The tennis player's name was Randy Dupree and he would have been a much happier young man if he'd been born thirty years earlier, before tennis went all democratic and started letting in blacks and kids who'd learned on public courts and girls who would not grow up to be princesses.
He said, very spiffy in his dark blue Calvin Klein V-neck sweater and his pressed wheat-colored jeans, 'I can make this fast.'
'All right, make it fast.'
'Would you like a drink?'
'No, thanks.'
'Will you think I'm nervous if I fix myself one?'
'Not at all. I'll just think you want a drink.'
'Good. Because, as I said, I'm going to make this fast.'
Mitch wanted to dislike him but he couldn't quite. Sure, Randy looked like a spoiled twenty-five-year-old rich boy. And sure, he lived in this beautifully-appointed Lake Shore drive condo. And true there was an ever-so-slight look of derision in his eyes whenever he chose to focus on Mitch… but still… he wasn't a jerk.
He made himself a martini at the dry barthe martini surprising Mitch, who'd never thought of jock-types also being martini-typesand then he sat down in the living room and said, 'Nice view, huh?'
Nice and expensive, Mitch thought. But he was impressed despite himself. There was an almost other-worldly aspect to Chicago from this height and vantage point, a different planet, especially with the snow covering everything. No homeless. No drug dealers. No abused wives. No little kids grubbing up the money their parents couldn't afford to give them.
'Do you think I killed her?' Randy said.
Mitch turned around and faced him. 'Yes, I do.'
'I see. Did your friend Unzak tell you about my alibi?'
'Is that how you're going to make this fast? By telling me about that former girlfriend of yours, the one who'll swear you were with her all night?'
The lights were on in the dining room. The living room was in shadow.
Randy Dupree said, 'No, I was going to make this fast another way.'
'And what way is that?'
'By telling you that I killed her.'
Mitch hoped his small gasp wasn't audible. 'I see.'
'You sound shocked.'
'I guess I am.'
'Because I just said it right out.'
'Uh-huh. And because you didn't even give me a chance to read you your rights. It's not as simple as it is on TV, you know.'
'I don't give a shit about my rights. Or a lawyer. Right now I don't give a shit about anything.'
He started sobbing.
He let the martini glass fall, nearly full, to the floor and he put his face in his hands like a little boy and began weeping.
'I didn't mean to kill her. I was justangry. She'd been so goddammed unfaithful.'
And then he was sobbing again.
Mitch thought of his own wife. And how he'd feltthe terrible agony of someone whose mate is unfaithfuland he said a silent prayer of thanks for Jill.
He went over to Randy and put a paternal hand on his shoulder. 'I'm sorry, Randy. I'm sorry.'
Then he went to the phone.
Now, finally, he'd be able to spend a decent amount of time helping Jill.
He called the station and asked for Sievers and when Sievers came on he told him what Randy had just told him.
Sievers said he'd be right over.
Right over.
Rick had some trouble at the gates.
He said, 'I'd like to see Mrs Tappley.'
'May I ask what about?' asked the maid.
'Is Robert there?'
'I'm afraid not. This is his night off. May I have your name, please?'
He hesitated. 'Rick Corday.'
It was full night now, and the snow glistened in the moonlight, and sitting here shouting into a speaker concealed in the stone face of the fence made him self-conscious.
'Tell her I want to speak to her about her son.'
This time, it was the maid who hesitated. 'Her son? You mean Peter?'
'I mean Peter.'
The maid grew suddenly hostile. 'I think you'd better drive on before I call the police.'
'Look, you bitch, go and tell Mrs Tappley that I'm out here. Let her decide if I get in or not.'
She was thinking it over, that he could tell. But there was still the chance that she'd bypass Mrs Tappley completely and phone straight to the police.
Then what would he do?
'I'll tell you something. Mrs Tappley's going to be damned mad at you if you don't tell her I'm here, I can promise you that.'
His mother hired the kind of people she could easily bully. So now that he'd raised the specter of displeasing Mrs Tappley, the maid was more likely to help him out.
'I'll be right back,' she said.
Inside the car, the heater kept things warm. Too warm. That's why he kept the window rolled down. The cold night air felt good and clean. He remembered building a snowman not far from these gates. The snowman had a top hat and a merry red woolen scarf and a cane such as a vaudevillian would use. Doris hung a sign on him, WELCOME EVERYONE, a sign her mother soon ripped away. Did Doris want the riffraff of the entire Chicago area crowding around their gates?
'Yes?' The voice, even after all these years, had lost none of its imperious edge.
'Mrs Tappley, listen closely and maybe you'll recognize my voice.'
