Hollywood Notorious: A Hollywood Alphabet Thriller Series (A Hollywood Alphabet Series Thriller Book 14) (5 page)

“I’m no fucking social worker.”

Leo went over to him and lowered his voice. “Let’s take a walk.”

After a couple of protests, Darby finally agreed to go with Leo. That left me alone with the huge reality TV star and murder suspect.

“Let’s cut to the chase,” I said, locking eyes with Gooseberry. “Tell me what went down last night.”

He lowered his eyes, taking in my body, before meeting my eyes again. “You’re kinda hot. How ‘bout we get together when I get out of here?”

“How ‘bout you answer my question, or I’ll do what the other detective said and just book you into jail.”

He brushed a hand over his bald head and exhaled. “Awright, let’s get this shit over with. I had some issues with the bros, that’s all.”

“The bros?”

“The two guys that ate it. Everybody called ’em ‘the bros’.”

“Duncan and Hanks?”

He shrugged. “I guess. Dunno their real names.”

“What exactly was this beef about?”

“Nuthin’ much. Just some smack.”

“Heroin.” He didn’t respond. “So what happened when you got to the cemetery?”

“I just got out of my car, then all hell broke loose.”

“There was shooting?”

“Yeah.”

“And what did you do?”

I got on the ground, capped off a couple of rounds, and got hit.”

“Were the bros shooting at you?”

“Naw. They was already in some kinda shit.”

“What do you mean?”

The lines in his heavy brow deepened. “Somebody was shootin’ at ’em.”

“You mean somebody who was already in the cemetery?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Did you see anyone besides the bros?”

I got a head shake before he moaned and hit the call button for the nurse. “I’m gonna need something for this pain.”

While we waited for the nurse, I said, “Did you see anyone coming from the trees last night?”

“What?”

“The tree line above the cemetery.”

“You mean where that messed up girl was found?”

I released a breath. “How do you know about her?”

“It’s all over the tube. It was on when I got out of recovery. They’re calling the freak who did her ‘the Reaper’. He fucked her up good.”

“Did you see anybody besides the bros when you got out of your car?”

I got a headshake as he worked the call button again.

“Let’s talk about your manager, Howard Slade.”

“I had nothing to do with what happened to him.”

“He was run down in a parking lot the night before last, not too far from his office. We know you two were in a dispute over money. Where were you at the time?”

Gooseberry’s fleshy face turned up. “I was with Billy and Ricky. They’ll vouch for me, tell you I had nothing to do with it.”

I took out a notepad. “Where do these guys live?”

“Guys?” His grin widened. “They ain’t no guys, Detective.”

The nurse came through the door. Gooseberry said to her, “I need some morphine, hon. Make it a double. My ass hurts like hell.”

I exchanged a look with the nurse and said, “He seems to have an exceptionally low tolerance for pain.”

After Gooseberry defended his need for morphine, I told the nurse, “I think we’re the ones who needs the drugs. He’s the world’s biggest big pain in the ass.”

Dr. Ellen Moore stood in front of the glass security window in the maximum security wing of Berkshire State Hospital. Even though she knew the glass was mirrored on the other side, the patient’s amber eyes seemed fixed on her. The psychiatrist was new to the hospital and her sense of unease grew.

Moore turned to the chief of psychiatry, who stood beside her. “You honestly believe he doesn’t scale?”

“Macy’s an anomaly,” Dr. Lawrence Marlow said. The senior psychiatrist was a wiry man in his sixties, with silver hair. He stood almost six feet tall, in contrast to the diminutive younger psychiatrist. He took a step closer to the glass window, Moore now seeing the reflection of the administrator as he continued. “He might be a 1026, but I don’t care what DSM criteria you try to make fit, it just doesn’t wash.”

The youthful psychiatrist glanced at the file she’d been given. She knew 1026 was the California civil commitment section that had allowed Quinton Macy to avoid criminal proceedings by reason of insanity. While her patient might be insane, he still had to fit the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of mental disorders, regardless of what Dr. Marlow thought. That criteria covered every disorder catalogued by the American Psychiatric Association.

