Criminally Insane: The Series (Bad Karma, Red Angel, Night Cage Omnibus) (The Criminally Insane Series)

by Douglas Clegg

  "The patient's rights are a bit void at this point," she said, and then when Whitfield came out from the room, she drew him over and they began what Trey often characterized as a "whisper-conference," made to make him remember his position at Darden as being still-lower than a staff psychologist. After a few moments of whispering, Hannifin came back over to Trey, put her arm on his elbow and said, "You've done great. We'll take over from here. If one of the detectives needs to talk to him, let's suggest either an early evening or early morning meeting."

  "Dr. Hannifin," he said. "Look. I know you aren't happy, having me assigned to this. I'll do my best to serve your needs here. And I promise to stay out of your way the rest of the time."

  Hannifin glanced at Whitfield, then back to Trey. "I'm not unhappy that you're working on this with me, Trey. What gave you that idea?"

  "Well, I know that you prefer to keep this –"

  She interrupted him. "You're good at what you do. I'm not thrilled that your consult is with a homicide investigation, but I understand how the needs of Darden and the needs of the community-at-large are sometimes at variance. I have no problems with this arrangement. I have seven patients to see today, and if you can work up your evaluation, get it on my desk this afternoon, believe me, my job just got easier. I appreciate it. I'm glad you're on this, frankly."

  And then, she took off down the corridor again before he could say anything more. Whitfield shot him an odd glance as if to say, Don't you feel stupid?

  2

  "Call Father Joe for Chilmark," Trey told Jim Anderson after the intake, once he'd gotten back to his office. Jim Anderson was not only one of his best old friends – at Darden just about as long as Trey had been – he was the only one who got his jokes, his asides, understood the inside and out of irony, and had been with Trey in more take-downs of patients-gone-wild than anyone else in the hospital. Jim was a big linebacker of a guy, but still had the face of a kid with his fingers in the cookie jar. If Anderson had stayed at the job, working now directly with Trey on Ward D and Program 28, Trey felt he probably would've ended up in restraints himself.

  "You think we'll get a confession?" Jim asked. He took the chair opposite Trey's desk, leaning back in it, checking his pager.

  "I don't give a damn. That'll be Laymon's issue. He wants to talk to a priest, let's get a priest in to him. I feel bad for this guy."

  "A guy who just ripped a baby out of a woman's body?" Jim asked, even while he clicked through his pager messages.

  "That kid was abused. In ways you and I probably have trouble imagining. Darden State made a mistake twenty years ago by releasing his mother. Someone made a mistake by impregnating her. That boy is paying for the mistake, and I'm guessing he's been paying his whole life. He thinks a straitjacket is comforting. Like a teddy bear."

  "I don't buy it," Anderson said. "A lot of kids get abused who don't do what he did."

  "Maybe they didn't get abused in quite that way."

  "What way?"

  "He was raised to be the perfect lover to his mother. Who knows how long that's gone on? Who knows what toll it's taken on him?"

  Anderson winced. "Ew, incest. Yeesh. Can't imagine. You think that's it?"

  "Yep. And somewhere in there, he was physically abused to the breaking point. He thinks he's a doctor because she made him fix himself. Did you see his arm? It was slightly askew at the elbow. I didn't notice 'til the jacket came off. She's broken his bones. Maybe years ago. I'm guessing he had to set them himself. I'm guessing he had to heal his own body when he was a little boy. He had to be his own doctor."

  "Did you see Whitfield? Hear no evil, see no evil," Jim said, putting his hands over his ears. "He sat there like a bump on a log and you know he's going to somehow make the intake all about him. He always does."

  "He's definitely got issues with me working with Hannifin. But she surprised me. I thought she wanted me completely off this case, but she seemed great about it."

  "Yeah, I can never tell with her," Jim said. "Sometimes she's a ball-buster and sometimes she's just reasonable. I like strong women like that. It's kind of cool."

  Trey drew out the notebook computer from the side table at his desk, and opened it up.

  "Want me to leave?"

