Mr Peanut - Adam Ross [86]
“Then what?”
“I was groggy. I wasn’t sure what was happening. But I kneeled on the bed and took her pulse. She was gone.”
“And?”
“I went to Chip’s room to check on him. He was asleep.”
“But you said there was screaming. Marilyn had been beaten savagely.”
“He was like me. He could sleep through almost anything.”
“Why didn’t you call the police?”
“I heard a noise downstairs, so I rushed down. The man was still in our house. I saw him by the patio door.”
“You could see him?”
“I could see his form.”
“What did it look like?”
“A man’s.”
“What did he look like?”
“He was big, like me. So bushy-haired it was almost standing up.”
“Then what?”
“He heard me and bolted. I chased him outside, down the stairs to the beach. I caught up with him finally and tackled him. We fought. I was still groggy and it was dark. I couldn’t get a good hit in. It was like trying to punch somebody in a phone booth. He knocked me out again.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I woke up lying on the beach. My shirt was gone. My legs were in the water.”
“How long were you out?”
“I don’t know. It was near dawn.”
“You sat up and realized what had happened.”
“Yes.”
“You remembered that Marilyn was dead.”
“I knew that I’d lost her.”
“And at that moment, Dr. Sam, tell me: What exactly went through your mind?”
Richard Eberling sat in his van at Huntington Park and watched the Sheppard house.
He thought to himself that the smart thing to do would be to get one of those cameras with the superlong lens so he could watch Marilyn all he wanted without her suspecting in the least that she was being watched. Then he could take pictures, pictures of her at her window or sitting down on her patio or on the beach, and then he could have them developed and show her how pretty she was, because when you talked to Marilyn Sheppard you could tell she didn’t think she was all that pretty, which made her prettier still. He could show the pictures to her and say: See, this is you out in the world when no one’s watching but me. This is you how I see you, and these are the things I like: I like your thick curly hair and your hazel eyes. I like how you always seem a little sad. I like your thin legs and your small breasts and I especially like how you laugh. It’s a nasty laugh. It’s the laugh of a girl who knows secrets.
I want to tell you my secret.
Three days ago, Marilyn had told him he looked like Dr. Sam. He looked at himself in the rearview mirror and saw how she could say that. They had the same thick eyebrows and full lips—even their ears were the same shape—but although they both were going bald, Dr. Sam had a widow’s peak that was distinguished and he walked like someone who at any moment could break into a run that was faster than you ever were. And he seemed like a man who never looked in mirrors because he already knew everything about himself that he needed to know. Eberling had seen him leaving the house last Wednesday, pulling up in his van just as Sheppard said something to his wife from the kitchen door. Eberling got his cleaning supplies and equipment and came around the van walking straight toward the doctor, who was leaving now, and he appreciated how Sheppard’s double-breasted suit widened at his shoulders and narrowed at his waist, admiring his luxuriant red silk tie and shining black tasseled shoes, thinking: Dressed like that, I’d look just as handsome. That’s what I’d look like if I was a doctor. They walked by each other, and Eberling, his hands full with pails and squeegees, said, “Good morning, Dr. Sheppard.” Without looking at him, the doctor said, “You too,” and walked right past to climb down into his brand-new convertible Jag—he’d gotten rid of the MG—and briefly revved the engine before driving off.
Eberling