Too Far Gone

by John Ramsey Miller

  “Agent Keen,” he said. “Looks like we’re looking for an old GMC or Chevrolet panel truck. CSI says it was a pipe, just like you thought. Lead, with a nutria hair and salt water on it. Nutria’s a pesky swimming rodent the size of a house cat that lives in the swamps and marshes. Two blows. They’re running the Volvo prints now. You get anything new?”

  “Michael, I think it’s possible the woman who killed the LePointes, Sibby Danielson, is out,” she told him. “That may explain the media’s sudden interest in those files.”

  The implication of that possibility didn’t escape the seasoned detective.

  “Can you find out where she was being held and if she’s out?” she asked. “We need to do it quietly so we don’t set off any alarms and have the hospital calling the media.”

  Manseur’s heart rate sped up as his gait increased.

  “I’ll check on her place of incarceration, and I’m on my way,” he told her. “Sit tight and I’ll come get you.”

  One call and he found out Sibby Danielson had been sent to River Run, ten miles north of the city, facing the Mississippi River levee. He picked up Alexa at a strip mall parking lot and drove out River Road, which more or less hugged the Mississippi River levee. The highway started at Canal Street at the river and ran, under a variety of highway numbers and street names, clear to Minnesota, or someplace up north. Despite what the weather people said, the crystal-clear sky and the dry air seemed to belie the fact that a storm was swallowing up almost the entire Gulf of Mexico, making its way toward them.

  “Sibby aside for the moment, you think Gary got grabbed because he was in Casey’s car?”

  “Since the Volvo’s windows are tinted dark, it’s a possibility the assailant didn’t see that Gary was driving her car,” Alexa said.

  “If the Danielson woman did do it, she had to have had some help. I suppose the perps could have thought Casey was still in the car if they hadn’t been watching closely and seen him leave in it,” Manseur said.

  “If they saw him drive there in the GTO with the baby, they could have waited down the road for the Volvo and followed it, assuming Casey was in it,” Alexa said. “The perps could have waited down the road so they wouldn’t be seen lurking, and followed the car. But…”

  “But?”

  “It’s also possible that someone on the inside knew they’d switch cars and told the perps.”

  Manseur absently tapped the steering wheel. “So you like the assistant, Smythe, for it,” Manseur said.

  “Well, Grace talked about the Volvo being found in a residential neighborhood. I never said where the Volvo was found.”

  “You sure?”

  “Location never came up. I suppose Evans could have told Dr. LePointe and he mentioned it to Casey.”

  Manseur said, “Grace could have assumed that since the Volvo wasn’t found immediately, it was because in a residential area parked cars wouldn’t attract police attention. She’s been a close friend of Casey West’s forever, so why would she be involved? What would she have to gain…besides cash?”

  How could she relate the feelings she had about Grace Smythe’s hero worship? With Gary out of the way, Grace might think she’d be closer to Casey. That Casey, in her grief, might cling to Grace as a convenient life raft.

  “Maybe Grace has another motive,” Alexa said. “My impression of Grace is that she is the sort of person who was born into a respected family but without any money left to go with the name. She told me the LePointes took her around the world, implying she couldn’t have gone on such trips otherwise. Given her history as Casey’s friend, she can’t enjoy being a salaried employee and fetch-it girl, which is exactly what she is. Dr. LePointe treats her like a servant, and to a lesser extent so does Casey. I suspect that Grace went on those trips because she was an acceptable traveling companion for Casey, and a paid pal was how the LePointes saw her, and that’s how William still sees her. I think Grace knows it deep down, and is in denial over it.”

  “So Casey isn’t her friend?” Manseur asked.

  “Yes, a close friend, but she’s also her employer. Grace is a remote second banana to Gary with Casey, and maybe that’s a hard wire to walk. Grace is basically expendable, and maybe Gary sees her that way. He’s fiercely into Casey and Deana, but it’s possible he doesn’t care much for Grace. She’s sort of clingy and self-important.”

