Panic Attack

by Jason Starr

  “He reminds me of Howard Gutman.” “Oh, come on,” Adam said.

  His mother had told the story of Howard Gutman dozens of times before, but that didn’t stop her from retelling it again and again.

  “He sat at our table at your dad’s cousin Sheila’s wedding,” she said. “Everyone was talking to him and thought he was this great, wonderful guy, but I knew something was off about him. There was just something about the way he looked at people. It was as if he wasn’t really looking at them at all. A couple of months later we heard he killed his wife. He took a hammer and pummeled her to death while she was sleeping.”

  “And what does this have to do with Xan?” Adam asked.

  “I don’t like the way he looks at people,” his mother said. “I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something just off about him.”

  “Whatever you do, please don’t mention any of that to Marissa,” Adam said. “Just try to give her a break, okay? She’s going through a lot, obviously, and she seems very happy with Xan.”

  “Xan,” his mother said with disdain.

  “A lot of kids shorten their names these days,” Adam said. “It’s not his name I’m worried about,” she said.

  About an hour after he took the first dose of Klonopin, Adam felt like it was wearing off, so he took another pill and a couple of Valiums, too. He didn’t bother to check for warnings about drug interactions, as at this point his health wasn’t exactly his top priority.

  In the morning, when he went downstairs to the kitchen, his mother was already preparing for the second day of the shivah. It was hard to be in the kitchen and not think about what had happened there—that the floor around where the body had been was stained lightly pink didn’t help—and it was still hard to be on the front staircase and not think about the shooting and all the blood.

  “How did you sleep?” his mother asked. “I didn’t,” Adam said.

  “Oh, you poor thing, why don’t you take a nap?” “If I could sleep I would’ve slept last night.”

  “At least go lie down on the couch. You need your rest.” What he needed was some more Klonopin.

  “I’ll just have a cup of coffee. Can you do me a favor and bring it out to me in the dining room? It’s hard for me to be here with the floor like that.”

  A couple of minutes later his mother brought his coffee and said, “So I didn’t go to bed till after midnight, and Xan was still here.”

  “I know, he slept over,” Adam said.

  “He sleeps over already? How long has he known her?”

  Adam took a sip of coffee and winced. His mother always made coffee too strong.

  “Do you need another sugar for that?” she asked. “I put two packets in, but—”

  “It’s okay, I’m fine.” “Are you sure, becau—”

  “I said it’s fine.” He managed another sip, then said, “Dana and I had discussed it. We didn’t feel comfortable with her bringing boyfriends home we hadn’t met, but we met Xan and we approved him.”

  “Approved him,” she said.

  God, she was already starting to annoy him, trying to say everything she could possibly say to aggravate him. Not surprising—they were at the two-day mark. When she got like this it was hard for him to believe that she wasn’t being passive-aggressive and doing this intentionally. The fact was, in this case he was actually on her side—he didn’t like the idea of Marissa having guys stay over either—but his mother had the uncanny ability to force a person into taking an opposing point of view.

  “Do we really have to discuss this?” he said. “Sorry, but I really don’t think Marissa’s boyfriend situation is the most important thing in the world right now.”

  They sat across from each other in silence for several minutes, but Adam knew his mother wouldn’t let it go. He could tell that her brain was churning, and he even saw her lips moving as she mumbled silently to herself.

  “What can I tell you?” she finally said. “I feel the way I feel.”

  “You never had problems when I had girlfriends over,” Adam said. “What’re you talking about?”

  “You and Dad,” he continued. “I had girls up to my room all the time and you never had a problem with it.”

  “When did you have girls over?”

  “All the time. Come on, don’t you remember my girlfriends? Stacy Silverman? Julie Litsky?”

  His mother looked lost. She’d done it again, hit on another of his issues, how he’d felt ignored and emotionally neglected as a child. He’d always felt like his parents were too wrapped up in their own problems and didn’t pay enough attention to what was going on in his life. Was it possible that he’d re-created this dynamic in his relationship with Marissa?

