‘She didn’t know that she could make one. It was a miracle pregnancy according to her doctor. So then you lied to her.’
‘Yes. I told her the genetic stew was botched. What of it? I told her it would be a monster, that all my children would be monsters – things growing on their outsides that really should be on the insides, missing their little eyes and little hands, little things like that. So what? That’s not a crime. A cop wouldn’t have any interest in that. This is a shakedown. Now how much do you want to make this nasty little business go away?’
‘It was a stupid lie, wasn’t it? You had to know she’d catch you in the lie when she saw your son.’
‘What were the odds they would ever meet? Most of the year, my son is away at school. There are camps in the summer. My wife has no maternal instincts. Peter looks so much like me, Angel hates the sight of him. He’s rarely around.’
‘But Amanda saw him. That’s why she forced the meeting in the park.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. We only met at her place.’
‘I know you met her in the park. You don’t have to talk to me. You could remain silent. If you say anything it could be used against you in a court of law.’
‘Are you reading me my rights? Still playing cops and crooks, are we? Next you’ll be telling me that if I can’t afford an attorney, one will be appointed for me. You’re no more a cop than I am. Did they kick you off the force? You’re a cheap little hustler, aren’t you? There’s no law against cheating on your wife. Maybe the two of you are thinking in terms of a multimillion-dollar civil suit? Well, forget it.’
Mallory shrugged. His constitutional rights were recorded on camera. His arm leaned on the shelf of the bookcase, close to the knife, only inches from it. It was working so well. The only snag was that she didn’t have the gun. What had he done with it?
‘You met her in the park. She called you on the lie. She had just killed her child, thinking it was a monster, but it wasn’t. She aborted it for nothing. She was so angry. You panicked when she threatened to tell your wife what a monster you were. She was going to do it then, wasn’t she? Right that minute. Then you killed her.’
‘So Amanda was the woman in the park killing. No wonder you thought you were going to score big. Cheating and murder. Has it occurred to you she knew more than one man in this building, that someone else killed her?’
‘No. It never did, not from the beginning.’
‘If it was me, I’d take the subway,’ said Amanda, taking a long drag on her cigarette.
Charles stared at her. There was no music in the cab. Perhaps it was the stress that had triggered the delusion this time.
Now he realized that there were flaws in his construction, glitches in the mechanics of freak memory, for every now and then, Amanda’s blue eyes would slip into Mallory green.
‘Amanda, you’re not allowed to smoke in this cab. See the sign? Perhaps you – ’
‘I ain’t smoking, buddy,’ said the cab driver. ‘And the name is Fred.’
Amanda smiled and continued to hold the cigarette. ‘One of the perks of being dead – no fear of lung cancer. But if it bothers you, I’ll put it out.’
He couldn’t smell the burning weed, and neither did the swirling blue smoke sting his eyes. That was a good sign. He was not altogether crazy. The gun pressed into his leg, and he removed it from his pants pocket and shifted it into his coat.
‘So, what’s with the gun?’
‘Mallory needs it.’
‘What did you say?’ asked the cab driver.
‘Nothing.’
‘Take the subway,’ said Amanda. ‘Just on the chance that she needs it in a hurry. This traffic is the pits.’ She stared out the back window at the still life of motionless vehicles trailing behind them.
‘I’m sure we’ll get moving soon,’ said Charles, waving his hand at the phantom smoke swirling around the interior of the cab. ‘You know, the cigarette smoke does bother me. The cab is full of – ’
The cab driver turned around to say, ‘For the last time, pal, I’m not smoking.’
And now the cab was filled with smoke that was not real, but which obscured every real thing. He was engulfed in the smoke, panic was rising.
Steady now. It’s not real.
But then he turned to Amanda, who was blurred by the thickening blue clouds of his delusion, and he realized he was getting lost in this very cramped space which was his mind.
‘Please stop! Stop it!’
‘Okay, that’s enough,’ said the driver. ‘Out of my cab, fella. Now!’
