Murder in the North Tower

by Greg Smith

  “Or you maybe fight over woman, hey? Is not so uncommon.”

  Alex had already remembered, and forgotten, the blond several times that day. At Griggor’s mention of a woman, a new memory suddenly sprang out of the shadows. Possibly exposing the real reason behind the argument with Binyak he’d been wondering about. Conceivably confirming the old man’s innocent suggestion.

  He was peering into a bedroom, through the door that had been left ajar. A petite blond woman was sitting astride a man, rising up and down. He strained to see who the man was. Caught a glimpse of the face. It was his own!

  But he knew the man was Binyak. And he was furious about it!

  Alex was stunned by Griggor’s amazing perception. However, he wasn’t given the old man the satisfaction of being right about everything.

  “I–I really don’t remember,” he stonewalled.

  Of course, Griggor was perceptive. An expert interrogator, he knew Alex was lying.

  “Maybe you fight over wife, hey? Binyock, he is married, da? Also, you are married, nu?”

  Alex instinctively reached his right hand to his left. Felt for the wedding band that wasn’t there. He didn’t really know the answer to either question. Most likely, the blond was his wife. Then again, she could be Binyak’s. If that was true, however, if the blond was Binyak’s wife, why would he have killed them? He suddenly didn’t want to answer any more of the old man’s questions.

  “All this remembering is making me tired,” he said in an attempt to discourage Griggor from further questioning.

  Griggor could sense Alex withdrawing. He knew the tall man was getting annoyed with him, that it was time to ease off. Like any good interrogator he knew when to push, when to back away.

  “Maybe you rest now, hey?”

  “I don’t want to sleep,” Alex protested. “I’m afraid if-if I do, when I wake up…it will all be gone. I’ll stop remembering. Forget all of this.”

  “Well, you know doctors, hey? They always say ‘drink many fluids, get much rest.’”

  He held his hands out apologetically.

  “So...doctor’s orders.”

  Now that the memories were coming, Alex wasn't about to sleep. Nor did he want to watch television. The notion that he should start documenting what he was remembering crossed his mind.

  “Maybe I should start writing stuff down. Make notes for myself. Like that movie…” He snapped his fingers. “Muh…uh…Memento!”

  Griggor was not a movie goer, hadn’t seen a movie in years. He had no idea what Alex was referring to.

  “I’ll need index cards…pencils. Or pens,” Alex pondered aloud.

  “I can let Nadia know. On my way out now, hey?”

  Shortly after the old man left, Nadia showed up with the items Alex had requested. A partial packet of three-by-five index cards, secured with a crusty old rubber band. Some pens, similarly bound. The Romanian woman took the opportunity to collect Alex’s dirty laundry, bid him good night.

  Alex spent the rest of the evening putting his memories on paper. He made a card for himself.

  Name: Alex

  DOB: unknown

  Age: 34 or 35

  Marital status: unknown – possibly the dead blond

  Parents: Nene & Baba

  Siblings: twin brother, Binyak

  • We played basketball in high school (H.S. unknown)

  • We also played volleyball

  • We were known as The Twin Towers

  Occupation: unknown – we work together

  Education: unknown

  Miscellaneous:

  • tattoo – two-headed eagle on forearm

  • Albanian ancestry

  • The Blond – she may be dead

  • An argument – Over money? Over The Blond?

  • Amnesia

  He made a card for Binyak as well, with the appropriate changes. Name: Binyak. Siblings: twin brother, Alex. He left the amnesia entry off Binyak’s card. He made cards for Nadia and Griggor as well, listing only a few comments under a single Miscellaneous entry. After a moment’s thought, he made one for The Blond.

  He worked late into the night, fighting off sleep. Eventually, though, he dozed.

  ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜

  From across a room, the stranger saw himself standing next to an attractive, petite blond. The blond was laughing. She was pointing in his direction and laughing. The him standing next to her was not laughing. His shirt tail was out. His pants unclasped. His belt unbuckled. He seemed surprised. As though he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. The blond woman’s cookie jar.

