The Lower Deep (24 page)

A measuring tape? A burned-out candle? A carpenter's rule? Garlic—if it really was garlic—in the manager's food? Seated at his desk, he brooded over these things and was mystified. Then suddenly it occurred to him that he ought to make sure Morrison was all right. Morrison and Wynn, after all, were the two who had complained the most about not feeling well.

In fact, those two had complained almost as consistently as the man who'd been washed up in the cove.

Climbing the stairs to the man's room, which was just down the hall from his own, Steve was relieved when the Boston stockbroker answered his knock with a prompt "Come in!" Young Morrison was seated at his desk—each patient's room had one—apparently writing a letter.

A very decent fellow, Morrison, and cheerful enough until the Azagon syndrome, or whatever one ought to call it, had begun to get him down. He had come to the retreat to take things easy for a while after the psychological shock of losing both parents in a plane crash. And, of course, to be rid of his craving for alcohol, which the tragedy had intensified. Once he had come to realize the spiritual difference between "not drinking"—just being dry—and being truly sober, he had responded quickly to the Azagon's program.

Steve showed him the carpenter's rule. "Our muscular housekeeper says she found this here in your room. Is it yours?"

"Uh-uh. She asked me herself, and I told her it wasn't. I've no idea what Lazaire could have been doing in here with it."

"Measuring your window, it would seem. But for what?"

"Yes, for what? And why this room, if that's all he wanted? All windows in these rooms are the same, aren't they?"

Steve nodded. "Are you feeling all right, Robert?"

Morrison shrugged. "Even with the sedatives you've prescribed for us, Wynn and I have a contest going to see who gets what we're calling the 'visitations' most often. Meaning anything from a feeling of depression to a really nasty headache. I'm a little ahead of him at the moment." His smile seemed forced.

"Has Dr. Driscoll been to see you?"

"Yes, he has. And it's good to see him back in action. But what's happening to some of us here doesn't seem to be part of our alcohol problem, Doctor. I mean—you medics and the nurses and the nurses' aides don't seem to understand it any more than we do." He paused, and the next two words were unmistakably a challenge. "Do you?"

"I can't say we do. Not yet, anyway."

"As a hospital for alcoholics, this place does a good job," Morrison said with apparent sincerity. "I looked at other such places before coming here, and your program is well thought out. Lectures, slide shows, medication, diet, recreation, exercise—above all, the caring—I've no complaints at all. But there is something in the atmosphere here, Doctor Spence—something about the place itself—that scares the hell out of me." The man's eyes flashed another challenging look. "What is it? Or don't you know?"

Steve returned the man's stare in silence.

"You admit there
is
something, don't you?"

"I don't know. It's hard to put any credence in what you can't see or touch."

"Who needs to see and touch it? You can feel it, by God! I know I do. And Wynn. And others." When his outburst failed to bring a response, Morrison gave up and shrugged. "Well, all right. If you find out about that thing"—he indicated the folded rule in Steve's hand—"let me know, will you? I'm curious."

"I will. I'm curious, too."

Steve went downstairs and found Ti-Jean Lazaire waiting at his office door. Wearing his usual black trousers and spotless white shirt, the cook looked a little like a visiting undertaker—certainly out of place here where the staff wore white and the patients seemed to favor casual tropic.

Wasn't there a voodoo character who ritually wore black trousers? Yes, of course. Baron Samedi, one of the
Gèdé loa,
a god of death and guardian of cemeteries. But when he appeared at ceremonies by possessing someone, he wore black trousers, too.

"Circée Orelle said you wanted to see me, Doctor."

"I do. Come in, please." Steve opened the office door. "I want to ask a few questions."

Inside, he motioned Lazaire to sit. Why, he asked himself—why, damn it—could he not remember where he had encountered this man before? Was it because the cook was so ordinary in appearance and personality, so lacking in any traits or mannerisms that might make him stand out from other middle-aged St. Joseph natives of peasant stock?

As he, too, seated himself, he took from his pocket the folded wooden rule and tapped the desktop with it. "What was this for, Ti-Jean?"

The man's eyes bulged to show more than the usual amount of white. He wet his lips as though to answer, then said nothing.

"Come on now. You left it at the window in Mr. Morrison's room. Why?"

Lazaire shook his head in slow motion. "No,
m'sié."

"What?"

"No."

"You deny going into Morrison's room?"

"Yes,
m'sié.
I mean I never went there, no."

"Whose initials are these on the rule?"

"I don't know."

"All right, let's start again. Circée Orelle says she found you in Morrison's room. What were you doing there?"

The cook's eyes showed even more white. "I—was not doing anything wrong, Dr. Spence. I happened to be walking by the door and it was open, and the room was empty. I saw some papers on the floor that must have blown off the bureau because the window was open. I only stepped inside to pick them up."

"So you did go into the room. Now you admit it. And this?" Steve held up the rule. "What's the truth about this?"

"I don't know anything about that,
m'sié."

"
You deny it's yours?"

"Yes,
m'sié.
I know nothing about it."

Feeling drained and defeated, Steve opened a drawer of his desk and dropped the rule into it. "What have you been putting in our manager's food, Lazaire?"

