Zachary considered this. “Removed the blanket and altered the scene?”
“Altered the scene by removing the blanket,” the doctor rephrased. “I’m sure she didn’t mean any harm. People without medical training often react the wrong way in an emergency. Or in a thing like this, where it isn’t an emergency.” He shrugged. “I guess she didn’t know any better.”
Zachary paced, trying to get all the facts straight in his head. He felt like he was right on the edge of a breakthrough, if he could just line everything up the right way.
Suicide? Accident? Murder? Was it even possible to know the answer? Despite all of the money that was lavishly spent at Summit on reward rooms and developing technology, there were no surveillance cameras in the residents’ rooms, or even in the corridors outside the rooms. Only at security points; at entrances, major corridor intersections, and meeting and therapy rooms. They had the night-time security logs, but Zachary already knew they hadn’t noticed Quentin’s death until the morning, so he didn’t put much stock in their being accurate. Quentin’s door had not been locked, so there was no record of who had come and gone from his room.
Was there any connection between Tirza’s kidnapping and Quentin’s death? Was it just a coincidence? Was Quentin’s agitation before his death just due to hormones? Maybe to his relationship with Tirza? Did he understand what had happened to her?
What was Zachary missing? Despite what he’d been told, he had a hard time believing that the skin shocks hadn’t taken a physical toll on Quentin. All of those shocks couldn’t be good for him. Or had he been choked out during a struggle with a security guard or someone else who came into his room and they had covered it up with the twisted blanket? Could Quentin really have successfully killed himself, either on purpose or by accident, with the blanket?
Zachary couldn’t count how many times he had slept in a cell like that. While he had known it was possible to hang himself using his blanket or pants, if he could figure out a way to rig them up, it had never occurred to him to use them as a ligature. How had Quentin thought of it? Of course, it was disingenuous to assume that because Quentin was autistic, he couldn’t have thought of something that Zachary hadn’t. Zachary didn’t know how Quentin’s brain worked.
“Zachary?”
Zachary stopped pacing and blinked at Bowman. Just getting home from his shift. “Uh… yeah?”
“What’s going on?”
“Just thinking. Working on a case.”
“Out here?”
Zachary became slowly aware of his surroundings. Not in Bowman’s apartment. He’d never even made it in the door of the apartment building, but was pacing up and down the long sidewalk outside the building.
“Oh. Yeah. Thought I’d get a bit of fresh air. Save your carpet the wear and tear.”
Bowman gave him a long look. “You’re okay? Nothing to worry about?”
“Sure. I’m fine. Just give me a few more minutes and I’ll be up…”
“No rush, take your time. I just wanted to make sure…”
Zachary shrugged, trying to look as calm and relaxed as possible. Hopefully, he hadn’t been talking aloud to himself while he paced. Doing that in his own apartment was one thing. Doing it while pacing the street could be interpreted the wrong way.
Bowman headed into the building, acting as if it were perfectly normal for Zachary to be pacing outside. But Zachary had a bad feeling he’d crossed the line. Even so, he wasn’t quite ready to go up to the apartment. He felt like he was so close to sorting everything out; if he could just stay in the groove for a few more minutes, he was bound to come to some conclusion.
Five minutes later, his train of thought was broken again by his phone ringing. He looked down at it. Kenzie. At least Bowman hadn’t called Bridget. Zachary answered the phone and held it up to his ear.
“I’m fine,” he assured Kenzie. “I’m just walking outside. Clearing my head.”
“I was just wondering…”
“Don’t try to pretend Bowman didn’t call you. He’s not that subtle.”
“Well… okay, then. Yes, he called me. Thought you were behaving a little… strangely.”
The sooner Zachary could get out of there and find a place of his own, the better. He didn’t need babysitting.
“Kenzie, since I’ve got you one the phone; you’re sure that Quentin died of strangulation? He couldn’t have died of something else and it was just covered up, made to look like strangulation?”
“Well, no. It’s pretty clearly a case of strangulation. Bruises on his throat. Petechia. Swelling in his face. Cyanosis.”
“It couldn’t be anything else?”
“No. Like what?”
“Electrical shock.”
“I thought we’d been through this already. The shocks that the institution uses are not enough to kill a person. And even if they were, there are no signs of death by electrocution. Only of strangulation.”
“Yes, but couldn’t—”
“Zachary.” That ever-so-sane voice that women used to bring Zachary down to earth. Teachers, foster mothers, girlfriends; they all seemed to have it. One of those things they knew instinctively.
“No,” Zachary anticipated.
“No,” she agreed.
“Okay. Fine.”
“Anything else?”
“He was dead for hours before he was found.”
“Yes.”
“He hadn’t been moved?”
“No.”
“He didn’t have any signs of violence on him? Like he’d been in a fight or altercation.”
“No. Scabs and scars from self-harm. Nothing that looked like it was from a fight.”
“Had he ever tried to commit suicide before? Scars on his wrists or any other sign?”
Kenzie was slower to answer. “No.”