  “You really don’t remember Julie Litsky?” he asked, suddenly very agitated. “Did she have red hair?”

  “She had brown hair.”

  “Oh, okay, I think I remember her now,” she said, but it was obvious she still had no idea who Julie Litsky was.

  “And you don’t remember that you and Dad let girls sleep over in the house when I was in college? I used to have my girlfriends over all the time over the summer, for spring break, the holidays—”

  “That was different,” his mother said. “They were girls you knew, who you went to school with, who came from good families. Who is this Xan? Some stranger off the street?”

  “You don’t know anything about his family.” “Neither do you.”

  “Okay, I’m serious now, I really don’t want to discuss this anymore.”

  Adam left the dining room. He went into the kitchen, just to get away from his mother, but then he noticed the pinkness on the floor and went back out toward the front of the house, avoiding looking at the staircase. Jesus, could he feel any more trapped? Then he peeked outside, saw a couple of news trucks, and thought, Yes, I can. There were fewer reporters than yesterday, but it was still early. There would probably be more later on, and then they’d start ringing the bell, trying to get him to come out and comment. One thing was for sure— this story wasn’t going to go away on its own. Until the police arrested Tony or someone else for the murder, Adam knew there would be constant speculation about his possible involvement. There would be newspaper and magazine articles, TV features, you name it. Actually, the real nightmare scenario would be if the police didn’t make an arrest and the case went unsolved. If that happened, no one would care about the evidence or facts in the case—Adam would be presumed guilty for the rest of his life.

  Adam went upstairs and took a Klonopin and a couple of Advils. He felt nauseous several minutes later, and he wasn’t sure whether it was from anxiety or some side effect of the medication. He lay in bed for a while but decided this was making him feel even worse and returned downstairs.

  His mother was alone in the living room, and the trays with bagels and doughnuts were untouched.

  “I think it’s disgusting,” she said.

  He knew she was referring to the lack of friends and family who had shown up for the shivah. Fewer than ten people yesterday and no one so far today.

  “Eh, it’s expected,” Adam said. “People read the papers, they watch TV.” He noticed that the TV was on and picked up the remote and turned it off. “Sorry, but I’d rather live in a plastic bubble for a while, if you know what I mean.”

  “But it’s not about you, it’s about Dana,” his mother said. “These are people who loved her, who supposedly cared about her, and they can’t be here for her now?”

  His mother had pushed yet another button as he felt a pang of guilt for the way he’d treated Dana before she was killed. It was bad enough that they hadn’t been speaking to each other and had been on the verge of divorce, but even before then, over the last several months, he hadn’t treated her very well. She’d obviously been suffering, going through whatever internal conflicts had caused her to cheat on him, and she’d tried to talk to him so many times, but he’d been oblivious. He was the psychologist. He should have recognized the sig
ns of the failing marriage and insisted that they go into counseling. There was no excuse for it, none at all.

  “You can’t control what other people do,” he said, mindlessly ripping a bagel in half and then biting into one of the halves. Actually, he didn’t mind that no one had shown up today. He wasn’t in the mood to make phony conversation, especially with people who hated him.

  Adam took another bite of the bagel, then realized he didn’t have an appetite and put the rest on the plate. He started pacing the living room, and then Marissa and Xan entered. They all exchanged good mornings, but when his mother spoke he noticed that she was looking at Marissa but not Xan.

  “Can I talk to you a sec?” Marissa asked Adam. “Sure,” he said.

  “In private,” she added.

  “I’ll wait in the hallway,” Xan said. Clearly he didn’t want to be left alone with Adam’s mother.

  Adam and Marissa went into the dining room, and she said, “Sorry, but I have to get out of here today.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Xan’s place. I just need some space, I need to breathe. I just can’t be around here.”

  “I understand,” Adam said, wondering if “around here” really meant “around you.”

  “I might come back to sleep here tonight, or I might stay at Xan’s and come back tomorrow morning,” she said. “Did you hear anything new?”

  “No, nothing yet,” Adam said.

