Читать книгу Deadly Grace - Taylor Smith - Страница 15

Montrose, Minnesota

Thursday, January 11, 1979

Cruz and Berglund pulled into the parking lot of the Montrose Regional Hospital, sixteen miles northwest of Havenwood. In an area reserved for official vehicles, Berglund nestled the black-and-white cruiser into a parking spot just opposite the emergency entrance ramp.

The three-story hospital looked new, with fresh, brightly painted signs in orange and blue, and sidewalks and roadways still untouched by the frost heave of unrelenting winters that turned every paved surface into a spiderweb of cracks, fissures and potholes. But, Cruz thought, the hospital could have been in Tallahassee, Florida or Missoula, Montana, for all the uniqueness of its institutional tan and stucco exterior.

“Do you really think Jillian Meade intended to kill herself?” he asked, as he and Berglund climbed out of the cruiser and headed up the walkway.

“No question. They said she had that needle in her arm, and that she fought like hell with the orderly who tackled her, just like she fought me when I wouldn’t let her stay in that burning house. They doubled up on her tranquilizers after that. Even then, the doc on call said he thought she was serious enough about doing herself in that he had her put in full restraints before they transferred her over here to the psych ward.”

Cruz said nothing, but the cynic in him had his doubts. Just because the woman was in the loony bin didn’t mean she wasn’t crazy like a fox.

He drew a deep breath of piney air just before they passed through the sliding glass front doors, girding himself. He’d visited more than his share of psychiatric units. In the course of eleven years as a U.S. Army criminal investigator, he’d run into every conceivable mental quirk, malady and trauma that could erupt in violence. He’d personally witnessed his first murder on June 11, 1965, a day that had changed the course of his life forever. Since then, he’d investigated more than three hundred others. Most of them had sprung from stupid rage and momentary loss of self-control, senseless acts committed in a blur of drugs or booze. A few had been meticulously planned, the murder itself secondary to an insatiable desire for something else—money, a woman, revenge.

And then, there were the tragedies, pure and simple. Even normally decent, sane people had their triggers, and under the right amount of pressure, anyone could buckle. Cruz had seen that fourteen years earlier, on a June day out in a swampy delta north of Da Nang. His faith in humanity had been on shaky ground ever since.

Berglund looked grim, as if he was dreading this as much as Cruz was. “Ready?”

Cruz nodded.

So what was Jillian Meade’s story? How coincidental was it that three women linked to her had now died under suspicious circumstances within the span of a month? Was she some kind of uncontrolled psychopath, or a smart faker with some obscure and twisted motive? If the latter, they weren’t going to do anything for her in here. Drugs and therapy might unkink a mildly bent psyche, but there was no curing a killer who was genuinely psychotic or very clever—and they were often one and the same. He’d seen thieves, rapists and serial killers who could mimic an entire catalogue of clinical symptoms in a bid to dodge criminal responsibility for their acts, trying to cop a “not guilty by reason of insanity” plea. Was that Jillian Meade’s game?

Inside, the hospital had the cookie-cutter look of medical institutes all over the country, with scrubbable white walls, industrial carpeted floors, and utilitarian, charm-free furnishings. A few garish splashes had been added in the form of wide racing stripes in the hallways, but even these were resolutely functional, color-coded by department. Cruz and Berglund followed a blue stripe to the main reception, where the deputy approached the desk to ask for directions. The stripes leading back to the ER were red, Cruz noted. Green was apparently for obstetrics, orange for pediatrics. And the psych ward?

Berglund turned to him and nodded at the bank of elevators on the opposite wall. “She says go to three, then follow the purple stripe.”

At the elevator doors, as they stood in silence watching the lights overhead dance down to one, Cruz thought about possible links between Grace Meade and the other victims. Mrs. Meade had been English by birth, so maybe the two female victims in Britain had been friends of hers, which might explain Jillian Meade’s calling on them. One of the women had been a semi-retired civil servant of some sort, his Scotland Yard contact had said. The other, a retired hospital “tea cart lady.” Both of them elderly, both of them living alone when they died, brutally attacked and killed in their homes, which had subsequently been torched. Why?

Both of them visited by Jillian Meade only a short time earlier. Why?

