Pediophobia
"Thank God winter is almost over!" police officer Shawn McMurtry exclaimed when he stopped by The Quill and Dagger bookstore after going off duty one blustery March day. "I'm tired of these single-digit temperatures."
"How would you like a nice cup of hot coffee to warm you up?" Rebecca Coffin, the owner of the mystery-themed shop, offered. "Maybe a cheese Danish to go with it?"
"I'd love some."
As Rebecca made the coffee, Shawn browsed the new releases. He selected one and then sat down on a stool at the bookstore's coffee bar.
"I thought I heard sirens this morning when I was getting ready for work. Was anything going on?" the storeowner asked, knowing the patrolman was always a reliable source of information.
"There was a housefire out on Old Bridge Road."
"No one was hurt, I hope."
"No. The firemen were called right away, and it was put out before it caused too much damage."
"Whose house was it?"
"The Pritchetts. They moved here from New Jersey a couple of years ago."
"Dottie Pritchett? I know her. She comes into the shop for lattes whenever she does her grocery shopping."
"I've spoken to her husband a few times, but I don't know her very well. She was quite shaken up by the fire, downright hysterical. Screaming and crying. I'm glad her husband was finally able to calm her down. I was afraid I would have to take her to the hospital and have Sarah give her something."
"Really? She seems so even-tempered when she comes in here. Polite. Shy."
Rebecca added more hot coffee to Shawn's near-empty cup, and the conversation turned to a more pleasant topic: the upcoming celebration planned for the arrival of spring. Although there were several annual events held in Puritan Falls, this was the first year the villagers would get together to celebrate Mardi Gras. Shawn and his wife were helping out with the decorations while Rebecca had volunteered to head the refreshment committee. With the event less than three weeks away, excitement was growing.
"UPS delivered the purple, gold and green beads to the house yesterday," the patrolman announced. "Now we're just waiting on the masks. How are you doing with the food?"
"My team is planning an authentic New Orleans menu. They'll be gumbo courtesy of the Sons of Liberty Tavern, Jambalaya and crawfish from Chez Pierre, Shannon will be providing po'boys and muffuletta sandwiches, and I'm making red beans and rice. And for dessert, Victoria is making beignets and a giant king cake. Martha has even ordered coffee with chicory from Café Du Monde to brew their famous café au lait."
"All this talk about food is making me hungry," Shawn said, quickly finishing his cup of coffee. "I'd better get going. Penny and I are meeting Lionel and Sarah at the Green Man for dinner. Then we're all going back to their place to work on the banners for the party. Hopefully, when they're done, they'll look like New Orleans street signs."
"Wait a second. Before you go, let me give you that gift card from Party Palace."
"Great! We can use it to order the green, gold and purple tablecloths."
* * *
Three days later, Dottie Pritchett entered The Quill and Dagger. As usual, the New Jersey transplant smiled and greeted the shopkeeper.
"Good morning," Rebecca said. "I heard you had a fire at your house the other day. I hope you didn't lose anything valuable."
"Just some old toys that belonged to my kids. Since both of them are married with children now, I was going to donate them to Good Will anyway."
The two women chatted amiably for several minutes; then Dottie headed toward the shelf where new releases were displayed. After choosing one, she walked to the counter to be checked out. Rebecca joined her momentarily.
"Oh? I see you got the Dolly Parton/James Patterson book. I want to read this one myself, but I haven't been able to find the time. Maybe once the Mardi Gras celebration is over, I will."
"I never knew Dolly Parton wrote anything but songs."
"She wrote a book with Loretta Lynn and one with Kathie Lee Gifford, but I believe this is her first attempt at fiction."
"I always liked her as a singer and an actress. I think her version of 'I Will Always Love You' is much nicer than Whitney Houston's. Dolly has a much sweeter voice for ...."
Suddenly, the color drained from Dottie's face, and her eyes widened with fear. She slowly raised her right arm and pointed to the shelf behind the register.
"What is it?" Rebecca asked with concern.
The woman's mouth opened, but no words came out. The shopkeeper turned her head to see that the customer was pointing at two dolls she had bought at a Chiller convention.
"That's supposed to be Edgar Allan Poe and Annabel Lee. I ...."
Her words were cut off by the customer's piercing scream. Moments later, Dottie ran out the door and into the street where she was nearly hit by a car. Unfazed by her brush with death or serious injury, she got into her Toyota and quickly drove away.
