“What?”
“His academic output dried up after a year or two. He stopped writing papers. The personnel file records he was counseled about this numerous times, and about other things, too, like failing to attend committee meetings and rudeness to his supervisors. Also, he was not a popular teacher. The student evaluations I saw were pretty consistent—he was uninterested in teaching, arrogant, cold, went off on tangents.”
“Sounds like he wasn’t long for Harvard.”
“Exactly, and on the brink of getting fired, he totally decompensated and ended up being involuntarily committed to McLean.”
“I knew from the reference letter he’d spent six months there.”
“I bet you didn’t know that one of his patients died unexpectedly just before his breakdown.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Criminal charges were never brought against him, but the records discuss a concern that Witner had overmedicated a man on his service. Then things get even weirder, Jack.”
“Please continue.”
“Witner didn’t have a simple stress-related breakdown. We’re talking about a major schizophrenic break—auditory hallucinations, a complex system of delusions and homicidal ideation. Second day at McLean, he assaulted a security guard with a broken bottle.”
At this point, a little girl ran into the room and hopped on Spengler’s lap.
“Maria, do you remember Dr. Forester? He was here at Christmastime last year.”
“Hi, Dr. Forester.”
“Hi, kiddo.”
“Listen, Dr. Forester and I need to talk some more, sweetie. We’ll all get together for supper in a little while.”
After his daughter had darted back out of the solarium, Spengler continued.
“Witner’s discharge summary from his stay at McLean reads like a classic study of what happens when an individual with a very powerful intellect develops paranoid schizophrenia. He had created an elaborate delusional universe with its own internal logic.”
“The smarter they are, the stranger it gets.”
“It revolved around the belief that most humans have been infected with a virus-like particle that incorporates them into a super-organism with a single mind.”
“Like the Borg.”
“Witner believed he was the select leader of a secret organization dedicated to restoring humanity.”
Jack looked up from the flower he’d been staring at.
“Did the record mention what Witner called this secret organization?”
“Those guys are very thorough in their write-ups. It doesn’t come right to mind, but I think it did.”
“The Society Carnivalis?”
“Yes! That was it. I guess that must mean there’s a chapter in New Canterbury.”
Jack rose to his feet. “George, I need to make a call.”
* * *
Returning from the hotel’s exercise room where she’d spent half an hour on the stationary bicycle, Zellie unlocked her door and entered her room. Late-afternoon sunlight was flooding in the windows from a pale sky. Pulling the curtains, she undressed and turned on the shower. Before stepping in, she slipped off the hearing aid and set it on the sink.
Luxuriating in the warm water, she thought of what she’d accomplished that day. As it turned out, Daphne had been away most of the time, so she’d stayed in the room and written, mainly sketching out ideas for a new novel that had begun taking shape in her mind several days ago. A large part of her wished she’d gone with Jack.
But that’s why she’d turned him down, wasn’t it? Although this new relationship felt good—very good and very right, maybe the most right she’d ever known—she still feared it could be half-illusory. She’d wanted some time alone to let her feelings settle.
And they had. It still felt perfectly sensible and even wonderful, and she was eager to see him again.
She finally turned off the water and reached for a towel. After she hung up the towel and put the hearing aid back in, she realized the phone was ringing. It wasn’t her cell, it was the hotel phone.
“I’m coming. Don’t hang up.” Naked, she strode to the far side of the bed and picked it up. “Hello?”
“Well, hello, there, stranger.” It was Muriel Gillman. “You haven’t called in almost three days, Zellie. Is everything all right?”
“All’s well, Mommy.”
“I’ve been trying to reach you by cell phone all day.”
The battery’s dead, and I can’t find my charger, for some reason.”
“Shame on you. In any case, you sound well. How’s the story coming?”
“The deeper I dig, the darker it gets.”
“Why? What are you turning up?”
“Maybe some serious skullduggery, Muriel. It’s too early to say more.”
“Oh, come on—give me some details.”
“You’d think I was crazy. Not for a few days. Can you extend my deadline? We’ve got some more work to do.”
“How long?”
“Five more days, maybe a week.”
“I can do that, I think. Who’s we?”
“I’m working with one of the doctors here. His name’s Jack Forester.”
Muriel was silent for a moment. Smiling, Zellie carried the phone to where she could view herself in the mirror.
“I see,” said Muriel. “So, is he cute?”
“We’ve become good friends, Muriel.”
“Good friends. Uh-huh. God help us. What about smart? The older I get the more I like smart. Just because he’s a doctor, doesn’t mean he’s smart.”
“Muriel, you won’t believe it. He recognized me from my old jacket photo on Burning Down the Boardwalk. He still had a copy.”
“Oh, please.”
“I’m serious.”
“Are you sure he wasn’t putting you on?”
“Positive.”
“Does he have a sense of humor? Some doctors never laugh. All they do is work. Work and die young. Of course, they’re usually well-insured.”
“Muriel, stop it. You’ll just have to see for yourself.”