At the third floor, Cruz followed Berglund to a thick glass window under a plaque that read: “Reception—Please Sign In.” On the other side of the glass, a guy in green scrubs sat in a swivel chair with his back to the window, his white sneakers propped on a credenza behind. Coffee cup in one hand, he was reading a newspaper that he held awkwardly folded in his free hand, shaking it back open from time to time when it occasionally collapsed on itself. The comics page, Cruz noted, peering over his shoulder.

Berglund tapped on the window and he started, splashing coffee on his pants, the paper and his arm. A muffled curse sounded through the double-plate glass as his feet dropped to the floor. The chair pivoted and he looked up, peeved, but at the sight of the burly man in uniform bearing down on him, he prudently swallowed his protest.

“Help you?” he asked, shaking splattered coffee from his hands. His voice came out of a round, slatted steel disc in the glass sounding tinny and crackled, like every drive-in movie speaker Cruz had ever encountered in his misspent youth.

Berglund planted his hands on the counter. “I’m Deputy Chief of Police Berglund with the Havenwood Police Department. This is Federal Agent Cruz. We’re here to speak to Jillian Meade.”

“I’m just an orderly. I’m filling in while the head nurse is on her coffee break, but lemme see…” He slid a clipboard in front of him and ran a finger down the page. “Meade, Meade…nope. Can’t help you right now.”

“What do you mean? I just spoke to the front office by phone a couple of hours ago. I know she’s here.”

“Oh, yeah, she’s here all right, but she’s still being evaluated. No visitors.”

“This is official business.”

The orderly shrugged. “Her doctor would have to clear it.”

“Fine,” Berglund said, “we’d like to speak to him.”

The reply was a one-syllable pop.

“Pardon?” Berglund asked.

“Her,” the orderly replied. “The psychiatrist is a woman, Dr. Kandinsky.”

“Her, then. Could you get her, please?”

The speaker crackled once more. “I think she was on the ward a while back, but I’m not sure if she’s still there. Take a seat. I’ll page her.”

Cruz had already moved over to a window that overlooked the parking lot and the broad, frozen prairie beyond. The hospital stood at the very edge of the town of Montrose. Beyond was a flat expanse of open farmland broken only by a grid of shelterbelts, poplar and spruce mostly. The fields were dark and dead-looking, blackened by stubble burned off after the harvest, only occasional patches of snow here and there. What snow there was had piled up in drifts that littered the shade of the shelterbelts, like beach debris left behind after a receding tide. Cruz had seen places like this at the height of the growing season, though, when they were transformed into a vast, swaying sea of golden wheat. During those restless months after his first tour of duty in Vietnam, before he’d decided to re-up and go back, he’d ridden his old Harley down back roads from one end of the country to the other, drifting aimlessly, keeping mostly to himself. Trying to come to terms with what he’d seen and done over there. Trying to come to terms with himself.

Berglund’s massive frame moved beside him. The deputy gave the view out the window a glance, but it was probably as familiar to him as his own face in the bathroom mirror. He turned back to the waiting room, hooking his thumbs in his belt as he leaned against the window ledge, the typical stance of a brawny man unconsciously compensating for the unfortunate tendency of his arms to swing, gorilla-like, away from his overbuilt body.

“Let’s hope this lady shrink’s around, or we’ve made the drive for nothing,” Berglund said, his fingers drumming against his thick leather gun belt as they listened to the soft hum of the building, the ping of the elevators, and the singsong tone of pages going out over the hospital’s PA system. “Not much snow out there,” he added conversationally, giving the view behind them another glance. “Almanac says it’s going to be a hot, dry summer.”

“Guess the farmers won’t like that.”

“No. It’s typical, though. Feast or famine. Last spring, the fields were so saturated it was nearly June before we could get machinery out onto them. Finally get a crop in, and the next thing you know, summer drought sets in and the ground dries up harder than cement.”

Cruz gave him a sideways look. “You farm yourself?”

Berglund shrugged. “A little. Work my father-in-law’s old place. Got a few fields in barley and winter wheat.”

“Must keep you pretty busy, between that and the police work.”

“It can get hectic. Summertime’s when the town fills up with tourists and cottage people. Population jumps from a couple thousand to nearly ten.”

