Talk (The Alexandra Chronicles Book 4) Page 22

  Pleased at the attention, the elderly woman's eyes shone. "Pray do."

  "Did Mrs. Plattener ever mention the kind of work James did?"

  "Oh, yes, all the time. He was a very important scientist."

  "What about when he was younger? Anything about working in a restaurant?"

  She looked at him as though he were mad. "He was a very important scientist," she repeated.

  "But do you remember anything about James working at an unusual job?"

  "All of his jobs were unusual."

  "Yes, I understand that, he was a gifted man."

  "He was a very important scientist," Mrs. Marcino said patiently, hoping at last the agent would get the party line correct.

  "Think, Mrs. Marcino, think back to all those long conversations you had with Mrs. Plattener. Did she ever mention any jobs James did that were different from his other ones?"

  "I remember all of Lillian's stories very well," she said. She smiled apologetically. "I just can't remember whether or not I took my pills this morning."

  The agent smiled politely.

  "She told so many stories about his inventions and how he saved the state so many millions of dollars." She looked out the window at the sun starting to rise over the desert landscape. "Her happiest time, though, I think, was when he was a boy. I think he was a boy—and he solved a problem where she worked. It was an electrical problem, as I recall, and it was going to cost the hospital many thousands of dollars to fix and I believe James fixed it all by himself for nothing."

  She beamed, looking at the agent. "I think that was unusual. That James worked with his mother that time. It was the only time. When he was fixing whatever that problem was at that hospital."

  "What hospital is she talking about?" Kunsa muttered. "The woman was a private nurse. Why would she be working in a hospital if she was a private nurse?"

  "What do her records say?" Alexandra asked.

  "There are no records!" Kunsa exploded. "The agency's been out of business for twenty-one years and nobody knows where the hell all the records are!"

  Okay, okay," Will said calmly, holding a hand out as if to physically push the frustration level down around the table, "let's stop and think." He paused. "This Mrs. Marcino. Somewhere in her brain she knows. We just need to coax her memory."

  "Is this really Alexandra Waring?" Mrs. Marcino exclaimed into the phone.

  "Yes, it surely is, Mrs. Marcino. And I am very, very grateful to you for helping us in this special investigation. And as soon as I am at liberty to explain it to you, I will personally fly down to Sun City to thank you myself."

  "My!" she said.

  Despite her fear and exhaustion, Alexandra smiled. "This is what I need to ask you about, Mrs. Marcino. You told Agent Yargen that James Plattener once worked at the same hospital that Mrs. Plattener did."

  "Yes, he was a very important scientist."

  "Now, my question is, do you remember what kind of nursing Mrs. Plattener was doing for the hospital?"

  "She didn't work for the hospital," Mrs. Marcino said. "She worked for a family. A very well-to-do family."

  Alexandra caught her breath. "You mean she was a private nurse?"

  "Oh, yes, she was a private nurse to a Mr. Porterly. She was always talking about Mr. Porterly and what a handful he was. And how whenever he went into the hospital, she would go there every day to nurse him."

  "Do you remember his first name? Mr. Porterly's name?"

  "No, I'm sorry, she always called him Mr. Porterly, with great respect for the name." She chuckled. "But I don't think she respected him very much, it was the family, you see. They were very, very wealthy and this was how she was able to take care of her little James. Because the Porterlys paid her very, very well."

  Jessica dropped the tray on the coffee table with a clatter and turned her back on Leopold with the excuse of changing cassettes in the tape machine. "Would you pour the tea, please, dear?" she asked. You filthy pervert.

  He didn't say anything.

  Jessica finished changing the cassette—to The Marches of John Philip Sousa—and turned around.

  Leopold had stopped masturbating and was simply sitting there, looking at her, holding his flaccid penis in his hand.

  "I like sugar and milk in my tea, how about you?" she said, drawing up a chair and leaning over the tray to pour tea. She looked him square in the eye and she was somewhat shocked to realize that he was now looking back at her just as squarely. Not an encouraging sign, she didn't think. "I asked you how you liked your tea."

  He swallowed, eyes looking at the teapot and then coming back to her. "Sugar and milk."

