To Love a Twin

Chapter 21: Suspect Number One

Kira got up from her chair and walked around her cell a few minutes. She'd been working on the jumper for nearly three weeks, and it was finally complete. She needed to treat herself to a break. The pressure in her lower back had gotten worse and worse over the past couple days.

Sitting in that hard chair for so many hours at a stretch knitting and embroidering had proven more difficult than she had imagined. She had not counted on constantly feeling weak and exhausted. The babies were so active, rolling and kicking around inside her that she had to constantly take breaks, get up, and walk around the cell. Then, she had kept falling asleep in the chair, waking to find the yarn tangled and needing to pull out precious stitches and rework them. It had added days to Project Jumper, as she had come to call it.

She lifted the jumper and shook it out. It wasn't her best work, but the need for speed and exhaustion had taken its toll. It didn't matter, though. The Whack-Job had never exactly been a fashion-plate anyway. He wouldn't even notice the flaws. He had been coming less and less in the past several days, just bringing her food and leaving, saying he could not stay. He seemed nervous.

At least she hadn't been subjected to his physical demands since the pregnancy had entered its final month. When he came to see her now, he kept his eyes averted from her body. Several times, she had seen disgust in his eyes when he did look at her.

She walked into the toilets and looked at herself in the small, worn mirror over the sinks. Deprived of all natural light for so long, her skin had grown pasty-white. In contrast to her stomach, which was distended more than she thought humanly possible, her face and eyes looked gaunt. She was reminded of how Penny had looked when she'd first met her. She wondered how Penny and Percy were doing, and if they had finalized the adoption of little Simon. At times, it almost seemed if George and his family were part of a dream, that they had never been real at all, that this had always been her existence.

What frightened her more than anything was the fact that she found herself looking forward to the Whack-job coming to see her. Even his company was preferable to the deafening silence in which she spent so many hours and days. She had to keep reminding herself that he was insane. She had to fight the lure of just giving in, of accepting this life, and him. She had heard about this. It was Stockholm Syndrome.

She lay down on her bed and sobbed as she thought of her mother, finally permitting herself the luxury of grieving now that the jumper was completed. She wondered if her body had been found. If it had been, Kira hoped they had not buried her next to her father. Her mother deserved her freedom from him.

Nathan told her nothing about what was happening outside, and he became perturbed if she asked. She had even lost track of what day it was. It had to be mid-January because he had brought her the nightgowns for Christmas, if that actually had been Christmas. When she'd asked, he just told her that time did not matter to them. It was just one more way he kept her powerless, that and the nearly transparent nightgowns she now had to wear.

He didn't want her to care about anything except him. Kira was too frightened to push too hard because he might decide to punish her again by cutting off the heat and lights, even the food, like on Christmas. He had brought her some diapers and blankets for the babies when they came. He had told her that he would abandon them in a church on the other side of the county.

Christmas. Kira had to force that day from her mind. She couldn't bear to think of it and what he had done to her when he'd brought her the nightgowns. He'd ordered her to change into them, while he watched. Then, he had made her approach the door and molested her. When he'd made other demands, she had finally refused, pushing him away from her through the bars on the door. For that act of defiance, she had spent the next few days with no heat, lights or fresh food. She'd thought she was going to die for sure.

The only thing that had saved her had been the sinks and shower. She'd let the hot water run and had hunkered down in the toilet, wrapped in blankets, surrounded by the steam. He had not thought of the turning off the water, she supposed.

He had finally come back and screamed at her for being stubborn and ungrateful. Once more, he had demanded that she disrobe and come to the door and perform disgusting acts on him. But she had been able to reason with him, once more getting him to agree to wait until she was no longer pregnant. But, deep inside, she knew that if she had not been able to convince him, she would have, in the end, done anything he'd wanted to keep the lights and heat on and fresh food coming every day.

Kira had never felt so weary. She closed her eyes and fell asleep.

* * * * *

Nathan stood at the window looking up the street toward the butcher shop. The new butcher's wife was outside with their son. She was pretty too, and thin, not like Kira. He planned to visit Kira after closing the library, taking her the food he'd had delivered. He was becoming increasingly unnerved by the police patrols. It seemed that every five minutes a police car went slowly cruising past the library.