"What got into her?" the bookstore owner wondered as she voided out the sale on her register.
After putting Run, Rose, Run back on the shelf, she looked up at the Living Dead Dolls that were standing side-by-side in a black, doublewide, cardboard coffin. She could not fathom why the woman was so frightened of them.
I think they're kind of cute myself, but then I always did enjoy the macabre.
Later that evening, she and her husband, Dylan Osbourne, joined other volunteers working on the Mardi Gras party for dinner at the Sons of Liberty Tavern.
"Sorry we're late," Rebecca announced, taking the empty seat next to Shawn McMurtry. "I hope we didn't miss anything."
"Not at all," Josiah Barnard, proprietor of the eatery, replied. "We just placed our food order."
There was no need for the two late arrivals to see a menu. They had been there many times and knew what they wanted. Dylan ordered wings with sweet Asian chili sauce and a side order of sweet potato fries, and his wife wanted a Cobb salad. Once the waitress took their order, talk turned to the business at hand.
Patience Scudder, the town librarian and chairman of the Mardi Gras Committee, took a notebook and pen out of her handbag and glanced at the first name on the list.
"Dylan, where are we with entertainment?" she inquired.
"I got a band from Gloucester, one that specializes in Dixieland jazz, coming here to play. If by chance, something happens and they can't make it, I've got close to a dozen CDs we can use—Louis Armstrong, the Dukes of Dixieland and the Dixieland Jazz Band, just to name a few."
"Great. I feel like dancing already," the librarian laughed. "What about decorations?"
Penny McMurtry answered on behalf of her team.
"We've got banners, streamers, balloons, large cardboard masks and fleurs-de-lis to hang on the walls, centerpieces for the tables and plenty of beads for everyone. Everywhere people look, they'll see the Mardi Gras colors, purple, green and gold."
Before Rebecca could report on her progress, the food arrived and the meeting temporarily stopped so people could eat. As she was putting the dressing on her salad, she turned to speak to Shawn.
"Remember you were telling me about the fire out on Old Bridge Road the other day?"
"Yeah. What about it?"
"Dottie Pritchett came into The Quill and Dagger today. It was really weird. One minute we were talking about Dolly Parton and the next she went crazy!"
"What do you mean?"
"She pointed at those dolls I keep on the shelf behind the counter, let out a blood-curdling scream and ran out into the road. She was nearly run over by a car. It was a good thing the driver was going slow."
"I told you there was something odd about her behavior after the fire," Shawn reminded her. "There was not much damage done for her to carry on so. I thought maybe she lost something valuable."
"No. She told me it was just some old toys destined for Good Will."
"Irrational fears," the policeman laughed and looked across the table at Dr. Lionel Penn. "Isn't that your stock-in-trade, Lion?"
The psychiatrist, long-used to the good-natured raillery of his profession by his friends, said, "Please. Not tonight. I'm beginning to get a phobia myself."
"Oh, which one?" Dr. Sarah Ryerson, his fiancée, asked with an amused grin.
"Indigestiphobia. It's a new one I just discovered; it's the fear of ruining my dinner with shop talk."
* * *
Soon, other people in the village noticed Dottie's odd behavior. Over the next few weeks, she ran screaming from the post office, Shop 'N Save and the mall. On all three occasions, this bizarre behavior was preceded by the presence of a doll: Lalaloopsy, an American Girl doll and a Made to Move Barbie, respectively. In the latter of those three instances, her husband, Darren, was with her.
"What's wrong?" he cried as she stared in horror at the bendable fashion doll.
"Take it away!" she screamed.
"Take what away? What's upset you?"
"That ... that ... DOLL!"
The seven-year-old girl who was holding the Barbie clung to her mother who quickly hurried her child out of the store, fearful that Dottie might become violent.
"What's the matter with you?" Darren asked. "It was nothing but a doll."
But Dottie did not answer him. She had temporarily shut herself off from the world around her.
* * *
Saturday, which according to the calendar was the last day of winter, was unseasonably cold. March, apparently, would go out like a lion.
"At least it isn't snowing," Sarah said optimistically as she put her winter coat on over her dress.
