Koontz, Dean R. - Mr. Murder Read online

  about it any more and can be happy."

  Emily was capable of expressing ideas that were, on the surface,

  entirely childlike but, on reflection, seemed deeper and more mature

  than anything expected from a seven-year-old. Sometimes, when he looked

  into her dark eyes, Marty felt she was seven going on four hundred, and

  he could hardly wait to see just how interesting and complex she was

  going to be when she was all grown-up.

  After their hair was brushed, the girls climbed into the twin beds, and

  their mother tucked the covers around them, kissed them, and wished them

  sweet dreams. "Don't let the bed bugs bite," she warned Emily because

  the line always elicited a giggle.

  As Paige retreated to the doorway, Marty moved a straightbacked chair

  from its usual place against the wall and positioned it at the foot

  of--and exactly between--the two beds. Except for a miniature

  battery-powered reading lamp clipped to his open notebook and a

  low-wattage Mickey Mouse luminaria plugged into a wall socket near the

  floor, he switched off all the lights. He sat in the chair, held the

  notebook at reading distance, and waited until the silence had acquired

  that same quality of pleasurable expectation that filled a theater in

  the moment when the curtain started to rise.

  The mood was set.

  This was the happiest part of Marty's day. Story time. No matter what

  else might happen after rising to meet the morning, he could always look

  forward to story time.

  He wrote the tales himself in a notebook labeled Stories for Charlotte

  and Emily, which he might actually publish one day. Or might not.

  Every word was a gift to his daughters, so the decision to share the

  stories with anyone else would be entirely theirs.

  Tonight marked the beginning of a special treat, a story in verse, which

  would continue through Christmas Day. Maybe it would go well enough to

  help him forget the unsettling events in his office.

  "Well, now Thanksgiving is safely past, more turkey eaten this year than

  last--' "It rhymes!" Charlotte said with delight.

  "Sssshhhhh!" Emily admonished her sister.

  The rules of story time were few but important, and one of them was that

  the two-girl audience could not interrupt mid-sentence or, in the case

  of a poem, mid-stanza. Their feedback was valued, their reactions

  cherished, but a storyteller must receive his due respect.

  He began again, "Well, now Thanksgiving is safely past, more turkey

  eaten this year than last, more stuffing stuffed, more yams jammed into

  our mouths, and using both hands, coleslaw in slews, biscuits by twos,

  all of us too fat to fit in our shoes." The girls were giggling just

  where he wanted them to giggle, an Marty could barely restrain himself

  from turning around in his chair to see how Paige liked it so far, as

  she had heard none of it until this moment. But no one would respond to

  a storyteller who couldn't wait until the end for his plaudits, an

  unshakable air of confidence, whether faked or genuinely felt, was

  essential to success.

  So let's look ahead to the big holiday that's coming, coming, coming our

  way.

  I'm sure you know just what day I mean.

  It's not Easter Sunday, not Halloween.

  It's not a day to be sad and listless.

  I ask you, young ladies, what is it--?"

  "It's Christmas!" Charlotte and Emily answered in unison, and their

  immediate response confirmed that he had them in his spell.

  "Someday soon, we'll put up a tree.

  Why only one? Maybe two, maybe three!

  Deck it with tinsel and baubles bright.

  It'll be an amazing and wonderful sight String colored lights out on the

  roof-pray none are broken by anything's hoof Salt down the shingles to

  melt the ice.

  If Santa fell, it just wouldn't be nice.

  He might fracture a leg or get a cut, perhaps even break his big jolly

  butt."

  He glanced at the girls. Their faces seemed to shine in the shadows.

  Without saying a word, they told him, Don't stop, don't stop!

  God, he loved this. He loved them.

  If heaven existed, it was exactly like this moment, this place.

  "Oh, wait! I just heard terrible news.

  Hope it won't give you Christmas blues.

  Santa was drugged, tied up, and gagged, blindfolded, ear-stoppled, and

  bagged.

  His sleigh is waiting out in the yard, and someone has stolen Santa's

  bank card.

  Soon his accounts will be picked clean by the use of automatic-teller

  machines."

  "Uh-oh," Charlotte said, snuggling deeper into her covers, "it's going

  to be scary."

  "Well, of course it is," Emily said. "Daddy wrote it."

  "Will it be too scary?" Charlotte asked, pulling the blankets up to her

  chin.

  "Are you wearing socks?" Marty asked.

  Charlotte usually wore socks to bed except in summer, because otherwise

  her feet got cold.

