Praying for Sleep

by Deaver, Jeffrey

  This house too would have been a good site for a haunting. The dark boxy structure contained more square footage than even a fertile eighteenth-century family might comfortably fill. It was sided with weather-stained cedar shakes, brown, scalish, rough. The trim was dark green. Once a Revolutionary War tavern, the house was divided into many small rooms connected by narrow hallways. Beams dotted with powder-post-beetle holes crisscrossed the ceilings, and Lis’s father had claimed that several finger-size perforations in the walls and posts were from musket balls fired by rebel militia as they fought the British from room to room.

  Hundreds of thousands of dollars had been sunk into the interior design of the house over the past fifty years but for some reason her parents had never properly wired the place; lamps with low-wattage bulbs were all that the circuits could bear. From the patio tonight these lights shone through the small squares of rippled panes like jaundiced eyes.

  Lis, still thinking of her mother, said, “It was like the time near the end when she said, ‘I just talked to your father and he said he was coming home soon.’ ” That conversation would have been a tricky one; the old man had been dead for two years at that point. “She imagined it, of course. But the feeling was real to her.”

  And their father? Lis wondered momentarily. No, L’Auberget père was probably not present in spirit. He’d dropped dead in a men’s room in Heathrow Airport as he tugged angrily at a reluctant paper-towel dispenser.

  “Superstition,” Owen said.

  “Well, in a way he did come home to her. She died a couple days later.”

  “Still.”

  “I guess I’m talking about what you feel when people are together again, people who knew someone who’s gone.”

  Owen was tired of speaking about the spirits of the dead. He sipped his wine and told his wife he’d scheduled a business trip for Wednesday. He wondered if he could get a suit cleaned in time for his departure. “I’ll be staying through Sunday, so if—”

  “Wait. Did you hear something?” Lis turned quickly and looked at the dense mesh of lilacs that cut off their view of the back door of the house.

  “No, I don’t think I . . .” His voice faded and he held up a finger. He nodded. She couldn’t see his expression but his posture seemed suddenly tense.

  “There,” she said. “There it was again.”

  It seemed like the snap of footsteps approaching the house from the driveway.

  “That dog again?” Lis looked at Owen.

  “The Busches’? No, he’s penned in. I saw him when I went for my run. Deer probably.”

  Lis sighed. The local herd had feasted on over two hundred dollars in flower bulbs over the course of the summer, and just last week had stripped bare and killed a beautiful Japanese-maple sapling. She rose. “I’ll give it a good scare.”

  “You want me to?”

  “No. I want to call again anyway. Maybe I’ll make some tea. Anything for you?”

  “No.”

  She picked up the empty wine bottle and walked to the house, a fifty-foot trip along a path that wound through topiary, pungent boxwood and the bare, black lilac bushes. She passed a small reflecting pond in which floated several lily pads. Glancing down, she saw herself reflected, her face illuminated by the yellow lights from the first floor of the house. Lis had occasionally heard herself described as “plain” but had never taken this in a bad way. The word suggested a simplicity and resilience that were, to her, aspects of beauty. Looking into the water tonight she once again prodded her hair into place. Then a sharp gust of wind distorted her image in the water and she continued toward the house.

  She heard nothing more of the mysterious noise and she relaxed. Ridgeton was among the safest towns in the state, a beautiful hamlet surrounded by wooded hills and fields that were filled with kelly-green grass, huge boulders, horses bred for running, picturesque sheep and cows. The town had been incorporated even before the thirteen states considered unionizing, and Ridgeton’s evolution in the past three hundred years had been more in the ways of earthly convenience than economics or attitude. You could buy pizza by the slice and frozen yogurt, and you could rent Rototillers and videos but when all was said and done this was a walled village where the men were tied to the earth—they built on it, sold it and loaned against it—and the women marshaled children and food.

  Ridgeton was a town that tragedy rarely touched and premeditated violence, never.

