Aphrodite w-3

by Russell Andrews

  "For chrissake what, Detective Westwood?"

  "The girl was murdered," Justin said. "That's got to mean something."

  "It does. It means that it's being handled in exactly the manner I've just described to you. We have other priorities. Have I made myself clear?"

  "Yes."

  "Yes what?"

  "Yes sir."

  Agent Rollins let his face relax. His eyes revealed no emotion other than pleasure in the fact that he'd just won. "Day after tomorrow, I want you here at eight a.m. sharp. We'll have your assignment for the Maura Greer case." Justin didn't respond, just stood silently until Agent Rollins said, "You're dismissed."

  Justin nodded, turned on his heel, strode past Brian and Gary without looking at either of them, marched out the front door of the station, went straight to Duffy's, told Donnie the bartender to bring him a double scotch. He proceeded to stay there for four hours. He didn't leave until he was positive he was drunk enough that for the rest of the night, until whenever he woke up the next day, he couldn't possibly speak or think or feel or, most important of all, dream.

  13

  When Justin woke up, he wasn't sure exactly where he was. He thought he might have passed out in Duffy's and was coming to on the floor by the bar. It seemed a realistic enough possibility that one of his first hung-over reactions was to get angry at Donnie for not getting him home and letting him spend the night sleeping on a bed of hardwood in puddles of spilled beer and whiskey.

  When his brain cleared a bit more, Justin realized that he was not sprawled on a barroom floor. He was in his own home. But not on his bed. He hadn't made it that far. He hadn't even made it to the couch. He'd managed to get into his living room, take a few steps, and collapse on the coffee table.

  He took a deep, wheezy breath, kept his eyes open for several seconds, trying to clear the haze behind them, and forced himself to stand up. The move wasn't one of his major successes. He felt himself bob and weave and sway. But he stayed up. He took one step toward his bedroom, had to stop when he was overcome by the urge to puke his guts out. It was while he was standing there, trying to keep his balance and whatever was in his stomach in there, that he heard it. At first he couldn't place the noise. It sounded like birds squawking. Then he realized it was the buzz of a crowd. Human voices, talking. It seemed disconnected from his environment, but he began to understand that the noise was close by. He managed to take several steps over to his living room window, looked outside onto his small front lawn, and saw that the crowd was standing in front of his house. There were several vans, all with television-station logos on their sides. One had a satellite perched on top of it. A row of cars was parked on each side of the street. Twenty or thirty people stood peering in at him. Several of them had cameras. When Justin's face appeared in the window, the cameras started clicking and the crowd began to vibrate.

  Justin jerked away from the window, making his head feel as if it were going to topple off of his neck. He took several more deep breaths, a foul odor emerging from his mouth, the taste of whiskey and bile forging up his throat. He tried to piece together what was going on. Something to do with the discovery of Maura Greer's body, that much was clear. But why the hell were the jackals pursing him? He looked at the clock that rested atop the living room mantel. One o'clock. Jesus. He'd slept half the day away.

  Before anything, he knew he had to clear his head. So he went into the bathroom, popped four aspirin, brushed his teeth, turned the shower on as hot as he could stand it, and stepped in. As the water streamed down, he slowly turned the knob until it was ice cold. He was awake. Toweling off, Justin went into the kitchen, grabbed a large bottle of water out of the fridge, and drank half of it in one gulp. He went back to the living room, turned on the television, surfed the channels until he came to CNN. Maura Greer was the story. And it was a big one. The media had already sunk their sharklike teeth into it and they weren't going to let go until it had been torn into tiny little pieces. He pressed the Mute button on the remote control. Sat there trying to absorb what was happening. When he looked up, what he saw on the TV screen surprised him so deeply that he dropped the remote. It was Brian Meves, his fellow East End cop. Brian's mouth was still stitched and swollen, his face still puffed out from the beating Justin had given him. But he was being interviewed by some blond woman. She had a microphone shoved up to his battered lips. Justin found the remote, fumbled with the buttons, finally got the sound back on, heard the end of the interview, heard Brian saying, "We didn't know anything about his background. He's not much of a talker. It's all been a big shock, on top of, you know, what happened to Maura. Let's face it, the guy basically had a nervous breakdown, so that's not exactly who you want in charge of a murder investigation. His recent assault on me shows that he's not exactly stable. So yeah, I can verify the fact that he's off that case-"

  What? Off what case? What the hell was the idiot talking about?