Like many of the women of Puritan Falls, she was dressed in an evening gown, one of rich purple fabric, accented with green and gold accessories. Lionel and several other men had gone to a tuxedo rental shop in Copperwell for an outfit suitable for a Mardi Gras party. Both he and Ezra Graves, the owner/editor of The Puritan Falls Gazette, wore purple suits. The psychiatrist wore a gold shirt beneath his, and Ezra wore a green one.
"I look ridiculous!" Lionel complained, wishing he could remain in his jeans and sweatshirt. "I don't know why the shop had this color suit in stock, to begin with. I can't imagine any man wearing purple to a wedding."
"I don't know," his fiancée laughed. "Look at the bright side. Shawn and Dylan are going dressed as jesters. And Josiah found a floor-length cape made of green, purple and gold lamé. The three of them will look like they ought to be on a float traveling down Bourbon Street."
When the couple arrived at Chez Pierre, they could hear the band playing "When The Saints Go Marching In" as soon as they got out of the car.
"It looks like the party has started," Sarah said, taking Lionel's arm.
"We're no saints, but let's go marching in," he replied. "I can't wait to try some of that Louisiana cuisine our friends have cooked up."
The moment they took off their coats, Penny McMurtry hung beads around their necks. Most of the people were standing at the bar, sipping hurricanes, the signature New Orleans cocktail. As the two doctors made their way toward Martha Prescott (former TV host Belladonna Nightshade) and her date, Dr. Noah Prestwick, Lionel noticed a man in a purple, green and gold striped shirt who appeared to be looking at him.
"Sarah," he asked as he and his fiancée waited in line at the buffet half an hour later, "do you know who that guy is over there in the striped shirt?"
"I don't recognize him with the mask on. Why?"
"He's been looking at me ever since we got here."
"You sound paranoid, Dr. Penn," she laughed.
Despite the masks covering only the upper half of their faces, people removed them when they sat at their tables to eat. It was then that Lionel recognized Darren Pritchett. Oddly enough, the man was still looking in his direction. The psychiatrist nodded his head in greeting and turned away. But that odd sensation of being stared at continued. When he got up to refill his plate, the man headed in his direction.
"Dr. Penn," Pritchett called.
Uh-oh, the psychiatrist thought. It sounds like my evening is about to be ruined.
Friends called him "Lionel" or "Lion." The only people who ever addressed him as "Dr. Penn" were either patients or people who sought his professional advice.
"I was wondering if I might have a word with you, perhaps later tonight," Darren said, clearly worried about something.
"Sure," the psychiatrist replied, making a mental note to avoid the man like the plague. "Maybe sometime after coffee and dessert."
Sarah, who had been listening to Abigail Cantwell's story about Marie Laveau, the famed New Orleans voodoo queen, recognized the look on her fiancé's face when he returned to the table.
"Let me guess. You were accosted by the man in the striped shirt, and he confessed to having a deep-rooted fear of Mardi Gras beads."
"The conversation didn't get that far. It's still at the if-I-might-have-a-word-with-you stage."
"And you'll no doubt spend the rest of the night trying to avoid him."
"Everywhere I go, I seem to run into these people. Is there a sign on my forehead that reads 'Free Psychiatric Advice'?"
"Just tell him to call Judy and make an appointment at your office. And don't forget to give him your usual spiel about phobias aren't like the common cold, that you can't prescribe two aspirin and have him call you in the morning."
"You know me too well!" he said and gave her an affectionate kiss on the cheek.
Thirty minutes later, after everyone had their fill of jambalaya, gumbo, po'boys and red beans and rice, the dishes were cleared away, it was time for coffee and dessert. Cups of café au lait were passed around along with beignets liberally covered with powdered sugar. The pièce de résistance, however, was Victoria Broadbent's king cake. In order to feed everyone at the party, she made four cakes. As the white-haired owner of Victoria's English Tea Shoppe cut into the first one, she gave the partygoers a brief history lesson.
"Many people here associate king cake with Mardi Gras and New Orleans. It actually originated in France. Known as the galette des roi, it was only eaten around the Feast of Epiphany on January 6. That day was also known as King's Day or Twelfth Night because it fell twelve days after Christmas. As many people know, there is a baby baked inside each cake. The person who gets a slice with the baby inside is to be blessed with good luck."
"That's assuming he or she doesn't swallow it and choke to death," Liam Devlin, bartender at the Green Man Pub, joked.