‘Cheating on my wife doesn’t make a good motive for murder.’
‘Oh, sure it will. I like it. Money motives are the best. According to your father-in-law’s will, you don’t inherit if your wife dies. Smart old man, your father-in-law. And you don’t get alimony if she divorces you for cause. And that, incidentally, is the clause that hangs you – you couldn’t afford to get caught in the act.’
‘You can’t possibly base a murder motive on the possibility that she wouldn’t overlook one small indiscretion. You’d be laughed out of court. Everybody cheats.’ And everybody lies.
‘You mean the way she overlooked your embezzlement? I found the transactions in the company computer. She covered the sale of the stock you didn’t own, and she covered the collateral loan on the condo. She wouldn’t haul you in court for that. It might make the stockholders nervous to find an embezzler in the family. But I’m betting she’d haul you in for adultery.’
‘The threat of divorce is still a weak motive for murder.’
‘Is it? If Angel divorces you, you get nothing. You even had to agree to give custody of your own child to another relative in the event of your wife’s death. That’s how much the old man trusted you.’
Kipling was backing off in the body language, regrouping for another tack. ‘My wife is rather cold. She never lets me touch her any more. I had to have a woman on the side. But I certainly didn’t kill Amanda.’
She had always known it would be something simple, and disappointing. Now there was only the tedium of letting him flap his mouth, catching him in the lies while the camera was rolling. He was exhibiting all the signs of the liar. He explained too much, emoted too much. And now he was going on and on about the tragic death of Amanda and his own, more important tragedy.
All his life, he’d been waiting on opportunity, which had arrived in the shape of an heiress. And now, when he was set for life, it was all falling apart on him, everything unraveling, and he could not, would not see it. The lies didn’t work any more, and yet he kept on lying.
‘Amanda made the decision to have an abortion,’ he said.
Butchery, Mallory silently translated.
‘It’s unreasonable to blame me.’
She was going to tell your wife.
‘Eventually, Amanda saw it my way.’
Stunned with a rock, and bleeding.
‘I loved Amanda. I love all women.’
To death.
And here, Mallory interrupted him. ‘Your blood type is B positive.’
Kipling tightened all the muscles of his face.
‘You killed her by the water, and then you ran away. You came back later and smashed up her hands. You took some time with that.’
‘I suppose you were there when this fantasy supposedly happened?’
Mallory smiled.
At a dead run, Charles took the stairs leading down below the level of the sidewalk. He was half falling down them, as others were shouldering up the narrow stairway. At the booth, he made a frantic exchange of coins for tokens. The man behind the bulletproof window busied himself with some bit of paperwork and then began slowly to count out a packet of dollar bills. He never looked up, never responded to the crazed knocking on the glass, which sounded the panic of the oncoming train that Charles would miss without the token. The train pulled in as the clerk was pushing a token under the partition.
Charles turned into the crush of disembar
king straphangers, to plant his token in the slot and hurry through. He ran at the train. The doors were closing, and he put his hand inside and pressed them open again with the aid of an electronic eye which had not kicked in until Charles felt real pain. He squeezed in among the press of other passengers, who looked up at him as though his size was something he was guilty of.
Now the train was in motion and the public address system was making an announcement to the passengers. He couldn’t make out the individual words among the garble of mechanics and the garble of a man who was eating his lunch as he addressed the riders over the loudspeaker in what was obviously his second, and recently acquired language.
‘What is he saying?’ Charles asked a woman who had the bored look of having been this route many times. The woman only shrugged.
It was Amanda, by his side, who answered his worst fears. ‘He’s saying what they always say. No matter where you’re going, you can’t get there from here.’
When the train did stop again, he discovered the local had turned into an express. Judging by the lynch mob attitude of other passengers, who were far more irritated than the shrugging woman, this change of route was a whim of the engineer. When he saw the light of day and the first street sign, he knew he was miles out of his way, and he began to run.
