Gary Brandner

by Doomstalker (v2. 0) (epub)

  "Aren't you going to ask if it was good for me?" she said.

  He opened one eye and looked at her. "You mean it's supposed to be good for the woman?"

  "Hah." She tweaked his nose and lay down beside him. "I could tell how it was for you," she said. "It's been awhile, hasn't it?"

  "Awhile. I've got to go."

  "You'd better take a shower here. Wives can always smell another woman."

  ***

  Why, Kettering wondered on the way home, did he not feel a greater sense of guilt? He had just committed flagrant adultery. He had been unfaithful. He had broken his marriage vows. As he drove unhurriedly through the sparse traffic, he felt only a fine sense of being satisfied. His foremost concern was when and how he would again see Charity Moline.

  "Face it," he told himself, "I'm a bastard." He decided that when Mavis questioned his whereabouts, he would tell her the truth. There would be justified anger, recriminations, maybe tears. Afterwards she would forgive him, or she would not. He would play it either way.

  The house was dark and silent when he entered. The door to Trevor's room was closed. Kettering put down an impulse to look in on him as he had when the boy was little. There had been a warm father-son friendship then for a couple of short years. Where had it gone? he wondered. Did all fathers wonder the same thing?

  Mavis was curled on her side in her customary fetal sleeping position. She moaned softly in her sleep when Kettering came into the room, but did not stir.

  He went to the bathroom and undressed without taking any special care to be quiet. When he had hung up his clothes and pulled on the pajama bottoms he slept in, he stood at the bedside looking down at his wife. She still had not awakened. He cleared his throat loudly.

  Mavis rolled over and looked up at him. "Oh, hi," she said raggedly. "You're home pretty late."

  Well, here it comes, he thought. Let's take it like a man.

  "Yeah, it's after three."

  "I know. Well, come to bed."

  "Almost three-thirty."

  "You have to be up in four hours, so come to bed."

  "I didn't mean to wake you," he lied.

  "Don't worry about it."

  She turned her back to him again. Her breathing deepened and became regular, and Kettering knew she was asleep again.

  What the hell, don't you even care if I was out fucking another woman?

  Kettering smiled grimly at the realization that he was really looking to be punished and Mavis had cheated him out of it.

  I am turning weird, he thought. Maybe I should go see Doc Protius.

  And he slept, his dreams filled with the sensual memories of Charity Moline.

  Chapter 5

  The office occupied by Dr. Edmund Protius was on the second floor of the West Valley Police Building. It was, by design, more comfortable and less formal than those of the police officials. The desk was an antique of deep-shined cherry wood. It held a calendar, an oversize ashtray, a cup full of pens and pencils, and framed photos of the doctor's wife and two children.

  The chairs were comfortable creaky leather. The colors of the office were masculine and designed to relax the visitor - muted brown and maroon. On the wall were prints of seascapes and rolling meadowlands.

  There was no psychiatric couch, the books on the shelf were not medical texts, no white-enamel drug cabinet marked this as the office of a doctor. It might have been the work space of a smalltown banker, or a real estate man who specialized in middle-class homes.

  It was difficult to be ill at ease in the relaxing atmosphere of this office, but Sgt. Brian Kettering was managing it.

  The detective prowled the room, touched the books, studied the prints, peered out the window at the patch of green in the park next door. He lit a Marlboro, drew in a lungful of smoke, cleared his throat.

  Dr. Protius, meanwhile, leaned back comfortably in the burgundy leather high-backed swivel chair and waited for him to speak first.

  "This is probably a mistake," Kettering said. "I'm just taking up your time."

  "Sure you are. What of it? That's what the city pays me for. Why don't you sit down before you wear out my carpet."

  Kettering dropped into one of the chairs with a weary sigh. Protius swiveled to face him.

  "What's on your mind, Brian?"

  "You remember when I saw you in the hall yesterday?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "You asked me how things were at home, and I told you fine?"

