Richard Deming: The Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK™: 15 Classic Crime & Mystery Stories

“Of course not,” Martha said easily. “People would stop calling us if we did. We like to know who our callers are, but we don’t insist on it. If you wish to remain anonymous, that’s up to you. However, if you tell me your name, it will remain in strict confidence. You don’t have to worry that I will do anything such as sending the police to haul you off to a hospital. I am here solely to help you and I won’t contact anyone at all on your behalf without your permission.”

Again there was a pause. Then the woman said suddenly, “You sound like a nice person. Who are you?”

This was a question Martha frequently had to parry. Volunteers were instructed never to reveal their identities to callers in order to avoid the possibility of emotionally disturbed persons attempting to make personal contact. Indiscriminate passing out your name to emotionally unbalanced people wouldn’t be wise in any event, but it would have been particularly foolish for a sixty-year-old spinster who weighed less than a hundred pounds and lived alone except for a Siamese cat.

She said, “I’m just one of numerous volunteer workers who devote their time to this work. It’s more important who you are.”

“Don’t you have a name?” the caller asked.

“Oh, yes. It’s Martha.”

That much was permissible when a caller became insistent; but further insistence would be met with the polite but firm explanation that workers were not allowed to give their last names. Fortunately this caller didn’t push it any farther.

“My name is Janet,” she volunteered.

Martha contemplated probing for the last name, then decided going after it too quickly just might dampen their growing rapport. Instead she said, “Glad to know you, Janet. You sound fairly young. Are you somewhere in your twenties?”

“Oh no. I’m thirty-two.”

“Well, from the viewpoint of my age, that’s still fairly young. Are you married?”

“Yes. For nearly ten years.”

“Is your husband home now?” Martha asked casually. It was standard procedure to attempt to learn just who, if anyone, was in the house with a caller.

The woman said, “He bowls on Mondays and doesn’t get home until after midnight.”

“I see. Do you have any children?”

“No. I had a couple of miscarriages.” There was no regret in the voice. It was just a statement of fact.

“Then you’re all alone at home now?” Martha asked.

“Yes.”

Martha allowed a few seconds of silence to build before saying gently, “Do you want to tell me your last name now, Janet?”

There was an equal period of silence before the husky voice asked with reluctance, “Do I have to?”

Suspecting the woman was on the verge of hanging up, Martha said instantly, “Of course not.” She allowed another few seconds to pass, then asked, “What does your husband do?”

“He’s a professional man.” A subtle change in tone told Martha’s practiced ear that the woman was suddenly becoming cagey about giving answers which might reveal her identity. Martha immediately switched tack.

“Was it some trouble with your husband which made you call this number, Janet?” she asked.

“Oh, no. Fred’s a wonderful husband. It was just things in general.” Martha made a mental note that the husband’s name was Fred. There immediately followed another bit of inadvertent information. In the background Martha heard, “Cuckoo, cuckoo!” followed by eleven rather sharp chimes and then another, “Cuckoo, cuckoo!”

Background noises often gave clues to the location from which a call came. Sounds from outdoors, such as traffic noises or railroad trains, were more helpful than in-door noises, but a cuckoo clock which also had chimes was rare enough to identify a house or apartment if, through other clues, you could narrow the location to a specific neighborhood. Martha was in the habit of mentally filing every scrap of information she could glean from a caller.

She said, “What sort of things are bothering you, Janet?”

“They don’t seem as important now as when I decided to call you. I’m beginning to feel a lot better just from talking to you. Could I phone you again if I start to feel blue?”

“You won’t necessarily get me, but someone is available around the clock.”

“Oh.” The husky voice sounded disappointed. “When are you on duty? I want to talk to you .”

“Just Mondays and Wednesdays, from eight in the evening until eight the following morning.”

“Well, maybe I can arrange only to get blue on Monday and Wednesday evenings,” the woman said with a nervous and rather forlorn attempt at humor. “Thanks for talking to me, Martha.”

“I was glad to,” Martha said. “You’re sure you’ll be all right now?”

“I’ll be all right,” the woman assured her. “You’ve been a big help. Thanks again.” She hung up.

Martha discovered her hot milk had cooled too much while she was on the phone. She poured it into Ho Chi Minh’s bowl and went to bed.

The second call came just at midnight the following Wednesday. Martha had been in bed for an hour and was awakened from a sound sleep by the phone.

When she switched on her bedside lamp and put the receiver to her ear, she heard the sharp chimes of the clock in the background tolling midnight. She waited until the final, “Cuckoo, cuckoo!” before saying, “Hello.”

“Martha?” the husky feminine voice said uncertainly.

“Yes, Janet.”

“Oh, you recognized my voice,” the woman said with mild surprise. “I thought maybe with all the calls you must get, you wouldn’t remember me.”

“I remember you,” Martha said. “Are you feeling blue again?”

“Awfully blue.” There was a muffled sob and the voice seemed to disintegrate. “I... I lied to you Monday, Martha.”

“Oh? About what?”

“When I said I wasn’t thinking about killing myself. I think about it all the time. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“Is your husband there tonight, Janet?”

“No, he’s out of town at the National Den—” She broke off and appended, “I’m all alone.” National Den. Some kind of fraternal order Martha wondered. The Cub Scouts had dens, she recalled. Perhaps her husband was on the National Council of the Cub Scouts. She must remember that.

She said, “Do you have a friend who lives nearby who might be willing to come over and stay with you for a time, Janet?”

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly tell any of my friends what is wrong with me,” the woman said in a horrified voice.

“What is wrong with you?” Martha inquired.

After a period of dead silence, the woman whispered, “I haven’t told another soul, Martha. What’s wrong with me is that I know I’m going mad.”

“What makes you think that, Janet?”

“I don’t just think it. I know it. I love my husband, but periodically I get this horrible urge to kill him.” Her tone sank to one of despair. “Last Sunday night it went so far that I crept out of bed and went to the kitchen for a butcher knife. I was heading back for our bedroom with the knife in my hand, meaning to stab Fred in his sleep, when I came to my senses. It was that incident which made me call you the next night.”

Martha’s heart began to pound. This was her first contact with a caller who seemed to suffer from more than acute neurosis. This woman obviously was psychotic and would have to be handled with extreme care.

Until she retired on a small inheritance the previous year, Martha Pruett had been a social worker. Her training had given her just enough of a smattering of psychiatry to make her know she was totally unequipped to psychoanalyze anyone, particularly over a telephone. She knew there was no point in attempting to talk a psychotic out of homicidal impulses. The only sensible plan of attack was to attempt to talk her caller into submitting to immediate treatment.