Deadlocked

Chapter 44

"Call him," Mason told her.

"But I thought…" she began.

"It's okay. I don't want you to get in any trouble. Dixon Smith is my lawyer," he told her. Adrienne's eyes widened in disbelief until Mason picked up the newspaper, found Smith's quote that his client, Lou Mason, was cooperating with the grand jury process and showed it to her.

"I don't understand. Mr. Parker told me that Mr. Smith was his lawyer," Adrienne said.

"You mean Damon Parker who owns Golden Years?" Mason asked, Adrienne nodding. "Dixon told me all about that," Mason reassured her. "A lawyer needs more than one client, you know." He picked up the phone and handed it to her. "You better call him," he said.

"You're sure?"

"Positive. But you probably shouldn't tell him that you told me you were supposed to call him. He might consider that to be covered by attorney-client privilege. I'll square it with him later. Lawyer to lawyer."

"You can do that?" she asked.

"Sure. Especially since he represents me too. I don't want you to get caught in the middle. Tell you what," Mason said. "Is there another extension I can use while you call him? I've got a call to make too."

"Of course. There's one right over there," she said, pointing to a phone in the office behind her.

Mason looked at her phone. It had lights for three incoming lines, the buttons for each line marked one, two and three, none of which were lit. She hadn't selected a line yet and Mason bet she would pick line one when she made the call. He walked into the office, keeping eye contact to delay the start of her call. He picked up the receiver for the office phone, gave her a quick wave and turned his back, hoping his timing was good. He pressed the button for line one at the same instant she did, joining her call without her knowledge, listening to the electronic tones as she dialed. He hoped she was too distracted to notice that neither of the other two lines was in use.

"Dixon Smith," his lawyer said when he answered the phone, his tone flat, disinterested.

"Mr. Smith. It's Adrienne Rubinkowski from Golden Years. You said to call if that man, Lou Mason, came here."

"Yes, I did, Adrienne," Smith said. Mason squeezed the phone when he heard Smith's voice quicken. "Is he there now?"

"Yes he is."

"Where?"

"Using a phone in the office."

"What did he want? What did he say?"

"He said he wanted to see someone but wasn't certain which unit she was in. I did just what you told me. I said I couldn't give out that information for privacy reasons."

"And you can't," Smith said. "That's the law. Did he say who he wanted to see?"

"No, he didn't. Do you want me to ask him?"

"Yes. That's very important. I need to know who it is. Tell him you'll call and ask if the person wants to see him. Then call me back. Got it?"

"Got it," Adrienne said.

"Good girl," Smith said. "I'll tell Mr. Parker what a great job you're doing."

"Thanks," she said, hanging up.

Mason punched the button for line two, keeping his back to Adrienne a moment longer, watching the video monitors, his head buzzing. His suspicions of Smith had been confirmed. The wild card was Smith's comment that he needed to know who Mason wanted to see. The only person on Mason's list was Victoria King. He wondered who else Smith was talking about as he returned to Adrienne's desk, still smiling.

"Everything go okay?" he asked her.

"Fine," she said, smoothing her jeans.

"You see," he said. "I told you it would be all right. See you around."

"Mr. Mason," she said, stammering.

"Please, call me, Lou."

"Okay, Lou" she said, still flustered. "If you'll just tell me who you want to see, I'll call them and ask if I can give you that information," she said, picking up the phone again, twisting the cord through her fingers.

"You know what?" he said. "Turns out she's not even here. She's at Lakewood Gardens. That's why I made that call. I don't know how I screwed that up. Sorry to have bothered you."

Mason left her looking stricken, hoping she didn't lose her job when she called Smith back with the bad news. He'd come to Golden Years to see Victoria King. He drove away wondering who else was there and why Dixon Smith didn't want him to talk to them.

There was a mammoth strip mall on the north side of Eighty-seventh Street Parkway directly across from Golden Years. A Wal-Mart Super Center anchored the west end, a Home Depot matching it on the east. In between, the center boasted a sandwich shop, video store, dry cleaner, liquor store, sports bar, Chinese restaurant, veterinarian, Lasik surgery center, cosmetic dentist, tanning salon, office supply store, and half a dozen other businesses. A bank, a Mexican restaurant, a pizza joint, and a Starbucks occupied pads scattered across the parking lot. Collectively, the retailers offered everything needed for survival in the suburbs, including duct tape.

Mason parked in front of Wal-Mart. He wanted to take his own tour of the Golden Years campus but doubted whether he would be welcomed back twice in one day. He decided that a maintenance man would have an easier time prowling around than he would.

Twenty minutes and two hundred dollars later, Mason had a pair of pewter-colored work pants, a short-sleeve denim shirt, a white crew neck T-shirt advertising an herbicide company, a ball cap with a tractor on the front, a pair of work boots, and a pair of aviator sunglasses. At Home Depot, he picked up a leather tool belt filled with an array of screwdrivers, pliers, wire cutters, and a tape measure. He bought a clipboard and a pad of forms labeled WORK ORDERS at the office supply store, then stopped at the sandwich shop for a bottle of water. Finished with his shopping, he moved his car to a parking space in the middle row of the strip center parking lot between two minivans that afforded a view of the entrance to Golden Years.

