"The hospital is owned by the Pennobscott Foundation which I understand has substantial financial reserves. Of course, for any further financial details you would have to ask Mr. Clanton." Ms. Bierce pursed her lips.

If that's any of your business, I heard the unspoken comment. I locked eyes with Ms. Bierce for a moment then looked away.

"Here are your business cards," she continued, handing me a small gray box.

 

Dr. Steven Westbrook, M.D.

Chief Of Psychiatric Services

Wheaton Fields Convalescent Clinic

10 Bayberry Drive

Wheaton, Maryland 20915

301-555-9786

 

"Is there anything else you need, Dr. Westbrook?"

"What?" Ramrod straight, Ms. Bierce had closed the accordion folder and was staring at me, her lips pressed into a thin line. "Uhh, no, I don't think so. I'll read the patient summaries and then start fresh tomorrow."

Ms. Bierce nodded and turned away.

"Staff meeting at ten in room 204," she announced as she pulled the door closed behind her. I gave the blue file one last look, then wandered to the window. Beyond the thin steel bars was a small open area crossed by a tilt-slabbed sidewalk. In the near distance a boundary was formed by a solid wall of trees. I tried to match the scene to the pictures in the glossy brochure the headhunter had given me.

Wheaton Fields surrounded by Autumn's orange blaze of sugar maples, aspen, and white oak. Verdant summer fields in all their bucolic glory. The tree-shaded main building outlined against a cloud-strewn blue sky. Each image tastefully captioned with words like 'restful' and 'serene', 'peaceful', and 'stress free.'

 

"Wheaton Fields provides first class facilities in a secluded location. Our expert staff is trained to provide a confidential, restful, and nurturing environment in which persons suffering from the trauma of high-stress modern life can re-discover their emotional center and re-orient their lives from the negative influences that have plagued them. Our primary goal is to help our patients return to a happy, productive existence and to re-discover joy and satisfaction in their everyday lives."

 

Judging from the brochure, Wheaton Fields was shooting for the Betty Ford clientele, but considering the hulking stone building, the 1930's architecture, the linoleum floors, and the empty rooms, reality didn't seem to match the brochure's promise. But, I reminded himself, that's not my problem.As much as some of the patients, I'm here to get a fresh start.

Idly, I leafed through the patient roster, then paused and flipped back one sheet. Daniel J. Rivers, age 42, paranoid schizophrenic. Daniel J. Rivers? Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Daniel J. Rivers?  Rivers had resigned from the Administration, what, a little over a year ago for health reasons? Good God, we had paranoid schizo running billion dollar weapons systems? How long had he been here? I scanned to the bottom of the page. Admitted ten months ago. I made a mental note to review Rivers' complete file the first chance I got.

I flipped a few more pages then paused again. Elaine Adair? Hadn't she been nominated for an Academy Award a couple of years ago? Apparently she'd been at Wheaton Fields for about six weeks. And her problem is . . . . ?  Reading between the lines the words 'speed freak' popped into my head.

How the hell was this file organized?  I flipped past several pages but I could find no plan or structure. Perhaps Ms. Bierce had added the sheets in random order just to frustrate me. I removed the fastener and sorted the summaries into alphabetical order, in the process moving Elaine Adair to the top of the list.

Butter-colored beams of light were slipping between the window's bars. Time to go. I resolved that I would come in early tomorrow and finish reviewing the patient summaries. Squaring the blue folder on the center of my otherwise empty desk, I ended my first day at Wheaton Fields.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Three

 

 

 

Room 204 was bigger than I had expected with a bank of large windows overlooking the front lawn. Four leather club chairs surrounded a mahogany conference table. Armed with a cup of coffee, I was about to take the seat at the head of the table when two of my senior staff entered. The woman, fortyish, plump, with a tangled halo of reddish-brown hair, paused in mid-sentence when she me then quickly extended her hand.

"Dr. Westbrook? Dr. Margaret Riles. I guess you could call me your deputy."

"Pleased to meet you." I looked at Riles' companion, a tall, thin man, all planes and angles.

"Dr. Harold Gentry," he replied, a nervous grimace stretching his lips.

"Dr. Gentry." I shook Gentry's hand, the long, boney fingers cold and limp. "And your position?"

"Uhh, I'm the senior Clinical Psychiatrist. I supervise treatment teams one and two. Margaret handles three and four and any forensic psychiatric issues."

"Forensic?"

Riles gave me a nervous smile. "Sometimes we accept patients under special arrangement with the courts."

"Wealthy serial killers?" I asked with a smile.

"Occasionally."

"I was joking," I replied, surprised.

"The public institutions are overcrowded and if the patient is willing to pay the cost for a private facility, the government is usually more than willing to give him to us."

"I've never heard of such a thing."

"There are only eight institutions accredited by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons to participate in the program. We're the only one on the eastern seaboard."

"Do we have any, ahh, transferees right now?" I picked up my blue file. "I didn't see anything in here . . . ." my voice trailed off as I flipped through the pages.

"Actually," Gentry cut in, fingering his black plastic glasses, "there are two. Merle Turpin, a serial rapist from South Carolina and Gerald Fournier, a spree killer from Philadelphia."

"I didn't even know we had a locked facility."

"It's occupies a large part of the third floor," Riles said, glancing over her left shoulder.

