Brain Child

by John Saul

  “Why?” Alex asked. “Why did he come back?”

  María Torres stared at him for a long time. When she spoke, her voice was barely audible, but nonetheless her words seemed to fill the room. “Venganza,” she said. “He came for vengeance on the thieves and the murderers. Even when he was dying, he said he would never leave. From beyond the grave, he said. From beyond the grave, venganza.”

  Alex emerged from the little house into the blazing sun of the September morning. He began walking through the village, pausing here and there, turning over the bits and pieces of the story María Torres had told him, examining them carefully, searching for the flaw. His mind told him that the answer he had come up with was impossible, but still the pieces of the story matched his strange memories too well. He knew, though, where he would find the ultimate truth, and what he would do once he found it.

  The phone on his desk jangled loudly. For a moment Marsh was tempted to let it ring. Then he realized the call was coming in on his private line. Only a few people knew that number, and even they used it only when it was an emergency.

  “I trust you aren’t going to force me to implement the provisions of the release,” Raymond Torres’s cold voice said.

  “How did you get this number?”

  “I’ve had this number since the moment I took on your son’s case, Dr. Lonsdale. Not that it matters. The only thing that matters is that your wife was to bring Alex to me today.”

  “I’m afraid that won’t be possible, Dr. Torres,” Marsh replied. “We’ve discussed the matter, and it’s my decision that you can do Alex no more good. I’m afraid he won’t be coming back there anymore.”

  There was a long silence, and when Torres’s voice finally came over the line again, its tone had hardened even further. “And I’m afraid that’s not your decision to make, Dr. Lonsdale.”

  “Nonetheless,” Marsh replied, “that’s the decision I’ve made. And I wouldn’t advise you to try to come and get him, or have anyone else try to come and get him either. I’m his father, Dr. Torres, and despite your release, I have some rights.”

  “I see,” Torres said, and Marsh thought he heard a sigh come through the phone. “Very well, I’m willing to strike a compromise with you. Bring Alex down this afternoon, and I will explain to you exactly what my procedures have been up until now, and why I think it’s necessary that he come back to the Institute.”

  “Not a chance. Until I know exactly what you’ve done, you won’t see Alex again.”

  In the privacy of his office, Raymond Torres slumped tiredly behind his desk. Too many hours of too little sleep had finally taken their toll, and he knew he was no longer thinking clearly. But he also knew that letting Alex leave the Institute yesterday had been a mistake. Whatever the consequences, he had to get him back. “Very well,” he said. “What time can I expect you?”

  Marsh glanced at his appointment book. “A couple of hours?”

  “Fine. And after you’ve heard what I have to say, I’m sure you’ll agree that Alex should be back here.” The line went dead in Marsh’s hand.

  Alex paused at the garden gate, and stared at the high vine-covered wall that separated the patio from the street. Then, making up his mind, he went into the patio, then into the house. The house, as he had hoped it would be, was empty. He went to the garage and began searching through the mound of boxes that still sat, unpacked, against the back wall. Each of them was neatly marked with its contents, and it didn’t take him long to find the two he was looking for.

  The hedge clippers were at the bottom of the first box. As Alex worked them loose from the tangle of other tools, he wondered if he was doing the right thing. And yet, he had to know. The vines covering the garden wall were part of the pattern, and he had to see for himself if he was right.

  The book, after all, might have been wrong.

  The clippers in hand, he left the garage and walked down the driveway to the sidewalk. Then, working slowly and deliberately, he began cutting the vines off as close to the ground as the strength in his arms and the thickness of the trunks would allow. He worked his way slowly up the hill until the last stems had been cut; then, going the other way, he tore the thickly matted vegetation loose, letting it pile on the sidewalk at his feet. When he was done, he stepped back and looked at the wall once more.

  Though it was covered with the collected dust and dirt of the years, and its whitewash had long since disappeared, the tiles remained.

