the Third Twin (1996) Read online

  But there was another reason why he was curious about his own psychology. Ricky did not know about it. Nobody at law school knew. Only his parents knew.

  Steve had almost killed someone.

  He was fifteen at the time, already tall but thin. He was captain of the basketball team. That year, Hillsfield High made it to the city championship semifinal. They played against a team of ruthless street fighters from a Washington slum school. One particular opponent, a boy called Tip Hendricks, fouled Steve all through the match. Tip was good, but he used all his skill to cheat. And every time he did it he would grin, as if to say “Got you again, sucker!” It drove Steve wild, but he had to keep his fury inside. All the same he played badly and the team lost, missing their chance at the trophy.

  By the worst of bad luck, Steve ran into Tip in the parking lot, where the buses were waiting to take the teams back to their schools. Fatally, one of the drivers was changing a wheel and had a tool kit open on the ground.

  Steve ignored Tip, but Tip flicked his cigarette butt at Steve, and it landed on his jacket.

  That jacket meant a lot to Steve. He had saved up his earnings from working Saturdays at McDonald’s, and he had bought the damn thing the day before. It was a beautiful tan blouson made of soft leather the color of butter, and now it had a burn mark right on the chest, where you could not help but see it. It was ruined. So Steve hit him.

  Tip fought back fiercely, kicking and butting, but Steve’s rage numbed him and he hardly felt the blows. Tip’s face was covered in blood by the time his eye fell on the busdriver’s tool kit and he picked up a tire iron. He hit Steve across the face with it twice. The blows really hurt, and Steve’s rage became blind. He got the iron away from Tip—and he could remember nothing, after that, until he was standing over Tip’s body, with the bloodstained iron bar in his hand, and someone else was saying, “Jesus Christ Almighty, I think he’s dead.”

  Tip was not dead, though he did die two years later, killed by a Jamaican marijuana importer to whom he owed eighty-five dollars. But Steve had wanted to kill him, had tried to kill him. He had no real excuse: he had struck the first blow, and although Tip had been the one to pick up the tire iron, Steve had used it savagely.

  Steve was sentenced to six months in prison, but the sentence was suspended. After the trial he went to a different school and passed all his exams as usual. Because he had been a juvenile at the time of the fight, his criminal record could not be disclosed to anyone, so it did not prevent his getting into law school. Mom and Dad now thought of it as a nightmare that was over. But Steve had doubts. He knew it was only good luck and the resilience of the human body that had saved him from a murder trial. Tip Hendricks was a human being, and Steve had almost killed him for a jacket. As he listened to Ricky’s untroubled breathing across the room, he lay awake on the couch and thought: What am I?

  MONDAY

  5

  “DID YOU EVER MEET A MAN YOU WANTED TO MARRY?” Lisa said.

  They were sitting at the table in Lisa’s apartment, drinking instant coffee. Everything about the place was pretty, like Lisa: flowered prints, china ornaments, and a teddy bear with a spotted bow tie.

  Lisa was going to take the day off, but Jeannie was dressed for work in a navy skirt and white cotton blouse. It was an important day, and she was jumpy with tension. The first of her subjects was coming to the lab for tests. Would he fit in with her theory or flout it? By the end of the afternoon she would either feel vindicated or be painfully reappraising her ideas.

  However, she did not want to leave until the last possible moment. Lisa was still very fragile. Jeannie figured the best thing she could do was sit and talk to her about men and sex the way they always did, help her get on the road back to normality. She would have liked to stay here all morning, but she could not. She was really sorry lisa would not be at the lab to help her today, but it was out of the question.

  “Yeah, one,” Jeannie said in answer to the question. “There was one guy I wanted to marry. His name was Will Temple. He was an anthropologist. Still is.” Jeannie could see him now, a big man with a fair beard, in blue jeans and a fisherman’s sweater, carrying his ten-speed bicycle through the corridors of the university.

  “You’ve mentioned him before,” Lisa said. “What was he like?”

  “He was great” Jeannie sighed. “He made me laugh, he took care of me when I was sick, he ironed his own shirts, and he was hung like a horse.”

