Trey walked to the doorway, and found the light switch. He flicked it up. Thank god it works.
The white glow of the light came up, accompanied by a buzzing sound. It began flickering overhead almost immediately.
Above, on the platform, both Floyd and Jim stood still, watching. Behind them, obeying all the rules set out for them, Lance and his cameraman.
Trey crouched down again, looking at Fallon.
Beneath the table, Fallon looked like a young bird tossed too early out of the nest. Weak, hungry, frightened. Not the murderer who had torn the face off a woman and had chopped her up, back in his early 20s. Not the same one who had raped and murdered his own mother.
His face was pale white and shiny with sweat.
“Who is she?” Trey asked.
“She’s here,” Rob said, glancing around, his voice a whisper. “I can feel her.”
“Is she from Darden?”
He nodded.
“Is she a nurse?” Trey felt dread as he asked the question, fearing that Rob had lured someone here and had killed her.
He shook his head. “She’s a little girl. A little girl. And she told me terrible things about this place.”
Trey crawled closer to Fallon, putting his hand out. “Come on, Rob, it’s all right. Just take my hand and come out. We can go upstairs. You can watch TV or get some rest.”
Fallon looked at Trey’s hand, and then looked over Trey’s shoulder as if looking for someone. Trey resisted the urge to turn around. He had to keep his eye contact square with Fallon’s, although it was best not to look Fallon directly in the eye. Better to look a little off to the side so that Fallon would not begin to see Trey as the enemy.
“I think she’s lived down here a long, long time,” Fallon said.
“Give me your hand, Rob.” Trey extended his arm as far as it would reach. He needed to be close enough for Rob to take his hand, but far enough away should Rob suddenly attack – which was not unusual for the patients in Ward D.
If Rob went into hyper speed, Jim and Floyd would have about twenty seconds to get down in that pit with him and wrestle Fallon off him. For all of Fallon’s slight build, he was like a mountain lion when he attacked.
Trey’s fingers brushed the tips of Rob’s fingers.
Trey felt his mouth go dry. Come on, Robbie. Give it up. Let’s not have any trouble.
Rob’s eyes went wide, suddenly, as if there really were someone standing behind Trey, and when Trey felt a gentle whisper of air on the back of his neck, he twisted around for just a second – nothing behind him, just the suggestion had given him that feeling – but it was too late. Rob had already grabbed his hand, and pulled him fast beneath the table. Trey began trying to hold Rob’s arms back, but Rob, using teeth and hands and legs and even his head – banging it against Trey’s – became relentless in the attack.
Trey felt claws rake across his face as he did everything he could to gain the advantage, but it wasn’t until Jim and Nelson had gotten down into the operating pit with him that they were able to pull Rob Fallon back, and hold him in a four-point star – a man on the legs, another on the arms and shoulders, and another to hold his chin back so that he couldn’t use the strength in his spine to get free.
“Hey buddy, good going,” Jim said, panting as he looked down at Trey who had Rob’s legs and pelvis pressed against the floor. “You still got your eyes.”
2
After they called for a nurse to come down with a dose of Cambex, and Rob got a nice shot in the butt of the fastest sleep-aid known to Darden, they carried Rob back up into Ward D. “Jesus, it’s like we’re Croc Hunters. I’m Steve Irwin today,” Jim said. "We'll be on TV. Crikey!"
“My kid loves that show,” Trey said. “I have to keep him from grabbing snakes when we go hiking.”
After they got Rob settled nice and snug in some restraints in his cot, and Rob began muttering something about wanting to kick some serious psych tech ass as he drifted off into med-induced oblivion, Floyd Nelson stood in the doorway to the room and said, “That was one creepy place down there.”
Trey glanced back at him. “You lock it back up?”
3
“You know what, Chief?” Jim asked, after they'd left Rob Fallon's room, and made sure that Lance Victor and Carl-the-Camera-Guy had gone off in search of another docudrama treasure for his series, and were headed back down the hall to the door to the underground.
