Blind Spot (6 page)

“Dr. Norris…”

Claire looked up at the familiar voice. “Hi, Donald,” she said to the approaching man in khakis and a pressed shirt. He smiled effortlessly through blindingly white teeth. If he’d had a sweater he would have hooked it with one thumb and thrown it over his shoulder.

“Who’s our new friend, here?” he asked.

“We don’t know her name yet,” she said, shooting a quelling glance at Greg, who ignored her and said, “Cat.”

“She looks like a Marlene,” Donald responded.

He walked away. Claire’s eyes followed him for a moment, then she glanced back at the blond woman. There was a glimmer in her eyes, as if she’d reacted to some stimulus. Donald? Claire yanked her attention to Donald’s retreating back and thought of calling him over again, but he was chatting with Big Jenny, who was staring at him as if she’d like to eat him alive. Claire knew Don Inman well enough to know he wouldn’t be any help to her in the way she hoped. He wasn’t interested. Neither was he part of the staff, but he acted like it sometimes.

Turning back to the blond woman, who seemed to have tensed up, Claire said, “Your baby’s doing fine. So are you. If you’d like to talk sometime, I’d like to listen.”

There was no response.

Claire waited for a few moments, then smiled encouragingly and told her that she’d be back to see her later.

Gibby twisted to watch Claire leave, then turned back to his new friend. “She’s nice,” he said conspiratorially. “Some of ’em aren’t as nice.”

The blond woman gazed blankly at the television. Gibby reached over and patted her hand.

Tasha faded in and out of a strange reality. She could sense the danger. It was chasing her. Breathing down her neck. She was trapped…trapped…and they were coming for her. Always coming for her. There were bindings at her wrists. Leather straps that cruelly bit into her flesh. They tied her up rather than leave her alone. They were evil. Evil! They never let her be.

She had to get out! Had to find a way.

They were coming for her. They were just outside the door. She had to tell someone. Warn them!

Help me! Help me! Please! PLEASE!

Gibby gazed at the blond woman with concern. She was squeezing the arms of her chair and softly moaning. Gibby fretted. His friend was having a problem. She was staring at the TV. Eyes wide.

“Could we get the TV on!” he yelled, looking around, flailing his arms. “The TV.
Damn it!
”

Darlene cruised over, her eyes hard. “Hold your horses,” she muttered, breathing smoke onto him.

“You smell like an ashtray,” he declared.

Darlene walked to the television and pressed the button for the power switch. She changed the channel until she found a game show and Gibby, who felt pressure building, beat at his own head. “There,” Darlene said.

“Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!” Gibby screamed.

Darlene came back in a flash, leaning into his right ear. “If you want the TV on, you have to be quiet.”

“Nooo!”

“Yes.”

“I don’t want the TV. I don’t care about the
damn
TV.” He threw a hand in his companion’s direction. “She wants the TV. I don’t give a
damn.
”

“She doesn’t care about the TV,” Darlene said. “She doesn’t know whether it’s on or not.”

“She does! She said so.”

“She doesn’t speak.”

“She does! She does!”

“Gibby, if you don’t calm down, you’re going back to your room.”

He grabbed onto his chair and started rocking.
“No!”

“It’s up to you. TV time. Or back to your room.”

“She wants the TV.
She
does. She said so.”

Darlene motioned to Greg, and Gibby knew he was going to be hauled away from his new friend. He gazed at his blond friend wildly. She gazed back at him. Her eyes were blue, blue, blue.

“Go ahead,” she said. “I’ll be right here waiting for you.”

“I’ll be back! I’ll be back!” Greg and one of the other big guys who yanked Gibby around whenever he got upset walked toward him, but Gibby shot out of his chair. “Okay. I’ll go. Okay. I’ll go.”

Darlene folded her arms and gazed at him in that mean way. Gibby shuffled off toward his room but glanced back just before he turned the corner. The blond woman’s eyes were sending out blue laser beams. She was saying something, wasn’t she?

“I’ll miss you,” Gibby yelled at her. “You’re my friend!”

She didn’t respond, but then Darlene got in the way and he couldn’t see the laser beams any longer. Darlene was looking down at her hard, like she thought she was lying or something. She always thought Gibby was lying to her but he never was.

Help me….
Tasha thought again, but the words floated away slowly. She could see the words. They were black. Right in the air in front of her. But they were leaving, and after a while she couldn’t see them anymore. Couldn’t remember what they’d said. She wanted to reach out a hand and grab them, but her hands were tied with leather thongs.