Then, about three weeks ago, that boy's sister had come into the library with some other girl. They had asked to look at the high school yearbooks and had gone to a far table to sit and make some sort of list. Nathan had tried to edge closer, to hear what they were saying, but the boy's sister suddenly motioned to her friend to be quiet and had turned to stare straight at him, contempt etched in every line of her face. Her friend took some sort of stick out of her backpack. Nathan saw her lips form some word and suddenly, his ears were filled with an odd buzzing sound that had not ceased until the two girls had left.

Nathan swore he was being followed. It seemed that every time he turned around, there was a police car nearby. He could no longer spend much time with Kira, just in the morning before opening and only a fast visit after closing each night. His Sunday visits were out too. If he were seen going into the library at unorthodox times, it would draw suspicion. Nathan had become worried that his house might be searched, so he'd taken care to burn all the photos he had surreptitiously taken of Kira over the years. He had hidden the gun in the basement on the top shelf of the rare books collection, behind a first edition volume of Goethe's Faust.

* * * * *

Jack set the receiver from his desk phone down with a slam. He was irate. Three weeks had passed since the police lab in Exeter had gotten the physical evidence from Madelaine's murder. They'd only just now gotten back to him despite the fact that he had called several times a day.

They had found that Madelaine had died of a single gunshot wound to the chest and that the bullet had come from a small caliber handgun. The interesting evidence had been on the plastic she'd been wrapped in. Fingerprints. They had run them against the prints of other criminals and come up empty. But then, some enterprising soul had decided to run them against the prints they'd lifted from the Benning flat over the butcher shop. They'd matched prints that Jack's team had taken from Kira's old bedroom.

So, as of three weeks ago, Kira was still alive. This put an entirely new light on the case. Madelaine had either found Kira on her own, which was unlikely, or she had been abducted after leaving the library and taken to wherever Kira was being held. But why? Had, perhaps, the kidnapper done it to terrify and punish Kira, and then forced her to help him wrap the body for disposal?

Jack pulled two small plastic bags from his desk drawer. One contained the note, a simple shopping list written in purple ink that had been left on the counter of Madelaine's shop. The only prints on the note had been Madelaine's. There were others, but they had been too badly smudged to be of any use. The other contained a charge receipt that Madelaine had left next to the list. It was a receipt for purchases made by the librarian, Nathan Lockslip.

Jack sat back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. Buford Benning had been a large, beefy man, built like an ox. Lockslip, however, was shorter and severely handicapped to boot. His crutches made a racket as he walked. How could he possibly have sneaked up on Benning to stab him in the back of the neck? Jack knew, from his investigation, that Benning had been in the pub the night before, not leaving until nearly three in the morning. His blood alcohol level had been through the roof. It's possible that he had been too drunk to be very aware of his surroundings.

Jack pulled out the notebook he had given to Madelaine that day when Kira had vanished and read the list of names she had written, of steady customers. Sam, the baker next door, the seamstress, the elderly fresh meat fanatic, and the librarian. Lockslip just keeps turning up, Jack thought. He's on the suspect list Madelaine wrote, across the street from the store Kira had last been seen in, and then inside Madelaine's shop the day before her murder.

Jack picked up the telephone and called the desk, telling them to have Luke stop in to see him. Then, he called the local magistrate and had a search warrant sworn out against Lockslip's home. It was probably a false lead, but, at the very least, he had to check it out.

* * * * *

Nathan waited impatiently for the janitor to finish emptying the trash cans and vacuuming. After the old man finally left, he used the lift to get to the basement and to Kira so he could take her the food he'd had delivered earlier. When he looked through the bars, he saw her asleep on the bed. He called to her, growing annoyed when she did not immediately awaken. But, finally, she sat up and looked at him.

He was beginning to wonder what he'd ever seen in her. Her body was swollen beyond recognition. Her skin had grown pasty, and her hair was scraggly. She was beginning to look like her mother. She was acting like her too, silent and dull. He wished, now, that he had gotten her more clothes so he wouldn't have to look at her disgusting body in the flimsy nightgowns he'd given her. But he could not take the chance of being seen buying them.

