Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 38, No. 13, Mid-December 1993

Could Culhane’s rivals have kidnapped his fiancée? Sure. Kidnapping was their stock in trade. And the finger? Why not? If I could imagine Culhane cutting off a girl’s finger, and I could, in a Bronx minute, it didn’t take much to imagine his peers doing the same.

But “could have” is not the same as “did,” and even if Culhane’s rivals did send the grisly package, “why” was still a big question. Fingers usually come with notes of explanation. There had been no note with this finger.

No, it didn’t add up — not yet. But Lila Dubois had to be somewhere. And someone had to know where.

Jerome Dubois answered the door in a Ralph Lauren bathrobe and slippers that must have cost a hundred dollars apiece. He had a tidily cropped beard and unhappy eyes that looked like they were looking at something they didn’t want to see. Right now they were looking at me, but I didn’t take it personally. Guys like this are unhappy looking at anything except their well-groomed faces in their gold-framed bathroom mirrors.

“Good afternoon,” he said. “I am Dr. Dubois. Leon told me you were coming today.” He lifted a cut-glass decanter from the minibar set up in one corner of the living room. “Port?” I shook my head. He poured himself a glass and carried it to the couch in the center of the room. He waited for me to join him before sitting down.

Then he waited for me to talk.

“When did you see Lila last?” I said.

He rolled his eyes back in his head for a second. “Oh, a week ago, two weeks. Something like that.”

“Can’t you be more specific?”

“Not really, I’m afraid. I have a terrible memory for dates.”

“I’m not asking about the Civil War, doctor. I’m asking you did you see her last Tuesday or the Tuesday before that.”

“I don’t remember.”

I waited while the doctor sipped his drink.

“She didn’t ask to come visit you over the weekend?”

“No.”

“She didn’t come here Friday night?”

“No.”

“She wasn’t here at all over the weekend?”

“No.”

“You didn’t talk to her—”

“No.”

“—over the weekend.”

“No.”

We sat.

“Listen,” I said finally. “Leon Culhane has hired me to find out what happened to your sister. I’d think you’d be interested in knowing this, too, except maybe you don’t give a damn or maybe you know and just aren’t telling me. That’s fine with me. It’s stupid, but it’s fine. What is not fine is wasting my time, which is what you are doing. So why don’t you just tell me what you’re going to tell me and then I’ll go find out how much of it is a lie?”

“I imagine,” Dubois said, “that you find this approach effective when you deal with men in Leon’s circle. I find it vulgar, personally.” We stared at each other for a while.

“What do you do, doctor?” I asked.

“If you mean what do I do professionally, I have a successful private practice, in addition to which I spend a good part of each year preparing and presenting papers for seminars. I also teach a graduate-level course at Columbia.”

“In the field of psychology?”

“Abnormal psychology, yes.”

“And in your successful private practice, doctor, if one of your patients is uncooperative, what do you do?”

“I work with him to identify the root cause underlying this behavior and then eliminate it. But if you are implying that I am being uncooperative, you are mistaken. There are better ways I could be spending my time than speaking with a friend of Leon Culhane’s.”

“Leon Culhane’s not my friend.”

“Neither am I — nevertheless, I am spending the time. I am answering your questions to the best of my ability. I do not know where Lila is. That question I cannot answer. But if you have others, by all means ask them. I may not satisfy you, but it will not be because I am unwilling to cooperate.”

“What do you think happened to your sister?”

Leon raised his shoulders and let them fall. “I don’t know.”

“I said what do you think happened. You don’t know what you think?”

“I think she is fine.”

“Why?”

“Because she is always fine.”

“But she’s missing.”

“She has been missing before.”

“When?”

Jerome shrugged again. “Now and again.”

“When?”

“When she was a teenager, Lila would disappear for days at a time. She would go off without telling anyone where she was going. Then, a week later, she would return and tell us all about it: I went to the Hague! I went to Bourbon Street for Mardi Gras! Vanishing is nothing new for Lila.”

“When was the last time she took off like that?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Would Rachel?”

“She might.”

I stood up, put my hat back on, and walked myself to the door. Dubois followed me with his eyes only. “I am sorry that I can be of no more help,” he said.

“No, you’re not,” I said. “Don’t lie. You don’t do it well.”

“You have a great deal of hostility, Mr. Mickity. Why is that?”

I opened the door and walked out. The door didn’t swing shut on its own — it wasn’t that kind of door — and I didn’t pull it closed behind me. I looked back and saw Dubois still sitting on the couch, his arms stretched wide along the top, his glass dangling from one hand.

I walked. He could close the door himself, or he could let the flies in, I didn’t care.