  "I think that was your description. Also 'beautiful.'"

  "I lied."

  "That so?"

  "Things are a mess."

  "Ah." Dr. Protius placed his fingertips together and pursed his lips.

  "Do you have to do that wise-doctor pose?" Kettering said.

  "Sorry." Protius unpursed his lips and leaned back, folding his hands across his chest.

  "I slept with another woman last night." Kettering got the words out in a burst and waited. "Not my wife."

  "Is that supposed to shock me or something?" Protius said at last.

  "I don't know."

  "I've been working with cops for five years. Marital hanky-panky is not exactly foreign to my ears."

  "Okay, so you've heard it before." Kettering sulked.

  "Or do you want me to give you absolution? Hey, I'm not the chaplain. Just what is it you're looking for, Brian?"

  "I don't know," he said again. "Last night I had the feeling what I wanted was for Mavis to get mad. Yell at me. Throw me out. React somehow. I don't think she gave a damn where I was or what I was doing."

  Protius said nothing.

  Kettering cleared his throat again. "Anyway, it's not the problem at home that brings me here. I can handle that. And it's not the business yesterday with that knife artist."

  "So what are you doing here, Brian?"

  "It's the thing on my door."

  "On your door," the doctor repeated.

  "Something like the shape of a man. Only not a man. In red."

  "Red paint?"

  "I guess."

  The doctor prompted him gently. "In the shape of a man, you say."

  "Sort of a man. Only not really. Ugly. Ominous." Kettering ground out his cigarette and looked into the serious eyes of the doctor. "Something weird is happening to me, Ed."

  "You're sure it wasn't gang graffiti? We're starting to get more of that junk in the Valley."

  "No, nothing like that. I just wish it were. This was a message meant for me. Personally."

  "How do you know that?"

  "I can't answer that. I just know."

  "Okay. Tell me what you felt when you saw it."

  "I felt like ... it found me."

  "What found you?"

  Kettering started to answer, closed his mouth. Finally he said, "I don't know. Something."

  "What did you almost say?"

  "Nothing. Just foolishness."

  "Let me be the judge of that, okay?"

  "When I was a kid I had a ... I guess you'd call it a personal boogeyman. I called it ... aah, this is silly."

  "Come on, Brian. You've made it this far. Let's hear the rest of it."

  "I called it the Doomstalker." Kettering faced the doctor, challenging him. "Some imagination, huh?"

  Protius ignored the question. "Where did it come from?"

  "An uncle of mine used to tell me stories about it."

  "He gave it the name?"

  "I don't remember if it was him or if I did after my father ..."

  Dr. Protius waited ten seconds before saying, "After your father what?"

  "He died."

  "Mm-hmm."

  "I, uh, I saw him die. Sort of."

  "Tell me about it."

  "You've got time?"

  "I've got as much time as you have."

  Kettering lit another cigarette, inhaled deeply, coughed, put it out. He leaned back in the chair and fixed his gaze on a spot above the psychiatrist's head.

  "Actually, I don't remember all that much. It was
a church picnic. You knew my father was a minister?"

  Protius nodded.

  "I was at the picnic with my mother and my sister Jessie. I was six years old ..."

  Protius listened without comment as Kettering spoke haltingly about the long-ago summer day. He told of being sent home with the message for his father. "... I was in a hurry to get back to the picnic. I remember I ran all the way home, but even before I got there I started feeling funny ... scared."

  "Scared of what?"

  "I don't know. There was no reason. But I remember feeling that something really bad was going to happen."

  "And did it?"

  "Yeah. My father died. And I saw it. I think."

  "You think?"

  "Everything gets hazy after I went up on the porch. It's like a dream I can almost remember, but not quite."

  "Tell me as much as you can remember," said the doctor.

  Kettering shrugged. "There isn't much more. There were voices. My father sounded ... different than I'd ever heard him. He was swearing, and he never swore. I mean, he was a minister."

