The Madman's Tale (22 page)

Lucy took a deep breath before answering, giving herself a moment to array her thoughts with machine-gun-like precision. “What I propose is to uncover the man who I believe committed these crimes. These are the murders in three different jurisdictions in the eastern part of the state—followed by the murder that took place here. I believe that the killer remains free, despite the arrest that has been made. What I will need, to prove this, is access to your patient files and the ability to conduct interviews on the wards. In addition”—and it was here that the first hesitation crept into her voice—“I will need someone who will work at uncovering this individual from the inside.”—she glanced over at Francis—“Because I think this individual will have anticipated my arrival. And I think his behavior, when he knows I am investigating his presence, is likely to change. I’ll need someone able to spot that.”

“Exactly what do you mean by anticipate?” Gulp-a-pill asked.

“I think the person who killed the young nurse-trainee did so in such a manner because he knew two things—that he could easily blame it on another person, the unfortunate fellow you call Lanky; and that someone very much like me would still come searching for him.”

“I beg your pardon …”

“He had to know that if investigators of the other crimes were hunting for him, then they would be drawn here, too.”

This revelation created another small silence in the room.

Lucy fixed her eyes on Francis and Peter the Fireman, examining both with a distant, detached gaze. She thought to herself that she could have found far worse candidates for what she had in mind, although she was concerned about the volatility of the one, and the fragility of the other. She also glanced over at the two Moses brothers. Big Black and Little Black were poised in the rear of the room. She guessed that she could enlist them in her plan, as well, although she was unsure if she would be able to control them as efficiently as she could control the two patients.

Doctor Gulptilil shook his head. “I think you ascribe a criminal sophistication to this fellow—whom I am still uncertain actually exists—that is beyond
what we can or should reasonably expect. If you want to get away with a crime, why do you invite someone to look for you? You only raise the potential for being captured and prosecuted.”

“Because killing for him is only a small part of the adventure. At least, that’s what I suspect.”

Lucy did not add to this statement, because she did not want to be asked what she feared were the
other
elements of what she called “the adventure.”

Francis was aware that a moment of some depth had arrived. He could feel strong currents at work in the room, and for an instant had the sensation that he was being pulled into water beyond his touch. His toes stretched forward inadvertently, like a swimmer in the surf, searching in the foam beneath for the bottom.

He knew that Gulp-a-pill no more wanted the prosecutor there than he did the person she believed she was cornering. The hospital was, no matter how mad they all were, still a bureaucracy, and subject to pencil pushers and second-guessers throughout state government. No one, who owes their livelihood to the creaky machinations of the state legislature, wants anything that in any way, shape, or form, rocks the proverbial boat. Francis could see the physician shifting about in his seat, trying to steer his path through what he guessed was a potentially thorny political thicket. If Lucy Jones was correct about who was hiding in the hospital, and Gulptilil refused her access to the hospital records, then Gulp-a-pill opened himself up to all sorts of disasters—if the killer chose to kill again and the press got wind of it.

Francis smiled. He was glad that he wasn’t in the medical director’s position. As Doctor Gulptilil considered the rather difficult canyon he was in, Francis glanced over at Peter the Fireman. He seemed on edge. Electric. As if he’d been plugged into something and the switch had been turned on. When he did speak, it was low, even, with a singular ferocity.

“Doctor Gulptilil,” Peter said slowly, “if you do what Miss Jones suggests, and subsequently she is successful at finding this man, then you will get to claim virtually all the credit. If she, and we who help her, fail, then you are unlikely to get any of the blame, for the failure will be of her own making. That will land on her shoulders, and those of the crazy folks who tried to help her.”

After assessing this, the doctor finally nodded.

“What you say, Peter”—he coughed once or twice as he spoke—“is probably true. It perhaps is not completely fair, but it is true, nevertheless.”

He looked at the gathering. “This is what I will permit,” he said slowly, but with each word gaining confidence. “Miss Jones, certainly you can have access to whatever records you need, as long as complete patient confidentiality is maintained. You may also select from whatever group you isolate as suspicious,
people to interview. Either myself, or perhaps Mister Evans, will need to be present during any interviews you conduct. That is only fair. The patients—even those who might be suspected of crimes—have some rights. And should any object to being questioned by you, then I will not force them. Or, conversely, will recommend that they be accompanied by a legal advocate. Any medical decisions that might arise from any of those conversations must come from the staff. This is fair?”

“Of course, Doctor,” Lucy replied, perhaps a little rapidly.

“
And
,” the doctor continued, “I would urge you to move with dispatch. While many of our patients, indeed, the majority, are chronic, with little chance at release without years of attention, a significant portion of the others do become stabilized, medicated, and then do successfully apply to return to home and families. There is no way that I can immediately discern which of these categories your suspect is in, although I might have suspicions.”

Again, Lucy nodded affirmatively.

“In other words,” the doctor said, “there is no way to determine if he will remain here even for an instant, now that you have arrived. Nor will I stop out-processing patients who are qualified for release, just because you are searching through the hospital. Do you understand? The day-to-day operations of the facility cannot be compromised.”

Again, Lucy looked as if she wanted to say something, but kept her mouth closed.

“Now, as far as enlisting the aid of other patients in your”—he took a long look at Peter the Fireman, and then at Francis—“inquiries … well, I cannot in any official manner condone such a process, even if I were to see its value. But you may do what you wish, informally, of course. I will not stand in your way. Or their way, for that matter. But I cannot allow these patients any special status or extra authority, you understand? Nor can they disrupt their own course of treatment in any manner.”