  The wall looked exactly as he had thought it should look when he had first come home from the Institute.

  He went back into the garage and opened the second box. His father’s shotgun was on top, neatly packed away in its case. He opened the case and methodically began putting the pieces together. When the gun was fully assembled, he took five shells from a half-full box of ammunition and put them in his pocket. Carrying the gun easily in the crook of his right arm, he left the garage and walked once more down the driveway, then turned to the right and started the long climb up toward the hacienda.…

  It had been a bad morning for Ellen, and as she started up Hacienda Drive she was beginning to wonder if she was going to get through the next few days at all.

  She’d spent most of the morning with Carol Cochran, and none of it had been easy. Part of the time they’d simply cried, and part of the time they’d tried to make plans for Valerie Benson’s funeral. And over it all hung the question of who had killed Valerie.

  And then there had been Carol’s oddly phrased questions about Alex:

  “But is he really getting better? I mean, Lisa keeps telling me about strange things he says.”

  “No, I don’t really remember what”—though Ellen was quite sure she did, and simply didn’t want to tell her. “But Lisa really seems very worried. In fact, I think she’s just a little frightened of Alex.”

  Ellen had become increasingly certain that after Valerie’s funeral, the Cochrans and the Lonsdales would be seeing a lot less of each other.

  She came around the last curve, swinging wide to pull into the driveway, when she suddenly slammed on the brakes. Piled on the sidewalk, nearly blocking the driveway itself, lay the ruins of the masses of morning glory that had covered the patio wall only two hours ago.

  “I don’t believe it,” she whispered aloud, though she was alone in the car. Suddenly the sound of a horn yanked her attention away from the tangle of vines, and she jerkily pulled into the driveway to make room for the car that was coming down the hill. She sat numbly behind the wheel for a moment, then got out of the car and walked back down the drive to stare once more at the mess on the sidewalk.

  Who would do such a thing? It made no sense—no sense whatever. It would take years for the vines to grow back. She surveyed the wall, slowly taking in the streaked and stained expanse of plaster, and the intricate patterns of tile that were now all that broke its forbidding expanse. And then, behind her, a voice spoke. Startled, she turned to see one of the neighbors standing on the sidewalk looking glumly at the vines. Ellen’s mind suddenly blanked and she had to grope for the woman’s name. Then it came back to her. Sheila. Sheila Rosenberg.

  “Sheila,” she said. Then, her bewilderment showing in her voice: “Look at this. Just look at it!”

  Sheila smiled ruefully. “That’s kids,” she said.

  Ellen’s expression suddenly hardened. “Kids? Kids did this?”

  Now it was Sheila Rosenberg who seemed at a loss. “I meant leave the job half-done.” She sighed. “Well, I suppose you know what you’re doing, but I’m going to miss the vines, especially in the summer. The colors were always so incredible—”

  “What I’m doing?” Ellen asked. “Sheila, what on earth are you talking about?”

  Finally the smile faded from Sheila’s face. “Alex,” she said. “Didn’t you ask him to cut the vines down?”

  Alex? Ellen thought. Alex did this? But … but why? Once again she surveyed the wall, and this time her eyes came to rest on the tiles. “Sheila,” she
asked, “did you know that wall had tiles inlaid in it?”

  The other woman shook her head. “Who could know? Those vines were two feet thick, at least. No one’s seen the wall itself for years.” Her eyes scanned the wall, and her brows furrowed speculatively. “But you know, maybe you did the right thing. If you put in smaller plants, and maybe some trellises, it could be very pretty.”

  “Sheila, I didn’t ask Alex to cut down those vines. Are you sure it was him?”

  Sheila stared at her for a moment, then nodded her head firmly. “Absolutely. Do you think I would have let a stranger do it? I saw him a couple of hours ago, and then I got busy with something else. The next time I looked, the vines were all down, and Alex was gone. I thought he must be having lunch or something.”

