“The defense calls Mr. Mark Austin,” Rankin announced.
“Here we go,” I muttered. I went up to the front of the courtroom, and the bailiff swore me in. Then I sat down in the witness chair.
“You are Mr. Mark Austin, is that correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And how long have you known Miss Renata Greenleaf?”
“Since she was born. Our families were very close.”
“And how old were you when the Greenleaf twins were born?”
“I was seven when they came along. My folks and I spent quite a bit of our free time with the Greenleaf family, and I became a sort of surrogate big brother to the twins. They used to amuse themselves by switching personalities.”
“Would you clarify that for us, Mr. Austin?”
“When people use the term ‘identical twins,’ they usually mean ‘pretty close’—one twin may be a quarter of an inch taller than the other, or have slightly larger ears. Those minor variations make it possible to tell them apart. Regina and Renata were so identical that not even their mother could say with any certainty which was which. She tried to use different-colored hair ribbons to tell them apart, but as soon as her back was turned, the twins would swap ribbons—just for fun. Their parents—and mine—thought that their little game was funny, but I thought it was silly. Not that they cared what I thought—as far as they were concerned, I was just Mr. Fix-it. When they broke anything, they expected me to put it back together.”
“And did you find that offensive, Mr. Austin?”
“No. They were the baby sisters, and I was the big brother. Fixing things was part of my job, I guess.”
“And what happened in the spring of 1995, Mr. Austin?”
“The twins had grown up to be moderately gorgeous, and the boys at their high school became very interested in them. Nobody could ever pry them apart, though, so they managed to avoid the usual improprieties. In the spring of ’95, the twins were seniors in high school, and their class had a kegger party on a beach near Mukilteo. By midnight, things were getting rowdy, so the twins got into their car to drive back to Everett. They took the usual shortcut through Forest Park, but they had a flat tire near the petting zoo. At least, that’s where they found the car later. The next morning, the park employees found the two girls. One of them had been raped and murdered, and the other one was babbling incoherently. Nobody was ever able to prove which twin was which—we still don’t know for certain.”
“And what happened to the surviving twin?” Rankin pressed.
“She was completely out of it, so her parents put her in Dr. Fallon’s private sanitarium at Lake Stevens.”
“Let’s go back a bit, Mr. Austin,” Rankin said. “Where were you living and how were you occupied at that time?”
“I was in the graduate school at the University of Washington, but I was still living at home with my parents, commuting to school. Then in August of that same year, my parents were killed in an automobile accident, so I dropped out of school for the fall quarter.”
“Then you were living in Everett when Miss Greenleaf came to her senses?”
“I was there when she started speaking English again, if that’s what you mean.” I looked over at Renata, who was still whispering to herself. “That was in November of ’95. Up until then, she’d been talking to herself in ‘twin,’ the same as she’s doing now. When she finally came out of it, she didn’t know who she was. Dr. Fallon covered all that yesterday.”
“She remembered you, though, didn’t she, Mr. Austin?”
“Yes, and nobody could be sure why. This is just a hunch, but I think she recognized me because she still thought of me as ‘Mr. Fix-it.’ She knew she needed help, and I got elected. Whatever the reason, Dr. Fallon latched on to it—and me—and I spent a lot of time with Renata after that. When I got off work I’d go spend the evenings with her. That went on all through 1996, and she wasn’t officially released until the late spring of ’97. That’s when the notion of attending the University of Washington showed up. Fallon didn’t think she was quite ready for the stress, but Renata seemed excited about it. Of course none of us knew that she’d committed Fergusson’s license plate number to memory. It was a King County plate, and that means Seattle to just about everybody in western Washington. I couldn’t prove this, but it’s my guess that Renata jumped on the idea of moving in with her aunt so that she could get closer to Regina’s killer. Fergusson was her main target right from the beginning.”
“Objection, Your Honor,” Fielding protested. “That’s pure speculation.”
“Overruled.” Judge Compson replied. “This is a sanity hearing, Mr. Fielding, not a trial. We can relax a few rules if it’ll help us get to the truth. Go on, Mr. Austin.”