Moore took a moment and scanned the reports, at the same time saying, “And the underlying offense…” Her blue eyes lifted from the file and she looked back at Marlow. “Oh, goodness. I had no idea.”

Dr. Marlow nodded. “The girl was held for several months. She eventually starved to death, but only after…” He took a breath and didn’t go on.

Moore skimmed through the rest of the reports. She was aware that her boss was giving her time to process her patient’s crimes. Her stomach had twisted into a knot by the time she’d finished reading the commitment papers about the horrifying crime he’d committed.

“I can see why he was chosen,” Moore finally said, tucking the file under her arm. “I assume his family gave their consent?”

“Macy’s parents separated when he was a teenager. His mother consented, but his father’s whereabouts are unknown. Your patient gave his informed consent and went through the standard testing protocols and evaluations. All the facility doctors felt he would be an appropriate candidate, given his history. His attorney took the matter to the courts and obtained the necessary approvals.”

Quinton Macy had been selected for the clinical trials for a drug called Neustasis. Moore had read the pharmaceutical reports for the new drug and was aware that it targeted mutations in the mitochondrial DNA. The drug’s protocol required intravenous injections and monitoring over the course of forty-eight hours.

While it wasn’t entirely understood how the drug worked, the working hypothesis was that it repaired defective coding instructions that, in turn, regulated protein metabolism. All that, according to Halgen, the drug’s manufacturer, affected someone’s ability to control impulses related to a host of psychiatric disorders.

Even if the drug worked, and at some point Macy was found to be mentally competent and therefore responsible for his crimes, Moore knew that her patient would spend the rest of his life in prison. That knowledge, according to the drug company, made Macy’s offer to participate in the clinical trials an act of compassionate self-sacrifice.

Moore glanced at the patient through the security glass again, seeing that he was still staring at the glass as though he could see her. She swallowed and turned to Marlow. “I’d like to talk to him, since…” she looked back at her patient. “…since he’s going to be in my custody during the trials.”

The elder psychiatrist took a step closer to his new colleague. “Are you sure? He’s…” Marlow waited until his new colleague met his eyes. “He might have given his consent to be in the program, but he’s…” The psychiatrist took a breath. “Like I said, in my opinion he doesn’t fit any of the diagnostic criteria. He’s a pure sociopath, lacking any conventional sense of social norms, but there’s no specific criteria that describes his psychological state.”

Moore glanced at her new patient. “What do we know about his life before he was incarcerated?”

“That part of his life is what makes him so unique.”

She looked back at Dr. Marlow. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“You’re looking at a savant, someone who is both intellectually gifted and cultured, with refined tastes in art, music, and cuisine. Before his arrest, Macy wrote what’s still considered a brilliant thesis on the relationship between science and consciousness.”

“A renaissance man.”

“And more.”

Moore raised her brows. “What am I missing?”

Marlow looked at Macy. “An eidetic memory that’s non-specific, atypical of most savants. An enhanced auditory acuity, and…” He smiled. “I could go on.” He looked back at Macy and shook his head. “He’s like nothing I’ve ever encountered.”

Moore looked through the window again, studying her new patient. She shrugged, feigning indifference or maybe confidence, she wasn’t sure which. She tossed the patient’s file on a desk. “We’re going to need to get to know one another sooner or later.” She took a step toward the holding room, but then stopped and turned back to her superior. “You’re welcome to come with me.”

The senior psychiatrist smiled at Moore’s wavering bluster. “You lead the way.”

As Moore opened the door to the holding room, she thought about the years of schooling that had brought her to this day. After obtaining her B.S. in biology at Rutgers and passing the MCAT, she’d spent four years getting her medical degree at San Diego State. After that, she’d done a residency program through the state hospital system. When she’d finally been offered a full-time position at Berkshire, she thought her hard work and the sacrifices of Brian and her two children had finally paid off.