  Marissa wouldn’t make eye contact with him, and he could tell that she still thought he was guilty. He couldn’t hide his frustration and let out a deep breath, as if signaling that this conversation was over. She took the cue and went ahead of him back into the living room. While she said good-bye to her grandmother, Xan came over and hugged him tightly and said, “I’ll be thinking about you, man.”

  “Thank you,” Adam said. “I appreciate that.”

  As Marissa and Xan started to leave, Adam’s mother said, “Call us later,” and Marissa said, “I will.”

  His mother remained on the couch, and Adam picked up the other piece of bagel and bit into it and chewed it harder than necessary. He was still upset at Marissa for treating him that way. He wondered if she knew how badly she’d hurt him.

  Then Adam became aware of a dog barking. It sounded like Blackie, the Millers’ dog, and the noise seemed to be coming from the street in front of the house. The dog was really barking wildly, the way he’d been barking the other day when Adam had returned from playing golf and found the note from Tony under the door.

  “Do you hear that?” Adam asked his mother, but he was really talking to himself, thinking out loud.

  “Hear what?” she asked.

  Adam went to the front of the house, to one of the windows facing the street, and peered through a space in the venetian blinds. He saw JoAnne Miller holding the taut leash, trying to restrain Blackie, who looked almost rabid as he tried to escape to attack Xan.

  IN THE early afternoon, when it became clear that no guests were going to show up, Adam’s mother paused the movie she’d been watching, Notting Hill, and put away the bagels and cream cheese and other food. Although Adam had been sitting next to his mother, he’d been very distracted, not paying any attention to the movie, getting up every few minutes or so to pace.

  When his mother returned from putting the food away, she said, “Okay, you can unpause it now.”

  “Go ahead, I’m not watching,” Adam said.

  “Are you feeling okay? Do you want to lie down?” “I’m fine, just watch.”

  “I can tell, since Marissa and Xan left, you seem very upset about something.” Adam hadn’t wanted to discuss it with his mother, partly because he was confused and wasn’t sure there was anything to discuss, and partly because he

  knew that if he told her she would flip out and cause a whole scene.

  But he really needed to talk to somebody about this, and maybe she’d have some advice or a rational opinion. In his current state he didn’t trust his ability to make decisions.

  “I’m concerned about something,” he said. “About what?”

  “Did you hear the way our neighbor’s dog, Blackie, was barking before?”

  “I knew it had to do with that dog. What about it?”

  Adam told her that he’d heard Blackie barking when he’d found the note from Tony and that JoAnne Miller had reported that her dog had started barking like crazy the night Dana was killed.

  “So what does that have to do with the dog barking before?”

  “The dog was barking at Xan and Marissa, but Marissa has known the dog for years, she used to walk him when the Millers went on vacation.”

  “So you think the dog was barking at Xan?” “I have no idea what I’m saying,” Adam said.

  “Didn’t I tell you about Xan?” his mother said.

  Adam knew his mother would use this to get in an I-told-you-so jab.

  “I just think it was strange the way the dog was going so crazy like that, that’s all,” he said. “I’ve known that dog for years, and I’ve never seen him bark like that, just at somebody on the sidewalk for no reason. I mean, reporters have been out there for the past couple of days, and you didn’t hear the dog barking at them, right?”

  “So the dog doesn’t like Xan,” his mother said. “Smart dog. I don’t like him either.”

  “I don’t think you get what I’m saying,” Adam said.

  His mother stared at him, then said, “You think the dog was barking other times at Xan.”

  “I’m sure I’m being ridiculous, but—” “But you said the note was from Tony.”

  “It was from Tony. It was the same writing, on similar paper, as another note I got, I think from Tony, that was kind of threatening.”

  He told his mother about the other note, and then she said, “So you’re saying you think Xan could’ve left both notes and not Tony?”

  “I don’t think that . . . I’m just wondering, that’s all.”

  “Why would he do that? And how would he even know that Tony and Dana were having an affair?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why it doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I said I didn’t like Xan, but I didn’t say I think he killed Dana.” “I don’t think that either.”

