Psychiatric Nurse

by Dan Ross

  There she found Frank Burns on the stage. Though the hall was empty, he was standing up there with his guitar as if he were about to give a performance.

  She walked the length of the hall to the stage and smiled up at him. "Going to give a concert to an empty room?"

  The yellow-haired young man gave her a restrained look of amusement. "I've been thinking about it. I don't want to lose my touch."

  "Dr. Werner probably wouldn't approve."

  Frank shrugged. "Would that matter so much? He doesn't approve of me anyhow. He's brought in all these regulations because he thinks I beat up Morton."

  "Did he tell you that?"

  "He tried to make me say it was true," Frank said indignantly.

  "I hope you stood up to him."

  "I did."

  "How is Peggy?" she asked.

  Frank looked troubled. "I don't think she's so good. She hasn't been herself since she had that seizure. I wish Dr. Hastings would hurry up and get her father to take her out of here."

  "I'm sure he's trying," she said.

  "Did he tell you anything?"

  "No," she said. "But I'll be seeing him away from the hospital tomorrow, and perhaps he'll have some news then."

  The young man sighed. "I sure hope so," he said. Then he nimbly jumped off the stage to stand beside her. "I haven't seen you very much lately."

  "I know. With most of the social functions canceled, it has been grim."

  He gave her a knowing smile. "No chance for a romantic embrace at all."

  "That was a mistake," she said. "I'm still worried that Bertha Fraser may take it into her head to tell on us."

  "I wouldn't be any worse off than I am right now."

  "I would be. Dr. Werner would discharge me immediately."

  "You'd be wise to leave."

  "I want to," she said. "I'm only waiting until I see you and Peggy safely out of here."

  He looked bleak. "That could be a long wait."

  "Let's hope not." She heard footsteps on the hardwood floor and turned to see Nurse Bertha Fraser advancing toward them. Bertha gave Jean a cold look and turned her attention to Frank.

  "What are you doing here with that guitar?" she asked briskly.

  He looked sullen. "I just came by to practice a little."

  "This room is off limits until further notice," she said in a stern voice. "You know that."

  "I know it isn't to be used for gatherings, but no one said I couldn't come here alone."

  "You are deliberately trying to twist the meaning of Dr. Werner's order," Nurse Fraser said coldly. "You're to leave here at once and not come back, or I'll have to report you."

  Frank's freckled face showed astonishment. "You really mean that?"

  She was firm. "I most certainly do."

  He looked as if he was about to make an angry reply, and then his manner changed. He gave the nurse a sarcastic smile. "Okay," he said. "I'd sure hate to upset Dr. Werner." He turned to Jean with a sly wink. "See you later," he told her, and sauntered out of the side entrance to the assembly hall.

  Bertha Fraser turned to Jean. "You know the rule as well as I do," she said. "Yet you were deliberately encouraging him to break it."

  Jean refused to take the situation seriously. "I came in looking for Muriel," she said. "I happened to find him here. We'd just been talking for a few moments when you arrived."

  "You should have ordered him out at once."

  "I didn't consider it that important."

  "It's the breaking down of discipline that is causing all our troubles here," Bertha snapped.

  "No," Jean replied quietly. "I think the trouble here goes a good deal deeper than that."

  Spots of red heightened Bertha's cheeks. She lifted her chin arrogantly. "I could have caused you plenty of trouble if I'd chosen to tell what I know about you and Frank Burns. A member of our executive staff and a patient behaving indecently at a hospital dance!"

  "I don't accept your judgments on my conduct!" Jean retorted.

  "You can consider yourself lucky that I've kept quiet!"

  "You probably have only because you've gained something by it," Jean shot back.

  Bertha Fraser was tense with rage now. "I want you to leave this room at once!"

  "I don't think Dr. Werner's order applies to the staff," Jean told her calmly.

  "I say you shouldn't be here!" the other nurse raged.

  "And I say you have more important duties to attend to. I'll ask you to leave me alone and get out yourself."

