The Dark

by Andrew Neiderman

  “Her parents and she are devout Catholics. They thought permitting meat on Fridays was a sellout.”

  “So instead of asking for a divorce . . .?”

  “My wife wanted me to go mad and then kill myself. That’s what Doctor Flemming said, too,” Dunbar replied, his face red with anger.

  “He told you that?”

  “Yes. Yes, he did. He was very worried about me. He even called me on the phone from time to time to ask me what she was doing to me at the moment. We had a code. If he called and she was nearby, I always said we don’t accept solicitations by phone.”

  “Doctor Flemming called you at home?”

  “That’s right. He was very interested in what she was doing to me.”

  “What sort of things was she doing? Give me an example that you gave him,” Maggie said.

  Dunbar blushed and looked down.

  “I just want to know the facts, Mr. Dunbar.”

  “I already told Mr. Martin.”

  “You’re going to have to tell it again and again, and in court, too,” Maggie said.

  Dunbar swallowed and looked at her. Then he looked down at his fingers, tugging gently on his right pinkie.

  “She used to tell me it was too small, that she didn’t know it was in her. She wouldn’t move or nothing and she would never moan. She would just lay there with her eyes open and say, ‘Well? Well? What are you doing?’

  “I was doing the best I could,” he protested. “I was sweating, grunting. After a while I couldn’t do that and then she laughed at me.”

  Maggie thought for a moment. Could Dunbar be telling the truth? What was she doing here? This wasn’t her territory, and yet she couldn’t stop now.

  “I understand,” Maggie continued, “that you told Mr. Martin Doctor Flemming encouraged you to kill your wife. Is that correct?”

  “Yes,” Dunbar said without hesitation.

  Maggie stared at him for a moment.

  “Tell me about Doctor Flemming. You liked him, trusted him?”

  “Sure. He told me he had problems with his wife, too,” Dunbar said, his face more animated.

  Maggie leaned forward, her heart pounding.

  “What sort of problems?”

  “Similar problems. She made him feel . . . small.”

  “Doctor Flemming told you this?”

  “Yes,” he said firmly. Maggie sat back and contemplated him a moment.

  “Please, describe Doctor Flemming,” she said.

  “Describe? You mean what he looks like?”

  “Yes. Please.”

  Dunbar thought a moment. Then he pinched his temples with his right hand and rubbed his forehead as if he were conjuring up images.

  “I don’t know. He’s a tall man, slim, red hair. He’s a good-looking man, I suppose.”

  “Red hair?”

  “Well, it’s kinda reddish blond, I suppose.”

  “And you say he’s slim?”

  Dunbar nodded.

  “I think so. I wouldn’t call him skinny, if that’s what you mean.”

  “This is how you remember him now?”

  “Yes,” Dunbar insisted.

  “I want you to think for a moment about someone else, someone you might have met at Doctor Flemming’s office, another patient.”

  “I never met another patient there,” Dunbar said quickly, obviously sensitive to anyone having known he was seeing an analyst.

  “Not even someone walking out when you arrived?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know a man named Jules Bois?”

  Dunbar thought a moment and then shook his head.

  “Can’t recall anyone by that name.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes. Who is he?”

  Maggie thought for a moment.

  “Doctor Flemming doesn’t have reddish blond hair, Mr. Dunbar, and he’s certainly not slim. He’s stout. He was a football player in college, a defensive linebacker.”

  Dunbar’s face folded slowly into a cold smirk.

  “He said someone might try to do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “Try to trick me.” Dunbar leaned over, keeping his cool smile. “Maybe you’re not an attorney. Maybe you’re just a cop. I’m not answering any more of your questions,” he added, and turned away.

  Maggie stared.

  If it was Jules Bois who had spoken to Dunbar and influenced him, how did Bois successfully impersonate Henry Flemming? Could he have disrupted Henry and Lydia Flemming’s lives as well? Why had he chosen Grant to be his psychiatrist?