  Justin clicked off the TV, ran to the front door, opened it a crack, just wide enough to pull in the newspapers off the front mat. The second the door opened, he heard questions being hurled at him from the curb. The words didn't make any sense to him, it was just one loud roar. He slammed the door shut, backed over to his couch as if he were facing down a pride of lions in the jungle.

  He sat and read the front page of the New York Times. The entire right-hand side of the page was devoted to the discovery of Maura Greer's body. He read through to the break, didn't find any crucial details he hadn't learned the day before, other than the fact that the weekend Frank Manwaring, the secretary of Health and Human Services, had been in the Hamptons he had several hours that could not be accounted for. It led to even more suspicion that he was involved in the murder and disposal of the body. Justin turned to page eighteen to finish reading the story. But he didn't get to continue with it. On the center of that page was his photograph. And above it was a headline: tragic hero in the middle of two murders. He read what they had to say about him. The journalist had more than done his homework. He'd talked to cops up in Providence. He rehashed Justin's history up there. He told the story of the deaths of Justin's wife and daughter. Justin stopped reading halfway through. His eyes ran back up to the headline. Two murders?

  He skipped ahead until he read it.

  Jesus Fucking Christ.

  The reporter had gotten to Brian. The idiot cop had spilled his guts. He told everything he knew about Justin. Talked about his personality. His violent temper that had erupted when he'd attacked his fellow cop. And Brian said that Justin Westwood had been working on another murder case, the murder of a local journalist named Susanna Morgan. Justin pictured him smiling as best he could through his injuries as he bragged that he was now in charge of the investigation and revealed that there had been a witness to that murder, a woman who had been interviewed by the East End Harbor police and who had seen everything that had happened. She was their best lead, Brian Meves said.

  Justin dove for the telephone, grabbed the receiver, and dialed the police station. Gary answered the phone, sounding tense and nervous.

  "Where's Brian?" Justin said. "Put him on the phone."

  "Westwood? I mean…Justin…uh…"

  "Get your fucking friend and put him on the phone!" Justin screamed.

  "He…he hasn't come in yet."

  "When did he do the TV interviews?"

  "What? I…"

  "Gary, for chrissake, I just saw him on TV-when did he tape that?"

  "Last night. They talked to both of us. Around ten, I guess. I watched it last night around eleven."

  "It aired last night?"

  "Yeah. They must be showing it again."

  "Did he talk about Susanna Morgan?"

  "I…I don't know."

  "Did he say she was murdered? Did the moron say that last night on TV?"

  "Yes. Yeah, I guess he did."

  "Where the hell is he?"

  "I…"

  "Where is he?"

  "I don't know. He was supp
osed to be here at nine. He hasn't shown up yet. We've been calling him but there's no answer. We figured-"

  "Where does he live?" When Gary didn't answer, Justin screamed into the phone: "Give me his goddamn address!"

  Gary rattled it off. It wasn't far from Justin's house, maybe a couple of miles. Off in one of the newer developments in East End, the kind that was destroying whatever pretense the area still had of being rustic and charming.

  "What's going on?" Gary asked. "It's been insane here. The media-"

  "Go over to Brian's now," Justin said. "If he's still alive, get him the hell out of there. If he's not, just wait for me."

  "If he's still alive? What the hell are you talking about?"

  But Justin didn't wait to hear any more. He slammed down the phone receiver, pulled on a T-shirt and jeans, and laced up a pair of sneakers. He looked at the folder he'd taken from his desk at the station, grabbed it. Then he saw what else he'd taken from the station and he picked that up, too. His gun. A.357 Magnum.

