The Third Twin (14 page)

13

S
TEVE WAS BACK IN THE INTERROGATION ROOM WITH THE
yellow walls. The same two cigarette butts were still in the ashtray. The room had not changed, but he had. Three hours ago he had been a law-abiding citizen, innocent of any crime worse than driving at sixty in a fifty-five zone. Now he was a rapist, arrested and identified by the victim and accused. He was in the justice machine, on the conveyor. He was a criminal. No matter how often he reminded himself that he had done nothing wrong, he could not shake the feeling of worthlessness and ignominy.

Earlier he had seen the woman detective, Sergeant Delaware. Now the other one, the man, came in, also carrying a blue folder. He was Steve’s height but much broader and heavier, with iron gray hair cut short and a bristling mustache. He sat down and took out a pack of cigarettes. Without speaking, he tapped out a cigarette, lit it, and dropped the match in the ashtray. Then he opened the folder. Inside was yet another form. This one was headed

DISTRICT COURT OF MARYLAND
FOR (City/County)

The top half was divided into two columns headed
COMPLAINANT
and
DEFENDANT
. A little lower down it said

STATEMENT OF CHARGES

The detective began to fill out the form, still without speaking. When he had written a few words he lifted the white top sheet and checked each of four attached carbon copies: green, yellow, pink, and tan.

Reading upside down, Steve saw that the victim’s name was Lisa Margaret Hoxton. “What’s she like?” he said.

The detective looked at him. “Shut the fuck up,” he said. He drew on his cigarette and continued writing.

Steve felt demeaned. The man was abusing him and he was powerless to do anything about it. It was another stage in the process of humiliating him, making him feel insignificant and helpless. You bastard, he thought, I’d like to meet you outside of this building, without your damn gun.

The detective began filling in the charges. In box number one he wrote Sunday’s date, then “at Jones Falls University gymnasium, Balto., MD.” Below he wrote, “Rape, 1st degree.” In the next box he put the place and date again, then “Assault with intent to rape.”

He picked up a continuation sheet and added two more charges: “Battery” and “Sodomy.”

“Sodomy?” Steve said in surprise.

“Shut the fuck up.”

Steve was ready to punch him out. This is deliberate, he told himself. The guy wants to provoke me. If I throw a punch at him, he has an excuse to call three other guys in here to hold me down while he kicks the shit out of me. Don’t do it, don’t do it.

When he finished writing, the detective turned the two forms around and pushed them across the table at Steve. “You’re in bad trouble, Steve. You’ve beaten and raped and sodomized a girl—”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Steve bit his lip and remained silent.

“You’re scum. You’re shit. Decent people don’t even want to be in the same room as you. You’ve beaten and raped and sodomized a girl. I know it’s not the first time. You’ve been doing it awhile. You’re sly, and you plan, and you’ve always got away with it in the past. But this time you’ve been caught. Your victim has identified you. Other witnesses place you near the scene at the time. In an hour or so, just as soon as Sergeant Delaware has gotten a search or seizure warrant from the court commissioner on duty, we’re going to take you over to Mercy Hospital and do a blood test and comb through your pubic hair and show that your DNA matches what we found in the victim’s vagina.”

“How long does that take—the DNA test?”

“Shut the fuck up. You’re nailed, Steve. Do you know what’s going to happen to you?”

Steve said nothing.

“The penalty for first-degree rape is life imprisonment. You’re going to jail, and you know what’s going to happen there? You’re going to get a taste of what you’ve been dishing out. A good-looking youngster like you? No problem. You’re going to be beaten and raped and sodomized. You’re going to find out how Lisa felt. Only in your case it will go on for years and years and years.”

He paused, picked up the cigarette packet, and offered it to Steve.

Surprised, Steve shook his head.

“By the way, I’m Detective Brian Allaston.” He lit a cigarette. “I really don’t know why I’m telling you this, but there is a way you can make it better for yourself.”

Steve frowned, curious. What was coming now?

Detective Allaston got up, walked around the table, and sat on its edge, with one foot on the floor, intimately close to Steve. He leaned forward and spoke in a softer voice. “Let me lay it out for you. Rape is vaginal intercourse, using force or the threat of force, against the will or without the consent of the woman. For it to be first-degree rape, there has to be an aggravating factor such as kidnapping, disfigurement, or rape by two or more persons. The penalties for second-degree rape are lower. Now, if you can persuade me that what you did was only second degree, you could do yourself a great big favor.”

