Murder in the North Tower

by Greg Smith

  He gazed at the brother who had always been his constant companion.

  “I’ve never been so relieved to be wrong, Binyak.”

  They embraced again, briefly touching their foreheads together as they had before.

  “Terr’bly sorry ’bout bashin’ you on the bean, ol’ chap,” Aleks added, giving Step’s head an affectionate rub. “But I really did think you were going to kill me.”

  “I thought I had,” Step admitted, before growing pensive. “Your story explains a lot, Al. It helps fill in some holes. Explains the memories I had of strangling you. At first, I thought I was strangling myself. Before I remembered I had you…a twin brother.”

  He fell silent for a moment.

  “You don’t have to protect me though. If I killed Connie, I’m willing to accept responsibility for that. Just tell me.”

  “Connie wasn’t there,” Aleks lied, yet again. “Why do you think she was, Step?”

  “They found her car. In a parking garage. What was left of it. They were able to trace the plates. She was there when the Tower went down.”

  “She wasn’t there Monday night, Step. She wasn’t there when we fought. She must have come to the office early Tuesday morning.”

  “I, uh, I suppose we could have had a lunch date,” Step considered. “Though it was a bit early for lunch. Brunch maybe.”

  “Maybe she came looking for you because you didn’t come home the night before,” Aleks suggested.

  He was amazed at how easily the lies came once they’d begun. How perfectly each lie fit into a plausible narrative.

  “Maybe she was there to make up for whatever you two had argued about.”

  He continued to feed the lie.

  Although Step seemed unwilling to accept Aleks suggestions totally, he didn’t argue. He could think of no reason he would have been overly upset with Connie. Certainly not over money, as he had been with Aleks. What else do husbands and wives argue about? Couldn’t have about children. They didn’t have any. Or about having children. They were on the same page regarding that. An affair? Was Connie having…?

  He wished his memory about his former wife was clearer. He seemed to have blocked out everything about her. Except her eyes. Her stark blue, baby-doll-dead eyes.

  The group had fallen silent. Each of them ingesting the information they’d just heard. Aleks hoped they’d all bought into his explanation about ’im versus ’em. As well as his suggestion that Connie had come to the office Tuesday morning hoping to make up with Step for an argument that had never occurred. Nadia just couldn’t get over how much the brothers resembled each other. Their looks and mannerisms completely identical.

  And Oak just couldn’t keep quiet any longer.

  “Weird isn’t it?”

  They all looked toward the large man.

  “Alpo thought he’d killed Step. Step thought he’d killed Aleks. They both show up to file life insurance claims. Fraudulent claims, I remind you. Each claiming to be the other twin at first. Then both settling on filing on Aleks. As though they both wanted to bury him.”

  He chuckled.

  “Some kinda eerie twin telepathy shit or something.”

  Step glanced at Aleks, who smiled, sat back, rubbed his hands along his long thighs.

  “Well, uh. Seems I’ve go’ a bi’ a ’splainin’ to do, I does.”

  He cleared his throat. He’d been talking for some time, felt he could use something to wet his whistle before going on.

  “Step, any chance I could bother you for something to drink? Anything.”

  “Dumnezeule! Where are our manners?” Nadia exclaimed.

  When she started to get up, Step stopped her. He went to the kitchen, returned with cold beers for the men, iced tea for Nadia.

  “Perfect,” Aleks said. “Thanks.”

  He tipped his bottle against the others, took a long drink.

  It took Oak less than thirty seconds to consume his twelve ounces of liquid. He regarded his empty bottle as though to say, “That’s it?” Step gave him a look of annoyance, returned to the kitchen, came back with two more bottles, which he handed to the large man.

  “Much obliged,” Oak thanked him with an appreciative smile.

  Aleks picked up his narrative.

  “As I was saying, the reason I contacted Mr. Tony Kowalski here of The Phoenix Insurance Company, was to tell him that you’d died on 9/11, Step. Actually, to tell him I’d died on 9/11. That I wanted to file a life insurance claim.”

  “On your policy?” Step asked.

  Aleks didn’t see any reason for dishonesty.

  “The plan was, I’d pretend to be you. I was gonna tell Oak that Aleks was the one who had died. That I wanted to file a claim on his insurance.”