  Bertha looked stunned. "You refuse to obey the rules?"

  "The rules aren't meant to be interpreted the way you think," Jean replied. "I refuse to do as you ask because I'm sure you're wrong and overstepping your authority."

  "Very well!" Bertha sneered. "We'll find out who's right and who's wrong!" And she marched off, her heels drumming a sharp tattoo on the shining hardwood floor.

  Jean watched her go with a frown. She wasn't sure whether she had done the right thing. She had no qualms about refusing to do as Bertha had asked, but she was worried that the irate nurse would take her case directly to Dr. Werner. If this happened, Jean knew she could be in trouble. Werner was looking for an excuse to discharge her.

  She was standing there considering this when all at once she heard a furtive sound from the stage. Startled, she turned and glanced up to see a figure slowly emerging from the shadows. It was Tom Crater who slowly came out to center stage with a cold smile on his good-looking face.

  He clapped his hands, applauding her. "Wonderful performance," he said. "Only you should have given it up here under a spotlight."

  She stared at him. "I didn't know you were hiding up there."

  "I wasn't hiding. I was standing in the wings admiring you."

  "Were you here when Frank Burns was on the stage?"

  "Of course," Tom Grater said smugly. "But he didn't know it. I kept very quiet, and it's dark back there."

  "I see," she said, a strange sense of uneasiness coming over her. She noticed that Tom was in one of his moods of elation, but there was something menacing in his mocking assurance. It was when cases of his type displayed such a haughty mood that they were most dangerous. And by a twist of fate she was alone in the room with him.

  "You like Frank better than me, don't you?" he asked.

  She swallowed hard. "I'm friendly with all of you." Tom Crater stared at her with his too-bright eyes. "But you don't respect me as you should," he said arrogantly.

  Jean knew that any ill-considered phrase might be the trigger to send him springing down from the stage to attack her. Hesitating for a moment, she asked, "Why do you say that?"

  "Because no one does," he replied bitterly. "I'm sure that's not so."

  "What do you know about it?" His voice was pitched louder, the tone almost angry.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to offend you."

  "Do you know how many people I've killed?"

  "Please, Tom," she begged. "Don't excite yourself."

  He leaned forward so that his face was close to hers, and his voice dropped as he said, "I'm not excited. I'm being truthful. No one gives me credit for being what I am. A mass killer!" This last was said with a wild exultation.

  She listened fearfully, remembering what Dr. Werner had told her about Tom's strange history the day she had first toured the hospital. She tried to comfort herself with the knowledge that Tom had not actually murdered anyone. It was all part of his hallucinations. But it didn't mean that he couldn't become a murderer. The transition might be extremely easy. To the New York police he had been a crank and a nuisance, always on hand to admit to any killing. But he was more than that: he was a young man with a mind dangerously out of balance.

  She said, "I'm your friend, Tom. But I don't want to hear this kind of talk."

  He was very tense. "If you're truly my friend you'll listen to me and believe me—not laugh at me like the others!"

  "I've never laughed at you."

  He st
udied her fixedly for several moments; then a slow smile crossed his face. "No, I don't think you have. I can trust you."

  "You can," she echoed, fear surging through her.

  He reached out and grasped her upper arm. "They never have listened to me. They think I'm not clever enough to be a murderer. That's where I fooled them!"

  "You're hurting me, Tom!" She tried to pull away from him.

  His grip on her arm became more fierce than before. "I came here and accepted everything because it was a joke on them!"

  "Tom!" she pleaded, still trying to free herself.

  He wasn't listening to her. With that strange smile on his face, he went on, "But now it's almost time to show my power!"

  "Tom, listen to me!"

  He stared at her oddly. "I'm listening," he said.

  "And now I'm going to tell you a secret. Do you know who really beat up Morton?"

  His question made her forget her plight for a moment. "Who?" she asked.

  "Me!" he said triumphantly. "I was the one. And neither Morton nor anyone else dreamed it could have been me! They all blamed Frank or Steve. But it was me!"

