Double Take

“So you’re saying Jules never got to speak to this woman before he collapsed?”

“No, just the one look in the receiving line, and then he was lying on his back staring up at her. The paramedics arrived and whisked him off to the hospital. Turns out he hadn’t had a heart attack, but the doctors wondered if he’d suffered some sort of temporary stroke, said it could paralyze your body and make you keel over, that it could happen to an old guy like him. He called me from the hospital a few minutes ago while they were still doing all their infernal tests, said you had to get out to San Francisco, find out what Christie is doing there.”

“It’s not Christie, Chappy. She’s dead. You heard what Jules said, the woman looked at him with no recognition at all.”

“Then who the hell is she?”

Dix only shrugged, but all the memories, all the faded pain was back again, almost bowling him over, as it had in those early months after she’d disappeared. It isn’t Christie!

He said, “We’re all supposed to have a twin somewhere on this earth, a thought that should curdle your own blood, Chappy. Evidently Jules met Christie’s twin, nothing more, nothing less. It wasn’t her, Chappy, it couldn’t have been Christie. So you know this guy Thomas Pallack, it’s a coincidence, nothing more.”

“No, Dix, wait! What if Thomas Pallack’s wife is Christie and she’s lost her memory or something? She was in some sort of accident or had some sort of mental breakdown? Hell, maybe she escaped something terrifying that made her repress everything.”

“Chappy—”

“She might have ended up in San Francisco, met Thomas Pallack by chance, married him for whatever reason, I mean, the guy is older, and—if that’s so then naturally she wouldn’t recognize Jules. She had to have a name, so she called herself Charlotte. Dix, Jules is so certain. You’ll go to San Francisco, won’t you? Hell, no problem, both of us will go.”

Dix didn’t pause, simply walked to the door of Chappy’s study, and said over his shoulder, “Chappy, I’ll tell you what. I’ll go to San Francisco, find out what this is all about. I’ll meet this Thomas Pallack and his wife. I don’t want you to come with me, Chappy. I need you to stay here, see to the boys.” Then he stopped, turned. “Chappy,” he said very quietly to Christie’s father—not to the man whose soggy morals sometimes drove him nuts, the man who wouldn’t lift his foot off his own son’s neck—”please don’t get your hopes up. It simply can’t be Christie. Deep down you know it. You know Christie is dead.”

Chappy didn’t say a word.

“And don’t say anything about this to anyone, all right? Not even to Tony or Cynthia. The last thing I want is for the boys to hear their mother might be alive, have them go through this pain again when I know it simply can’t be true.”

“You got it, Dix. I won’t say anything.”

When Dix reached the double front doors, Chappy’s white face still stark in his mind, Bernard appeared at his elbow. Dix said, “Make sure you see to Chappy, Bernard. I think he needs a good shot of something. I know Mrs. Goss keeps a bottle of twenty-five-year-old single malt Scotch whisky. What’s it called?”

Bernard said with reverence, “Lord of the Isles. She said she gave it to her husband for an anniversary gift, then he up and died the next week. She hoards it. I think it must be about thirty years old now, almost as many years as she’s been the housekeeper here!”

Dix nodded. “Maybe she’ll break it out this once.”

“Doubtful,” Bernard said, then blurted out, “Do you think it’s Christie, Dix?”

So Bernard had been listening at the door. Dix would have been, too. He looked Bernard straight on, saw the concern in his dark eyes. Bernard had been with Chappy since the two of them were in their twenties. “No, it can’t be. It’s some sort of mistake. Bernard, like I told Chappy, this has to stay among the three of us. You understand? Not even Mrs. Goss.”

Bernard nodded. “Last thing I want is for Rob and Rafe to hear about this.”

“That’s good,” Dix said. “I’ll see you again soon, Bernard.”

CHAPTER 8

Two hours later, at the dinner table, Dix slipped Brewster, his four-pound white toy poodle, a sliver of chicken breast after he’d stripped off the deep-fried crust. He checked to see that both boys had eaten some of the fresh green beans on their plates, and lied cleanly. “I’ve got this meeting up in San Francisco that will last a couple of days. The FBI called me today, said they wanted me to talk on a panel about crime scenes. Truth be told, there’s still lots of interest about our bizarre murder in Winkel’s Cave. That’ll be what everyone will want me to talk about.”