Mr. Peanut (25 page)

Dinner
, she wrote, and underlined the word:
cottage ham, green beans, rye bread
.

Dessert
, she wrote next, underlining again. She put the end of the pen in her mouth, then added:
blueberry pie with ice cream
. It was Sam’s favorite.

Mobius was bleeding through his bandages, thick red circles showing on his knees and hand.

Since Marilyn’s murder, Detective Sheppard had struggled with the sight of blood.

“Let’s talk time line,” Mobius said. “I’ll play detective.”

“All right,” Sheppard said.

“That morning. July third.”

“Yes?”

“You’re up early.”

“I was up at six,” Sheppard said.

“Even though it’s a Saturday.”

“Yes.”

“And you head to the hospital.”

“I was there just before seven.”

“Your father founded the hospital, didn’t he?”

“He did. My brothers, Richard and Stephen, worked there as well.”

“You run into Stephen in the parking lot and talk about your plans for the holiday weekend.”

“He was going to spend the day on his sailboat, and I reminded him about the interns’ party. I’d invited him and his wife, of course.”

“And then you both head into surgery.”

“It was a pretty routine morning.”

“Until they bring in the boy.”

“Yes,” Sheppard said. “Around ten that morning a boy was brought into the OR who’d been hit by a utility truck.”

“He’s not breathing.”

“He lost consciousness and stopped breathing as soon as we got him on the table.”

“So you crack his chest.”

“Yes.”

“And massage his heart.”

“That’s right.”

“What does a heart feel like?”

“Like a tennis ball,” Sheppard said. “It’s harder than you think. It springs back to shape no matter how hard you squeeze it.”

“Interesting,” Mobius said.

Sheppard shrugged.

“But the boy dies.”

“Yes.”

“And when you inform the father, he berates you.”

“The father told me his boy couldn’t be dead because he spoke to him right after the accident. That he was lucid and that I must’ve murdered him.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him it was the nature of internal injuries. That they kill in secret. That you could be functioning normally until the moment your organs shut down. And I told him I was sorry.”

“Then what?”

“After finishing up at the hospital, I stopped off to see my mother and father.”

“And after your visit?”

“I went home. I did some work around the boathouse. We were having the hospital’s interns over the next day and there’d be skiing, so I checked the outboards, made sure they had enough gas for the party. Got the towlines together, the skis, the life jackets. Then it was time for cocktails.”

“What time was that?”

“Around a quarter till seven. Then we went over to our neighbors’, Don and Nancy Ahern’s, to have some drinks.”

“But I thought they were coming to your house for dinner.”

“It was an odd habit we’d fallen into. The girls said that if we drank at one house and ate at the other it split up the mess.”

“They lived nearby.”

“Right down the street.”

“What did everyone drink?”

“The girls had whiskey sours. Don and I had martinis.”

“What’d you talk about?”

“I told Don about my day. About the boy who’d died.”

“You were troubled by it.”

In the waiting room, the boy’s father took two steps back from Sheppard and pointed at him, then looked around the room at the other people, his eyes wild.
You
, he said.
You must have killed him somehow. I was talking with him driving over here. He sat next to me in the car. He was fine
. He shook his finger again.
You wanted my boy dead!
He stretched out both his arms.
None of you let this man near your family! He’s a killer, do you understand? He killed my child!

“Yes,” Sheppard said.

“Then what happened?”

“Marilyn left to go finish dinner.”

“How much longer did you stay?”

“A few minutes, maybe. I got called in to the hospital.”

“Why?”

“To look at x-rays. A boy who’d broken his leg.”

“What time was it?”

“Around half past eight.”

“You were back quickly?”

“I came back as soon as I was done,” Sheppard said.

“Did you eat right away?”

“No, Marilyn was running behind. Don was listening to the Indians game, so I took the kids to the basement to hit a punching bag I’d installed down there while the girls finished up.”

“Where did you eat?”

“On the patio.”

“What about the kids?”

“In the kitchen.”

“It was a nice night.”

“There was a gorgeous sunset.”

“Marilyn made a good dinner.”

