The Killer in My Eyes (43 page)

Maureen decided to act, insofar as it was in her power. Taking advantage of the fact that Roscoe was distracted by the emotion of his story, she put her feet on the ground and started cautiously to move the swivel chair to which she was tied, in such a way as to force him, if he wanted to look her in the face, to turn his back to the door behind which Jordan was hidden.

‘I started to get organized. The luck that had for so long turned its back on me now seemed to be working in my favour. Julius Wong had undergone surgery on his cartilage and ligaments, and for a while went around on crutches. When he gave them up, he still limped a bit. It wouldn’t last long, but that short time was enough for me.’

An inch.

Another.

Then another.

‘I had noticed that Julius and I had pretty much the same build. So I first killed Linus – in other words, Gerald Marsalis. When I got to his place, he recognized me immediately. I forced him to sit on a chair, then I put adhesive tape around his wrists and calves and strangled him, making sure he suffered as much as possible. And as he was dying I asked him if he now understood what my son had felt as the air stopped getting to his lungs. Once he was dead, I glued him to the wall with a blanket against his ear, just as Schulz draws Linus in the strips, and wrote that stupid message on the wall. I knew the police would decipher it immediately, but I needed it to give the impression that the murder was the work of a psychopath. I intended to be seen leaving with a limp, but as I was hiding on the stairs, a girl came out of Gerald’s apartment and left the door ajar. From the landing I’d heard him phoning someone and asking them to come there. That meant I had less time than I’d anticipated, but it was a great opportunity to leave a clue. When the person arrived and rang the bell downstairs, I took the elevator and passed him at the entrance. I bumped into him in such a way that he’d notice me but wouldn’t see my face.’

‘But didn’t it occur to you that the others, once they knew how Gerald had been killed, would become suspicious?’

Roscoe shrugged. ‘Gerald was the Mayor’s son, and that meant it was very likely the details would be kept under wraps – which was, in fact, the case. I had decided to use
Peanuts
because I knew that sooner or later they’d trace it all back to the robbery all those years ago. It might have provided a motive – Julius wanting to take revenge for a slight he’d suffered, or something like that.’

Another inch, taking advantage of the fact that Roscoe was looking down for a moment.

When he looked up again, Maureen caught a sharp, self-satisfied expression on his face.

‘Then it was Chandelle’s turn. And I’m not ashamed to say that killing that useless creature was a real pleasure. I crossed the lobby of the Stuart Building wearing the same tracksuit and walking with the same limp as before. I tried to be as furtive as possible, and always be hidden by someone else, but in reality I was making sure I was caught by the cameras. I knew that would be the first thing the police checked. I told Chandelle I had some news about her operation and she let me come up. How surprised that whore was when she saw me in front of her with a gun in my hand! With Linus I’d had to be quick, but with Chandelle I had much more time at my disposal. I forced her to talk, making her think I would spare her if she did. I discovered a whole lot of things. She confessed to me that she’d had an affair with that sex maniac Julius, and also how he’d gradually involved the other two in the robbery – Gerald because he was crazy, and Alex Campbell because he was weak and psychologically dependent on Julius. Finally she revealed the reason all this had happened. The bastards had committed the robbery for kicks, just to do something different, feel something different. Do you understand what I’m saying? My son had died because these people, out of boredom, had decided to “try something different”. And what’s more, that bitch told me she had recognized me as soon as she entered my office the first time. She had enjoyed the sick sensation of knowing what I didn’t know, maybe actually becoming aroused at the thought of what she had done to me. When I went to her and put my hands around her neck and she begged me not to kill her I whispered in her ears, echoing Julius, “I’m a doctor, I know what I’m doing.” Then I glued her to the piano, to make her look like Lucy, wrote the note pointing to the next victim, and left.’

At last, Roscoe changed position. With an almost distracted movement, he turned and rested against the bench, as if he was tired of standing and needed a support. The gun, though, was still in his hand, and the barrel was still aimed at Maureen’s head.

‘First, though, I left a new clue, the crucial one. I made it seem as though the killer had raped Chandelle after killing her. And just think, to do that, I used a dildo I found in one of her drawers. I put it in a condom filled with Julius Wong’s semen. I chose the kind that slows down the man’s pleasure and stimulates the woman’s, firstly because it leaves a more obvious chemical residue and secondly because using a condom on a corpse was perfectly in line with the psychological profile of a psychopath. I made a hole in it so that it would leave a small residue of sperm, and it would look as though the condom was faulty.’

‘And how did you get hold of it?’

‘That was the hardest part. Julius Wong had been interested in sex and violence since he was young, but had become very choosy. Straight sex with women didn’t interest him any more, he needed something stronger, more extreme. The alcohol, the drugs and his sick brain had made him . . . how shall I put it? . . . a man of refined tastes. I remembered someone I had met some time ago.’

Jordan came out into the open and started to creep down the short staircase. Maureen saw that his right arm was hanging at his side in a strange way, as if it was broken.

One step.

Two steps.

Three steps.

Maureen was following Jordan’s descent and Roscoe’s story with the same bated breath.

‘Every now and again I would tour the county giving seminars. In a hospital near Syracuse I met a nurse. She was an extremely beautiful woman, maybe one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. There was something distinctive about her, she had a sensuality you could almost touch. Her name was Lysa and she had one fairly unusual characteristic, which was that she was actually a man. We became friends and she started to confide in me. She was a gentle, melancholy, reserved person. And above all honest – nothing like those mercenary transsexuals you find on the internet. We stayed in touch, even when she stopped working at the hospital. It struck me that a pervert like Julius Wong wouldn’t be able to resist the excitement of having relations with a sexual curiosity like that. I played on Lysa’s weakness, her weariness at fighting a battle she considered lost from the start. I contacted her anonymously and offered her a hundred thousand dollars to have sex with Julius Wong and hand over a condom filled with his sperm.’