  "You said voices. Plural."

  "Did I?"

  "How many voices?"

  "Two." Kettering looked at him sharply. "How did I remember that?"

  "Who was the other voice?"

  "I don't know."

  "Close your eyes. Try to hear it again."

  Kettering closed his eyes, opened them almost immediately. "It's no use. I don't remember."

  The doctor pinned him with his sharp gray eyes. "Was it the voice of the Doomstalker?"

  One eyelid twitched just before Kettering gave a loud, unconvincing bark of laughter. "How would I know?" He sobered. "Doc, I told you the Doomstalker was just a name I put to a story told by my uncle."

  "Right. And the thing on your door, is that a made-up story?"

  "No."

  "So what's the connection?"

  "That's what I was hoping you could tell me."

  "It doesn't work that way, Brian. All I can do is try to help you remember what you already know."

  "For that you went to twelve years of medical school?"

  "Something like that."

  The two men sat without speaking for several minutes.

  Kettering moved as though to rise. "I guess that's it. Thanks, Doc."

  "Sit down a minute."

  Kettering obeyed, surprised at the sudden authority in the doctor's voice.

  "How have you been feeling physically?"

  "Fine. Well, I've had headaches lately. A little trouble sleeping."

  "Starting when?"

  "I don't know. About a month ago."

  "Anything special happen then?"

  "No. Well, things got a little chilly between Mavis and me. No big thing, just the usual husband and wife stuff."

  "Anything else?"

  "Nothing I can think of."

  "Nothing related to your childhood in Indiana?"

  "Nah. I've got no connections to Prescott. Haven't even thought about the town in a long time."

  Dr. Protius shook a Salem out of the pack. He leaned forward across the desk. "Got a light?"

  Kettering dug a book of matches out of his pants pocket. As he handed the matchbook across the desk, his right hand began to quiver, then to shake violently. The matchbook fell to the desk. Kettering grabbed the wrist with his left hand and held on until the other steadied.

  "What was that?" Protius said.

  "What was what?"

  "Come on, Brian, don't fuck around with me. That tremor. Do you get it often?"

  Kettering looked down at his hands, rock steady now. He spread his fingers and turned the hands over, studying their backs. "It's nothing," he said. "Just nerves."

  "Oh yes? And where did you get your medical degree?"

  Kettering picked up the book of matches, struck one, and held the flame steady for him. "That's a nasty habit. You really ought to quit."

  Protius lit the cigarette and inhaled. "I will if you will."

  The two men sat in silence for another thirty seconds. Telephones jangled softly in the other offices. From outside the window came the muted roar of a leaf blower. The air conditioner sighed.

  Finally Dr. Protius spoke. "I'd give you odds there's some connection between your current problems and what happened when you were six."

  "If anything really happened," Kettering said.

  "You have some doubts now?"

  "Hell, Doc, I have nothing but doubts. There's a lot I don't remember, and the little I do remember is like something photographed through a distorting lens."

  Protius leaned across the desk and fixed him with a sharp gaze. "Do you want to remember, Brian?"

  "Sure, if it will help."

  "I can't guarantee, but it might. Are you willing to try hypnosis?"

  "I don't know. I don't like the idea of losing control."

  "It's not like that. You've been to the lectures about hypnotizing witnesses to help them remember details."

  "Yeah. I guess I never thought about it being done to me."

  "Well? What do you say?"

  "Would you be the one to do it?"

  "Yes."

  "I'll have to think about it, Doc."

  "Do you want something for those headaches and that ..." He pantomimed the shaking of Kettering's hand. "... attack of nerves?"

  "No thanks. I don't like to take pills."

  "Whatever you say. You know where to find me."

  Kettering stood up. "I wish I could tell you our talk made me feel a whole lot better."

  "You don't?"

  "Nope."

  "So take a couple of aspirin and call me in the morning."

  Kettering grinned at him. "Thanks, Doc. You tried."