“You’re going to be really stretched this year if your chief’s still off the board.”

Berglund paused, as if that realization were just sinking in, and he passed a weary hand over his square, lined face—a man with too much to do and not enough to do it with. “I guess we will. What about you? You live in Washington?”

“These days, yeah, since I took this Bureau job.”

“Wouldn’t be my cup of tea, living in a big city like that. Where were you before the Bureau?”

“All over the place. Thailand, the Philippines, England, Germany. A tour in the Pentagon, a stint at Fort Gordon, Georgia.”

“Military, huh? Air force?”

“Army.”

“That a fact?”

They stopped, listening, as a page for Dr. Kandinsky finally went out over the PA system.

Berglund turned back to Cruz. “So where’s home?”

“Southern California. Santa Ana.”

“Oh, yeah. I know where that is. Near Disneyland, right? Wife and I took the kids there a couple of years ago. ‘Happiest Place on Earth.’”

Cruz nodded. “So they say. Haven’t lived there myself since the draft, back in ’65.”

Berglund glanced around, but the waiting room was empty. “Were you in ’Nam?” he asked quietly.

That was how vets talked amongst themselves these days, Cruz reflected grimly—in low voices and in safe places. Nobody spat at them and called them “baby-killers” anymore, but nobody wanted to hear about what happened to them, either. How kids got sent to fight an enemy they couldn’t see for a cause nobody believed in. How it messed with their heads, turning too many of them into burnout cases. “I did two tours,” he told Berglund.

“Two? Christ, one was enough for me. Why’d you go back?”

“Unfinished business. Then the Army turned into a career. What about you? Ex-grunt?”

“No, Navy man. Crazy, huh? Landlocked guy like me, ends up swabbing a deck? I didn’t even wait for my letter from the draft. Figured they were going to get me, anyway, so I volunteered to have my pick of services. Coming from a dust bowl like this, the idea of the ocean just appealed, you know?”

“Yeah, I guess I can see that.”

“So, you reenlisted, then stayed on? What kind of work did you do?”

Cruz hesitated, loathe to give details. He’d re-upped as penance for his sins, and penance it had turned out to be when word leaked out that he’d testified against those involved in a murder and subsequent cover-up conspiracy in his old unit. Being the guy who sent four former buddies to Leavenworth had earned him no points with his new outfit. On the contrary. He’d already endured two savage beatings he refused to talk about by the time the Criminal Investigation Division finally moved in and yanked him out of there. When they’d seen he’d taken a couple of criminology courses during his college days, they’d offered to train him as a professional investigator. It had been an offer he knew he couldn’t refuse. The only alternative was to return to a front-line unit and the near certainty of being taken out sooner or later by some hothead’s “friendly fire.”

He wasn’t about to tell Berglund that, though, and not just because the deputy, like so many others, would probably think he should have kept his mouth shut and not testified. No one in the service liked the CID, just like no city cop had anything good to say about internal affairs divisions. Cops who policed other cops and soldiers who investigated other soldiers learned to stick to their own kind and watch their backs.

“It was mostly field work I did,” he told Berglund. “Army life appealed, I guess.”

“Humph. Well, you’ve seen some places, I guess. Me, I did the run between San Diego and Cam Ranh Bay when I was in the Navy. Had a furlough in Bangkok once, attended police academy in St. Paul. Took that vacation in California with the wife and kids. Period. Rest of the time, I’ve been right here.”

“Havenwood seems like a nice town.”

“Yeah, it is. Some people might find it a little slow-moving for their taste, but I never wanted to live anywhere else.” He paused for a moment, as something flashed across his features, like a bad memory or an image of ghosts walking on his grave. “This thing with Grace Meade and the fire and all, though…stuff like that doesn’t happen around here, you know? You get your Saturday night bar fights and too many drunk kids wiping themselves out on the highway every year, but a murder….”

It happened everywhere, Cruz wanted to tell him, but he just nodded.

“How long are you planning to stick around?” Berglund asked.

“Only as long as it takes.”

“You just need a statement from Jillian, right.”

“Pretty much. I wouldn’t mind talking to a few people who know her, too, just to round out the report I have to make back to Scotland Yard. You know, the usual background stuff. Can you suggest some names?”

