Peter Spiegelman - Red Cat

“You shoved her in the video, Gene.”

“I tripped. I tripped and fell and bumped into her.” His jagged smile grew, and the sword whirred through the air.

“You knocked her halfway across the room, for chrissakes.”

“You have your story, and I have mine.”

“Except that I also have a witness, Gene, who puts you in Holly’s apartment the Saturday before she died, in the middle of a noisy fight.” He stopped slashing and brought the foil to his side. His mouth was an angry line, and his jaw was like a millstone. I continued. “On top of which, you were seen leaving there, carrying what looked like a computer and video equipment.”

Werner’s fingers whitened on the sword grip. He bared his large teeth and his arm came up in a blur. The blade whipped the air, and I felt the draft on my face. Almost there.

I smiled. “You want to watch that, Gene. I’m not one of your actors, and I take a punch better than Holly.”

He snapped the foil to his side. “Besides ‘Fuck off,’ I have nothing else to say to you.”

Almost…

“I guess I’ll do my talking elsewhere, then.”

“You’re so full of shit- you won’t go to the cops. You can’t.”

“No? Now why would that be, Gene?” Werner worried his lower lip, but didn’t answer. “I wasn’t actually thinking of the cops, though. I was thinking more of having this chat with Jamie Coyle.”

Werner’s voice was a whisper. “You son of a-”

“So what happened after that Saturday, Gene? Did you not find the video in the stuff you’d taken? Or did you maybe get scared about the beating you’d given her? You really lost it, didn’t you? You drew blood; you left marks.” Werner’s face went from white to red. His hands were fists and he brought the sword up.

Almost…

“Were you scared she’d go to the cops- or maybe that she’d tell Coyle about it? Three long nights of worrying; you must’ve been out of your mind by the time you saw her again. But what I can’t figure out is whether you went there planning to finish the job, or whether things just got away from you.”

Werner drew his arm back, and his blade was pointed at my neck. “Fucker,” he spat, and he uncoiled.

There.

The blade slashed my arm, and despite the padding of my coat, I felt the sting. I pivoted, and kicked Werner- hard- on his left thigh. I was fast and I got weight behind it, and I caught him just above the knee. He crumpled like a puppet.

His bellow echoed in the empty theater. I kicked the sword away and watched him roll on the stage for a while, crying and clutching at his leg. When he stopped thrashing, I pulled the Glock from behind my back. I couldn’t hold it well enough to shoot straight, but Werner didn’t know that, and I made sure he got a good look.

“It’ll pass,” I said. “Yelling doesn’t help.”

His handsome face was red and twisted, but he managed some gasping curses. I squatted by his head. “You haven’t answered my question yet: did you go there to finish the job, or did things get out of hand?”

“You’re craz-” A cramp rolled through his leg, and squeezed the air from him.

“My question, Gene.”

“You’re saying I killed her. You’re saying I killed Holly.” His deep voice was cracking.

I laughed a little. “Well, of course I am.”

“But I didn’t-”

“You beat the shit out of her, Gene, and think hard before you tell me otherwise.”

“I-”

“Think hard.”

Sweat ran from Werner’s hairline. His ponytail was gone, and strands of hair were stuck to the side of his face. “It…it got out of hand. She told me she’d recorded me, about Fenn, and I wanted the video. But Holly wouldn’t give it to me. She just laughed.”

“And you hit her.”

Werner grimaced and squeezed his leg. “She wouldn’t give it to me, and she kept laughing.”

I stood up, and let out a dusty breath. “You beat the shit out of her.”

“You don’t know what it was like- what she was like. She was so beautiful…you had to have her. But she didn’t care- however much you felt for her, however much you wanted her, it didn’t matter. You could never get at her- she was always in control. She kept laughing and…I lost it. Even when I hit her, she laughed the whole time.”

I walked away from him, across the stage, and ground my teeth together. “You took her computer?”

“The computer, the cameras, the disks…”

“Your video was there?” Werner nodded. “And you found the video of my brother too, and his wife.” Fear crowded out pain on Werner’s face, and he propped himself on his elbow and tried to slide backward. “Think, Gene,” I said quietly. “You found video of my brother?” He nodded. “And after I came to see you, what happened then?”

“I…I got scared. I recognized your name, and I looked you up. I saw that you were his brother. I figured you were trying to get him off the hook for Holly…that you were looking for someone else.”

“Someone like you.”

Werner shook his head. “I was afraid if the police knew I’d…if they knew about Fenn, and that Holly and I had fought, they’d think that I’d…killed her.”

“And we couldn’t have that, could we? So you fed them my brother and his wife. You sent them that disk.” He scuttled back, like a wounded crab. I followed, and my shadow fell across him. “You sent them that disk,” I said again. He nodded.

I sighed. “Talk to me about that Tuesday night,” I said after a while.

“What about it?”

“We’re almost through here- don’t get stupid now. Tell me what happened.”

Werner looked confused. “Nothing…nothing happened.”

I stepped closer. “Goddammit, Gene-”

“For chrissakes, I’m telling you the truth! Nothing happened that night!” His face was white and his eyes were wild with panic. “I didn’t see her or talk to her or anything. I had nothing to do with what happened. It’s like I told the cops.”

I shook my head. “What line did you feed the cops?”

“They asked me to account for my time that Tuesday night, and I did.”

“With what bullshit?”

“It wasn’t bullshit.”

I crouched beside him. He tried to slide away but I caught his arm. My voice was a low rumble. “Don’t insult me, Gene.”

“I’m not! I was at the theater all night- the Morningside Lyceum, by Columbia. I’m directing and one of my leads was out sick that night. I had to fill in. I got to the theater before six, and all night I was either onstage, or backstage with the cast and crew. We didn’t get out of there till ten-thirty or eleven, and then a bunch of us went to eat. I didn’t get home until one, and I wasn’t alone.” He swallowed and squeezed his eyes shut, and he looked like he might throw up.

“You fucking beat her!”

“I know- Jesus, I know what I did. But I swear to God I didn’t kill her.”

“Then who did, Gene? Who killed Holly?”

Werner looked at me. His mouth was trembling and his face was breaking down. “I don’t know,” he said, and his voice was a choked thing. “I watched those videos, and afterward I thought…I swear to God I thought it was your brother.”

There weren’t many lawyers still toiling at Paley, Clay and Quick on Friday night, and certainly no other partners, and the corridors were dim and quiet as I made my way to Mike Metz’s office. He was sprawled on the sofa with his feet on the coffee table. His sleeves were rolled and his tie was loose, and his face was pale and bleak. There were papers in his lap, but his gaze was out the window, at the Midtown towers bright against the inky sky. I hung my coat on the hook and dropped into a chair. He didn’t look up.