Death Wears a Beauty Mask and Other Stories (32 page)

“I was so afraid, Jack,” she'd told him, her voice a monotone. “I sleep with the lights on now, and I'm afraid to open the windows. I could tell he was going to kill me when he bent over and whispered, ‘Haven't we met before?'—the same question he'd asked me in the restaurant.”

Somehow Emily had managed to stay coolheaded, Jack thought. She'd told Koenig that she was sure they had met, but wouldn't he talk to her about it and refresh her memory?

“He was so scary,” Emily had recalled. “His face got all red, the veins of his neck stood out. He told me how I'd tried to waylay him in the fields, how I'd bragged to him about killing my husband for him. Then he said it was time—and put his hands around my throat.”

The security guards had burst in just as Koenig had begun to squeeze her throat. “His fingers were so powerful,” Emily had whispered. “So many nights now I wake up feeling them.”

At his arrest, William's hysterical rantings that Emily had caused his death in another life had resulted in a media circus.

“You attacked Emily Winters because she looked like Kate Fallow?” Dr. Stein prodded.

“She didn't
look
like her,” William said with a touch of irritation. “She
was
Kate Fallow. I recognized her and immediately became my former self, Simon Guiness. Simon had a right to be angry—you should see the justice of that, Dr. Stein. How would
you
feel about someone who caused you to be executed?

“I will tell you that I regret I did not awaken Emily sooner. If I were doing it again, I would wrap a noose around her neck so I could enjoy seeing her experience the fear and anguish I experienced at my own execution. As I tightened the rope, I would explain to her exactly why she had to die.”

He was rewarded by the visible tensing of Jack Carroll's body. He sensed that a personal relationship had developed between Carroll and the woman they called Emily Winters.

“Was Emily the only woman you saw who was Kate?” Dr. Stein asked.

“A few times after I recalled my life as Simon Guiness, I saw women with red hair and I got close to them. But one of them had dyed hair. Another didn't have the same shade of eyes. Kate's were very blue. A particular shade of blue. There's a name for it: periwinkle, a sort of blue-violet shade.

“You may be interested to learn that Kate has reappeared in other lifetimes, but obviously has managed to evade judgment. When I studied her that night, I knew she was Kate Fallow, but another name also kept running through my mind. Eliza Jackson. As that lifetime becomes clearer to me, Doctor, I will discuss it with you.”

He's playing games with her, Jack Carroll thought. He's managed to convince everyone here that he's crazy, and he is—but crazy like a fox. If we just had some indication of who he believes he was in other lives, we might be able to start matching victims to him.

“You've seen yourself in other past lives?” Dr. Stein asked.

“I've seen faces and sensed that I lived as a knight in King Arthur's time, and in Egypt during the Roman occupation, and as a minister in sixteenth-century Germany, but none of those lives was filled with detail. I am sure that means that only my life as Simon Guiness was unjustly terminated.”

William Koenig smiled to himself. His other lives had been very clear, and in all of them the people who had caused him injustices had been punished. Except for the woman they called Emily Winters, but he knew where to find her tonight. When his cousin had visited him in prison, Koenig had told him that he wanted to write a letter of apology to Emily. The cousin had checked and discovered she was in her last year of law school, still working at the restaurant, still living at the Adamsons'.

He felt Dr. Stein's eyes studying him. Jack Carroll's eyes were always impassive, but he knew that under the bland exterior Carroll
was furious. Carroll wanted answers. Koenig wondered if Carroll would have Dr. Stein ask the usual questions:

“Did you have anything to do with the fire in Rosedale that killed an elderly woman eight years ago?”

“Five years ago in March, someone of your description was seen leaving the York Cinema in Mamaroneck, where a cashier was later found murdered. Did you ever encounter that cashier in another life?”

“Did you ever call yourself Samuel Esinger and make an appointment with Jeffrey Lane, a real estate agent in Rye?”