Steve said nothing.

“Do you want to tell me how it happened?”

At last Steve spoke. “Shut the fuck up,” he said.

Allaston moved very fast. He came off the table, grabbed Steve by the front of his shirt, lifted him out of the chair, and slammed him against the cinder-block wall. Steve’s head jerked back and hit the wall with a painful bang.

He froze, clenching his fists at his sides. Don’t do it, he said to himself, don’t fight back. It was hard. Detective Allaston was overweight and out of condition, and Steve knew he could lay the bastard out in no time. But he had to control himself. All he had to hold on to was his innocence. If he beat up a cop, no matter how he had been provoked, he would be guilty of a crime. And then he might as well give up. He would lose heart if he did not have that sense of righteous indignation to buoy him up. So he stood there, rigid, his teeth clenched, while Allaston pulled him off the wall and slammed him back twice, three times, four times.

“Don’t ever speak to me like that again, you punk,” Allaston said.

Steve felt his rage ebb away. Allaston was not even hurting him. This was theater, he realized. Allaston was acting a part and doing it badly. He was the tough guy and Mish was the nice one. In a while she would come in and offer him coffee and pretend to be his friend. But she would have the same aim as Allaston: to persuade Steve to confess to the rape of a woman he had never met called Lisa Margaret Hoxton. “Let’s cut the crap, Detective,” he said. “I know you’re a tough son of a bitch with hairs growing out of your nostrils, and you know that if we were somewhere else and you didn’t have that gun on your belt I could beat the shit out of you, so let’s stop trying to prove ourselves.”

Allaston looked surprised. No doubt he had expected Steve to be too scared to speak. He let go of Steve’s shirtfront and walked to the door.

“They told me you were a smart-ass,” he said. “Well, let me tell you what I’m going to do for your education. You’re going back to the cells for a while, but this time you’ll have company. You see, all the forty-one empty cells down there are somehow out of commission, so you’re going to have to share with a guy called Rupert Butcher, known as Porky. You think you’re a big motherfucker, but he’s bigger. He’s coming down from a three-day crack party, so he has a headache. Last night, around the time you were setting fire to the gymnasium and sticking your nasty dick into poor Lisa Hoxton, Porky Butcher was stabbing his lover to death with a gardening fork. You should enjoy one another. Let’s go.”

Steve was scared. All his courage ebbed away as if a plug had been pulled, and he felt defenseless and defeated. The detective had humiliated him without really threatening to hurt him badly; but a night with a psychopath was seriously dangerous. This Butcher character had already committed a murder: if he were capable of rational thought he would know that he had little to lose by committing another.

“Wait a minute,” Steve said shakily.

Allaston turned back slowly. “Well?”

“If I confess, I get a cell to myself.”

Relief showed in the detective’s expression. “Sure,” he said. His voice had suddenly become friendly.

The change of tone caused Steve to burn with resentment. “But if I don’t, I get murdered by Porky Butcher.”

Allaston spread his hands in a helpless gesture.

Steve felt his fear turn to hatred. “In that case, Detective,” he said, “fuck you.”

The surprised look came back into Allaston’s face. “You bastard,” he said. “We’ll see if you’re so goddamn feisty in another couple of hours. Come on.”

He took Steve to the elevator and escorted him to the cell block. Spike was still there. “Put this creep in with Porky,” Allaston told him.

Spike raised his eyebrows. “That bad, huh?”

“Yeah. And by the way—Steve here has nightmares.”

“That so?”

“If you hear him cry out—don’t worry about it, he’s just dreaming.”

“I get you,” Spike said.

Allaston left and Spike took Steve to his cell.

Porky was lying on the bunk. He was about Steve’s height but a lot heavier. He looked like a bodybuilder who had been in a car wreck: his bloodstained T-shirt was stretched tight over bulging muscles. He lay on his back, head toward the rear of the cell, feet hanging over the end of the bunk. He opened his eyes when Spike unlocked the gate and let Steve in.

It crashed shut and Spike locked it.

Porky opened his eyes and stared at Steve.

Steve stared back for a moment.

“Sweet dreams,” Spike said.

Porky closed his eyes again.

Steve sat on the floor, with his back to the wall, and watched Porky sleep.

14

B
ERRINGTON
J
ONES DROVE HOME SLOWLY
. H
E FELT DISAPPOINTED
and relieved at the same time. Like a dieter who wrestles with temptation all the way to the ice-cream parlor, then finds it closed, he had been saved from something he knew he ought not to do.

