Jonathan Kellerman - Monster

"It's an unsolved homicide, Dr. Aldrich."

"Even so…" Aldrich moved closer to the doorway and peered inside. Peake hadn't budged. He closed the door.

Dollard said, "They caused a ruckus in SDL, too. Herman Randall's all worked up, shouting Nazi stuff in his room. We might think of upping his meds."

"Might we?" said Aldrich. He turned to Heidi. "How about you and I meeting after lunch to review Mr. Peake's file. Make sure what we're seeing in there isn't some kind of regression."

"I'd think just the opposite," I said. "He's showing more mobility and affective response."

"Affective response?"

"He was crying, Dr. Aldrich."

Aldrich took another look inside. "Well, he's not crying now. Just hanging there looking pretty regressed. Looks like catalepsy to me."

I said, "Is there any chance of reducing his meds?"

Aldrich's eyes bugged. "Why in the world would we do that!"

"It might loosen him up verbally."

"Loosen him up," said Swenson. "Just what we need, a loose Jesus."

A couple of figures in khaki had drifted out of the TV room. The inmates stared at us, began heading our way. Swenson and Steenburg stepped forward. The men turned, reversed direction, collected near the door to the TV room, returned inside.

Aldrich said, "Thank you for your opinion, Doctor. However, you and Officer Sturgis must leave immediately. No further contact with Mr. Peake or any other patients until cleared by myself or Mr. Swig." To Steenburg and Swenson: "We'd better get moving. The reservation's at one."

Crossing the yard, Dollard walked even farther ahead. Big Chet was on the yard and he started to come over, gesticulating and laughing, rugging at his hair like a toddler.

Dollard's palm shot out. "Stay back!"

The giant halted, pouted, yanked a clump of hair out of his head. The yellow filaments floated to the ground like dandelion petals.

His expression said, Look what you made me do.

"Idiot," Dollard growled.

Chet's eyes slitted.

Dollard waved and two techs jogged over from across the yard. Chet saw them, froze, finally skulked away. Four steps later, he stopped, looked at us over his shoulder.

"Mark my words," he bellowed. "Cherchez la femme Champs Elysees!"

Dollard threw the gate open, slammed it after us, left without a word.

As we waited to get Milo's gun and my knife, I said, "Something sure yanked his shorts."

"Makes you wonder, doesn't it?" he said. The moment we got in the Seville, he was on the cell phone, asking for the number of the Hemet police department. I let the car idle as he talked. The car seat was a griddle and I cranked the air-conditioning to an arctic blast. Milo got transferred half a dozen times, maintained collegia! cheer through every step, but he looked as if he'd swallowed something slimy. The air inside the car cooled, hit my face, turned my sweat icy. Milo was drenched.

He hung up. "Finally got a supervisor who'd talk. Heidi was right. Dollard was a major-league goldbrick: ignored calls in his zone, took unauthorized leaves, put in for unjustified overtime. They couldn't prove anything serious enough to prosecute him-probably didn't want to. Easier just to ask him to leave."

"How long ago was this?"

"Four years ago. He went straight to Starkweather. Supervisor made a crack about nutcases being perfect for Frank, no one to complain when he slacked off."

"Swig likes him," I said. "Tells you something about Swig."

"High standards, all around."

I drove out of the parking lot. Convection waves rose from the asphalt.

"What did you do to get Peake to play Jesus in the school play?"

"Mentioned the Ardullos' names. After I got a response to Claire's name-eye tics, tensing up. When I whispered Brittany's and Justin's names into his ear he jumped up, ran to the wall, assumed the pose. I'd been thinking of him as lethargic, stuporous, but he can move fast when he wants to. If he'd jumped me, I'd have been unprepared."

"So he's not a total veg. Maybe he's a sneaky bastard, playing all of us. Makes sense when you think about how he walked in on his mother. She's sitting there coring apples, he gets behind her, she has no idea what he's going to do."

"He surprised the Ardullos, too," I said. "Sheriff Haas said they left their doors unlocked."

"Everyone's nightmare. Right out of a splatter flick."

The eucalyptus forest appeared, a big gray bear split by a yawning mouth of road.

"So," he said, "was he crying real tears?"

"Copiously. But I'm not sure it was remorse. When he turned and stared at me, I started to feel something else: self-pity. The Jesus pose fits that, too. As if he sees himself as a martyr."

"Sick bastard," he said.

"Or maybe," I said, "hearing the kids' names evoked an overpowering memory. Recall of not acting alone. Of taking the rap for something the Crimmins brothers put him up to. Maybe he communicated that to Claire. I didn't see anything close to speech, but with a lowered dosage…"

He cooled his hands on the air-conditioning vent. "Why do you think Dollard turned so hostile?"

"Antsy about our return visit. Something to hide."

Milo didn't answer. We exited the forest and summer light whitened the windshield. The trees shimmered as they broiled. I could sense the heat trying to claw its way in.

"What about some kind of hospital scam?" I said. "Financial mismanagement. Or trafficking in prescription drugs. Claire found out about it and that's what put her in jeopardy. Maybe Peake knew, too. Learned someone was going to hurt Claire and the 'prophecy' was his way of warning her."

We were free of the hospital grounds, heading toward the sludge yards and the freight barns. I wondered where the rear forest behind the annexes led, was unable to see the tall dark trees from here.

"How would Peake find out?" he said.

"Loose lips. Everyone assumes he's vegetative, can't process. I saw enough today to convince me that's not true. If Dollard was involved in something illegal, he might've said or done something that Peake noticed."

"That careless?"

"How many cases have you closed because someone was careless?"

"Peake warns Claire," he said. "Now he's a hero?"

"Maybe on some level, he bonded with Claire. Appreciated the attention Claire was giving him."

"Then why warn Heidi?"

"Claire wasn't at work that day, so Peake did the next best thing: told her assistant. Not a clear message, because he was struggling to talk through the Thorazine haze and his neurological problems."

"Everyone treats Peake like he's wallpaper, but he's sucking up information."

"He's functioned like wallpaper for sixteen years. It wouldn't be hard to get complacent. That could be why Dollard was so upset when he saw Peake playing Jesus. Now he realizes Peake's capable of more. He's nervous, doesn't want us back there. Look how he bad-mouthed us to Aldrich. And Aldrich played into it. Or Aldrich is part of it."

"Big-time staff racketeering?"

"Like you said, it's not a tight ship. Either way, Dollard just got what he wanted. We won't get through those gates again without a court order."

" 'Bad eyes in a box,' " he said. "That has Peake knowing someone is gonna gouge Claire's eyes and stash her somewhere closed. I might be able to buy Dollard blabbing to some compadre in general terms about getting Claire, but I can't see him laying it out in detail."

I had no answer for that. He pulled out his pad, made some notes, closed his eyes, seemed to doze. We reached the freeway. I floored the Seville, crossed over to the fast lane, sped to the interchange, headed west on the 10, past the old brick buildings on the fringes of downtown, surprise survivors of the big quake. A huge blowup of a movie poster had been painted on one of them. Some hypertrophied bionic cop flashing fire from gun-barrel knuckles. If only it were that easy.