“That’s not too surprising though, is it?” Patrick said. “Look at the people who hung around with Charles Manson, or walked away from Jonestown, or any one of a dozen different cults from the time. Those kinds of experiences can leave some pretty serious mental and emotional scars.”
“Maybe,” she answered, unconvinced. “Maybe not. But I got to wondering whether they talked any more about what they went through at Eschaton in later years. Tomlinson, in particular. Spending that much time in mental hospitals, there are bound to be patient records about therapy sessions, things that she might have said to the doctors there, I don’t know . . . diaries, even?”
“Could you request those records?” Patrick asked.
“Not Tomlinson’s.” Izzie shook her head, frowning. “I checked the hospitals where she was treated, and their policy is to destroy medical records ten years after a patient’s last discharge date.”
“But Fulton?”
Izzie glanced at the other end of the table for a brief moment before answering, as if anticipating a fight.
“After one of his arrests for public intoxication, the Recondito District Attorney’s office wanted to question him in connection with another ongoing investigation—they were trying to connect his dealer to a larger supply ring, and thought he could supply the missing pieces of the puzzle—but they needed to know if his state of mind was solid enough that they could rely on his testimony. And so the D.A. asked the court to order a psychological evaluation.”
“And?” Patrick asked. “Did he talk about the Eschaton Center?”
“I’m not sure,” Izzie answered. “But whatever it was Fulton told the psychologist handling his evaluation was enough for them to recommend that any of his previous or future testimony be should be completely disregarded, that he could not be relied upon to act as a material witness in any capacity, and that he should be ordered to seek treatment immediately.”
Again, she glanced toward the other end of the table, tensing slightly. Daphne was still glowering, arms crossed over her chest, listening to Izzie talk while periodically casting sharp glances at Joyce across the table from her. By this point Joyce seemed to be ignoring the conversation entirely, eyebrows knitted in annoyance as she typed a brief, furious burst with her thumbs on her smartphone’s screen, paused for a moment, then typed again. Patrick couldn’t tell whether Joyce was texting with someone else, or pretending to do so in order to avoid the conversation, or something else entirely, but she seemed completely engrossed in it, whatever she was up to.
“It’s a long shot,” Izzie went on, “but the text of the interview that psychologist conducted with Fulton might still be on file in the archive at the Recondito Hall of Justice. Now, if I were to go through the system and file a record request with the city, it might raise some red flags, and I’d be hard pressed to explain to Agent Gutierrez or my superiors why the FBI has any business digging around in forty-year-old municipal court records. . . .”
“But,” Daphne interrupted, slapping the surface of the table again to accent her point, “if the city’s medical examiner were to request those files because . . . I don’t know, there was an element in a new case that was similar, or some kind of pathology, something like that . . . then the city probably wouldn’t even blink an eye.” She wheeled around to address Joyce directly. “Look, I get that you don’t want to falsify records requests, but what if you just . . .”
Joyce slammed her phone down on the table, screen up, the impact echoing as loud as a gunshot in the kitchen’s breakfast nook.
“It’s a waste of time.” Joyce sat back with a look of triumph on her face. “Why go chasing dusty old files that might have been destroyed forty years ago when you can go right to the source?”
She glanced around the table and took in the confused expressions on the others’ faces.
“He’s alive.” She pointed at the screen of her phone.
“Who?” Patrick asked.
“George Washington Jett,” Joyce said, enunciating each syllable with exaggerated care. “He’s still alive.”
Patrick shot a glance over at Izzie and saw that she was as surprised as he was.
“He’s a resident at the . . .” Joyce trailed off as she reached for her phone and double-checked her details. “At the Northside Community Living Center, located here in town on Northside Boulevard, appropriately enough. It’s a hospital and assisted living facility for military vets, operated by the Department of Veteran Affairs for . . .”
She paused, glancing up and to one side as a glimmer of recognition lit her face.
“Is that the same the same VA hospital that Hasan . . . ?” she muttered in a low voice. Looking back to her phone, she tapped a link on the screen and then scanned the screen closely as she scrolled down a list of names. Then she sat up, a smile creeping across her face, and laughed in triumph. “Ha! And it just so happens that an old friend of mine from med school is on the staff there.”
Joyce reached out and picked up one of the donuts, and took a big bite as she glanced around the table, looking
