Stealing Faces - Michael Prescott [57]
“Dr. Cray’s in his office. Second floor. Room twenty-two. Elevator works only if you’ve got a key, and anyway, it’s busted. Take the stairs.”
She jerked her head at a door with a steel handle and a posted sign that read STAFF ONLY.
Shepherd thanked her, but she was already bent over her keyboard again.
The stairwell smelled of disinfectant. Shepherd disliked that smell. It reminded him of hospitals—well, of course, this was a hospital, wasn’t it?—but he was thinking of the other kind of hospital, the normal kind, like the University Medical Center in Tucson, where, two years ago, he had spent a long series of days and nights, praying, eating too little, crying when he was alone and no one could see.
God, he wanted to be out of this place. He would talk to Cray, size him up, and go.
The door at the top of the stairs opened on a hallway. Shepherd had thought that mental hospitals were always decorated in light green or blue tones to soothe the patients, but the walls here were white, and so were the doors—everything, white.
Some of the doors were open. Walking past, he glimpsed staff members on the phone or typing at actual typewriters, IBM Selectrics or some similar equipment. He hadn’t thought anybody used typewriters anymore. He wondered if Hawk Ridge’s employees used carbon paper too, and mimeograph machines.
In one room, marked ADMISSIONS, the two paramedics who had arrived in the ambulance stood flanking a disheveled teenager in an overcoat. A woman who must be a doctor was interviewing the kid, jotting down notes on a clipboard,
“And what did you do after you got home?” she asked.
“I watched TV, and the guy in the car commercial told me I needed to start a fire in the toolshed. He told me I had to burn the fucker down. I didn’t want to. I’m scared of fire. But the guy was on TV, you know? When they’re on TV, you gotta do what they say....”
Room 22 was at the end of the hall. This door was also open. Shepherd entered an anteroom furnished with a desk, a few file cabinets, and a couch. A plaque on the desk read MARGARET. Cray’s secretary, or assistant, or whatever she should be called.
Her swivel chair was empty. The clock on the wall pointed to 12:15. She must have left for lunch.
But Cray was here. Shepherd saw him through the doorway of his office, seated at his desk, a telephone in one hand and a file folder in the other.
“The chart’s in front of me now,” he was saying. “Moban, seventy-five milligrams. Maintain him on that dosage for two weeks, and then, if necessary, we’ll take another look.”
He hung up, raised his head, and noticed Shepherd in the anteroom. “Yes?” he snapped.
Every cop was good at assessing people. Shepherd processed what he could see of Dr. John Cray—sharp eyes, high forehead, small mouth, hollow cheeks—and decided the man was intelligent, arrogant, controlling, and very tired.
“Dr. Cray.” Shepherd stepped through the doorway into Cray’s office. “I’m Detective Roy Shepherd, Tucson PD.”
He watched Cray’s face for a reaction. Cray merely frowned.
“Tucson? I was expecting someone from the sheriff’s department.”
This response baffled Shepherd. He let a moment pass as he approached the desk. Automatically he noted Cray’s age, approximately mid-forties, and a few other details.
He wore no wedding band. His complexion was sallow; he did not get out in the sun very much. He wore a brown suit of good quality, in need of being pressed. His shirt collar was unbuttoned, revealing a taut, muscular neck.
“I’m not sure I follow you,” Shepherd said finally.
Cray looked impatient. “This is about the vandalism, isn’t it?”
“Vandalism?”
A sigh leaked out of Cray, the sigh of a man who was smarter and better organized than everyone around him, and weary of this burden. Shepherd decided he disliked John Cray.
But the truth was, he disliked all psychiatrists, disliked the profession of psychiatry as such. He had his reasons.
“Apparently,” Cray said, “we’ve got our wires crossed. You see, my sport-utility vehicle was vandalized last night. I called the sheriff’s department about