The Third Twin Page 0,37

stoop, a communal front porch that ran the length of the row, where neighbors had sat cooling themselves in the days before air-conditioning. She crossed the stoop and stood at her door, getting out her keys.

Two cops exploded out of the patrol car, guns in their hands. They took up firing positions, their arms stretched out stiffly, their guns pointed directly at Jeannie and Steve.

Jeannie's heart stopped.

Steven said: "What the fuck - "

Then one of the men yelled: "Police! Freeze!"

Jeannie and Steve both raised their hands.

But the police did not relax. "On the floor, motherfucker!" one of them screamed. "Facedown, hands behind your back!"

Jeannie and Steve both lay facedown.

The policemen approached them as, cautiously as if they were ticking bombs. Jeannie said: "Don't you think you'd better tell us what this is about?'

"You can stand up, lady," said one,

"Gee, thanks." She got to her feet. Her heart was beating fast, but it seemed obvious the cops had made some kind of dumb mistake. "Now that you've scared me half to death, what the hell is going on?'

Still they did not reply. They both kept their guns pointed at Steve. One of them knelt beside him and, with a swift, practiced motion, handcuffed him. "You're under arrest, cock-sucker," the cop said.

Jeannie said: "I'm a broad-minded woman, but is all this cursing really necessary?" Nobody took any notice of her. She tried again. "What's he supposed to have done, anyway?"

A light blue Dodge Colt screeched to a halt behind the police cruiser and two people got out. One was Mish Delaware, the detective from the Sex Crimes Unit. She had on the same skirt and blouse she had worn this morning, but she wore a linen jacket that only partly concealed the gun at her hip.

"You got here fast," said one of the patrolmen.

"I was in the neighborhood," she replied. She looked at Steve, lying on the floor. "Get him up," she said.

The patrolman took Steve by the arm and helped him stand.

"It's him all right," Mish said. "This is the guy who raped Lisa Hoxton."

"Steven did?" Jeannie said incredulously. Jesus, I was about to take him into my apartment.

"Rape?" Steven said.

"The patrolman spotted his car leaving the campus," Mish said.

Jeannie noticed Steve's car for the first time. It was a tan Datsun, about fifteen years old. Lisa had thought she saw the rapist driving an old white Datsun.

Her initial shock and alarm began to give way to rational thought. The police suspected him: that did not make him guilty. What was the evidence? She said: "If you're going to arrest every man you see driving a rusty Datsun ..."

Mish handed Jeannie a piece of paper. It was a flyer bearing a computer-generated black-and-white picture of a man. Jeannie stared at it. It did look something like Steven. "It might be him and it might not," Jeannie said.

"What are you doing with him?"

"He's a subject. We've been doing tests on him at the lab. I can't believe he's the guy!" Her test findings showed that Steven had the inherited personality of a potential criminal - but they also showed he had not developed into an actual criminal.

Mish said to Steven: "Can you account for your movements yesterday between seven and eight P.M..?"

"Well, I was at JFU," Steven said.

"What were you doing?"

"Nothing much. I was supposed to go out with my cousin Ricky, but he canceled. I came here to check out where I had to be this morning. I had nothing else to do."

It sounded lame even to Jeannie. Maybe Steve was the rapist, she thought with dismay. But if he was, her entire theory was shot.

Mish said: "How did you spend your time?"

"I watched the tennis for a while. Then I went to a bar in Charles Village and spent a couple of hours. I missed the big fire."

"Can anyone corroborate what you say?"

"Well, I spoke to Dr. Ferrami, although at that point I didn't actually know who she was."

Mish turned to Jeannie. Jeannie saw hostility in her eyes and recalled how they had clashed, this morning, when Mish was persuading Lisa to cooperate.

Jeannie said: "It was after my tennis game, a few minutes before the fire broke out."

Mish said: "So you can't tell us where he was when the rape took place."

"No, but I'll tell you something else. I've spent all day giving this man tests, and he doesn't have the psychological profile of a rapist."

Mish looked scornful. "That's not evidence."

Jeannie was still holding the flyer. "Nor is this, I