Mr. Murder Read online

  Now he stopped the tape. His hand was trembling, and when he put the cassette recorder on the desk, it rattled against the glass.

  He looked around the office, where he had passed so many solitary hours in the concoction and solution of so many mysteries, where he had put uncounted characters through enormous travail and challenged them to find their way out of mortal danger. The room was so familiar: the overflowing bookshelves, a dozen original paintings that had been featured on the dust jackets of his novels, the couch that he had bought in anticipation of lazy plotting sessions but on which he had never had the time or inclination to lie, the computer with its oversize monitor.

  But that familiarity was not comforting anymore, because now it was tainted by the strangeness of what had happened minutes ago.

  He blotted his damp palms on his jeans.

  Having briefly lifted from him, dread settled again in the manner of Poe’s mysterious raven perching above a chamber door.

  Waking from the trance, perceiving danger, he had expected to find the threat outside in the street or in the form of a burglar roaming through the rooms below. But it was worse than that. The threat was not external. Somehow, the wrongness was within him.

  2

  The night is deep and free of turbulence.

  Below, the clotted clouds are silver with reflected moonlight, and for a while the shadow of the plane undulates across that vaporous sea.

  The killer’s flight from Boston arrives on time in Kansas City, Missouri. He goes directly to the baggage-claim area. Thanksgiving-holiday travelers will not head home until tomorrow, so the airport is quiet. His two pieces of luggage—one of which contains a Heckler & Koch P7 pistol, detachable silencer, and expanded magazines loaded with 9mm ammunition—are first and second to drop onto the carrousel.

  At the rental-agency counter he discovers that his reservation has not been misplaced or misrecorded, as often happens. He will receive the large Ford sedan that he requested, instead of being stuck with a subcompact.

  The credit card in the name of John Larrington is accepted by the clerk and by the American Express verifying machine with no problem, although his name is not John Larrington.

  When he receives the car, it runs well and smells clean. The heater actually works.

  Everything seems to be going his way.

  Within a few miles of the airport he checks into a pleasant if anonymous four-story motor hotel, where the red-haired clerk at the reception counter tells him that he may have a complimentary breakfast—pastries, juice, and coffee—delivered in the morning simply by requesting it. His Visa card in the name of Thomas E. Jukovic is accepted, although Thomas E. Jukovic is not his name.

  His room has burnt-orange carpet and striped blue wallpaper. However, the mattress is firm, and the towels are fluffy.

  The suitcase containing the automatic pistol and ammunition remains locked in the trunk of the car, where it will offer no temptation to snooping motel employees.

  After sitting in a chair by the window for a while, staring at Kansas City by starlight, he goes down to the coffee shop to have dinner. He is six feet tall, weighs a hundred and eighty pounds, but eats as heartily as a much larger man. A bowl of vegetable soup with garlic toast. Two cheeseburgers, french fries. A slice of apple pie with vanilla ice cream. Half a dozen cups of coffee.

  He always has a big appetite. Often he is ravenous; at times his hunger seems almost insatiable.

  While he eats, the waitress stops by twice to ask if the food is prepared well and if he needs anything else. She is not merely attentive but flirting with him.

  Although he is reasonably attractive, his looks don’t rival those of any movie star. Yet women flirt with him more frequently than with other men who are handsomer and better dressed than he. Consisting of Rockport walking shoes, khaki slacks, a dark-green crew-neck sweater, no jewelry, and an inexpensive wristwatch, his wardrobe is unremarkable, unmemorable. Which is the idea. The waitress has no reason to mistake him for a man of means. Yet here she is again, smiling coquettishly.

  Once, in a Miami cocktail lounge where he had picked her up, a blonde with whiskey-colored eyes had assured him that an intriguing aura surrounded him. A compelling magnetism arose, she said, from his preference for silence and from the stony expression that usually occupied his face. “You are,” she’d insisted playfully, “the epitome of the strong silent type. Hell, if you were in a movie with Clint Eastwood and Stallone, there wouldn’t be any dialogue at all!”

