by Nancy Bush
Do it, Melody had said, and Heyward had complied.
Later, Heyward had screamed for both Melody and Claire. He couldn’t quite fathom that Melody was gone, let alone at his own hand. He’d begged for Claire, too, though his family did their best to keep her away from him. Not that she was anxious to be with him, either. She stayed away until the day he was moved from the jail cell where they’d first thrown him to his more permanent home at Side B. Crossing from Side A to Side B had been like being forced down a gangplank. Her steps were slow as she headed down one of the two skyways that led to the back building, through the guard’s station with its security cameras and deadlocks. When she reached the room where Heyward was detained, he stared at her beseechingly and begged to see Melody. Claire had quietly told him Melody was gone. He shook his head in denial. He didn’t remember any of it. His family all eyed her with suspicion, and his grandfather, Heyward Marsdon Sr., glared down at her from icy eyes beneath white, bushy eyebrows. Heyward Marsdon Jr., fifty-ish, whose distaste of the hospital showed on his face though he tried very hard to be neutral, was less interested in Claire and more in his son, the way it should be. He wanted Heyward III out of Side B. Period. There was no real interest in helping his son cope; he only cared how Heyward III’s incarceration would affect the family name.
Claire hadn’t felt really secure until she was back past the guard’s station. She knew the histories of some of Side B’s inmates and she knew very well that she would never be equipped to treat them in any way. They were seen by professionals who thrived with those kind of patients: the irredeemable, in Claire’s opinion. Monsters that they were, they were treated humanely. Sometimes it even helped a little, most times it didn’t.
Did Heyward Marsdon III fit in there? Claire wasn’t really quite sure. He was a danger, definitely. A schizophrenic, plagued by visions, acting on the crazed counsel of the demons within his own mind. In his lucid moments, he understood right and wrong, life and death. In the throes of his disease he was a maniac. But everyone save Claire had believed he was on his meds and in control enough for outpatient treatment. Claire had worried about that; she’d wanted him admitted into Side A where she and the rest of the staff could monitor him. But, as ever, the Marsdon family had pressured the administration and they, in turn, had pressured Claire. When she’d waffled about whether he should be admitted, a momentary indecision that she’d rescinded almost immediately, she’d been brushed aside and Heyward had been released. No, she hadn’t sanctioned it, but nobody wanted to remember that now.
And for a while Heyward had stayed on his meds and managed a fairly productive life, going the charity rounds with his well-connected family, who swept his “little problem” under the rug, as if it had been cured, or more likely, never existed. But then Heyward met Melody Stone, who was young, beautiful, and completely screwed up. Claire had continued to see Heyward professionally, a condition of his release from Side A, and Heyward had brought her Melody, who viewed Claire as an interference between her and her boyfriend. Melody was not Claire’s patient, merely another piece of the Heyward Marsdon family/friend picture. But Claire saw that Melody needed help. She had a complete disaffect: she was unable to relate to anyone, even Heyward.
Claire told Freeson, Avanti, and others about Melody, but since she wasn’t a Halo Valley patient, she wasn’t their concern, and the powers that be advised Claire to treat Heyward III and forget about his messed-up girlfriend.
Do it…
It was a recipe for disaster. That last night that Heyward brought Melody to Claire’s office he swore his love for Melody, but his eyes were deep hollows, staring somewhere past Claire’s ear to a distance beyond what Claire could see. Melody was passive at first. But she was uncomfortable, scratching her arms, moaning a little. Claire suspected she was high on something.
Suddenly Heyward said, “I hear them! They found us!”
“It’s just us, Heyward,” Claire said, aware he was fighting a delusion.
“They’re here.”
His voice was hushed. He was holding Melody tightly. She wriggled a little in his arms, but her eyes were stretched wide, as if she were also looking for the evil beings pursuing them.
Claire said calmly, “I’m going to call a friend to join us.”
“No.”
“Would you like to speak to someone from your family?” She let her hand move toward the phone. “No!”