With the constant police presence, Nathan could not hope to get those brats safely out of the library once they were born. He had slightly altered his plan. He would pretend to take them to be abandoned in a church on the other side of the county, but he'd really bring them to his office and smother them. Then, he could burn them in the furnace. It wasn't his fault, thought Nathan. He had been more than happy to permit the brats to live. But, the police were making it impossible. It's not like Kira would ever know the truth anyway. He tried to summon the image of how pretty she used to be.

"Nate," she said, getting up in her ungainly manner. "I have a surprise for you." She walked over to the table and held up the jumper. "It's done. Put it on. I want to see you in it. Do you like the hearts and scroll pattern around the letter N? Each heart is a symbol of my love for you." Kira silently marveled that her nose didn't grow with that last line.

Nathan took the jumper and looked down at it in his hands. Nobody had ever done something like this for him since his mother died. He looked at Kira's eyes, his mother's eyes. He could tell she was worried he would not like it. How could he have allowed himself to think she was ugly? It wasn't her fault. It was the pregnancy. Soon she would be beautiful again, and she would be his and his alone. He knew that she could not wait to have the pregnancy over with, so she could prove her love to him.

Nathan smiled at Kira and put the jumper on. It was a bit long, but that was all right. Nathan ran his hands over it. It was precious.

"You like it, don't you?" she asked anxiously. "You're going to wear it every single day, right?"

Nathan was too choked up to speak. He just nodded. "I love you so much," he said. "Of course I'll wear it. Now, here's your food. I ordered you grilled salmon from Bowfields and had it delivered. The menu said that it was low in fat and full of vitamins, one of their healthy choices. There's roasted potatoes and steamed broccoli with it. Do you need anything else? I'll bring it tomorrow morning."

"Just more drinking water, Nate," she said. "I'm down to my last few bottles."

"All right. I have to go. I'm sorry, but I'd called a taxicab because it's so cold out tonight. It's probably out front waiting for me."

"I understand, Nate," she said. "I'll see you tomorrow." She opened the package of food. The salmon looked wonderful and she ate a few bites but found that the pain in her back would not allow her to enjoy it.

She began to pace back and forth in the cell. Sitting hurt, laying down hurt; only walking seemed to ease the constant pressure. Soon, however, she was brought to her knees by a wrenching pain that felt like her midsection had been grabbed by a vise. She looked down in horror at the pool of water that was quickly spreading on the floor and realized she was in labor.

She began screaming for the Whack-Job to come back, but he had already closed the heavy metal door and returned the bookshelf to its usual position. She realized that she was alone.

* * * * *

After Nate left the shelter, he headed for his office, where he donned his overcoat. Although it had not snowed for the past few days, it was freezing, with a harsh, biting wind. When the weather turned inclement, Nathan often called a taxicab to get him to and from work in winter. Upon leaving the library, Nathan was stunned to see, not the taxicab he'd ordered, but Detective Jack Townsend standing at the side of his unmarked, dark blue police car, the back door open.

"Mr. Lockslip," he said. "I took the liberty of sending your taxi on its way. Can I offer you a ride? I have a few more questions to ask you."

"Regarding what? Not returning library materials in a timely manner?" asked Nathan.

"Just a few odd things I'd like to give you a chance to clear up," said Jack. "It shouldn't take too much of your time. Unless you have something to hide. I'll need to pat you down to make sure you have no weapon first. It is standard procedure when transporting any citizen in a police car, you understand."

Knowing that the gun was being securely guarded by Faust, Nathan submitted to the pat-down. He had not wanted to take the chance of it ever being found in his possession, ballistics tests being what they were. He could feel himself sweating as Jack Townsend drove him to the police station. Nathan resolved to stay calm and quiet. What evidence could they possibly have against him?

Jack waited patiently as Nathan slowly hobbled into the police station and down the hall to his office. Once again, Jack was struck with the contrast between how adept the man was on his crutches when not being watched and how much he struggled when he knew he was under surveillance. This might just be a waste of time, but Jack was determined to follow up on all leads, no matter how tenuous.

