Timothy Culver - Power Play

He got to Eustace at just about one-thirty in the afternoon. He drove through the town — a shopping street backed up by a few rows of residences is all it was — and just on the other side he made the right turn onto the unmarked gravel road. He was immediately on Lockridge land, though it was a quarter mile before he reached the chain-link fence and the gate and the guard, an elderly man with a Swedish accent who’d held this job for nearly twenty years now.

He recognized Holt at once, and nodded and waved to him as he walked flat-footed in his heavy boots to open the gate. He was saying something, but Holt had the window closed and couldn’t hear it. From the guard’s manner, it was merely some sort of greeting, so Holt contented himself with a smile and a nod in return.

It was another mile and a half to the house, with woods on the left while on the right the trees gave way to the stables and exercise yards and then a part of the apple orchard, everything now under a lamina of clean white snow.

Brad’s house was much more sensibly situated than Holt’s, being built on a low rise in the middle of a clearing. Holt had never asked, but he doubted Brad had trouble with a damp basement.

The house was three and a half stories and mostly stone, a large house to begin with that had been added to in the hundred twenty years of its life with various ells and projections, all in the same architectural style and general appearance, so that by now it looked more like a castle than a house, even to a lone turret in the front left corner, added on by Brad’s father, who had numbered astronomy among his hobbies. All it needs is a moat, Holt thought, and parked the Lincoln where the moat would be if there were one.

He was shown into the east parlor, a bright room but without direct sunlight at this time of day. He stood at the window looking out at Dinah’s garden, nothing at this time of year but a few black stalks and vague outlines under the snow. Brad had no real interest in a formal garden, but it had been Dinah’s abiding passion and Brad had continued to maintain it since Dinah’s death. That is, he had hired someone to maintain it, not being himself a man with a naturally green thumb.

“So Evelyn’s been snitching on me, eh?”

Holt turned around, for just a moment at a complete loss. He had worked out an elaborate story to cover his having dropped in unexpectedly this way, and he became hopelessly entangled in the choice between giving that story and acknowledging the truth. He could do neither, being unable to think clearly enough for a few seconds to come up with a decision, so all he did was offer a weak and confused smile as he watched Brad walking across the room toward him, smiling, his hand outstretched.

But on a different level of his mind, Holt was perfectly aware and sensible. He noted Bradford’s walk, his face, his eyes, his stance. He saw that there was no limp, that there was no immediately noticeable change in the appearance of Brad’s face, that both eyes seemed clear, that there was no visible immediate difference to be noted of any kind. So it wasn’t a bad one, he thought. At least, not yet.

Which conclusion at once unblocked the other part of his mind, and he smiled broadly, taking Brad’s hand as he said, “Hello, Brad. I don’t suppose there’s any point telling you the story I made up.”

Brad’s handshake was as firm as ever. “If you think you can get it past me,” he said amiably, “go right ahead.”

“No, thanks,” Holt said. “I’ve never seen anybody get anything past you. But let Evelyn think we pulled the wool over your eyes, all right?”

Brad grinned. “I still go for intrigue,” he said. “But nevertheless, the trip was a waste.”

“Not if it puts my mind at ease,” Holt told him.

“Because I fainted? Come on, Joe, I’m an old man, I’m entitled to a faint every now and then. Have you had lunch?”

“Of course not. I know your cook, remember.”

“Come along, then.”

The dining room was on the other side of the house. As they walked, Brad said, “I ate an hour ago, but I’ll have a bite with you.”

“Fine.”

Brad stopped off to put in the order, and then they walked on to the dining room, a smallish green and white room with a wall of tiny-paned windows overlooking a good part of the orchard, the rows of pear and peach and apple trees now naked black stick figures against the snow, like an assembly line of impressionistic spider sculptures. Sunlight streamed in on this side, gleaming on the white tablecloth between them.

Brad repeated his question. “Do you really need your mind put at ease simply because I fainted?”

“Not entirely,” Holt said. “There was another element of it that bothered me more.”

“What other element? The fact that I hurt my leg?”

“No. Do you have a bruise on your leg, a cut, anything like that?”

Brad shrugged. “I haven’t noticed. I don’t think so, but I just haven’t noticed.”

“That’s the element,” Holt told him.

“The fact that I don’t have a bruise?”

“No, the fact that you haven’t bothered to look.”

A maid came in with table settings, and they both waited till she was done and had gone again. Then Holt picked up the salad fork and watched his fingers turn it as he said, “Have you ever heard of a thing called anosognosia?”

“Good God, no. Sounds like an Arabian perfume.”

Holt was surprised and amused. “It does?” He glanced at Brad, and saw that he was frowning at him in some concentration, so he said, “No, it’s a symptom, a very peculiar kind of symptom.”

“Yes, I suppose it would have to be. A symptom of what?”

“Let me tell you what the symptom is first, and then I’ll tell you what it’s a symptom of.”

“You’re the doctor,” Brad said, smiling.

Salads were brought, a large one for Holt and a small one for Brad. Neither man started to eat. Holt said, “Anosognosia is a refusal or an inability to recognize the existence of one’s other symptoms. It can be a very difficult thing for a doctor to have to deal with.”

Brad frowned. He picked up his fork, poked it into the salad, then put it down again. “That sounds like a symptom of mental illness, not physical illness,” he said.

“The two can be related,” Holt told him. “Look,” he said, “don’t get overly worried about this. You’re obviously healthy right now. Have some salad.”

“You,” Brad said.

So Holt obediently ate some salad, and then Brad followed suit, eating one forkful, and after it was swallowed saying, “Now we get to part two of the answer. What is this symptom a symptom of?”

“It can indicate a stroke,” Holt told him.

“I was hoping you weren’t going to say that word,” Brad said, “but I had the horrible feeling you were. I’ve known men who went out by way of stroke.”

“It can hit in different ways,” Holt said.

“But once it hits,” Brad said, “it doesn’t let go. Am I right?”

“If I’m right,” Holt said, “what you just had was not a full-fledged stroke but a kind of dress rehearsal. You could call it the coming attractions of a stroke. It’s called a transient ischemic attack, meaning a stroke slight enough and brief enough for the damage to be only temporary and either completely or mostly reversible.”

“Why do you think it was a stroke? Or a what-do-you-call-it attack? Simply because I paid it no attention?”

“Not entirely,” Holt said. “It has the right pattern. You were briefly unconscious. When you awoke, you experienced a brief period of confusion and dysarthia. You developed—”

“Wait a minute. Confusion and what?”

“Oh. Sorry, I’m running through this in my own head, too. Stuttering. It’s called dysarthia.”