“Yes, Your Honor,” I replied. “I moved into the boardinghouse last fall, so I was close enough to keep a close eye on Renata. Our goal was to ease her back into the world of normies, and since I was teaching a section of freshman English, I suggested that she should audit my class. That’d minimize stress, put a familiar face in front of her, and let me watch her for any peculiar behavior. Since she was only auditing, all she had to do was sit there and listen, but she wrote papers when my assignments caught her interest. She could write circles around just about anybody who came along. If I’d had my head on straight, I’d have known that something was seriously wrong with her when I read her first paper—the one James described. After the boardinghouse gang heard that one, they really wanted to meet her. She came to dinner and charmed everybody’s socks off. That’s what eventually led to Sylvia’s case history and all those tapes.”
“Approximately when was it that you introduced Miss Greenleaf to your friends, Mr. Austin?” Rankin asked.
I looked over at Trish. “About the end of September, wasn’t it?” I asked her.
She nodded.
“Please don’t do that, Mr. Austin,” Judge Compson scolded me.
“Sorry, Your Honor. I just wanted to be sure I had it straight, is all. Anyway, it was after the second Seattle Slasher killing. The killings were cropping up every couple of weeks, and whenever some guy got cut to pieces, Renata would have one of those ‘bad days’ Mary mentioned this morning. None of us at the boardinghouse made the connection because the whole town was convinced that the Slasher was a guy. It wasn’t until after Christmas that the police realized that the Slasher was female. That’s when a lot of things clicked into place for me. I started watching Mary’s house after she left for work, and sure enough, Renata went out on the town fairly often. She’d finally asked Mary about that license plate she’d engraved in her memory since the night when Regina’d been murdered.” I hesitated. “This is all theory, isn’t it?” I asked Judge Compson. “I couldn’t prove any of this.”
“I realize that, Mr. Austin,” she said. “Please continue.”
“I’m just guessing, but I think Renata had finally decided to zero in on Fergusson himself—at least her other personality did. If I correctly understand what ‘fugue’ means, the daytime Renata didn’t have the faintest idea of what the nighttime Renata was doing. To cut it short, I followed her several times, but she kept giving me the slip. It wasn’t until the night when she killed Fergusson that I finally found out that she’d bought herself a car—using Regina’s name—sometime in the middle of October. She usually parked the car on a side street a few blocks from Mary’s place. She’d ride her bike to the car, hide the bike, and then drive to Fergusson’s place on Green Lake Way. She wore one of those black plastic raincoats and not a whole lot under it. She was using herself as bait, and on the night of the tenth of February, Fergusson took the hook. I was right there when he followed her into that strip park along the shore of Green Lake. I’d hoped to stop her before she started to carve him up, but it was so foggy that I lost sight of her.” I paused to catch my breath and pull my thoughts together. I noticed that I had everybody’s undivided attention.
“Anyway,” I went on, “I wasn’t able to
catch up to her, so she killed Fergusson, then waded out into the lake to wash off the blood. I wasn’t far behind, and I stopped briefly to take a look at Fergusson. He was obviously dead, but his face seemed to be frozen into a look of absolute terror. I obviously couldn’t prove this, but at the time I got the strong impression that when he saw Renata’s face, he believed that his attacker was a girl he’d raped and murdered in the spring of ’95. That terror of his was the thing that made the twins’ revenge complete. Fergusson knew exactly why he was being butchered.
“Anyway, that’s when the cops showed up, and there were a lot of flashlights sweeping around in the fog. Renata saw them, so she kept on swimming until she got to Woodland Park. It was below freezing that night, so she left a trail through the frost on the grass. I picked up that trail and followed her. She went through the park and directly to Saint Benedict’s Church. She may have had some idea that the church was a sort of sanctuary. Father O’Donnell says it doesn’t work that way, but Renata’s head wasn’t really working anymore. She went inside the church and hid in one of the side chapels.”
I realized that I was going to have to be very careful here, so I paused to take a deep breath.
