Scott Turow - Identical

“Father, bless,” he said, and the old man instinctively responded by raising his right hand with his thumb and first two fingers upward and making the sign of the cross, forehead to navel and then right shoulder to left. Tim reintroduced himself.

“You might recall, Father, you buried our little Kate.” Standing behind her dad, Georgia tensed and shook her head sharply, indicating that those kinds of inquiries were unwise. But the old man had enough sense left to say something appropriate.

“Oh yes,” he said, in his heavy accent. “Trejedy. Terr’ble trejedy.”

“It was,” said Tim. “Maria was never the same. None of us were.”

The old man turned back to his daughter, asking a question in Greek.

“No, Dad, they know you’re retired.”

Georgia looked at Evon and Tim with an impish smile. “He thinks you want him to perform your wedding. Dad, they just had some questions about Paul Gianis and Cass.”

The old man responded once more in Greek.

“No, Dad. It was Paul you saw on the TV. Cass is still in prison.” Her tone was patient but also exhausted. She recognized the pointlessness of explaining. She added another word or two in Greek, perhaps just repeating herself, but something about her answer inflamed him. The old man was instantly furious. He turned pink as a geranium, spit flying as he began to scream. His rage filled the house. He somehow was steadier on his feet in this state, and gestured widely with one hand. Every now and then Evon heard the word “Paulos” as Georgia tried to calm him.

Tim and she had their coats on and were out the door quickly.

It was a gray day, with a low, woolly sky and little light. Evon and Tim stood out on the walk for a second, trying to regather themselves after Father Nik’s sudden fury.

“That wasn’t pretty,” Evon said.

“No. He’s got something missing, you can see that.”

They reached the car. Tim got the door open and turned to put his backside down first. Until Evon saw him move so stiffly, she hadn’t really remembered Tim was as old as he was.

“Did you understand anything her father was yelling?” she asked once she’d closed her door.

“He didn’t care for getting corrected,” Tim said. “She told him he didn’t see Cass on television, it was Paul, and that got under his skin. I didn’t understand every word, but he was pretty much yelling that he baptized those boys and they served on his altar. There might not have been ten people in the parish could tell them apart on sight, not even their aunts and uncles, but he could, and why was she always telling him he was wrong about stuff. She was trying to convince him he was crazy so she could get all his money.”

Evon groaned. “Poor Georgia.” She bounced her Beemer over the snow ruts and proceeded slowly in the clear channels carved in the street.

“Tough hand she got dealt. That husband of hers, she had to divorce him while he was in prison. Then he got out and begged her to take him back, and not two months later, Jimmy sold two hundred bottles of crack to an undercover cop. He’s still inside, too, if I recollect right. But you could see how she makes her own trouble, too.”

“How’s that?”

“I bet if you go look, Cass was on TV. Don’t you think with all of this fur flying, that one of the channels put on some of their old file footage of Cass being hauled off to prison?”

“Probably so,” Evon allowed. “She sure didn’t like me.”

“Outsider. Old-timers around here are just like that. You’re nobody until they say you are. Sorry to take over like that with her.”

“You were great, Tim.” She meant it. “What did you make of that stuff about Cass being left-handed?”

“Set me back. Sure you could see. I just went through that whole damn file cabinet and no one said a word about that. He wore that ring, though, the class ring.”

“So did Paul, apparently.”

“I heard that,” he said. “You’d have thought Sandy Stern would have mentioned which hand Cass used, wouldn’t you? Wasn’t any secret we were looking for a right-handed assailant.”

“Maybe his client didn’t want him to say anything that might point toward his brother. Paul has to have the same blood type, right?”

Tim made a sound as he nodded.

“And why is Paul saying Cass is innocent?” Evon asked. “After he pled? What does Paul know that makes him so certain?”

A guy across the street was returning from work with an old-fashioned lunch pail, but it was Tim who had her attention, gazing down the avenue and plainly unsettled. The shoes, the ring, the blood, fighting with Dita, being right-handed and declaring his brother innocent-there was starting to be a lot pointing at Paul.

“She didn’t see any cuts on him, right?” said Tim.

“So she says now. But no one saw Cass’s cut either. The only thing that threw me was her remembering that Paul was going to meet Cass at Overlook. You think that’s legit or just Georgia being contrary?”

“She sounded pretty sure.”

“You know, they both could have gone from there to see Dita.”

“It’s only Cass’s fingerprints in that room.”

“But you had to have plenty of unidentified lifts, right?”

“Of course.”

“And you never did a comparison for Paul, did you?”

“Hmm,” said Tim, by way of an answer. His mouth squirmed around while he pondered. She pulled up in front of his house. “Course, he could give some excuse about being there to visit. What would clinch it these days would be to do DNA on the blood in Dita’s room. But that wouldn’t help, since they’re identical twins.”

“Well, you said their fingerprints aren’t the same. Maybe the DNA isn’t either.”

Tim doubted that. There had been a rape case in Indiana no more than five years ago, where the state hadn’t been able to convict the defendant because he had an identical twin brother. There was DNA collected from the victim, but no way to tell which man it belonged to. Evon remembered the case when he mentioned it.

“That science is moving like lightning,” Evon said. “I dealt a little with DNA in the Bureau, and now when I read about a case in the papers, I can’t even understand what they’re talking about. So maybe there’s a way to tell twins apart these days.”

They talked for a second about what would happen next. She’d find a DNA expert and then would have to consult with Hal’s lawyers. Tooley had brought in a big firm after Paul filed suit, although Mel was still pretty much in charge. All of the lawyers would raise hell that they couldn’t talk to Georgia, but Hal would take Evon’s side when he saw today’s recording.

“I’ll call you,” she said. Tim nodded, but he was looking a little beaten up. He clearly didn’t like thinking he’d missed the boat, as he’d said at his house. And that stuff about his daughter probably hadn’t helped either. Evon had never thought about children until a couple of years ago, when she realized how quickly the world was changing. Now that she was fifty the moment had likely passed her by. But given how badly she occasionally missed the baby she’d never had, she couldn’t imagine the pain of losing a child you’d held in your arms.

“I know it was a long time ago,” she said, “but I’m sorry about Kate, Tim. I’m sure it’s still hard for you.”

He nodded again in the same labored way.

“Something like that,” said Tim. “It just doesn’t go way. It’s more than thirty-five years. Katy could be dead of God knows what else by now, or had to bury children of her own. You accept that it happened. But you know that life burned this hole in your heart and it’s not going to heal.” She could feel his composure starting to wither as he struggled out of the car, casting his bad leg around his body as he walked off.