Not since the cleanup a year ago.
Mark stopped the car, collected the gun, and motioned her out. When they were both standing by the steel cable, Mark said, “In there’s where it all happened.”
“There’s nothing here, Mark.”
“Then you don’t need to worry, do you?” He knelt and rolled up the leg of his athletic pants, revealing a holster strapped inside his ankle. He slid the gun into it and smoothed his clothes.
Alexis followed him through the weed-choked entrance to the gate. Beyond it was a stand of scrub pines, and in a clearing was a blackened circle, a few piles of masonry rubble, and deep gouges in the red clay. A dented “No Trespassing” sign leaned to one side in the center of what had once been the Monkey House. She released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
“That’s what happened to the people we used to be,” Mark said. “That’s where we died and didn’t know it.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Butner was a small town about fifteen miles north of Durham. It had been known as Camp Butner during World War II, an army training facility that later became a home for injured veterans. The town of nearly six thousand people had maintained that institutional identity ever since, housing several prisons, a federal correctional facility, some state agency headquarters, and the largest mental hospital in North Carolina.
Forsyth had driven himself to Butner after leaving Burchfield in Winston-Salem. He could have used Abernethy and the limo, since Burchfield planned to spend the night at home, but Forsyth didn’t want anyone to know of his movements, especially the Secret Service.
He was just exiting I-85 when the cell phone rang and he had to fumble through several jacket pockets to find it. “Forsyth here.”
“Scagnelli.”
“Do you got anything?” Forsyth didn’t bother with correct grammar when he was away from the press.
“No. They headed out to the Research Triangle Park, and I figured they were working with somebody out there. Thought I’d get lucky and they’d lead me right to the secret lab.”
“You might as well expect a wild hog to grub up a truffle and drop it on your dinner plate,” Forsyth said. “You ought to know by now that ‘secret’ means everybody don’t know about it.”
“Well, the Secret Service has a Twitter account. That’s hardly a good way to keep secrets.”
Forsyth knew Twitter was some kind of Internet thing, and he was happy to stay away from it. As far as he could tell, all it did was get people in trouble when they said things they shouldn’t.
“You don’t have to worry about what the Secret Service does. You’d better be worrying about what Dominic Scagnelli does. Don’t forget who you work for.”
“You say that a lot.”
“Because you work for me. Where are the Morgans now?”
“They’re walking around an abandoned lot. I checked out the property on my laptop. It’s owned by CRO Pharmaceuticals but apparently it was shut down after a fatal industrial accident last year.”
“You don’t say.”
“Morgan worked for CRO. Real high up the ladder, a guy just doing his job. And he gave it all up to become a cop?”
“No, he gave it up for his wife. He just didn’t know it at the time.”
“Women. They sure know how to fuck up a good thing. The most selfish creatures on God’s green earth.”
Forsyth winced a little. He’d been married once. He’d lain his lovely Louisa to rest fifteen years back, and he’d never found her equal. He was content to finish up his time here and be reunited in heaven with his monogamy still intact.
Scagnelli sputtered on, the amphetamines fueling his tirade. “After the nuclear holocaust when all the dust settles, first will come the cockroaches, and then some cats will pussyfoot out of their holes. And then a few women will crawl out of the rubble. If ever you want to learn about self-preservation-”
“Did the Morgans see you?”
“Of course not.” Scagnelli sounded offended, which was exactly what Forsyth intended. “He looks a little jittery but otherwise they’re just hacking through the weeds like they’re looking for a way inside the fence.”
“Monitor them but don’t take no action.”
“What if they find something?”
“There ain’t nothing left to find.”
“Okay, I’ll just send you a text.”
“Why don’t you Twitter it?”
“Tweet.”
“Whatever. Or ram it up a carrier pigeon’s butt and have it sing ‘Dixie’ on the way over.”
Scagnelli laughed, taking Forsyth’s gruffness for folksy humor. Forsyth could tell Scagnelli was underestimating him. Just the way he liked it.
He clicked the cell phone dead and turned into the parking lot of Central Regional Hospital. It had once been named Umstead Hospital after one of the state’s endless series of mental-health reformers dating all the way back to Dorothea Dix, whose own namesake hospital was nearly dead.
Two and a half centuries of meddling in people’s heads and they still ain’t got things right.
The hospital was two stories at ground level, although it was set on a gentle slope that allowed for a lower floor at the back end of the building. The flat roof and glass facade suggested a 1990s-era design, back when architects didn’t realize how quickly their futuristic designs would look bulldozer-ready. The lot was relatively empty, since the hospital didn’t get a lot of visitors. Many of the patients were of the sort that no one wanted to acknowledge, much less spend time with.
The assistant director was waiting by the front desk, wearing a crisp pants suit. She was of late middle-age, her hair white and fluffy, although her face was relatively unlined. She greeted him with a smile and shining blue eyes that suggested unflagging optimism in the face of her grim duties as a shepherd of the lost and hopeless.
“Mr. Forsyth,” she said, shaking his hand like a man. “I’m a fan of your work. Except for that proposal to cut federal support for mental health services. I’m Paula Redfern.”
“A real pleasure, Dr. Redfern. And about that-”
“I know you’re a busy man, so let’s not waste your time. Besides, I don’t vote in your district.”
As she led him down the hall and into the labyrinth, Forsyth found himself admiring her spunk as she described the various missions of the hospital. He liked the graceful way she moved, too, but he was wise enough to keep it on an aesthetic level, like a man watching someone else’s thoroughbred gallop through a meadow.
“We focus on interdisciplinary approaches individualized to each patient’s desired therapeutic outcomes,” she said.
“I ain’t sure what that means,” he said, “but your funding just went up a million dollars.”
She laughed and kept on with the tour. Forsyth was pleased the hospital had honored his request to keep the tour private. Because every entity receiving public funding was now in intense competition with all the other entities, people grabbed any advantage they could. Everybody in the country was in favor of smaller government until it came time to take a pay cut themselves.
“We’re not just a treatment center, we have research and forensic wings as well,” Dr. Redfern said. “UNC and Duke conduct research work here.”
“I know a few researchers down this way,” Forsyth said. “As you know, I’m a close friend of Senator Burchfield’s and-”
“I vote against him every chance I get, but I am sure he’s an honorable man in private.”
They were entering the Acute Adult Unit, where psychiatric patients with little hope of release were confined. Dr. Redfern continued on with her chipper presentation in wholesale denial of the fact that the ward wasn’t much of an upgrade from the mental asylums of old. The main differences were better lighting and a diverse array of
