Cast in Stone (36 page)

I
fell out the door, climbed to my feet, and began to push the little
car forward. As it reached the slope, it gained momentum, rolling
smoothly, nearly leaving me behind as it moved down the hill. At the
last moment, I crawled inside and aimed the little car at the road in
the middle.

Through
the glare, the gate was sliding to the right. There were four now.
The doctor, Dewey, and Louie. And another who stood beside the gate,
arm pointed accusingly in my direction. I was studying the face
when I missed the first switchback. I took the scenic route across
the dogleg, plowing over a couple of scrub oaks, pulverizing a rotted
stump, and then popping out the other side onto the pavement again.

I
wrenched the wheel hard to the left and tried to focus my fading
vision by using only one eye. I found the brake in time to baby it
around the next corner, and the next. I gave up the brakes. The
little car fishtailed wildly. I was still fighting the wheel when I
broke from the woods onto the final straight stretch of the driveway,
nearly blind now. Rolling fast toward the distant yellow light. I
floored the brakes four times before I realized I was pumping the
clutch. The Fiat was moving fast, running smooth like a sled. It was
momentarily airborne as it left the driveway and bounced over the
berm of the county road. The yellow light down the hill drew closer.
A smaller blue light moved in the center of the field of yellow. I
tried for the brakes again, missed again, and began to laugh. I aimed
for the blue.

"Those
are the oatfields."

"What
are they doing here?"

"They
just got through with your insurance agent."

"Why?
Do I know them?"

"You
ran over their television set."

"I
did?"

"Yes,
you did."

"Don't
tell me." ,

"It
was in their living room," Rebecca volunteered. I winced. "My
car?"

"Toast,"
she said, tossing me a white plastic bag. "That's what's left
from the car. The tow truck driver gave it to me."

"And
all the suits?"

"You
know very well what the suits are." "They can't all be
cops." "Wanna bet?" "Wadda they want?"

"In
a word, Leo—you. They want you. Jed's kept them at bay for
thirty-six hours, but the jig is up."

"Tell
them I'm still delirious."

"They
assigned that Dr. Loftus to you before I got here. Officially, you're
his patient. He's declared you fit as a fiddle. There's nothing I can
do. Are you ready?"

"No."

"Good.
I'll send them in."

They
filed in, ten strong. Two Staties in uniform. Two plainclothes from
King County. Two more uniforms from Issaquah. Two Portland
detectives, a lonesome-looking Idaho State Police sergeant, and a guy
in a blue suit who didn't bother to introduce himself.

Jed
immediately took the offensive.

"Gentlemen,"
he began, after hand-shaking and card-swapping was over. "It
must be understood at the outset that my client Mr. Waterman, like
any public-spirited citizen, is anxious to cooperate in any way
possible with any and all duly empowered law enforcement officials."
Before they could comment, he held up a single finger and continued,
"It must also be noted, however, that his cooperation must in no
way compromise his constitutional guarantees regarding
self-incrimination.

"In
other words, if we don't guarantee not to charge him with anything,
he's not going to tell us a thing.

"That
is, I suppose, a somewhat crude but nonetheless accurate
translation of the spirit of the statement."

"That's
a yes," I offered.

The
younger of the two Issaquah cops, neatly shaved head glinting in the
harsh overhead lights, took immediate issue. "Wait a minute,
here. We've got your client dead to rights for reckless endangerment,
reckless driving, DWI, destruction of private property, vehicular
assault, and failure to provide proof of insurance. This maniac
destroyed a house, for gosh sake. You think we're gonna roll over on
all of that?"

"Life
is a system of tradeoffs," Jed assured him.

The
Statie with all the stripes jumped in. "I have been authorized
to waive all charges in return for complete cooperation."

"Not
by the city of Issaquah, you haven't,"

Jed
sauntered over to the door and pulled it open.

"Tell
you what, fellas, you guys work out your

jurisdictional
problems and then get back to us.

Okay?"

The
Oatfieids still sat stone-silent in the hall as the cops filed out.

"Why
all the different cops?"

"Good
question," Jed said. "That's why we're standing mute until
we get a guarantee. I have no idea what they all want. What's for
sure is that if the state is willing to deal, they must figure
they've got bigger fish to fry. Besides that, the guy in the blue
suit smells of Club Fed to me."

"What's
the Issaquah cop so worked up about?"

"He's
still pissed off about what a good time you were having when they
arrived. He claims you kept hugging him and insisting he do a
commercial for The Club."

"I
was delirious."

"What
else is new?"

When
they came back in, Blue Suit did all the talking.

"Agreed,"
he said as he came through the door. This time, however, instead of
slouching in the corner, he came over to the left side of the
bed. He handed me several pieces of paper, folded once down the
center. "Have you seen this before?" he asked.

He
was about fifty, with thick brown hair without a tinge of gray,
combed in the Ronald Reagan Bob's Big Boy style, so thin and fit it
looked like he was sucking in his cheeks. His hands showed the work
of a professional manicurist.