Time passed…it grew darker. They moved her to her room, fed her, left her alone.

But they always kept her tied. She had to get away. She had to escape.

When? How?

They were coming. She could hear the death knell of their footsteps.

Coming for her.

Coming for
her.

She tried to scream. The scream was in her throat but it was caught there. As caught as she was by them. She heard their steps on the floorboards and smelled the scent of seawater.

The ocean…so near and yet so far.

She had to get away. Get away. Get away….

Somewhere outside her world, a woman’s voice: “Look at her. Get Dr. Norris.”

“You mean Dr. Freeson?” a man’s voice questioned.

“Norris! I don’t give a damn about Freeson!”

“I’ll go.” A younger woman.

“Hurry,” the first woman urged. “I think she’s coming out of it.”

The coroner’s office was painted green and smelled of antiseptic with a faint underlying metallic scent that Lang recognized as blood. An autopsy was taking place in an adjoining room, and as Lang watched, the door to that room opened and the medical examiner stepped through in bloodstained scrubs. Seeing Lang, he brushed by and growled, “Who are you? You’re in the wrong place.”

“I came to see the body that was found at the rest stop.”

He was tall and stooped and had a tendency to glare. He glared at Lang, who returned his gaze blandly. “On whose authority?”

“Sheriff Nunce,” Lang lied. He hadn’t heard back from Nunce yet. The man was on vacation and Lang, surprising even himself, had been bitten by the need to do something and had moved forward as if he were the homicide detective assigned to the case.

“Nunce didn’t call me.”

Lang shrugged. “Yeah, well. I’m Detective Langdon Stone. Portland P.D. We’re helping County on this one.”

“Winslow County,” the man said suspiciously. “Not Multnomah.”

“They’re short on manpower,” Lang went on, freewheeling. “Call Nunce and check it out.”

“I don’t have time to entertain you or the sheriff.” He pushed through another door, Lang right on his heels.

“Show me the body and I’ll leave you alone.”

“When Nunce calls me, then we’ll talk.”

“You want it that way? Sure, I’ll just sit down over here.” Lang grabbed a rolling stool with a Naugahyde top and plopped down on it. He glanced at a tray of utensils sitting on the counter and reached a hand in to pull up a scalpel.

“Pain in the ass,” the doctor snarled, then threw up one hand in a gesture for Lang to follow. Lang jumped up and strode to catch up with the man, who turned right and pushed through swinging doors into another green room, this one with a bank of stainless steel drawers, the kind that held bodies. Lang unconsciously held his breath against the odor of death, though there was none. He’d seen his share of dead bodies but it always gave him a moment’s pause; his own particular need for solemnity and the passing of a human spirit.

The drawer ran back with a loud rattle, evidence of his guide’s impatience. Inside was a young man with dark hair, olive skin, and a body slashed and stabbed with knife wounds. An autopsy had been performed to determine cause of death, and the Y of the incision stood out against his sallow pallor.

“Stab wound to the heart did it,” the doctor told him dispassionately. “Not the first wound, but it was the C.O.D.”

Cause of death.

“Anything else?” Lang asked.

“No defensive wounds.”

Lang glanced again at the corpse. A young man. Muscular. He leaned down and looked at his palms. Nothing.

“He was either unconscious or he didn’t want to fight back. He’s got a contusion near his temple. Maybe that incapacitated him and then whoever had the knife just started slashing.”

“Age?”

“Around twenty.”

“And no one’s come forward with any information?”

“Missing persons isn’t looking for this guy. Not a word. He’s off the grid, or no one cares.”

He thought about that as the doctor waited with studied patience. “Got a picture?” Lang asked.

“You’re such good friends with Nunce, get it from him.” He stomped off and Lang was alone. He stared down at the man’s face a long time, memorizing it. Angular cheeks. Black hair, longish.

Young.

Carefully, sensing the quiet of the room, the sharp scents, the feeling of a deep, impersonal institution—exactly what it was—Lang closed the drawer. Even with his effort of quiet, it seemed to clang and reverberate, a harsh metallic sound that spoke of the finality of death.

“Dr. Norris! Jane Doe. Cat…she might be coming to.”

Claire glanced at Alison, then at her office clock. It was almost five. “What’s happening?”

“She’s tense. Gripping her chair. Gibby says she’s talking.”

Claire and the aide shared a look. “I’ll be right there,” she said and Alison nodded and hurried away. It was early, but she might be able to leave after she checked on Cat. There was no pressing reason to stay late, and she’d already spent far too many hours on the job.

