“What pentagram?” Bobby said.
“The one on the bathroom tile, it was scrawled in blood, just like –” Her voice trailed off.
“Just like what?” Chet said.
Dakota said, “Her husband. She’s talking about her husband.”
“What about her husband?”
“Nothing,” said Elizabeth, “never mind. Just forget I mentioned it.”
“Abernathy, what’s she talking about?” Chet said.
Dr. Abernathy looked at Elizabeth, but she offered neither consent nor protest. “When her husband was murdered, the killers left a ritual style pentagram on the wall, scrawled in his own blood.”
Silence hung in the air. Elizabeth couldn’t look at anyone.
“I know it sounds crazy, but—”
“Crazy is the word for it,” said Jewel.
“Didn’t anyone else see it?”
Dakota said, “No, baby, there was no pentagram there. You only thought you saw it. The shock of seeing all that blood – after what you’ve been through—”
“But I didn’t imagine it – it was there!”
“Now look who’s clamoring for attention,” said Jewel.
“I did see a pentagram, and if Joan didn’t draw it in her own blood then someone else did!”
“No one killed Joan, sweetie,” said Dakota. “All of us were downstairs together. You were the first one to leave.”
“I didn’t kill her.” Elizabeth’s nerves were beginning to fray.
“I didn’t say you did.”
“You may think this is your own private movie,” said Jewel. “I’ve got news for you sister, it’s not.”
“Jewel, for God’s sake,” Bryce said.
“There are five other people here. We all have problems too. She’s just trying to be the center of attention and I won’t stand for it.”
“I’m not begging for attention. Didn’t Dr. Abernathy bring us together to talk about how we feel? What I feel is that someone saw the pentagram in the bathroom and wiped it away on purpose.”
Bobby turned to Elizabeth. “Why would anyone do that?”
“I don’t know.”
“See?” said Jewel. She tossed back the remains of her drink.
“Who was the first person into your room after you began screaming?”
“I – I can’t remember.”
“It was me, Doctor,” said Dakota.
“And what do you recall seeing? Tell us everything, just as you remembered seeing it.”
Jewel crossed her arms. “I can’t believe this.”
“When I came into the room Elizabeth was standing facing the doorway to the bathroom.
“Was she in the doorway?”
“No,” said Dakota, “She had taken maybe a step or two backwards, isn’t that right Elizabeth?
“I can’t remember.”
“Anyway, she was screaming. Her hands were up to her face like this, screaming and staring into the bathroom. I put my hands on her shoulders and followed her gaze into the bathroom. That’s when I saw Joan. The bathwater was red and there were streaks of blood all over the wall above the tub.”
“We get the picture,” said Jewel as she crunched into an ice cube.
“Who was the next person into the room?”
“I think I was,” said Bryce. “But I didn’t see anything that looked like a pentagram, either. I think maybe the sight of all that blood was so overwhelming to Elizabeth that in her mind she saw a pentagram like the one she found on the walls the night her husband was murdered.”
“Are you saying I imagined it? I didn’t just make it up, you know.”
“Why not?” said Jewel.
“Look, we’re all cut up over Joan’s death. I know I am,” said Dakota. “I for one didn’t come here to deal with that sort of thing. But it happened. So let’s just deal with it. Joan was very disturbed, right Doctor?”
Abernathy nodded. “Joan suffered from severe chronic depression. I thought we had been making progress. Perhaps the type of therapy I espouse here at the clinic was not the best course of treatment for her, and for that I take full responsibility.”
“That’s big of you, Doc,” said Bobby, “but even I could see this coming a mile away. She’d been popping pills like candy ever since I got here.”
“What kind of stuff did you have her on, Abernathy?”
“Chet you know I am not at liberty to discuss that with you.”
“Benzies,” Jewel blurted out. “Lithium, Methaqualone, Luminol, you name it, she was on it.”
“I guess you would know,” said Dakota.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just what I said.”
“What about the Morphenol?” Chet asked.
“What about it?” Abernathy said.
“If you were already pumping her full of pills, wasn’t it irresponsible of you to be giving her Morphenol treatments on top of all that?”
“Morphenol?” asked Bryce. “What is Morphenol?
“Abernathy’s amazing psychological cure all, isn’t that right, Doc?” said Chet. “Freudian complex? Take Morphenol. Paranoid schizophrenic? Take Morphenol. Latent transvestite? Take Morphenol.”
Elizabeth was impressed that Abernathy was able to keep his cool in the face of Chet’s open hostility. “You know that’s an over simplification,” the doctor said.
Dakota said, “I don’t know why you’re being so hostile to Dr. Abernathy. Morphenol has done wonders for me, don’t you agree, Doc?
