The Drowning Tree (47 page)

I run all the way to Gal’s and circle around to the back door. Annemarie’s humming to a recording of Madame Butterfly—her favorite opera—and kneading a ball of buttery yellow dough. She’s startled when she sees me, but she doesn’t ask any questions as I reach for the phone and dial Dr. Horace’s number.

He answers on the third ring, sounding surprisingly alert for this time in the morning. I tell him that Neil’s at my place, that he seems very weak, and that his skin looks yellowish to me.

“I see,” Dr. Horace says in the calm, objective therapeutic voice that always drives me crazy. I half expect that he’s going to ask me how I feel about Neil turning yellow as a daffodil, but after a short pause he asks instead, “Are you at the factory?”

I answer yes, not wanting to go into the details of my phone being dead and the idiocy of not owning a cell phone.

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” he tells me.

“Should I call an ambulance?”

“No, Juno, please stay calm. There’s nothing to be alarmed about. Pieridine sometimes causes slight weakness and jaundice, but I’ve got something that will fix him right up. Just keep him warm and don’t say anything to agitate him.”

Although I’d normally resent Dr. Horace’s paternalistic tone I find it
reassuring that he’s not more alarmed about Neil’s condition. When I hang up, Annemarie, who’s brushed the flour off her hands, asks if there’s anything she can do. I’m tempted to ask her to pray, but I don’t want to sound melodramatic. Besides, I know it’s not necessary to ask.

I run back to the factory and up the outside stairs to the side door, which I’d left open. Neil’s still asleep. He’s breathing, but it seems to me that his breath is even shallower. Francesca has crawled up into the bed with him and lain her head across Neil’s legs. Poor Paolo follows me as I pace back and forth between the bedroom and the open side door, which is where I told Dr. Horace to come. He cleaves to my side as tightly as if I were Francesca. Twice, when I turn too quickly, he stumbles for lack of ballast and whimpers in a way that tears at my heart, but also sets my nerves on edge. It occurs to me that Francesca will be in Dr. Horace’s way, so I decide to take both dogs back down to the courtyard even though I feel bad making Francesca walk on her injured paw. When I’ve gotten them settled I turn back at the door and see that Francesca has lain down, but Paolo is making a lonely circuit of the courtyard in an off-balanced lope. I can’t help thinking that if Neil doesn’t survive I’ll be no better off than Paolo—alone and leaning into the void.

W
HEN
I
GET BACK UPSTAIRS
D
R
. H
ORACE IS STANDING NEXT TO THE BED, TAKING
Neil’s pulse. He shakes his head at me when I start to ask him a question. I sink down onto the bed in a spot still warm from Francesca. I’d like to lay my head across Neil’s feet like she had, but instead I clasp my hands in my lap, pressing my thumb into my left wrist and counting my own pulse beats.

“How is he?” I ask as soon as Dr. Horace drops Neil’s wrist.

In true Freudian analyst style, he answers my question with a question. “What on earth has he been doing to get him into this exhausted state?”

Dr. Horace is looking at me as if I’d taken out an old horse and
beaten him into a gallop until he dropped. I look toward Neil as I explain, as briefly as I can, the events of the last few hours. I leave out lots of details but still I cringe as I realize the enormous physical exertion Neil had undertaken in my behalf.

“—and then he tackled Gavin Penrose and got the gun away from him—”

Dr. Horace shakes his head and clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. I’m surprised his first comment is not a reprimand for leading Neil on this wild escapade. “And the police think Gavin Penrose killed Christine?”

“Well, there’s not enough evidence yet,” I say hurriedly, far more interested at this point in Neil’s prognosis than in who killed Christine. “But there’s no doubt that Gavin was angry about Christine’s claim that she was related to him.”

Dr. Horace shakes his head and opens up a leather satchel he’s brought with him. “I’m afraid that’s probably a delusional fixation of Christine’s. Clare Barovier couldn’t have had a baby while residing at Briarwood—the very idea is preposterous. I’m only sorry that you dragged Neil into this wild-goose chase of hers.” He takes out a syringe and a glass ampule filled with an amber-colored liquid. “I’m going to give him a mild stimulant to boost his circulation and purge the toxins from his system. He should be fine given some rest, but I’m afraid this will mean he’s out of the trial—”

“Well, obviously the drug’s not agreeing with him.”

