American Gothic (11 page)

17

Consolation

L
AVALLE WAS IN the lab at the Hospital St. Jude late in the day, checking some samples growing in culture dishes willed with pink agar, when Magalie Jeanty stuck her head in to report that the shipment from Port-au-Prince had finally arrived.

“Just a moment,” Lavalle said shortly, not looking up from the lab book where he was annotating results from the latest round of blood research in his neat hand. Lavalle never did more than one thing at a time, if he could avoid it, and he disliked interruptions. It was important for a physician to stay focused and refuse to be hurried. Mistakes resulted from jumping from one thing to another, like a dancer capering to a fiddle tune.

The teamster had pulled his wagon and mule team around to the back of the hospital, where a small, raised loading bay opened into the storage room where Lavalle kept everything under lock and key. The doctor did not think the residents of Cap Misère were dishonest so much as desperate, and any supplies that were not kept out of reach had a way of quickly disappearing.

“Good afternoon,” Lavalle said to the driver, and hopped off the dock.

“Bonjour,”
the man mumbled without meeting Dr. Lavalle’s eye. He did not wear a shirt or shoes, his only clothing a pair of ragged trousers that were too short for such a tall man. He had broad shoulders and massive arms, an excellent physical example. The teamster reminded Lavalle of the Nubian wrestlers he had seen once on a visit to Africa.

The man was probably embarrassed to be a week behind schedule with the delivery, Lavalle thought, although the island citizenry seldom seemed concerned about time, or even aware of its passing. It was fortunate the hospital was not currently in desperate need of any of the medicines and supplies that arrived each month from the Littmann Medical Supply warehouse in New Orleans. There had been several regrettable occasions when his patients had died because of delayed shipments. Once, an entire cargo had been lost in a hurricane, and though a maritime insurer eventually reimbursed Lavalle his out-of-pocket expenses, before the replacement shipment arrived the doctor had been reduced to stitching up people with sewing thread. Life moved slowly on the island, even if disease and death did not.

“Let me have a look at your manifest,” Lavalle said.

The much-mended tarpaulin remained over the cargo, tied down with hemp ropes. Lavalle’s porter squatted against one wheel with his eyes closed, as if asleep. The teamster had not moved. Lavalle was suddenly impatient.

“I do not have all day. Give me the manifest and get the wagon unloaded.”

The teamster kept his sullen eyes on the toes of Lavalle’s well-shined boots and began a not very believable story about how expensive fodder had become in the capital. Lavalle cut the man off before he got far into the tale.

“Don’t waste your breathing trying to extort money from me,” Lavalle said. “I paid your employer in advance for shipping, as I always do. That’s the only way I can get him to send a wagon rattling my way, and I assume it’s the only way he can depend upon getting the money instead of having the drivers run off with it. You won’t get any money out of me.”

The man crossed his arms and met Lavalle’s eye for the first time. The teamster obviously was a villain. It was a miracle he hadn’t disappeared into the mountains with Lavalle’s entire cargo. If there had been anyone along the southern coast with money to buy contraband, no doubt he would have stolen it. But this was a game two could play. Lavalle had not gotten where he was in the world by letting people walk over him.

“Not a single
gourde,
” the doctor said, referring to the island currency.

“Then I must return the shipment to Port-au-Prince.”

“If you are a gambler you have a lot to learn about bluffing,” Lavalle said.

But the man turned away and began to climb up onto the wagon.

“Alexandre!”

The porter, who had roused himself enough to watch the disagreement, stood up when Lavalle called him by name.

“We will unload the wagon with or without the driver’s assistance.”

The metal leaf springs beneath the driver’s seat creaked as the teamster turned around to look back at them. He was sitting forward with his elbows on his knees, but now his right hand dropped down toward the handle of a machete leaning against the seat.

Alexandre looked back at Lavalle, his expression distant and impassive, as if he were somewhere else, thinking about something that did not involve him one way or the other. The porter was at least ten years older and seventy-five pounds lighter than the teamster. Even if the driver didn’t have a weapon, Lavalle doubted he and Alexandre together could subdue the stronger man.

