Do No Harm (2002)

by Gregg Hurwitz

  David sat on a plush maroon chesterfield. The house smelled strongly of cooked vegetables and ammonia. The mantel was decorated with well-dusted porcelain figurines and a collection of Jesus plates. "I'm Rhonda Decker, by the way."

  "Nice to meet you, Rhonda. Thanks for inviting me in."

  Tommy rose and walked into an adjoining bathroom, and David and Rhonda pretended not to hear him urinating.

  "When the study started, Doug didn't think much of it. They paid good--a grand a kid, I think--and he never dreamed they'd do anything harmful to any of them. Two kids went off and did the study. Frank Grant and Clyde something. It was an awful, awful thing. That's a vulnerable age, especially for kids like us. If they wanted to study fear in kids, they could have asked just about any one of us about it and we could have answered. We didn't need snakes and lights and stuff to scare us. Not us."

  "Did Frank and Clyde have problems when they got back?"

  "Frank wasn't back for long. He got moved somewhere else, down to San Diego or Oceanside or something. But the other kid, he did some awful stuff."

  "Like what?"

  Tommy returned and stood beside David. He rubbed the top of David's head, and David took his hand and held it, mostly because he wasn't sure what else to do with it. Rhonda stood and handed Tommy the Business section, and he sat and happily resumed his folding.

  "That's what we weren't supposed to talk about. They gave some money, so we wouldn't talk to the press, or other foster homes that were involved in the study. They didn't want to admit anything to the others, you know. Liability and stuff. I guess I can understand."

  "I'm a representative of the hospital, so that arrangement doesn't apply to me." The limits and conditions of David's honesty, he was discovering, were different from what he'd have hypothesized during a calmer week.

  Rhonda took a deep breath. "The other kid, Clyde, he used to wake up the younger kids in the middle of the night and, well, sort of torture them. Doug had no idea this was going on. Not until later. Doug was a good parent to us."

  It seemed that, despite the fact that DaVella had rented him out to the hospital, Clyde still felt a certain attachment to him. It was, after all, Da-Vella's name he had chosen to steal. "How would Clyde torture them?"

  "Well, there's an upstairs room with exposed rafters. We had three kids in there, five to sevens. Clyde used to string rope over the rafters and make a noose, then dangle the kids just above the ground, so their tiptoes could barely reach. He'd sit there, holding the other end, watching them struggle. The thing that was most awful was, the other two kids had to watch. He'd rotate them, one a night. They were showing up all exhausted at breakfast, none of them sleeping at all, waiting up scared all night. Imagine that, lying in the dark, trying to sleep, but knowing what's coming. . . . It must have been terrifying."

  Clyde's own reversal of the experiments. Inflicting fear on others. Empowering himself. He'd certainly succeeded with his alkali assaults at the hospital. Not just by frightening the women he'd attacked, but in creating an environment of intense alarm and anxiety all through the Med Center. The same hospital that had once victimized him the same way.

  Rhonda shook her head, her eyes clouding. "None of them would tell, either. Scared, I guess. Doug noticed red marks around one kid's neck but thought it was from wrestling. And then Jim Kipper died. Clyde dangled him too long and he just . . . died. Doug heard the body hit when Clyde relaxed the rope. Ran in there. The two other kids were crying. Clyde was in shock."

  "What did he say?"

  Her cheek twitched below her right eye. "He said he was just trying to scare him."

  The same thing he'd told the cops about why he'd flashed the hooker. David tried not to let his emotions show in his face. It had been the Med Center that had expunged Clyde's juvenile record, in order to protect the cover-up from future investigations. And the Med Center had paid off DaVella specifically not to alert the other foster parents, so it wouldn't be opened up to paying other settlements. They'd taken kids already terrified of the world and their place in it, and turned up the volume of their fear, yielding remarkable results for the study. Then they'd released these kids back into society, traumatized and angry, and taken no steps to ensure their safety or the safety of those around them.

  And David's mother had helped cover it up, providing spin control. His emotions, loose and searing, were of little use right now. He tried to refocus.

  "They took him off to a youth detention center," Rhonda was saying. "You know how that goes. Vicious cycle picks up speed."

