John D. MacDonald

Mr. Killer

She would have waited until Jamie came home except that the lock looked just like the one that had been on the secret box she had owned when she was a child. And after she lost the key to that secret box playing baseball, the lock had yielded to a paper clip bent just so.

So she took a paper clip from Jamie’s desk and took the tin box and sat on the floor, because it was always easier to do hard things while sitting on the floor. It was all because somehow the darn bill for the insurance premium had disappeared; it was truly disheartening the way bits of necessary paper could scoot out of sight in such a small house.

Jamie was very much of a child, she thought, with his locked tin box, but of course the policy would be in there and the number would be on the policy. The company had mentioned that they liked the policy number written on the premium checks, and with the bill for the premium gone, it was a logical place to look. Having started to make out the checks, it was a nuisance to have to stop and wait for Jamie to come home and unlock his stupid little box.

She remembered Jamie objecting to the insurance on the grounds that she certainly had more than enough money even if neither of them ever worked. But the insurance man had been nice, and when he talked about retirement income he reminded her of the things Dads used to say. It was comforting to hear talk of that kind again because Jamie, of course, didn’t speak in those terms.

It was silly, in a way, to think of a retirement income for Jamie when she would always be around with him and there was more than enough money. But after a few payments you were silly not to keep up the policy, and it cost only five hundred twice a year.

She put her tongue in the corner of her mouth and sat cross-legged, jiggling the bent paper clip in the keyhole of the box until it gave a satisfying little click.

Jamie had the darn box packed full. It was dim in the middle of the room. So she picked up the box and took it over to the window and put it on the schoolmaster desk so she could poke through the papers and find the policy.

In the matter of the box Jamie was surprisingly neat. There were big Manila folders, all labeled in Jamie’s oddly cramped writing. It didn’t seem right that such a big guy should write so small. The folder labeled “Insurance” was there, and the only thing in it was the policy she wanted. She copied the long number on the top right corner of the check, hoping that it wasn’t too long overdue.

As she put the insurance policy back — in the folder she saw another folder with her name on it. Fan. She stopped suddenly and felt all soft and ridiculously feminine. She wondered what on earth Jamie could have in a folder with her name on it.

She decided it would be fair to peek, and if it were very sentimental, she wouldn’t tell him she knew until the time seemed just right. An anniversary or something.

She took a look out at the driveway and thought that if Jamie came home unexpectedly there’d be the sound of the tires popping on the gravel and she could jam the folder back.

She gasped as she opened the folder. Sheet after sheet of Jamie’s tight little writing. She thought, He must be writing a book about me or something.

The first sheet was in a funny outline form. The date was in the left margin, neatly underlined. “August 4, 1948.” Why, that was three days after the wedding!

“Place — Glen Springs Hotel.” That was the honeymoon place. A fine place. A happy place.

“She brought with her a sweat shirt given her a year before, on her nineteenth birthday, by a boy from a college in Omaha. There was a big O in the front and she calls it her ‘nothing shirt.’ She told me she wears it when she feels like nothing at all, and when I remarked that it was a little dirty, she said that it would be bad luck to have it laundered. It would spoil the way it worked. She said there was nothing like labeling yourself when you felt like nothing at all and then, of course, you would get over it quickly.”

Fan smiled. Poor stuffy old Jamie. He had been so bewildered by her at first.

“September 10, 1948. Party with friends of hers named Lawrence. She drank very little. Mrs. Lawrence had a new fur coat which she considered a bargain. She showed it to Fan who spread it on the floor, took off her shoes and stockings and walked on it, saying to Mrs. Lawrence that it looked ‘so darn fluffy and all, and besides, before I buy a coat like this I always do this because you can tell better.’ But she seemed unable to explain what she could ‘tell.’Ю”

Jamie had acted so embarrassed that night, she remembered. But Mart Lawrence had understood.

She went on to the next page. Neat dates in the left margin. She frowned. Maybe it was for a book. Life with Fan. Something like that. And yet there seemed to be something oddly wrong with the way it had been written. So cold.

“She came home and said that she had bought a merry-go-round. It turned out that it was in bad repair, but she had the idea that the horses could be taken off of it and painted white and set on the knoll behind the house to look as if they were running in a herd. It was with the utmost difficulty that I managed to talk her out of this aberration.”