  "Socks?" she said. "Yeah? So?"

  Marty leaned forward in his chair and lowered his voice to a spooky

  whisper, "Because this story won't end until Christmas Day, and by then

  it's gonna scare your socks off maybe a dozen times."

  He made a wicked face.

  Charlotte pulled the covers up to her nose.

  Emily giggled and demanded, "Come on, Daddy, what's next?"

  "Hark, the sound of silver sleigh bells echoes over the hills and the

  dells.

  And look reindeer high up in the sky!

  Some silly goose has taught them to fly.

  The drivergiggles quite like a loon-madman, goofball, a thug, and a

  goon.

  Something is wrong--any fool could tell.

  If this is Santa, then Santa's not well.

  He hoots, gibbers, chortles, and spits, and seems to be having some sort

  of fits.

  His mean little eyes spin just like tops.

  So somebody better quick call the cops.

  A closer look confirms his psychosis.

  And--oh, my dears--really bad halitosis!"

  "Oh, jeer," Charlotte said, pulling the covers up just below her eyes.

  She professed to dislike scary stories, but she was the quickest to

  complain if something frightening didn't happen in a tale sooner or

  later.

  "So who is it?" Emily asked. "Who tied Santa up and robbed him and ran

  off in his sleigh?"

  "Beware when Christmas comes this year, because there's something new to

  fear.

  Santa's twin--who is evil and mean-stole the sleigh, will make the

  scene, pretending to be his good brother.

  Guard your beloved children, mother!

  Down the chimney, into your home, here comes that vile psychotic gnome!"

  "Eeep!" Charlotte cried, and pulled the covers over her head.

  Emily said, "What made Santa's twin so evil?"

  "Maybe he had a bad childhood," Marty said.

  "Maybe he was born that way," Charlotte said under her covers.

  "Can people be born bad?" Emily wondered. Then she answered her own

  question before Marty could respond. "Well, sure, they can.

  "Cause some people are born good, like you and Mommy, so then some

  people must be born bad."

  Mar
ty was soaking up the girls' reactions, loving it. On one level, he

  was a writer, storing away their words, the rhythms of their speech,

  expressions, toward the day when he might need to use some of this for a

  scene in a book. He supposed it wasn't admirable to be so constantly

  aware that even his own children were material, it might be morally

  repugnant, but he couldn't change. He was what he was. He was also a

  father, however, and he reacted primarily on that level, mentally

  preserving the moment because one day memories were all he would have of

  their childhood, and he wanted to be able to recall everything, the good

  and the bad, simple moments and big events, in Technicolor and Dolby

  sound and with perfect clarity, because it was all too precious to him

  to be lost.

  Emily said, "Does Santa's evil twin have a name?"

  "Yes," Marty said, "he does, but you'll have to wait until another night

  to hear it. We've reached our first stopping place."

  Charlotte poked her head out from beneath the covers, and both girls

  insisted that he read the first part of the poem again, as he had known

  they would. Even the second time through, they would be too involved to

  be ready to sleep. They would demand a third reading, and he would

  oblige, for then they would be familiar enough with the words to settle

  down. Later, by the end of the third reading, they finally would be

  either deep in sleep or on the drowsy edge of it.

  As he started with the first line again, Marty heard Paige turn out of

  the doorway and walk toward the stairs. She would be waiting for him in

  the family room, perhaps with flames crackling in the fireplace, perhaps

  with red wine and a snack of some kind, and they would curl up together

  and tell each other about their day.

  Any five minutes of the evening, now or later, would be more interesting

  to him than a trip around the world. He was a hopeless homebody. The

  charms of hearth and family had more allure than the enigmatic sands of

  Egypt, the glamour of Paris, and the mystery of the Far East combined.

  Winking at each of his daughters, reciting again, "Well, now

  Thanksgiving is safely past," he had for the moment forgotten that

  something disturbing had happened earlier in his office and that the

  sanctity of his home had been violated.

  In the Blue Life Lounge, a woman brushes against the killer and slides

  onto the bar stool beside him. She is not as beautiful as the dancers,

  but she is attractive enough for his purposes. Wearing tan jeans and a

  tight red T-shirt, she could be just another customer, but she is not.

  He knows her type a discount Venus with the skills of a naturalborn

  accountant.

  They conduct a conversation by leaning close to each other to be heard

  above the band, and soon their heads are almost touching. Her name is

  Heather, or so she says. She has wintermint breath.