  The answers to those questions hung like a bruised storm cloud, oppressive and foreboding, but she recognized that this was out of her ken. This was fodder for psychiatrists, not lawyers. She was over her head, swimming in confusion. She practically fled from the room.

  When she emerged, Maggie found Phil talking with Carl Thornton. Phil had retained him for the case.

  “So, Maggie,” Carl said, turning, “what’s your interest in Phil’s client?”

  “It’s personal,” she replied.

  Carl and Phil exchanged looks and she knew Phil had confided in him somewhat.

  “He make any sense to you?” Carl asked. “Do you find him competent to stand trial?”

  “I wouldn’t assume to be able to diagnose him, Carl, just because I’m married to a psychiatrist.”

  Carl laughed.

  “Dunbar,” he said, turning serious, “is suffering from some form of psychogenic amnesia, of course, because he can’t remember the actual events of the murder. How did he react to your questions, Mag?”

  “He accused me of being a police spy.”

  “Police spy?” Phil started to laugh. “To do what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That’s his paranoia,” Carl said. “Henry’s diagnosis was accurate. Dunbar blames his wife; he blames his psychiatrist; he blames everyone but himself.” Carl gazed into Maggie’s eyes like a mesmerist. “And now that he’s met you, Mag, he’ll probably find a way to include you in the blame.”

  “The man’s bonkers,” Phil said happily.

  “Yes,” Carl said, turning to him. “The irony is that if he did accept responsibility and not blame his wife, his psychiatrist, and everyone else, and if he did recall the actual gruesome details of the violence, he would probably commit suicide or go into a deep, perhaps irretrievable depression. It’s tricky; he’s going to have to be treated carefully.”

  “You’ll testify to those conclusions?” Phil asked.

  Carl nodded and smiled.

  “Of course.”

  “At least I have a solid line of defense,” Phil said, sighing with relief.

  Maggie thought of Grant.

  “Doesn’t bring his wife back, though, does it?” she said softly.

  “You’re getting to sound like your husband, Mag,” Phil said, and laughed.

  “It really isn’t funny, though, is it?” she asked, gazing back at the conference room and then at Phil. “He murdered that woman brutally. Did you read the medical examiner’s report? He was still pounding her twenty minutes after she died.”

  Phil shrugged.

  “Hey, I’m not raising the dead. That’s not our job,” Phil said. “Look, we’re just like Carl and Grant—hired guns. They kill the demons in the mind. We kill them in court.”

  “Perhaps Maggie is here to help kill them in the mind as well,” Carl said prophetically.

  She gazed back at him.

  “Why did you say that, Carl?”

  “Grant’s been a little tense these days, hasn’t he? I’m asking as a doctor as much as I am as a friend.”

  “Yes,” she admitted with reluctance, but she was at the point where she couldn’t keep it all bottled up.

  “We’re only human. Our work can get to us,” Carl said.

  “Maybe I should talk Grant into a vacation,” Maggie said, nodding softly. “We’re both risking burnout.”

  “But that’s not what I he
ar about you, Maggie,” Carl said. “According to Phil, you’re the flavor of the month, maybe of the year. Everyone wants a piece of you these days.”

  “Maybe Maggie means she’s going to have to slow down because she has no choice,” Phil predicted with a smile.

  “Oh?” Carl said. “Something you two have been keeping secret, Mag?”

  Maggie blushed. “First of all, I’m not pregnant, and second, if I were, I could strap the baby on my back and do opening arguments.”

  The two men laughed.

  “I bet she could,” Phil said. “Seriously, though,” he added with a note of jealousy, “word is out. Ken Simms is going to make her an offer she won’t be able to refuse.”

  “Oh?” Carl raised his eyebrows. “Full partnership in the wings?”

  “Talk’s cheap,” Maggie said.

  Carl shook his head.

  “Not when your husband and I do it,” he retorted, and he and Phil laughed.

  “I have to get back, Phil.”

  “Right. Okay, Carl, after you see him today, give me a call.”

  “Fine. Nice to see you again, Maggie. We should all get together soon for something other than sad occasions. It’s been a while.”

