Andrew Neiderman - Deficiency

It was one of those perfect fall days when the sun seems to be holding back in intensity, but not brightness, and every cloud in the sky looks as if it was whipped with fresh milk. The air was redolent with the aroma of apples streaming in from an orchard near the church. It was a day designed for backyard touch football games and barbecues, which all made a funeral seemed that much more jarring and unreal.

Terri paused on the street outside the church while the funeral procession was being organized and directed to proceed to the cemetery. There, she had a chance to speak with Will Dennis, the county district attorney. Tall and lanky with a Lincolnesque look of melancholy that Terri imagined was carved by twelve years in the elected position, seeing the results of one vicious act after another, Dennis had the demeanor and bearing of someone dependable, someone in whom you would comfortably trust the important things in your life. It was this charisma that made him invulnerable election after election, that and his uncanny memory for putting together faces and names, a politician's biggest asset. Be introduced and shake hands with him once and you were remembered forever.

"Dr. Barnard," he said, nodding at her.

"Mr. Dennis." She stood beside him and both of them watched the hearse creep away from the church, the line of automobiles following to snake slowly up to the cemetery in Glen Wild, a hamlet best known for its cemeteries. She sighed deeply and then blew some air between her gently closed lips.

"Tough one," Will Dennis muttered. "Especially when it makes no sense." He looked at her.

"Medically speaking, of course," he added.

"Yes," she agreed. "Have you determined whether or not there was a criminal act committed?"

"In what sense?" he asked, his heavy eyebrows turning in and toward each other. "There wasn't any violence. It was scurvy, right?"

"I was referring to the man who brought her to the motel, leaving her there."

"Oh. No, we don't have anything concrete about him and I don't know how we could indict someone for that. We'd have to establish that she was sick and he knew it, but everything we've learned suggests there was nothing wrong with her. On the contrary, she was a ball of energy if you want to believe the eyewitnesses."

"Right. So the BCI investigator is leaving the case?" Will's lips curled up and in as he turned to look at her.

"What BCI investigator?"

"The one who interviewed me, Clark Kent?"

His grimace of confusion softened into a look of amusement.

"Is that some sort of joke? Clark Kent?"

"No. That was his real name. He claimed his parents had a sense of humor. How could he come see me without your knowing anything about it?" she wondered.

"I mean, does that happen?"

"No," he said shaking his head, the grimace gone now. "Someone was obviously pulling a very, very sick joke on you, Terri. What did he look like?"

"Look like? He was tall, about six feet one or two, blond-haired, blue eyes. He had a slight cleft in his chin and he was well tanned, like someone who had just returned from the Caribbean. I'd say he was in his mid-to late thirties." Will Dennis nodded.

"There's no detective in this county I know of who matches that description. Let me know if you ever see or hear from this piece of shit again," he added angrily.

"I'll have him indicted and prosecute him to the full extent of the law for impersonating a police officer."

She shook her head.

"He seemed so convincing and very nice. He talked about his pregnant wife and moving recently to upstate New York. I don't understand."

"Hang around my office for a day or two and you will," the district attorney said. "You'll quickly tell yourself you won't ever doubt how low humanity can sink. Well, I have to get back to the office. Take care," he said and walked to his waiting limousine.

She stared after him, her heart thumping. Suddenly, she felt violated, abused as if something had been taken from her. She looked about quickly when the cold chill at the back of her neck slid down until it settled between her shoulder blades. The remaining mourners clung to some conversation to help ease themselves back from the gloom. People shook hands. People hugged each other. Contact was very important.

A man hurrying away turned around the corner of the church, the shock of blond hair gleaming in the late morning sunlight. It sent an arrow of ice through her chest. She hurried in his direction, practically running, but when she turned the corner, too, he was gone.

Who was he?

Was that the man who had pretended to be an investigator? Why had he done such a sick thing?

Why would he come to the funeral, too?

How in hell could Paige Thorndyke have died of scurvy? It's a Third-World problem, especially to the extent it was present in Paige Thorndyke. She felt like screaming the questions at the church as if it was truly a conduit that would bring her words to the ears of God and then bring back His enlightening response.

She heard nothing but the slamming of car doors and the starting of engines. Walking briskly back to her car she angrily thought, Curt should have been here with me. He should have adjusted his schedule, not only because this was a person whose family he knew, but most importantly because he should have been at her side.

Why that suddenly occurred to her and with such vehemence was unclear. She looked back at the corner of the church. Maybe, if Curt had been with her.... She jabbed her key into the car's ignition and drove off, her thoughts falling back like thunder against the front steps of the church.

He sat on one of the oversized, chipped, and faded wooden lawn chairs and stared at the murky pond. It was still warm enough for water flies and mosquitoes to practice their insane circling inches above the water. It convinced him that Nature was far from perfect. It was an unfinished work, still being developed through trial and error. What in hell could be the purpose for this sort of maddening life? Food for frogs, bats? And who were they food for and if there were no mosquitos, would we need frogs and bats? One mistake engendered another. That's all. Simply and sweet, a fuckup of global proportions.

Man had been created to fix all these mistakes, he thought. He was here to work through science and correct, improve, and perfect the world. Weather must not be permitted to remain random and whimsical. Every disease had to be cured and eliminated. Sources of energy that were restorable had to be discovered and perfected, and all these vermin had to be exterminated.

From where all these ideas came to him, he did not know. All of it was just there. It was like opening a closet or a cabinet and finding all sorts of food and not having the slightest clue as to how it got there. However, even though not knowing the origins of things that pertained to him did bother him from time to time, it was only in a small and momentary way. He didn't dote or dwell on it, and he certainly didn't toss and turn at night worrying about it. Why worry about anything? All problems were solvable eventually, and the solutions were never more than an arm's length away.

He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't hear Kristin come up beside him until she actually began to speak. He didn't jump with surprise, however. He lacked that weakness he saw in other human beings. Nothing could surprise him and if it did, it never frightened him. Only one thing frightened him, malnutrition, and that was easy to starve off. It would always be easy.

"Hi," she said.

He turned slowly and looked up at her, giving her his best smile of hello, warm, full of delight at her presence, a smile designed to deliver a compliment and instill pleasure and confidence in its recipient. He was a master of smiles, a magician who could turn an expression into a look of wonder and innocence or just as easily, a look of sophistication and innocence. His eyes could almost change color to please. Like any successful performer, he could read his audience and reach into his repertoire to produce the look, the words, the very body motion to please. It gave his prey the sense that he was there solely for her. His whole body was truly a web and he was never so proud of it and what it could trap as he was now.