I checked his belt and found his keys, then I stepped inside and shut the door.
The sound of the lock engaging put the shits up me. I walked along the empty halls, glancing into the community day room, the group-discussion room, the work room. I could smell the clay they were using to make ashtrays and potholders. The floorboards were thick with shreds of wicker from their weaving of baskets and mats. It’s really what they gave the lunatics to do in order to keep their hands busy.
I unlocked each security door I came to and slid through. Normally there would be three other orderlies on duty, a couple of night nurses, maybe a doctor. I suspected the staff would be light tonight. I eased up the hall and peered around the corner at the nurse’s station. I could hear the soft, fast padding of footsteps far up the corridor. Sounded like a young, heavy woman with an austere purpose. She’d be checking rooms and giving out midnight medication and sedatives to whoever needed it. I stepped toward the nurse’s station thinking maybe I’d get lucky and have time to check through their computer files. I was almost there when an orderly stepped out of the men’s room and turned towards me.
I didn’t give him time to react. I clutched the heavy key ring tightly in my fist and broke his nose. He doubled over, gagging on blood, and I swept his feet out from under him. He went down hard but not hard enough to quit struggling. I gripped him by his hair and banged his head twice on the tile floor until his eyes rolled back into his skull. I dragged him into the nurse’s station and stuffed him halfway behind a filing cabinet.
There were only five possibilities, so far as I could see, of who might have gotten Emily pregnant. A doctor, an orderly, some other staff member, a patient, or a visitor.
The computer system was simple. I did a search and came up with Emily’s file. I went through her list of visitors. There hadn’t been any in six months. Before that, on her birthday, Dell had signed in. He stayed for twenty minutes. I went back further. He’d done the same thing last year, and the year before.
I kept scrolling through the pages reading reports. It all seemed like the same thing. Emily would have moments of lucidity, then fall back into a dissociative state where she was delusional. She’d escaped once before, three months ago, and they put her on a suicide watch.
They tried some serious drugs on her. I thought of her frail frame with all those chemicals punching through her veins. I reached down and gripped the edge of the desk and tightened my hold, the impotent fury heavy in me.
The nurse stepped back in. She had a face like an iron frying pan and arms nearly as thick as mine. She rushed over to me with her hands up like she wanted to box. I jumped to my feet and got in her face. She didn’t intimidate easily and raised her chin to meet me.
“Who the hell are you?” she demanded.
I said, “Someone who spent some time here, which means you definitely shouldn’t fuck with me.”
“I’m calling security.”
I blocked her as she went for the phone. “The two orderlies covering the ward tonight are sleeping. Let’s leave them that way, right?”
Her eyes darted to the pair of feet jutting from behind the filing cabinet.
Even that didn’t spook her much. Everyone who worked at Sojourner was hard. “What do you want?”
“I want to know about Emily Wright.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “I can’t give out any information. Leave now, or I’ll call the police.”
I looked at her. She held my gaze for thirty seconds and then turned aside. I chucked her under the chin and stared deep into her face. “You know she’s dead, don’t you? They told you that. A hurricane of shit is about to sweep through this place. I can either make it better or worse. Now, show me her room.”
She led me down the twining corridors, past the dwellings of the other patients. Some would be on the floor lying in shredded sheets like nests. Others managed to sleep standing up. I listened in and heard the same kind of nightly whines, whimpers, cries, chatter, and grousing that I’d listened to when I’d been locked up here.
“This is her room,” the nurse said.
It was smaller than a jail cell. I knew. I’d lived in both. This was worse. I went through her two-drawer dresser and checked her clothing. What they called “visitor’s-day wear.” You had to put on a show for the family or anybody else who came by. The rest of the time you walked around in loose-fitting garments, pajamas or sweats or scrubs or nighties. I didn’t find anything. I went through her personal effects. She didn’t have many. Some state-made jewelry, makeup, brushes, hair clips, toothbrush. I checked under her pillow and went through the blankets.
“Check under the bed,” I told the nurse.
“Why?”
I kept my voice steady. “Just do it, all right?”
“Why don’t you?”
I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders and got up close and braced her. “Remember what I said about not fucking with me, lady?”
She got on her hands and knees and peered under the bed. “There’s nothing here.”
When she stood again I showed her the tiny purple plastic house. “This looks like it goes to a board game. Any idea what?”
“No, I’ve never seen that before.”
“Was she close to any of the other patients?”
“No.”
I reared on her. “Think for a goddamn minute before you answer, right? Now, mull it over. Was she close to anyone?”
“I swear, she wasn’t.”
“Any sexual deviants in this wing? Masturbators? Rapists? Flashers, perverts, pedophiles?”
“No. No mental abnormalities or sexual proclivities of that sort. They’re kept in the C wing, where there’s more security. We don’t allow those patients to mix with the rest. Especially not with young girls like Emily.”
“Okay. Any escapees in the last few months?”
She hesitated. “No, not in years.”
“Before her, you mean. She cut out three months ago.”
“Yes, before her.”
“How’d she get out?”
“We don’t know. Maybe the same way you got in.”
I tightened one fist on the keys and the other on the little house. “Was there someone who could have had a sexual relationship with her? A staff member? One of these no-neck attendant fuckers?”
“She was only sixteen.”
“I know how old she was. Answer the question.”
“No. We have strict protocol. There are always several orderlies on hand, and nurses, and doctors. Tonight is—”
“Right, a special case.” I looked through the little cube window of Emily’s cell. You could barely see the glimmer of the moon. “She had a gun with her. Any idea where she could have gotten it?”
“No, none at all.”
“Who was her primary therapist?”
“Dr. Wilkins.”
I remembered that prick. He was old school. A sucker for hydrotherapy back in the day who used to keep the patients in lukewarm bathtubs with canvas covers to force us to stay down. He was the only psychiatrist still performing shock treatment anywhere in the country. I wondered if he was still at it. I wondered how many times Emily had had her pubescent brain singed.