  "Have you noticed anything strange around the house lately?"

  "Oh, you know. Bad part of town, so the usual. Spray paint. Mail rifled through from time to time. Someone killed a dog out in our lot last night, but the cops thought it was a cult thing."

  "Last night? Who found it?"

  "One of my girls. Layla. Like from the Clapton song."

  "Can I talk to her?"

  "I think she's napping, but I guess I could wake her up."

  David followed Rhonda up the stairs and into a cozy room, almost a large garret. A crude but charming rainbow was rendered in paint on the far wall. A child's desk sat in the corner, beside a single bureau. A retarded woman lay on her bed, facedown, wearing a dirty pink jumpsuit, snoring delicately. Rhonda sat beside her on the bed, plucking the fabric. "I can't get her to wear anything else," she whispered with a smile.

  David pulled up a chair as Rhonda rubbed Layla's back in tight circles. "C'mon, sweetie, wake up. A man wants to talk to you."

  Layla rolled over and sat up, yawning so wide David could distinctly make out her dangling uvula. Her face was puffy from sleep and, maybe, from crying. "Hi."

  "Hi there. How are you?"

  "Tired."

  David smiled. "I am too. I wanted to ask you about the dog you found."

  Her eyes welled instantly with tears. David admired her quick vulnerability.

  "My dog. He got illed."

  "What do you mean your dog?" Rhonda asked.

  " 'Othing. Just that I iked im."

  "Did you notice anyone out there watching you when you found him?"

  Her eyes went to Rhonda. "No."

  "Are you sure?" Rhonda asked.

  "I idn't do anything." Her breathing quickened into jerks, threatening to grow to sobs. Rhonda's presence clearly made Layla less forthcoming.

  "We didn't say you did. We're not blaming you for anything at all." David turned to Rhonda and said quietly. "Is there any way I could see her alone?"

  "No, sir," Rhonda said. "I know you're a doctor and all, but I don't leave my girls alone with anyone."

  "Okay. I understand." He turned back. "Have you seen anyone else around? Hanging around the place?"

  " 'Ometimes he ooks at me from his car."

  "From his car?"

  "We get perverts drive by from time to time," Rhonda said. "Teenagers poking fun."

  "Is that what you meant?"

  Layla again cast a nervous glance at Rhonda, then nodded heavily, her full cheeks bouncing with the movement.

  "Are you sure?"

  "Yes."

  "Nothing unusual or scary at all. No men hanging around?"

  A big head shake.

  Rhonda checked her watch, then ruffled Layla's hair. "Okay, sweetie. Why don't you go and round up the others for dinner?"

  Layla shuffled out.

  David stood up, noticing, for the first time, the exposed rafters. A coldness moved through him. "Was it here? Is this the room where Clyde tortured the boys?"

  Rhonda nodded. "Obviously, we don't tell the kids that."

  David stared around the room, feeling an irrational sense of awe. The rafters were lower than he'd imagined. "How often did he do this to them? More than a few times?"

  Rhonda nudged the chair toward David with her foot. "See for yourself," she said.

  Unsure what she wanted him to look at, he climbed on the chair, bringing the top of the rafters into view. Every few inch
es down the center rafter's length, shallow grooves had been worn in the wood. The kind of grooves a hanging body would make.

  Chapter 54

  DAVID had spent very little time at home the past few days, so it was with a sense of relief that he pulled into the garage and entered his house. A light was on in the living room, and the house smelled of popcorn.

  He tensed, until he recognized Ed's voice, calling, "Honey, you're home!"

  David threw down his keys on the counter by the garage door and walked into the other room. Wearing a wife-beater tank top and a pair of paint-splattered jeans, Ed lounged on David's couch in front of the television. His hair was just starting to grow back, giving the top of his head an orange sheen. He held an open Amstel Light, a bag of microwave popcorn, and the remote control to the television. "You need to go grocery shopping," he said. "Nothing in the fridge."

  "Please," David said, sitting down beside Ed with a sigh. "Make yourself at home." He reached over and touched one of the paint dollops on Ed's jeans, checking that it was dry.