“Father O’Donnell and I were near the altar,” I continued, “and we could hear her whispering to herself. I think she was talking with Regina, and both sides of the conversation were coming out of her mouth. I’m positive that the alternate persona Dr. Fallon mentioned is Regina, and now she’s right there in front of Renata—except that Renata’s the only one who can see and hear her. The fugue is over now because Regina’s finally tracked down the guy who killed her, and she’s taken her revenge—and he knew who she was and why she was doing it. Now that he’s dead, the twins are back together again—even closer than before, really, since the two of them are both inside Renata’s body. Everyone else in the world is blocked out, but that doesn’t matter. Their conversation will probably go on for as long as Renata’s still alive. That’s about all there is, Your Honor—except that if Regina hadn’t got to him first, I might have taken a shot at Fergusson myself.”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that, Mr. Austin,” Judge Compson said disapprovingly. “Do you have any other witnesses, Mr. Rankin?”
“No, Your Honor. I think I’ll close my case right there. Mr. Austin’s covered just about everything.”
“Your witness, Mr. Fielding,” Judge Compson said.
Fielding was staring at Renata, and he looked almost as if he was ready to break down and cry—either out of sympathy or because he knew for certain that he’d just lost the case. “No questions, Your Honor,” he said in a barely audible voice.
“I’ll need copies of Miss Greenleaf’s freshman English papers and Miss Cardinale’s case history—along with those tapes.”
“They’ll be in your hands by five o’clock, Your Honor,” Rankin promised.
“There’s another tape you might want to hear, Your Honor,” I suggested. “Renata used to listen to it for hours on end, and that moaning sound Officer Murray and the other policemen heard on the night when Mr. Fergusson was killed was pretty much an imitation of that tape. It involves a woman singing with a pack of wolves.”
“I believe I would like to hear that tape. Thank you for mentioning it, Mr. Austin. Oh, you may step down, by the way.”
I nodded and returned to my regular seat.
Judge Compson looked troubled. “I’d like to remind everyone here that this matter is still strictly confidential. If anyone here starts talking about what has transpired here, I’ll find him in contempt of court. I’ll advise counsel when I reach my decision. Court’s adjourned.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
I felt drained as we followed Mr. Rankin out of the courtroom. I tried not to rehash my testimony in my mind. I knew that would lead to endless “wouldas, couldas, and shouldas” that wouldn’t accomplish much of anything—except to make me feel even worse than I already did.
“Excellent job, Mark,” Rankin told me. “You definitely gave Judge Compson a lot to consider.”
“I hope so,” I said. “Do you think Renata’s papers and Sylvia’s tapes will be enough to persuade the judge that we weren’t trying to pull off some elaborate scam? People don’t like it when some rich kid gets off easy because the parents can buy off whole bunches of witnesses.”
“I don’t believe Judge Compson’s very interested in public opinion, Mark,” Rankin said. “She bases her judgments on the facts, not on the evening news.”
“At least we cut the ground out from under Burpee,” Mary said with a certain satisfaction.
“We did that, all right,” Charlie said with a wicked smirk. “There were a couple of times there when I thought he was going to strangle Fielding. Every time Fielding said ‘no questions,’ Burpee’s blood pressure seemed to ratchet up a little higher.”
“That was something I didn’t understand,” Sylvia said then. “After Dr. Fallon’s testimony, Fielding seemed to lie down and play dead.”
“The young fellow appears to have a conscience,” Rankin replied. “I think Miss Greenleaf’s behavior in the courtroom persuaded him that he was on the wrong side in this case. He shows promise. My partners and I might just poach him from the district attorney when this is over.”
“What do you say we get out of here?” I said then. “This place is starting to give me the whim-whams.”
“I already have copies of Miss Greenleaf’s papers and Sylvia’s tapes,” Rankin told us. “I will need that tape you mentioned to the judge, though, Mark.”
“I’ve got copies back at the boardinghouse,” I told him. “When we get home, I’ll grab one and bring it to you.”
“Good,” he said. “Let’s not keep the judge waiting.”
Word had evidently leaked out that the sanity hearing was over, and the front yard of the boardinghouse was swarming with reporters and TV cameras again. I’m not sure what they thought they were going to get out of us—the gag order was still in force, so we weren’t allowed to say anything even if we’d wanted to.
