Sleeping Beauty

chapter 31

I parked in front of the hospital and went in rather reluctantly. I had been there before, and knew how dim and depressing the lobby was – a warning of what could happen to any man. Some men to whom it had happened were sitting around the big room. A few of them had friends or relatives with them.

Dr. Brokaw was at the desk talking to a woman who looked rather like a veteran herself, but more like an old sergeant than a private. She had that glazed look of limited command. “This is Miss Shell,” Brokaw said. “Miss Shell remembers checking out Nelson Bagley the night before last.”

“Indeed I do.” She chopped at the air with her profile. “He was supposed to be back by ten that same night. I didn’t want to let him go in the first place, but Dr. Lampson said it would be all right.”

“Was Dr. Lampson his doctor?”

“Yes. I have a call in for him. The Doctor is the one who should be talking to you. All I did was check Bagley out. Dr. Lampson was the one who authorized it.” The woman was very tense.

“Nobody’s blaming you,” Brokaw said in a soothing voice. “There was no way you could foresee what was going to happen.”

“What did happen?” she said.

“We don’t really know. Nelson Bagley was found in the ocean off Pacific Point this morning. Mr. Archer here was the one who brought him in.”

The woman turned back to me. “Was he a suicide?”

“I doubt it very much. I think he was murdered.”

Her lips tightened and her eyes dilated. “I had my suspicions of that young man. If I had had the final say, I wouldn’t have trusted him out of my sight with any of the patients.”

“Why wouldn’t you trust him, Miss Shell?”

“I didn’t like his demeanor. He wouldn’t look me in the eye.”

“What reason did he give for taking Bagley out of here?”

“He was going to treat him to a home-cooked dinner. That was his story, anyway.”

A man in a white coat came striding across the lobby. Miss Shell gave him a single flashing accusatory look, then assumed the official mask that nurses wear in the presence of their superiors.

“Here’s Dr. Lampson now.”

He was a tall dark man with a face that had known pain. His black hair was short, almost military in cut, and his body was spare. He nodded soberly to Brokaw, who introduced himself and then me. Lampson led us to a deserted corner of the room where the three of us sat down on plastic chairs.

“What happened to Nelson?” he said.

I told him in some detail. Lampson listened carefully. Like the building in which he practiced, his eyes were full of shadows.

“I don’t understand it,” he said when I had finished. “You saw Nelson last night – Wednesday night – at a seafood restaurant in Pacific Point. But he left here Tuesday night, about five-thirty, supposedly to have dinner with some friends. What happened in the meantime?”

“I can tell you one thing that happened,” Dr. Brokaw said. “Harold Sherry brought him to me in Long Beach yesterday.”

“You know Harold Sherry?”

“He’s my patient.”

“What sort of a man is he?”

Brokaw shot a questioning glance at me, which I returned. He lowered his head in embarrassed thought, cupping his bearded chin in his hand.

“I can’t really answer that question.”

“How long has he been your patient, Doctor?” Lampson said.

“A couple of months. I didn’t get to know him well. I realized that Harold had certain problems.”

“What sort of problems?”

I said, “Harold shot a man this afternoon, and got shot himself. The police are looking for him now, and so am I. He’s wanted on suspicion of kidnapping.”

Lampson’s eyes winced, but otherwise he gave no sign of shock or surprise. “Harold does seem to have his problems. What were you treating him for, Dr. Brokaw?”

“He came to me with what he thought was V.D. It turned out to be a minor infection which was easily cleared up. I went on seeing him because he obviously needed someone to talk to. He was quite bitter about his father and certain other people, and I suppose I sensed that he was bent on trouble. Which I wasn’t successful in heading off, I’m afraid.” Brokaw hung his shaggy head and blew his nose.

Lampson turned to me, a little impatiently. “Do you know Harold Sherry?”

“I’m getting to know him, at a distance. I’ve never talked to him. I’d like very much to know what his interest was in your patient Nelson Bagley.”

“So would I. I don’t understand it at all.”

“How did he contact Bagley, do you know?”

“A young woman brought him here sometime in the last week or so. She’d visited Bagley before. I believe she had some kind of family connection.”

“With Bagley or with Harold?”

“With Bagley. Her connection with Harold was obvious enough. She was crazy about him.”

“Can you describe her, Doctor?”

Lampson raised his eyes to a corner of the ceiling. “A rather large girl, quite nice-looking, brunette – age, I’d say, close to thirty.”

“Is her name Gloria?”

“Yes, it is. I never did get her last name.”

