Crazy Dead (A Cordi O'Callaghan Mystery)

by Suzanne F. Kingsmill

  “So the kid’s God?” Bradley was looking at Austin with some interest. The fact that he had spoken at all was intriguing.

  “You can define it any way you like,” said Austin, “but we’re just some toy in the big playpen of life.” Somebody groaned.

  “What’s your playground?” said Austin as he stared at Bradley.

  “Scientology.” Bradley said the word so firmly that it left no doubt about his feelings regarding his chosen belief system. But then his face twitched as if he was annoyed at himself. Why would he be annoyed? I wondered what the odds were that there would be two Scientologists on a psychiatric ward, let alone one. Mavis and Bradley. Lucy whistled softly and Leo moaned. The rest of us just stared.

  “Then what the hell are you doing here?” said Austin. “I thought Scientologists believe psychiatry is a destructive force and shouldn’t exist?” I was impressed. I hadn’t known that. Austin was full of information.

  “Sometimes you have to downplay your principles to get what you need,” said Bradley as he stared down Austin.

  “Oh, my God,” said Austin. ”What the hell does that mean?”

  But before Bradley could say anything else the minister intervened. “We’re getting off topic here. Bradley, what have you done for yourself today?”

  Bradley just stared at the minister as though she was some alien creature. She patiently went around the circle then and didn’t get much out of anybody, including me, until she came to Jacques.

  “I’ve decided I don’t need to follow most of the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and I feel good about that. It’s a load off my back.”

  The minister blinked several times and then cleared her throat. She looked a little lost.

  “Is there a reason?” she finally asked.

  “I’m an atheist. Six of the twelve steps refer directly to God.” Talk about throwing down the gauntlet. What was he trying to do? Start a religious war? And this was supposed to be non-denominational.

  “Even though you don’t believe, you can still believe in yourself. Know that you are unique and that the choices you make define you. You don’t have to believe in God to follow the steps. You just have to believe in yourself.”

  “And you’re saying that to people who routinely hallucinate and have delusions? How do you believe in yourself if you don’t know what’s real and what isn’t half the time? Like the Norse gods, the Greek gods, the Christian god, Scientology’s supreme being, and all the other gods. What’s real?” He looked directly at Bradley, as if he was trying to bait him, but Bradley stayed mute.

  “God is a delusion, anyway, created to make us feel better about dying,” said Jacques, the tone of his voice clearly confrontational.

  “Sometimes death seems like heaven,” said Lucy, as if she hadn’t understood Jacques at all. “When you’re depressed and then manic and back and forth like me, it’s like having your mind plunged into a swirling fog, so that sometimes things are clear, and sometimes they are not.”

  She was staring at the floor and her hands were pulling at a frayed patch on her jeans. She went on, “And hidden in the haze are these big pieces of darkness that grab the mind and spin it like a top, into despair, hopeless, desolate despair, and it hides any possible avenue of escape.”

  She was speaking in a monotone, her face hidden. “And then one day your mind comes out of the fog and becomes excited, with one idea after the other bombarding you. The thoughts are so many and so strong that you can’t concentrate on any particular one and you get impatient with people who try to point this out to you.”

  Now she looked up. “You speak so quickly that people have a hard time understanding you and that makes you more and more impatient.” Her words were running into each other. “You have no fear, none at all. You can go out on a lake in the middle of a horrible lightning storm and know you won’t die. It leads you to do some very dangerous things, because like pain, you need fear to tell you you’re in danger.”

  She stopped talking and we all sat there thinking about what she had said. It was disquieting to me to realize that I understood some of what she was saying, not just superficially, but deep down, way deep down.

  “Mavis died.”

  I swivelled my head toward Austin. Everybody did, including the minister, who at this point probably thought she’d jumped out of the frying pan into the fire.

  “No, she didn’t,” the minister said gently.

  “Yes, she did.”

  “Why are you so sure?”

  “Because I killed her,” said Austin with a triumphant look on his face.

  Austin took off before I could pigeonhole him about his astounding confession, so I went in search of him and found myself in the cafeteria. The tables each had six chairs neatly tucked in under them, with a little tray of condiments placed dead centre. The bare linoleum floors were polished like a mirror and the empty pale-green walls screamed institution. The humungous television set, covered in Plexiglas, was tuned to some sports channel. I wondered how many TVs had been smashed by patients before they put the Plexiglas on. At first I thought the room was empty until I noticed the top of a head poking out from behind one of the overstuffed green sofas that dominated the room — the beginnings of a bald head. Thinning hair. Austin.

  I cleared my throat so I wouldn’t scare him half to death and walked around the sofa. He was sitting with his head bowed, chin on his chest. He’d looked exactly like that the last time I had talked to him here. He didn’t look up when I took a seat across from him. We sat in silence for several minutes, or at least it felt like several minutes. It was probably only a few seconds, but I was bursting with impatience.

  “How did you kill her?”

  He looked up then, his eyes foggy.

  “She was a menace,” he said, and lapsed back into silence.

  Not exactly the answer to my question. “Why?” I tried next. His eyes shifted from my right shoulder to the window.

