In the Last Analysis (22 page)

“She took no one in her confidence, partly because she wasn’t the confiding sort, any more than Mike was, partly because who would have believed her? Even though she is murdered, you are having trouble believing me now. One can imagine how the police would have treated a story like that.

“Dr. Michael Barrister knew he would have to act, certainly once she had started going to a psychoanalyst. On
the couch she might say something, might even be believed. In any case, as long as she lived, she was a terrible threat. But he did not want to kill her. He was sure to be in the center of it; the closeness of his office to Emanuel’s promised that. No matter where she was killed, the fact that she was in analysis would emerge, and he might be questioned. Perhaps, therefore, he could induce her to love him, could even marry her. He resembled remarkably the man she had loved. He knew women. He knew that they liked to be overpowered, and directed. He began to try to win her love. He must have thought for a time that he was succeeding. She allowed him to make love to her, yet something told him that she, too, was playing a game. She was trying to weaken his defenses.

“He knew the workings of Emanuel’s home. Observation, talks with Nicola, glances through the court windows, told him all he needed. He had the rubber gloves of a surgeon. The telephone calls were child’s play. He knew that Emanuel, given freedom, would gallop off to the park. If by some perverse chance Emanuel had not gone, Barrister was in no way committed; he could, at any moment, turn back. But Emanuel left, and Janet Harrison came to keep her appointment in an empty office. Barrister appeared. He probably told her some story of Emanuel’s being called off, and led her to the couch, where, perhaps making love to her, he got her to lie down. Perhaps he pushed her back before he drove the knife home. No blood got on him, but if it had, he had only to climb in the court window of his office and wash himself. Of course, he took chances. He had to.

“But by killing her in Emanuel’s office, he took as few as possible. He would have been involved no matter where she was killed; that is, his existence would have come to
the attention of the police as a neighbor of her analyst’s. He certainly could not kill her in his apartment—he never took her there. She lived in a woman’s dormitory, a place in which people continually come and go. He killed her with Emanuel’s knife on Emanuel’s couch. This not only made Emanuel suspect, but rendered suspect anything Emanuel might say about what the girl had revealed in analysis. The girl had told him of me and Emanuel and Nicola—he knew we were friends, and he certainly picked up a lot of our past history from Nicola. Later, he sent the anonymous letter accusing me. Again he had a daring plan; he took enormous risks, and he won, or seemed to win. If he hadn’t overlooked the picture, if Janet Harrison hadn’t made the will, he would have got away with it.”

“And if you, my dear Kate, hadn’t obviously become a teacher because you were a novelist
manquée
 … Talk about good stories! You ought to publish this one.”

“You don’t believe it.”

“It isn’t a matter of whether I believe it or not. Let’s say I not only believe it; let’s say it’s true. You said the police might laugh at Janet Harrison. That’s nothing to the way they’ll howl at this. You haven’t one shred of proof, Kate, not one—not even the whisper of one. The old lady? Mike was in financial difficulties, and his love affair put the old lady out of his mind. A novel by D. H. Lawrence? I can see myself explaining that to Homicide. An association in a dream related in the course of analysis to the chief suspect? The fact that the man he roomed with for one year didn’t think the Mike he knew was likely to commit a murder? Murders are all too often committed by unlikely people—isn’t it always the most unlikely person who turns out to have done it in books?”

“All right, Reed, I admit I haven’t good evidence. But
it’s a true story, all the same, and it isn’t just that I’ve become enamored of my invention. I knew you’d laugh. But don’t you see that there must be proof somewhere? If the police with all their resources looked, they’d find it. Maybe somewhere there is still something with the real Mike’s fingerprints—okay, so that’s unlikely. Maybe Mike’s body could be found. If the police really tried, they could find evidence. Reed, you’ve got to make them try. It would take Jerry and me years …”

“I should say so, digging up half of Canada.”

“But if the police will only look, they’ll find something. They might find who this man was, before he became Michael Barrister. Perhaps he was in jail somewhere. You could get his fingerprints …”

“Kate. All you’ve got is a fairy tale, beginning ‘Once upon a time.’ Find me evidence, one uncontrovertible piece of evidence that this man isn’t Michael Barrister, and maybe we can get an investigation under way. We could hire private detectives, if necessary. All you’ve got now is a theory.”