Berglund seemed non-committal. “I can’t think who, at this point. She’s been gone a long time. She left right after high school. Went to college out east and hasn’t been back here much since. Drops in to see her mother once in a while, that’s about it.”

“What about family and friends?”

“Her mother was the last of her family. Jillian was an only child. Her grandparents helped raise her, but they’ve been gone for years. As for friends…” Berglund shrugged. “You know how it is. You lose touch. Seventeen years is a long time.”

A long time, Cruz noted, but a very precise number—one that Berglund hadn’t even paused to calculate. Was that only because Jillian’s whereabouts had been on his mind since this business with the fire and her mother’s death? Or was there more to it than that? He studied the deputy out of the corner of his eye. Berglund couldn’t be much older than Jillian Meade, and like the man said, it was a small town. They had to have known each other since they were kids. How well? Obviously well enough for Berglund to have counted every year since she’d been gone.

“What about her father?” he asked.

“She never knew him. He was a flyer, killed during the war. Her mother was English. They met over there. Apparently she was working for British special ops, and Joe Meade was flying for the OSS. You know what that was?”

Cruz nodded. “The Office of Strategic Services, forerunner of the CIA.”

“That’s the one. They say Grace was quite the bombshell in those days, like some kind of Mata Hari, I guess. I don’t know. Anyway, the Brits had sent her behind the lines into France, and Joe was flying secret supply missions to the Resistance. His plane got shot down and the Resistance hid him from the Germans for a couple of months or so while they looked for an opportunity to smuggle him out of the country. That’s how the two of them met. Kinda like a movie, you know. Got married in secret by a French priest and were together long enough that Grace got pregnant, but then they were separated. Joe Meade was killed trying to get back to England, and Grace got stuck in France till the end of the war.”

“So that’s how Jillian ended up being born there,” Cruz said. When Berglund gave him a curious look, he explained, “I saw it on the passport details that were sent over to the Bureau.”

“Oh, right. Anyway, that’s about it. Joe’s folks sent for Grace and the baby after the war, invited them to come and live here in Havenwood with them.”

“And Mrs. Meade never remarried?”

Berglund shook his head.

“You sure know a lot about the family’s history,” Cruz noted.

“Everybody in Havenwood knows that story. Joe Meade’s a local war hero. My kids go to Joseph Meade Elementary School. So did I, for that matter. As for Grace, well, she made her own mark on the town. It can’t have been easy for her, I guess, leaving everything and everyone she knew and coming out here to live. But by the time she died, there wasn’t a thing went on here she didn’t have a hand in. Ran half the town, for that matter. Her funeral’s probably going to be the biggest one the town’s ever seen. I can’t imagine many who won’t be there.”

Except her daughter, Cruz thought.

Muffled voices sounded behind the glassed-in reception area, and they looked over to see an older woman speaking to the orderly.

“This must be the psychiatrist,” Berglund said, pushing himself off the window ledge.

Cruz had to agree. The woman wore no white coat, just a long, belted navy cardigan and slacks, but there was no mistaking the authoritative bearing of someone used to having her way. Sure enough, the orderly nodded in the direction of the two men in the waiting room. The woman disappeared behind a partition, then reappeared, frowning and pushing her way though the heavy door that separated the waiting area from the ward beyond.

Tall and heavyset, she had frizzled, steel-gray hair coiled in a knot on top of her head.A pair of gold-rimmed eyeglasses dangled from a chain slung around the collar of the brightly colored blouse she wore under the navy cardigan, a riotous Rorschach test pattern of pinks, white and oranges. As she strode toward them, hands jammed in the pockets of her sweater, the crepe soles of her brown Hush Puppies squeaked on the tiled floor.

“I’m Dr. Helen Kandinsky. What can I do for you gentlemen?”

Her irritable expression put Cruz in mind of Miss Nugent, his junior high English teacher, whose habit it was to send all the “Mexicans” in her classes to seats at the back of the room. They could do what they wanted back there, she said, as long as they kept quiet, because she had no intention of wasting her time on bean pickers. Somewhere in America, people were marching for civil rights, but Miss Nugent obviously hadn’t heard the news. The fact that Cruz’s family had been in California nearly two hundred years cut no ice with her, either. No amount of effort ever earned him more than the standard “C” she handed out to every student with a Spanish-sounding last name, the minimum required to ensure that there would be no repeat appearances in her class.