Fan heard her own nervous laugh.

Incident after incident. She thought, If anyone read this they’d think I was absolutely mad! But completely!

She did not read any more of the incidents. The last sheet was carefully labeled “Summary.” Many words were scratched out and new words written in. It seemed to be a sort of draft.

“Since I married this woman I have grown increasingly convinced that she is dangerously unstable. I have attempted in every way to get at the roots of her instability, hoping thereby to help her achieve integration. But it would, appear that there is a deep-rooted cause that will defeat any amateur efforts. Therefore I am submitting this entire report to the institution in the hope that it will enable...” The next few words were crossed out.

She thought, This is some sort of stupid joke. It must be.

Quickly she turned back to the last incident which he had recorded. It bore the day before yesterday’s date.

“She complained that the kitchen knives were dull. Last night I sharpened them for her. She watched me and seemed almost too interested, testing each one on the ball of her thumb. When I finished the largest carving knife, she took it and held it so tightly that her knuckles were white. She stared at the blade and said, ‘This is my pet. I call this one Mr. Killer.’ I feel she is approaching a stage where she actually will be dangerous.”

The folder slipped out of Fan’s hand, swooped to the floor, the papers separating and fluttering down.

She remembered that she had said those words. But Jamie had it all wrong. Completely wrong.

She sat on her heels and picked up the papers and carefully put them back in the folder. As she stood up, the hem of the red dress caught in her heel and she ripped it badly. She wanted to rip the papers and hear the sound of them tearing. But what was on the papers was in Jamie’s mind and you couldn’t rip anyone’s mind in that same way.

She sat on the floor and worked at the box with the clip until the lock clicked in reverse and the lid was again firm. With an odd consciousness of guilt, she wiped the box clean with the skirt of the ruined dress and then realized that the box was too clean and Jamie wouldn’t be looking for her fingerprints. So she put fingerprints back on the shiny surface and put the box back on his study table, remembering that it had been at a certain angle away from the wall.

In the bedroom was a full-length mirror and it was suddenly important to look at a woman with such dire possibilities. She smiled experimentally at the girl in the mirror and thought that it was very nice to have become reasonably attractive after such a horrid and scrawny and straggly beginning back in the days when it would have been so much nicer to have been a boy.

She cocked her head on one side and tried to push the file folder out of her mind by going over the bad points — the mouth that was too wide, and the eyebrows and lashes, borrowing from the hair, which were too indistinct and caused that funny naked look around the eyes. And, of course, the legs were good, and that made up a little for there not being enough in the bosom department.

Instability. That was a funny word to use. Of course there had been that darned word “elfin” and the boy who had brought her to the dance and had said that he had found her under a mushroom. She had fought against that by being very sober and serious, speaking slowly and carefully and not moving too fast and not doing the things she wanted to do for a long time. Then it was too much trouble and the devil with them and their elfin. It was better to say what you thought and do what you wanted to do all the time, although you gave up the chance of glamour and made it an unattainable word.

She saw that the red dress was a poor color for her, but she had known that all along. It was the way the dress felt that made it a pet dress. It was a horizontal rip and the hem dangled almost to her ankles in back.

She bent and ripped the skirt completely around and stepped out of the hoop of cloth. The skirt came above her knees then. She looked at the funny effect and she wanted to laugh, but there wasn’t any laughter. She thought that she could get out her very high heels, wear a tight belt and put bright spots of color on her cheeks in perfect circles, then meet Jamie at the door when he came home and tell him in a Mae West voice that she had decided on a new career.

But she remembered that Jamie had written the sheets in the folder and because he had written them nothing was any good any more.

She pulled off the dress, put on jeans and a T-shirt and pinned up her hair. Jeans made her feel businesslike and pinning up her hair always made it easier to think in an adult way — or the way adults were supposed to think.

Part of her not seeming very grown up probably came from talking when the thoughts came too fast to make the words fit; then some parts were left out and people had a little trouble following her.

