The Memory Thief

by Don Donaldson

  She leaped from the bed, but her feet caught in the sheet covering her and she pitched to the floor.

  Oh God. She was still tangled in it. Any second he’d be on her, straddling her as he had Lee, crushing her skull.

  Kicking like a teenager on a bad acid trip, she managed to free herself of the sheet. Then she was up and moving. Her hand scrabbled at the door. She yanked it open. As she hurtled from the room, she heard a voice behind her say, “I’ve got a secret.”

  Marti froze. Then she went back to her bedroom and turned on the light.

  And there was Harry Evensky, the old man from the hospital, dressed as he had been earlier, but with muddy shoes and bits of dried weeds sticking to his pants.

  “I’ve got a secret,” he repeated.

  Marti picked her robe off the chair where she’d dropped it earlier and pulled it on. “How did you get out of the hospital?”

  “I used to be a locksmith. It wasn’t hard.”

  “No one knows where I live.”

  “The secretary in Dr. Rosenblum’s office does. It’s on her computer.”

  “You picked the lock on Dr. Rosenblum’s door and then found my address on her computer?”

  “Didn’t I just say that?”

  “Have you ever used a computer before?”

  “Not really. But there was a book in her desk on how to work it.”

  “How did you get here?”

  “Came along the creek. I’ve lived in Linville my whole life, so that was no accomplishment either.”

  “This is amazing.”

  “Why?”

  “Well . . . I mean you’re . . .”

  “Crazy? You’re a psychiatrist. You of all people ought to know, ‘crazy’ doesn’t mean ‘stupid.’”

  “I’m sorry, you’re right. But you shouldn’t be here.”

  “Nobody back there will listen to me. I thought you might.”

  “Of course I will. But not like this.”

  “What’s tall and fair . . . you think it’s here, but it’s really there?”

  “I can’t deal with that now.”

  “But you will later? Because I think you should.”

  “I promise.” Now that she’d seen she wasn’t in danger, Marti had a disturbing thought. “What door on the ward did you open?”

  “The back one that leads to the cafeteria.”

  “You didn’t leave it unlocked, did you?”

  “No.”

  “Did anyone else leave with you?”

  “Why would I want to take anybody along?”

  “What did you use to pick the locks?”

  He reached in his pocket and produced a couple of straightened paper clips.

  “That’s all?”

  “What can I say? I’m good.”

  “May I have them?”

  “Sure.”

  He gave them to her and Marti put them in the pocket of her robe. “Will you promise me that you’ll never do this again?”

  “Escape or visit you?”

  “Escape.”

  “Never do it again . . . I don’t know . . . Never is a long time. Let’s start with a month and take it from there.”

  Marti agreed to his terms, because first thing in the morning, she was going to see about putting better locks on all the ward doors. “How about we get you back to the hospital now, so you can get some sleep. You must be very tired.”

  “I am. And apparently it was all for nothin’. Sure you don’t want to give my riddle a try?”

  “I’ll think about it. While I try to arrange a ride home for you, how would you like a diet Coke? I’ve got some in the fridge.”

  “I wouldn’t mind.”

  “Come into the kitchen and I’ll get it.”

  While Evensky drank his Coke, Marti called 911 and told the county sheriff what had happened. Already alerted to Evensky’s escape by the night staff at the hospital, the sheriff had a deputy patrolling the highway looking for him. So help was barely a half mile away.

  In less than ten minutes, the only evidence that Evensky had ever been in Marti’s home was an empty Coke can and a glass with a couple of half-melted ice cubes in it.

  As badly frightened as she’d been, there was no question of getting any sleep, so she sat in the little living room in front of the TV, barely aware of what was flickering across the screen.

  Before Evensky’s appearance, she hadn’t considered that she’d be in any danger living so close to the hospital. But, my God. A patient had escaped and come right to her bedroom. Suppose it had been Odessa. What would she have done? Could she have made it to Clay Hulett’s place? She could be dead now.

  She had to take some precautions. Maybe she should move farther from the hospital. But she had a six-month lease here and wasn’t so well off financially she could afford to pay rent on two places. One thing she could do was make sure her phone was where she could grab it at night. But it took that deputy at least five minutes to arrive after she’d called for help, and he was only half a mile away. She couldn’t count on a car being that close the next time. And even five minutes could be too long. If she ever needed a reason to wrap up her business at Gibson ASAP and get away from there, Evensky had shown it to her. But in the meantime, she needed a contingency plan. There was one thing she could do . . .

  MARTI HAD no idea what Clay Hulett’s schedule was, or even what he did for a living, so early the next morning, as her car topped the hill that hid his house from hers, she was happy to see his pickup in the drive.

  She pulled in beside his truck and sat for a moment, worried that he might not even be up yet. Finally, the urgency of her mission forced her out of her car and onto his porch.

  He answered the doorbell fully dressed in jeans and a nice olive tattersall shirt with an olive and blue lattice tie.

  “Morning,” he said brightly. “Did you see those otters?”

