Poison Flower Read online

  "I sure hope you're not telling the truth about that," he said. "If you don't know, you have nothing to trade. All you'll be is a woman who freed a man we put in jail, and hurt three friends of mine doing it."

  "That's all I am," Jane said.

  "Are you trying to get me to kill you"

  "I'm just answering your questions truthfully right now at the start, to avoid a lot of fruitless conversation later. You'll make your own decisions."

  He looked at her closely, his brows knitted. Then he called out to his men, "I think she needs to focus her mind. Ask her again." He turned and walked across the big room and out the door. When it opened she saw that night had come. She heard the sound of a car engine, and then silence.

  The man who had shot her and the driver came in from one of the doors along the side of the room. Each was carrying a bamboo stick about three feet long, and about the thickness of a cane. Without any preliminary -threatening, the man who had shot her simply raised his cane and brought it down across her shin. She squinted, and the other began to beat her too, hitting her across the stomach. She was strapped to the bed with only a man's shirt and a sheet over her, so the blows fell on her head, stomach, arms, feet, knees, and shins without padding to soften them. The men avoided hitting her right thigh, where the bullet wound was, but otherwise, they seemed bent on hurting her everywhere. She lost count of the sharp, stinging blows, but she could tell the two men had not. She suspected they must have orders to hit her a certain number of times. She turned her head to avert her face, but that was all she could do in her weakness. As though at a silent signal, the blows stopped.

  "Where is he" It was the man who had shot her.

  "I don't know."

  "You have to know his first stop," the driver said.

  "Why do I have to"

  "He's hurt, has no money, no clothes, no shelter. You must have help waiting for him somewhere. Tell us where."

  "I offered to get him out of jail. He said yes, so I did. Since then he's been on his own."

  The driver hit her again, a sharp, sudden blow that was aimed at her knee, but which hit an inch higher. "Which direction did he go East"

  "I don't know."

  The other man's bamboo stick slashed across her ribs, and she glared at him, but refused to cry out.

  The questions came, and after each one, a blow. After a while, they stopped waiting for her to say, "I don't know," and just hit her after each question.

  As the blows fell, Jane withdrew her mind from the room where the men were beating her and concentrated on the past, on the wars of the forests her ancestors had fought. Often, when members of a war party were returning from a raid in a distant territory, they would be running to escape, and a much larger force would be pursuing them. Sometimes, if it became clear that they were going to be overtaken, a lone warrior would stop at a narrow, strategic spot on the trail and turn back to delay the pursuers. Most of the time he would fight until he died. But the enemies always wanted to take him alive. They would surround him and try to wound and exhaust him if they could. When all of his arrows were gone and he had swung his war club many times, they would rush him from all sides at once, drag him down, and subdue him.

  The Seneca warrior would be brought back to the enemy village bound and wounded. He would be the only representative of the war party that had struck and probably killed a few of the enemy, and he had probably killed more in his fight to buy time for his friends to get away. He would know that the only thing in his future was pain.

  But a captured warrior was still a warrior. It was his job now to be indifferent to physical torment. Before he died, he wanted to demonstrate his superiority so convincingly that his captors would be terrified of the next Seneca they saw.

  She imagined that the first stages of his torment would be like what she was suffering now. As he was dragged in, the villagers would beat him with sticks, poke and pound him, teasing him with the taste of the pain that was to come.

  He would give them no satisfaction. He would pretend that their blows were not frightening to him, and that his death meant nothing. The last, best thing he could do for all the Senecas who came after him was to plant in their enemies a secret, lingering fear that would make them timid and hesitant, so they could be struck down.

  Jane felt the blows, and she knew the other torments that would be coming, probably better than these men knew. They were simply doing what they guessed might force her to talk, but she had already thought through all of the tortures that were likely to occur to them as they tried again and again to break her. Each attempt would be worse. Every form of cruelty seemed ready-made, tried long ago, but also reinvented in every human brain because when a person was afraid it took effort not to think of all the things he didn't want done to him.

  What the men were doing was just like the entry into the enemy village-a prisoner with a debilitating wound, a beating to announce to her that they were willing to cause her more injury and pain. Probably only a day or two would pass before the novice torturers began to introduce refinements that would make a person shudder and feel ashamed of the species. Then Jane would have to be brave the way the old warriors were, always alert for a way to kill one of them or force them to kill her.

  The beating ended. She lay on the bed on her back and silently allowed each of the places where she'd been struck to report the damage. There would be welts on much of her body, and big bruises where they had hit particularly hard. There seemed to be no broken bones in her forearms or wrists, no broken fingers or toes yet. She looked down at her thigh. Blood had soaked through the bandage and the sheet, but it wasn't the sort of bleeding that would kill her.

  3.

  Jane awoke again because she heard a woman's voice. She knew from the way her wounds felt-dry and angry-that a few hours had passed, but there was no day or night, no light or dark. The woman had come back again and was standing a few feet from her, talking on a cell phone. "You should see her. I'm telling you, this is crazy. It looks like they hit her with clubs or something. All nearly identical contusions. Arms, legs, abdomen, chest. . . . Not the head, that I can see. And not the wound on the right thigh. If this is going to be a murder, I'm out. All right, I'll see you later."