  Ed put a ragged workman's boot up on the coffee table. It was worn through the heel, almost all the way. A green sock showed through.

  "I think it's time for some new boots," David said.

  "These are new boots," Ed said. "They're beat up because I pulled them behind my truck for a half hour this morning."

  "So they'll blend with your new getup?"

  "You got it."

  "Are you ever going to tell me what you do?"

  "Probably not."

  "You didn't just happen to walk into that Kinko's, did you?"

  "No," Ed said. "I was tagging the guy for something else. All of a sudden, he was committing an armed robbery and people were at risk."

  "I thought you didn't like to get involved. With violence."

  "I don't. But sometimes we don't have a choice, do we?" Ed broke off his knowing look. "So what do you have for me? I've been waiting eagerly for the Spier update, and the news, for once, is a few steps behind."

  David filled Ed in on his progress as best he could. Ed listened attentively, asking occasional questions. When David finished, Ed regarded him with an expression of amused respect. "Go go Gadget," he said.

  David reached for Ed's beer, took a swig, and handed it back.

  "Do you think Clyde's aware of your mother's role in this?" Ed asked. "Has he connected you to her?"

  "We shouldn't rule it out, but I don't think so. He recognized my name from the Spier Auditorium but didn't seem to link it to any other person. I would guess a more significant recognition of my name would have shown."

  "So he holds the hospital in general responsible for victimizing him." A small smile played across Ed's face. "The alkali attacks are a pretty unique revenge strategy."

  "I think those experiments etched into his experience what he already knew as a kid who'd spent his life shuttled from home to home--power is in the hands of those who scare. By attacking Nancy and Sandra, he scared not just them but every young woman in that Medical Center. Now he holds the reins."

  "I suppose that's one definition of power."

  "That's the definition the study taught him. For all these years, he's been locked in a terrified preadolescence. Now he's slowly finding his way out of fear. Even the nature of his attacks are changing. They're more complex, more specific. The attack on Diane probably had to do with me--maybe he was jealous of my affection for her, or maybe he felt I betrayed him in some way--but it also shows that this man is capable of growth."

  "He's capable of getting what he needs too." Ed clicked the remote, turning on the television and VCR, then clicking pause. The frozen video appeared to be a store's security camera recording. "There have been eleven pharmacy burglaries in LA County in the past three months. Mostly morphine and Percocet--those accounted for five of the break-ins. Three times, Vicodin was taken, and one guy stole condoms. Talk about being desperate to get laid."

  "That only adds up to nine. I thought you said there were eleven."

  "I was getting to that. Lithium carbonate was taken in mass quantity from Healton's Drugstore on May fifteenth. Eskalith, to be precise."

  "How much?"

  "About five hundred 450-milligram tablets."

  David whistled. "That should be enough for six months at a normal dose."

  "Evidently not, because our boy came back. Last night."

  "The dog was killed by the Pearson Home last night, too."

  "Well, Healton's was smart. They installed a security camera after the first break-in. Caught this on tape." Ed pressed the pause button, and the screen unfroze. A few moments of silence, then the figure of a man appeared outside the store. He picked up a nearby trash can and hurled it through the window. Lights came on within the store; alarms flashed. The man staggered inside, and David recognized him for the first time. Clyde. He stumbled into a display pyramid of sodas, sending them rolling up the aisles.

  "Looks pretty hammered," Ed observed. "There's your ataxia, huh?"

  Clyde stumbled to the pharmacy door and found it locked. Rearing back, he kicked it in, the jamb splintering.

  "Powerful guy," Ed said softly.

  Clyde entered the small back room of the pharmacy and emerged thirty seconds later, a few pills falling from his pockets. He grabbed a carton of cigarettes from above one of the cash registers, then staggered out of the frame. He reappeared a moment later, cradling a few items to his chest, shuffled out the door quickly, and was gone in the darkness.

  The small timer at the bottom of the screen indicated that the entire break-in took Clyde less than four minutes. Ed sighed. "Estimated police response time to that area is twelve minutes. Pacific Division is over on Culver and Centinela, but they might as well move it to Venice Beach since that's where all the cops hang out. Checking out the chicks on Rollerblades."