  Later he had beaten her to death.

  He had not been angered by anything she’d said or done. In fact, sex with her had been satisfying.

  But he had been in Florida to blow the brains out of a man named Parker Abbotson, and he’d been concerned that the woman might somehow later connect him with the assassination. He hadn’t wanted her to be able to give the police a description of him.

  After wasting her, he had gone to see the latest Spielberg picture, and then a Steve Martin flick.

  He likes movies. Aside from his work, movies are the only life he has. Sometimes it seems his real home is a succession of movie theaters in different cities yet so alike in their shopping-center multiplexity that they might as well be the same dark auditorium.

  Now he pretends to be unaware that the coffee-shop waitress is interested in him. She is pretty enough, but he wouldn’t dare kill an employee of the restaurant in the very motel where he’s staying. He needs to find a woman in a place to which he has no connections.

  He tips precisely fifteen percent because either stinginess or extravagance is a sure way to be remembered.

  After returning briefly to his room for a wool-lined leather jacket suitable to the late-November night, he gets in the rental Ford and drives in steadily widening circles through the surrounding commercial district. He is searching for the kind of establishment in which he will have a chance to find the right woman.

  3

  Daddy wasn’t Daddy.

  He had Daddy’s blue eyes, Daddy’s dark brown hair, Daddy’s too-big ears, Daddy’s freckled nose; he was a dead-ringer for the Martin Stillwater pictured on the dust jackets of his books. He sounded just like Daddy when Charlotte and Emily and their mother came home and found him in the kitchen, drinking coffee, because he said, “There’s no use pretending you went shopping at the mall after the movie. I had you followed by a private detective. I know you were at a poker parlor in Gardena, gambling and smoking cigars.” He stood, sat, and moved like Daddy.

  Later, when they went out to Islands for dinner, he even drove like Daddy. Which was too fast, according to Mom. Or simply “the confident, skillful technique of a master motorman” if you saw things Daddy’s way.

  But Charlotte knew something was wrong, and she fretted.

  Oh, he hadn’t been taken over by an alien who crawled out of a big seed pod from outer space or anything so extreme. He wasn’t that different from the Daddy she knew and loved.

  Mostly, the differences were minor. Though usually relaxed and easy-going, he was slightly tense. He held himself stiffly, as if balancing eggs on his head . . . or as if maybe he expected to be hit at any moment by someone, something. He didn’t smile as quickly or as often as usual, and when he did smile, he seemed to be pretending.

  Before he backed the car out of the driveway, he turned and checked on Charlotte and Emily to be sure they were using seatbelts, but he didn’t say “the Stillwater rocket to Mars is about to blast off” or “if I take the turns too fast and you have to puke, please throw up neatly in your jacket pockets, not on my nice upholstery” or “if we build up enough speed to go back in time, don’t shout insults at the dinosaurs” or any of the other silly things he usually said.

  Charlotte noticed and was troubled.

  The restaurant, Islands, had good burgers, great fries—which could be ordered well-done—salads, and soft tacos. Sandwiches and french fries were served in baskets, and the ambiance was Caribbean.

  “Ambiance” was a new
word for Charlotte. She liked the sound of it so much, she used it every chance she got—though Emily, hopeless child, was always confused and said “what ambulance, I don’t see an ambulance” every time Charlotte used it. Seven-year-olds could be such a tribulation. Charlotte was ten—or would be in six weeks—and Emily had just turned seven in October. Em was a good sister, but of course seven-year-olds were so ... so sevenish.

  Anyway, the ambiance was tropical: bright colors, bamboo on the ceiling, wooden blinds, and lots of potted palms. Both the boy and girl waitresses wore shorts and bright Hawaiian-type shirts.

  The place reminded her of Jimmy Buffet music, which was one of those things her parents loved but which Charlotte didn’t get at all. At least the ambiance was cool, and the french fries were the best.

  They sat in a booth in the non-smoking section, where the ambiance was even nicer. Her parents ordered Corona, which came in frosted mugs. Charlotte had a Coke, and Emily ordered root beer.