  “I don’t see her best friend doing it, but she’s on the inside, and I’m open to anything. But lots of people not connected to the Wests could have gotten this every-Friday meal pattern by watching them, or maybe a waitress, like Cindy/Nancy, or another waitress, said something to a husband, or a hundred somebody else’s.”

  Alexa shrugged. It was true and possible. But it didn’t feel right to her.

  “You think Casey West could be in any danger?” Manseur ventured. “Say, if Sibby Danielson is out and is after revenge or something, a crazy person obsessing on it for twenty-six years might act on it as soon as she can swing an exit from the nut hatch.”

  “I think Casey’s well-enough protected from an axe-swinging middle-aged woman,” Alexa said. “Even if Casey were the original target and somebody’d planned to get LePointe to pay a ransom for her, they’d certainly know Gary was a valuable enough commodity to make their effort pay just as much.”

  “Not a crazy woman’s thinking,” he said. “More likely revenge.”

  “Someone acting with her might have changed the focus for her. If they took Gary by an unanticipated turn in events, they could be flexible enough to adapt from revenge to profit.”

  “You have a point or three,” Manseur agreed.

  “And something Casey said needs to be considered. It’s also possible that someone who thinks it would please Dr. LePointe is behind this.”

  “Like who?”

  “I don’t know. Why not Decell? He sure could have pulled it off.”

  “He wouldn’t have targeted Casey. If that’s the case, Gary West is dead. If Decell’s behind it, he’ll have covered his tracks and wouldn’t have any reason to keep Gary alive. You can take that to the bank. And if that’s the case, it means we’re wasting our time.”

  “Pollyanna Manseur,” Alexa said, laughing.

  28

  “This is where the hospital property starts,” Manseur said, pointing out through the windshield.

  The corner of the perimeter fence started a quarter of a mile before the driveway into River Run. The buildings were set back from River Road on a field of green grass that looked like a fairway. The manicured grounds were dotted with stately oaks. A green tractor towed a mowing platform, doing a job that probably never had an ending place. The hospital’s main structure was a two-story brick monster with massive columns spaced its entire width to support the extended roof. The building might have passed for a monastery or a junior college, except for the steel wire grates covering some of the windows.

  “Tara,” Alexa said.

  “Place was built during Governor Huey P. Long’s administration,” Manseur explained. “In order to steal big, old Huey had to spend big. He built roads and bridges and hospitals and got millions back from the contractors. The Long administration designed the snatch-and-grab model for the political structure of the State of Louisiana that lives on today.”

  “Stephen King would love this place,” Alexa said dryly.

  “If Sibby isn’t here,” Manseur said, “she was let out. She might have been moved to another hospital, or released to a halfway-house situation or something. She sure didn’t escape, I can tell you that for fact. They even have their own graveyard out back.”

  The sign on the grounds read RIVER RUN PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL. The fence was topped with razor wire and the concrete guard shack added what the sign failed to spell out—For the criminally insane.

  Manseur pulled up to the gate and showed his badge to the guard seated in a kiosk, peering out at him through a sheet of extremely thick glass. Alexa imagined the designers of the kiosk had an image of the
guardhouse being attacked by an armed gang of the insane who desired to break out one of their members, or gain entrance without going through the appropriate steps—like using meat cleavers to chop up people in their kitchens.

  “I’m Detective Manseur, NOPD,” Manseur called out through his open window, holding out his badge case.

  “What’s the nature of your business, Detective?” an electronic voice asked through a speaker. Clearly opening the kiosk’s bulletproof window was done only as a last resort.

  “We’re here to see the director, on official business.”

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “I do not.”

  “I’ll announce you,” the guard said. He lifted the phone and made a call before hanging up and pressing the push-to-talk switch so Manseur and Alexa could hear him. “Administration is in the center of the main building. Follow the signs and park in the visitors’ area. You are required to leave any weapons secured in your vehicle.” The heavy steel gate behind the car closed loudly before the one in front of the car rolled slowly aside to allow them to enter the facility. “Have a nice day,” the guard said.