She walked through the small house and it seemed most odd the way everything stood out, sharp and clear, making her wonder if people who knew they were going to die found new colors and new sharpness in familiar things. It would be nice if the medical people could invent a pill you take which would wipe out the memory of everything that happened in the hour before you took the pill. Because then there would be no folder — just the number written on the check, which was all you wanted in the first place.

The funny thing was that it was Jamie. He was so dear and familiar. So big and quiet and mild, with those weather wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and the smile wrinkles around his mouth.

There were his nice gray eyes with lights in them, the good smell of pipe and leather — all very masculine and all very symbolic of Jamie.

The college course had said that the bedroom angle was a pretty important one in a marriage and she had been afraid for a long time that it wasn’t going to work out just right for her, but she would pretend that it was right. She had thought that there would be tenderness and gentleness, but there wasn’t, and so for a long time there was nothing at all for her.

And finally, because she loved him and because she knew that any difference had to come from her, she had changed.

But she knew that the rightness depended on love and sureness. And now she would be back to nothing again because of the pages of small crabbed writing. Even at night — perhaps most especially at night — it would be impossible to tear her mind free from them.

She wanted to understand him, so she began to wonder if perhaps this were Jamie’s way of getting back at her because of the money. Jamie always thought too much about the money. But, she wondered, what is the point in brooding about something when it is there and when it has been left to you? Jamie, the poor clumsy dear, wouldn’t ever do very well in the money department. He had wanted the car agency, however, so she had bought it for him. Making it a birthday present had been a way to keep it from hurting his pride so that he wouldn’t go into one of those spells where for a week he wouldn’t say anything gay, friendly or loving but would just get so fierce in his love-making that it was like being punished for an unknown wrong.

It didn’t really matter that the agency was losing a little bit of money. She had fixed it with an accountant so that every month she could, without its being too obvious, bring up to the proper level the cash balance in the agency account. Jamie never mentioned it to her, but she knew that he was always gloomy after he looked at the statements. Maybe it hurt the poor dear to have her paying what amounted to a tuition for his business education. Perhaps it made him feel kept and inept.

She was glad that Dads had made certain that she knew how to handle money. When Jamie had wanted to take it over right after they were married, she had asked him a few things and found that he didn’t know the difference between a debenture and a contingency reserve. Perhaps it would have been better to let Jamie handle the money and take the necessary losses. But that would have been a form of disloyalty to Dads, who had been so careful about it all and who, before he died, had been so glad that he was leaving things in such good order.

But in one horrible still place in her mind, she knew that even if Jamie had handled the money he still would have written all of those pages.

It was odd to think you knew everything about somebody and then suddenly to wonder if you knew anything at all. Supposedly he had told her everything. About the home and about being on the road and about being a cowhand, a short-order cook, a racing-car driver. Then there was the war, and they made him a lieutenant on Saipan.

The boys she had considered before him seemed so horribly young and so delicate compared to Jamie. Jamie had white scars on his knuckles and he had managed, without schooling, to plug his way through so many books that he knew words even she didn’t know, that they hadn’t taught her at Wellesley.

He had picked the little town for them because he didn’t want to be around a lot of people who knew about the money. And besides, he never had liked her friends, which was understandable although you did seem sort of cut off when he didn’t want you even to write to them.

Naturally, owning the agency, Jamie Lowndes had become a member of the Rotary. He also worked on the Red Cross drive and Community Chest, and he was on two committees at the Chamber of Commerce. And it was dangerous to kid him too much about “Babbitting” around because he would go silent the moment you did.

She stiffened a little as she heard the popping of the gravel, the thud of the car door shutting and Jamie’s strong step.

Adjusting her smile, she met him at the kitchen door. She expected to view him in a new way, as she would a stranger, but he seemed very much the same Jamie. He rumpled her hair, kissed her alongside her nose and said, “Hi, Runt!”

“Hold me tight, Jamie,” she said.

His arms were strong around her, and with her ear against his chest she could hear his heart.

“A good day, darling?” she asked.

He released her. “So-so. I’m going to fire Harris. I can’t stand his damned superior attitude.”

“Doesn’t he know the business?”

“So do a lot of other people. Including me, angel.”