“Very well, then,” Lavalle said as if suddenly bored. “I will leave it to you to explain to your employer why he lost a lucrative shipping contract to bring supplies to this hospital.”

The teamster’s only response was to whistle through his teeth and snap the reins against the mules’ hindquarters. Lavalle climbed back on the loading dock so that the teamster could see that he was going back inside, that he didn’t care, but the driver did not turn around. The wagon continued up the backstreet until it disappeared around the corner.

“Merde!”

The expression of anger shocked Magalie, who had come out to help with the supplies. She and the doctor had been through many difficult times in the past two years, but this was the first time she had ever heard him curse.

Lavalle and Jean-Pierre Toussaint caught up with the wagon five kilometers outside of town. They had been delayed by the need to track down Toussaint’s horse, an undistinguished brown mare the police prefect had loaned to the assistant constable to assist with the inquiries started after a body was found two nights earlier near a fishing hamlet up the coast. Lavalle had assisted Toussaint, of course. The cultures he took from the wounds in the dead woman’s neck—before the torn tissue mysteriously repaired itself—had not proven to be forensically significant.

The teamster heard their horses coming up from behind and looked over his shoulder. He stopped without Toussaint having to say a word to him.

Lavalle stayed mounted while the policeman climbed down from his horse and looped the reins under one of the ropes holding the tarp at the rear of the wagon.

“Get down,” the prefect told the man. “I want to talk to you.”

The teamster set the wagon’s brake and did as he was told. Toussaint was as tall as the driver but wider and heavier, though there wasn’t anything soft about him, like there was with most men his size. Lavalle assumed it was Toussaint’s uniform, not his size, that impressed the teamster. The island people were intimidated by all officials, as were peasants anywhere, weakened by their powerlessness and ignorance.

Smiling as always, Toussaint began to converse with the man, speaking in patois. Lavalle picked out a word here and there. The hospital. The shipment of medicine. Money. The teamster disputed with Toussaint in a desultory way, as if he knew it was useless to argue with a policeman but had to say something.

Toussaint removed his hat. It was a high-peaked cap with a rope of gold braid over the bill, the sort of hat that would have looked right on a general’s head. He put the hat on the wagon carefully, as if it were extremely valuable and he wanted to be sure it wouldn’t fall off and become soiled. The policeman hit the driver so fast that he did not have time to react before the huge fist doubled him over. Toussaint caught him by the arm and threw him against the wagon. The driver bounced backward, like a ball thrown against a brick wall, hitting the road hard enough to roll over several times. The mules stamped and worried but stayed, held by the wagon’s brake.

“That’s not necessary, Jean-Pierre,” Lavalle said, though too late to have saved the dishonest driver a broken nose and split forehead.

“Thieves must be taught it is wrong to steal,” Toussaint said, smiling brightly.

“Now he does.”

Toussaint began to kick the man.

“Stop!” Lavalle cried.

But Toussaint did not stop.

Lavalle jumped down from Napoleon with such haste that he turned his ankle painfully in the sandy soil.

“Jean-Pierre, please! I just want the hospital supplies.”

“You are a good man, Doctor, but you do not understand how things are done here,” Toussaint said, pausing.

“Jail will be punishment enough. You don’t have to beat him.”

“If I put him in my jail, I will have to feed him,” Toussaint said.

The prefect of police turned back to the man and spoke to him in rapid patois. The man somehow managed to get to his feet and staggered down the road, his right arm clasped around his ribs.

“I told the scoundrel he has you to thank that he can crawl away.”

“Thank you.”

“I will send a report to the capital and have him arrested. Let
them
feed him in their prison.” Toussaint laughed, greatly amused by his clever plan to divert the expense to the authorities in Port-au-Prince.

“You needn’t bother the authorities further on my account.”

“It is my job, Doctor. I assure you, a few months in the dungeons will be the end of his mischief-making.”

Lavalle realized it would do no good to protest, so he shut his mouth.