Dr. Abernathy nodded. “Dakota has shown remarkable progress since she has been under my care. Her psyche responds favorably to Morphenol. I don’t expect all of my patients to be as successful as Dakota, but that is why we as scientists conduct experiments in real world scenarios. Take Jewel for instance. Initially her subconscious was resistant, but we seem to have finally broken through the barriers.” He bared his teeth at Jewel, waiting for her agreement.
Jewel seemed reluctant, but said, “I admit that I have been feeling less angry, less hostile, over the past week or so.”
“You see?” Dr. Abernathy said. “Chet here has just begun Morphenol treatment, so it is a bit too soon to tell. As for Joan, well, I suppose we will never know whether the Morphenol caused any adverse reaction, but I can assure you, the propensity for suicide was already there.”
“Does everyone here take the Morphenol?” Elizabeth asked.
Everyone said yes or nodded their head except Bryce.
So that’s what’s wrong with them, Elizabeth laughed to herself, but it made her more curious about Abernathy’s wonder drug, the magic cure all as Chet so eloquently put it. Bobby, Chet, Dakota, and Jewel, each of them with their own unique set of problems, and all four of them were on the drug. Chet seemed the most well adjusted of the four, yet he was the one she knew the least about. Elizabeth made a mental note to spend some time getting to know him over the next few days. She was curious to find out just what had sent him plummeting from the dizzying heights of NASA’s aerospace program to the depths of a psychiatric clinic.
“I take it you’re not a big fan of Morphenol?” Bryce said to Chet.
“I don’t like being a guinea pig for a drug that no one knows for certain what it does.”
“Doesn’t bother me,” said Bobby. “I feel better than I have in months.”
“You signed the agreement,” said Jewel, “otherwise you wouldn’t be taking it.”
“All that fine print,” Chet muttered.
“Just give it more time, Chet,” said Dakota. “You’ll see. You’ll feel like an entirely new person by the time you leave the clinic. Isn’t that right, doc?”
Abernathy agreed. “That’s what the clinic is all about. Taking in damaged souls and releasing them healthy and whole back into society. Now, is there anything else anyone would like to share about Joan Monaghan?”
Jewel shook the ice cubes in her empty glass.
Bobby fidgeted like an eight year old on too much Coca Cola.
D
akota fingered blond strands of hair.
“Well, then,” said Dr. Abernathy, “class dismissed.”
As the group scrambled for the door, Elizabeth noticed that Dakota swept the moon shaped broach off the floor in one deft move.
In the hallway, Balthazar Valdez presented Elizabeth with a folded piece of paper. “Message for you Miss York,” he said. Written inside was Gavin’s name and phone number. She hurried into the front parlor and dialed Gavin’s number.
Gavin answered on the first ring. “What do you think of Abernathy Clinic so far?”
“It’s not at all what I expected. I love the house. It’s so old and so beautiful. It gets a bit chilly at night up here on the cliffs.”
“Met any famous people yet?”
“Oh, lots, you wouldn’t believe—” she caught herself, “…let’s just say I recognized a couple of the other guests, as much as they recognized me. It’s not much different than an evening at any number of Hollywood restaurants. You know how it is, some days you can hardly turn around without running into someone you know or ought to know.”
“Making lots of new friends?”
“And losing some,” Elizabeth said.
“Oh?”
“There was a suicide last night. The woman in the room next to mine killed herself. I didn’t have much of a chance to get to know her. She was nice, disturbed of course, just like the rest of us here, but nice. I feel sad.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I was the one who found her body.”
There was a moment of silence on the other end, then Gavin said, “Oh, no.”
“She sliced her wrists with a razor. Gavin, it was awful.” She wanted to tell him about seeing the pentagram in Joan’s blood, but everyone seemed to think it was a figment of her imagination. Gavin would too. And maybe it was only paranoia after all. Maybe she only imagined the pentagram.
She said, “Do you know anything about this drug that Abernathy uses? It’s called Morphenol.”
“Morphenol? Never heard of it. What’s it do?”
“I don’t know exactly. It’s something he developed when he was in Europe. It’s some sort of dream therapy thing. It’s supposed to help unlock repressed memories.”
“If it’s of any comfort, the other clients of mine who returned from the Abernathy Clinic all came back with a clean bill of mental health. But I can’t speak for their experiences with this, what is it called, Morphinatol?”
“Morphenol,” Elizabeth corrected. “It sounds sinister, doesn’t it?”
“Is anyone else there on the stuff?”
“Yes, just about everyone. They all seem to be doing fine.”
“Well, if you want my opinion, I’d say take the damn stuff. You’ve got a movie to make when you get out of there, remember?”
Elizabeth wasn’t sure if she should be relieved or not. “I’ve already started taking it. Dr. Abernathy gave me the first injection this morning.”
“Injection?”
“Yes, with a huge needle. You know how I hate needles.”
