Monster

Chapter 11

William Swig said, "You think that means something?"

It was just after four P.M. and we were back in his office. Milo's unmarked was low on gas, so he left it at the park and I drove to Starkweather.

On the way, he made two calls on the cell phone. An attempt to reach the sheriff of Treadway, California, resulted in a rerouting to the voicemail system of a private security firm named Bunker Protection. Put on hold for several minutes, he finally got through. The brief conversation left him shaking his head.

"Gone," he said.

"The sheriff?"

"The whole damn town. It's a retirement community now, called Fairway Ranch. Bunker does the policing. I talked to some robocop with an attitude: 'All questions of that nature must be referred to national headquarters in Chicago.' "

The call to Swig connected, but when we arrived at the hospital's front gate, the guard hadn't been informed. Phoning Swig's office again finally got us in, but we had to wait awhile before Frank Dollard showed up to walk us across the yard. This time he barely greeted us. Impending evening hadn't tamed the heat. Only three men were out on the yard, one of them Chet, waving his huge hands wildly as he told stories to the sky.

The moment we passed through the end gate, Dollard stepped away and left us to enter the gray building alone. Swig was waiting just inside the door. He hurried us in to his office.

Now he tented his hands and rocked in his desk chair. "A box, eyes-this is obviously psychotic rambling. Why would you take it seriously, Doctor?"

"Even psychotics can have something to say," I said.

"Can they? I can't say I've found that to be the case."

"Maybe it's no big lead, sir," said Milo, "but it does bear follow-up."

Swig's intercom buzzed. He pressed a button and his secretary's voice said, "Bill? Senator Tuck."

"Tell him I'll call him back." Back to us: "So… all this comes via Heidi Ott?"

"Does she have credibility problems?" said Milo.

Another beep. Swig jabbed the button irritably. The secretary said, "Bill? Senator Tuck says no need to call him back, he was just reminding you of your aunt's birthday party this Sunday."

"Fine. Hold my calls. Please." Rolling back, Swig crossed his legs and showed us his ankles. Under his blue trousers he wore white sweat socks and brown, rubber-soled walkers. "State Senator Tuck's married to my mother's sister."

"That should help with funding," said Milo.

"On the contrary. State Senator Tuck doesn't approve of this place, thinks all our patients should be hauled outside and shot. His views on the matter harden especially during election years."

"Must make for spirited family parties."

"A blast," Swig said sourly. "Where was I… yes, Heidi. The thing to remember about Heidi is she's a rookie, and rookies can be impressionable. Maybe she heard something, maybe she didn't, but either way I can't believe it matters."

"Even though it's Ardis Peake we're talking about?"

"Him or anyone else. The point is, he's here. Locked up securely." Swig turned to me: "He's withdrawn, severely asocial, extremely dyskinesic, has a whole boatload of negative symptoms, rarely leaves his room. Since he's been with us he's never shown any signs whatsoever of any high-risk behavior."

"Does he receive mail?" said Milo.

"I'd tend to doubt it."

"But he might."

"I'd tend to doubt it," Swig repeated. "I'm sure when he was first committed there was some of the usual garbage- screwed-up women proposing marriage, that kind of thing. But now he's ancient history. Obscure, the way he should be. I'll tell you one thing: in the four years I've been here he's never received a visitor. In terms of his overhearing something, he has no friends among the other patients that I or anyone else on the staff is aware of. But what if he did? Anyone he might have overheard would be confined here, too."

"Unless someone's been released recently."

"No one's been released since Claire Argent came on board. I checked."

"I appreciate that."

"No problem," said Swig. "Our goal's the same: keep the citizens safe. Believe me, Peake's no threat to anyone."

"I'm sure you're right," said Milo. "But if he was receiving mail or sending it, no one on the staff would be monitoring it. Same with his phone calls-"

"No one would officially be monitoring content unless Peake acted out, but-" Swig held up a finger, punched four digits on his phone. "Arturo? Mr. Swig. Are you aware of any mail-letters, packages, postcards-anything arriving recently for Patient Three Eight Four Four Three? Peake, Ardis. Even junk mail… You're sure? Anything at all since you can remember? Keep an eye out, okay, Arturo? No, no authority for that, just let me know if anything shows up. Thanks."

