Deadlocked (32 page)

Mason parked in front of Wal-Mart. He wanted to take his own tour of the Golden Years campus but doubted whether he would be welcomed back twice in one day. He decided that a maintenance man would have an easier time prowling around than he would.

Twenty minutes and two hundred dollars later, Mason had a pair of pewter-colored work pants, a short-sleeve denim shirt, a white crew neck T-shirt advertising an herbicide company, a ball cap with a tractor on the front, a pair of work boots, and a pair of aviator sunglasses. At Home Depot, he picked up a leather tool belt filled with an array of screwdrivers, pliers, wire cutters, and a tape measure. He bought a clipboard and a pad of forms labeled WORK ORDERS at the office supply store, then stopped at the sandwich shop for a bottle of water. Finished with his shopping, he moved his car to a parking space in the middle row of the strip center parking lot between two minivans that afforded a view of the entrance to Golden Years.

He changed out of his chinos, polo shirt, and loafers in his car, the only dicey moment coming when a mother and her teenage daughter climbed into the minivan on his left.

He was just pulling up his new pants as the daughter glanced into his car and burst out laughing. By the time the mother looked over, Mason was dressed and waving pleasantly at her. The mother shrugged her shoulders as if to ask whether Mason would take her daughter off her hands.

Standing alongside his car, his denim shirt open over his T-shirt, he bent down and rubbed his hands on the pavement, then wiped them off on his pants and shirt, not wanting his outfit to look brand new. Unsatisfied, he shimmied against the side of his car, picking up more dirt. He scuffed his new boots and tool belt against the pavement and scrunched his cap between his hands, wiping it against his car and working dirt into the bill. He rubbed his dirty hands on his neck and face, splashing bottled water on his neck to add a sweat line to his T-shirt.

It was hot and muggy in the parking lot, the asphalt radiating heat and generating more sweat to bolster his working man look. The sky above half the city was now a low-hanging, billowing tarnished green. The sky over Mason's head was still pale blue with tracers of white clouds streaking past trying to outrun the rapidly moving front. The weather gods were about to turn the forecasters into prophets.

As he walked across Eighty-seventh Street Parkway, he wondered whether his first visit would spark any other comings or goings. Whitney King lived nearby, though Samantha Greer had said that King had made himself scarce. Mason didn't know where Dixon Smith lived but doubted he was the suburban type. If Smith showed up, it would take awhile. That didn't matter to Mason. He had an entire pad of work orders to fill.

A slightly undulating berm landscaped with tall evergreens marked the Golden Years' northern property line along the Eighty-seventh Street Parkway. Mason walked west on Eighty-seventh, crossing the street at the edge of the campus farthest from the entrance. A maintenance man walking in off the street would arouse immediate suspicion.

An eight-foot-high wooden privacy fence surrounded the property. Mason assumed it was to keep both the psychiatric and Alzheimer's disease patients inside the grounds rather than to keep intruders out since the berm sloped down to a point midway on the outside of the fence. Mason easily climbed over and lowered himself down the other side.

There was an expansive park with benches and a walking trail winding through the trees between him and the nearest building. Unlike the other taupe and stucco buildings, this one was built with brick and had a long center section with high windows that divided the patient wings.

The park was empty, the patients having at least enough sense to come in out of the rain before the rain began. Uncertain whether anyone had seen him, Mason walked along the perimeter of the fence, stopping every so often to test a fence post, the best impression he could give of a diligent maintenance man.

He didn't know whether Golden Years employed its own on-site maintenance crew or, if it did, whether the employees had uniforms with their names stitched over the shirt pocket. He didn't know if anyone had called maintenance to fix an air-conditioning, plumbing, or electrical problem. If they had and he showed up, they would both be disappointed. Mason's handyman résumé began and ended with changing lightbulbs. The only thing he had going for him was the outfit and a purposeful stride.

By the time he reached the psychiatric hospital, the storm front had caught up to him, blotting out the sun and knocking the temperature back at least fifteen degrees. The trees swayed around him.