“And how do you feel?”
“No different. He says it works on your subconscious. It doesn’t have any known side effects. It’s just supposed to…well, that’s just it, Gavin. I don’t really understand what it’s supposed to do.”
“I’m sure you have nothing to worry about, Elizabeth. As I’ve told you, Abernathy is the boy wonder when it comes to psychiatry. Be a good girl and do what the doctor tells you. We want to see you back in six weeks, right?”
Elizabeth thanked him and hung up. She was glad she had not mentioned the pentagram. She didn’t want Gavin to think she was not improving. No doubt he would report back to the studio about their phone conversation and the last thing she needed was for him to tell them that Elizabeth York was still a complete nutcase.
In the foyer she ran into Dakota. “What’s happening?” said Dakota.
“I thought I’d go upstairs and move the rest of my things from my old bedroom to my new one. Do you want to help me?”
“I’d love to,” said Dakota and the two of them made their way upstairs.
“Dakota, I’m curious, what is it about Chet that makes you and Jewel act so hostile towards him?”
“Me? Hostile?” Dakota looked at Elizabeth with innocent doe eyes which made Elizabeth think of one of Margaret Keane’s paintings of big eyed waifs. “Well, I suppose I am. In the case of Jewel St. John her motivations are simple. She hates men.”
“So I gathered. She’s been married how many times?”
“Who’s counting?”
“She seems so unhappy.”
“Yeah, well, a lot of Jewel’s unhappiness is of her own making.”
“What about you?”
“I’m perfectly happy, can’t you tell? Peace and love, baby, that’s me.” Dakota flashed the peace sign and rolled her eyes.
“I mean, what about your animosity towards Chet?”
“I guess I come across more hostile than I mean to be. It’s nothing personal I have against the man. I’m just opposed to the space program on principle.”
Elizabeth was surprised. “But why? I think putting a man on the moon will be the single greatest achievement of our times.”
“Here’s where you and I will agree to disagree, sister. Next year they’ll put a man on the moon and ten years from now they’ll be setting up shopping centers on Mars. Look what the human race has done to the earth in the last two thousand years alone –gouging the earth to dig canals, ripping entire forests out by their roots, spilling chemicals into the waters, poisoning the fish, pumping noxious fumes into the air. They say there’s a hole in the ozone layer somewhere over the North Pole and it’s getting bigger every year. If we can’t even take care of our own planet, why should we even think about sending astronauts to other planets? What are we going to do when we get there, destroy them too?”
Elizabeth was going to have to think long and hard about this. Extreme as it all sounded, Dakota made some valid points.
“Besides, he’s a Capricorn,” added Dakota. She crossed Elizabeth’s old room and flicked the light switch in the bathroom.
“I don’t get it.”
“Hey,” Dakota said, “Come here.” Dakota stood in the entrance to the bathroom. Elizabeth hesitated, but Dakota held out her hand to her. “Mrs. Valdez did a terrific cleaning job in here, have a look.”
Elizabeth approached the bathroom door. Dakota stepped aside so that she could look inside. The white porcelain and the chrome fixtures of the old fashioned claw foot bathtub gleamed under the bright lights.
“I still would rather not have to sit in that bathtub knowing Joan killed herself in there,” Elizabeth said.
“I don’t blame you one bit.”
Elizabeth turned away from the bathroom door and crossed to the dresser. She opened the top drawer of the dresser and let out a gasp.
“Dakota! Look!”
Dakota peered over Elizabeth’s shoulder at the figurine lying on top of a stack of Elizabeth’s neatly folded under garments. It was a crude human figure, identified as female only by the two breast-like lumps of clay or wax or whatever the thing was made of. A clump of white blond hair was attached to the head. Pins protruded from each crude arm, just at the point where the wrists would be.
“What is this?” Elizabeth picked it up, turning it over in her hand. Whatever it was, it left her with a bad feeling. She dropped it back into the drawer. She felt dirty for having touched it.
“You don’t know what this is?” Dakota picked it up. “This isn’t yours?”
“Of course not. I’ve never seen anything like this before in my life!”
“How did it get in your dresser drawer?”
“How should I know?”
“Shh, lower your voice.”
“Why? What is it?”
“It’s a voodoo doll,” Dakota said.
“That’s something bad, isn’t it?”
“You mean to tell me
you have never heard of a voodoo doll?”
Elizabeth shook her head.
“It’s a form of Black Magic. If someone wants to cause harm to someone else, they make a doll.” She scraped her fingernail at the substance. “Looks like soft wax, the kind they used to make candles with a hundred years ago. They use a personal belonging from the victim like a piece of their clothing, fingernails…or in this case, hair. I’m certain this lock of hair was snipped from Joan Monaghan’s head.”
Night of the Pentagram Page 11