  He walked out of the office with Protius frowning after him.

  Chapter 6

  Kettering left the Police Building in a dark mood. The talk with Dr. Protius had raised more problems than it had solved. Now he couldn't get that June day thirty-seven years ago out of his mind. Uncle Art rode home with him. Uncle Art ... and the Doomstalker.

  When he drove up and parked in his driveway, an illogical sense of dread dropped on him like a cold blanket. Something here was out of place. The atmosphere was wrong.

  For one thing, Mavis's Honda was parked out in front of the house instead of in the garage where it ought to be at this hour. Things at home that varied from the routine disturbed him. His work provided enough surprises.

  He left the Camaro in the driveway and walked along the flagstones beside Mavis's flower beds to the front door. As he crossed the stoop he caught himself looking down at his shoes, off to the left, off to the right ... anyplace but at the front door.

  Kettering came to a stop and willed himself to stand back and look at what he did not want to see. The facing panel of the door was scrubbed clean, but as he knew it would, the shadow of the figure with the hunched shoulders and taloned fingers was still there.

  From somewhere deep in his memory came an incantation he had used as a child to ward off the bad things. "You won't get me, you won't get me, you won't get me, you sonofabitch," he muttered, and walked inside.

  Mavis was sitting under a lamp in a wing chair, facing the door. Her hands rested in her lap. She wore a pair of tight designer jeans and a bulky knit sweater.

  She looked damn good, and Kettering wanted to tell her so. However, her grim expression froze the words before he could get them out.

  "Hi," he said.

  "I'm glad you're home on time tonight because I want to talk to you."

  "Fine. Does it have to be before dinner?"

  "I haven't much time," she said. "I'm going out."

  "Again?"

  "Again."

  Kettering's protest died in his throat. Considering that he had spent last night in the bed of another woman, he was in no position to complain about his wife's comings and goings.

  "Another class."

  "The same one."

  She was challeng
ing him to question her. To object. He was determined to remain above combat.

  "Where do they hold this class, anyway?"

  "At Gabrielle's house. In Sherman Oaks."

  "Yeah. Well ..." He searched for something to say. The best he could manage was, "Do you expect to be home late?"

  "Maybe. I don't know."

  She had to know about last night. About him and Charity Moline. Wives have a detection system that sets off an alarm if their husbands go anywhere near another woman. That had to be what all this frosty conversation was about. Kettering wished she would come out with an open accusation. Then he could confess and they could get on to the penalty phase. This icy dialogue made his teeth ache.

  "Okay," he said. When that seemed insufficient he added, "Have a good time."

  "Brian, I want a divorce."

  Smack. The word hit him like a wet towel across the face. It should not have been all that much of a surprise, yet it staggered him.

  "Shouldn't we talk about it?" His voice was husky. He had to clear his throat to get the words out.

  "Not now. Not tonight. Maybe not anytime. It's too late for talk. I think you know all my reasons, and I know all your arguments."

  "Have you talked to Trevor?"

  "I told him. Tell you the truth, I don't think it much matters to him. He's pretty well pulled out of the family anyway."

  "He's seventeen."

  "He's eighteen, and that's legally an adult. God, you don't even know the age of your own son."

  "I knew, I just forgot. Anyway, as long as he's living here - "

  "Brian, I really don't want to discuss this anymore. I've got to go."

  "This class of yours is all that important? And this Gabrielle ... what's her name?"

  "Gabrielle Wister."

  "Whatever. This means more to you than talking about our marriage?"

  "Yes." One icy syllable.

  In spite of his resolve, Kettering started to get mad. Hell, maybe she was in the right, but her air of superiority rankled him.

  "What if I said you're going to sit here and listen to me?"

  "I guess you could force me if you wanted to."

  No contest. She had kept her cool, and she was the winner.

  "So go," he said.

  Mavis stood up and walked past him toward the door. He had a crazy impulse to grab her and say something stupid like, You can't do this!