Koontz, Dean R. - Mr. Murder Read online

  Guthridge nodded sympathetically. "Of course it does. But listen, I've

  seen symptoms far more bizarre and severe than yours--and it turns out

  to be stress."

  "Psychological."

  "Yes, but nothing long-term. You aren't going mad, either, if that's

  what you're worried about. Try to relax, Marty.

  We'll know where we stand by the end of the week." When he needed it,

  Guthridge could call upon a demeanor as reassuring--and a bedside manner

  as soothing--as that of any gray-haired medical eminence in a

  three-piece suit. He slipped Marty's shirt from one of the clothes

  hooks on the back of the door and handed it to him. The faint gleam in

  his eye betrayed another shift in mood, "Now, when I book time at the

  hospital, what patient name should I give to them? Martin Stillwater or

  Martin Murder?"

  He explores his home. He is eager to learn about his new family.

  Because he is most intrigued by the thought of himself as a father, he

  begins in the girls' bedroom. For a while he stands just inside the

  door, studying the two distinctly different sides of the room.

  He wonders which of his young daughters is the effervescent one who

  decorates her walls with posters of dazzlingly colorful hotair balloons

  and leaping dancers, who keeps a gerbil and other pets in wire cages and

  glass terrariums. He still holds the photograph of his wife and

  children, but the smiling faces in it reveal nothing of their

  personalities.

  The second daughter is apparently contemplative, favoring quiet

  landscapes on her walls. Her bed is neatly made, the pillows plumped

  just-so. Her storybooks are shelved in orderly fashion, and her corner

  desk is free of clutter.

  When he slides open the mirrored closet door, he finds a similar

  division in the hanging clothes. Those to the left are arranged both

  according to the type of garment and color. Those to the right are in

  no particular order, askew on the hangers, and jammed against one

  another in a way that virtually assures wrinkling.

  Because the smaller jeans and dresses are on the left side of the

  closet, he can be sure that the neat and contemplative girl is the

  younger of the two. He raises the photograph and stares at her. The

  pixie. So cute. He still does not know whether she is Charlotte or

  Emily.

  He goes to the desk in the older daughter's side of the room and stares

  down at the clutter, magazines, schoolbooks, one yellow hair ribbon, a

  butterfly barrette, a few scattered sticks of Black Jack chewing gum,

  colored pencils, a tangled pair of pink kneesocks, an empty Coke can,

  coins, and a Game Boy.

  He opens one of the textbooks, then another. Both of them have the same

  name penciled in front, Charlotte Stillwater.

  The older and less disciplined girl is Charlotte. The younger girl who

  keeps her belongings neat is Emily.

  Again, he looks at their faces in the photograph.

  Charlotte is pretty, and her smile is sweet. However, if he is going to

  have trouble with either of his children, it will be with this one.

  He will not tolerate disorder in his house. Everything must be perfect.

  Neat and clean and happy.

  In lonely hotel rooms in strange cities, awake in the darkness, he has

  ached with need and has not understood what would satisfy his longing.

  Now he knows that being Martin Stillwater--father to these children,

  husband to this wife--is the destiny that will fill the terrible void

  and at last bring him contentment. He is grateful to whatever power has

  led him here, and he is determined to fulfill his responsibilities to

  his wife, his children, and society. He wants an ideal family l those

  he has seen in certain favorite movies, wants to be kind like Jimmy

  Stewart in It's a Wonderful life and wise like Gregory Peck in To Kill a

  Mockingbird and revered like both of them, and he will do whatever is

  necessary to ensure a loving, harmonious, and orderly home.

  He has seen The Bad Seed, too, and he knows that some children can

  destroy a home and all hope of harmony because they are seething with

  the potential for evil. Charlotte's slovenly habits and strange

  menagerie strongly indicate that she is capable of disobedience and

  possibly violence.

  When snakes appear in movies, they are always symbols of evil, dangerous

  to the innocent, therefore, the snake in the terrarium is chilling proof

  of this child's corruption and her need for guidance.

  She keeps other reptiles as well, a couple of rodents, and an ugly black

  beetle in a glass jar-all of which the movies have taught him to

  associate with the powers of darkness.

  He studies the photograph again, marveling at how innocent Charlotte

  looks.

  But remember the girl in The Bad Seed. She appeared to be an angel yet

  was thoroughly evil.

  Being Martin Stillwater may not prove as easy as he had first thought.

  Charlotte might be a real handful.