  So tonight when Lis found that the kitchen door, latticed with squares of turquoise bottle glass, was wide open, she was more irritated than uneasy. She paused, the wine bottle in her hand slowly swinging to a stop. A faint trapezoid of amber light spread onto the lawn at Lis’s feet.

  She stepped around the thicket of lilacs and glanced into the driveway. No cars.

  The wind, she concluded.

  Stepping inside, she set the bottle on the butcher-block island and made a perfunctory search of the downstairs. No evidence of fat raccoons or curious skunks. She stood still for a moment listening for sounds within the house. Hearing nothing, Lis put the kettle on the stove then crouched to forage through the cabinet that contained the tea and coffee. Just as she placed her hand on the box of rose-hip tea, a shadow fell over her. She stood, gasping, and found herself looking into a pair of cautious hazel eyes.

  The woman was about thirty-five. She had a black jacket over her arm and wore a loose-fitting white satin blouse, a short, shimmery skirt, and lace-up boots with short heels. Over her shoulder was a backpack.

  Lis swallowed and found her hand quivering. The two women faced each other for a moment, silent. It was Lis who leaned forward quickly and embraced the younger woman. “Portia.”

  The woman unslung the backpack and dropped it on the island, next to the wine bottle.

  “Hello, Lis.”

  There was a moment of thick silence. Lis said, “I didn’t . . . I mean, I thought you were going to call when you got to the station. We’d pretty much decided you weren’t coming. I called you and got your machine. Well, it’s good to see you.” She heard the nervous out-pouring of her words and fell silent.

  “I got a ride. Figured, why bother them?”

  “It wouldn’t have been a bother.”

  “Where were you guys? I looked upstairs.”

  Lis didn’t speak for a moment but merely stared at the young woman’s face, her blond hair—exactly Lis’s shade—held back by a black headband. Portia frowned and repeated her question.

  “Oh, we’re out by the lake. It’s a strange night, isn’t it? Indian summer. In November. Have you eaten?”

  “No, nothing. I had brunch at three. Lee stayed over last night and we slept late.”

  “Come on outside. Owen’s out there. You’ll have some wine.”

  “No, really. Nothing.”

  They headed back down the path, thick silence filling the short distance between them. Lis asked about the train ride.

  “Late but it got here.”

  “Who’d you get a ride with”

  “Some guy. I think I went to high school with his son. He kept talking about Bobbie. Like I should know who Bobbie was if he didn’t give me his last name.”

  “Bobbie Kelso. He’s your age. His father’s tall, bald?”

  “I think,” Portia said absently, looking out over the black lake.

  Lis watched her eyes. “It’s been so long since you’ve been here.”

  Portia gave a sound that might have been a laugh or a sniffle. They walked the rest of the way to the patio in silence.

  “Welcome,” Owen called, standing up. He kissed his sister-in-law’s cheek. “We’d about given up on you.”

  “Yeah, well, one thing after another. Didn’t get a chance to call. Sorry.”

  “No problem. We’re flexible out here in the country. Have some wine.”

  “She got a ride with Irv Kelso,” Lis said. Then she pointed to a lawn chair. “Sit down. I’ll open another bottle. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”


  But Portia didn’t sit. “No thanks. It’s still early enough, isn’t it? Why don’t we get the dirty work over with?”

  In the ensuing silence Lis looked from her sister to her husband then back again. “Well . . .”

  Portia persisted, “Unless it’d be a hassle.”

  Owen shook his head. “Not really.”

  Lis hesitated. “You don’t want to sit for a few minutes? We’ve got all tomorrow.”

  “Naw, let’s just do it.” She laughed. “Like the ad says.”

  Owen turned toward the younger woman. His face was in shadow and Lis couldn’t see his expression. “If you want. Everything’s in the den.”

  He led the way and Portia, with a glance at her older sister, followed.

  Lis remained on the patio for a moment. She blew the candle out and picked it up. Then she too walked to the house, preceded by sparkling dew lifted off the grass and flung from the tips of her boots, while above her in the night sky Cassiopeia grew indistinct, then dark, then invisible behind a wedge of black cloud.