“Are you sure?”
“They want me to die. I embarrass them.”
“They don’t want you to die, Heyward.”
“Shhh!” A harsh whisper. “They’re coming!”
Melody leaned into him, singing a little tune, her eyes closing. A lullaby, Claire realized much later.
Claire’s fingers touched the receiver. “Heyward, it’s late. I was just on my way home. I’m calling a good friend of mine.”
“You’re calling the police!”
“No.”
Melody’s lashes fluttered and she opened her eyes. She fixed her gaze on Heyward, looking at his profile.
Heyward trembled violently. A look of intense fear crossed his face. “You!” he shrieked. “You!” He was looking at Melody in horror.
“Don’t,” Claire said, holding out a hand, sensing true danger.
“Do it,” Melody whispered into his ear.
And Heyward Marsdon III ripped a knife from his pocket, slit Melody Stone’s throat, and came for Claire.
Tragedy. Disaster. Horror.
The news hit the airwaves and the hospital scrambled to cover its ass. All the right words were uttered. All the careful platitudes of sorrow and regret mouthed over and over again. Heyward was a killer, but a victim of his disease, too. The Marsdons didn’t like that angle, but that’s how Pauline Kirby and her news crew played it, along with a healthy dose of all the personal tragedy that had plagued the Marsdon family for generations. It made good television. It placed the hospital in the background and the unlucky Marsdons in front. It worked.
And Melody Stone?
Apart from Langdon Stone, Melody’s hotheaded brother, no one seemed to care too much about Melody herself. She was just the woman Heyward Marsdon III killed. Almost nameless.
Do it.
In the first few moments after her rescue, in a stream of nearly incoherent words, Claire related to Wade from security what had transpired in her office. She told him what Melody said. She told him everything. But much later, when she was asked for her account of the incident, she couldn’t make herself reveal Melody’s last words to Freeson and Avanti. It seemed…unfair and unnecessary at the time. Still, that reckoning was yet to come, because Melody’s illness was part of the whole unfortunate series of events that led to her death.
“Claire?” a voice called from the hallway, breaking into her thoughts. She glanced up to see Alison duck her head inside the room. “Jane Doe is in the middle of a fracas in the morning room. Gibby’s mad at Maribel for taking his chair, and Jane’s chair got pushed out of the way with her in it.”
“What’s she doing in the morning room?” Claire jumped to her feet. “Is she all right?”
“Dr. Freeson told Darlene to take her there. She didn’t fall out of the chair. She just hung on to the sides, so she’s okay. Just thought you should know.”
“Thank you.” Claire was already on her way out the door. She glanced at her watch. Another appointment in thirty minutes.
She hung on to the sides.
Even though Freeson had put the patient in a situation she might not have been ready for, Jane Doe had sensed danger and had recognized what to do to save herself. A great sign that maybe she was coming out of her catatonia. Encouraging, even if it galled Claire to admit that Freeson might not have been completely wrong.
The morning room looked deceptively serene when she reached it. Lester, an octogenarian with dementia, was rocking on his feet in the corner and looking out the window toward Side B, mumbling softly. Maribel, an Alzheimer’s patient who was wily and i
ntuitive, was sitting at a table, clutching a doll, but her eyes were sliding back and forth, as if she were looking for some kind of opening to make mischief. Two older women were seated in wheelchairs and talking quietly. They were Mrs. Merle and Mrs. Tanaway, and they enjoyed taking imaginary tea together. Thomas McAvoy, a borderline personality, glared at the two of them as if they were plotting against him, but he always looked that way. Gibby was seated in his favorite chair, and beside him, in the chair she apparently had grabbed onto, Jane Doe was staring silently toward the television.
Greg Fanning, one of the orderlies, asked Claire, “You here to see Cat?”
“Cat?”
He shot a look toward Jane Doe. “Cat Atonic,” he dead-panned. “Better name than Jane Doe.”
