Roses Are Red

Chapter One Hundred and Two

The hospital seems like a dead end, Betsey. I've looked at everybody – doctors, nurses, patients. I don't know that Sampson or I should go back to Hazelwood after this week. Maybe we got suckered in there by Brian Macdougall. Maybe the Mastermind is playing with us. Do we know anything more about Walsh or Doud?"

She shook her head. I could see the hurt and disappointment in her eyes. "Doud is still missing. There's nothing. He's disappeared off the face of the earth."

I was sitting in her office and we had our feet propped up on her desk. We were drinking iced tea from bottles. Hanging out, commiserating. Betsey could be a good listener when she wanted, or needed, to be.

Tell me what you know so far," she said. "Just let me hear it. I want it to roll over my brain."

"We haven't been able to find anything to connect any patient or any staff member at the hospital to Metro Hartford or the bank robberies. No patient seems capable of the crimes. Even the doctors there aren't terribly impressive. Maybe Marcuse is but I think he's a good guy. A half-dozen of your agents have picked apart everything at Hazelwood. Nothing, Betsey. I'll look over the files again this weekend."

"But you think we've lost him?"

"It's the same old thing no suspects. The Mastermind seems to disappear off the face of the earth when he wants to."

She rubbed her eyes with her fists, then she looked at me again. "The Justice Department is heavily invested in Brian Macdougall's story. They have to keep looking at Hazelwood. Then they'll check every other veterans hospital in the country. That means I'll have to keep looking. But you think Macdougall and his thugs were wrong?"

"Maybe wrong, maybe tricked. Or maybe Macdougall made up the whole story. Macdougall will probably get what he wanted out of this -Camp Fed. As I said, I'll look over the files again. I'm not giving up."

Betsey continued to look out over the cityscape. "So you're planning to work all weekend? That's a shame. You look like you need a break," she said.

I sipped my tea, and watched her. "You have something in mind?"

She laughed, and the look on her face was irresistibly coy. She whistled into the neck of her iced-tea bottle," I think it's time, Alex. We both need some good old-fashioned F-U-N. What do you say I pick you up around noon on Saturday?"

I shook my head some, but I was laughing.

"Does that mean yes?" she asked.

I nodded. "It means yes. I think I need a little old-fashioned F-U-N. I'm sure I do."