Джеймс Суэйн - The Man Who Cheated Death

“He said they were dead. Even Mr. Jellybean.”

Her body became racked with sobs, and Hardare held her tightly in his arms. To Jan he said, “Call the theatre, will you, and find out what the hell is going on.”

Twenty minutes later, Hardare was speeding down the freeway with one of their bodyguards, a bearded, small arms specialist named Brian, when he realized the true source of his daughter’s heartbreak. Maxwell T. Jellybean, the oldest and most affectionate of the Dutch dwarf rabbits he used in his show, had been a present from his late wife to Crystal many Easters ago. It was not the type of thing that he thought a good father should forget, and decided to call his daughter once they reached the theatre.

He parked in a back alley and they got out. Beside the backstage door sat two long rows of cages containing his rabbits and birds. Several members of his crew were moping around looking bewildered and upset. Kneeling beside the cages was a member of the union stage crew that came when you rented the theatre, a burnout with lifeless, shoulder-length blond hair.

“They ain’t dead,” the burnout declared loudly, trying to enlist the others’ support. “Lookit. That bird tried to flap its wing. You saw that, didn’t you?”

“It’s just the wind,” a crew member said, puffing on a cigarette. Seeing Hardare approach, he quickly stamped it out.

The burnout looked up and got to his feet. “Mister Hardare, I don’t know what happened. I was just sitting here, minding my own business...”

Hardare silenced him with a stare. He knelt down beside Brian, who had opened a cage and removed a lifeless fantail pigeon, cradling its stiff body gently between his palms.

“Nobody got close to those animals,” the burnout said.

Someone in the crew snickered, an indictment if Hardare had ever heard one. He looked at Maxwell T. Jellybean doing the back-stroke in his narrow metal cage. His daughter’s favorite pet looked very dead, and he swallowed a lump in his throat.

Brian turned the pigeon on its stomach, and carefully combed through the thick layer of feathers, his fingertips eventually parting a small patch above the left wing. Hardare stared at the small black dart lodged in the bird’s speckled red skin.

“It’s some kind of knockout dart,” Brian said, laying the pigeon gently back inside the cage. Shutting the door, he gave Mr. Jellybean a thorough going over, and found a tiny dart buried in its side. “Very professional looking.”

Without hesitation Hardare said, “Osbourne did this.”

“I think you’re right,” Brian said.

“But why?”

Brian looked him in the eye and said, “He used the dart gun because it was silent, and allowed him to strike safely from a distance. He knocked out your animals because he knows they mean a great deal to you.”

“Are you saying this is some kind of psychological warfare?”

His bodyguard shrugged his shoulders. “I think he’s trying to send you a message.”

“Which is?”

“That he can still hurt the things you love,” Brian said. “I think that is what this all means.”

The Bell LongRanger 206 helicopter carrying Wondero and Rittenbaugh high above L.A.’s sprawling mass picked up Highway 101 just outside of Ventura and took it up the coastline to Pismo Beach, then swung inland and followed the main drag until reaching the state mental hospital in Atascadero. The LongRanger was used primarily for drug sweeps, and able to land anywhere there was a moderately flat surface, which allowed them to set down in a dusty field just a hundred yards from the hospital. Feeling like movie cops, they marched across the field and through the swinging front doors of the main building.

Wondero was furious with himself, and for good reason. He and his partner had been running around L.A. trying to catch Eugene Osbourne, when an important clue had been sitting on his desk in the form of a fax from the director at Atascadero. The fax had been there for two days, yet only this morning had he bothered to read it.

A man in hospital whites manned the reception desk. He left his fingerprints all over their photo I.D.’s before picking up a phone, and announcing their arrival to the hospital’s director.

“Dr. Cavanaugh will see you in a few minutes,” he said, putting down the phone.

“Do you mind if I ask you a few questions,” Wondero said.

“Not at all.”

“Do you know a patient named Douglas Barnhart?”

“Sure. D.B.’s one of our lifers.”

“Has D.B. had any visitors lately?”

“Don’t know, but I can find out.” Flipping open a log book, the receptionist ran his finger down a column of names. “Let’s see. D. B. had a visitor... on Monday.”

“Can you tell me who that visitor was?” Wondero asked, straining to read the upside down names in the book.

The receptionist turned the log around so he could have a look. In the Visitor’s Box beside D.B.’s name was a capital E followed by a long, scribbly line.

“That looks like Rodriguez’s chicken scratch,” the receptionist said, taking the log back. “He works here on Mondays. I’d call him for you, but he’s up in Frisco seeing his mother.”

Wondero handed the receptionist his card. “Please give this to Rodriguez when he gets back. Ask him to call me. Tell him it’s urgent.”

“Will do,” the receptionist said, pocketing the card.

Dr. Richard Cavanaugh was a balding mid-fortyish man of few emotions. His tired eyes only hinted at the ordeal required to run a state institution for men deemed criminally insane by the courts, a job Wondero likened to being a gatekeeper in hell.

Cavanaugh introduced the woman sitting on the couch in his office as Dr. Ruth Heller, one of his chief administrators. Heller sat with arms and legs crossed, her face a blunt wall, and Wondero sensed a problem even before he and Rittenbaugh were seated.

“Dr. Heller has been treating D.B. for over a decade,” Cavanaugh said, pulling up a chair to complete the circle. “She’s also writing a book about him. I thought she should hear what you told me.”

“You got a publisher?” Rittenbaugh asked innocently.

Heller acted like she might bite Rittenbaugh’s head off. “Yes. It’s nearly finished,” the administrator said proudly. “I believe I’ve traced the origin of D.B.’s hostilities and through therapy actually cured him of his homicidal tendencies. Needless to say, it came as a shock when Dr. Cavanaugh told me that you suspected him of having master-minded a series of murders from this hospital.”

Wondero felt like he had walked into a minefield. He hadn’t bothered to get a subpoena to question D.B.; if he didn’t handle Heller correctly, she might not let them see him.

“You know him pretty well, then,” Wondero said.

“I believe I know D.B. better than he knows himself,” Heller stated confidently. “I’ve conducted several hundred sessions with him, and have isolated a number of traumatic childhood incidents which even he does not remember.”

“That’s amazing,” Wondero said. She had calmed down, and he decided to press his attack. “In your work with D.B., has the name Babita Cattrell ever come up?”

Dr. Heller’s eyes searched the air. “No.”

“She was a co-ed that D.B. raped at UCLA in 1995. She was the prosecution’s sole witness at D.B.’s trial, I guess because she was the only person who ever survived one of his attacks.”

“He’s never mentioned her,” Dr. Heller said.

“How about Eugene Osbourne? He was D.B.’s roommate five years ago. That name sound familiar?”

“No, but that’s not surprising. D.B. has been here fifteen years. I’m sure he’s had quite a few roommates.”