Chill of Night

30

New York, the present

Beam settled into the soft gray leather chair in Cassie’s living room. Her apartment was furnished in restful, muted tones like her office. But while the office was in shades of brown, the apartment was blues and grays.

Cassie’s broad, sturdy figure appeared in the doorway from the kitchen. Not much was different about her shape and features from the time she was a child, one of those rare people who somehow mature without changing; you recognize them at sixty if you knew them when they were six. She was holding two martini glasses. She came over to the gray chair and handed one of the glasses to Beam.

“Gin,” she said. “Mine’s vodka.”

He smiled and raised his glass in a toast. The gesture was returned, and brother and sister took ceremonial sips of their drinks.

“I know you didn’t come to me for help,” she said.

“Not professional help.” Beam tried his martini again. His sister had a real talent for mixing these things. “Personal help. It’s been almost a year now since Lani died. How should I…I don’t know, how should I feel?”

He felt stupid even asking the question.

Cassie settled down on the pale blue sofa opposite Beam’s chair and regarded him. “You’re seeing another woman,” she said.

“Huh?”

“Don’t act surprised. Are you?”

“Surprised? Yes. I’m not exactly seeing another woman. Not in the way you mean.”

Cassie grinned. “Ah, you equivocate.”

“The woman hates my guts,” Beam said. “And is it too early for me to be interested? I mean, since Lani?”

“Lani’s dead, bro. It’s rough, and I’m sorry. But that’s the way it is. She’s gone.”

Beam took a sip of martini he didn’t need. “I knew I could count on you to be blunt.”

“Direct.”

“Yeah, sorry. I asked the question.”

“Different people see it different ways. There isn’t any kind of timetable as to how long you should wait.”

“I don’t care what people think, Cass. I care what I think. What you think.”

“Like I’m not people. Okay, I think you’ve waited long enough if your heart’s told you so. Feel better?”

“Yes.”

“Now we seem to be left with the problem of this woman hating you. What did you do to her?”

“Killed her husband,” Beam said.

Between calming sips of martini, he explained the situation with Harry Lima and his widow Nola.

When he was finished, Cassie stood up and drifted over to the window to look out at Riverside Drive. “You might be screwed up, but you also must be one of the most interesting brothers in this diverse world.”

“I need her to forgive me for what happened to Harry,” Beam said.

“Oh, you figured that out, did you?” Cassie didn’t turn around, continuing to gaze outside. “What do you want me to tell you, bro?”

“I guess I want you to say you understand, then tell me what I should do.”

Cassie turned around and swirled what was left of her martini in its shallow-stemmed glass. “The first part’s easy: I do understand. You were doing your job. Nobody does his job perfectly, not a job like yours, anyway. That’s because no one can see into the future.”

“You can, Cass.”

She shot him her gap-toothed grin. “Maybe a glimpse now and then. Usually more disquieting than useful.”

“You really do understand, then?”

“Yes, and I don’t see how anybody can blame you for Harry Lima’s death. This man chose his course, or at the least placed himself in a position where you had little choice but to steer him into possible harm’s way. But he’s the one who set sail in that sea. He could have been an honest jeweler. Of course, his widow might have difficulty being that objective.”

“You don’t know her.”

“Not for sure,” Cassie said, “but I think I know something about her.”

“What’s that?”

“She needs to forgive you.”

Beam smiled. He believed his sister; she had a way about her. It had made her a success in her field. He also believed her when she admitted to a glimpse now and then into the future. Some people had the gift, Beam was sure. His own hunches sometimes proved predictive, but he’d always seen them as the subconscious instantaneously rummaging through mental files, shuffling index cards and coming up with the right one. Maybe that was how it was with Cassandra. Whatever the reason, she’d had the gift since they were kids and she repeatedly beat him at cards. She’d somehow known when their father was going to die; then, fifteen years ago, their mother. She’d phoned him the night before.

Now for the big question about Nola.

“So what do I do now, Cass?”

She shrugged in back-lit, bulky silhouette against the wide window.

“Hell, that’s entirely up to you, bro.”

