and that was somewhat in doubt at the moment—she’d never walk properly again. She also had a cracked skull, concussion, broken ribs, and because she’d been naked when the police car had hit her, she was badly skinned, a mass of cuts and bruises.

  What Margaret Haaren wanted to know was why she’d run screaming from the house. Why was she naked?

  A search of the house had revealed the shattered kitchen door, but nothing else. The guesthouse had been securely bolted and padlocked and a room to room search from attic to basement had disclosed no one, nor were there any indications that anyone had been in the house. The officers watching the house had seen no one enter or leave.

  And there was still no sign of Jonathan Frazer.

  Although she had nothing more than instinct to go on, Margaret Haaren knew Frazer had been in the house, knew that he had chased his daughter from the house, where she’d run blindly into the road and been hit by the police car.

  Where does a man who is basically a loner go? He’d no real friends to run to; he didn’t drink so he couldn’t take solace in a bottle, and to the best of their knowledge he was still in the country. He hadn’t used his passport, credit cards, or cell phone. She was guessing he was very close by. He had nowhere else to go.

  Margaret Haaren picked up Manny’s chart and quickly scanned it. Too many years of doing what she was doing now—standing at the end of a bed looking at a victim or a witness or a villain—had made her an expert at reading charts. “Did she say anything?” she asked, without looking up.

  Carole Morrow shook her head. “She was mumbling and moaning earlier, but nonsense words, something about a baby, that’s all I got.”

  The detective nodded. “Stay with her; if you’ve got to leave the room for any reason, make sure the officer outside steps in.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Do not leave her on her own for a single moment.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The detective replaced the chart and folded her arms across her broad chest, looking at the young woman.

  “Do you think he was responsible,” Morrow asked, looking at Manny Frazer again. They both knew she was talking about Jonathan Frazer.

  “Didn’t they teach you never to speculate without facts?” the detective asked, smiling to take the sting from her words.

  “They told me to use my imagination,” the young officer said simply. “I think she was running from her father.”

  Margaret Haaren nodded. “So do I,” she murmured. “But where is he now?”

  The two officers in the police car said they were responding to the sound of terrified screams. They were parked on the road just a few yards away from the driveway, so that they had a clear view of the house. They had driven up fast, lights on, but with sirens off. The screams became louder, more desperate as they neared the Frazer house. And then the naked young woman had run straight out in front of the car, and there was absolutely nothing they could do about it. She hadn’t even been looking where she was going, she seemed to be looking over her shoulder.

  She was being chased.

  “I’m going to the Frazer house,” she said to Morrow. “I’ll be there if anyone needs me.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” She coughed discreetly. “Can I ask why?”

  “Because we’ve missed something. And I’ve no idea what it is. But I’ll know it when I see it.”

  93

  TOMMY HINGE didn’t like the term “peeping Tom.” It certainly didn’t apply to him. He simply walked through the condominium complex where he lived and if he happened to see someone undressing in a window, well, he could hardly be blamed for looking, now could he? After all, he was only human.

  He’d lived in these apartments for three years now, a retired mailman—or at least that’s what he told people. His discharge from the post office had been anything but honorable. Misappropriation of mail and parcels was the charge and his attorney had suggested that he take the five year jail time knowing he wouldn’t serve the full term and he’d probably be out in eighteen months or so. It was a better alternative than the one hundred and fifty thousand dollar fine.

  Over the years—because he’d often used their services himself—he’d become expert at recognizing the plain cardboard boxes that came from the companies supplying adult toys and playthings. He knew all the innocuous sounding names by heart. He’d taken the first package out of sheer curiosity, and discovered it held a treasure trove of Swedish porn. And after that … well, he was hooked. He never thought anyone would complain: after all, who were they going to complain to—consumer affairs? Excuse me, but I didn’t get my blow-up doll … my vibrator’s gone missing in the mail … my Spanish fly seems to have flown. But that’s exactly what had happened. Someone had complained—someone who obviously felt no shame or embarrassment. Then someone else complained and since all the thefts had occurred within his postal district, it wasn’t difficult to find the culprit. The department’s fraud section had sent a few trial packages through the mail and of course he’d fallen for it and lifted them.

  And that was that. He’d nearly forty years of service and he lost everything, including his pension for about a hundred dollars worth of not-very-good porn and an impractically large dildo. Even his union wouldn’t support him—it was hard to defend a mailman stealing porn and adult sex toys. The meager social security check he got from the state ensured that he couldn’t treat himself to any of the glossy new publications or adult toys. Since the internet, porno mags rarely appeared on the second-hand shelves, so he’d had to find new ways to amuse himself.

  He’d discovered the pleasures of peeping by accident. He’d been taking out his trash, walking through the complex to the communal bins when he’d chanced to see a young woman in one of the corner apartments undressing. She’d forgotten to close her blinds fully, and he’d spent ten of the most pleasant and exciting minutes in his life simply watching her.

  After that it became a ritual, and then an obsession, taking him away from the complex he lived in, finding his arousal in other apartment complexes within the area. He’d even compiled a list and a carefully drawn out plan of the surrounding buildings; half a block down on the right, front apartment, busty blonde, last name: James. Second apartment block to the left, second floor rear apartment, slender Asian woman named Kim.