Claire was noncommital, as she didn’t want to encourage Greg, who took things to the nth degree sometimes. But he was good with the patients, and that was the most important thing.
“Hello,” Claire greeted the new patient. “My name’s Claire.”
“I’m Bradford,” Gibby interrupted. “Don’t you has a name?”
“Call her Cat,” Greg said.
“Cat,” Gibby repeated.
The woman in question stared straight ahead. Her hair was blond, straight, and hung down to lie just past her shoulders. Her eyes were a crystal blue. Brilliant. Icelandic. Claire wondered who her people were, her family, her friends. It had been over a week since she’d been found, so where were they?
“You’re safe here. Your room is down the hall,” Claire reminded her. “Would you like to watch television?”
“She don’t talk,” Gibby said. He was gripped onto the sides of his special chair as if expecting someone to steal it from him, which happened at least once or twice every day.
“Dr. Norris…”
Claire looked up at the familiar voice. “Hi, Donald,” she said to the approaching man in khakis and a pressed shirt. He smiled effortlessly through blindingly white teeth. If he’d had a sweater he would have hooked it with one thumb and thrown it over his shoulder.
“Who’s our new friend, here?” he asked.
“We don’t know her name yet,” she said, shooting a quelling glance at Greg, who ignored her and said, “Cat.”
“She looks like a Marlene,” Donald responded.
He walked away. Claire’s eyes followed him for a moment, then she glanced back at the blond woman. There was a glimmer in her eyes, as if she’d reacted to some stimulus. Donald? Claire yanked her attention to Donald’s retreating back and thought of calling him over again, but he was chatting with Big Jenny, who was staring at him as if she’d like to eat him alive. Claire knew Don Inman well enough to know he wouldn’t be any help to her in the way she hoped. He wasn’t interested. Neither was he part of the staff, but he acted like it sometimes.
Turning back to the blond woman, who seemed to have tensed up, Claire said, “Your baby’s doing fine. So are you. If you’d like to talk sometime, I’d like to listen.”
There was no response.
Claire waited for a few moments, then smiled encouragingly and told her that she’d be back to see her later.
Gibby twisted to watch Claire leave, then turned back to his new friend. “She’s nice,” he said conspiratorially. “Some of ’em aren’t as nice.”
The blond woman gazed blankly at the television. Gibby reached over and patted her hand.
Tasha faded in and out of a strange reality. She could sense the danger. It was chasing her. Breathing down her neck. She was trapped…trapped…and they were coming for her. Always coming for her. There were bindings at her wrists. Leather straps that cruelly bit into her flesh. They tied her up rather than leave her alone. They were evil. Evil! They never let her be.
She had to get out! Had to find a way.
They were coming for her. They were just outside the door. She had to tell someone. Warn them!
Help me! Help me! Please! PLEASE!
Gibby gazed at the blond woman with concern. She was squeezing the arms of her chair and softly moaning. Gibby fretted. His friend was having a problem. She was staring at the TV. Eyes wide.
“Could we get the TV on!” he yelled, looking around, flailing his arms. “The TV. Damn it!”
Darlene cruised over, her eyes hard. “Hold your horses,” she muttered, breathing smoke onto him.
“You smell like an ashtray,” he declared.
Darlene walked to the television and pressed the button for the power switch. She changed the channel until she found a game show and Gibby, who felt pressure building, beat at his own head. “There,” Darlene said.
“Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!” Gibby screamed.
Darlene came back in a flash, leaning into his right ear. “If you want the TV on, you have to be quiet.”
“Nooo!”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want the TV. I don’t care about the damn TV.” He threw a hand in his companion’s direction. “She wants the TV. I don’t give a damn.”
“She doesn’t care about the TV,” Darlene said. “She doesn’t know whether it’s on or not.”
“She does! She said so.”
“She doesn’t speak.”
“She does! She does!”
“Gibby, if you don’t calm down, you’re going back to your room.”
He grabbed onto his chair and started rocking. “No!”
“It’s up to you. TV time. Or back to your room.”
