Robert Ellis - The Dead Room

Teddy took it in stride, and they entered the lobby. In spite of the hour, a receptionist sat behind the front desk. He was a middle-aged man wearing a flannel shirt and wool vest. The glint in his eye appeared just off center. Teddy wondered if he wasn’t a patient.

“We’re here to see Dr. Gleason,” Nash said. “He’s expecting us.”

The man flashed a big grin like he was off his rocker, then looked up the psychiatrist’s extension on a piece of paper that was laminated in a plastic cover. Within five minutes they were in the doctor’s office with the door closed.

Dr. Gleason looked to be about forty. He was a thin-boned man with blond, wavy hair and a mustache. Although he wore glasses, Teddy thought his clear brown eyes looked wounded. They shook hands and greeted each other. As they sat down, Teddy spotted Trisco’s medical records on the psychiatrist’s desk. Gleason was a colleague of Westbrook, and had worked with the FBI in the past. Nash was about to take advantage of that friendship. But there were political issues to consider, particularly in light of the new wing financed by the Trisco family.

“I’m talking to you, but I’m really not,” Gleason said. “If I’m ever asked, I’ll deny it. At least until you’ve got something more concrete. Westbrook said that you’d play ball.”

“We understand your position completely,” Nash said. “And we’re more than grateful for your help.”

Gleason appeared satisfied and obviously wanted to do whatever he could. He picked up Trisco’s medical records, opening the file on his lap.

“Edward Trisco walked through the front door five years ago thinking he was J. Edgar Hoover and asking where the ladies’ room was. He entered our drug treatment program immediately. He had the usual problems that go with drug abuse. Paranoia. Depression. After six weeks, he was clean but his symptoms remained. I began to wonder if his problems weren’t more than drugs, but I couldn’t be sure.”

“What was he using?” Nash asked.

“Edward liked everything. He wasn’t a casual user, and his brain damage was measurable. That’s what made it difficult to sort out. I kept hoping he’d bounce back, but the paranoia remained.”

“When was he released?” Teddy asked.

“Two years after his admission. The depression eased some. His mood swings evened out. The chief administrator concluded his behavior was caused by drug abuse and signed his release without my consent. According to the hospital, he was better now and fit to live in the world again.”

“What were your conclusions?” Nash asked.

Gleason thought it over. “Where did you park?” he asked after a moment.

“Out front,” Nash said.

“Then you saw the new wing. It opened last year.”

Gleason didn’t need to flesh out the details. They’d known it before they even walked in. Edward Trisco had received another pass. First from Andrews, then from the institution’s chief administrator.

“Edward’s problems had nothing to do with drugs,” Gleason said. “He used the drugs to forget what happened in his childhood. I never found out exactly what his problems were. Just as I was beginning to get somewhere, the paperwork went through and he was released.”

“What about the woman he kidnapped?” Teddy asked. “Did he ever talk about her?”

Gleason winced. “That’s even more troubling,” he said. “He was arrested on charges of kidnapping and sexual assault. Then what happened became less clear. Drugs were found in the girl’s system as well. Maybe he kidnapped her, but maybe they’d met at a party and it didn’t work out. That was the story anyway. But I’ve spent many hours in therapy with Edward Trisco. He told me himself that he held her against her will and raped her. His parents gave the girl a lot of money. In return, she didn’t press charges and refused to testify. She didn’t talk.”

“Was there any remorse?” Nash asked.

Gleason shook his head. “He was cocky about it. He knew his parents would bail him out. I guess they’d done it before. Because the charges were dropped, there was no need to appear before a judge in order to win his release.”

“When he wasn’t in therapy, did he socialize with the others?” Nash asked.

“No. He was a loner. He spent a lot of time reading.”

“About what?”

“Artists mostly.”

“Anyone in particular?”

Gleason passed the file over to Nash, pointing to his notes and fidgeting in his seat. No question about it, the psychiatrist was deeply concerned about his role in the payoff that led to Trisco’s release.

“I think it’s right there,” he said.

Teddy leaned in for a closer look, searching out the notation the psychiatrist had jotted down in his file so many years ago. When he read the name, he turned to Nash and kept quiet as the horror took root and forged ahead. Their eyes met.

Edward Trisco had been reading about Michelangelo. He’d found the dead room.

He felt the ping in his dick and gave it a hard squeeze. He needed to take a leak real bad.

Eddie Trisco backed into the alley just off Sixteenth Street, killed the lights and looked at the entrance to the parking garage at One Liberty Place through the stream of cars and people moving up and down the sidewalks. It was just after midnight. He’d spent most of the day in the car, but it couldn’t be helped. This morning he’d woken up to a series of warning sirens in his head, whipped up another scenario in first-draft form, and spent the early afternoon keeping an eye on Benny’s Cafe Blue just in case.

His dedication had paid off.

At half past three he’d seen the kid run into the place, show that ugly woman behind the counter a picture of someone, then shoot out the door like a human cannonball in a circus act. It was the same kid that he’d seen in the cafe last night with the woman from the district attorney’s office-the attorney he’d followed to One Liberty Place. The DA had arrested that stupid mailman, yet the kid with gusto was still nosing around. Still asking questions and trying to fuck up his life.

But Eddie had his name. His number.

The manager at the cafe had told him all he needed to know the previous night. On his knees and shaking before he shit his pants. Harris Carmichael had been a real talker. Spilled it out in the snow as Eddie filled in the dots and thought about what to do. It hadn’t required a knife. Carmichael had died like a talker with his lips sealed. The Crazy Glue had been a nice touch. But when it was over, Eddie used a knife anyway. He couldn’t help himself. He was mad at it. He hated it. Over and over again he went at the thing until he spotted the first two wharf rats moving in from the river and his mind cleared.

Teddy Mack. He knew his name and had his number.

He’d followed him from the cafe back to his office this afternoon. Watched him change cars just off Penn campus like he knew what he was doing and knew just where to go. And it seemed as though he really did. Eddie followed the Lexus out to the fun house on the hill in the suburbs. The place where they locked the doors at night and let you scream. After about an hour, the Lexus shot down the hill and through the gate, speeding back to town

Eddie kept up with the bright white car like it was a warning beacon that might lead to his salvation. He caught a glimpse of the kid with gusto entering an office back on campus and found a place to park. Time ticked by. Hours spent looking in the second-floor window from his car. Men in dark suits arrived. With short-cropped hair and narrow ties, he knew they were Feds the moment he set his eyes on them. He could see them in the windows, scurrying like ants. Eddie knew that he’d been made. They were on the phones, writing things down. It looked as if they might work through the night. Then, just twenty minutes ago as he was about to drive off, he spotted the kid with gusto getting into his Corolla and tailed him back to his office in Center City.