Berglund introduced himself and Cruz, explaining why they were there. The doctor pulled her hands out of her pockets to shake theirs in turn. When she turned her clear-eyed gaze on Cruz, she held on to his hand for an extended moment, her expression softening, less irritated now than curious. In that split second, Cruz saw Miss Nugent slink away into that dank mental corner where all his anger and self-doubt lived and festered.

“An FBI agent?” she said. “I can see why the deputy here would need to speak to my patient, but why would you people be taking an interest in a local tragedy like this?”

“I’m working on another case where Miss Meade may be a material witness,” he told her. “I’d been trying to track her down in Washington, and when I heard what had happened here, I decided to fly out.”

“I see. Well, I’m sorry to say you’ve probably made a trip for nothing. I doubt Jillian’s going to be in a position to answer your questions anytime soon. I’m trying to get her to open up and talk about what happened to her mother, but it’s slow going, and I think it could take a while.”

“Has she said anything at all about what happened that night?” Berglund asked.

“She hasn’t uttered a single word since being brought in, not about that or anything else. Mind you, she was heavily sedated for the first twenty-four hours. I’ve backed her off the meds today, but she’s still largely unresponsive. She seems to be in shock.”

“She hasn’t tried…you know, to hurt herself again or anything, has she?” Berglund asked.

“No. We’re monitoring her very closely, mind you, but she’s been quiet. Too quiet, in fact. I’m getting concerned about the fact that she’s not eating or drinking. If she doesn’t start taking something in the next few hours, I may have to put her on an intravenous line. I’m hoping to avoid that, because it’s bound to upset her. If she resists and has to be restrained, physically or chemically, then we’re going to end up right back at square one.”

“Are you saying she has made some progress since coming in?” Cruz asked.

“Maybe just a little. She was completely unresponsive at first. A lot of that was the drugs, of course. And while she still hasn’t spoken, she has taken a tentative step out of her self-isolation.”

“How so?”

“I was in to see her a little while ago. She’s still not talking, but she’s listening, I can tell. I left her with a notebook and some markers. It seemed like a worthwhile gambit. I was told she’s a historian by profession and that she’s written for publication. Some writers can’t resist a blank page.”

“And that worked?”

The doctor nodded. “I think so. Sure enough, when I peeked in on her just a few minutes ago, she was writing feverishly. It’s very strange. It almost looks as if she were undergoing some kind of exorcism. Frankly, though, it’s an encouraging sign. Something is bothering her deeply, and she’s trying to communicate in the way she’s most comfortable. If that’s all she can manage for now, it’s fine with me.”

“So, what’s she writing?” Cruz asked.

Dr. Kandinsky’s lower lip jutted as she lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “I have no idea.”

“You haven’t read it?”

“No, I promised her privacy.”

“Then how do you know she’s not writing gibberish?”

“I don’t. But even if she is, it says something about her mental state. In the meantime, as long as she’s involved in some kind of external activity, she’s not trying to kill herself.”

“I’d like to try talking to her, Doctor,” Berglund said. “She and I…” He hesitated. “Jillian’s known me her whole life, that’s all, and she could probably use a familiar face right about now.”

The doctor studied him for a moment as she considered the request, but then shook her head. “I’m sorry, I have to say no. Not today, anyway. She’s at a very tricky juncture right now. She’s been severely traumatized, and in my professional opinion, she’s right on the cusp of total withdrawal.” Berglund started to protest but she held up a hand. “I have no doubt you mean well, Deputy, but to walk in now, wearing that uniform and asking questions about the fire and her mother’s death…well, it’s premature, I’m afraid.”

Berglund nodded, obviously resigned to wait, but Cruz shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

“With all due respect, Doctor, I’m a little skeptical about how traumatized she really is. There’s some evidence Miss Meade may have pertinent knowledge on at least two other recent homicides—and her mother was murdered, by the way, in case you weren’t aware.”

“Is that true?” Dr. Kandinsky asked, turning to Berglund. He nodded.

