Let Me Call You Sweetheart

84

Dr. Charles Smith sat for long hours after he forced Kerry to leave. “Stalker!” “ Murderer!” “Liar!” The accusations she had thrown at him made him shudder with revulsion. It was the same revulsion he felt when he looked at a maimed or scarred or ugly face. He could feel his very being tremble with the need to change it, to redeem it, to make things right. To find for it the beauty that his skilled hands could wrest from bone and muscle and flesh.

In those instances the wrath he felt had been directed against the fire or the accident or the unfair blending of genes that had caused the aberration. Now his wrath was directed at the young woman who had sat here in judgment of him.

“Stalker!” To call him a stalker because a brief glimpse of the near perfection he had created gave him pleasure! He wished he could have looked into the future and known that this was the way Barbara Tompkins would express her thanks. He would have given her a face all right-a face with skin that collapsed into wrinkles, eyes that drooped, nostrils that flared.

Suppose McGrath took Tompkins to the police to file that complaint. She had said she would, and Smith knew she meant it.

She had called him a murderer. Murderer! Did she really think that he could have done that to Suzanne? Burning misery raced through him as he lived again the moment when he had rung the bell, over and over, then turned the handle and found the door unlocked.

And Suzanne there, in the foyer, almost at his feet. Suzanne- but not Suzanne. That distorted creature with bulging, hemorrhaged eyes, and gaping mouth and protruding tongue-that was not the exquisite creature he had created.

Even her body appeared awkward and unlovely, crumpled as it was, the left leg twisted under the right one, the heel of her left shoe jabbing her right calf, those fresh red roses scattered over her, a mocking tribute to death.

Smith remembered how he had stood over her, his only thought an incongruous one-that this is how Michelangelo would have felt had he seen his Piet… lunatic who attacked it years ago in St. Peter’s.

He remembered how he had cursed Suzanne, cursed her because she had not heeded his warnings. She had married Reardon against his wishes. “Wait,” he had urged her. “He’s not good enough for you,” “In your eyes, no one will ever be good enough for me,” she had shouted back.

He had endured the way they looked at each other, the way their hands clasped across the table, the way they sat together, side by side on the couch, or with Suzanne on Reardon’s lap in the big, deep chair, as he had seen them when he had looked through the window at night.

To have to endure all that had been bad enough, but it was too much when Suzanne became restless and began seeing other men, none of them worthy of her, and then came to him, asking for favors, saying “Charles, you must let Skip think you bought me this… and this… and this…”

Or she would say, “Doctor, why are you so upset? You told me I should have all the good times I’ve missed. Well, I’m having them. Skip works too hard. He isn’t fun. You take risks when you operate. I’m just like you. I take risks too. Now remember, Doctor Charles, you’re a generous daddy.” Her impudent kiss, flirting with him, sure of her power, of his tolerance.

Murderer? No, Skip was the murderer. As he stood over Suzanne’s body, Smith had known exactly what had happened. Her loutish husband had come home to find Suzanne with flowers from another man, and he had exploded. Just as I would, Smith had thought when his eye fell on the card half hidden by Suzanne’s body.

And then, standing there over her, a whole scenario had played itself out in his mind. Skip, the jealous husband-a jury might be lenient with a man who killed his wife in a moment of passion. He might get off with a light sentence. Or maybe even no sentence at all.

I won’t let that happen, he had vowed. Smith remembered how he had closed his eyes, blotting out the ugly, distorted face in front of him and, instead, seeing Suzanne in all her beauty. Suzanne, I promise you that!

It had not been hard to keep the promise. All he had to do was take the card that had come with the flowers, then go home and wait for the inevitable call that would tell him that Suzanne, his daughter, was dead.

When the police had questioned him, he had told them that Skip was insanely jealous, that Suzanne feared for her life, and, obeying the last request she made of him, he claimed he had given her all the pieces of jewelry that Skip had questioned.

No, let Ms. McGrath say all she might want. The murderer was in jail. And he would stay there.

It was almost ten o’clock when Charles Smith got up. It was all over. He couldn’t operate anymore. He no longer wanted to see Barbara Tompkins. She disgusted him. He went into the bedroom, opened the small safe in the closet and took out a gun.

It would be so easy. Where would he go? he wondered. He did believe that the spirit moves on. Reincarnation? Maybe. Maybe this time he would be born Suzanne’s peer. Maybe they fall in love. A smile played on his lips.

But then, as he was about to close the safe, he looked at Suzanne’s jewelry case.

Suppose McGrath was right. Suppose it hadn’t been Skip but another person who had taken Suzanne’s life. McGrath had said that person was laughing now, mockingly grateful for the testimony that had condemned Skip.

There was a way to rectify that. If Reardon was not the killer, then McGrath would have all that she needed to find the man who had murdered Suzanne.

Smith reached for the jewelry case, laid the gun on top of and carried both to his desk in the study. Then with movements he took out a sheet of stationery and unscrewed the top from his pen.

When he was finished writing, he wrapped the jewelry case and the note together and managed to force them into one the several Federal Express mailers that he kept at home for convenience. He addressed the package to Assistant Prosecutor Kerry McGrath at the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, Hackensack, New Jersey. It was an address he remembered well.

He put on his coat and muffler and walked eight blocks to the Federal Express drop that he had used on occasion.

It was just eleven o’clock when he returned home. He took off his coat, picked up the gun, went back into the bedroom and stretched out on the bed, still fully dressed. He turned off all the lights except the one that illuminated Suzanne’s picture.

He would end this day with her and begin the new life at the stroke of midnight. The decision made, he felt calm, even happy.

At eleven-thirty the doorbell began to ring. Who? he wondered. Angrily he tried to ignore it, but a persistent finger was pressed against it. He was sure he knew what it was. Once there had been an accident on the corner, and a neighbor had run to him for help. After all, he was a doctor. If there had been an accident, just this one more time his skill might be put to use.

Dr. Charles Smith unlocked and opened his door, then slumped against it as a bullet found its mark between his eyes.