She listened. She said to the maid, 'Please leave now, immediately, Go upstairs and dust the library.'
After the door closed, Evelyn Daye Tappley said, 'When I find out who you are, I'm going to see to it that you spend the rest of your life behind bars.'
'Don't you really believe it's me, Mother?'
Obviously, the woman wanted to break off the connection but she was too snake-charmed to act so hastily.
'It's really me, Mother. Back from the dead.'
'This isn't funny at all.'
'In 1956 you took me to a resort in Wisconsin and I found a turtle on the shore and brought him home and named him Daniel Boone because of the TV show at that time.'
'You could've found that out.'
'How?'
'I' She paused. Some of the imperiousness had gone from her voice. Evelyn Daye Tappley, believe it or not, had begun to sound downright vulnerable and sad. 'My son had a favorite model airplane in his room.'
'A blue Cessna. Just like the one my father owned.'
'And in the basement he had a favorite game he played'
'Bean bags. I never got tired of throwing bean bags through the clown's face.'
A long pause. 'I don't want to be a foolish old woman. I could stand anything but being a foolish old womanbeing tricked into some pathetic, impossible belief.' Another pause. He could feel her reluctantly beginning to believe him. 'My son died in the electric chair.'
'Arthur fixed things for me.'
'Arthur?'
'Arthur Halliwell. Your lawyer.'
'Fixed things? I don't understand.'
So he told her. Arthur had gone to a prominent physician, sworn him to silence, paid him a great deal of money, and then had the physician plot out the way that an execution could be fakedthat the prisoner would appear to die and be taken from the stretcher in a hearse and then put through all the legalities of being prepared for burial. Two different drugs had to be used to simulate death, Peter had to be coached at length, the executioner, the Coroner and the funeral home director all had to be bribed, and then the sham burial performed. Then Peter went to Europe for an extended stay.
'You won't recognize me now, Mother.'
'Y-you're really my son?'
'I am, Mother.'
She began to weep.
'Please open the gates, Mother. Now.'
The gates opened at once.
He felt a kind of triumph driving up toward the mansion again, the snow so moon-kissed beautiful, the mullioned windows of the great house so gently illumined, as if by candlelight. While the estate had always been his prison, it had also been his retreat for many years. Not for him the concerns and cares that daily beleaguered the average citizen. Here he'd been able to devote himself to doing exactly what he wanted to do… as long as it met with Mother's approval. He felt almost sentimental about the place and even, in a strange melancholy way, about hereven though one of the reasons he'd forbidden Halliwell to tell her about her son, was so she could no longer shape and dominate his life.
He pulled up in front of the massive house, stopping the car and picking up his topcoat. He was still bloody, even more so since carrying Adam's head from the basement. But there was no time to clean up. There was only time to
She stood silhouetted in the open doorway. In memory, she was always this huge and formidable woman, but in reality she was a small and fine-boned lady who had shrunk even more with old age.
He saw the shocked look on her face as he walked across the threshold and into the house. But it, too, had shrunk from its remembered size. What had been vast and unimaginable as a Disney castle was now a luxurious but not overwhelming house of large dimensions and priceless furnishings.
'You're not Peter.'
He stopped so she could get a better look at him. 'They did a good job.'
'They?'
'The doctors in Europe. Plastic surgery.'
'But your hairit's white! And your features'
He laughed. 'I've had a difficult life, Mother. Not many men survive their own execution.'
'But you can't be Peter. You can't be!'
'But I am.'
He had been carrying his overcoat rolled up. He sat it on the edge of a chair. He pulled up the cuff of his suitjacket and his shirt.
He showed her the pear-shaped brown birthmark on the lower inside of his forearm.
'Unlikely they could fake that.'
But she still stared at him open-mouthed, disbelieving. How could this possibly be
'I need a drink of brandy,' she said, almost to herself.
Grabbing his topcoat, he followed her into the den. He'd forgotten how much he'd enjoyed this room. The authentic coat of arms on the wall above the fireplace. The Robert Louis Stevenson collected in leatherbound editions, all signed by the author a hundred or more years ago. The dry bar with its impressive array of cut-glass wine snifters.
Evelyn had brandy and so did Peter.
She sat behind her writing desk, sipping brandy, still staring at him.
'You had no right to deceive me that way.'
He sat in a deep leather armchair directly across from the desk. His topcoat was on his lap. He smiled. 'You sound just the same as you always did when you chastised me, Mother.'
'I'm very serious. All these years I've mourned the loss of my second son'
'And all these years I've been free of you, Mother.' He laughed. 'I wouldn't trade them.'
