The Memory Thief

by Don Donaldson

  As Marti headed back upstairs, she mulled over what she’d learned. A patient . . . during the mind-reading test, she’d been in the hands of a mental patient and had even taken a nap. Boy, was this getting weird.

  NADINE ANSWERED the door to her apartment in jeans and a paint-spattered T-shirt with black lettering across the chest that said: WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT? She was obviously surprised to see who had come to visit.

  “Dr. Segerson. What’s wrong?”

  “What makes you believe something’s wrong?”

  “I thought . . . I mean, no one comes up here to see me just to be social.”

  “You’re right, there is a problem, and I was hoping you could clear it up for me.”

  Nadine looked behind her, then said, “I’d invite you in, but I’m painting and the place is kind of a mess.”

  “You don’t work in the lab on Thursdays?”

  “On most days Dr. Quinn lets me set my own hours. As long as I put my time in, he doesn’t care when I do it.”

  “Nadine, this morning I realized I’ve lost the memory of something that occurred just a few days ago. As far as I can tell this memory loss is very specific . . . for just that one event, and I was wondering if you had any idea how this might have happened to me.”

  On Nadine’s pale complexion the flush that now crept over her face was not a subtle change. “What makes you ask me that question?”

  “I can’t come up with any explanation for why I have this gap in my memory. As I was thinking about it, I remembered falling asleep next door just before the mind-reading test . . .”

  “And you think I did something to you while you were asleep?”

  The normal reaction to being wrongly accused of something is anger. What Marti now saw in Nadine’s eyes was worry.

  “I didn’t even know you were asleep until I came back in to start the test,” she said. “And I woke you right away.”

  Marti had no idea what Nadine might have done to her, but she continued to press the point. “Did you?”

  “I said so, didn’t I? Look, I’ve got paint drying on my brush. I can’t talk any more. I’m sorry.”

  And, bang . . . she shut the door in Marti’s face.

  Marti stood for a moment staring at the chipped paint on the old door. She hadn’t come up there on anything even as strong as a hunch, more a desperate gamble, and now it seems it had paid off. But instead of clearing things up, she was as confused as ever.

  Turning, she started for the stairs, trying to figure out what Nadine was up to. By the time Marti reached her office, she’d remembered the first time she met Nadine, and the mice she was testing—in a memory experiment.

  Jesus. Had Nadine done some kind of experiment on her while she was asleep? Suppose she had? Wouldn’t that mean Quinn was also involved? Assuming for the moment Nadine was acting under Quinn’s orders to do whatever she’d done to Marti, would pursuing this be wise? Creating any kind of disturbance could jeopardize her plans for Odessa.

  But if she were right, they’d done something to her brain. No one should be allowed to get away with that.

  All this was so complicated, she felt she needed some fresh air to sort things out, so she bypassed her office and headed for the stairs to the front exit.

  Less than a minute later, as she descended the hospital’s front steps, she heard a wild fluttering of wings. Looking up, she saw a flock of pigeons heading west, apparently leaving the comfort of the hospital roof. Not interested enough in the birds to strain her neck to see more, she continued down the steps.

  Perhaps it was a shadow or it might have been another sound. Whatever the cause, she had a premonition something was coming toward her from above. Before she could react, a body hurtled past her and hit the steps head first, shattering the victim’s head so that the steps were awash with blood and bits of brain. Though the victim lay face down, the black hair against the white T-shirt told Marti instantly who it was.

  Chapter 12

  MARTI STOOD there as though she were catatonic, looking at the carnage in front of her, her mind replaying the last few seconds . . . the sickening sound of skull against concrete . . . white matter and gray torn apart . . . splattering the concrete, wetting it with hopes and worries, dreams and memories. It played like a slide show in Marti’s own brain, a series of before and after shots . . .

  Nadine in her T-shirt . . . WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT? . . . her body hurtling past . . . Nadine excited over that mouse experiment the day they met . . . bits of her brain drying onto the steps . . . brain drying . . . Nadine . . . then it was Lee’s face . . . Lee’s brain, drying on the bedroom walls, becoming part of the paint. Nadine . . . Lee . . . they spun past her mind’s eye, blurring, running together.

  Behind her, a scream from someone who’d just come out of the hospital brought Marti out of herself. “Call an ambulance,” Marti shouted without even looking to see who had screamed. She went to the body, knelt and even though she knew it was a useless gesture, picked up a limp arm and felt for a pulse.

  Nothing.

  As she was kneeling there, her eyes went to Nadine’s neck, where she was shocked to see a familiar-looking scar. It was very much like the one Odessa carried.

  The next fifteen minutes were a blur. In keeping with people’s need to maintain some kind of barrier between themselves and death, someone brought a sheet to cover the body. A crowd gathered.

  The ambulance arrived and the attendants verified that Nadine was dead. Realizing the body shouldn’t be moved until the sheriff gave the okay, the ambulance paramedics moved back and waited like everyone else for the grisly event to play out.

  Marti soon found Trina Estes beside her.

