The Memory Thief

by Don Donaldson

  He was in Lee’s room.

  Marti slipped from her hiding place, crept to the threshold of her room, and looked at the mirrored doors in the hall.

  The lighting was poor, just the illumination from Lee’s night light, but it was enough to see that the prowler was on her sister’s bed, straddling her.

  “Who the hell are you?” Lee screamed. “Get off me. Get out of here.”

  Lee was struggling, but the man’s weight had her so pinned she couldn’t do much of anything.

  “Don’t be afraid,” the prowler said. “This won’t take long. But there will be some pain.”

  Then, Marti saw the guy raise his hand and bring it down hard. There was a thump that sounded like it hit the pillow, and Lee screamed.

  Her sister was being hurt and she couldn’t do anything to stop it because she was only a girl . . . she wouldn’t have a chance against a grown man.

  But she couldn’t just stand there. So she crept from her room and moved quickly to the door where the prowler had come in. As she fled from the house, she heard Lee scream again, but this time it was cut short with a horrible gurgle.

  Out on the deck, she ignored the steps to the beach and vaulted over the low railing. When she hit, she sank into loose sand and lost her balance. Scrambling to her feet, she took off, running as hard as she could for the house down the beach, where she could get help.

  At any other time she would have loved the feel of the sand caressing her toes, but now it became her enemy, shifting under her, preventing her from pushing off with the force she needed, holding her back.

  She couldn’t move fast enough. Every second mattered, but she was moving in slow motion. She screamed at the sand in frustration.

  “Damn it. Let me go.”

  “Marti? Are you okay?” Trina asked.

  “I’m sorry, I was just thinking of something.”

  “It must have been pretty important. You were unreachable.”

  “It was. I’m sorry.”

  “Are you ready to meet your patients?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Chapter 3

  “THE PATIENT units are in the back part of the building,” Trina explained in the hall outside Marti’s office. This is the east wing,” she turned and pointed to the other hall, “that’s west. Our wards are on this floor of this wing, hence Two East.”

  “How many patients will I have?”

  “About seventy. You’ll have a female ward, Two East A, and a male ward, Two East B. And Rosenblum wants you to speak to each of your cases at least once a week.”

  “How many patients in the entire hospital?”

  “Around four hundred. There are four chronic units: Two East, Two West, Three East, and Three West, each with a male and a female ward.”

  Eight chronic wards, Marti thought. Four of them male. So my chances of getting Odessa are at worst 25 percent. But Two East has more forensic patients than any other unit. So my odds are actually better than that.

  Trina opened the door at the end of the hall, and they went into a bare, high-ceilinged corridor. The smell of incarcerated humans was now perceptibly stronger. An opening on the right led to the landing of an old wooden switchback staircase. Noting Marti looking that way, Trina said, “There’s one of those in each wing, connecting all the floors.”

  “No elevators?” Marti said.

  Trina shook her head. “Just stairs.”

  When they spoke, their voices echoed off the dingy walls.

  “I guess you noticed all the other smaller buildings around the grounds,” Trina said, continuing down the hall.

  “Actually, no. I couldn’t take my eyes off this one.”

  “I know what you mean. It’s impressive, in a Transylvania sort of way. There are seven more buildings on the property, but only one of them is occupied, with our acute and intermediate units. The others used to hold children’s and adolescent units, but we don’t handle those kinds of cases anymore, so they’re now full of old furniture and computer equipment. At its peak, the place had two thousand patients, but with budget cutbacks and all . . .”

  They had now reached a door with heavy metal mesh across it and a substantial square plate containing a keyhole.

  “You’ve got the keys Pat gave you?” Trina prompted.

  Marti produced the envelope labeled “2 East” and shook two keys into her hand, one larger than the other, both medieval looking.

  “Let’s make sure they work,” Trina said. “The smaller one is for this door.”

  Marti put her key in the lock and turned it. There was a satisfying click that resounded through the hallway as the bolt slid out of its seat. Trina pushed the door open and let Marti precede her. When they were both on the other side, Trina retrieved the key and shut the door.

  “It locks automatically,” Trina explained, “so always remember to get this back.” She handed Marti the key.

  “I’ve never seen it,” Trina said, moving on, “but they say there’s a tunnel system that connects this building with all the others. I heard they closed it in part because they don’t really need it anymore, but it apparently also has a bat problem.” Noting Marti’s expression of amazement, she added, “Oh yes, Dorothy, you’re not in Kansas anymore.”

  “Actually, it was California,” Marti said. “But I see your point.”

  “Well, here we are,” Trina said, stopping in front of a wide wooden door about eight feet tall. Stenciled on the chipped and dirty maroon paint was the designation 2 EAST A. “This is your female ward.”

  “Before we go in . . . Don’t introduce me to the group,” Marti said. “I’ll do that as I meet each of them individually.”

  “Your call.”

  Marti unlocked the ward, retrieved the key, and stepped back to let Trina take the lead into what was obviously the ward’s dayroom, a sprawling space with the building’s usual high ceilings and wooden floors. But the tall windows here were covered with heavy metal mesh like the door in the hall. Now at its source, the smell Marti had detected from the moment she’d walked through the hospital’s front entrance made her breathe a little more carefully.