  He fished in his pocket for his car keys and ran out the door. More questions were shouted at him but he didn't even hesitate. Justin ran straight for his beat-up Civic and turned over the engine. One of the journalists' cars was partially blocking the driveway. Too damn bad. Justin backed up at full speed, ramming it out of the way. As the rest of the reporters scrambled like mad to get to their cars, Justin put the pedal to the metal. His tires screeched, the back of the car fishtailed, and then he was on his way. Three blocks away, when he had a little daylight between him and the jackals, he swerved the Civic into a dirt driveway. It led to a house he knew was at least two hundred yards farther up the path. He drove another fifty feet, out of view of the road and the house, slammed on his brakes, and turned off the engine. He forced himself to wait five full minutes, until he was satisfied that the reporters on his tail had to be scattered all over the place. Then he pulled out of the driveway, his wheels spinning, the car fishtailing again as he made a left, and drove into town.

  He was almost certain that the asshole was already dead. Justin wouldn't miss Brian or mourn him. He knew enough about death to know that it didn't change what you were when you were alive. The guy was a jerk. Now he was a dead jerk. Justin wasn't a romantic when it came to death. Nor was he a hypocrite.

  He was also not a praying man. Nor did he much believe in happy endings. So as he sped back toward Deena Harper's apartment on Main Street, he didn't pray and he didn't expect to find that things were all right. The best he could do was hope against hope that he wasn't too late and that, if he was right about Brian, he could be wrong about Deena and her little girl, and maybe, just maybe, they were still alive. After turning the doorknob to no avail, knocking as hard as he could and yelling out her name, Justin lowered his shoulder and charged the door. It splintered open and his force carried him through into Deena's living room. He called out her name and then her daughter's, ran from room to room, but the apartment was empty. No Deena. No Kendall. But also no sign of violence, so maybe there really was a chance. Just maybe…

  Justin heard a noise behind him and he didn't think, just reacted, whirled, reaching for his gun. He felt a sinking sensation in his stomach, knew he was dead if they wanted him dead, looked up, trembling, surprised to find he wasn't afraid, was almost relieved. But it wasn't anyone who wanted him dead. It was Deena, who was staring at him like he was a lunatic, shifting her gaze disbelievingly back and forth between him and the shattered front door.

  "What the hell are you doing?" she said.

  He didn't give her a chance to say anything else. "Where's the kid?"

  "Kendall? Why? What…?"

  "Where is she?"

  "At a friend's house. What's going on?"

  "What friend? Someone you know?"

  "Of course it's someone I know. She was at school and her friend's mother picked her up. I have a class to teach, then I'll go get her. Now what is going on and what are you doing breaking into my apartment?"

  "Do you have any idea what's happened today?"

  "No. What do you mean?"

  "Have you seen the paper?"

  "No. Not yet. I was practicing with my teacher all morning. He was out in Montauk and-"

  "You've got two minutes to pack some clothes. Just take enough for a few days."

  "What are you talking about? I can't just pack up and leave!"

  "Two minutes. Then we'll get Kendall. You've got to get out of here."

  "What is going on?" she demanded. "I'm not doing anything until you tell me what the hell you're talking about!"

  "What I'm talking about," Justin said slowly, "is that whoever killed Susanna knows what you saw and knows who you are. My guess is they've already killed one person to get that information and I guarantee you they're on their way here right now, if they haven't been here already, so they can make it a doubleheader."

  She stared at him wide-eyed. "I'll pack," she said quietly.

  "You're down to one minute," he told her. Art, the owner of Art's Deco Diner, placed two mugs down on the table. He had done his best to keep track of who got what, but when he set the mugs down he was too disoriented to remember. "I gotta admit," he said to the two blond men sitting in the booth, "you screwed up my system. Who gets the peppermint tea?"

  The blond man to Art's left raised his hand. The one to his right said, "I get the English breakfast."

