If theres any satisfaction in this, its watching Parklandius sputter.
Dr. Harrigan couldnt have taken the photograph, he said.
Jake shrugged. I found it among his estate documents.
Parklandius had regained his composure. Dr. Harrigan had been a member of this foundation since 1963, Dr. Rosen. Indeed, we got him his first job. We placed him at Turner after his residency. Surely he knew we would have
loaned
him anything from the archives.
Pete never mentioned he had been at Turner, and it wasnt on his resume. He took the clipping, never planning to give it back, and substituted the other. It was meant for me as what?
Jake closed his eyes, remembering Petes struggle to say something when they met in his house. Sadness swept him like biting wind.
Of course. As a confession.
So you see, its all a misunderstanding, Manny said. If you dont have me arrested I wont sue you for false arrest. You have everything back, no matter who took it, and no harm done. Nice how that works out, isnt it? She held out her hand: palm down,
like a bleedin aristocrat. He looks like he wants to bite it.
Parklandius left, mumbling.
Rude man, Manny said. He didnt say goodbye.
Still, I dont think we can stay here. I dont think hed be pleased if we continued to look through the files.
Manny called Kenneth from her cell phone. You didnt know Kenneth was working for us, did you? she asked Jake, when shed finished. Were all of us sleuths. Isnt that cozy? She turned serious. Hes been checking into Isabellas dentists, Iras and Lowell. Both are dead car accidents one in seventy-two, the other in eighty-four.
Murdered, you think?
I dont know why not. Whoever they are, everyone connected to Turner winds up dead before their time.
Including us if we dont solve this thing. He started for the door.
She ran after him. Where are we going?
Turner. I want to see Marge Crespy at the Historical Society.
JAKE SAT IN the car with his head bowed, staring ahead through pained eyes. Manny wanted to comfort him, hold him, but held back.
Hes suffering. It wasnt only Harrigan who died but Jakes vision of him. He needs to bear this alone.
Pete must have known about the experiments, he said finally. Known about them and performed them. He was too young to have acted on his own, but he was involved. My God, how it must have weighed on him! Forty years of keeping secret the worst sin a doctor can commit. He turned to her. I loved him, Manny. He was my teacher and my spiritual father. I dont know if I can ever forgive him.
He wanted to confess to you, she said. Thats why he called you back. Not to tell you he had cancer, but about this.
Cancer of the soul. I wonder if hed have said anything if we hadnt discovered the bones. He must have realized immediately whose they were and confirmed it by x-raying them. No wonder he didnt send the X-rays to me. He must have destroyed them.
And somebody destroyed
him,
Manny said quietly. Dont forget that. Someone must have known Pete Harrigan was ready to talk.
Ms. Crespy, it turned out, lived on the top floor of the Historical Society. Youre the doctor from New York, she said to Jake. She was a wiry woman, plainly robust, looking younger than the fifty Jake had originally guessed. I remember you working with dear Dr. Harrigan. She looked at Manny. And this is?
Philomena Manfreda. Im a lawyer, helping the daughter of James Lyons, one of the patients whose bones were discovered at the construction site.
Ms. Crespy led them upstairs to her residence, settled them in her living room, and provided them with coffee. We think weve identified Skeleton Four, Jake said. The female.
Her name was Isabella de la Schallier, Manny said, handing her the copy Jake had made of the uncropped photograph before returning it to the Academie. She was another patient at Turner. Shes the one standing with
Dr. Harrigan! Ms. Crespy was clearly astonished. I had no idea he was ever at Turner Psychiatric. My goodness, youd think hed have said something.
Wally had said she had nothing to do with the kickbacks at the mall site, Jake thought. He was right. Yes. Do you recognize the young woman?
She studied the photograph. No. But theres no reason I should. I socialized with very few of the patients, and this picture was taken more than forty years ago.
Would the Historical Society have any information about her? Manny asked. Maybe something about her death?
I dont remember seeing her name in our records. But we have only a few scraggly documents. The Psychoanalytic Academie for the Betterment of Life has more.
We went there this morning, Jake said. Its where we got the photo.
Ms. Crespy looked at it again. I dont know her, Im afraid. She brightened. But look. On the path behind her and Dr. Harrigan. I recognize the girl walking by herself.
Hope blazed in Mannys brain. You do?
My goodness, yes. Thats Cassandra Collier when she was a teenager, of course.
Is she still alive? asked Jake, his voice rising.
Alive, if you can call it that. Shes a recluse. Lives in her daddys old house. People here think shes loony, but shes as sane as sunshine. I take food to her now and then, and we talk.
Will she talk to us? Manny asked.
Maybe, maybe not. Shes moody.
Why was she in Turner Psychiatric?
Her daddy Timothy Collier, the well-known gynecologist institutionalized her after her mother died. Mrs. C was a concert pianist until arthritis crippled her died of grief, they say.
Get on with it, Manny thought.
