Twisted: The Collected Short Stories of Jeffery Deaver

by Jeffery Deaver

"Not really, no." He explained what he'd found.

  "Just a… You said it was blank?"

  "Oh, you bet it was."

  "And it wasn't addressed to anybody?"

  "Nope. That's the point. That's what makes it so bad."

  Silence. Then his friend said, "Tell you what, Den… I'm thinking maybe you shouldn't be alone right now. How 'bout you meet Doris and me for a drink?"

  "I don't want a goddamn drink. I want the truth!"

  "Okay, okay," Sid said fast. "But you're sounding a little freaked out, man. Let me come over, we'll watch the game or something. Or go up the road to Joey's."

  How could she do this to him? After everything he'd done for her! He'd put food in her mouth, a roof over her, he'd given her a Lexus. He satisfied her in bed. He struggled to keep his temper in check. And the one time he hit her… hell, he apologized right after and bought her the car to make up for it. He did all of this for her and she didn't appreciate it one bit.

  Lying whore…

  Where the hell was she? Where?

  "What'd you say, Den? I couldn't hear you. Listen, I'm on my way —"

  He looked at the phone then dropped it into the cradle.

  Sid lived only ten minutes away. Dennis had to leave now. He didn't want to see the man. He didn't want his friend to talk him out of what he had to do.

  Dennis stood up. He went to his dresser and took something that he'd hidden not long ago. A Smith & Wesson.38 revolver.

  He pulled on his down jacket — a birthday present from Mary last October, one that she'd probably bought on her way to a hotel to meet her lover — and dropped the gun into his pocket. Outside he climbed into his Bronco and sped down the driveway.

  * * *

  Dennis Linden was nobody's fool.

  He knew the location of all the watering holes between Mary's office and the house — places she'd be inclined to stop at with a lover. But he also knew where she'd be likely to go on the way home from the mall. (He regularly made stops at many of them just to see if he could catch her.) He hadn't snared her yet but tonight he felt that luck was on his side.

  And he was right.

  Mary's black Lexus was parked outside of the Hudson Inn.

  He skidded to a stop in the middle of the driveway and leapt out of the truck. A couple driving toward the exit had to swerve out of his way and they honked at him. He slammed his fist against their hood, shouting, "Go to hell!" They stared in terror. He pulled the gun from his pocket, walked up to the window and peered inside.

  Yes, there was his wife: blonde, trim, a heart-shaped face. And she was sitting next to her lover.

  The man must have been ten years younger than Mary. He wasn't handsome and he had a belly. How could she be seeing someone like him? How on earth? He didn't look rich either — he was wearing a cheap, unstylish suit. No, there was only one reason to see him… He must be good in bed.

  Dennis could taste the familiar metallic flavor of his rage.

  And then he realized that Mary was wearing the navy blue dress that he'd bought for her last Christmas! He'd purposely picked a high-necked one so she couldn't go flaunting her breasts at every man she passed. And he realized that she'd picked it today as a private joke — an insult to him. Dennis pictured this fat slob slowly undoing the buttons, slipping his pudgy fingers under the cloth while Mary whispered words that this fat asshole would hear every time he looked at the blank Christmas card.

  Dennis Linden wanted to scream.

  He spun away from the window and strode to the front door of the inn. He pushed it open and stepped inside, shoving a waiter out of the way. The man fell to the floor.

  The maitre d' saw the gun and gasped, backing away. Other patrons too.

  Mary glanced at him, still smiling from her conversation with fat boy, then her face went white. "Dennis, honey, what —?"

  "Am I doing here?" he raged sarcastically.

  "My God, a gun!" The boyfriend lifted his hands. He stumbled backward and his bar stool fell over.

  "I'm here, honey," he shouted to Mary, "to do what I should've done a long time ago."

  "Dennis, what're you talking about?"

  "Who's he?" the chubby man asked, his eyes huge with fear.

  "My husband," Mary whispered. "Dennis, please, put the gun down!"

  "What's your name?" Dennis shouted at the man.

  "I–It's Frank Chilton. I —"

  Chilton? Dennis remembered him. He was married to Patty, Mary's good friend from the church committee. She was betraying her friend too.

