Ed Gorman - Nightmare Child

Inside the office, the Chief had his feet up on the desk and was reading a paperback called The Supernatural Explained by Dr. T. J. MacGregor, M. F. A., the exact meaning of which was lost on the two men.

"What the hell's gotten into him these days, anyway?" the uniformed officer asked the other.

All the man in the brown suit could do was shake his head again.

Clark had been reading The Supernatural Explained for the past two hours, ever since his disappointing lunch with Diane.

Glancing up, becoming aware of the two officers in the doorway, he said, "Help you with anything, men?"

Steinberg, the man in the brown suit, said, "We were just wondering why you'd be reading a book like that."

Clark took the book away from his face and stared at it. "What's wrong with this book?"

"Well, you know," Maloney, the uniformed man, said.

"No, I don't know."

"Well, supernatural and stuff like that," Steinberg said.

"Oh, you mean you don't believe in it?"

"Yeah…uh…right. I mean…uh…yeah, we don't believe in it," Maloney said, apparently repeating himself for emphasis. "Uh…do you?"

"Are you going to start laughing if I say 'yes'?"

"Hell, no," Steinberg said. But he said it too quickly to be convincing. "I mean, what you believe in is your business. This is America, after all."

Clark put the book face down on the desk and then sat forward in his chair, elbows on the desk. "Well, for what it's worth, you two, I don't believe in the supernatural."

They started to smile, obviously happy that the Chief had taken the trouble to convince them of his sanity.

"On the other hand," Clark said, "I don't disbelieve it, either."

"Huh?" Maloney said.

"In other words, it's possible. You mean you don't even think it's possible?"

Maloney looked at Steinberg. "You think it's possible?"

Steinberg looked at Maloney. "You go first, Maloney. Do you think it's possible?"

"Well…uh…I…uh…"

Clark smiled. "You don't have to commit yourself, Maloney, don't worry."

Maloney seemed relieved.

"Maybe I'm just trying to expand my horizons a little," Clark said. He purposely kept the good-natured tone in his voice. It was his blue gaze that was troubled. He patted the book. "So if you two don't mind, I guess I'll get back to my reading."

Maloney said, "Oh, we don't mind, Chief. Do we, Steinberg?"

"No, Chief, we don't mind at all."

But before they left they gave each other worried looks. Whatever happened to the Chief Clark whose main concern was how the Red Sox were doing?

Clark spent the rest of the afternoon in his office, except for two trips to the bathroom and one trip to the pop machine.

On the other side of the wire mesh that covered his office windows, afternoon gave way to purple dusk and purple dusk to velvety black night. Shifts had changed, pizza and burgers and submarines had been delivered and devoured, and the more officious proceedings of the day had shifted to the more rowdy business of the night: drunks, derelicts, and drug addicts.

All this time, Clark read. He could not recall ever reading a book with so much intensity, except perhaps for Kiss Me Deadly by Mickey Spillane, a copy of said novel having been given him at age thirteen by an older cousin who had kindly underlined all the good parts.

By the time he had finished The Supernatural Explained, he had a headache, an empty stomach, a full bladder, and a singular desire to talk to Diane, even before he dealt with that full bladder.

Gazing at the spray of stars across the nighttime sky, he dialed her number. She picked up on the second ring. "Hello."

"Possession."

"What?"

"Possession."

"Is this Robert?"

"Who else?"

"You're certainly in a lot better mood than you were at lunch."

"I'm sorry."

She sighed. "So am I. I've been miserable ever since."

"Me, too."

"So what's this about possession?"

"That's her problem. Jenny's. Listen to this, all right?"

"Give me a minute. She's running a bath upstairs and I want to make sure she's got fresh towels."

"You really love that girl."

An uncomfortable pause. "She's my…daughter. Now, Robert. I hope you can…understand that."

"I think I can."

"It doesn't have to be a choice between you and Jenny. It really doesn't."

"I hope not." His bladder was starting to hurt. "So is it all right if I stop over?"

"Now?"

"Maybe an hour, hour and a half."

"Make it an hour and a half. I can have Jenny in bed by then. Just…" She hesitated. "Just don't try to take her away from me, Robert. No more talk about the university or parapsychology or any of that. You promise?"

"I promise."

"Now, what were you going to tell me about possession?"

"Just listen to these two paragraphs." So he read to her from The Supernatural Explained. Finished, he said, "Sound familiar?"

"I hate to say it," she said. "But it does sound like some of the things Jenny's been going through."

Hearing this, he felt exultant. Hearing this, he knew that everything was going to work out. There would be a marriage, after all.

"See you in about, an hour and a half, honey," he said.

"Just please understand that I don't want to talk about…any of this…until I'm sure she's asleep. All right?"

"Fine," he said.

For ten minutes after Robert's call, Diane allowed herself to feel as if things would straighten themselves out. Jenny and Robert, each of whom disliked and greatly distrusted the other, would get along, and somehow Diane and Robert would be married, and the three of them would live in the big, beautiful house there in Stoneridge Estates, and they would be a real family.

She thought about all this as she went down into the basement and took clean towels from the drier-liking the aroma of fabric softener-and as she climbed the stairs to the second floor bathroom.

Jenny, submerged in huge bubbles, thanks to the bubble bath Diane had bought her, glanced up when Diane came into the bathroom.

"Fresh towels," Diane said, putting the terry cloth to her nose and smelling, then hanging the towels on the rack nearest the pink bathtub.

Jenny continued to stare at her. "Didn't I hear the phone, Aunt Diane?"

"Why, yes."

"Oh," Jenny said.

Diane knew Jenny wanted her to tell her who had called, but Diane didn't want to spoil this moment of bliss.

Deciding she was being silly, Diane said, "It was Robert."

"That's what I figured."

"Please don't take that tone."

"What tone?"

"Oh…hurt…I suppose you'd call it."

"I'm not hurt."

"Well, disappointed, then."

"I may be disappointed, Aunt Diane, but that's not the same thing as hurt."

"No, I suppose it isn't."

"If you want to like him-and trust him-as a friend, that's up to you."

Diane sat on the closed toilet seat. "I hope all three of us become friends, Jenny. I hope we become…a family."

"I see."

"You see what?"

"A family. That means you're expecting to marry him."

"Well, not right away. But someday, maybe."

"'Maybe. Sure."

"I'm sorry if this is painful for you."

"I just kept remembering the way he looked at me the night Mindy and Jeff died." She dropped her gaze, seemed to be staring into the impenetrable wall of soapsuds. "He thought I killed them, didn't he?"

She had to be careful there, Diane thought. She said, "He was just confused about what went on."

"Jeff killed Mindy and then killed himself. That's what the police report said."

"I know what the police report said. Robert wrote the police report and he…he wrote down some of the things I asked him to."

"Then you think I killed them?"

"I didn't say that, Jenny."

Tears glistened in her eyes. "Do you happen to remember that they tried to kill me?"