Glancing back to his car where he could see the silhouettes of VJ and Philip, Victor struggled with an urge to go back and drive away. There was something wrong. He could sense it. He looked back at the broken bay window, then up the front steps at the door. The place was too quiet, too dark. But then Victor wondered what he’d tell VJ: he was too scared? Having come that far, Victor forced himself to continue.
Going up the front steps, he saw that the door was not completely shut.
“Hello!” Victor called. “Anybody home?” He pushed the door open wider and stepped inside.
Victor’s scream died on his lips. The bloody scene in Gephardt’s living room was worse than anything he’d ever seen, even during his internship at Boston City Hospital. Seven corpses, including Gephardt’s, were strewn grotesquely around the living room. The bodies were riddled with bullets and the smell of cordite hung heavily in the air.
The killer must have only just left because blood was still oozing from the wounds. Besides Gephardt, there was a woman about Gephardt’s age who Victor guessed was his wife, an older couple, and three children. The youngest looked about five. Gephardt had been shot so many times that the top part of his head was gone.
Victor straightened up from checking the last body for signs of life. Weak and dizzy, he walked to the phone wondering if he should be touching anything. He didn’t bother with an ambulance, but dialed the police, who said a car would be there right away.
Victor decided to wait in the car. He was afraid if he stayed in the house any longer he’d be sick.
“We’re going to be here for a little while,” Victor shouted as he slid in behind the wheel. He turned the radio down. The image of all the dead people was etched in his mind. “There’s a little trouble inside the house and the police are on their way.”
“How long?” VJ asked.
“I’m not sure. Maybe an hour or so.”
“Any fire trucks coming?” Philip asked eagerly.
The police arrived in force with four squad cars, probably the entire Lawrence PD fleet. Victor did not go back inside but hung around on the front steps. After about a half hour one of the plainclothesmen came out to talk to him.
“I’m Lieutenant Mark Scudder,” he said. “They got your name and address, I presume.”
Victor told him they had.
“Bad business,” Scudder said. He lit a cigarette and tossed the match out onto the lawn. “Looks like some drug-related vendetta—the kind of scene you expect to see south of Boston, but not up here.”
“Did you find drugs?” Victor asked.
“Not yet,” Scudder said, taking a long drag on his cigarette. “But this sure wasn’t any crime of passion. Not with the artillery they used. There must have been two or three people shooting in there.”
“Are you people going to need me much longer?” Victor asked.
Scudder shook his head. “If they got your name and number, you can go whenever you want.”
Upset as she was, Marsha could hardly focus on her afternoon patients and needed all her forbearance to appear interested in the last, a narcissistic twenty-year-old with a borderline personality disorder. The moment the girl left, Marsha picked up her purse and went out to her car, for once letting her correspondence go to the following day.
All the way home she kept going over her conversation with Remington. Either Victor had been lying about the amount of time VJ was spending at the lab or VJ had been forging his excuses. Both possibilities were equally upsetting, and Marsha realized that she couldn’t even begin dealing with her feelings about Victor and his unconscionable experiment until she had found out how badly VJ had been harmed. The discovery of his truancy added to her worries; it was such a classic symptom of a conduct disorder that could lead to an antisocial personality.
Marsha turned into their driveway and accelerated up the slight incline. It was almost dark and she had on her headlights. She rounded the house and was reaching for the automatic garage opener when the headlights caught something on the garage door. She couldn’t see what it was and as she pulled up to the door, the headlights reflected back off the white surface, creating a glare. Shielding her eyes, Marsha got out of the car and came around the front. Squinting, she looked up at the object, which looked like a ball of rags.
“Oh, my God!” she cried when she saw what it was. Shaking off a wave of nausea, she ventured another look. The cat had been strangled and nailed against the door as if crucified.
Trying not to look at the bulging eyes and protruding tongue, she read the typed note secured to the tail: YOU’DBETTER MAKE THINGS RIGHT.
Leaving her car where it was but turning off the headlights and the engine, Marsha hurried inside the house and bolted the door. Trembling with a mixture of revulsion, anger, and fear, she took off her coat and went to find the maid, Ramona, who was tidying up in the living room. Marsha asked whether she’d heard any strange noises.
“I did hear some pounding around noon,” Ramona said. “I opened the front door but nobody was there.”
“Any cars or trucks?” Marsha asked.
“No,” said Ramona.
Marsha let her go back to her cleaning and went to phone Victor, but once she got through, the office said he’d already left. She debated calling the police, but decided Victor would be home any minute. She decided to pour herself a glass of white wine. As she took a sip she saw headlights play against the barn.
“God damn it!” Victor cursed as he found Marsha’s car blocking the garage. “Why does your mother do that? She could at least keep her heap on her side.”
Angling the car toward the back door of the house, Victor came to a stop and turned off the lights and the ignition. He was a bundle of nerves following the experience at Gephardt’s. VJ and Philip were blithely unaware of what had happened there, and they didn’t ask for an explanation despite the fact that they had had to wait in the car for so long.
Victor got out slowly and followed the other two inside. By the time he closed the door he could tell that Marsha was in one of her moods. It was all in her tone as she ordered VJ and Philip to take off their shoes, get upstairs, and wash for dinner.