“Cottage ham, green beans. Blueberry pie.”

“What about afterward?”

“After dinner we watched the fireworks. There was a big pre-Fourth show. Then Don took the children home and put them to bed.”

“What time was it?”

“Around ten thirty.”

“Did he come right back?”

“Yes.”

“Then what?”

“The girls cleaned up the kitchen. Don finished listening to the Indians game on the radio. I sat in the living room and rested.”

“And then what?”

“I helped Chip fix his model airplane.”

“You let the boy stay up late.”

“No. He came downstairs in his pajamas. He loved airplanes, birds, anything that could fly. He came downstairs and asked me if I would fix it before he went to sleep. So we went to the basement and glued it, though I told him it probably wouldn’t fly well anymore.”

“Why?”

“The wing had broken. It was balsa wood. Very delicate.”

“How did Chip react?”

“He said that it was okay so long as we’d tried.”

“Then what?”

“Marilyn put Chip to bed.”

“What did you do next?”

“We all sat down to watch a movie.”

“What was it?”

“Strange Holiday.”

“Starring who?”

“That little man. Like you.”

“Claude Rains,” Mobius said. “What was it about?”

“A man who comes back from a vacation and finds America taken over by fascists.”

“Was it any good?”

“Terrible. I couldn’t watch it. Plus I hate movies.”

“What do you hate about them?”

“They’re overdetermined.”

“Meaning what?”

“In a movie, everything means something. If a man says, ‘That tank’s filled with compressed air. If you’re not careful, it will explode,’ then you know that at some point the tank will explode.”

“So?”

“So life’s nothing like that.”

“You don’t think?”

“I know.”

“I know I’m going to die in this cell.”

Sheppard refilled his pipe. “How’s that?”

Mobius smiled. “David’s novel is going to kill me.”

Sheppard lit up, puffed twice.

“Then what happened?” Mobius asked.

“I was exhausted,” Sheppard said. “So I snuck over to the daybed and fell asleep.”

“Where was that?”

“Just off the living room, by the stairs to the second floor.”

“What do you remember next?”

“I remember sitting up and seeing everyone watching the movie. Then Marilyn turned and said something to me.”

“What did she say?”

Sheppard puffed on his pipe. He could see Marilyn turn toward him from her chair, a rocking chair whose back partly hid her face. Her hair was down and she waved him over to sit with her, but he didn’t leave his spot. And something about not moving, about staying where he was, was so pleasant and comforting that he likened it to childhood, that moment when his parents would check in on him, saying his name once or twice while he pretended to be asleep. Marilyn was wearing white shorts and a short-sleeved shirt with little wing designs, and she waved for him to come over again. It is possible, Sheppard remembered thinking, to be completely happy in marriage.

“I didn’t hear you,” Mobius said.

“She said, ‘Come on, Sam, it’s going to improve.’” And for a moment, Sheppard couldn’t help but smile.

Mobius crossed his arms. “Then what?”

“I woke up.”

“Why?”

“I heard Marilyn crying my name.”

“Did you know there was someone else in the house?”

“No, I didn’t know what was happening. I thought she might be having uterine spasms.”

“And?”

“I ran upstairs to our bedroom and someone hit me.”

“Did you see him?”

“I’m not sure. I saw a form.”

“What do you mean?”

“I couldn’t make anything out very clearly. It was dark. Sometimes I remember him differently.”

“How?”

“Sometimes he’s bushy-haired. Sometimes he was bald like me.”

“But either way, somebody knocked you out.”

“Yes.”

“Then what?”

“I came to, lying on the floor. My police-surgeon badge was right next to my face. It was usually in my wallet, so I didn’t understand. Then I saw my wallet under the bed. I sat up.”

“And?”

“That’s when I saw the blood. There was blood on the door to my right. Droplets of every size all the way down to a fine mist. Then I stood up and saw Marilyn.”

“She was on the bed.”

“Her face was turned toward me.”

“She’d been bludgeoned.”