The dim air of the place oppressed me. I felt as if I was lost in the catacombs under a city where no one could be trusted or believed.

“Flaherty. I know the woman,” I said. “She’s on the run with Harold now.”

“I’m surprised to hear that, frankly. She seemed to be quite a decent girl.”

Brokaw raised his head. “She is. I saw her–”

He stopped, his mouth open like a red wound in his beard. His eyes shifted from Lampson’s face to mine. Then he hung his head again, hiding his face under the thatch of his hair.

Lampson looked at me and raised his eyebrows questioningly. I shook my head in answer. As if he had heard the inaudible interchange, Brokaw got up and walked away. He looked back once before he reached the door, but made no gesture of farewell.

“What’s the matter with him?” Lampson asked me.

“I’m not sure. I think he bought a large piece of Harold Sherry, and now he’s embarrassed by it.”

“He acts as if he’s guiltily involved.”

“No. I’m pretty sure he isn’t.”

“What was he going to say about seeing the girl? Do you know?”

“No.”

I was surprised to find myself fronting for Brokaw. Perhaps I owed him that. He had been painfully honest with me. But his departure left questions hanging in the room.

“Did you say you knew Gloria, Mr. Archer?”

“I’ve talked to her a couple of times. I got the same impression of her as you did – that she was well-intentioned and reasonably honest. She may be, at that. She wouldn’t be the first nice girl that’s taken up with a sociopath.”

“Is that what Harold is?”

“He has some of the earmarks.”

“What’s this about a kidnapping?”

I told him, omitting Laurel’s name. Lampson screwed his face up as I spoke, and smoothed it out with his hand. He repeated the gesture several times.

“It hurts me to think that I let my patient leave the hospital with Sherry.”

“Why did you?”

“I didn’t see how any harm could come to him with Gloria involved. And Harold Sherry seemed genuinely interested in him. It was the first invitation of the kind that Nelson had had in the time I’ve been working with him. When I became his doctor, he was very nearly catatonic, completely uncommunicative, oblivious to the world. I’d been trying to bring him out of that, and succeeding. At the same time, his physical health had improved. I thought he was ready to do a little socializing. Anyway, I could see no harm in trying it.” He showed his teeth in an unsmiling grin. “How wrong can a man be? When I signed him out of here, I signed his death warrant.”

There was grief in his voice. Though Lampson kept his feelings under firm control, I was reminded of Ellis’s wild outburst in the morgue. Neither the doctor nor the avgas man had killed Nelson Bagley, but both of them felt guilty in his death. I said:

“You’re not the only one who feels responsible for what happened to Nelson Bagley. This afternoon in the Pacific Point morgue, I talked to a man named Ellis who believed that he had killed him. He had been an avgas officer on the Canaan Sound, Nelson’s ship, and he told me he made the mistake that burned the ship. Ellis was pretty distraught, close to hallucination. He thought, or said he thought, that Nelson’s body had been in the ocean for over twenty-five years – that he had floated in all the way from Okinawa.”

“He might as well have,” Lampson said. “He didn’t have much life in those years. Did this officer – Ellis?”

“Ellis.”

“Did this Ellis explain what he did that caused the fire on the Canaan Sound?”

“He said he made a mistake in pressure which ruptured one of the gas tanks.”

“Really?”

“I’m not lying. I don’t think Ellis was either.”

“No. He wasn’t lying.”

“Have you talked to Ellis, Doctor?”

“I talked to Nelson.” His mouth was twisted in a complex smile. “It doesn’t matter now – now that he’s dead – but his memory was gradually returning. Just last week, he told me about the ruptured gasoline tank on his carrier. It was the last thing he remembered about the Canaan Sound – the last thing he remembered for many years.”

“What brought his memory back, Doctor?”

“I’d like to attribute it to my art.” He pinched his nose as if to punish his pride, and looked at me over his fingers with black intent eyes. “But the truth is, I’m not that good. I’m not even a trained psychiatrist. I have to admit that Nelson got more of a charge from Gloria’s visits than he ever got from mine. You can understand why I encouraged her to take an interest in him. I felt that between the two of us we were bringing him back to life. I could sense forgotten material coming up to the surface, or near the surface, of his mind. Even his poor body seemed to be responding. But all I succeeded in doing was to set him up for death.”

His voice was harsh, full of the general anger which young men often turn against themselves. He closed his eyes, and his face became vulnerable.

“Nelson Bagley was quite important to you, Doctor.”

“He was my Lazarus.” He spoke with irony and regret. “I thought that I could raise him from the dead. But I should have let him lie.”

