Darkness peering (38 page)

Before beginning antibiotic therapy, Dr. Selby administered steroids
to reduce any subsequent neurological sequelae. The Dilantin was
discontinued and diazepam was administered to control the seizures.
Penicillin was administered in divided IV dosages and was proven to be
highly successful.

Since meningococcal meningitis is a highly contagious form of bacterial
meningitis, health care team and family members were administered a
prophylactic treatment of rifampin 600 mg BID for two days.

1. POTENTIAL AREAS OF LIABILITY
   

It is doubtful that the plaintiff could prove medical negligence, since
bacterial meningitis is highly unpredictable and the child was
receiving the best of care at KCGH. Not every patient will display the
signs or symptoms of meningococcal meningitis, and frequently patients
will appear healthy only hours before they develop symptoms and die.

1. INJURIES DAMAGES
   

When last investigated, the child's vision was "poor" and it was not
clear how he was able to interpret what he saw; also he had a hearing
impairment that could perhaps be corrected with the use of hearing
aids.

Visually impaired, hearing deficit.

Developmental damage, as yet unknown.

6. INVESTIGATION

Potential defendants: Yale Castillo, M.D." attending physician of
emergency medicine at KCGH.

1. COVERAGE BC/BS Trust
   

2. UPDATE
   

Vaughn Kellum is currently under the care of Dr. O'Brien at St. Mary's
Hospital, where he is being treated for visual hearing impairments. He
has been seizure-free for four months. He has been diagnosed with
moderate to severe hearing loss and is visually impaired, but with the
use of corrective lenses, he can spot objects and people across a room.
To date, it is not known what cognitive or developmental delays may
have occurred, although he seems bright and responsive. Plans are
under way to enroll him in Winfield School for the Blind and Special
Needs, where he will receive specialized treatment for his multiple
handicaps.

She stared at the sheets of paper describing in matter-of-fact detail
what would turn out to be the seeds of a murderous rampage. How could
Yale Castillo have known that this tiny child he'd so negligently
treated would grow up to be a hate-filled monster bent on vengeance?

She shoved the files back inside the large manila envelope, locked the
envelope in her desk drawer. Checking that her gun was loaded, she
went to knock on McKissack's door. He wasn't in. The station was
spectacularly quiet. She practically flew down the stairs.

Phillip Reingold was reading Interview, sipping his first in a probable
succession of espressos. "Phil?"

He delicately set down his cup and blinked at her. "Rachel, you scared
the bejeezus out of me."

"Where's McKissack?"

"They all left about twenty minutes ago. Went to pick up Buck
Folette."

"What for?"

"Apparently he's ready to talk."

"Talk?"

"Good news, honey," Phillip said, "we've got our man."

"No, Phil. Buck Folette didn't do it, Vaughn Kellum did."

He screwed up his face. "The dry cleaner?"

"Tell McKissack I'm going over there. I think I know where Nicole
is."

VAUGHN kellum's KINGFLRS RESTED LIGHTLY ON HIE DOORknoh. His magnified
eyes through their corrective lenses made her think of clouds. She
didn't know why. Green as kale, they searched for the shape of her.
"Guess winter's come a little early this year," he said with an
expansive smile. The porch light cast sinewy shadows into the dim
recesses of the dry cleaning establishment. It was half past seven.
Vaughn's employees had all gone home; business was done for the day.

"May I come in?" Rachel asked.

"Watch your step." He graciously stepped aside. The shop smell cd of
cinnamon tea. Spicy. Pleasant. She experienced a twinge of
self-doubt. What if she was mistaken? More than that, what if she was
egregious!) wrong? This tall, suave, graceful man, this pleasant
visually challenged hearing-impaired person couldn't possibly be the
psychopath she was looking for, could he?

"Tea?" he asked as they entered his office.

"Love some." She tried to steady her breathing.

Water boiled on a hot plate in a corner of the room. Vaughn found a
mug and spoon, poured her a cup of tea, then felt his way along the
wall toward her, fingertips skimming over the white paint, his
opalescent eyes straining to read her face. "This'll warm you up." He
walked back to his desk and took a seat. "So what brings you out on a
night like tonight, Detective?"