‘You were standing down by the water when she nailed you on the lie. She was going to give your wife all the evidence she needed to divorce you for cause. You panicked and grabbed her by the arm. First you stunned her, and then you killed her. Then you ran away… like the dog.’
‘My dog – ’
‘You were walking the dog that morning. That was your excuse for going out to meet her in the park. The dog was running loose. While you fought with Amanda, he got his leash caught in the bushes when he was heading north over the rise. You’re probably wondering how I know that. So you found the dog and took it home. Then, about thirty minutes later, you came back to drag Amanda’s body into the woods – ’
‘You couldn’t – ’
‘ – and you smashed up her hands, her fingerprints. You made so many stupid mistakes, Harry.’
He moved toward her and away from the knife. Good. Now she was circling around him. The way to the door was almost clear. His hands were rising now, the hands which had snapped a woman’s neck. It was panic time again for Harry Kipling. He was rushing toward her. She reached out to grab his outstretched hand, struck one long leg across his path and pulled hard on his hand to guide all of his weight to the floor.
Big he might be, but not terribly graceful.
He was looking for his large feet when she kicked him in the groin to double him into a fetal position. Then she rolled him on his stomach and pulled one arm up behind his back until he screamed.
‘You’re going to break it!’
‘Then hold still!’
With her free hand she reached for the heavy drapery cord and yanked on it, bringing down drapes and curtain rod.
His running was hampered by the dense crowd of people on the sidewalk. It wasn’t fair, the streets should be deserted. Couldn’t all these people have waited one blessed day before racing out to return their Christmas gifts and exchange them for the right sizes?
Charles dropped the gun, and an old woman kicked it out of her way. He wondered if she could not see it over her packages, or did she think it was commonplace sidewalk debris for this part of town? He leaned down and picked it up. He began to make better time now, suddenly not bothered by the crowd any more. In fact, people were hurrying to get out of his way.
Well, this was more like it.
And now it occurred to him that this sudden show of public courtesy might have something to do with the naked gun in his hand. Well, of course they were all being polite.
Fool.
Harry Kipling was hogtied. Hands tied behind him and roped to one leg, he was pulled back in a bizarre bow. He looked ridiculous; he was ridiculous, a pathetic bastard who had struck out in childish fear, in anger, and then tried to clean up his mess, the death of a human being named Amanda.
He was so disappointing, an unworthy opponent who made so small a noise in the world, he had failed to wake the cat.
The camera was rolling on to the music of cat snores and Kipling sobs. With a critical eye, Mallory looked at both her hogtied trophy and her weak criminal case. An assault on a police officer was not hard evidence for murder. There were loose ends to be tied, better evidence to be got, something with more weight for a DA who chickened on every case with less than a complete set of prints and a smoking gun in evidence.
Whatever she might have to do, Kipling wasn’t going to get away with this.
‘Stop crying. It’s not like I really hurt you. What did you do with my gun?’
But he would not stop crying, and she was not taking much satisfaction in this.
She lifted her head and turned toward the door with the first sound of metal on metal. The door was being unlocked. Charles? No, it couldn’t be.
It wasn’t.
Someone else was standing in the foyer, alone but for the long shadow extending back into the outer corridor.
Now this was more like it. This was walking death.
She was staring into mirrors of her own eyes above the barrel of her stolen.357 revolver. ‘Murder is the best game, isn’t it?’
‘Yes it is,’ said Justin Riccalo, leveling the gun at her head. Now he pulled the barrel up slightly. ‘Oh, that’s wrong, isn’t it? You’re supposed to aim for the widest part of the body.’ And now the barrel dropped to the level of her chest, her heart.
Perversely, she smiled. He didn’t like that. She knew he wouldn’t.
‘Kill the bitch!’ yelled Kipling, not sobbing any more but frantic in the eyes.
‘All women are bitches,’ said the boy in the monotone of a litany.