He went on into the bedroom. She took the chops from the refrigerator, unwrapped them and put them ready to broil. She heard the distant roar of the shower. She put out the shaker, the ice and the bottles ready for Jamie to mix the cocktails.

He sat opposite her in the booth at dinner and, animated by the drinks, talked expansively. She had poured hers down the sink, not quite knowing why.

She looked across at him and she saw that his face was dear and familiar, the gray eyes really startling against the lean weathered texture of his skin, and she knew that she could speak to him of the file she had found and all the things he had written down.

Something showed in her face, because he stopped in the middle of a sentence and said, “What’s the matter with you, anyway? Ever since I came home you’ve acted sort of pushed down. Where’s the usual bounce, my love?”

It was time to ask him. She said slowly and carefully, not wanting to mix up the words that might come too fast, “Jamie, do you think I’m...” She hunted through her mind for the word. Crazy was too abrupt. Unstable didn’t seem quite right.

As she looked at him she saw the sudden guarded look and the brilliant gray eyes seemed to cease reflecting light. His hand held his fork in mid-air and she saw that the fork did not waver at all, that it seemed to be held in a sort of vise. The thick hair on his left wrist curled over the mesh of his watch strap, and the thick wrist and hand seemed suddenly alien, strange, brutal.

Her laughter was too loud and too shrill, and she wrinkled her nose in what she feared was an inane manner as she leaned across the table and rephrased her question. “Jamie,” she said, “do you think I’m too thin?”

She saw the tension and the wariness go out of him, dropping steadily.

“Positively scrawny,” he said grinning at her, and once more the gray of his eyes began to reflect the light.

And then it turned out that it had been a poor way to change the subject since it made it necessary to eat what was on her plate, as a woman who was worried about thinness would do. The food made a gritty lump in the middle of her.

After he left the kitchen, she did the — dishes very rapidly, not calling to him to dry them as she usually did. He came to the kitchen door as she finished the last one, and as she went to go by him, he held her again. Once again her ear was against his chest, but his heart was a drum that slowly made somber sounds, sounds that rhymed with doom, though that was entirely too melodramatic a word, she realized.

In the living room he turned on the radio. His sport shirt was open at the neck and hung loose over his trousers. He wore moccasins and no socks. She took refuge behind a big shining magazine, slouching so that she could, by lifting her head just a trifle, see him over the top edge of it.

From time to time, he fiddled with the radio dial and then he put on some records. When the records were over he wanted to play canasta, which she didn’t care for because of the two packs that had to be shuffled. But she played two games on the rug and then they went to bed. She kept thinking that to anyone who might have wished to hide in the shrubbery and look through the windows this would have appeared a quiet and normal evening in a perfectly normal home — which somehow made it more frightening, as though it underlined the words “instability” and “institution.”

He was first in the big bed, for she spent a long, long time in the bathroom, merely standing and looking at herself in the mirror over the sink. It was odd to her that Jamie had retained all of his dear and familiar look and her face had been the one to become to her the face of a stranger.

When she went into the bedroom he was asleep on his back, one husky forearm across his flat stomach, his mouth open a little, the bed lamp making shadows where his cheeks were hollowed. She crept into bed by inches and took a long time turning out the light; she did not want to disturb him. She did not want to know how much had been lost.

When she went out the next day, she carried the big grass purse she had got in Mexico. It was the only one which would take the folder without bending it.

When the nurse opened the door, she went in, making herself walk slowly, making herself sit down at the indicated chair with proper adult dignity, with no trembling of lips, nothing to indicate the tightness of throat.

The door shut behind her and she stopped thinking of her manner long enough to look at the doctor’s face. It seemed a good sort of face, rather ordinary, very patient and oddly wise for one quite young.

“It’s psychiatric, I guess,” she said. “The reason why I’m here, I mean. It’s all mixed up and like looking at myself in a new way. I don’t know exactly...”

He held up his hand and the calm motion stopped her in mid-flight. He smiled and said, “Lean back in that chair and take a deep breath, Mrs. Lowndes. Start from the beginning. But let me warn you that I’m not a psychiatrist, not in the accepted three-after-noons-a-week-for-two-years sense.”

When the question was clear in her mind, she said it too quickly. “How does a person get put into an institution here?”