The old woman was the witch from Salem. He'd recognized the cashier as the seventeenth-century pirate who had set him adrift in 1603. Lane had been his younger brother in Glasgow in 1790 and murdered him for the estate.

Dr. Stein could sense Carroll's frustration. As he had explained, “I refuse to believe it's sheer coincidence that someone of Koenig's general description was seen in the area where homicides of totally unconnected people took place.”

General description, the doctor thought. That suits him. Medium height, medium build, plain features, dirty-blond hair. As Carroll had pointed out, different glasses, a wig, or even a cap or ski hat could alter Koenig's appearance. Only his eyes were compelling: not so much blue as almost colorless. And he was strong. Cords of muscles bulged in his neck and hands. He worked out in his cell for hours at a time.

According to his file, both his mother and his father had been brooding and reclusive. When he was growing up, other children were forbidden to play with him. There were too many accidents when he was around. He'd gone to high school in White Plains and been considered a creep by his classmates.

William had graduated from high school, left Westchester County, and drifted from job to job around the country. His records
showed him to be highly intelligent but unable to control his temper. Outbursts of violence against coworkers had led to several brief confinements in mental hospitals. He had returned to White Plains, a time bomb ready to explode, and he did explode the night he attacked Emily Winters.

Dr. Stein noted that William was a voracious reader. Several of the psychiatrists believed that Simon Guiness, the person he claimed to have been in a past life, was a fictional character he had read about. But except for Assistant DA Carroll, no one believed that William was a serial killer.

It was obvious there was no information to be gleaned from him today. It was also obvious that he was baiting Carroll.

“Our time is just about up, William,” Dr. Stein said. “I'll see you on Thursday.”

“I look forward to it. You seem to be very kind. Who knows? Maybe in another incarnation you were my friend. I'll try to find out if that might be true. I wish you would try as well.”

•  •  •

“How is Emily Winters doing?” Dr. Stein asked Jack after Koenig had been removed.

“She's gone to counseling a few times, but I think she should go regularly. Recently, she did something that I thought was dangerous. She went to a parapsychologist and had herself regressed to a former lifetime.”

“She wanted to see if she really was Kate Fallow?”

“Yes.”

“The power of suggestion would play a great role in any memory like that.”

“She didn't remember being Kate Fallow. But she tells me she has a tape of a life she described under hypnosis—when she lived in the South during the Civil War.”

“Did she play the tape for you?”

Jack shook his head. “I told her I thought it was absolute nonsense and that she should stick with the trauma counselor and not mess up her head.”

“I understand she goes to Fordham Law School. But why waitressing?” Stein asked. “And why live in White Plains?”

“Emily's paying her own way through law school and doesn't want a load of loans on her back. She plans to be a public defender—which isn't the biggest paycheck a lawyer can get. She gets her main meals—and excellent tips—at the restaurant. Finally, the grandmother who raised her isn't going to live much longer. She's in a White Plains nursing home, so this way Emily can run in to see her almost daily.”

Sara Stein did not miss the warmth in Jack Carroll's eyes when he talked about Emily Winters. “You're seeing her on a personal basis,” she suggested, “which may, of course, affect your response to William Koenig.”

“Enough to want to be very sure that if he's ever declared sane, he'll stand trial for enough homicides to need all the lifetimes he can find to serve his sentence.”

•  •  •

That evening William made his carefully planned escape. The friendly and careless new guard was an easy target. William left him wrapped in blankets on the bed in his cell, his face turned to the wall. The elderly orderly in the locker room didn't live long enough even to glimpse his attacker.

He left the grounds in the orderly's car, dressed in the orderly's clothes and carrying his identification. On the way to Emily's house he made a stop at a hardware store to purchase a rope. The slipknot was in place by the time he abandoned the car in the municipal parking lot and went on foot to the exclusive neighborhood where
a guard stood at the gate. A few hundred yards down, he scaled the fence with the ease of long practice and, sliding behind bushes and trees, made his way to the Adamson residence, where Emily was still living.