We got out of the station wagon, and James bulked up his shoulders again as he led the way toward the front porch. The rest of us said interesting things to the reporters in assorted languages they didn’t understand. Then one shrill female reporter, apparently acting on the assumption that her gender gave her certain privileges, grabbed Erika by the arm, demanding answers.
That was a real mistake. Erika had her key ring in her hand, and there was that cute little attachment in among the keys. The pushy reporter fell back, choking and trying to cover her face as Erika gave her a heavy dose of pepper spray at close range. Trish might have used logic; and Sylvia would probably have fallen back on emotion; but Erika relied on chemistry.
The rest of us followed her example and did a quick draw with our key rings.
The reporters got the message almost immediately, and they backed off.
When we reached the porch, Erika took it one step further. She smiled sweetly at nervous reporters. “This has been absolutely lovely,” she told them, “and we’ll have to do it again one of these days—real soon.”
I went upstairs and grabbed a copy of Renata’s favorite tape. Then James, Charlie, and I went back to the station wagon to ferry it downtown to Mr. Rankin’s office.
The reporters had all left, for some reason.
At about five o’clock that evening, one of the TV channels ran footage of Erika’s performance—but they only ran it one time. Evidently some producer woke up to the fact the pepper spray response to questions might gain some popularity if it showed up on the tube too often.
The incident out front had brightened our day a bit, but at the supper table things got gloomy again. “I’m almost certain that Judge Compson will rule in our favor,” Trish told us. “Mr. Rankin presented a very good case, and Renata’s behavior in the courtroom demonstrated that she wasn’t even aware of what was happening. I’m positive that the prosecution will try to hold out for incarc
eration in an institution for the criminally insane, but it’d make more sense if the judge just returned Renata to Dr. Fallon’s sanitarium. It’s not a great solution, but it’s probably the best we can hope for.”
“Maybe not, Trish,” I disagreed. I looked around at the rest of the gang. “This doesn’t go any further, right?” I said.
“What are you up to now, Mark?” Sylvia demanded.
“It’s not me, babe,” I said. “Father O’Donnell’s got an alternative, and he’s already put it in motion. His bishop owes him a favor, and Father O called it in. He says there’s an obscure order of cloistered nuns who are dedicated to caring for older sisters who’ve slid over the line into senility—or Alzheimer’s, or whatever else you want to call it. They’ll also accept rich, usually elderly Catholic ladies with the same problem. The nuns are gentle, and they spend a lot of time tending to their charges—and their cloister’s somewhere out in the boonies here in western Washington. Father O’s convinced that it’s the best possible solution.”
“It would be better than Dr. Fallon’s place,” Sylvia agreed.
“ ‘Get thee to a nunnery’?” Charlie asked.
“It beats hell out of the alternatives,” I said. “Anyway, Father O’s bishop pulls a lot of weight with some higher-ups in city government, and he’s got them slipping around making suggestions. I’m pretty sure that word of this has reached Judge Compson by now.”
“What’s the name of the order?” Sylvia asked me.
“Father O would rather that I didn’t mention it,” I told her.
By the end of the week, it was fairly clear that Judge Compson was taking her time. The delay was making me very edgy—I really wanted to put an end to this.
“Calm down, Mark,” Trish told me at the supper table on Friday. “Judge Compson has to get all her ducks in a row on this one. If she rules that Renata’s mentally incompetent to stand trial, the district attorney could very well appeal that ruling. She’s never had one of her rulings overturned, and she’s probably digging precedents out of every law book she can get her hands on and consulting with whole platoons of psychiatrists to make sure that Renata won’t suddenly ‘recover’ after a year or so. There were a number of cases several years back where the defendant put on a good show and got off with a brief stay in a mental institution and then walked away after a ‘miraculous’ recovery. That’s what clouded up the insanity defense. A lot of people were getting away with murder, and the appeals courts go over insanity rulings with a fine-toothed comb to make sure that the presiding judge hasn’t been hoodwinked.”
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