Murder in the North Tower

by Greg Smith

  CHAPTER 27

 

  During his junior year of college, Aleks enrolled in a Futures and Options class offered on Saturdays. The only time he could fit the course into his schedule without delaying graduation. Not an option. For his future.

  The class met at a time Aleks would ordinarily have devoted to playing basketball. Since he’d made a significant sacrifice by taking the Saturday class, he’d hoped Professor Elias P. Hodge would make the nuances and subtleties of futures and options trading at least somewhat palatable.

  Hodge was an immediate disappointment.

  Bald-headed, bespectacled, the ancient educator was forever dressed in the proverbial professor’s tweed jacket. Mandatory suede elbow patches in attendance. Brown corduroy pants, a plaid shirt and a bowtie completed his ensemble. Hodge looked like a tortoise. In a suit.

  From the moment he first addressed the class, the uninspiring instructor proved to be the most tedious teacher Aleks had ever had. He spoke the way he looked. In a tortuous, time-dragging, nasally monotone. His lectures were excruciatingly mind-numbing. Aleks quickly dubbed him “Hodge the Stodge.”

  The class was small, only a dozen or so students. Mostly full-time workers barely adequate at being part-time students. It would have been impossible not to notice the attractive girl with curly auburn hair who often arrived just a minute or two late to class, sat in the back of the room, snuck out a couple of minutes before class ended.

  Jill Walker.

  Though attentive, Jill never participated in class discussions unless asked a direct question. Hodge took immense pleasure in calling on her often. Horny old goat, Aleks had thought at first. Or maybe Hodge’s way of thinning the herd. Discouraging the weak from pursuing anything beyond a third-year in the finance program.

  No, Hodge has the hots for Jill Walker!

  She always answered correctly. And confidently, much to Aleks’s delight. Much to the consternation of Hodge. Aleks enjoyed the girl’s puckishness. Her cheeky defiance. He fantasized an entire life beyond the classroom for Jill Walker. Single mom. Divorced. Guinea ex. A construction worker. She was a waitress. Working her way through college. Making a better life and all that. She was a part-time hairstylist, as well.

  Aleks longed to meet Jill Walker. Her attendance habits made that difficult, however. He couldn’t approach her before, during or after class. Though he knew he could have snuck out of class before she did, wait for her outside the classroom. That approach seemed too brazen. He needed something more genuine. Something less contrived.

  He was working on arranging an “accidental” meeting when Fate intervened on his behalf.

  One Sunday morning shortly after the semester began, he stopped at his favorite coffee shop in The Village. He was on his way out when he noticed her. Sitting, alone, at a small table against the back wall. Sipping coffee as she slogged through a thick, hard-bound textbook. Wearing unfashionable glasses.

  “Excuse me,” he mumbled, stumbling into her table.

  The girl let the book sag to her lap. She glanced skeptically over the glasses at the tall, good-looking man who’d just “accidentally” bumped her table, spilling her drink.

  Aleks did his best to feign surprise.

  “Jill? Jill Walker? From Hodge’s Futures and Options class?”

  Without waiting for a response, he set his coffee on the table, placed his hands on his hips, assumed an authoritative posture, spoke in a slow monotone.

  “Miss Walker, please explain for myself, and for the benefit of the class, the risks of a naked option transaction.”

  Mildly impressed with the impersonation of their droll instructor, Jill smirked. But, really? That’s what he was coming at her with? A naked option transaction? She tried to think if that was even a real thing. Regardless, she decided she’d play along. He was cute.

  She regarded her tall classmate with bored cynicism, stared him directly in the eye.

  “Do you mean a naked option transaction in terms of security trading? Or did you have some other kind of naked option transaction in mind?”

  Game on, Aleks thought. Before realizing he had no rejoinder. He’d hoped his impersonation of Hodge would be ice-breaker enough. Hadn’t thought beyond that.

  “Uh…trading?”

  He really had no other choice. Without sounding too brash.

  Jill could maintain the charade no longer. She snorted. The snort evolving into a chuckle. Aleks grinned, somewhat relieved. Ice broken. Free-sailing from there. He set his jib.