He changed out of his chinos, polo shirt, and loafers in his car, the only dicey moment coming when a mother and her teenage daughter climbed into the minivan on his left.

He was just pulling up his new pants as the daughter glanced into his car and burst out laughing. By the time the mother looked over, Mason was dressed and waving pleasantly at her. The mother shrugged her shoulders as if to ask whether Mason would take her daughter off her hands.

Standing alongside his car, his denim shirt open over his T-shirt, he bent down and rubbed his hands on the pavement, then wiped them off on his pants and shirt, not wanting his outfit to look brand new. Unsatisfied, he shimmied against the side of his car, picking up more dirt. He scuffed his new boots and tool belt against the pavement and scrunched his cap between his hands, wiping it against his car and working dirt into the bill. He rubbed his dirty hands on his neck and face, splashing bottled water on his neck to add a sweat line to his T-shirt.

It was hot and muggy in the parking lot, the asphalt radiating heat and generating more sweat to bolster his working man look. The sky above half the city was now a low-hanging, billowing tarnished green. The sky over Mason's head was still pale blue with tracers of white clouds streaking past trying to outrun the rapidly moving front. The weather gods were about to turn the forecasters into prophets.

As he walked across Eighty-seventh Street Parkway, he wondered whether his first visit would spark any other comings or goings. Whitney King lived nearby, though Samantha Greer had said that King had made himself scarce. Mason didn't know where Dixon Smith lived but doubted he was the suburban type. If Smith showed up, it would take awhile. That didn't matter to Mason. He had an entire pad of work orders to fill.

A slightly undulating berm landscaped with tall evergreens marked the Golden Years' northern property line along the Eighty-seventh Street Parkway. Mason walked west on Eighty-seventh, crossing the street at the edge of the campus farthest from the entrance. A maintenance man walking in off the street would arouse immediate suspicion.

An eight-foot-high wooden privacy fence surrounded the property. Mason assumed it was to keep both the psychiatric and Alzheimer's disease patients inside the grounds rather than to keep intruders out since the berm sloped down to a point midway on the outside of the fence. Mason easily climbed over and lowered himself down the other side.

There was an expansive park with benches and a walking trail winding through the trees between him and the nearest building. Unlike the other taupe and stucco buildings, this one was built with brick and had a long center section with high windows that divided the patient wings.

The park was empty, the patients having at least enough sense to come in out of the rain before the rain began. Uncertain whether anyone had seen him, Mason walked along the perimeter of the fence, stopping every so often to test a fence post, the best impression he could give of a diligent maintenance man.

He didn't know whether Golden Years employed its own on-site maintenance crew or, if it did, whether the employees had uniforms with their names stitched over the shirt pocket. He didn't know if anyone had called maintenance to fix an air-conditioning, plumbing, or electrical problem. If they had and he showed up, they would both be disappointed. Mason's handyman resume began and ended with changing lightbulbs. The only thing he had going for him was the outfit and a purposeful stride.

By the time he reached the psychiatric hospital, the storm front had caught up to him, blotting out the sun and knocking the temperature back at least fifteen degrees. The trees swayed around him.

Mason made his way to an emergency exit at one end of the psychiatric hospital. He tried the door, not surprised that it was locked. Opening it would have probably triggered an alarm, a thought that made him quickly look up above the door for another security feature. There was a video camera aimed at his head. Just in case Adrienne was watching the video monitors, he gave a small salute, relying on his cap and dark glasses to conceal his identity, and continued around to the front of the building.

A heavy-set, elderly white man with hound dog jowls was hunched forward in a chair behind a counter in the lobby, switching channels on a portable television resting on a TV table. A football game replaced a commercial. Satisfied, the man leaned back, still unaware that Mason was standing on the other side of the counter.

To Mason's right, there was door to the patients' hallways with a sign that read "Authorized Personnel Only." A key card scanner was mounted in the wall next to the door.

"Who's playing?" Mason asked the man, sticking his sunglasses in his shirt pocket.

"Giants and Rams. Hall of Fame game. First exhibition game of the year. Been a long time since the Super Bowl and I am ready for some football," the man said, glancing at Mason long enough for Mason to read his name tag- Walt-before turning back to the television. The upper right-hand corner of the screen was filled with a weather map and a graphic announcing that the city was now under a tornado warning. "What do you need?" His question and his look said he hoped neither Mason nor the weather would interfere with the football game.

Mason tapped the clipboard on the counter. "Work order on the second floor. I forgot my key card. Can you buzz me in?"

Walt scooted his chair back, opened a desk drawer, and tossed Mason a key card attached to a coiled bracelet. "Don't forget to bring it back when you're finished," he said, his back to Mason, his head in the game.

In the same instant, the football game was interrupted by the Channel 6 weatherman who reported that a tornado had been sighted along a line stretching from Seventy-fifth and I-35 southwest to I-435. With a grim face normally reserved for wartime, he said the twister was moving toward the southwest and he warned everyone in its path to take immediate cover.