  “I tried, but I must have been too noisy or something. I wonder if I could ask you a couple of favors.”

  “Sure, come on in.”

  He stepped back and Marti went inside.

  A man living alone . . . she’d expected to find herself in a sloppy, poorly decorated place. To the contrary, Clay’s living room was warm and inviting, with well-blended earth tones and rustic furniture made of tree limbs nailed or twined together and fitted with comfortable-looking cushions. The walls were clothed in wildlife paintings: ducks, a deer with a fawn, a turkey displaying its tail feathers, an eagle plucking a fish from a lake.

  “Those paintings are wonderful. Where did you get them?”

  Blushing slightly, he said, “I did them. Each one is something I’ve seen here on the property.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  “It is an amazing place.”

  “I was referring to the paintings.”

  “Even better.”

  Marti sensed a little sexual subtext in his reply, but remembering how she’d embarrassed herself yesterday by making a similar assumption, she dismissed the thought.

  “Have you had breakfast?” Clay asked.

  “I wanted to be sure to catch you this morning, so I guess I just didn’t think of it.”

  “I was about to make myself a mushroom omelet. It’s just as easy to make two. Come on back to the kitchen.”

  Marti followed him to the rear of the house. On the way, they passed a small den whose walls were decorated with paintings of bull riders and other rodeo scenes.

  “Are the rodeo paintings in that other room also yours?”

  “I’m sort of a professional steer roper. Being at a rodeo inspires me to paint those subjects, so I take my supplies on the road and paint between runs.”

  The kitchen was small and neat. “Just have a seat
there at the table, and I’ll whip up those omelets. What did you want to see me about?”

  “Last night one of the patients from the mental hospital escaped and showed up in my bedroom.”

  Clay stopped what he was doing and turned to face her. “That doesn’t sound good. Was he dangerous?”

  “Fortunately, no.”

  “How’d he get out?”

  “He used to be a locksmith. I’m going to see that we put better locks on the doors, so there’s not likely to be a reoccurrence, but it still gives me the willies.”

  “I’m not surprised. Anything like that happens again, call me. I can be up there before the sheriff could get someone here.”

  “That’s one of the things I wanted to ask you.”

  “Just put my cell number on speed dial and keep the phone nearby. I think you already have the number.”

  “I do.”

  “What was the other favor?”

  “Would you mind putting deadbolt locks on my front and back doors? This patient apparently didn’t have any trouble picking the lock.”

  “I’ve got a couple of lectures today at Linville Community College, but I believe I’ll have time to do that as well.”

  “What are you studying?”

  He grinned. “I teach American history, or at least I try to get some small part of it across to a largely unreceptive audience. Stamping out the fires of ignorance is a bigger job than I thought.”

  “Sorry, don’t know why I assumed you were the student.”

  “Could’ve gone either way. No cause for concern.”

  Marti felt that she had stumbled on a rural Renaissance man. College history teacher, painter, steer roper, handyman . . . by now, she would’ve bet he’d also constructed all the furniture in the living room. And, of course, the omelets he made were the best she’d ever tasted. But he did serve them on mismatched plates, a slip-up that showed he was not perfect. Or, she thought, maybe he did that just to appear more accessible. Psychiatry training . . . sometimes it could be such a curse.

  In any event, she left Clay’s home feeling much better about living so close to the hospital. Now she could concentrate on the business at hand.

  Chapter 6

  UPON HER arrival at the hospital, Marti went to her office and sent Oren Quinn an e-mail telling him about Harry Evensky’s escape, minus the part about him showing up in her bedroom. She left out the latter, because it seemed like more detail than needed to make the point that the locks needed to be changed on all the unit doors.

  She then began to think about how she was going to proceed with Odessa. It would probably have to be done right here in her office. It was the only place with the necessary privacy. But she’d need a couple of tables and more chairs. And where could she put Douglas Packard so he could see what was taking place without Odessa spotting him?

  Remembering what Trina Estes had said about the satellite buildings on the property being used for storage, Marti began pulling out the drawers in her desk looking for a hospital telephone directory. She found it on her third try and called the number listed for maintenance.

  With each unanswered ring of the phone, it seemed less and less likely that anyone was going to answer. Big surprise. Housekeeping had ignored those dead cockroaches for a month, why should maintenance be any more—

  “Hello . . . yes. This is Dr. Segerson. I’m the new staff psychiatrist, and I need some additional furniture for my office: a couple of tables, three chairs, and some movable partitions. I was hoping . . . Could we go over there right now? Great . . . Which building? I’m on my way.”

  THE AMOUNT of furniture in storage was prodigious, and Marti was able to find everything she needed. Though he seemed extremely put out about the extra work, the maintenance man said he’d probably be able to bring everything up to her office sometime that afternoon.

  One step closer, she thought, returning to her office. Then, suddenly, she was overwhelmed with all the details she hadn’t yet figured out. A major obstacle was the timing. Quinn’s office was down the hall from hers in the opposite wing. She certainly didn’t want to do it with him in the building. Somehow she’d have to find out when he’d be away. How the hell was she going to do that?