Nell and Looper sat in the unmarked on West Eighty-third Street and checked Nell’s list of families who’d lost someone to a killer-alleged killer-who had walked, either through a legal technicality or because the jurors behaved in a way incomprehensible to the public. Near the top of the list was the Dixon family.

Lloyd and Greta Dixon’s teenage daughter Genelle was raped and murdered in Central Park four years ago. The alleged killer, Bradley Aimes, who hung out with Genelle’s group of teenage friends, was from a wealthy family and had the advantage of high-priced legal counsel. They managed to quash the introduction of damning evidence. Though the jury wasn’t allowed to consider this evidence, they certainly knew about it from wide media coverage, yet nevertheless chose to turn in a controversial not guilty verdict.

“You do this one,” Looper said. “I’ll observe.”

That was the technique they used-one would be the interviewer, the other would simply interject something now and then, but was mainly there to observe the family. Sometimes faces revealed what words concealed.

Nell didn’t argue. Not only was it her turn to be the interviewer, but she remembered the case. Bradley Aimes had been a handsome, smug twenty-something sadist who’d seemed to know from the start that his family’s money and connections would enable him to walk away from a murder charge. He was right. The Dixon family was left to suffer the loss of their ravaged and murdered daughter. If one of them turned out to be the Justice Killer, Nell wondered if she’d have the professionalism to make an arrest.

The Dixons lived in a modest brick and brownstone building not in the best repair. Looper worked the intercom, identified himself and Nell, and they were buzzed up to a second floor apartment.

Mrs. Dixon, Greta, opened the door when they knocked. She was a medium-height, dark-haired woman who was attractive despite her worn down expression. Nell made the introductions, and after glancing at their shields, Greta let them in.

They were in a modestly furnished living room with a woven oval rug over hardwood flooring. A sofa that looked as if it had once been expensive and handsome now sagged in the middle. One wall was lined with a mix of books, paperback and hardcover, and some stacked magazines. Most of the books were novels. The top magazine was a Time.

Two matching green chairs were angled to the couch, and a TV was placed where it was visible to anyone seated in the room. On a far wall was a mahogany secretary that made everything else seem cheap and functional and looked as if it might be a family heirloom.

A thin, round-shouldered man wearing a white shirt with its sleeves rolled up, suspenders, and pleated slacks, came in from a doorway that led to a short hall and kitchen. The kind of guy who looked like he should be wearing sleeve garters and a green eye shade, and whose books never balanced. He was chewing. When he saw Nell and Looper, he quickly swallowed. There was a furtiveness about him, as if he’d been caught eating something forbidden.

“My husband Lloyd,” Greta said.

“We interrupted your dinner,” Nell said.

“Not at all,” said Greta. “We were just finishing.”

“You’re police?” the man asked. He wore rimless glasses and had a narrow, pointed chin. He and Greta were in their early fifties, Nell guessed.

“’Fraid so,” Looper said.

“We hate to disturb you,” Nell said, “but it’s part of our investigation.”

“Investigation?” Lloyd Dixon seemed unfamiliar with the word.

“About the Justice Killer,” said a voice from the doorway behind Lloyd.

A young woman entered the room. Nell was struck by her dark-haired beauty, so like her mother must have looked when younger. So like her newspaper photographs.

But Genelle Dixon is dead.

“You seem startled,” Greta said with a slight smile. “This is Gina, Genelle’s twin sister.”

“She might be the one you want to talk to,” Lloyd said. “Gina and Genelle were close.”

“Twins are,” Greta said. “Were.”

“You knew Bradley Aimes?” Nell asked Gina.

“He was a bastard. I’m sure he still is.”

“Why don’t we all sit down?” Greta asked. The family peacemaker.

Lloyd sat first, in a corner of the sagging sofa. Nell and Lloyd took the green chairs, which meant that Greta and Gina sat side by side next to Lloyd. Mother and daughter looked like an aged and younger version of the same woman. In the apartment upstairs someone began playing a piano. Not loud enough to be a bother, but it was clearly audible. Nell thought she recognized the tune from her childhood’s brief run of piano lessons; something by Beethoven, Fur Elise. It was often used as a piano exercise.

