Deficiency

by Andrew Neiderman

  Grandmother Martin greeted him at the door. She was obviously a feisty old lady with a hard firm face that had inquisitive eyes filled with suspicion. She kept her gray hair neatly cut just below her ears and wore no makeup, not even a trace of rouge to hide the paleness of her complexion. She looked like one who would not deny age nor tolerate anyone who tried. She was small-boned, not more than five feet four at the most, but she stood so erect and secure, it was as though she had a steel rod shoved down the center of her spine. Old people were more than simply an anomaly to him; they were frightening as well. His world was a world of youth and vibrancy. Age was a disease, not a natural process. He saw it truly as decaying. Wrinkled and gray, toothless and forgetful, crippled and arthritic, old men and women were already dead in his eyes. They offered no sustenance for his well-being. He felt as though he were looking into the face of his own death should he ever fail to provide for himself. Grandmother Martin sensed his aversion for her, and it triggered warnings, but he was able to manage one of his charming smiles and keep his voice soft, controlled, appealing. He quickly explained how he had come to knock at her door. She smirked.

  "Kristin's as good as any booking agent," she said, but she didn't make it sound like something good. "It ain't the season no more, you know. Things is closed everywhere," she warned.

  "Oh, I know that, but fall is so beautiful here, I thought I would linger a few days, maybe even a week or so and enjoy the scenery and the peacefulness. Life is so hectic these days. It's nice to find a real escape."

  "Um..." she said still leery. Her guests were usually older people who had been coming to her rooming house for years and years. All she had to offer them was home cooking and a clean place. There were no facilities. The pond was too small for boating and too muddy for swimming. Martin's Rooming House was just a place to rest your tired old bones, she thought, and wondered why this young man would want to stay here, especially now.

  "I don't heat the rooms, you know," she said, not quite sure herself why she was searching for ways to discourage unexpected found income.

  "That's fine. I don't sleep with heat on much anyway. I like it better when it's cool. How big is this house?" he asked gazing up at one of the dormers. "It looks enormous."

  "Eighteen rooms," she replied, her arms still folded tightly under her small bosom. In fact, she was pressing her forearms against herself so firmly, she felt she might crack one of her own ribs.

  "Is there a room available in the tower? That looks like fun," he said.

  "The tower? Yes," she said. "I suppose you could take that one. I got to get some fresh bedding together first. And it needs a good dusting. I've had the rooms closed down for nearly a month, you know," she said defensively.

  "Oh, I'm sure it will be a lot nicer than the motel I was in last night. You know how they clean those places," he said. She grunted.

  "Where are you from?" she asked. It was more like a demand. She still hadn't agreed to rent him the room.

  "New York City. Upper Manhattan on the East Side," he said. It came to him as quickly as a line memorized from a play he had been doing week after week.

  "What do you do, Mr...."

  "Karl," he said, but he could see she wasn't comfortable with first names. "Karl Stanley. I'm an accountant," he said. "A CPA," he added to impress her. She didn't look impressed. "I have a vacation now and..."

  "What kind of vacation is it that you don't know how long you will stay?" she asked quickly.

  He felt a chilling sweat break out on the back of his neck. Only old people could do this to him, make him sound and feel defensive. He took a deep breath. Her eyes grew smaller as she waited for his answer.

  "Oh, I'm self-employed," he said. "I own my own business and can usually pick and chose my own schedule. So," he said, "will it be all right... the room in the tower?"

  "I suppose," she replied. "You'll have to wait until I get it ready, though. You can bring your things into the sitting room on the right here until then," she added, finally backing up to indicate where he should go.

  "Great. I'll just get everything out of the car."

  "Don't you care how much it will be?" she asked quickly. He had already turned and stepped away; he was that anxious and anxious people always frightened her.

  "Oh... I didn't think you were going to rob me. How much will it be?"

  "Forty a day," she said quickly. "Fifty-five if you take meals, too." He could sense it was more than she would have charged an older person off-season. It was her last attempt to discourage him.

  "Fine," he said. "I'd paid a lot more for a dingy motel room and I'm looking forward to home cooking."

  "Um," she said not hiding her disappointment. He flashed the best smile he could and retreated to his car to get his things.

  Nearly a half hour afterward, she told him it was all right for him to go up to his room. She showed him the way and then she asked for two days rent in advance. He peeled off the bills from his wad, her eyes big when she saw how much he had. He had no idea himself how he had gotten it, but he imagined it came from his trail of feeds.

  "Very pretty," he remarked, looking in at the queen-size brass bed and the light oak furniture. There were a nightstand, an armoire, and a dresser. He put his things down quickly and went to the window. It afforded him a sweeping view of the hamlet's main street in the distances. He could see a trickle of traffic. "So picturesque," he said.

  When he turned around, she was gone and she had closed the door. Suddenly, he had another memory flash. He was locked in a room just like this and he was pounding on the door only his hands and his arms were all bandaged, and the window... he spun around to look through this one again, to be sure it was uncovered. The window in his memory was painted black so that no light would come through.

