Death Trance (11 page)
'All right,’ Randolph agreed. He wiped his eyes with his napkin.
That's fine,’ smiled Dr Linklater. 'Now finish your breakfast and I'll catch you later.’
Randolph was attended to that evening by a different doctor, a crew-cut MD with a stiff, peremptory manner who assured him that his scalp wound was going to heal like new within three days and that most illnesses were all in the mind. When Randolph asked him where Dr Ambara was, the doctor pushed one hand deep into the pocket of his overall, gave a crooked smile and said, 'We're pretty damn busy here, believe me.’
But the next morning the crew-cut doctor returned. He sat on the end of the bed uninvited, leafed through Randolph's chart and muttered to himself, 'Whole damn family, huh?’
Randolph said, 'I want to see Dr Ambara.’
'I'm sorry, Mr Clare. Dr Ambara had to take some time off.’
'I insist on seeing him.’
'I can pass your message on. Unfortunately, I can't guarantee that Dr Ambara will respond to it.’
That afternoon when Dr Linklater stopped by, Randolph demanded, 'What happened to Dr Ambara? They took him off my case.’
Dr Linklater puffed out his cheeks and looked uncomfortable. 'I'm afraid to say that they did it on my instructions.’
'But why? What right did you have to do that? I liked him, he helped me. What he was saying to me was reassuring, for God's sake. It gave me confidence.’
'Confidence in what, Randy? Confidence that you would somehow talk to Marmie and the kids again, tell them everything you never had time to tell them when they were alive? Come on, Randy, I'm your friend. You've been through a terrible, traumatic experience. Right now your mind is vulnerable and suggestible, and while people like Dr Ambara may mean well, they won't do your recovery process any good.’
Randolph pulled back the bedcovers and swung his legs out of bed.
'What the hell are you doing?’ Dr Linklater wanted to know.
'What the hell do you think I'm doing? I'm discharging myself. I'm not going to lie here for the next five days and be treated like a rutabaga.’
'You can't do that. You're sick. You're under sedation. You had a concussion, clinical shock and psychological trauma.’
'Maybe I did. But now I'm better and I'm going home.’ 'The Canadian police are coming here this afternoon to talk to you.’
I’m sure the hospital can redirect them.’ Randolph untied his gown, went to the closet and took out his clothes.
'How do you think you're going to get home?’ Dr Linklater demanded.
'I'm sure I can prevail on you to drive me.’ 'I'm not driving you anywhere. My medical advice to you is to stay put until you're well enough to go home; even then, you should have a private nurse in attendance.’ 'If you won't drive me home, Miles, I'll just have to call Herbert.’
'Herbert doesn't happen to be there today. I know that because I called Charles about arrangements for private medical care and Charles said that Herbert had gone to the body shop to pick up your limousine.’
Randolph stuffed his shirt-tails into his pants and zipped up his fly. 'I'm discharging myself, Miles, and that's all there is to it.’ He knotted his necktie and went across to the side-table drawer where Suzie had put his wallet. He took out the card that Stanley Vergo had given him, lifted the telephone receiver and punched out the number.
'You're making a serious mistake here, Randolph,’ Dr Linklater said.
'Let me be the judge of that,’ Randolph told him.
Stanley Verge's yellow cab drew up in front of the Mount Moriah Clinic less than ten minutes later.
'How are you doing, Mr Clare?’ Stanley asked, getting out and opening the back door of the cab with one hand and wiping the sweat from his forehead with the other. Randolph had not seen the man out of the driver's seat before and was suitably impressed by his girth and the size of his belly. When Stanley got back behind the wheel, he sniffed, smiled at Randolph in the rearview mirror and said, 'They didn't send your limo?’
'It's being repaired. That was the reason it didn't show up on Tuesday. It was involved in an accident.’
'You ought to fire your driver. Hey, you want a new driver? I've always wanted to drive a limo.’
'It wasn't my driver's fault.’
