Jonathan Kellerman - Monster

I indicated the distant searchlights. "And that side? Those pine trees. How do you get in there?"

"You don't," said Swig. "No access from the western perimeter, it's all fenced." He walked ahead and nodded at the guard, who stepped aside.

The intake center's front room was proportioned identically to that of the hospital entrance. Front desk, same size as Lindeen's, gunboat gray, bare except for a phone. No bowling trophies, no cute slogans. Lindeen's counterpart was a bullet-headed tech perched behind the rectangle of county-issue steel. Reading a newspaper, but when he saw Swig, he snapped the paper down and stood.

Swig said, "Anything unusual?"

"Just the lockdown, sir, per your orders."

"I'm taking these people up." Swig rushed us past a bare hall, into yet another elevator and up. Fast ride to Five, during which he used his walkie-talkie to check on the search's progress.

The door slid open.

"Keep on it," he barked, before jamming the intercom into his pocket. His armpits were soaked. A vein behind his left ear throbbed.

Two sets of double doors, over each a painted sign: I AND E, RESTRICTED ACCESS. As opposed to what?

Where the nursing station would have been was empty space. The ward was a single hall lined with bright blue doors. Higher tech-inmate ratio: a dozen especially large men patrolled.

Milo asked to look inside a cell.

Swig said, "We went room-to-room here, too."

"Let me see one, anyway."

Swig called out, "Inspection!" and three techs jogged over.

"Detective Sturgis wants to see what a 1368 looks like. Open a door."

"Which one?" said the largest of the men, a Samoan with an unpronounceable name on his tag and a soft, boyish voice.

"Pick one."

The Samoan stepped to the closest door, popped the hatch, looked inside, unlocked the blue panel, and held it open six inches. Sticking his head in, he opened the door fully and said, "This is Mr. Liverwright."

The room high and constricted, same dimensions as Peake's. Same bolted restraints. A muscular young black man sat naked on the bed. The sheets had been torn off a thin, striped mattress. Torn into shreds. Royal blue pajamas lay rumpled on the floor next to a pair of blue paper slippers. One of the slippers was nothing but confetti.

I stepped closer and was hit by a terrible stench. A mound of feces sat in a drying clot near the prisoner's feet. Several pools of urine glistened. The walls behind the bed were stained brown.

He saw us, grinned, cackled.

"Clean this up," said Swig.

"We do," said the Samoan calmly. "Twice a day. He keeps trying to prove himself."

He flashed Liverwright a victory V and laughed. "Keep it up, bro."

Liverwright cackled again and rubbed himself.

"Shake it but don't break it off, bro," said the Samoan.

"Close the door," said Swig. "Clean him up now."

The Samoan closed the door, shrugging. To us: "These guys think they know what crazy is, but they overdo it. Too many movies." He turned to leave.

Milo asked him, "When's the last time you saw George Orson?"

"Him?" said the Samoan. "I dunno, not in a while."

"Not tonight?"

"Nope. Why would I? He hasn't worked here in months."

"Who are we talking about?" said Swig.

"Has he visited since he quit?" Milo asked the Samoan.

"Hmm," said the Samoan. "Don't think so."

"What kind of guy was he?" said Milo.

"Just a guy." The Samoan favored Swig with a smile. "Love to chat, but got to clean up some shit." He lumbered off.

"Who's George Orson?" said Swig.

"One of your former employees," said Milo. Watching Swig's face.

"I can't know everyone. Why're you asking about him?"

"He knew Mr. Peake," said Milo. "Back in the good old days."

Swig had plenty of questions, but Milo held him off. We rode the fifth-floor elevator down to the basement, took a tense, deliberate tour of the kitchen, pantry, laundry, and storage rooms. Everything smelled of slightly rotted produce. Techs and guards were everywhere. Helping them search were orange-jumpsuited janitors. White-garbed cooks in the kitchen stared as we passed through. Racks of knives were in full view. I thought of Peake passing through, deciding to sample. The good old days.

Milo found four out-of-the-way closet doors and checked each of them. Key-locked.

"Who gets keys besides clinical staff?" he asked Swig.

"No one."

"Not these guys?" Indicating a pair of janitors.

"Not them or anyone else not engaged in patient care. And to answer your next question, nonclinical staff enter through the front like anyone else. I.D.'s are checked."

"Even familiar faces are checked?" said Milo.

"That's our system."

"Do clinical staffers take their keys home?"

Swig didn't answer.

"Do they?" said Milo.

"Yes, they take them home. Checking in scores of keys a day would be cumbersome. As I said, we change the locks. Even in the absence of a specific problem, we remaster every year."

"Every year," said Milo. I knew what he was thinking: George Orson had left five months ago. "What date did that fall on?"

"I'll have to check," said Swig. "What exactly are you getting at?"

Milo walked ahead of him. "Let's see the loading dock."

Sixty-foot-wide empty cement space doored with six panels of corrugated metal.

Milo asked a janitor, "How do you get them open?"

The janitor pointed to a circuit box at the rear.

"Is there an outside switch, too?"

"Yup."

Milo loped to the box and punched a button. The second door from the left swung upward and we walked to the edge of the dock. Six or seven feet above ground. Space for three or four large trucks to unload simultaneously. Milo climbed down. Five steps took him into darkness and he disappeared, but I heard him walking around. A moment later, he hoisted himself up.

"The delivery road," he asked Swig, "where does it go?"

"Subsidiary access. Same place the jail bus enters."

"I thought only the jail buses came in that way."

"I was referring to people," said Swig. "Only jail bus trans-portees come in that way."

"So there's plenty of traffic in and out."

"Everything's scheduled and preapproved. Every driver is preapproved and required to show I.D. upon demand. The road is sectioned every fifty feet with gates. Card keys are changed every thirty days."

"Card keys," said Milo. "So if they show I.D., they can open the gates on their own."

"That's a big if," said Swig. "Look, we're not here to critique our system, we want to find Peake. I suggest you pay more attention to-"

"What about techs?" said Milo. "Can they use the access road?"

"Absolutely not. Why are you harping on this? And what does this Orson character have to do with it?"

Shouts from the west turned our heads. Several fireflies enlarged.

Searchers approaching. Milo hopped down off the deck again and I did the same. Swig contemplated a jump but remained in place. By the time I was at Milo's side, I could make out figures behind the flashlights. Two men, running.

One of them was Bart Quan, the other a uniformed guard.

Suddenly, Swig was with us, breathing audibly. "What, Bart?"

"We found a breach," said Quan. "Western perimeter. The fence has been cut."

Half-mile walk to the spot. The flap was man-sized, snipped neatly and put back in place, wires twisted with precision. It had taken a careful eye to spot it in the darkness. Milo said, "Who found it?"

The uniform with Quan raised his hand. Young, thin, swarthy.

Milo peered at his badge. "What led you to it, Officer Dalfen?"

"I was scoping the western perimeter."

"Find anything else?"

"Not so far."

Milo borrowed Dalfen's flashlight and ran it over the fence. "What's on the other side?"