He heard the bitterness in his voice but felt no shame or regret. It was high time she heard what he really thought of her.
'All those years you choked the life out of me'
She slammed her brandy glass on the desk. 'Is that why you came back, after all these years? To tell me how terrible a person I am?'
'It's one of the reasons. I also want to see my sister.'
Her anger was gone suddenly. She slumped in her chair. In the past few minutes, she'd aged another few years. 'You haven't even given me a hug.'
'I don't want to hug you. I don't want to touch you in any way.'
'I'm your mother.'
'Yes, you are. Yes, I could never forget that.'
'I can't believe you hate me this much.'
'I want to see Doris. Where is she?'
She got up from the desk unsteadily and started to walk around the desk. 'Peter, I want to hold you. You're my own flesh and blood.'
'Not anymore I'm not, Mother. I'm somebody else now. Even you didn't recognize me.'
She leaned over to slide her arms around him but he pushed her away so hard she fell back against her desk.
'I want to see my sister. That's why I came here.'
'Your sister,' she said. 'Your sister didn't raise you, I did. Your sister didn't take care of you when you were sick, or worry about you when you were playing outdoors, or hire bodyguards to watch you night and day.'
He stood up, clutching his topcoat to him. 'Where is she?'
'She's upstairs, if you really want to know. I forced a sedative on her because she was going to tell that bitch you married what Arthur and I did to her. Your sister! She's not any more grateful to me than you are!'
She started crying, a crazed old woman's tears. He saw now that she was broken and alone and he thought: 'It'll be a mercy, what I'm going to do. A mercy for meand a mercy for her.'
She looked up at him and held her arms out and said, 'Can't I just hold you for a little while? Do you hate me that much, Peter?'
He moved quickly then.
He didn't want to change his mind.
The topcoat fell away from his arm, leaving behind the bloody axe it had been covering.
When she saw it, she screamed, knowing instantly what he was going to do.
A maid appeared in the doorway suddenlyprobably the same bitch who'd hassled him over the gate speakerand so he reached calmly into the pocket of his suitjacket and pulled out his. 45 and shot her in the middle of the forehead.
'Oh my God, Peter, you don't know what you're doing. You need to calm yourself down. You need to talk tosomebody. Get some help. You really do.' She was gibbering. 'I can see that now. I should've gotten you help years ago; years ago. I'm sorry I didn't, Peter. I really should have.'
All this time she was backing up, first toward the fireplace then toward the built-in bookcases.
But she couldn't find any place to hide from Peter and his axe.
There wasn't any place to hide.
'All those years you kept me a prisoner here, Mother,' he said over and over again, until the mere sound of his own voice sickened him. 'All those years.'
'Peter, you can go away againback to Europe. I won't tell anybody. I won't. I promise.' She looked frantically to the door where the maid sprawled on the floor. 'We can bury her down by the river. Nobody'll ever find her. Not ever. You'll be free, Peter. You really will.'
The first time he swung the axe, she was quick enough to duck and so all he was able to catch was a brass candlestick lamp. The entire thing flew apart in large chunks. Evelyn screamed again and ran to the other side of the room. She kept looking for a way to get around him, to make it to the door.
But he was not going to let that happen.
The second time, his blade caught a mirror of beautiful glass and even more beautiful fretwork. The glass shattered in large dagger-like shards and fell to the floor.
This time she covered her ears and closed her eyes, as if she were trying to will him out of existence.
And that made it easy for him.
'Mother.'
He knew she heard him but wouldn't open her eyes.
'Mother.'
Eyes closed; ears covered.
'Mother.' Then: 'Goodbye, Mother.'
He got her neck clean. At the last moment, curious to see what he was doing, she opened her eyes and dropped her hands from her ears and and that was when the axe came angling through the air right at her neck.
It was a clean cut. Her head wobbled leftward then rightward then rolled down her back to the floor.
Blood was geysering from the enormous wound just as the body was falling to the floor.
He walked around the body that was violently spasming to some rhythm only the dead could possibly appreciate… all the way around to where her head had rolled over in front of the fireplace.
The head was on its side. Clean as the cut had been, there was an awful lot of gore dripping now from the neck.
She was a mess.
He was happy.
He went to find his sister.
Fitzsimmons from the DA's office arrived shortly after the boys and girls from the crime lab.
He came over to Mitch. 'I suppose you expect me to tell you what a good job you did. Getting a confession and all.'
'First of all, I didn't ''get" the confession. He told me willingly. Second of all, I wouldn't want a compliment from you. It would spoil your track record.'
'I suppose I was kind of a jerk this afternoon.'