  "No. Just gonna type up some of my impressions. You on break?"

  "Taking a breather. I have to get down to 28 and check on Ivory and Mandolar. Atkins and Freeman told me something's up down there, and Paulsen doesn't want to deliver any meals if she can help it unless at least three of us are there to help out." He glanced at his watch. "I figure I have ten minutes to kill. I call it my coffee break."

  They sat around, Trey typing in his evaluation, and Jim just shooting the breeze about stuff he was up to out in the world – what was up at home, how he wanted to go deep sea fishing in a couple of weeks out at Point Mugu. Paula Stewart, a psych tech on Ward D, came by the office and told him that someone had escaped into the underground.

  "Who?" Trey asked.

  "Fallon," she said. "Somehow, he got through the Canteen."

  "Rob Fallon? Christ. Can anyone else handle this?"

  "Hannifin requested you for it."

  "And I shall hop to it," Trey said. "This is what – the third time?"

  "Fourth. You forgot Candler. She went got in there, too. Back in July," Paula said. "Didn't get beyond the fifth step down, though."

  "Oh yeah. Do those guys hauling the wires ever lock the door behind them? Do they not understand where they're working?" Trey asked, shaking his head as if already knowing the answer. "Okay, well, thanks Paula. I don't get this place sometime. Tight as hell security at the gate, but inside…"

  "It's a free for all, sure," she said. "You want me to help?" But even as she asked this, he could tell by her tone that she had other things to get back to on Ward D. She was one of the best, and often had been run ragged by the psychologists who liked to assign everything to her because of her volunteerism.

  "No, it's okay. I'll go down there with Jim," Trey said, glancing over at Jim who had a big smile plastered on his face. "I appreciate the offer. Thanks."

  "Robby'll be easy enough to nab," Jim said. "Like stealing candy from a baby."

  "Reminds me," Trey said. "All morning I forgot to tell you – we're having another rug rat in the Campbell household."

  Chapter Twelve

  1

  Trey Campbell and Jim Anderson walked down the institutional-green of hallway, recently painted and still smelling of turpentine; the groans and chattering of patients and staff somewhere nearby was at low hum as they passed by nurses with their squeaky med carts and the open-door therapy sessions.

  They passed by the inmate-patients of Program 6 on Ward D – some of the inmates looked out through the rounded double-glass windows. It always gave Trey a strange feeling whenever he saw them like this – as if they were observing details about the staff.

  "I can't believe you're having another kid," Jim said.

  “Yeah, weird, huh? Two kids nearly in their teens, and now we start again.”

  "How pregnant?"

  "Six weeks."

  “Hey, you should tell Mark that this one’s a replacement model and he needs to scoot.”

  “Very funny, wise guy. We’re holding off on telling the kids. Just for a bit.”

  “Carly?”

  “She’s still in shock. Here she was, thinking she couldn’t really have anymore, after all that trying about six years ago. She told me she thought she was past her expiration date.”

  “Aw, you guys are still a little young for that,” Jim laughed. “Hell, you could probably have four more kids.”

  “I suspect this’ll be the last one.” Trey sighed. “I guess I just knew my home office would get turned into another kid’s bedroom someday.”

  “That’s what they’re for,” Jim said, slipping his hand across Trey’s shoulder. “Three kids are perfect. You can’t get good sibling rivalries going with just two kids. Plus, you know hand-me-dow
ns. And the blue skies take of all this is that Teresa and Mark can actually baby-sit so you won’t be stuck at home every Friday night.”

  “I love being with the kids on Friday night, Jim. I really do. My dad had all these hobbies and problems and other things. I just like being there with the kids. I like the idea of a big family. I’m good with this. Carly’s a little overwhelmed. But I can’t wait. But you know, I’m going to be old. I mean really old, when the kid’s heading to college.”

  “You’d be old with or without another kid,” Jim said. “Man, I am so happy for you both. You’re lucky. And that kid’s going to be damn lucky to have a daddy like you.”

  “Yeah,” Trey said. “If I keep both my eyes intact.”

  “You and me both.”