'Oh, well… if it ever
is
his fault, you know my number.’
They drove in silence for a while. Then Stanley said, 'That was too bad about your family. That really shocked me when I heard about it. I guess that's why you was in that clinic, huh?’
'You know about it?’ asked Randolph defensively.
Tell me who don't. It was on the TV, it was in the paper. Front-page news. Cottonseed tycoon's wife, children, in brutal slaying.’
'You're the first person who's talked to me about it. I mean the first person who's talked to me about it and hasn't treated me like a freak or an invalid.’
Stanley took a left onto Old Getwell Road. 'I lost my younger brother in an auto smash. He died right in front of me, staring at me. Death don't hold no mysteries as far as I'm concerned. It's a part of life. I couldn't stand the way folks whispered about it then and I can't stand the way folks whisper about it now. What can you do? It's a part of life, death.’
They said nothing while they drove past the airport but then Stanley added, 'Do the cops know who might have done it? And why?’
'Not as far as I know. The Canadian police are coming to see me this afternoon.’
'That was just one of the thoughts that kind of crossed my mind,’ Stanley said. He reached across to the front-passenger seat and picked up a Mars bar. He tugged off the wrapper with his teeth and began to devour the candy with audible relish. 'What I thought to myself was, one day Mr Clare has this factory fire, the next day his family gets totaled. I mean to say, could there be some kind of a connection? Take your law of averages. How often do two things as bad as that happen to one person in one week?’
Randolph stared at the back of Stanley's neck. Blond bristles and crimson spots, seasoned with a few freckles and basted with sweat. A similar thought had occurred to him, too, in the depths of the night when he had been all cried out and his mind had been racing over the fire and the murder and the limousine wreck… over and over again. 'You haven't heard anything that might substantiate what you're thinking, have you?’ he asked.
'It's only what you might call a theory,’ Stanley said with his mouth full, driving one-handedly. 'But I heard one young executive type from Brooks talking about it; he was saying that you would probably take the loss of your family pretty hard and that you may decide that staying independent would be too much of a strain. He said you may decide to quit altogether, that was the feeling at Brooks.’
Randolph said, 'Do me a favour, would you, Stanley? Keep your ears open really wide. If there's even the slightest suggestion that what happened to my family might have had anything to do with Brooks or Graceworthy or any other Association company, you let me know. I'll make it worth your while.’
'Will you let me drive your limo?’
'I might even do that.’
'Okay, Mr Clare, you're on.’
The taxi swept into the gates of Clare Castle and along the graveled driveway until it reached the pillared porch, where one of the maintenance men was up on a stepladder, painting the carriage lamp in black and gold enamel.
Stanley opened the taxi door and Randolph wearily climbed out. The maintenance man set down his brushes and hurried down the ladder.
'Mr Clare! Nobody said that you were coming!’
'It's all right, Michael. I'm fine. Is Charles at home?’
'Yes, sir. And Mrs Wallace.’
Randolph waved a farewell salute to Stanley and went in the house. The entrance hall was cool and gloomy because the blinds had been drawn. There were vases of flowers everywhere - roses and irises and gladioli - and almost all of them were tagged with black-edged cards. The fragrance was overwhelming: the sweet fragrance of sympathy.
Mrs Wallace appeared at the top of the curving marble staircase. She was the Castle's housekeeper: a middle-aged Memphis widow who had once had an elegant home of her own, before her husband lost all his money in a wild real-estate speculation and drowned himself in the Mississippi. She was small, plain and fussy, with colour-rinsed hair curled up like chrysanthemum petals and a way of tweaking at her earrings and talking archly about 'people of
our
background.’
This morning, however, she came down the stairs distraught. She took Randolph's hands between hers and trembled with sorrow. 'Oh, Mr Clare, your poor family! Oh, Mr Clare, I'm devastated!’
Randolph put his arm around her shoulders and held her until she stopped sobbing. 'It's going to take us a long time to get used to an empty house,’ he told her, 'but I guess we'll manage it somehow, won't we? What do you think?’