  Who am I? he wondered with a new intensity. Was it because he was in a house that had such character and he sensed family? The ghosts of all the children, the parents, and the grandparents who had lived here still lingered in the walls, reminding him in ways he didn't want to be reminded that he had no one and was no one.

  But the frustration passed through him quickly, like some muscle spasm. He could breathe freely again. It was all right. Everything was all right. He returned to the window to gaze over the hamlet and way off, toward the end of the street, in the direction from which he had come, he saw beautiful, young Kristin walking home from work, walking toward him, coming closer and closer like the promise of light that came with the first rays of morning. His old confidence returned.

  He was in the right place. For now, as always, he was in the right place at the right time.

  Invigorated, he began to unpack.

  FOUR

  Hyman adjusted their schedules so that Terri could attend Paige Thorndyke's funeral.

  "Although," he told her, "during all the years I've lived here, Terri, I think I could count on my fingers how many of my patients' funerals I've attended. I know doctors who have never attended any. I suppose it's a touch of paranoia, something that comes with the territory. You sit there in church or synagogue and you feel the eyes of loved ones and you think they are wondering if you made a mistake or if there was something more you could have done. Ridiculous, I know, but nevertheless, you feel it. At least, I did. Still do.

  "And I don't blame them," he added. "We're always second-guessing, wondering if we should have seen that heart attack coming or that stroke. I've often revisited patient histories with just that question. Even after years and years of practicing medicine, I do it on occasion.

  "Of course in this case, you have nothing to second-guess. You never treated the woman for anything, and you had no opportunity to provide any medical diagnosis or prescribe any therapy," he concluded.

  "For what it's worth," she said, "Curt is on your side. He and I had a bit of a quarrel about it last night. He thinks I'm losing my critical objectivity."

  "A certain amount of aloofness is important. It helps you maintain the objectivity you need t
o do your best," Hyman told her. "I wouldn't even deliver my own children. Sent my wife to Crackenberg, who charged the full ticket, I might add. No professional courtesy. He was not what anyone would call a generous man. His was a funeral I attended, motivated by a bit of glee, I'm ashamed to say."

  Terri laughed, thanked him, and prepared to get to the church. It was a heavily attended service. Most of the hamlet had turned out, as well as people from Bradley's airline, the entire travel agency, and various relatives of the Thorndykes. The bizarre nature of Paige's death gave the funeral an unrealistic air, a sense that everyone was moving within the same nightmare. Terri could see it in the way people greeted each other, shook their heads in confusion, and stared at the grieving parents and Paige's brother Phil, all three of whom now looked stunned, gazing occasionally at the faces of the attendees as if they were looking to see if anyone could tell them why they were here. Bradley Thorndyke held his wife tightly, supported and guided her along, but to Terri it looked like he was really doing it to hold himself together as well or even more so. Phil Thorndyke held hands with an attractive brunette. They were comforting each other. Terri heard someone say her name was Eileen Okun and she had been Paige's closest friend.

  Everyone stood while the coffin was removed through a side entrance to the waiting hearse and then everyone began to file out, no one speaking in anything above a whisper, greeting each other with nods or movements of their eyes. With her eyes down, Terri marched behind the crowd of mourners and, like everyone else, felt she was escaping from under the shadow of death when they left the church.

  It was one of those perfect fall days when the sun seems to be holding back in intensity, but not brightness, and every cloud in the sky looks as if it was whipped with fresh milk. The air was redolent with the aroma of apples streaming in from an orchard near the church. It was a day designed for backyard touch football games and barbecues, which all made a funeral seemed that much more jarring and unreal.

  Terri paused on the street outside the church while the funeral procession was being organized and directed to proceed to the cemetery. There, she had a chance to speak with Will Dennis, the county district attorney. Tall and lanky with a Lincolnesque look of melancholy that Terri imagined was carved by twelve years in the elected position, seeing the results of one vicious act after another, Dennis had the demeanor and bearing of someone dependable, someone in whom you would comfortably trust the important things in your life. It was this charisma that made him invulnerable election after election, that and his uncanny memory for putting together faces and names, a politician's biggest asset. Be introduced and shake hands with him once and you were remembered forever.

  "Dr. Barnard," he said, nodding at her.

  "Mr. Dennis." She stood beside him and both of them watched the hearse creep away from the church, the line of automobiles following to snake slowly up to the cemetery in Glen Wild, a hamlet best known for its cemeteries. She sighed deeply and then blew some air between her gently closed lips.

  "Tough one," Will Dennis muttered. "Especially when it makes no sense." He looked at her.

  "Medically speaking, of course," he added.

  "Yes," she agreed. "Have you determined whether or not there was a criminal act committed?"

  "In what sense?" he asked, his heavy eyebrows turning in and toward each other. "There wasn't any violence. It was scurvy, right?"

  "I was referring to the man who brought her to the motel, leaving her there."

  "Oh. No, we don't have anything concrete about him and I don't know how we could indict someone for that. We'd have to establish that she was sick and he knew it, but everything we've learned suggests there was nothing wrong with her. On the contrary, she was a ball of energy if you want to believe the eyewitnesses."

  "Right. So the BCI investigator is leaving the case?" Will's lips curled up and in as he turned to look at her.

