Cold Vengeance - Lincoln Child [14]
Felder joined the little group as they walked by.
“Dr. Felder,” she said, nodding gravely at him. “A pleasure to see you again.”
“Likewise, Constance,” he replied.
As they approached the front door, it was unlocked from within and opened by a fastidious-looking man wearing a white medical jacket over an expensive suit. “Good evening, Miss Greene,” he said in a calm, quiet voice, as if speaking to a child. “We’ve been expecting you.”
Constance gave a faint curtsy.
“I’m Dr. Ostrom, and I’ll be your attending physician here at Mount Mercy.”
The young woman inclined her head. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Doctor. Please call me Constance.”
They stepped into the waiting area. The air was warm and smelled faintly of disinfectant. “I know your, ah, guardian, Aloysius Pendergast,” Dr. Ostrom went on. “I’m very sorry we couldn’t have brought you here sooner, but it took longer than expected to get the necessary paperwork cleared.”
As Ostrom said this, his gaze briefly met Felder’s. Felder knew that the room Constance was assigned at Mount Mercy had—after a thorough search—been very carefully cleaned, first with bleach, then antiseptic, and then repainted with three coats of oil-based paint. These measures were deemed necessary because the room’s prior occupant had been notorious in her fondness for poisons.
“I’m most grateful for your attentions, Doctor,” Constance said primly.
There was a brief wait while Dr. Ostrom signed the forms handed him by the prison guard. “You can remove the handcuffs now,” Ostrom said as he returned the clipboard.
The guard complied. An orderly let the guard and police officer out and locked the front door carefully behind them. “Very good,” Ostrom said, rubbing his hands together lightly as if pleased by the transaction. “Now Dr. Felder and I will show you to your room. I think you’ll find it quite nice.”
“I have no doubt that I will, Dr. Ostrom,” Constance replied. “You’re very kind.”
They made their way down a long, echoing corridor, Dr. Ostrom explaining the rules at Mount Mercy and expressing hope that Constance would find herself comfortable with them. Felder shot a private glance at Constance. Anyone would find her an unusual woman, of course: the old-fashioned diction, the unreadable eyes that seemed somehow older than the face they were set in. And yet there was nothing about her looks or her manner that could prepare one for the truth: that Constance Greene was deeply insane. Her presentation was unique in Felder’s experience. She claimed to have been born in the 1870s, to a family long gone and forgotten, save for scattered traces in public records. Most recently, she had returned by ship from England. During the voyage, she had—by her own admission—thrown her infant son overboard because, she’d insisted, he was the embodiment of evil.
In the two months since he’d become involved with her case, Felder had—first at Bellevue, then at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility—continued his analysis of Constance. And while his fascination with the case had only sharpened, he had to admit that he’d made no progress at understanding either her or her illness.
They waited while an orderly unlocked a heavy metal door, then they turned down another echoing passage, at last stopping before an unmarked door. The orderly unlocked this in turn, and Dr. Ostrom ushered them into a small room, windowless and sparsely furnished. All the furniture—bed, table, single chair—was bolted securely to the floor. A bookcase was fixed to one wall, containing half a dozen volumes. A small plastic flowerpot with daffodils from the hospital’s garden sat on the table.
“Well?” Ostrom asked. “What