Once everyone had a slice of cake and a cup of chicory coffee, the laughter died down. Tom Brower, Lionel's brother-in-law, was the first person to find a baby. A few moments later, real estate agent, Jacqueline Astor, found the second. As Noah Prestwick was about to announce that he had found the third baby, a scream of terror silenced everyone in the room.
Sarah, an emergency room physician who was used to dealing with accident victims, feared someone had indeed choked on a plastic doll and was ready to perform the Heimlich Maneuver on the unlucky person. But Dottie Pritchett, who had found the fourth baby, had not put it in her mouth. Instead, she stared at the tiny doll on her plate as though it were a poisonous spider about to spring from the half-eaten slice of king cake and bite her. Her husband, Lionel's man in the striped shirt, tried to calm her.
"Maybe we should help," Noah suggested to Sarah.
While the two medical doctors went to offer their assistance, Lionel remained at the table to finish his cake and drink his coffee.
* * *
Late Monday morning, Judy Stanfield, Lionel's stalwart administrative assistant, informed her employer that he would be getting a new patient.
"Remember that woman at the party Saturday night?" she asked. "The one who screamed like a banshee when she found the baby in the king cake?"
"How could I forget? Her husband tried to corner me at the buffet table."
"Well, he called and set up an appointment for you to see his wife."
"If she didn't call herself, that means she'll be a reluctant patient. That's the worst kind. They come in here convinced I'm not able to help them."
"But somehow you usually win them over. Maybe it's your boyish charm or your rugged good looks."
"I should have listened to my parents and become an accountant," he said with a sigh.
"You an accountant? I don't see it. No, I'd picture you as a sailor or, better yet, a food critic."
"If I had to do it all over again, I'd combine my love of sailing with my love of food. I'd open a floating restaurant. In Philly, there's a place on the Delaware River called Penn's Landing. They have a four-masted tall ship docked there, the Moshulu, that's been converted into a restaurant. I had the pleasure of dining there when I attended a convention in the city a few years back."
"Maybe you can turn your sailboat into something like a floating food truck. You could start a whole new trend."
The following morning, Darren Pritchett brought his wife into Lionel's office.
"I'll wait for you in the reception area," he said when Judy told Dottie the doctor was ready to see her.
"What seems to be the problem?" the psychiatrist asked after they dispensed with the usual pleasantries.
"Dolls. They freak me out."
"Have you always been afraid of them?"
"No, only since the fire we had a few weeks ago. I had cleaned out the attic and put several boxes of my kids' old toys in the garage. One of the items that burned was an old porcelain doll. I took one look at the smoke-covered features and the charred clothing, and I lost it. Ever since then, I've been plagued with nightmares about dolls. And not just porcelain ones. Dolls of all kinds. Barbies, Kewpies, Raggedy Anns."
"When you were a child, did you play with dolls?"
"Yes. All the time."
"And you were never frightened by them?"
Dottie hesitated before replying.
"Not my dolls, I wasn't."
"Someone else's dolls, then?"
"My grandmother's. She collected them. The entire basement of her house was filled with dolls, some of which were very valuable."
"And did one particular doll of hers scare you?"
"No. It was the antique porcelain dolls, in general. There was something about their eyes," she replied, shuddering.
Lionel nodded. The glass eyes used by many early dollmakers had a similar effect on other people, not just those who suffer from pediophobia.
"And did your grandmother ...?"
"I'd rather not talk about her!"
"Why not? Was she abusive toward you?"
"I said I don't want to talk about her."
"All right," Lionel agreed, sensing the grandparent might be the key to his patient's phobia. "Let's discuss the Mardi Gras party. What exactly went through your mind when you saw the plastic baby in your slice of king cake? It wasn't really a doll. It was just a plastic figure, less than an inch tall."
"Size doesn't matter. It was still a doll."
For the remainder of the hour, Dottie described the nightmares she had experienced since seeing the burned doll in her garage. Although Lionel made several attempts to get more information about her grandmother, the patient adamantly refused to discuss the matter.
* * *
While Lionel Penn was well-known throughout New England for his success in helping people deal with their phobias, he was still basically a small-town doctor. As such, he sometimes made house calls or met his patients outside the confines of his office. One Saturday, following a Friday afternoon appointment with Dottie Pritchett, he had lunch with her husband at the Chinese Lantern. Although he always tried to maintain strict doctor-patient confidentiality, Dottie had given the psychiatrist permission to discuss her sessions with her spouse.
