James Patterson - Roses Are Red

"Don't like the system of dispensing medical care to veterans. Don't like what happens to men and women who get hurt in foreign wars.

The people who work here are mostly all right, though. They probably don't even use nose hoses anymore." "We might need to," I told him, 'if we find our guy." "We find the Mastermind, sugar, we'll definitely use nose hoses."

We climbed steep stone stairs, then entered the veterans hospital's administration building. We were shown the way to the inner office of Colonel Daniel Schofield, the director of the unit.

Colonel Schofield was there to meet us outside a small, private room. Two other men and a petite blonde woman were already inside. "Let's go right in," Schofield said. He appeared anxious, and possibly upset. What a surprise.

He made stiff, very formal introductions around the room, starting with Sampson and me, then going on to his staff. None of them looked happy to see us.

"This is Ms Kathleen McGuigan. She's the head nurse on Four and Five, where you and Mr. Sampson will be working. This is Dr. Padriac Cioffi. Dr. Cioffi is the psychiatrist in charge of the mental-health units. And Dr. Marcuse, one of the five excellent therapists who work at the hospital."

Dr. Marcuse nodded benignly in our direction. He seemed a pleasant enough man, but Nurse McGuigan and Dr. Cioffi sat there stone-faced.

"I've explained the very delicate situation to Ms McGuigan, Dr. Cioffi, and Dr. Marcuse. To be candid with you, nobody is completely comfortable with this, but we understand that we don't have a choice, ," ," this suspected killer is hiding out here, our concern is for everyone's safety. He must be caught of course. No one disagrees with that."

"He was here," I said," at least for a while. He might be here now."

"I don't believe he's here." Dr. Cioffi spoke up. "I'm sorry. I just don't see it. I know all of our patients and, believe me, none of them is a mastermind. Not even close. The men and women here are deeply, deeply disturbed."

"It could also be a staff member," I told him, then watched his reaction. ,"

"My opinion remains unchanged, Detective."

I needed their cooperation, so I figured it was a good idea to try to make friends, if I could. "Detective Sampson and I will be in and out of here as quickly as is humanly possible," I said. "We do have reason to believe that the killer is, or at least was, a patient at the hospital. I don't know if this makes it better or worse, but I'm a psychologist. I went to Hopkins. I worked as a psych aide at McLean Hospital and also the Institute for Living. I think I'll fit in on the wards."

Sampson spoke up," Oh yes, I was once a porter at Union Station. I'll fit in all right too. Carry that load."

The executive staff didn't laugh and didn't say a word. Nurse McGuigan and Dr. Cioffi glared at Sampson, who'd had the nerve to make light of the seriousness of the situation, heaven forbid.

I figured I had to take a completely different tack if I was going to get anywhere with them. "Is Anectine available at the hospital?” I asked the group.

Dr. Cioffi shrugged," Of course. But why do you want to know about that drug?"

"Anectine was used to murder people who worked with the killer. He knows a lot about poisons, and he seems to enjoy watching people die. One of the hold-up gangs is still missing, and we're afraid they're dead. Detective Sampson and I will need to look at the nursing reports and any case-conference reports for all patients. Then I'll check the daily charts from our most promising leads. We'll work the seven-to-three-thirty shift today."

Colonel Schofield nodded politely. "I expect everyone's full cooperation with these detectives. There could be a killer inside the hospital. It is possible, however unlikely."

At seven o'clock, Sampson and I went on duty at Hazelwood. I was a mental-health counselor and he was a porter. And the Mastermind? Who was he?

That morning, somewhere on the fifth floor of Hazelwood, the Mastermind was incredibly pissed off at his doctor. The useless, worthless quack had taken away his privileges to go off the hospital grounds. The shrink wanted to know why he seemed different lately? What was going on? What was he holding back, holding inside?

He stewed in his pitiful little room on the fifth floor. He got angrier and angrier. Who was he really furious at? Besides the shrink? He thought about it, then he sat down and wrote some hate mail.

Mr. Patrick Lee Owner

Dear Sir

I don't fucking understand you. I signed our lease with amendments we agreed upon in good faith. I've held up my end of the deal and you have not! You conduct yourself as if you are purposely defying our lease.

Let me remind you, Mr. Lee, that while you may be the owner of this apartment, once you take my money, it is my home.

This letter will show, for the record, the illegal actions you have taken against me.

You must cease and desist posting eviction notices on my door. I have paid the rent every month and on time!

You must stop calling me, rambling on in your loud Cantonese gibberish, and bothering me.

Stop harassing me!

I ask you one last time.

Stop harassing me!

Immediately. ,"

Or I will harass you!!!

He stopped writing. Then he thought long and hard about the letter he'd just written. He was losing it, wasn't he? He was going to blow.

He shut down his PC and went out into the hallway of the ward. He put on his usual passive and slightly out-of-it face. The nuts were out in all of their glory. Nuts in ratty bathrobes, nuts in squeaky wheel-chairs, nuts in the nude.

Sometimes, more often than not, he found it impossible to believe that he was here. Of course, that was the point, wasn't it? No one would guess that he was the Mastermind. No one would ever find him here. He was perfectly safe.

And then he saw Detective Alex Cross.

When I arrived on Five, I felt I could almost hear an audible stretching of the thin red line between the sane and the mad.

The ward pretty much had the standard institutional look: Faded mauve and gray everything; occasional gashes in the walls; nurses carrying trays of little cups; strung-out men in drawstring hospital pants and stained robes. I had seen it all before, except for one thing. The mental-health workers carried whistles to sound an alarm if they needed help. That probably meant staff members had been hurt here.

The fourth and fifth floors comprised the ward for psychiatric patients. There were thirty-one veterans on Five, the ages ranging from twenty-three to seventy-five. The patients on Five were considered dangerous, either to others or to themselves.

I started my search on Five. Two of the patients on the floor were tall and burly. They somewhat matched the description of the man who'd been followed by detectives Crews and O'Malley. One of them, Cletus Anderson, had a salt-and-pepper beard and had been involved in police work in Denver and Salt Lake City after his discharge from the army.

I found Anderson loitering in the day room on the first morning. It was past ten o'clock, but he was still wearing pajamas and a soiled robe. He was watching ESPN and he didn't strike me as a mastermind criminal.

The decor in the day room consisted of about a dozen brown vinyl chairs, a lopsided card table, and a TV mounted on one wall. The air was heavy with cigarette smoke. Anderson was smoking. I sat down in front of the TV, nodded hello.

He turned to me and blew an imperfect smoke ring. "You're new, right? Play pool?" he asked.

"I'll give it a try."

"Give it a try," he said and smiled as if I'd made a joke. "Got keys to the pool room?"