  Some of the patients on the ward were pacing, their gaze directed beyond the walls. Others, with the same look, were sitting on the various sofas and chairs provided. A group of three at a small wooden table were playing rock, paper, scissors. At the far end of the room, near a doorway that Marti could see led to the sleeping rooms, was a TV, its picture totally distorted by interference. Despite the malfunction, six women sat in the rows of folding chairs in front of it, mesmerized by the flickering pattern. On the other side of the doorway to the sleeping quarters was a Plexiglas room so filled with cigarette smoke the occupants could barely be seen.

  A large woman with a ruddy complexion and thinning, oatmeal-colored hair that she wore tight against her head like an aviator cap came out of the glass-enclosed nursing station beside the entrance. Her white uniform was crisp and clean.

  “Good morning, Dr. Estes. Who is this?”

  Introductions were made during which Trina validated the nurse’s ID that said she was Ada Metz.

  “You seem awfully young to be a psychiatrist,” Metz observed.

  Not knowing how to respond, Marti said, “Well, I was born three weeks premature.”

  Metz didn’t find that amusing. Actually, she didn’t seem to get it. Out of the corner of her eye, Marti sensed one of the patients approaching. Turning, she saw a woman with sloping shoulders and a thatch of lifeless gray hair join the group.

  “Dr. Estes, I’ve had the most amazing morning,” she said.

  “Let me guess,” Trina replied. “God has called you to spread the gospel.”

  “It’s the truth. I was over there by the window, and I heard Him say, ‘Lessi Gill, I need you to do My work.
And as of this moment, all your sins are forgiven.’ So you see, I have to leave.”

  “Lessi, I’m not free to talk just now. We’ll discuss this later.”

  “Promise?”

  “Yes.”

  The woman turned and ambled off.

  “How did you know what she was going to say?” Marti asked.

  “About ten months ago, she got the idea that if God saved her, we’d have to let her go home. So He’s forgiven her sins every day since.”

  “How long has she been here?”

  “Twenty-three years. She’s one of our forensic cases, sort of.”

  “What do you mean, ‘sort of’?”

  “Before she was committed, people noticed that her husband had stopped coming into town. Curious about the reason, the sheriff went out to their home and found him in bed. He’d been dead so long, he was in an advanced state of decomposition. Lessi refused to admit he was dead . . . said he was just ‘doing that’ to spite her.”

  “So she’d killed him.”

  “There was no real evidence of that, but a few months earlier, when he was in the hospital for a minor surgical procedure, she was caught putting an ice pick in his ear to ‘stop the voices he was hearing.’ But it was Lessi who was hearing the voices.”

  “Was she prosecuted?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “But she was committed by a judge.”

  “The records are murky on that point. In any event, she could never function on the outside.”

  Trina pointed out a few of the other patients in the room and gave Marti a quick summary of their circumstances. As eager as Marti was to move on to the male ward, she hesitated when Trina suggested they do so.

  “Who’s that?” Marti said, pointing to a skinny black woman at the water fountain.

  “Letha Taylor.”

  “Has she always been that thin?”

  “She used to weigh a little more,” Ada Metz said, “but as time passes, some of these people just waste away. Why do you ask?”

  “In the few minutes I’ve been here, she’s visited the water fountain three times. Be right back.”

  While Trina and Metz watched with curiosity, Marti walked over and spoke to Letha Taylor. After a brief conversation, Marti returned to the two women waiting for her.

  “Have either of you ever noticed her breath?”

  “She always smells a little gamy,” Metz said.

  “Like acetone?” Marti said.

  “Now that you mention it, I suppose that’s as good a description as any.”

  “That’s because she’s in ketoacidosis. She’s starving and burning off whatever fat reserves she has left.” Still getting no hint either of them knew what she was getting at, Marti finally said it as straight as she could. “She has diabetes. She needs to have a fasting plasma glucose and a glucose tolerance test done. Do we have an internist on staff?”

  “We do, but this is his day off,” Metz said.

  “Surely there’s someone in attendance when he’s away.”

  “Hospital can’t afford it.”

  “Suppose there’s a medical emergency on his day off?”

  “We call an ambulance.”

  “Will you bring Letha’s problem to his attention tomorrow?”

  “Let’s talk about that in here,” Metz said, gesturing to the glass-enclosed nursing station.

  They all went inside and Metz shut the door. “Here’s the thing . . . if she does have diabetes, that’s just going to complicate her care. We’ll have to monitor her blood glucose levels, she may have to take insulin.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “I’ve got all I can handle without that. I’ve got responsibilities for this ward and the male ward next door . . .”

  On the far side of the nursing station, Marti caught a glimpse of the other ward through the windows lining the upper half of the wall, and for a moment her mind wandered to what might be waiting for her there. With effort, she refocused her attention on the matter at hand.

  “So I’m just saying, why not leave well enough alone?” Metz said.