Victor hung up his coat, then entered the kitchen.
“And you!” said Marsha. “I suppose you didn’t see our little present on the garage door?”
“What are you talking about?” Victor said, matching Marsha’s testy tone.
“How you could have missed it is beyond me,” Marsha said, putting down her wineglass, flipping on the courtyard light and brushing past Victor. “Come with me!”
Victor hesitated for a moment, then followed. She marched him through the family room and out the back door.
“Marsha!” Victor called, hurrying to keep up with her.
She stopped by the front of her car. Victor came up beside her.
“What are you . . .” he began. His words trailed off as he found himself looking at the gruesome sight of Kissa, brutally nailed to the garage door.
Marsha was standing with her hands on her hips, looking at Victor, not at the cat. “I thought you’d be interested to see how well you ‘laid it on the line’ with the problem people.”
Victor turned away. He couldn’t bear to look at the dead, tortured animal, and he couldn’t face his wife.
“I want to know what you’re going to do to see that this is stopped. And don’t think you’ll get away with a simple ‘I’ll handle it.’ I want you to tell me what steps you’re going to take, and now. I just can’t take any more of this . . .” Her voice broke.
Victor wasn’t sure how much more of it he could take either. Marsha was treating him as if he was to blame, as though he’d brought this down on them. Maybe he had. But he’d be damned if he knew who was behind this. He was as baffled as Marsha was.
Victor slowly turned back to the garage door. It was only then he saw the note. He didn’t know whether to be angry or sick. Who the hell was doing this? If it were Gephardt, at least he wouldn’t be b
othering them again.
“We’ve gone from a phone call to a broken window to a dead pet,” said Marsha. “What’s next?”
“We’ll call the police,” Victor said.
“They were a big help last time.”
“I don’t know what you expect from me,” Victor said, regaining some composure. “I did call the three people I suspected of being behind this. By the way, the list of suspects has been reduced to two.”
“What does that mean?” Marsha asked.
“Tonight on the way home I stopped at George Gephardt’s,” Victor said. “And the man was—”
“Yuck!” VJ voiced with a disgusted expression.
Both Victor and Marsha were startled by VJ’s sudden appearance. Marsha had hoped to spare her son from this. She stepped between VJ and the garage door, trying to block the gruesome sight.
“Look at her tongue,” VJ said, glancing around Marsha.
“Inside, young man!” Marsha said, trying to herd VJ back to the house. She really never would forgive Victor for this. But VJ would have none of it. He seemed determined to have a look. His interest struck Marsha as morbid; it was almost clinical. With a sinking feeling she realized there was no sorrow in his reaction—another schizoid symptom.
“VJ!” Marsha said sharply. “I want you in the house now!”
“Do you think Kissa was dead before she got nailed to the door?” VJ asked, still calmly, trying to look at the cat as Marsha pushed him toward the door.
Once they were inside, Victor went directly to the phone while Marsha tried to have a talk with VJ. Surely he had some feelings for their cat. Victor got through to the North Andover police station. The operator assured him they’d send a patrol car over right away.
Hanging up the phone, he turned into the room. VJ was going up the back stairs two steps at a time. Marsha was on the couch with arms folded angrily. It was clear she was even more upset now that VJ had seen the cat.
“I’ll hire some temporary security until we get to the bottom of this,” said Victor. “We’ll have them watch the house at night.”
“I think we should have done that from the start,” Marsha said.
Victor shrugged. He sat down on the couch, suddenly feeling very tired.
“Do you know what VJ told me when I tried to ask him about his feelings?” Marsha asked. “He said we can get another cat.”
“That sounds mature,” Victor said. “At least VJ can be rational.”
“Victor, it’s been his cat for years. You’d think he would show a little emotion, grief at the loss.” Marsha swallowed hard. “I think it is a cold and detached response.” She hoped she could remain composed while they discussed VJ, but as much as she tried to hold them back, tears welled in her eyes.
Victor shrugged again. He really didn’t want to get into another psychological chitchat. The boy was fine.
“Inappropriate emotion is not a good sign,” Marsha managed, hoping at last Victor would agree. But Victor didn’t say anything.
“What do you think?” Marsha asked.
“To tell you the truth,” Victor said, “I am a little preoccupied at the moment. A little while ago before VJ appeared I was telling you about Gephardt. On the way home I went to visit the man, and I walked in on a scene—you just can’t imagine. Gephardt and his entire family were murdered today. Machine-gunned in their living room in the middle of the afternoon. It was a massacre.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I was the one to call the police.”
“How awful!” she cried. “My God, what’s going on?” She looked at Victor. He was her husband, after all, the man she’d loved all these years. “Are you all right?” she asked him.
“Oh, I’m hanging in there,” Victor said, but his tone lacked conviction.
“Was VJ with you?” she asked.
“He was in the car.”
“So he didn’t see anything?”
Victor shook his head.
“Thank God,” Marsha said. “Do the police have any motive for the killings?”
“They think it’s drug-related.”
“What a terrible thing!” Marsha exclaimed, still stunned. “Can I get you something to drink? A glass of wine?”