  The stranger felt a surge of hatred and rage. Suddenly, the blond woman wasn’t laughing any longer. His hands were around her neck. She was limp. Her eyes were vacant, glassy. Doll’s eyes. Then, her face unexpectedly changed. It was no longer the blond’s face. It was his own face. He was strangling himself!

  No, he realized. He was strangling Binyak. He was strangling his twin brother.

  ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜

  Alex awoke from the dream, lay in bed staring into the darkness.

  Had he killed his own brother? Because he was having an affair with his wife? The blond. Had he killed them both?

  Things were coming back to him. Slowly. Like sludge seeping through a sewage pipe.

  Only now, he wasn’t sure he wanted to remember.

  • • • • •

  CHAPTER 35

 

  The spring of 1993 found the Bagdasarians in disarray. Jill’s botched murder trial was over. Step was looking to land a new job. Aleks was floundering in despair. And their parents were scheduled for a consultation with Mirlinda’s gynecologist.

  Just forty-eight years old, Mirlinda Bagdasarian believed she was in good health. She’d gone through menopause at an early age, but had been happy to be done with her monthly visitor. She hadn’t been alarmed when she experienced spotting one day. Nor did the cramps she felt a few days later concern her. What finally prompted her to call her doctor was Armend mentioning that he could feel her hip bones pressing against him when they made love. Something he couldn’t remember happening since before the boys were born.

  Mirlinda realized she’d lost a considerable amount of weight.

  She’d scheduled an appointment with her gynecologist. He’d run some routine tests, conferred with an oncologist, had finally asked both Armend and Mirlinda in for the consultation.

  Mirlinda received Dr. Stewart’s news with resigned calm. She’d somehow known it was going to be bad, wasn’t surprised by the “c” word. Like many of her generation, she assumed getting cancer wasn’t a matter of “if,” but of “when” and “what kind.” Armend, however, was terribly upset.

  “Ovarian cancer?” he repeated the doctor’s words, turned to his wife. “That cannot be, Mir. You had your ovaries removed. When the boys were born.”

  “Mr. Badgrrr…Bagder–”

  Though Mirlinda had been his patient for several years, Dr. Stewart still struggled with their last name.

  “It’s Bag-duh-sair-ee-un, doctor. But, please, call me Armend.”

  “Armend,” Dr. Stewart continued. “It’s not out of the realm of possibility for a woman to contract ovarian cancer even though her ovaries have been removed.”

  “Doesn’t seem possible,” Armend argued. “Where is the ovarian cancer if there are no ovaries? No ovaries, no cancer, no?”

  He held up his hands, shrugged.

  “Armend,” Mirlinda said. “Let it go.”

  “No. I will not. I will not let it go, Mir. How can he sit here and tell me my wife has ovarian cancer when she has no ovaries? Can you have a heart attack if you have no heart?”

  As upset as he was, Armend couldn’t see the ridiculousness of his analogy.

  “Please, dear…”

  “It’s okay, Mrs. Bad–…Mirlinda,” Dr. Stewart interjected. “It’s natural to be angry and frustrated by news such as this. Mr….uh, Armend. I know you’re upset. I would be, t
oo, if I were in your shoes. But the fact is, these results are highly accurate. Your wife…Mirlinda…has a serious illness. We need to focus on how we’re going to treat it.”

  “Chemo? Is that what you suggest, doctor?”

  “Chemotherapy is the conventional treatment.”

  Armend exploded.

  “You damn doctors! You’re all the same! You have this, take this pill. You have that, take that pill. Pharmaceutical companies have you in their pockets!”

  Mirlinda had heard enough of her husband’s rants.

  “Armend! Stop! This is not Dr. Stewart’s fault. It’s not my fault. Or your fault. It’s no one’s fault. It just is.”

  Armend fell silent, brooding. Mirlinda remained serene, unruffled.

  “Thank you for your time, Dr. Stewart. I think we will go home and…digest…this.”

  Dr. Stewart was apologetic, solemn. However, he maintained his Hippocratic optimism.

  “Mirlinda. I’m…I’m terribly sorry. But there is hope. Chemo has been highly successful treating any number of cancers.”