“Would you consider that to be unusual? If he caused his own death, it would be normal for there to have been previous attempts, wouldn’t it? People work up to it. It takes a few tries to get it right.”
“Not all the time. It would be normal to find signs of previous attempts. But not necessary for a finding of suicide.”
“Okay.”
“You should go up to your apartment,” Kenzie advised. “Have some supper. Relax and go to bed.”
“Yeah. I will.”
“Mario’s worried. And he’s not the type to panic over nothing. If he’s concerned, you need to think about why.”
“I’m fine,” Zachary insisted.
“Good. Then take care of yourself. Are you about ready to close this case?”
“I’d really like to tie it to institutional abuses. Even if he did commit suicide, it was because of his treatment there.”
“But you don’t have any way to do that.”
“I’d really like to say otherwise. But… no.”
“Not every one of your big cases is going to turn out to be homicide. Sometimes an accident is just an accident and a suicide is just a suicide.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Z
achary spent Thursday on other things. Catching up on some of his other cases. Filing paperwork. Visiting the apartments that were still on offer to see if he could settle on a place. It was a beautiful day for being out and about, but none of the apartments suited him. Every time he looked at one, he thought of Bridget, what she would think about it, and how things had been different when they had lived together.
Was it crazy that he missed being bossed around by her? That he missed her rants over floor coverings, paint colors, and blinds versus curtains? It had all meant that he was part of a couple. Bending to her will or making a compromise meant that he was with someone. That he was functioning as part of a unit instead of being alone. Just like he had wanted ever since he was ten and lost his family forever.
He had no idea what Kenzie’s views were on floor coverings. Was she a hardwood floor girl, or did she like something soft underfoot? What were her favorite colors? Did she hate orange as muc
h as Bridget?
It was strange to miss something so mundane.
He collected the mail at his mailbox, something that he knew he had to keep up with better than he did. But who sent anything important by mail anymore? Anything important would come to him by email, too urgent to trust to the post office.
There were a couple of car trackers he needed to retrieve. They were not hugely expensive, but it still made sense to get them back when he could. Besides the fact that he didn’t want to leave evidence of his activities. Leave a tracker on a car too long, and he risked someone finding it when doing an oil change or other car maintenance. And that wouldn’t turn out well if they figured out where it had come from.
Thursday afternoon Zachary started writing his report on Quentin’s death. He still wasn’t sure what he was going to write, but he started organizing the points and laying everything out, hoping it would coalesce into something more substantial by the time he was done. His conclusion—that Summit was guilty of child abuse, maybe even human rights violations—couldn’t actually be tied into the point that Mira had hired him to determine: Whether Quentin’s death had really been suicide.
If he were clever, he could tie all of the possibilities back to the abuses by Summit. Quentin committed suicide because he was being abused by his therapists. He had had no hope that he would ever be able to escape the abuse. Or, Quentin was killed by one of the Summit staff members. Maybe during therapy, because he was growing more violent and was not responding to the shocks. Maybe while being restrained in a choke-hold by one of the security staff in anger, or in self-defense when Quentin attacked a staff member. Maybe because there was something darker going on at Summit, and Quentin had been in the way. Or maybe it had been accidental. Negligent security staff hadn’t noticed or cared that he was on the floor all night. Weakened by starvation and multiple shocks, he had been trying to self-comfort and had gotten his blanket twisted and knotted up too tightly and quietly passed away into the night.
There were ways to blame Summit no matter what the manner of death. But that didn’t matter if he didn’t know which one it really was. He needed hard evidence.
Then Thursday night, late in the evening, Clarissa called.
“I wanted to know if you had figured anything out,” she said, her voice low, as if someone might overhear her. “Did you figure out what really happened to Quentin?”
“I’m working on my report right now,” Zachary said, though he had laid it aside some hours ago. “It’s pretty damning against Summit Learning Center. The information that you’ve given me, together with the information I’ve gathered from other sources… it’s pretty obvious that they’re playing fast and loose with the rules. If the police and the parents knew what was really going on out there at Summit… I don’t think you’d have a program anymore.”
“Really?” She breathed in his ear for a moment. She sounded nervous. Zachary wondered why she had called. Did she have more to tell him? Something she had forgotten or held back before? A connection she had just made? “Mr. Goldman…”
“Zachary.”
“Zachary. Can I see you again?”
“Sure, of course,” Zachary agreed. “Where did you want to meet?”
“I had… I wondered if you wanted to see how the ESDs work.”
“I’ve already seen how they work.”
“Not all three versions. And I thought maybe… you’d like to try it out yourself. See what it really feels like. Instead of just watching or reading what everyone says about them…”
Zachary considered. He had ventured to ask Abato before. But Abato had brushed off his request with some comment about how they had to follow regulations and only deploy them as the court had instructed. They couldn’t ‘play around’ with them, using them in an unauthorized manner. There were strict protocols to be followed.
“You think I could?” he ventured.