  “Yes,” she said without as much enthusiasm as she usually had. “We should.”

  She stood beside Phil as Carl headed for the conference room.

  “So tell me, what did you really come away with after speaking to Dunbar?”

  “A bad feeling,” Maggie said.

  “Maybe you’re the one developing paranoia, Maggie,” Phil quipped. “I guess being a psychiatrist’s wife is not all it’s made out to be. Which is something poor Henry Flemming found out, huh?”

  When she looked at him, he stopped smiling.

  “That’s not funny, Phil. Especially in light of the fact you’re the one who’s supposed to look after Lydia Flemming’s interests now.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I was just trying to lighten you up. Really,” he said in a softer, apologetic tone.

  “All right. Let’s get out of here. I have something else I want to do before I get to the work I get paid to do,” she said.

  “Uh-oh,” Phil said. He raised his eyebrows. “What happens when Grant gets wind of this?”

  “He’s not going to, unless I tell him, right, Phil? Right?”

  “Hey, you have the word of a member of the bar,” he said, raising his right hand.

  “I’d rather have the word of a friend.”

  He laughed.

  “Me, too,” he whispered, and they were off.

  6

  When Grant arrived at his office in the morning, he was surprised at the changes in Fay Moffit’s appearance. Not only had she gone ahead and bleached her hair and changed to a golden blond, but she was wearing a lot more makeup—eyeliner, rouge, a bright, wet lipstick—and a far tighter-fitting dress than she normally tolerated. It was especially snug around her bosom, and the V collar showed more cleavage than Grant thought she had. He suspected she was wearing one of those so-called Wonder Bras.

  “Fay?” he said, widening his eyes. “Are you my secretary, Fay Moffit?”

  Normally Fay was quiet and demur, especially in the morning, but this morning she giggled like a teenager and without a hint of bashfulness or self-consciousness stood up to model her new look.

  “Do you approve, Doctor Blaine?” She fluffed her hair and put her hands on her hips as she twirled on her high heels.

  “At the moment I’m too overwhelmed, Fay.”

  She laughed again. And then she wiped the smile off her face quickly and shifted her eyes toward his inner office door.

  “She insisted on going in to wait for you, Doctor. She arrived only minutes after I had,” Fay said in a voice just above a whisper.

  “Oh?”

  The right corner of Fay’s mouth lifted, her lips sinking into her cheek.

  “I can’t believe what she’s wearing,” she said, “even for L.A.”

  “Uh-oh,” Grant muttered.

  Suddenly the door to his office looked like the portal to a room containing forbidden fruit. But it was titillating. He tried to hide his interest, but Fay wore an uncharacteristically sophisticated smirk. It was as if she could see through his normally inscrutable psychiatric mask.

  “Be careful, Doctor,” she warned as he reached for the doorknob.

  “I always am, Fay,” he said. He nodded. “I like it, the new look, the new Fay Moffit.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.” She beamed and he pulled in his stomach, inflated his chest, and entered his office.

  Deirdre Leyland was sprawled on the leather sofa in a crucifix pose, her legs spread apart. She wore a loosely fitted halter and those infamous short shorts, which were a good two inches below her belly button. Her sandals were off. It was just the way he had envisioned her in a recent fantasy, as if she had been conjured from his own imagination.

  “Good morning, Doctor,” she said softly. Then she leaned forward a bit so the halter fell away from her bosom, revealing the curve of her abundant breasts. “You weren’t on the beach this morning. I was disappointed.”

  “Not my morning for the beach,” Grant said, walking quickly to his desk. He set down his briefcase, keeping his back to her. “You’re a little early,” he said, flipping through some mail.

  “Just trying to get the worm,” she quipped.

  He nodded, still with his back to her, pretending not to understand the innuendo. When he raised his eyes from his papers and looked across his desk, he suddenly imagined Jules Bois sitting there, smiling. He could almost hear him instigating:

  Go on, Doctor. Take advantage of the situation. You don’t have these opportunities all that often. It’s easy. Think about it. You can enjoy this beautiful woman and not only won’t she complain, she’ll thank you. And no one will know, no one will ever know. Later, if she told anyone anything, they would be skeptical because they would know what she was. How can a nymphomaniac cry rape? It’s perfect, made to order. Go on. Don’t be a fool. Do it.