“Did you two ever meet Aimes?” Nell asked Greta and Lloyd.

“Never laid eyes on him,” Lloyd said.

Gina gave a slight smile like her mother’s. “Genelle was too smart to bring him around.”

“Why do you say that?” Nell asked.

“He was older than the rest of us. Twenty-six, as we learned during the trial. But he looked younger. We thought he might be nineteen.”

“Did he act nineteen?”

“He acted even younger. For us. Our crowd was fifteen and sixteen. He seemed like an older kid to us, but not that much older. I’m twenty-one now, and I realize how he was manipulating us.”

“Did he hang with you because he didn’t have friends his own age?”

“Exactly,” Gina said. “He was too mixed up and too big a prick.”

“Gina!” A cautioning word from her mother, who laid a hand on Gina’s knee as she spoke.

“I’m only telling the truth, Mom.”

“I know, dear.”

The piano player upstairs reached the end of the piece. Something, maybe a bench leg, scraped over wood.

“Brad was useful to us,” Gina said. “He bought us liquor, using what he said was fake ID. And a couple of times he got us weed or crack.”

“Gina!”

“It was all in the trial, Mom.”

“She’s right,” Nell said. “We read the transcript.”

“Then why are you here?” Gina asked. “Do you think one of my parents is the Justice Killer?”

Nell smiled. “They have alibis. So have you, by the way.”

Gina seemed taken aback. She hadn’t considered herself a suspect in anything, much less a series of murders.

“We do preliminary work before interviews,” Looper explained.

“The night your sister was killed,” Nell said, “you were at a pajama party. How come Genelle wasn’t there.”

“She and the girl who gave the party had an argument the day before and hadn’t made up. So instead of being at the party, she wound up in the park with that scum Bradley Aimes, and she wound up dead.”

“You have a way of driving to the truth,” Looper said. “You should be a cop.”

“Never. They should have shot Bradley Aimes when they had the chance. Then they shouldn’t have let him go free after he killed my sister.”

“We’re not going to argue those points,” Nell said.

“You’d lose if you did. Genelle is dead. Bradley Aimes is still partying with his rich friends.”

“Things have a way of leveling out,” Looper said.

Gina laughed without humor. “I don’t see much that’s level in the world.”

“What are you doing now?” Nell asked.

“You mean do I have a job? No, except for part-time work as a food server. I go to school at NYU. After…what happened, I went into a kind of bad period, then I got my GED and started my life again.”

“Have any of the three of you noticed anything unusual lately in your lives?” Nell asked. “Anything worth remarking on? Don’t hesitate or dismiss anything as too trivial. We never know what’s going to be important.”

All three seemed to think about it. Greta and Lloyd shook their heads no. Gina said, “The Justice Killer. I keep hoping he’ll broaden his range of victims and get around to Bradley Aimes.”

“I wouldn’t wish that, Gina,” Lloyd said wearily.

“I don’t see why not.”

“It wouldn’t bring Genelle back.”

“But we’d all be able to sleep better, wouldn’t we?”

Lloyd sighed. “Yes, we would.”

“Lloyd!” Greta said, in the same tone she’d used to admonish Gina. “Let’s leave retribution up to God. Agreed? Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Lloyd said. “I was only spouting off, getting rid of my anger. They-these detectives-brought it all back, the night we heard about Gina.”

“I’m sorry,” Nell said.

“We both are,” Looper told the Dixons. “Sometimes our job isn’t so pleasant.”

“Thank you,” Greta said. “We understand. Gina?”

“Yeah, sure, I understand.”

“Gina?”

Gina looked at her mother. “What? I said I understood.”

“About retribution being up to God,” Greta said. “I didn’t hear you agree.”

“I agree,” Gina said. But nothing in her expression suggested that she meant it.

The piano started up again. Same tune.

When the detectives were gone, Gina returned to her room, where she’d been playing Castle Strike on her computer, a game wherein a futuristic Delta Force patrol invades a medieval castle and slays various armored knights with high-tech weapons. Glittering pieces of polished steel and various body parts flew in all directions from fiery explosions. It was a colorful game.