  “She was an alien. She came from the future to steal our past. She had to be stopped.”

  My heart sank.

  “So you killed her.”

  “So I killed her.”

  “How did you do it, Austin?” I asked again. I felt like a ghoul, asking such a question, but I was curious. Maybe I was grasping at straws, but no matter how bizarre his story might seem there was always a chance that there was a kernel of truth to it. I just had to find that kernel.

  “Her friends tried to take me with them. They surrounded my bed, their eyes burning into my soul, and I nearly let myself go. They were so strong.” He sat up further, his gaze still on the window.

  I followed his gaze, as if I could see what he was seeing.

  “But they decided they didn’t want me. Can you believe that?” He turned to look at me then, and I shrugged, not knowing what to say.

  “They didn’t want me,” he said again. “So I got up out of bed. It was really quiet. I had almost like a sixth sense. The one that senses nothing. Nothing at all. The dead sense. Death is an abstract; it doesn’t really exist, except in my mind. We are just a continuation of matter. We die and parts of us are eaten by bacteria and maggots and parts of us are ground to dust. But every molecule is taken up by something else and we become billions of different fragmented things, like a kaleidoscope of ourselves. The bug that eats my baby finger incorporates me into it and then shits some of me out and I go on to the next adventure.”

  He had lost the train of thought that I was interested in, so I said, “You got out of bed and …”

  His eyes turned back to me, hazy and unfocused. I didn’t know if it was his meds that were turning his eyes to fog or his schizophrenia. Maybe it was both.

  “It’s hard to get out of bed sometimes. The voices don’t like me to rearrange my soul. They want me to do exactly what they say.”

  “And what did they say this time?�
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  “To get out of bed. It was urgent that I warn Mavis.”

  “Warn her about what?”

  “That she was going to die.”

  “But you killed her. Why would you warn her?”

  “Because the voices didn’t tell me to kill her until I started to warn her.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I got out of bed,” said Austin, and shut up.

  I was having a hard time controlling my impatience.

  “And then what?”

  Austin laughed. “Do you know how easy it is to break down all the barricades they put up here?”

  I nodded my encouragement, not knowing what the hell he was talking about.

  “The nurses always leave the door unlocked at night between the men’s side and the women’s side — fire regulations, I guess — so it was easy to get to Mavis’s room. The halls were empty, just the way the voices said they would be. Aren’t you going to ask me how I knew which bed Mavis was in?”

  “How did you know?” I obliged, still tamping down my growing impatience.

  “She told me, of course. Don’t you know anything?”

  He’d been hunched over, hugging his elbows, looking up at me from a closed protective posture. Now suddenly he sat back and gestured with both his chubby arms, like a traffic cop.

  “Bed closest to the door, closest to the cafeteria. Door was open. A cinch, they said it would be. All I had to do was tap her on the shoulder and warn her. They were going to do the rest.”

  “But they didn’t.” I forced myself to take a deep breath. If I lost my patience I could lose him.

  “No. They didn’t. I was leaning over her when they told me to kill her. She had thrown her covers off and she was wearing her crossword-puzzle pajamas and her tiny silver cross around her neck and I thought it would be neat if I could only make up some clues for her pajamas. Good clues. The kind that when you get them you feel really good about yourself. Not like the clues that turn into red-bellied demons trying to eat your mind. But they chanted it over and over. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. So insistent. Her pillow was so soft, you know. She brought it especially from home. So soft. She didn’t even struggle. Did you know the mentally ill are no more prone to violence than anyone else?”

  And then he smiled at me — or at the non sequitur.

  “You know, I’m perfectly sane most of the time,” he said. “I just have my moments.”

  After I left Austin I bumped into Jacques near the nursing station. He led me partway down the hall and leaned his massive frame against the painted cinderblock wall, hands in pockets. He had such a presence, kind of intimidating and kind of exciting. I wondered if maybe he was a bodyguard in real life. He was certainly built for it. I had never felt particularly small before, but I did with him. Was that what excited me about him?

  “Did you know Bradley was a Scientologist?” I asked as I leaned up against the wall beside him. He moved closer to me, so that his arm touched mine.

  “No, but it’s interesting, isn’t it?”

  He pushed against me and nearly knocked me over. He reached out and steadied me and I suddenly realized that when he had kissed me I hadn’t tasted smoke. Smoke or no smoke, it was really hard to concentrate on what he was saying. But I made a brave effort.

  “Do you know much about Scientology?” he asked.

  “Not really,” I said. I knew that Scientology had stirred up a lot of controversy lately, had a couple of movie-star adherents, but that was about it. I’d never paid it much attention.

  “Well,” said Jacques, “I looked it up on Wikipedia and it was started in 1952 by the science fiction and fantasy writer L. Ron Hubbard. In a nutshell, Scientologists believe in the reincarnation of thetans or souls. These thetans spend time on other planets before coming to earth.”

  “It sounds like a delusion, but then so do other religions, this one arguably weirder than most,” I said.