“What sort of evidence do you want? The real Mike wouldn’t have forgotten that scene in
The Rainbow
. Am I supposed to find that the real Mike had a strawberry mark on his shoulder, like the long-lost sons from overseas in late Victorian novels? What would you accept as evidence? Tell me that. What?”

“Kate, dear, there can’t be any evidence, don’t you see? We can get Barrister’s fingerprints, but I promise you they’re not on record—he’d have known something as basic as that. Suppose we face Messenger with him—all Messenger can say is: He resembles Mike, but Mike has changed. Suppose you even discover that back in his medical school days Mike had a beautiful singing voice, that this Dr. Barrister
is a monotone. Voices, I’m certain, can go. Though if you could discover that to be true, it would certainly be better than what you’ve got.”

“I see,” Kate said. “I’ve given you the motive and the means, but it’s not enough.”

“It’s not, my dear. And I honor you too much to pretend respect for a theory that’s a castle in the air. You’ve been worrying too much, and you’re under strain. If I told the D.A. a story like this, I’d probably lose my job.”

“In other words, Barrister has committed the perfect crime. Two perfect crimes.”

“Kate, find some way I can help you. I want to. But life isn’t fiction.”

“You’re wrong, Reed. Life isn’t evidence.”

“You admit you’ve made up this entire story. Kate, when I was in college, taking freshman English, the professor gave us a paragraph, and we were all to write a story beginning with that paragraph. We were a class of twenty-five, and there were no two stories remotely alike. I’m sure, if you took a little time, you could make up another story, with Sparks or Horan as murderer. Why not try it, just to prove my point?”

“You forget, Reed, I’ve lots of evidence, though not the sort you find acceptable. The same sort of evidence proved to me that Barrister had known Janet Harrison. It so happens that Barrister got frightened and admitted it. But if he hadn’t, I’d be sitting here now still trying unsuccessfully to convince you that those two had known each other.”

“Perhaps you can face him with this story, and get him to admit it.”

“Perhaps I will. An assistant D.A., I will tell him, knows about this tale, so why don’t you kill me and prove to him that I was right?”

“Stop talking foolish. Where’s that picture of the ‘real Mike,’ as we are now calling him? Get it, will you?”

Kate handed it to him. “One gets the feeling sometimes that it could speak. But I’d better not say that, I’ll simply confirm you in your conviction that I’m round the bend. What did you want the picture for?”

“Ears. They don’t show very well, do they? A good deal of work has been done to identify people by their ears. Too bad Real Mike didn’t get his picture taken in profile. Then we could get a picture of Barrister’s ear.”

“Will you look into that, Reed? And please don’t give me up as incurably demented. Perhaps I am just weaving fancies …”

“I know that conciliatory tone. It means you’re about to do something I don’t approve of. Listen, Kate, let’s think about it. If we can come up with one piece of evidence that isn’t literary, psychological, or impressionistic, maybe we can interest the police. I’d rather go after a hormone dispenser, anyway, than a psychiatrist. Shall we go to a movie?”

“No. You may either go home, or you may drive me to the airport.”

“Airport! Are
you
going to Bangor, Michigan?”

“Chicago. Now, don’t start sputtering. I’ve been promising myself a visit to Chicago for a long time. They’ve got Picasso’s
Man with the Blue Guitar
there and I have suddenly developed an uncontrollable desire to see it. While I’m gone you might read Wallace Stevens’s poems inspired by the painting. He deals very effectively with the difference between reality and things-as-they-are. Excuse me while I pack a bag.”

“C
OME
into my office,” Messenger said.

“Do you always work on Saturday?”

“If I can. I find it quieter than other days.”

“And I have come to destroy the quiet.”

“Only to postpone it. How can I help?”

Sitting across from Messenger, Kate confirmed for herself Jerry’s impression. Messenger was lovable; there was no other word for this homely, gentle, intelligent man. “I’m going to tell you a story,” Kate said. “I’ve told it once already; I’m becoming quite a storyteller. The first time it was received, if not with screams of hilarity, at least with grunts of disbelief. I’m not going to ask you to believe it. Just listen. Tonight you can tell your wife, ‘I didn’t get anything done this morning; some madwoman appeared and insisted on telling me some idiotic sort of fairy tale.’ It’ll make a nice anecdote for your wife.”