“That obviously isn’t the beginning, but I’ll answer it to get it out of the way. The patient commits an overt act and someone gets in touch with the police authorities who come around with the health officer and commitment is made. I happen to be the health officer also. Who is going to be committed?”

“Me. I mean, it looks that way. I mean, I don’t know if maybe I should arrange it.”

He gave her a startled look and then he smiled. His voice was mildly patronizing. “What are your symptoms, Mrs. Lowndes. Hear voices? Have bad dreams?”

“Nothing like that. Yesterday afternoon I was fine. Right up until I had to have the number to put on the check because the insurance people want it, you know. And I looked in the box after I picked the lock and there it was.”

Dr. Wiss frowned. “There was what, Mrs. Lowndes?”

“This report on me. This report on the things I do and all that.” She snapped open the bag, took out the file and put it in front of him.

As he opened it she said, “Jamie, my husband — it’s a record he’s been keeping. I didn’t know about it and I shouldn’t have looked at it, but after I did...”

Her voice trailed off. Dr. Wiss carefully read the first page and the second. He pushed a button on his desk. The nurse came in. He asked her who was waiting, and after she told him he said that she should send both of them away, making any sort of excuse she could dream up. An emergency situation had come up.

The nurse gave Fan an odd look and went out, shutting the door with emphasis.

Fan dug for cigarettes in her purse, and the match flame shook as she lit one. Dr. Wiss read slowly and carefully.

He spent a great deal of time over the last sheet. When he was quite through he closed the folder, aligned it neatly with the edge of his desk, folded his hands and stared at her.

He said, “Tell me about yourself. And about Jamie. Everything.” There was no hint of amusement in his voice.

He asked many questions, and as she grew used to his quiet manner she was able to talk more coherently.

The questions stopped. “Am... am I dangerous?” she asked weakly.

“You need help, Mrs. Lowndes.”

“I want to know if I should tell Jamie that I found the folder.”

He shook his head firmly. “Under no circumstances, Mrs. Lowndes, will you mention this folder.”

“If I were... well, if I went to one of those places for a sort of rest, perhaps Jamie would think that I was all right afterward and—”

“You love him very much, don’t you?”

“It’s a funny question to ask me. Yes, I do, but he has things so wrong about me. Yet perhaps no one looks at himself the way he actually is. I do a lot of dumb things and I don’t think about them, but I’ve always heard that the people in those places keep saying that they’re sane and maybe I’m just...”

“I’ve been trying to decide on a course of action, Mrs. Lowndes. His last few entries have a sense of immediacy. This thing is coming to a head. I suggest that you go along as though nothing had happened. When it comes to a head, I’ll be called.”

There had been something about the calmness of Dr. Wiss that gave her the strength to get through the next two days, even to forget for a few minutes at a time that she walked on the outer edge of her world.

She did the customary errands and her usual work, but she felt as though she were constructed of concealed wires and braces, with only emptiness underneath.

On the third evening, Jamie was silent at dinner. And he made no cocktails. She had meekly suggested a movie but he had not answered.

She cleared the table and he walked into the other room. But there was no rattle of newspaper. She heard his heavy tread and knew that he was pacing back and forth.

All at once the night outside was far too dark and the nearest neighbor was too far down the road. She was shocked to find that fear of Jamie had been growing in her and that now the fear was so strong that his pacing brought back a time when she had clutched Dads’ hand while they watched a tiger at the zoo, one that never stopped walking. But, of course, it was dopey to think of Jamie as a tiger. “Tiger, tiger, burning bright...” Then there was something about the fastness of the night. Or the stillness of the night. Or the silence.

The steps were louder and she knew that he had come out to the kitchen. She squeezed the plate she was drying so tight that it snapped inside the dish towel.

She turned when he yanked open the drawer near the sink.

Jamie’s mouth was always firm, but it had gone slack in a funny way. It looked moisty and was drooping as though the underlip were too heavy. He pulled out the biggest carving knife, the one that had been a wedding-present and had come with a spiked platter on which you impaled the roast.

He looked at it and she could hear the thin whir of the electric clock above the table in the booth, the drip of rain water into the cistern in the cellar, the wind that clicked the autumn branches of the maple.