  "Was that a bottle of Gatorade he grabbed?" David asked.

  Ed nodded slowly. "You said excessive thirst was a side effect. Polythirstia."

  David smiled. "Polydipsia. Is that all he took?"

  "A few cans of beans. More lozenges." Ed ran his hands over the red stubble dotting his scalp, making a harsh rasping sound. "And two containers of liquid DrainEze."

  David leaned back on the couch, exhaling loudly. He rubbed his eyes. "Goddamn it."

  "Cheer up. We got some good news from this tape."

  "Like what?"

  "Think."

  David's voice sharpened again with frustration. "Why couldn't they have just caught him at the goddamned drugstore?" He stood and paced around the living room, running his fingers through his hair.

  "This does us no good." Ed snapped his fingers. "Sit."

  David walked back and sat on the couch.

  "This is emergency surgery, Spier, and we've just had a complication. We're going to keep our cool. We're not gonna panic like a candy striper. Now . . . what does the tape tell us?"

  David took a deep breath before speaking. "The lithium toxicity has progressed. Clyde burned through the pills he stole at a dangerous rate. I'd guess his blood level is up over two point zero. His balance is even worse than when we saw him last."

  "Which means?"

  "Which means . . . " It struck him. "Which means he probably couldn't operate a vehicle." He took a deep breath. "So he probably walked to the drugstore, since taking a bus would have been too visible."

  "Very good, Spier. He lives within walking distance. We now have an area pinned down. Is this drunken-walking thing permanent?"

  "No. If he backs off the pills, it'll resolve. His coordination could be significantly improved within twenty-four hours."

  "Okay, so it is possible that he may be more mobile in the future. What else?"

  "Well, he stole food too, so that probably means he's low on money."

  "Good. He was laid off three months ago, and he doesn't strike me as a meticulous financial planner. So he's probably overdue on rent." Ed smiled and tossed a piece of popcorn in his mouth. "Pissed-off land
lords like to talk."

  "So how do we go about that?"

  "We?" Ed shook his head. "Oh no. This is the stuff I can't get involved in. Grunt work. Door-to-door. It's too visible. I'd suggest you turn all this info over to Yale so he and his boys can start following up on it. You'll just have to trust him." He smiled playfully. "Time to unleash the hounds."

  Chapter 55

  THE full moon cast the palm fronds' shadows against the wall at the base of David's bed. He watched them dip and bow like distorted puppets. A horn blared up on Sunset, followed by the squeal of brakes. David listened for a crash, but there was none. Clearly, the earplugs weren't helping, so he removed them and set them by the alarm clock on his nightstand. It was 10:27 P.M.

  He'd paged Yale over ten minutes ago.

  He reached for the phone, dialed 411, and asked to be put through to the listing. He was surprised when he got an answer. "Healton's Drugs. Help you?"

  "Yes, how late are you open?"

  "Midnight."

  "Can you--"

  "And not a minute later. Got that? Doors lock the instant the second hand clicks."

  "Yes," David said. "I understand. Can you give me your address please?"

  After heaving a weighty sigh, she complied, and David jotted down the address on a notepad. A run-down part of Venice, close to the intersection of 5th and Broadway. And a few blocks away from the Pearson Home for the Developmentally Disabled.

  A hefty coincidence.

  The drive took less than fifteen minutes. David slowed as he neared the drugstore, taking in his surroundings. He passed several weedy lots where buildings had been torn down. In one, a group of men huddled around a burning mattress. It became increasingly evident why the police's response time to this area was so slow.

  David pulled into the Healton's parking lot. Though the front of the store was well lit, he had some misgivings about leaving his Mercedes unattended. He took his cell phone with him rather than leaving it in the car.

  Fourth of July drawings still decorated the building's large windows--flags and firecrackers depicted with thick, messy paint. The window Clyde had broken was backed with plywood and covered with garbage bags that sucked in the wind. The inside smelled of Clorox and Band-Aids. The tabloids at the unmanned checkout counter screamed out in vivid colors: westwood acid thrower still on loose after dr. death aids his escape! Beside it loomed a photograph of David entering the hospital, taken at paparazzi distance.