like Cindy/Nancy, or another waitress, said something to a husband, or a hundred somebody else’s.”
Alexa shrugged. It was true and possible. But it didn’t feel right to her.
“You think Casey West could be in any danger?” Manseur ventured. “Say, if Sibby Danielson is out and is after revenge or something, a crazy person obsessing on it for twenty-six years might act on it as soon as she can swing an exit from the nut hatch.”
“I think Casey’s well-enough protected from an axe-swinging middle-aged woman,” Alexa said. “Even if Casey were the original target and somebody’d planned to get LePointe to pay a ransom for her, they’d certainly know Gary was a valuable enough commodity to make their effort pay just as much.”
“Not a crazy woman’s thinking,” he said. “More likely revenge.”
“Someone acting with her might have changed the focus for her. If they took Gary by an unanticipated turn in events, they could be flexible enough to adapt from revenge to profit.”
“You have a point or three,” Manseur agreed.
“And something Casey said needs to be considered. It’s also possible that someone who thinks it would please Dr. LePointe is behind this.”
“Like who?”
“I don’t know. Why not Decell? He sure could have pulled it off.”
“He wouldn’t have targeted Casey. If that’s the case, Gary West is dead. If Decell’s behind it, he’ll have covered his tracks and wouldn’t have any reason to keep Gary alive. You can take that to the bank. And if that’s the case, it means we’re wasting our time.”
“Pollyanna Manseur,” Alexa said, laughing.
28
“This is where the hospital property starts,” Manseur said, pointing out through the windshield.
The corner of the perimeter fence started a quarter of a mile before the driveway into River Run. The buildings were set back from River Road on a field of green grass that looked like a fairway. The manicured grounds were dotted with stately oaks. A green tractor towed a mowing platform, doing a job that probably never had an ending place. The hospital’s main structure was a two-story brick monster with massive columns spaced its entire width to support the extended roof. The building might have passed for a monastery or a junior college, except for the steel wire grates covering some of the windows.
“Tara,” Alexa said.
“Place was built during Governor Huey P. Long’s administration,” Manseur explained. “In order to steal big, old Huey had to spend big. He built roads and bridges and hospitals and got millions back from the contractors. The Long administration designed the snatch-and-grab model for the political structure of the State of Louisiana that lives on today.”
“Stephen King would love this place,” Alexa said dryly.
“If Sibby isn’t here,” Manseur said, “she was let out. She might have been moved to another hospital, or released to a halfway-house situation or something. She sure didn’t escape, I can tell you that for fact. They even have their own graveyard out back.”
The sign on the grounds read RIVER RUN PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL. The fence was topped with razor wire and the concrete guard shack added what the sign failed to spell out — For the criminally insane.
Manseur pulled up to the gate and showed his badge to the guard seated in a kiosk, peering out at him through a sheet of extremely thick glass. Alexa imagined the designers of the kiosk had an image of the guardhouse being attacked by an armed gang of the insane who desired to break out one of their members, or gain entrance without going through the appropriate steps-like using meat cleavers to chop up people in their kitchens.
“I’m Detective Manseur, NOPD,” Manseur called out through his open window, holding out his badge case.
“What’s the nature of your business, Detective?” an electronic voice asked through a speaker. Clearly opening the kiosk’s bulletproof window was done only as a last resort.
“We’re here to see the director, on official business.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
“I do not.”
“I’ll announce you,” the guard said. He lifted the phone and made a call before hanging up and pressing the push-to-talk switch so Manseur and Alexa could hear him. “Administration is in the center of the main building. Follow the signs and park in the visitors’ area. You are required to leave any weapons secured in your vehicle.” The heavy steel gate behind the car closed loudly before the one in front of the car rolled slowly aside to allow them to enter the facility. “Have a nice day,” the guard said.
“So far it’s been a peach,” Alexa said in a low voice.
29
When it came to controlling its guests and visitors, Fort Leavenworth, the maximum-security federal prison located on the stark windswept plains of Kansas, had nothing on the River Run mental facility. After locking their weapons in the Crown Victoria’s trunk, Alexa and Manseur walked together up the wide stone stairs, stopping before a wide wood door with a thick glass panel that allowed them to see into a short hallway that ended at another security door. A buzzer sounded and the front door swung open to allow them to enter the hallway-the sides of which were floor-to-ceiling glass panels that, once they were inside, allowed them to be viewed like fish in an aquarium. They entered into the mantrap, whereupon the door behind them locked electronically with a loud snap. As the pair approached the second door, it unlocked and slid open to allow them into a vast lobby.
The hospital’s security was both comforting and mildly disturbing. Despite its pastoral setting and the antebellum architecture, it was obvious that River Run was not a country-club facility that pandered to the nervous conditions of the general populace.
Across the expanse of the lobby a man the size of a refrigerator, dressed in a white shirt and blue tie, waited for them with his meaty hands flat on a long, granite-topped counter in the manner of a store clerk awaiting customers. Alexa half expected to hear the screams of the insane echoing from the wards, but the space was silent, save the sounds made by Manseur and Alexa’s shoes on the polished stone floor and a radio playing a national public radio broadcast. As they approached, the receptionist smiled down at them and nodded.
“May I help you?” he said in a high-pitched voice that Alexa decided made Mike Tyson sound like Paul Robeson.
“NOPD Detective Manseur and FBI Special Agent Keen. We’re here to see the director.”
As the receptionist read their credentials, his lips actually moved. “The administrative director of the facility or the director of psychiatry?” he asked, smiling like a man eager to make a sale.
“The director who would control who is released from the facility,” Manseur told him.
“That would be Dr. Whitfield,” the receptionist said, lifting the telephone receiver. He said, “I have an NOPD Detective Manseur and an FBI Agent Keen here to see Dr. Whitfield.”
He replaced the receiver and told them, “Please have a seat. Ms. Malouf will be right out to show you to the director’s office.”
Alexa and Manseur sat in chairs that may have been original to the building. They had the appearance of furniture made of oak and leather in a time when quarter-sawn oak and cowhide were inexpensive and craftsmanship-perhaps from prison laborers-was in long supply. The mission-style side tables were barren of reading matter.
A young woman, no more substantial than a child of twelve, wearing a blazer over a cotton dress and running shoes that chirped when she walked, came out through a heavy wood door and tuned in a smile as she approached. Her dark hair was gathered into a tight bun and her heavy eyebrows looked as though they had once been united to form a protective hood over her prominent nose. The nose, when added to a weak chin, gave the woman’s profile a