  “Of course you think that. That’s why you’re bringing this all up.”

  Adam, suddenly hyped up, full of energy, said, “Xan is not a killer. Tony killed Dana. His alibi’s gonna fall apart, you’ll see. This is probably just a ridiculous waste of time.”

  “I don’t think it’s such a waste of time. I think you should call the police anyway just to let them know.”

  “Let them know what? That a dog started barking at my daughter’s boyfriend?

  They’ll think I’m insane, more insane than they already think I am.” “I’m worried about Marissa.”

  “There’s nothing to be worried about.” “What if you’re right and Xan’s a killer?”

  “Can you stop it? He’s not a killer, all right? I wouldn’t’ve even started thinking about this if you didn’t put the idea in my head.”

  “So now you’re blaming me?”

  “No, I’m just saying there’s no basis to it. He had no reason to want to hurt Dana. They got along great, and she liked him a—”

  He had a realization, a sudden moment of clarity, and his mother noticed the change in his expression.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “She liked him a lot,” he said. “So? What’re you talking about?”

  “The other day, after Xan came to dinner and we met for the first time, Dana and I had an argument. Well, not really an argument, just a little spat, you know? It seems ridiculous now, but she told me that she thought Xan was handsome, and I got jealous about it. But the real reason I was jealous was because of the way they were acting the night before at dinner. Xan, you know he’s a smooth guy, you know, a charmer, likes to compliment everyone, play up to people, that’s just his style. But I could tell how much Dan
a liked the attention.”

  “Oh my God,” his mother said. “So you think they were having an affair?” “No, that’s impossible,” Adam said.

  “Why is it so impossible? She was having an affair with that other guy.” This was a good point—and Xan was a younger guy, just like Tony.

  Feeling sick, realizing he couldn’t totally rule this out, Adam said, “I don’t think she’d do that, not with Marissa’s boyfriend. She wouldn’t do that to Marissa.”

  “You never know what somebody’ll do,” his mother said, letting the implication hang there.

  Adam was shaking his head. “No, she wouldn’t do that, I’m positive.” He wasn’t positive at all, actually, but it made him feel better to say it. Then he added, “But I guess that doesn’t mean he felt the same way.”

  “You mean you think he—”

  “I’m just saying, what if Xan was interested in her? I mean, more interested in her than she was in him.”

  “Then why would he kill her?”

  “Maybe he came over here hoping to find her alone. Maybe that was why JoAnne next door heard her dog barking like crazy, probably around the time Dana was killed.”

  “Call the police,” his mother said, panicked.

  “No, wait, that doesn’t make any sense,” Adam said. “Xan was at the movie that night with Marissa. And just because he and Dana were flirting a little, if you could even call it flirting, doesn’t mean he’d come over here to try to sexually assault her. I’m taking a huge leap there. There was no sign of sexual assault; the police would’ve jumped on that right away. All of this is ridiculous, really, when you think about the facts. There’s no basis for any of it.”

  “Call the police anyway,” his mother said. “Let them decide if it’s ridiculous or not.”

  “Maybe, I’ll have to think about it,” he said. “It all seems very confusing right now.”

  Adam went upstairs, even more stressed out than earlier. He took a hot shower, thinking the whole thing through every which way. While some parts of it seemed to fit, he still couldn’t come up with any logical motive for Xan to come over to kill Dana, a woman he hardly knew. Only a total psychopath would do something like that, and Xan wasn’t a psychopath. If Xan was mentally unstable or had psychopathic tendencies, Adam certainly would’ve noticed it immediately. Detecting abnormal behavior was his profession, after all. And Adam wasn’t even sure if it was physically possible that Xan could’ve done it. Would he have had time to kill Dana and then meet Marissa at the movie theater? Probably not. Adam tried to forget about the whole thing, think about something else, but the dog barking so ferociously at Xan kept nagging at him, and what his mother had said earlier about how Xan was basically a total stranger kept repeating in his mind as well.