"Mangled how?"
"Chopped into hamburger."
"But not removed."
"No," he said irritably. "If my storage theory about Richard is correct, it would explain why she wasn't cut in half. Dr. Argent was five-five, folded easily into the
Buick. And guess where she worked, Alex: Starkweather Hospital."
"Really," I said.
"Ghoul Central. Ever been there?"
"No," I said. "No reason. None of my patients ever killed anyone."
3.
IN THE SPRING of 1981, Emil Rudolph Starkweather died in his bed in Azusa at the age of seventy-six, unmarried, leaving no heirs, having dedicated fifty years to public service, ten as a Water and Power engineer, forty as a state senator.
Tightfisted in every other regard, Starkweather campaigned relentlessly for mental-health funding and pushed through construction of scores of community treatment centers throughout the state. Some said living with and caring for a psychotic sister had made him a one-issue humanist. The sister died five months before Starkweather's massive nocturnal coronary. Soon after her burial,
Starkweather's health seemed to rot away.
Not long after his funeral, state auditors discovered that the veteran senator had systematically embezzled four decades of campaign funds for personal use. Some of the money had been spent on the sister's twenty-four-hour nursing care and medical bills, but most went into real estate: Starkweather had amassed an empire of over eleven thousand California acres, primarily vacant lots in run-down neighborhoods that he never developed.
No racehorses, no Swiss accounts, no secret mistresses. No apparent profit motive of any kind. People started questioning Emil Starkweather's mental health.
The rumors intensified when the will was made public. Starkweather had bequeathed everything to the State of California, with one proviso: at least one hundred acres of "his" land was to be used for construction of a "major mental hygiene facility that takes into account the latest research and progress in psychiatry and allied disciplines."
Legal experts opined that the document was probably worthless, but the knots
Starkweather had tied might take years to unravel in court. Yet, in one sense, the timing was perfect for the newly elected governor. No admirer of Starkweather-whom he'd long considered an annoying, eccentric old fart-he'd campaigned as a crime-crusher, condemning revolving-door justice that spat dangerous maniacs back onto the street. Frenzied consultations with legislative bosses produced a plan that cut through the morass, and aides were dispatched from Sacramento to search for worthless publicly owned real estate. The perfect solution emerged quickly: a long-unused parcel of county land well east of the L. A. city line, once a gas company fuel station, then a garbage dump, now a toxic swamp. Poisoned soil, pollutants seeping past bedrock. Only eighty-nine acres, but who was counting?
Through a combination of executive order and rammed-through legislation,
Starkweather's purloined plots reverted to the state, and construction of a "major mental hygiene facility" for criminals judged incompetent to stand trial was authorized. Secure housing for spree murderers, blood drinkers, cannibals,
sodomizers, child-rapers, chanting zombies. Anyone too crazy and too dangerous for
San Quentin or Folsom or Pelican Bay.
It was an odd time to build a new hospital. State asylums for the retarded and the harmlessly psychotic were being closed down in rapid succession, courtesy of an odd, cold-hearted alliance between right-wing misers who didn't want to spend the money and left-wing ignoramuses who believed psychotics were political prisoners and deserved to be liberated. A few years later, a "homeless problem" would appear, shocking the deacons of thrift and the social engineers, but at the time, dismantling an entire inpatient system seemed a clever thing to do.
Still, the governor's storage bin for maniacs went up in two years.
He stuck the old fart's name on it.
Starkweather State Hospital for the Criminally Insane was one main building-a five-story cement-block and gray stucco tower hemmed by twenty-foot-high electrified barbed-wire chain link, streaked with mineral deposits and etched by pol-lutive grime. Punitively ugly.
We'd gotten off the 10 Freeway, sped past Boyle Heights and several miles of industrial park, traversed a series of dormant oil wells frozen like giant mantis specimens, greasy-gray slaughterhouses and packing plants, abandoned freight yards, several more empty miles that stank of stillborn enterprise.