  "I gotta say, you two guys look exactly alike. Can anyone tell the difference between you?"

  "I'm the nicer one," the one on the left said.

  Art laughed, said, "I'll remember that for next time," and went back behind the counter. He didn't pay much attention as the two men sipped their tea and stared out the bay window that overlooked Main Street. He didn't hear the one on the left, the nicer one, say, when Justin Westwood's car raced up and pulled to a stop in front of Deena Harper's apartment, "You were right-there he is." And he didn't hear the other one say, "I told you we should have gotten the kid. This guy could screw us up big time now." Art was aware that the first one lowered his voice, but the voice was too low for him to hear the customer say, "Relax. Let's just go find out what the hell we're supposed to do now." He certainly didn't hear the other twin's final words, which were, "Well, let's at least try to kill them both. We deserve some fun, don't we?" The only thing Art was really aware of was that when he looked up, the two identical-looking men were gone. They hadn't bothered to get a check but they had left ten dollars on the table, more than enough for two measly cups of tea. Deena insisted that Kendall sit on her lap in the front seat of Justin's Civic. The little girl was squirming, wanted to sit in the back like a grown-up, but her mother wouldn't let go of her. She kept squeezing her and hugging her and caressing her until the girl finally said, "Mommm, this is 'barrassing." Then Deena let her climb over the seat and sit in the back, telling her to fasten her seat belt, which made her say "Mommmm" again because she'd already fastened it.

  After picking up the girl at her friend's, Justin headed straight for the address Gary had given him over the phone. When he pulled up to Brian's house, Gary's car was already parked in the driveway. He'd definitely heeded Justin's words and come in a hurry. His rear wheels were on the ragged gravel; his front wheels perched on the too-green sod of the front lawn. Justin told Deena and Kendall to wait where they were, not to move, then he stepped out of the car and headed toward the front door.

  Gary was standing in the small entry by the archway that led into the living room. He was breathing through his mouth, and breathing heavily. Underneath the young cop's running shoes, Justin saw a small puddle of vomit on the green carpet.

  Justin thought about telling Gary that there was no way to have prevented this. It fit the pattern. And it had been the smart play. It was time to understand that they were up against serious people who didn't make a lot of mistakes. And when they did make a mistake they fixed it. Immediately.

  They had wanted information out of Brian, and as soon as Justin stepped past Gary and into Bri
an's living room, he knew they'd gotten that information.

  Brian Meves was sitting on a folding metal chair. His hands were tied behind his back; the rope that was used was also looped around the back of the chair. Brian's feet were bound together and connected to the two front chair legs. He was completely immobile. And he was naked. Not a stitch of clothing on.

  The scars and wounds from the beating that Justin had given him were of little consequence now. Whoever had killed him had used matches to get what they wanted. Brian's hair, feet, and testicles were burned black. When Justin looked at the expression on the dead man's face, he turned away and felt his stomach heave. It wasn't just the flavor of last night's whiskey that rose through his chest and throat. It was the taste of almost unimaginable brutality and violence. And it was the taste of Justin's own past. He took a deep breath, looked to his left, and saw Gary watching him. Their eyes met and Justin nodded. The nod said that it was all right to be sickened by what they saw.

  He sat down on Brian's couch. Noticed small piles of matches discarded in the ugly green shag carpet. He gathered his strength, shook his head, and tried to find some reserve of pity for the victim. In truth, he found none. Brian had been given a glimpse of what it was like to play with men who were out of his league. Justin had given him that glimpse just two days before, and the kid had had a chance to get out of the game. But Brian was a man who didn't learn his lessons easily. So he'd learned the hard way-and now he didn't have to learn anything else ever again.

  Gary, on the other hand, was learning quickly. It was a lesson that would stay with him the rest of his life.

  Justin Westwood stood up, walked over, and touched Gary Jenkins lightly on his shoulder.

  "I'm out of here," Justin said. "Give me five minutes, then call this in."

  Gary nodded but didn't say anything.

  "You'll be all right," Justin told him.