  “Root beer is a grown-up drink,” Em said. She pointed to Charlotte’s Coke. “When are you going to stop drinking kid stuff?”

  Em was convinced that root beer could be as intoxicating as real beer. Sometimes she pretended to be smashed after two glasses, which was stupid and embarrassing. When Em was doing her weaving-burping-drunk routine and strangers turned to stare, Charlotte explained that Em was seven. Everyone was understanding—from a seven-year-old, what else could be expected?—but it was embarrassing nonetheless.

  By the time the waitress brought dinner, Mom and Daddy were talking about some people they knew who were getting a divorce—boring adult talk that could ruin an ambiance fast if you paid any attention. And Em was stacking french fries in peculiar piles, like miniature versions of modern sculptures they’d seen in a museum last summer; she was absorbed by the project.

  With everyone distracted, Charlotte unzipped the deepest pocket on her denim jacket, withdrew Fred, and put him on the table.

  He sat motionless under his shell, stumpy legs tucked in, headless, as big around as a man’s wristwatch. Finally his beaky little nose appeared. He sniffed the air cautiously, and then he stretched his head out of the fortress that he carried on his back. His dark shiny turtle eyes regarded his new surroundings with great interest, and Charlotte figured he must be amazed by the ambiance.

  “Stick with me, Fred, and I’ll show you places no turtle has ever before seen,” she whispered.

  She glanced at her parents. They were still so involved with each other that they had not noticed when she’d slipped Fred out of her pocket. Now he was hidden from them by a basket of french fries.

  In addition to fries, Charlotte was eating soft tacos stuffed with chicken, from which she extracted a ribbon of lettuce. The turtle sniffed it, turned his head away in disgust. She tried chopped tomato. Are you serious? he seemed to say, refusing the tidbit.

  Occasionally, Fred could be moody and difficult. That was her fault, she supposed, because she had spoiled him.

  She didn’t think chicken or cheese would be good for him, and she was not going to offer him any tortilla crumbs until he ate his vegetables, so she nibbled on the crisp french fries and gazed around the restaurant as if fascinated by the other customers, ignoring the rude little reptile. He had rejected the lettuce and tomato merely to annoy her. If he thought she didn’t give a hoot whether he ate or not, then he would probably eat. In turtle years, Fred was seven.

  She actually became interested in a heavy-metal couple with leather clothes and strange hair. They distracted her for a few minutes, and she was startled by her mother’s soft squeak of alarm.

  “Oh,” said her mother after she squeaked, “it’s only Fred.”

  The ungrateful turtle—after all, Charlotte could have left him at home—was not beside her plate where he’d been left. He had crawled around the basket of fries to the other side of the table.

  “I only got him out to feed him,” Charlotte said defensively.

  Lifting the basket so Charlotte could see the turtle, Mom said, “Honey, it’s not good for him to be in your pocket all day.”

  “Not all day.” Charlotte took possession of Fred and returned him to her pocket. “Just since we left the house for dinner.”

  Mom frowned. “What other livestock do you have with you?”

  “Just Fred.”

  “What about Bob?” Mom asked.

  “Oh, yuch,” Emily said, making a face at Charlotte. “You got Bob in your pocket? I hate Bob.”

  Bob was a bug, a slow-moving black beetle as large as the last joint of Daddy’s thumb, with faint blue markings on his carapace. She kept him in a big jar at home, but sometimes she liked to take him out and watch him crawl in his laborious way across a countertop or even over the back of her hand.

  “I’d never bring Bob to a restaurant,” Charlotte assured them.

  “You also know better than to bring Fred,” her mother said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Charlotte said, genuinely embarrassed.

  “Dumb,” Emily advised her.

  To Emily, Mom said, “No dumber than using french fries as if they’re Lego blocks.”

  “I’m making art.” Emily was always making art. She was weird sometimes even for a seven-year-old. Picasso reincarnate, Daddy called her.

  “Art, huh?” Mom said. “You’re making art out of your food, so then what are you going to eat? A painting?”

