Deja Who (22 page)

“Yeah. I was right there; I heard Leah's whole side of it. Did you know her mom's ringtone is ‘no wire hangers'? Creepy as shit.”

“So you weren't at the house. Neither of you. You didn't actually see the agent
not
be there.”

Archer was having trouble figuring out the source of her growing alarm. “No, but Cat, it's like I said, Nellie cleared him, even if she didn't know she did at the time.”

The mayor shook her head so hard, Archer got sympathy dizziness. “And you believed her? Jesus!”

“Sure I did. Why wouldn't—hey. Hey!” He grabbed her elbow and planted his feet, though the mayor could move him if she was inclined. The mayor could toss him into a pile of garbage if she was inclined. “Please, stop sprinting and explain this to me. What's the big deal? Why wouldn't I believe Nellie? Leah did.”

“Yeah, well, the
problem
with that is that Leah's a little too close to the
problem
.”

“Okay, I appreciate the emphasis on
problem
, but I'm new to the story, here. You've got to give me more,” he begged, “and standing still, please. Me, I go slow when I think, that's the kind I am.”

“Okay.” She shot him an annoyed look, doubtless wondering at the relevancy of going slow. “The
problem
is that Nellie Nazir set the standard for unreliable narrator.”

He blinked and absorbed that. “She lied?”

“Unreliable narrator doesn't necessarily mean lying. She could have believed it herself. Or convinced herself that if it wasn't true right that minute, it
would
be true.”

“Okay . . . I have faith you're gonna get there eventually, so I'm hanging in.”

People streamed around them as they again stood in the middle of a public sidewalk discussing lies and murder. “I think she lied about the agent being out of the house. I think he was right there with her. And I think Leah didn't catch on at the time because she had plenty of other shit to worry about. Which brings me to the ‘baaaad shit' part of our program.”

“No, it's good shit!”

She peered up at him. “I think you're getting too much sun. It's bad shit.”

“Cat, don't you get it?” Archer was so excited he danced the mayor in a little circle, right there outside Burger King. “The cops will check his alibi and know it's bullshit. They'll have him!”

“I know. Stop spinning me.” The mayor was growing pale, which was alarming as she normally had a healthy tan from all her time in the park. “They'll have him. And the thing about that, Archer, is that he
knows
they'll have him.”

“Oh.”

“So he knows he's almost out of time.”

“Oh!”

Without another word, Archer whirled, stepped off the curb, ignored the bus about to kill him, flagged a taxi, then leaped out of the way of the bus about to kill him.

“Cops!” Cat yelled after him, but he didn't see, didn't hear, didn't turn. He was climbing inside the cab, totally focused on getting to Leah. “Cops would be a good thing now!”

The taxi never slowed.

L
eah turned impatiently toward her front door when the doorbell chimed. Finally! She felt as if she had been waiting forever for her killer to show up and murder her. And so she had, for over two decades. An entire life wasted waiting. If Archer was here, he'd laugh and—

Do not think about Archer.

“About time, thank you!” She stomped to her door, observed all the secured locks, and peeped through the aptly named peephole to observe Tom Winn of Winner's Talent
TM
(ugh) blinking at her from the other side of the door.

“Go away, Tom, I'm waiting for my—never mind.”

“Gotta talk to you, Leah. About your mom.”

She hissed out breath. Tom had the tenacity of a bred-in-the-bone Hollywood agent; he would never quit until he'd talked to her about Nellie. This was no doubt the “but Hollywood loves when famous relatives of famous murder victims do
reality TV” pitch. Or the offer to play herself in the Lifetime movie inevitably written about her mom,
New Life, Old Murder.
Or perhaps
Hushed Killing.
She could send him away and have him come back and back and back, or she could deal with it now, be rid of him forever, and hope he didn't scare the killer off.

Of course, he might be the killer. On TV it always seems to be the one you never suspect. However, TV has gotten nothing right this month.

But still.

“Make it quick,” she warned, unlocking the three security locks and swinging the door wide. “I'm a little pressed for time.”

“Yeah, me, too.” He shuffled inside, past her, and she closed the door.

“You missed the reading of her will,” he told her with gentle disappointment.

“Her last performance? Yes. Well. I was, at that time, in jail for her murder, talking Celia into judging our Oddest Place You've Ever Done It contest. But it's not like it's a lot of trouble to hit rewind on the disc.”

Tom's wispy blond hair always looked like he was in a gale, even inside, and his big wet eyes got bigger and wetter. “Yes, I—yes. I knew that. That's what the police—yeah. They said. Um, I know you didn't do it, Leah.”

“How very kind. You did not swing by to reprimand me about missing the will.”

“No.”

She ground her teeth. “What. Is it. Tom?”

“The cops. I had to talk to them while you were in jail. They'll check my alibi.”

