Acquired Motives (Dr. Sylvia Strange Book 2) (22 page)

     
He stowed her garment bag in the trunk and slid behind the steering wheel. A security vehicle pulled up next to the Lexus, and the uniformed driver motioned to Leo to clear the curb. The Lexus engine purred, and Leo eased the car into airport traffic.

     
Sylvia waited until they were safely away, then she held up the cross, which dangled from a beaded strand. Each small bead was smooth, nut brown, delicate. Together, they gave off the faintest trace of sandalwood.

     
"Did you change your mind, Leo?" She was surprised when he answered her seriously.

     
He said, "I find faith comforting after particularly grueling days at the hospital."

     
Sylvia studied her friend. Dr. Leo Carreras had published extensively and his most recent book was considered a landmark text, an integration of data—psychobiological and social—on human predatory agression. In a nutshell, Leo theorized that modern American society incubates its psychopaths. The lack of a resilient maternal bond combined with the shape of our image-obsessed, media-crazed, nonlinear society results in high anxiety and low levels of empathy.

     
In short, we are growing our very own monsters.

     
Leo said, "I made some calls. Atascadero State Hospital, and Dupont White's criminally insane girlfriend, Violet Miller, are on this afternoon's agenda." He glanced at his watch.

     
Sylvia exhaled her impatience.

     
Leo laughed. "Still the same impatient Strange. I hate to disappoint you, but we're in the sight-seeing portion of today's schedule."

     
Sylvia looked contrite.

     
"That's better." Leo pulled back into the right lane. "Where to?"

     
"My toes are craving ocean."

     
"We can satisfy your toes."

     
Sheltered by palm trees, they ate mozzarella, tomato, and basil sandwiches while waves nuzzled the long creamy beach. Sylvia had left her suede pumps in the Lexus; she dug her naked toes deep into the sand beyond the edge of the blanket Leo had provided. A Route 66 baseball cap shaded her face. She loved the coconut scent of suntan lotion that radiated from nearby sunbathers. When she had finished her sandwich and two fat dill pickles, she lay back on the blanket and stretched her arms overhead. She must have dozed off for a few minutes; she was surprised to feel a tickling sensation. Eyes open, she saw Leo was trailing a thread of sand across the inside of her upper arm.

     
He smiled and brushed off the tiny particles. "We have an appointment at the hospital at one forty-five."

     
Sylvia glanced at her watch: eleven-fifteen.

     
He said, "I thought you might want to talk."

     
Business. She sat up, surprised to register how sleepy and relaxed she felt. When he handed her a bottle of mineral water, she drank gratefully.

     
Her sunglasses slid down to the tip of her nose; she pushed them back so they were square against her face. "I've got files in the car. I thought you might want to look them over. I could use your read on this whole thing. It's making me a little bit crazy. I told you about Dan Chaney, the special agent. . . ." Her voice trailed off when she saw that Leo had one eye closed. He was shaking his head.

     
He leaned back on both elbows. "Why don't you tell an old friend what's bothering you?"

     
A gull on a reconnaissance mission swooped overhead. Sylvia wrapped her arms around both knees. "I misread a client and now he's wanted for two murders."

     
"Is that all?"

     
"And I don't know if Matt is having an affair."

     
She told Leo about the events of the past week and a half, filled in details, including the Randall case, Kevin Chase, and her weird encounter with Erin Tulley. He let her stop and start and work her way around difficult thoughts. He didn't respond immediately when she was finished speaking. In the stillness, she watched his smooth tapered fingers sift sand.

     
Leo said, "You want some simple advice? This stuff with Matt is throwing you off balance. Talk to him, Sylvia. When you get back to Santa Fe, find out the truth."

A
TASCADERO
S
TATE
H
OSPITAL
, which housed the acutely mentally ill and the criminally insane, was located several miles off Highway 101. The squat three-story main building was surrounded by ten-foot-high walls; barbed wire rimmed each face. Beyond the walls, the beige façade of the hospital had blackened at the edges. Small windows, gray and opaque, dotted the building like eyes. The wire grids embedded in the panes were invisible under layers of grime.

     
A uniformed officer stepped out of the security booth and waved Leo's Lexus through the main gate. They parked in a lot and walked across dirt and asphalt to the acute-care facility, where all intake was done. Another officer nodded to them as they entered.

     
"Good afternoon, Dr. Carreras."

     
Leo had already clipped on his photo-I.D. badge. He spoke to a woman at the reception desk and she produced a bright red temporary pass for Sylvia. Sunshine streaked through a high window and spotlighted the dust motes that swirled above the receptionist's auburn hair. Fascinated by their surreal motion, Sylvia stared at the tiny dancing particles as she fastened the pass to her collar.

     
"We're running late," Leo said.

     
They took a grim, tight elevator to the third floor. The building contained a maze of hallways extending off a central corridor, and Leo led the way through metal security doors, and past a series of treatment rooms and day areas.

     
Here, patients wearing institutional green wandered the halls or occupied day rooms. A young man spouting a schizophrenic word salad—verbs and nouns incomprehensibly diced, shredded, and tossed—stared at Sylvia through glassy eyes. A hyperthin woman with jaundiced skin directed traffic.

     
Finally, Leo ushered Sylvia into a soundproofed room that wasn't much bigger than a closet. She sat in one of three chairs and faced the tinted glass panel. Leo spoke into an intercom, "Hi, Mark. Mind if we watch?"

     
A young, pink-cheeked doctor in the next room waved cheerfully at the glass. His voice crawled through the speaker: "I always knew you were kinky, Leo."

     
"That's Mark Chism. He's been working on a project with violent female offenders for six months. He kindly agreed to let us observe this session. You'll get a chance to talk with him afterward."