"Murder," she said softly.

He cocked his head, lips frozen in a thin smile. "What's that?"

"Murder," she repeated, spoon clinking against china. "Claire
Castillo's murder. Dinger Tedesco's murder."

"Ah." He sat back and waited. His handsome, inscrutable face was
dominated by those distorted eyes, and she recalled how she and her
friends used to make fun of anyone even the slightest bit different.
"Retard" was about the worst insult you could hurl, and Rachel bet
young Vaughn Kellum had gotten "retard" a lot. That it had shaped
him.

He was wearing a red flannel shirt, khaki trousers, and leather
moccasins--perfect, she thought, for walking through the woods.
Vaughn's shirt pocket contained a number of stubby pencils and dry
cleaning tickets he'd forgotten to remove, now that his shop was closed
for the night. Her eyes came to rest on one of the Braille Dymo-tape
labels, a series of raised dots that signified letters of the alphabet,
numbers. She was certain that, if she looked hard enough, she could
have located the configuration of three dots she'd found on the birch
tree that day.

"How can I help you?"

She removed the dry cleaning receipt from her pocket. "We found this
stapled to a dry cleaning bag in Claire's closet, but there was only
one blouse inside."

She handed him the receipt and he rustled it between his slender
fingers, then brought it almost to his nose. Opening the top drawer of
his desk, he took out a hand magnifier. As he examined the receipt,
she caught a glimpse of his left eye magnified to the size of a
baseball.

"Do you see what it says there?" she asked.

"I think this is Jose's handwriting."

'"One white linen blouse, one blue silk blouse,"" Rachel said. "There
were supposed to be two blouses inside the dry cleaning bag, but we
only found one. The white linen blouse."

"Maybe she took the blue blouse out of the bag?"

"I couldn't find it inside the apartment. And the night she
disappeared, she was wearing a pink blouse."

He put the hand magnifier down and passed her the receipt back. "I
don't know what you're driving at, Detective."

"Claire picked up two blouses from your shop on Monday, October 12th,
two days before she disappeared. She picked up two blouses, but
there's only one blouse inside the bag."

His head moved ever so slightly, as if he were responding to some inner
rhythm. "Maybe a friend borrowed it? Her sister, perhaps?"

Rachel wavered for a moment, then shook her head. "I don't think so."
The 'b' in Claire's Day-Timer hadn't meant Billy or Buck or Brigham or
baby, it'd meant blouse. Pick up blouse.

"You see," Rachel said, "I've learned a lot about Claire Castillo. She
was kind of sloppy, kind of careless with her belongings, not the type
to inspect her dry cleaning in the store. She brought two blouses
home, only to discover one of them still had stains on it. She'd asked
you to remove the stains, but you hadn't done a very good job, and when
she called you up to complain, you said you'd take care of it. She
brought the blouse back the following day, Tuesday, then made plans to
pick it up on Wednesday night. You knew she ate dinner at the
Hurryback Cafe every Wednesday night, it was convenient for her to pick
up the blouse afterward. She trusted you. You've been her dry cleaner
for years. You two have worked on charity events together. There's no
reason in the world why she shouldn't trust you."

"I honestly don't know what you're getting at," he said, upper lip
beading with sweat.

"Your shop ... this house is recessed from the street," Rachel

continued. "The nearest street lamp is twenty yards away. Kellum
Kleaners is wedged in between a vacant lot and the information center,
which closes at five. The whole town shuts down by eight or nine P.M.
most weeknights, this time of year. The woods press right against your
back door. You could easily slip in and out unnoticed, under cover of
darkness."

His lips stretched thin and pale over his teeth. "This is silly."

"You spent years stealing pieces of thread from Claire's clothes, her
father's, her mother's, her sister's, maybe even her ex-boyfriend's.
Buck Folette complained somebody was loosening the stitches on all his
clothes. You often listen to the weather channel. You know when it's
going to rain, when there's a ground fog. You have easy access to
syringes and anti psychotics from the nurse's office at the blind
school--where you went to school, where you remain actively involved
and are always welcome. You were seventeen, a junior at the blind
school, when Melissa D'Agostino was strangled. The school abuts the
woods that run down to Old Mo Heppenheimer's cow pasture near the swamp
where Melissa D'Agostino's body was found.