He put the phone down. "Arturo's been here three years. Peake doesn't get mail. In terms of phone calls, I can't prove it to you, but believe me, nothing. He never comes out of his room. Doesn't talk."

"Pretty low-functioning."

"Subterranean."

"Any idea why Dr. Argent chose to work with Peake?"

"Dr. Argent worked with lots of patients. I don't believe she gave Peake any special attention." His finger rose again. Springing up, he left the office, closing the door hard.

Milo said, "Helpful fellow, even though it kills him."

"As Heidi said, he thinks publicity's the kiss of death."

"I was wondering how such a young guy got to be in charge. Now I know. Uncle Senator may not approve of this place, but how much you wanna bet he had something to do with nephew getting the gig."

The door swung open and Swig bounded in, carrying a brown cardboard folder. Bypassing Milo, he handed it to me and sat down.

Peake's clinical chart. Thinner than I'd have predicted. Twelve pages, mostly medication notes signed by various psychiatrists, a few notations about the tardive dyskinesia: "T.D., no change."

"T.D. intensifies, more lingual thrust."

"T.D. Unsteady gait." Immediately after arriving at Starkweather, Peake had been placed on Thorazine, and for fifteen years he'd been kept on die drug. He'd also received several medications for the side effects: lithium carbonate, trypto-phan, Narcan. "No change."

"No behav. change." Everything but Thorazine had been phased out.

The test two pages bore four months of nearly identical weekly entries written in a small, neat hand:

Indiv. sess. to monitor verb., soc., assess beh. plan. H. Ott assist. C. Argent, Ph.D.

I passed the chart to Milo.

"As you can see, Dr. Argent was monitoring his speech, not treating him," said Swig. "Probably measuring his response to medication, or something like that."

"How many other patients was she monitoring?" said Milo.

Swig said, "I don't know her total load, nor could I give you specific names without going through extensive review procedures." He held out his hand for the folder. Milo flipped pages for a second and returned it.

Milo said, "Did Dr. Argent seek out severely deteriorated patients?"

Swig rolled forward, placed his elbows on the desk, expelled a short, pufflike laugh. "As opposed to? We don't house mild neurotics here."

"So Peake's just one of the guys."

"No one at Starkweather's one of the guys. These are dangerous men. We treat them as individuals."

"Okay," said Milo. "Thanks for your time. Now, may I please see Peake?"

Swig flushed. "For what purpose? We're talking barely functioning."

"At this point in my investigation, I'll take what I can get." Milo smiled.

Swig made the puffing sound again. "Look, I appreciate your dedication to your job, but I can't have you coming in here every time some theory emerges. Way too disruptive, and as I told you yesterday, it's obvious Dr. Argent's murder had nothing to do with Starkweather."

"The last thing I want to do is disrupt, sir, but if I ignored this, I'd be derelict."

Swig shook his head, poked at a mole, tried to smooth the fluff atop his bald head.

"We'll keep it short, Mr. Swig."

Swig dug a nail into his scalp. A crescent-shaped mark rose on the shiny white skin. "If I thought that would be the end of it, I'd say sure. But I get a clear sense you're hell-bent on finding your solution here."

"Not at all, sir. I just need to be thorough."

"All right," Swig said with sudden anger. He seemed to hurl himself upward. After fiddling with his tie, he took out a chrome ring filled with keys.

"Here we go," he said, jangling loudly. "Let's peek in on Mr. Peake."

On the ride up the elevator, Milo said, "Heidi Ott's not in any hot water, is she, sir?"

"Why would she be?"

"For telling me about Peake."

Swig said, "Am I going to be vindictive? Christ, no, of course not. She was doing her civic duty. How could I be anything other than a proud administrator?"