As she stood in front of Quinton Macy, Dr. Ellen Moore was suddenly filled with doubt about both the sacrifices that had been made and everything she’d learned in her years of schooling. She knew that her patient had been in the custody of the Department of State Hospitals since he was designated a sexually violent predator in 2006. That was the year he’d been arrested for the kidnapping and murder of April Lynn Thomas.

Moore tried to dismiss the horrific nature of the girl’s murder from her mind and concentrate on the subject in front of her. Macy hadn’t broken eye contact with her since she’d entered the room. She knew from reading the file that her patient was thirty-six, five feet ten inches in height. He had black hair, and his body was lean and hard, probably from working out.

But it was the patient’s eyes that held Moore’s interest. They were lipochrome, a naturally occurring condition caused by a molecular accumulation of pigmented tissues in the iris. It gave Quinton Macy the amber-colored eyes of a wolf. Even though Moore knew there was a genetic basis for the condition, it caused a shudder to move down her spine.

They were less than four feet from her patient when Dr. Marlow introduced her. “Mr. Macy, this is Dr. Moore. She’s going to accompany you on the next round of clinical trials.”

Macy finally broke eye contact with her. Moore released a breath as her patient said to Dr. Marlow. “Dr. Javier?”

Marlow glanced at Moore then back at their patient. “He’s no longer with the hospital.”

The patient’s lips thinned, exposing small white teeth. As Macy looked back at her, Moore   thought it might be an attempt at a smile, but quickly dismissed that thought, the word
predator
coming to mind. She knew that Dr. Javier had accompanied Macy a couple of days earlier on his initial visit to Halgen for some preliminary medical tests.

“Do you think I can be cured, doctor?”

The question startled her. “I’m sorry?”

“A simple question. Can I be cured?”

His yellow eyes fixed on her as she fumbled for an answer. “I’m not…” Moore looked at her boss, then back at him. “I think time will tell. We’ll have to see how things go.”

“Time,” Macy said. “What is that?”

Moore looked over at Dr. Marlow again, but saw that he had lowered his eyes. She found her subject’s ochre eyes again. “I don’t know…”

“Of course you do,” Macy insisted. “What is time?”

She tried to collect her thoughts. “Why it’s…I guess you could refer to time as a point when an event takes place that we measure other events by.”

The same peculiar expression she’d seen before played on Macy’s face again. “You mean, like death?”

Moore swallowed. She looked back at Marlow, but saw the psychiatrist was now checking his watch. She met Macy’s strange eyes again. “Yes, I suppose that’s one way of looking at things.”

“Then I presume you could say that death is our constant companion, Dr. Moore. Its dark visage haunts even the halcyon days of our youth, reminding us of that which brings us closer to oblivion. We blindly stumble through a world in pursuit of immortality, despite inhabiting a universe that is governed by impermanence.” His dark eyes fixed on her.
“In my estimation, that would mean that we’re all waiting.”

“I’m not sure…”

“…for a moment in time called ‘death’.”

Moore started to answer when she realized that Dr. Marlow had taken her by the arm. The elder psychiatrist said, “We’ll be in touch, Mr. Macy. As soon as transportation and other arrangements are made for your return trip to Halgen.”

They were headed for the door when her new patient’s words stopped them. “Aren’t you going to shake my hand, Doctor?”

Moore took a breath and turned back to her patient. She walked over and took his hand. It was warm and felt wet.

The strange half-smile played on Macy’s lips again. “Nice to meet you, Doctor.”

“Same here.” She pulled her hand away, brushing it against her coat as she and Marlow left the room.

Moore wiped the sheen of perspiration off her forehead when the door to the security room closed behind them, telling her boss, “That was…odd, to say the least.”

Marlow folded his arms and leaned against the table. “As I said before, your new patient doesn’t fit any of the diagnostic criteria. He’s not only deranged, he’s brilliant. My suggestion is that you keep your distance from him, both physically and intellectually.”

Marlow started to leave, but Moore called after him. “Can I ask you something?”

The administrator turned back to her. “Of course.”

“His reference to Dr. Javier. I know that he was previously assigned to Macy. What happened to him?”

Dr. Marlow’s gray eyes held on her for a long moment. “He committed suicide.”