Mason made his way to an emergency exit at one end of the psychiatric hospital. He tried the door, not surprised that it was locked. Opening it would have probably triggered an alarm, a thought that made him quickly look up above the door for another security feature. There was a video camera aimed at his head. Just in case Adrienne was watching the video monitors, he gave a small salute, relying on his cap and dark glasses to conceal his identity, and continued around to the front of the building.

A heavy-set, elderly white man with hound dog jowls was hunched forward in a chair behind a counter in the lobby, switching channels on a portable television resting on a TV table. A football game replaced a commercial. Satisfied, the man leaned back, still unaware that Mason was standing on the other side of the counter.

To Mason's right, there was door to the patients' hallways with a sign that read "Authorized Personnel Only." A key card scanner was mounted in the wall next to the door.

"Who's playing?" Mason asked the man, sticking his sunglasses in his shirt pocket.

"Giants and Rams. Hall of Fame game. First exhibition game of the year. Been a long time since the Super Bowl and I am ready for some football," the man said, glancing at Mason long enough for Mason to read his name tag— Walt—before turning back to the television. The upper right-hand corner of the screen was filled with a weather map and a graphic announcing that the city was now under a tornado warning. "What do you need?" His question and his look said he hoped neither Mason nor the weather would interfere with the football game.

Mason tapped the clipboard on the counter. "Work order on the second floor. I forgot my key card. Can you buzz me in?"

Walt scooted his chair back, opened a desk drawer, and tossed Mason a key card attached to a coiled bracelet. "Don't forget to bring it back when you're finished," he said, his back to Mason, his head in the game.

In the same instant, the football game was interrupted by the Channel 6 weatherman who reported that a tornado had been sighted along a line stretching from Seventy-fifth and I-35 southwest to I-435. With a grim face normally reserved for wartime, he said the twister was moving toward the southwest and he warned everyone in its path to take immediate cover.

Chapter 45

"Son of a bitch!" Walt blurted. "That damn tornado isn't more than a few miles away and it's headed right for us. We've got seventy-five basket cases to get into the basement!"

As if to make the point, tornado sirens began to wail, mixing with the machine-gun splatter of rain and hail and wind that roared like a freight train.

"Where are the doctors and nurses?" Mason asked.

Walt snorted a laugh. "You got to be kidding, mister. There ain't no doctors on weekends and there's only one nurse on each floor and they gonna need our help."

"How can you run a hospital with one nurse on each floor?" Mason asked.

"Keep the patients doped up, that's how," he said. Walt bolted out of his chair faster than Mason would have thought him able. "You take the top floor, I'll take this one. Get everybody out of their rooms and downstairs to the basement."

The wind screeched and rattled the hospital like it was made of tinker toys as a cataclysmic bolt of lightning arced across the sky, the blinding light feeling close enough to vaporize them, the trailing blast of thunder launching them toward the patients' rooms.

Mason swiped his key card over the sensor, yanking open the door to the hall. Walt shoved past him, banging on doors as he ran the length of the corridor. Mason took the stairs two at a time, bursting onto the second floor as people began to pour out of their rooms.

The stairs opened out into a sitting area in the center of the floor. The wall of windows that normally afforded a calming view of the pastoral grounds vibrated furiously with the beat of the storm.

A woman dressed in white pants and a white shirt stood in the middle of the room calling patients by name, motioning them toward her. She was middle-age, stout, had close cropped black hair, and was the closest thing to a nurse Mason could see in the growing crowd.

"Who are you?" she yelled at Mason.

"Maintenance," he said. "How can I help?"

"Get them out of their rooms. If we can get them under control, we'll take them downstairs. If we can't manage that, we'll have to put them in the halls away from any windows so they don't get hit by broken glass."

The lights began to flicker, adding a strobe effect to the keening and wailing of the frightened patients. A few ran toward him, hands extended like beggars, grabbing at his sleeves. Others pressed their backs against the windows, sliding down onto the floor, toppling over and curling into a ball. Down the halls, doors slammed as some patients retreated to their rooms, barricading themselves.