“So that being the case,” Cruz went on, “I think we need to consider the possibility that she could be faking these symptoms of hers.”

“She wanted to die in that fire,” Berglund said. “I know. I was there. I practically had to coldcock her before I could carry her out of there.”

“And then there was the second suicide attempt in the Havenwood ER,” Dr. Kandinsky pointed out.

“Conveniently unsuccessful once more,” Cruz said. “Look, you have to admit, Doctor, there are clever people who sometimes act crazy in order to throw up a smoke screen to cover their actions. I know—I’ve seen it before.”

“I’m not saying it’s impossible, but I doubt it, in this case. And if you’re wrong and we push her too hard prematurely, Agent Cruz, we could very well do permanent damage. She could shut down for good, and then she might well succeed at her next attempt at suicide. Because make no mistake about it, gentlemen, the opportunity will arise sooner or later, and that wouldn’t suit your purposes or mine.”

Cruz was ready to argue it further, but her fighter’s stance and the shake of her gray head made it clear she was not about to back down.

“No. You can come back tomorrow and we’ll see where we’re at then. For now, my medical order stands—Jillian Meade is not to be disturbed. You can try for a court order, if you want, but I warn you, I’ll oppose it vigorously.”

Cruz would have been willing to take his chances with a judge, but Berglund’s set expression told him he’d be on his own. “One more day isn’t going to make any difference,” the deputy said. “We’ll wait.”

Kandinsky nodded. “I think that’s the best course.”

“Could we at least see her?” Berglund asked.

“I suppose that would be all right. I don’t see what harm it would do for you simply to look at her—from a distance, you understand. There’s a one-way observation window in her room. You can see her from there.”

They followed her over to the solid steel door next to the reception window and waited while the orderly at the desk buzzed them through. Dr. Kandinsky led them past a large common room just behind the reception desk, where eight or ten people in robes and hospital gowns, elderly for the most part, were sitting around card tables, or in recliners or wheel-chairs arranged in a circle in front of a television set.

“Our geriatric cases,” the doctor told them. “Dementia, mostly. We give them a little occupational therapy, but there’s not much potential for happy endings there.”

They continued down a long narrow hall, past rooms with heavy doors that stood open now, each room with a rectangular observation port, about two feet by three, set into the wall to allow a view of the inside. By the faintly shadowed look of the windows, Cruz knew they were mirrored on the other side, like the observation windows of the countless interrogation rooms in which he’d worked witnesses over the years. Most of the rooms were empty now, their occupants obviously those geriatric cases down the hall, but they passed one closed door, and through the observation window, they saw a lanky, long-haired boy lying in a knot of covers, his body twitching as if in response to a thousand small electric shocks.

“Drug overdose,” Kandinsky said, frowning at the boy’s spasms. “Sixteen years old. He’s three days into detox. This is his third time trying to get clean, and if he doesn’t straighten up and fly right this time, I don’t think he’s going to see seventeen.” She shook her head wearily. “A nice kid from a good home. Such a stupid, bloody waste. He’s the only other patient on total lock-down and round-the-clock watch.”

They moved on to the last room in the hall, and the doctor’s voice dropped to a murmur. “There she is.”

“Oh, Jesus!” Berglund breathed, his pale eyes gone wide.

Cruz turned to the window. He, too, was taken aback. He had Jillian Meade’s passport details, and from them, he’d begun to form a mental picture of her. Hair: brown. Eyes: brown. Height: 5'5". Weight: 110 pounds. Place of birth: Drancy, France, July 14, 1944.

All this information was contained in his battered briefcase in the trunk of the rental car, which was still parked back at Havenwood police headquarters. He’d also seen her in the Bicentennial group photograph hanging on Haddon Twomey’s wall, and there was another photo in his briefcase, as well, clipped to the corner of her file. The State Department had sent over a grainy copy of her passport photo, but it was clear enough to put some flesh on the bones of the other details he’d gathered. Hair not just brown, but very dark; long, below her shoulders at least, although she’d worn it center-parted and tied back conservatively for her passport picture. A wisp of long bangs, like a curtain, half concealing eyes that were large and slightly almond shaped. Her expression sober, chin tilted up slightly, as if she’d instinctively recoiled from the intrusive stare of the lens, the angle leaving the impression of someone looking down a nose that was unremarkable, neither too large nor too small. Her unsmiling mouth had been full, deeply colored, probably from lipstick, although it was hard to tell, since the picture was black and white. She wore small gold earrings and a simple gold necklace against a plain, rounded black neckline.