“Yes, and?” He couldn't be worried about negative press. The only press that could hurt an agent was embezzlement coverage.

“I'm almost done here.”

Hopefully that includes this tedious meeting.
“That's fine.”

“She lied,” he whined. He hadn't taken off his trench coat (trench coat? in summer? really?) and sweat was beading his forehead and running down his face like tears. Wait. Those might
be
tears. Well, he had just left his biggest client's last performance. He had been a part of Nellie's life for so long, perhaps he could not imagine his without her. Certainly he had also been a part of hers; some of her earliest memories were of Tom coming over to their overpriced Beverly Hills condo with contracts for Nellie to sign. Distracted pity rose in her and she stomped on it. Absolutely no time, not for any of that nonsense. She had her murder to get on with, dammit. “She lied about you.”

“Who? It?”

“You shouldn't call her that,” he said in mild rebuke. At five, she had bent an attentive ear to such rebukes, since he gave her far more attention than Nellie and she wished to please him. By the time she was in her teens, her contempt for the man and her mother had long smothered her need for his approval, or hers. “It's very disrespectful and the press wouldn't like it.”

“Yes, it's almost as bad as stealing your only daughter's childhood and then all the money you forced her to make. And trust me: the press did not give a shit.”

“She was disrespectful, too. About you.”

“That. Is. So. Fascinating!” She smothered a groan. Ninety seconds, that's what he could have. A minute and a half and then out he would go.

“But the lie, that was the worst. I couldn't forgive that.”

Leah softened at once. Holy God, she had never considered this. That Nellie's death would force him to reexamine her life,
Leah's life, and his complicity in the ruin of her childhood. That he might feel regret. Perhaps he always felt regret. Perhaps he could never admit it while It breathed and dominated and terrorized as she walked the earth in her pink satin kitten heels.

“I . . .” She could not believe the words about to leave her mouth. “I appreciate that, Tom. Which lie? When she told the casting director for
A Thousand Rapes
that I was eighteen when I was fifteen? When she told the casting director for
The Huggies Musical
that I could play two when I was eighteen months? The lie to the judge, so she could keep my money?” He opened his mouth and she held up a hand. “Whichever lie you regret, I'm grateful. Well, not grateful, but I despise you somewhat less now.”

“I'm tired. I'm tired all the time.”

“Well, it has been a stressful week for us all, Tom, and you really must be going.” She started toward the door. “But thank you for stopping by and being sorrowful and vague, I guess.”

He stepped in front of her, blocking her path to the door.

“Tom.”

“She said she had changed your mind about
Mother Daughter Hookers Heroes.
She said you were on board and we'd all go back to Hollywood and it'd be the way it was when you were—when you didn't hate us. She said that. To me.”

“Tom.”

“But you made it clear, that last call. I figured it out, then. How she tricked me; I forgot how good she is at tricking people. Me, an agent, and her, an actress! The worst kind, the desperate kind. That goes for both of us,” he added.

“Tom!”

“You said you were done with her at the house but I thought
maybe . . . maybe you weren't—well, all right, I knew you were serious but I hoped you'd change your mind. We knew how much you hated Insighting. Knew you'd turn your back on it if you could. But you didn't.”

“Didn't hate Insighting? Or didn't turn my back?” She was having trouble following him. Tom seemed weepy and distracted, even more so than usual.

“You didn't change your mind,” he elaborated. “And I knew. I remembered what she always made herself forget, how stubborn you are, how unmoving. So there was no point, you get it? When you wouldn't just do the show, you wouldn't be with her anymore for
any
reason. No point to stay in her life. I wasn't ever supposed to be in her life anyway.”

“No?”

“I did it wrong this time; I got in her life when you were young. I had to. You see it, right?”

“Maybe talk me through it.” She realized she was using her clinical voice, and no wonder. This could be a session like any other session, with one crucial difference: she wasn't bored. She sent a silent apology to all her patients.
Should have been nicer, should have seen you weren't pieces of paper in a chart. I'm paying for it now, if that makes it better.

“The only way I could be in your life is if I was in hers. I wanted to be near you for a long time, I didn't want to make you go away, because then I don't have you until the next time.” This in a tone people used for “two plus two equals four; it's so easy, isn't it?”

“A dilemma,” she agreed, sounding like she was speaking through a mouthful of sawdust.
My kingdom for a glass of water. And a shotgun.

“But I didn't count on the stubbornness. Yours
or
hers. By the time I realized I was hiding too well you'd left and built your own life somewhere else. But she was always sure she could talk you into coming back. And I—I let myself believe it, because it was what I wanted, too. I believed it because she believed it.”

“Yes, my mother could take a polygraph and the needles would never twitch,” Leah managed, her thoughts whirling. “It's why she was such a good actress. She was
always
acting. Even Nellie Nazir was a role.”