Two patients had latched on to him, one on either side. They were both older women, their faces slack, their eyes wide. They wore nightgowns even though it was the middle of the day. He led them to a sofa, easing them down. He gathered other patients, placing some in chairs, the rest in a circle on the carpeted floor.

As soon as he had them organized, they started to peel apart. The woman in white kept calling names. It took Mason a moment to realize that she kept repeating the same names and that no one was paying her any attention. The patients wandered past her as if she was one of them. Mason finally realized that she was when she extended her arms and began twirling slowly down onto the floor.

Crazy or not, she had the right idea. There was no way he could get the patients downstairs to the basement, so he had to get them into the hallway away from the glass. He had no idea how to get the holdouts to leave their rooms.

He grabbed two patients sitting on the couch, a man and a woman, and began leading them to the west wing. Hearing footsteps as he passed the stairs, he paused long enough to see Adrienne make the turn at the landing. She was soaked through, her tank top clinging to her in way that almost made him forget the storm.

"What the hell!" she said.

Mason shrugged. "You made the padded room sound irresistible. Welcome to the party."

She joined him, looking around the room where twenty people in pajamas were out of control, some crying, and some jabbering, some silently pressing their faces against the glass.

"Oh my God!" she said, drawing each word out like it was a separate paragraph. "We've got to get these people to the basement."

"There isn't time," Mason said. "This isn't all of them anyway. Some of them have gone back to their rooms. If they locked their doors, I don't know how we'll get them out. Our best bet is to put everyone in one of the hallways and ride this thing out."

Adrienne reached into her jeans and pulled out a key card. "Master card," she said. "Priceless. You get everyone into the west wing. I'll check the rooms on the east wing. Then I'll come back to help you."

The next few minutes were a blur, Mason shuttling patients into the west wing hallway. He couldn't separate the effects of their psychiatric condition, their fear, and their medication. All he knew was that any explanation he gave them could just as well have been in Chinese.

Adrienne led three patients from the east wing into his hall, then began checking each room. Satisfied that they had accounted for everyone, she stood at the entrance to the lobby, blocking anyone who thought about leaving while Mason patrolled the hall, reassuring the terrified patients that everything was okay.

There was an exit at the far end of the hall. Mason opened the door, making certain no one was hiding on the stairs. Satisfied, he noticed one patient, a woman sitting against the wall near the door, her knees pulled to her chest, her head pressed against her arms, hiding her face. She was small and had dark hair streaked with gray and was one of the few patients wearing normal clothes instead of pajamas. She was so silent Mason wasn't certain whether she was breathing. He knelt down, touching her shoulder gently.

"Ma'am," he said softly. "Are you all right?"

The woman stirred at the sound of his voice, raising her head. She blinked her eyes and then wiped them. "It's you," Mary Kowalczyk said.

Before Mason could answer, the building shook as if it had been ripped from its foundation and upended. The glass walls in the lobby exploded and tornado-driven winds screamed into their corridor, hurtling Adrienne over the bowed heads of the patients like she was a rag doll.

Mason flattened his body over Mary while the building continued to shake, not certain whether it would collapse around them. The wind howled down the hall like the devil giving chase, escaping with a painful groaning screech as the roof peeled off the hospital, tons of steel and concrete disappearing in the blackness.

Just as quickly, it was over, the winds dying, the rain easing to a mist, then stopping, the air chilled but clean. Sirens filled the afternoon, the sky lightening but still too dark for a late summer afternoon.

Mason lifted himself off of Mary. "Are you okay?" he asked her. He squeezed her shoulders when she nodded her head. "I'll be right back," he told her.

He found Adrienne sprawled on her back twenty feet from the doorway to the lobby. Blood oozed from a slice in her scalp and her arms were tattooed by a constellation of pinprick cuts caused by flying glass. He knelt next to her, glad that her eyes were open and not fixed.

"What hurts?" he asked her.

"What doesn't?" she said. "I can move everything and nothing feels broken. Help me sit up."