"Have you had any luck diagnosing my wife's condition?" Darren asked as Lionel picked up his spoon to eat his hot and sour soup.
"She gives all indications of suffering from pediophobia, a profound fear of dolls."
"That's a real disease?"
"Psychiatry is not like other fields of medicine. Illnesses of the mind can't be seen on an x-ray or diagnosed with a blood test. And there's no magic pill I can prescribe that will cure her. To help your wife, I need to learn what caused her fear in the first place."
"It was the doll that got burned in the fire."
"No. In my opinion, that was just a catalyst that set her off, but the root of the problem probably rests in her childhood. Do you know anything about her grandmother?"
"One of them—her father's mother—died before she was born. As for her mother's mother, I never heard Dottie speak of her. I assume she's dead as well. Why do you ask?"
"Because the woman collected dolls. When I asked your wife about her, she flatly refused to discuss her. I get the distinct impression there was something not quite right about their relationship."
"You think Dottie might have been abused?" Darren asked with horror.
"Not necessarily. Your wife mentioned that her grandmother had porcelain dolls that were worth quite a bit of money. Perhaps she accidentally broke one of the dolls, and her grandmother spanked her—or something to that effect. Situations like that can sometimes leave a lasting impression on a young child."
"And she won't talk to you about it?"
"Not a word. I was hoping you might have better luck. Of course, this grandmother might not be the root of Dottie's phobia, but it's a good place to start looking."
On Thursday morning, after the ten o'clock appointment came to an end, Judy Stanfield gave Lionel a phone message on a pink "While You Were Out" slip of paper. The caller's name was Darren Pritchett, and the message read: GRANDMOTHER, MILLIE SOBELL, WAS MURDERED WHEN DOTTIE WAS A CHILD.
"Will you do me a favor, Judy?" the psychiatrist asked when he saw his eleven o'clock patient pulling into the parking lot.
"Sure thing, Lion. What do you want?"
"Can you order me some lunch? I want to do a little research on the computer after my next patient leaves."
"What'll it be? Sandwich? Burger? Salad?"
"A grinder. It's easier to eat when I'm on my laptop."
An hour later, with his office closed until 1:30 p.m., the psychiatrist popped open a can of Diet Coke while he waited for Windows to open on his computer. He then took a quick bite of his sandwich after typing in his password. While chewing, he clicked on the Microsoft Edge icon to open his browser and googled Millie Sobell's name. As he read through the brief accounts of the murder that occurred in Vermont more than thirty years earlier, he made notes of salient facts in Dottie's file. Although the names of the detectives who investigated the crime were not given, that of the prosecuting attorney was prominent in the coverage.
There's a good chance the man might be dead, the psychiatrist thought as he typed the name Irwin Pell in the search field. And even if he's still alive, he might not remember much about this case.
When Lionel could not find a current address for the lawyer, he decided to enlist the help of Shawn McMurtry. In under an hour, his friend got back to him.
"The man you're looking for is living in a retirement community in Florida," the policeman informed him. "I've got his phone number for you. I don't suppose you can tell me what this is about."
"Sorry. It's a question of patient privacy."
After his last appointment of the day, the psychiatrist called the number Shawn had given him. When the lawyer answered, he introduced himself and explained the reason for his call.
"Do you recall the case?" he asked hopefully.
"Recall it?" Pell echoed with an amused chuckle. "I was from a small town in Vermont, not New York or Chicago. I mostly prosecuted drunk and disorderly cases or shoplifting, not murder. In fact, during all my years as a prosecutor, there were only two murder cases. So, yes, I remember Millie Sobell. You say her granddaughter is under your care. I'm not surprised. She was at the house when her grandparent was killed. Her parents went to New York to attend a wedding and left her with Millie for the weekend."
"Was she a witness to the murder?"
"No. When the killer broke into the house and murdered her grandmother, the little girl was downstairs playing. I asked her if she heard or saw anything out-of-the-ordinary while she was down there, and she said she hadn't."
* * *
"I suppose Darren told you I made a scene the other day when we were walking our dog," Dottie said.
"No, he didn't. I haven't spoken to him since before your last appointment. Do you want to tell me what happened?"