“What?”
“You’re an anal son of a bitch.”
“You say that so happily,” Trey said.
“Of course the guy locked it up.”
“I think Floyd was freaked by all the stuff down there.”
"Floyd and Lance Victor both," Jim said. "Carl the Cameraman seemed to be cool as a cucumber, though. I guess they expected it to be more like a basement of horrors.”
“I get freaked down there, too. But I need to make sure.”
When they reached the entry to the underground, Trey pulled at the door, checking the lock.
“See? Floyd’s on top of this stuff.”
Trey withdrew the keys from his pocket and unlocked the door. He opened it.
The green and red of the stairway lights were still on. Trey gave Jim a knowing look, reached around to the switch, and shut them off.
He looked down into the darkness.
Then, he stepped back, and shut the door again.
Locked it. Locked the bolt.
Didn't make Trey feel any better, knowing that some workmen would be going down there again, before evening. Couldn't have a guard put on the door every second of the day, not with the reduction in the number of Correctional Officers since the budget cuts the previous spring.
4
In his office, going through Mary Chilmark's files, Trey heard a slight tap at the door, which was open. He glanced up.
Floyd Nelson stood there, leaning against the door, as if he'd been watching Trey for awhile.
“Come on in,” Trey said. "What's up?"
“Just a question. About that place.”
“Sure. Some of the old-timers can probably tell you more about it. Marshall was part of the relocation crew in ’53.”
“Why do they keep it like that? I asked some of the guys, but nobody seems to know. I mean, beyond using it for storage and maybe for the rewiring job.”
“Oh,” Trey said, grinning slightly. “You mean the tables and the offices and stuff?”
“It looks like…well, it looks bizarre.”
“Some wise-ass administrator found out it was cheaper just to let it all rot down there than to do anything about it. I think it's called 'administrative atrophy' .”
“Yeah, but in some of those rooms…hell, I saw a supply room that looked like it still had…all kinds of shit in it. Medical stuff.”
“Old useless medical crap, probably. You might not want to dwell on it too much," Trey said. "We live above it in the sunshiny world of our hospital, and below us is that pit. Well, separated, I’m told by a ton of pipes and insulation and all kinds of grids that keep us from sinking. I’m sure Willard or some board member’s eventually gonna clear it out or they’ll fill it in like they did with the north wing. Yeah, they bulldozed in a lot of dirt and rocks and then concreted over part of it to the north – right over the field out by the fence. I bet Alice in B's got the files on the whole thing if you want to look it up. Floyd? You okay? Look, here,” Trey went to his side-desk, with the files, and drew them out. “I have a cool Centennial book on Darden.” He brought out a thin magazine-sized paperback. On the cover was what looked like a gothic castle. “See, this is the aboveground part, circa 1906. They tore it down for a newer building in 1963, but this one went all the way down to the cells.”
“You ever get freaked out by being here?” Floyd asked.
“Unofficially? Sure,” Trey said. “All the time. You got to develop some gallows humor about this place to get through it. What about you? You were at Chuckawalla.”
�
�It was rough,” Floyd Nelson said, a shadow seeming to cross his face. “But this is a different kind of rough. There, you knew who the mean ones were. You expected them. Here, you just can’t tell. Sometimes…sometimes when I do my rounds, I think they all just seem like nice people.”
“Until they try to bite your tongue out,” Trey said, trying to get the guard to laugh. When Trey’s phone rang, Floyd waved goodbye, and went back out the door. Trey picked up. “Campbell, D.”
“You called me earlier. I’m calling you back,” Dr. Brainard said.
Chapter Fifteen
1
Brainard's office was upstairs, at the end of the east wing. You entered it first through safety doors – those double-thick steel doors that shut like a trap if even one alarm sounded in the building. It was a suite of offices used by the on-staff psychiatrists who did not keep outside offices. Outside each office, a cubicle for the psychiatrist's assistant. The floor had a beautiful Persian carpet runner, and the smell in the air was of coffee and roses. There was a reception area, and a woman named Lara was behind the counter, working the phones and the general assignment board when staff supervisors arrived to check on any med changes authorized.
