The Heaven Makers Part 9

Violent storm, he thought. A violence storm.

He looked up at the trees on his left, wondering how long he'd been here. His watch had stopped, unwound. Ruth was late, though. It was her way.

There'd been the storm. Clouds had grown out of a hard gray sky with rain crouched low in them. For a time the eucalyptus grove around him had been filled with frightened bird sounds. A wind had hummed through the high boughs -- then the rain: big spattering drops.

The sun was back now, low in the west, casting orange light onto the treetops. The leaves drooped with hanging raindrops. A mist near the ground quested among scaly brown trunks. Insect cries came from the roots and the bunchgra.s.s that grew in open places along the dirt road into the grove.

What do they remember of their storm? Thurlow wondered.

He knew professionally why the community wanted its legal lynching, but to see the same att.i.tude in officials, this was the shocker. Thurlow thought about the delays being placed in his path, the attempts to prevent his own professional examination of Murphey. The sheriff, district attorney George Paret, all the authorities knew by now that Thurlow had predicted the psychotic break which had cost Adele Murphey her life. If they recognized this as a fact, Murphey had to be judged insane and couldn't be executed.

Paret already had shown his hand by calling in Thurlow's own department chief, the Moreno State Hospital director of psychiatry, Dr. LeRoi Whelye. Whelye was known throughout the state as a hanging psychiatrist, a man who always found what the prosecution wanted. Right on schedule, Whelye had declared Murphey to be sane and "responsible for his acts."

Thurlow looked at his useless wrist.w.a.tch. It was stopped at 2:14. He knew it must be closer to seven now. It would be dark soon. What was keeping Ruth? Why had she asked him to meet her in their old trysting place?

He felt suddenly contaminated by this way of meeting.

Am I ashamed to see her openly now? he asked himself.

Thurlow had come directly from the hospital and Whelye's unsubtle attempts to get him to step aside from this case, to forget for the moment that he was also the county's court psychologist.

The words had been direct: ". . . personal involvement . . . your old girlfriend . . . her father . . ." The meaning was clear, but underneath lay the awareness that Whelye, too, knew about that report on Murphey which rested now in the Probation Department's files. And that report contradicted Whelye's public stand.

Whelye had come up just as they were about to go into a Ward Team conference to consider the possible discharge of a patient. Thurlow thought of that conference now, sensing how it encapsulated the chief of psychiatry.

They'd been in the ward office with its smell of oiled floors and disinfectant -- the Protestant chaplain, a small sandy-haired man whose dark suits always seemed too large and made him appear even smaller; the ward nurse, Mrs. Norman, heavy, gray-haired, busty, a drill sergeant's rocky face with cap always set squarely on her head; Dr. Whelye, an impression of excess bulk in a tweed suit, iron gray at the temples, and in patches through his black hair, a sanitary and barber-sc.r.a.ped appearance to his pink cheeks, and a look of calculated reserve in his washed blue eyes.

Lastly, almost something to overlook around the scarred oval table, there'd been a patient: a number and a first name, Peter. He was seventeen, mentally limited by lack of the right genes, lack of opportunity, lack of education, lack of proper nutrition. He was a walking lack, blonde hair slicked down, veiled blue eyes, a narrow nose and pointed chin, a pursed-up little mouth, as though everything about him had to be sh.e.l.led up inside and guarded.

Outside the room had been green lawns, sunshine and patients preparing the flower beds for Spring. Inside, Thurlow felt, there had been little more than the patient's smell of fear with Whelye conducting the interview like a district attorney.

"What kind of work are you going to do when you get out?" Whelye asked.

Peter, keeping his eyes on the table, "Sell newspapers or shine shoes, something like that."

"Can't make any money like that unless you have a big corner stand and then you're in big business," Whelye said.

Watching this, Thurlow wondered why the psychiatrist would suppress ideas instead of trying to draw the boy out. He asked himself then what Whelye would do if he, Thurlow, should stop the proceedings and take the patient's place to describe ". . . a thing I saw the other night, something like a flying saucer. It was interested in a murderer."

Mrs. Norman had Peter's social service files on the table in front of her. She leafed through them, obviously not paying much attention to Whelye. The chaplain, Hardwicke, had taken Thurlow's own psychometry file on Peter, but wasn't studying it. He seemed to be interested in the play of a sprinkler visible out the window at his right.

"Could you tell us your general att.i.tude today, Peter?" Whelye asked. "How do you feel?"

"Oh, I'm all right."

"Are you still working in the sewing room? Seems to me you'd be more interested in that kind of work outside."

"Yes, I'm working there. I've been working there ever since I came."

"How long have you been here?"

"Pert' near two years now."

"How do you like it here?"

"Oh, it's all right But I been wondering when you're going to let me out . . . so I can get back home an' help support my mother."

"Well, that's one thing we have you in here for," Whelye said, "so we can think it over."

"Well, that's what they been telling me for six months, now," Peter said. "Why do I have to stay here? The chaplain" (Peter shot a covert glance at Hardwicke) "told me you were going to write my mother to see if she wanted me home. An' if she did want me home, he'd take me down there."

"We haven't heard from your mother yet."

"Well, I got a letter from my mother an' she says she wants me home. The chaplain said if you'd let me go he'd take me home. So I don't see any reason why I can't go."

"It's not a simple decision, Peter. It's not just the chaplain's decision."

Hardwicke opened the psychometry file, made a pretense of studying it. Thurlow sighed, shook his head.

What was that thing I saw? Thurlow wondered. Was it real there beside Murphey's window? Was it illusion? The question had been plaguing him for two days.

"Well, he said he'd take me," Peter said.

Whelye stared at Hardwicke, disapproval on his face. "Did you say you'd take him down to Mariposa?"

"If he were discharged," Hardwicke said. "I said I'd be glad to give him the trip down there."

Whelye faced Peter, said: "Well, we have to do some more looking into this matter, generally to find out if your mother wants you and if the chaplain's schedule will allow him to take you down there. If all these things work out, we'll let you go."

Peter was sitting very still now, no emotion on his face, his gaze intent upon his hands. "Thank you."

"That's all, Peter," Whelye said. "You can go now."

Mrs. Norman signaled an attendant waiting at the screened window to the Common Room. The attendant opened the door. Peter got up and hurried out.

Thurlow sat for a moment, the realization growing in him that Peter had taken away what amounted to a promise to be released, but that because of the way he had conducted the conference, Dr. Whelye wasn't aware of this. Whelye would be thinking that all the "ifs" involved made this a hypothetical case.

"Well, Dr. Whelye," Thurlow said, "you've made a definite commitment to this patient to discharge him -- promptly."

"Oh, no -- I didn't promise I'd discharge him."

"Well, the patient certainly understood he'd be home in short order -- and the only qualifications are Chaplain Hardwicke's schedule and confirmation of the mother's letter."

"Call the patient back and well settle this with him right now." Whelye said. He looked angry.

Mrs. Norman sighed, went to the Common Room door, signaled an attendant. Peter was brought back and returned to his chair. The boy kept his eyes down, shoulders bent, unmoving.

"You understand, don't you, Peter," Whelye asked, "that we haven't made any definite promise to discharge you? We're going to look into your home situation and see if everything is all right and if you can get a job. We'd also like to look into the possibility of you returning to school for a year or so. Perhaps you could get a better job. You understand, don't you, that we aren't making any definite commitment?"