He turned slowly toward her and the gray eyes were without light. His hand clapped over her wrist before she sensed that he had moved. The plate slipped and shattered into even smaller pieces on the linoleum at her feet. His hand moved down and covered hers, held it so tightly that the fingers were rigid, the nails protruding slightly between his thumb and first finger.

He yanked her hand up to his face and drew the nails down his cheek. She felt the rasp of her nails against his beard, felt the scraped flesh pack under her nails, saw the lines that were white at first turn pink, then dark red as the blood welled through the skin.

“You shouldn’t have done that, Fan,” he whispered.

He let go of her hand and she stumbled back, her hip catching the sharp corner of the cabinet.

He put one hand on the edge of the sink and held the knife against his wrist, the handle facing away from him. He brought down the blade in a gradual curve, slicing the tightly-curled hair, grating across the mesh strap of his watch, curving down across the back of his hand toward the little finger where, with a sudden twist, he sent it deep and the red blood spurted toward the sink.

She clenched her fists tight against the angle of her jaw and screamed again and again.

The blood hit the linoleum in heavy clots, but with no expression he raised his right fist after he had set the knife aside and hit her, his fist covering temple, ear and cheek, exploding the world into spinning fragments.

She knew that the screaming had stopped and she was glad because it had been too shrill. She was thinking that this was how it was to be knocked out and it was different than she had supposed because everything wasn’t black at all. It was just sort of misty and far away. She knew that she was face down, with her cheek against the coolness of linoleum, and across her lips was a strand of her hair which she wanted to blow away but couldn’t. She felt her hand picked up, her fingers were squeezed around a handle — and then the object she had touched was gone.

The coolness of the linoleum was good, and she could feel a little tremor in it which was puzzling at first and then quite clear, because of the faraway sound of footsteps.

The voice was distant also. Distant and yet excited. Hoarse.

She pushed herself up but fell over and said, “Ow!” as she hit her head against the low catch on the cupboard door. But the noise she made was lost in the diminishing growl of a siren, stopping practically right in your lap the way they did it on that mystery program.

With her back pushed up against the cupboard, then, she saw the three of them standing there. Jamie had a white face and he held his left wrist tightly, but the blood still came through his fingers.

He said, “I... I had to hit her. I was afraid she’d come out of it before you got here.”

One of the men in uniform moved toward her so quickly that it frightened her. He stopped and kicked the knife across the kitchen. It had been close to her but she hadn’t seen it.

“Jamie cut himself!” she said loudly, knowing that her voice had a funny singsong quality, like a memorized school recitation.

“Take it easy, lady,” the biggest one said.

The other one took a dish towel from the rack and tied the ends together. He slipped it up over Jamie’s arm and put a table knife through it and sat down holding the knife which was twisted in the towel. Jamie’s head sagged and his shoulders shook and his sobs were hoarse.

The two of them came to her and one of them helped her up. The big one had a funny smile. He said, “Do you think this will fit you? Try it on. I’ll bet it’s too big.”

It was a white jacket sort of thing and it didn’t look entirely clean and she did not want it on. She backed away but they took her and pushed her arms down in the sleeves. The sleeves had no place for the hands to come out but had long cords that dangled. They pulled her arms around so that she was gently hugging herself and they tied the cords at the small of her back.

“Is it necessary, Al?” the smaller one asked.

“You can’t tell about ’em,” Al replied. “Once I see a woman smaller than this one it takes four guys to hold. And the lieutenant says, ‘No chance at all.’ ”

Her head hurt and the look of the blood had made her ill. The kitchen swam slowly around and around and the glare of the lights on the sink hurt her eyes. She knew that her arms were going to go to sleep, and she wondered what you did if you stumbled with one of those things on since there would be no way to get your balance and keep from falling.

Dr. Wiss came in and she tried to say hello to him, but then she remembered that Jamie shouldn’t know that she knew him.

Dr. Wiss came over and put his hands on her shoulders and looked down into her face. There was no reason for crying but she felt the sting at the corners of her eyes.

He gently turned her around and she felt him loosen the cords.

The one called Al said angrily, “What the hell are you doing, Doc? She’s all wrapped and ready to go. You just sign the paper.”