  He walked along the gritty driveway, passing through pools of light beneath the antiquated, hoopy lamps sprouting from the uneven granite wall. From high above, a woman known to him only as Patient 223-81 keened breathlessly, mourning the loss of something only she understood.

  He paused at a barred wooden door, beside the loading dock. Into a silver plastic box—incongruous in this nearly medieval setting—the middle-aged man inserted a plastic card and flung the door open. Inside, a half dozen men and women, wearing white jackets or blue jumpsuits, glanced at him. Then they looked away uncomfortably.

  A white-jacketed young doctor with nervous black hair and large lips stepped quickly to his side, whispering, “It’s worse than we thought.”

  “Worse, Peter?” Dr. Ronald Adler asked vacantly as he stared at the gurney. “I don’t know about that. I expect pretty bad.”

  He brushed his uncombed sandy-gray hair out of his eyes and touched a long finger to a thin, fleshy jowl as he looked down at the body. The corpse was huge and bald and had a time-smeared tattoo on the right biceps. A reddish discoloration encircled the massive neck. His back was as dark with sunken blood as his face was pale.

  Adler motioned to the young doctor. “Let’s go to my office. Why are all these people here? Shoo them out! My office. Now.”

  Vanishing through a narrow doorway the two men walked down the dim corridors, the only sounds their footsteps and a faint wail, which might have been either Patient 223-81 or the wind that gushed through the gaps in the building, which had been constructed a century ago. The walls of Adler’s office were made from the same red granite used throughout the hospital but he was its director so the walls were paneled. Because this was a state hospital, however, the wormwood was fake and badly warped. The office seemed like that of a bail bondsman or an ambulance-chasing lawyer.

  Adler flicked the light on and tossed his overcoat onto a button-studded couch. The summons tonight had found him between the legs of his wife and he’d leapt off the bed and dressed hastily. He noticed now that he’d forgotten his belt, and his slacks hung below his moderate belly. This embarrassed him and he quickly sat at his desk chair. He gazed momentarily at the phone as if perplexed it wasn’t ringing.

  To the young man, his assistant, Adler said, “Let’s have it, Doctor. Don’t hover. Sit down and tell me.”

  “Details are pretty sketchy. He’s built like Callaghan.” Peter Grimes aimed his knobby hair toward the body in the loading dock. “We think he—”

  Adler interrupted. “And he is . . . ?”

  “The one who escaped? Michael Hrubek. Number 458-94.”

  “Go on.” Adler fanned his fingers gingerly and Grimes placed a battered white file folder in front of the director.

  “Hrubek, it seems—”

  “He was the big fellow? Didn’t think he was a trouble-maker.”

  “Never was. Until today.” Grimes kept retracting his lips like a fish chewing water and exposing little, even teeth. Adler found this repugnant and lowered his face to the file. The young doctor continued, “He shaved his head to look like Callaghan. Stole a razor to do it. Then he dyed his face blue. Broke a pen and mixed the ink with—” Adler’s eyes swung to Grimes with a look of either anger or bewilderment. The young man said quickly, “Then he climbed into the freezer for an hour. Anybody else would’ve died. Just before the coroner’s boys came by to pick up Callaghan, Hrubek hid the corpse and climbed into his body bag. The orderlies looked inside, saw a cold, blue body and—”

  A barked laugh escaped from the director’s thin lips, on which to his shock he detected the scent of his wife. The smile faded. “Blue? Incredible. Blue?”

  Callaghan had died, Grimes explained, by strangulation. “He was blue when they found him this afternoon.”

  “Then he wasn’t blue for long, my friend. As soon as they cut the sheet off him, he was un-blue. Didn’t the fucking orderlies think of that?”

  “Well,” Peter Grimes said, and could think of nothing to add.

  “Did he hurt the meat-wagon boys?” Adler asked. At some point tonight he’d have to total up how many people might sue the state as a result of the escape.

  “Nope. They said they chased him but he disappeared.”

