The Best American Mystery Stories 2012

by Otto Penzler

  “Okay, Mr. Potter,” he says, as evenly as possible. “Let me try a different question. Why do you want to kill me?”

  “Oh, I think you know.”

  “I really don’t, and I must confess I have little experience with this. No one has ever threatened to kill me before. At least not seriously.”

  “There’s always a first time, yes?”

  “Mr. Potter, did you make this appointment in order to kill me?”

  Mr. Potter does not answer.

  He’s giving me a blank screen, no expression, no emotion, Dr. Bell thinks. Perhaps he’s imitating a trained therapist, maybe a therapist who has something to do with why he’s here? A bit of a reach, but . . .

  “May I ask who referred you to me, Mr. Potter—another professional?”

  “I’m not the type who feels the need to talk incessantly about his feelings, Dr. Bell. You’re the last therapist I expect to see in my life. And the clock, as they say, is ticking.”

  It suddenly comes to Dr. Bell that Mr. Potter must have booked this appointment, the last available on a Friday, at least a week ago. He’s planned this well. A joke about needing to better screen first-time clients sweeps through Dr. Bell’s brain like a tumbleweed. He thinks better of sharing it. He has to crack Mr. Potter’s shell delicately, if it is in fact a shell. Fifty minutes isn’t a lot of time to do it. But Dr. Bell is starting to realize his life depends on it.

  The second hand on the grandfather clock ticks away and Mr. Potter seems to grow larger, more intimidating. Despite the urgency of the situation, Dr. Bell knows it is imperative not to let the clock rule him. He wants more than to just kill me or he’d have done that already. Let him have his theatrics for now. The need to speak will build. He’ll tell you why he’s here eventually. He’ll have to, or what’s the point?

  Dr. Bell flashes back to his student days, when a gifted supervisor used father transference to reduce him to a whimpering puddle. Dr. Bell crosses his legs, struggling to appear above it all, but his knees feel weak and his fingers tremble slightly.

  “Forty-six minutes,” Mr. Potter announces, “and seven seconds.”

  Dr. Bell takes a deep breath and releases the air quietly, allows himself a thin smile. His stomach settles. He holds the smile as best he can and tries to affect something just shy of disdain. “Okay, then. This is your time, as we say. What do you want to talk about?”

  “I don’t want to talk about anything. I want you to do all the talking.”

  “What is it that you want me to talk about?”

  “You know, Dr. Bell.”

  “No, I don’t, Mr. Potter, and I fear that our time will go by in silence if it’s left up to me to guess why you came here, other than to threaten to kill me. But maybe that’s the best place to start. Why don’t you tell me why you believe you want to kill me?”

  “Because you’re a fraud, Dr. Bell.”

  “Why do you think so, Mr. Potter?”

  “I think you know.”

  “I really don’t, and we’re in danger of getting stuck in this circular dialogue, but let me try something else. Let’s presume that I am a fraud, which we all are to some degree. What does that mean to you?”

  “It means that I’m going to kill you.”

  “Do you kill all frauds, Mr. Potter, or is it just me for whom you reserve that honor?”

  “Maybe I’m starting with you.”

  “So what comes next? Politicians, CEOs, clergymen . . . Jodie Foster? Is someone speaking to you, Mr. Potter, telling you that you’ve been chosen to do these things?”

  “No, Dr. Bell, I’m not schizophrenic, paranoid or otherwise. I haven’t lost my job, my home, my standing in society. I’m not mad at the world. I’m an average man, Dr. Bell. But sometimes average men have to do extraordinary things.”

  Mr. Potter raises the gun. The barrel is a deep, dark well. Dr. Bell’s bowels suddenly stir. He notices Mr. Potter’s hand is not trembling.

  “One shot through the front of your skull and you’re done, Dr. Bell. I understand you fancy yourself a Buddhist. What do you imagine occurs next? Will it be a joyful reconnection with the one consciousness? Or perhaps just zip, nada, nothing? Tell me, I’m curious. You see, this is not really my fifty minutes, it is yours.”

  Dr. Bell tries to process quickly. “I understand” you fancy yourself a Buddhist. Not “I see” you fancy yourself one. He’s either done his research or heard about me through someone else. He mentioned a woman earlier, having seen her in pain. His wife? His girlfriend? His mother? Dr. Bell struggles to think of a female patient with the same last name. Too many faces, too many names. Someone terminal, perhaps? Someone from the cancer ward? He draws a blank. The years of practice are callusing me. The faces and names and problems and patterns are all running together.