  Dennis lifted the gun.

  "No, please!" Frank pleaded. "Don't hurt us!"

  Mary stepped in front of her lover. "Dennis, Christ! Please put the gun away. Please!"

  He muttered, "You cheat on somebody, there's going to be payback. Oh, you bet there is."

  "Cheat? What do you mean?" The actress within Mary was looking innocent as a child.

  A scream from nearby, a woman's voice. "Frank! Mary!"

  Dennis glanced toward the bar and saw a young woman freeze as she stepped out of the rest room, a horrified look on her face. She ran to Frank and put her arm around him.

  What was going on?

  Dennis was confused. It was Patty.

  Eyes wide, breathless, Mary gasped, "Dennis, did you think I was seeing Frank?"

  He said nothing.

  "I ran into Patty at the mall," she explained. "I told you that. We decided to have a drink and she called Frank. I invited you too. But you didn't want to come. How could you think —?" She was crying. "How could you —"

  "Oh, nice try. I know what you've been up to. Maybe it's not him. But it is somebody." He aimed the gun at his wife. "Too many discrepancies, honey. Too many things don't quite add up, honey."

  "Oh, Dennis, I don't have a clue what you're talking about. I'm not seeing anyone. I love you! I was just out buying you a Christmas present tonight." She held up a shopping bag.

  "Did you get me a card too?"

  "A…"

  "Did you buy me a Christmas card?" he screamed.

  "Yes!" More tears. "Of course I did."

  "You buy cards for anyone else?"

  She looked completely confused. "Just the ones we're sending together. To our friends. To my family…"

  "What about the card you hid in the closet?"

  She blinked. "You mean, in my bathrobe?"

  "Yes! Who's that one for?"

  "It's for you! It's your card."

  "Then how come it was sealed up and blank?" he asked, smiling triumphantly.

  The tears had stopped and now anger blossomed in her face. It was an expression he'd seen only twice before. When he'd told her he wouldn't let her go back to work and then when he'd asked her not to take that business trip to San Francisco.

  "I didn't seal it up," she snapped. "It was snowing yesterday when I came out of the Hallmark store. The flap got wet and it stuck. I was going to work it open when I got a chance. I hid it so you wouldn't find it."

  He lowered the gun. Debating. Then he smiled coldly. "Oh, you're good. But you're not fooling me." He aimed the pistol at her chest and started to pull the trigger.

  "No, Dennis, please!" she cried, lifting her hands helplessly.

  "Hold it right there!" a man's voice barked.

  "Drop the weapon! Now!"

  Dennis spun around and found himself facing two New York State troopers, who were pointing their own guns at him.

  "No, you don't understand," he began, but as he spoke the Smith & Wesson strayed toward the cops.

  Both officers hesitated for a fraction of a second then fired their guns.

  * * *

  Dennis spent three weeks recuperating in the detention center hospital, during which time several psychiatrists gave him a thorough evaluation. They recommended a sanity hearing prior to trial.

  At the hearing, held on a cold, bright day in February, Dennis's long history of depression, uncontrolled temper and paranoid behavior came to light. Even the prosecut
or gave up on the idea of finding him fit to stand trial and conceded that he was incompetent. There was, however, some disagreement about the type of hospital to place him in. The DA wanted him committed indefinitely in a high-security facility while Dennis's lawyer urged that he go to an unsecured hospital for six months or so of observation.

  The gist of the defense argument was that no one had actually been endangered by Dennis because, it turned out, the firing pin of his gun had been removed and the weapon couldn't be fired. Dennis had known this, the lawyer explained, and had merely wanted to scare people.

  But no sooner had he made that point then Dennis leapt up and shouted that, no, he had thought the gun was working properly.

  "See, the firing pin is the key to the whole case!"

  His lawyer sighed and, when he couldn't get Dennis to shut up, sat down in disgust.

  "Can you swear me in as a witness?" Dennis asked the judge.

  "This isn't a trial, Mr. Linden."

  "But can I talk?"

  "All right, go ahead."

  "I've been thinking about it for a long time, Your Honor."

  "Have you, now?" the bored judge asked.

