acne scars that pitted the flesh. His clothes were baggy and rumpled - brown corduroy jacket with button flaps and a half belt in back, tan double-knit trousers over scuffed desert boots, brown rayon shirt, and mustard-coloured tie.
'Hey, it's the psychiatrist,' said Whitehead.
I ignored him and looked at the other man.
'Hello, Milo.'
'H'lo, Alex,' said my friend, with obvious discomfort.
An awkward silence took root and sprouted, interrupted finally by a bark from behind the glass. Milo unclipped his LAPD ID card from his lapel and dropped it into the trough. Whitehead did the same with his sheriffs ID.
'How've you been?' I asked.
'Fine,' he said, looking at his shoes. 'Yourself?'
'Fine.'
He coughed and turned away, rubbing a big, soft hand over his face, as if washing without water.
The awkward silence blossomed. Whitehead seemed amused.
'Hey, Doc,' he said, 'how's your patient? Ready to spill his guts and save us a hassle?'
Milo winced and flashed me a knowing look that faded instantaneously.
'Don't tell me,' taunted Whitehead, 'he's totally zonked out, right? Pissing down his leg, eating his own shit, and un-a-ble-to-teU-right-from-wrong.'
I started to walk away. Whitehead moved his bulk between me and the door.
'Yesterday you had nothing to say, mister. Today you're an expert.'
'Cool it, Cal,' said Milo.
'Yeah, I forgot,' said Whitehead, not budging. 'He's your buddy, so when he pulls the dim cap shit, it's okay.'
The door to the sally port slid open.
'Come on, Cal,' said Milo, and I saw his hands clench.
Whitehead looked at me, shook his head, smiled, and stepped aside. He pivoted, stomped into the port, and Milo followed him.
The bars slammed shut. Whitehead moved immediately to the left and began kibitzing with the deputies in the booth. Milo stood by himself on the other side of the port. Before I left, I tried to catch his attention, but he'd fixed his gaze on the grimy floor and never raised his eyes.
SOUZA'S STEAK bled as he cut into it, forming a pinkish puddle around the meat that spread and coated the white bone china plate. He inserted a chunk of sirloin in his mouth, chewed slowly, swallowed, wiped his lips, and nodded.
'He was that way when I saw him early this morning,' he said. 'Stuporous.'
We were alone in the dining room of his law building. The room was hushed and dim, an Anglophile's fantasy. An oval Victorian table of mahogany polished to a mirror glow stretched nearly the length of the room, ringed by matching chairs upholstered in floral brocade. An oversized stone mantel liberated from some draughty Hampshire manor dominated one wall. Above it a collection of hunting prints surrounded a framed heraldic crest Silk Persian rugs spread over dark parquet floors. The walls were carved, waxed, knotty pine panels hung with antique Punch caricatures and more hunt scenes. Fluted pedestals in each corner supported marble busts of men of letters. Heavy drapes of the same brocade that
covered the chairs had been drawn over tall, arched windows, and the sole source of light was a Waterford chandelier suspended above the table's centre.
'One of the deputies told me he was agitated when he first came into the jail but has been withdrawing steadily,' I said.
'That's an accurate assessment. The entire history has been one of deterioration. At the time of his commitment to Canyon Oaks he displayed long stretches of lucidity - days at a time. Anyone talking to him during those periods would have wondered what he was doing there. He was a brilliant boy before the . . . troubles, and his facility with the language was damn near awe-inspiring. He'd use his intellect to try to convince others that he'd been wrongfully committed. He was so good that even I found myself questioning the wisdom of the decision once or twice. But eventually, if you spent enough time with him, the psychosis emerged.'
'In what way?'
'A misplaced word here, a jumbled thought there. The pairing of topics that bore no logical relation to one another. He'd begin a sentence and trail off into silence or add details that didn't fit. Attempts to question him about it made him acutely upset, often to the point of hysteria -jumping to his feet; making outrageous accusations; screaming. Eventually the lucid periods diminished, and he became more confused, less predictable. It became impossible to hold a normal conversation with him. Profoundly paranoid is the phrase Dr. Mainwaring used. Now' - he shook his head and sighed - 'apparently it's got even worse.'
'By less predictable, do you mean violent?'
'Not really, though I suppose unrestrained, he might have been able to do some damage. He'd flail out, jump up and down, clutch his face, tear at his hair. He may have been mildly assaultive on one or two occasions, but before the escape he had never hurt anyone. No one ever considered him homicidal, if that's what you mean.'
'This morning he was drooling and trembling and
making sucking motions with his mouth. Have you seen that before?'
'I noticed it for the first time yesterday. Of course, I haven't been in close enough contact with him to be certain he hasn't been that way before. What do these symptoms mean?'
'I'm not sure yet. I'll need a detailed record of any treatment he's received - medication, electroconvulsive therapy, psychotherapy, everything.'
His eyebrows rose.
'Are you implying some kind of toxic reaction?'
'At this point I don't know enough to imply anything.'
'Very well,' he said with some disappointment. 'I'll set up a meeting with Mainwaring, and he can fill you in. Be sure to let me know if you feel there's brain damage of any sort. It could prove useful.'
'I'll keep you posted.'
He looked at the untouched meal on my plate.
'Not hungry?'
'Not right now.'
After lifting a glass of ice water to his mouth, he sipped and put it down before speaking.
'The severity of his condition has got me thinking, Doctor. I'd originally considered petitioning for a delay based upon incompetence to stand trial but decided against it. At that time I felt the chance of success was nil. He was disturbed but still verbal with occasional flashes of brilliance; a psychiatrist talking to him at the wrong time might have mistakenly assumed malingering. In a highly publicised case judges tend to play it conservative; few of them have the gumption to cope with the hue and cry certain to result from a delay. Now, however, I don't know. If he maintains this level of deterioration or gets worse, even the prosecution psychiatrists may agree he's incompetent. What do you think?'
'Have you yourself suspected him of malingering?'
He'd begun cutting another piece of meat, and the question stilled his knife and fork and caused him to look up.
'No, not really. I know he's quite ill.'
'But not so ill that he couldn't pull off eight murders that required careful planning.'
He put the utensils down.
'You come right to the point, don't you, Doctor? No matter, I like that. Yes, you're right. We're not dealing with one cathartic explosion of bloodlust; the slashings were carried out with a perverse kind of care and attention to detail. That suggests detachment and the ability to think analytically, which poses a problem for the whole notion of an insanity defence. But I believe I have a way of dealing with that problem, which I'll come to later. In any event, what's your opinion regarding a petition for delay?'
'What would a delay mean in practical terms?'
'Involuntary commitment until such time as he's judged competent, which in this case may be if, not when.