Grabbing her coat and tossing her purse strap over her shoulder, she walked briskly down the hall toward the skyway that led to the main hospital and the gallery above the morning room. Descending the steps, she could smell the scents of cooked carrots and potatoes and chicken. The kitchen was preparing the evening meal and tables were being arranged in the morning room. Patients could eat in their rooms or one of several dining rooms, or the morning room, if there were seats available. Claire frowned and headed down the hall toward room 113, Jane Doe—Cat’s—room. Side A of the hospital had three floors; Side B, which housed the criminally insane, sported four floors and two subterranean levels as well.

The door to room 113 was open. Dr. Freeson was staring down at the patient, whose blank face stared right back.

“Alison said she might be coming to,” Claire said.

“Well, you can see that’s not true. Why did Alison go to you?”

“What happened?”

Freeson fluttered a hand. “That Gibson boy was bothering her, so we took them both back to their rooms. Actually, I was just about to call you, so it’s just as well you’re here.” He frowned at the sight of her coat and purse. “There’s a meeting tomorrow morning with the Marsdon family concerning Heyward’s incarceration. I want to make sure you’re available.”

“I’m not available,” she said tightly. “I have patients.”

“Well, rearrange them, for God’s sake,” he said. “This matters, Claire. Eleven o’clock. Avanti will be there, and Neumann, and of course Dr. Radke.”

As hospital administrator, Radke was the big cheese and was also the man in bed professionally with the Marsdons.

“I’m no longer Heyward’s doctor,” she said.

“In Heyward’s mind, you are,” Freeson replied. “I’m not asking, Claire.”

“You never do.”

“You want to take this up with Avanti, be my guest.” Color swept up his neck and his voice tightened. “The Marsdons will be there, too, and the team from Side B: Zellman…Prior…”

Claire could see the pressure was going to be on her to agree to Heyward’s release from Side B to Side A. “Maybe someone from the lockdown section will argue that Heyward should remain with them.”

Freeson looked at her as if she were dense. “Just be there.”

Feeling someone else’s eyes on her, she glanced back and saw that Cat had turned her head and was staring at her. Claire stared back and a frisson slid up her arms in spite of herself. Was there any chance she understood their words? “Hello,” she said.

But the girl’s gaze was in the middle distance. Not on Claire. After a few minutes, she turned back to stare toward the blank television on the wall across from her bed. Claire turned the set on and put the remote near Cat’s right hand, next to the call button. Then she headed out of the room and to the side exit where her car was parked.

Lang sat in his truck, his head against the headrest, eyes closed, ears filled with the
pitter, pitter
of rain and then sloppy plops when it started pounding in earnest. He opened his eyes. He was in the lot of the Winslow County Sheriff’s Department, parked in a visitor’s spot, nose out. He’d been there an hour. If he stayed much longer he suspected someone would come and knock on his window and demand to know what the hell he was doing. He would, if he worked there.

But he didn’t want to move. He was caught in a funky inertia, the same one he’d battled since Melody’s death. Sometimes he won, sometimes he lost. It had a strong grip that had lessened a bit over time, but still held on hard. He had no family now. He was alone, and a voice in his head kept asking him,
What now? What’s next? What’s the point?

Shifting in the seat, he sighed, a sound somewhere between a snort and a groan. He supposed he suffered from depression, although it didn’t completely immobilize him. In fact, given the slightest chance to get Heyward Marsdon a guilty verdict and send him to the big house, he’d be sprinting down the halls to do that.

He glanced toward the sheriff department’s front doors. He’d called for the sheriff again, but had been told the man was out. Lang figured Nunce must still be on vacation, because he was never in. He was asked, again, if he wanted to speak with someone else, but Lang had once again declined. Going to see the medical examiner, pretending that he’d talked to the sheriff, that maybe hadn’t been wise for positive relations with the department; however, he didn’t regret it. What the hell. Sometimes you just had to forge forward in life, and he hadn’t been particularly good in that regard lately.

Although he’d overstepped bounds all over the place and if he were caught, had no backup plan, he didn’t much care. Part of his “depression,” no doubt, but he kinda thought his very lack of interest was the reason he’d gotten past the ME. He wasn’t desperate or pushy, didn’t want anything really, and so he’d raised no alarm. If he wanted to see the John Doe’s body, it was fine, fine, fine. No reason to call the sheriff and check. Just go goddamn look at it already, and get out.

The dead man’s image crossed the screen of his mind. The stitched Y-cut from the autopsy. The muscular build. His youth. No defensive wounds…

Why hadn’t the guy fought back? What had stopped him? Did he know his attacker? Was he unconscious before the knife attack began?