"The woods are the key. I couldn't figure out why the perp would drop
his victims off so close to town. The answer is, you didn't drop them
off. You walked them through the woods. You've been at Winfield since
you were eight years old. I bet you had a habit of sneaking off campus
whenever you got homesick. You've probably wandered back and forth
between this house and Win field hundreds of times. You know the lay
of the land by heart. You use landmarks, reference points ... you
carve notches in trees. Braille directions.

"Dinger Tedesco and Nicole Castillo started going together nine months
ago. That's two months before you hired Dinger to work for you
part-time. Dinger trusted you. You were the only adult who
understood. You sympathized. He could count on you to keep a secret.
On the night Dinger and Nicole disappeared, they'd decided to meet
someplace secret, someplace where they

could be alone together. Where else but inside this house?" Rachel
sat forward, blood coursing through her veins. She couldn't hold back
any longer. "Where is she, Vaughn?"

He stood up, laughing, as if the question were absurd.

Rachel's heart beat hard and fast. You must appear open minded about
the situation, project neutrality: "I understand how difficult it
must've been for you, Vaughn. Children can be cruel. Nobody gets a
prize for being different."

"Now you're an expert on the low-sighted and hearing-impaired."

"I don't pretend to know what it's like. But I do know you were a
victim of medical malpractice. That you suffered for someone else's
mistake. Not only did Dr. Castillo fail to recognize and treat a
life-threatening condition, he tried to preserve his reputation instead
of admitting any wrongdoing. You suffered the consequences of his
misdiagnosis, yet the state medical board wouldn't think of revoking
his license. It's so unfair. Your parents must've been
heartbroken."

"My mother," he said quietly, "never recovered."

"What happened? Did your parents settle out of court?"

"They hired an attorney who asked the tribunal, "What is the price for
the pain and suffering of a little boy? "The doctor admitted no guilt,
and the lawyers decided fifteen thousand dollars should be compensation
enough for the future distress engendered by an extreme departure from
standard care."

"Fifteen thousand dollars?"

"Minus lawyers' fees of course."

Her arms and legs felt weighted by rocks; she had his full attention
now and didn't want to lose him. "I saw a picture of a little boy
recently," she said, carefully choosing her words. "He looked about
eight years old. Blond hair, green eyes. Small scar on his forehead.
Two crooked bottom teeth."

Vaughn was breathing heavily through his mouth, studying her closely.

"In this picture, he wore a blue T-shirt with red sleeves, blue

shorts and red high top sneakers. And he had on those thick glasses
other kids make fun of. And he looked ... hungry ... and lost... and
very sad."

He wiped away the sweat from his upper lip.

"And I sensed something about him ... that he'd been ... I don't know
how to put this ..."

Vaughn smiled sourly. "Routinely beaten for minor infractions? Held
to a standard of cold perfection?"

She paused a heart-stopping moment. "Your father beat you, didn't he?
All those trips to the emergency room. They said you were
accident-prone."

"Accident-prone?" She could feel the groundswell of his long
suppressed rage as his face reddened and his voice grew tight. "He
turned the savageness of his contempt on me. Beat me with a belt
buckle, with a mop handle, slugged me in the eye, twisted my arms,
choked me to unconsciousness." He paused, and everything became very
quiet. "You can't see it from way over there, Detective, but I'm just
so horribly damaged."

Rachel pushed her coat open so her shoulder holster was exposed. "I
need your help, Vaughn. We need to bring Nicole home."

His face went flat, expressionless. He inched along the wall to her
right where the door to the office remained open.

She drew her weapon. "Don't move!"

"Am I under arrest?"

"All I want is Nicole. Tell me where she is."

His hand groped for the doorway.

"Don't move!"

"What are you going to do, shoot me? You come into my place of
business, and now you're going to shoot me in cold blood?"