Lisa Gardner - Hide

"No, she delivered a blistering lecture on how unfair it is to always assume the worst of the mentally ill. That wackos are people, have rights. Most are harmless, just misunderstood. 'Mark my words,' she told me, 'you find who did this, and I guarantee it won't be one of our patients. No, it'll be some fine upstanding member of the community. Someone who goes to church, spoils his kids, and works nine to five. It's always the normal ones who commit the truly vile acts against God.' Woman had a lot of opinions on the subject."

"So, where are the records?" Bobby asked, trying not to sound impatient.

"You're looking at 'em." Sinkus gestured to four cardboard boxes, stacked against the wall. "Not as bad as I feared. Remember, the place closed precomputerization. I thought we might be talking hundreds of boxes. But when the facility shut down, Mrs. Cochran knew they couldn't hang on to piles of patient history So she condensed down the files to a manageable size. This way when someone needs information on a former patient, she knows where to start. Plus, I got the impression she was thinking of using her years at the place to write a book. Kind of a tell-all with a heart."

Bobby shrugged. Why not?

He opened the first box. Jill Cochran was an organized kind of gal. She had divvied up the information by decade, then by building, each decade holding multiple building files. Bobby tried to remember what Charlie Marvin had told them about the hospital's organization. Maximum security had been in I-Building, something like that.

He went to the seventies and pulled the file for I-Building. Each patient had been distilled to a single page. It still made an impressive weight in his hand.

He came upon the name Christopher Eola first and skimmed Cochran's notes. Date of admittance, brief family history, a bunch of clinical terms that meant nothing to Bobby, then apparently the head nurse's own impression-"extrem. dangerous, extrem. sneaky, stronger than he looks."

Bobby stuck a yellow sticky tab on the page, for future reference. He was confident that the crime scene at Mattapan was the work of Annabelle's uncle. Having decided that, he was equally confident that somewhere at some time, Christopher Eola had performed his own "vile acts against God." Regardless of the resolution of the Mattapan case, he had a feeling the task force would agree to continue tracking down Mr. Eola.

He skimmed through other patient files, waiting for something to leap out at him. A neon Post-it screaming, I am the madman . A doctor's note: This patient is the most likely to have kidnapped and tortured six girls .

Many of the patients came with notes documenting a history of violence, as well as extensive criminal activity At least half, however, had no background at all. Admitted by police."

"Discovered vagrant" were very common phrases. Even before the homeless crisis made headlines in the eighties, it was clear the homeless were in crisis in Boston.

Bobby made it through the whole stack and realized it had become one long, depressing blur. He stopped, backed up, tried again.

"Whatya looking for?" Sinkus asked.

"Don't know."

"That makes it hard."

"What are you doing?"

Sinkus held up his own bulging file. "Staff."

"Ah. Any of them look good?"

"Only Adam Schmidt, the perverted AN."

"Bummer. Track him down yet?"

"Working on it. What about age?"

"What?"

"Age. You're looking for a patient who might be Tommy Grayson, yes? You said he was seven years younger than Russell Granger. Had been in and out of prison and/or hospitals since he was what, sixteen?"

"That Russell knew of."

"So, if he was admitted to Boston State Mental, you're talking a young man. Teens to early twenties."

Bobby considered the logic. "Yeah, good guess."

He started sorting through the patient sheets again, culling down the entire file to fourteen men, including Eola and another case Charlie Marvin had told him about, the street kid named Benji who'd attended Boston Latin while living in the dying mental institute.

Now what?

Bobby glanced at his watch, winced. He'd already burned up an hour and a half. Time to find a dog-friendly hotel and return to Annabelle.

He picked up the fourteen sheets. "Mind if I make copies of these?"

"Be my guest. Hey, didn't you say Charlie Marvin worked at Boston State Mental?"

"He was an AN," Bobby supplied. "During his college days. Then volunteered his time as a minister until it closed down."

"Sure about that?"

"It's what the man said. Why?"

Sinkus finally looked up. "Bobby, I got decades of payroll ledgers in front of me. Nineteen-fifties till closing. I'm telling you, no Charlie Marvin ever made a dime."

WOULD YOU LIKE some help?" Charlie called down to me.

"Oh, ummm, that's okay I'm coming up." Bella was already bounding up the stairs. Whereas I found Charlie's sudden appearance disquieting, she was overjoyed to see her newest best friend.

She hopped, leapt, and licked. I lugged the three bags up the stairs, thinking fast. Last I knew, Charlie didn't have my address. Where in God's name had I put my Taser?

Then I remembered. I'd set it down. On the shelf. Inside my storage unit, while I'd pulled out the suitcases. My locked storage unit. I almost turned away, headed back down the stairs. Almost.

"Sounds like you had quite a morning," Charlie commented cheerfully as Bella and I emerged into the gray light of the building's lobby. I saw now that one of my neighbors had propped open both front doors. Unloading groceries, no doubt. It would make an excellent headline for the Boston Herald : "Young Woman Brutally Stabbed to Death While Fellow Tenant Stocks Fridge."

I needed to calm down. I was jumping at shadows again. According to Bobby, Charlie had spent last night at the Pine Street Inn. Meaning he couldn't have delivered my latest gift. At eye level again, I realized that Charlie wasn't really that tall, nor large, nor, at his advanced age, threatening. In fact, as I gingerly set down my luggage so I'd be free for defensive measures, Charlie was kneeling and scratching my dog under the chin.

"Some officer called at the shelter, asking about me," he said matter-of-factly.

"Did he? Sorry about that."

"Gave me a chuckle," Charlie said. "Being a 'person of interest' at my age. Anyhoo, one of the guys who runs the shelter has a police scanner. Naturally, we tuned in after that. Dispatch mentioned this address, and being a busybody and all, I thought I'd stop by and check on you for myself. I can't help thinking some of this is my fault."

"Your fault?"

"I'm being followed," Charlie said bluntly. "Least, I'm pretty sure I am. Started the day I met up with Sergeant Warren and Detective Dodge in Mattapan. Wasn't sure at first. Just kept getting a kind of hinky feeling between my shoulder blades. I think maybe I was being followed again the night I ran into you. And I think the same person who is following me knows something about the mass grave. And maybe something about you."

"Why something about me?"

"Because you're the key to that grave, aren't you, Annabelle? I don't know how, I don't know why, but everything that's going on, it's all about you."

My neighbor picked that moment to jog up the stairs, four plastic grocery bags in hand. He gave us a brief nod-what was there to notice, a young woman, an old man, a blissed-out dog-and headed up the central stairs.

Charlie's eyes tracked the man's movements, though his fingers never stopped caressing Bella's ears.

"You know something about Mattapan," I told Charlie, a statement now, no longer a question.

Very slowly, he nodded.

"Something you haven't told the police."

Another slow, thoughtful nod.