This time the eyes showed almost nothing but white. "What—m
'sié?"

"Damn it, man, listen to me. I'm asking you some questions, and I want some answers! Now one more time and one only: What have you been putting in Paul Henninger's food?"

"I don't prepare any special food for him, Doctor."

"It tasted to me like garlic. I told you quite a long time ago to stop putting garlic in our food.
Is
it garlic you've been lacing Henninger's meals with, or is it something meant to make him ill?"

The cook lowered his gaze. "I used a little garlic to make him better, Doctor. Not sick. I am wor
ried about him."

So much for that, Steve decided with an audible sigh. After all, garlic was supposed to be good for certain ailments, wasn't it? "All right. Now tell me why you fastened a tape measure across the window in Mr. Lindo's room the night he disappeared."

Off the hook about the garlic, Lazaire seemed to regain some of his earlier confidence. "A what,
m'sié?
A tape measure? I don't know about any such object."

"And the candle. You lit a black candle in there that night, too. Why?"

"M'sié,
no. I did no such thing!"

"Where did you go in The Hounfor, Ti-Jean?"

A sudden trembling seemed to shatter the cook's self-confidence. "In—The Hounfor—m
'sié?"

"I personally followed you, so don't deny you went there."

"Well, I—yes—I have a friend there."

"Who?"

"No one you would know about, Dr. Spence. Just an old friend from Fond—from the capital. I only went there to pay my respects. Just as I called on the woman in Carrefour that I told you about."

Your tongue slipped there, didn't it?
Steve
thought with a touch of triumph.
You were going to say "an old friend from Fond des Pintards." Someday, Lazaire, I'm going to recall where in Fond des Pintards I met you, and then I'll know why you won’t admit having been there.

"What's your friend's name, Lazaire?"

Was there a hesitation? "Jabot,
m'sié."

"What kind of fellow is he? What does he do?"

"He has no trade. He is old."

"I don't believe you. You see, Lazaire, I happen to know who lives in that Hounfor house with the fenced-in yard. Now are you going to tell me why you went there?"

The cook sucked in a breath while slowly rising to his feet. For once he did not look like any other middle-aged peasant. His face was ashen now, and he trembled.

"Do you want to be honest with me?" Steve said.

"I have nothing to say,
m'sié."

"Think it over. I have a feeling you're into this rather deep, whatever it is." Steve made an obvious gesture of looking at his watch. "It's two o'clock. I suggest you go to your quarters for a while and come back here at four-thirty, after I've seen some of the patients. If I don't receive an explanation of your suspicious actions then, I'll be giving you notice. You understand?"

The man in the white shirt and black trousers slowly nodded, then turned and trudged out, staring straight ahead of him. Steve could not help thinking that the way he went out resembled the way Juan Mendoza had come in the other night after being missing for days.

Again the word "zombie" was the one his mind fastened on.

At five o'clock, a little surprised that Lazaire had not returned with at least some newly invented alibis, Steve went looking for him. He was not in the kitchen, though it was past time to begin preparing the evening meal and his helpers were there waiting for him. Steve went to the man's room.

Something had gone wrong, he saw at once. The bureau top was bare of personal items that had covered it. The bathroom cabinet, its door wide, was empty. A small battery radio had vanished from a bedside table. Lazaire's clothes were gone from the closet, along with two suitcases that had been on the closet floor.

Returning to the kitchen, Steve confronted the helpers. "Have any of you seen Ti-Jean?"

They shook their heads. One said, "We are waiting for him now, Doctor. He should be here."

"You didn't see him go out?"

"No, Doctor."

"Well, he's gone. And taken everything he owns with him." What to do now? "Can you people put a meal together by yourselves?"

They looked stricken.

"All right." It was a problem, yes, but there were bigger ones at the moment. "Some of us on the staff will lend you a hand. Together we'll manage, somehow."

At eight the following morning one of Ti-Jean Lazaire's helpers, carrying a breakfast tray, knocked on the door of Paul Henninger's room. Thinking he heard a faint "Come in," he turned the knob.

He could not have heard anyone bidding him enter. The room and bed were empty. Placing the tray on a bedside table, he straightened and looked around.

The manager must have gone down the hall to a bathroom there, he decided. Henninger's own bathroom had for days been awaiting the promised "immediate" arrival of a plumber from Cap Matelot.

In no hurry, the helper waited several minutes for the missing man to return, then went to the door and looked both ways along the hall. The acting head of the Azagon, Dr. Stephen Spence, was coming along it from his office.

"Something wrong?" Steve asked, sensing something might be.

"Mr. Henninger is not in his room, Doctor."

"He's probably in the bathroom. You want him for something?"

"Only to be sure his breakfast is all right, Doctor. I haven't brought him a meal before."

"You didn't take dinner to him last night?"

"No, Doctor. Someone else did. But he said he didn't want any."

Nadine would be unhappy about that, Steve thought. With the staff dietitian speaking no creole, it was she who had taken charge in the kitchen after the disappearance of Lazaire. She was doing a bang-up job, too. Far better than any man
on the staff might be expected to do.

"Well, I'm sure he'll be back if you wait a minute."

"I have been waiting a long time already, Doctor."

"Well then, just let me check."