The Madman's Tale (35 page)

I thought so, but instead of answering the question, responded, “What?”

“
Well, for one thing, the scar on her cheek,” Peter said
.

The scar, of course
.

I should have paid more attention to the scar
.

As I sat in my apartment picturing the white line that straggled down Lucy Jones’s face, I repeated the same mistake I’d made so many years earlier. I saw the flaw in her perfect skin and wondered how it had changed her life. I thought to myself that I would have liked to have touched it once
.

I lit another cigarette. Acrid smoke spiraled in the still air. I might have sat there, lost in memory, had there not been a series of sharp knocks at my door
.

I struggled to my feet in alarm. My train of thought fled, replaced by a sense of nervousness. I stepped toward the entranceway, and then I heard my name called out sharply. “Francis!” This was followed by another series of blows against the thick wood of the door. “Francis! Open up! Are you there?”

I stopped, and for a moment considered the curious juxtaposition of the demand: Open up! followed by the query: Are you there? At best backward
.

Of course, I recognized the voice. I waited a moment, because I suspected that within a second or two, I would hear another familiar tone
.

“
Francis, please. Open the door so we can see you …
”

Sister One and Sister Two. Megan, who was slender and demanding as a child, but grew into the size of a professional linebacker and developed the same temperament, and Colleen, half her bulk and the shy sort who combines a sense of timidity with a dizzy can-you-do-it-for-me-because-I-wouldn’t-know-where-to-start incompetence about the simplest things in life. I had no patience for either of them
.

“
Francis, we know you’re in there, and I want you to open this door immediately!”

This was followed by another bang bang bang against the door
.

I leaned my forehead up against the hard wood, then pivoted, so that my back was against it, as if I could help block their entrance. After a moment or two, I turned around again, and spoke out loud: “What do you want?”

Sister One: “We want you to open up!”

Sister Two: “We want to make sure you’re okay
.”

Predictable
.

“
I’m fine,” I said, lying easily. “I’m busy right now. Come back some other time
.”

“
Francis, are you taking your medications? Open up right now!” Megan’s voice had all the authority and about the same amount of patience as a Marine Corps drill sergeant on an exceptionally hot day at Parris Island
.

“
Francis, we’re worried about you!” Colleen probably worried about everyone. She worried constantly about me, about her own family, about the folks and her sister, about people she read about in the morning paper, or saw on the news at night, about the mayor and the governor and probably the president as well, and the neighbors or the family down the street from her who seemed to have fallen on hard times. Worrying was her style. She was the sister closest to my elderly and inattentive parents, had been since we were children, always seeking their approval for everything she did and probably everything she even thought
.

“
I told you,” I said carefully, not raising my voice, but also not opening the door, “I’m fine. I’m just busy
.”

“
Busy with what?” Megan asked
.

“
Just busy with my own project,” I said. I bit down on my lip. That wouldn’t work, I thought to myself. Not for an instant. She would just become more insistent because I no doubt pricked her curiosity
.

“
Project? What sort of project? Did your social worker tell you you could do a project? Francis, open up right now! We drove all the way over here because we’re worried about you, and if you don’t open up …
”

She didn’t need to finish her threat. I wasn’t sure what she would do, but I suspected that whatever it was, it would be worse than opening up. I cracked the door open approximately six inches, and positioned myself in the opening to block them from entering, keeping my hand on the door, ready to slam it shut
.

“
See? Here I am, in the flesh. None the worse for wear. Just exactly like I was yesterday, the same as I’ll be tomorrow
.”

The two ladies inspected me carefully. I wished that I had cleaned myself up, made myself a little more presentable before heading to the door. My unshaved cheeks, scraggly, unwashed hair and nicotine-stained fingernails probably gave off the wrong impression. I tried to tuck in my shirt a little, but realized I was only bringing attention to how slovenly I must have appeared. Colleen gasped a bit when she saw me. A bad sign, that. Meanwhile, Megan tried to peer past me, and I guessed that she saw the writing on the living room walls. She started to open her mouth, then stopped, considered what she intended to say, then started again
.

“
Are you taking your medications?”

“
Of course
.”

“
Are you taking all your medications?” She emphasized each word carefully, as if she was speaking with a particularly slow child
.

“
Yes.” She was the sort of woman that it was easy to lie to. I didn’t even feel all that guilty
.

“
I’m not sure I believe you, Francis
.”

“
Believe what you like
.”

Bad answer. I kicked myself inwardly
.

“
Are you hearing voices again?”

“
No. Not in the slightest. Whatever gave you that crazy idea?”

“
Are you getting anything to eat? Are you sleeping?” This was Colleen speaking. A little less intense, but, on the other hand, a little more probing
.

“
Three squares per day and a good eight hours per night. In fact, Mrs. Santiago fixed me a nice plate of chicken and rice the other day.” I spoke briskly
.

“
What are you doing in there?” Megan demanded to know
.

“
Just taking inventory of my life. Nothing special
.”

She shook her head. She didn’t believe this, and kept craning her head forward
.

“
Why won’t you let us in?” Colleen asked
.

“
I have a need for my privacy
.”

“
You’re hearing voices again,” Megan said decisively. “I can just tell
.”

I hesitated, then asked, “How? Can you hear them, as well?”

This, of course, angered her even more
.