Uneasily I looked from face to face then closed the blue file. "I see that I have a lot to learn about Wheaton Fields. Well, let's--"

The door banged open and a trim, red-haired man bustled into the room.

"Sorry I'm late. Got hung up with a patient." The newcomer stuck out his hand. "Russ Mitchell. I'm your token Ph.D. Mostly, I supervise the non-medical staff and help out with overloads on day-to-day counseling and treatment emergencies." Perfect teeth, I thought as I stared at Mitchell's smiling, freckled face.

"No problem, we were just getting started." Mitchell took the chair at the end of the table. "I don't know how much you know about me . . . ."

"Practically nothing," Mitchell cut in, then laughed. "Sorry, I thought that was a question. Please, go ahead."

"As I was saying, I did my undergraduate work at U.C.L.A. and got my medical degree from Duke. The Army paid for my education in exchange for a service commitment. For the past four years I served as the Chief of Psychiatric Services at the Walson Clinic at Fort Dix, New Jersey. About two months ago I resigned my commission--"

"And what was that?"

"What was what, Dr. Mitchell?"

"Call me Russ. What was your rank when you resigned?"

"Major.--"

"Why'd you leave?"

I clenched his jaw and took a breath. "Personal reasons," I answered in a flat tone. Mitchell's face reacquired its idiot smile.

"Sure, none of our business, I guess."

"What was your normal schedule with Dr. Lang?" I asked Riles, pointedly turning away from Russ Mitchell.

"Ahhh, well, as Dr. Gentry mentioned, each of us runs two treatment teams which each consist of a psychiatrist or psychologist, a nurse, and an activities coordinator or a recreational therapist. Each team has between ten and twenty patients and meets with each patient between one and two hours per week. I also have four psychologists, including Russ, and fifteen licensed therapist-drug counselors who follow up with counseling and group therapy sessions. About half of our patients attend from one to three group sessions per week, plus their regular team interviews, plus extra counseling as needed.

"Russ generally oversees the psychologists and Dr. Gentry oversees the therapists. They report to me and all four of us get together every Wednesday morning. I give you a separate weekly report every Friday afternoon. You meet with Mr. Clanton, the Executive Director, every Monday afternoon. Each treatment team turns in its weekly notes by close of business on Friday and you review them before our Wednesday meeting."

"And the rest of the time?"

"Well, Dr. Lang pretty much let us do our jobs, though he would drop into group or team meetings from time to time. Naturally, we brought any problems or administrative issues to him."

I nodded and closed my worn blue file.

"Is there anything special that I need to be concerned about?"

Riles and Gentry quickly glanced at each other then back to me.

"Not a thing," Riles said.

"We're good."

"Dr. Mitchell?"

"Smooth as---", The phone at the edge of the table suddenly issued a series of agitated trills.

I froze for an instant then grabbed the receiver. "Westbrook . . . . What - where? . . . Yes, I'll be right there." The plastic handset clattered as I threw it down. "Dr. Riles, would you lead the way to East 207? Apparently patient has knocked out an orderly and barricaded himself in Dr. Metrano's office."

Before I could take a step toward the door Russ Mitchell pulled out his cell phone and hit the speed dial.

"Russ--"

 Mitchell held up his hand.

"This is Dr. Mitchell. We've got an incident. Cut off all the phones in the east wing, right now." The cell closed with a snap. "It's protocol," Mitchell explained. "The policy is to prevent an agitated patient from embarrassing the hospital with calls to talk-radio programs or threats to shoot the governor."

"Makes sense to me," I agreed. "Okay, let's find out what's going on." Riles gave Mitchell a quick glance then headed out the door.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Four

 

 

 

When we turned the corner leading to room 207 I found a uniformed guard and two white-suited orderlies clustered around Dr. Metrano's door.

"It's open!" the guard insisted, a set of keys dangling from the lock. One of the orderlies slammed a meaty shoulder against it but the door barely moved.

"He's jammed a chair or something under the knob."

"Stand back, I'll--"

"Everybody just calm down," I ordered and strode to the door.

"Who---"

"This is Dr. Westbrook. He's taken over for Dr. Lang," Riles told them, hurrying to catch up. The three men paused, then respectfully stepped back.

"Who's the patient and how'd he get in there?" Mitchell demanded.

"They said it was Daniel Rivers. As for the how, let's fix the problem first." I didn't bother to turn toward Russ Mitchell. "They'll be plenty of time later to figure that out later." I pressed gently on the panel. Wood veneer over steel, well braced from the inside.

"Mr. Rivers, my name is Dr. Steven Westbrook. I'm the new chief of psychiatric services. Please tell me what you're trying to do." I heard a muted shuffle of feet, then nothing. "Mr. Rivers?"

"Where's Lang?"

"Dr. Lang is gone. I'm his replacement."

"You're lying," Rivers shouted after a long heartbeat.

I looked at the group crowded behind me.

"Who's his primary counselor?"

"I am," Gentry said, half raising his hand.

"How widely focused is his paranoia?"

"Pretty much everyone is in on the conspiracy against him."

"Including you?"

"Especially me."

"Great." I turned back to the door and knocked gently. "Mr. Rivers, you're going to have to help me understand this. This is my first day and I haven't a clue what this is all about. What is it you want?"

"They know!"

I looked back at Gentry who just shrugged. Frowning, I tried again.

"Mr. Rivers, why don't you let me in so that we can discuss this confidentially."