From those details and from the other information Cruz had gathered about her yesterday, as he’d gone from her apartment building to her workplace, he’d formed an image of a woman who was quiet, intellectual, buttoned-down and caught up in her work. Not unpleasant, but the kind who, as she approached middle age, rarely made eye contact, as if afraid of catching some fatal disease through the osmosis of social intercourse. A woman who might smile out of manners or nervousness, but who rarely laughed out loud. A thin woman with pale hands that never got dirty. A woman who haunted library stacks and hurried home each night from her museum job to a quiet, tidy apartment where she survived on yogurt, apples and three good books a week.

The problem was, that image didn’t mesh with the reality of a woman linked to three violent deaths. And it certainly didn’t fit with the image in the viewing port in front of them.

The room was painted a dull green color, furnished with a hospital bed, a steel chair and a rolling side table. Nothing more. The foot of the bed faced the window, so that although the woman lay on her side, propped on one elbow, they could see her in profile. She was wearing an oxygen feeder tube, and her breathing seemed raspy and labored. Her long legs were bare and bruised, tangled in the quilt but folded up in a near fetal position making her seem small, childlike and lost in the big institutional bed. Her face was strained and pale, eyes puffy, skin smeared with traces of soot. Her long hair was tangled and falling unheeded in her eyes. Thin arms poked from the short sleeves of a blue cotton hospital gown; like her legs, they seemed covered with bruises—although maybe, Cruz thought, it was only soot. There was, however, no mistaking the thick, gauze bandage on her left arm, just below the elbow, the aftermath, he presumed, of the incident with the air-filled hypodermic syringe.

Scattered on the mattress beside her were the spilled contents of a box of felt markers. Her right hand clenched one of the markers as she scribbled, rapidly and frantically, in a thick notebook, pausing only to flip pages. She was supporting herself on her left elbow as she lay on the bed, and that hand was compulsively kneading a corner of the quilt. Cruz watched the counterpoint movements, mesmerized by her left hand clawing at the covers while her right went on, scribbling and scribbling—down the notebook’s left-hand page, then flying to the top of the right, madly filling that one, and then flipping to the next. She worked with a frenzy that left him inclined to believe she was truly insane. And at that speed, he thought, she had to be writing gibberish.

So was she mad? Or too clever by half?

“She looks awful,” Berglund muttered. “Locked up in there, all alone. Isn’t there something…?”

“We’re doing all we can for her right now,” Kandinsky said. “At this point, the most important thing seems to be that she get down in that notebook whatever it is that she seems driven to put there. That and, hopefully, for her to sleep, and also to eat something. I might see if we can get her into a shower eventually, too. I know that would make her feel better. But right now,” she added, “this is what she needs to be doing.”

Berglund couldn’t seem to take his eyes off the crumpled figure on the bed. The doctor watched him for a moment, her face shifting to a puzzled frown, and then she reached out to touch him on the arm. “Deputy? Why don’t you and Agent Cruz go now? You can come back tomorrow and we’ll see where we stand then. She’s not going anywhere, and I’m sure you’ll find her much improved after a night’s sleep.”

Berglund snapped back to attention, pulling his gaze away from the window. “Right, that’s what we’ll do. I’d like to know right away if her condition changes, though,” he added, pulling out a business card, and then a pen that he used to scribble a number on the back. “These are my office and home telephone numbers. Would you tell her I was here, if you get a chance? And if she wants to talk, any time, no matter how late, call me?”

Kandinsky took the card he held, looked it over, and then slipped it into her sweater pocket. “I will, I promise.”

Berglund studied her for a second, then turned on his heel and headed up the hall without a backward glance.

Cruz took one last look at the figure on the other side of the glass. Jillian Meade’s one hand continued its frantic kneading of the bedclothes while, clenched in her other, the turquoise marker flew across the notebook pages.