Carol O’Connell - The Man Who Lied To Women

The gun was heavy in the child’s hands. He corrected the dip of the barrel which aimed at her heart.

‘Don’t you have any questions for me, Justin?’

‘You weren’t surprised to see me, were you?’

‘No.’

‘When did you begin to suspect me?’

‘From the first. Violence was coming, I knew that. You’d gone to a lot of trouble to set it up. You were the brightest one in the family. I always knew you’d be the last one standing.’

Justin moved the gun to point at Harry. ‘If you like, as a last request, I’ll kill him first.’

‘He is annoying, isn’t he?’

‘No! I can help you,’ he said to the boy.

‘You’re trussed up like a hog,’ said Justin. ‘You can’t even help yourself. Do you have any idea how silly you look? They’re going to find your body that way. Does that disturb you?’

‘Listen to me, boy. I can help you. I have an idea. It’s foolproof. I’ll back you up if the cops get on to it. She wants to arrest me for killing a woman, a bitch. You need me, and now you have something on me. I can’t tell on you, can I?’

Justin looked at Mallory. ‘Did he really kill someone?’

‘No. I don’t believe he’d have the nerve. Do you?’

‘Why did you tie me up, then? Explain that one to the kid.’

The boy looked to Mallory for his answer.

‘I tied him up because the twit pissed me off, and the Civilian Review Board won’t let me shoot him.’

She made a mental note to edit that out of the video tape.

‘You heard about the unidentified woman who died in the park?’ Kipling raised his head and yelled, ‘Well, I killed her!’

Mallory shook her head. ‘We call this a confession under duress. It’s worthless.’ And now she turned her eyes down to Kipling. ‘I don’t think Justin’s buying it either. You’re a documented liar, Harry. Now this kid is smart. He’s probably going to make it look like he was trying to defend me against you.’ She turned back to the boy. ‘Right, Justin?’

The boy nodded. Mallory looked down at Kipling, who was squirming on the floor. ‘Harry, I just don’t think you’ve got a handle on the situation. You’re an adult, you’re bigger than he is, or to put it briefly, a dead man. Right again, Justin?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Damn straight. Not too bright, is he, Justin?’

‘I did kill her! I killed Amanda Bosch because she was a bitch,’ said Harry in his best attempt to pass for a fellow disciple in the hatred of women. And the boy who believed all women were bitches seemed to be weighing this.

‘Well,’ said Mallory, ‘let’s have some details that weren’t in the papers. In my case, it’s professional interest. Now Justin’s killed twice before. We can’t call him an amateur. But you are, Harry. Details. Did Amanda cry? Or did she take it like more of a man than you are?’

‘Hey, it was her own fault. If she hadn’t threatened me, it wouldn’t have happened. The bitch brought it on herself ’

‘All women are bitches,’ said Justin in the descending note of an amen .

‘Details, Harry.’

‘I hit her with a rock, and then I snapped her neck. That wasn’t in the papers.’

‘Did you grab her by the throat and strangle her?’

‘No, I twisted her head until her neck snapped.’

‘How long did it take you to teach the cat to dance?’

‘Four days! Okay, kid? Now untie me!’

‘No,’ said Justin, ‘I don’t think so.’ He pointed the gun at Kipling, and the man froze. Then the gun turned slowly back to Mallory. ‘It would be more logical to kill Mallory first. She’s the dangerous one. You, sir – you’re pathetic. You didn’t even hate that woman, did you?’

‘No, he didn’t. It was a panic kill,’ said Mallory. ‘And then he ran away. Not your style, Justin.’

It was like Markowitz was in the room with her. They like to talk, Kathy, the old man had told her. Even after you read them their rights, you can’t shut them up.

The boy giggled, clearly enjoying this power over two adults.

‘I’d bet even money, you put more thought and planning into your murders,’ said Mallory. ‘Or maybe I overestimated you. Your mother and stepmother died alone. Maybe you’re blowing smoke here too.’

‘You know better than that. You were close, weren’t you? You must have been. You were planning to dig up my mother. I heard you say that to Mr Butler.’

‘If I had dug up your mother, what would I have found?’

‘You might have found out that I replaced her heart medication with vitamin pills the same size and colour. The absence of medication might have been noticeable.’

‘Why did you kill her?’

‘Well, let’s say I never miss an opportunity for fun.’

‘So she died for lack of proper medication? That’s pretty boring.’

Arthur was holding the door for a tenant, when he saw the large man running at him, clutching some object to his chest and then concealing it in his pocket. Now the man was close enough to identify as Miss Mallory’s friend. And as the man drew closer still, Arthur could see the twenty dollar bill extending out from the man’s hand. The bill hung in the air as Charles shot past him, and Arthur clutched the twenty before it hit the ground.

‘No time to be announced – I’m late!’ yelled the large man in passing. ‘She’ll kill me if I’m any later.’ The words trailed behind the man as he ran past the occupied elevator and pushed through the side door and into the stairwell.

Arthur nodded his understanding at the closing stairwell door as he pocketed the twenty. He would not like to cross Miss Mallory either.

‘Oh, no. I killed her,’ said Justin.

‘She died of a heart attack,’ said Mallory. ‘I’ve seen the death certificate.’

‘Yes. I suppose you could say I scared her to death. Once she was weakened by the lack of medication, it wasn’t all that difficult. I did the sort of things that would make her seem crazy if she told anyone. She was hardly going to tell my father she saw things flying through the air. You’ve met my father. A bit intractable, wouldn’t you say?’

‘You are an interesting kid, I’ll give you that much, but this still sounds very tame as murders go.’

‘Oh, it wasn’t tame at all. She crawled from room to room following that bottle of worthless pills. I walked along beside her kicking the bottle out of her reach. She screamed, she cried. She was terrified. It was glorious. You should have seen her face as she was dying. She just could not believe this was happening to her.’

‘And what about her replacement, the first stepmother? I suppose you killed her too?’

‘Yes. I also made things float through the air for her. She never told anyone either. She thought she was going crazy. In my opinion, she was half crazy when I started to work on her.’

‘But there was nothing wrong with her heart.’

‘No. But with her brief stay in the psychiatric hospital, the suicide was quite believable. They should have had a child guard on that window, you know. It’s the law.’

‘According to the ME investigator’s reports, both women were alone when they died.’

‘School was in session both times. I’m afraid the Tanner School doesn’t keep very good track of children. They’re very progressive – attendance is on the honor system. But I don’t think anyone bothered to check. They just assumed I wasn’t in the apartment. They also assumed neither death was all that suspicious.’

Amanda was less the thing of solid stuff as she floated up the stairway beside him. ‘It’s three more flights. You should’ve taken the elevator, Charles.’

‘Now you tell me.’