I
flipped the pages open. "It's a copy of a report I gave to my
client."

"Mrs.
Henry Sundstrom."

"Yes."
-

"To
the best of your knowledge, is the information accurate?"

"What's
this, the Ollie North hour?"

He
shot Jed an exasperated look. Jed passed it over to me.

"Okay.
To the best of my knowledge, yes it is."

Jed
came over to the right side of my bed, "Quid pro quo, gentlemen.
Before we go any further, why don't you give us some idea about why
so many jurisdictions are interested in this matter?"

"We
believe that we may have a pattern of crime here that crosses state
boundaries. We sent a copy of this report out over the regional wire
yesterday morning. We got some very unexpected results. Several
local jurisdictions"—-he nodded at the other cops— "have
open files, some as old as ten years, in which the crimes are similar
and the suspect meets this Terra Hasu's general description."

"Which
explains your presence," Jed said pointedly.

Blue
Suit ignored him. "King County had already been called to the
scene. As a matter of fact, they arrived before Issaquah."

"Called
by whom?" Jed asked.

Blue
Suit cast a glance at the two King County detectives. The shorter of
the two pulled a notepad from his pocket and flipped through the
pages. "We got a call at seven forty-two from a Saasha Kennedy."

"Why
would Kennedy call the King County Police?" I asked.

"Ms.
Kennedy, whom I believe you had spoken with earlier in the day-—"
He waited for confirmation. I let him wait. "Ms. Kennedy,
in the course of collecting information about Mountainview Recovery,
happened to ask the computer system for a list of other patients."

"And."
I prompted.

"There
were no other patients."

"None?"

"Nary
a one."

Blue
Suit took the lead again. "Quite rightly, this raised some
serious red flags for a mental health professional like Ms. Kennedy.
She acted appropriately and called it in."

"I
don't understand," I said.

The
other King County dick stepped forward and held a picture in front of
my face. A bit heavier, a bit younger, but that lopsided look was not
something I was soon going to forget.

"Have
you ever seen this woman?" Blue Suit asked.

"Dr.
Lila Dawson," I said without hesitation.

The
cops exchanged "I told you so" looks.

"Actually,"
Blue Suit said, "Claire Ellen Hasu."

"Who?"

"The
woman in the picture."

"You're
shitting me. She's—" I stammered.

"Gone,"
said Blue Suit. "All that's left up there now are four illegal
Panamanians, one with a fractured skull, one needing some
serious dental work. None of them has word one to say." He
hesitated for effect. "We also found a woman under heavy
sedation in the security section. We ran her prints. You want to
guess?"

"Dr.
Lila Dawson."

"Touchdown,"
he said, slightly raising his hands. "We'll know more if and
when the doctors can bring her around. Right now, they're not
promising anything. They think she's been kept under for the
better part of a month. Could be permanent brain damage."

"Jesus,"
Jed muttered.

Before
I could digest this information, Blue Suit took over.

"It
looks like somebody bought the damn hospital, hired a director, the
staff, jumped through all the state hoops, just so they could
transfer the Hasu woman into it."

"How
could that happen?" I asked.

He
got defensive. "It was a real treatment center, that's how.
Mountainview has been there for twenty years. It's not like this was
some fly-by-night operation. Whoever did this had their shit
together. They bought the place. The administrator was credentialed.
The hospital was accredited. Claire Hasu was their first patient
since they reopened. Think about it. Every hospital has to have a
first patient. She was it. In this case, however, she was also their
last patient."

"They
were on their way up the road too," said the first King County
cop. "We think the only holdup was coming up with some identity
paperwork for the older Hasu woman. Our forensics guys found a
partially burned envelope in the fireplace from the Pacific County
Bureau of Vital Statistics. We think she got her hands on a birth
certificate. Whose, we don't know. With a birth certificate and a few
weeks, you can become just about anybody you want to be. We're
checking with Social Security and DMV now."

"Then
you came knocking on the door," said Statie with stripes, "and
seriously gummed up the works."

I
sat up in the bed, stuffing pillows behind me for support.

"This
is classic government work," I said. "The inmates end up
running the asylum, and nobody's at fault."

"The
people in Longview sent her up in their own ambulance. There was no
breach of security on their end. We've interviewed the crew.
According to them, Ms. Hasu was responding well to her medication.
Talking to the crew. Excited about a change in scenery. Quite
pleasant, according to

them.
They were met by Dr. Dawson, two Hispanic orderlies, and the family.
Dr. Dawson herself signed her in." "The family?"

"A
daughter. In her thirties. We've got an artist down at Longview with
the EMT who did the driving. We'll come up with—"

"Don't
bother," I said. I pulled the manila folder out of the plastic
bag on the bed and handed him a composite of Allison Stark. "Show
that to them. See what they say."

"And
you figure the switch happened right then?" asked Jed.

"That's
what we're postulating. We figure no sooner was the Hampton ambulance
out of sight then the real Dr. Dawson found herself under lock and
key in the security wing."

"What
do you figure they had in mind for the doctor?" I asked.