Mr. Murder

such warm little kisses, and her breath will have the sweet peppermint aroma of toothpaste.
        He bends down to smell the sheets.
        "Emily," he says softly.
        Oh, how he longs to be her father and to look into those dark yet limpid eyes, those huge and adoring eyes.
        With a sigh, he returns to Charlotte's side of the room. He drops the silver-framed photograph of his family on her bed, and he studies the kept creatures housed on the bookless bookshelves.
        Some of the wild things watch him.
        He begins with the gerbil. When he unlatches the door and reaches into its cage, the timid creature cowers in a far corner, paralyzed with fear, sensing his intent. He seizes it, withdraws it from the cage.
        Although it tries to squirm free, he grips its body firmly in his right hand, its head in his left, and wrenches sharply, snapping its neck. A brittle, dry sound. Its cry is shrill but brief.
        He throws the dead gerbil on the brightly colored bedspread.
        This will be the beginning of Charlotte's discipline.
        She will hate him for it. But only for a while.
        Eventually she will realize that these are unsuitable pets for a little girl. Symbols of evil. Reptiles, rodents, beetles. The sort of creatures witches use as their familiars, to communicate between them and Satan.
        He has learned all about witches' familiars from horror movies.
        If there was a cat in the house he would kill it as well, without hesitation, because sometimes they are cute and innocent, just cats and nothing more, but sometimes they are the very spawn of Hell. By, inviting such creatures into your home, you risk inviting the devil himself.
        One day Charlotte will understand. And be grateful.
        Eventually she will love him.
        They will all love him.
        He will be a good husband and father.
        Much smaller than the gerbil, the frightened mouse quivers in his fist, its tail hanging below his clenched fingers, only its head protruding above. It empties its bladder. He grimaces at the warm dampness and, in disgust, squeezes with all his strength, crushing the life out of the filthy little beast.
        He tosses it onto the bed beside the dead gerbil.
        The harmless garden snake in the glass terrarium makes no effort to slither away from him. He holds it by the tail and snaps it as if it is a whip, snaps it again, then lashes it hard against the wall, again, and a third time. When he dangles it before his face, it is entirely limp, and he sees that its skull is crushed.
        He coils it next to the gerbil and the mouse.
        The beetle and the turtle make satisfying crunching sounds when he stomps them under the heel of his shoe. He arranges their oozing remains on the bedspread.
        Only the lizard escapes him. When he slides the lid partway off its terrarium and reaches in for it, the chameleon scampers up his arm, quicker than the eye, and leaps off his shoulder. He spins around, searching for it, and sees it on the nearby vanity, where it skitters between a hairbrush and a comb, onto a jewelry box. There it freezes and begins to change color to match its background, but when he tries to snatch it up, it darts away, off the dresser, onto the floor, across the room, under Emily's bed, out of sight.
        He decides to let it go.
        This might be for the best. When Paige and the girls get home, the four of them will search for it together. When they find it, he will kill it in front of Charlotte or perhaps require her to kill it herself. That will be a good lesson. Thereafter, she will bring no more inappropriate pets into the Stillwater house.
        In the parking lot outside of the three-story, Spanish-style business complex where Dr. Guthridge had his offices, while a gusty wind harried dead leaves across the pavement, Marty sat in his car and read the article about himself in People. Two photographs and a page's worth of prose were spread over three pages of the magazine. At least for the few minutes he took to read the piece, all of his other worries were forgotten.
        The black headline made him flinch even though he knew what it would be MR. MURDER-but he was equally embarrassed by the subhead in smaller letters,
        IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, MYSTERY NOVELIST MARTIN STILLWATER SEES DARKNESS AND EVIL WHERE OTHERS SEE ONLY SUNSHINE.
        He felt it portrayed him as a brooding