“You live in New York for ten years and can’t find anybody who isn’t a loser, then one week in the boondocks and you meet Prince Charming. You be extremely careful—please. You wouldn’t be the first clever woman to get taken for a ride on the hormone rollercoaster. The world is loaded with cads and bounders, remember that. Just pack your parachute and—”
“Cads and bounders, Muriel?” Zellie broke in, laughing. “You’ve been reading too much Dickens.”
“But it’s true, and you never know where you’ll find them.”
* * *
Jack stood in the Spenglers’ kitchen with the phone pressed against his ear. Her cell phone was going straight to voice mail, and the voice mail was full. The smell of food filled his nose. Leah was an excellent cook. He hung up and dialed the hotel number, asking the clerk to connect him with her room.
It was busy. Blast. He had to let her know about this. She should avoid going out alone and under no circumstance get close to Witner. He hung up, tried again—still busy—so he asked the desk to connect him with Daphne Gavin’s room.
“Hello, Jack,” she said. “Are you still in Boston?”
“How did you know I was in Boston?”
“Zellie, of course.”
“Have you seen her?”
“Certainly. She went down to the exercise room a little while ago, but she and I will be going out in about an hour. Are you having any success there?”
“Yes.”
“That’s very good. Very good. Do you still plan on being back tomorrow afternoon?”
“Yes, but I really would like to talk to Zellie.”
“You sound concerned. But, I understand. You can relax, Jack. I’ll look forward to seeing you tomorrow. She’s fine, and I’ll pass the message to her. She’ll be safe and sound. She’ll be with me.”
Why didn’t that make him feel better?
XXXIII
Inklings
They were eating supper when Spengler got paged by the cath lab.
“Jack, I’m really sorry,” he said, returning to the dining room. “They’ve got two acute MIs coming in. I should be back in a couple of hours.”
“That usually means about five hours,” Leah translated.
“No need to apologize, I understand.”
“Stay up for me, okay?”
“Maria and I will keep him entertained,” Leah said.
A little while later, she and Jack carried cups of coffee into the living room.
Maria came up to him. “Dr. Forester, would you like to read me a book?”
“I was hoping you’d ask.”
She brought over an armload of them. Then she dragged over a little wooden rocking chair and sat down in front of him.
“You won’t be able to see the pictures sitting there,” he pointed out.
“It’s okay—I know them all.”
“I’ll bet you do. Your daddy has a photographic memory, too.”
“What’s a photographic memory?”
Jack told her. His answer, however, led to another question, and his answer raised yet another question, and so it went for the next half-hour until they arrived at the subject of pets.
“Do you have a cat?” she asked him.
“No, but I have a very nice dog.”
“What’s her name?”
“He’s a boy, and his name is Arbus.”
“Arbus? Why is that his name?”
“I’ll explain, but you’ll have to promise not to ask any questions until I’m done telling you, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Well, I got Arbus when he was just a puppy, and I thought of all sorts of names. I thought of calling him Bill, or Bentley, or even Baxter.”
“And Red?”
“Yes, Red, too,” he agreed.
“Rodney?”
“No, not that one. I just couldn’t seem to find the right name. So, for many days, I just called him boy. Then one day, I woke up and saw him sitting next to the bed, and without thinking, I said, ‘Hello, Arbus.’ As soon as I said it, he lifted his head and tilted it, like this, and he smiled. So, there it was. It was like he’d been waiting for me to figure it out.”
“He knew all along.”
“Now,” Jack said, looking at his watch, “which book would you like?”
“I think I want to watch a movie now.”
“Me, too.”
“Snow White or Shrek? I like Snow White, but Mommy doesn’t.”
“Why’s that?” Jack asked. He glanced at Leah, who was smiling and shaking her head.
“Because,” the little girl recited, “it shows a woman keeping house for seven little men who are old enough to take care of themselves.”
“Maria,” cautioned Leah.
“I see,” said Jack. “Your mom’s got a point.”
Maria opened a cabinet under the TV set, inserted a DVD and pulled her chair up next to Jack’s.
“But the dwarfs aren’t mean or anything,” she added. “They don’t know any better, right?”
As the movie went on, she provided him with scene-by-scene narration.
“This is where Snow White does something really dumb,” she noted, as Snow White was offered a poisoned apple by the wicked queen disguised as an old hag. “Look—she’s going to take it. I’d never do that. You wouldn’t, would you, Mommy?”
Sunk deep in a magic sleep, Snow White lay on a table in a drug-induced coma, surrounded by seven tearful little woman-exploiters. A tingle went over Jack’s scalp. An image of Jim Gavin lying in the hospital floated through his mind. A drug-induced coma? Could it be? He rose to his feet.
“What’s the matter?” asked Leah.
“I don’t know for certain, but a friend of mine may be in more trouble than I thought. Leah, I’d better head home. Please tell George I’ll call him.”
* * *
Zellie couldn’t put a finger on it as she and Daphne drove westward away from New Canterbury, following the same road she and Jack had taken the evening before. Something was different about Daphne tonight. She seemed nervous and kept glancing at the rearview mirror even though the road was nearly deserted.
Zellie cleared her throat.
“So, how did your meeting at the university go, Daphne?”
“Not very productive.”
“How so?”