  “I’m Aleks, by the way.”

  He caught the twinkle in Jill’s eye, held a finger up in warning.

  “And don’t even–”

  Smiling impishly, Jill ignored the caution light.

  “Well, Aleks By-the-Way, where I’m from, a guy who ‘accidentally’ spills a girl’s drink, offers to buy her another. It’s a standard pick-up ploy.”

  Aleks wasn’t one to miss his cue.

  “Can I buy you another cup of coffee?” he offered, sheepishly.

  “No,” Jill replied, pausing for a three-count before deadpanning, “but you can buy me tea. Which is what I’m drinking.”

  Two years later, Aleks and Jill were living together in an apartment in The Village they could almost afford. The fantasy life he’d conjured up for the auburn-haired girl had been completely off course. Jills, as he now affectionately called his fiancée, had no children. She’d never been married. Though she did have a few ex-boyfriends. One of whom had been Italian. And a construction worker. She didn’t work as waitress. Or a hairstylist. She’d been late for class every day simply because Jill Walker was late for everything. Ironically, she’d left early because she hadn’t wanted any of her male classmates hitting on her after class.

  Aleks, Step and Jill had all received their undergraduate degrees the year before. The brothers were a year into NYU’s two-year graduate Finance program. Jill had gone to work at The Lauren Nicole Agency, a Manhattan marketing firm.

  Jill and Step had hit it off immediately. Step adored her. Secretly coveted his brother’s girl. Though he would never act on his impulses. Instead, he and Jill became the best of friends. Step knew he was often too serious. Had a hard time letting his hair down. Jill provided an avenue through which he could channel his silly side. The two of them often teamed up, taking sides against Aleks. Just so things didn’t always come so easily for his twin brother. Who seemed to breeze through life as though everything was pie. And he the skillful baker.

  Jill had also been warmly embraced by their parents. It was Mirlinda who’d first called her “Jills.” Despite Aleks’s repeated insistence that her name was Jill. Singular. No “s.” He’d somehow successfully convinced Nene it wasn’t “Jules” or “Giles.” That it was a short “i” sound. Nene just couldn’t lose the “s.” She steadfastly referred to the girl Aleks soon proposed to as “Jills.” Eventually, it just became easier to go along.

  Lose a battle, win the war.

  Things were good that fall of 1989. The tornado of Fate that would touch down on an assortment of life’s milestones over the next years had yet to destroy their hopes and dreams. It remained a mere dust devil, stirring up only an occasional, insignificant annoyance.

  • • • • •

  CHAPTER 28

 

  Sunday, September 30: Day 19 post-9/11

  The last days of September brought slow change in the stranger’s condition. He awoke each morning in unfamiliar surroundings. With no memory of his identity. His past. Who he was. Where he was. Where he’d come from. What he did. Or what had happened to him. Each morning Nadia repeated his story. From the stranger’s perspective, he was hearing it for the first time each day. He spent every day sitting in front of the television immersed in the events of 9/11 as they unfolded anew.

  Though he could now speak, he remained in a fog, frequently lapsing into states of semi-consciousness. During those episodes of fugue, he would often experience f
leeting images of a struggle with another man. Sometimes he was strangling the other man. Sometimes he was strangling a blond woman. He would frequently envision the blond’s dead, glassy blue eyes. Those images would be forgotten shortly after he regained consciousness.

  Ever so slowly, however, he emerged from the fog. He wasn’t aware of any change. He’d simply wake up at a higher level of awareness. With no memory of how he’d felt the previous morning.

  As the last week of the month progressed, the dream images lingered longer. Each day he’d worry that he’d killed the man and the blond. That he’d strangled both of them to death. By evening, he’d be convinced he was a fugitive hiding from the law. By morning, however, all memories and worries would be completely gone. As though a cleaning crew had arrived during the night. Swept out the storage room of his memory.

  On the last day of the month, the stranger awoke, as usual. With no memory of who he was. Where he was. Or who the dark-haired gypsy woman at his bedroom door was. Though he didn’t realize anything was different from previous mornings, the fog had lifted. His mind was focused. He was alert.