  “They chased him. I’m sure.” Adler sighed sardonically, and turned back to the file. He motioned for Grimes to be quiet and began to read about Michael Hrubek.

  DSM-III diagnosis: Paranoid schizophrenic . . . Monosymptomatic and delusional . . . Claims to have been committed in seventeen hospitals and escaped from seven of them. Unconfirmed.

  Adler glanced up at his assistant. “Escaped from seven hospitals?” Before the young man could answer the question, to which there really was no answer, the director was reading once more.

  . . . committed indefinitely pursuant to Section 403 of the State Mental Health Law. . . . Hallucinatory (auditory, nonvisual) . . . subject to severe panic attacks, during which Pt. may become psychotically violent. Pt.’s intelligence is average/above average. . . . Difficulty processing only the most abstract thought . . . Believes he is being persecuted and spied upon. Believes he is hated by others and gossiped about . . . Revenge and retribution, often in Biblical or historical contexts, seem to be integral parts of his delusion. . . . Particular animosity toward women . . .

  Adler then read the intake resident’s report about Hrubek’s height, weight, strength, general good health and belligerence. His face remained impassive though his heart revved up a few beats and he thought with dread and clinical admiration, The son of a bitch is a killing animal. Jesus, Lord.

  “ ‘Presently controlled by chlorpromazine hydrochloride, 3200 mgs./daily. P.O. in divided doses.’ Is this for real, Peter?”

  “Yes. I’m afraid so. Three grams of Thorazine.”

  “Fuck,” Adler whispered.

  “About which . . .” The assistant rocked against the desk with his thumbs pressed on a stack of books, the digits growing bright red under the pressure.

  “Let’s have it. All of it.”

  “He’s been cheeking his meds.”

  Adler felt a bristle of heat course over his face. He whispered, “Tell me.”

  “There was a movie.”

  “A movie?”

  Grimes clicked together two untrimmed nails. “An adventure film. And the hero pretended to take some drug or something—”

  “You mean in the rec room? . . . What are you telling me?”

  “An adventure film. But he didn’t really take them. The pills. He pretended to but he cheeked them and spit ’em out later. Harrison Ford, I think. A lot of patients did that for a few days afterwards. I guess nobody thought Hrubek was that cognitively functional so they didn’t watch him that closely. Or maybe it was Nick Nolte.”

  Adler exhaled slowly. “How long was he off the candy?”

  “Four days. Well, make that five.”

  Flipping through his ordered mind Adler selected the Psychopharmacol
ogy file cabinet and peeked inside. Psychotic behavior in schizophrenics is controlled by anti-psychotic medication. There’s no physical addiction to Thorazine, as with narcotics, but going cold turkey off the drug would render Hrubek nauseous, dizzy, sweaty, and intensely nervous, all of which would increase the likelihood of panic attacks.

  And panic was what made schizophrenics dangerous.

  Off their Thorazine, patients like Hrubek sometimes fly into psychotic rages. Sometimes they murder.

  Sometimes voices tell them what a good job they did with the knife or baseball bat and suggest that they go out and do it again.

  Hrubek, Adler noted, would also experience severe insomnia. Which meant that the man would be wide awake for two or three days—ample opportunity to spread his mayhem about quite generously.

  The moaning grew louder, filling the dim office. Adler’s palms rose to his cheeks. Again he smelled his wife. Again he wished he could turn back the clock one hour. Again he wished he’d never heard of Michael Hrubek.

  “How’d we find out about the Thorazine?”

  “One of the orderlies,” Grimes explained, chewing water again. “He found it under Hrubek’s mattress.”

  “Who?”

  “Stu Lowe.”

  “Who else knows? About him cheeking the candy?”

  “Him, me, you. The chief nurse. Lowe told her.”

  “Oh, that’s just great. Now listen to me. Tell Lowe . . . tell him it’s his job if he ever repeats that. Not a single fucking word. Wait. . . .” A troubling thought occurred to Adler and he asked, “The morgue’s in C Ward. How the hell did Hrubek have access to it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, find out.”