  They walked around the workers who had to repair damage to the upper grillwork, along the fluorescent lights. A group session was going on in the Merritt Room – Trey saw Hannifin conducting. For just a second she glanced out the open door, and then said something to the attending psych tech, who got up from his chair outside the circle and went to close the door.

  “I think you should name him after me,” Jim said, a twinkle in his eye. “I mean, after all, Jim’s a good name. If it’s a girl, name her Hulga.”

  “Hulga?”

  “Well, or Jim. Jim can be a girl or a boy. Jim’s the best name there is.”

  “That’s true,” Trey grinned, “Many good Jims. Like Jimmy Dean.”

  “Jimmy Cagney.”

  “Jimmy Cricket.”

  “That’s Jiminy.” “Same thing. Jim Beam.”

  “Jimmy Durante.”

  “Jimmy Smits.”

  “Jim Thorpe,” Jim said, and by the time they got to the back of the canteen, they’d gone through a good fifteen well-known Jims and had started in on famous Hulgas, which made Jim crack up because he realized there were none.

  By then, they’d made it through two locked doors, which Trey kept unlocking and then relocking behind him. They’d gone from the sterile halls of Darden State, to the stainless steel kitchen of Ward D’s canteen. The cleanup crew scrubbed down pans and washing out the grease pits and griddles from breakfast, with the big industrial dishwashers steaming up Trey’s glasses to the point that he had to take them off and brush them against his breast pocket every now and then.

  “Fallon get in here through the pipes?” Trey looked up at the grillwork above and the heating pipes that ran along the industrial green of ceiling.

  Jim shot him a look. “Easier than that. One of these state guys left the door open. We locked it up afterward so he couldn't get out again."

  The small room they entered after the third locking and unlocking, unlike the others, was made of cinderblocks. Trey tapped at the wall. “Under these are the old stones. Quarried from the foothills.”

  “Jesus, stinks down here,” Jim said.

  “Can’t believe he even knows about this place.”

  “When one of our boys wants a hidey-hole, you can’t really stop ‘em.”

  “You’d think the cameras would,” Trey pointed up to the top corner of the room, just behind the door. A slim beige camera mounted there – little more than a lens and a rounded hump of camera. The techs all called it the Watcher, and Trey had no better name for it. They’d installed them within the past two years. Some Watchers were larger than others because they wanted the inmates to know that someone supervised them at all times. It helped with the sociopaths, who tended to obey the rules so long as they thought someone watched them.

  Some Watchers, like this one, were smaller, almost like the kind of Internet cams Trey had seen in computer stores – barely noticeable until you gave a room the once-over. These were generally installed where fewer had access, and if someone breached the area – either staff or inmate – someone higher up the food chain would notice via security.

  Trey reached up for the Watcher, but couldn’t quite reach it. He glanced at Jim, who, much taller, had no problem grasping the camera and giving it a gentle tug.

  Just as Trey had thought, the camera came out of its mount too easily.

  Wires had been cut.

  Then, he pointed to the narrow low doorway, with the slightly open, thick wood door that seemed to him almost something out of Hansel and Gretel.

  “Do you think he’s down there alone?” Jim asked.

  “Sure.”

  “How the hell would he even know about this place?”

  “Staff talks. He’s pretty good at being unobtrusive. With all the rewiring going on, he probably just listened to the workers over the summer.”

  “He’s a little weasel.”

  “Rob Fallon's a genius,” Trey said, glancing at the door. “What tools you got?”

  “Basics. Taser if necessary.”

  “Not necessary.”

  “I don’t trust the little lying son-of-a-bitch.”

  “Trust isn’t the issue. Anyone else down there? Guys working on the voltage system?"

  "All of 'em got called up once they heard a patient was down there."

  "Good."

  Jim pulled his walkie-talkie out. Before he pushed the button to speak, he glanced at Trey. “Just calling some C.O.s over. We might need firepower. I don’t like taking chances with Fallon.”

  “In all the years you’ve known Fallon, when was the last time he hurt anyone on staff?”