  “Why pretend to be me? Why not tell Oak the truth? The policies were identical.”

  “You gotta remember, Binyak. I thought you were dead,” Aleks said emphatically. “I figured it wouldn’t really matter which one of us was dead. If it was me, I wouldn’t have to worry about that madman Ilya any more. I could go on being–”

  He stopped, realized Step didn’t know of bog part of the story.

  “I’d met someone, Step. She thought I was you. She thought my name was Stepan Bagdasarian.”

  “Is that what you told her? Why?”

  “No. That night…at the office. After the fight. I grabbed your coat by mistake. I had your wallet. Your ID. I’d left mine there. Sheila…that’s my new lady friend. Sheila saw your driver’s license and assumed it was mine. Before that, I was using an ID I’d stolen to get into Ground Zero. I was Russell Kummerhall from Oshkosh, Wisconsin. That’s why Sheila calls me ‘Oshkosh.’”

  He stopped speaking when he saw the looks of bewilderment on the faces of his audience.

  “That’s neither here nor there. Part of the reason I let Sheil think I was you was because it was…it was…in some warped sense it was a-a way of keeping you alive, Binyak.”

  Step was moved by his brother’s sense of devotion.

  “Seriously. I didn’t mind being you,” Aleks grinned.

  “Gee, thanks. I suppose,” Step said, accepting the back-handed compliment.

  “I’d finally come clean with Sheil,” Aleks continued. “I told her the whole truth. Everything. That wasn’t so easy. In fact, it was damn difficult. We came up with this whole crazy idea. I’d go on being you. I’d report Aleks missing. Say he’d gone to work that morning and I hadn’t seen him since. That I was certain he’d died in the North Tower on 9/11. And I’d collect the million dollars from the partnership policy. Hopefully.”

  “Two million,” Oak interjected. “Double indemnity, Alpo. And the million for Connie. Double indemnity on her, too.”

  Aleks stared the large man into silence.

  “Yes. I planned to file on Connie’s policy, as well,” he admitted. “I also planned to file for VCF money.”

  He paused.

  “Most importantly, with Aleks dead, that nutcase Ilya would be off my back.”

  He paused again, drank some beer, went on with his dialogue.

  “Of course, I knew I’d never be able to fool Oak here. He’d know who I was. I also didn’t want him to think his best friend was dead. So, I was gonna come clean with him. I figured his lack of a moral compass would allow him to aid and abet.”

  “Amen to that,” Oak said.

  Step was flabbergasted. Aleks had just outlined the exact plan he’d carried out. He recounted Oak’s words. Eerie twin telepathy shit.

  “That part about the nutcase might not have worked out so well,” he pointed out. “Ilya wanted blood. Anybody’s blood. Turned out, it was Griggor’s.”

  Beside him, Nadia made the sign of the cross, reached to kiss the ring she’d worn around her neck for twenty-five years. Before remembering she’d put it away in a box for safe keeping. Along with the key she’d found in Step’s pants pocket the day he’d wandered into her life. The key that had never come into play.

  A peste pai
nted red, she mused, remembering Griggor’s habit of misconstruing American sayings.

  Aleks remarked that Oak had mentioned this Griggor character earlier, asked who he was.

  “Griggor was the best uncle a young immigrant could ever have,” Nadia sighed. “He was my savior.”

  “He was the best doctor any amnesiac could ask for,” Step lamented. “Griggor’s no longer with us, Al. Story for another day.”

  It was apparent each twin had many holes in his history over the last four months to fill in for the other. Many stories for other days.

  Nadia was mesmerized by Aleks. She couldn’t believe how much alike he and Step were. In fact, she wasn’t sure she could tell them apart if she had to.

  Aleks could see the Romanian woman would have been exotically attractive in her youth. He could also tell she had no self-awareness of her own beauty. The exact opposite of Connie Stanton. And a perfect match for Step.

  “You haven’t formally introduced me to your exotic Romanian gypsy friend here, Step. Excuse me, your exotic Romanian gypsy wife.”

  “Don’t call her that, Al,” Step warned, imitating Griggor’s tone and words. “Romana, they don’t like that word, hey?”

  “Wife? Or exotic?” Aleks quipped. “It’s a compliment.”