  And now his ambition was to see every single woman in the near vicinity naked or as near naked as possible. High on his list was the woman in the next-door complex, a front unit apartment on the first floor, Haaren was the name listed on the main entry door to the complex. A big woman, mature, masculine—just the type he preferred. And he’d just discovered that she’d got a young one staying with her at the moment. Dark-haired, skinny, but pretty: maybe he could add her to his collection. He wondered if they were lesbians—the thought sent a shiver down his spine.

  Tommy was hiding in the small walkway beside the apartment building for nearly an hour before he saw the light go on. From this position, he was able to see directly into the apartment, yet remain concealed by dark shadow from the towering building next door and the bushes. There was nothing visible yet, but there was some compensation in the fact that she hadn’t closed the blinds yet. He knew from experience that if the blinds weren’t closed the moment a person walked into the room, then the odds were greatly improved that they wouldn’t close them at all. It was surprising how many people didn’t. Why, just tonight, he’d watched the woman two buildings down from the Haaren woman, dressing to go out. He’d seen nothing he hadn’t seen before, but it was the thrill of watching that aroused him now.

  Footsteps sounded on the path and Tommy shrank back into the deeper shadows. He knew he was virtually invisible—he’d bought himself some black sweats and then peeled off all the decorations and reflective strips. If he was caught, he was just out for an evening jog.


  He watched as a figure moved swiftly by and was suddenly glad he couldn’t be seen. There was something about the man—the way he moved, the expression on his face, the smell—yes, certainly the smell, like old decayed meat, like blood. It frightened him.

  The figure stopped outside the main entry and consulted something in his hand, finally standing back and looking to either side at the two front units. And then he stepped backwards, standing, staring. The man abruptly grunted in satisfaction and walked briskly away.

  Tommy gave a sigh of relief. He turned his attention back to the Haaren woman’s apartment.

  * * *

  SO HOW MANY M. Haarens could there be in the Los Angeles Yellow Pages? And the very fact that it was an initial convinced him that it was the same woman.

  Frazer was surprised to find she lived in an apartment; he’d have thought she’d have a house. But then he supposed that an apartment was ideal for a single woman, living alone.

  He checked the address again, counting the apartments from left to right. Yes, there was a light on in the apartment he had assumed was hers.

  The large glass double doors in front of him were locked. To the right was a metal box with the tenants’ last names listed, a number beside each name, a metallic push button and a phone. He found Haaren on the second line down and pressed the bell. He heard a click and then crackling static. “Yes?”

  “I have a delivery for Detective Haaren from Flora International.”

  “Oh, thank you, come in. First floor, apartment number 2.” The door buzzed loudly.

  As he pushed through the door he touched the comforting pressure of the knife strapped to his arm.

  * * *

  AAAH, SHOWTIME.

  Tommy Hinge smiled broadly as the woman, wearing a towel around her head and another wrapped around her body moved toward the door. She stopped, her head turned sideways as if she were asking a question and listening to the answer.

  And then she was stepping back, opening the door …

  Jesus Christ.

  It was him. The man with the smell. He was moving into the apartment, a knife in his hand, pressing it against the woman’s throat, his face so distorted with hate it was barely recognizable as human.

  * * *

  THE KNIFE HAD been in his hand, and at the woman’s throat before he realized it wasn’t Margaret Haaren. It was a teenager, vaguely familiar, though he’d no conscious memory of ever having seen her before.

  “The Haaren bitch, where is she?” he snarled.

  The young woman looked at him wide-eyed, mouth open in shock.

  He pressed the knife against the slender column of her throat, the razor sharp edge parting the skin, blood from the cut snaking down to stain the towel wrapped around her breasts. “Answer me!”

  Her throat moved. “Working,” she whispered.

  Frazer swore. He slashed at the beaded curtain that separated the kitchen from the rest of the apartment, wooden beads and shells scattering across the floor.

  “When is she back?”

  “I don’t know. Later, maybe. Tomorrow, I’m not sure.”

  All the energy seemed to drain out of Frazer, the knife dropped away from the young woman’s throat and his head dipped.

  “You’re making a grave mistake. Margaret Haaren’s a cop.”

  “I know that,” he snarled. And then he suddenly looked up, his eyes bright, glittering. “I know you.”

  She started to shake her head.

  “I know you,” he repeated. “I saw you at the funeral.” He squeezed his eyes shut, remembering. He’d been talking to Margaret Haaren and this young woman had come up behind her, and called her “aunt” and Margaret Haaren had called her …

  “Helen,” he said, his eyes snapping open.

  “Yes,” she said, surprised he knew her name.

  Jonathan Frazer smiled, lips drawing back from his teeth in an animal snarl. He moved the knife up before her face, allowing the light to reflect into her eyes. “Tell me Helen,” he whispered, very softly, “are you a virgin?”

  “A what?” she whispered, horrified.

  “A virgin.”