"I saw a little girl walking her doll in a baby carriage, and I became hysterical again. Tell me, Doctor, is this therapy doing me any good?" she asked, clearly losing faith in the psychiatrist's ability to help her.
"Let's not discuss that just yet," Lionel replied. "I want to talk about Vermont today."
There was an immediate change in the patient's demeanor.
"Why do you want to talk about Vermont?" she asked defensively. "I haven't been there in years."
"Do you remember the time when your parents went to New York for the weekend to attend a wedding?"
Dottie rose from her seat, eager to escape this line of questioning.
"Please sit down. If you want to fight this fear, you'll have to face the truth."
The patient hesitated, torn between a desire to get rid of her phobia and the anguish of dredging up painful memories. After several moments of indecision, she sat back down.
"Do you remember that weekend?" the psychiatrist asked gently.
"How could I possibly forget it?"
"For more than thirty years, that's exactly what you've been trying to do. You've been attempting to bury the truth in your mind all that time."
"Isn't that what people are supposed to do? Forget about the bad memories and concentrate on the good?"
Lionel then pursued the hypothesis he had formed after speaking with Irwin Pell.
"Did you ever tell anyone that you witnessed your grandmother get murdered?"
As expected, the question elicited an emotional response, but the patient did not become hysterical. Instead, silent tears fell down her cheeks.
"I ... I wanted to help her, but I ... I ran instead."
"You were only a child. What? Five? Six years old? What could you have done?"
"I saw that man stab her, and I snuck downstairs and hid in the basement with the dolls. I cowered there, thinking only of my own safety, while my grandmother was being murdered upstairs."
"If you hadn't hidden, the killer might have murdered you, too."
The patient, however, was not interested in receiving absolution. The dam had broken on her memories, and the floodwaters came pouring out.
"I never told anyone what I saw, not my parents, not the police, not the prosecutor. But the dolls knew. They were witnesses to my cowardice. Those damned porcelain dolls! They stared down at me, and I could see the accusation in their terrifying glass eyes."
If Lionel hoped to rid Dottie Pritchett of her pediophobia, he would have to exculpate her perceived guilt.
"You're a parent, aren't you?" he asked despite already knowing the answer.
"Yes. I have two children and three grandchildren."
"If someone had broken into your house when they were young, wouldn't you have urged them to run and hide? Wouldn't you want them to be safe from harm?"
"Of course, I would."
"I'm sure your grandmother felt the same way. She was a grown woman, and she could not fight off her attacker. She must have known that you, a small child, would never have been able to do so."
"But the dolls ...."
"Their glass eyes only reflected what you were feeling in your heart. You hated yourself for not being able to save your grandmother, and you imagined the dolls felt the same way. But they didn't. They couldn't. They're only dolls. They're not capable of feeling anything."
"But I don't understand why this fear took more than thirty years to manifest? My daughter had dolls, and they never frightened me."
"I suspect it was the fire," Lionel concluded. "It was a potentially life-threatening occurrence, one that would cause fear in anyone. Then, to see the burned doll, when you were already in an apprehensive state of mind ... well, I imagine it was like the perfect storm. All that guilt, fear and self-loathing came back to you."
* * *
Three months after Dottie Pritchett was able to enter a toy store and not so much as cringe as she walked down the doll aisle, she and her husband decided to take a week-long vacation in Vermont. She had not returned to the Green Mountain State since that tragic weekend, and now, thanks to Lionel Penn, she was able to do so without fear.
"This really is a beautiful place," she said as they drove through a picturesque New England town.
Although he believed his wife had successfully conquered her pediophobia, Darren held his breath when they entered an antique shop that had several porcelain dolls on display. Relief flooded over him when he saw the benign smile on his wife's face.
"They don't bother me at all," Dottie declared and then examined a nearby carnival glass candy dish.
This is almost like a second honeymoon, he thought when they checked into a quaint bed and breakfast that had been built a decade before the start of the Civil War.
It was not until Friday afternoon, the day before they were scheduled to return to Puritan Falls, that he noticed the first sign of trouble. They were visiting yet another antique store, the fifth one, and Darren had a craving for ice cream.
"I won't be long," his wife promised as she browsed through a pile of old periodicals.
"Good! Because I can't wait to try Ben & Jerry's Dublin mudslide."