  “Who is it?” Trina asked.

  “Nadine Simpson . . . Quinn’s protégée.”

  “Why do you say protégée?”

  “She worked for him, and he was handling her case himself. Even built her an apartment near his lab . . . Did you know all that?”

  “I’d heard about her, sure. What happened?”

  Even though she viewed Trina as a potential friend, Marti had no intention of telling her about the conversation she’d had earlier with Nadine. She shouldn’t have even said what she did when Trina had joined her. “I was coming down the steps and she fell out of the sky. I guess she jumped.”

  “That’s horrible. I feel so sorry for her. It must have been awful for you, too, to have it happen right in front of you.”

  “I expect I won’t sleep very well tonight.”

  “Appears it wasn’t such a good idea after all to give her the free run of the hospital.”

  Over Trina’s shoulder, Marti saw Oren Quinn working his way around the crowd, conferring briefly with one or two in a group, then moving on. Finally, he spoke to someone who pointed in Marti’s direction.

  “Here comes Quinn,” Marti warned.

  “He probably wants to see you,” Trina said. “So I’ll just leave you two alone.”

  As Trina slipped away, Quinn took her place.

  “I hear you witnessed this,” he said.

  “She fell right in front of me.”

  “Jumped?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see her until she was at eye level.”

  “Trouble seems to follow you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “First Lois Wilkie, now this.”

  Marti’s heart began to thump. Had Nadine called Quinn after their conversation? “Are you implying this was my fault?”

  “It was just an observation, no need to get defensive.”

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “About what?”

  “Your research.”

  “I don’t know. Hire someone else, probably. No one is irreplaceable. But this is hardly the time
to be thinking about that. There’s a woman dead under that sheet. We should be mourning her loss instead of figuring out how to minimize the inconvenience her death caused us. Dr. Segerson, you have a cold streak in you.”

  Marti was shocked to hear him say that . . . the same man who suggested that Letha Taylor would be better off dead than treated for her diabetes was lecturing her on compassion. It was incredible, especially since he didn’t seem all broken up about Nadine’s death himself. Marti took a moment to frame a suitable reply, but she never got to deliver it, because, seeing the sheriff arrive, Quinn left her and headed in that direction.

  “What did he want?” Trina Estes said, coming back to stand with Marti.

  “To show me once again what an ass he is.”

  “You should be careful about saying things like that,” Trina whispered. “I don’t disagree with you, but he has spies on staff who will run right to him with any dirt they hear.”

  The sheriff was tall and trim, with a full head of wavy blond hair and a brush mustache. The man in a white shirt and bow tie who was riding with him was a bald head shorter, at least fifty pounds heavier, and about thirty years older. Marti assumed the civilian was the medical examiner.

  Quinn greeted the two men, spoke with them a moment, then they all headed for the body. When they reached it, the sheriff removed the sheet, and he and the ME took a quick survey of the remains, then both of them looked up at the point where Nadine had gone off the roof. Marti expected that Quinn, at any moment, would point to her, and they would all come over and she’d get to say once again that she didn’t actually see anything.

  Surely there’d be no reason to ask her if she’d talked to Nadine earlier. But if they did, what would she say? She’d about decided to lie if the conversation went that way, but then she remembered . . . she’d asked Quinn’s secretary where Nadine lived. If they caught Marti in a lie, it would create more of a disturbance than if she just admitted they’d spoken. Okay, then she’d admit to the conversation, but say she’d just gone up there to find out how she’d done on the mind-reading test.

  As it turned out, all her concerns about saying just the right thing when she was confronted were a waste of time, because Quinn didn’t point at her or even look at her. Instead, the sheriff re-covered the body with the sheet, and all three men went into the hospital, presumably to check out the roof.

  They were gone about ten minutes, during which Trina and Marti just stood around without saying much. When the three reappeared, the sheriff spoke to the ambulance attendants, and they loaded the body and drove away. Then the sheriff and the ME left as well.

  Quinn raised his arms and waved his hands for attention. “Okay, everyone, it’s all over. There’s nothing more to see. Go on with your day.”

  “I was expecting to see the ME take Nadine’s file with him,” Marti said to Trina as the crowd dispersed. “But he left empty-handed.”

  “Guess they don’t have any questions about what took place.”

  “Where are her records?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe Quinn has them. In any event, I expect they’ll be in his office tomorrow morning for yet another inquiry. But this time, since the patient in question succeeded in killing herself, I’m sure the hospital’s attorney will be there to make sure we’re legally in the clear for what happened.”

  “You don’t think Rosenblum will chair this one?”

  Trina shook her head. “Too important. It’ll be Quinn.”

  Going back into the building, Marti and Trina found themselves behind Quinn and Meredith Chapman, head of the psychology department, from where they overheard Quinn say to Chapman, “I need you in my office at nine tomorrow morning to review what just happened.”

  At this validation of her prediction, Trina nudged Marti and nodded as if to say, “See, I told you.”

  Inside, as everyone dispersed and Quinn and Chapman moved out of earshot, Marti said to Trina, “I guess when the inquiry is over, Nadine’s file will go to medical records.”