“Go on,” Messenger said.

Kate told him the story, just as she had told it to Reed. Messenger listened, smoking his pipe, disappearing at times behind a cloud of smoke. He emptied the pipe when she had finished.

“You know,” he said, “when I went up to Mike in New York, he didn’t at first know who I was. Natural enough, I guess; I’m not someone you’d expect to meet in New York. I noticed he’d got very elegant and didn’t want to bother with me. There are those who are always ready to think they’re being snubbed, and those who don’t think anyone will ever snub them. I belong to the first class. Mike told me I’d changed. Well, I thought at the time, It’s all in the eyes of the beholder; he’s changed. But you know, I hadn’t changed. There’s one thing about having a face that could stop a clock—it doesn’t seem to vary with the years. But I wear glasses now, which I didn’t used to do, so it seemed logical enough that it was that.”

“You mean the whole story doesn’t strike you as utterly fantastic?”

“Well, you know, it doesn’t. The man I met in New York wasn’t a beer drinker. I don’t mean he told me that; we didn’t have a drink, but he didn’t look like a beer drinker. Mike didn’t like hard liquor, just beer and wine with meals. Still, tastes change. I’m afraid your Reed Amhearst would say we ought to go into business together as writers of science fiction. Maybe we should.”

“It’s a deal. You do the science, I’ll do the fiction. Reed would say I’m magnificently qualified. What I want now, Mr. Collaborator, is one fact. Like a strawberry mark on Mike’s shoulder. Mike wasn’t nearsighted, was he, or deaf in one ear?”

“I know what you want. I knew at that moment in your fairy tale when Mike met the stranger. But Mike wasn’t
nearsighted, or deaf, or a monotone, or an opera singer. The only thing I can think of is that Mike could wiggle his ears, you know, without moving any other part of his head. But that wouldn’t do as evidence either. Besides, I’m told anyone can learn to do it, if he practices long enough. I have a lovely picture of your Dr. Barrister sitting at home, night after night, learning to wiggle his ears. You see, I’m rambling on, not being any use at all.”

“I told you a crazy story, yet you didn’t ring for the authorities and say, ‘Get this woman out of here.’ Believe me, that matters more than you know. Mike must have liked you enormously. Janet Harrison knew it; that’s why she left you her money. You know, there’s a nice crass motive I can hold out. If we can prove this tale, or get the police to prove it for us, you’ve got a much better claim to that money she left you.”

“Unfortunately, that will make my testimony all the more suspect. The trouble, you see, is that I knew Mike only a year, and we weren’t exactly Damon and Pythias. I don’t remember when he told me that bit about the Lawrence novel—probably I asked him about his family because he never mentioned having any. For the most part, he didn’t talk about himself. We discussed medicine, the advantages of different specialties—that sort of thing. Wait a minute, what about teeth?”

“I thought of teeth. I’m a reader of detective stories. The dentist in Bangor who looked after Mike’s teeth died long ago; Jerry couldn’t find any trace of his records. Probably the dentist who took over the practice from Mike’s dentist kept only the records that were active, and even
he’s
gone. It happens that I changed dentists about five years ago when the family dentist retired, and I called the dentist I go to now—you have no idea what a nuisance I’ve been
making of myself—only to discover that all he has is the record of the work
he’s
done on my teeth. The dentist who retired sold his practice, but the dentist who bought it hasn’t kept records going back to the year one. The only dental record of me is of the work that’s been done in the past five years, and that isn’t much. Most of my fillings date back to my adolescence. You don’t happen to know, for instance, that Mike had all his wisdom teeth extracted. If we could prove that, and this Dr. Barrister turns out to have four very present wisdom teeth …”

Messenger shook his head. “At the time, of course, I wasn’t looking for anything. Being a resident is a very wearying and demanding business; often we weren’t home at the same time. I don’t even remember if Mike snored; I don’t know if I ever knew. As a matter of fact, I haven’t got a very good memory for personal things. My wife complains about this from time to time. I’m always complimenting her on hats she’s had three years. I remember looking at my wife one day, and thinking, You’re gray. But I hadn’t noticed it happening. I’m sorry. You’ve come all this way and …”