Identical (9 page)

“I just saw them talking. Dita went stalking off and I remember the look on his face. But that was nothing new. Paul hated Dita.”

“Is that what he said that day? That he hated her?”

“I don’t remember what he said. Did I tell that to the cop?” She took the report back from Tim’s hand without asking and swung her head laterally as she read. “I really don’t recall even talking about her with Paul that day. Except maybe when he said he was going to the Overlook, and I’m not clear on that.”

“But you say he hated her?”

“There was a lot not to like. I don’t want to speak ill of the dead”-she made the sign of the cross over her chest with impressive speed-“but I have to tell you the truth. Dita was just a very spoiled girl with a very sharp tongue. She was like, ‘My dad is one of those guys, emperor of the universe, so I can say damn well what I please.’ She was gorgeous, so there were always boys after her, the whole damned cavalry, but except for Cass, she managed to drive every one of them away after a while.”

“Is that what Paul didn’t like about her? Her attitude?”

“You know. He said she was wild, leading his brother astray, said his mom hated her, too, and Dita knew it and just liked egging all of them on. I don’t know. You ask me?”

“That’s what we’re here for,” Tim said.

“I think he was jealous. That’s a hard row to hoe. With twins? Identical twins? He loved his brother. There isn’t even a word for it really. Lidia always told the same stories about when they were little, how they couldn’t stand being different. She sewed their names into their clothes and they tore off the tags. They ate off each other’s plates. At night they ended up in the same bed, sleeping in each other’s arms. The neighbors’ collie bit Cass, and everybody swore Paul cried first, before either of them knew the dog had drawn blood. It was like they were joined at the heart. And that never quite stopped. I mean, Paul wouldn’t really accept that Cass was guilty.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, even after Cass pled, Paul was saying he was innocent.”

“Did he?” said Tim, who allowed none of the surprise Evon felt rippling through her thorax to reach his expression. He maintained a purely conversational tone. “When was that?”

“That day. The day Cass was in court pleading guilty. I was there actually. Paul and I had been broken up for months by then, but I don’t know, I wanted to support the family or something. I don’t know,” she repeated. “Probably I was looking for an excuse to see Paul.” She winced, pained by the memory and the futility of her longing. With her eyes closed, Tim noticed that her face was turning blotchy with age. “Anyway, he thanked me for coming. We went over to Bishop’s, and had a beer, and he was just blown away. I mean, you can imagine, somebody’s been like another part of your body all your life and they’re about to lock him up for twenty-five years. He was really blue and he just said to me, ‘He’s innocent, you know.’”

Evon intervened. “And did you ask how he knew that?” She tried to evoke Tim’s mild tone, but again, Georgia’s response to her was sharp.

“Well, he was his twin brother for God’s sake,” she answered. Evon had Georgia’s number by now. She was one of those women who didn’t really like other females, while the men she’d loved-Paul who’d thrown her over, and Jimmy Cleon with his drugs, and her dad who’d kept her from college-had all done her wrong. Life had put her in quite a bind. “I suppose I figured Cass told him that. But I was trying to console him, not play detective. Paul was miserable and I was listening to him. I thought we could be friends. Does that ever work?” She kept touching the front of her short stiff hairdo to keep it in place, after every shake of her head. “And of course, right before I got up to leave, he told me he was going to marry Sofia in a couple of weeks, so Cass could be his best man before he went inside.”

Tim was quiet for a second while she dwelled with that memory, which, like much of what she’d said about Paul, struck her hard.

He asked a few more questions about what had happened on the day of the murder, whether anyone else had had a visible conflict with Dita. Finally, he looked to Evon to see if she had something else to cover, which she did. She flipped back to some notes she’d made that morning.

“Thinking back, do you remember Paul having any serious cuts around that time?”

Georgia considered the question for only a second before saying no.

“Would you have been aware of any deep cuts?” Tim asked. He was as easy as if he were asking the time, but Georgia fixed him with a knowing brown eye.

“I’d have known. We dated for nine years and I was sure I was going to marry the guy. I mean, the truth is I saw him less once Dita was murdered. He was finally going to move out of his parents’ after he started working, so he was looking for apartments, and then when Cass became a suspect he was completely focused on that, and we broke up.”

“So are you saying you might not have known?” Evon asked.

Georgia wheeled back, remaining cranky with her. “I’m saying I saw him less. But I saw him. And I would have noticed. Everybody knew there was blood all over that bedroom. Like I said. He hated Dita. I don’t think I’d have been that dense.”

Evon absorbed her answer without quarreling, but these kinds of retrospective would-haves were always baloney. If the man she loved had told her he’d cut himself fixing a fence in his parents’ yard, she wouldn’t have thought twice about it. But Georgia was touchy enough that Evon wasn’t going to argue. She looked down to her notepad.

