the Third Twin (1996)

and attempted to get his fingers inside her panties. She wriggled, trying to stop him. She glanced at his face. He was smiling, his eyes wide, panting and sweating with sexual excitement. He was having fun. This was crazy.

There were no cars ahead or behind her. The ramp ended in a stoplight which was green. To her left was a cemetery. She saw a sign pointing right that read “Civic Center Blvd.” and she swung that way, hoping to see a busy town hall with crowds of people on the sidewalk. To her dismay the street was a bleak desert of unused halls and concrete plazas. Ahead of her, a light turned red. If she stopped, she was done for.

Steve got his hand inside her panties and said: “Stop the car!” Like her, he had realized that if he raped her here there was a good chance no one would interfere.

He was hurting her now, pinching and thrusting with his fingers, but worse than the pain was the fear of what was to come. She accelerated wildly toward the red light.

An ambulance came from the left, swinging in front of her. She braked hard and swerved to miss it, thinking crazily, If I crash now, at least help is at hand.

Suddenly Steve withdrew his hands from her body. She had a moment of blessed relief. Then he grabbed the transmission lever and pushed it into neutral. The car suddenly lost momentum. She yanked it back into drive and floored the pedal, passing the ambulance.

How long can this go on? Jeannie thought. She had to get to a neighborhood where there were some people before the car stopped or crashed. But Philadelphia had turned into a moonscape.

He grabbed the steering wheel and tried to pull the car over onto the sidewalk. Jeannie jerked it back quickly. The rear wheels skidded and the ambulance honked indignantly.

He tried again. This time he was cleverer. He knocked the transmission into neutral with his left hand and grabbed the wheel with his right. The car slowed down and mounted the curb.

Jeannie took both hands off the wheel, put them on Steve’s chest, and shoved him away with all her might. Her strength surprised him and he was flung backward. She put the car in drive and stamped on the accelerator pedal. The car rocketed forward yet again, but Jeannie knew that she could not fight him off much longer. Any second now he would succeed in stopping the car, and she would be trapped in here with him. He recovered his balance as she turned into a left-hand bend. He got both hands on the steering wheel, and she thought, This is the end, I can’t do any more. Then the car rounded the bend and the cityscape changed abruptly.

There was a busy street, a hospital with people standing outside, a line of taxicabs, and a sidewalk stall selling Chinese food. “Yes!” Jeannie shouted triumphantly. She stamped on the brake. Steve jerked the wheel and she pulled it back. Fish-tailing, the car screeched to a halt in the middle of the road. A dozen cabdrivers at the food stand turned to look.

Steve opened his door, got out, and ran.

“Thank God,” Jeannie breathed.

A moment later he had disappeared.

Jeannie sat there, panting. He was gone. The nightmare was over.

One of the drivers came over and put his head inside the passenger door. Hastily Jeannie rearranged her clothing. “Are you okay, lady?” he said.

“I guess so,” she replied breathlessly.

“What the heck was that all about?”

She shook her head. “I sure wish I knew,” she said.

36

STEVE SAT ON A LOW WALL NEAR JEANNIE’S HOUSE, WAITING for her. It was hot, but he took advantage of the shade of a big maple tree. She lived in an old working-class neighborhood of traditional row houses. Teenagers from a nearby school were walking home, laughing and quarreling and eating candy. It was not long since he had been like that: eight or nine years.

But now he was worried and desperate. This afternoon his lawyer had talked to Sergeant Delaware of the Sex Crimes Unit in Baltimore. She had told him she had the results of the DNA test. The DNA from traces of sperm in Lisa Hoxton’s vagina exactly matched the DNA in Steve’s blood.

He was devastated. He had been sure the DNA test would end this agony.

He could tell that his lawyer no longer believed in his innocence. Mom and Dad did, but they were baffled; they both knew enough to realize that DNA testing was extremely reliable.

In his worst moments he wondered if he had some kind of split personality. Maybe there was another Steve who took over and raped women and gave him his body back afterward. That way he would not know what he had done. He recalled, ominously, that there were a few seconds of his fight with Tip Hendricks that he had never been able to bring to mind. And he had been ready to drive his fingers into Porky Butcher’s brain. Was it his alter ego who did these things? He did not really believe it. There had to be another explanation.

The ray of hope was the mystery surrounding him and Dennis Pinker. Dennis had the same DNA as Steve. Something was wrong here. And the only person who could figure it out was Jeannie Ferrami.

The kids disappeared into their homes, and the sun dipped behind the row of houses on the other side of the street. Toward six o’clock the red Mercedes eased into a parking slot fifty yards away. Jeannie got out. At first she did not see Steve. She opened the trunk and took out a large black plastic garbage bag. Then she locked the car and came along the sidewalk toward him. She was dressed formally, in a black skirted suit, but she looked disheveled, and there was a weariness in her walk that touched his heart. He wondered what had happened to give her this battle-worn look. She was still gorgeous, though, and he watched her with longing in his heart.

As she got near him he stood up, smiling, and took a step toward her.

She glanced at him, met his eye, and recognized him. A look of horror came over her face.

She opened her mouth and screamed.

He stopped dead. Aghast, he said: “Jeannie, what is it?”

“Get away from me!” she yelled. “Don’t you touch me! I’m calling the cops right now!”

Nonplussed, Steve held his hands up in a defensive gesture. “Sure, sure, anything you say. I’m not touching you, okay? What the hell has gotten into you?”

A neighbor came out of the front door Jeannie shared. He must be the occupant of the apartment beneath hers, Steve figured. He was an old black man wearing a checked shirt and a tie. “Is everything all right, Jeannie?” he said. “I thought I heard someone cry out.”

“It was me, Mr. Oliver,” she said in a shaky voice. “This jerk attacked me in my car in Philadelphia this afternoon.”

“Attacked you?” Steve said incredulously. “I wouldn’t do that!”

“You bastard, you did it two hours ago.”

Steve was stung. He was sick of being accused of brutality. “Fuck you, I haven’t been to Philadelphia for years.”

Mr. Oliver intervened. “This young gentleman been sitting on that wall for nigh on two hours, Jeannie. He ain’t been to no Philadelphia this afternoon.”

Jeannie looked indignant and seemed ready to accuse her good-natured neighbor of lying.

Steve noticed that she was wearing no stockings; her bare legs looked odd with such a formal outfit. One side of her face was slightly swollen and reddish. His fury evaporated. Someone had attacked her. He yearned to put his arms around her and comfort her. It made her fear of him even more distressing. “He hurt you,” he said. “The bastard.”

Her face changed. The look of terror went. She spoke to the neighbor. “He got here two hours ago?”

The man shrugged. “Hour and forty, maybe fifty minutes.”

“You’re sure?”

“Jeannie, if he was in Philadelphia two hours ago he must have come here on the Concorde.”

She looked at Steve. “It must have been Dennis.”

He walked toward her. She did not step back. He reached out and touched her swollen cheek with his fingertips. “Poor Jeannie,” he said.

“I thought it was you,” she said, and tears came to her eyes.