"You'll lock me up."

"I don't know enough yet to decide what to do, but things aren't going to get any better with you and me shouting at each other through this door. Please let me in. I promise I'll listen to what you have to say."

"Sure. As soon as I open the door your goons are going to rush in here and carry me away."

"No, they won't. I give you my word. . . . If you've got a better solution, I'd like to hear it."

"Turn the phones back on."

"Not until I understand what's going on here. I give you my word I'll listen to you if you'll let me in."

For five seconds the hallway was quiet, then I heard a clink as a chair was removed from beneath the knob. The orderlies tensed but I waved them back. The door opened a crack. Carefully, I pushed it out of the way, entered, and closed it behind me. The office was flooded with light from the large window behind Dr. Metrano's desk. Wedged into the left-hand corner was a slightly built African-American man, his eyes large and his face shiny with sweat.

"Mr. Rivers," I held out my hand, "I'm Dr. Westbrook." Apprehensively, Rivers edged forward as if my palm were studded with poison barbs. Finally, he briefly shook my hand then jumped back into the corner.

"I'm going to sit over here. Why don't you take Dr. Metrano's chair and explain all this to me."

Warily, Rivers slipped into the executive chair, then rolled it back into the corner as far as it would go.

"So?" I asked, raising a pair of open hands.

"They kidnapped me, you know."

"Your family?"

"The government. I found out something they didn't want me to know."

"I would imagine that as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense a lot of top secret material crossed your desk."

"Top Secret material? I used that stuff for toilet paper. This was Ultra Secret." Rivers leaned forward and his face turned cagey. "That's the real reason Kennedy was killed, you know, not the Bay of Pigs, not the mafia. He found out things and threatened to spill the beans and they had to shut him down."

"Who's 'they'?"

"The men who run this country, really run it, not the puppets they put in the White House." Rivers gave me a calculating stare. "Aren't you going to ask me what I discovered?"

"It sounds as if it would be healthier for me if I didn't know."

"Hah!" Rivers shouted. "That's the most intelligent thing anyone's said to me since I got here. You bet your ass you don't want to know, not unless you want to miss the turn on your drive home or crack you skull in your shower or get shot at the ATM machine. . . . You hear that out there!" Rivers shouted at the door. "I'm not telling him. You can listen in all you like." Rivers turned and gave me a quick grin.

"So, what are you doing in here?"

"Did you know that there are only three or four places in this hospital where you can connect to the Internet?"

"No, I didn't. Why is that?"

"If you connect to the Internet you might copy files to off-site storage. All Internet connections are monitored by the local Gestapo so that nobody talks about anything they shouldn't. Do you have a laptop?" Rivers asked sharply.

"Yes, of course."

"Don't try to bring it here."

"Why not?"

"Because they'll take it away from you. No private computers allowed that might connect with the Internet or that might be used to copy files or burn CD's. Do you think I'm making this all up?"

"No, I--"

"Check it out for yourself. Now, ask yourself, why does a simple psychiatric clinic need such extreme security measures?  What do they have to hide?"

I shrugged as if to say You tell me.  Rivers just laughed.

"So, you broke in here to . . . . use the phone?"

"Very good."

"You were going to call . . . ?"

"Who do you think?"

"Sixty Minutes?"

Rivers laughed harshly.

"Why haven't I heard from my wife the whole time I've been here? What does she know about what's happened to me?  What have you told her?  Why doesn't she come to visit me?  Does she even know I'm here?"

"Wouldn't she have to know? There were court proceedings--"

"Closed proceedings. I wasn't allowed a lawyer, no phone calls, and when I was brought into court they had me doped to the eyeballs."

"So, you want to call your wife?"

"Is that so unreasonable?  Even murderers and rapists get to have visitors and send letters."

"You're not allowed to send or receive mail?"

"Even serial killers are treated more fairly than I am."

"If I let you call your wife, will you return quietly to your room?"

"Like you'd do that." Glaring, Rivers pulled a six inch dagger from the elastic waist band at the small of his back and laid it on the desk.

I nervously eyed the dagger, then turned toward the door. "Dr. Riles, can you hear me?"

"Yes. Are you all right?"

I glanced uneasily at the knife, then looked back toward the door.

"Everything is fine. I want you to have the telephone turned back on."

"Dr. Westbrook," Mitchell shouted, "that's completely against policy."

"Thanks for the bureaucracy lesson, Dr. Mitchell, now do what I told you."

"Dr. Westbrook, I don't think you--"

"I want to hear a dial tone in the next thirty seconds. Got it?"

"Hang on."

I glanced idly around the room then picked up the phone.

"Do you know the number?"

"You think I don't know my own phone number?"

I shrugged. "She could have moved after they put you in here." Angrily, Rivers grabbed the phone and began to punch buttons.

"Ally, is that you? . . . . Ally, it's me, Dan. . . . Nothing's wrong. Why haven't you come to visit me ? . . . Of course I can have visitors . . . No, wait, I'll put the doctor on." Rivers held out the phone.

"Hello, Mrs. Rivers, this is Dr. Westbrook."

"Is Daniel all right?  Has something happened?"

"Everything is fine. You're welcome to visit him any time you like. . . .Hello?  Mrs. Rivers?" The a moment the line seemed dead then I heard a crackle of static. I handed the receiver back.