     
Sylvia had just produced a pad and pencil for notes when the door to the treatment room opened. An orderly escorted a female patient inside and left her alone with Mark Chism.

     
Leo said, "Dr. Strange, meet Violet Miller."

     
Sylvia thought Violet must be about twenty years old. She was delicate, and so pale that her blue eyes overpowered her face. She might have been a fashion model except for her unkempt, oily hair, and the pain and stress that eroded her features.

     
Violet's wrists were secured at her belly by padded restraints. For the moment, she seemed to have surrendered herself to external controls.

     
"She's not medicated, not on neuroleptics," Leo said. "She's been here about six weeks. We're still eliminating organic disorders. She's had several violent episodes since intake."

     
Both clinicians kept their voices modulated even though they could not be heard or seen by anyone on the other side of the glass.

     
"Acute schizophrenia?" Sylvia asked.

     
Leo shook his head. "I think she's a borderline personality with severe periods of psychotic dissociation. Apparently, over a two-year period she was participating in ritual murders with her lover. At least she claims she was. We don't believe she actively assaulted victims, but again she says she took videotapes like the one you told me about."

     
Sylvia asked, "What does the F.B.I. have to say about all this?"

     
"Nothing. They refuse to talk about it." Leo frowned. "We believe that only a few months ago, Violet was a high-functioning borderline; the deterioration was acute."

     
Sylvia nodded slowly. "Leo, I'll give you my guess—the most critical stressor in her criminal career was Dupont's alleged death. This is a woman who could not handle the loss of her dominant partner, especially when he was a killer."

     
Leo raised his eyebrows. "I think you're right. She flipped when the F.B.I. began questioning her—right after that Las Cruces debacle."

     
"How does she act out?"

     
"Violet's with us because, when she was at the county jail, she tried to stomp out a guard's heart.
Literally
."

     
Sylvia was mesmerized by Violet Miller's angelic countenance. The young woman's beauty was a startling contrast to her circumstances. Sylvia didn't look away from the glass when she asked, "Did she do much damage?"

     
"Other guards intervened."

     
Sylvia experienced a moment of relief until she heard Leo's addendum.

     
"And failed. The jailer died."

     
Thinned by the intercom, Violet's voice communicated pain and confusion. She was mumbling to Dr. Chism; three or four words seemed to hold a thought before her speech changed direction in a course only she could fathom.

     
Sylvia looked at Leo. "Why the restraints?"

     
"If we take them off, she tries to claw out her eyes."

     
What do we teach you, Dr. Strange? What do you see in us?

     
Leo said, "Mark Chism tried to interview her last Friday, but she deteriorated too quickly; the session had to be aborted."

     
On the other side of the glass, Chism was speaking softly. He said, "Violet, I know you're having a hard time—that a part of you is gone." Both patient and clinician were seated, facing each other across a rectangular table.

     
Sylvia was about to ask about Violet Miller's premorbid functioning, but her words died in her throat.

     
Violet began to nod her head arrhythmically as she spoke. "He was my killer, he was my killer, my killer, my killer, my killer." The woman closed her eyes and shivered.

     
Sylvia felt the tingling rush of fear—the first taste of the natural and potent chemical adrenaline. She wiped sweat from her forehead.

     
Chism continued softly, "One of the things I'm curious about is what you're doing now, and its relationship to the killer. One possibility is that he gets to be the bad part of you, and you get to be the good part of him.''

     
Violet's initial reaction to Chism's words was to stomp both feet in a bizarre, seated clog dance. The force of her action reverberated up her body to her face.

     
Violet Miller threw back her head, opened her mouth like a wound, and emitted a terrible nonstop screech. Sylvia watched the young woman's throat muscles contract under the strain; they pulled tight like ropes. Violet's blue eyes bulged, her cry reached glass-shattering intensity.

     
Violet rose from her chair the same instant Leo Carreras moved toward the door of the observation cubicle. Spooked, Sylvia watched as Violet sprang forward and up and landed on the seat of her chair with both feet; even without the use of her hands, she maintained her balance. Violet launched herself toward the table, and again, she landed squarely; she was fueled by rage.

     
Leo said, "Stay here," and then he was out the door striding down the hall.

     
Sylvia waited to see what would happen when he entered the treatment room. If the orderly wasn't nearby, he would need her help, but she didn't want to let Mark Chism and Violet Miller out of her eyesight.

     
Violet threw herself at Chism and he stumbled backward. Like a whirling dervish, the crazed woman whipped her head around and smacked her skull into his chest before he fell to the floor. She was in motion to attack the doctor again when Leo burst through the door.

     
Before he could get his hands on the patient, Violet impelled both legs straight out, and the heels of her shoes struck his groin. Leo doubled over in pain but managed to activate the panic button anchored to his belt.

     
Sylvia had no intention of waiting for staff to arrive. She rushed from the observation cubicle to the hall and the closed door of the treatment room.

     
Adrenaline was speeding through her system when she pushed the door open and stepped inside the room. The door slammed shut behind her. The room was stuffy, uncomfortably warm, and it smelled of urine and disinfectant. She turned to find herself face-to-face with Violet Miller.

     
The woman was flushed, drenched with sweat, and her eyes were hyperbright. While Sylvia watched, Violet struggled to focus—eyes bulging, eyes squeezed shut until they finally settled on Sylvia.

     
Sylvia's blood cooled instantly. She was facing all the pent-up fury of a deranged, enraged woman. She felt as if she had been cornered by a rabid dog. In her fear, fragments of the scene got special attention: the blood on Violet's head, the odor of almonds on the air, the soft moans coming from behind the overturned table.