He had realized the elderly couple she worked for might have returned home, but a quick glance showed no car in the garage. It will be just Kate and me, he thought. She was due home anytime now. As soon as she opened the door, he'd push in behind her. If necessary, he'd kill her immediately. But he'd give her a chance to disarm the security system, so they could talk. She'd probably do that. Of course, there was always the possibility she'd disarm it in a way that would send a panic signal, yet he'd be listening for anyone trying to get into the house. This time, no matter how fast they were, they would not find her alive.

•  •  •

“The veal chop is wonderful,” Emily assured the indecisive customer who could not make up his mind between the veal and the swordfish.

“Do you mean that it's better than the swordfish?”

Oh dear God, Emily thought. She didn't know why she was so nervous today. She had the feeling of something hanging over her, of something terrible about to happen. She felt in her soul that it was inevitable that one night she would awaken from sleep and again see William Koenig, his eyes glazed, his hands outstretched, his fingers reaching for her throat.

Or she'd hear footsteps behind her and turn and he'd be there. Once again he'd ask in that quiet, eerie voice, “Haven't we met before?”

“Maybe I will try the veal.”

“I know you'll enjoy it.” Emily turned, glad to get away from the window table, glad to retreat to the kitchen, where no one could see
her from the street. She felt so vulnerable near the windows, ever since she'd learned that William Koenig had studied her from the dark.

Maybe I should have changed jobs, she thought. “But if he ever gets out, he'll find you anywhere you go,” a subconscious voice whispered. This job, this situation suited her. She'd be finished with law school in May and had already been promised a job in the public defender's office. Jack teased her about that. “You'll be trying to get people out of jail, and I'll be trying to put them in. Should be pretty interesting.”

They were right for each other. They both knew it, but it was unspoken. There was plenty of time, and he was smart enough to understand that what with school, the waitressing job, house-sitting, and Gran, she wasn't ready for another level of involvement.

She handed the order to the chef's assistant, smiling to herself at what Jack had told her. “I feel as though we're dating in my mother's era. The movies, dinner, bye-bye.”

They'd had only one serious misunderstanding. She'd been annoyed that Jack didn't want to listen to the tape that had been made when she was hypnotized and regressed. Maybe it is the collective unconscious. Maybe it's something I read somewhere, she said to herself. But it was compelling to listen to her own voice claiming she had lived in the South during the Civil War.

Not that I put any stock in it, but you can see how people get caught up in the idea of reincarnation, she thought.

The last table of four finally cleared at ten-thirty. Jack had phoned earlier. He'd been up to see William Koenig and suggested meeting her for a nightcap. She was sorely tempted, but she had an exam coming up in two days and a lot of reading still to do.

Emily said good night to Pat Cleary, her boss, and smilingly agreed to stop by the restaurant tomorrow and pick up a hot lunch to take to the nursing home for her grandmother.

“I know you see her on Thursdays in the late morning,” Pat said genially, “and we all know that nursing-home food isn't the sort that comes from a good pub.”

Her car, parked in the restaurant lot, started with its usual protesting screech. Maybe next year at this time, when I finally finish law school, I can actually get myself a car that travels on more than prayers, Emily promised herself.

Jack drove a Toyota. He'd told her that when he graduated from law school three years ago, his father had presented him with a Jaguar. “Broke my heart, but I thought it would look a little peculiar for an assistant DA to arrive at court in a Jag,” he said.

The guard waved her through the security gate. It was a joke between them that with all the pricey cars that rolled through here, hers was the only one that qualified as a possible candidate for Rent-a-Wreck.

She always put it in the garage. The Adamsons had made it clear they did not want it in view of the neighborhood.

Emily walked quickly along the path from the garage to the kitchen door. This was the most frustrating moment of her day. Once inside, and with the instant-security button pushed, she knew that no door or window could be disturbed without the alarm blasting. That would bring the security guards to the house within seconds.