"Ally?  Ally, what happened--yes, I understand it's been hard for you. .. . . You have to go?. . . . Ally is this really you? . . . . Fine, then tell me who JB is? . . . . No, who are--" Rivers slammed the phone down. "They've transferred the call. That wasn't Ally. It was some imposter. . . ." Rivers' voice trailed off and he slumped back in his chair. I reached out my hand.

"Come on, Mr. Rivers, I think we've all had our quota of excitement for the day."

Rivers' eyes snapped open and he cowered back in the chair.

"I'm just going to walk you back to your room. If you want, ask the orderly to bring you to my office tomorrow and I'll let you call your wife again."

"They won't like that."

"Who?"

"The people who put me here."

"Well, I'll just have to take my chances with them."

Rivers paused for a second, looked wildly around the room, then his resolve collapsed. He slowly emerged from behind the desk then paused, grabbed my head, and whispered fiercely into my ear: "We stole it from the Nazi's then buried it. They're all terrified of it." Rivers released me and meekly opened the office door, his arms raised in surrender. I grabbed the knife and followed him from the room.

 

Rivers glanced at the wide-eyed doctors and nervous orderlies and marveled at how far he had fallen. If he had only known at the beginning . . . but life was like that. It was usually when you thought you were king of the hill that everything began to turn to shit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Five

 

 

 

As they marched him back to his room Rivers couldn't stop replaying in his head the events that had led to his destruction. He knew the exact day that his precipitous fall from grace had begun. It had been a year and a half ago and had started with the visit from General Adrian Banks.

 

*    *     *

 

The General was a balding, fiftyish man, about five feet six, the fabric of his uniform jacket straining against its brass buttons. He sat nervously across from Rivers, a thin, intense man perfectly dressed in a dark gray Burberry pinstripe with a maroon and gray striped tie over a starched white shirt. The meeting began politely enough, Rivers offering the General coffee, Banks thanking Rivers for taking the time out his busy schedule to meet with him. Finally, uneasily, the General broached the purpose of his visit. His department's budget has been reduced by 30%. That left barely enough money to pay for his warehouses' maintenance, security and utilities. With such a huge cut they would have to close their laboratory, fire their civilian employees, essentially close up shop. The cuts must be restored.

Rivers had been briefed about Banks' department, the Resource Recovery Administration, in a memo no longer than one page. He had allocated two minutes for pleasantries, five minutes to hear Banks' plea, and three more minutes to get rid of him and move on to really important business.

"As I understand it, General," Rivers began, "your organization's mission is to discover useful technology from the material that we've . . . liberated over the years."

"Absolutely, Mr. Rivers. It's vital work."

"Well, it would seem to me that if there were any useful technology in all these warehouses you administer that you should be able to generate quite a bit of your own funding by licensing it to private industry. That would seem to me to be the way to compensate for any budgetary shortfall."

Banks frowned as if Rivers had suggested that the appropriate solution to a traffic jam was for everyone to get out of their cars, flap their arms and fly away.

"Of course, we're always anxious to generate income for the government but there are unique obstacles we face."

"Oh, what would those be?" Rivers asked, quizzically tilting his head to one side.

"Much of the technology, while based on revolutionary discoveries, is functionally obsolete. It would take a substantial research and development budget to bring it up to current standards. Synthetic fuels, for example. The Germans did marvelous things with bio-mass and so could we, but it would take a hundred million dollars at least to modernize the Nazi's original plans and construct a test facility, and even then, it would not be economically attractive until the cost of gasoline exceeded $4.50 per gallon."

"A hundred million dollars? Yes, I can see that would be beyond your budget. But wouldn't private industry, Shell, Standard Oil, still be interested in acquiring these plans?"

The general waved his hand as if disbursing a bad smell. "They're only interested in working technology, not science. Even if we convinced them to pay us something, and it would be pittance I can assure you, they would do nothing with it, just store the blueprints someplace and forget it."

"Somewhat like what you've been doing?"

"We have preserved this technology so that it is ready to be deployed in the case of a national emergency. Once we give it away, it will be lost forever, and the next time the Middle East cuts off our oil, those same companies will charge the government a billion dollars to re-invent it."

"Hmmmm," Rivers murmured noncommittally. "What other problems do you have generating licensing income?"

"The provenance on some of our materials is not all we would like it to be."

"Excuse me?"

The General shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "It's the lawyers. Every time we offer to license any of our technology, the buyer's attorneys want representations and warranties that the U.S. Government is the legal owner of the technology, that no other person has any claim to any part of the intellectual property, that the material is not in the public domain, that any implementations of the technology by the buyer will be patentable and that if anyone challenges the buyer's rights to the technology that the U.S. government will indemnify them from any claims. That means--"

"--Yes, I'm very familiar with representations, warranties and indemnities. And I take it that we can't do that?"

"How the hell can we?" Banks exploded, then struggled to control his frustration. "Look, it's 1945, forty of our trucks pull up to a deserted factory that was making advanced alloy rocket nozzles. All the Germans have fled. There are maybe fifty starving Jewish slaves cowering in the corners and praying that we're not the Gestapo come to put a bullet through their brains. We give them food and while they're eating they tell a twenty-two year old Captain from Indianapolis, 'That's the machine that makes the nozzles. That's the furnace where  the metal is smelted. In there is the shop book but on page 62 it says to use 1% antimony but you really have to use .8% antimony or the nozzles will crack after six minutes use.' So we throw everything into the trucks and ship it back to Nevada. Now sixty years later some lawyer on Park Avenue wants us to prove that we have the uncontested legal right to the formula and the shop book and what the half-dead Jewish slave told the Captain about the formula on page 62. How the Hell are we supposed to do that!"