Alexandre was waiting at the hospital to unload. Toussaint took off the tarp and began to help, so Lavalle pitched in, too. In no time the supplies were locked away safe in the storeroom.

“Come into my office and I’ll give you a drink for your help.”

“I am already late for supper,” the smiling policeman said. “If I keep my wife waiting longer, I will be the one getting the beating.”

“How will you get the wagon to Port-au-Prince?”

“The wagon is confiscated. It was used in a crime.”

“I will never get another shipment delivered here if you keep the wagon. I’ll send Alexandre with it in the morning.”

Toussaint started to disagree, but apparently he saw the logic in Lavalle’s argument.

“As you wish, Doctor. We are fortunate to have you here. Your hospital does much good work. I wouldn’t want to do anything to interfere.”

Dr. Lavalle lived in a house built by a wealthy merchant in colonial times, one of the few houses in Cap Misère habitable by European standards. He instructed the housekeeper to prepare his supper, and he went into the study. He put his doctor’s bag on the table by the door before lighting the lamp. He took off his jacket, hung it in the armoire, and pulled on his comfortable old smoking jacket, patting the pocket where he kept his favorite pipe and a pouch of tobacco.

The liquor chest where the French brandy was kept sat on a low table. The bookcase behind it held the portion of his medical library relating to his specialty, rare diseases of the blood. On a tray beside the liquor chest were two crystal snifters turned upside down on a white cloth.

Lavalle also lit the lamp on the table, the combined illumination from the two lamps enough to drive most of the shadows out of the room. Outside, the scratchy insect music softened slightly, as if the creatures were distracted by the light.

The key to the liquor chest was worn as a fob on Lavalle’s watch chain. He pulled it out now and inserted it into the lock. There was a soft click as the latch released.

Lavalle lifted the lid and stood there, staring inside.

Balanced on the cork stopping a bottle of cognac was a crow’s foot. Tied to it with a thin strip of black ribbon was a scrap of white cloth. Lavalle leaned closer for a better look. It was impossible to know for certain, but the cloth seemed to be material snipped from one of the clinic jackets he wore at the hospital.

He took a step back and got down on one knee to examine the liquor chest. There were no scratches on the lock or signs it had been tampered with, though there was only one key, which was either affixed to his vest or on his nightstand while he slept.

The housekeeper heard Lavalle’s brisk footsteps enter the kitchen and looked up with surprise. The room was her province, and the master of the house never trespassed there.

“Were there any visitors today, Marie?”

“
Non,
Dr. Lavalle,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron.

“Any deliveries?”

She pursed her lips as if in concentration and shook her head. The woman was guileless, thought Lavalle, who had hired and quickly fired two dishonest servants before finding Marie. The fact that she was slow-witted was at once her best and worst quality. At least she had learned to be a passable cook, under his tutelage.

Lavalle came forward until he was standing closer to the housekeeper than he had ever been. She began to shake a little, sensing that something was wrong.

“I want you to tell me something, Marie, and I want you to be truthful. Were you, or anyone else, in my study today?”

“
Non,
Dr. Lavalle.”

“Very well, then,” he said, turning away. “Call me when supper is ready.”

Lavalle went back to his desk and sat down. He lit the reading lamp, directing its reflector toward the macabre object before him. He took his magnifying glass out of the center drawer. Using the nib of a dry pen, he performed a cursory examination. The severed foot showed no sign of desiccation. His guess was that the bird had been killed recently. He could tell nothing from the ribbon. It appeared to be an ordinary strip of millinery. The cloth might reveal some of its secrets, though, subjected to the proper testing. He would take it to his lab at the hospital, where he could look at it under his microscope and compare it to the material from one of his jackets.

Not that any of that would tell him what the talisman
meant.

“How foolish of me,” Lavalle said out loud.

What it meant? Of course, it meant nothing! It was nothing more than a bit of meaningless superstitious nonsense someone had managed to hide in his liquor chest to frighten him. Well, it wouldn’t work. Lavalle was a physician and a scientist. He did not believe in voodoo. Science and logic, not superstition and magic, would find the solution to the odd events of late.