  Lisa did not smile. “What went wrong?”

  Jeannie was being flip, but it hurt her to remember. “He left me for Georgina Tinkerton Ross.” As if by way of explanation, she added: “Of the Pittsburgh Tinkerton Rosses.”

  “What was she like?”

  The last thing Jeannie wanted to do was recall Georgina. However, this was taking Lisa’s mind off the rape, so she forced herself to reminisce. “She was perfect,” she said, and she disliked the bitter sarcasm she heard in her own voice. “Strawberry blond, hourglass figure, impeccable taste in cashmere sweaters and crocodile shoes. No brain, but a hell of a big trust fund.”

  “When did all this happen?”

  “Will and I lived together for a year when I was doing my doctorate.” It had been the happiest time she could remember. “He moved out while I was writing my article on whether criminality is genetic.” Great timing, Will. I just wish I could hate you more. “Then Berrington offered me a job at Jones Falls and I jumped at it.”

  “Men are creeps.”

  “Will isn’t really a creep. He’s a beautiful guy. He fell for someone else, that’s all. I think he showed really bad judgment in his choice. But it’s not like we were married or anything. He didn’t break any promises. He wasn’t even unfaithful to me, except maybe once or twice before he told me.” Jeannie realized she was repeating Will’s own words of self-justification. “I don’t know, maybe he was a creep after all.”

  “Maybe we should return to Victorian times, when a man who kissed a woman considered himself engaged. At least girls knew where they were.”

  Right now Lisa’s perspective on relationships was pretty skewed, but Jeannie did not say so. Instead she asked: “What about you? Did you ever find one you wanted to marry?”

  “Never. Not one.”

  “You and I have high standards. Don’t worry, when Mr. Right comes along he’ll be wonderful.”

  The entry phone sounded, startling them both. Lisa jumped up, bumping the table. A porcelain vase fell to the floor and shattered, and Lisa said: “Goddamn it.”

  She was still right on the edge. “I’ll pick up the pieces,” Jeannie said in a soothing voice. “You see who’s at the door.”

  Lisa picked up the handset. A troubled frown crossed her face, and she studied the image on the monitor. “All right, I guess,” she said dubiously, and she pressed the button that opened the building door.

  “Who is it?” Jeannie asked.

  “A detective from the Sex Crimes Unit.”

  Jeannie had been afraid they would send someone to bully Lisa into cooperating with the investigation. She was determined they would not succeed. The last thing Lisa needed now was more intrusive questions. “Why didn’t you tell him to fuck off?”

  “Maybe because she’s black,” Lisa said.

  “No kidding?”

  Lisa shook her head.

  How clever, Jeannie thought as she swept shards of porcelain into her cupped hand. The cops knew she and Lisa were hostile. If they had sent a white male detective he would not have got through the door. So they sent a black woman, knowing that two middle-class white girls would bend over backward to be polite to her. Well, if she tries to push Lisa around I’ll throw her out of here just the same, Jeannie thought.

  She turned out to be a stocky woman of about forty, smartly dressed in a cream blouse with a colorful silk scarf, carrying a briefcase. “I’m Sergeant Michelle Delaware,” she said. “They call me Mish.”

  Jeannie wondered what was in the briefcase. Detectives usual
ly carried guns, not papers. “I’m Dr. Jean Ferrami,” Jeannie said. She always used her title when she thought she was going to quarrel with someone. “This is Lisa Hoxton.”

  The detective said: “Ms. Hoxton, I want to say how sorry I am about what happened to you yesterday: My unit deals with one rape a day, on average, and every single one is a terrible tragedy and a wounding trauma for the victim. I know you’re hurting and I understand.”

  Wow, Jeannie thought, this is different from yesterday.

  “I’m trying to put it behind me,” Lisa said defiantly, but tears came to her eyes and betrayed her.

  “May I sit down?”

  “Of course.”

  The detective sat at the kitchen table.

  Jeannie studied her warily. “Your attitude seems different from the patrolman’s,” she said.

  Mish nodded. “I’m also deeply sorry about McHenty and the way he treated you. Like all patrolmen he has received training on how to deal with rape victims, but he seems to have forgotten what he was taught. I’m embarrassed for the entire police department.”