  Ellen’s gaze shifted to the house. “Maybe that’s what he’s doing,” she said, though she didn’t believe it. For some reason, she was sure that Alex was not in the house. “Thanks, Sheila,” she said abstractedly. “I … well, I guess I’d better find out what’s going on.” Leaving Sheila Rosenberg standing on the sidewalk, she went through the patio into the house. “Alex? Alex, are you here?”

  She was still listening to the silence of the house when the phone began ringing, and she snatched the receiver off the hook and spoke without thinking. “Alex? Alex, is that you?”

  There was a moment of silence, and then Marsh’s voice came over the line. “Ellen, has something else happened?”

  Something else? Ellen thought. My best friends are being murdered, and I don’t know what’s happening to my son, and you want to know if something else is wrong? At that particular moment, she decided, she hated her husband. When she spoke, though, her voice was eerily calm. “Not really,” she said. “It’s just that for some reason Alex cut all the vines off the patio wall.”

  Again there was a silence; then: “Alex is supposed to be at school.”

  “I know that,” Ellen replied. “But apparently he isn’t. Apparently he left school—if he even went—and came home and cut down the vines. And now he’s gone. Don’t ask me where, because I don’t know.”

  In his office, Marsh listened more to the tone of his wife’s voice than to her words, and knew that she was on the edge of coming apart.

  “Take it easy,” he said. “Just sit down and take it easy. I’m on my way home to get you, and then we’re going down to Palo Alto.”

  “Palo Alto?” Ellen asked vacantly. “Why?”

  “Torres has agreed to talk to us,” Marsh replied. “He’ll tell us what’s happening to Alex.”

  Ellen nodded to herself. “But what about Alex?” she asked. “Shouldn’t we try to find him?”

  “We will,” Marsh assured her. “By the time we get back from Palo Alto, he’ll probably be home.”

  “What … what if he’s not?”

  “Then we’ll find him.”

  Now, Ellen thought. We should find him now. But the words wouldn’t come. Too much was happening, and too much was closing in on her.

  And maybe, she thought, as she sat waiting for Marsh to come for her, maybe finally Raymond would be able to convince Marsh to let him help Alex.

  Half a mile away, on the hill above the hacienda, Alex, too, was waiting.

  He wasn’t yet sure what he was waiting for, but he knew that whatever it was, he was prepared for it.

  In his arms, cradled carefully against his chest, was the now loaded shotgun.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Cynthia Evans glanced nervously at her watch. She was running late, and she hated to run late. But if she hurried, she could get the shopping done, swing by the school and pick up Carolyn, and still be home in time for her three-thirty appointment with the gardener. She pulled the front door closed behind her, and moved quickly toward the BMW that stood just inside the gates to the courtyard. As she was about to get into the car, a flash of reflected sunlight caught her eyes, and she looked up onto the hillside that rose beyond the hacienda walls.

  He was still sitting there, as he had been since a little past noon.

  She knew who it was—it was Alex Lonsdale. She’d determined that much when she’d first seen him, then gotten her husband’s binoculars to take a better look. If it had been a stranger, she would have called the police immediately, especially after what had happened to Valerie Benson last night. But to call the police on Alex was another matter. Alex—and Ellen as well—had had enough troubles lately, without her adding to them. If he wanted to sit in the hills, he probably had his reasons.

  Even so, she was starting to get annoyed. When they bought the hacienda, why had they not bought the surrounding acreage as well? It was far too easy for people to climb up the hillside and gaze down over the walls, as Alex had done today, invading the privacy they had spent so much money to achieve. For a moment Cynthia was tempted to call the police anyway, and to hell with the Lonsdales’ feelings. The only reason she didn’t, in fact, was the time.

  She was running late, and she hated to run late.

  She started the BMW, put it in gear, and raced out of the courtyard and down Hacienda Drive, not even taking the time to make sure the security gates had closed behind her.