"Sir-"

"Don't worry, Detective Sturgis. Too much worry is bad for the soul."

We got out on C Ward. Swig opened the double doors and we walked through.

"Room Fifteen S &R," he said. The halls were still crowded. Some of the inmates moved aside as we approached. Swig paid them no attention, walked briskly. Midway down the hall, he stopped and inspected the key ring. He was wearing short sleeves, and I noticed how muscled his forearms were. The bulky, sinewed arms of a laborer, not a bureaucrat.

Double dead bolts fastened the door. The hatch was also key-locked.

Milo said, "Fifteen S &R. Suppression and Restraint?"

"Not because he needs it," said Swig, still shuffling through the keys. "The S &R rooms are smaller, so when a patient lives alone we sometimes use them. He lives alone because his hygiene's not always what it should be." Swig began shoving keys up the ring. Finally, he found what he was looking for and stabbed both locks. The tumblers clicked; he held the door open six inches and looked inside.

Swinging it back, he said, "He's all yours."

Six-by-six space. Unlike the hallways, generous ceilings- ten feet high or close to it.

More of a tube than a room.

High on the walls were mounted thick metal rings- fasteners for the iron shackles now coiled up against the plaster like techno-sculpture.

Soft walls, pinkish white, covered with some kind of dull-looking foam. Faint scuff marks said the material couldn't be ripped.

Dim. The only light came through a tiny plastic window, a skinny, vertical rectangle that aped the shape of the room. Two round, recessed ceiling bulbs under thick plastic covers were turned off. No internal switch, just the one out in the hall. A lidless plastic toilet took up one corner. Precut strips of toilet paper littered the floor.

No nightstand, no real furniture, just two plastic drawers built into the foam walls. Molded. No hardware.

Music came from somewhere in the ceiling. Sugary strings and belching horns-some long-forgotten forties pop tune in a major key, done by a band that didn't care.

On a thin mattress attached to a raised plastic platform sat… something.

Naked from the waist up.

Skin the color of whey, blue-veined, hairless. Ribs so deeply etched they evoked a turkey carcass the day after Thanksgiving.

Khaki pants covered his bottom half, bagging on stick legs, stretching over knees as knobby as hand-carved canes. His feet were bare but dirty, the nails untrimmed and brown. His head was shaved clean. Black stubble specked his chin and cheeks. Very little stubble on top said he'd gone mostly bald.

His cranium was strangely contoured: very broad on top, the hairless skull flat at the apex, furrowed in several places, as if a child's fingers had dragged their way through white putty. Under a bulging shelf of a brow, his eyes were lost in moon-crater sockets. Gray lids, caved-in cheeks. Below the zygomatic arch, the entire face tapered radically, like a too-sharpened pencil.

The room smelled foul. Vinegary sweat, flatulence, burning rubber. Something dead.

The music played on, nice bouncy dance tune in waltz time.

"Ardis?" said Swig.

Peake's head stayed down. I bent low, caught a full view of his face. Tiny mouth, pinched, lipless. Suddenly it filled: a dark, wet tongue tip showing itself as a liver-colored oval. The tongue retreated. Reappeared. Peake's cheeks bellowed, caved in, inflated again. He rolled his neck to the left. Eyes closed, mouth open. Lots of teeth missing.

Swig stepped closer, came within three feet of the bed.

Peake's head dropped and he looked down at the floor again. His nose was short, very thin-not much more than a wedge of cartilage-and bent up to the left. More putty, the child twisting capriciously. Large but lobeless ears flared battishly. Narrow, vein-encrusted hands ended in tentacle fingers that curled over his knees.

Living skeleton. I'd seen a face like that somewhere…

Peake's tongue darted again. He started to rock. Moved his head from side to side. Rolled his neck. Blinked spasmodically. More tongue thrusts.

The mouth had flattened, gone two-dimensional. Moistened by saliva, the lips materialized-port-wine slash in the center of the triangle, vivid against the doughy skin.

It opened again and the tongue extended completely- thick, purplish, mottled, like some cave-dwelling slug.