  "Yessir. And I've finally figured it out." Dennis went on to explain: Mary, he told the judge, had been having an affair with somebody, maybe not her boss, but somebody. And had arranged the business trip to San Francisco to meet him.

  "I know this 'cause I looked for the little things. My friend told me to look for the little things and I did."

  "The little things?" the judge inquired.

  "Yes!" Dennis said emphatically. "And that's just what I started doing. See, she wanted me to find evidence."

  He explained: Mary knew he'd try to kill her, which would get Dennis arrested or shot. "So she took the firing pin out of the gun. It was all a setup."

  "You have any proof of this, Mr. Linden?" the judge asked.

  Dennis sure did. He read from weather reports showing that it hadn't rained or snowed the day before the assault.

  "And why's that relevant?" the judge asked, glancing at Dennis's lawyer, who lifted his eyebrows hopelessly.

  His client laughed. "The wet flap, Your Honor."

  "How's that?"

  "She really did lick the flap of the envelope. It wasn't the snow at all, like she claimed."

  "Envelope?"

  "She sealed it to make me think she was going to give it to her lover. To push me over the edge. Then she hid it, knowing I was watching her."

  "Uh-huh, I see." The judge began reading files for the next case.

  Dennis then gave a long speech, rambling on about the significance of blank messages — about how what is unsaid can often be a lot worse than what's said. "A message like that, or a non-message, I should say, would definitely justify killing your wife and her lover. Don't you agree, Your Honor?"

  It was at that point that the judge had Dennis escorted out of the courtroom and ruled from the bench that he be indefinitely committed to the Westchester County Maximum Security Facility for the Criminally Insane.

  "You're not fooling anyone!" Dennis screamed to his tearful wife as she sat in the back of the courthouse. The two bailiffs muscled him through the door and his frantic shouts echoed through the courthouse for what seemed like an eternity.

  * * *

  It was eight months later that the orderly supervising the game room at the mental hospital happened to see in the local newspaper a short notice that Dennis's ex-wife was remarrying — an investment banker named Sid Farnsworth.

  The article mentioned that the couple were going to honeymoon in San Francisco, which was "my favorite city," Mary was quoted as saying. "Sid and I had our first real date here."

  The orderly thought about mentioning the story to Dennis but then decided it might upset him. Besides, the patient was, as usual, completely lost in one of his projects and wouldn't want to be disturbed. Dennis spent most of his time these days sitting at a crafts table, making greeting cards out of red construction paper. He'd give them to the orderly and ask him to mail them. The man never did, of course; patients weren't allowed to send mail from the facility. But the orderly couldn't have posted them anyway — the cards were always blank. Dennis never wrote any messages inside, and there was never a name or address on the front of the envelope.

  The Christmas Present

  "How long has she been missing?"

  Stout Lon Sellitto — his diet shot because of the holiday season — shrugged. "That's sort of the problem."

  "Go on."

  "It's sort of —"

  "You said that already," Lincoln Rhyme felt obliged to point out to the NYPD detective.

  "About four hours. Close to it."

  Rhyme didn't even bother to comment. An adult was not even considered missing until at least twenty-four hours had passed.

  "But there're circumstances, " Sellitto added. "You have to know who we're talking about."

  They were in an impromptu crime scene laboratory — the living room of Rhyme's Central Park West town house in Manhattan — but it had been impromptu for years and had more equipment and supplies than most small-town police departments.

  A tasteful evergreen garland had been draped around the windows, and tinsel hung from the scanning electron microscope. Benjamin Britten's Ceremony of Carols played brightly on the stereo. It was Christmas Eve.

  "Its just, she's a sweet kid. Carly is, I mean. And here her mother knows she's coming over but doesn't call her and tell her she's leaving or leave a note or anything. Which she always does.

  Her mom — Susan Thompsons her name — is totally buttoned up. Very weird for her just to vanish."

  "She's getting the girl a Christmas present," Rhyme said. "Didn't want to give away the surprise."

  "But her car's still in the garage." Sellitto nodded out the window at the fat confetti of snow that had been falling for several hours. "She's not going to be walking anywhere in this weather, Linc. And she's not at any of the neighbors'. Carly checked."