"Here we go," said Milo, pointing to a narrow tongue of asphalt labeled Starkweather
Drive. Another sign said STATE FACILITY AHEAD.
The road drew the unmarked into a gray-green fringe of eucalyptus maybe seventy trees deep that blessed us with mentholated shade before we reemerged into the
August sun and a white glare so piercing it rendered my sunglasses useless.
Up ahead was the high fencing. Electric cables thick and black as water snakes. A collection of English and Spanish warning signs in approved state colors presaged a glassed-in booth and a steel gate arm. The guard was a chunky young man of indeterminate mood who slid open a window, listened to Milo's explanation, took his time coming out. He examined our I.D. with what seemed like pain, took all the papers back to his glass closet, returned, asked how many firearms or knives we were carrying, and confiscated Milo's service revolver and my Swiss Army knife.
Several minutes later, the gate opened very slowly and Milo drove through. He'd been unusually quiet during the trip. Now he looked uneasy.
"Don't worry," I said. "You're not wearing khaki, they'll let you out. If you don't say too much."
He snorted. What he was wearing was an old maroon hop-sack blazer, gray wide-wale cords, gray shirt, wrinkled black poly tie, scuffed beige desert boots with soles the color of pencil erasers. He needed a haircut. Black cowlicks danced atop his big head. The contrast with the now-white sideburns was too strong. Yesterday, he'd made some comment about being Mr. Skunk.
The road tilted upward before flattening. We came to an outdoor parking lot, nearly full. Then more chain link, broad stretches of earth, yellow-tinged and sulfurous.
Behind the fence stood a solid-looking man in a plaid sport shirt and jeans. The sound of the unmarked made him turn and study us.
Milo said, "Our welcoming party," and began searching for a spot. "Why the hell would anyone want to work here?"
"Are you asking in general or about Dr. Argent?"
"Both. But yeah, her. What would make her choose this?"
It was the day after he'd called me, and I hadn't yet seen the Argent file. "There's something for everyone," I said. "Also, managed care's tightened things up. Could be she had no choice."
"She had plenty of choice. She quit a research position at County General, neuro-something."
"Maybe she was doing research here, too."
"Maybe," he said, "but her job title was Psychologist II, pure civil service, and the director-some guy named Swig- didn't mention research. Why would she quit County for this?"
"You're sure she wasn't fired?"
"Her ex-boss at County told me she quit. Dr. Theobold."
"Myron Theobold."
"Him you know?"
"Met him a few times at faculty meetings. What else did he say?"
"Not much. Like he didn't know her well. Or maybe he was holding back. Maybe you should talk to him."
"Sure."
He spotted an opening, swung in sharply, hit the brakes hard. Yanking off his seat belt, he looked through the windshield. The man in the plaid shirt had unlocked the second fence and come closer. He waved. Milo returned the gesture. Fifties, gray hair and mustache.
Milo pulled his jacket from the backseat and pocketed his keys. Gazed beyond the man in the plaid shirt at the chain-link desert. "She spent eight hours a day here. With deranged, murderous assholes. And now she's dead-wouldn't you call this place a detective's happy hunting ground?"
4.
DOLLARD UNLOCKED THE rear gate and took us out of the yard and across a short cement path. The gray building appeared like a storm cloud-immense, flat-roofed, slab-faced. No steps, no ramp, just brown metal doors set into the block at ground level. Small sharp-edged letters said STARKWEATHER: MAIN BLDG. Rows of tiny windows checked the cement. No bars across the panes. The glass looked unusually dull, filmed over. Not glass. Plastic. Thick, shatterproof, wind-whipped nearly opaque.
Perhaps clouded minds gained nothing from a clear view.
The doors were unlocked. Dollard shoved the right one open. The reception area was cool, small, ripe with a broiled-meat smell. Pink-beige walls and black linoleum blanched under blue-white fluorescence. Overhead air-conditioning ducts emitted a sound that could have been whispering.