  “It was like being violated all over again,” Lisa said tearfully.

  “It’s not supposed to happen anymore,” Mish said, and a note of anger crept into her voice. “This is how so many rape cases end up in a drawer marked ‘Unfounded.’ It’s not because women lie about rape. It’s because the justice system treats them so brutally that they withdraw the complaint.”

  Jeannie said: “I can believe that.” She told herself to be careful: Mish might talk like a sister, but she was still a cop.

  Mish took a card from her purse. “Here’s the number of a volunteer center for victims of rape and child abuse,” she said. “Sooner or later, every victim needs counseling.”

  Lisa took the card, but she said: “Right now all I want is to forget it.”

  Mish nodded. “Take my advice, put the card in a drawer. Your feelings go through cycles, and there will probably come a time when you’re ready to seek help.”

  “Okay.”

  Jeannie decided that Mish had earned a little courtesy. “Would you like some coffee?” she offered. “I’d love a cup.”

  “I’ll make some fresh.” Jeannie got up and filled the coffee maker.

  Mish said: “Do you two work together?”

  “Yes,” Jeannie replied. “We study twins.”

  “Twins?”

  “We measure their similarities and differences, and try to figure out how much is inherited and how much is due to the way they were raised.”

  “What’s your role in this, Lisa?”

  “My job is to find the twins for the scientists to study.”

  “How do you do that?”

  “I start with birth records, which are public information in most states. Twinning is about one percent of births, so we get a set of twins for every hundred birth certificates we look at. The certificate gives the date and place of birth. We take a copy, then track down the twins.”

  “How?”

  “We have every American phone book on CD-ROM. We can also use driving license registries and credit reference agencies.”

  “Do you always find the twins?”

  “Goodness, no. Our success rate depends on their age. We track down about ninety percent of ten-year-olds, but only fifty percent of eighty-year-olds. Older people are more likely to have moved several times, changed their names, or died.”

  Mish looked at Jeannie. “And then you study them.”

  Jeannie said: “I specialize in identical twins who have been raised apart. They’re much more difficult to find.” She put the coffeepot on the table and poured a cup for Mish. If this detective was planning to put pressure on Lisa, she was taking her time about it.

  Mish sipped her coffee then said to Lisa: “At the hospital, did you take any medication?” “No, I wasn’t there long.”

  “They should have offered you the morning-after pill. You don’t want to be pregnant.”

  Lisa shuddered. “I sure don’t. I’ve been asking myself what the hell I’d do about it.”

  “Go to your own doctor. He should give it to you, unless he has religious objections—some Catholic physicians have a problem with it. In that case the volunteer center will recommend an alternate.”

  “It’s so good to talk to someone who knows all this stuff,” Lisa said.

  “The fire was no accident,” Mish went on. “I’ve talked to the fire chief. Someone set it in a storage room next to the locker room—and he unscrewed the ventilation pipes to make sure the smoke was pumped into the locker room. Now, rapists are not really interested in sex: it’s fear that turns them on. So I think the fire was all part of this creep’s fantasy.”

  Jeannie had not thought of that possibility. “I assumed he was just an opportunist who took advantage of the fire.”

  Mish shook her head. “Date rape is usually opportunistic: a guy finds that the girl is too stoned or drunk to fight him off. But men who rape strangers are different. They’re planners. They fantasize the event, then work out how to make it happen. They can be very clever. It makes them more scary.”

  Jeannie felt even angrier. “I nearly died in that goddamn fire,” she said.

  Mish said to Lisa: “I’m right in thinking you had never seen this man before? He was a total stranger?”

  “I think I saw him about an hour earlier,” she replied. “When I was out running with the field hockey team, a car slowed right down and the guy stared at us. I have a feeling it was him.”

  “What kind of a car?”

  “It was old, I know that. White, with a lot of rust. Maybe a Datsun.”

  Jeannie expected Mish to write that down, but she carried on talking. “The impression I get is of an intelligent and completely ruthless pervert who will do whatever it takes to get his kicks.”