"And an 'AS-IS' sale?"

"Impossible. The buyer's going to have to spend millions to make the technology work, which is not a sure thing.  To do that and risk getting sued by anybody from Krupp to the family of the Jewish prisoner is commercially unacceptable."

"So, you're saying that none of the technology you have is saleable, that it's your purpose is to preserve it against the day that some national emergency might make it valuable again?"

The General fiddled with the top button on his coat and wiggled his ass in Rivers' increasingly uncomfortable chair. "I wouldn't say that applies to all our technology. "Some of it is of incalculable value, but, of course, most of that is on the Forbidden List."

"The Forbidden List?"

"Those technologies that are too dangerous or unstable to be released into the public domain."

"Oh, you mean things like nerve gas formulas, that sort of thing?" Rivers asked leaning slightly forward.

"Yes, that, of course, but also the energy stuff."

"The energy stuff?" That sounds interesting, Rivers thought to himself. In these days of oil shortages and Mid-East crises any advances in energy production could be worth a fortune to someone with the right contacts, someone like Daniel Rivers.

"Yes, the energy stuff," Rivers agreed in a tone that implied he knew all about the subject. "But, aren't there ways to get around those risks?"

"I don't know what you've been told, Mr. Rivers, but we consider the energy material to be of the highest danger to the nation."

"Yes, of course, in its current state. But wasn't there some research done on ways to solve those problems?"

"It was thoroughly investigated back in the fifties and the decision was made that the risks could not be overcome."

"Still," Rivers said, drawing out the word and leaning back in his chair, "with the situation in the Middle East, perhaps the time has come to re-evaluate the energy materials."

"I wish I could agree with you, Mr. Rivers, but the risk from wide spread use of dark energy pumps is so huge, well, it would be like giving everybody the plans for a nuclear bomb and half a pound of plutonium."

"A pity," Rivers said frowning. "But, if you're unwilling to even consider reexamining the situation, my hands are tied."

"What about our budget? Certainly there's something . . . ." Banks' words petered out as Rivers slowly shook his head.

"As you've pointed out, it appears that most of the commercial value has been wrung out your material and all you can do now is catalog and store it against the day that some national emergency makes it worthwhile. If you had even one technology that showed any promise of a potential financial return, well, then there might be something that I could do. I thought that the dark energy materials might provide that, that they might possibly be restricted to large regional power centers where the technology could be protected, but since you are irrevocably convinced--"

"Well, 'irrevocably convinced' is perhaps not quite accurate," Banks said in a thoughtful voice. "Now that you mention it, a regional facility, perhaps something operated by the Department Of  Energy,  might be secure enough to keep the technology from falling into the wrong hands."

"And it would be quite a nice profit center for your Department, perhaps for the entire government, if the technology is actually practical and subject to cost-efficient implementation." Banks seemed lost in thought and Rivers gave him a long stare. "Well, General, is it?"

"It is it what?" Banks asked as if emerging from a trance.

"Is the technology practical?  Can it be implemented on a large scale basis at a competitive cost per kilowatt hour?"

"Uhhh, I don't know. The cost approaches zero once the hardware is built. Essentially the operating cost would be the direct expense of personnel plus the amortized cost of equipment replacement. But I don't have any idea of what those costs would be per kilowatt hour. We've never, that is, I've had very clear orders to have nothing to do with any of the items on the Forbidden List."

"Can you assign some of your scientific staff to run the numbers on a pro forma basis?"

"Yes, I suppose Dr. Nathanson could handle that."

"So, if I visited your facility, say," Rivers opened his calendar and ran his finger down the page, "a week from Friday, your Doctor Nathanson could give me a demonstration of what we're talking about and a preliminary report on feasibility and cost?"

"A week from Friday?  Well, I suppose," Banks caught a look in Rivers' eyes. "Yes, we can have a full report for you by then."

"Excellent. My Assistant, Ms. Morris, will be in touch with your office concerning the details of our visit."

"You don't really have to come all the way to our lab. I could send you Dr. Nathanson's report--"

"I find it's best to get technical explanations directly from the experts. It saves so much misunderstanding later. We wouldn't want to spend fifty or sixty million on this only to discover that it really doesn't work the way we thought it would. That wouldn't look very good on either of our resumes would it?" Rivers gave the General an icy smile.

"No, I suppose it wouldn't." Rivers stared at Banks for half a beat and then jumped to his feet. "Well, thank you, Mr. Rivers, for all of your time and good advice. We'll see you a week from Friday, then."

"Yes, you will," Rivers said, shaking the general's hand and planning the next step in his own downfall.

 

*     *     *

 

Rivers was yanked back to the present by the loud CLACK as the orderly secured the lock on his door.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Six

 

 

 

For the rest of the day I felt off-kilter as if I had unexpectedly assumed the lead in a play only haphazardly rehearsed. Mitchell wanted me to transfer Rivers to the locked ward and drastically up his meds, but I refused. The only concession I made to Mitchell's demands was to order Dr. Gentry to spend an hour interviewing Rivers and not to go home until he had typed up his notes. I tried to go back to work and the balance of the day dissolved in a blur of meetings and paperwork.

