Carol O’Connell - The Man Who Lied To Women

Now the train was in motion and the public address system was making an announcement to the passengers. He couldn’t make out the individual words among the garble of mechanics and the garble of a man who was eating his lunch as he addressed the riders over the loudspeaker in what was obviously his second, and recently acquired language.

‘What is he saying?’ Charles asked a woman who had the bored look of having been this route many times. The woman only shrugged.

It was Amanda, by his side, who answered his worst fears. ‘He’s saying what they always say. No matter where you’re going, you can’t get there from here.’

When the train did stop again, he discovered the local had turned into an express. Judging by the lynch mob attitude of other passengers, who were far more irritated than the shrugging woman, this change of route was a whim of the engineer. When he saw the light of day and the first street sign, he knew he was miles out of his way, and he began to run.

‘You were standing down by the water when she nailed you on the lie. She was going to give your wife all the evidence she needed to divorce you for cause. You panicked and grabbed her by the arm. First you stunned her, and then you killed her. Then you ran away… like the dog.’

‘My dog – ’

‘You were walking the dog that morning. That was your excuse for going out to meet her in the park. The dog was running loose. While you fought with Amanda, he got his leash caught in the bushes when he was heading north over the rise. You’re probably wondering how I know that. So you found the dog and took it home. Then, about thirty minutes later, you came back to drag Amanda’s body into the woods – ’

‘You couldn’t – ’

‘ – and you smashed up her hands, her fingerprints. You made so many stupid mistakes, Harry.’

He moved toward her and away from the knife. Good. Now she was circling around him. The way to the door was almost clear. His hands were rising now, the hands which had snapped a woman’s neck. It was panic time again for Harry Kipling. He was rushing toward her. She reached out to grab his outstretched hand, struck one long leg across his path and pulled hard on his hand to guide all of his weight to the floor.

Big he might be, but not terribly graceful.

He was looking for his large feet when she kicked him in the groin to double him into a fetal position. Then she rolled him on his stomach and pulled one arm up behind his back until he screamed.

‘You’re going to break it!’

‘Then hold still!’

With her free hand she reached for the heavy drapery cord and yanked on it, bringing down drapes and curtain rod.

His running was hampered by the dense crowd of people on the sidewalk. It wasn’t fair, the streets should be deserted. Couldn’t all these people have waited one blessed day before racing out to return their Christmas gifts and exchange them for the right sizes?

Charles dropped the gun, and an old woman kicked it out of her way. He wondered if she could not see it over her packages, or did she think it was commonplace sidewalk debris for this part of town? He leaned down and picked it up. He began to make better time now, suddenly not bothered by the crowd any more. In fact, people were hurrying to get out of his way.

Well, this was more like it.

And now it occurred to him that this sudden show of public courtesy might have something to do with the naked gun in his hand. Well, of course they were all being polite.

Fool.

Harry Kipling was hogtied. Hands tied behind him and roped to one leg, he was pulled back in a bizarre bow. He looked ridiculous; he was ridiculous, a pathetic bastard who had struck out in childish fear, in anger, and then tried to clean up his mess, the death of a human being named Amanda.

He was so disappointing, an unworthy opponent who made so small a noise in the world, he had failed to wake the cat.

The camera was rolling on to the music of cat snores and Kipling sobs. With a critical eye, Mallory looked at both her hogtied trophy and her weak criminal case. An assault on a police officer was not hard evidence for murder. There were loose ends to be tied, better evidence to be got, something with more weight for a DA who chickened on every case with less than a complete set of prints and a smoking gun in evidence.

Whatever she might have to do, Kipling wasn’t going to get away with this.

‘Stop crying. It’s not like I really hurt you. What did you do with my gun?’

But he would not stop crying, and she was not taking much satisfaction in this.

She lifted her head and turned toward the door with the first sound of metal on metal. The door was being unlocked. Charles? No, it couldn’t be.

It wasn’t.

Someone else was standing in the foyer, alone but for the long shadow extending back into the outer corridor.

Now this was more like it. This was walking death.

She was staring into mirrors of her own eyes above the barrel of her stolen.357 revolver. ‘Murder is the best game, isn’t it?’

‘Yes it is,’ said Justin Riccalo, leveling the gun at her head. Now he pulled the barrel up slightly. ‘Oh, that’s wrong, isn’t it? You’re supposed to aim for the widest part of the body.’ And now the barrel dropped to the level of her chest, her heart.

Perversely, she smiled. He didn’t like that. She knew he wouldn’t.

‘Kill the bitch!’ yelled Kipling, not sobbing any more but frantic in the eyes.

‘All women are bitches,’ said the boy in the monotone of a litany.

‘Yes, yes, they are, all of them,’ said Kipling with the fervour of a television evangelist playing the crowd. ‘Kill her now!’

‘Lighten up, you idiot,’ said Mallory to the man at her feet. ‘He’s going to kill you next. I thought you understood that.’

Kipling’s mouth hung open, and no more words came out.

All the words she heard were toward the back of her mind where Markowitz lived with Helen. Get him to talk to you, kid, said a memory with a Brooklyn accent.

‘Tell me, Justin, what kind of bird did you kill to make the bloody X on my door?’

‘It was a pigeon,’ said Justin with a hint of a query at the end of his words.

‘I love all the little details,’ said Mallory. ‘How did you rig the glass of water in the kitchen?’

Prime the pump. get him talking, and he won’t be able to stop.

Justin smiled. ‘I set the glass near the edge of the table, and then I put pennies under the back legs to make it slant, but only a little. The glass was leveled on a sliver of ice. When the ice melted, the glass crashed and the evidence was gone.’

He looked up at her with the expectation of being petted and admired for this.

‘Nice job, Justin. Same thing with the vase?’

‘Yes, it had to be something with water to explain away the slick of the melted ice.’

‘I thought your best trick was the knife in the target. You even fooled Charles, and that’s not easy. I’m betting you rigged the spring load.’

‘Yes. I was surprised to see that old carnival prop in the basement. As you may have guessed, I have a passing interest in magic. The spring was easy. It was old. You could see the rust, even in bad light. After I pulled the spring over the edge of a gear, I only had to keep Mr Butler talking until it broke and released the fake knife.’

‘Then later, you went back to the cellar and pushed the fake blade back into the target compartment, right? Then you stuck one of the real knives into the face of the target.’

Justin nodded.

‘How could you count on getting back to the building in time to change the prop for the real knife?’

‘It was easy. He goes everywhere in cabs. I’ve watched him from the street. I gather he doesn’t like subways and probably has so much money, it never occurs to him to take one. I took the subway back to Soho after he walked into the park. I had all the time in the world to change the knives.’