His own heart was breaking as he stood in the house he had redecorated and refurbished entirely for Marmie, but he knew that if he did not appear to be strong in the presence of those who depended on him, their lives would fall to pieces, as well as his.
‘I’ll tell you what you can do for me, Mrs Wallace,’ he said. 'You can empty all of Mrs Clare's closets and pack her clothes in trunks. Take away all of her cosmetics before I go upstairs, everything personal. Tomorrow perhaps you can start on the children's rooms.’
'Oh, Mr Clare,’ wept Mrs Wallace, her eyes blind with grief.
Randolph hugged her. She felt as fragile as a small bird. 'I know, Mrs Wallace, I know. But if you can do that one thing for me, you'll save me a great deal of unnecessary pain.’
'Yes, Mr Clare,’ she whispered.
Randolph walked through to the library. This was his sanctuary, the one room in the house that contained nothing to remind him of Marmie and the children. There were rows and rows of leather-bound books, most of them scientific and historical, framed eighteenth-century prints of cotton plants on the walls. High windows looked out across the gardens, the curving lawns and the flowering azaleas.
Randolph picked out his favourite pipe, a meerschaum that Marmie had given him two years ago for Christmas, and then lifted the lid of the red and white porcelain tobacco jar. He filled his pipe simply and ritualistically and then lit it. Sitting back in his favourite leather-upholstered chair, he idly watched the clouds of smoke rise and fall.
He was still sitting there, his eyes closed and thinking about Marmie, when the telephone rang. He let it ring for a while before reaching over and picking it up.
'Mr Clare? I'm sorry to trouble you. It's Suzie.’
He took his pipe out of his mouth. 'Suzie?’
'Your nurse from Mount Moriah Clinic.’
'Ah, yes, Suzie. I'm sorry. I'm still a little erratic, I'm afraid. How can I help you?’
'I hope that
I
can help
you.
I heard you talking to Dr Linklater and I know you wanted to get in touch with Dr Ambara.’
'That's right. Dr Linklater asked that he be taken off my case. That was the reason I discharged myself.’
'I heard all about it. Dr Ambara was very upset. He tried to talk to you about it, but you were already gone.’
'As far as I'm concerned,’ Randolph told her, 'Dr Ambara is the only doctor at Mount Moriah who has any idea of what people go through when they lose somebody close. I know that his ideas about souls and spirits are - well, what could you call them? - kind of unorthodox. Very mystical, very Oriental. But he made me feel better. He made me believe that Marmie and the kids hadn't been just wiped out as if they'd never even lived.’
Suddenly, without warning, grief began to surge up within him again and he found his throat so tight that he was unable to speak. He sat up straight and put down his pipe, pressing his hand hard against his mouth and hoping that Suzie would understand why he was silent.
'Mr Clare,’ she said after a moment, 'I can give you Dr Ambara's home telephone number. He's too reserved to call you himself, and besides, it wouldn't be ethical. He lives in German town, so he isn't very far from you.’
Randolph managed to say, 'Thank you,’ as he jotted down the number on his desk blotter in bright blue ink.
'I hope you find what you're looking for,’ Suzie said.
'I hope so too,’ Randolph replied. 'I appreciate your calling me.’
Suzie said simply, 'You've just lost everything, haven't you? Your wife, your children, your whole life. Nobody seemed to understand that except Dr Ambara.’
'And you,’ Randolph told her.
'You
understand, don't you?’
'A little,’ she said and hung up.
Randolph picked up his pipe again but did not relight it. Instead, he went to the window and stared out over the gardens. After a while Charles came in and sadly and respectfully stood by the door. He was wearing a black armband and his face was wet with tears.
'Hello, Charles,’ Randolph said.
'Welcome back home, Mr Clare.’
'It's not a very happy time, Charles.’
'No, sir. We're all real sorry for what happened. We don't even have the words.’
'I know.’
