False Memory

Avenue and, with Valet, walked out to the paved promenade that surrounded the island and that was separated from the harbor by a low seawall.
    Before they found Closterman’s house, one hour to the minute after her previous seizure, Martie was hit by a wave of autophobia. This was another endurable assault, as low-key as the previous three, but she couldn’t walk under the influence of it, couldn’t even stand.
    They sat on the seawall, waiting for the attack to pass.
    Valet was patient, neither cringing nor venturing forth to sniff out a potential friend when a man walked past with a Dalmatian.
    The tide was coming in. Wind chopped the usually calm harbor, slapping wavelets against the concrete seawall, and the reflected lights of the harborside houses wriggled across the rippled water.
    Sailing yachts and motor vessels, moored at the private docks, wallowed in their berths, groaning and creaking. Halyards and metal fittings clinked against steel masts.
    When Martie’s seizure passed quickly, she said, “I saw a dead priest with a railroad spike in his forehead. Briefly, thank God, not like earlier today when I couldn’t clear my head of crap like that. But where does this stuff come from?”
    “Someone put it there.” Against the counsel of the insistent inner voice, Dusty said, “Ahriman put it there.”
    “But how?”
    With her unanswered question blown out across the harbor, they set out again in search of Dr. Closterman.
    None of the houses on the island was higher than three stories, and charming bungalows huddled next to huge showplaces. Closterman lived in a cozy-looking two-story with gables, decorative shutters, and window boxes filled with English primrose.
    When he answered the door, the barefoot physician was wearing tan cotton pants, with his belly slung over the waistband, and a T-shirt advertising Hobie surfboards.
    At his side was a black Labrador with big, inquisitive eyes.
    “Charlotte,” Dr. Closterman said by way of introduction.
    Valet was usually shy around other dogs, but let off his leash, he immediately went nose-to-nose with Charlotte, tail wagging. They circled each other, sniffing, whereafter the Labrador raced across the foyer and up the stairs, and Valet bounded wildly after her.
    “It’s all right,” Roy Closterman said. “They can’t knock over anything that hasn’t been knocked over before.”
    The physician offered to take their coats, but they held on to them because Dusty was carrying the Colt in one pocket.
    In the kitchen, from a large pot of spaghetti sauce rose the mouthwatering fragrance of cooking meatballs and sausages.
    Closterman offered a drink to Dusty, coffee to Martie—”unless you’ve taken no more Valium”—and poured coffees at their request.
    They sat at the highly polished pine table while the physician seeded and sliced several plump yellow peppers.
    “I was going to feel you out a little bit,” Closterman said, “before deciding how frank to be with you. But I’ve decided, what the hell, no reason to be coy. I admired your father immensely, Martie, and if you’re anything like him, which I believe you are, then I know I can rely on your discretion.”
    “Thank you.”
    “Ahriman,” Closterman said, “is a narcissistic asshole. That’s not opinion. It’s such a provable fact, they should be required by law to include it in the author’s bio on his book jackets.”
    He glanced up from the peppers to see if he had shocked them— and smiled when he saw they were not recoiling. With his white hair, jowls, extra chins, dewlaps, and smile, he was a beardless Santa.
    “Have you read any of his books?” he asked.
    “No,” Dusty said. “Just glanced at the one you sent.”
    “Worse than the usual pop-psych shit. Learn to Love Yourself Mark Ahriman never had to learn to love Mark Ahriman. He’s been infatuated with himself since birth. Read the book, you’ll see.”
    “Do you think he’s capable of creating personality disorders in his patients?” Martie asked.
    “Capable? It wouldn’t surprise me if half of what he cures are conditions he created in the first place.”
    The implications of that response were, to Dusty, breathtaking. “We think Martie’s friend, the one we mentioned this morning—”
    “The agoraphobic.”
    “Her name was Susan Jagger,” Martie said. “I’ve known her since we were ten. She killed herself last night.”
    Martie shocked the physician as the physician had not succeeded in shocking them. He put down the knife and turned away from the yellow peppers,