Twice

her,” said Lydia.

He nodded and looked at her without seeing her. It was a look she recognized from Jeffrey and even herself. He was moving pieces of information around in his head trying to see what fit where.

“So, what’s the game plan, kids?” he said after a moment in thought and coming back to the present. “I think I’ll pay a visit to Mr. DiMarco. Take a look at that painting.”

“I think we’ll pay Julian Ross a visit,” answered Lydia.

“Good luck. She’s gone, baby, gone. You’re going to need a decoder ring to get anywhere with that one right now.”

“It’s worth a shot,” Lydia said as the waitress approached. She looked ridiculous and unhappy in a pink-and- white-checked uniform with matching cap, someone’s idea of what a fifties diner waitress would wear. Her name tag read BUFFY. She was clearly over fifty years old, and her enormous breasts hung down to the top of her apron. Buffy looked at her customers beneath layers of blue eye makeup and mascara.

“What can I getcha?” she said.

“I’ll have a bacon double cheeseburger with fries and a large chocolate milkshake,” said Ford as the waitress scribbled in her pad.

Lydia looked at him with worry, hoping that he wasn’t going to have a heart attack right there at the table.

“I’ll have the same,” she said.

chapter five

Urine, Lysol, and misery were the odors that assailed Lydia and Jeffrey as a strapping orderly buzzed them through a heavy metal door. They stepped into a gray, dimly lit hallway with speckled Formica floors, brightly clean and polished, with a flat wooden railing running the length of each of the walls. Lydia could hear the sounds of someone sobbing and someone laughing.

“Is this your first visit to a psychiatric facility?” asked Dr. Linda Barnes, a bright, pretty young woman whose deep, sultry voice seemed incongruous to her petite frame. Lydia and Jeffrey had met the doctor down on the street in front of the clinic. It was clear from her clipped attitude that the doctor was not pleased with the visit Eleanor Ross had insisted upon. She had the drawn look of someone acting against her better judgment, offered nothing but a quick polite greeting and then an escort up to Julian Ross. She walked quickly and quietly, her rubber-soled shoes not making a sound on the floor. Lydia and Jeffrey had to pick up their pace to keep up with her.

“No,” answered Lydia, “We’ve both seen our share of places like this.”

“I ask because the first time can be pretty rough on the uninitiated,” she said.

“We are fairly well acquainted with insanity,” said Jeffrey.

The doctor shot him a look. “We prefer ‘mental illness’ in my profession.”

“Call it what you will, Doctor,” said Jeffrey.

A large man with a larger brow and a badly shaved head shuffled past them. His lids were purple and heavy, his eyes stared off into the distance intently as he clenched and unclenched his fists. He muttered something unintelligible as he moved past.

“Normally, we wouldn’t allow Ms. Ross any visitors at all,” she said. “It is not advisable to her recovery at this point. But since there are special circumstances and her mother insists, I’ll allow it. But I am going to ask you to keep this visit as brief as possible.”

“I understand,” said Lydia. “How is she?”

“She’s had a psychotic break. It’s a state that occurs, usually, when the mind has sustained a shock that it is not equipped to handle. Julian has more or less shut down. She is incoherent… sometimes ranting, sometimes nearly catatonic. This is more than likely a temporary condition… but I couldn’t hazard a guess as to how long it will last.”

“Could she be faking it?” asked Jeffrey.

“If she is, she’s a very convincing actress,” said Dr. Barnes. “Generally, Mr. Mark, people don’t try to fake their way into a place like this.”

“It’s better than prison.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” answered Lydia.

An elderly woman in a pink smock holding on to a walker with one hand pounded on a door at the end of the hall. “Let me in!” she yelled, frantically looking around her with eyes wild and red-rimmed at her invisible pursuers. “Let me in!” An attendant in green scrubs ran over to her and gently ushered her down the hall, whispering to her. A crowd of patients, all wearing the same pink smocks, crowded around a window where a nurse was handing out tiny paper cups filled with pills.

Looking around her, Lydia felt some combination of pity and dread. She couldn’t imagine a more grim place in which to find yourself. She felt the fear and suffering radiating off the walls and wondered what it would be like to wake up and go to sleep in this place haunted by the delusions of your own mind, searching for the road back to sanity.

“How long have you been Julian’s doctor?” asked Lydia.

“I’ve seen Julian on and off for about the last eight years,” she said. “Until about a year ago.”

“What happened then?”

“She came to her appointment and told me she would no longer be continuing our sessions.”

“Did she say why?”

“She said something very odd. That she’d realized that ninety percent of her problems were due to the fact that she hadn’t been true to herself. That she’d decided to surrender.”

“Surrender?”

“That was the word she used. She wouldn’t expound. Just thanked me, wrote me a check, and left. I didn’t see her again until she was admitted here.”

Lydia turned the connotations of the word over in her mind. Surrender… to give up, to admit defeat. What within herself had she been fighting?

“Her mother told us that she’s suffered with depression. Any indication that there might be something more seriously wrong with her? Did she ever discuss with you the murder of her first husband?”

This time Dr. Barnes didn’t bother to hide her annoyance.

“Naturally,” she said officiously, “I am not at liberty to discuss my patient’s condition or the things we discussed with you. But if you’re asking me if I had any indication that she might be a threat to herself or to others, the answer is no.”

“Did she mention to you at any time that she was afraid of someone, that she had any enemies who might wish to harm her or her family?”

The doctor didn’t answer Lydia. She pulled her mouth into a tight grimace as if she were physically trying to prevent words from flying out.

Lydia stopped walking and the doctor turned to face her. “Look, Doctor. I’m not trying to infringe upon your professional ethics. But a man is dead and your patient is the prime suspect-the only suspect. We’re trying to help her. Maybe you can do the same.”

“I can’t help you. And the only way I can help Julian is by treating her illness and protecting her patient-doctor privilege.”

Case closed. Dr. Barnes was a tough nut and Lydia could see that they’d gotten as far with her as they would today.

After a number of twists and turns down long gray hallways, they reached another metal door and were buzzed through into yet another hallway that had six closed doors on each side and ended in a large, barred window. Sunlight streamed in through the grating and a uniformed police officer sat in a green metal chair reading a copy of the New York Post outside the last door.

“This is the wing for patients who are not stable enough to mix with the others. Ms. Ross is being kept here for obvious reasons,” said Dr. Barnes.