A heavyset, bespectacled woman in her thirties sat behind two old wooden desks arranged in an L, talking on the phone. She wore a sleeveless yellow knit top and a picture badge like Dollard's. Two desk plaques: RULE ONE: I'M ALWAYS RIGHT. RULE
TWO: REFER TO RULE ONE. And L. SCHMITZ. Between them was a stack of brochures.
Her phone had a dozen lines. Four lights blinked. On the wall behind the desk hung a
color photo of Emil Starkweather flashing a campaign smile full of bridgework. Above that, a banner solicited employee contributions for Toys for Tots and the United
Way. To the left, a small, sagging shelf of athletic trophies and group photos trumpeted the triumphs of "The Hurlers: Starkweather Hosp. Staff Bowling Team."
First prize for seven years out often. Off to the right stretched a long, bright hallway punctuated by bulletin boards and more brown doors.
Dollard stepped up to the desk. L. Schmitz talked a bit more, finally got off.
"Morning, Frank."
"Morning, Lindeen. These gentlemen are Mr. Swig's ten o'clock."
"He's still on a call, should be right with you. Coffee?"
"No, thanks," said Dollard, checking his watch.
"Should be soon, Frank."
Milo picked up two brochures and gave one to me. Lindeen watched him, then got back on the phone and did a lot of "uh-huh"ing. The next time she put down the receiver, she said, "You're the police about Dr. Argent, right?"
"Yes, ma'am," said Milo, hovering by the desk. "Did you know her?"
"Just hello and good-bye. Terrible thing." She returned to the phone.
Milo stuck around for a few more minutes. Lindeen looked up once to smile at him but didn't interrupt her conversation. He gave me a pamphlet. We both read.
Brief history of Starkweather State Hospital, then a bold-type "Statement of
Purpose." Lots of photos: more shots of Emil the Embezzler; the governor breaking ground with a gold-tipped shovel, flanked by nameless dignitaries. Construction chronology from excavation to completion. Cranes, earth movers, hard-hatted worker ants. Finally a long view of the building set against a gorgeous sky that looked as false as Starkweather's chompers. The block walls were already stained. The hospital had looked weary on its birthdate.
The mission statement was written by William T. Swig, MPH, Director, and it stressed humane treatment of inmates while safeguarding the public. Lots of talk about goals, directives, objectives, interfaces. Who taught bureaucrats how to write?
I folded the brochure and slipped it in my pocket just as Lindeen said, "Okey-doke, he's free."
We followed Dollard down the hall. A few of the brown doors bore name signs in slide-out slots; most were blank. The bulletin boards were layered with state paper: notices, legislation, regulation. No other people walked the corridor. I realized the place was silent except for the sibilance from the ducts above us.
Swig's door was no different from the rest, his sign no more permanent. Dollard knocked once and opened without waiting for a reply. Outer office. Another receptionist, older and heavier than Lindeen-"Go right in, Frank." Three vases of huge yellow roses, obviously homegrown, sat on her desk. Her PC monitor featured a
Mona Lisa screen saver. Smiling, frowning, smiling, frowning...
Dollard pushed through to the inner sanctum. Swig was on his feet with his hand out as we entered.
He was younger than I'd expected, maybe thirty-five, sparely built, with a soft, round baby face under a bald dome and several ominous moles on his cheeks and chin.
What little hair he did have was blond and cottony. He wore a short-sleeved blue shirt, plaid tie, navy slacks, moccasin loafers.
"Bill Swig." Introductions all around. Swig's hand was cool and small-boned. His desk was a bit larger than his secretary's, but not by much. No joke plaques here, just a pen-and-pencil set, books and folders, several standing picture frames, their felt backs to us. A photo on the right-hand wall showed Swig in a dark suit with a curly-haired, pointy-chinned woman and two pretty girls around four and six, both