Lara hadn't been at Darden long, but had managed to get to know everybody by first name within her first three months. "Hey, Trey, how ya doin'?"
"I'm here to see Dr. Brainard."
Lara smirked. She didn't have to say what she was thinking – it was telepathed to Trey: he's in a mood. Be careful. She readjusted her headset, pressed a button on the phone. "Diego? Is he in? Trey Campbell's here for him. All right. Thanks." She drew her headset off, setting it next to her coffee mug. "He's making you wait. You know that."
"I expected it. What's the word up here?"
"Well, that TV guy was with Hannifin early, right when she came in. I think she's milking the whole thing. I think I caught a little whiff of jealousy up here about it."
"Naw, they're behind her 100 percent. She can do no wrong," Trey said. "Besides, I heard her book was pretty good."
Lara reached under her desk, and drew up a copy of the hardcover. The Killer Instinct: Inside the Minds of Seven Psychopathic Murderers. She opened it to show him how far she'd gotten. "It's weird to think the guys she's describing are just one floor down and to the left. I practically feel like I've been reading their diaries."
"She doesn't name them, right?"
"No, but you don't need a name tag to figure out who they are. She has your pretty boy in here."
"Rob?"
Lara nodded. "Oh yeah. She calls him the Movie Star, like he's on Gilligan's Island. I heard you had an adventure with him today. Down under."
Trey grinned. "Word gets around."
"Well, I'm the one they all come running to with their secrets," she said. Then, a buzzer went off on her phone. "Okay, well, it looks like it's time for you and Dr. B. Have fun."
Trey picked up the book, hefting it from one hand to the other. He turned it over and looked at the picture of Elaine Hannifin. "Look at her. She's a star."
"Don't say anything bad about her. I love the book."
"Can I borrow it?"
"Get your own copy," she laughed. "I'm only on the third psycho."
2
Diego, Dr. Brainard's personal assistant was at the closed door to Brainard's office, at the very end of the hall. "He's in a mood," Diego said.
"So I gathered."
"I'm guessing you know why," the assistant said, and then opened the door into Brainard's office.
3
The office was the largest one Trey had seen inside the Ward. Sprays from green plants were at either side of the doorway in, and the white carpeting had Persian rugs thrown over it, just in front of his desk, and further back near a sitting area at the far end of the office. The filing cabinets were made of cherry, and the desk itself was enormous and curved around to provide an area for Brainard's assistant to come in and take dictation. On either end of the desk were two crystal vases with roses and lilies in them. On the wall, the requisite certificates and degrees, and pictures of Dr. Brainard through various decades with the famous and politically-connected of California. On the bookshelf next to Brainard's desk, a handful of his own books, published over the past twenty six years on the nature of the human mind and its psychiatric deviancies. On his desk, Dr. Hannifin's book, closed, looking as if it had never been opened.
Two green overstuffed leather chairs on the opposite side of the desk from Brainard himself.
Brainard, at his desk, glancing up from a stack of papers, as if surprised to see Trey Campbell at all.
4
Dr. Robert Brainard was a hard-ass of a psychiatrist, but Trey had developed some respect for him over the years. He had silver-gray hair, very thick and neatly trimmed. A longish face, and a slight indentation from some old scar just below his lip. Other than that, he was of the “handsome doctor” school: well-groomed, stayed trim by morning trips to the gym, and was always dressed in a suit that looked like it cost a thousand bucks or more. He had an edge of class, and the kind of condescending attitude that annoyed many, but not Trey. He knew it was a defense for some little dark corner of insecurity.
He also had steely blue eyes that seemed piercing at times.
