the envelope and slid the letter and its envelope into the larger one before she folded it closed. “I’d like to take the letter, if you don’t mind,” Alexa said.
“What is the point of taking the letter?” LePointe asked.
“I’m going to have it analyzed for Gary West’s fingerprints to see if he ever had it in his hands. If he didn’t, I want to know who did. Casey, I’ll need to have something Gary has handled.”
“His prints should be on file,” Casey said. “He was arrested for protesting in New York when he was at NYU.”
LePointe raised an eyebrow, as if Gary West had been arrested for a serious felony.
“Giving me something he’s handled recently might actually be faster than going through AFIS.”
“AFIS?”
“Automated Fingerprint Identification System. I imagine the crime-scene lab needs them anyway in processing the prints found in and on the Volvo.”
“No problem,” Casey said. “Gary has silver accent pieces on his desk-a letter opener, cigarette holder, and lighter. He plays with the cigarette holder when he’s at his desk.”
“What about my fingerprints?” LePointe said. “I handled that letter.”
“Have you ever been arrested?” Alexa asked.
“Of course not! I’ve never even been fingerprinted,” LePointe snapped.
“I would have thought maybe the Secret Service or the Bureau might have printed you for security clearances,” Alexa said.
“They didn’t print me. I suppose I am well-enough known to make that unnecessary,” he said, having missed the point of her barbed comment.
“Another one of your envelopes, please, Dr. LePointe?” While he got another envelope, Alexa opened her purse and took out a spare magazine for her Glock. Using a handkerchief, she carefully wiped the magazine clean and set it on the desk.
“Rub your fingers on your nose. The oil transferred to the pads of your fingers will help make your prints stand out. Just grip that magazine by placing your thumb on one side of it and your fingers firmly on the other, then lift and release it,” Alexa told the doctor.
“You’re not serious.” LePointe acted as though Alexa had asked him to provide her with a stool specimen.
“Uncle William,” Casey said. “It’s important.”
“This is absurd,” LePointe sputtered.
“I’m sure you want to know, as badly as I do, who wrote this if Gary West didn’t,” Alexa told him.
He wiped his nose, reached out, and squeezed the loaded magazine, then took his hand away.
Alexa gripped the magazine by its base, looked at the sharp prints on the polished steel, then dropped the heavy magazine into the fresh envelope.
“I touched the letter and the Volvo,” Casey said. “Do you have another magazine?”
Alexa used her second spare magazine to obtain Casey’s prints just as she had LePointe’s. She placed the second magazine in a separate envelope and wrote Casey’s name on it.
“Now the lab will have exemplars for comparisons,” Alexa said.
LePointe sat silently, his eyes unfocused. Something was bothering him.
“If you’re worried, Dr. LePointe, the lab will be instructed to destroy your print records after they’ve used them for this.”
“It’s just that someone else also handled the letter,” LePointe said. “My investigator. Kenneth Decell. Naturally he read it.”
“I’m sure his prints will be on file with NOPD,” Alexa said.
“So, you’re going to keep looking for Gary?” Casey asked.
“My initial feeling is that this letter is a fraud, perhaps intended to discourage the police from looking for him. I’m not sure what the motive is, but I’m certain, based on the physical evidence alone, that he was the victim of foul play. Even if he did write and mail that letter, somebody attacked him brutally with a pipe afterward. The good news is that this is obviously an amateur production, and I’m certain we’ll be able to figure out who’s behind it. You don’t have any objections to the NOPD and me continuing to look for Gary, do you, Dr. LePointe?”
“Of course not. Why should I?”
“I’ll notify Detective Manseur,” Alexa said. “He’s in Algiers Pointe investigating the death of a retired psychiatric nurse. A woman named Dorothy Fugate.”
LePointe locked his eyes with Alexa’s. What he was thinking was impossible to guess, because his face, although draining of color, was devoid of expression.
“Dotty?” Casey asked, locking her eyes on LePointe. “Jesus! I’m sorry, Unko.”
“Sorry? Why?” he asked, swallowing. It must have been difficult, since he had to have a dry mouth.
“You two were such close friends,” Casey said. “You’ve known her for thirty years, that’s why. You worked together at River Run.”
“Nurse Fugate was employed at the hospital and I was the director of psychiatry. We were hardly friends. She was an acquaintance, although I suppose we developed a superficial relationship over the years. She was a talented and dedicated professional. Naturally I’m very sorry to hear that she’s dead. I haven’t spoken to her since she retired last year. We didn’t see each other socially.”
“Even so, you must be curious to learn how she died,” Alexa remarked.
“I assume it was a heart attack, stroke, or something,” LePointe said. “She was not a young lady.”
“She was murdered,” Alexa said.
LePointe shrugged. “That’s terrible. Did she live in a bad neighborhood?”
“I’m sorry?” Alexa asked.
“Well, she was a nurse. Perhaps drug addicts knew that. She resisted them and they killed her.”
“It appears a mental patient who was living with her most likely committed the crime. So, you’ve never been to her home?”
“Why on earth would I go to her home?”
Alexa would have loved to show him the Polaroid of him standing naked in Fugate’s bedroom preening before her mirror.
“What patient?” It was Casey who asked, and not her uncle.
“I don’t think we need to dwell on such unpleasantness at this particular juncture,” LePointe said stiffly.
“If you haven’t spoken to her, I guess you didn’t know that she was such a dedicated professional that she kept a mental patient locked away in her home?” Alexa asked him. “A mental patient who was supposed to be in ward fourteen at River Run.”
“Nurse Fugate was a career psychiatric nurse and a compassionate human being,” LePointe said. “And she’s retired and capable of helping a patient.”
“A patient who vanished from ward fourteen about the time Nurse Fugate retired.”
“What are you talking about?” Casey asked, bewildered.
“The patient was Sibhon Danielson,” Alexa said. “And Fugate kept her in a padlocked bedroom with bars on the windows and a bolt on the outside of the door.”
There was an audible gasp from Casey, and despite the fact that he’d been doing a good job holding his feelings back till that point, LePointe’s eyes flashed surprise for the briefest instant.
“Her?” Casey whispered, her eyes fevered. Openmouthed, she sat down in an armchair. “Dear God…”
“Oddly, it appears there’s no record at River Run that she isn’t still locked up.”
“You’re sure?” Casey asked. “Oh my God! Lucille Burch was right.”
“Beyond any shadow of a doubt, Burch doesn’t know it for certain, but someone must have told her about it. You didn’t know that Sibby was living with Nurse Fugate, Dr. LePointe?”
“Of course not!” LePointe snapped. “How would I know that?”
“No reason, besides the fact that you’ve been writing Nurse Fugate prescriptions for anti-psychotic medications used for treating schizophrenia. Along with some heavy sedatives. You didn’t prescribe them for Nurse Fugate’s personal medical conditions, did you?”
“I assume, if what you say is accurate, the prescriptions were forged,” LePointe said. “I never prescribed anything for Dotty. I’d like to see them.”