  “He did a number on Donna Howe.”

  Trey grimaced. He hated thinking about it – Howe had been killed because she had been seduced by Rob Fallon’s charm. It was a problem for a good-looking sociopath – there were men and women out there who might as well have had the word “Victim” emblazoned on their foreheads. And Rob, the Adonis Murderer, had been all too willing to charm his victims into giving up their lives – or limbs – when he'd been on the outside of Darden.

  “That was Hatcher, not Fallon. Fallon may have set it up, but Hatcher did the slicing,” Trey said. “Christ, maybe we should call one of the guards. Who you recommend?”

  "That new guy. Floyd. He's always talking about how he wants to see what's down here," Jim said. "Now's his chance."

  2

  Floyd Nelson was a fifth generation Californian, and it had been his dream to be a cop in San Bernardino, but when it hadn’t worked out, he’d gone into the field of corrections, first working, fresh-faced and upbeat, at Chuckawalla State Prison, maximum security. He had loved it so much that he’d had to undergo a series of psychological tests after he was caught beating an inmate within an inch of his life, and instead of getting dumped out of the system, he’d been transferred to the Darden State Hospital for Criminal Justice, and, at twenty-five, had decided to stop beating up inmates and start learning to handle them. He was tall and lanky and a little bit scrawny. His legs were too long for his body, and his uniform always looked like it didn't quite fit him. He had a happy look about him, and was quick to hum a tune while at his post over at the checkpoint between C and D. They'd cut back on Correctional Officers to the point that some at Darden were getting a little nervous about supervision, but Floyd had enough energy to do the job of two guards.

  Trey had watched Floyd handle take-downs well enough to know that his story about getting a bad rap from his fellow prison guards might’ve been the main reason for his problems at Chuckawalla. Sometimes, the guards themselves could be the problem. Sometimes, the guards were heroes. It was like anything else in life – you never knew with some of them. There was good and bad in the staff; good and bad in the patients. You couldn't always separate it out, and sometimes, Trey had come to learn after all the years at the hospital that you just had to deal with it all.

  Trey had a lot of respect for any officer who worked with criminals in the system, and had met more good ones than bad ones. He was pretty sure Floyd Nelson was one of the good ones, despite what was in his file.

  Trey knew enough about personnel files to know that sometimes they didn’t tell the whole truth.

  Only two things annoyed the
hell out of people on the floor about Floyd. First, he was always smacking gum in his mouth, and it never seemed to faze him when people complained about the noise. And second, he had a voice that came out somewhere between his nose and his eyeballs, and people assumed he couldn't help it, but the shrill sound of him sometimes even upset the prisoners.

  He was an odd duck.

  3

  Floyd Nelson arrived on the scene within minutes of the call, and although he had his club with him, and his gun holstered, he said, “Eh, if it’s Fallon, I’ll just sweet-talk him.”

  “You been down there before?” Trey asked.

  Nelson, looking like a boy scout of twenty-five who would volunteer for wrestling a mountain lion, shook his head. Smacked his gum around his mouth, acting cocky. “Barely. Just looked down. It's all this stuff going on. Rewiring and shit. Didn't go far, but far enough to not like it down there.”

  “I’ve been all over it,” Jim said. “Once. Back in the olden days, about nine years ago. They used to take us down here. Just to show us.”

  “It's like one big dungeon, that's what one of the guys told me,” Floyd said, his grin spreading ear-to-ear, his hand lightly touching the edge of his holster. "Or a rat maze, I guess."

  "Floyd, can I ask that you just don't chew gum when we're working together?" Jim asked. "It's like hearing a clock ticking real loud."

  "I need gum. It keeps my mouth from dryin' out."

  "Come on, dude. Spit it out. You can get some more when we get Fallon out of there. Please. Oh please. If I get another migraine, I'm gonna go postal," Jim said.

  Floyd glanced over at Trey, who said nothing. Then, he spit the gum into his hand, and then put it up behind his ear, which made Jim wince a little to see. "Please tell me you're not gonna chew that later on."