Aphrodite

by Russell Andrews

  In his own life, Justin knew what was real and what wasn’t.

  His wife and daughter were dead and it was his fault.

  He was alive. And wishing he wasn’t.

  That’s what was real.

  Everything else was fake.

  4

  “What were you doing up on the roof?” Jimmy Leggett asked. He was not comfortable with the conversation. It wasn’t going well. He didn’t want to believe what he was hearing because, if it was all true, he didn’t know what the hell he was supposed to do about it.

  “I told you, I was meditating. I go up there a lot late at night. When I can’t sleep. It’s quiet. Peaceful. At least it usually is.”

  “And you just leave your daughter in your apartment?”

  “I leave her bedroom window open. It’s right below me. I can hear if anything happens. And if she wakes up and I’m not in my bed, she knows I’m up there. It’s not like I’m off partying. I’m only a few feet away.”

  “Why couldn’t you sleep that night?”

  She shrugged, starting to look annoyed. “You want to hear about all my problems? I’m single, I’m a mom, I don’t make enough money, what’s going on in the world scares the shit out of me. ….”

  “Did you hear anything?” “Before I went up there? No.”

  Chief Leggett took a deep breath. He looked at Justin. The chief didn’t say anything but Westwood knew him pretty well. So he stepped in.

  “Tell us exactly what you saw up on the roof …uh …Deena.” It took him a second, but she’d finally told him her name last night, when he’d walked her back to her apartment. Deena Harper. He’d watched her look in on her sleeping daughter, then he’d said good night and told her he’d see her at eight.

  “I told you already.”

  “One more time. Sometimes when you repeat things, you remember new facts, little details.”

  “I was up there for about half an hour. It was a little hazy. I was very relaxed, almost in a meditative state. I heard something. I don’t think I opened my eyes at first. Sometimes your imagination kind of takes over when you’re meditating and you hear things. You know, like if you’re thinking about a river, you can hear the water.”

  “The roof,” Justin said. “What did you hear on the roof?”

  “I guess it was the door opening. The door that opens onto the roof from the attic of the house. It’s usually locked. We weren’t supposed to use it to go up there. Some kind of fire hazard or something.”

  “We?”

  “Me and Susanna. The landlord told us both to stay off the roof.”

  “But you went up anyway?” That was Chief Leggett interrupting.

  Deena rolled her eyes and nodded. “Yes, I’m sorry. I’ll do my time and try to make my reentry into society a productive one.”

  “Okay, so you heard the door open,” Justin said.

  “There was this blond guy there. Really handsome. I described him. Blond hair, pale skin …”

  “Pale like no suntan?”

  “Yeah. Hardly any tan at all.”

  “You didn’t tell me that before.” “I didn’t? Huh. Well, he was really pale. Hair was medium, casual but done. Robert Redford kind of hair. Maybe six feet tall. Not thin, not fat. I couldn’t tell what kind of body he had—he was wearing a suit.”

  “A fancy suit?”

  “Not a pinstripe, if that’s what you mean. Khaki. He had a T-shirt underneath. But not a crummy T-shirt, not Fruit of the Loom. A designer T-shirt.”

  “You have good eyes. It was hard for me to see up there.”

  “I’d been there for a while. My eyes were used to the dark.”

  “Okay, good point. What kind of shoes was he wearing?”

  “Shoes?” She thought for a minute, scrunched up her face. “I don’t know. I don’t think I saw them. They must have been some kind of sneaker, though. Something soft. He didn’t make any real noise when he moved.”

  “Good. Then what happened?”

  “Then I heard this …I don’t know what … commotion. I could hear something going on. A window opening or closing. Then I saw Susanna. She pulled herself up onto the roof and she was frantic. Breathing hard. She started to run, then she saw the blond guy. She stopped short when she saw him. She looked like she’d just seen a ghost.”

  “She was surprised to see him?”

  “Shocked, I’d say.”

  “And then?”

  “He moved really slowly. At least it seemed to be slow, but it couldn’t have been. Susanna tried to dodge him, run around him—I guess trying to get to the fire escape over on the other roof—but he caught her really easily. He said something to her; I remember that he said something, kept asking her questions.”

  “You didn’t tell me that, either,” Westwood said. “What did he say to her?”

  “I can’t remember exactly. He was quiet, talking really soft. He kept asking her something and she didn’t seem to know the answer. He wanted to know what ‘amfer’ was. Or ‘afro’—I couldn’t really tell, something like that. Then he said something like ‘Give me …’ He said, ‘Give me’ something. …” She shook her head in frustration. She had dark blond hair that had been permed and it slithered like it was alive. She was not trying to be sexy when she shook her head, but Justin noted that she simply couldn’t help it.

  “It’s okay,” he told her. “Relax. Think about something else. You want some more coffee?”

  She shook her head, her curls jumping around again. One of them snaked over her forehead, covering her left eye, and she brushed it away with her hand.

  “Did he want money?” Justin asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Something she had on her? Drugs?”

  “No!”

  “Information? A phone number, an address …”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “Did she give it to him?”

