False Memory

the foyer, clambered around the body and the overturned sideboard, and reached the front porch, with Lampton and Claudette shouting behind them, Dusty could hear sirens in the distance.
    They cleared the driveway, turned south on the highway, and went more than a mile before they saw the first black-and-white racing north toward the Lampton house.
    Neck deep and sinking.
    75
    In his fourteenth-floor office, the doctor worked on his current book, polishing an amusing anecdote about a phobic patient whose fear of food had caused her to drop from one hundred forty pounds to just eighty-six, where she’d hovered near death for many days before he discovered the key to her condition and cured her with no time to spare. Her entire story wasn’t amusing, of course, but rather dark and dramatic, just the right stuff to ensure him a long segment on Dateline, with the grateful patient, when the time came to promote; however, here and there in the gloom were bright moments of humor and even one knee-slapping hilarity.
    He wasn’t able to concentrate on his work as intensely as usual, because his mind kept straying to Malibu. After calculating the time Eric would need to visit the self-storage yard and drive all the way to the Lamptons’ house, he decided that the first shot would be fired at approximately a quarter to one, perhaps as late as one o’clock.
    He was also distracted, although not much, by thoughts of the Keanuphobe, who had not yet phoned. He wasn’t concerned. She would call soon. Few people were more reliable than obsessives and phobics.
    The .380 Beretta lay on the near-right corner of his desktop, within easy reach.
    He did not expect that the Keanuphobe would rappel down from the roof and crash through his aerie window, carrying a submachine gun and lobbing grenades, but he didn’t underestimate her, either. Over the years, the toughest women he’d ever encountered were attired in stylish but conservative St. John knit suits and Ferragamo shoes. Many of them had been the wives of long-married, older studio heads and power agents; they looked as Brahmin as any Boston dowager whose family tree had roots deep under Plymouth Rock, were refined and aristocratic—but nevertheless would eat your heart for lunch, with your kidneys in a mousse on the side, accompanied by a glass of fine Merlot.
    Able to order in from a deli that believed in the righteousness of mayonnaise, butter solids, and animal fat in all forms, the doctor was content to have lunch at his desk. He ate with the blue bag near his plate, its neck crimped and angled jauntily. He wasn’t offended by the knowledge of its contents, because it was a cheerful reminder of the condition in which Derek Lampton’s body would be found by the police.
    By one-fifteen, lunch finished, he had cleared his desk of deli plates and wrappings, but he had not resumed composing the bulimia anecdote for his book. On his Corinthian-leather blotter with faux-ivory inlays, the blue bag stood alone.
    Regrettably, he could not enjoy Lampton’s humiliation firsthand, and unless one of the sleazier tabloids did its job well, he wasn’t likely to see even one satisfying picture. Photographs of uncapped skulls stuffed full of ordure were not rushed into print by The New York Times or even by USA Today.
    Fortunately, the doctor had a good imagination. With the blue bag before him for inspiration, he had no trouble painting the most vivid and entertaining mind pictures.
    By one-thirty, he assumed Eric Jagger had completed the shooting and was busy—perhaps nearly finished—with the amateur craniotomy. When he closed his eyes, the doctor could hear the rhythmic rasp of the cranial blade. Considering the density of bone mass in Lampton’s skull, sending a spare blade had been a wise decision. In the event that the Lamptons didn’t have a dog, he hoped Eric’s dietary regimen included a high-fiber cereal every morning.
    His greatest regret was that he had not been able to play out his original game plan, in which Dusty, Skeet, and Martie would have tortured and killed Claudette and the two Dereks. Before committing suicide, Dusty, Skeet, and Martie would have written a long statement accusing the elder Derek and his wife of horrendous physical abuse of Skeet and Dusty when they were children, and of repeated Rohypnol-facilitated rapes of Martie and of Susan Jagger, whom Ahriman might even have chosen to include as part of the killing team if she hadn’t gotten clever with a video camera.