Jack of Spades

by James Hankins

  His mission hadn’t been a success, but it also wasn’t a total failure. No one in the medical records department had been willing to dig into patient records without a court order, and, Spader was informed, depending on the type of record, the ones he sought might not even exist any longer. Records were retained according to state regulations, the length of time they had to be kept varying according to the type of record. The ones he sought, if they even still existed, would have been kept at an off-site storage facility anyway. So that was a dead end for now. Additionally, even if he could find a doctor or nurse in the neurology department willing to discuss Stanley Pendleton’s case, he found out almost immediately that no one on staff on that unit had been working at the hospital twenty-one years earlier, when Stanley Pendleton likely would have been a patient. Similarly, no one in the physical therapy or rehabilitation departments had been around that long, either. The only useful piece of information Spader obtained was the name of the head of the neurology department at the relevant time. He would have been in charge when Pendleton was a patient—if he was, in fact, a patient there and not at some other hospital. Spader, however, was taking a chance on the fact that Pendleton’s mother worked there as a nurse at the time, and the fact that his injuries were such that few facilities in the state would likely have been able to give proper care to a boy with a severe spinal injury.

  Spader grabbed a cup of coffee from a nearby bagel shop and waited while an officer at Ten Fed ran down Dr. Albert Mendenhall’s current address and phone number. Then, relieved to learn Mendenhall was still alive, he called the man at home and told him he had some questions that had to be answered in person. He received an assurance that the good doctor would be home for the next couple of hours. Forty minutes later Spader found himself up on the North Shore, in a tony neighborhood in the town of Marblehead—which bordered Salem—surrounded by attractive two-story colonials nestled among tall, old-growth trees on lawns that, while not necessarily large, were exceedingly well-manicured. He found the right house, one of the many two-story colonials, and rang the bell. A moment later, the door opened to reveal a tall, spindly, white-haired man with thick white eyebrows beneath an unkempt mop of white hair. Spader introduced himself to the man, who confirmed that he was Dr. Albert Mendenhall before leading Spader to a comfortable study, where a battered but ornately carved wooden desk sat opposite a brick fireplace flanked by built-in bookshelves crammed with books. Spader scanned the titles on the spines, noting with amusement that they ranged from medical tomes with complicated titles full of medical jargon to fare Spader would find much easier to digest, like a series of compilations of classic Peanuts comics.

  “I’d have taken you into the living room,” Mendenhall said in a dusty voice that Spader thought would have been more appropriate in a man of ninety, but still didn’t find unpleasant, “but my wife’s book club is meeting this morning.”

  “This is fine.”

  Mendenhall directed Spader to a burgundy leather armchair in front of the fireplace. The only other chair in the room being his desk chair, Mendenhall seated himself behind the battered desk.

  “Every month they meet,” the doctor said. “I’ve overheard them from time to time but have yet to hear them discuss a single page of the book they were supposed to have read. From what I can tell, they mostly complain about their husbands, living and dead.” Spader smiled. “Now what can I do for you?”

  Spader explained that he needed information on a patient he hoped the doctor would remember. Mendenhall listened patiently while Spader told him what he knew of Stanley Pendleton’s injury, the relevant time frame, including the years after, when he likely would have attempted rehabilitation, and the fact that his mother had been a nurse at the hospital. He hoped that last bit of information would jog the man’s memory, if it needed jogging. When he finished, Mendenhall said, “Of course, even if I remembered the case, which I’m not saying I do, I couldn’t discuss it with you, Detective. Surely you know that.”

  Spader had expected that. “Doctor, you’re a man of medicine. A healer. The man I’m looking for is a killer. He’s killed two people already, has permanently maimed others, and left another victim physically unharmed but probably emotionally scarred for life. He’s a cruel man who isn’t finished doing what he’s doing. And he’s been striking with greater frequency lately. He’ll strike again soon. I just want to stop him. I’m hoping you can help me.”

  Mendenhall leaned his elbows on his desk, steepled his fingers, and rested them against his nose with his thumbs supporting his chin. He stared at Spader for a few moments, his bushy eyebrows knitted as he pursed his lips. Spader could see the mind working behind the pale-blue eyes. He considered making another plea, but thought he’d stated his case as well as he could have. Now it was up to the good doctor, who certainly hadn’t shown him the door yet. Finally, Mendenhall took a breath and said, “I don’t suppose it would do any harm to admit that I remember Stanley Pendleton, though I couldn’t for the life of me have come up with his name if you hadn’t supplied me with it. But I remember the boy and his mother. I remember the case. I remember that we even allowed them to purchase very cheaply some rehabilitation apparatus after we received a donation of new equipment.”

  “Can you tell me anything?”

  “I can tell you that the boy was tragically injured, paralyzed from the waist down, though I couldn’t tell you any longer which vertebrae were injured even if I wanted to.”

  “But he really was injured. Paralyzed.”

