Criminally Insane: The Series (Bad Karma, Red Angel, Night Cage Omnibus) (The Criminally Insane Series)

by Douglas Clegg

2

  Atkins was a beefy, muscular guy, and looked the way Trey figured most people on the outside thought of the guards: commanding, imposing, and even a little threatening. He looked like he could crush skulls in his hands and still talk feel good about himself.

  “We’re keeping Chilmark in 28,” Atkins told Trey when he’d gotten past security at Ward D. “We had a minor incident earlier.”

  They both walked swiftly down the hallway. Now and then Trey glanced in the windows of the therapy rooms, seeing what groups were already in session.

  "How's Victor know about the Chilmark kid being here?"

  "He's in the news biz. They know," Atkins said, walking slightly ahead of Trey.

  "I was sick of seeing that guy a month and a half ago," Trey said. "He's like the bogeyman, popping up when you least expect him. I don't want him to even know where Chilmark is. I wish Lance Victor would just go back to L.A."

  "Hannifin keeps him close," Atkins said, and then smirked. "She probably wants a new book deal, so she keeps the publicity going around her."

  "Where is she anyway? She should be here."

  "Running late. Start without here. That's what she said."

  Trey walked swiftly down the corridor, stopping by his office briefly just to pick up the clipboard that had the material from Hannifin and from the police. “Was he given meds?”

  “As per Dr. Hannifin, no.”

  “Good. Was he hurt in the take-down?”

  “Not visibly. But it took six of us. I want you to know that, Trey. He’s like a mountain lion when he’s not in restraints.”

  “Did he get anybody?”

  “Minor knee injury to Feldman. Other than that, once we had him on the floor, he calmed down. He took the restraints fine. In fact, he practically started purring when the jacket went on.”

  “I want the restraints off, if possible.”

  “Not yet, Trey,” Atkins said. “He has another hour in them. Then, he can get out. That’s per Hannifin herself. She wants a two hour minimum restraint period if a patient doesn’t yet have meds, until all intake and assessment is complete. It’s purely a safety measure. For the patient.”

  At the entryway to what the staff called the “silver wing” of Darden State, Trey showed his security badge, a formality that had to be observed in order to get through the double doors into Program 28. He didn’t bother glancing in the other rooms that he passed, but kept moving down to the very last room where the temporary patient had been housed.

  Program 28 was still a relatively new program, and funds for it had begun wavering already. It had cost a fortune to equip, and had been set up to take on all the Sexually Violent Offenders divided into a few classes of human predator. They tended to be the patients no other hospital wanted, and they required additional expense to house. But the staff psychiatrists nearly begged the Board to okay the funds for the program, and it was their little golden egg – both prestige and money flowed to the department with Program 28. It was considered the worst of the worst, in terms of killers, and Trey wasn't even sure that Doc Chilmark belonged down in it.

  The new patient was not sexually violent, but because the rooms were nearly their own isolation tanks for the patients, it served the purpose of keeping Chilmark out of the general population of Ward D.

  The corridor had a blue-green metal cast to it, and shone as the overhead lights bouncing off the steel of doors. Thick panes of observation glass separated the patient from the staff. The rooms themselves were spare. The cot and table were secured to the floor. A sink and toilet in one corner of the room, and a window that was narrow and barred, far above the reach of any patient.

  At the locked door to the patient’s quarters, Trey waited for the others to arrive before unlocking and entering the room.

  Chapter Ten

  1

  The room was well-lit, but Trey wished there were a dimmer switch. In the white light, the killer looked like a little abused boy who had just happened to grow up and begin to look like a man. Trey had already spent most of the morning going over the killer’s mother’s past records at Darden State, and had, briefly, seen some photos from the recent crime scene at the house in the foothills, faxes sent in as soon as Jane Laymon knew he'd be showing up for the intake evaluation with Chilmark.

  In the photos: a woman on a bed. Dark blotches all over the mattress.

