“Yes, yes, and when I catch him you’ll find out how wrong you are, damn you!”
Dr. Kessler shrugged. “It’s so easy to find out who they are, Richie. Do what anyone else would do — hire a private investigator.”
Richie stared for half a minute. “Why... how can you — a doctor — suggest such a filthy thing? How can you even think of it?”
“The question is, Richie, why haven’t you thought of it?”
“No! Do you think I’d really have some stranger, some outsider, sneak and spy on my — on Lara — to find out... to see what she...”
“Sorry, Richie. Your time’s up.”
Richie straightened, snarling, “My time’s up here, period. I’ve had it with you, doctor. You can’t do me any good. You don’t even know why I came here, do you? I came here hoping to be able to help Lara. She’s the one who is sick. She blames me for everything and won’t admit she needs help. But you don’t understand and you can’t help, and I don’t need your help. I know what to do.”
“You may feel differently tomorrow, Richie. I hope so. Call me whenever you feel like it. And—”
Richie went out and slammed the door. His squatty shape blurred on the other side of the frosted pane and seemed to drift away through murky water.
Dr. Kessler moved a hand as if to call him back. Then he sank onto the couch while the office slowly turned gray and the aching blood-throb pulsed past his left temple. He massaged the ache ritualistically with the fingertips of his left hand, the way his mother used to do, knowing it was anger at himself — and fear. Also guilt and uncertainty, for losing his professional control, and giving in to exasperation — letting Richie have such an unprepared shocking broadside of cold truth.
Really shook Richie up, though, the doctor reflected. Shocked through his defenses a little. Really frightened him, without warning, without preparation. Suddenly switching from the role of warm, supportive, sympathetic listener to hard, uncompromising, directive coercion. Sometimes that can be effective; so can shock therapy — sometimes. Coercive, manipulative, authoritarian methods can also be dangerous. He really did not approve of the technique, especially with a patient about whom he still knew so little. It was almost like performing a surgical operation in the dark. Sometimes it seemed necessary to take risks, but he should be ready to assume responsibility for the result.
Dr. Kessler stood up heavily. He kept massaging his temple as he went to the window and opened the Venetian blind and realized that it was the first time all day that he’d looked out on the world. It had been snowing for hours, and it was nearly dark. There was no sky or earth in the falling quiet, only sifting snow. The world could end and he would never know it as he sat immersed in the debris of some wrecked personality.
He sat at his desk, switched on the green-shaded lamp, and a tatter of white caught his attention. The tom bit of shirt cuff fluttered on the rug near the door like a dead moth.
After peering at it for a moment, Dr. Kessler picked up the phone book and flopped it onto his desk. He riffled nervously through the yellow pages.
Dreams, delusions, lies — they are helpful clues to the unconscious; but first you must have a fair idea what is or is not true.
Ice Cream... Ignition Service... Illustrators... Incinerators... Insurance...
Investigators — Private.
“Flynn Detective Agency,” he read. “Investigations made everywhere. Domestic troubles, personal relations, shadowing, tracing missing persons, locating, surveillance. Skillfully performed — low rates — quick results. Strictly confidential.”
He called and told Mr. Flynn to start work at once, that same Friday night, even though it would count as a full day, at fifty dollars a day plus expenses. When Flynn found out anything — or an indisputable absence of anything — he was to phone Dr. Kessler at home or at his office.
Dr. Kessler waited with a tension of which he was conscious even while listening to other patients. Richie did not turn up for his Monday appointment, nor for his Tuesday or Thursday appointments, and he didn’t call.
Mr. Flynn phoned Thursday night. “Mrs. Brocia never played around, I can assure you of that. And I’m absolutely sure she isn’t playing around now. I’ll have a full report for you tomorrow, but first I want to check something out. Something’s weird here, doctor.”
“Weird?”
“Yes, I think it’s weird. I’ll call you later.”
Friday morning, as Dr. Kessler showed his ten fifty patient out, a heavy, solid man wearing a dark suit of uncertain vintage and a porkpie hat stood in the waiting room.
“Dr. Kessler?” he said softly. His face seemed dour and inflexible, with a permanent cleft of distrust between thick eyebrows.
“Yes,” Dr. Kessler said, noticing that the man also had an odd sadness marking the corners of his eyes.
He opened a worn wallet. A golden badge glittered. “Detective Bates,” he said. “Homicide.”
Dr. Kessler felt a drop of sweat slide down the left side of his nose. It loosened a nervous flush down his back that rippled painfully. “Homicide?”
“We just took Richard Brocia into custody on suspicion of murder. You know him?”
Dr. Kessler realized that his mouth was open and the inside of it was dry. “He’s a patient of mine.”
“So Mr. Brocia has been telling us.”
Dr. Kessler touched his fingers to his left temple. “Can you tell me what happened? Can I see him? I’d like to see him as soon as possible.”
“He said he didn’t want to see you,” Detective Bates said without expression. “But he wanted me to give you this.” He held out a folded paper.
Dr. Kessler took it, unfolded it, and read:
Dear Dr. Kessler,
You said I was a coward, afraid, couldn’t do it. Well, I got lover-boy, all right. I got a gun and I shot him seven times, so he won’t come messing around any more. You were so wrong about me. You just never understood anything.
“I’m... I’m—” Dr. Kessler held the paper out as if he didn’t know what to do with it. Detective Bates took it, folded it, and put it back into his pocket as Dr. Kessler went on, “—I’m sorry... very sorry to hear this. Who—”
“His wife, first of all.”
“Lara?”
“Found her buried, or rather half buried, in the basement. Medical examiner says she’s probably been buried there for about three months.”
Something skidded slightly.
“The other victim was a guy who evidently tried to dig her out. Brocia came into the basement from the side door and surprised the intruder and started shooting. The victim ran, and died on the stairs leading up out of the basement.”
He held out a card. “He had your calling card on him, Dr. Kessler. You know anything about him? A private investigator, name of Flynn?”
Miss Evangeline and the Monster
by Leo P. Kelley
Miss Evangeline Sabrina Withermane couldn’t believe her eyes as she looked out the window of her bedroom and saw the flying saucer circle, spin to the left a little, and then set down just as pretty as you please in the middle of her front lawn flowerbed with not so much as a by-your-leave.
“Well, I never!” she exclaimed aloud. “Right in the middle of my jack-in-the-pulpits. They’re ruined beyond repair, no doubt about it.”
She didn’t wait for the little green men to disembark. There simply wasn’t time. She would have to make a report to the police at once. It was urgent. Why, perhaps the whole town was being invaded — the entire planet maybe.
She scuttled downstairs, picked up the telephone in the hall, dialed the familiar number of the police station, and waited for the ringing to begin. When it didn’t after two agonizing minutes, she remembered. They had disconnected her; nonpayment of bills or some such nonsense. She had told the phone company that she was certain she had paid her bills, but they insisted she hadn’t — not for months. Being the lady that she was, she had refused to argue further and spent the rest of the day in a blue sulk.