'This afternoon? Fitzsimmons, you've been a jerk all your life. And someday somebody's going to wipe that smirk off your face.'
'I take it you'd like that privilege?'
But Mitch was sick of him. Fitzsimmons already had the aura of celebrity about him. Somehow he'd manage to take credit for solving the caseat the very least he'd take credit for pushing the police department so hardand then he'd find a reason to hold seven or eight press conferences over the next week or so. Everybody knew by now that Fitzsimmons wanted to be Governor in the next two or three terms.
Mitch went in to see Sievers.
Just as he arrived, Randy Dupree went into the bathroom. Closed the door. You could hear him barfing.
Sievers shrugged. 'Second degree, maybe even manslaughter. He pushed her, she fell. There won't be much to contradict that from the lab boys.'
'Yeah, but Fitzsimmons'll be able to ride it all the way to the state capitol. Wonder how he'll like prosecuting somebody from his own class.'
Sievers laughed. 'I could promote one hell of a boxing match between you two.'
Mitch nodded. 'Yeah, I guess I do sound pretty childish.'
'Fitzsimmons is a spoiled, arrogant prick. But there are a lot worse people in this world, Mitch. There really are.'
Randy Dupree came back. He looked pale and shaken. He sat down and stared at the floor. Mitch felt sorry for him but he also felt sorry for the victim. She was already forgotten and depersonalized'victim'no name, just 'victim.' She'd had a long life ahead of her.
'I guess I'll go see that girl I was telling you about,' Mitch said quietly to Sievers.
'That Cini?'
'Yeah.'
'Well, you can spend a little more time on that case now.'
'Yeah.'
'But not full-time, Mitch. We're up to our elbows in work so I'm going to need you.'
'I understand.'
He nodded to Sievers, glanced at Dupree again, and left.
The call came just when Jill was putting her eighth cookie to her mouth.
She was thankful for the phone call. It gave her an excuse to put the cookie down.
'Hello.'
'Jill.'
Didn't recognize the voice.
'Jill, this is Doris.'
'Doris? Are you all right? You sound kind of'
'I just woke up. I was taking a nap.' Pause. 'I'm sorry but I won't be able to keep our lunch date tomorrow.'
Jill had been looking forward to seeing Doris again. She'd also suspected that Doris had been going to tell her something about Eric Brooks' murder.
'Did something happen, Doris?'
'No. But I was wondering if you could come out here tonight.'
'Out there? But'
'Don't worry about Mother. She's gone out to one of her board meetings and she won't be back till late. They've just bought a new company in Argentina.'
'I'd feel uncomfortable, Doris. Going out there, I mean.'
'It'd just be us, Jill. Just the two of us.'
'Well'
There was a pause. 'I need to talk to you about Eric Brooks, Jill.'
'Can't we talk now?'
'Not over the phone. Iwell, you know how paranoid Mother is. I guess I got that from her. I never discuss anything personal over the phone.'
Unthinkable, really. Driving out there. Entering into the shadows and gloom of Evelyn's prison.
But Doris really did seem to know something about Eric Brooks' death.
She spoke without thinking: 'It'll probably take me a little while to get there.'
'There's no hurry.'
'You're sure everything's all right?'
'Everything's fine, Jill. I just woke up, that's all. Sort of muzzy, I guess.'
'I guess I'll come out, then.'
'I'm looking forward to it. See you in awhile.'
Jill hung up slowly. The receiver hadn't been cradled for more than ten seconds, when its ring shattered the silence.
'Hello?'
'Need some company?' her friend Kate said.
'God, I'd love to see you. But I've got to go somewhere.'
'Ohwhere?'
'You're not going to believe this,' Jill said. 'Out to Evelyn's mansion.'
He had fed Doris coffee and nicotine pills and then dragged her into the shower and run cold water on her for ten minutes. He tried not to notice her naked body. He had always dreamed of sleeping with his sister someday but had never been able to bring himself to it.
He thought of Rick Corday, the other man Adam had accused him of being.
He wished he were Rick Corday now.
He put Doris on the phone and made her call Jill, whispering orders to her as she obviously looked for some way to warn Jill away from coming out here.
Every few moments, Doris would look up at the face of this total stranger and shake her head. How could this be her brother? Hadn't her brother died in the electric chair?
He took her downstairs to the den.
She screamed when she saw her mother's head on its side over by the fireplace.
He slapped her and made her help carry away the bodies of both her mother and the maid.
Then they sat down and waited for Jill to come.
It would be so sweet after all these years, he thought. So sweet to pay that bitch back for what she'd done to him. First Evelyn and now Jill. At last.