“She wants the TV. She does. She said so.”
Darlene motioned to Greg, and Gibby knew he was going to be hauled away from his new friend. He gazed at his blond friend wildly. She gazed back at him. Her eyes were blue, blue, blue.
“Go ahead,” she said. “I’ll be right here waiting for you.”
“I’ll be back! I’ll be back!” Greg and one of the other big guys who yanked Gibby around whenever he got upset walked toward him, but Gibby shot out of his chair. “Okay. I’ll go. Okay. I’ll go.”
Darlene folded her arms and gazed at him in that mean way. Gibby shuffled off toward his room but glanced back just before he turned the corner. The blond woman’s eyes were sending out blue laser beams. She was saying something, wasn’t she?
“I’ll miss you,” Gibby yelled at her. “You’re my friend!”
She didn’t respond, but then Darlene got in the way and he couldn’t see the laser beams any longer. Darlene was looking down at her hard, like she thought she was lying or something. She always thought Gibby was lying to her but he never was.
Help me…. Tasha thought again, but the words floated away slowly. She could see the words. They were black. Right in the air in front of her. But they were leaving, and after a while she couldn’t see them anymore. Couldn’t remember what they’d said. She wanted to reach out a hand and grab them, but her hands were tied with leather thongs.
Time passed…it grew darker. They moved her to her room, fed her, left her alone.
But they always kept her tied. She had to get away. She had to escape.
When? How?
They were coming. She could hear the death knell of their footsteps.
Coming for her.
Coming for her.
She tried to scream. The scream was in her throat but it was caught there. As caught as she was by them. She heard their steps on the floorboards and smelled the scent of seawater.
The ocean…so near and yet so far.
She had to get away. Get away. Get away….
Somewhere outside her world, a woman’s voice: “Look at her. Get Dr. Norris.”
“You mean Dr. Freeson?” a man’s voice questioned.
“Norris! I don’t give a damn about Freeson!”
“I’ll go.” A younger woman.
“Hurry,” the first woman urged. “I think she’s coming out of it.”
Chapter 3
The coroner’s office was painted green and smelled of antiseptic with a faint underlying metallic scent that Lang recognized as blood. An autopsy was taking
place in an adjoining room, and as Lang watched, the door to that room opened and the medical examiner stepped through in bloodstained scrubs. Seeing Lang, he brushed by and growled, “Who are you? You’re in the wrong place.”
“I came to see the body that was found at the rest stop.”
He was tall and stooped and had a tendency to glare. He glared at Lang, who returned his gaze blandly. “On whose authority?”
“Sheriff Nunce,” Lang lied. He hadn’t heard back from Nunce yet. The man was on vacation and Lang, surprising even himself, had been bitten by the need to do something and had moved forward as if he were the homicide detective assigned to the case.
“Nunce didn’t call me.”
Lang shrugged. “Yeah, well. I’m Detective Langdon Stone. Portland P.D. We’re helping County on this one.”
“Winslow County,” the man said suspiciously. “Not Multnomah.”
“They’re short on manpower,” Lang went on, freewheeling. “Call Nunce and check it out.”
“I don’t have time to entertain you or the sheriff.” He pushed through another door, Lang right on his heels.
“Show me the body and I’ll leave you alone.”
“When Nunce calls me, then we’ll talk.”
“You want it that way? Sure, I’ll just sit down over here.” Lang grabbed a rolling stool with a Naugahyde top and plopped down on it. He glanced at a tray of utensils sitting on the counter and reached a hand in to pull up a scalpel.
“Pain in the ass,” the doctor snarled, then threw up one hand in a gesture for Lang to follow. Lang jumped up and strode to catch up with the man, who turned right and pushed through swinging doors into another green room, this one with a bank of stainless steel drawers, the kind that held bodies. Lang unconsciously held his breath against the odor of death, though there was none. He’d seen his share of dead bodies but it always gave him a moment’s pause; his own particular need for solemnity and the passing of a human spirit.