  Alex watched the car disappear from sight, and knew the house was empty now. He rose to his feet and began scrambling down the hill, holding the shotgun in his left hand, using his right to steady himself on the steep slope. Five minutes later he was at the gates, staring into the courtyard.

  The gates were wrong.

  They should have been wooden. He remembered them as being made of massive oaken planks, held together by wide wrought-iron straps ending in immense hinges.

  And the courtyard itself wasn’t right, either. There should be no pool, and instead of the flagstone paving, there should only be packed earth, swept of its dust by the peones each day. Silently, his memories coming clearer, Alex moved through the gates, across the courtyard, and into the house.

  Here, things were better. The rooms looked as he remembered them, and there was a comforting familiarity. He wandered through them slowly, until he came to the room that had been his. He had been happy when he had lived in this room, and the house had been filled with his parents and his sisters, and everyone else who lived on the hacienda.

  Before the gringos came.

  Los ladrones. Los ladrones y los asesinos.

  The pain that always filled him when the memories came surged through him now, and he left the room on the second floor and continued moving through the house.

  In the kitchen, nothing was right. The old fireplace was there, but the cooking kettle was gone, and there were new things that had never been there in the old days. He left the kitchen and went back to the foyer.

  He stopped, frowning.

  There was a new door, a door he had never seen before. He hesitated, then opened it.

  There were stairs down into a cellar.

  His house had never had a cellar.

  Clutching the gun tighter, he descended the stairs, and gazed around him.

  All along the wall, there was a mirror, and in front of the mirror, on glass shelves, were masses of bottles and glasses.

  All of it wrong, all of it belonging to the thieves.

  Raising the shotgun, Alex fired into the mirror.

  The mirror exploded, and shards of glass flew everywhere, then the shelves of glasses and bottles collapsed on themselves. A moment later, all that was left was wreckage.

  Alex turned away, and started back up the stairs. He would wait in the courtyard for the murderers, as his mother and sisters had waited before.

  Now, at last, he would have his vengeance.…

  “Darling, how would I know why Alex was up there? All he was doing was sitting, looking down at the house.”

  “Well, you should have called the police,” Carolyn complained. “Everybody knows Alex is crazy.”

  Cynthia shot her daughter a reproving glance. “Carolyn, that’s unkind.”

  “It’s true,” Carolyn replied
. “Mom, I’m telling you—he’s acting weirder and weirder all the time. And Lisa says he told her he didn’t think Mr. Lewis killed Mrs. Lewis and that he thought someone else was going to get killed. And look what happened to Mrs. Benson last night.”

  Cynthia turned left up Hacienda Drive. “If you’re trying to tell me you think Alex killed them, I don’t want to hear it. Ellen Lonsdale is a friend of mine—”

  “What’s that got to do with anything? I don’t care if she’s the nicest person in the world—Alex is a fruitcake!”

  “That’s enough, Carolyn!”

  “Aw, come on, Mom—”

  “No! I’m tired of the way you talk about people, and I won’t hear any more of it.” Then, remembering her own impulse just before she’d left the house an hour ago, she softened. “Tell you what. You promise not to talk about him like that anymore, and I promise to call the police if he’s still there when we get back. Okay?”

  Carolyn shrugged elaborately, and they drove on up the ravine in silence. They came around the last curve, and as Cynthia scanned the hillside, she heard Carolyn groaning.

  “Now what’s wrong?”

  “The gates,” Carolyn said. “If I’d left them open, you’d ground me for a week.”

  Cynthia swore under her breath, then reminded herself that she’d only been gone an hour, and it was the middle of the afternoon. Besides, the courtyard was empty. She drove inside and got out of the car. “Well, at least we don’t have to call the police,” she observed, her eyes scanning the hills once more. “He’s gone.”

  “Thieves,” a soft voice hissed from the shadows of the wide loggia in front of the house. “Murderers.”

  Cynthia froze.

  “Who … who’s there?” she asked.