“I came to you because I want to tell my story,” the man on Dr. Harper’s couch was saying. The man was Lester Billings from Waterbury, Connecticut. He was twenty-eight, employed by an industrial firm in New York, divorced, and the father of three children. All deceased.
“I can’t go to a priest because I’m not a Catholic. I can’t go to a lawyer because I haven’t done anything to consult a lawyer about. All I did was kill my kids. One at a time. Killed them all.”
Dr. Harper turned on the tape recorder. Billings lay straight as a yardstick on the couch, not giving it an inch of himself. His hands were folded corpse-like on his chest. His face was carefully set.
“No.” Impatient flick of the hand. “But I was responsible. Denny in 1967. Shirl in 1971. And Andy this year. I want to tell you about it.”
“They were murdered, see? Only no one believes that.” Billings broke off and darted up on his elbows, staring across the room. “What’s that door?” “The closet,” Dr. Harper said. “Where I hang my coat and leave my overshoes.” “Open it. I want to see.”
Dr. Harper opened the closet. Inside, a tan raincoat hung on one of four or five hangers. Beneath that was a pair of shiny galoshes. That was all.
“I’d go to jail,” Billings said immediately. “For life. And you can see into all the rooms in a jail. All the rooms.” He smiled at nothing.
“The boogeyman,” Lester Billings answered immediately. “The boogeyman killed them all. Just came out of the closet and killed them.” He twisted around and grinned. “You think I’m crazy, all right. But I don’t care. All I want to do is tell you and then get lost.”
Rita wanted to put in a nightlight — one of those wall-plug things with Mickey Mouse or Huckleberry Hound on it. I wouldn’t let her. If a kid doesn’t get over being afraid of the dark when he’s little, he never gets over it.
“Boogeyman, Daddy. Boogeyman.” I turned off the light and went into our room and asked Rita why she wanted to teach the kid a word like that. She said she never taught him to say that. I called her a goddamn liar.
The kid woke me at three in the morning. Rita asked me to check on Denny. I told her to do it herself. I was almost asleep when she started to scream. The kid was dead on his back. Just as white as flour. His eyes were wide open and glassy, like the eyes you see on a moosehead some guy put over his mantel.
“The closet door was open. Not much. Just a crack. But I knew I left it shut, see. There’s dry-cleaning bags in there. A kid messes around with one of those and bango. Asphyxiation.”
A year later, putting Shirl into her crib, she started to yowl and scream and cry. “Boogeyman, Daddy, boogeyman, boogeyman!” That threw a jump into me. It was just like Denny.