By concentrating on Daphne’s lips and turning so her right ear was in play, Zellie could manage to make out her response fairly well.
“Well, Zellie, it’s not easy to have a meeting when my legal counsel grabs his stomach, vomits and faints on the floor.”
“Oh, no. So, he really did have the flu?”
Daphne didn’t answer for a moment, a bored expression on her face. She concentrated on the road.
“Is he alright?” Zellie prompted.
“Oh, I think he’ll be fine. Debussy wanted to send him over to the emergency room, but Auren pulled himself together and went back to the hotel. He looked like death warmed over.”
“I hope he does okay.”
Daphne muttered something she couldn’t make out, and Zellie decided it wasn’t worth pursuing.
“So, where, exactly, does your friend live, Daphne?”
“Not too far now. What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. Just curious.”
“I don’t know about you, but I’m starving,” Daphne added in a lighter tone.
The night was clear and stars were out, but there was no moon. They passed over a small bridge, and a bright light came into view. It was a single mercury-vapor flood lamp in front of a building on the lake side of the road. A sign said Deepwater Marina, and she saw the name Hinkle below it. A shiver played between her shoulder blades.
After the marina, the road curved to the right and veered northwards up the western shore of the lake. They passed a dozen or so houses, most of them dark. After that, they entered an area of woods, and the road began climbing away from the water.
In a few minutes, they were on the top of a ridge, and Zellie could see a cluster of lights on the far side of the lake. Her sense of geography was good, and she judged correctly those lights were the town of Stanwick Grove. She thought of last night in the church tower, and a warm, pleasant sensation washed over her. She wondered what he was doing now.
Then they were back in trees.
“Your friend must like her privacy as much as Bryson Witner.”
“Don’t we all?” Daphne said.
Zellie felt her brake the car. A black mailbox with phosphorescent numbers flashed briefly in the headlights.
“And here we are,” Daphne announced. She swung the wheel hard and turned rather fast into a gravel driveway, and they descended in switchbacks down toward the water. She seemed to know the way well.
Finally, Zellie could see the silhouette of a large house growing more distinct though the trees. It was two-and-a-half stories, and sheathed in gray wooden shingles, the roof broken by four large gables, with an attached garage. Light poured from the first-floor windows. It was a lovely place.
The driveway had a turnaround that curved by a screened front porch on the uphill side, The lake was invisible somewhere to the rear of place, but it couldn’t be far away. Daphne stopped in front of the porch and turned off the engine.
“There,” she said. “I can almost smell supper.”
Zellie opened the door and stepped out. Gravel crunched under her shoes, and the air was colder than she’d expected, chillier than back in town. She looked up and saw stars twinkling through pine boughs.
“After you,” Daphne said.
Zellie went up the steps and opened the door to the porch. She stepped in and Daphne followed her. The door clapped shut behind them.
“Hello!” Daphne yelled. “It’s us.”
Zellie went to the heavy-looking main door and knocked.
“It’s okay,” Daphne said. “They know it
’s me.”
Zellie hesitated, so Daphne opened the door and ushered her in. They were now in a large foyer. Off to the right was a living room with an oriental carpet. A kitchen lay at the far end of the hallway, and to the right rose a broad staircase with an oak bannister. It reminded her of a bed-and-breakfast one might find in the Smoky Mountains, the kind she could imagine her and Jack staying in someday.
Did I really just think that?
Something struck her as strange, but it took her a few seconds to realize there was no smell of food cooking. Instead, she became aware of a faint animal smell that was vaguely feline but sharper, and not particularly pleasant. She turned to Daphne, who was unbuttoning her coat.
“Where are they?”
Daphne laughed. “My guess would be down in the wine cellar arguing about the right bottle. Either that, or they’re upstairs making whoopee.”
“What?”
“Oh, don’t act like a prude. Here, let me take your coat.”
Then Zellie saw a small animal crouched halfway up the stairs, and a shock went through her. Its two inky black eyes were glued to her. Weasel, she thought. No, it’s a ferret.
The creature turned and darted up the stairs with a strangely repulsive, undulating movement. Now she understood the smell.
“Daphne,” she said, “did you see that thing?”
There was movement in the semi-darkened room on her left. A man was approaching them from the shadows.
“Welcome, Ms. Andersen,” Bryson Witner said as he stepped into the light. “I was beginning to think you’d gotten lost.”
Zellie’s breath froze. She stepped back. She turned to Daphne, but Daphne didn’t look at all surprised. She was smiling.
How could she have been so stupid? This had all been a game. All of it. The woman was an actress.
Daphne removed a pistol from her purse and leveled it at Zellie’s chest. Zellie could only shake her head in numb disbelief as Witner grabbed her arms and yanked them behind her back. Cold metal snapped shut around her wrists.
XXXIV
Intimidation For Dummies
Jack sped westward on I-90, his foot hard on the pickup's accelerator pedal, his thoughts unsettled and growing more so. Facts swirled though his mind—the way Gavin had been moved to a private suite, Witner his attending; the rigid visitation rules, the realization Witner may have kept a patient comatose with medications.
Final Mercy Page 28