  “Gypsy,” Step corrected with slight irritation.

  Aleks held both hands up defensively.

  “Didn’t mean to offend, Binyak. My apologies.”

  He held his right hand out to Nadia.

  “I’m Aleks. The evil twin,” he said with a wink and a smile.

  Nadia took his hand, immediately received a flash of images. Of struggling with someone. Of grabbing a heavy statue. Swinging it. Making contact. Of holding a hand over a blond woman’s mouth. Her eyes dancing franticly. Stopping. Staring. Doll-like.

  She’d received similar images from Step. The struggle. The blond’s dead eyes. She wondered if she could be confusing their readings because they were twins.

  She released his hand, tried to hide her unease.

  “Thank you. For taking such good care of my brother,” Aleks praised with a charming smile.

  Nadia glanced at Step, then back at the man who was his mirror image. She really couldn’t get over the resemblance between the two brothers.

  “I didn’t care for him because he’s your brother, Aleks. I knew nothing about him. Nothing about you. At the time. He was hurt. He needed help. We helped him. It’s what we do.”

  Step had told Nadia about his belief that he’d killed both his brother and Connie. Nadia’s readings had suggested that that was a possibility. She now believed it might not have been Step after all. It may have been this twin. The self-proclaimed evil twin. She silently granted Aleks some leniency for not allowing Step to continue thinking he’d killed his own wife. The duplicate readings confused her, however. She couldn’t be certain whether Aleks had killed Connie. Or it had been Step, after all. The only certainty was that the blond was dead. Though even that couldn’t be proven beyond a shadow. She looked Aleks directly in the eye as she spoke.

  “Thank you, Aleks. For relieving Stepan. With the truth about Connie.”

  While he knew nothing about The Touch, Aleks sensed the Romanian woman somehow knew the true story. He felt she was giving him, not the evil eye, rather, the all-knowing eye. He smiled again, a bit nervously this time.

  “I’m just glad he fell into such caring hands.”

  Step, who had been quiet for some time, spoke up.

  “I spent weeks not knowing who I was or what had happened to me. I woke up every morning with no memory of my past. Of my life. Or even of the day before. It was a nightmare, Al. Nadia and Griggor were very good to me.”

  Nadia placed a hand over Step’s, snuggled close to her godsend.

  “It’s interesting, Binyak,” Aleks reflected. “We were both kind of in a state of non-existence without each other. You were dealing with your amnesia. Meanwhile, I was working on The Pile. I was like a robot. Living on automatic pilot. It’s strange. Like we can’t fully exist without each other.”

  Step remembered how difficult and uncomfortable those first few weeks had been when Aleks took his road trip with Oak. He’d been lost without his Binyak. Before losing himself in his new job.

  “At least you knew who you were. I was a blank slate. It was as if my whole life had been erased.”

  Aleks glanced at his brother with deep remorse in his heart.

  “I’m sorry, again, Binyak. For bashing you. For leaving you. Things could have worked out a whole lot worse. If you hadn’t gotten out.”

  Suddenly, no one seemed to know what to say. Then Oak’s voice boomed.

  “I think this reunion calls for a celebration. Step? Do you have anything more on hand to drink? Or are we heading off to Krogh’s?”

  “We can stay here, if Nadia is willing to share her excellent Romanian tuica…?” Step hinted.

  “To Krogh’s then!” Nadia announced.

  Moments later, the group headed out the door, bundled into Oak’s Jaguar, roared off down the road to historic Krogh’s. Where they mostly enjoyed the brew pub half of the establishment’s restaurant and brew pub.

  • • • • •

  CHAPTER 72

 

  “Do you remember what you told me at my wedding? That you couldn’t be you without me?” Step asked Aleks the week following their reunion.

  They were shooting hoops on the basketball court Step had had constructed on his property. One of the few indulgences he’d allowed himself with his new-found wealth. He’d shown some restraint, opting only for a half-court.

  Aleks remembered making the comment. He’d meant it. There was no yin without yang. No Aleks without Stepan.

  “When I was about to make the payoff to Ilya,” Step said. “When I still thought you were actually dead and the payoff would be the final act involving you and I as twins, I knew I couldn’t go on being Stepan Bagdasarian. Not without my Binyak.”