  “I’m sure it will. Why all the interest in this case?”

  “No special reason. I’m just still trying to get a feel for how the place operates.”

  From the look on Trina’s face, she didn’t find that explanation totally believable, but she let it pass. “I know you’ve just had a bad experience, but do you feel up to discussing some of our patients this afternoon? I thought we could review the status of those who are scheduled for treatment team meetings next week.”

  “Sure. When would you like to do it?”

  “In about half an hour?”

  “My office or yours?”

  “I’ll come to you.”

  DURING HER meeting with Trina, Marti’s mind was in two places at once. She couldn’t get Nadine out of her thoughts. Right after she had practically accused Nadine of experimenting on her, Nadine had jumped off the hospital roof. Could there be any clearer indication of a guilty conscience? But guilt over what? It was such a drastic reaction Marti believed that whatever they had done to her could be a thread that, if picked at, might lead to something much bigger. And what about the scar on Nadine’s neck . . . in the same place and about the same dimensions as the one Odessa carried? What was that all about?

  As intriguing as these puzzles were, and as angry as she was at having been taken advantage of while she slept, she knew it would be wise to ignore it all and stay focused on her primary objective. But emotion doesn’t always follow wisdom, so even though she knew what she ought to do, she was also aware that as soon as possible she was going to try to get a look at Nadine’s records.

  Chapter 13

  THE NEXT morning Marti got to the hospital early and kept a watch on Quinn’s administrative office as discreetly as she could from her own doorway.

  Around nine o’clock, she saw Howard Rosenblum and his secretary arrive and go inside. They were followed a few minutes later by the staff internist and Meredith Chapman. The last to arrive was a man in a well-cut gray-pinstripe suit. Marti surmised that he was likely the hospital’s legal counsel.

  While the meeting was under way, Marti thought about what she could have told them regarding the cause of Nadine’s sudden need to kill herself. And for a brief time, she fought with her conscience about keeping it to herself, which, considering the stakes involved in keeping quiet, didn’t make much sense. Finally, reason prevailed, and she let the meeting go on without her input.

  The inquiry into Nadine’s death lasted nearly two hours, so by the time everyone emerged from Quinn’s office, Marti was extremely weary of leaning out her door and peeking down the hall. The most significant thing she saw as the participants dispersed was Rosenblum’s secretary, Pat, carrying a set of patient records still in the metal binder used on the wards. There was little doubt that this file had Nadine’s name on it.

  With everyone walking toward her, Marti couldn’t continue her clandestine behavior, so she just came into the hall and headed for the big front stairway. Medical records occupied much of the hospital’s third floor, so as she and Pat drew nearer to each other, Marti silently urged the other woman to go up the stairs, not down.

  And that’s exactly what happened.

  Pretending to be off on an errand of her own, Marti went down the stairs to the lobby, turned right, and moved along the west hallway on the first floor, where she kept walking until she reached the door to the patient wing. She went inside and hurried to the old staircase that served the west wards. Taking the steps as fast as she could, she went up three flights and cracked the door to the third-floor administrative hallway. Checking before darting into the open, she saw Pat, now without the file she was carrying, going down the front steps.

  As Marti moved quickly to her destination, two plans for getting a look at Nadine’s records competed for her acceptance. In one, she would just tell the records clerk she was a mem
ber of the inquiry team and needed the file back for a few minutes to verify something to go in their report. The downside there was the clerk might realize she was lying, and in any event, would then know of her interest in Nadine. Should the clerk mention that to the wrong people . . . Marti would take that chance if necessary, but there might be another way.

  Standing now at the entrance to medical records, she opened the door and went in.

  She’d been there briefly once before, when Trina had shown her around the hospital on Monday. So she knew that in front of the many rows of file folders in oak bookcases that ran from the front of the room to the back, there was an old oak counter across which much of the department’s business was conducted. The first thing she looked at when she stepped inside was that counter.

  And there was the metal binder with Nadine’s name on it. With the binder so accessible, Marti decided to go with Plan B.

  Between the counter and the bookcases a small woman sat at an oak desk punching holes in records and threading them into a binder like those on the shelves. It wasn’t the woman she’d met on her previous visit, which was a disappointment, for where the other woman seemed like someone who’d take things at face value, this one, with her squinty eyes and thin lips, looked like she was suspicious of everything. Her appearance almost made Marti turn and leave without putting her plan into action.

  But ultimately, her anger at whatever had been done to her while she slept in Quinn’s lab during her mind-reading test stiffened her resolve.

  “Good morning,” Marti said, taking the offensive. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I need to see the overflow records of several of my chronic patients.”

  “And you are . . . ?” the woman asked from where she sat.

  “Dr. Segerson, the new staff psychiatrist.”

  The woman got up from the desk and came to the counter, where she leaned over and inspected Marti’s ID. Satisfied she was legit, the woman said, “And you’d like these records when?”

  “I’d really appreciate it if you could pull them while I wait.”