I wanted to change my life, I reminded himself as I dropped the dagger into my bottom desk drawer. No opportunity left unexplored. Next I'll be taking up sky diving and competition karate.

As I drove back to my rented house that evening I tried to make some sense of my first day at Wheaton Fields but the thoughts swirling in my head refused to coalesce into any kind of meaningful image. Was I running toward something or just running away. If only Carly . . . . I forced her memory form my mind.

By the time I reached my driveway deep shadows had overtaken the creases in the verdant Maryland forest and the dying light penetrated the trees only in occasional thick amber shafts. The house, a cottage really, was dim and lonely  at the bottom of a gentle, sloping drive.

I don't need very much room, I reminded himself, then forced my attention elsewhere before my thoughts slipped down the well worn track that I was determined to wall off for as long as it took the pain to leak away.

Opening the front door I half expected Cinnamon to come bursting out of the bedroom, both missing the welcoming clatter of the dog's paws and not missing them, glad that in my new, solitary, life I had been released from the responsibility for another's care.

Rivers' file made a dull thump on the dining room table, after-dinner reading until I was too tired to keep my eyes open and I could allow sleep to suck me down into a black, dreamless pit. Dinner was a hodgepodge of take-out and leftovers, a melange of tastes that neither excited nor nauseated me, just bites that went down and stayed down with little memory of what I had eaten.

I stared at the phone and thought about giving Ted Sanders a call. And say what? I'm lonely and confused and I feel like I'm a trespasser in my own life? Shit, I'm supposed to be the shrink, not Ted. Besides, best friend or not, what could Ted do? Invite me over to dinner with the wife and kiddies? Listen to my fears and complaints? Roommates in college, best men at each other weddings, Godfather to Ted's kids, did I really want to inflict all that shit on him? Hell no. That's what therapists were for. Besides, being the Administrative Assistant to one of the country's most powerful Senators, not to mention being that same Senator's son, as well as a husband and father, were more than enough demands on the limited number of the hours in Ted's day without me him calling up to whine about how lonely I was without Carly. What the Hell could Ted do about that anyway? Shit, Westbrook, grow the hell up! I scolded himself, then almost laughed. Some shrink you are.

I pushed the phone away and collapsed in the big leather chair and let my mind slip into a comfortable limbo devoid of plans or thoughts or self-analysis until the memories began to leak back in, then I grabbed Rivers' file and started to read.

Rivers' rapid onset of paranoid schizophrenia had begun more than twenty years later than was generally seen. This type of sudden downward spiral was typically encountered in men in their late teens to early twenties. I flipped to Rivers pre-commitment records and found them woefully incomplete.

From what I could tell there had been no sign of problems all the way through the patient's thirties, no reports of voices, hallucinations, peculiar impulses or any of the other hallmarks of the disease until his early forties, about a year ago. I noticed a scribbled note from one of the doctors at Walter Reed, what was that name, J. Thorsenfeld?, that the patient had related growing fears of being followed, his mail being opened, strange telephone calls and the like. Initially Rivers denied hearing voices but upon follow-up questioning admitted that he had learned to follow his instincts, and listen to his "inner voice" that warned him that something strange was going on.

Once the symptoms began to present, Rivers' access to classified material was limited and his condition rapidly deteriorated. For obvious reasons the Administration did not want it known that one of their top defense department appointees was a paranoid schizophrenic, so Rivers "resigned" for personal reasons. By then the disease was in full bloom, and a quiet commitment was arranged in hopes of not only protecting the government but also saving Rivers' family the embarrassment of having his illness splashed across front pages from Boston to San Diego.

Page by page, I went through the file, blood tests, personality inventory tests, interviews, drug protocols, and when I was done there was not one thing that seemed out of place or inappropriate, but still the picture as a whole made me vaguely uneasy. The atypical age of the patient, the unexpected side effects Rivers experienced from the drugs that normally controlled the condition, the high levels of hypnotics that had been prescribed prior to each court appearance, the fact that all of the doctors who had documented Rivers' condition had been in the military, gave me a feeling of unfocused discontent. Still, it was probably nothing. After all, free medical treatment at military hospitals was one of the perks of working for the Department of Defense.

Turning out the lights, I headed for the bedroom at the back of the cottage. Through the partially open window I could hear the gurgling of the tiny stream behind the house.

I washed quickly but when I grabbed the dental floss, the string pulled off in my hand. Tossing the empty container in the trash, I opened the closet next to the bathroom and scrabbled around for a replacement, my fingers sliding across the dusty shelf. For an instant there was a touch against my wrist, then a clatter and the tinkle of breaking glass. A cloud of fragrance billowed from the shadows and enveloped me in a citric-floral cloud. Startled, I took a deep breath and I felt as if the floor beneath him had disappeared. Unbidden, the flagrance invoked an instant memory of Carly and I closed my eyes against the sudden vision.