  By the time the dancers retreat and the band takes a break, Heather has

  decided he isn't a vice cop on stakeout, so she grows , bolder. She

  knows what he wants, she has what he wants, and she lets him know that

  he is a buyer in a seller's market.

  Heather tells him that across the highway from the Blue Life Lounge is a

  motel where, if a girl is known to the management, rooms can be rented

  by the hour. This is no surprise to him, for there are laws of lust and

  economics as immutable as the laws of nature.

  She pulls on her lambskin-lined jacket, and together they go out into

  the chilly night, where her wintermint breath turns to steam in the

  crisp air. They cross the parking lot and then the highway,

  hand-in-hand as if they are high school sweethearts.

  Though she knows what he wants, she does not know what he needs any more

  than he does. When he gets what he wants, and when it does not quench

  the hot need in him, Heather will learn the pattern of emotion that is

  now so familiar to him, need fosters frustration, frustration grows into

  anger, anger leads to hatred, hatred genera The sky is a massive slab of

  crystal-clear ice. The trees stand leafless and sere at the end of

  barren November. The wind makes a cold, mournful sound as it sweeps off

  the vast surrounding prairie, through the city. And violence sometimes

  soothes.

  Later, having spent himself in Heather more than once, no longer in the

  urgent grip of lust, he finds the shabbiness of the motel room to be an

  intolerable reminder of the shallow, grubby nature of his existence.

  His immediate desire is sated, but his desire for more of a life, for

  direction and meaning, is undiminished.

  The naked young woman, on top of whom he still lies, seems ugly now,

  even disgusting. The memory of intimacy with her repels him. She can't

  or won't give him what he needs. Living on the edge of society, selling

  her body, she is an outcast herself, and therefore an infuriating symbol

  of his own alienation.

  She is taken by surprise when he punches her in the face. The blow is

  hard enough to stun her. As Heather goes limp, nearly unconscious, he

  slips both hands around her throat and chokes her with all the force of

  which he is capable.

  The struggle is quiet. The blow, followed by extreme pressure on her

  windpipe and diminishment of the blood supply to her brain through the

  carotid arteries, renders her incapable of resistance.

  He is concerned about drawing the unwanted attention of other motel

  guests. But a minimum of noise is also important because quiet murder

  is more personal, more intimate, more deeply satisfying.

  So quietly does she succumb that he is reminded of nature films in which

  certain spiders and mantises kill their mates subsequent to a first and

  final act of intercourse, always without a sound from either assailant

  or victim. Heather's death is marked by a cold and solemn ritual equal

  to the stylized savagery of those insects.

  Minutes later, after showering and dressing, he crosses the highway from

  the motel to the Blue Life Lounge and gets in his rental car.

  He has business to conduct. He was not sent to Kansas City to murder a

  whore named Heather. She was merely a diversion. Other victims await

  him, and now he is sufficiently relaxed and focused to deal with them.

  In Marty's office, by the party-colored light of the stained-glass lamp,

  Paige stood beside the desk, staring at the small tape recorder,

  listening to her husband chant two unsettling words in a voice that

  ranged from a melancholy whisper to a low snarl of rage.

  After less than two minutes, she couldn't tolerate it any longer.

  His voice was simultaneously familiar and strange, which made it far

  worse than if she'd been unable to recognize it at all.

  She switched off the recorder.

  Realizing she was still holding the glass of red wine in her right hand,

  she took too large a swallow. It was a good California cabernet that

  merited leisurely sipping, but suddenly she was more interested in its

  effect than its taste.

  Standing across the desk from her, Marty said, "There's at least five

  more minutes of the same thing. Seven minutes in all. Afte
r it

  happened, before you and the girls came home, I did some research."

  He gestured toward the bookshelves that lined one wall. "In my medical

  references."

  Paige did not want to hear what he was going to tell her. The

  possibility of serious illness was unthinkable. If anything happened to

  Marty, the world would be a far darker and less interesting place.

  She was not sure that she could deal with the loss of him. She realized

  her attitude was peculiar, considering that she was a child psychologist

  who, in her private practice and during the hours she donated to

  child-welfare groups, had counseled dozens of children about how to

  conquer grief and go on after the death of a loved one.

  Coming around the desk toward her, his own wine glass already empty,

  Marty said, "A fugue can be symptomatic of several things.

  Early-stage Alzheimer's disease, for instance, but I believe we can rule

  that out. If I've got Alzheimer's at thirty-three, I'd probably be the

  youngest case on record by about a decade."

  He put his glass on the desk and went to the window to stare out at the