“Is Paul right-handed?” Evon asked.

“Mostly.”

“‘Mostly’?”

“Cass is left-handed. Writes lefty, eats lefty. Paul is the opposite. I always wondered when I noticed that, years ago, if that meant they weren’t really identical, but apparently that happens a lot with identical twins. When Paul and Cass were little, though, like I said, they hated to do anything different from one another. So sometimes they’d both eat lefty and sometimes they’d both eat righty. They each ended up pretty much whatever the word is, both-handed.”

“Ambidextrous?” Evon said.

“Right. So, for example, when they started playing tennis in high school, they used to shift the racquet, hitting forehands from both sides, but the coach put a stop to that. Paul played righty and Cass played lefty. They were both strong singles players, but at doubles no one could beat them, because basically they knew exactly what the other one was thinking on the court. They were state champions two years running. That was a big deal around here. Guys from a city school winning against all these suburban kids from country clubs? There were articles about them in the
Tribune
. And there was this one great story.” Georgia fell back, smiling at the recollection.

“They were once in one of these home-and-home tournaments, Friday and Saturday, against a high school from Greenwood County, and when Cass finished his singles match the second day, the kid came after him with his racket. He was screaming, ‘I didn’t mind losing to you yesterday, but coming back and beating me left-handed today, that’s just being an asshole.’”

The three of them all laughed hard. But even amid the levity, Evon could see Tim had reabsorbed some of his anxious aspect.

“But Cass, he did wear a big ring on his right hand, didn’t he?” Tim asked.

“Oh yeah,” she said. “It was one of those Easton College class rings that Paul and him both bought when they graduated.”

Tim nodded, but his lips kept folding into his mouth. Evon realized he was wondering how they’d pinned a right-handed murder on a lefty.

Evon drank down some of her water, preparing to leave. They both thanked Georgia heartily for her time.

“The lawyers may want to talk to you,” Evon said. As had happened before, Georgia’s mood shifted sharply in reaction to her.

“The hell they will,” she answered. “This isn’t going to become my new profession. Tim called. I agreed to speak to him out of respect, and he said you were his boss and had to come, so I said fine to that, too. But I’m not repeating everything forty times to a bunch of lawyers so they can pick it apart. And I’m certainly not talking to any reporters. They just write what they want you to have said. This here, today, that’s the end of this for me.”

Tim took over again, smoothing her feathers.

“Well, no one knows anything for sure right now,” Tim said. “This could all blow over in a couple of weeks. But if they go to court, it’s hard to imagine you’re not gonna get dragged in a little. You were Paul’s girlfriend. There wasn’t anybody else who’d know more about him then. You have to realize you’re important.”

Tim was good, Evon thought. She had never really laid aside her native awkwardness with strangers. But Tim knew intuitively what would soothe Georgia. ‘You’re important.’

She was not fully convinced. “Still,” she said.

They were all silent a second.

“Can I suggest something?” Tim said. “Why don’t I just get out my camera? It’s in my overcoat and it takes video, too. And I’ll record you responding to a few questions. And that will be that. At least on our side. If somebody else sends you a subpoena, then you can deal with that, but you won’t have to answer about the same things for now. Just tell the lawyers or reporters, whoever it is, you aren’t saying anything else.”

Georgia considered this. “Can I say this how I want?”

“Course,” Tim answered.

“And am I going to end up in another one of Hal’s commercials, all over the TV?”

Evon had no idea how Tim could soften that. When she’d told Hal Tim might have dug up a witness against Paul, he’d danced around his office and immediately called the ad agency. But Tim didn’t try.

“Probably,” he said. “That’s what I’d guess.”

Georgia looked around the dim living room for a second, as if she were taking account of her life. Then she nodded. Tim had Georgia figured. Paul had left her behind and blasted into the firmament. But she’d been the woman with him then. It wasn’t wrong if the spotlight fell on her for a second.

Georgia did two takes, the second less halting.

Georgia had added the last line on the second go-through. Evon, who was far from artsy, had learned enough from Heather that she could envision the way the director would present this, a tight shot, grainy, as Georgia spoke, all the worry and reluctance swimming through her face, even as the truth struggled to the surface. It was going to be strong.

Tim and she had just started moving toward the door when Georgia’s father came thumping into the room. He appeared intent on the TV, to which he pointed with his cane in clear instruction. Georgia told him it would be a minute. The old priest looked a wreck. He wore sweatpants and a Chicago Bears T-shirt on which a long soup stain was visible. His hair was wild, and his full gray beard looked equally untamed. The frames on his heavy Harry Caray glasses might have been thirty years old. Behind them, his black eyes seemed quick and uncomprehending. Nonetheless, Tim greeted Father Nik with just the barest bow.

“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.”