Aphrodite (7 page)

“You don’t have to tell me,” he said. “You don’t have to tell anybody if you don’t want to.”

“I saw something.”

And if you tell me, I’ll have to do something about it. It won’t just be pretend any longer. I’ll have to
do
something.

“Don’t tell me,” he said again, and he was surprised at how desperate his voice sounded. “Please. Don’t tell me what you saw.”

“I have a daughter,” she said. “And I’m afraid.”

Please …
“But I saw Susanna. Here on the roof.”

Don’t …

“She didn’t trip and fall like everyone says,” the woman said now. She still hadn’t moved. She still had her legs crossed and she was breathing in and out, slowly and steadily, in an easy, perfect rhythm.

Don’t tell me. …

“He killed her,” she said, her voice still firm and steady. “He murdered her. And I saw it.”

He didn’t know how long the silence lasted. A long time. She was trembling now. She looked like she was going to cry.

“It’s okay,” Westwood said slowly. “It’s okay that you saw it.”

“I have to tell somebody. I need to tell somebody. But I’m afraid.”

“Let’s go somewhere and talk. You can tell me.”

She was relieved, he could see it. And reassured by his smile. She stood up now, in one graceful movement, not even using her hands to prop herself, just rising in one corkscrew-like motion until she was on her feet. He took her hands and led her to the fire escape at the back of the roof, the one leading down to the alley.

As she put one hand on the railing and placed her foot on the first step, she said, “You won’t let them hurt me, will you?”

Westwood did his best to smile again, and he squeezed her hand more firmly as she stepped down. But he didn’t say anything.

He didn’t think there was anything he
could
say.

You should have left it alone
, the hum said.

And then it said one more thing, the thing that scared him the most, the thing he knew was all too true:

Too late now.

3

The dream didn’t come every night. Not anymore. It had for years. Every night like clockwork Justin Westwood awakened with a scream, trembling, drenched in sweat, the sheets wet and sticky. Now it just came sometimes. There were nights he wanted it to come because he didn’t ever want to forget. Other times he prayed for it to stay away because the pain of remembering had long ago become unbearable.

It came that night.

It began as it always did, in a time when he was happy. When he and Alicia were in love, even before Lili was born. In his dream he felt Alicia caressing him, felt her naked body melt into his as it always did in bed. Then there was Lili. The perfect child. Sweet right from the start. He could hear her cooing and gurgling as a baby. And he saw her take her first step. Heard her speak. Somehow the dream always let him see her in school, in first grade, maybe because he always thought of her as so smart. She should have been beautiful, Lili, like her mother, but she wasn’t. She had Alicia’s body, thin and athletic with long, coltish legs that, right from the beginning, seemed to go on forever. But she got his face, poor kid, so she was slightly goofy looking, at least that was what she felt. He would always tell her how beautiful she was, how perfect, how smart, and in the dream he’d hear what she always used to say: “Daaaaddddy, it’s no good if
you
think I’m beautiful. It’s the
other
ones who have to think I’m beautiful.”

The dream changed from time to time. Jumped around. Tonight it jumped to when Lili was eight years old and things had started to go bad. His father usually came into the dream now, his face, big and close, stern and frightening. His father never spoke in the dreams, just looked at him, that look, so bitter and angry and disappointed. Then there was a jumble of images. Everything rushed in at him, like a train whooshing through a tunnel: Alicia harping at him, saying
What’s wrong with you? Why are you doing this?
and then the arrest and everyone patting him on the back, telling him he’d done a great thing, and in the dream his chest puffed out, he was so full of pride. He could see Lili looking at him like he was the most important man in the world. He handed her his medal, his shiny gold medal that glistened like a precious jewel. And then …

And then in his dream he heard a noise. In real life there had been none. Other than normal noise. Alicia at her desk, riffling through papers and paying bills. Lili padding around the living room. The TV. Everything was normal. But in the dream he heard something. A warning. And then suddenly they were there. Inside his home. And there were shots. Screams. He was on the floor. They thought he was dead. He heard laughter and felt someone touch him and then there was another noise, an explosion of heat and fire, and there was blood everywhere. Thick and red. Dripping. Flooding. Red, everywhere …

Justin Westwood woke from his dream, breathing hard. He grabbed for his chest, feeling the physical pain as if it had all just happened. His hands quickly probed his stomach, then his neck and his thighs. There were no fresh wounds, only raised scars, reminders of the raw, scorched flesh that had once been there. His breathing eased a bit and he resisted looking at the empty half of the bed across from him. Justin reached for the glass of water he’d put on the nightstand. He gulped it down, was still thirsty, didn’t want to move, though, to get more. Didn’t want to disturb the images of Alicia and Lili that were still with him, still so real.