  If he’s realized anything over the years, it’s that each and every one of his patients is sure that he or she occupies a new and entirely unique spot at the center of the universe and Dr. Bell has become all too aware of how crowded it is at that spot. Did he believe anything was different from one week, month, year, or life to the next with his patients? Did he even care anymore? Every week they pay their $150 a session to say and hear the same things, and every week they leave satiated like crack addicts, only to come back with that hungry, desperate look in their eyes realizing they need another fix.

  Mr. Potter lowers the weapon. “Where did you go just now?” he asks, leaning forward, but not in a threatening manner. “When I did that with the gun, what did you see? Feel? I’d really like to know.”

  Dr. Bell swallows. “Mr. Potter, you just mentioned putting a bullet through my skull. You’re pointing a gun at me. So, naturally, I felt afraid. Buddhist or not, I’m not looking forward to dying here, today, and in this way. Understandable, yes?”

  “Yes, quite understandable. But we don’t always have a say in what happens to us, do we, Dr. Bell?”

  “You’re speaking of karma?”

  Mr. Potter shrugs.

  Dr. Bell tells himself to keep Mr. Potter talking. Get him to give you his first name. Make yourself a human being. It’s easy to hurt an object or a symbol, but not so easy to hurt another human being.

  “Of course the world is often a random place. That fact does not prove or disprove the idea of karma,” says Dr. Bell. “But that’s a moot point right now, for this isn’t at all random. You came here with a purpose. I’m trying to figure out what brought you to this place. What drove you to come here and terrorize me in this way?”

  Mr. Potter scratches his nose with the barrel of the gun.

  “Tell me your first name,” Dr. Bell says. “I’d like to be less formal, especially under the circumstances.”

  Mr. Potter stands up and shakes his head. “Just keep talking,” he says, pacing in front of the green couch.

  “Okay, I’m thinking that if you came here just to kill me, you would have done it by now. So why don’t you tell me what else it is that you’re looking for? You said I’m a Buddhist. Who told you that? And does this person have something to do with why else you’re here?”

  “You know who that person is, Dr. Bell, and you now have forty-one minutes and thirty-two seconds to tell me why you did it.”

  Dr. Bell feels his forced calm giving way to a tempest of frustration, his anxiety flaring into anger. He shakes inside with as much outrage as fear. Dr. Bell has to fight his urge to charge the man with the gun, to do violence to Mr. Potter for the way he is being violated. But he knows that could be a fatal mistake. Mr. Potter seems to register this wave passing through Dr. Bell. He takes half a step back and levels the gun. He finds the edge of the couch with one hand and sits down. Smiles.

  Dr. Bell takes a deep breath and reminds himself not to telegraph his feelings. “So we know someone in common. Or you think we do. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, Dr. Bell. It is. Continue . . .” Mr. Potter takes another theatrical look at his watch. “Time, after all, isn’t on your side.”

&nb
sp; “Was this someone a patient of mine?”

  “She was. Her name was Katherine Cook.”

  “Katherine Cook. I don’t recall seeing anyone named Katherine Cook.”

  “Try harder. She sometimes went by Katie.”

  “Can you describe her to me?”

  “She was beautiful . . . beautiful, and full of life. Until she met you.”

  “So you say. A young woman named Katie Cook. How long did she see me, for how many sessions?”

  “Long enough to be destroyed.”

  “By me, I assume, in your worldview, which I’m beginning to think of as increasingly aberrant. Tell, me, Mr. Potter, what happened to your leg?” Dr. Bell scowls, framing the question just shy of an accusation.

  The sudden change of topic confuses Mr. Potter. He glances down at his bruised leg and the small bandage, clearly startled. His gun hand goes lax and Dr. Bell thinks it’s now or never if he’s going to go for the weapon. But before he can make his move, Mr. Potter pushes down his pants leg, his face flushed, and regains himself.

  Something is there, thinks Dr. Bell.

  “I want you to tell me precisely what happened,” Dr. Bell says. “Did you hurt someone?”

