Stealing Faces - Michael Prescott [103]
Shepherd cradled the phone, then stared at the cold taco in its nest of wax paper, not quite seeing it, not seeing anything around him.
Cray had gone to a strip club, a barrio bar. No crime in that, but it seemed out of character, or perhaps Shepherd simply didn’t know Cray’s true character.
And there was Anson McMillan, showing a solicitous concern for the woman who’d shot his son in the heart.
Unusual name. There couldn’t be more than one Anson McMillan in Graham County. Easy to find him. Easy, maybe, to get him to talk ...
“It’s not your case, Roy.”
The voice belonged to Hector Alvarez, who’d appeared at the desk without so much as an audible footstep or a snap of chewing gum to warn of his approach.
Shepherd blinked, wondering if Alvarez was psychic. “What?”
“Kaylie McMillan.” Alvarez grinned. “I overheard you say good-bye to Wheelihan. And now I see the expression on your face.”
“What expression?”
“That lost-in-thought, grim-determination, unfinished-business look. Last time I saw it, you were getting ready to run the sting that nabbed Kaylie. If you recall, I said to you at the time ...”
“It’s not my case.”
“Right.”
“Sound advice.”
“But you didn’t take it.”
“Well, I’m stubborn that way.” Shepherd rose and picked up the half-eaten taco. “You ought to know that by now. Hector.”
“Roy.” The smile was gone from Alvarez’s face. “Just let it go, huh? The girl’s guilty. She’s a nut. She’s in the crazy house, where she belongs. God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world. And you got a full caseload.”
Shepherd almost argued, but hell, Alvarez had a point. Didn’t he?
“You hear me, Roy?”
“I hear you.” Shepherd wadded up the wax paper and pitched his lunch into the trash. “And you’re right. Really.” He meant it, too.
At least he was almost sure he did.
46
Ward B of the Hawk Ridge Institute for Psychiatric Care—the back ward, as it was called—was reserved for the chronically ill, the violent, and those patients known as forensic cases.
The latter cohort consisted of patients held for observation in advance of a criminal proceeding. Wally Cortland had been sequestered here in 1996 after he slit his mother’s throat with a letter opener and blamed it on the Devil. In 1992, shortly after the old forensic ward—Ward C—had been permanently closed, Sylvia Farentino had made an appearance, on charges of poisoning her boyfriend with a cup of lye in the pancake batter.
There had been others, generally less colorful. Drifters arrested for vagrancy, whose thought processes were too disorganized to be called normal. Drug addicts whose brains had been perhaps permanently scrambled by PCP or crack. Petty criminals with IQs so low that it was impossible to determine if they were competent to assist in their own defense.
And now there was Kaylie McMillan. Murderess, fugitive, and the only patient ever to escape from Hawk Ridge.
She’d been away for quite some time. Now she was back. But this time her visit would be briefer than before, and she would leave in a zippered bag.
Cray smiled at the thought as he used his passkey to open Ward B’s exterior door. The door was steel, and like all ward doors it was key-operated on both sides. A turn of the passkey was required both to enter and to exit. This precaution ensured that no patient could slip past an inattentive nurse or orderly and simply walk away.
It meant also that any staff member who mislaid the passkey would be imprisoned in the ward until help arrived. Cray had no problem with this. A certain measure of fear kept the staff alert. And he was pleased to note that in the past ten years not a single key had been lost by any institute employee.
Antiseptic smells, common throughout the hospital, greeted him as he let the door swing shut. The floor and walls of each ward were scrubbed daily. Antibacterial sprays were applied to desktops and door handles. Every metal and tile surface gleamed.
He moved forward, past the alcove that led to the O.R., where nonpharmaceutical methods were