  “Of course he was.”

  “He couldn’t have been faking?”

  “Why would a young boy want to fake an injury like that? Spend all his time in a wheelchair?”

  “I’m just asking if it’s possible he was faking at the time.”

  Without hesitation, Mendenhall said, “No, he wasn’t faking.”

  Spader nodded. “Do you remember him trying to walk again?”

  “I do. He tried very hard. He was a very determined young man.”

  “For how long did he try? Do you remember?”

  Mendenhall thought for a little while, perhaps trying to remember, perhaps deciding whether he could, in good conscience, share the information. “He was eight or nine, I believe, when he was injured.”

  “Eight.”

  Mendenhall nodded. “Once we cleared him to begin rehabilitation, I believe he kept at it for several years, kept coming in from time to time and giving it a go with our physical therapists. I couldn’t say exactly how long, but he worked hard. He was very focused.” The doctor paused again, frowning, then added, “To be honest, I didn’t think there was much chance for him to improve his condition, but he was so determined that we kept working with him. Finally, when he was in his teens, he just gave up, which I have to say surprised me somewhat at the time.”

  “Because he’d been so focused on his therapy up until then?”

  “Exactly. That could be why I remember the case fairly well. He worked so hard and then just gave up.”

  Spader nodded. Time for the biggie. “Doctor, would it be possible for someone with Stanley Pendleton’s injuries to learn to walk again?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Could he learn to walk to the point where he could, hypothetically speaking, break into people’s homes, assault them?”

  Mendenhall sighed. “I’m not sure I can say, or would say if I could.”

  “I understand you have ethical constraints here. I’m just trying to stop a really bad guy from doing really bad things. Keep it hypothetical if it makes you feel better.”

  Mendenhall frowned. “I know who you are, Detective, and I can guess the case you’re here about.”

  “So you know how important this is.”

  The doctor was silent for a moment. Finally he said, “I can’t honestly say much one way or the other in Stanley’s specific case. I won’t speak to his specific injuries. I’ve probably said too much as it is.”

  Spader smiled. “So what woul
d it really hurt to say a little more?”

  Mendenhall fixed Spader with a hard stare. But after a moment he said, “Stanley Pendleton suffered severe spinal trauma. He was paralyzed from the waist down. He worked as hard as I’ve ever seen anyone work to regain function, and he tried for several years. Yet we never saw any progress. So if you’re asking my opinion on whether Stanley could be doing what your criminal is doing, I’d say without hesitation that he could not.”

  Spader nodded again. “But do some people with spinal injuries, maybe even those who are paralyzed, ever learn to walk again? I mean, has that happened?”

  Mendenhall sighed. He hesitated a moment before answering. “There are cases in which paraplegics with spinal injuries do regain function.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “Again, I’m not necessarily talking about Stanley Pendleton here, because I think his injuries would preclude recovery, but when a person first suffers a spinal injury, say from a fall or an automobile accident, there would be swelling around the site of the injury, and some blood collection, a hematoma, that could put significant pressure on the spinal cord. Sometimes surgery can relieve the pressure, remove the hematoma. But sometimes doctors fear that surgery is too risky and could actually worsen the patient’s condition. They choose to wait, hoping that the swelling and hematoma resolve on their own. Sometimes that happens, sometimes not. Unless and until it does, the swelling and hematoma likely would interfere with spinal cord function and could leave the patient paralyzed. As swelling and the hematoma resolve, if they ever do, function could return toward normal. This is extraordinarily unpredictable, however, and in most cases is a very slow, very gradual process. How much function ultimately returns to the patient could fall anywhere on a broad spectrum, from the ability to wiggle his toes to the capability of walking.”

  “Could such a patient do what I’ve mentioned?” Spader asked. “Break in, tie people up, hurt them? Hypothetically speaking, of course.”

  Mendenhall allowed a small smile to crease his dry lips. “It’s possible for some patients to regain the ability to walk. Some could have full use of their legs. Others might need to walk with a cane, with the additional support of leg braces, or with the use of a walker. I leave it to you to determine what a person could do after that.”

  “And how long would it take to regain such function?”

  “As I said, it’s very unpredictable. One patient might regain some or all function within months or a year. Others might not do so for many years.”

  Spader felt his cell phone vibrate against his hip but ignored it. “Is there anything else you can tell me, Doctor, anything at all that might help me?”

  “I think I’ve told you enough.”

  Spader considered that, then nodded and stood. Mendenhall raised himself out of his desk chair and led Spader back to the front door. A few girlish giggles drifted from just around the corner.

  Mendenhall sighed. “I hope that one wasn’t at my expense.”