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Jean listened to his frantic outburst as she winced from the pressure of his fingers on her arm. She was too confused to decide whether he was being truthful or not. It seemed certain that in a moment or two his insanity would break all bounds of restraint and he would attack her.

  "Crater!" The name was called from the other end of the assembly hall in an angry, familiar voice.

  Jean turned, and for once felt relief at seeing the ugly face of Dr. Werner. The grim-visaged head of the hospital was now advancing toward them at an even gait.

  "Let that girl go, Crater," Dr. Werner said again in a commanding voice.

  It worked. Tom Crater released her and stood up quickly with a look of uneasiness on his youthful face. He was afraid of the doctor and not about to challenge him.

  Dr. Werner was now beside her, but he paid no attention to her as he directed his gaze to the young man on the stage. "Crater, you have no business being in here. Do you know that?"

  "Yes, Doctor," Tom Crater said meekly.

  "And you surely have no right to grasp Miss Shannon's arm as you did!"

  "I'm sorry," the young man said.

  "You should be," Dr. Werner said sternly. "And I order you to leave here at once and go to your room. I'll see you there shortly and decide what to do about disciplining you."

  "Yes, Doctor," Tom Crater mumbled, and walked off the stage down the side steps and out of the assembly hall. Jean watched all this in a kind of dazed state as she gradually regained some semblance of calm.

  When Tom Crater had vanished, the doctor turned to her. "I also regard you as partly to blame for this. You should know better than to loiter in here after your working hours."

  "Surely the staff has the run of the hospital," she said with some amazement.

  His gaze was blank. "You can see what such a privilege leads to," he said. "It is possible that you would have been in great danger if I hadn't arrived just now."

  "I realize that," she admitted. "I didn't intend to cause any trouble."

  "But you were in here with Frank Burns," the doctor accused her.

  Bertha had talked. The question now was how much she had told. Jean still hoped that the jealous nurse only had mentioned her being in the assembly hall with Frank.

  She said, "I came in here looking for Nurse Evans. I only intended to walk through the room. But Frank was on the stage, so I talked to him for a moment."

  "He shouldn't have been in here, either."

  "I don't consider that so important," she said.

  "Discipline is always important," Dr. Werner insisted coldly. "You don't seem aware of that. As you probably know, I blame Frank Burns for causing most of our trouble, including the attack on Morton. And I'm beginning to wonder if you're not encouraging him in his rebellion!"

  She gasped. "That's not so! And Frank didn't attack Morton. Tom Crater told me just now that he was the guilty one."

  The chief medical man looked at her derisively. "And you believed him?"

  "Yes."

  "The more fool you," Dr. Werner said disgustedly. "You know he is in here because of his record of insisting he's a murderer. Whenever an unsolved crime is committed, he confesses to it. Blaming himself for the attack on Morton is merely following the same pattern."

  Her eyes widened. "You think he was lying?"

  "His confession is worse than useless. It's pitiful!"

  "But I'm sure he meant it!"

  "He always means it, but it's all in his imagination," Dr. Werner said loftily. "I distinctly remember giving you an account of his case history and explaining all that."

  "But this is different!" she protested.

  "Not at all. I know who the guilty person is. I only need proof. Frank Burns attacked Morton as part of a plan to cause so much trouble here that I'd be willing to consider discharging him."

  "I don't believe that," she said. "It doesn't make sense."

  "I say it does. And I'm biding my time to catch him off guard and disclose his evil deeds to everyone."

  "I'll never be able to agree with you on that," she said heatedly.

  His smile was nasty. "It makes no difference to me whether you choose to agree with me or not," he said.

  "I know the truth of what I'm saying. And now will you be kind enough to leave here?"

  She left without any further attempt to justify her position. She saw that the doctor was not going to be swayed from his stand on the matter. It had been foolish of her to expect him to listen to reason. But at least one heavy load had been removed from her mind. She was no longer worried that Frank had attacked Morton. She was now convinced that Tom Crater was guilty.