  After hearing his story from the woman, he gave her a look of incredible disbelief.

  “So every day, I wake up with a blank memory. I don’t know who I am. I don’t know where I am. I don’t know what happened to me. I don’t know who you are. Or who the old man…”

  “Griggor,” Nadia interjected.

  “Who Griggor is. And every day, you remind me that you found me wandering in the street. Bleeding. Dazed. Alone. You took me in. Griggor stitched me up. I had no identification. No idea who I am.”

  “Yes. That’s all true, Ewan,” Nadia admitted.

  “And you call me ‘Ewan’ because Griggor says I’m a John Doe. A mystery man.”

  “Yes. ‘Ewan’ is Griggor’s Romanian pronunciation of John.”

  The stranger was thoughtful.

  “I spend every day with you and Griggor. Every day watching hours of television. The next day, it’s all forgotten. Like it never happened. You say I’ve done this for three weeks now?”

  “Griggor says there’s nothing we can do. Your amnesia might go away. It might last a while.”

  The stranger uttered the words Nadia hadn’t wanted to add.

  “Or, it might last forever.”

  With a frustrated sigh, the tall man sat back, swiped one hand down his face, rested both hands on his long thighs. That he had no memory of three weeks of his life – or his entire life, for that matter – was tremendously disturbing.

  “I don’t know what to think. It’s all so weird. I’ve simply dropped out of whatever life I had. I could be married. I could have children. A family. A job. Where do they think I am? My wife. If I have one. My family. My friends. Assuming I have family, friends. What do they think happened to me?”

  “They probably think you’re dead, Ewan. That you died in the Towers on 9/11.”

  “Why would they think that? What towers? The Twin Towers? What happened on 9/11?”

  Though she’d witnessed it again and again during the past three weeks, Nadia still found it incredulous that Ewan remembered nothing of the many hours he’d spent watching the news of 9/11.

  “Come. See for yourself. Again. On television.”

  Just as she had each of the last sixteen days, Nadia led Ewan to the front room, turned the television on. She had no trouble tuning to a channel covering the 9/11 attacks.

  “…how downtown Manhattan looks, this last day of September, 2001. Nineteen days after the horrific attacks on the World Trade Center. Every American will remember where he or she was on that fateful Tuesday. September 11th. A date that will forever be etched in the hearts, minds and souls of Americans everywhere. This is Ground Zero, where…”

  Ewan couldn’t take his eyes from the screen. While the rest of America had spent nineteen days dealing with the aftermath of the appalling events of September 11th, he was experiencing 9/11 for the first time. For the rest of the day, he occupied himself with the news coverage of that horrendous day, occasionally falling into a dream state. Dreaming, as usual, of the attractive blond with the amazing blue eyes, the large man with the blurry face.

  ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜

  He was in darkness, could see nothing. He heard laughter. A woman’s laughter. He found the sound annoying. Infuriating. She was laughing at him. He followed the sound like a blind man. Chased after it. Wanting only to silence it. He turned right. Then left.

  “You can’t catch me!” she called out.

  But he did. He lunged, got his hand around a smooth ankle. She pulled away, but fell. He scrambled forward, had her in his grasp.

  “Let me go. I don’t belong to you,” she snapped.

  He refused to let go. Wanted only to silence her.

  It was no longer pitch black. He could see her face. She was attractive. She had pale skin. Blond hair. Stunning blue eyes. He had his hands on her shoulders, had her pinned to the floor. He moved his fingers up to her neck.

  Her eyes grew nervous, fearful. She struggled to free herself.

  Not laughing now, bitch! he thought, squeezing harder.

  It didn’t take long before the blond stopped struggling.

  He was content. Satisfied that he’d succeeded in shutting the irritating blond up. He closed his eyes to relish the silence. When he opened them, he quickly took his hands off his victim’s neck. The person he’d strangled was no longer the blond. It was a man, his face blurry.

  Slowly, the face began to take shape.

  ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜

  He snapped out of his dream memory with a shudder, glanced about furtively. He was in a room he didn’t recognize. The television was on. Images of a huge landfill filled the screen. A line of people were passing something along. From one to the next. Buckets. Filled with debris. It looked like something had been bombed. Like some kind of search was now underway.