  “I don’t know. I think so. He hurt her. He snapped something here”—she pointed to her neck—“and he twisted her arm. I thought he broke it.”

  “Did you hear what she told him?”

  “She was crying. Sobbing, quietly, like it hurt too much to really cry. I couldn’t make out what she told him. It didn’t make sense to me—I’m sure I heard it wrong. It sounded like ‘walrus’ or something. Walrus and something else. But it’s what he wanted to hear. Because once she told him, he got real calm.” Deena shuddered, her shoulders hunching up toward her chin. “Then he just leaned over and broke her neck.”

  “What happened after that?”

  “I didn’t move a muscle. I was terrified he’d see me. I could have made it over to the other roof; I mean, I was a lot closer, but I don’t know if my legs would have worked. But he never even looked my way. He picked Susanna up, like she weighed nothing—this guy was strong—and he carried her down the fire escape.”

  “Did he come back up to the roof?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “So he must have gone into her apartment, through the window.”

  “I guess so.”

  Justin looked at Leggett, spoke to him now. “While he was in there, he arranged the bed and the sheets so it would look like she fell. He smashed a glass, knocked over the table so it would look even better.”

  “Jesus.” That was Deena. She wiped her eyes, which had started to tear.

  “Did you see him leave?” Justin asked her now.

  “No. I was too afraid to move.”

  “So you didn’t see the car he drove away in?”

  She nodded. “I did. When I heard it start up, that’s when I went to the edge of the roof, the back edge. I guess I felt safer. Thought I should try to see something, you know, like the witnesses on Law & Order or something. So I saw it pull away. But I don’t know cars. I don’t know what it was.”

  “Do you remember anything about it?”

  She thought, closing her eyes as if that would help her picture it. Then she frowned and shook her head. “Not much. It was kin
d of boxy. Not sleek or anything. Not a sports car.”

  “Color?”

  “Dark. Not red. Black maybe. Or dark green or blue.”

  Justin exhaled a long breath. “Deena, you’ve been incredibly helpful. I’m sorry you had to go through it, but maybe it’ll help us find whoever killed Susanna.”

  “Can I go now?”

  Leggett looked at Justin, who nodded and said, “You can go.” As she stood up, he said, “Where’s your daughter?”

  “At the yoga center. She hangs out there. I’ve got another teacher who watches her.” Deena smiled now, for the first time since Justin had seen her on the roof the night before. “Her name’s Kendall. She’s going into second grade in another couple of months. In September.”

  “Do you want someone to drive you home?” Justin asked.

  “I can walk. It’s just a few blocks.”

  “Do you want someone to walk you home?”

  She smiled again and nodded. Chief Leggett opened the door to his office and called out, “Brian, I want you to walk Ms. Harper home.”

  Brian sauntered over and stood in the doorway.

  Justin saw Deena Harper look over at the young cop, then back over at him. She smiled at him one more time and walked over to her escort. Justin wondered if he was reading too much into her expression. He also wondered at the feeling of pleasure it gave him.

  When she realized that Brian would be the one walking her home, Justin was certain she looked disappointed.

  5

  After Deena Harper left the police station, Westwood and Leggett huddled behind closed doors for almost half an hour. The first thing the chief asked was, “Do you believe her?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “I don’t know. Why’d she wait so long to say anything?”

  “She was terrified, Jimmy, that’s why.”

  “Pretty weird, being up on that roof and all.”

  Westwood chewed on the inside of his lower lip. “That girl wasn’t lying.”

  “What about the roof thing? Maybe she’s the killer.”

  The briefest of smiles crossed Westwood’s face. “She’s about thirty pounds too light to be a viable suspect. If that girl killed Susanna Morgan up close, which is how Susanna was killed, there would have to have been a struggle. She’d be scratched, a couple of nails would be broken, there’d be some physical sign.”

  “How do you know there isn’t?”

  “Because when I saw her up on the roof she was wearing a T-shirt and shorts, no shoes. Not a scratch on her. And I made sure to take both her hands in mine when we were climbing down the fire escape. Nothing there either.”

  Jimmy Leggett bent his head forward and shook it. His back was stooped, as if the weight of what was happening had already aged him. “Jesus, you actually checked her hands? I never woulda thought of that.” He kept quiet for a few moments, fidgeting, his fingers tapping nervously. “Should we do an autopsy?” he finally asked. “You know, on this Susanna Morgan?”

  Justin tilted his head as if to say Good question, but then he shrugged and said, “Too late. Unless we want to dig her body up.”

  “She’s buried already?”

  “Yesterday morning. Turns out she was Jewish. They bury quickly.” Leggett puffed out his cheek with his tongue and looked embarrassed about something. Finally, he said, lowering his voice, “I’ve never been involved in a murder investigation. To be perfectly honest, I don’t have a fucking clue where to even begin.”

  “I know.”

  “What about you?”

  “I know where to begin.”

  “That’s not my question,” Leggett said.

  “I know that, too.”

  “Maybe we should call in the Southampton boys.”

  “Good idea,” Westwood said. “I’m sure they have a crack homicide department.”

