She turned and indicated Izzie with a nod of her head.
“Hasan, this is Special Agent Isabel Lefevre of the FBI,” Joyce said. “Izzie, this is my old friend Hasan Khatib. He’s kind of a jerk, but I like him anyway.”
“Nice to meet you,” he said, shaking Izzie’s hand. Then he turned back to Joyce. “So, what’s this about? There’s a patient here you need to see?”
Joyce nodded. “George Washington Jett. Records indicate he’s a full-time resident?”
“Oh, sure. Mr. Jett doesn’t get many visitors, I don’t think.” Hasan looked from Joyce to Izzie, eyes narrowed slightly in suspicion. “And the FBI is interested in talking to him . . . because?”
“We’re doing some background on an ongoing investigation,” Izzie said, speaking up quickly. “Mr. Jett was involved in a case back in the seventies that we believe might have some bearing on what we’re dealing with now. We were hoping to ask him a few questions, see if he can’t help shed some light on things.”
Hasan put his hands on his hips, head tilted slightly to one side.
“Well, you’re welcome to try,” he said, his tone skeptical. “But like I said, Mr. Jett doesn’t really get many visitors, and he’s not the most, shall we say, social of our residents here.”
“Is he capable of answering questions, though?” Joyce asked. “Given his age and residency status, I can’t help wondering if there’s any dementia at play, or anything of that sort.”
“Oh, he’s perfectly cogent and lucid. He’s just kind of a misanthrope and avoids social interaction if at all possible.” He gave Joyce a look and grinned. “So maybe you two would get along, after all.”
Joyce rolled her eyes in mock exasperation. “I swear, Hasan, if you’re about to bring up that one time at the shore I swear to god I’m going to . . .”
“Okay, okay!” Hasan held up his hands palms forward in a gesture of surrender. “You’re not a misanthrope. Oh, hey, do you remember that tall guy from biochem? The one with all the tattoos? I ran into him at the market last week and . . .”
Izzie was managing to keep from tapping her toes in impatience, but just barely.
“Can we see him now?” she said, interrupting, trying to keep her tone civil.
Hasan turned to her, a distracted look on his face, eyes blinking behind the lenses of his glasses.
“Mr. Jett?” Izzie clarified.
“Oh, sure,” Hasan answered. “Let me see where he’s at. Most of the residents are in the community room this time of day, but Mr. Jett tends to keep to himself.”
He walked over to the front desk, leaving Izzie and Joyce waiting by the elevators.
“He’s awfully chatty,” Izzie said out of the corner of her mouth.
“Yeah, but I get along with him okay,” Joyce answered. “Of course, I do spend most of my waking hours hanging out with dead people, so I may have low standards.”
A short while later Hasan escorted the two of them through the labyrinthine corridors and hallways of the building’s ground floor until they reached an outdoor courtyard at the center of the complex. Izzie was sure that in the spring and summer months the space must get a lot of use from the residents and staff, with benches arranged around a fountain and a few well-tended trees to provide shade. But this deep into autumn, with winter just around the corner, the trees were barren of leaves, the grass underfoot was brittle and brown, and the fountain was dry, with the water turned off for the season. The benches themselves were untenanted, as the only person outside at the moment was the old man sitting in a wheelchair near the fountain, looking up at the sky.
“Mr. Jett?” Hasan said gently, approaching the man’s wheelchair from behind. “There are some people here to see you.”
The old man just grunted in reply.
Izzie got a better look as she and Joyce stepped around in front of him. His face was deeply lined, his skin like weathered mahogany, and there was a bare fringe of tight white curls that ringed his head from one ear around the back to the other. He had a blanket over stick-thin legs, his narrow chest and bony arms buried in a down coat, and bare hands with knobby knuckles rested like withered claws in his lap. There was an oxygen tank strapped to the back of the wheelchair, connected to plastic tubing that snaked up and over his ears like the arms of a pair of eyeglasses, ending with two prongs that were snugged in his broad nostrils. His mouth seemed to be settled into a perpetual frown, but his dark eyes were bright and lively.
“Well?” the old man growled, sizing them up. “What do you want?”
“I’m Special Agent Lefevre, FBI,” Izzie said, and then gestured to Joyce. “This is Dr. Joyce Nguyen, Recondito’s Chief Medical Examiner. We wanted to ask you a few questions about one of your old cases, from your days working as a private investigator.”
The old man’s eyelid twitched for a moment, and his frown deepened.
“I retired a long, long time ago, girl,” he said, his voice gravelly. “And I got little enough time left to me that I don’t want to be wasting it digging up the past. So why don’t you keep your questions to yourself and leave me be?”
“I just wanted to know about . . .” Izzie began, but the old man interrupted her before she could continue.
“So what, doc?” He rolled his gaze over to Hasan. “This going to be a regular thing now, you bringing people here to bother me? I didn’t do four tours in Vietnam just so I could spend my twilight years being hassled by any fool that comes along and wants to bend my ear.”
“The Eschaton Center,” Izzie hastened to finish.
The old man’s eyes slowly turned back in