  “Maybe,” Em said. “A painting of a chocolate cake.”

  Charlotte zipped shut her jacket pocket, imprisoning Fred.

  “Wash your hands before you go on eating,” Daddy said.

  Charlotte said, “Why?”

  “What were you just handling?”

  “You mean Fred? But Fred’s clean.”

  “I said, wash your hands.”

  Her father’s snappishness reminded Charlotte that he was not himself. He rarely spoke harshly to her or Em. She behaved not out of fear that he’d spank her or shout at her, but because it was important not to disappoint him or Mom. It was the best feeling in the world when she got a good grade in school or performed well at a piano recital and made them proud of her. And absolutely nothing was worse than messing up—and seeing a sad look of disappointment in their eyes, even when they didn’t punish her or say anything.

  The sharpness of her father’s voice sent her directly to the ladies’ room, blinking back tears every step of the way.

  Later, on the way home from Islands, when Daddy got a lead foot, Mom said, “Marty, this isn’t the Indianapolis Five Hundred.”

  “You think this is fast?” Daddy asked, as if astonished. “This isn’t fast.”

  “Even the caped crusader himself can’t get the Batmobile up to speeds like this.”

  “I’m thirty-three, never had an accident. Spotless record. No tickets. Never been stopped by a cop.”

  “Because they can’t catch you,” Mom said.

  “Exactly.”

  In the back seat, Charlotte and Emily grinned at each other.

  For as long as Charlotte could remember, her parents had been having jokey conversations about his driving, though her mother was serious about wanting him to go slower.

  “I’ve never even had a parking ticket,” Daddy said.

  “Well, of course, it’s not easy to get a parking ticket when the speedometer needle is always pegged out.”

  In the past their back-and-forth had always been good-humored. But now, he suddenly spoke sharply to Mom: “For God’s sake, Paige, I’m a good driver, this is a safe car, I spent more money on it than I should have precisely because it’s one of the safest cars on the road, so will you just give this a rest?”

  “Sure. Sorry,” Mom said.

  Charlotte looked at her sister. Em was wide-eyed with disbelief.

  Daddy was not Daddy. Something was wrong. Big-time wrong.

  They had gone only a block before he slowed down and glanced at Mom and said, “Sorry.”

  “No, you were right, I’m too much of a worr
ier about some things,” Mom told him.

  They smiled at each other. It was all right. They weren’t going to get divorced like those people they’d been talking about at dinner. Charlotte couldn’t recall them ever being angry with each other for longer than a few minutes.

  However, she was still worried. Maybe she should check around the house and outside behind the garage to see if she could find a giant empty seed pod from outer space.

  4

  Like a shark cruising cold currents in a night sea, the killer drives.

  This is his first time in Kansas City, but he knows the streets. Total mastery of the layout is part of his preparation for every assignment, in case he becomes the subject of a police pursuit and needs to make a hasty escape under pressure.

  Curiously, he has no recollection of having seen—let alone studied—a map, and he can’t imagine from where this highly detailed information was acquired. But he doesn’t like to consider the holes in his memory because thinking about them opens the door on a black abyss that terrifies him.

  So he just drives.

  Usually he likes to drive. Having a powerful and responsive machine at his command gives him a sense of control and purpose.

  But once in a while, as happens now, the motion of the car and the sights of a strange city—regardless of how familiar he may be with the layout of its streets—make him feel small, alone, adrift. His heart begins to beat fast. His palms are suddenly so damp, the steering wheel slips through them.

  Then, as he brakes at a traffic light, he looks at the car in the lane beside him and sees a family revealed by the street lamps. The father is driving. The mother sits in the passenger seat, an attractive woman. A boy of about ten and a girl of six or seven are in the back seat. On their way home from a night out. Maybe a movie. Talking, laughing, parents and children together, sharing.

  In his deteriorating condition, that sight is a merciless hammer blow, and he makes a thin wordless sound of anguish.

  He pulls off the street, into the parking lot of an Italian restaurant. Slumps in his seat. Breathes in quick shallow gasps.