  “Goddammit, Jay! I’ve been covering your ass for six years! You haven’t had to do anything harder than run down some high-school shitheads making obscene phone calls. Now, what, you wanna play macho cop again, all of a sudden?”

  “I don’t want to play anything, Jimmy.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  “You ever have a homicide in East End?” Westwood asked.

  “Not since I been here. We had one vehicular manslaughter.”

  “I know how to get started. I know what questions to ask. So let me ask them. Hopefully, it won’t be that complicated. Most homicides aren’t. There’ll be a boyfriend or someone she fired or a crazy ex-husband. I can handle that.”

  “And if it is complicated?”

  When Westwood didn’t answer, Leggett said, “If it is? Can you handle that?”

  “I don’t have a fucking clue.” Westwood let loose with a quick laugh. It didn’t have a hell of a lot of humor to it. “If you want a guess, however, I’d say the answer is no, I can’t.”

  Leggett didn’t say anything for a while. Then: “Is there anything anyone else can do?”

  Westwood snorted. “Like who? Gary and What’s-his-name?”

  “It’s Brian, for chrissake.”

  “No, Jimmy. There’s nothing Gary or Brian can do.”

  “We have other people.”

  “We have three other people. And they make Gary look like Serpico.”

  “They’re gonna ask questions, you know. They’re gonna want to know why you’re all of a sudden turning into Supercop.”

  “Let ’em ask.”

  “What do I tell them?”

  “The same thing you tell anybody who ever asks about a homicide investigation: not a damn thing.”

  The first thing he did after leaving the chief’s office was go to the computer on his desk in the station. He opened up a file, labeled it susanna morgan, and began typing in information. His brain was working logically and objectively. It all felt surprisingly natural.

  He typed:

  Roof—Blond guy—pale skin.

  Well dressed. Casual.

  Victim (Susanna) shocked to see man on roof.

  He wanted info—she gave it to him. Name of person? Place? Thing? Code?

  Info wanted: “Afro” or “Amfer”????

  “Walrus”????

  Broken glass, staged accident. He’s clever. But not as clever as he thinks.

  Dark-color car. Probably stolen or rented.

  He saved his notes on a disk, stuck the disk in his desk drawer, told Gary to check and see if there were any reports of a dark, non–sports car stolen over the previous two days within forty miles of town. When Gary looked blankly at him, Justin said, “You’re a cop. Use some cop stuff to figure it out.”

  And the next thing he knew, he was headed over to the East End Journal office because that was the logical starting point. You could start with family, boyfriend, or office. Susanna’s family was back in Ohio, which was where the body had been shipped for burial. She didn’t seem to have a current boyfriend. The office was four blocks from the police station. It was an easy call.

  The atmosphere in the Journal office was solemn and subdued. Not surprising, Westwood decided, since everyone who worked there was in mourning.

  “What was she working on?” Harlan Corning repeated Westwood’s question. He leaned back in his chair doing, Justin thought, his best Perry White impersonation. “She was in the middle of a lot of things, as always.”

  “Can you be a little more specific?”

  “I just don’t see the relevance, that’s all. I don’t think Susanna was killed—if she was really killed—because she panned Steven Spielberg’s new movie.”

  “Is that the last thing she wrote?”

  “Is Spielberg a suspect now?” When Westwood didn’t answer, the newspaper editor just said, “No. The last thing she wrote was an obituary. A horrible coincidence, isn’t it.”

  “What was the obit?”

  “One of the local old-timers passed away. Bill Miller, used to be an actor. Susanna was quite attached to him. She did volunteer work at the Home.”


  “The old-age home on the bay?”

  “Yup. The old boy died on Tuesday or Wednesday and she did the obit.”

  “Anything special about it?”

  “Yeah. She screwed up.” Westwood raised an eyebrow and the editor said, “She was too close to Miller and it turns out he was a gasbag. He exaggerated about his career and she printed it as if it were the gospel. It happens. We ain’t the New York Times, you know what I mean? But we got a crazy phone call from some guy, a movie nut, who caught the mistakes. Demanded a retraction. I sent Susie back to do some fact checking. That’s what she was doing, I think, when she got sick the other day.”

  “Sick?”

  “Yeah. She went out to lunch, didn’t come back. She called in sick. That was the day she …you know …”

  “Do you know where she called from?”

  “No. It wasn’t her apartment, though. Probably somewhere in town. I could hear street noise. Cars. She must’ve been on her cell phone.”

  “How crazy was the phone call, Mr. Corning? The one about the mistakes in the obit.”

  “From the movie nut? You don’t think—”

  “I can’t imagine killing someone because she got her facts wrong in an obituary. But I’d like to talk to him anyway, if you have his number.”

  “I gave it to Sue, but I’ve still got it somewhere. That was her punishment—she had to call the guy when she found out what was what.”

  “Did she?”

  “I don’t know if she found out, and I don’t know if she called him. I never got the opportunity to ask her,” he said sadly.

  Harlan Corning rooted around in his desk, shuffled through a stack of yellow Post-its. While he was looking, Justin said, “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t put anything in the paper about this.”

  The editor looked up, surprised. “About what?”

  “The fact that we think Ms. Morgan’s death might not have been an accident.”