A pause. “She dead?”
“I’m very happy to say that we found her alive, Mr. Nguyen. She’s been through hell and back, but she’s very much alive.”
The silence that followed surprised me.
“Sir, do you understand what I—”
“She makes shame working as prostitute,” he shot back. “Cam be better off dead.”
He hung up on me.
Chapter
83
At two p.m. Holy Thursday, inside the psych ward at St. Elizabeths, Patrolman Kenneth Carney was strapped to a bed in a locked room having a murmured conversation with no one. The attending psychiatrist, Arthur Nelson, an old friend of mine, said that after surgeries on his hand and shoulder, Carney had been brought there for observation. Despite the drugs, he quickly went from disoriented to grief-stricken to violent. Nelson had ordered him into restraints.
“I’m recommending lithium once he’s done with the opiates,” Nelson said when I turned from the small bulletproof window set in the door.
“I’d like to talk to him now,” I said.
Nelson raised an eyebrow but said, “Your call, Alex. You’ve dealt with more of the criminally insane than I have.”
I looked over at Sampson, Bree, and Elaine Brown, an assistant district attorney who’d been assigned to the case. All three nodded.
“I’ll have him brought to a treatment room,” Nelson said.
We went out into a waiting area. Assistant DA Brown disappeared to make some phone calls. My head still ached. Of course it didn’t help that Bree, Nana Mama, and I had polished off two bottles of Chianti the night before to dull the pain of our wounds and celebrate the fact that despite the way Cam Nguyen’s father had reacted to his daughter’s rescue, we’d solved an almost impossible case.
At least that was how Captain Quintus had described the investigation on the eleven o’clock news, adding that my wife would be receiving a special commendation for her heroic efforts. Both the Lancasters and the Bransons had appeared on camera as well, holding their babies and praising us and the department for making their families whole again.
As the news stories had noted, however, the exact motives behind Carney’s actions remained murky. Which was why we were all at St. Elizabeths and not taking a hard-earned day off for a job well done.
Sampson’s search of Carney’s apartment had turned up the 9mm pistol the officer had used to murder eight people in cold blood. He also found the ash-colored wig, the clothes, and even the makeup the hairless young man had applied to transform himself into Kelli Adams the kidnapper; as well as the hoodie, brown wig, and fake beard he’d used when roaming the streets as the mass murderer Kevin Olmstead.
But my partner discovered nothing concrete to explain Carney’s insane behavior. Then again, that’s why they’re called crazy.
You have to think a little loony to talk with someone who is criminally insane, at least if you want to gain some real insight into his deep personality. Wishing to God I didn’t have a headache, I tried to get myself to that crazy place, to remember everything I’d heard in the root cellar before he hit me, and then to imagine the subtext of that bizarre conversation.
I could see some of it, but there were big holes I couldn’t explain.
“John,” I said.
“Alex?” Sampson said.
“Call Mahoney and ask him to find out why Carney was turned down for marine recon after passing the physical requirements.”
He nodded. “I have some marine friends at the Pentagon who might be able to help, too.”
“Alex?” Dr. Nelson said, looking out at us from a doorway. “Patient is in room two on the right.”
“You observing?” I asked, going by him.
“We all are. By video feed in my office.”
“Good luck, baby,” Bree said. Despite the wounds and the broken ribs, she’d refused anything more than Advil. It showed in the way she moved and spoke, stiff and slow.
I paused, took a deep breath, understood that this might be a bumpy ride, and went in to face Carney. He was restrained on the bed, looking off into space, when I took a seat opposite him. High behind me a camera rolled.