‘And didn’t it occur to you that this Lysa might report you to the police when she discovered what Julius Wong had been accused of? Especially knowing that what nailed him conclusively was the DNA test.’

‘Of course, there was always that possibility. But that was another problem I solved. Without knowing I was in any way involved, she herself had written to tell me she was moving to New York, and to give me the address of the apartment she had rented. And you want to know something funny? It was the apartment of Jordan Marsalis, the Mayor’s brother, Gerald’s uncle . . .’

For a moment, Roscoe seemed to be reflecting on the mocking way that fate managed the affairs of men. Then he dismissed that thought with a gesture of his hand, as if waving away a troublesome fly. ‘In any case, as I said, it’s no longer a problem. I read in the newspaper that she’s had an accident . . .’

Maureen was horror-struck by the chilling significance of those words. ‘You’re crazy.’

‘That’s possible. Maybe you have to be crazy to do what I did. But I succeeded.’

‘Not entirely. Things didn’t go too well with Alex Campbell, did they? He managed to get away from you.’

William Roscoe gave Maureen a devilish smile. ‘Do you really think so?’

Maureen looked at him, stunned.

‘Congratulations, Maureen, I see you’ve understood. It was all planned. I made sure he got away because I needed him alive, he had to be the person with the final clue that would identify Julius Wong. I chose him because he was actually the least guilty of them. That day, he was the only one who begged the others to leave us alone.’

In the meantime, Jordan had reached the opposite side of the central bench and ducked down beneath it. Maureen assumed he was planning to creep around it until he was behind Roscoe, then take him by surprise. Unaware of his presence, Roscoe continued his macabre account of his actions.

‘I knew he’d gone to his house on Saint Croix. Luckily, thanks to my work, I’ve developed a few computer skills. I managed to get into the airline’s database and find out what day he was due back. I waited for him in a stolen car and grabbed him just outside his house, making sure that the tailor in the shop opposite saw me and was able to describe me to the police, obviously with the usual tracksuit and slight limp in the right leg. I took Alex to that warehouse in Williamsburg to make it look as if I’d been planning to arrange his body to look like Snoopy. I’d had a tattoo of a demon with butterfly wings drawn on my arm in soluble colours. It might not have been identical to Julius Wong’s tattoo, but it was certainly close enough, and in that light it was sure to terrify Alex. I didn’t think he’d be paying too much attention to details. Unfortunately, I didn’t know he had a weak heart. He died, but not before completing the task I’d given him, which was to set the police on Julius Wong’s trail.’

‘There’s one thing I don’t understand. How could you be sure Julius Wong wouldn’t have an alibi for the nights when the murders were committed?’

Roscoe pointed to a number of medium-size cylinders in a compartment to his right. ‘Nitrous oxide. Colourless, tasteless, odourless.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Julius Wong lives in a loft on 14th Street. It’s a two-storey building, with a flat roof that can easily be reached from the fire escape in back. All I had to do was connect one of those cylinders to the ventilation system to send him into a dreamless sleep until the following day.’

Roscoe shrugged casually, as if he had just finished telling a friend about a pleasure trip.

‘What else is there to say? Nothing, I think.’

Maureen realized that there was no narcissism in his attitude, no pride at the Machiavellian plan he had concocted. Instead, there was the naturalness of a person who feels he has done what is right. And privately, although Maureen cursed herself for the thought, she could not entirely blame him.

‘Now you know everything. It’s taken me years to get this far and I’m not going to let you ruin it for me now.’

‘You’ve forgotten something,’ Maureen told him. ‘Didn’t it occur to you that, if someone discovered you, you’d have done all this for nothing? Julius Wong would be free and you would go to prison in his place.’

Professor William Roscoe smiled gently. ‘No, my dear. I have taken certain precautions, you see. Should that happen, there’s a very professional gentleman who’ll take care of Julius W—’

Roscoe did not finish the sentence, because at that moment Jordan leaped out from behind the shelter of the bench and threw himself on him.

It all happened in a few seconds, even though to Jordan and Maureen it seemed to last forever, as if they were moving in slow motion.

Jordan, with his one good arm at his disposal, had grabbed Roscoe’s right hand and at the same time lifted his leg in order to knock the Professor’s wrist against his knee and make him loosen his hold on the gun.

But surprise did not seem to be in William Roscoe’s repertoire. If Jordan’s unexpected arrival had shaken him in any way, it was not reflected in his reactions. The only result that Jordan did obtain was that his opponent’s finger tightened on the trigger and the gun went off, sending a bullet thudding into the tiled floor and raising a cloud of fragments.

Jordan realized immediately that it would not be easy to get the better of Roscoe, not least because he himself was forced to fight with only one arm. He was taller and younger, of course, but from the force with which Roscoe had met his onslaught it was clear that the Professor was in excellent shape – and of course could count on both arms.

Ignoring the agony from his shoulder, Jordan managed to force the Professor’s arm backwards and bring his wrist down several times on the tiled edge of the bench.

The gun went off again, and a computer exploded in a shower of sparks.

At last, Roscoe’s grip relaxed, and Jordan heard the wonderful sound of the gun clattering to the floor.

Maureen was watching every movement, wondering how she could be of help. Her options were very limited, in that she was still trapped in the chair. One thing she could do, though, was to make it more difficult for Roscoe to reach his gun if he broke free of Jordan. Pressing down on her feet and thrusting her chest forward slightly, she moved the chair as best she could until her feet were close enough to kick it away. The two men who were fighting heard the metallic scrape of the Beretta sliding across the floor, hit the base of the opposite wall, bounce back towards the middle of the room and stop just below the gallery.