  A man on a staircase, his bloodied handprints all along the walls.

  And this man – this boy who had just recently become a man – had done it.

  With his mother.

  Instruments used include a scalpel, a bone saw, a bone file, bandage scissors, large metal forceps, several hypodermic needles, and what looked like a medium-sized hammer with a coin-sized circular saw attached to it and a sharp point at its tip. The note by the picture: “A trephine for trepan.”

  Sitting behind Trey, a psychologist named Whitfield, a young man himself, just out of his master’s program, in this room to observe. Whitfield had thin wisps of prematurely thinning blond hair, and a wide face that seemed to be cherubic, except he rarely smiled. He was one of the most serious of the younger group of psychologists, and had made it known to Trey in past encounters that he did not intend to be anything other than cold and professional.

  Trey leaned back in his chair and whispered, "Thanks for coming."

  Whitfield remained silent

  In the doorway, a Correctional Officer with a big gut and a stern look.

  Trey glanced up from his clipboard, to the patient.

  He marked in his notes: Patient has ankle hobbles. In straitjacket. Appears calm.

  The patient was approximately five foot four, brown hair that had not been cut in awhile, narrow shoulders, narrow hips. Not exactly a slight build, but something about him was elfin. The snapshot taken upon his arrest did not resemble him much with the exception of the faint scars on his face. He had looked angry in the photo. The scars were somewhat visible as streaks of line along his face. Here, in person, he seemed calm. He was relaxed, even in restraints. He looked like a nice guy who had run a red light and somehow ended up here, but was good-humored about it.

  The scars, though faint, had been from being burnt and possibly sliced, but so many years before that they'd healed over several times. The scars were likely along his arms and legs as well. Trey easily guessed the reason: Mommy. She had been torturing the kid since birth. She had probably burned him with cigarettes and matches, and possibly taken a knife to his face more than once. It amazed Trey how sometimes a child could survive and grow up in such an environment at all. It surprised him whenever they turned out to be sane.

  Chilmark was no surprise. His mother had raised him to be a psychopath, probably. She had done her damnedest to make him into her own image, and had apparently succeeded.

  Trey swallowed the feelings of compassion he had, for the moment. The guy had just murdered a woman, a man, and an unborn child.

  Tortured or no. Abused for years, perhaps, but it was hard for Trey to get around the images of the dead he'd seen.

  Plus, Chilmark was smiling at him.

  His smile, amiable. In fact, he seemed too comfortable.

  In the fluorescent light, his skin was pallid. He had spent a lot of time avoiding the southern California sun. Streaks of scars, pale, and somehow far too happy.

  From where he sat, Trey wasn’t sure if there was a birthmark of some kind on his neck, or if it was a tattoo. Some discoloration, just to the left of his neck where it slipped down beneath the collar of the straitjacket.

  Trey had a photo of the patient’s mother from the 1980s. The patient resembled her quite a bit, and also resembled – in his nose and lips and something even in his eyes – the psychiatrist who might, in fact, be the patient’s father.

  Trey wondered if Dr. Brainard would show up for any of the intake or evaluations related to the young man who might be his son.

  2

  “I want to see a priest,” the patient said.

&
nbsp; “We can arrange that. Catholic or Episcopalian?”

  “Catholic.”

  “Mr. Chilmark,” Trey began. “Do you understand why you’re here?”

  “Doc.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’ve been called Doc since I was a little kid.” His voice was soft but deep, and sounded as if he’d practiced speaking in order to come up with such a smooth delivery.

  Trey kept his eye on Jane Laymon’s notes. Then, he looked up.

  Handsome, troubled, muscled, looking far too innocent for someone who had just committed the atrocities that Trey had seen in those photos of the victims.

  He looked like an ordinary healthy American youth, basically. Not completely clean-cut, and not terribly experienced. But that was a mask, sometimes. A mask for deeper, hidden secrets.

