At 5:2.0, with the first light of day Mtering through the curtains, Laura could no longer keep her eyes open. Without even trying to make sense of what she had found, she shuffled to the couch and was asleep almost as her head touched the pillow- Resting on the desk was a calculator, a pad scribbled with figures, and the Rand McNally adas she had extracted from Bernard Nelson's eclectic collection of novels and reference volumes. The atlas was open to a map of the mountain states.
Tucked in the cleft between pages was the pencil she had used to circle a small, sparsely populated area in southeast Utah. n Barred from the spectrophotometry lab by Ivor Blunt, Eric paced about the pathology department's waiting room. From time to time he swore his heart had skipped beats; at other times a breath or two seemed to be heavier than normal. He flexed his fingers and rubbed his hands, wondering if the tingling in them was the first sign of progressive neurotoxicity, or merely the result of his lacerations.
The sergeant from Wayland had turned out to be something of a godsend.
After driving Eric to White Memorial and getting a positive recommendation on him from the head of hospital security, Clarkson had decided to void the criminal charges against him. In exchange, Eric gladly promised to pay the Mobile station owner for repairs to his window and security system.
After Clarkson left for Wayland, Eric had stopped by the emergency room for a confidential talk with the senior resident assigned to Reed Marshall's shifts.
As he rechecked Eric's vital signs and physical exam, the bewildered resident did his best to appear to understand what had happened, but Eric knew he was being patronized. Nor was that reaction surprising.
Until Ivor Blunt confirmed the identity of the teotoxin, Eric was resigned to being very much on his own.
He sat on the arm of a chair and thumbed through a dog-eared copy of People. Like grotesque neon, the leering death's-head face glowed in his mind. Extortion, murder, narcotics, preying on the weak and superstitious-the man or woman behind that mask was a monster. He wondered where Anna Delacroix was, what horrors she was enduring-if in fact she was still alive.
His thoughts were interrupted by voices and a commotion of some sort in the hallway outside the waiting room.
"No, dammit," he heard a man say. "You all stay out here. We'll handle this. When we have something to say to you, we'll say it."
"You have no right," a woman's shrill voice cried.
"We have every right. Now just stay back here before I bust you for interfering."
The glass door to the waiting room was pulled open, and two metropolitan District policemen entered.
"Dr. Najarian?" one of them asked. He was a thin " black man with a creased forehead and kind eyes.
"That's right. Have you found out anything about Anna?"
The policeman, whose name tag identified him as Patrolman Medeiros, flipped a note pad open. Behind him, the other officer, younger and huskier than Medeiros, turned as several people pressed against the door.
"The natives are restless, Tony," he said.
"Goddam cannibals," Medeiros muttered. "Brian, just don't let 'em in here."
"Who are they?" Eric asked.
Medeiros looked up at him.
"Reporters," he said. "A couple of them were at the station when the call came in about this Delacroix woman and your voodoo ceremony.
One of them recognized your name."
"Mine?"
That's right. Apparently the Herald is about to hit the streets with an article about you and a missing body of some sort."
"Oh, Jesus," Eric said, remembering the stern faces of the selection committee as they discussed the hospital's campaign against negative publicity. "What about Anna?"
"Twelve Sproul Court in Allston- That the address of the store you went to?"
"That's right. Benet's. It's like a hardware store."
"You sure this man-this Titus Memmilard-was the owner?"
"Of course I'm sure. He said it, and his niece said it.
Eric felt confusion and a tearing emptiness beginning to set in.
"Well, Doctor, number Twelve Sproul Court is a hardware store named Benet's all right. But the Benets, who live upstairs, and who we woke up and scared half to death, have owned that store for more than five years. And they've never even heard of anyone named Titus Memmilard-or, for that matter, Anna Delacroix either."
"That's… that's impossible."
But even as he said the words, Eric knew he was hearing the truth.
"And that other place," Medeiros went on wearily, glancing at his notes,
"the place three doors down where you claim you and this Delacroix woman were taken at knife point and allegedly poisoned."
"Yes?" Eric felt ill.
"You said it was a boarded-up empty store that had been turned into some sort of voodoo temple."
"That's right."
"Well, Doctor, I don't know how to tell you this, but there're no boarded-up stores on that whole street.
On the first floor of the building three doors down is a candle shop."
"Are you sure you were on Sproul Court?"
Eric could tell now by the way the two officers were looking at him that they felt certain he was quite mad.
"Oh, we were on Sproul all right," Medeiros said.
"Were you?"
"Of course I was. Officer, contrary to what you're thinking, I'm not crazy. Everything happened exactly the way I said it did. Did you go inside the candle shop?"
"No. After what we encountered down the street, we weren't too excited about trying to get someone to let us in. But there's a whole window filled with candles and a bunch of other little knickknacks, and we could see inside perfectly well. Not a headless chicken in sight, Doc.
Not one."
Eric sank back in his chair, desperately trying to sort out what he was hearing.
"This is insane," he said.
"Now there we're in agreement."
"What about the woman?"
"What about her?"
"Officer Medeiros, you've got to believe me. I met Anna Delacroix in the county Medical Library.
She's a grad student at B.U. She asked me to meet her on SProul Court, and we were abducted by two men at knife point and poisoned in a very frightening ritual."
"You know what we think, Doc? % think you were Pledging some sort of fraternity or club and the whole thing got carried away."
"That's ridiculous."
"You take any drugs tonight?"
"Only the one that was put on my skin. There's a toxicologist in there right now. After you hear what he has to say, maybe you'll believe me."
As if on cue, the door to the laboratory slammed open, and Ivor Blunt stalked into the room, his expression a strange mix of anger and bemusement.
"Talcum powder," he said.
The two officers exchanged smiles. Eric could not even speak.
"Plus a little dirt, a little lint, and a smidgen of oil of some sort,"
Blunt went on. "Maybe olive oil. Dr. Najarian, you are one crazy son of a bitch, and at this moment I wish you nothing but ill."
"Don't you see," Eric pleaded, looking from one of the men to the next,
"the whole thing was a setup to discredit me-to make you all think-exactly what YOu're thinking. I'm telling you, it all happened just like I said it did."
"I'm going home," Blunt said. "If you get poisoned again, please don't call."
He stormed back into his lab.
"I don't think he believes you," Officer Medeiros said in pointed understatement. "Dr. Najarian, you've caused a lot of people a lot of trouble tonight."
Eric couldn't remember the last time he had broken down and cried, but he knew that if he tried to speak, that was precisely what would happen.
He had been had-maneuvered step by step by Anna Delacroix into an abyss of humiliation and discreditation from which he would never recover. He bit at his swollen lower lip and slowed his breathing until it seemed safe to stand and confront the policemen.