shape that suggested an arrowhead.
“I’m Veronica Malouf, Dr. Whitfield’s executive assistant. Sorry to have kept you waiting, but we didn’t have you on the director’s schedule.”
“I’m sorry for any inconvenience. We had no idea we were coming until a little while ago and we were close by.” Manseur’s Southern voice added a honey-flavored edge to his apology.
“May I inquire as to the purpose of your visit?” Ms. Malouf asked.
“It’s an official matter best kept between us and the director for the moment,” Manseur replied.
“Might I ask if it pertains to a resident inmate?” she persisted. “The director is an extremely busy man.”
Manseur nodded. “Yes, it does. If you don’t mind, we’re very short on time.”
Ms. Malouf’s smile froze in place. “Please follow me.”
30
In the administration section of the hospital, burgundy linoleum tiles covered the floor, and the walls were an institutional green. Framed black-and-white photographs of plantation manses viewed through parted curtains of Spanish moss adorned the walls. In the offices they passed, Alexa noted, the modern telephones and computers seemed totally out of place in spaces that could have been sets in a movie about the Great Depression.
Dr. Whitfield’s office, in marked contrast, was modern and opulently furnished. Floor-to-ceiling windows, visible through open curtains, were spaced along the far wall. Three matching carpets defined the distinct areas in the huge space. The director’s desk was comprised of a slab of granite two inches thick resting on stainless steel legs.
In the center of the room four black-leather chairs faced each other across a square coffee table. The conference area at the far end of the room held a larger granite and steel table surrounded by eight ebony leather chairs on stainless castors. Built-in cabinets and bookshelves ran along the wall opposite the windows.
Dr. Whitfield, a lanky man in his fifties with salt-and-pepper hair combed carefully back, entered the room through a door behind his desk that appeared to lead to a private bathroom. He smiled as he shook his guests’ hands. “Thad Whitfield,” he said. “Detective Manseur and Agent Keen, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Please, do sit down.” He motioned to the lounge chairs. Alexa and Manseur declined refreshment.
After Alexa sat, Manseur followed suit. Whitfield sat with his back to the window, crossed his legs, and put his hands together in his lap.
“So, what brings you to my office on this fine day?” the director asked.
“We’re checking into what may just be a rumor,” Alexa told him.
“What rumor is that?” Whitfield asked, still smiling.
“That a patient named Sibhon Danielson was released from this hospital recently. We were curious to find out if that information is correct and, if so, where we might find her now,” Manseur said.
“She was committed twenty-six years ago-a double homicide,” Alexa added.
Whitfield said, “I’m not familiar with that particular patient. I’ve only been here for a few months and we currently have two hundred and sixty-three patients in residence. The majority of our patients, or inmates, in most cases are either violent sexual predators or dangerously unstable offenders deemed not to have been legally responsible for their actions at the time they were committed. We have fourteen wards here, each designated for inmates categorized by threat levels. Number one houses the healthiest, or most improved of our wards, up to number fourteen, which houses the most volatile and violent of our inmates.”
“I don’t know where she’d be on the number system now, but in 1979 she would have been a full-blown fourteen,” Manseur said.
“If she responded to treatment to the point where she could function, she may have been reassigned or released.”
“If she could refrain from acting on the impulse to chop people up,” Manseur offered.
Whitfield flinched. “Detective, the insane are truly no more able to control their behavior-to conform to accepted norms-than a goose can control where it drops its offal.”
“Usually on the golf course greens,” Manseur said. “On in regulation, then they turn a perfect lie into a putt- putt course.”
“All too often,” Whitfield agreed, chuckling. “So you’re a fellow devotee of the old anger sticks. I have a six handicap at present. Yours?”
“I’m afraid I’m up there in the double digits,” Manseur said, smiling. “Maybe if I played more and worked less.”
Alexa was certain, based strictly on his lack of reaction to hearing her name, that Dr. Whitfield had no idea who Sibby Danielson was.
“What exactly is the process for releasing a patient?” she asked, bored by the golf talk and the time it was wasting.
“Release of a patient inmate requires a unanimous vote of the psychiatric review board, and sometimes a prerelease hearing has been stipulated by the courts. Releasing a patient who was formerly violent is not something done lightly. But patients have well-defined rights and ours is not a punishment facility, but a maximum-security treatment hospital whose goal is curing the inmates so they can rejoin society as productive members.”
“You can cure chronic violent sexual predators?” Manseur asked, stiffening.
Alexa knew Whitfield was thinking how he-a man who probably had released untold numbers of rapists he had believed were cured-should respond to a Homicide cop who had probably seen the results of recidivism enough times to doubt such people could ever change or be changed. Most cops believed that any rapist who was released had only managed to con the doctors into believing they could work miracles.
“A board made up of whom?” Alexa asked.
“The staff doctors and clinical psychologists who have treated and evaluated the patient, a nurse, and myself, the director. The committee has at least six individuals, who have to agree before an inmate can safely be released. The liability is too great to leave it to the flip of a coin,” Dr. Whitfield said, laughing at his joke.
“Can we find out if she was released?”
“Our patients enjoy patient-doctor confidentiality, much like those of private medical patients, but whether or not an inmate is in the facility is nonprivileged information.”
To Alexa, the idea that a multiple murderess who had been committed to a maximum-security asylum in lieu of the electric chair or life in prison had the same rights to confidentiality that a citizen undergoing private psychotherapy enjoyed seemed idiotic. She nodded anyway and added a smile of reassurance.
“We just need to locate her,” Alexa said, looking at her watch, not because she didn’t know the time, but to telegraph a sense of urgency. Sibby probably wasn’t going to be a key to locating Gary West. While a freed Sibby Danielson might have attacked him-Alexa knew that a woman in her late forties alone could probably accomplish the assault-she wouldn’t be able to muscle a semiconscious or unconscious man from one vehicle into another. And what would her motive be for such an action? Sibby couldn’t possibly know Gary West. Also, since she had been incarcerated for over a quarter of a century, how likely was it she could enlist someone to help her? Unlikely or not, Alexa knew that if the murderess was out, somebody would have to find out everything they could about Sibby Danielson and eliminate her as a suspect, because anything and everything was possible.
Dr. Whitfield pressed a button on an intercom on the table beside him. “Veronica, could you please come in when you have a moment?”
Veronica came in immediately, holding a pad and pen. “Yes, Dr. Whitfield?”
“Would you please check on the status of a patient for me?”
“Of course,” she said, raising the pad.
“It’s Ms…?” Eyebrows raised, the doctor looked at Alexa, waiting for her to give him the name again.
“Danielson, Sibhon Danielson,” Alexa said, watching Veronica closely when she said it.
Veronica’s expression told Alexa that the assistant was very familiar with Sibby Danielson, but she took the time to write the name carefully on the pad, as though she might forget it. “I’ll check the patient’s status for you, Dr. Whitfield. It should only take me a few minutes.”
“This is a nice office,” Alexa said, making conversation. “For a state facility.”