  Certainly for this young man, the secrets were just about coming out into the light of day.

  “But your name is Quentin. Quentin Chilmark.”

  “Everyone calls me Doc.”

  “Why ‘Doc’?”

  “Doctor Quentin Chilmark. But please. I've been Doc since I was a kid.”

  “Tell me about medical school.”

  The edges of the patient’s lips curled slightly. Chuckling to himself. “Do you know about talent? Some people are born with it. Some have it thrust upon them. Some have to earn a degree to pretend they have it. Before doctors, there were healers. And those healers didn’t need to go to college. They had talent. When you have it, you don’t need to be taught the craft of medicine. You know it.”

  “You’re a healer?”

  “I understand the nervous system of living things. I know how to set it right. I see death sometimes. Not the way people think. It’s in shadows. Shadows of those who already passed.”

  “Ghosts?” Trey asked. “Are you psychic?”

  “I see people who have died, yes. Sometimes. They’ve taught me the secrets. The healing arts. The meanings of things. They brought it out in me, this talent. Some people are born with beautiful voices. Training only ruins them. My talent is healing, and my art is medicine for the body and soul. I have my father’s hands and my mother’s heart.”

  “Do you understand why you’re here?”

  “Sometimes, when a doctor does something for a patient’s well-being, he ends up blamed for something he didn't do.”

  Trey leaned back in his chair. “You’re here until a trial date is set. At that point, you’ll be transferred to a facility in Los Angeles County. I imagine you’ll just be here a few weeks.”

  “I’m here because my mother once spent time here.”

  “Yes, your mother was here.”

  “She was pregnant with me then.”

  “Ah.”

  “My father was a psychiatrist. He had troubles early on. I never knew him.”

  Trey refrained from telling all he knew. The rumors that Dr. Brainard was Bloody Mary Chilmark’s lover before she was discharged into the arms of another psychiatrist, who married her, briefly, before taking his own life.

  Dr. Brainard had denied it in a formal inquiry, and it remained rumor. Brainard now ran the Psychiatric Board of Darden, and although he was a difficult man, Trey had never believed he’d stoop to enter an intimate relationship with a patient. It was a popular delusion among some of the patients – that their doctor was also their lover.

  Trey checked off the intake questions one-by-one, knowing that they’d get passed on up to the psychiatrist who would handle the patient’s therapy for the time he was in Darden State. He became self-conscious of Whitfield behind him, probably wondering why he wasn’t asking more pointed questions at this stage. Provoking the patient was sometimes as important as gathering specific information. Sometimes the patient said exactly what needed to be said.

  In this case, Trey’s directive from Jane Laymon was to try and get him to tell where his mother might be hiding.

  “I’ll bet you’re writing fun stuff in that little clipboard of yours,” Chilmark said. “I’ll bet you’re mentioning that I show no remorse. That I am in a state of delusional thinking.”

  “I’m not qualified to assess you in that way,” Trey Campbell said. “This is called the preliminary intake. We do it with new patients or with those, -- like you -- awaiting trial and recommended to this facility. Do you know why you’ve been recommended here?”

  “They want to catch her.”

  Trey kept his poker-face. It was important not to show the slightest surprise at one of the patient’s answers. “It’s because of the nature of the crime committed.”

  “Alleged crime.”

  “I have photos from the crime scene. Would you like to see them?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “They’re fake.”

  “Why not look at them to see for yourself?”

  “I don’t need to. I was there. We were working to help that woman.”

  “She was six months pregnant. But she’s dead now. And her child, within her. And her husband.”

  “Sometimes when you attempt healing, the spirit leaves the body. If you could see spirits, you’d know.”

  “Do you see spirits here? With us?”

  The patient broke eye contact with Trey, and looked around the room at the others. “Not right here. Not right now. They make themselves known to me as shadows.”

  “At this house. Where you say you healed. What shadows were there?”