  Mirlinda smiled. Although she appeared to accept Dr. Stewart’s comments, in truth, she didn’t believe a word he was saying about a cure. What she did believe was that she was dying of ovarian cancer. And there wasn’t much anyone – other than God – could do about it.

  The Bagdasarians left Dr. Stewart’s office and never returned. They drove home in silence, each lost in thought. Once home, Mirlinda laid out her plan for Armend.

  “You will mention nothing about this to Aleks and Stepan. Or anyone else, for that matter,” she told her husband. “We will go on as before. What will happen, will happen.”

  “No chemo?” Armend asked.

  “No chemo. No medicines. No more doctors. It is in God’s hands,” Mirlinda said determinedly.

  Mirlinda lived another three-and-a-half months. She suffered in silence. Rocking for hours with a pillow held tight against her abdomen. Staring out the window of their kitchen. At the end, she became almost catatonic. By that time, Armend had come to wish they had opted for the chemotherapy.

  He alone was with his wife of nearly forty years when she finally passed away. Her last words to him were spoken in a whisper, barely audible, her eyes closed.

  “It is God’s will, Armend. I love you.”

  Aleks and Stepan never knew the full extent of their mother’s condition. While they had noticed her weight loss, they’d accepted her explanation. That she was paying closer attention to what she ate. Had cut out sweets and her beloved two cans of Dr. Pepper a day. When they discovered the cause of death was ovarian cancer, they questioned their father.

  “Your mother swore me to secrecy,” Armend told his sons. “She wanted nothing to do with chemo, doctors, pills. None of it. She put her trust in God.”

  “Oh, and how did that work out for her?” Aleks asked.

  “Don’t you dare question your Nene’s faith!” Armend erupted. “The decision was hers and hers alone. It was her life.”

  “We just wish you would have consulted with us, Baba,” Step said. “Why wouldn’t she do that?”

  “She had her reasons,” Armend replied.

  “Christ, she wasn’t even fifty,” Aleks lamented.

  “Short as it was, hers was a good life. She loved you boys with all her heart. She loved her family.”

  Watching his beloved Mirlinda waste away had affected Armend more than his sons realized. Always a religious man, he lost faith, quit going to Mass. He beat himself up for not forcing Mirlinda to undergo chemotherapy. Questioned his decision not to tell his sons about their mother’s condition. He soon no longer felt any desire to continue living himself. He had no reason to wake up each morning. He stopped going to the shop. He spent his days wandering the streets of Brooklyn. He even walked dangerous areas where his life could be in danger. No one bothered with him. Even the most threatening gangs and thugs seemed to sense his mental and spiritual unstableness, left him alone.

  One day, Armend’s meandering took him to the 39th Street Yard…where he unceremoniously stepped in front of a moving train.

  Just a few weeks after their mother died, the Bagdasarian brothers buried their father in the plot adjoining hers. Armend and Mirlinda Bagdasarian had lived long enough to watch their twin sons mature into admirable young men. They’d been there when Aleks and Step graduated from college. When they’d earned their MBAs. Sadly, they’d also been present at Jill’s funeral.

  Even at the age of twenty-seven, Aleks and Step felt the weight of being orphaned. They donated their parents’ belongings to charity, put the Kensington house on the market. They had an offer from a young couple within the week, quickly transferred ownership. A phase of their lives had ended. Much sooner than either of them had expected.

  • • • • •

  CHAPTER 36

 

  Friday, October 12: Day 31 post-9/11

  One month into the recovery at Ground Zero, 393 bodies had been recovered. 353 had been identified. The official missing persons count for the World Trade Center remained at 4,979.

  For the twenty-eighth consecutive morning, the wanderer awoke in Nadia’s spare bedroom. After four weeks, he finally recognized his surroundings. The bedroom was familiar. He knew there was an adjacent bathroom. That the mirror was plastered with notes he’d written to himself. He also knew he’d find an old-fashion television in a room down the hall. A room with large-flowered wallpaper. Matching curtains. A recliner. An end table. A lamp.