“The Pieridine requires a regimen of rest and proper diet to work properly. Neil signed an agreement to follow certain guidelines in order to be in this trial and now he’s disqualified himself. You can blame the drug if you like, but I blame you and Miss Webb. If she hadn’t stolen Clare Barovier’s file—”

“How did you know she stole the file?” I ask, hoping to avoid a lecture on my “bad behavior.” My question is more effective in staunching his tirade than I’d expected. In fact, he’s so startled by it that the ampule he’s holding slips from his fingers and rolls under the bed.

“Damn,” I say, getting down on my hands and knees and sticking my head under the bed to look for it. “Was that the only one you had?”

“No, I have plenty.”

“Good, because I can’t find—” I pull my head out from under the bed and look up to find Dr. Horace holding not another drug ampule, but a gun. It’s the second time I’ve had a gun pointed at me tonight, but I find I haven’t gotten used to it at all.

“What’s going on?” I ask, as if imagining that this sudden intrusion of a firearm will have some medicinal explanation.

“Do you have any tape?” he asks, ignoring my question.

“Tape?”

“You must use it in packing your windows.”

“Uh, yeah … I’ve got some down in the studio.”

“Good, let’s go.” He waves the gun in no particular direction, but I realize he means that I should head out of the bedroom and down the spiral stairs.

“I don’t understand,” I say as he follows me down the stairs, “what did I say?” And then I know. Clare’s file. In my recounting of the night’s events I hadn’t mentioned Neil’s suspicion that Christine had stolen Clare Barovier’s file.

I try to think a little more carefully about what to say next as I rummage through the supply drawers for tape, deliberately choosing for last the drawer I know it’s in.

I open the last drawer and hand him a roll of thread-reinforced packing tape and ask him the only question I can think of: “Why are you doing this? What could have been so important in Clare’s file?”

“It’s not Clare’s file I’m worried about,” he says, taking the tape with one hand and waving me back to the stairs with the gun held in the other. “That wasn’t the only file she took. She could never leave well enough alone. It was part of her obsessive-compulsive behavior …” Dr. Horace continues his analysis of Christine’s psychological flaws as he follows me up the stairs. “When she kept coming back to the hospital I thought it was just her obsession with the paper she was writing on the window. I gave her most of Clare Barovier’s records and let her spend hours in the tower suite looking at her paintings, but that wasn’t enough. She got into the records room by stealing her aunt’s key—I don’t blame Amy, she didn’t seem to know anything about it—and stole private papers that belonged
to the hospital. I thought they were all from Clare Barovier’s files, but then I realized she’d also tampered with Neil’s files. At first I thought that was just part of her romantic obsession with Neil—oh yes, don’t act surprised.” I’ve only paused because we’ve gotten to the foot of the bed and what I’m surprised at is that Neil—although he’s still lying with his eyes closed—seems to have moved a good foot to the right. Dr. Horace is too busy ranting to notice, only interrupting his story long enough to order me to tape Neil’s hands together, which I do, being careful not to disturb the metal nail file that Neil has managed to get off my nightstand and hide in the palm of his hand.

“The disgusting thing I realized after years of listening to Neil talk about the three of you is how you pushed them together. Did it validate your own feelings for Neil to see Christine’s attraction for him? Or were you sublimating your own homoerotic attraction for Christine?” Dr. Horace pauses and looks up from Neil’s bound hands. He actually seems to expect an answer.

“We were friends,” I say. “They were—are—the two people I care most about in the world. I just wanted them to like each other.”

Dr. Horace laughs. “My dear, if we had time we could explore the Oedipal family drama you so elaborately created, but I’m afraid your hour’s up.” He switches the gun to his left hand and takes out another syringe and ampule.

“That’s not really fair,” I say, wondering how he plans to fill the syringe with one hand. “You’ve done most of the talking.”

