Infinite

by Brian Freeman

  “911. What’s your emergency?”

  A long moment of silence passed, and the dispatcher spoke again.

  “911. Hello? What’s your emergency?”

  This time, the man in the closet replied, drawing out his words as if it were an echo in the canyon. I knew that voice. It was my voice. “Well, hello . . .”

  He was speaking to me as much as to her.

  “Sir? Hello? What’s your emergency?”

  “My name is Dylan Moran. You need to send the police here right away.”

  He rattled off the address—my address—and said, “You need to hurry.”

  “Sir? Can you tell me what the problem is?”

  “I’ve been a bad boy,” he told the operator, drawing out the adjective with a smirk in his voice that was meant for me. “I need to be stopped.”

  “Sir? Are you in danger? Is it someone with you who’s in danger?”

  “Everyone near me is in danger. I kill people. I murder them. I stab them. I drown them.”

  He put an emphasis on that last one, and I felt myself ready to be sick. I pulled at the door again, but it wouldn’t budge. I wanted to shout, to say something, but my throat felt paralyzed with shock. I couldn’t get out the words.

  “Send the police,” he said again.

  “The police are on their way. Sir, are you alone? Is anyone with you?”

  “No one’s with me,” he said, with an irony for me to savor. “I’m alone. Just me. Dylan Moran.”

  “Stay right there, sir. The police are two minutes out.”

  “I need to be punished,” he said intensely.

  “Sir? Stay on the line, sir.”

  “My evil is limitless. My evil is . . . infinite.”

  He used the word.

  Eve’s word.

  Infinite.

  I was still pulling on the closet door, but all of a sudden, the counterpressure disappeared. The door flew open in my hand, and I lost my balance, stumbling backward. I could still hear the dispatcher speaking on the phone.

  “Sir? Sir, are you there? Sir?”

  I charged the closet, but no one was inside now. I yanked the chain on the bulb overhead and squinted at the bright light. The closet was empty, nothing but Karly’s and my clothes hanging on hooks and a cell phone on the floor, still broadcasting the voice of the 911 dispatcher.

  “Sir? Sir? Stay right there. The police are on their way.”

  I was alone, and my doppelgänger was gone. I was the only one here.

  Dylan Moran, who’d just confessed to murder.

  Dylan Moran, who held a bloody knife in his hand.

  My fingers opened wide, and the knife clattered to the floor. I grabbed my head in wild despair and realized that I needed to get out of this house. To leave. To escape. To never come back. I ran from the bedroom, but as I did, I saw that I was already too late.

  Sirens wailed. Flashing lights lit up the windows from the front and back.

  The police were here.

  CHAPTER 11

  I met them at the building door.

  Two burly Chicago cops stood on my front step, their squad car parked diagonally at the curb, its lights flashing. One had his hand close to the gun in his holster. The other was talking on a radio to another team of officers who’d obviously arrived at my house via the alley.

  The cop who looked ready to shoot was six inches taller than me and about the size of a Hummer, with mottled black skin, a thin mustache, and hair trimmed on the top of his head to look like a skullcap. His eyes gauged whether I was any kind of threat.

  “Sir? We received a 911 call from this address.”

  I did the only thing I could think to do. I lied.

  “911? From here? I’m sorry, officer, it must be a mistake. I’m the only one here, and I didn’t call about any emergency.”

  “Can you give me your name, sir?”

  I hesitated, and the cop obviously noticed. “Dylan Moran.”

  The two officers glanced at each other. “Well, sir, that’s the name we were given on the 911 call.”

  “My name? I don’t know what to tell you. It must be someone playing some kind of trick. I’ve heard about that kind of thing—you know, where people send the police to somebody’s house. What do they call it? Swatting?”

  “Do you have some kind of identification, sir?”

  “Of course.”

  I dug into my pocket and found my wallet. I pried my driver’s license out of the slot and gave it to the cop. I’m sure he saw that my hand was shaking. When he handed it back to me, I needed a couple of tries to get the license back into my wallet.

