Mr. Murder. By: Dean R. Koontz

The ground floor offers nothing of interest. The usual rooms are filled

with comfortable but unremarkable furniture.

Upstairs, he stops only briefly at each room, getting an overall picture

of the second-floor layout before taking time for a thorough

investigation. There’s a master bedroom with attached bath, walk-in

closet . . . a guest bedroom . . . kids’ room . . . another bath .. .

The final bedroom at the end of the hall–which puts him at the front of

the house–is used as an office. It contains a big desk and computer

system, but it’s more cozy than businesslike. A plump sofa stands under

the shuttered windows, a stained-glass lamp on the desk.

One of the two longest walls is covered with paintings hung in a double

row, frames almost touching. Although the pieces of the collection are

obviously by more than one artist, the subject matter, without

exception, is dark and violent, rendered with unimpeachable skill,

twisted shadows, disembodied eyes wide with terror, a Ouija board on

which stands a blood-spotted trivet, ink-black palm trees silhouetted

against an ominous sunset, a face distorted by a funhouse mirror, the

gleaming steel blades of sharp knives and scissors, a mean street where

menacing figures lurk just beyond the sour-yellow glow of street lamps,

leafless trees with coly limbs, a hot-eyed raven perched upon a bleached

skull, pistols, revolvers, shotguns, an ice pick, meat cleaver, hatchet,

a queerly stained hammer lying obscenely on a silk negligee and

lace-trimmed bedsheet . . .

He likes this artwork.

It speaks to him.

This is life as he knows it.

Turning from the gallery wall, he clicks on the stained-glass lamp and

marvels at its multi-hued luminous beauty.

In the clear sheet of glass that protects the top of the desk, the

mirror-image circles and ovals and teardrops of color are still lovely

but darker than when viewed directly. In some indefinable way, they are

also foreboding.

Leaning forward, he sees the twin ovals of his eyes staring back at him

from the polished glass. Glimmering with their own tiny reflections of

the mosaic lamplight, they seem to be not eyes, in fact, but the

luminous sensors of a machine or, if eyes, then the fevered eyes of

something soulless–and he quickly looks away from them before too much

self-examination leads him to fearful thoughts and intolerable

conclusions.

“I need to be someone,” he says nervously.

His gaze falls upon a photograph in a silver frame, which also stands on

the desk. A woman and two little girls. A pretty trio.

Smiling.

He picks up the photograph to study it more closely. He presses one

fingertip against the woman’s face and wishes he could touch her for

real, feel her warm and pliant skin. He slides his finger across the

glass, first touching the blond-haired child, and then the dark-haired

pixie.

After a minute or two, when he moves away from the desk, he carries the

photograph with him. The three faces in the portrait are so appealing

that he needs to be able to look at them again whenever the desire

arises.

As he investigates the titles on the spines of the volumes in the

bookcases, he makes a discovery that gives him an understanding, however

incomplete, of why he was drawn from the gray autumnal plains of the

Midwest to the post-Thanksgiving sun of California.

On a few of the shelves, the books–mystery novels–are by the same

author, Martin Stillwater. The surname is the one he saw on the mailbox

outside.

He puts aside the silver-framed portrait and withdraws a few of these

novels from the shelves, surprised to see that some of the dustjacket

illustrations are familiar because the original paintings are hanging on

the gallery wall that so fascinated him. Each title appears in a

variety of translations, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Swedish,

Danish, Japanese, and several other languages.

But nothing is as interesting as the author’s photo on the back of each

jacket. He studies them for a long time, tracing Stillwater’s features

with one finger.

Intrigued, he peruses the copy on the jacket flaps. Then he reads the

first page of a book, the first page of another, and another.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195

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