It hung in the air. Curled. Wagged from side to side. Zipped back.

Out again. In again.

More neck-rolling.

I knew where I'd seen the face. Poster art from my college days. Edvard Munch's The Scream.

Hairless melting man clutching his face in primal mental agony. Peake could have posed for the painting.

His hands remained in his lap, but his upper body swayed, trembled, jerked a few times, seemed about to topple. Then he stopped Righted himself.

Looked in our direction.

He'd butchered the Ardullos at age nineteen, making him thirty-five. He looked ancient.

"Ardis?" said Swig.

No reaction. Peake was staring in our direction but not making contact. He closed his eyes. Rolled his head. Another two minutes of tardive ballet.

Swig gave a disgusted look and waved his hand, as if to say, "You asked for it."

Mik› ignored that and stepped closer. Peake began rocking faster, licking his lips, the tongue emerging, curling, retreating. Several toes on his left foot jumped. His left hand fluttered.

"Ardis, it's Mr. Swig. I've got some visitors for you."

Nothing.

Swig said, "Go ahead, Detective."

No response to "Detective."

I bent and got down at Peake's eye level. Milo did, too. Peake's eyes had remained closed. Tiny waves seemed to ruffle-eyeballs rolling behind gray skin. His chest was white and hairless, freckled with blackheads. Gray nipples- a pair of tiny ash piles. Up close the burning smell was stronger.

Milo said, "Hey," with surprising gentleness.

A few new shoulder tics, tongue calisthenics. Peake rolled his head, lifted his right hand, held it in midair, dropped it heavily.

"Hey," Milo repeated. "Ardis." His face was inches from Peake's. I got closer myself, still smelling the combustion but feeling no heat from Peake's body.

"My name's Milo. I'm here to ask you about Dr. Argent."

Peake's movements continued, autonomic, devoid of intent.

"Claire Argent, Ardis. Your doctor. I'm a homicide detective, Ardis. Homicide."

Not an errant eyeblink.

Milo said, "Ardis!" very loud.

Nothing. A full minute passed before the lids lifted. Halfway, then a full view of the eyes.

Black slots. Pinpoints of light at the center, but no definition between iris and white.

"Claire Argent," Milo repeated. "Dr. Argent. Bad eyes in a box."

The eyes slammed shut. Peake rolled his head, the tongue explored air. One toe jumped, this time on the right foot.

"Bad eyes," said Milo, nearly whispering, but his voice had gotten tight, and I knew he was fighting to keep the volume down. "Bad eyes in a box, Ardis."

Ten seconds, fifteen… half a minute.

"A box, Ardis. Dr. Argent in a box."

Peake's neuropathic ballet continued, unaltered.

"Bad eyes," Milo soothed.

I was looking into Peake's eyes, plumbing for some shred of soul.

Flat black; lights out.

A cruel phrase for mental disability came to mind: "no one home."

Once upon a time, he'd destroyed an entire family, speedily, lustily, a one-man plague.

Taking the eyes.

Now his eyes were twin portholes on a ship to nowhere.

No one home.

As if someone or something had snipped the wires connecting body to soul.

His tongue shot forward again. His mouth opened but produced no sound. I kept staring at him, trying to snag some kind of response. He looked through me-no, that implied too much effort.

He was, I was. No contact.

Neither of us was really there.

His mouth cratered, as if for a yawn. No yawn. Just a gaping hole. It stayed that way as his head craned. I thought of a blind newborn rodent searching for its mother's nipple.

The music from the ceiling switched to "Perfidia," done much too slowly. Ostentatious percussion that seemed to lag behind wan-wan trumpets.

Milo tried again, even softer, more urgent: "Dr. Argent, Ardis. Bad eyes in a box."

The tardive movements continued, random, arrhythmic. Swig tapped his foot impatiently.

Milo stood, knees cracking. I got to my feet, catching an eyeful of the chain on the wall. Coiled, like a sleeping python.

The room smelled worse.

Peake noticed none of it.

No behav. change.