He took a step forward. He was three feet away, between her and the door. No other exit. Phone still charging in the other room. She could stand there and shriek, but the door had locked when it closed. No one would get there in time. And she was a fool. It seemed she was always a fool.

Tom's tears weren't for Nellie. They weren't even for her. They were for himself, only for himself.
Never thought I'd say this, Mother: you deserved better.

“Is that why you beat her to death?” She couldn't believe how detached she sounded, attentive yet slightly bored. Ho-hum, just another day in the salt mines. “Because I refused to do the show?”

“No. Because she told me she knew how to get you to Hollywood. To get you back. She was so proud for thinking of it. So she made me wait there in the photo room, the shrine to your careers—”

“I honestly would rather hear about my mother's murder instead of the photo room, and I don't want to hear about my mother's murder,” she admitted.

“I heard her lie. She said you had a deal and I was on my way to L.A.”

“She gave you an alibi.” Christ. How awful and disturbing and wrong. She pictured Nellie on the phone, winking at Tom while purring in her lovely voice at Leah, unwittingly giving her killer an alibi. Not a great alibi, but one that would buy him enough time. Time to do . . . this. Which was all he was living for anyway.

She would have known. At the end. Realized what he would do in a day or two or a week or two. Remembered how I predicted my murder when I was five. Remembered dismissing it, ignoring it, all those years. Put herself in his way. She was ready for him to ruin her face, destroy her beauty. He never touched her face but she couldn't have known. She put what she loved the most on the line to save what she loved the least and oh Mother I am SO SORRY.

“You pathetic piece of shit.” Her voice sounded so distant to her ears, distant and distasteful. Like hearing about a nasty story in the news but not feeling how awful it was. “You ridiculous awful man.” She was once again surprised yet not surprised at how evil could look like a frail sniffling man huddled in a cheap coat.

“She lied,” he whined. He was still closing the distance, inching toward her. She was still letting him. “The lies kept us apart all those years. It's her fault, all that wasted time. And his fault.”

“His?”

“Your idiot boy, the one you've taken up with.”

“First,
he
took up with
me
. Second he's not
my
anything, third he's not an idiot, and fourth, I've had boyfriends before now, what's so special about Archer?” Dumbest question ever. Everything about him was special. His smile, his eyes, his laugh, his toenails, his morning breath.

Hmm, I get quite sentimental when I'm about to be murdered. Who knew?

“He's a young fool, not worthy of—”

“He's not young,” she corrected, “he's
rasa
.” Somehow saying it—defining it—out loud to someone else made it even more real than it had seemed in her head. Which made sense, because it
was
true. She'd seen glimpses over the past couple of weeks, but now she saw the entire portrait of Archer: a clean slate, a new beginning. All past-due accounts squared up, firmly in the black. A fresh start . . . for both of them.

Tom, meanwhile, had let out a disbelieving snort, for which she could not blame him. “I know. Absurd to contemplate, much less pronounce. Which makes it no less true. Archer is the man you'll never be: someone who could face what he'd done, and become a better person for it.”

“Shut up!”

“It's all right. I had no expectation you would understand.”

“You're mine, you're for me, and Nellie lied and now I have to—don't you understand?”

“I do understand. Understanding is irrelevant. Shall I compile a list of all the fucks I don't give about
your
pain?”

“I'm tired,” he said. “I'm tired all the time.”

“Well, so am I!” she snapped back. “What, you think waiting around for you to kill me in every life isn't exhausting?”

“I'm tired of thinking about you and needing you to bleed on me. I feel like I've been tired for a thousand years.”

“Oh my God, enough sniveling! And yes, that's about right, that's how long it's been, give or take a century. Is that my cue to feel pity for you? ‘Poor killer, ultimately he was a victim, too'?
Tom, you've known me most of this life and in an awful lot of others. When, in any of them, did I ever feel sorry for you?”

Except she did, a little. A
very
little. He was as locked into his pattern of murder as she was in hers to be murdered. She knew he was in his forties, but he could have passed for sixty. She wondered what it was like, stumbling through life after life with the same maddening itch, never being able to rest until it's scratched, even knowing the scratch will destroy you. And then returning again and again, waiting for Leah each time, and then being alone again and again, until the next time.

She would have let him kill her a thousand more times before admitting such a thing aloud.

His hand was glittering. The knife, of course. In his hand, of course, he had pulled it from somewhere in one smooth motion she hadn't noticed. That was bad, because she was paying attention to the proceedings but still hadn't seen it. He would be good with the knife, quick with it. Of course. He never minded getting his hands dirty, which made him perfect for Hollywood.

“You are tainting everything the industry stands for, you're betraying your own kind. Nellie Nazir made a lot of money for you and you do
this
. No Agent of the Year wall plaque for you.”
Hmm. Did I just defend Mother?