‘Yes, yes, they are, all of them,’ said Kipling with the fervour of a television evangelist playing the crowd. ‘Kill her now!’
‘Lighten up, you idiot,’ said Mallory to the man at her feet. ‘He’s going to kill you next. I thought you understood that.’
Kipling’s mouth hung open, and no more words came out.
All the words she heard were toward the back of her mind where Markowitz lived with Helen. Get him to talk to you, kid, said a memory with a Brooklyn accent.
‘Tell me, Justin, what kind of bird did you kill to make the bloody X on my door?’
‘It was a pigeon,’ said Justin with a hint of a query at the end of his words.
‘I love all the little details,’ said Mallory. ‘How did you rig the glass of water in the kitchen?’
Prime the pump. get him talking, and he won’t be able to stop.
Justin smiled. ‘I set the glass near the edge of the table, and then I put pennies under the back legs to make it slant, but only a little. The glass was leveled on a sliver of ice. When the ice melted, the glass crashed and the evidence was gone.’
He looked up at her with the expectation of being petted and admired for this.
‘Nice job, Justin. Same thing with the vase?’
‘Yes, it had to be something with water to explain away the slick of the melted ice.’
‘I thought your best trick was the knife in the target. You even fooled Charles, and that’s not easy. I’m betting you rigged the spring load.’
‘Yes. I was surprised to see that old carnival prop in the basement. As you may have guessed, I have a passing interest in magic. The spring was easy. It was old. You could see the rust, even in bad light. After I pulled the spring over the edge of a gear, I only had to keep Mr Butler talking until it broke and released the fake knife.’
‘Then later, you went back to the cellar and pushed the fake blade back into the target compartment, right? Then you stuck one of the real knives into the face of the target.’
Justin nodded.
‘How could you count on getting back to the building in time to change the prop for the real knife?’
&nbs
p; ‘It was easy. He goes everywhere in cabs. I’ve watched him from the street. I gather he doesn’t like subways and probably has so much money, it never occurs to him to take one. I took the subway back to Soho after he walked into the park. I had all the time in the world to change the knives.’
The gun was heavy in the child’s hands. He corrected the dip of the barrel which aimed at her heart.
‘Don’t you have any questions for me, Justin?’
‘You weren’t surprised to see me, were you?’
‘No.’
‘When did you begin to suspect me?’
‘From the first. Violence was coming, I knew that. You’d gone to a lot of trouble to set it up. You were the brightest one in the family. I always knew you’d be the last one standing.’
Justin moved the gun to point at Harry. ‘If you like, as a last request, I’ll kill him first.’
‘He is annoying, isn’t he?’
‘No! I can help you,’ he said to the boy.
‘You’re trussed up like a hog,’ said Justin. ‘You can’t even help yourself. Do you have any idea how silly you look? They’re going to find your body that way. Does that disturb you?’
‘Listen to me, boy. I can help you. I have an idea. It’s foolproof. I’ll back you up if the cops get on to it. She wants to arrest me for killing a woman, a bitch. You need me, and now you have something on me. I can’t tell on you, can I?’
Justin looked at Mallory. ‘Did he really kill someone?’
‘No. I don’t believe he’d have the nerve. Do you?’
‘Why did you tie me up, then? Explain that one to the kid.’
The boy looked to Mallory for his answer.
‘I tied him up because the twit pissed me off, and the Civilian Review Board won’t let me shoot him.’
She made a mental note to edit that out of the video tape.
‘You heard about the unidentified woman who died in the park?’ Kipling raised his head and yelled, ‘Well, I killed her!’
Mallory shook her head. ‘We call this a confession under duress. It’s worthless.’ And now she turned her eyes down to Kipling. ‘I don’t think Justin’s buying it either. You’re a documented liar, Harry. Now this kid is smart. He’s probably going to make it look like he was trying to defend me against you.’ She turned back to the boy. ‘Right, Justin?’
The Man Who Lied To Women Page 28