  Fortunately, he has seen Lean on Me in which Morgan Freeman is a high

  school principal bringing order to a school overwhelmed by anarchy, and

  he has seen The Principal starring Jim Belushi, so he knows that even

  bad kids really want discipline. They will respond properly if adults

  have the guts to insist upon rules of behavior.

  If Charlotte is disobedient and stubborn, he will punish her until she

  learns to be a good little girl. He will not fail her. At first she

  will hate him for denying her privileges, for confining her to her room,

  for hurting her if that becomes necessary, but in time she will see that

  he has her best interests at heart, and she will learn to love him and

  understand how wise he is.

  In fact he can visualize the triumphant moment when, after so much

  struggle, her rehabilitation is ensured. Her realization that she has

  been wrong and that he has been a good father will culminate in a

  touching scene. They will both cry. She will throw herself in his

  arms, remorseful and ashamed. He will hug her very tightly and tell her

  it's all right, all right, don't cry. She will say, "Oh, Daddy," in a

  tremulous voice, and cling fiercely to him, and thereafter everything

  will be perfect between them.

  He yearns for that sweet triumph. He can even hear the soaring and

  emotional music that will accompany it.

  He turns away from Charlotte's side of the room, goes to his younger

  daughter's neat bed.

  Emily. The pixie. She will never give him any trouble. She is the

  good daughter.

  He will hold her on his lap and read to her from storybooks. He will

  take her to the zoo, and her little hand will be lost in his.

  He will buy her popcorn at the movies, and they will sit side by side in

  the darkness, laughing at the latest Disney animated feature.

  Her big dark eyes will adore him.

  Sweet Emily. Dear Emily.

  Almost reverently, he pulls back the chenille bedspread. The blanket.

  The top sheet. He stares at the bottom sheet on which she slept last

  night, and the pillows on which her delicate head rested.

  His heart swells with affectio
n, tenderness.

  He puts one hand against the sheet, slides it back and forth, back and

  forth, feeling the fabric on which her young body has so recently lain.

  Every night he will tuck her into bed. She will press her small mouth

  to his cheek, such warm little kisses, and her breath will have the

  sweet peppermint aroma of toothpaste.

  He bends down to smell the sheets.

  "Emily," he says softly.

  Oh, how he longs to be her father and to look into those dark yet limpid

  eyes, those huge and adoring eyes.

  With a sigh, he returns to Charlotte's side of the room. He drops the

  silver-framed photograph of his family on her bed, and he studies the

  kept creatures housed on the bookless bookshelves.

  Some of the wild things watch him.

  He begins with the gerbil. When he unlatches the door and reaches into

  its cage, the timid creature cowers in a far corner, paralyzed with

  fear, sensing his intent. He seizes it, withdraws it from the cage.

  Although it tries to squirm free, he grips its body firmly in his right

  hand, its head in his left, and wrenches sharply, snapping its neck. A

  brittle, dry sound. Its cry is shrill but brief.

  He throws the dead gerbil on the brightly colored bedspread.

  This will be the beginning of Charlotte's discipline.

  She will hate him for it. But only for a while.

  Eventually she will realize that these are unsuitable pets for a little

  girl. Symbols of evil. Reptiles, rodents, beetles. The sort of

  creatures witches use as their familiars, to communicate between them

  and Satan.

  He has learned all about witches' familiars from horror movies.

  If there was a cat in the house he would kill it as well, without

  hesitation, because sometimes they are cute and innocent, just cats and

  nothing more, but sometimes they are the very spawn of Hell. By ,

  inviting such creatures into your home, you risk inviting the devil

  himself.

  One day Charlotte will understand. And be grateful.

  Eventually she will love him.

  They will all love him.

  He will be a good husband and father.

  Much smaller than the gerbil, the frightened mouse quivers in his fist,

  its tail hanging below his clenched fingers, only its head protruding

  above. It empties its bladder. He grimaces at the warm dampness and,

  in disgust, squeezes with all his strength, crushing the life out of the

  filthy little beast.

  He tosses it onto the bed beside the dead gerbil.

  The harmless garden snake in the glass terrarium makes no effort to

  slither away from him. He holds it by the tail and snaps it as if it is

  a whip, snaps it again, then lashes it hard against the wall, again, and

  a third time. When he dangles it before his face, it is entirely limp,

  and he sees that its skull is crushed.

  He coils it next to the gerbil and the mouse.

  The beetle and the turtle make satisfying crunching sounds when he

  stomps them under the heel of his shoe. He arranges their oozing

  remains on the bedspread.