“I think I’ll take something a bit stronger, like a Scotch,” Victor said.
“You stay put,” said Marsha. She went to the wet bar and poured Victor a drink. Maybe she was being too hard on him, but she had to get him to focus on their son. She decided to bring the subject back to VJ. Handing the glass to Victor, she began.
“I had an upsetting experience myself today—not anything like yours. I went to VJ’s school to visit the headmaster.”
Victor took a sip.
Marsha then told Victor about her visit with Mr. Remington, ending with the question of why Victor hadn’t discussed with her his decision to have VJ miss so much school.
“I never made a decision for VJ to miss school,” Victor said.
“Haven’t you written a number of notes for VJ to spend time at the lab rather than at school?”
“Of course not.”
“I was afraid of that,” Marsha said. “I think we have a real problem on our hands. Truancy like that is a serious symptom.”
“It seemed like he was around a lot, but when I asked him, VJ told me that the school was sending him out to get more practical experience. As long as his grades were fine, I didn’t think to question him further.”
“Pauline Spaulding also told me that VJ spent most of his time in your lab,” Marsha said. “At least after his intelligence dropped.”
“VJ has always spent a lot of time in the lab,” Victor admitted.
“What does he do?” Marsha asked.
“Lots of things,” Victor said. “He started doing basic chemistry stuff, uses the microscopes, plays computer games which I loaded for him. I don’t know. He just hangs out. Everybody knows him. He’s well-liked. He’s always been adept at entertaining himself.”
The front door chimes sounded and both Marsha and Victor went to the front foyer and let in the North Andover police.
“Sergeant Cerullo,” said a large, uniformed policeman. He had small features that were all bunched together in the center of a pudgy face. “And this here is Patrolman Hood. Sorry about your cat. We’ve been tryin’ to watch your house better since Widdicomb’s been here, but it’s hard, settin’ where it is so far from the road and all.”
Sergeant Cerullo got out a pad and pencil as Widdicomb had Tuesday night. Victor led the two of them out the back to the garage. Hood took several photos of Kissa, then both policemen searched the area. Victor was gratified when Hood offered to take the cat down and even helped dig a grave at the edge of a stand of birch trees.
On the way into the house, Victor asked if they knew anybody he could call for the security duty he had in mind. They gave him the names of several local firms.
“As long as we’re talkin’ names,” Sergeant Cerullo said, “do you have any idea of who would want to do this to your cat?”
“Two people come to mind,” Victor said. “Sharon Carver and William Hurst.”
Cerullo dutifully wrote down the names. Victor didn’t mention Gephardt. Nor did he mention Ronald Beekman. There was no way Ronald would stoop to this.
After seeing the police out, Victor called both of the recommended firms. It was apparently after hours; all he got was recordings, so he left his name and number at work.
“I want us both to have a talk with VJ,” Marsha said.
Victor knew by the tone of her voice there’d be no putting her off. He merely nodded and followed her up the back stairs. VJ’s door was ajar and they entered without a knock.
VJ closed the cover of one of his stamp albums and slipped the heavy book onto the shelf above his desk.
Marsha studied her son. He was looking up at her and Victor expectantly, almost guiltily, as if they’d caught him doing something naughty. Working on a stamp album hardly qualified.
“We want to t
alk with you,” began Marsha.
“Okay,” VJ agreed. “About what?”
To Marsha he suddenly looked the ten-year-old child he was. He looked so vulnerable, she had to restrain herself from leaning down and drawing him to her. But it was time to be stern. “I visited Pendleton Academy today and spoke with the headmaster. He told me that you had been producing notes from your father to leave school and spend time at Chimera. Is this true?”
With her professional experience, Marsha expected VJ to deny the allegation initially, and then when denial proved to be impossible, to use some preadolescent externalization of responsibility. But VJ did neither.
“Yes, it is true,” VJ said flatly. “I am sorry for the deceit. I apologize for any embarrassment it may have caused you. None was intended.”
For a moment Marsha felt like someone had let the air out of her sails. How she would have preferred the standard, childish denial. But even in this instance, VJ varied from the norm. Looking up, she glanced at Victor. He raised his eyebrows but said nothing.
“My only excuse is that I am doing fine at school,” VJ said. “I’ve considered that my main responsibility.”
“School is supposed to challenge you,” Victor said, suspecting Marsha was stumped by VJ’s utter calm. “If school is too easy, you should be advanced. After all, there have been cases where children your age have matriculated into college, even graduated.”
“Kids like that are treated like freaks,” VJ replied. “Besides, I’m not interested in more structure. I’ve learned a lot at the lab, much more than at school. I want to be a researcher.”
“Why didn’t you come and talk to me about this?” Victor said.
“I just thought it would be the easiest way,” VJ said. “I was afraid if I asked to spend more time at the lab, you’d say no.”
“Thinking you know the outcome of a discussion shouldn’t keep you from talking,” Victor said.
VJ nodded.
Victor looked at Marsha to see if she was about to say anything else. She was thoughtfully chewing the inside of her cheek. Sensing that Victor was looking at her, she glanced at him. He shrugged. She did the same.