“Beyond recognition,” Sheppard said, though in his mind he realized the fallacy of this expression. It was just something you said. The truth was that Marilyn was completely recognizable, that as the years had passed he remembered the exact shade of her hair color more clearly as it flowered out from her face and clung to the blood around her head, the strands clumped thick in places like they’d been too long exposed to the sea, or pasted in thin strands to her cheek as if by sweat. She was entirely recognizable in her expression, which was the troubled and worried one she always wore when she slept, fitful with dreams that she almost always told him about when she awoke, an expression that made him want to pull her to him in the night.

“Then what?”

“I was groggy. I wasn’t sure what was happening. But I kneeled on the bed and took her pulse. She was gone.”

“And?”

“I went to Chip’s room to check on him. He was asleep.”

“But you said there was screaming. Marilyn had been beaten savagely.”

“He was like me. He could sleep through almost anything.”

“Why didn’t you call the police?”

“I heard a noise downstairs, so I rushed down. The man was still in our house. I saw him by the patio door.”

“You could see him?”

“I could see his form.”

“What did it look like?”

“A man’s.”

“What did
he
look like?”

“He was big, like me. So bushy-haired it was almost standing up.”

“Then what?”

“He heard me and bolted. I chased him outside, down the stairs to the beach. I caught up with him finally and tackled him. We fought. I was still groggy and it was dark. I couldn’t get a good hit in. It was like trying to punch somebody in a phone booth. He knocked me out again.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I woke up lying on the beach. My shirt was gone. My legs were in the water.”

“How long were you out?”

“I don’t know. It was near dawn.”

“You sat up and realized what had happened.”

“Yes.”

“You remembered that Marilyn was dead.”

“I knew that I’d lost her.”

“And at that moment, Dr. Sam, tell me: What
exactly
went through your mind?”

Richard Eberling sat in his van at Huntington Park and watched the Sheppard house.

He thought to himself that the smart thing to do would be to get one of those cameras with the superlong lens so he could watch Marilyn all he wanted without her suspecting in the least that she was being watched. Then he could take pictures, pictures of her at her window or sitting down on her patio or on the beach, and then he could have them developed and show her how pretty she was, because when you talked to Marilyn Sheppard you could tell she didn’t think she was all that pretty, which made her prettier still. He could show the pictures to her and say:
See, this is you out in the world when no one’s watching but me. This is you how I see you, and these are the things I like: I like your thick curly hair and your hazel eyes. I like how you always seem a little sad. I like your thin legs and your small breasts and I especially like how you laugh. It’s a nasty laugh. It’s the laugh of a girl who knows secrets
.

I want to tell you my secret
.

Three days ago, Marilyn had told him he looked like Dr. Sam. He looked at himself in the rearview mirror and saw how she could say that. They had the same thick eyebrows and full lips—even their ears were the same shape—but although they both were going bald, Dr. Sam had a widow’s peak that was distinguished and he walked like someone who at any moment could break into a run that was faster than you ever were. And he seemed like a man who never looked in mirrors because he already knew everything about himself that he needed to know. Eberling had seen him leaving the house last Wednesday, pulling up in his van just as Sheppard said something to his wife from the kitchen door. Eberling got his cleaning supplies and equipment and came around the van walking straight toward the doctor, who was leaving now, and he appreciated how Sheppard’s double-breasted suit widened at his shoulders and narrowed at his waist, admiring his luxuriant red silk tie and shining black tasseled shoes, thinking: Dressed like that, I’d look just as handsome. That’s what I’d look like if I was a doctor. They walked by each other, and Eberling, his hands full with pails and squeegees, said, “Good morning, Dr. Sheppard.” Without looking at him, the doctor said, “You too,” and walked right past to climb down into his brand-new convertible Jag—he’d gotten rid of the MG—and briefly revved the engine before driving off.

Eberling stopped for a moment and watched him disappear around the corner.

It was bright outside, and when Eberling entered the house, his eyes had to adjust from the glare; and there, in the kitchen, emerging as if from this blackness, was Marilyn, kneeling down before her boy, holding him by the arms as if she were cross. She whirled on Eberling suddenly.