  She was generally good at breaking large tasks into manageable pieces. Look down, not up, was the way to go when attacking a major project. But this one . . . all the potential obstacles now stretched before her in a tapestry of depressing complexity. It wasn’t going to work. Who was she kidding? Something would surely happen to make it fail.

  Stop it.

  She hadn’t gotten through medical school and residency by that kind of thinking. Pessimism never accomplished anything. The only certain way to failure is not to try.

  Bucked up by her autopilot, her mind turned to Harry Evensky. He was definitely an eccentric character, but from her conversation with him before the sheriff’s deputy took him away last night, he didn’t seem mentally ill. Unable to remember the details of his situation from her review yesterday, she went to the notes she’d made.

  It took her a moment to locate what she’d scribbled down about him, and when she did, she found it too cryptic to satisfy her. So before doing anything else, she found his records and reviewed them again.

  According to his files, sixteen years ago, Evensky had lost his locksmith business in a bankruptcy. His wife, whom he depended on for practically everything, left him shortly after the business failed. These reversals drove him into a suicidal depression that brought him to Gibson for his own safety. At first, he seemed to get better, but then he began to spend most of each day cutting all the Rs out of a newspaper one of the other patients bought at the hospital commissary every morning. Evensky kept these Rs in envelopes stored in a suitcase under his bed, believing that one day there would be a market for “vintage” Rs, and he’d become rich. From time to time he still spoke of killing himself.

  Not as normal as he appeared, Marti thought, closing his file.

  Her review of Evensky’s situation was only partially motivated by an interest in him. It had more to do with delaying her planned talk with Vernon Odessa, for as much as she longed to probe the mind of this monster, she was also afraid of him.

  She sat for a few minutes gathering her nerves, then picked up Odessa’s file and headed for the ward. Upon entering Two East B from the hall, Marti immediately encountered Nurse Metz.

  “Are you finished with our files?” Metz asked roughly. “Because they need to be in here.”

  Hiding her irritation at the woman’s aggressive tone, Marti tucked Odessa’s file under her arm and fished in her pocket for her key ring. There were so many files to read she’d managed only to skim each one for the basics. But Metz was right, they needed to be on the wards. She removed her office key and handed it over. “Feel free to send one of the attendants down to my office to pick them up. And ask them to please take the old files back to medical records as well. I’m in two thirty-three. But don’t send Bobby Ware. I want to talk to Vernon Odessa, and I’d like Bobby close by. Is he here?”

  “In the other ward. I’ll get him.”

  While Marti waited for Ware, Harry Evensky spotted her and came over. “Have you thought about it?” he said.

  “Actually, no,” Marti replied. “I’ve been very busy.”

  “What’s tall and fair . . . you think it’s here, but it’s really there?”

  “I give up. What is it?”

  Evensky’s brow furrowed. “You can’t give up. I told you that. If I give you the answer, you’ll just wish you’d figured it out for yourself.”

  “I’ll work on it. Now will you do me a favor?”

  “What?”

  She lowered her voice. “Have you told anyone where I live?”

  “No.”

  “Promise me you won’t. I know you
like secrets. This one could be just between us.”

  Evensky beamed. “Then I’d have two secrets.”

  “But you couldn’t go around trying to get people to guess the one you have with me. Do we have a deal?”

  “Okay.”

  “Here’s Bobby,” Ada Metz said, joining them.

  “Something I can help you with, Dr. Segerson?”

  “Hi, Bobby. I want to talk to Vernon Odessa again.” She looked at Metz. “Where’s your interview room?”

  “It’s on the left,” she replied, pointing across the dayroom. “Just inside the doorway there.”

  “I don’t see him out here.”

  “He’s probably in his room,” Bobby said. “Come on, I’ll show you which one it is.”

  Marti followed Bobby into the dorm wing and down the hall to a doorway halfway to the end. “This is it.”

  Bobby knocked on the door.

  “Go away. I’m busy,” a voice said.

  Bobby opened the door and leaned in. “Dr. Segerson would like to talk to you.”

  “Some other time.”

  “Sorry, it’s not negotiable,” Bobby said, throwing the door open and stepping inside.

  From the hall, Marti saw that Odessa was sitting at a small desk, playing some kind of game on a laptop. Unlike the other rooms on the ward, which each held three patients, Odessa appeared to have this one to himself. In addition to his own computer, he had a small bookcase filled with paperbacks. Her fear at talking to him morphed into anger that he was enjoying these small comforts when he should have been dead. Hoping her face didn’t show her feelings, she said, “Good morning. It was not my intention to force you to talk. If you like, I’ll come back another time.”

  Odessa perused her from hairstyle to shoe choice, then his eyes stopped at the crotch of her slacks, making her want to slap him. He grinned and looked up. “What the hell, I’ve got nothing better to do. Interview room?”

  “Please.”

  Less than a minute later they were seated across from each other at a long table, Odessa with his back to the wall, Marti on the side closest to the open door, Bobby Ware sitting right outside in the small hallway leading to the dayroom.