  * * *

  TOMMY HINGE WINCED as he watched the man speaking intently to the young woman. The hatred in his face was palpable and terrifying. Tommy saw him snatch the towel from the girl’s head, exposing damp hair and then wrench the towel away from her body. The girl’s head and shoulders were shaking as if she were crying. The man was nodding now, as if satisfied, and then he pointed away with the knife and walked behind her, his left hand on her shoulder, the knife resting against her right shoulder close to her neck.

  The light in the bedroom snapped on.

  Tommy’s heart was pounding loudly. He was transfixed. He knew he should call the cops, but how would he explain his situation, what he was doing outside her apartment at this hour? But he couldn’t stand back and allow her to be raped and maybe murdered. He was many things—thief and voyeur, yes—but he wasn’t the sort of man to allow a girl to be abused and …

  The young woman reappeared. She was dressed now, pulling on a T-shirt over pale blue jeans. She lifted a denim jacket off the back of a chair. The light went off in the bedroom. The couple moved through the apartment, and now they were at the door, and while the man’s hand was still on her shoulder, the knife was no longer visible. The light went out.

  Tommy Hinge watched, desperately wondering what he was going to do. Then the main door opened and the pair stepped out into the night. They walked right past him, the man’s grip so tight on the young woman’s shoulder that he could see the whiteness of his knuckles. Tommy’s nose wrinkled at the abattoir stench off the man and the sour stink of the woman’s fear.

  He waited until they had walked down the road and then he stepped out after them, abruptly glad of his black sweats and his rubber-soled trainers.

  94

  SHE WAS trapped in a crystal, in a huge block of ice. Everywhere she looked there were reflections.

  But it was not her own reflection she was looking at.

  She raised her arms and a dozen figures—no, a hundred, a thousand—male and female, and obscene combinations of both, raised their arms in silent mimicry. She hammered on the surface of the glass and a thousand arms hammered in perfect syncopation.

  Now she was in a glass coffin, and it was growing smaller, constricting, shrinking, contracting. She began to scream, but there was a vacuum within the crystal cage, and there was no sound. She began to pound on the surface of the block of ice, ignoring the mimicking hands, ignoring the slack and gaping faces, beating, beating, beating against the glass, which suddenly …

  Cracked.

  It tumbled down around her in huge razor sharp shards, the glass cutting into her body, slicing into her flesh, hammering into her legs. Dear God the pain in her legs.

  Abruptly the pain vanished.

  And she could no longer feel her legs.

  Emmanuelle Frazer opened her mouth and screamed.

  * * *

  “WHAT HAPPENED?” MARGARET Haaren demanded, tucking the phone under her left ear, trapping it between cheek and shoulder as she locked her car, and hurried back into the hospital.

  “She came awake about ten minutes after you left,” Morrow said, trying to remain as calm as possible. She could still hear the woman’s terrified screams in her ears. She took a deep breath and continued. “She screamed for at least five minutes without a break. The heart machine was going crazy.”

  “Then what?” She ignored the elevator and raced down a corridor.

  “By then the doctors had injected her with a massive sedative. It should have knocked her out completely; it didn’t. She grew calm. She looked around and spotted me. I said, ‘Hello Miss Frazer, how do you feel?’”

  “And?” Haaren said through gritted teeth. Did she have to drag out every particular, word-by-word?

  “She closed her eyes first and when she opened them again, she started to cry. She said, very quietly. ‘He’s
got a knife. He was going to kill me. That’s not my father.’ She started crying then. She’s still crying.”

  “Right.” The detective had put her hand on the handle of the door when it suddenly opened and a tall blond-haired, blue-eyed doctor stepped out. He looked about eighteen.

  “I’m sorry, no visitors,” he said imperiously.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” the detective said, ignoring him.

  For a moment, it looked as if the doctor was going to protest, but the police officer on duty outside the door caught his arm and led him away. “I think we’ll leave Detective Haaren alone for a moment.”

  Manny Frazer had calmed down by the time Margaret Haaren stepped into the room. The young woman was still dreadfully confused, and she hadn’t got a clue how she had ended up back in the hospital. She looked up into the detective’s broad face and smiled in recognition.

  “How do you feel?” Margaret Haaren asked gently. She took the girl’s bandaged hand in hers, stroking it lightly with the fingers of her left hand. The girl was eighteen, the same age as her niece, she suddenly remembered, but right now, she looked a lot older than her years.

  Manny’s mouth worked, but no sound came out.

  “Can you tell me what happened? It’s important.” Haaren’s voice fell to a whisper. “Manny, we need to know.”

  “I’m hurt bad, aren’t I? Am I going to die?” Manny’s voice was cracked and raw.

  “The doctors say you’ll be fine,” the detective lied. “And no, you are not going to die. You were hit by a car when you ran out of your driveway. What made you run like that?”

  Manny’s large blue eyes, almost lost now behind the bruises, opened wide and her breathing began to quicken. The now silent heart monitor showed increased activity on its tiny square screen.

  “Gently, gently now,” the detective murmured. “You were being chased. Who was chasing you?”

  The bloodshot eyes opened wide. Her voice was a ragged whisper. “He’s got a knife. He was going to kill me. That’s not my father.”