  “So far it’s been a peach,” Alexa said in a low voice.

  29

  When it came to controlling its guests and visitors, Fort Leavenworth, the maximum-security federal prison located on the stark windswept plains of Kansas, had nothing on the River Run mental facility. After locking their weapons in the Crown Victoria’s trunk, Alexa and Manseur walked together up the wide stone stairs, stopping before a wide wood door with a thick glass panel that allowed them to see into a short hallway that ended at another security door. A buzzer sounded and the front door swung open to allow them to enter the hallway—the sides of which were floor-to-ceiling glass panels that, once they were inside, allowed them to be viewed like fish in an aquarium. They entered into the mantrap, whereupon the door behind them locked electronically with a loud snap. As the pair approached the second door, it unlocked and slid open to allow them into a vast lobby.

  The hospital’s security was both comforting and mildly disturbing. Despite its pastoral setting and the antebellum architecture, it was obvious that River Run was not a country-club facility that pandered to the nervous conditions of the general populace.

  Across the expanse of the lobby a man the size of a refrigerator, dressed in a white shirt and blue tie, waited for them with his meaty hands flat on a long, granite-topped counter in the manner of a store clerk awaiting customers. Alexa half expected to hear the screams of the insane echoing from the wards, but the space was silent, save the sounds made by Manseur and Alexa’s shoes on the polished stone floor and a radio playing a national public radio broadcast. As they approached, the receptionist smiled down at them and nodded.

  “May I help you?” he said in a high-pitched voice that Alexa decided made Mike Tyson sound like Paul Robeson.

  “NOPD Detective Manseur and FBI Special Agent Keen. We’re here to see the director.”

  As the receptionist read their credentials, his lips actually moved. “The administrative director of the facility or the director of psychiatry?” he asked, smiling like a man eager to make a sale.

  “The director who would control who is released from the facility,” Manseur told him.

  “That would be Dr. Whitfield,” the receptionist said, lifting the telephone receiver. He said, “I have an NOPD Detective Manseur and an FBI Agent Keen here to see Dr. Whitfield.”

  He replaced the receiver and told them, “Please have a seat. Ms. Malouf will be right out to show you to the director’s office.”

  Alexa and Manseur sat in chairs that may have been original to the building. They had the appearance of furniture made of oak and leather in a time when quarter-sawn oak and cowhide were inexpensive and craftsmanship—perhaps from prison laborers—was in long supply. The mission-style side tables were barren of reading matter.

  A young woman, no more substantial than a child of twelve, wearing a blazer over a cotton dress and running shoes that chirped when she walked, came out through a heavy wood door and tuned in a smile as she approached. Her dark hair was gathered into a tight bun and her heavy eyebrows looked as though they had once been united to form a protective hood over her prominent nose. The nose, when added to a weak chin, gave the woman’s profile a shape that suggested an arrowhead.

  “I’m Veronica Malouf, Dr. Whitfield’s executive assistant. Sorry to have kept you waiting, but we didn’t have you on the director’s schedule.”

  “I’m sorry for any inconvenience. We had no idea we were coming until a little while ago and we were close by.” Manseur’s Southern voice added a honey-flavored edge to his apology.

  “May I inquire as to the purpose of your visit?” Ms. Malouf asked.

  “It’s an official matter best kept between us and the director for the moment,” Manseur replied.

  “Might I ask if it pertains to a resident inmate?” she persisted. “The director is an extremely busy man.”

  Manseur nodded. “Yes, it does. If you don’t mind, we’re very short on time.”

  Ms. Malouf’s smile froze in place. “Please follow me.”