“
You need to let us in immediately!”

I shook my head. “I want to be left alone,” I replied. Colleen looked on the verge of tears. “I just want you to leave me alone. Why are you here, anyway?”

“
We told you. We’re worried about you,” Colleen said
.

“
Why? Did someone tell you to worry about me?”

The two sisters stole a look between them and then came back to me. “No,” Megan said, trying to modulate the insistence of her tone. “We just haven’t heard from you in so long …
”

I smiled at them. It was nice that now we were all lying
.

“
I’ve been busy. If you’d like to make an appointment, well, have your people call my secretary, and I’ll try to work you in before Labor Day
.”

They didn’t even laugh at my joke. I started to close the door, but Megan stepped forward and placed her hand on it, halting its progress. “What are those words I see?” she demanded, pointing. “What are you writing?”

“
That would be my business, not yours,” I said
.

“
Are you writing about mother and father? About us? That wouldn’t be fair!”

I was a little astonished. My instant diagnosis was that she was more paranoid than I am. “What is it,” I said slowly, “that makes you think you are interesting enough to write about?”

And then I closed the door, probably a little too hard, because the slamming sound resonated through the little apartment building like a gunshot
.

They knocked again, but I ignored it. When I stepped away, I could hear a widespread murmuring of familiar voices within me congratulating me on what I’d done. They always liked my small displays of defiance and independence. But
they were swiftly followed by a distant, echoing sound of mocking laughter, that rose in pitch and erased the familiar sounds. It was a little like a crow’s cry, carried on a strong wind, passing invisibly over my head. I shuddered, and shrank down a little, almost as if I could duck beneath a sound
.

I knew who it was. “You can laugh!” I shouted out at the Angel. “But who else knows what happened?”

Francis took a seat across from Lucy’s desk, while Peter paced around in the back of the small office. “So,” the Fireman said with a small amount of impatience, “Miss Prosecutor, what’s the drill?”

Lucy gestured toward some case files. “I think it is time to start bringing in some patients to talk. Those who have some record of violence.”

Peter nodded, but seemed a little dismayed. “Surely when you started reading case files you realized that covers just about everybody in here, except the senile and the retarded, and they just might have some violent entries, as well. We need to find some disqualifying characteristics, I think, Miss Jones …,” he started, but she held up her hand.

“Peter, from now on just call me Lucy,” she said. “And that way I won’t have to call you by your last name—because I know from your file that your identity is supposed to be if not exactly hidden, at least, well,
de-emphasized
, correct? Because of your notoriety in some rather significant parts of the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts. And, I know, as well, that upon arrival here, you made a point of telling Gulptilil that you no longer had a name, an act of disassociation which he interpreted as having some wish to no longer bring some sort of unspecified shame on your large family.”

Peter stopped pacing, and for an instant Francis thought he was going to get angry. One of his voices shouted out
Pay attention!
and he kept his own mouth shut and watched the two of them carefully. Lucy wore a grin, as if she knew she had discomfited Peter, and he had the look of someone trying to come up with the right riposte. After a moment or two, he leaned back against the wall, and smiled, a look that wasn’t wholly dissimilar to that worn by Lucy.

“Okay, Lucy,” he said slowly. “First names are fine. But tell me this, if you will. Don’t you think interviewing any patient with a violent past, or even a violent act or two since he arrived here, will ultimately be fruitless? More critically, just how much time do you have, Lucy? How long do you think you can take, coming up with an answer here?”

Lucy’s grin fled abruptly. “Why would you ask that?”

“Because I wonder if your boss back in Boston is fully aware of what you’re up to out here.”

Silence filled the small room. Francis was alert to every movement from his
companions: the look in the eyes, and behind them, the positioning of arms and shoulders that might indicate subtle differences from the words spoken.

“Why wouldn’t you think that I have the full cooperation of my office?”

Peter simply asked, “Do you?”

Francis saw that Lucy was about to answer one way, then another, and finally a third, before she replied.

“I do and I don’t,” she finally said slowly.

“That sounds to me like two different explanations.”

She nodded.

“My presence here is not yet part of an official case file. I believe one should be opened. Others are undecided. Or more accurately, unsure of our jurisdiction. So when I wanted to head out here, just as soon as I heard about Short Blond’s killing, there was some contentious debate in my office. The upshot was that I was permitted to go, but not on an official basis, exactly.”

“I’m guessing that those circumstances weren’t precisely outlined to Gulptilil.”

“You’d be right about that, Peter.”

He moved about the back of the room again, as if by motion he could add momentum to his thoughts. “How much time do you need before the hospital administration gets fed up—or your office wants you back?”

“Not long.”

Again, Peter seemed to hesitate, sorting through his observations. Francis thought that Peter saw facts and details in much the same way that a mountain guide did: seeing obstacles as opportunities, measuring achievement sometimes in single steps. “So,” Peter said, as if he was suddenly speaking to himself, “Lucy is here, persuaded that a criminal is here, as well, and determined to find him. Because she has a … special interest. Right?”

Lucy nodded. “Right.” Any amusement had fled her face. “Your days at Western State certainly haven’t affected your investigative abilities.”

He shook his head. “Oh, I think they have,” he said. He didn’t say whether this was for the better or for the worse. “And what might that special interest be?”