  Jane had heard, in that short conversation, more than the woman would ever have told her. The woman came closer and looked down at Jane. Today she was wearing burgundy scrubs and a different pair of bright white sneakers. "You're awake. If I help you, do you think you can get to the bathroom"

  "Yes." Jane looked at her calmly, watching her undo the restraints and support her back as she sat up. "You're a real nurse." Jane slowly swung her legs off the bed; tried twice to stand in spite of the pain; then used the headpiece of the bed to support herself, stood, and walked with the nurse. The nurse protected the IV needle stuck in Jane's wrist, kept the tube from tangling, and moved the aluminum stand with the IV fluid bag hanging on it.

  "Yes," she said. "I work for the doctor who saw you the other day."

  It was the first confirmation that at least two days had passed since Jane had been here. The doctor must have seen her the first day, right after she had been shot; cleaned and closed the wound; and given her antibiotics and painkillers. "Were you here when they beat me"

  "No. The doctor said I shouldn't come in until tonight, after my shift. He didn't know what they were going to do, and neither did I. I swear."

  "He's your boyfriend, isn't he"

  "I don't know if I'd say that. There's nothing official." She was smiling, almost blushing, as though she were in high school, talking to a friend.

  Jane thought, A doctor would never get you involved in something like this if he didn't think he could control you for a long time. If you ever reported him for what's already happened, he'd lose his license and go to federal prison. "Is he smart"

  "Of course. He's a doctor."

  Jane couldn't help thinking about her husband, Carey. He was brilliant. "I know some doctors who are very smart, a
nd some who don't have that advantage. All they can do is follow the rules they've learned and the methods they've practiced, and hope they do everything right. That's the way most people are, and I think it's not so bad."

  "Well, this doctor is smart."

  "Good," Jane said. "That's good news for you and me." She had planted a tiny germ of worry in the woman's brain. She wasn't hopeless. She might be in love with the arrogant little doctor, but she was clearheaded enough to have seen the welts and bruises on Jane-maybe, because of what she'd seen, she had checked for other signs of abuse while Jane was asleep-and called her doctor boyfriend to complain. She wasn't hopeless. She helped Jane get to the toilet, and waited in the doorway.

  The nurse said, "He probably saved your life."

  "I might be able to save his," Jane said. "And yours."

  "You can't use my cell phone."

  "I'll make it clear that you helped me, and that you had no idea what was happening until you saw they were hurting me."

  "I still don't know what this is about." She looked frightened, anxious. She helped Jane up, flushed the toilet, and helped her walk to the bed. Then she hurried to the sink, brought a cold, wet cloth, and pressed it against Jane's bruises. "We need ice to make the swelling go down."

  "Those men are criminals," Jane said. "Somebody-probably one of them-killed a woman about three years ago, and they framed her husband, a man named Jim Shelby, for it. He went to prison. I got him out, and they want to make me tell where he is."

  "Won't he just go back to prison if you tell"

  "No. They don't have any way of getting him back to prison without the authorities asking questions they can't answer-what they were doing in Los Angeles, why they would look for Shelby, and how they found him when the police couldn't. And of course, they can't let me go. Kidnapping and torture would mean life sentences for them."

  "Oh, my God." The girl walked a few paces and sat down on the chair at the desk. "All this is such heavy stuff, out of nowhere. They just told the doctor there was a private patient who had an injury and wanted to pay for special care."

  "That's the way trouble always comes-out of nowhere, with no warning. When it does you have to decide quickly." She waited, watching the girl sitting at the desk, staring at the wall. "Will you please let me use your cell phone"

  "You just said it was a kidnapping and torture thing. Everybody would go to prison."

  "Not you. You'll be the hero."

  She looked sideways at Jane. "How do I know you'll twist it that way, and not the other way"

  "Someone who helps me will be my friend. They're just getting started on me." She waited, but the girl didn't seem to be able to make up her mind. She looked paralyzed. "Are you worried about your boyfriend"

  "I told you, he's not officially my boyfriend." She was irritated. She started to walk away, and it seemed to make her remember why she was there. She hurried back to the bathroom and returned with cold, damp hand towels she put on Jane's bruises.

  Jane watched her. It doesn't matter if he hasn't declared himself to be your boyfriend. You've had a big fat crush on him for a long time, and one slow day in the office, he came on to you in an examining room. Or he came to the office one day with flowers and asked you to dinner. Whatever it was, you're committed to him, and you have an intimate relationship now. I can hear it in your voice.

  The nurse went to the medical supplies and returned with Neosporin, which she gently applied to the scrapes left by the bamboo sticks.

  Jane said, "I'm perfectly happy to include the doctor in the hero category too. I'll say that the next time he comes in is the first time I was conscious when he visited, and as soon as he knew what was up, he helped you save me. I know he has nothing to do with these men or framing Jim Shelby. But you've got to help me. The longer this goes on, the harder it will be to make up a story that keeps him innocent."