  Had Rhyme had the use of his body — other than his left ring finger, shoulders and head — he would have given Detective Sellitto an impatient gesture, perhaps a circling of the hand, or two palms skyward. As it was, he relied solely on words. "And how did this not-so-missing-person case all come about, Lon? I detect you've been playing Samaritan. You know what they say about good deeds, don't you? They never go unpunished… Not to mention, it seems to sort of be falling on my shoulders, now, doesn't it?"

  Sellitto helped himself to another homemade Christmas cookie. It was in the shape of Santa, but the icing face was grotesque. "These're pretty good. You want one?"

  "No," Rhyme grumbled. Then his eye strayed to a shelf. "But I'd be more inclined to listen agreeably to your sales pitch with a bit of Christmas cheer."

  "Of…? Oh. Sure." He walked across the lab, found the bottle of Macallan and poured a heathy dose into a tumbler. The detective inserted a straw and mounted the cup in the holder on Rhyme's chair.

  Rhyme sipped the liquor. Ah, heaven… His aide, Thom, and the criminalist's partner, Amelia Sachs, were out shopping; if they'd been here Rhyme's beverage might have been tasty but, given the hour, would undoubtedly have been nonalcoholic.

  "All right. Here's the story. Rachel's a friend of Susan and her daughter."

  So it was a friend-of-the-family good deed. Rachel was Sellitto's girlfriend. Rhyme said, "The daughter being Carly. See, I was listening, Lon. Go on."

  "Carly —"

  "Who's how old?"

  "Nineteen. Student at NYU. Business major. She's going with this guy from Garden City —"

  "Is any of this relevant, other than her age? Which I'm not even sure is relevant."

  "Tell me, Linc: You always in this good a mood during the holidays?"

  Another sip of the liquor. "Keep going."

  "Susan's divorced, works for a PR firm downtown. Lives in the burbs, Nassau County —"

  "Nassau? Nassau? Hmm, would they sort of be the right constabul
ary to handle the matter? You understand how that works, right? That course on jurisdiction at the Academy?"

  Sellitto had worked with Lincoln Rhyme for years and was quite talented at deflecting the criminalist's feistiness. He ignored the comment and continued. "She takes a couple days off to get the house ready for the holidays. Rachel tells me she and her daughter have a teenage thing — you know, going through a rough time, the two of them. But Susan's trying. She wants to make everything nice for the girl, throw a big party on Christmas Day. Anyway, Carry's living in an apartment in the Village near her school. Last night she tells her mom she'll come by this morning, drop off some things and then's going to her boyfriend's. Susan says good, they'll have coffee, yadda yadda… Only when Carly gets there, Susan's gone. And her —"

  "Car's still in the garage."

  "Exactly. So Carly waits for a while. Susan doesn't come back. She calls the local boys but they're not going to do anything for twenty-four hours, at least. So, Carly thinks of me — I'm the only cop she knows — and calls Rachel."

  "We can't do good deeds for everybody. Just because 'tis the season."

  "Let's give the kid a Christmas present, Linc. Ask a few questions, look around the house."

  Rhyme's expression was scowly but in fact he was intrigued. How he hated boredom… And, yes, he was often in a bad mood during the holidays — because there was invariably a lull in the stimulating cases that the NYPD or the FBI would hire him to consult on as a forensic scientist, or "criminalist" as the jargon termed it.

  "So… Carly's upset. You understand."

  Rhyme shrugged, one of the few gestures allowed to him after the accident at a crime scene some years ago had left him a quadriplegic. Rhyme moved his one working finger on the touch pad and maneuvered the chair to face Sellitto. "Her mother's probably home by now. But, if you really want, let's call the girl. I'll get a few facts, see what I think. What can it hurt?"

  "That's great, Linc. Hold on." The large detective walked to the door and opened it.

  What was this?

  In walked a teenage girl, looking around shyly.

  "Oh, Mr. Rhyme, hi. I'm Carly Thompson. Thanks so much for seeing me."

  "Ah, you've been waiting outside," Rhyme said and offered the detective an acerbic glance. "If my friend Lon here had shared that fact with me, I'd've invited you in for a cup of tea."