Jonathan Kellerman - Monster

Duct tape fastened the posters: no thumbtacks.

The American flag in the corner was plastic sheeting atop a plastic rod, also bolted.

Outward trappings of a classroom. The students wore khaki uniforms and barely fit behind the blond desks.

Six of them.

Up front sat an old man with beautiful golden-white hair. Kindly granddad on a laxative commercial. Behind him were two black men in their thirties, one mocha-toned, freckled, and heavy, with Coke-bottle glasses and a rashlike beard, the other lean, with a hewn-onyx face and the glint-eyed vigilance of a hunter surveying the plains.

At the head of the next row was a very thin creature in his twenties with hollow cheeks, haunted eyes, and blanched lips. Gray fists knuckled his temples. He sat so low his chin nearly touched the desktop. Stringy brown hair streamed from under a gray stocking cap. The hat was pulled down to his eyebrows and made his head appear undersized.

Behind him was giant Chet, yawning, flexing, sniffing, exploring the interior of his mouth with his fingers. So big he had to sit sideways, giraffe legs stretched into the aisle. No hint of the bony horror concealed by khaki trousers. He recognized Milo and me right away, winked, waved, blew a raspberry, said, "Yo bro my man whus shakin and bakin baked Alaska Juneau you know hot cold tightass don't sneeze on me homey you too homely homo fuck me up the ass." The lean black man glared.

When we'd seen Chet the first day, Frank Dollard hadn't mentioned he'd been part of Claire's group. Today, Dollard wasn't saying much of anything; he stood in a corner and glared at the inmates.

The last man was a small, sallow Hispanic with a shaved head and a grease-stain mustache. The room was air-conditioned to meat-locker chill, but he sweated. Rubbed his hands together, craned his neck, licked his lips.

More tardive symptoms. I scanned the room for other signs of neurological damage. Grandpa's hands trembled a bit, but that could've been age. Probably the freckled black man's gaping mouth, though that might have been psychotic stupor or a twisted daydream…

Frank Dollard swaggered to the front of the room and positioned himself behind the oak desk. "Morning, gentlemen."

No more warmth in his voice than fifteen minutes ago, when he'd met us at the inner gate, arms folded across his chest.

"Here again," he'd finally said, making no move to free the lock.

Milo said, "Just couldn't stay away, Frank."

Dollard huffed. "What exactly are you trying to accomplish?"

"Solve a murder, Frank." Milo's hand grazed the lock.

Dollard took a long time pulling out his key ring, locating the right key, inserting it in the lock, giving one sharp turn.

The bolt released. Several more seconds were taken up in pocketing the key. Finally, Dollard shoved the gate open.

Once we were in, he smiled sourly. "Like I said, what exactly are you trying to accomplish?" Not waiting for an answer, he smoothed his mustache and began walking across the yard. The dirt stretched ahead of us, brown and smooth as butcher's paper.

Milo and I started to follow. Dollard increased the distance between us. The heat and the light were punishing. Inmates stared. If one of them had come from behind, Dollard would have been no use at all.

Three techs stood watch on the yard. Two Hispanics and a blocky white man, nothing close to Derrick Crimmins's physical description.

Dollard unlocked the rear gate and we approached the main building. Instead of entering, he stopped several feet from the door and rattled his key ring.

"You can't see Mr. Swig. Not here."

"Where is he?" said Milo.

"Hospital business. He said to give you fifteen minutes access to the Skills for Daily Living group. That's it."

"Thanks for your time, Frank," said Milo, too mildly. "Sorry to be such a bother."

Dollard blinked, pocketed the keys. Gazing back at the yard, he clicked his teeth together. "These guys are like trained animals, you can't vary the stimulus-response too much. Your coming in here is disruptive. Top of that, it's pointless. No one here had anything to do with Dr. Argent."

"Because no one gets out."

"Among other things."

"WendellPelleygotout."

Dollard blinked again. His tongue rolled under his lower lip. "What does that have to do with the price of eggs?"

"A nutcase gets out, a few weeks later one of his shrinks is dead?"

"Dr. Argent was never one of Pelley's shrinks. I doubt she ever ran into him."

"Why was Pelley released?"

"You'd have to ask one of the doctors."

"You have no idea, Frank?"

"I don't get paid to have ideas," said Dollard.

"So you said the first time," said Milo. "But we both know that's crap. What'd Pelley do to get out?"

Dollard's leathery skin reddened and his shoulders rose. Suddenly, he chuckled. "More like what he didn't do. Act crazy. He hadn't been crazy for a long time."

"Medical miracle?" said Milo.

"My opinion, the guy was never really psychotic in the first place, just a drunk. I'm not saying he faked anyone out. People who knew him when he was first committed said he was all over the place-hallucinating, acting wild, at one point they had to put him in restraints. But then a month or two later, that all stopped, even without meds. So, my opinion, it was severe alcohol poisoning and he got detoxed."

"Then why wasn't he sent back to trial?"

"Because when he got arrested we were still doing not guilty by reason. He was off the hook."

"Lucky him," said Milo.

"Not so lucky-he still got cooped up here for twenty-odd years. Longer than he would've been in prison. Maybe it wasn't just alcohol. Pelley'd been mining for years; he could've got some kind of heavy-metal poisoning in his system. Or he was just a short-term crazy, freaked out and got better. Whatever, he never needed any neuroleptics, just some antidepressants. Year after year, he's hanging around, no symptoms, guess they thought it didn't make sense."

"Antidepressants," said Milo. "Sad sack?"

"Why all the interest? He cause problems on the outside?"

"Only for himself, Frank. Starved himself to death."

Dollard's mouth twitched. "He never liked to eat… So where'd they find him?"

"In a garbage dump."

"Garbage dump," said Dollard, as if visualizing it. "This is gonna sound bleeding-heart, but he wasn't really that bad of a guy. At least when I talked to him, he really felt remorse for what he'd done to his girlfriend and those kids. Didn't even wanna get out. Which don't excuse what he did, but…" He shrugged. "What the hell, we all have to go sometime."

"Who was his doctor?" I said.

"Aldrich. Not Argent."

"You're sure he had no contact with Dr. Argent?"

Dollard laughed. "Can't be sure of anything but death and taxes. And to answer your next question, he wouldn't a known Peake, either. Pelley was on B Ward, Peake's always been on C."

"What about out on the yard?" I said.

"Neither of them ever went out onto the yard that I saw. Peake never leaves his damn mom."

"So who did Peake have contact with?"

Dollard's eyes got cold. "I answered that last time you were here, doc. No one. He's a damn zombo." He looked at his watch. "And you're wasting my time. Let's get this over with."

Turning, he stomped past the big gray building, bull neck pitched forward. A well-trodden dirt path veered to the right. When we reached the west side of the building, the dirt kept snaking to a group of three low, single-story beige structures cooking in the full sun.

A sign said ANNEXES A, B, AND C. Behind the smaller buildings sprawled another brown yard, as wide as the one in front, locked and empty. Then more chain link and a bulk of forest. Not eucalyptus, like at the entrance. Denser, green-black, some kind of pine or cedar.