He looked at his watch. Four a.m. In another hour it would start getting light. He didn’t bother closing his eyes; he wouldn’t be going back to sleep. He never did after the dream. He’d stay up and wait for dawn. Then he’d wait until he could see Jimmy and the girl, the yoga teacher. Then he’d see what they were going to do. They’d hear her story, ask questions, see what was real, what was fake.

In his own life, Justin knew what was real and what wasn’t.

His wife and daughter were dead and it was his fault.

He was alive. And wishing he wasn’t.

That’s what was real.

Everything else was fake.

4

“What were you doing up on the roof?” Jimmy Leggett asked. He was not comfortable with the conversation. It wasn’t going well. He didn’t want to believe what he was hearing because, if it was all true, he didn’t know what the hell he was supposed to do about it.

“I told you, I was meditating. I go up there a lot late at night. When I can’t sleep. It’s quiet. Peaceful. At least it usually is.”

“And you just leave your daughter in your apartment?”

“I leave her bedroom window open. It’s right below me. I can hear if anything happens. And if she wakes up and I’m not in my bed, she knows I’m up there. It’s not like I’m off partying. I’m only a few feet away.”

“Why couldn’t you sleep that night?”

She shrugged, starting to look annoyed. “You want to hear about all my problems? I’m single, I’m a mom, I don’t make enough money, what’s going on in the world scares the shit out of me. ….”

“Did you hear anything?” “Before I went up there? No.”

Chief Leggett took a deep breath. He looked at Justin. The chief didn’t say anything but Westwood knew him pretty well. So he stepped in.

“Tell us exactly what you saw up on the roof …uh …Deena.” It took him a second, but she’d finally told him her name last night, when he’d walked her back to her apartment. Deena Harper. He’d watched her look in on her sleeping daughter, then he’d said good night and told her he’d see her at eight.

“I told you already.”

“One more time. Sometimes when you repeat things, you remember new facts, little details.”

“I was up there for about half an hour. It was a little hazy. I was very relaxed, almost in a meditative state. I heard something. I don’t think I opened my eyes at first. Sometimes your imagination kind of takes over when you’re meditating and you hear things. You know, like if you’re thinking about a river, you can hear the water.”

“The roof,” Justin said. “What did you hear on the roof?”

“I guess it was the door opening. The door that opens onto the roof from the attic of the house. It’s usually locked. We weren’t supposed to use it to go up there. Some kind of fire hazard or something.”

“We?”

“Me and Susanna. The landlord told us both to stay off the roof.”

“But you went up anyway?” That was Chief Leggett interrupting.

Deena rolled her eyes and nodded. “Yes, I’m sorry. I’ll do my time and try to make my reentry into society a productive one.”

“Okay, so you heard the door open,” Justin said.

“There was this blond guy there. Really handsome. I described him. Blond hair, pale skin …”

“Pale like no suntan?”

“Yeah. Hardly any tan at all.”

“You didn’t tell me that before.” “I didn’t? Huh. Well, he was really pale. Hair was medium, casual but done. Robert Redford kind of hair. Maybe six feet tall. Not thin, not fat. I couldn’t tell what kind of body he had—he was wearing a suit.”

“A fancy suit?”

“Not a pinstripe, if that’s what you mean. Khaki. He had a T-shirt underneath. But not a crummy T-shirt, not Fruit of the Loom. A designer T-shirt.”

“You have good eyes. It was hard for me to see up there.”

“I’d been there for a while. My eyes were used to the dark.”

“Okay, good point. What kind of shoes was he wearing?”

