Trace (Trace 1) by Warren Murphy

a few seconds later came out and said, “Dr. Matteson will see you right now.”
    “I’m in luck,” Trace said.
    “I warned him that you’re grouchy,” she said, and held the door open.
    Trace slid by her into a large airy office that overlooked a grassy field that swept down to a stand of trees that bordered the edge of one of the small streams that maundered through that part of New Jersey. The view was peaceful but the rest of the office was busy. The carpet was bright orange and the walls a particularly disgusting lemon yellow, plastered with posters and prints that were vaguely modern and seemed to Trace to embrace every social cause from protecting seals to free abortion on demand to anyone, regardless of age, religion, or even gender.
    Piles of medical journals and newspapers were stacked on small tables around the walls of the room. A tape recorder on one of the tables was blasting Gilbert and Sullivan’s Mikado . Three diplomas, in frames, hung askew on the wall behind Matteson’s desk.
    Dr. George Matteson was sitting at the desk in the far corner. He had a small well-trimmed beard that seemed to clash with the wild curled frizz of his hair. He wore no jacket and his shirt sleeves were rolled up to display heavy muscular forearms. His collar was open. His suit jacket hung on a plain wooden coatrack behind him, with a tie carelessly looped over the top of the rack. Trace estimated that Matteson was in his mid-thirties.
    The doctor didn’t look up as Tracy entered. He was busy jabbing a stiletto-shaped letter opener down into his desk, thump, thump, thump . Trace couldn’t see what he was stabbing at because two rowdy stacks of books were in his line of vision.
    When the door closed behind him, Trace said, “Roach problem?”
    Matteson seemed to respond to the unfamiliar voice in his office because he stopped his last thrust in midstroke and looked up.
    “No, goddammit,” he said. He took the letter opener and held it by the tip and Trace glanced sideways to see if there was something to hide behind in case Matteson should be an accomplished knife thrower.
    “You ever get the feeling that the world is out to get you?” Matteson asked.
    “All the time.”
    “Well, this, goddammit, this letter opener’s out to get me. I don’t know who makes things like this. It’s got a point on it like a freaking laser beam and every time I try to open an envelope with it, the goddam point gets under my fingernail and I feel like I’m being tortured in Attica. This sucks.”
    “Is that how you’ve worked out your revenge?” Trace asked. “Using the letter opener to punish your desk?”
    Matteson looked annoyed and puzzled. “Oh. No. I wasn’t jamming it into the desk. I was jamming it into this wooden ruler. I’m trying to dull the point before it freaking kills me.” He popped his left index finger into his mouth and sucked on it. “Everytime I try to open a letter, it leaves me bleeding. Freaking thing must be made of titanium steel. It won’t get dull.”
    “Throw it out,” Trace said. “Open your letters with your teeth, like I do.”
    “I can’t. The girls gave it to me. They’ll be heartbroken. Maybe you can steal it when you go.” He picked up a business card from the desk. “So, let’s see, you’re Devlin Tracy, Garrison Fidelity Insurance Company. What can I do for you? But if you tell me you’re investigating a murder, I don’t want to talk to you. What do you want?” He dropped the letter opener and drummed his fingers impatiently on the desktop.
    Trace looked around for a chair, but there was none, so he went across the room and sat on the sofa.
    “I don’t have a chair. It encourages people to hang around and then you never get any work done. You know how hard it is to run a hospital?”
    “I’m here about Frederick Plesser,” said Trace.
    “I knew it. I just knew it. This is going to go on forever, isn’t it? I’m going to be hounded year after year for the rest of my