  Mr. Potter purses his lips like a goldfish at the edge of the bowl. He struggles for breath. His face reddens, tics associated with shame and anxiety, clearly a regressive response. Dr. Bell knows it’s time to play his highest card.

  “What have you done, Martin?”

  The sudden use of the man’s first name peels back another layer of defense. Mr. Potter’s composure melts, his face is that of a scared child. Dr. Bell reminds himself that he’s walking a fine line. Children are easy to break down, but they also act impulsively and without thought of consequence. And this one is carrying a gun. Dr. Bell eases up a little.

  “It’s there on your name tag,” Dr. Bell says evenly. “Martin Potter, 3712 Moorpark Street, Apartment 11, North Hollywood . . . I can’t quite make out the Zip Code.”

  Dr. Bell hopes this traditional disarming move, using Mr. Potter’s first name, placing him at his address, identifying him as a person with a life outside this office, will blunt his aggressiveness, give Dr. Bell the room he needs to exploit Mr. Potter’s insecurities. Clearly Mr. Potter exhibits signs of regret. But where has this taken him? Is he suffering from a character disorder, severe perhaps? Is he projecting his own guilt onto Dr. Bell—reaction formation? Dr. Bell softens, leans forward, and lowers his voice.

  “I’m sorry if I snapped at you, Martin,” he says. “I’m deeply worried, and not just about my own safety. About you as well. Have you perhaps already hurt someone else?”

  Mr. Potter stares back dully, traumatized. His fingers loosen a bit and the gun sags in his hands as if it’s suddenly a great weight. Dr. Bell again considers going for it, but he’s making progress breaking Mr. Potter’s resolve. Best to stick with it.

  Mr. Potter falls back into the couch, which nearly consumes him. “I haven’t hurt anybody, Dr. Bell. In fact, I’m pretty sure you’ll be the first. And you can call me Mr. Potter, if you don’t mind. We’re not ever going to be on a first-name basis.”

  “Fair enough, Mr. Potter. Why don’t you tell me about what happened to your leg, then?”

  Mr. Potter pauses, takes a deep breath. He regains some of his composure. “Very well, Dr. Bell, I will, since it does concern you and not indirectly.”

  “It does?”

  “Yes. You see, Dr. Bell, I hurt my leg when I walked into Ms. Cook’s apartment last Tuesday and found her . . .”

  Mr. Potter’s voice trails off, his eyes close.

  Dr. Bell tries to wait him out, a game of chicken played in tense silence. He is surprised to find his own nerve fails first. “You found her?”

  Mr. Potter’s eyes snap open like a man tied to train tracks who hears a loud whistle. “I didn’t do anything. I didn’t hurt her. It was you, I know it was you.”

  “Ms. Cook. Tell me what happened to Ms. Cook,” Dr. Bell presses.

  Mr. Potter grows more agitated. He waves the weapon like a dowsing rod and Dr. Bell flinches involuntarily.

  “I found her that way. Hanging there. From one of those pull-up bars you put in a doorway? She’d tied the sash of her robe around her neck and . . . or so it appeared . . . Maybe someone arranged it to look that way.” Mr. Potter lowers his head.

  “Go on, Mr. Potter,” Dr. Bell says, voice thickening. “How did you happen to be at Ms. Cook’s apartment—were the two of you . . . friends?”

  “I didn’t know her. But I loved her.” Mr. Potter’s eyes cloud and he looks close to crying. “It was an awful thing to see.”

  Dr. Bell says nothing, waits for more. Mr. Potter wipes his eyes and nose on his right sleeve. He looks up, angry now, and points the gun once more in Dr. Bell’s direction. Dr. Bell recoils.

  “I know what you’re thinking, but it wasn’t like that,” Mr. Potter says. “I really did love her. From afar, yes, but it was pure and true.”

  Bell takes a shot. “You’ve been following her?”

  Mr. Potter reddens again. “Yes, yes. I followed her. I saw her in that supermarket at Burbank and Laurel Canyon, buying vegetables. She looked familiar, and then I realized I’d seen her in a commercial, the one for cat food.”

  He waits for Dr. Bell to register a sign of recognition.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Potter. I haven’t seen it. I don’t watch much television, and when I do it tends to be CNN or MSNBC. I don’t recall seeing this cat-food commercial.”

