Jonathan Kellerman - Dr. Death

Stacy shuddered again. She managed to look at me, aiming but pulling off scared.

"Eric," said Safer, "I'm asking you to be courteous. Your father and I are both asking you."

"How is Dad?" said Stacy. "Where is he? What's he doing?"

"He's downstairs resting, dear."

"Does he want something to eat?"

"No, he's fine, dear," said Safer. "I made him a sandwich a while back."

"Was it kosher?" said Eric.

Silence in the stale room.

Safer stroked his beard and smiled sadly.

"Nice kosher pickle," said Eric. "Nize leetle piece of corned beef-"

Stacy said, "Stop it, Eric-"

"Nize little matzo ball-"

"Shut up, Eric!"

"Stop what? What the fuck am I doing?"

"You know what you're doing. Stop being rude!"

They glared at each other. Stacy turned away first. Gave a small, furious wave, showed Eric her back. Stood up. "Enough of this, I'm out of here-I'm sorry, Dr. Delaware, I just can't talk to you or anyone else right now. If I need you, I'll call you-I really will, Mr. Safer."

"Safer," muttered Eric. "Dad's writing him huge checks, and are any of us any safer?"

Stacy shouted, "You are so…"

"I'm what?"

Another dismissive wave. Stacy moved toward the door.

Eric said, "I'm what, smart-girl?"

Stacy kept going.

"Go ahead, leave, but don't think you're out of it," Eric called after her. "We're never really out of our misery unless we put ourselves out of it."

Stacy stopped. Another shudder took hold of her body. Her face convulsed and white foam bubbled at the corners of her mouth. Turning, she canted forward, tiny hands compressed into hard little fists. For a moment, I thought she'd charge him. Flushed, herself. The Doss flush.

"You!" she said. "You… are… evil."

She ran out, I followed, caught up with her at the door to the last bedroom.

"No! Please! I know you want to help but…"

"Stacy-"

She rushed into the bedroom but left the door open. I walked in.

Smaller room than Eric's. Pink and baby-blue paper, ribbons and leaves and flowers. White iron bed with brass accents, pink comforter, stuffed animals piled into an upholstered armchair. Clothes and books strewn about, but not the calculated entropy of Eric's personal space.

She walked to a window, touched shuttered blinds. "This is so humiliating, you seeing us like this."

"These are tough times," I said. House calls. How much didn't I know about thousands of other patients?

"There's no excuse," she said. "We're just…"

She trailed off. Hunched her back like an old woman and tore at a cuticle.

"I'm here to help, Stacy."

No answer. Then: "It's secret, right? Whatever we talk about? Nothing changes that?"

"Nothing," I said. Unless you're planning to kill someone.

I waited for her to talk. She didn't.

"What's on your mind, Stacy?"

"He is."

"Eric?"

Nod. "He scares me."

"How does he scare you, Stacy?"

"By-he-the way he talks-the things he says… No, no, forget it, forget I just said that. Please. Just forget it. He's fine, everything's fine."

She slipped a finger between the blades of the blinds and peered out at the night.

I said, "What did Eric say that scared you?"

She spun around. "Nothing! I said forget it!"

I stood there.

"What? "she said.

"If you're scared, let me help."

"You can't-there's nothing you can-it's-I just- he-Helen-we were sitting there. After we got back from the police station and he started talking about Helen."

"Your dog."

"What's the difference? Please! Please don't make me get into it!"

"I can't make you do anything, Stacy. But if Eric's in some kind of danger-"

"No, no, that's not what I mean-he-you remember what I told you about Helen…"

"She was sick. Eric took her up to the mountains and you never saw her again. What's he saying about her?"

"Nothing," she said. "Nothing, really… Besides, what's the big deal? It was the right thing to do-she was sick, she was a dog, for God's sake, people do that all the time, it's the humane thing to do."

"Putting her out of her misery. Eric told you he did it?"

"Yes-never before, not till now. I mean I knew, but he never mentioned before, not once. Then tonight, after we got back. Dad and Mr. Safer were downstairs and we were up here and all of a sudden he starts getting into it. Laughing about it."

She sat down on the edge of the armchair, crushing stuffed animals. Reaching behind, she took one in her arms-a small, frayed elephant.

"He laughed about Helen," I said. "And now he's talking about people being put out of their misery."

"No-just forget it." Weak voice, lacking conviction.

"You're worried," I went on. "If Eric could do that to Helen, maybe he could do it to a human being. Maybe he had something to do with your mother's death."

"No!" she shouted. "Yes! That's what-he basically told me! I mean, he didn't come out and say it but he kept hinting around at it. Talking about Helen, how her eyes looked-how she was okay with it, peaceful. She looked up at him and licked his face and he hit her over the head with a rock. One time, he said. That's all it took. Then he buried her-it was brave of him, right? I couldn't have done it, it needed to be done, she was so sick."

She rocked in the chair, held the elephant to her breast.

"Then he got a creepy smile. Said sometimes you have to take matters into your own hands, how no one knows what's right or wrong unless they're in your shoes. How maybe there really is no right or wrong, just rules that people take on because they're too scared to make their own decisions. He said helping Helen was the noblest thing he'd ever done."

She squeezed the elephant harder and its tiny face compressed to something grotesque. "I'm so scared. What if he did another Helen?"

"No reason to believe that," I said, lying because now I had an explanation for why Mate hadn't claimed Joanne. I went on in my best therapist voice: "He's upset, just as you are. Things will settle down, Eric will settle down."

My voice and my brain diverged as I continued to comfort, thinking all the while: mother and son, guilt, expiation. Joanne and Eric planning… Eric taking pictures because he knew she'd be leaving soon, wanted to grasp every opportunity for memorial.

Too sickening to contemplate, but I couldn't stop contemplating. I hoped the revulsion hadn't found its way into my voice. Must have faked it okay because Stacy stopped crying.

"Everything will be fine?" she said in a little girl's voice.

"Just hang in there."

She smiled. Then the smile turned into something fearful and ugly. "No, it won't. It will never be fine."

"I know it seems like that right now-"

"Hey," she said, "Eric's right. Nothing's complicated. You're born, life sucks, you die." She ripped a cuticle bloody, licked the wound, picked some more.

"Stacy-"

"Words," she said. "They sound nice."

"They're true, Stacy."

"I wish… Things will be better?" More need than challenge.

"Yes," I said. Lord help me.

New kind of smile. "I'm definitely not going to Stanford. I have to find my own place… Thank you, Dr. Delaware, this has been-"

Her words were cut off by sounds from below.

From the front of the house, loud enough to filter upstairs and through the door to her bedroom. Screams and percussion, frantic footsteps, more screams-bellows.

The pretty music of shattering glass.

I RAN OUT, rushed down the stairs, followed the noise.

The living room. Figures in black.

Two figures, crouched combatively.

Richard shouted, "What the fuck have you done?" and advanced on his son.

Eric waved a baseball bat.

Behind the boy stood what remained of the display cases. Ravaged, the brass dented, glass doors splintered and ragged. Glass spikes and shards on the carpet, glittery dust like raw diamonds. Broken pottery within the cases and on the floor. Horses and camels and little human figurines turned to rubble.