He was no closer to solving the problem of Jeannie’s project and what it might uncover, however. Maybe he should have spent more time questioning her and less having fun. He frowned in perplexity as he parked outside the house and went in.

The place was quiet: Marianne, the housekeeper, must have gone to bed. He went into the den and checked his answering machine. There was one message.

“Professor, this is Sergeant Delaware from the Sex Crimes Unit calling on Monday night. I appreciate your cooperation today.” Berrington shrugged. He had done little more than confirm that Lisa Hoxton worked at Nut House. She went on: “As you are Ms. Hoxton’s employer and the rape took place on campus, I thought I should tell you we have arrested a man this evening. In fact, he was a subject at your laboratory today. His name is Steven Logan.”

“Jesus!” Berrington burst out.

“The victim picked him out at the lineup, so I’m sure the DNA test will confirm that he is the man. Please pass this information on to any others at the college whom you think appropriate. Thank you.”

“No!” Berrington said. He sat down heavily. “No,” he said more quietly.

Then he began to weep.

After a moment he got up, still crying, and closed the study door, for fear the maid might come in. Then he returned to his desk and buried his head in his hands.

He stayed that way for some time.

When at last the tears dried up, he lifted the phone and called a number he knew by heart.

“Not the answering machine, please, God,” he said aloud as he listened to it ring out.

A young man answered. “Hello?”

“This is me,” Berrington said.

“Hey, how are you?”

“Desolate.”

“Oh.” The tone was guilty.

If Berrington had any doubts, that note in the voice swept them away. “You know what I’m calling about, don’t you.”

“Tell me.”

“Don’t play games with me, please. I’m talking about Sunday night.”

The young man sighed. “Okay.”

“You goddamn fool. You went to the campus, didn’t you? You—” He realized he should not say too much on the phone. “You did it again.”

“I’m sorry—”

“You’re sorry!”

“How did you know?”

“At first I didn’t suspect you—I thought you’d left town. Then they arrested someone who looks just like you.”

“Wow! That means I’m—”

“You’re off the hook.”

“Wow. What a break. Listen …”

“What?”

“You wouldn’t say anything. To the police, or anything.”

“No, I won’t say a word,” Berrington said with a heavy heart. “You can rely on me.”

TUESDAY

15

T
HE CITY OF
R
ICHMOND HAD AN AIR OF LOST GRANDEUR, AND
Jeannie thought Dennis Pinker’s parents fit right in. Charlotte Pinker, a freckled redhead in a whispering silk dress, had the aura of a great Virginia lady even though she lived in a frame house on a narrow lot. She said she was fifty-five, but Jeannie guessed she was probably nearer sixty. Her husband, whom she referred to as “the Major,” was about the same age, but he had the careless grooming and unhurried air of a man who had long retired. He winked roguishly at Jeannie and Lisa and said: “Would you girls like a
cocktail?”

His wife had a refined southern accent, and she spoke a little too loudly, as if she were perpetually addressing a meeting. “For mercy’s sake, Major, it’s ten o’clock in the morning!”

He shrugged. “Just trying to get the party off to a good start.”

“This is no party—these ladies are here to
study
us. It’s because our son is a murderer.”

She called him “our son,” Jeannie noted; but that did not mean a lot. He might still have been adopted. She was desperate to ask about Dennis Pinker’s parentage. If the Pinkers admitted that he was adopted, that would solve half the puzzle. But she had to be careful. It was a delicate question. If she asked too abruptly, they were more likely to lie. She forced herself to wait for the right moment.

She was also on tenterhooks about Dennis’s appearance. Was he Steven Logan’s double or not? She looked eagerly at the photographs in cheap frames around the little living room. All had been taken years ago. Little Dennis was pictured in a stroller, riding a tricycle, dressed for baseball, and shaking hands with Mickey Mouse in Disneyland. There were no pictures of him as an adult. No doubt the parents wanted to remember the innocent boy before he became a convicted murderer. In consequence, Jeannie learned nothing from the photographs. That fair-haired twelve-year-old might now look exactly like Steven Logan, but he could equally well have grown up ugly and stunted and dark.

Both Charlotte and the Major had filled out several questionnaires in advance, and now they had to be interviewed for about an hour each. Lisa took the Major into the kitchen and Jeannie interviewed Charlotte.