  “Ms. Cook was wearing a long-sleeved sweater,” Mr. Potter continues, as if Dr. Bell had said nothing, wasn’t even there. “It was beige, almost the color of her hair, and a pair of worn jeans. Those big blue eyes . . . I wanted to say something right away, but I was too shy. So I followed her to her car and watched her load the groceries. I knew it wasn’t right, but what was the harm so long as I didn’t harass her? Lots of men look at someone like that, all day long I’m sure.”

  Dr. Bell just stares back, regaining some leverage.

  Mr. Potter looks away again, flustered. “Well, I went back to the grocery store the next day at the same time, and there she was again,” he continues, looking beyond Dr. Bell into some darkened corner. “At first I just followed her around the store, watching her and wondering what it would be like to be with her . . . you know, shopping with her. Going through a day with her.”

  Dr. Bell sees an opening. “But that’s not where it stopped, is it, Mr. Potter?”

  “No, it’s not,” Mr. Potter says, mostly to himself. “I looked her up on the Internet, found her on IMDb, familiarized myself with her background. She grew up in Ohio. Went to NYU, where she studied theater. Came out here to follow her dreams, like a lot of us do, right, Dr. Bell?”

  “Would you say this was a healthy fixation, Mr. Potter?”

  “Is love a fixation, Dr. Bell? I suppose it might be. But I did hope to talk to her one day, so why wouldn’t I be prepared? I went back to the supermarket every day at the same time and saw her there. She only ever picked up a few things. Sometimes it seemed like she just did it for the routine. Routines can be comforting, Dr. Bell.”

  “They can be, Mr. Potter, but some are more appropriate than others. Did you ever speak to Ms. Cook?”

  “I was too shy to approach her in the grocery store. I didn’t want to seem like . . . well, I didn’t want to intrude. Finally I did follow her to her apartment building—”

  “You followed her home?” Dr. Bell cuts in, accusingly.

  “Yes, I did, but only because I was so enchanted. I watched her unload the bag of groceries. I sat in my car, telling myself to leave, that this was silly, but then she came right back out again and got in her car.”

  Mr. Potter stops, raises his head again, and stares directly at Dr. Bell. “She drove here, to your office, Dr. Bell.”

  “So you say, Mr. Potter,” Dr. Bell says, turning in his chair, putting his back to Mr. Potter, “but why should I believe any of
this? I don’t know you. I don’t know this woman you speak of. You’re obviously going through something and I’d like to help you—”

  “Please face me, Dr. Bell. I can shoot you just as well through that chair and I’ll be inclined to do it sooner than later if you don’t turn around so I can see you.”

  Dr. Bell takes a deep breath and turns back around to face Mr. Potter.

  “Okay, Mr. Potter. You say this woman, Ms. Cook, came here?”

  “Yes, here. I followed her here.”

  “What day was that, Mr. Potter?”

  “Tuesday . . . of last week. She was here for nearly two hours,” Mr. Potter says, fondling the gun. “Yet these appointments last fifty minutes, yes?”

  “But I don’t have a client named Katie Cook. There was no Katie Cook here last Tuesday. I’m positive, but if it makes a difference, I’ll check my appointment ledger.”

  Dr. Bell flips backward through his calendar to the date in question and runs his index finder down the page. “No, no Katie Cook, or Katherine Cook, Mr. Potter. I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

  “But you have an appointment booked with someone named Katherine, don’t you, Dr. Bell? Didn’t you? Goddammit, didn’t you!”

  Dr. Bell tells himself to stay calm, show nothing.

  “Yes, Mr. Potter. I did book a double appointment, with a woman named Katherine Friedman, a relatively new client. I was just getting to know her. She double-booked because she was going to miss the following week, going to Hawaii or something. Patients do that all the time, book double appointments. You understand, right?”

  “I understand that you’re telling your story, Dr. Bell. I also understand that Katie Cook was Katherine Friedman’s stage name, but I’m sure you know that, don’t you?”

  “No, Mr. Potter, I don’t know that. I don’t know anything you’re talking about. All I know is that someone whom I suspect is delusional is pointing a gun at me and talking in riddles.”

  “What about that night, Dr. Bell? What happened later that night?”

  “I don’t know,” Dr. Bell replies, feeling an icy ripple up his spine, “but I’m afraid you do.”