I imagined her running through an orange grove. Heart pounding I raced behind. The scent of orange blossoms filled my nostrils, white petals falling like snow, peppering Carly's loose, honey-colored hair, the smells of the lush grass, the flowers, the sound of her laughter as I caught her and pulled her down on the carpet of blossoms between the trees, the rustle of her jeans sliding down her thighs, the smell of her body welcoming me, the sensation of my weight on top of her, the flicker of the petals drifting down as we made love, the scent of the orchard, her shattered arms protruding from the mangled wreck . . . . A broken sob escaped my throat and I slipped to the floor and wept.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Seven

 

 

 

The phone jarred me from a discontented dream colored with grays and browns, one of vague, missed opportunities and lost chances. My little bedroom was pitch black and even the gurgle of the creek seemed to have faded until my universe was filled only with darkness and the jangling phone.

"Hello," I croaked then I cleared my throat and tried again. "Hello?"

"Dr. Westbrook?"

"Yes, who---?"

"Dr. Westbrook, this is Barney, the night security supervisor. Dr. Westbrook, we've got a problem here, a bad problem."

I struggled to a sitting position and rubbed my eyes as if my fingers might clear away the shadows.

"What's happened?"

"It's Mr. Rivers, sir, he's, well, he's killed Dr. Gentry."

"What!"

"Mr. Rivers is dead too. I'm sorry to tell you, sir, that, well, it looks like they've killed each other, I mean, I guess Mr. Rivers attacked Dr. Gentry and the doctor, he fought back, and, well, anyway, they're both dead."

"Rivers and Gentry both dead?  This is . . . . I can't believe . . . . How the hell did this happen?"

"I think you should come down, sir, right away. I've got to call the police, you understand. They'll have to investigate and I don't think we want the bodies to lay there in Dr. Gentry's office all night, bleeding like they were. . . ." Barney's voice trailed off.

"I'll be there in ten minutes. Don't touch anything."

"No sir. I'll have one of the other men take over the monitor room and I'll stand guard at Dr. Gentry's door until the police come."

Jesus H. Christ! I whispered and reached for the bedside light.

 

*     *    *

 

From the outside the hospital looked benign, somnolent, with only a few faint lights glowing here and there. I fumbled out my passcard and the gate swung back with a soft hum. I abandoned my 4Runner in a handicapped spot in front of the main doors and hurried inside. Where the hell was Gentry's office?  I found a staff list on the desk behind the reception counter: "Dr. Harold Gentry ---- East 203."

I took the stairs two at a time then broke into a trot, my leather soles slapping against the linoleum floor. At the end of the dimly lit corridor I turned the corner in a slide and saw a dark shape in front of an office at the end of the hall.

Barney Thompson, stationed ten feet in front of Gentry's door, held his post uneasily, his hands nervously twisting his peaked black cap in front of him.

"Barney?  I'm Dr. Westbrook." Neither of us offered to shake hands. "Have you called--"

"The State Police? Yes sir. They said they'd be here in about ten minutes. They have to come from Rockville, so, anyway, yeah, in about ten minutes they said." Barney looked down and fiddled some more with his cap.

"They're in there?" I nodded toward the door labeled "203" in gold colored numbers.

"Uh huh. I didn't touch anything, not after I was sure they were dead, I mean, well if they were still alive maybe a doctor or something could help them but, ahh, I felt Dr. Gentry's neck for a pulse." Barney gave his head a little shake.

"What about Rivers?"

Barney looked at me for a moment then turned away. "His throat's . . . cut. There's blood everywhere. There's no way . . . . He's dead for sure." Thompson unconsciously rubbed his finger tips up and down against his pant leg.

Using a clean handkerchief, I turned the knob. Gentry was sprawled across the desk, his head halfway over the far side. An ocean of blood covered the pale surface and dripped off the edge. Belly wound, I guessed.

Rivers' corpse lay in front of the desk, his feet almost directly below Gentry's forehead, his sightless eyes open, staring in profile at the far wall. A deep gash ran from his Adam's apple to a point below the back of his left ear. A reddish-black lake of blood had pooled beneath Rivers' shoulders.

Involuntarily, I took a step closer and my foot came down on a hard metal cylinder. I stepped back and saw a dagger, seemingly identical to the one Rivers had waved at me a few hours before. I knew I had put it in my desk. Did Gentry have an identical knife? Were they some strange sort of Wheaten Fields letter openers? Daggers in a mental institution?

Gentry's forehead protruded past the front of the desk. The tips of his outstretched fingers almost reached the left and right edges.

I tried to work out the sequence of events: Rivers suddenly stands and advances on the desk. Gentry jumps up. Rivers lunges forward, the dagger in his right hand, and stabs Gentry in the stomach. Gentry grabs Rivers' hand and tears the knife away. Rivers leans over the desk reaching for the knife and Gentry slashes up and back, severing the carotid artery on the left side of Rivers' neck. Rivers grabs his neck. Blood sprays out. He totters then puts his hand on the edge of the desk to steady himself -- I noticed a bloody hand print on the desk's front edge -- then he loses consciousness and falls straight back, his toes near the desk, pointing up at the ceiling. Gentry drops the knife which rolls onto the floor, then grabbing his stomach, he collapses forward and both men bleed to death.

But how did Rivers get the knife? And why would he want to kill Dr. Gentry? And who alerted the guard? I looked back at the desk. The phone was off the hook. Was that blood on the dark plastic?  It all made perfect sense and no sense. If--

"I told you he should have been locked up!" His face pink with rage, Russ Mitchell glared at me from the doorway.

"What are you doing here?"

"What am I doing here?  Don't you think this--" Mitchell gestured toward Rivers' blood-stained corpse, "is a pretty good reason?"