Luke was leading a team on a search of Lockslip's house right now. Jack sat across from Nathan and opened his desk drawer, removing the two small plastic bags containing Lockslip's charge receipt and the shopping list that had been found on the counter in Madelaine's shop the day she disappeared.

"Do you recognize this, Mr. Lockslip?" he asked.

"Should I?" asked Nathan, who did not bother to even glance at them.

"These items were found in Madelaine Benning's shop the day after she disappeared. It's a receipt, signed by you, and a shopping list for nine skeins of yarn and embroidery floss. Do you knit and embroider, Mr. Lockslip?"

"Is that a crime? If you notice, the receipt I signed will be for ten skeins of yarn and embroidery floss. Yes, the receipt is mine, but not the shopping list. I'd never seen it before."

"Do you still have the items you bought, Mr. Lockslip?"

Nathan smiled as he opened his overcoat. "Yes, right here," he said. "I made myself a jumper. Again, is knitting against the law now?"

Jack looked at the jumper, getting the nagging feeling of deja vu. The pattern looked vaguely familiar. He began to wonder if Lockslip might be gay. Not that there was anything wrong with that, but the hearts looked rather...feminine. And he was, after all, a librarian and knitted, a career and activity that usually attracted females.

Jack was saved from answering by a light knock at the door, followed by it opening. Luke stuck his head in. He noticed the librarian sitting in Jack's office, his back to Luke, the pair of crutches propped on his knees. Luke and his team had gone through Lockslip's house with a fine tooth comb and found nothing. Luke looked at Jack and shook his head. Then, he went down to the men's room and Apparated to the Burrow to tell the Weasleys that Jack had pulled in the librarian for questioning and had ordered the search of Lockslip's home.

"Do you own a gun?" asked Jack.

Nathan smiled. No gun could be traced to him. He had acquired it two years ago, during a vacation to his hometown of Manchester. He had contacted an old fellow alumnus from St. Brutus' Secure Center, who had been willing to provide one for a price. St. Brutus' Secure Center had taken steps to assure that he would never be associated with the boy who's killed his mother. When he had left, they had even given him a new identity and sealed his records. Lockslip had been his grandmother's maiden name.

Nathan's intelligence and behavior in St. Brutus' had been exemplary. He had been hailed as a successful rehabilitation, and his juvenile record had been sealed when he had left the Center for the University. "What would I do with one of those? Goodness, I would be terrified of even being near such a horrible thing."

* * * * *

Molly and Hermione were handing fresh vials of Veritaserum to George, Ron, Harry, Merkel, and Sam. After they'd completed the questioning of all the male high school teachers, they had moved downward, to the lower levels. So far, they had learned only that many teachers had held either a benign approval of Kira or did not recall her at all. If they heard the words, "quiet girl, did her work, didn't disturb the class," one more time, they were going to scream. They were quickly becoming disheartened again. What had seemed a good plan had quickly turned into three weeks of disappointment as they'd come up dry again and again.

"Maybe we should go check out the church her family belonged to," said Merkel. "Lately, I've been hearing some real weird stories about them Muggle priests."

"Kira told me she was baptized at Church of the Holy Angels, but I was there, with the priest, delivering food for the free dinner for the poor that he hosts, when she was abducted," said George.

They heard the sound of an apparition outside. George walked over to the door and admitted Luke.

"I have some news," said Luke. "Jack Townsend had us search the librarian's house tonight. He also pulled him in to answer a few questions."

"You mean the guy with the crutches?" asked George. "He was in Madelaine's shop that day I went to see her. I think Madelaine had said he'd bought something. Did you find anything in the house?"

"Nothing. It was clean."

"I searched the library when she first went missing," said Harry.

"It would be difficult for a man on crutches to pull off two murders and a kidnapping," said Arthur.

"At this point, Dad," said George, "everyone is a suspect. He might have tricked Kira into going off with him somewhere."

"Luke," said Harry, "did you find any knitting needles or sewing supplies in this librarian's house?"