  “We’d like to take a look inside your apartment, Mr. Moran.”

  “I understand, Officer. I know you’re just doing your job. But I don’t know anything about a 911 call, and I’m afraid I’m not prepared to let the police search my home for no reason. I’m sorry.”

  I could see him looking over my shoulder through the open door, no doubt hunting for some kind of probable cause that would give them an excuse to come inside without my permission. Then he glanced at the stairs leading to the second floor.

  “Is there another apartment upstairs?”

  “Yes. My grandfather lives there. Edgar Moran.”

  “We’d like to talk to him,” the cop said.

  “Well, he’s ninety-four, Officer, and not in good health, so I’d really prefer if you didn’t bother him. As I say, this whole thing has to be some kind of weird joke.”

  “A joke,” the cop said, chewing on the word like gum.

  “That’s right.”

  “The 911 caller said his name was Dylan Moran, and he was ready to confess to murder. That doesn’t sound like a joke.”

  I didn’t have any trouble summoning anger to my face, because I was angry. Angry and desperate and losing my grip on the world I was in. “Well, that’s crazy, Officer. I’m not a killer. Obviously, I would never call the police and say anything like that.”

  The cop was silent for a while. He didn’t believe me, but he also didn’t have any evidence to back up the 911 call. On the other hand, a bloody knife was still sitting on my bedroom floor, and I wasn’t going to let them inside to find it.

  “Why would someone make an accusation like that against you, Mr. Moran? That’s a pretty serious thing to do.”

  “I have no idea. All I can tell you is, it wasn’t me, and it isn’t true.”

  I tried to hide my impatience. I needed the police to go away, and then I could take the knife and find somewhere to dispose of it. I could wipe down the entire apartment, not knowing what other evidence my double had left behind.

  The two cops exchanged nervous glances. I could see them wondering if they’d made a mistake, but my hope that they would leave me alone didn’t last long.

  On the street, a gray sedan pulled to a stop behind the squad car. A tall, emaciated man in his sixties got out and grabbed a bulging leather briefcase from the back seat. He wore a loose-fitting white dress shirt and pleated brown slacks, and I could see the gleam of a badge clipped to his belt. His thinning gray hair was as tangled as a bird’s nest, and his face had a cadaverous appearance, sunken around his eyes and hollowed out under his cheekbones. He looked as if he should be lying in a hospital bed instead of walking around the Chicago streets. But his unblinking eyes sized me up like a hawk as he came closer, and his mouth bent into the tiniest cocky smile.

  “Guys, I’ll take over,” he told the uniformed cops. “Stick around, though, okay? I may need you.”

  The two cops deferred to him as if he were a Mafia don. Without another word, they retreated to their squad car, where they leaned against the doors and watched us. The newcomer extended his hand, and I shook it. His grip was limp, and his skin felt as dry as dust.

  “Mr. Moran? I’m Detective Harvey Bushing. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  “I’m not in much of a mood to talk, Detective.”

  “Well, when you made that 911 call, it sure soun
ded like you wanted to talk.”

  “That wasn’t me,” I told him.

  “Really?” Detective Bushing grabbed a phone from his back pocket, pushed a few buttons, and let me listen to a recording of the 911 call from a few minutes earlier. “That’s not you, huh? Because it sounds like you.”

  “I don’t think it sounds like me at all.”

  “Well, I know what you mean. My wife tells me I sound like that Ben Stein guy. You know, like in the Ferris Bueller movie? I don’t hear it myself. Anyway, here’s the thing, Mr. Moran. My partner is getting a search warrant for your apartment. I’m going to stick around, and so are my friends out there, until he gets back. You can invite me in or not, but we’re going to come inside sooner or later.”

  “A search warrant? Based on a fake 911 call?”

  “And other things,” the detective replied.

  “Like what?”

  “I’m happy to explain all of it to you, if you let me inside.”

  “Detective, I swear, this is a crazy misunderstanding. I didn’t make that call.”