  He rubbed his face, was surprised by the length of his beard. He wondered why he hadn’t shaved. He knew he’d been injured, instinctively felt the healed wound on his head. The image of an older foreign man crept into his mind. He knew the old man was a doctor. He remembered he was in the care of a woman, as well. While thoughts of the old man induced feelings of anxiety, the woman’s image was accompanied by a pleasant sense of comfort.

  He entered the bathroom, reviewed the Post-it Notes swarming the mirror.

  “Your name is Alex.”

  “You have amnesia.”

  “You don’t remember ANYTHING!”

  “You’re in Manhattan.”

  “The gypsy woman is Nadia.”

  ↑

  (Don’t use this word!)

  “She’s very nice.”

  “The old foreign guy is Griggor.”

  “He doesn’t trust you.”

  “The man and woman are Romanian.”

  One Post-it Note glared out at him, shouting it’s importance with capital letters.

  “YOU’VE BEEN HERE 4 WEEKS!!!”

  He scowled at the note, was alarmed by the amount of time it mentioned.

  Four weeks? Twenty-eight days. Nearly a month.

  He stroked his lengthy beard, tried to conjure up a memory of the past month, thought it odd that he could remember nothing beyond awakening that morning. He had no idea what yesterday had been like. Or the day before that. Or the day before that. Ad infinitum.

  He was equally dumbfounded by the remaining notes.

  “America was attacked on September 11.”

  “The Twin Towers were destroyed. They’re GONE!!!”

  “The Pentagon was also attacked.”

  “America is NOT at war.”

  America attacked? The Twin Towers…gone? The Pentagon attacked? Yet, we’re not at war? How–? What–?”

  He stared at himself in the mirror, as though he’d find the answer written on his face. He searched his eyes, hoping for some memory of the events the Post-it Notes whispered about. He unconsciously touched his head where he’d been wounded, considered that he must have been injured during the attack. But if that was true, why wasn’t he in a hospital?

  He glanced over the Post-it Notes again.

  “You have amnesia.”

  “You don’t remember ANYTHING!”

  In addition to the Post-it Notes, an index card was taped on each side of the mirror. One with his name. One with “B
inyak”.

  He remembered Binyak. His twin brother. He wondered where Binyak was. If Binyak was safe. If Binyak was searching for him. He knew he’d be searching for Binyak. If the shoe was on the other foot.

  Like the brothers, the cards were nearly identical. They offered more information. Something about tattoos. Something about being Albanian. Something about a blond who may have died. His wife. Or Binyak’s wife. Something about an argument over money. Or over the blond.

  The information was intriguing. But meant nothing to him. He was Albanian. His caretakers were Romanian. He couldn’t fathom what importance anyone’s heritage could have.

  He stripped to shower, noticed the tattoo on his forearm. A two-headed eagle, as the index card had indicated. Was that an Albanian symbol? Was he in some kind of Albanian gang? The Albanian mafia? Could that be the significance of his heritage?

  After showering, he stood in front of the mirror staring at himself.

  Who are you, Alex? he asked his mirror image. Why don’t you recognize your own face?

  He slid the drawer to the vanity open, found several razors, a can of shaving cream. It took some time to remove several weeks’ growth of beard with just the razor, but he managed. He would have preferred his electric clippers.

  The clean-shaven face in the mirror was no more familiar than the face with the beard. He turned to go back into the bedroom, was startled to find the old man standing in the bathroom doorway.

  “I knock, you do not answer, hey? I come for breakfast today. Nadia, she tells me, ‘Go upstairs. Surprise Alex.’” He paused before adding, “Surprise!” With an amiable smile.

  Alex remembered the warning from the Post-it notes.

  He doesn’t trust you.

  He moved past the old man into the bedroom. Before turning to follow, Griggor took a moment to glance into the bathroom, scan the messages plastered all over the mirror. He took note of the ones referring to “the old foreign guy.”

  “You find razor, I see, hey?”

  “I, uh, I thought I might recognize the guy beneath the beard,” Alex said as he dressed.

  Griggor raised his eyebrows in question.