Mr. Murder

alabaster fingers trailed on the carpet beside the padded booth of a dining nook. Higher up: the white-haired body of a man slumped over the bloodstained table.

4

Paige got up from the dining-room table, went to the nearest window, tilted the shutter slats to make wider gaps, and stared out at the gradually fading storm. She was looking into the backyard, where there were no lights. She could see nothing clearly except the tracks of rain on the other side of the glass, which seemed like gobs of spit, maybe because she wanted to spit at Lowbock, right in his face.

She had more hostility in her than did Marty, not just toward the detective but toward the world. All her adult life, she had been struggling to resolve the conflicts of childhood that were the source of her anger. She had made considerable progress. But in the face of provocation like this, she felt the resentments and bitterness of her childhood rising anew, and her directionless anger found a focus in Lowbock, making it difficult for her to keep her temper in check.

Conscious avoidance—facing the window, keeping the detective out of sight—was a proven technique for maintaining self-control. Counselor, counsel thyself. Reducing the level of interaction was supposed to reduce anger as well.

She hoped it worked better for her clients than it worked for her, because she was still seething.

At the table with the detective, Marty seemed determined to be reasonable and cooperative. Being Marty, he would cling as long as possible to the hope that Lowbock’s mysterious antagonism could be assuaged. Angry as he might be himself—and he was angrier than she had ever seen him—he still had tremendous faith in the power of good intentions and words, especially words, to restore and maintain harmony under any circumstances.

To Lowbock, Marty said, “It had to be him drank the beers.”

“Him?” Lowbock asked.

“The look-alike. He must’ve been in the house a couple of hours while I was out.”

“So the intruder drank the three Coronas?”

“I emptied the trash last night, Sunday night, so I know they aren’t empties left from the weekend.”

“This guy, he broke into your house because . . . how did he say it exactly?”

“He said he needed his life.”

“Needed his life?”

“Yes. He asked me why I’d stolen his life, who was I.”

“So he breaks in here,” Lowbock said, “agitated, talking crazy, well-armed . . . but while he’s waiting for you to come home, he decides to kick back and have three bottles of Corona.”

Without turning away from the window, Paige said, “My husband didn’t have those beers, Lieutenant. He’s not a drunk.”

Marty said, “I’d certainly be willing to take a Breathalyzer test, if you’d like. If I drank that many beers, one after another, my blood-alcohol level would show it.”

“Well,” Lowbock said, “if we were going to do that, we should have tested you first thing. But it’s not necessary, Mr. Stillwater. I’m certainly not saying you were intoxicated, that you imagined the whole thing under the influence.”

“Then what are you saying?” Paige demanded.

“Sometimes,” Lowbock observed, “people drink to give themselves the courage to face a difficult task.”

Marty sighed. “Maybe I’m dense, Lieutenant. I know there’s an unpleasant implication in what you just said, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what I’m supposed to infer from it.”

“Did I say I meant for you to infer anything?”

“Would you just please stop being cryptic and tell us why you’re treating me like this, like a suspect instead of a victim?”

Lowbock was silent.

Marty pressed the issue: “I know this situation is incredible, this dead-ringer business, but if you’d just bluntly tell me the reasons you’re so skeptical, I’m sure I could eliminate your doubts. At least I could try.”

Lowbock was unresponsive for so long that Paige almost turned from the window to have a look at him, wondering if his expression would reveal something about the meaning of his silence.

Finally he said, “We live in a litigious world, Mr. Stillwater. If a cop makes the slightest mistake handling a delicate situation, the department gets sued and sometimes the officer’s career gets flushed away. It happens to good men.”

“What’ve lawsuits got to do with this? I’m not going to sue anyone, Lieutenant.”

“Say a guy catches a call about an armed robbery in progress, so he answers it, does his duty, finds himself in real jeopardy, getting shot at, blows away the perp in self-defense. And what happens next?”

“I guess you’ll tell me.”

“Next thing you know, the perp’s family and the ACLU are after the department about excessive violence, want a financial settlement. They want the officer dismissed, even put the poor sucker on trial, accuse him of being a fascist.”

Marty said, “It stinks. I agree with you. These days it seems like the world’s been turned upside-down but —”

“If the same cop doesn’t respond with force, and some bystander gets hurt ’cause the perp wasn’t blown away at the first opportunity, the department gets sued for negligence by the victim’s family, and the same activists come down on our necks like a ton of bricks, but for different reasons. People say the cop didn’t pull the trigger fast enough because he’s insensitive to the minority group the victim was a part of, would’ve been quicker if the victim was white, or they say he’s incompetent, or he’s a coward.”

“I wouldn’t want your job. I know how difficult it is,” Marty commiserated. “But no cop has shot or failed to shoot anyone here, and I don’t see what this has to do with our situation.”

“A cop can get in as much trouble making accusations as he can shooting perps,” Lowbock said.

“So your point is, you’re skeptical of my story, but you won’t say why until you’ve got absolute proof it’s bullshit.”

“He won’t even admit to being skeptical,” Paige said sourly. “He won’t take any position, one way or the other, because taking a position means taking a risk.”

Marty said, “But, Lieutenant, how are we going to get done with this, how am I going to be able to convince you all of this happened just as I said it did, if you won’t tell me why you doubt it?”

“Mr. Stillwater, I haven’t said that I doubt you.”

“Jesus,” Paige said.

“All I ask,” Lowbock said, “is that you do your best to answer my questions.”

“And all we ask,” Paige said, still keeping her back to the man, “is that you find the lunatic who tried to kill Marty.”

“This look-alike.” Lowbock spoke the word flatly, without any inflection whatsoever, which seemed more sarcastic than if he had said it with a heavy sneer.

“Yes,” Paige hissed, “this look-alike.”

She didn’t doubt Marty’s story, as wild as it was, and she knew that somehow the existence of the dead- ringer was tied to—and would ultimately explain—her husband’s fugue, bizarre nightmare, and other recent problems.

Now her fury at the detective faded as she began to accept that the police, for whatever reason, were not going to help them. Anger gave way to fear because she realized they were up against something exceedingly strange and were going to have to deal with it entirely on their own.

5

Clocker returned from the front of the Road King to report that the keys were in the ignition in the ON position, but the fuel tank was evidently empty and the battery dead. The cabin lights could not be turned on.