"Oh, no!" Dottie groaned in a voice so soft it was barely audible.
"What is it?"
When she turned and faced him, there was a look of horror in her eyes.
"I didn't know," she whimpered.
"Didn't know what?"
It was as though a curtain had been drawn across his wife's face. All emotion vanished, leaving her eyes with a lifeless glare like the glass eyes of a porcelain doll.
"Honey, what's wrong?" he demanded to know.
Rather than reply, she walked out of the store, still holding an old newspaper in her hand.
"Excuse me," the shopkeeper called after the retreating woman. "That paper costs five dollars."
Darren took his wallet out of his pocket. All he had on him were tens and twenties, so he put a ten-dollar bill on the counter, told the woman to keep the change and hurried out after his wife. When he stepped out the door, he noticed his car was gone and so was his wife.
* * *
When Jacqueline Astor entered The Quill and Dagger bookstore, she saw Lionel Penn sitting at the coffee bar with Shawn McMurtry.
"I think you must live here, Shawn," she laughed.
"The Quill and Dagger is better than Starbucks," the police officer replied.
"How have you been, Lionel?" the realtor inquired as she sat down on a stool at the counter.
"Just fine."
"And Sarah?"
"She's keeping busy. It seems everyone who suffers from seasonal allergies or comes down with the common cold is afraid they might have COVID. You must be pretty busy yourself. I understand that there's a boom in the housing market."
"In Essex Green and Copperwell, yes. But not so much in Puritan Falls. We, villagers, have deep roots. There is one place that has recently been listed, though. You know the Pritchett house?"
"That's the one on Old Mill Road. There was a fire there a while back," Shawn answered.
Lionel did not tell the realtor that Mrs. Pritchett was a former patient. He liked to keep that information confidential.
"I met with Darren Pritchett two days ago. His wife recently died, and he's moving back to New Jersey to be near his married daughter."
"Dottie is dead?" Lionel asked with astonishment. "But I just saw her not long ago. She was perfectly fine. What happened?"
"I don't know. All I know is that she died."
Once Rebecca gave her a coffee to go, Jacqueline said goodbye and left the bookstore.
"I can't believe it," the psychiatrist said, more to himself than to his friends.
"You don't think it had anything to do with those incidents with the dolls, do you?" Rebecca asked.
"Just between you and me, she was my patient," the psychiatrist confessed, believing that patient-doctor confidentiality was no longer an issue. "I would have sworn she was over her pediophobia, but I suppose something might have triggered another episode."
With Sarah working a double shift at the hospital, Lionel picked up Chinese takeout on his way home. As he sat in his kitchen eating General Tso's chicken, he took his cell phone out of his pocket and called Darren Pritchett.
The man answered after five rings.
"Hello, Dr. Penn."
"I just saw Jacqueline Astor," the psychiatrist began.
"And she told you about Dottie?"
"Yes. What happened?"
"We went to Vermont for a few days. It was the first time she had gone back there since she was a little girl. We were having a great time, and then we went into an antique store."
"And there were dolls there?" Lionel assumed.
"Yes, but they didn't frighten Dottie at all. No, it was the old newspaper, the one that had an article about Langston Willock dying in prison."
Lionel recognized the name. Langston Willock was the man convicted of murdering Millie Sobell.
"After seeing the article, she ran out of the shop, got into the car and drove off. I had to hire an Uber to take me back to the bed and breakfast we were staying at. When I got there ...." The widower broke down at this point in his lachrymose account but soon recovered and continued, "I found her lying on the canopy bed—dead."
"What did she die from?"
"The doctor said she had a heart attack, but I think it was more than that. You see, she left a note for me on the night table. After she visited with you, she remembered seeing the face of the man who killed her grandmother, and it wasn't Langston Willock! She blamed herself for ruining his life and ultimately causing his death. She couldn't live with the guilt."
After offering Darren Pritchett his condolences, the disheartened psychiatrist ended the call. Although he had helped hundreds of people conquer their fears and live normal, productive lives, his successes did not abrogate the guilt he felt when his treatments failed.
If I had to do it all over again, he thought, not for the first time and probably not for the last, I wouldn't go into psychiatry. I'd open a restaurant instead.
When Salem went to New Orleans, he got all decked out for Mardi Gras. Too bad he went in September!
