Mr. Murder

“patients,” people with communication problems rather than neuroses or psychoses, they remained bewildered for the first half an hour or so. Eventually the room—and, she liked to think, her relaxed approach—won them over.

Paige’s two o’clock appointment, the last of the day, was with Samantha Acheson and her eight-year-old son, Sean. Samantha’s first husband, Sean’s father, had died shortly after the boy’s fifth birthday. Two and a half years later, Samantha remarried, and Sean’s behavioral problems began virtually on the wedding day, an obvious result of his misguided conviction that she had betrayed his dead father and might one day betray him as well. For five months, Paige had met twice a week with the boy, winning his trust, opening lines of communication, so they could discuss the pain and fear and anger he was unable to talk about with his mother. Today, Samantha was to participate for the first time, which was an important step because progress was usually swift once the child was ready to say to the parent what he had said to his counselor.

She sat in the armchair she reserved for herself and reached to the end table for the reproduction-antique telephone, which was both a working phone and an intercom to the reception lounge. She intended to ask Millie, her secretary, to send in Samantha and Sean Acheson, but the intercom buzzed before she lifted the receiver.

“Marty’s on line one, Paige.”

“Thank you, Millie.” She pressed line one. “Marty?”

He didn’t respond.

“Marty, are you there?” she asked, looking to see if she had punched the correct button.

Line one was lit, but there was only silence on it.

“Marty?”

“I like the sound of your voice, Paige. So melodic.”

He sounded . . . odd.

Her heart began to knock against her ribs, and she struggled to suppress the fear that swelled in her. “What did the doctor say?”

“I like your picture.”

“My picture?” she said, baffled.

“I like your hair, your eyes.”

“Marty, I don’t—”

“You’re what I need.”

Her mouth had gone dry. “Is something wrong?”

Suddenly he spoke very fast, running sentences together: “I want to kiss you, Paige, kiss your breasts, hold you against me, make love to you, I will make you very happy, I want to be in you, it will be just like the movies, bliss.”

“Marty, honey, what—”

He hung up, cutting her off.

As surprised and confused as she was worried, Paige listened to the dial tone before returning the handset to the cradle.

What the hell?

It was two o’clock, and she doubted that his appointment with Guthridge had lasted an hour; therefore, he hadn’t phoned her from the doctor’s office. On the other hand, he wouldn’t have had time to drive all the way home, which meant he had called her en route.

She lifted the handset and punched in the number of his car phone. He answered on the second ring, and she said, “Marty, what the hell’s wrong?”

“Paige?”

“What was that all about?”

“What was what all about?”

“Kissing my breasts, for God’s sake, just like the movies, bliss.”

He hesitated, and she could hear the faint rumble of the Ford’s engine, which meant he was in transit. After a beat he said, “Kid, you’ve lost me.”

“A minute ago, you call here, acting as if—”

“No. Not me.”

“You didn’t call here?”

“Nope.”

“Is this a joke?”

“You mean, somebody called, said he was me?”

“Yes, he—”

“Did he sound like me?”

“Yes.”

“Exactly like me?”

Paige thought about that for a moment. “Well, not exactly. He sounded a lot like you and then . . . not quite like you. It’s hard to explain.”

“I hope you hung up on him when he got obscene.”

“You—” She corrected herself: “He hung up first. Besides, it wasn’t an obscene call.”

“Oh? What was that about kissing your breasts?”

“Well, it didn’t seem obscene ’cause I thought he was you.”

“Paige, refresh my memory—when was the last time I called you at work to talk about kissing your breasts?”

She laughed. “Well . . . never, I guess,” and when he laughed, too, she added, “but maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea now and then, liven up the day a little.”

“They are very kissable.”

“Thank you.”

“So’s your tush.”

“You’ve got me blushing,” she said, and it was true.

“So’s your—”

“Now this is getting obscene,” she said.

“Yeah, but I’m the victim.”

“How do you figure?”

“You called me and pretty much demanded that I talk dirty.”

“I guess I did. Women’s liberation, you know.”

“Where will it all end?”

A disturbing possibility had occurred to Paige, but she was reluctant to express it: Perhaps the call had been from Marty, made on his car phone while he was in a fugue state similar to the one on Saturday afternoon when he’d monotonously repeated those two words into a tape recorder for seven minutes and later had no memory of it.

She suspected the same thought had just occurred to him because his sudden reticence matched hers.

At last Paige broke the silence. “What did Paul Guthridge have to say?”

“He thinks it’s probably stress.”

“Thinks?”

“He’s setting up tests for tomorrow or Wednesday.”

“But he wasn’t worried?”

“No. Or he pretended he wasn’t.”

Paul’s informal style was not reflected in the way he imparted essential information to his patients. He was always direct and to the point. Even when Charlotte had been so ill, when some doctors might have soft-pedaled the more alarming possibilities to let the parents adjust slowly to the worst-case scenario, Paul had bluntly assessed her situation with Paige and Marty. He knew that no half-truth or false optimism should ever be mistaken for compassion. If Paul didn’t appear to be more than ordinarily concerned about Marty’s condition and symptoms— that was good news.