  "What BCI investigator?"

  "The one who interviewed me, Clark Kent?"

  His grimace of confusion softened into a look of amusement.

  "Is that some sort of joke? Clark Kent?"

  "No. That was his real name. He claimed his parents had a sense of humor. How could he come see me without your knowing anything about it?" she wondered.

  "I mean, does that happen?"

  "No," he said shaking his head, the grimace gone now. "Someone was obviously pulling a very, very sick joke on you, Terri. What did he look like?"

  "Look like? He was tall, about six feet one or two, blond-haired, blue eyes. He had a slight cleft in his chin and he was well tanned, like someone who had just returned from the Caribbean. I'd say he was in his mid-to late thirties." Will Dennis nodded.

  "There's no detective in this county I know of who matches that description. Let me know if you ever see or hear from this piece of shit again," he added angrily.

  "I'll have him indicted and prosecute him to the full extent of the law for impersonating a police officer."

  She shook her head.

  "He seemed so convincing and very nice. He talked about his pregnant wife and moving recently to upstate New York. I don't understand."

  "Hang around my office for a day or two and you will," the district attorney said. "You'll quickly tell yourself you won't ever doubt how low humanity can sink. Well, I have to get back to the office. Take care," he said and walked to his waiting limousine.

  She stared after him, her heart thumping. Suddenly, she felt violated, abused as if something had been taken from her. She looked about quickly when the cold chill at the back of her neck slid down until it settled between her shoulder blades. The remaining mourners clung to some conversation to help ease themselves back from the gloom. People shook hands. People hugged each other. Contact was very important.

  A man hurrying away turned around the corner of the church, the shock of blond hair gleaming in the late morning sunlight. It sent an arrow of ice through her chest. She hurried in his direction, practically running, but when she turned the corner, too, he was gone.

  Who was he?

  Was that the man who had pretended to be an investigator? Why had he done such a sick thing?

  Why would he come to the funeral, too?

  How in hell could Paige Thorndyke have died of scurvy? It's a Third-World problem, especially to the extent it was present in Paige Thorndyke. She felt like screaming the questions at the church as if it was truly a conduit that would bring her words to the ears of God and then bring back His enlightening response.

  She heard nothing but the slamming of car doors and the starting of engines. Walking briskly back to her car she angrily thought, Curt should have been here with me. He should have adjusted his schedule, not only because this was a person whose family he knew, but most importantly because he should have been at her side.

  Why that suddenly occurred to her and with such vehemence was unclear. She looked back at the corner of the church. Maybe, if Curt had been with her.... She jabbed her key into the car's ignition and drove off, her thoughts falling back like thunder against the front steps of the church.

  He sat on one of the oversized, chipped, and faded wooden lawn chairs and stared at the murky pond. It was still warm enough for water flies and mosquitoes to practice their insane circling inches above the water. It convinced him that Nature was far from perfect. It was an unfinished work, still being developed through trial and error. What in hell could be the purpose for this sort of maddening life? Food for frogs, bats? And who were they food for and if there were no mosquitos, would we need frogs and bats? One mistake engendered another. That's all. Simply and sweet, a fuckup of global proportions.

  Man had been created to fix all these mistakes, he thought. He was here to work through science and correct, improve, and perfect the world. Weather must not be permitted to remain random and whimsical. Every disease had to be cured and eliminated. Sources of energy that were restorable had to be discovered and perfected, and all these vermin had to be exterminated.

&
nbsp; From where all these ideas came to him, he did not know. All of it was just there. It was like opening a closet or a cabinet and finding all sorts of food and not having the slightest clue as to how it got there. However, even though not knowing the origins of things that pertained to him did bother him from time to time, it was only in a small and momentary way. He didn't dote or dwell on it, and he certainly didn't toss and turn at night worrying about it. Why worry about anything? All problems were solvable eventually, and the solutions were never more than an arm's length away.

  He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't hear Kristin come up beside him until she actually began to speak. He didn't jump with surprise, however. He lacked that weakness he saw in other human beings. Nothing could surprise him and if it did, it never frightened him. Only one thing frightened him, malnutrition, and that was easy to starve off. It would always be easy.

  "Hi," she said.

  He turned slowly and looked up at her, giving her his best smile of hello, warm, full of delight at her presence, a smile designed to deliver a compliment and instill pleasure and confidence in its recipient. He was a master of smiles, a magician who could turn an expression into a look of wonder and innocence or just as easily, a look of sophistication and innocence. His eyes could almost change color to please. Like any successful performer, he could read his audience and reach into his repertoire to produce the look, the words, the very body motion to please. It gave his prey the sense that he was there solely for her. His whole body was truly a web and he was never so proud of it and what it could trap as he was now.

  "Hi," he replied. "Thanks for recommending your grandmother's place." She shook her head, smiled, and looked at the pond, the expression on her face turning quizzical as she looked at the water and the surrounding birch, maple, and hickory trees. Earlier heavy rainfalls had practically stripped the trees of their beautiful fall foliage, leaving the forest stark and dreary. She was surely wondering why was he sitting here so contentedly and looking at the surroundings? What could he possibly get out of this?