  “Exactly,” said Jacques. “I’d say it’s heaven-sent for schizophrenics, who are already seeing and hearing things. They might just see it as a confirmation of their own hallucinations or delusions. Kindred spirits, so to speak. And easy to recruit. For any religion.”

  Jacques pushed himself away from the wall and pulled his hands out of his pockets. I couldn’t help but notice a telltale white mark where a wedding ring used to be. I pulled my wandering mind back to the topic at hand.

  “Bradley didn’t exactly defend his religion, did he?” said Jacques.

  “What are you getting at?”

  “Maybe he didn’t want us to know he was a Scientologist, but just revealed it in the heat of the moment.”

  I thought back to the twitch I’d seen on Bradley’s face.

  “Why wouldn’t he want us to know that?” I asked.

  “Because it loosely links him to Mavis.”

  “Mavis and Bradley,” I said.

  “Yeah. Mavis and Bradley. What kind of coincidence would bring two Scientologists, who are also schizophrenic, to a mental hospital?” he said. “Especially when Austin said Scientologists believe psychiatry should be abolished.” Jacques reached into his pocket and pulled out a box of toothpicks.

  “Might be a motive there somewhere,” I ventured.

  “You think?” he said, but there was a smile in his eyes as he said it.

  We fell into silence. When neither of us could immediately come up with any great motive he said, “Okay, so who else could have murdered her? Who had easy access?” He fiddled with the box of toothpicks, trying to get one out.

  I debated about telling him about Austin, but I just wasn’t sure about his story. It seemed so surreal, so I kept my counsel. Instead I said, “Kit and I and Lucy shared Mavis’s room. Any one of us could have got up in the night and strangled her with the scarf.”

  “Let’s assume you’re not the murderer, Cordi. Lucy and Kit are the most plausible ones. We have to see if we can find motives for them.” He finally got a toothpick out and put it in his mouth.

  “How do we do that?” I asked.

  “Engage them in conversation, ask the right questions and see what happens.”

  “That sounds a lot easier said than done,” I said.

  “Okay. How easy would it be for Bradley or Austin or Leo to sneak in and kill her while you were sleeping?”

  “Certainly possible. The meds they give Kit and me and Lucy make us sleep pretty soundly.”

  “So you’re saying anyone on the floor could have done it?”

  I nodded. “That includes all the other patients on the floor, besides our small group.”

  “Yeah, but it’s likely the killer knew Mavis and isn’t just an acquaintance,” said Jacques.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I can’t, but we have to start somewhere and I say we start with those people who knew Mavis. Can we eliminate anybody?”

  “The nurses not on duty.”

  “Who was on duty for your room that night.”

  I thought back.

  “Ella did a double shift. So she had access.”

  “What about the other nurses?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Leaves us with a lot of suspects and no motives. Lucy or Kit could have cheeked their meds and got up in the night and murdered her. Leo or Bradley or Austin could have sneaked past the nursing station and killed her. So could I, for that matter. It can be a pretty deserted ward in the middle of the night. Dicey though.”

  I looked at Jacques with new eyes. Why was he so interested and why did he believe me so blindly? I felt a cold tendril of fear weasel its way into my brain and I shivered. I just didn’t want him to turn out to be a murderer.

  Chapter Eleven

  Iwas standing on the subway platform. It was midday and there were only two other people waiting for the train. I could see
the black hole of the tunnel and feel the drafts of wind announcing a train. I looked in the other direction and saw Lucy and Kit, Jacques, Leo, Austin, Ella, Dr. Osborn, and Bradley marching toward me like a vanquishing army. They were expressionless and zombielike. I started backing up. Their eyes were unblinking, reptilian, as they advanced on me. I could hear the train coming as they engulfed me, pushing me toward the edge, the screaming of the brakes, the breathless horror, before the train struck.…

  I woke up gasping for air, experienced that horrible surreal moment when you are not sure if the dream was real or not. I lay sweating in bed for a long time, aware only that I was afraid and felt powerless against it. I forced myself to sit up on the side of my bed and felt a moment-ary wave of dizziness sweep through me, unnerving me. I sat still, listening to the hum of the furnace and watching the red light of the smoke alarm silently flashing on and off, on and off. It was mesmerizing and I succumbed to its easy seduction.

  But only for a while. And then my fear returned. Someone was trying to kill me, and not only did I not know for sure who it was, although Ella seemed a good bet, but I wasn’t really very clear on the motive. Was it because I was the only one who knew for sure that Mavis was dead, or thought I knew for sure that Mavis was dead? What threat was that? Unless there was more to it than her death. Unless the reason she died was important to keep secret. Could that be it? I wondered.

  I stood up in the dim light from the window and looked outside. Even at this late hour I could see a man brushing the snow off his car. I looked at the time — 3 a.m. Perhaps this was about the time that Mavis died. I poked my feet into some slippers and peered out the door, which we sometimes left open for ventilation. I opened it wide. No squeaky hinges, no sound at all. I looked both ways up and down the hall. Not a soul in sight. I stepped into the hall, carefully holding on to the knob and easing the door shut behind me. The hall lights were dimmed — was that to make it feel more homey or to save electricity?