“Why do you say that?”

He leaned toward me, the plastic chair complaining under his weight. “I’m wondering – at least it’s possible that Nelson was killed because his memory was coming back. Some pretty explosive material came up the last time I talked to him.”

“What kind of material?”

“Some of it had to do with the death of a woman. He talked about her as if she was his wife. But I checked his records, and there was no indication that Nelson had ever been married.”

“What happened to the woman?”

“Apparently she was murdered a long time ago. It may have been in the same year that the gas tank ruptured and sent him into the sea. The dead woman and the ruptured gas tank came up together in the same interview.”

“Just last week?”

“That’s right.”

“How was the woman killed?”

“She was shot. Nelson may have shot her himself, though he didn’t say so.”

“You think Nelson was murdered because he remembered the murder of the woman?”

As if he had made himself more vulnerable, Lampson raised his fist to his mouth and spoke behind it. “I’m not offering it as a theory, exactly. But the possibility did occur to me. There aren’t too many conceivable motives for killing a poor little man like Nelson Bagley. He had no money and no connections that I know of.” He dropped his fist.

“You said he might have shot her himself. There’s a possible motive in that for killing him. Have you made any attempt to find out who the woman was?”

“No. I intended to, but I’ve been too busy.”

“What was her name?”

“Nelson called her Allie, I believe.”

“What makes you think he shot her?”

“He blamed himself.”

“Exactly what did he say?”

Lampson brooded over the question. “I don’t recall his exact words, and exact words are important. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t sure if he was talking about killing a woman or making love to her, or possibly both.” He looked up at me with a certain resentment. “I didn’t mean to tell you this.”

“I’m glad you did.”

“What good can it possibly do? The woman is dead, and so is Nelson.”

“You want to know who killed him,” I said, “and why. Unless we do find out, his death is meaningless, and maybe his life is, too.”

Lampson nodded quickly, once. “You’re right. It’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? – to find some meaning. That’s what Nelson was trying to do. He lived like a vegetable for over twenty-five years. But towards the end he was coming back to life, struggling for meaning. And I was trying to help him.”

Lampson was opening up. I liked what I saw in him, and I asked him:

“What got you interested in Nelson?”

“He seemed so utterly hopeless, physically and mentally. I gave him quite a lot of my time – more than I should have, perhaps. I’m afraid I stole some time from my other patients.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know why. Yes, I do. Nelson reminded me a little of my father.” Lampson’s eyes focused as if he were looking down a dark mine. “My father was killed on Guadalcanal when I was quite young.”

“And that’s why you’re here?”

“In this hospital, you mean? I’m sure it’s one reason. But you’re not here to investigate me. Or are you?” He was getting nervous again, and closing up.

“I need your help, Doctor. I’m trying to find a woman who was abducted last night. This afternoon, Harold Sherry collected a hundred thousand dollars ransom for her and shot her father. The way to the missing woman seems to lead through here.”

Lampson peered out across the lobby as if he might catch a glimpse of the woman, or see some trace she had left. The room was almost empty now. Many of the visitors had gone, and the patients were drifting back into the interior of the hospital like ghosts at cockcrow.

“What is the woman’s name?”

“Laurel Russo.”

Lampson reached out and took hold of my wrist. “Russo?”

“That’s correct.”

His grip on my wrist tightened. “That was the name of the dead woman.”

“The one that Nelson was talking about?”

“Yes. Her name was Allie Russo.”

We sat facing each other like linked mirror images. I rotated my wrist to remind him that he was holding on to it. He dropped it as if it was hot.

“Did you keep any record of your conversation with Nelson?”

“I made a few notes.”

“May I see them, Doctor?”

“I’m afraid they’re private.”

“So am I. I don’t intend to take them away with me. I simply want to have a look at them.” He hesitated. I said:

“There’s a woman missing, remember. Apparently she’s in the hands of a dangerous man. That should override a dead patient’s right to privacy.”

Lampson gave me his quick nod of assent. “Come into my office.”

I followed him down a corridor, the hospital atmosphere thickening around me. The scarred metal desk in Lampson’s office was piled with papers, which he shuffled through. He handed me a sheet of yellow foolscap on which he had written in pencil:

Lampson and I sat in silence for a minute. The small office seemed crowded with past life.

“What do you think he did to her?” I said.

“He seemed to feel responsible for her death. But he may not have done what he thought he did. Sometimes a man like Nelson feels terribly guilty simply because he’s been punished so terribly.”