Jeannie had trouble concentrating on the routine questions. Her mind kept wandering to Steve in jail. She still found it impossible to believe he could be a rapist. It was not just because that would spoil her theory. She liked the guy: he was smart and engaging, and he seemed kind. He also had a vulnerable side: his bafflement and distress at the news that he had a psychopathic twin had made her want to put her arms around him and comfort him.

When she asked Charlotte if any other family members had ever been in trouble with the law, Charlotte turned her imperious gaze on Jeannie and drawled: “The men in my family have always been terribly violent.” She breathed in through flared nostrils. “I’m a Marlowe by birth, and we are a hot-blooded family.”

That suggested that Dennis was not adopted or that his adoption was not acknowledged. Jeannie concealed her disappointment. Was Charlotte going to deny that Dennis could be a twin?

The question had to be asked. Jeannie said: “Mrs. Pinker, is there any chance Dennis might have a twin?”

“No.”

The response was flat: no indignation, no bluster, just factual.

“You’re sure.”

Charlotte laughed. “My dear, that’s one thing a mother could hardly make a mistake about!”

“He definitely isn’t adopted.”

“I carried that boy in my womb, may God forgive me.”

Jeannie’s spirits fell. Charlotte Pinker would lie more readily than Lorraine Logan, Jeannie judged, but all the same it was strange and worrying that they should both deny their sons were twins.

She felt pessimistic as they took their leave of the Pinkers. She had a feeling that when she met Dennis she would find he looked nothing like Steve.

Their rented Ford Aspire was parked outside. It was a hot day. Jeannie was wearing a sleeveless dress with a jacket over it for authority. The Ford’s air conditioner groaned and pumped out tepid air. She took off her panty hose and hung her jacket on the rear-seat coat hook.

Jeannie drove. As they pulled onto the highway, heading for the prison, Lisa said: “It really bothers me that you think I picked the wrong guy.”

“It bothers me, too,” Jeannie said. “I know you wouldn’t have done it if you didn’t feel sure.”

“How can you be so certain I’m wrong?”

“I’m not certain about anything. I just have a strong feeling about Steve Logan.”

“It seems to me that you should weigh a feeling against an eyewitness certainty, and believe the eyewitness.”

“I know. But did you ever see that Alfred Hitchcock show? It’s in black and white, you catch reruns sometimes on cable.”

“I know what you’re going to say. The one where four people witness a road accident and each one sees something different.”

“Are you offended?”

Lisa sighed. “I ought to be, but I like you too much to be mad at you about it.”

Jeannie reached across and squeezed Lisa’s hand. “Thanks.”

There was a long silence, then Lisa said: “I hate it that people think I’m weak.”

Jeannie frowned. “I don’t think you’re weak.”

“Most people do. It’s because I’m small, and I have a cute little nose, and freckles.”

“Well, you don’t
look
tough, it’s true.”

“But I am. I live alone, I take care of myself, I hold down a job, and nobody fucks with me. Or so I thought, before Sunday. Now I feel people are right: I
am
weak. I can’t take care of myself at all! Any psychopath walking around the streets can grab me and hold a knife in my face and do what he wants with my body and leave his sperm inside me.”

Jeannie looked across at her. Lisa was white-faced with passion. Jeannie hoped it was doing her good to get these feelings out. “You’re not weak,” she said.

“You’re
tough,” Lisa said.

“I have the opposite problem—people think I’m invulnerable. Because I’m six feet tall and I have a pierced nostril and a bad attitude, they imagine I can’t be hurt.”

“You don’t have a bad attitude.”

“I must be slipping.”

“Who thinks you’re invulnerable? I don’t.”

“The woman who runs the Bella Vista, the home my mom’s in. She said to me, straight out, ‘Your mother will never see sixty-five.’ Just like that. ‘I know you’d prefer me to be honest,’ she said. I wanted to tell her that just because there’s a ring in my nose it doesn’t mean I have no goddamn feelings.”

“Mish Delaware says rapists aren’t really interested in sex. What they enjoy is having power over a woman, and dominating her, and scaring her, and hurting her. He picked someone who looked as if she would be easily frightened.”

“Who wouldn’t be frightened?”

“He didn’t pick you, though. You probably would have slugged him.”

“I’d like the chance.”

“Anyway, you would have fought harder than I did and you wouldn’t have been helpless and terrified. So he didn’t pick you.”

Jeannie saw where all this was heading. “Lisa, that may be true, but it doesn’t make the rape your fault, okay? You’re not to blame, not one iota. You were in a train wreck: it could have happened to anyone.”