  Spader smiled and pulled open the door. He stepped onto the porch and turned to look at Mendenhall again. The doctor looked lost in thought for a moment before he looked at Spader and said, “I don’t know whether Stanley Pendleton is the man you’re looking for, Detective. As I said, I doubt very sincerely that he is. But I can tell you this—I hope he isn’t.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because what he went through, no child should go through that. It wouldn’t excuse what he’s doing, if it’s really him, but I would find it unbearably sad to think that he’d worked so hard for so many years and against such seemingly insurmountable odds to overcome his disability, to conquer it, and instead of appreciating the true miracle it would be and embracing his new life, instead of taking advantage of the possibilities suddenly available to him—possibilities not available to so many people who suffer such injuries—he instead uses his regained mobility to bring misery to others. I hope he’s not your man. I’d just hate to see it.”

  Spader looked into the doctor’s kind eyes. “No disrespect intended, Doctor, but I’ll be honest with you, I don’t really care who the guy is and I don’t give a rat’s ass about what a tough life he’s had. A lot of people have had it rough but still manage to keep themselves from hurting and killing other people. So no, I don’t care if this guy’s life was the pits. I don’t care if he didn’t have any friends, if his mother dressed him in frilly outfits and his daddy didn’t love him. I don’t even care if he spent five, ten, twenty years in a wheelchair before he could walk again. All I care about is stopping him. Any way I have to. Thank you for your time.”

  Spader was in his car again, heading back toward Salem, listening to a message from Gavin Dunbar telling him to call him back. He did.

  “John,” Dunbar said. “How’d it go with the doc?”

  “Wouldn’t talk much about Pendleton’s case specifically for ethical reasons, but he remembered him and I think he was as helpful as he felt he could be.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “Bottom line—it’s theoretically possible Pendleton could have learned to walk again. Wouldn’t be easy and it sounds like it’s certainly not the norm, but the important thing is, it’s not impossible.”

  “The doctor thought it could be Pendleton?”

  Spader paused. “No, not really. Actually, he felt pretty strongly that it couldn’t be him. But as to whether it’s possible for people with injuries like his to learn to walk again, the answer is yes, it’s theoretically possible.”

  “Theoretically. You keep using that word.”

  “You’re not convinced.”

  “Not really, no. Doesn’t sound like the doctor jumped on your bandwagon, either.”

  “Just keep in mind that it’s not impossible, Gavin.”

  “I’ll try. So, wanna hear why I called?”

  “What do you have?”

  “A few things. First, Fratello had a message on his line this morning when he got in. Call came in late last night. Victim number two, Peter Lisbon, his ex-wife called to say she’d been going through some of her ex’s things, because the only other family he had was his mother and she’s in stir for killing Oscar Wagner. Anyway, she was going through his things and she found a ratty old T-shirt, one he apparently kept in a box of mementos in the back of a closet. Wanna guess what the T-shirt says?”

  “No, Gavin, I don’t. I want you to just tell me.”

  “It says Camp Wiki-Wah-Nee on it.”

  Hot damn. “So now we’ve got Golding and Lisbon there for sure, and maybe Finneran. Anyone call Golding and Finneran back this morning?”

  “Wilkins did.”

  “And? What’d they say?”

  “Golding doesn’t remember a kid named Stanley Pendleton at camp. Says it’s possible there was one, but he doesn’t remember.”

  “How about a kid having a bad accident or something. He remember that?”

  “He says he doesn’t,” Dunbar said. “Not sure he gave it much thought, though. He doesn’t like talking to us, I don’t think. Seems…I don’t know, embarrassed about what happened to him. But he says he doesn’t remember anything like that.”

  “Damn,” Spader said. “What about Finneran. What did he say?”

  “Nothing. Because he can’t. He slipped into a coma during the night and died around six this morning.”

  “Damn it.” Spader had a moment of irrational concern that the stress of his phone call last night had killed the guy, but he pushed away the thought as ridiculous. His passing added to Galaxo’s death toll.

  “There’s more,” Dunbar said. “Galaxo’s first victim, Andrew Yasovich, his sister called Fratello this morning to say that she was going through some things that had been shipped to her, personal effects of her deceased brother’s, and she came across a bunch of old letters held together by a rubber band. Wanna guess who some of them were from?”

  “Not really, Gavin.”

  “His son. The one who died in a car accident years ago. He
was in his early twenties or something when it happened. Anyway, some of the letters were from the old guy’s wife, from when they were dating, but there were a bunch from his son, written when he was just a kid. Guess where he sent them from.”

  Dunbar was getting irritating but his information was interesting. “Camp Wiki-Wah-Nee?”

  “Bingo.”

  “So, maybe the Yasovich kid did something to piss off Galaxo years ago, but because Yasovich is dead Galaxo went after the father as a surrogate victim.”

  Spader felt a ping of electricity sizzle up his spine, like an electric circuit closing. “So that’s it then. The connection between the victims. If Finneran was in fact saying that he went to Camp Wiki-Wah-Nee, then Pendleton’s the only supposed victim we can’t confirm went there. He says he didn’t, but he’s probably lying. You get the chance to look into the camp?”