  30

  In the administration section of the hospital, burgundy linoleum tiles covered the floor, and the walls were an institutional green. Framed black-and-white photographs of plantation manses viewed through parted curtains of Spanish moss adorned the walls. In the offices they passed, Alexa noted, the modern telephones and computers seemed totally out of place in spaces that could have been sets in a movie about the Great Depression.

  Dr. Whitfield’s office, in marked contrast, was modern and opulently furnished. Floor-to-ceiling windows, visible through open curtains, were spaced along the far wall. Three matching carpets defined the distinct areas in the huge space. The director’s desk was comprised of a slab of granite two inches thick resting on stainless steel legs.

  In the center of the room four black-leather chairs faced each other across a square coffee table. The conference area at the far end of the room held a larger granite and steel table surrounded by eight ebony leather chairs on stainless castors. Built-in cabinets and bookshelves ran along the wall opposite the windows.

  Dr. Whitfield, a lanky man in his fifties with salt-and-pepper hair combed carefully back, entered the room through a door behind his desk that appeared to lead to a private bathroom. He smiled as he shook his guests’ hands. “Thad Whitfield,” he said. “Detective Manseur and Agent Keen, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Please, do sit down.” He motioned to the lounge chairs. Alexa and Manseur declined refreshment.

  After Alexa sat, Manseur followed suit. Whitfield sat with his back to the window, crossed his legs, and put his hands together in his lap.

  “So, what brings you to my office on this fine day?” the director asked.

  “We’re checking into what may just be a rumor,” Alexa told him.

  “What rumor is that?” Whitfield asked, still smiling.

  “That a patient named Sibhon Danielson was released from this hospital recently. We were curious to find out if that information is correct and, if so, where we might find her now,” Manseur said.

  “She was committed twenty-six years ago—a double homicide,” Alexa added.

  Whitfield said, “I’m not familiar with that particular patient. I’ve only been here for a few months and we currently have two hundred and sixty-three patients in residence. The majority of our patients, or inmates, in most cases are either violent sexual predators or dangerously unstable offenders deemed not to have been legally responsible for their actions at the time they were committed. We have fourteen wards here, each designated for inmates categorized by threat levels. Number one houses the healthiest, or most improved of our wards, up to number fourteen, which houses the most volatile and violent of our inmates.”

  “I don’t know where she’d be on the number system now, but in 1979 she would have been a full-blown fourteen,” Manseur said.

  �
��If she responded to treatment to the point where she could function, she may have been reassigned or released.”

  “If she could refrain from acting on the impulse to chop people up,” Manseur offered.

  Whitfield flinched. “Detective, the insane are truly no more able to control their behavior—to conform to accepted norms—than a goose can control where it drops its offal.”

  “Usually on the golf course greens,” Manseur said. “On in regulation, then they turn a perfect lie into a putt-putt course.”

  “All too often,” Whitfield agreed, chuckling. “So you’re a fellow devotee of the old anger sticks. I have a six handicap at present. Yours?”

  “I’m afraid I’m up there in the double digits,” Manseur said, smiling. “Maybe if I played more and worked less.”

  Alexa was certain, based strictly on his lack of reaction to hearing her name, that Dr. Whitfield had no idea who Sibby Danielson was.

  “What exactly is the process for releasing a patient?” she asked, bored by the golf talk and the time it was wasting.

  “Release of a patient inmate requires a unanimous vote of the psychiatric review board, and sometimes a prerelease hearing has been stipulated by the courts. Releasing a patient who was formerly violent is not something done lightly. But patients have well-defined rights and ours is not a punishment facility, but a maximum-security treatment hospital whose goal is curing the inmates so they can rejoin society as productive members.”

  “You can cure chronic violent sexual predators?” Manseur asked, stiffening.

  Alexa knew Whitfield was thinking how he—a man who probably had released untold numbers of rapists he had believed were cured—should respond to a Homicide cop who had probably seen the results of recidivism enough times to doubt such people could ever change or be changed. Most cops believed that any rapist who was released had only managed to con the doctors into believing they could work miracles.