  “Because the woman is ill, and it’s our responsibility to give her the best life she can have. Now, are you going to take care of it, or not?”

  Anger flared in Metz’s eyes as she responded. “I’ll tell Dr. Wallace what you said.”

  “He’s the staff internist?”

  Metz nodded.

  “Good. Now let’s go next door.”

  Entering Two East B from the nursing station, Marti’s eyes swept the room, looking for Vernon Odessa. It took her a few seconds to assess the population, and when she was finished, two words were branded on her mind in smoking letters.

  Not here.

  Damn it. Despite the request she’d sent in advance of her arrival, despite being given the units with the most forensic cases, Odessa was someone else’s responsibility. Now what?

  While she considered the situation, her eyes tracked a little man crossing the room, walking like Groucho Marx.

  “That’s Carl Woodsen,” Trina said, noting Marti’s interest. “Everybody calls him ‘Chickadee’ because of the way he walks.”

  “What is it, just his thing?”

  “No. I didn’t work here then, but I heard he used to climb up on anything he could, then he’d jump down. One day he broke both his legs doing it. For some reason no one set the broken bones, but he was just allowed to lie in bed until he could get out under his own power. There’s the result.”

  “The staff should be very proud,” Marti said.

  “That was a long time ago,” Metz said. “Before any of us came here.”

  “From what I saw next door—” Marti stopped talking in midsentence, her attention shifting to a patient coming out of the dorm wing. He was over six feet tall with long, blond hair and pudgy features. He walked with a swagger and had a self-satisfied look on his face that made her want to rush over and smack him. She could feel her skin flush and her hands began to sweat.

  Vernon Odessa.

  Chapter 4

  MARTI WATCHED Odessa cross the room and go to a small table, where another patient was sitting looking at a notebook of some sort. Odessa tapped the guy on the shoulder and jerked his thumb in a gesture telling him to move, which he did without protest. Odessa then sat down and began working in the notebook with a marker he had in his pocket.

  “That’s Vernon Odessa,” Trina said. “If you’re interested in the criminal mind, you should love him. He killed fifteen women in your home state about twenty years ago.”

  Odessa was much older now than the last time she saw him, and his face had fleshed out, but there was no mistaking who he was.

  “How is he as a patient?” Marti asked, trying to keep the emotion at seeing him out of her voice.

  “Except for an incident last fall, he’s been exceptionally well behaved.”

  “What happened then?”

  “Went after Ronald Clary over there with a chair.”

  “Why?”

  “Claimed Clary came on to him sexually. Odessa had to be forcibly subdued.”

  “I’d like to speak to him.”

  “I don’t see any problem with that. But just to be safe, let’s get Bobby Ware on standby. That’s what I’ve been doing since that episode with Clary.” Trina looked at Ada Metz.

  “He’s in the break room. I’ll get him.”

  Metz went back into the nursing station. Through the glass panels in its walls, Marti saw her lean into a room that wasn’t enclosed by glass. Her summons brought out a guy with red hair, a full red beard and mustache, and an NFL lineman’s body.

  After Trina made the necessary introductions and told Bobby why she’d asked for him, she looked at Marti. “
Let’s go talk to him.”

  “You all stay here,” Marti said. “I’d like to do this alone.”

  Not wanting Odessa to know her name until she was ready to reveal it, Marti turned her ID around, putting the front against her blouse. He was so absorbed in what he was doing that he didn’t notice her approach. This allowed her to look over his shoulder, unnoticed. What she saw made her flush even more. He had drawn a bear standing upright with a hammer in one paw, threatening a cowering young girl.

  The years peeled away and she was once more at the beach she had grown to hate, with Odessa in the house behind her, straddling her sister, gloating . . .

  “Hello, Goldilocks. It’s Pappa Bear, come to have a party.”

  The sand held her back, keeping her from reaching the house next door . . . the sand . . . damn the sand . . .

  Finally, she was there, pounding on their sliding door to the beach. “Help . . . Help me. My sister is being murdered.”

  She pounded on the glass so hard her hand stung, aware that every passing second was hurting her sister even more.

  She hit the glass door again and again, until the pain from every blow ran up her arm and set off an explosion in her brain. The light beside the door came on and the drapes were pulled aside. A pair of ashen faces looked out at her.

  “Help me. Someone is killing my sister. Hurry. Hurry. Call the police.”

  The door stuttered open.

  “He’s murdering her. The house next door. Call 911.”

  The faces inside belonged to two young women clad only in football jerseys; flight attendants, she thought her sister had said. The blond ran for the phone, while the brunette just stood there and wrung her hands.

  Once the call was made, Marti turned and ran back to her sister’s house, using a route a few steps farther from the ocean, hoping to find firmer ground. She could see now that the lights were on inside.

  When she got there, she would pound on the side of the house, let the killer know someone was there . . . drive him away.

  Her course was taking her directly to the tall clumps of pampa grass that lined the walkway from the parking area. Just as she reached them, she saw over the tops of the plants a masculine shape come out onto the deck and turn in her direction.