He looked over at the Fireman, and then paused as he stared at Francis. “These two gentlemen,” he said, “you understand that they each have a different status here in the hospital. Nor are the circumstances bringing them here, or the parameters of their stays here, the same. This could cause you some trouble, if you hope to enlist them.”

Lucy waved a hand in the air, as if some precursor to a comment, but then stopped. When she did respond, it was with a stiff formality that seemed to underscore the agreement. “Of course. I understand completely.”

There was another brief silence, and then Lucy Jones continued: “It goes without saying, that my reason for being here, and what I hope to accomplish, and how I might achieve that, should remain confidential.”

“Of course. Do you think I would announce that a vicious murderer
might remain loose in our hospital?” Gulptilil spoke briskly. “This would undoubtedly create a panic, and, in some cases, likely set back years of treatment. You must do your investigation as privately as possible, although, I fear, there are likely to be rumors and speculation almost instantaneously. Your mere presence on the wards will create that. Asking questions will engender uncertainty. This is inevitable. And certainly, some of the staff shall have to be informed, to a greater or lesser degree. Alas, that, too, is unavoidable, and how it might affect your inquiries, I am unable to imagine. Still, I wish you luck. And I will also make one of the treatment offices in the Amherst Building, close to the crime scene, available for you to conduct whatever interviews you consider necessary. You need to merely page me or Mister Evans from the nurses’ station nearby prior to interrogating any subjects. That will be acceptable?”

Lucy nodded. “That makes sense.” Then she added, “Thank you, Doctor. I understand your concerns completely and I will work hard to maintain some secrecy.” She paused, because she realized that it would not be long before the entire hospital—at least those connected enough to reality to care—would understand why she was there. And, she recognized as well, that made her job more urgent. “I also think, if only for convenience, it might be necessary for me to stay here at the hospital for this period of time.”

The doctor considered this for an instant. For a moment, a quite nasty smile crept in at the corners of his mouth, but was dismissed rapidly. Francis suspected that he was the only one who had seen it. “Certainly,” he said. “There is a bedroom available in the nurse-trainees’ dormitory.”

Francis realized the doctor did not have to actually identify who its previous occupant had been.

Newsman was in the corridor of the Amherst Building when they returned. He smiled as they approached. “Holyoke Teachers Mull New Union Pact,” he said briskly, “
Springfield Union-News
, page B-1. Hello, C-Bird, what are you doing? Sox Face Weekend Series Against Yankees With Pitching Questions,
Boston Globe
, page D-1. Are you going to meet with Mister Evil, because he has been looking for you and he doesn’t seem very happy. Who’s your friend, because she’s very pretty and I’d like to meet her.”

Newsman gave a little wave, a little shy grin toward Lucy Jones, then opened up the broadsheet he had stuffed under his arm, walking down the corridor a little like a drunken man, his eyes locked onto the words of the newspaper, his attitude intent on memorizing each word. He passed a pair of men, one old, one middle-aged, dressed in loose-fitting hospital pajamas, neither of whom seemed to have ever brushed or combed his hair in the current decade. Both were standing in the center of the passageway, a few feet away
from each other, speaking softly. It was as if the two were conversing, until one took a closer look at their eyes, and realized that each was having a conversation with no one, and certainly not the other, and that each was oblivious to the other’s presence. Francis thought for a moment that people like them were part of the architecture of the hospital, as much a presence as furniture, walls, or doors. Cleo liked to call the catatonics
Catos
which, he thought, was probably as good a word as any. He saw a woman walking briskly down the corridor suddenly stop. Then start. Then stop. Then start. Then she giggled and went on her way, trailing a long, pink seersucker housecoat behind her.

“It’s not precisely the world you might expect,” he heard Peter the Fireman say.

Lucy was a little wide-eyed.

“Do you know much about madness?” Peter asked.

She shook her head.

“No crazy Aunt Martha or Uncle Fred in your family? No weird Cousin Timmy, who likes to torture small animals? Neighbors, perhaps, that talk to themselves, or who believe that the president is actually a space alien?”

Peter’s questions seemed to relax Lucy. She shook her head. “I must be lucky,” she said.

“Well, C-Bird can teach you all you’ll need to know about being crazy,” Peter answered with a small laugh. “He’s an expert, now, aren’t you C-Bird?”

Francis didn’t know what to say, so he simply nodded. He watched some unchecked emotions race across the prosecutor’s face, and he thought that it is one thing to burst into a place like the Western State Hospital with ideas and suppositions and suspicions, but an altogether different thing to then act upon them. She had the look of someone considering a tall peak before them, a mixture of doubt and confidence.

“So,” Peter continued. “Where do we start, Miss Jones?”

“Right here,” she said briskly. “At the crime scene. I need to get a feel for the place where the murder happened. Then I need to get a sense of the hospital, as a whole.”

“A tour?” Francis asked.

“Two tours,” Peter answered. “One that inspects all this,” and with that, he gestured at the building, “and a second one that starts to examine this,” and with that, he tapped on the side of his forehead.

Little Black and his brother had accompanied them back to Amherst from the administration building, but had left the three of them while he and Big Black conferred at the nursing station. Big Black then had disappeared into one of the adjacent treatment rooms. Little Black was smiling as he approached the group.

“This,” he said not unpleasantly, “is a pretty damn unusual set of situations we’ve got here.” Lucy did not reply and Francis tried to read in the wiry black man’s face what it was that he really thought of what was happening. This was, at least initially, impossible. “My brother went in to get your new office straight, Miss Jones. And I filled in the nurses on duty that you’re gonna be here for a couple of days, at the very least. One of them will show you over to the trainees’ dormitory later. And I’m guessing that right about now, Mister Evans is having himself a long and unhappy conversation with the head doc, and that he’s going to want to speak with you, too, real soon.”