  Jeannie said bitterly: “He should be locked away for the rest of his life.”

  Mish played her trump card. “But he won’t be. He’s free. And he will do it again.”

  Jeannie was skeptical. “How can you be sure of that?” “Most rapists are serial rapists. The only exception is the opportunistic date-rapist I mentioned before: that type of guy might offend only once. But men who rape strangers do it again and again—until they’re caught.” Mish looked hard at Lisa. “In seven to ten days’ time, the man who raped you will put another woman through the same torture—unless we catch him first.”

  “Oh, my God,” Lisa said.

  Jeannie could see where Mish was heading. As Jeannie had anticipated, the detective was going to try to talk Lisa into helping with the investigation. Jeannie was still determined not to let Mish bully or pressure Lisa. But it was hard to object to the kinds of things she was saying now.

  “We need a sample of his DNA,” Mish said.

  Lisa made a disgusted face. “You mean his sperm.”

  “Yes.”

  Lisa shook her head. “I’ve showered and taken a bath and douched myself. I hope to God there’s nothing left of him inside me.”

  Mish was quietly persistent. “Traces remain in the body for forty-eight to seventy-two hours afterward. We need to do a vaginal swab, a pubic hair combing, and a blood test.”

  Jeannie said: “The doctor we saw at Santa Teresa yesterday was a real asshole.”

  Mish nodded. “Doctors hate dealing with rape victims. If they have to go to court, they lose time and money. But you should never have been taken to Santa Teresa. That was one of McHenty’s many mistakes. Three hospitals in this city are designated Sexual Assault Centers, and Santa Teresa isn’t one of them.”

  Lisa said: “Where do you want me to go?”

  “Mercy Hospital has a Sexual Assault Forensic Examination unit. We call it the SAFE unit.”

  Jeannie nodded. Mercy was the big downtown hospital.

  Mish went on: “You’ll see a sexual assault nurse examiner, who is always a woman. She’s specially trained in dealing with evidence, which the doctor you saw yesterday was not—h
e would probably have screwed up anyway.”

  Mish clearly did not have much respect for doctors.

  She opened her briefcase. Jeannie leaned forward, curious. Inside was a laptop computer. Mish lifted the lid and switched it on. “We have a program called E-FIT, for Electronic Facial Identification Technique. We like acronyms.” She gave a wry smile. “Actually it was devised by a Scotland Yard detective. It enables us to put together a likeness of the perpetrator, without using an artist.” She looked expectantly at Lisa.

  Lisa looked at Jeannie. “What do you think?”

  “Don’t feel pressured,” Jeannie said. “Think about yourself. You’re entitled. Do what makes you feel comfortable.”

  Mish shot her a hostile glare, then said to Lisa: “There’s no pressure on you. If you want me to leave, I’m out of here. But I’m asking you. I want to catch this rapist, and I need your help. Without you, I don’t stand a chance.”

  Jeannie was lost in admiration. Mish had dominated and controlled the conversation ever since she walked into the room, yet she had done it without bullying or manipulation. She knew what she was talking about, and she knew what she wanted.

  Lisa said: “I don’t know.”

  Mish said: “Why don’t you take a look at this computer program? If it upsets you, we’ll stop. If not, I will at least have a picture of the man I’m after. Then, when we’re done with that, you can think about whether you want to go to Mercy.”

  Lisa hesitated again, then said: “Okay.”

  Jeannie said: “Just remember, you can stop any time you feel upset.”

  Lisa nodded.

  Mish said: “To begin, we’ll get a rough approximation of his face. It won’t look like him, but it will be a basis. Then we’ll refine the details. I need you to concentrate hard on the perpetrator’s face, then give me a general description. Take your time.”

  Lisa closed her eyes. “He’s a white man about my age. Short hair, no particular color. Light eyes, blue, I guess. Straight nose …”

  Mish was operating a mouse. Jeannie got up and stood behind the detective so she could see the screen. It was a Windows program. In the top right-hand corner was a face divided into eight sections. As Lisa named features, Mish would click on a section of the face, pulling down a menu, then check items on the menu based on Lisa’s comments: hair short, eyes light, nose straight.