  His fifteen footer rimmed out.

  “I asked Griggor for one last favor.”

  He grabbed the rebound, made his next shot.

  “He didn’t live long enough to do what I asked. But I was able to see it through.”

  Aleks had the ball, dribbled, banked a shot home.

  “I changed my name,” Step said, passing the ball to his brother.

  The ball bounced off Aleks’s thigh as he froze, gaped at his twin.

  “I wasn’t erasing any memories of you, Al. I wasn’t erasing our past. I was erasing my identity as your twin. I couldn’t exist without you, Binyak. Stepan Bagdasarian doesn’t exist without Aleks Bagdasarian. I hope you understand.”

  Aleks was a bit surprised, but he understood completely.

  “Aleks Bag-guh-duh-sarian – Ilya’s Bagman – he is dead, hey?” Step said, mimicking Griggor in tribute to the old Romanian.

  “Bag-guh-duh-sarian? What…?”

  “It was a Griggor thing. I just miss hearing the old guy say our name. Anyway, Aleks Bagdasarian has to stay buried. Otherwise…”

  Aleks finished the statement for Step.

  “Otherwise, we’re guilty of insurance fraud. We could go to prison.”

  He scooped up the loose ball.

  “Well, we are guilty of insurance fraud,” Step said. “We could go to prison."

  Aleks smirked, swished a foul shot. He’d known for some time he couldn’t go on living as Aleks Bagdasarian. He just didn’t know how to go about changing who he was.

  Step knew.

  “It’ll be no problem getting Griggor’s man to do the work. Felix is a you-scratch-my-back-I-scratch-yours kinda guy. And he owes Griggor a lot of scratch. Griggor provided free medical care for Felix, his wife and their five kids.”

  He went to the bench along the sideline, unfolded his towel, removed an object. Walking back to Aleks, he held up a small, tattered notebook with a worn, cracked cover.

  “He’s right here in Griggor�
�s little black book.”

  “Little black book, huh? Griggor actually had one?”

  Step flipped through the pages until he found the listing.

  “‘Lovejoy, Felix – Forgeries,’” he quoted. “‘Best man for job. Fast, efficient, reasonable. He is to-go man.’”

  He chuckled to himself at Griggor’s misuse of the phrase “go-to man.”

  “He’s meeting us at the Bleecker tomorrow afternoon.”

  Felix Lovejoy provided all the documentation Aleks needed to begin his new life.

  “No charge,” the exuberant man told them, handing Step the counterfeit credentials. “For Griggor. God bless his soul.”

  He made the sign of the cross.

  Step thanked Felix, slipped an envelope containing several hundred dollars unnoticed into the forger’s coat pocket as he patted him on the shoulder. Aleks was amazed at the ease with which his brother shouldered the role of conspirator. How effortlessly he consorted with the criminal element.

  Step turned the fictitious identification over to Aleks, who was pleasantly pleased with his new identity.

  “I say, ma’ey, looks as ef I’m movin’ from thuh fron’ o’ thuh class to thuh back, I am. Aleks Zogu. I likes that, I does!”

  He suddenly sighed.

  “Guess I’ll be eigh’y-sixin’ the ol’ Bags moan-ee-ker, though, I will.”

  “You’ll always be Bags, Al,” Step reassured him with a grin. “There’s no taking that away from you.”

  In the weeks after after reuniting with Step, Aleks introduced Sheila and Jacqui to the group. Both were accepted into the new Bagdasarian fraternity. Jacqui’s biracialism initially aroused Nadia’s feelings of distrust. However, the teen’s infectious exuberance and youthful jocularity slowly won the Romanian woman over.

  Nadia also found her new brother-in-law quite charming. And clever. She could never get over how much he and Step looked alike. How many mannerisms they shared in addition to their physical appearance.

  Which, if either, of the brothers had killed Connie didn’t concern her. She told herself the blond woman could easily have survived an attack from either of them. Just as Step had. Only Connie hadn’t been lucky enough to get out of the North Tower. The smattering Nadia had learned about the affluent, condescending blond had done little to endear her to the Romanian woman. She felt the circumstances surrounding Connie’s death needed no further scrutiny.