“Shoes?” She thought for a minute, scrunched up her face. “I don’t know. I don’t think I saw them. They must have been some kind of sneaker, though. Something soft. He didn’t make any real noise when he moved.”

“Good. Then what happened?”

“Then I heard this …I don’t know what … commotion. I could hear something going on. A window opening or closing. Then I saw Susanna. She pulled herself up onto the roof and she was frantic. Breathing hard. She started to run, then she saw the blond guy. She stopped short when she saw him. She looked like she’d just seen a ghost.”

“She was surprised to see him?”

“Shocked, I’d say.”

“And then?”

“He moved really slowly. At least it seemed to be slow, but it couldn’t have been. Susanna tried to dodge him, run around him—I guess trying to get to the fire escape over on the other roof—but he caught her really easily. He said something to her; I remember that he said something, kept asking her questions.”

“You didn’t tell me that, either,” Westwood said. “What did he say to her?”

“I can’t remember exactly. He was quiet, talking really soft. He kept asking her something and she didn’t seem to know the answer. He wanted to know what ‘amfer’ was. Or ‘afro’—I couldn’t really tell, something like that. Then he said something like ‘Give me …’ He said, ‘Give me’ something. …” She shook her head in frustration. She had dark blond hair that had been permed and it slithered like it was alive. She was not trying to be sexy when she shook her head, but Justin noted that she simply couldn’t help it.

“It’s okay,” he told her. “Relax. Think about something else. You want some more coffee?”

She shook her head, her curls jumping around again. One of them snaked over her forehead, covering her left eye, and she brushed it away with her hand.

“Did he want money?” Justin asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“Something she had on her? Drugs?”

“No!”

“Information? A phone number, an address …”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Did she give it to him?”

“I don’t know. I think so. He hurt her. He snapped something here”—she pointed to her neck—“and he twisted her arm. I thought he broke it.”

“Did you hear what she told him?”

“She was crying. Sobbing, quietly, like it hurt too much to really cry. I couldn’t make out what she told him. It didn’t make sense to me—I’m sure I heard it wrong. It sounded like ‘walrus’ or something. Walrus and something else. But it’s what he wanted to hear. Because once she told him, he got real calm.” Deena shuddered, her shoulders hunching up toward her chin. “Then he just leaned over and broke her neck.”

“What happened after that?”

“I didn’t move a muscle. I was terrified he’d see me. I could have made it over to the other roof; I mean, I was a lot closer, but I don’t know if my legs would have worked. But he never even looked my way. He picked Susanna up, like she weighed nothing—this guy was strong—and he carried her down the fire escape.”

“Did he come back up to the roof?”

“Uh-uh.”

“So he must have gone into her apartment, through the window.”

“I guess so.”

Justin looked at Leggett, spoke to him now. “While he was in there, he arranged the bed and the sheets so it would look like she fell. He smashed a glass, knocked over the table so it would look even better.”

“Jesus.” That was Deena. She wiped her eyes, which had started to tear.

“Did you see him leave?” Justin asked her now.

“No. I was too afraid to move.”

“So you didn’t see the car he drove away in?”

She nodded. “I did. When I heard it start up, that’s when I went to the edge of the roof, the back edge. I guess I felt safer. Thought I should try to see something, you know, like the witnesses on
Law & Order
or something. So I saw it pull away. But I don’t know cars. I don’t know what it was.”

“Do you remember anything about it?”

She thought, closing her eyes as if that would help her picture it. Then she frowned and shook her head. “Not much. It was kind of boxy. Not sleek or anything. Not a sports car.”

“Color?”

“Dark. Not red. Black maybe. Or dark green or blue.”

Justin exhaled a long breath. “Deena, you’ve been incredibly helpful. I’m sorry you had to go through it, but maybe it’ll help us find whoever killed Susanna.”

“Can I go now?”

Leggett looked at Justin, who nodded and said, “You can go.” As she stood up, he said, “Where’s your daughter?”

“At the yoga center. She hangs out there. I’ve got another teacher who watches her.” Deena smiled now, for the first time since Justin had seen her on the roof the night before. “Her name’s Kendall. She’s going into second grade in another couple of months. In September.”