"How did you find out?"

"Thompson called me."

"You're just a mid-level staff psychologist. Why did he call you?"

"Because the emergency procedure protocol says that he's supposed to, right after he calls you."

"Hmmm," I muttered, then backed carefully toward the door.

"If you had locked him up the way--"

"If I had locked him up, Gentry would still have had to interview him."

"Yes, but Rivers wouldn't have had a knife."

"How do you know that?"

"Knives are not standard equipment in the locked ward."

"Knives are not standard equipment in his room either, are they?" Mitchell glared then turned away. I carefully pulled the door closed and stepped into the hallway. "So, the question is, where did Mr. Rivers get the knife? . . . . Any theories?"

Mitchell shrugged.

"How would I know?"

"My point exactly. We don't know how or where Mr. Rivers got the knife. For all we know, Dr. Gentry might have had it."

"Why would he do something like that?"

"Why indeed? And while we're asking questions, how did you know Dr. Gentry had been stabbed?"

"With blood all over the floor and Rivers' throat being cut, it's pretty obvious, isn't it?"

"I was standing between you and Rivers' body. You couldn't have seen his throat. He could have been shot or bludgeoned for all you could see with me in your way."

"Thompson told me they were stabbed."

"Of course, that explains it."

"I don't like your tone."

Mitchell was really beginning to piss me off .

"You don't have to like it, Dr. Mitchell, so long as you remember who signs your check."

"Frank Clanton signs my check."

"He'll stop if I ask him. Are we clear about that?" I stared at him for a long beat, until he finally gave me a grudging nod. I guess more of the Army style of dealing with subordinates had rubbed off on me than I had thought.

"I guess this has got me more than a little on edge."

"Perfectly understandable." In the distance, I heard a clatter of feet and echoed voices. "It looks like the police have arrived. Barney, can you get someone started making coffee?  I'm afraid we're in for a very long night."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Eight

 

 

 

The first half of the following day I was drowned in meetings -- a meeting with the hospital's Executive Director, Frank Clanton; meetings with the hospital's attorney, its risk control manager, insurance agent and insurance carrier's regional claims manager; meetings with staff to explain what had happened, to the extent that I understood it myself; meetings with the security staff, nurses and orderlies to discuss safety procedures and to try to determine how the damn dagger had ended up in Rivers' hand. And lastly, a meeting with the Maryland State Police investigator, Garret Chandler.

"About Mr. Rivers' wife. . . ." I began.

"We'll notify her," the detective, a fit black man in his mid-thirties, volunteered. "In these cases the next of kin expects to talk to the police. They resent it if we don't visit them."

"Besides which," I added, "the hospital has a financial motive in spinning the story, so the relatives might not get an accurate picture from our lawyer."

Chandler smiled and closed his memo book.

"I guess that's it then unless you've got any other ideas about how the knife ended up in Dr. Gentry's office."

All I could do was shake my head.

"I swear it was in the bottom drawer of my desk when I left work. When I checked last night . . . ." I raised my arms in an impotent shrug.

"And you locked your office door when you went home?"

"I'm sure I did. Someone must have used a key to get in and take the knife, but how could either Rivers or Dr. Gentry have gotten their hands on it and why would they want it?"

"From what you told me, lots of people saw you take that knife back to your office. Anyone who wanted a weapon would have known where to find it. Maybe Rivers bribed one of the orderlies. We'll look into it. Thanks for your help."

I extended my hand.

"Please call me after you've talked with Mrs. Rivers. I think she deserves to hear directly from the hospital."

"Sure." Chandler turned to go but I blocked his path. "Something else, Dr. Westbrook?"

"I just wondered . . . Does this all make sense to you, forensically, I mean?"

"Any reason it shouldn't?"

"No, I just mean, I talked to Mr. Rivers yesterday and I didn't feel he was a violent, leastwise a homicidal person."

"Are we talking about the same Rivers who pulled a knife on you?"

"I don't think he would have used it. He was more afraid of me than I was of him."

"That's what my cousin said about the buck he tried to pet in Yosemite just before it trampled him."

"Yeah, okay."

"Unless there's something you're not telling me?"

"No, yesterday was my first day on the job. I barely know how to find the bathroom in this place. Maybe that's why I'm, I don't know, let's just say 'confused.' It's all so shocking and so completely out of left field."

"This is a mental hospital, isn't it?  You do have nut jobs, sorry, impaired people, in here, right?  Look, Doc, if you'd seen as many people killed for no good reason as I have -- last month, one bum bashed-in another bum's head with a tire iron after they had gotten into an argument over which tasted better, Pepsi or Coke. Life's cheap out there. You don't like somebody? Shoot him. A guy's pissed you off in traffic? Run him off the road. A woman gives you a funny look in a bar, grab her out in the parking lot and rape her and throw her dead body onto somebody's front lawn.

"I've given up being surprised by the things some of these mopes do and why they do them. That's your job, Doc, shrinking their heads. Me, I just tag 'em and bag 'em." Chandler looked at the door and I stepped out of the way. "I'll call you after we've notified the widow," Chandler promised.

I turned back to my desk. Ten thick files were piled on the corner, part of my vow to familiarize myself with each of the hospital's seventy-four patents. Fortified with a cup of coffee, I grabbed the top folder  -- Elaine Adair.