“Indeed,” the director said. “I can thank my predecessor for the fancy digs. He paid for them himself.”
“Really? A state-paid doctor?”
“Well, he was technically a salaried employee of the state, but he hardly depended on that for his bread and butter.”
“Independent means?”
The director laughed. “Dr. LePointe was never a devotee of Sparta.”
“Dr. William LePointe?” Alexa said. She looked at Manseur and saw that he hadn’t known either.
“When?” Manseur asked.
“From the late seventies until last year. Do you know him?”
“I didn’t know he was the director here,” Manseur said. “Or if I did, I’d forgotten.”
“Veronica was Dr. LePointe’s assistant before I took over.”
Alexa felt as though she’d been poleaxed. Her mind swarmed with implications of the knowledge, and she only waited a few seconds while they sank in before standing. “Excuse me for a second. I need to ask your assistant something.”
Veronica sat at her desk with her back to Alexa, a cell phone to her ear. When the sounds of Manseur and Whitfield’s conversation registered and she realized the door was open, Veronica pressed the END button, put down the phone without saying good-bye. She placed her hands on the keyboard of her computer terminal as though she hadn’t been on the telephone at all, but diligently searching for the whereabouts of the axe princess of the Garden District. Alexa suppressed the urge to lift the phone to look at the number Veronica had just called.
“When did Sibby Danielson leave, Veronica?” Alexa asked.
Veronica turned her chair around to face her. “I was just about to check that for you.”
“Cut the act. We both know she’s gone. Lying to an FBI agent in the course of an investigation is a felony punishable by three to five years in prison. You can ask Martha Stewart.”
“What Sibby did is familiar to anybody from New Orleans. I used to jump rope to ‘Chop-Shop Sibby took an axe to give old Curry ninety whacks; when Becky LePointe saw what she’d done, Sibby gave her a hundred and one.’”
“Very original. Where is Sibby?”
“I’ve never even seen her, because I’ve never been in the wards. The only patients I ever see are when they’re brought into these offices, and it’s never violent-ward patients.”
“You know she’s gone, though. Tell me how.”
Veronica nodded. “The TV reporter, Lucille Burch, called this morning. She said she had it on good authority Sibby was out. I told her I was sure she couldn’t be. I looked her up and her name was on the master patient list.” Veronica pointed at the screen, where Alexa saw Sibby Danielson’s name on a long list. “I told her Sibby Danielson was indeed here in maximum-security ward fourteen, but Burch said, ‘We’ll see about that.’ Later I asked someone who works in the violent wards, and he told me he hasn’t seen her in almost a year. He figured she’d been transferred, since she wasn’t ‘outside’ material. I checked, and there’s no transfer or release information on her in the computer. The person who told me could be wrong. It isn’t unusual for inmates to change wards and even move to other facilities, and often the records are late being updated because we’re so badly understaffed.”
“Why didn’t you mention the media inquiry, or this possible discrepancy, to Dr. Whitfield?”
“I intended to, but I got busy. I was afraid that was why you were here.”
“Who were you calling just then?”
Veronica’s eyes were suddenly filled with what looked very much like terror. “My mother.”
Alexa snatched Veronica’s phone off the desk. “Then you won’t mind if I check the readout.”
“I don’t think you can legally make me show you my personal information like that!”
“If you’re telling the truth and the last call was to Mama Malouf, why does it matter? Will you nod if I guess right?”
Veronica nodded once, slowly.
“Dr. LePointe?”
Veronica shook her head.
“Who, then?”
“You said I could just nod.”
“You got your last nod here, ” Alexa said, reaching behind her, freeing the handcuffs from the case on her belt. “You can play Little Miss Bobble-head all you like before a federal grand jury.”
“No,” Veronica said. “Just a minute.”
“Talk, or I’ll take you to FBI headquarters and let interrogators ask you in a way you won’t enjoy. These days a person can literally vanish into the federal system for a very long time while we investigate them for ties to terrorist organizations. I’m not nearly as nice as I appear to be.”
“Mr. Decell.”
“Kenneth Decell?”
Veronica nodded slowly.
“Why?”
“A few months ago he said I should let him know immediately if anybody ever asked questions about her. Sibby.”
“You told Decell that Lucille Burch called?”
“Yes. He said I’d be rewarded for reporting anything that popped up about Dr. LePointe or Sibby Danielson or Dorothy Fugate.”
“Who is Dorothy Fugate? An inmate?”
“Ms. Fugate was the ex-chief nurse here.”
“How long did you work for Dr. LePointe?”
“Almost six years.”
“Did you like him?”
“Like?” Veronica nodded. “He’s a good man.”
“Do you know where Danielson is?”
“According to the records, she’s still in ward fourteen. That’s all I know.”
“You know the records are incorrect. She’s gone. From ward fourteen straight to the front gate, right?”
“I’m only a secretary.”
“An executive assistant,” Alexa corrected. “This could spell very serious trouble.”
“I didn’t know,” Veronica said, quickly. “I assumed she was maybe moved based on her state, but…”
“Her state?”
“Everybody who has been around her says Sibby’s in the stratosphere. All she ever did was sit and rock back and forth in her chair.”
“So she’s that sick? Or she’s kept heavily medicated?”
“I’m not authorized to see her treatment records and I wouldn’t know what I was looking at if I did.”
“Are there paper records in addition to computerized records on the patients?”
Veronica nodded. “I suppose they’d be in the locked file cabinets.”
“Who would know where she is? Best guess,” Alexa said, her cuffs tapping a steady surgical steel rhythm against her thigh.
“I suppose Nurse Fugate.”
“Why would she know?”
“She was in charge of the nursing staff and the orderlies and janitors on all the wards. She left here around the same time Sibby did. She didn’t just spend a lot of time in that ward, she had her office there.”
“Left about the same time? So you do know when Sibby left. One more lie and you can kiss your sweet butt good-bye.”
“Around a year ago,” Veronica said hastily.
“How do I find this nurse?”
“I can give you her address. But if anybody finds out I told you, I’ll be fired.”
Hands shaking, Veronica Malouf flipped through the Rolodex on her desk and copied down an address and phone number.
“Keep helping me and I’ll do my best to keep it between us. In the meanwhile, if that reporter calls back, tell