  “Yeah, I heard you say that. The thing is, if it’s a misunderstanding, how about we clear it up? Because to be totally honest with you, Mr. Moran, I didn’t show up here because of that 911 call.”

  “No?”

  “No. I was already on my way. See, I’ve had a colleague of mine sitting in a car down the street all night, watching to see if and when you came back home. He got me out of bed a while ago to tell me you were here. And then, as I was driving over here from Glenview, what should I hear on my radio but a report about a really weird 911 call involving you. Funny coincidence, don’t you think? Oh, and believe me, it takes a lot for a 911 dispatcher to consider a call weird.”

  “Am I under arrest, Detective?”

  “Not at all. I just want to talk.”

  “Well, I told you, I’m not talking.”

  “That’s okay, too. How about I talk, and you listen?” He held up his briefcase. “I’ve got some things in here you’ll find pretty interesting, but it would be easier to do it inside. We don’t have to go farther than the nearest chair. I had my hip done in the spring, and it’s a bitch to stand for very long. Give me ten minutes. Any time you want me to go, I’ll go.”

  I was under no illusions. I knew he was playing me, trying to lay out what he’d learned about me and Scotty Ryan and get me to talk. If he was being honest about the warrant, I also knew that I’d be under arrest as soon as they finished their search. The only thing I could do was run. But I couldn’t do that with the police staking out the front and back of the building.

  Without saying anything more, I backed away from the door and let Detective Bushing into my apartment. When we were in the living room, I gestured at the sofa near the front window. I took a chair opposite him. My eyes did a quick survey of the room to make sure I hadn’t missed any other incriminating evidence that had been left behind. I noticed Detective Bushing’s eyes doing the same thing.

  Then he reached into his briefcase and pulled out a photograph of Scotty Ryan. “Do you know this man, Mr. Moran?”

  “I thought you were doing the talking, Detective. Not me.”

  “Sure. Right. Well, of course you know him. He’s the man who slept with your wife.”

  He was baiting me. I tensed and pushed my lips together.

  “That’s your wife in the picture there, huh?” the detective said, pointing at the mantel.

  “Yes.”

  “Very pretty.”

  “Yes.”

  “I heard about your wife, by the way,” he went on. “That’s just awful. Talk about a coincidence, huh? Your wife dies in a car accident while you’re driving, and then her lover gets killed a few days later, right after you get in a fight with him.”

  “If you think I killed him, you’re wrong,” I said, even though the knife used to kill Scotty Ryan was lying a few feet away on my bedroom floor.

  “But you were there, right? A witness put you in the house with Mr. Ryan. She identified you right away. She heard shouting, and then you came running out with blood on your hands.”

  “If I’d stabbed him, I would have had blood on a lot more than just my hands,” I pointed out, even though I was talking when I should have stayed quiet.

  “I don’t recall mentioning that he’d been stabbed.”

  “I talked to my mother-in-law,” I said. “I know you did, too. She told me what happened.”

  “Ah, sure. Of course. But you admit fighting with Mr. Ryan?”

  “I’m not admitting anything.”

  The detective nodded. “Sure. I understand. What about your wife? Did you fight with her about her cheating on you?”

  I still said nothing, but I felt my heartbeat take off again.

  “I mean, if my wife did that to me, I’d break a few windows and probably some other things,” Detective Bushing went on. “And you’ve got a temper, right, Mr. Moran? I know about your assault arrests. People who mess with you get their faces bashed in, don’t they?”

  “That’s not what happened.”

  “Yeah. They probably all had it coming. I get it. Say, you work at the LaSalle Plaza Hotel, don’t you?”

  My brow wrinkled with puzzlement at the shift in the conversation. “Yes, that’s right.”

  “You handle their events?”

  “Yes.”

  “Nice place.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “I went to a wedding there a few years ago.”

  “We do a lot of weddings,” I said.

  Detective Bushing dug his fingers into his open briefcase and pulled out a photograph, which he laid on the coffee table in front of me. The picture showed a pretty twentysomething blond woman in a jogging outfit. In the background, I spotted Lake Michigan and the planetarium.

