“Doctor,” said a deep mellow voice, “Sheriff Raymond Houten.”
His grip was solid but he didn’t exert pressure—a man well aware of his own
strength.
He turned to Bragdon. “Walt.” The baby-faced deputy
looked me over once more and returned to his desk.
“Come on in, Doctor.”
On the other side of the tiny mesh window were ten
feet of corridor. To the left was a bolted metal door, to the right his office,
high-ceilinged, sunlit, and redolent of tobacco.
He sat behind an old desk and motioned me to a scarred
leather armchair. Removing his hat, he tossed it on a rack fashioned from elk
antlers.
Pulling out a pack of Chesterfields, he offered me one
and when I declined, lit up, leaned back, and looked out the window. A large
bay window afforded a view of Orange Avenue and his eyes followed the path of a
semi hauling a load of produce. He waited until the big truck had rumbled out
of sight before speaking.
“You’re a psychiatrist?”
“Psychologist.”
He held the cigarette between thumb and forefinger and
inhaled.
“And you’re here as Dr. Lynch’s friend, not in a professional
capacity.”
His tone implied the latter would have been more than
appropriate.
“That’s correct.”
“I’ll take you to see him in just a minute. But I want
to prepare you. He looks like he fell into a combine. We didn’t do it.”
“I understand. Detective Sturgis said he started a
fight with members of the Touch and came out the worse for it.”
Houten’s mouth twisted under his mustache.
“That about sums it up. From what I understand Dr.
Lynch is a prominent man,” he said skeptically.
“He’s an internationally renowned expert on children’s
cancer.”
Another look out the window. I noticed a diploma
hanging on the wall behind the desk. He’d earned a bachelor’s degree in
criminology from one of the state colleges.
“Cancer.” He mouthed the word softly. “My wife had it.
Ten years ago. It ate her up like some wild animal before it killed her. The
doctors wouldn’t tell us anything. Hid behind their jargon till the end.”
His smile was frightful.
“Still,” he said, “I don’t recall any of them quite
like Dr. Lynch.”
“He’s one of a kind, Sheriff.”
“Seems to have a temper problem. What is he,
Guatemalan?”
“Cuban.”
“Same thing. The
latino
temperament.”
“What he did here wasn’t typical. To my knowledge he’s
never been in trouble with the law.”
“I know that, Doctor. We ran him through the computer.
That’s one reason I’m willing to be lenient and let him go with just a fine. I’ve
got enough to hold him over for quite a while—trespassing, assault, malicious
mischief, interfering with an officer. Not to mention the damage he did to
their gate with his car. But the circuit judge doesn’t get up this way until
winter and we’d have to ship him to San Diego. It would be complicated.”
“I appreciate your leniency and I’ll write a check for
any damages.”
He nodded, put out his cigarette, and got on the
phone.
“Walt, write up Dr. Lynch’s fines and include the
estimate on the gate…No need, Dr. Delaware will come by and pay for it.” A
glance in my direction. “Take his check, he looks like an honest man.”
When he hung up he said, “It’s going to be a sizable
sum. The man created lots of problems.”
“He must have been traumatized hearing about the Swope
murders.”
“We were all
traumatized
, Doctor. Nineteen
hundred and seven people live in this town, not counting migrants. Everyone
knows everyone. Yesterday we flew the flag at half mast. When little Woody got
sick it was a kick in the gut for all of us. Now this…”
The sun had changed position and it flooded the
office. Houten squinted. His eyes disappeared in a thatch of crow’s feet.
“Dr. Lynch seems to have gotten it into his head that
the children are here, over in the Retreat,” he said expectantly. I got the
feeling I was being tested, and turned it back on him.
“And you feel that’s out of the question.”
“You bet. Those Touch people are—unusual—but they’re
not criminals. When folks found out who bought the old monastery, there was one
hell of an uproar. I was supposed to play Wyatt Earp and run ’em out of town.”
He smiled sleepily. “Farmers don’t always grasp the finer points of due
process, so I had to do a bit of educating. The day they drove into town and
actually moved in, it was a circus, everyone gawking and pointing.
“That very day I went over and had a chat with Mr.
Matthias, gave him a sociology lesson. Told him they’d do best to keep a low
profile, patronize local businesses, make timely contributions to the church
auxiliary.”
It was precisely the strategy Seth Fiacre had
described.
“They’ve been here three years, without a traffic
ticket. Folks have grown used to them. I drop in on them when I please, so that
everyone knows there’s no witchcraft brewing behind those gates. They’re just
as strange as the day they moved in. But that’s all. Strange, not criminal. If
felonies were being committed, I’d know about it.”
“Any chance Woody and Nona could be somewhere else
around here?”
He lit up again and regarded me coldly.
“Those children were raised here. They played in the
fields and explored the dirt roads and never fell into harm’s way. One trip to your
big city and all that’s changed. A small town is like a family, doctor. We don’t
murder each other, or kidnap each other’s young.”
His experience and training should have taught him
that families are the cauldrons in which violence is brewed. But I said
nothing.
“There’s one more thing I want you to hear so that you
can pass it along to Dr. Lynch.” He got up and stood in front of the window. “This
is one giant TV screen. The show is called La Vista. Some days it’s a soap
opera, other times a comedy. Once in a while there’s action and adventure. No
matter what’s on, I watch it every day.”
“I understand.”
“I thought you would, Doctor.”
He retrieved his hat and put it on.
“Let’s go see how the renowned expert is doing.”
The bolt on the metal door responded noisily to Houten’s
key. On the other side were three cells in a row. I thought of the Laminar
Airflow rooms. The jail was hot and humid, and it stank of body odor and
solitude.
“He’s in the last one,” said Houten.
I followed his bootsteps down the windowless
passageway.