  “The dead are everywhere around us,” he said. “Most people are too caught up in the illusion of movement to recognize them. But some people see them.”

  “Healers?”

  The patient nodded.

  "You look uncomfortable. Would you like the restraints taken off?"

  “No. I heart my straitjacket," he said.

  "You like it?"

  "I love it. When I was little, I had one of these. It kept me calm. More kids should be put in them," Chilmark said. "It was like warmth all around me. I loved it. I love it now. It's a blanket of love. Sometimes, if I was just tied down right, I felt completely at peace. Like I do now."

  Trey scribbled a few notes. Behind him, Whitfield cleared his throat as if about to ask something, but no question came.

  “You can sit down if you like. That might be more comfortable.” Trey had the Correctional Officer get a chair and bring it in for the patient. When Chilmark sat down, he closed his eyes and whispered something.

  “I’m sorry. Would you mind repeating that?”

  “Yes, I mind.”

  “Are you thirsty?”

  “No.”

  “I’d like to ask you more about these shadows you see.”

  “If you look, you’ll see them too.”

  “Did you see them when you tried to heal the woman?”

  The patient shot a harsh look at Trey. Trey felt an unpleasant intensity in the young man’s expression. “Their shadows left them. It was the healing. Their bodies were already decaying. They needed to move to the light.”

  “The light of heaven?”

  “I can’t say. I’ve never gone to it. My mother thinks it’s heaven. I just know it’s where they go.”

  “Does your mother see them, too?”

  “No. But she knows I do.”

  “Where is she right now?”

  “Everywhere. She is love. She is the most beautiful being on this planet. She is light itself. Light in the darkness. She is in everything. She’s always watching.”

  “Even now?”

  “Right now. She’s watching. When I was a boy, she could go through these doors in my mind and see what I was thinking. She still can. That’s her talent. Mine is for healing.”

  “Is she nearby? Watching you now?”

  He grinned, shaking his head. “She told me wonderful things about this place. She told me that there were shadows of death along the corridors. She told me that no one who had entered this place ever really left. It seems fitting that I’m here.”

  “How so?”r />
  “I was conceived here. It’s my womb,” he said. “Inside my mother, I felt the howl of Darden State.”

  “You were born in 1985. After your mother’s release.”

  “I was here, inside her, for four months. It’s like coming home,” he said. “I belong here. It called to me. Home at last. She told me about it. She told me that it wasn't as bad as you'd think. She's right. It's not. I like it here. I could stay here a long, long time.”

  Trey cleared his throat. "Tell me about her," he said.

  "She's pure love," Doc Chilmark said. "She's like fire. She's that pure."

  Chapter Eleven

  1

  Dr. Susan Hannifin waited for him in the hallway outside. She was dressed smartly in a tailored suit with a skirt that showed off her legs. She wore the white jacket required of all psychiatrists when on the Ward, but even with that on, she looked better that she had a right to look. She had no trouble confirming her status as the resident celebrity psychiatrist – between her make-up, the neatly trimmed bangs of her hair, and her clothes, she was nearly always camera-ready. She was also the only black female psychiatrist in residence at Darden, and that had added something to her celebrity, as well, besides the book she'd written. Truth was, Trey felt a little intimidated by her, and a bit dazzled by her presence.

  "How'd it go?" she asked.

  "Good. So far. Want my notes?" Trey said, passing them to her.

  She glanced at them briefly, and put the clipboard back in his hands. "Let's get those typed up. I'm going to spend part of today and then I hope most of the morning tomorrow with Chilmark. I don't want him to be alone too much. I think there's some good work to be done with him — even if he only ends up staying her a month or two before the country starts the case up."

  "He might be here longer."

  "That's assumed," she said. "We can't keep him in 28 too long, but maybe we can find a place for him in D. What's your arrangement with the investigation?"

  "Basic consult. No spying, don't worry." He said this last bit as a slight joke, but he could tell that it don't go over well by the rather blank expression on Hannifin's face.