  She was at the point of leaving the main building when Muriel Evans appeared at the reception desk. Jean smiled at the welcome sight of her friend, and went to tell her what had happened and to ask her to work in her place the next day. Muriel agreed, and so Jean was free to join Ken on a skiing expedition the following afternoon.

  The next day was sunny but cold, an ideal day for the ski slopes. In her eager anticipation of the pleasant adventure with Ken, Jean found the drudgery of the morning less of a burden. When noon came, she hurriedly finished lunch and went to her room to change. She had a ski outfit to wear, and Muriel had loaned her her skis.

  Studying herself in the mirror, she was satisfied with her crimson jacket and white pants. Soon she heard the sound of Ken's horn, and grabbing the skis, went out to join him. He had a rack for the skis on the back of his car, and fastened hers next to his. Then he opened the car door for her, and she got into the front seat.

  At the wheel, he swung the car around and headed for the main road. "We have a great day for the slopes," he said.

  She smiled at him. "It's cold!"

  "We won't mind that," he assured her. "The higher you go, the warmer the sun is. We'll be climbing pretty high. Or at least using the lift to get up there."

  She leaned back against the seat and smiled lazily at the passing panorama of snow-laden trees as they moved swiftly along the narrow road. "I needed something like this. To get away!"

  "We both do!" he said.

  "You don't know what happened last night," she told him.

  He glanced at her, looking boyish in his dark blue ski outfit and blue stocking cap. "Tell me," he said.

  "Tom Crater gave me a bad scare," she began. And then she told him the entire sequence of events in the assembly hall.

  "You had quite a night," he said.

  "I think Dr. Werner is wrong. I'm sure Tom is guilty."

  Ken was silent for a moment, then he said, "I don't want to dispute you, but this time I'm forced to agree with Werner. I don't think Tom Crater attacked Morton."

  "You don't?" She was amazed.

  "No," he replied very seriously. "I realize it would be the answer we'd most prefer. It would clear Frank comple
tely. But there's no use in pinning our hopes on Tom's confession because it suits what we want to believe. It won't make it so."

  "You think it's another of his false confessions?"

  "It has to be," Ken said unhappily. "It's an old pattern of his. And such patterns don't change. Long before he came to Tranquility Place, he was boasting that he was the perpetrator of every homicide in Manhattan. It's his way of calling attention to himself, of boosting his ego."

  "But he acted insane!"

  "He is insane," Ken reminded her gently. "So are all the patients at the hospital, with the probable exception of Peggy, and perhaps Frank."

  "You suddenly sound dubious about Frank," she said.

  They were on the main highway now, which had been plowed bare of snow, and there was more traffic. Keeping his eyes on the road, Ken said, "I'm just not as certain as you are about Frank. But I'd still like him out of Tranquility Place."

  "At least we agree on that."

  "You must prepare yourself for the possibility of learning that he is guilty of attacking Morton— though I'm placing my bets on Steve Abrams."

  "Perhaps it was Steve," she said. And then she recalled her conversation with Victoria Wales. "Victoria told me something that made me think it mightn't have been a patient at all, but one of the staff."

  "What did she say?" Ken asked with a frown.

  "She said she heard Morton and Dr. Breton quarreling. It seems that Dr. Breton had engaged Morton to do an errand for him and he hadn't done it properly."

  Ken showed interest. "That sounds promising."

  "Breton has often used Morton to place bets for him in Portsmouth."

  "Then the quarrel could have something to do with Breton's gambling?"

  "It may have," the young doctor agreed. "Possibly Morton made an error, or didn't place the bet and simply pocketed the money."

  "Breton would be in a rage!"

  "But he couldn't complain to Dr. Werner," Ken pointed out.

  "So the only way he could take out his anger on Morton would be through some form of violence," she concluded, awed at how neatly it worked out.

  Ken smiled at her grimly from the wheel. "I know it sounds plausible. And perhaps it is. But do you see Breton capable of making a stealthy attack on Morton? I don't think he's in that good shape."