Raoul was sitting on a metal bench bolted to the wall,
staring at the floor. His cell was seven feet square and contained a bed, also
bolted down and covered by a thin stained mattress, a lidless toilet, and a
zinc washbasin. From the smell of things the toilet wasn’t in peak condition.
Houten unlocked the door and we walked in.
Raoul looked up with one eye. The other was blackened
and swollen shut. A crust of dried blood had formed under his left ear. His lip
was split and the color of raw steak. Several buttons were missing from his
white silk shirt, which hung open, exposing his soft hairy chest. There was a
blue-black bruise along his ribcage. A shirtsleeve had been ripped at the seam
and it dangled vestigially. His belt, tie, and shoelaces had been taken from
him and I found the sight of his alligator shoes, caked with dirt, the tongue
protruding, especially pathetic.
Houten saw my expression and said, “We wanted to clean
him up but he started fussing so we let it be.”
Raoul muttered something in Spanish. Houten looked at
me, his expression that of a parent faced with a tantruming child.
“You can go now, Dr. Lynch,” he said. “Dr. Delaware
will drive you home. You can have your car towed back to Los Angeles at your
expense, or leave it here to be fixed. Zack Piersall knows foreign ca—”
“I’m not going anywhere,” snapped Raoul.
“Dr. Lynch—”
“It’s
Melendez-Lynch
, and your deliberate
failure to remember that doesn’t intimidate me. I’m not leaving until the truth
comes out.”
“Doctor, you’re in a lot of trouble, potentially. I’m
letting you go with fines in order to simplify things for all of us. I’m sure
you’ve been under a lot of strain—”
“Don’t patronize me, Sheriff. And stop covering for
those murderous quacks!”
“Raoul—” I said.
“No, Alex, you don’t understand. These people are
close-minded imbeciles. The tree of knowledge could sprout on their doorstep
and they wouldn’t pick the fruit.”
Houten moved his jaws as if trying to bring up a cud
of patience.
“I want you out of my town,” he said softly.
“I won’t go,” Raoul insisted, gripping the bench with
both hands to demonstrate his intransigence.
“Sheriff,” I said, “let me speak to him alone.”
Houten shrugged, left the cell, and locked me in. He
walked away, and after the metal door closed behind him I turned to Raoul.
“What the hell’s the matter with you!”
“Don’t lecture me, Alex.” He stood and shook a fist in
my face.
I stepped back instinctively. He stared at his
upraised hand, dropped it to his side and mumbled an apology. Collapsing as if
he’d been fileted, he sat back down.
“What in the world possessed you to conduct a one-man
invasion of this place?” I asked him.
“I know they’re in there,” he panted. “Behind those
gates. I can feel it!”
“You turned the Volvo into an assault tank because of
feelings? Remember when you called intuition ‘just another form of soft-headed
hocus-pocus’?”
“This is different. They wouldn’t let me in. If that’s
not proof they’re hiding something I don’t know what it is!” He punched his
palm with his fist. “I’ll get in there somehow and tear that place apart until
I find him.”
“That’s crazy. What is it about the Swopes that’s
turned you into a damned cowboy?”
He covered his face with his hands.
I sat down next to him and put my arm around his
shoulder. He was soaked with sweat.
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” I urged.
“Alex,” he said hoarsely, his breath sour and strong, “oncology
is a specialty for those who are willing to learn how to lose graciously. Not
to love failure or accept it, but to suffer with dignity, as a patient must.
Did you know that I was first in my medical school class?”
“I’m not surprised.”
“I had my pick of residencies. Many oncologists are
the cream of medicine. And yet we confront failure each day of our lives.”
He pushed himself up and walked to the bars, running
his hands up and down the ragged and rusty cylinders.
“Failure,” he repeated. “But the victories are
uncommonly sweet. The salvage and reconstruction of a life. What could create
greater illusions of omnipotence, eh, Alex?”
“There’ll be many more victories,” I assured him. “You
know that better than anyone. Remember the speech you used to give at fund
raisers—the slide show with all those pictures of cured kids? Let this one go.”
He swiveled around and faced me, eyes blazing.
“As far as I’m concerned that boy is alive. Until I
see his corpse I won’t believe otherwise.”
I tried to speak but he cut me off.
“I didn’t go into this field because of mawkish
sentimentality— no favorite cousin died of leukemia, no grandpapa wasted away
of carcinoma. I became an oncologist because medicine is the science—and the
art—of
fighting death.
And cancer is death. From the first time, as a
medical student, when I viewed those monstrous, primitive,
evil
cells
under the microscope, I was seized with that truism. And I knew what my life’s
work would be.”
Beads of perspiration had collected on his high dark
forehead. The coffee bean eyes glistened and roamed the cell.
“I won’t give up,” he said, radiating defiance. “Only
the conquest of death, my friend, allows a glimpse
of immortality.
”
He was unreachable, caught up in his own frantic
vision of the world. Obsessive and quixotic and denying what was most probable:
Woody and Nona were dead, buried somewhere in the shifting mulch beneath the
city.
“Let the police handle it, Raoul. My friend’s due to
come down here soon. He’ll check everything out.”
“The police,” he spat. “A lot of good they’ve been.
Bureaucratic pencil pushers. Mediocre minds of limited vision. Like that stupid
cowboy out there. Why aren’t they here right now—every day is crucial for that
little boy. They don’t care, Alex. To them he’s just another statistic. But not
to me!”
He folded his arms in front of him, as if warding off
the indignity of confinement, unaware of his derelict appearance.
I’d long thought that a surfeit of sensitivity could
be a killing thing, too much insight malignant in its own right. The best
survivors—there are studies that show it—are those blessed with an inordinate
ability to deny. And keep on marching.