He manages to stick the syringe into the ampule and fill it while still aiming the gun at me. I look away only when he jabs the needle into Neil’s arm. I hate to admit it, but I’m relieved the needle wasn’t for me.

“Another stimulant,” he informs me. “This should get him going.”

“Are you sure it’s not too much—” I stop, realizing how stupid the question is. Clearly Neil’s health is no longer Dr. Horace’s prime concern. And that’s when the pieces all fall together.

“The trial,” I say, knowing I’m only digging a deeper hole for myself, but knowing, too, that’s it’s too late to feign ignorance. “That’s what Christine found in Neil’s files. His blood tests would have shown that his liver enzymes were elevated unless—”

“Unless I tampered with the results? Well, yes, of course. But let me tell you this, Juno, aside from Neil and Daria Cohen only a few other patients have had significant liver damage. It’s enough to prevent the FDA from approving the drug even though thousands of mentally ill patients will probably tolerate the drug perfectly well and benefit enormously from it. You’ve seen the change in Neil—would you have denied him the lucidity he’s had this last year because a few people can’t handle the drug?”

I’ve never been a big fan of the “sacrificing the individual for the common good” credo, but it occurs to me that this might not be the ideal time to debate ideological differences with the doctor. “So what you’re saying is that Neil could voluntarily drop out of the trial so as not to skew the results. That’s what Daria did, right? Only she was so distraught that she killed herself.” I’m talking quickly, hoping that I’ve got it right and that Daria won’t turn out to be another victim of Dr. Horace’s. “Okay. That makes sense to me. So Neil drops out.”

Dr. Horace smiles. “I’m glad you see it my way, Juno, but I’m afraid it’s too late for that. I can’t expect you both to stay quiet about my role in Christine’s death. I’m afraid that Neil will be dropping out of the trial in a far more dramatic fashion.”

Neil’s eyelids have begun to flutter open. Dr. Horace nudges him with the muzzle of the gun. “Come on, Neil,” he says in a surprisingly gentle voice, “we’re going to take a little boat trip.”

D
R
. H
ORACE LINKS HIS LEFT HAND THROUGH
N
EIL’S BOUND ARMS AND HAS ME LEAD
the way to the boathouse. The sky is still dark, but I guess from the sounds of the birds that it’s almost dawn. I try to look over my shoulder to the eastern sky, but Dr. Horace barks angrily at me, “No looking back” and does something to Neil that makes him cry out.

I stare straight ahead, feeling like Orpheus leading Eurydice up from the gates of hell, only we’re going in the wrong direction: into hell itself. A thick fog is rising from the river, making it look like the boiling waters of the Styx. Even if the sun rises when we’re out on the water, the fog will cover us from view. No one will see us. Dr. Horace will make it look as if Neil finally achieved what he tried to do fourteen years ago: drowning us
both in the river. The worst part of it is that Bea will be left believing that her father killed her mother and then took his own life. It would be better, I think, to force Horace to shoot us here. He might still try to make it look like Neil shot me, but I’d be leaving Detective Falco with a little more to work with.

I can’t make myself do it, though. I trudge on, trying to make myself believe I’m buying us more time—that there will be some way to escape when we’re on the water—but when Dr. Horace opens the boathouse and orders me to drag out an old wooden rowboat I have to admit that it’s plain cowardice that keeps me from bolting.

As if reading my thoughts Dr. Horace tells me, once we’re in the boat with him and Neil seated in the stern, and me rowing, that I’ve got nothing to worry about. “I’ve prepared a sedative for both of you so you’ll be unconscious when you go in the water, just like Christine was. You won’t feel a thing. Poor Neil here will hardly need much of a shot at all.” In spite of the injection Dr. Horace gave him, Neil hardly seems able to keep his eyes open.

“Won’t the drugs show up in our autopsies?”

“Yes, that’s why I’m using a common sedative that Neil had access to at The Beeches. I’ll have to hurry on back there and break into one of the meds cabinets, but since Neil had a history of using intravenous drugs—”