  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them, Bois was no longer sitting there. It was simple mental projection, Grant told himself, nothing more. Just a leak in his subconscious.

  “Are you all right, Doctor?” she asked.

  “What? Oh. Yes. Okay, let’s start,” he said, turning to her.

  “Let’s,” she said, sitting back. She played with the zipper in front of her halter, pulling it down an inch and then up and then down an inch and a half and then up only an inch. Grant picked up his notepad and took the seat beside the sofa. It was set so he was just about parallel to her head. When she turned or leaned forward, the halter buckled again to reveal most of her breasts. They were like magnets playing to his iron eyes.

  “How was your evening?” he began.

  She pouted for a moment, crossing her arms over her breasts like a spoiled adolescent.

  “Frustrating. I just couldn’t seem to get enough. I left the house about seven, went to a singles bar, got picked up, and was in bed by eight-thirty. My first lover was one of those slam-bam, thank you ma’am deals. I didn’t even approach an orgasm before he was spent. I had to masturbate while he was in the bathroom recuperating. I was back on the street a little after nine and went to this dance club in Melrose, where I picked up two bikers and went to their cottage for an orgy-porgy, but they were more interested in themselves than me.”

  She turned back to him.

  “Most men are very selfish when it comes to sex, Doctor. Did you know that?”

  “No, I didn’t know that, but I don’t have your experience,” he replied, and she laughed.

  “Come, now, Doctor. You don’t expect me to believe that, do you? You’re a good-looking man, intelligent, charming, and a man with a creative imagination. You could make a woman very happy; you do make your wife happy, don’t you?”

  “Let’s try not to talk about me, Mrs. Leyland. You’re the one who’s come for help.”

>   “We can help each other. There’s nothing terribly wrong about that, is there? You have fantasies to fulfill, don’t you? You’re a Freudian. You see phallic symbols everywhere and you are forever trying to return to the womb.” She laughed.

  “Who told you such a thing, Mrs. Leyland?”

  She laughed and then she grew serious, almost angry.

  “Nothing you’ve suggested has helped. It got so bad I went into the department store yesterday and tried on pants that were two sizes too tight just to feel the tingle in my crotch. It’s driving me mad,” she said, moving her hand to her crotch. “Even now, just talking about it.”

  “Mrs. Leyland, if you don’t want to take any medication, you’ve got to concentrate—”

  “I am, Doctor.”

  “On what I’ve been saying,” he added quickly, but his eyes were glued to her hand as it moved up and down. She moaned. “Mrs. Leyland, I want you to try to relax now. Come on. Close your eyes,” he urged, but she brought her hands to her breasts and pressed her palms against them.

  “You said you could show me how to distract myself, how to sublimate these passionate cravings. You said I have to learn to give more of myself instead of demand more from my lover. You said it’s just like any other appetite. But you don’t show me, Doctor,” she complained. “How do I give more and demand less when I make love? Can’t you demonstrate?”

  “That’s not exactly what I’m here for, Mrs. Leyland.”

  “Isn’t it?” she asked, turning her eyes to him as she continued to massage herself, one hand moving back to her crotch, the other remaining on her breast. He stared and then she reached for him. “Doctor, please . . . help me,” she pleaded softly, so softly he couldn’t swallow. His heart had begun to pound. “My previous doctor did,” she said. “He said he could get me to see everything clearer if I would try to subdue my drives, if I would try to surrender to his . . . instructions,” she added.

  “What are you talking about, Mrs. Leyland? What other doctor? You never mentioned another doctor.”

  “Didn’t I?” She laughed. “Just an oversight, I guess. Or maybe I wanted to block him out because he didn’t cure me. Yes, that’s it. But you’re different, Doctor Blaine. You’re sincere. You really want to cure me. Don’t you?”