  Only the lizard escapes him. When he slides the lid partway off its

  terrarium and reaches in for it, the chameleon scampers up his arm,

  quicker than the eye, and leaps off his shoulder. He spins around,

  searching for it, and sees it on the nearby vanity, where it skitters

  between a hairbrush and a comb, onto a jewelry box. There it freezes

  and begins to change color to match its background, but when he tries to

  snatch it up, it darts away, off the dresser, onto the floor, across the

  room, under Emily's bed, out of sight.

  He decides to let it go.

  This might be for the best. When Paige and the girls get home, the four

  of them will search for it together. When they find it, he will kill it

  in front of Charlotte or perhaps require her to kill it herself. That

  will be a good lesson. Thereafter, she will bring no more inappropriate

  pets into the Stillwater house.

  In the parking lot outside of the three-story, Spanish-style business

  complex where Dr. Guthridge had his offices, while a gusty wind harried

  dead leaves across the pavement, Marty sat in his car and read the

  article about himself in People. Two photographs and a page's worth of

  prose were spread over three pages of the magazine. At least for the

  few minutes he took to read the piece, all of his other worries were

  forgotten.

  The black headline made him flinch even though he knew what it would be

  MR. MURDER--but he was equally embarrassed by the subhead in smaller

  letters, IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, MYSTERY NOVELIST MARTIN STILLWATER SEES

  DARKNESS AND EVIL WHERE OTHERS SEE ONLY SUNSHINE .

  He felt it portrayed him as a brooding pessimist who dressed entirely in

  black and lurked on beaches and among the palm trees, glowering at

  anyone who dared to have fun, tediously expounding on the inherent

  vileness of the human species. At best it implied he was a theatrical

  phony costuming himself in what he thought was the most commercial image

  for a mystery novelist.

  Possibly he was over-reacting. Paige would tell him that he was too

  sensitive about these things. That was what she always said, and she

  usually made him feel better, whether he could bring himself to believe

  her or not.

  He examined the photographs before reading the piece.

  In the first and largest picture, he was standing in the yard behind the

  house, against a backdrop of trees and twilight sky. He looked

  demented.

  The photographer, Ben Walenko, had been given instructions to induce

  Marty into a pose deemed fitting for a mystery novelist, so he had come

  with props he assumed Marty would brandish with suitable expressions of

  malevolent intent, an axe, an enormous knife, an ice pick, and a gun.

  When Marty politely declined to use the props and also refused to wear a

  trenchcoat with the collar turned up and a fedora pulled low on his

  forehead, the photographer agreed it was ludicrous for an adult to play

  dress-up, and suggested they avoid the usual cliches in favor of shots

  portraying him simply as a writer and an ordinary human being.

  Now it was obvious that Walenko had been clever enough to get what he

  wanted without props, after lulling his subject into a false sense of

  security. The backyard had seemed an innocuous setting.

  However, through a combination of the deep shadows of dusk, looming

  trees, ominous clouds backlit by the final somber light of day, the

  strategic placement of studio lights, and an extreme camera angle, the

  photographer succeeded in making Marty appear weird.

  Furthermore, of the twenty exposures taken in the backyard, the editors

  had chosen the worst, Marty was squinting, his features were distorted,

  the photographer's lights were reflected in his slitted eyes, which

  seemed to be glowing like the eyes of a zombie.

  The second photograph was taken in his study. He was sitting at his

  desk, facing the camera. He was recognizably himself in this one,

  though by now he preferred not to be recognizable, for it seemed that

  the only way he could maintain a shred of dignit
y was to have his true

  appearance remain a mystery, a combination of shadows and the peculiar

  light of the stained-glass lamp, even in a black-and-white shot, made

  him resemble a Gypsy fortuneteller who had glimpsed a portent of

  disaster in his crystal ball.

  He was convinced that a lot of the modern world's problems could be

  attributed to the popular media's saturation of society and its tendency

  not merely to simplify all issues to the point of absurdity but to

  confuse fiction and reality. Television news emphasized dramatic

  footage over facts, sensationalism over substance, seeking ratings with

  cop and courtroom dramas. Documentaries about real historical figures

  had become "docudramas" in which accurate details of famous lives and

  events were relentlessly subordinated to entertainment values or even to

  the personal fantasies of the show's creators, grossly distorting the

  past. Patent medicines were sold in TV commercials by performers who

  also played doctors in highly rated programs, as if they had in fact

  graduated from Harvard Medical School instead of merely having attended

  an acting class or two. Politicians made cameo appearances on episodes

  of situation comedies. Actors in those comedies appeared at political

  rallies. Not long ago the vice president of the United States engaged in

  a protracted argument with a fictional television reporter from a