After only about fifteen minutes, she left the computer and stretched out on the bed with her eyes closed.

The detectives’ visit had opened wounds never fully healed, and triggered more and darker thoughts of Bradley Aimes. He was one of the evil knights-no, every knight-she’d slain in the castle. As insensitive and self-involved as a vicious animal, Aimes wouldn’t be suffering as she and the rest of her family were right now. Probably he wouldn’t be thinking of Genelle at all, since he’d been exonerated of her murder. People like Aimes lived in castles impossible to haunt.

But he’d murdered Genelle.

Like all those people who’d responded to endless media polls, Gina was positive of his guilt. Aimes had murdered her twin. Her other self.

And hadn’t paid for it.

Gina had paid and was still paying, and what a dear price it was. And Gina still hated Bradley Aimes. Not only was he the reason Genelle was dead, he was the reason for all of Gina’s nightmares. Twins were not like other people. The pain of her sister’s death was still a powerful force in Gina’s life. What Aimes had done meant to Gina a grief that became part of a soul no longer whole, difficult sessions with an analyst, medication, and nights that presented horrible dreams of a dead Genelle who lingered like a specter in the daylight.

Gina knew a sad truth she’d heard from other unfortunate twins: when one twin dies, it’s almost as if the other also dies, only without stoppage of breathing or heartbeat. Gina was left alive in the conversational sense of the word, but part of her was missing, glimpsed in agonized memory only in shadows or unexpected reflections in mirrors or shop windows.

The part of her that remained craved vengeance the way an addict craved a drug.

Her need to avenge her twin’s death might have been the reason Gina read all the true crime literature she could find, and had followed the Justice Killer investigation so carefully in the news. She knew that a copycat killer was briefly suspected in the murder of one of JK’s victims. The concept of a copycat killer more and more fascinated her. She’d researched such killers thoroughly, who they were, why they killed. It was surprising, in widely publicized cases, how often they killed. Surprising to most people, anyway, but not to the police.

Might a copycat killer murder the killer of her twin? Her other self? Fair and just. Double double.

There was no reason a copycat killer had to be motivated only by the unreasonable compulsions Gina read about in the crime literature she so tirelessly consumed. It wasn’t as if there was a law. Injured ego, feelings of inferiority, and a powerful lust for attention didn’t have to be the reasons a copycat killed.

Vengeance would do just fine.

As in most crimes of daring, an alibi would be necessary. Gina thought about Eunie Royce, her coworker and friend at the Middle World Restaurant in Tribeca, where Gina waited tables part time. Gina had lied for Eunie more than once, so Eunie wouldn’t be caught cheating on her husband Ray. Gina had marked restaurant checks with Eunie’s initials so she could prove to Ray she’d been working as she claimed.

If Gina asked, Eunie would forge her initials on some tabs, establishing Gina’s presence at work at the time of…say, a murder. Eunie would never admit she’d done such a thing, mainly because she wouldn’t believe for a moment that Gina had stalked and killed someone, even if the someone was Bradley Aimes. Not until it was too late and she couldn’t admit to a lie without implicating herself.

If it ever came to that.

The Justice Killer was widening his qualifications for victims. Bradley Aimes would seem a logical choice. Especially if an exonerated guilty defendant like him were to be killed by the real Justice Killer.

Then a copycat killer would probably get away with claiming another JK victim. If the Justice Killer were killed rather than arrested, no one would ever know or even suspect. If the police arrested him and he stood trial, who would believe anything he said?

Gina opened her eyes and saw nothing but the swirling maelstrom of her own thoughts. Her own desires.

A copycat murdering the killer of a twin. Double double. Such an intriguing idea.

Mom and Dad would approve, though they surely wouldn’t say so.

They didn’t have to know. The secret would be forever held between Gina and Bradley Aimes, and Genelle.

Well, something to think about.

Gina scooted sideways on the bed, then stood up and returned to sit at her computer, where Castle Strike waited.

The battle was rejoined.

John Lutz

Chill of Night