“Yeah. I could get you in there. If you meet me at Summit after six tomorrow night, I can use my pass to get us into the engineering lab and you can try them out.”
“What do you mean, all three versions?”
“The initial units that were used, the ones approved for use by the FDA. Then the amped-up units Dr. Abato had engineered that are in use now. Like Quentin had. And then… these new ones he’s working on. The ones that he wants to switch to.”
Zachary’s mouth was dry. He took a swig of the lukewarm water sitting on the side table.
“The stun belts? You could access those too?”
“Sure. You won’t want to try one of those, but I can at least show them to you.”
“Yes. Yes, definitely.” If he could see one of the stun belts, to confirm that Abato really was serious about using them for the more violent patients; that would certainly put the story over the top. No one could doubt that Abato was unbalanced to want to use those on children. No one would approve of the use of such a device in a facility like Summit.
Maybe Abato had already been experimenting with the stun belts. Who was to say that he hadn’t tried them out a time or two? On a child like Quentin who was no longer responding well to the phase-two device, who was getting more violent again after an initial period of success. A device like that could have unexpected consequences. Maybe Clarissa could help him tie it to Quentin’s death.
“Okay. You can meet me here at six, then? I’ll let you in a side door, so no one asks any questions about what you’re doing there after hours.”
Zachary agreed, and she gave him the details.
Zachary was pumped up about being allowed to see all of the equipment in the engineering lab, including the phase-three devices Abato was hoping to introduce into the program.
Clarissa came to the side door she had directed Zachary to, not in her lab coat and professional clothing, but some kind of casual Friday or after-hours look. She had on a ball cap with a green crest, with her hair in a ponytail hanging out the back. She had on a neat t-shirt and exercise pants made from some sort of high-tech fabric. They made her look slimmer than the boxy lab coat had, the material clinging to her shapely, well-muscled legs.
“Come on,” Clarissa invited. She looked around, making sure no one was watching. The protesters apparently went home at the end of the work day and all of the students who went home had been picked up by their parents. The streets and sidewalks around the building were eerily quiet.
Zachary followed her into the building and stuck close to her side, noting the surveillance cameras in the various corridors they walked through. Clarissa obviously hadn’t been thinking much about security when she had invited him to look at the equipment. She might be able to get into the lab with her security pass, but that was going to leave a record, and so did every camera they passed on the way there. It would be easy for anyone who looked at the tapes to follow them through the building.
But hopefully, that wouldn’t matter. By the time anyone looked for him on the tapes, Zachary would already have broadcast to the world what he found there, and it would be too late for anyone to do anything about it.
Clarissa reached for the security door that led to the engineering lab, and Zachary held his breath, half-worried that it wouldn’t open for her, despite her certainty. But the knob moved easily in her grip and she swung the door open.
They both stood there for a moment, making sure there was no movement inside. The lights were still on, but the room echoed with their footsteps. No one else was there. Clarissa nodded in satisfaction and let the door shut behind her. It hissed shut and clicked as the lock engaged. Clarissa moved around the lab with familiarity. Zachary was mildly surprised that she would know her way around there. As an aide, he wouldn’t have expected her to be familiar with the engineering work.
“They’re over here,” Clarissa said in a hushed voice. She made sure that Zachary was following her. As she picked out pieces of equipment from a labeled shelf, Zachary got out his phone and started a video session. She stopped and stared at him. “What are you doing?�
�
“I want to get this on record. Proof of exactly what they’re doing here.”
He was afraid she was going to argue. She had that look on her face. Finally, she shook her head and smiled slightly. “Sure, whatever you want,” she agreed.
“If you want me to be able to get things changed around here, get the aversives removed from the program, if not shutting them down completely, then I need proof.”
“I hadn’t really thought about it. I guess that makes sense.”
She continued to get the equipment assembled, pulling a battery backpack off the shelf. “Why don’t you get that filming and set it on the counter? Then it won’t shake or fall down or anything and your hands will be free while you test out the ESDs.”
“Makes sense,” Zachary agreed. He set it up to record and propped it up on the counter. He looked at the screen, and then walked over to the spot it was pointing at. “Okay. How’s this?”
“Perfect,” she approved. She showed him the electrodes in her hand. “This is the phase-one unit. You ready to give it a try?”
Zachary tried to suppress a shudder. Was he really going to let her attach that to his body and press the button? He gave what he hoped was a confident smile. “I’m game. Let’s do it.”
She strapped electrodes to his arms and calves, positioned on bare skin. Then she had Zachary lift his shirt and attached electrodes to his back and stomach. She helped him to put the backpack on, lengthening the straps so that it would fit. Zachary tried not to think about the diminutive frame that it must have been fitted to previously.
“Are you ready?” Clarissa gave him a big smile, enjoying his discomfort.
Zachary blew out a breath. “I guess I’d better be,” he said. “Are you going to give me a countdown, or—”
Before he could finish, he was seized with a jolt to his back that made him shout and splay his arms out in surprise.
It was a two-second jolt, just like all the units were programmed with, but two seconds was enough.
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