  He stared at the wall above the television. The dream-memory of the blond lurked on the fringes of his subconscious, crept forward. He worried that he’d killed her. And the large shadowman. He could be a murderer. He ran a hand down his face. Was surprised to find he had a full beard.

  Did I grow this so I won’t be recognized? Am I hiding? Am I some kind of fugitive? Because I killed that blond woman? And that man?

  Alarmed, he stood, went to the window, peeked out onto barren streets that were unfamiliar. There was no one in sight. No pedestrians. No vehicles. Just oddly vacant streets. As though an atomic apocalypse had transpired while he slept. The scene sent an appalling chill through him.

  He crossed the room to the door, peered into the hallway, saw no one. He listened carefully. Heard nothing at first. Turning away, he thought he’d detected the sound of footsteps on the stairs. He turned back, watched, waited. After a few seconds, a man appeared at the top of the stairs. He was older than middle-age. Bearded and spectacled. He was average height. Wore some sort of knit hat. Carried a satchel.

  Who…? the stranger wondered briefly, before a second thought quickly interrupted.

  A detective!

  The stranger slid back into the doorway, hoping the detective hadn’t seen him. The old man called out.

  “Ah. Here you are. How are we today, Ewan? Hey?”

  The stranger was puzzled. He didn’t know the old man, yet the man seemed to recognize him. He spoke with an accent. Polish maybe. Possibly Hungarian.

  Why would the detective be foreign? he wondered. Unless…

  He’d assumed he was in America. That he was American. The possibility that he was in a foreign country now crossed the stranger’s mind. Maybe that was why the streets he’d seen from the window had seemed so unfamiliar. So…foreign.

  He had no idea why he would be anywhere other than New York City.

  The old man entered the room, placed his satchel on the floor, removed his hat and coat. The stranger eyed him carefully.

  “Something is wrong, Ewan?” the old man asked. “You are feeling all right, hey
?”

  He calls me Ewan, like the woman. But with that accent. And a strange pronunciation.

  “You seem upset,” the old man said. “Something happens to upset you?”

  The stranger considered what to say. He could just answer the old man’s question directly.

  Of course I’m upset. I don’t know who I am. Where I am. What’s happened to me. Oh, and, by the way, I think I may have murdered someone. Two someones.

  The old man didn’t wait for an answer, continued speaking.

  “You do not recognize me, hey? You do not remember Griggor?”

  The stranger gave him a blank stare, muttered, “No,” with a modest shake of his head.

  “Ah. Well. I am Griggor. Nadia, she tells you who I am, nu? I put stitches in your cap. I take them out as well.”

  He’s a doctor, the stranger thought, relieved. Not a detective.

  Though he had no recollection of ever having seen him before, the realization that the old man was not a detective gave the stranger a sense of ease.

  “You’re a… a doctor?”

  Griggor noticed the stranger’s anxiety had diminished. He correctly presumed it was the news that he was a doctor and not…the police, perhaps.

  “Da. I am doctor…of sorts. I was doctor in Romania, hey? But not here. Not in U.S. Still, I have some medical knowledge. I can stitch cuts. Set bones if need be.”

  The stranger was relieved to hear he was in the United States. That he hadn’t been abducted, taken to some foreign country. Shanghaied.

  “So…you’re…Romanian. Like the gypsy woman…”

  “Atent (careful),” Griggor warned. “Nadia, she is not gypsy, hey? She is Romana. Like me. Romanian. But not gypsy, hey? We do not like that.”

  Though the old man was friendly, the stranger could see he could be stern.

  “Nadia. Yes,” he corrected his offense. “She told me what happened. How she found me. I was hurt. Bleeding. She thinks I was mugged by, uh, blacks. She doesn’t like them.”

  “Da. I know what Nadia thinks about our dark friends, hey? She has some reason, believe me. Her hatred, it is not natural. It is…earned, for lack of better words. Do not be so quick to judge Nadia, hey? She has good heart, my friend. She takes good care of you.”