“Mr. von Rensel, by the time they come here, most of our patients have achieved the ultimate privacy. That’s what we mean by the term mentally absent. They may be alive and well as persons somewhere in their own minds, but we outsiders can no longer see them or’communicate with them.
The monitors are watching their bodies, for their own safety, care, and comfort. In fact, that’s how we come to have the Detective Mcnair wishes you to see. This way, ase.”
She led them to the back comer of the monitoring area and turned on a regular television set. A picture came up, one of the local stations, but the sound had been muted. She inserted a tape cassette into a VCR and switched to the video playback channel. The tape leader created a fuzzy black and-white pattern on the screen.
“What are we going to see here?” Karen asked.
Sister Bernadette hit the Pause button. “When our patients have visitors, we monitor. It’s for our protection and the patient’s.
Visitors are fully informed, and they can even see the tapes if they wish to. But a visitor cannot gain access to the room until the charge nurse has confirmed the monitor is positioned.”
“What we’re going to see here,” Mcnair interjected, “is a that of Admiral Sherman making a visit-to his wife.”
“His wife?” Karen said. “But I thought-I mean, he said-“
“She’s been here for ten years,” Mcnair said.
“Admiral Sherman didn’t tell us the whole story about what happened to his wife. She did shoot herself. She just didn’t succeed in committing suicide. She’s in what the docs call’a sustained vegetative state.’ Body is alive. Brain is not.”
“We don’t know that last bit, of course,” Sister Bemadette observed.
“Her mind might be alive. She might even come back.”
“Has. that ever happened?” Karen asked. She was still trying to absorb the fact that the admiral’s wife was still alive. Ten years. My God.
“Yes it has, but very seldom. It is dramatic, though, when it does happen.”
“I’ll bet,” Train said. “And this is a tape of a visit?”
“Yes. He’s been coming here for nearly ten years. When, he is assigned in Washington, he comes almost every weekend. This particular tape is almost a year.old, but it is representative of what happens. I must reiterate that what you are going to see is intensely personal.
Detective Mcnair has explained that this is a murder case. You two must assure me that you will never reveal to Admiral Sherman that you have seen this. On your honor, yes?”
Karen and Train nodded agreement.
“Say it please,” she demanded.
They said it aloud. Train wondered if they were being taped. “Very well, then.” She pressed the button.
There were a few more seconds of leader noise, and then a black-and-white image materialized on the screen, showing a hospital room. There was a single hospital bed in the room, a chair, a dresser, and a door that presumably led to a bathroom.
There was a sound and the door to the room opened. A nurse led in Admiral Sherman, who was dressed in civilian slacks and a sweater. He thanked the nurse, who looked up at the monitor briefly and then withdrew from the room.
Sherman approached the bed, where a woman lay motionless under the covers. Looking at the screen, Karen couldn’t tell how old she was. She had a middle-aged face that had once been pretty, but her hair was now snow white. Her eyes were open but clearly vacant. Sherman sat down on the edge of the bed and lovingly reached out with his right hand to brush a few strands of her hair away from her forehead.
“Ten years,” Train murmured.
“There are some who have been here longer,” Sister Bernadette said.
“Some come as children. They can break your heart. “
Sherman sat there in silence for a few minutes, smoothing his wife’s hair and staring into space. Then he leaned forward onto the bed, near his wife’s head, and gently rolled her to face him, cupping her head with both hands. Karen was startled to realize he was saying something.
She had to strain to hear it.
“I’m sorry, Beth,” he was saying so y. in so very sorry.” He said it over and over, holding her tightly. Karen watched for a few seconds, then turned away, tears in her eyes. Sister Bernadette switched off the set.
“That’s what he does,” she said as the tape rewound.
“The same thing each time. He stays for about forty minutes and then leaves. Usually comes Saturday afternoons, and again Sunday mornings.”
“Every weekend?” Train asked. Karen noted that he seemed to have a catch in his voice. Mcnair, who apparently had known what was coming, waited patiently.
“Often enough. Of course, some years he’s been away at sea. Sometimes he comes unexpectedly. He told me once that this place has become his refuge, too, when his official life becomes too - complicated. But we have a visitor log at the front desk and we keep records for seven years. Given the nature of our patients, there are often legal actions that requite our records.”
“I see,” Train said. “This must cost a fortune, Sister.
Even an admiral doesn’t make that kind of money. And he’s only recently an admiral.”
“We know,” she replied. “As I said, people pay what they can. And in his case, he just sent in a check for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That happens. People inherit something, or someone dies and leaves insurance.”
Karen and Train looked at each other. Elizabeth Walsh’s life-insurance proceeds had found a home.
“Sister, we thank you for your time and for letting us see this,” Mcnair said. “And we will keep what we’ve seen and heard here private.” ‘“Very well, Detective,” she rtplied, ejecting the videocassette.
“Is Admiral Sherman here now, Sister? Karen asked.
“I don’t know. You can ask at the front desk, Commander. I’ll take you back downstairs now, if you don’t mind.”
They checked at the front desk and found out that Admiral Sherman had indeed been there but had already left.
They signed out, went out to the front entrance, and stood on the steps.
The pyomise of rain had been fulfilled as a light drizzle blew in from the northwest. The parking lot was illuminated by -several tall light standards, whose tops were now veiled in a misty orange glow.
“Well,” Kare said.
“Yeah, well,” Mcnair replied. “Not that he’s been a very good suspect up to now. But I can’t feature a gvy for murder who makes this little pilgrimage for ten years, no matter what it looked like originally.”
Karen had a sudden thought. “Do you suppose Elizabeth Walsh knew about this? And that’s why she’left him the insurance-policy money? She had no other relatives.”
Train nodded thoughtfully. “Possibly. But I think the more important question now is whether or not we want to go talk to Sherman,” Train said. “Tell him what his son admitted to. That he’s been part of Galantz’s -little program.”
“Not here,” Karen said immediately. “I don’t think he should know that we know about this. Besides, we promised.”
Mcnair nodded. “Once I found out where he’d gone, what he was doing here, I left a message on his voice mail at home to contact me,” Mcnair said. “But that was before I knew that the oni was involved.”
“We need to find out how Galantz set this up,” Karen said. “I’m beginning to think he planned to use. the son in some fashion for a long time. Probably from when he ran across the kid in Marine recon school.
God knows, Jack has as good a motive to destroy his father as Galantz does. Or at least he thinks he does.”
“Why don’t we do this?” Train said to Mcnair. “Let us sit down with Admiral Sherman and walk through the son’s status. We’ll tell him that you got antsy when you couldn’t contact him, tracked him up here, and discovered that his wife was still alive. You told us. We don’t need to get into what he does up here. He visits, that’s all. But we can tell him what his son said, since we’re the ones who heard it.
Maybe we’ll tell him you’re not in that loop yet, and see what he comes up with.”