Lang knew the man had been found by a trucker, but unless he looked at the case file he wouldn’t know the trucker’s name and/or how to get hold of him. Not that he really cared to talk to the man. Not that he had any authority to get involved.

“Not my case,” he said aloud.

Yet he was mildly intrigued. Mildly.

“Nobody likes interference,” he added. “Curtis knows better.”

Yet his partner, the bastard, had intrigued him.

Maybe it was a good thing. Time would tell.

The rain had turned his windows into a moving rain splatter and now he was insulated from view behind a gray fog of condensation, cocooned within the vehicle. Lang thought about the Jane Doe who’d been released from Laurelton General to Halo Valley Security Hospital.

Halo Valley.

He closed his eyes, breathed quietly for several moments, then opened them again. Halo Valley Security Hospital was a private institution where special funds were set aside for worthy cases. The Marsdon family being a major contributor to the hospital and the special funds made it a good bet concessions had been made for Heyward Marsdon III, yes, but the hospital served an altruistic purpose, too. Cases that might have normally been assigned to the Oregon State Hospital in Salem, the state-run facility, sometimes ended up at Halo Valley, easing costs to the state and maybe even giving the patient more intensive care.

Not that Lang would ever be a fan. Given what had happened to his sister on Halo Valley grounds, and the choices that had been made by Halo Valley staff, particularly Dr. Claire Norris, he was never going to feel all warm and fuzzy about the place. But Halo Valley was where the pregnant rest stop victim had been taken, so if he kept with this case, it might be a place he was destined to visit.

The idea brought a cold chill to his skin.

So why was he parked outside the Winslow County Sheriff’s Department? Why was he listening to Trey Curtis? Why did he feel oddly committed to a case that had nothing—
nothing
—to do with him? Why this case? Why now?

Lang’s hands flexed on the wheel for a moment, then he threw open the door and stepped into the rain, jamming a baseball cap on his head and watching rain slide down the shoulders of his black leather jacket. He should have worn a raincoat. He shouldn’t be on this mission. He should have stayed home and watched daytime television.

It was raining the day Melody died, too. An incessant, chilling precipitation thrown around by the hand of the wind. She’d stopped by to see Lang at work, her hair wet, her face flushed from cold, raindrops sparkling under the department lights. He’d been on his way out and she’d said she wanted to talk to him. She wore a thin jacket, a summer jacket, and he could see the bare skin of her wrists and a little up her forearms. Thin, red welts showed where she’d scratched herself. Even in those few moments she couldn’t stop the compulsive tearing at her own skin. He’d been worried. They agreed to meet at the house as soon as Lang was off, about three hours later. Melody had long ago moved out and been on her own. She’d been a bright star once, someone who seemed to know what she wanted. Someone in control of her own life. But things had deteriorated and Lang had tried to get her to come home to no avail. He knew about Heyward Marsdon, knew of his family and a little of his problems. Initially, he’d foolishly been relieved and happy when his drifting sister had connected with someone from a solid family. He’d felt hopeful, like she might actually pull it back together. Have a normal life. A good life. Naivete at its worst. He knew better. He’d seen enough through his years on the force to know better, but when it came to Melody he just wanted to believe in good things so badly.

She never made it to his house. He tried calling the cell phone number he had for her, but it was not hers any longer. He went to an old apartment address, but it was empty and the neighbor lady said she thought the woman who’d lived there had been evicted for nonpayment.

Kicking himself for not just leaving work with her when she stopped by, Lang tried getting in touch with the Marsdons and was coolly ignored. No, they didn’t know where Heyward was. No, they had no phone number for him. No, they had no idea who his friends were. And they would appreciate not being bothered again.

And then…merely an hour later…the emergency call from Halo Valley Security Hospital was logged into 911. He’d heard the tapes enough times. A guard, Wade De-Bussy, was holding down Heyward Marsdon, and one Dr. Claire Norris was saying that a woman named Melody Stone was dead.

Paranoid schizophrenia, they told Lang. Hallucinations and delusions. Unpredictable behavior. But no one, no one, believed Heyward Marsdon would kill anyone. Certainly not Heyward Senior or Junior, who were chock full of disbelief. Why, Heyward III had just been at the governor’s ball with his loving family. Yes, he’d had bouts of depression in the past, but this was entirely unprecedented. Unbelievable. There were undoubtedly mitigating factors to explain the psychological break. Drugs, maybe? He was never
that
sick.