David noticed bags of cement and sand on the floor and guessed it had been the noise of those bags hitting the floor that he had heard from the root cellar.
David swung the pick. To his surprise it dug a mere two inches into the densely packed earthen floor. David swung the pick several more times but only succeeded in loosening a small amount of dirt. He dropped the pick and picked up the shovel to move the dirt aside. There was no doubt in his mind what Van Slyke had in mind for him. He was having him dig his own grave. He wondered if Calhoun had been put through the same ordeal.
David knew his only hope was to get Van Slyke talking. “How much should I dig?” he asked as he traded the shovel for the pick.
“I want a big hole,” Van Slyke said. “Like the hole of a doughnut. I want the whole thing. I want my mother to give me the whole doughnut.”
David swallowed. Psychiatry hadn’t been his forte in medical school, yet even he recognized that what he was hearing was called clanging or “loosening of associations,” a symptom of acute schizophrenia.
“Did your mother give you a lot of doughnuts?” David asked. He was at a loss for words, but he desperately wanted to keep Van Slyke talking.
Van Slyke looked at David as if he were surprised he was there. “My mother committed suicide,” he said. “She killed herself.” Van Slyke then shocked David by laughing wildly.
David mentally ticked off another schizophrenic symptom. He could remember that this symptom was euphemistically called “inappropriate affect.” David recalled another major component of Van Slyke’s illness: paranoia.
“Dig faster!” Van Slyke suddenly yelled as if he’d awakened from a mini-trance.
David dug more quickly, but he did not give up on his attempt to get Van Slyke talking. He asked Van Slyke how he was feeling. He asked what was on his mind. But he got no response to either question. It was as if Van Slyke had become totally preoccupied. Even his face had gone blank.
“Are you hearing voices?” David asked, trying another approach. He swung the pick several more times. When Van Slyke still didn’t answer, David looked over at him. His expression had changed from a blank look to one of surprise. His eyes narrowed, then his trembling became more apparent.
David stopped digging and studied Van Slyke. The change in his expression was striking. “What are the voices saying?” David asked.
“Nothing!” Van Slyke shouted.
“Are these voices like the ones you heard in the navy?” David asked.
Van Slyke’s shoulders sagged. He looked at David with more than surprise. He was shocked.
“How did you know about the navy?” he asked. “And how did you know about the voices?”
David could detect paranoia in Van Slyke’s voice and was encouraged. He was cracking the man’s shell.
“I know a lot about you,” David said. “I know what you have been doing. But I want to help you. I’m not like the others. That’s why I’m here. I’m a doctor. I’m concerned about you.”
Van Slyke didn’t speak. He simply glared at David, and David continued.
“You look very upset,” David said. “Are you upset about the patients?”
Van Slyke’s breath went out of him as if he’d been punched. “What patients?” he demanded.
David swallowed again. His mouth was dry. He knew he was taking risks. He could hear Angela’s warnings in the back of his mind. But he had no choice. He had to gamble.
“I’m talking about the patients that you’ve been helping to die,” David said.
“They were going to die anyway,” Van Slyke shouted.
David felt a shiver rush down his spine. So it had been Van Slyke.
“I didn’t kill them,” Van Slyke blurted out. “They killed them. They pushed the button, not me.”
“What do you mean?” David asked.
“It was the radio waves,” Van Slyke said.
David nodded and tried to smile compassionately despite his anxiety. It was clear to him he was now dealing with the hallucinations of a paranoid schizophrenic. “Are the radio waves telling you what to do?” David asked.