  "I've got to have time to think. I should talk to him, too." She looked at Jane again. "Are you married"

  Jane wasn't wearing the ring, but there was still a pale line on her ring finger, and the young nurse must have seen it. "Yes." After a second she added, "I wouldn't ordinarily tell anyone that."

  "I knew already, because there's an indentation on your ring finger. I'm glad you didn't lie."

  "Sometimes a person in my position has to lie. I've got to lie to those men. I don't want to lie to you, though. Will you please help me"

  "I need time to think."

  "We don't have much time. The next stage of this is going to come pretty quickly."

  "The next stage What's the next stage"

  "They'll think of things to do to me that hurt, that will make me so afraid I'll talk. The next stage will be heat-hot irons, or fire. You may be used to seeing things others haven't, but you don't want to see this."

  "Why can't you just tell them, and we can all go home"

  "These men are implicated in a murder. No matter what I tell them, nobody's going home but them. They can't let any of us go."

  "You're scaring me."

  "We have to save ourselves. Either let me use your phone right now, or you use it as soon as you're a mile or two from here and positive you haven't been followed."

  The woman took a deep breath, and let it out. "All right. Here."

  She came to Jane's bed and held her cell phone out to Jane. They both heard the door at the end of the building swing open. Jane shook her head and the girl pulled back her cell phone and retreated to the desk and the computer. She pretended to be composing an e-mail.

  Jane looked up at the men coming in the door. First came the tall man with the western accent who seemed to be in charge, and the others trooped in after him. He eyed the nurse as he passed her, then stopped at Jane's bed. "I see you're awake again. That's convenient."

  "Why"

  "I didn't want to wake you up." He turned to the nurse and said, "Okay, honey. Why don't you go take a break We'll call you if we need you."

  "Yes, sir," the girl said. She stood up, walked to the door, and went outside. Jane saw that the parking lot was dark.

  Jane watched the tall man. He took his time appraising the progress of her decline. He stared at her bruised and swollen arms and hands above the sheet. "Do you have anything to tell me yet"

  She moved her head from side to side slowly, not taking her eyes from him.

  "The thing is, we're in a bit of a bind here. You've taken something of mine. Not to mention hurting several friends of mine in a public place, where they couldn't really give you an idea of the consequences."

  "You're persuading yourself that whatever you do to me, I deserve it, and that you'll just be paying me back. That's not true. Nothing you or your friends have done was legal or justified."

  His eyes narrowed. "I don't think you're going to help your cause any by pissing me off. Fair warning."

  "I don't have a cause."

  He looked angry. "Not much of one. So, before things get a hell of a lot worse, I'd advise you to listen to me for a minute. The doctor tells me you're too weak to run away, even if you could get out of your bed by yourself. What you've managed to do by getting shot is to delay things by three days. Your boy Jim Shelby has had seventy-two hours. He could be anywhere in the country by now. Isn't that true"

  "If he drove most of the time and didn't stop long, sure."

  "What that means isn't what you seem to think. His arriving where he was going doesn't take the responsibility to talk off you. It makes you even more important. You're going to have to tell us where he is."

  "I still don't know."

  "Tonight, I expect to find out if that's true. Each time you don't answer is going to cost you. Maybe it will be a finger. Maybe the next thing will be an ear, a toe, or an eye. I can tell you that it's best to give in early."

  "I don't have anything I can tell you," she said, "so it will be a very unpleasant waste of time."

  "Well, in a little while the others will get here with the tools, and we can get started. So sit
tight." He walked off.

  Jane tightened the muscles in her uninjured left leg. That was still strong, and so were her hands and arms. But her right leg would barely hold her, and she was too weak to put up much resistance.

  The air where the tall man had stood still held his smell. A smoker. He had probably just gone out for a cigarette. He certainly would before he began to torture her. That was the way the habit seemed to work-a cigarette before anything and one after.

  She wondered where her purse was now. She had sacrificed it when she had fought on the courthouse steps to buy time for Jim Shelby to get away. Inside it was a bottle of a particularly strong batch of water hemlock she had harvested and processed last summer.

  Some people in upstate New York called the plant cowbane, because now and then a cow would eat a bit and die. The Latin name for the plant was Cicuta maculata, and it was related to the carrot, but the water hemlock was the most deadly plant on the continent. The traditional Seneca method of suicide was to take two bites of the root. About once a year Jane went to swampy places to look for the tall plant with tiny white flowers arranged in a flat circular group. She cut the roots from the stems and mashed them to get the clear yellowish liquid that held the strongest cicutoxin. Then she repeatedly strained the liquid until the particles were gone, and distilled it to remove most of the water. One swallow from the cut-glass perfume bottle she carried in her purse would have killed her in minutes.

  Without the water hemlock, Jane would have to wait and see what tools her captors planned to use on her. If they were the right kinds, maybe she could use one to accomplish her death. If her hands were free she could tear out the stitches in her leg and get the blood flowing again. Maybe the men were novices who would accidentally cut an artery and she'd bleed to death quickly.

  The nurse returned to the desk and sat in front of her computer. As the man walked by her, he said, "Take the rest of the night off, honey. We'll take care of her. And if the doc ever brings you back, don't bring the computer or a cell phone with you. Leave them at home. Understand"