Dr. Wiss threw the jacket at the cop and turned away from Fan. She leaned against the cabinet and rubbed her arms.

Jamie lifted his head as Dr. Wiss came over. Dr. Wiss said, “Hold out your arm.”

Jamie meekly held out his arm. The bleeding had stopped and his hand looked oddly shrunken and white. With his thumbs, Dr. Wiss gently separated the edges of the cut at several places along its length. Jamie didn’t change expression.

Dr. Wiss straightened up. He jerked a thumb at Jamie. “He’s your package, boys. Self-inflicted. The cut is the same depth all the way along. You just don’t find that kind of cut unless it was done carefully.”

Jamie said brokenly, “I knew this was going to happen. I didn’t get a doctor for her because I was afraid she’d be sent away.”

Al said, “Doc, maybe we ought to take you.”

Dr. Wiss smiled bleakly. He put his knuckles under Jamie’s chin, lifted his face, leaned over and said, “Jamie, we know all about the reports you write on her. We know all about the way you cut yourself. We know what you’re trying to do to her.”

She watched Jamie’s face. The light hit it squarely. The gray eyes slowly glazed.

The right arm moved like a thick snake. Dr. Wiss arched back and fell heavily. The stool spun, hit the smaller policeman across the shins with such force that he toppled across it.

Jamie seemed to fall across the policeman, but when he rolled into a crouching position he held a heavy revolver. Jamie made a flickering motion at Al with the gun and backed toward the door. He gave Fan a curiously dead look, and he was gone.

The moment he was out of sight the kitchen exploded with the silver shrill of Al’s whistle. Dr. Wiss stirred and sat up. He started to speak, and Al held up his hand for silence. They heard it. The slam of a shot and an answering shot almost on top of it. Al and the smaller policeman ran for the door.

Dr. Wiss moved to catch Fan as she swayed.

Al walked slowly when he came back. He looked at Wiss and said, “Frenchy heard the whistle just before Mr. Lowndes showed. He drew and yelled for him to drop his gun. Instead the guy takes a snap at Frenchy and — well — he ducked right into Frenchy’s return. Frenchy meant to get him in the legs. He got him too good when the guy ducked through.”

Fan stood and her heart seemed wrapped in tiny strands of glass. She couldn’t take a breath because that would break the strands. But something inside her spun and fell and she was hammering at the chest of Dr. Wiss with both hands. She couldn’t curse him because of the sounds which filled her throat, halfway between tears and laughter.

It was a quiet room and the days were beyond counting, oddly mixed up with the sting of a needle in her arm and then the slow sway down into darkness.

The bright kitchen was a clear square of memory against the blackness. But it had moved off so that the tiny figures who did unbelievable things in that kitchen were no longer real but seemed only tiny theater people, performing over and over again the same incredible drama.

Jamie was a far-away sadness and he could smile into her dreams out of the night.

In the sunlit morning, while she was propped up and idly turning the pages of a picture magazine they had brought her, Dr. Wiss came in. He sat beside the bed and his calm was something which seemed to reach out and hold her.

“It was Jamie who was mad,” she said.

“Sick is a better word, Fan. He’d been sick for a long time. I knew it when I read those notes.”

“But why? Why?” she asked helplessly.

“A feeling of inadequacy probably. I believe that he hated and resented you. And I suspect that he might have killed you had he not thought of this other means of removing you.”

Fan shivered. “But they wouldn’t have... put me away for good.”

“Who can tell? You’re sensitive, emotional. And his actions would have given you an almost insoluble problem. Who knows how any of us would react?”

Something unguarded in his tone made her turn quickly and look at him. There was a pleading about him, but as she looked at him he quickly assumed the mask of calm.

She said, “I’ll talk plainly this time. I’m going away and by myself I’m going to heal up the open hurts. When they’re healed, I’m going to ignore any scars there may be. It may take a long while. But when I feel whole again, I’m going to come back here.”

Their eyes met for a few seconds. He touched her hand — so briefly that he seemed hardly to have touched it at all. He left the room. Fan turned on her side and put the hand he had touched under her cheek and closed her eyes.

Content

John D. MacDonald
Mr. Killer