Trey stepped into the psychiatrist’s office, shutting the door behind him. It was shadowy in the office; the blinds were drawn; the overhead lights were off, but an imitation Tiffany lamp on a corner table gave off a reasonable amount of light. Still, it was as if it were nearly dusk in the office.
“I can give you ten minutes,” Brainard said.
Chapter Sixteen
“It’s about Mary Chilmark’s son,” Trey said.
Brainard leaned back in his chair, folding his hands over his chest. "Sure."
“Quentin Chilmark. In Program 28.”
“I know. I signed the papers.”
“I want to know about Mary Chilmark. His mother.”
“It’s all in the files. Surely, Dr. Hannifin…”
“With respect, sir, I’ve been assigned to do all intake and eval, with the supervision of Dr. Hannifin. I have been going over some of Mary Chilmark’s files. Given that you were the psychiatrist who worked with her and signed her release evaluation, I thought you might be able to give me some insight that's not on paper.”
“You know,” he paused slightly, a bit of bitterness creeping into his voice, “As involved as you are these days in matters of police and legal interest relating to our patients, you must never forget that they’re patients. Quentin Chilmark is not in Program 28 today because we’re going to spend time catching his mother for a homicide investigation.”
“Sir, if I may,” Trey opened up the envelope in his hands, and brought out a sheaf of papers. “In your exit evaluation, you said this about Mary Chilmark. ‘The murders of two women, one man, and an unborn child. Each seemed to have an element of irony to the murder, for they were people who, in her original state, the patient felt had done some moral or spiritual wrong that needed to be brought back to them, ten-fold. I’d like to know what that meant.”
“Mr. Campbell, it was a long time ago. I do not always recall the inflection of a patient’s voice when reiterating psychosis. Particularly after twenty years and thousands of other patients who have become residents here.”
“I know she murdered her victims in the hospital where she worked. San Pascal. I have pictures here…”
Dr. Brainard raised one hand slightly, his voice a little weary. “All right. I don’t need to see them. I remember those pictures well enough.”
Trey nodded, and went to sit down in one of the chairs that faced Brainard’s desk.
Brainard leaned forward, brushing his hand over some papers, and flicked on a small halogen desk lamp. An intense square of light hit the desk. Brainard reached up to rub his eyes and the bridge of his nose. “I’m not unaware of the connections that have been drawn between Mary Chilmark and myself. She was pregnant by some tech who
worked with her at the time, but for some reason that wasn’t glamorous enough for the staff. Because I spent a quarter of a year working with her – primarily because she was showing extraordinary progress – the rumors flew that I had fucked her.”
Trey leaned forward in his chair, his hands nearly touching Brainard’s desk. “That’s not why I’m here. I want to know about her.”
“I’m clearing the air, Campbell. I knew her well enough to know that she had become attached to me in a way I didn’t think was healthy for her. I am willing to bet she’s even convinced her son that I’m his father. When Dr. Massey married her – once she had been released – I felt that she had moved on successfully. It wasn’t until his suicide that it crossed my mind that she might have had a reversion of psychotic behavior. It was the death of her father that led her to murder those people in the hospital.”
“That, and revenge.”
“Revenge. Or not. It was trauma and repressed memory that triggered the event then. And if she has now – with her adult son – murdered, while it’s not pleasant, it doesn’t surprise me. I suspect Massey failed her.”
“By killing himself?”
“Exactly. And don’t raise those eyebrows, he did kill himself.”
“Yes, sir. But the coincidence of both her father and her husband killing themselves…”
“I’m not saying that Mary herself may not have abused them both in some way. But their lives were taken by their own hands,” Brainard said. “I should've seen the signs with Massey. He was a troubled soul if there ever was one. But I thought he had gotten on the right track. He resigned you know, after she left. He made a break, and got into private practice."
"And then he killed himself."
Criminally Insane: The Series (Bad Karma, Red Angel, Night Cage Omnibus) (The Criminally Insane Series) Page 47