herself on fire.”
“Jesus. Why? I mean, are you sure?”
“I think I have to. I want to hear what he did to her. I want to tell her what he did to me. I want her to know that I believe her. And I want to make her a promise.”
“A promise?”
“I want to promise her that I won’t let Dale hurt anyone else like he hurt us. I want to promise her that I’m going to stop him.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The Nevada Mental Health Institute was a drab gray building with dash stucco walls, large bronze tinted windows and an eight-foot sculpture out front that looked like a cross between a brain and a solar system made out of aluminum and stainless steel. The institute sat across from Sunset Hospital on Eastern Avenue, and Sarah must have driven past it more than a dozen times since she’d lived in Las Vegas without ever realizing it was there.
It was nearly the size of the hospital itself and was surrounded by a small private park for the residents with walking paths, a bocce ball court, and even a tennis court. The parking lot in front of the building was cracked and spalling, with weeds growing up through the fissures. There were only a handful of cars in the lot, including an ambulance parked in the red fire-zone directly in front of the building. If it wasn’t for the beautifully maintained lawn surrounding the back of the building it would have looked like yet another foreclosed property.
Sarah and her husband parked their Saturn directly in front of the building next to the detectives’ vehicles. She was surprised when Trina and Torres stepped out of their car and began walking toward the building with Harry.
“We’re all going in?”
“Yeah, I want to hear her story. Try to make some sense of what’s going on. I still can’t believe this,” Detective Lassiter said.
“I damn sure don’t believe it,” Detective Torres offered.
“Don’t tell Dorothy that. We’re here to let her know that she’s not crazy, not to put even more doubts in her head.”
They all walked into the building together. Sarah held Josh’s hand tightly. He was still shaken after his exam and Sarah felt like he needed her strength, whatever little strength she had left.
Harry flashed his badge at the receptionist and asked to see Dorothy Madigan. Trina and Detective Torres flashed their shields as well. The obese woman behind the receptionist desk asked them all to sign in and then gave them visitor’s passes.
“Room 511. I’ll let the nurses know to expect you.”
The building looked and smelled just like a hospital except everything that would have been white in a regular hospital was either pale gray or sky blue. Sarah supposed the colors were meant to have a calming effect. She just found them depressing.
When Sarah and her entourage arrived on the second floor the sky blue theme grew increasingly dominant, replacing the gray almost entirely. Even the nurses’ uniforms were blue or green. An orderly the size of an NFL linebacker walked by carrying a mop and a bucket and even he was wearing light blue. He looked like a Smurf on steroids.
Sarah had imagined that all the patients would be locked in their rooms, maybe strapped into straitjackets but most of the doors were open and patients lingered here and there in the halls or wandered aimlessly. The few doors that were shut were not locked and Sarah jumped as a door flew open and one of the patients, an old man in his late sixties or early seventies, scurried past her mumbling to himself and scratching the flaking skin on his bald, crinkled scalp.
“Detectives?” Another overweight nurse, this one wearing light green hospital scrubs instead of the traditional nursing uniform, approached and began shaking hands even before she’d introduced herself. She was young and pretty, the kind of pretty that would have been gorgeous minus forty or fifty pounds. Sarah wondered how anyone in the health-care field could allow their own body to fall into such disrepair, but obesity seemed to be an occupational habit in this profession. She shook the woman’s hand and smiled, chiding herself for her cattiness.
“I’m Alice Douglass. I’m Dorothy’s nurse. She’s in the common area right now watching television with some of our other guests.”
“Guests” was apparently the PC term for patients.
The nurse shook Detective Torres’s hand and he practically drooled all over himself. His smile was wider and more genuine than any Sarah had ever seen on his face since making his acquaintance. He obviously liked big girls.
“Detective Mike Torres, ma’am.” He held on to her hand a moment longer than necessary and then winked at her when he released it. She smiled and blushed and when she turned around to lead them to Dorothy Madigan she put a little extra swish in her hips. Sarah looked over at Detective Lassiter and they both rolled their eyes.
Sarah, Josh, and the detectives all marched down the hall following the nurse who was still walking with a pronounced switch in her hips that sent ripples through her formidably sized buttocks. Detective Torres was smiling like he’d just hit the Megabucks jackpot.
They walked into the dayroom and the plump nurse escorted them to a woman with long dark hair sitting in the corner of the room watching a game of chess and a soap opera on the big-screen TV in the center of the room simultaneously. As they approached the woman, Sarah began to make out more of her features, or what was left of them. The pallid, mottled skin on her face and neck was wrinkled and shriveled like the skin of a raisin. Her lips had been completely burned off and despite the best attempts of a plastic surgeon to rebuild them, her mouth was still little more than a gash in her face. Her nose had nearly melted away, leaving two small holes in the center of her face where her nostrils had been, giving her an almost reptilian appearance. Both of her ears were all but gone, merely shriveled flaps of skin and cartilage above her ear canals, which were now just two holes in the side of her head. Her arms and hands had likewise shriveled under the same intense heat that had taken her facial features. Her hands were gnarled like crow’s feet and her left hand was missing all but two fingers. Sarah remembered the beautiful woman she had seen in the picture Harry kept in his pocket. That woman was completely gone now.
“Dorothy? These people are from the police department. They’re here to ask you a few questions. Is that okay?”
Dorothy looked them over. She paused first at Harry, giving him a wan smile and a nod. Then she stared at Sarah, looking her over from head to toe. Even with so much of her face destroyed, Sarah could see the distress in Dorothy’s expression. The woman turned back to look at Harry with eyes filling rapidly with tears.
“He’s at it again isn’t he? He’s doing it to her? Now do you believe me?”
Her voice was surprisingly calm and level. Not the disjointed, semiarticulate rant she had been expecting. Her voice was low and raspy as if she’d been smoking cigarettes and drinking whiskey for decades. It didn’t match the woman Sarah had seen in the photograph. It was a sultry, bluesy voice, incongruous with the tragically disfigured woman sitting in the dayroom of a mental hospital.
“I’m sorry, Dorothy. I wanted to believe you. You know that. I tried to keep the case open as long as I could.”
“I know, Harry. You were great even after this.”
She gestured toward the scars on her face and the countless more hidden beneath her clothing. Sarah knelt beside Dorothy’s chair and stuck out her hand.
“My name is Sarah Lincoln. Dale McCarthy lives across the street from me. He’s been breaking into my home every night since he moved in and raping and murdering me and my husband, Josh. We’re going to catch him and we’re going to kill him.”
Dorothy stared down at Sarah’s hand and reached out for it with her good hand.
She shook hands firmly, then looked up at the other two detectives.
“Who are they?”
“Detectives Trina Lassiter and Mike Torres.”
“Detectives? Why? How? How did you make them believe?”
“I have a video.”