Anyway, Cassandra was evidently a hellion when she was young. Promiscuous in an age when no good girl let a man touch her till she was married. Collier put her in Turner to tame her, not because she was crazy. He was a huge contributor to the hospital there used to be a Collier Library on the grounds and they took her in because they needed his patronage. The director wasnt the most ethical man around
If you only knew.
but they kept the poor girl against her will until her daddy died. Then they couldnt wait to get rid of her.
Shed know what was going on at the hospital when Isabella de la Schallier died, Jake said, keeping his voice neutral.
Suspect so.
But she might not talk to us?
Ill bet she will if I introduce you, Ms. Crespy said. She jumped up and started for the door. Come on, Ill take you. We can swing by the mall site; theres been lots of progress. You seem like nice enough folk, and you were Dr. Harrigans friends. She sighed. Cassandras sure to be home.
* * *
Forgive me, Cassandra Collier said. I dont entertain, so I can offer you only tea.
It had not taken much of Marge Crespys persuasion to get her to agree to see Manny and Jake, and the three stood awkwardly in the large foyer of a once-splendid house now sagging in disrepair.
Cassandra was a small woman with luxuriant white hair down to her shoulders and the muscles, Jake noted, of a gymnast. Her eyes were bright, her skin ruddy and wind-tanned, and her hands, peeking out from the sleeves of a bright green wool turtleneck sweater, were those of a young woman.
Actually, we just had coffee with Ms. Crespy, Manny said, and we dont want to take much of your time.
If shes insane, Im a Martian.
I have time to spare. Would you like to see the garden?
Weve no choice. Shell talk if were patient.
Cassandra led them through a living room that seemed to Manny out of an English manor house. A large portrait of a man her father? hung over the fireplace; a chandelier blazed light; the leather chairs were scratched but otherwise not worn; the Oriental carpet an original had lost none of its opulence. A fraying couch, a pockmarked coffee table, and tattered lampshades over splendid Chinese lamps were the only signs of the passage of time.
The house was once a showplace, Cassandra explained. I keep it up as best I can, but its the garden that gets my main attention. Im happiest there. Youll see, though, that in the battle between a single woman and nature, nature wins. They went through the back door to the garden.
The trees were oaks, the vines wisteria, rose bushes, the flowers geraniums, impatiens. But there were weeds among them, and a gazebo in the center had partially collapsed.
Cassandra read Mannys gaze. Theres no beauty in destruction. Only sadists like my father think that.
Ms. Crespy told us something about him and your history, Manny said. Youve had a hard life.
He was a hard man. Marge told you he sent me to the mental hospital?
Yes. It must have been awful for you.
Its what were here to talk to you about, Jake said. What was going on when you were there?
She shied back as though he had slapped her. No, sir. I wont discuss it.
We think there were crimes committed. Crimes that reach into the present.
Yes, crimes, she mumbled. I dont want to think about them. She waved a hand. Please go away.
But youre the only one who can tell us
Go away!
She fled toward the house.
Isabella. Isabella de la Schallier, Manny called.
Cassandra stopped, turned. What did you say?
Isabella de la Schallier. She was at Turner when you were.
We found her bones, Jake said. Now we need you to help us find out what happened to her.
She approached them, arms out as though sleepwalking, her face a portrait of grief. You found her bones?
Secretly buried in the field behind the hospital.
Cassandras voice was hushed. Was anyone buried with her?
Yes. Three men.
Only grown men?
Yes.
Are you sure?
Absolutely.
Isabella and three men. Thats all?
Yes. Why?
Cassandra looked down, unwilling to meet their eyes. Isabella she began, then stopped, her voice catching. You see, Isabella . . . There was a child. . . . Her voice was a whisper as she gazed into a lost world. Where is Joseph? Where are the bones of her baby?
* * *
They went back to the living room. Cassandra made them tea and now sat with her eyes lowered, as if she had committed a sinful act herself. Manny and Jake faced her from the couch, both sensing that questions would be counterproductive.
At last Cassandra sighed, a sound of such regret that Manny had to fight back an urge to leave and bother her no longer.
Were subjecting her to something terrible. Shes reliving Turner. Its too cruel.
She could tell from his expression that Jake was having similar thoughts.
Its all right, Cassandra said. If I didnt want to tell you I wouldnt. A psychiatrist at Turner one of the rare good men said that to survive psychic pain you had to confront it. She smiled weakly. Perhaps better late than never. She walked to the door opening into the garden and stopped there without turning back. When she spoke, her voice was steady and clear.
I was eighteen when Dad sent me to Turner. The age of majority in the sixties was twenty-one, so I had no choice. It was a hellish place. The doctors and psychiatrists were mostly old men, interested in the patients only as specimens, clay to mold as they wished. The patients were mostly old, too, and most of them were genuinely crazy. One man, younger than the majority, was maybe the craziest of all. He had fought in the Korean War and thought all of us doctors, nurses, and patients were the enemy. Often he had to be restrained. When he was untied, hed explode. And his screams in the night dreadful.
James Lyons, Jake said.
She looked at him in surprise. Thats right. Id forgotten his name. He was one of the few close enough to my age to talk to, but I was kept away from him for my own safety. The doctors didnt want the child of their biggest benefactor hurt.