"Come to think of it, no," said Luke. "The place is a damned sty, cluttered with books everywhere. He must be into photography too. He has quite a darkroom set up in a spare bedroom, expensive looking cameras too. But, come to think of it, no photographs either."

"Is he still in the police station?"

"He was about five minutes ago," said Luke.

Harry, George and Mrs. Weasley Apparated to the police station with Luke. George wanted to see the man. They reappeared in front of the place, no longer caring who might see them. The officer who manned the reception desk was on the steps, having a cigarette break. He'd been so shocked by their sudden appearance, he'd dropped his cigarette into the snow.

"Where...where did you come from?" he stammered.

"Across the street," said Harry as they stormed by him.

"And you really shouldn't be smoking. It's not healthy," added Mrs. Weasley as she nearly knocked him over with the door.

They began walking up the hall toward Jack's office when the door suddenly opened. Nathan came out on his crutches, Jack just behind, saying, "I'll have a police car take you home, Mr. Lockslip."

Nathan saw George and his mother walking toward him. George stood square in front of him, looking him in the eye. "Where is my wife?" he hissed.

"I have no idea and what's more, I really couldn't care less," Nate answered. "Now, move aside. I am going home."

"You're letting him go?" he said to Jack, more an accusation than a question.

"I have done nothing wrong, Mr...Weasley, isn't it? As for the police car, thank you, but no thanks, Detective. I'll walk. I actually live quite close to the Police Station. But you already know that, don't you?"

Nathan hobbled down the hall, stopping to button his coat before stepping outside.

"I'm sorry, George. But we had nothing to hold him on," said Jack.

"You must have had some reason for suspecting him in the first place," said George.

"He has my daughter-in-law," yelled Molly. "And you're letting him just leave?"

Jack started to explain. "There's no hard evidence that he..."

"No evidence?" Mrs. Weasley screamed. She grabbed Jack by the front of his jacket and shook him. "Are you blind? Didn't you see his jumper?"

Jack blinked. The woman was coming unhinged, he thought. "His jumper?" he repeated.

"It's the same as the blanket Kira made. Don't you men notice anything? The blanket Kira made from Fred's old jumpers. Blue, yellow letter, then the red heart design copied from the carving in their wedding rings." She reached for George's hand and shoved his ring finger in front of Jack's face.

Jack thought back to that day, weeks ago, when he'd taken Madelaine out to lunch. They'd stopped by the Weasley house to tell them that the Find Kira line was being discontinued. Mrs. Weasley had given her the blanket Kira had made for the baby. In his mind's eye, he saw Madelaine in the car, next to him, absentmindedly tracing the pattern with her finger.

"Kira must have made that jumper. It's a message," said George. "I'm going after him."

"George, wait," said Jack. "Maybe it's best if we let him think he's fooled us. We've searched his house. Who knows where he has Kira stashed. We will have to follow him and see if he leads us to her."

"Screw this," said George. "We have our own ways of getting the truth out of people. Harry, Luke, Mum, are you with me?"

"Well, I am officially off-duty at the moment," said Luke. He turned to Jack. "See you later, Jack," he said.

The four of them Disapparated right in front of Jack and the Desk Sergeant.

"They did it again," said the Desk Sergeant. "They just popped up in front of me, just like that, outside," he said.

Jack allowed himself but a moment of stunned disbelief before running outside to his car. He had no idea what the hell he had just seen, but he was sure that the four of them were going to Lockslip's house. The rest he'd get to the bottom of later.

* * * * *

Outside, Nathan thought as he walked. Instead of going home, he began to cross the street to his shortcut. It was an alley that ran behind a row of shops and let out on the rear of the library. He realized that the police and the boy's family had him firmly in their sights as suspect number one.

It was over. Nathan could not let them take Kira away from him. If he were in prison, there would be nobody to protect her. There was only one thing left to do. He would have to retrieve the gun, walk into Shelter, and kill her. It was the only way he could keep her safe for all of eternity. Then, he would call Detective Townsend and give himself up.

Nathan did not mind spending the rest of his life in prison. Kira will understand. After all, she loves him and trusts him to do what is best for her.