Max Collins - Majic Man

Baughman and Bernstein had already spoken on the phone, and what followed was the second half of what was obviously an already in-progress conversation that I sometimes had a little trouble following.

“If all the signs pointed toward your patient’s imminent recovery,” Baughman said, “what do you think happened here?”

“It’s my opinion,” the psychiatrist said, with somber authority, his arms folded, “that Mr. Forrestal was seized with a sudden fit of despondence, probably very late this evening-perhaps he awoke from a troubling dream, and found himself in a state of melancholia … such a seizure is extremely common in severe depression cases.”

Baughman said, “If that’s the case, Doctor, why was your patient allowed these privileges? Including that pantry with the unguarded window?”

“This facility doesn’t subscribe to the view that psychiatric patients ought to be thrown in a dungeon.” Bernstein sighed, shrugged. “We had reached a point where certain privileges had to be extended to the patient, to make him feel our confidence in him … to give him confidence that a full recovery was possible. We did this, frankly, even though certain suicidal preoccupations might still be present.”

Baughman twitched a non-smile. “I don’t mean to tell you your job, Doctor, but that sounds a little risky to me.”

“Chief Baughman, calculated risks of therapy are an accepted part of the practice of modern psychiatry.”

What a pompous ass this guy was; everything he said that wasn’t a press release was a goddamn lecture.

Baughman was asking, “What I read to you over the phone, Doctor, do you consider that a substitute for a suicide note?”

“Most definitely-there are many examples of indirect suicide notes on file, Chief Baughman, as I’m sure you know. Now, of course, I must remind you that Dr. Raines is the primary physician on this case.”

“Of course.”

Bernstein smiled, and it was a dazzler; he really would have been a handsome devil, if he’d some color in his face and hair. “I just wanted to offer my services, as a sort of substitute, until he returns. By the way, I’ve already spoken to him, by long distance, and he’s made arrangements to return by air.”

“Glad to hear that.” The Secret Service chief gestured toward me with a thumb, like he was hitchhiking. “I’d like to speak further with you, Doctor, but first I need a few minutes with Mr. Heller.”

“Certainly.” He half-bowed. “I’m at your service. I’ll wait at the nurses’ station.”

“If you would.”

Bernstein nodded curtly and turned down the hallway at left, moving toward the agents clustered at the waiting area across from the duty nurse’s desk.

“Covering his ass already,” I said.

“There’ll be a lot of that in this case,” Baughman said, with a humorless laugh. “Listen, before you and I talk, I need to interview those corpsmen and the sleeping shrink. Care to sit in?”

“Love to.”

We began walking again, Baughman saying, “We’ll talk to this boy who worked the early shift, first. He was close to Mr. Forrestal-of the three corpsmen assigned to him, this kid was his favorite-and the boy’s been quite upset. I’m hoping he’s composed enough to speak to us, now.”

Self-composure was exactly what Navy Medical Corpsman Edward Prise seemed to be trying to maintain; looking like the sailor he technically was, in his white uniform with its dark neckerchief, the corpsman sat erect in Forrestal’s padded wooden chair, which had been yanked out into the middle of the dimly lighted double room. Towheaded, ruddy-cheeked Prise, in his early twenties and looking impossibly young, had a glazed expression, the whites of his blue eyes red with crying; he was turning his bucket cap in his hand like a wheel.

Baughman, his tall thin frame looming over the boy, stood with hands on hips; though his voice was almost kind, the Secret Service chief’s presence was surely intimidating as he asked, “What can you tell us about tonight, Edward?”

Another plainclothesman, presumably Secret Service, took notes while Baughman conducted the low-key interrogation. There were three plainclothes agents in the room with us, and, again, FBI and/or CIA may have been among them; no one clued me in.

“Bad luck, sir,” the boy said. “Terrible bad luck. Normally we watch … watched … Mr. Forrestal on eight-hour ’round the-clock shifts. The shift change is usually at nine p.m., but we had to double up tonight, sir.”

“Why is that, son?”

“My usual replacement picked Friday night to go absent without leave, sir, and get drunk on his butt; he’s in the brig, and now we’re shorthanded. So this new fella, Bob Harrison, just a hospital apprentice, is not attuned to the …” The boy looked for the right word. “… subtleties and hazards of this particular situation, sir. He didn’t know Mr. Forrestal, and Mr. Forrestal didn’t know him. So I was concerned, when I went off duty, sir.”

“Strictly because of your replacement’s inexperience?”

“That wasn’t the only thing. Mr. Forrestal had seemed in good spirits today, and real energetic, but also, this evening, he seemed restless. He refused his usual sleeping pill and sedative, saying he wanted to stay up late and read, tonight.”

“The patient had leeway to do that?”

“We don’t force-feed medication, sir. That’s hospital policy. I did notify, or tried to notify, Dr. Deen of my concerns. He was sleeping in that adjacent room, you know? Dr. Deen wasn’t happy I woke him up, which was typical.”

“Of Deen?”

“No, sir, he’s not better or worse than any of them, frankly, sir. None of these doctors like to get advice on their patients from enlisted corpsmen. I stuck around, after midnight, for maybe half an hour-I just had a bad feeling. But, finally, I left-you know how it is, sir. Against regulations to just hang about.”

Baughman nodded. “Your watch was over and custom, and discipline, dictated you go about your business elsewhere. You did nothing wrong, son.”

Now Prise began to cry; quietly sobbing. “I … I went back to my room at the barracks, but I couldn’t sleep. Musta tossed and turned for a good hour. Finally I just got dressed and was walkin’ across the hospital grounds, to the canteen, for a cup of coffee, you know? And all of a sudden there was this big commotion, yelling, running, alarm bells … and I just felt sick to my stomach. I knew what happened. Somehow I just knew.”

Baughman put a comforting hand on the boy’s shoulder. “It’s all right, son. It’s all right.”

“Mr. Forrestal, he … he was the most interesting man I ever met, a great and famous man. I was going to go to work for him, after he got out. He said I’d be his ‘man Friday,’ you know, chauffeur, valet and all.” The corpsman shook his head. “It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, out the window … my one big chance.”

Baughman looked at me, said, “Let’s go next door,” and nodded toward the bathroom that connected the rooms. But he paused in the john, with both doors closed, to ask me what I made of Prise’s story.

“Nothing sounds fishy there to me,” I said. “Kid is sincere enough. Of course, I think his tears are more for his future than his pal Forrestal.”

Baughman nodded. “Let’s see what this other boy has to say.”

Corpsman Robert Harrison, another impossibly young kid, dark-haired, skinny, said, “Tell you the truth, I was supposed to check on him every five minutes, but he got irritated with that. So I cut it to fifteen.”

Baughman was again doing the interrogating while one of another trio of plainclothes agents stationed in this room took the notes. “You came on at midnight?”