“You’re right,” Lisa said.

They drove ten miles out of town and pulled off the interstate at a sign marked “Greenwood Penitentiary.” It was an old-fashioned prison, a cluster of gray stone buildings surrounded by high walls with razor wire. They left the car in the shade of a tree in the visitors’ parking lot. Jeannie put her jacket back on but left off her panty hose.

“Are you ready for this?” Jeannie said. “Dennis is going to look just like the guy who raped you, unless my methodology is all wrong.”

Lisa nodded grimly. “I’m ready.”

The main gate opened to let out a delivery truck, and they walked in unchallenged. Security was not tight, Jeannie concluded, despite the razor wire. They were expected. A guard checked their identification and escorted them across a baking-hot courtyard where a handful of young black men in prison fatigues were throwing a basketball.

The administration building was air-conditioned. They were shown into the office of the warden, John Temoigne. He wore a short-sleeved shirt and a tie, and there were cigar butts in his ashtray. Jeannie shook his hand. “I’m Dr. Jean Ferrami from Jones Falls University.”

“How are you, Jean?”

Temoigne was obviously the type of man who found it hard to call a woman by her surname. Jeannie deliberately did not tell him Lisa’s first name. “And this is my assistant, Ms. Hoxton.”

“Hi, honey.”

“I explained our work when I wrote to you, Warden, but if you have any further questions I’d be glad to answer them.” Jeannie had to say that, even though she was itching to get a look at Dennis Pinker.

“You need to understand that Pinker is a violent and dangerous man,” said Temoigne. “Do you know the details of his crime?”

“I believe he attempted to sexually assault a woman in a movie theater, and killed her when she tried to fight him off.”

“You’re close. It was at the old Eldorado movie theater down in Greensburg. They were all watching some horror movie. Pinker got into the basement and turned off the electric power. Then, while everyone was panicking in the dark, he ran around feeling girls up.”

Jeannie exchanged a startled look with Lisa. It was so similar to what had happened at JFU on Sunday. A diversion had created confusion and panic, and given the perpetrator his opportunity. And there was a similar hint of adolescent fantasy about the two scenarios: feeling up all the girls in the darkened theater, and seeing the women running naked out of the changing room, if Steve Logan was Dennis’s identical twin, it seemed they had committed very similar crimes.

Temoigne went on: “One woman unwisely tried to resist him, and he strangled her.”

Jeannie bridled. “If he had felt you up, Warden, would you have
unwisely
tried to resist him?”

“I ain’t a girl,” Temoigne said with the air of one who plays a winning card.

Lisa tactfully intervened. “We should get started, Dr. Ferrami—we have a lot of work to do.”

“You’re right.”

Temoigne said: “Normally you would interview the prisoner through a grille. You’ve specially asked to be in the same room with him, and I have orders from above to let you. All the same I urge you to think again. He is a violent and dangerous criminal.”

Jeannie felt a tremor of anxiety, but she stayed outwardly cool. “There will be an armed guard in the room all the time we’re with Dennis.”

“There sure will. But I’d be more comfortable if there was a steel mesh separating you from the prisoner.” He gave a sickly grin. “A man doesn’t even have to be a psychopath to suffer temptation with two such attractive young girls.”

Jeannie stood up abruptly. “I appreciate your concern, Warden, I really do. But we have to carry out certain procedures, such as taking a blood sample, photographing the subject, and so on, which can’t be done through bars. Furthermore, parts of our interview are intimate and we feel it would compromise our results to have such an artificial barrier between us and the subject.”

He shrugged. “Well, I guess you’ll be okay.” He stood up. “I’ll walk you along to the cell block.”

They left the office and crossed a baked-earth yard to a two-story concrete blockhouse. A guard opened an iron gate and let them in. The interior was as hot as the outside. Temoigne said: “Robinson here will take care of you from now on. Anything else you girls need, just holler.”

“Thank you, Warden,” Jeannie said. “We appreciate your cooperation.”

Robinson was a reassuringly tall black man of about thirty. He had a pistol in a buttoned holster and an intimidating-looking nightstick. He showed them into a small interview room with a table and half a dozen chairs in a stack. There was an ashtray on the table and a water cooler in the corner; otherwise the room was bare. The floor was tiled in gray plastic and the walls were painted a similar shade. There was no window.

Robinson said: “Pinker will be here in a minute.” He helped Jeannie and Lisa arrange the table and chairs. Then they sat down.

A moment later the door opened.