“That’s subjective, isn’t it?”
“Well you tell me. Did you want to hurt Sutton today?”
Jack’s lip curled. He could tell the quack was playing mind games with him. “I wanted to stop him.”
“By hurting him?”
Jack leaned forward making the doc feel uncomfortable. He saw him reach for the electronic device on his hip. The same one all the staff had. “Sometimes you’ve got to hurt others to stop them, doc. Take this place for instance. You want to stop people going crazy by locking them up. That’s a form of torture.”
“Treatment, you mean.”
“Call it what you will. It’s still mental torture.” He took a deep breath. “I did what your staff attempted to do. I stopped him.”
“And they would have… eventually.”
“Yeah right. Tell me, doc, were the staff trying to hurt him?”
“No.”
“Then neither was I.”
“But you struck him.”
“It stopped him, didn’t it?”
He scribbled again. “It did. However, we’re not allowed to do that.”
“Are you serious? This is a prison.”
Chapman looked at him again, leaned forward and ran a hand around the back of his neck. “No, Mr. Winchester, this is a hospital. You can’t be a prison and a hospital at the same time.”
Jack stared back at him then thought back to the lack of guards in the unit. “Why don’t you have guards inside?”
“Because hospitals don’t have guards. They have security but you’ll find them at the entrance not walking the ward.”
“But you have the criminally insane walking the hallways.”
Chapman got this smirk on his face and leaned back in his chair as if he was about to give some speech. He wasn’t, but he used the opportunity to clarify.
“That we do. However our staff is trained in conflict management.”
“Yeah, they really managed today, didn’t they?” Jack smirked.
He took a deep breath. “A patient’s rights and the mental health laws are tricky to navigate, Mr. Winchester. For years we catered to the chronically insane. Not all of the mentally ill are criminals or violent, however, the majority of those sent here are. Believe me, it’s been an ongoing battle to change policies and add safeguards to protect workers. But until the new bills pass both houses of the state legislature, and facilities are remodeled to implement the new laws, violence is just a part of our life. It comes with the territory.”
“That’s it? That’s how you handle things?”
“Trust me, Mr. Winchester, measures are being taken.” Jack got a sense that those measures might mean stepping outside the confines of the law. And just like that Chapman shifted the conversation back to him. “Are you having suicidal thoughts?”
Jack shook his head. A barrage of questions continued for another five minutes as Chapman filled out a template that was used for writing a report, a report that would be modified, updated and eventually wind up in the hands of a judge to determine if he was still a threat to the community. Why it was being done for him was anyone’s guess as no one had told him if he’d ever get out. “So, we are nearly done here. Usually our head nurse gives the tour but… well, I will be doing that today. But before we head out, I just had one more question.” Chapman leaned in. “In your file,” he looked down. “Dana Grant. The woman you mentioned to doctors who assessed your mental state. Do you still believe she was kidnapped by someone and died in an auto accident?”
A pause.
The bastards were playing him. On the first night authorities questioned Jack, he’d asked about Dana but the police had no report of a vehicle accident, let alone someone dying, but one thing was certain, Dana had died on that lonely stretch of road.
“Yes,” he replied, refusing to deny it even if it meant they thought he was delusional and had written him off as a paranoid schizophrenic.
2
The cops had stonewalled her for months. Trying to get information regarding the arrest of Jack Winchester was like trying to get blood from a stone. Until a media outlet released a video detailing Jack’s day in court, reporter Kelly Armstrong had been following a tip that had led her to Arkansas but never panned out. Leads dried up, leaving her to make excuses to her boss, Roger Johnson, the editor-in-chief of the San Francisco Chronicle. Of course he never bought them so they were forced to return to the city.
But she hadn’t given up.
As soon as word came over the newswire of a major incident in Apalachin, and Jack’s name was attached to it, she’d been all over it. With a solid lead, Zach Larsen had managed to convince Johnson to let Kelly go speak with Winchester. He’d fluffed his ego and told him that when the story broke, it wouldn’t just be the Chronicle reaping the benefit, it would be him. Imagine the admiration of your peers. Think of the applause. He bought it... Hell, how could he not? Zach could sell anything.
Kelly thought the story was in the bag.
A quick trip to upstate New York, a friendly meeting with Jack in Holbrook and she’d have everything she needed. But that’s where her problems started. Multiple attempts at booking a visit had failed. Family, friends, it didn’t matter what she told them, for one reason or another, they had made it clear that Winchester was unable to have visitors. She’d phoned on different days, at different times, and had even shown up in person but made no headway.
The administration simply refused to let her in, and directed her to their policies.
They weren’t the only ones playing hardball.
Holed up in a motel in Ray Brook, New York, she’d been suckered into a Skype call with Zach who was now in the habit of getting her on video. She hated it. It not only made her feel uncomfortable having him gawking at her but now she had to endure looking at his ugly mug.
She sipped on hot coffee. “It’s a violation of human rights,” she said. “It just has to be.”
“No, they