  “Do you recognize this woman, Mr. Moran?”

  “No.”

  He extracted another photograph from his briefcase. This one showed another young, attractive blonde, seated in a restaurant with a drink in front of her.

  “How about her?” he asked.

  “No.”

  He dug into the briefcase again. Another photograph, another blonde.

  “This one?”

  “No,” I said again.

  And once more. Again I told him I had no idea who the woman was. That was the truth. They were all strangers to me.

  “None of these women look familiar?”

  “No, they don’t.”

  “It seems to me they all look a lot like your wife,” Detective Bushing said.

  I glanced at the photographs again, and I realized that he was right. There was no denying the resemblance. The hair, the look, the smiles—they definitely all had a touch of Karly in them.

  “A little, I suppose. Who are they?”

  “They’re murder victims, Mr. Moran.”

  I began to feel dizzy. “Murder?”

  “Yeah. All four stabbed to death in the past few weeks. We figured the cases were connected, because the method was the same and the victims all looked so much alike. We couldn’t figure out what they had in common, though. Their homes, work, background—all different. It was driving me crazy, because I couldn’t find any overlap, nothing that would suggest how the same killer would have come into contact with them. Until very recently, that is.”

  “I hope you don’t think the connection is that they look like Karly. Because they look like a million other blond women, too.”

  “True. That’s true. No, that wasn’t the connection. I mean, it’s interesting, but only because of what else we found. Actually, I stumbled onto it mostly by accident. A witness mentioned something to me in passing, and that tied in with a restaurant receipt I remembered from one of the other victims. See, what links these women together is that they all attended an event in the ballroom of the LaSalle Plaza Hotel within a few days of when they were killed.”

  I couldn’t stop myself. I gasped. “What?”

  “That’s right. So I’m sure y
ou see the problem here, Mr. Moran. Four women who look an awful lot like your wife got murdered right after they went to your hotel. And now your wife is dead, and so is the man who slept with her. Stabbed. Just like my other vics. To top it off, today we get a 911 call from someone calling himself Dylan Moran and saying he’s ready to confess to murder.”

  I bolted out of the chair.

  “You going somewhere, Mr. Moran?”

  “I need to use the bathroom.”

  I turned around and stumbled down the hallway. I went into the bedroom and closed the door behind me. My eyes were drawn to the knife on the floor. The faces of the women in Detective Bushing’s photographs smiled at me in my head. I didn’t know them. I had never met them. And yet, now that I was alone, something about them stirred echoes. I remembered them. Worse, the echoes in my head weren’t of these women alive. I could see them dead. Their faces drained and pale. I could see my hands, covered in their blood.

  They all looked like Karly.

  My stomach turned over. I didn’t need to fake it. I ran into the bathroom and locked the door, and I fell to my knees at the toilet and vomited, once, twice, three times. When my stomach was empty, I rinsed my mouth. I stared at myself in the mirror, but the man staring back was the stranger I had seen for days. Exhausted. Out of control, out of my mind. I didn’t recognize who I was anymore.

  From outside the bedroom, I heard a pounding on the door. “Mr. Moran?” Detective Bushing called.

  “I’ll be right out.”

  As soon as I said that, I went to the bathroom window. I slid it open silently and studied the walkway between my building and the neighbor’s next door. I didn’t see any police. As quietly as I could, I slithered through the opening and dropped to the concrete below me.

  I grabbed hold of the adjacent fence and threw myself over.

  Somewhere close by, the rottweiler began barking again. I heard voices, saw streams of light coming my way. A man shouted.

  “Stop!”

  I took off running and didn’t look back.

  CHAPTER 12

  An early sunrise broke over the lake and made pink slashes in the clouds. I sat on a bench by the water at the far end of Navy Pier. The old brick pier building behind me was closed, and I had the boardwalk mostly to myself. On my left, overnight lights lingered in the downtown skyscrapers. The wind made whitecaps on the dark surface of the lake.