At last they found first-aid workers in a makeshift station installed in a tool closet, but the paramedics were no help. They confirmed Seletha was in a coma, but their only supplies were aspirin and saline solution. At least she seemed to breathe better when they placed her on a stretcher. They couldn’t transfer her to Charity, the closest hospital, until after the storm.
Bobby was desperate. He looked first at his mother, then at Nana and the paramedic attending Seletha. “But we got to do something . . .”
The man shrugged.
They ended up spending that night and the following morning there. Nana and Bobby sat on the floor and leaned against the stretcher where Seletha was slowly dying.
The paramedic came to them at one o’clock that afternoon. “We gonna take your mama now. They movin’ her to Charity in a boat.”
Bobby reached out to help Nana stand up.
“Only one person with each patient!”
“But you can’t! Just look at her,” Bobby protested, pointing to Nana. “She’s sick too, they just operated on her, and she practically can’t walk. I can’t leave her here by herself!”
The medic was losing patience. “We got more than a hundred people to transfer, and the boat’s only got twenty-five seats. Y’all are in the first group ’cause your mama’s really sick, but we got other bad cases too. And that one,” he said, meaning Nana, “she can take care of herself.”
Bobby started to protest again.
“Sorry, man!” the staffer cut him off. “You go right now with your mama, or all three of you wait for another boat. And I can’t say when we gonna get one.”
Bobby exhaled.
Nana took his hand. “Bobby, darling, you got to take your mama to the hospital. I’ll be okay.”
“Well?” the medic pressed them.
Bobby took off his knapsack and pushed it at Nana. “You wear it in front, or they gonna steal everything. Don’t share the water, you got enough just for you. And the faucets here full of mud.” He looked all around, racked by anxiety. “Nana, I want you to stay here close to first aid, and don’t you move. You hear me? I’m gonna come back and get you soon as my mama goes into the hospital. I’m gonna come get you, I promise. But no way you should move from here, ’cause if you do, I’m never gonna find you.”
Nana nodded, almost overcome.
“Promise me that!” Bobby begged as the paramedics picked up Seletha’s stretcher. “Promise me, Nana! Tell me right now you not gonna move from right here.”
“I promise,” she told him, looking around as she plunged into despair.
49
THE FREAK SHOW
Charity Hospital, New Orleans
Johnson was still posted outside the door to Dupree’s room. He beckoned to the team, and they went in to see the boss. The room was bare except for five occupied stretchers. Dupree’s bed was all the way in the back under a window with smashed-out panes. His lips were dark, almost blue. He was so pale he looked frostbitten, though the film of sweat on his face belied that impression. He was leaning on one elbow and struggling unsuccessfully to get his shirt on.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Johnson angrily reproached him. He took away the shirt. Exhausted, Dupree sagged back onto the stretcher. They all saw the ugly constellation of ancient scars on his chest.
“I have to get out of here.” They could scarcely hear him. Though he looked ravaged, his determination was evident.
Amaia went to his side. “We’ll talk about that in a minute, but I think you owe us an explanation first.”
Dupree’s eyes closed for a couple of seconds. “That’s not so easy . . .”
“I understand that. Lying is always difficult. I don’t know what the others think—you can work that out with them one by one—but you should have told me that we were coming after Samedi. I had a need to know. I would have worked just as hard for you, and we wouldn’t have wasted time thinking we were tracking down the Composer.”
“I wasn’t deceiving you. Our priority is the Composer.”
“Wrong. That’s the excuse, the official mission,” Amaia corrected him. “The Composer is your pretext for being here. I don’t like being manipulated. I think you should have told me.”
Bull inserted himself into the conversation. “Seems to me you’ve already realized how hard it would have been to explain. We’re trying to catch a phantom, we know that. They took us off the case ten years ago, but they never technically closed it. We’re not investigating it officially, but we were galled that we never got to the bottom of it. After Agent Carlino and Jerome Lirette died, the higher-ups said it was pointless to continue. But we were certain it wasn’t over. We stayed on the alert, sure that he was going to turn up again in the next storm, just like when he carried off Médora Lirette.”
Charbou clicked his tongue in annoyance. “I know it’s hard; I got friends who lost their partners on duty, and they’ve never gotten over it. But it seems damn irresponsible to me for somebody to put a whole operation at risk for the sake of a personal vendetta.”
Dupree gave him a withering glance. “This operation has never been at risk. We’re only a step or two behind the Composer, and he doesn’t even know it.”
“I agree with Charbou,” Amaia exclaimed. “All this time I thought I was here to hunt down the Composer! With all due respect, Special Agent Dupree, you allowed yourself to be distracted. Look at the way Tucker wound up in charge of the Florida operation. She’s getting results. We aren’t.”
Johnson looked down and covered his bushy mustache with one big paw. They all knew he didn’t care for Tucker, but they could also see he didn’t like the way the case had been handled.
Dupree gazed at them wearily. “Tucker doesn’t know a goddamn thing, and I brought you along because I’m convinced you can find the Composer for us. But I needed to understand Samedi too.” He closed his eyes and went silent. Seeing him like that, Amaia was reminded of Médora Lirette.
She tried again. “About this woman, Médora Lirette. Are you sure this is the same person? That was ten years ago.”
“It’s her,” Bull declared.
Dupree nodded without opening his eyes. “No doubt about it.”
Amaia hesitated, trying to frame her question. “I saw her. She seems . . .”
“Out of her mind,” Dupree muttered under his breath.
“When you say that, you mean driven mad by her abductors?”
Dupree nodded. “That’s what they do.”
“To whom?”
“To the ones they take.”
“The doctors said she’s mentally ill.”
“She is.”
“And you think her illness was induced,” Amaia finished the thought. “In the early days of psychiatry, the general belief was that the mentally ill were alienated from their own true selves.”
“Correct.” His voice was a whisper. “I believe that’s what happened to Médora.”
“How can you be sure?” Amaia demanded, refusing to make allowances for his evident fatigue.
“It’s not the first time,” he said. He gestured to Bull.