  "Just like I do," she said, picking up the teapot. "Oh, dam, I forgot the napkins, we must have napkins," she said, holding the top on the teapot as she poured. "Leopold, be a dear and go into the kitchen and get two napkins. Hurry, please."

  After hesitating a moment, he got up, and Jessica saw out of the comer of her eye that he was zipping his pants back up. "Maybe you could bring a pot holder, too," she said.

  He moved toward the kitchen and the second he was out of sight, Jessica raced out the front door, slammed it shut and slid the bolt across. Almost instantly she heard a howl of rage from inside as Leopold realized what she had done. His body hit the door in a body slam, the knob rattled and he body-slammed the door again.

  Blindly she reached for the wall and headed in the direction of the double doors. She worked her way down, shuddering at each body slam against the door and the screams of rage behind her. He sounded like an animal.

  She reached the end of the corridor and felt her way right toward the double doors. She was just thinking that maybe she should test the handles in case Leopold had somehow reactivated—

  There was a flash and a loud cracking noise and Jessica fell to the floor.

  "She's got it!" Kunsa yelled from a desk in the outer offices of the bureau branch. Will, Dirk, Detective Hepplewhite, Alexandra, Debbie Cole and local staff were all bustling about, but stopped at this announcement. "She's faxing it over—Bruce William Porterly, died 1983."

  "It's coming through!" a branch agent called and Debbie Cole raced over to the fax machine to take each sheet as it came through. "Bruce William Porterly," she read from the first sheet, "paranoid schizophrenia."

  "Bruce William Porterly," Kunsa was reciting from whoever was on the other end of the telephone in his hand, "was arrested in 1974, 1977, 1978 on child molestation. Released each time for lack of evidence. Arrested and convicted 1979 on multiple child-molestation charges, but found not guilty for reasons of insanity. He was sent to Buffalo State Hospital."

  "The Buffalo Psychiatric Center," Agent Cole read from her fax. "June 1972—"

  "June 1972," Alexandra repeated. "Yes! So his mother was a private nurse sent to that hospital by the family." She turned to a local agent. "It's maybe seven or eight buildings. It's a historic landmark now."

  "Landmark?" Kunsa said, slamming the phone down and running around the desk toward the agent.

  "Yeah," the agent answered. "It's empty. The patients were moved out in seventy-four, and the administration building closed down in—oh, I don't know, ninety-four, I think. There's nobody in there."

  His words hung in the air for only a moment. And then the group sprang into action.

  22

  As the car sped1down Delaware Avenue and the state insane asylum that had taken from 1869 to 1885 to build appeared on the horizon, Alexandra shuddered. "Good God, can you imagine how people must have felt when they were taken here?"

  Rising dramatically from the park lights, the Victorian complex for the insane sprawled some two thousand feet across. But somehow the massive fortress was still emphatically vertical, the central building shooting up into twin towers, the comers spiking up in dark turrets. The outer buildings, spreading back across the horizon, vaulted three and a half floors, from exposed basement windows up to the gabled windows, where the steep, angular roofs began. It was a monstrous mausol
eum of Victorian institutionalization.

  "Those towers are like—" Alexandra began, searching for a comparison.

  "The witch's castle," Wendy supplied.

  Alexandra turned to Will. "How are we ever going to find her if she's in there?"

  "Kunsa's got heat sensors and night scopes," Dirk said from the front seat. "They'll find her."

  Perhaps a minute later, Jessica came to, coughing on the horrible smell of burnt hair that filled her nose, throat and lungs. Then she cried out, grabbing her right wrist and feeling a totally alien texture. She groped down to touch her hand and screamed with pain. She had been very badly burnt.

  "I told you not to go out there!" Leopold shrieked from behind the locked door.

  The pain was blinding and yet Jessica knew she had to pull herself together, she had to escape. Her right hand was useless. Burnt. What to do, what to do, think, think!

  "Open this door at once!" Leopold yelled, pounding on it. "Oh, fuck you, Leopold!" Jessica yelled back.

  "Okay, this is where we are," Kunsa said, pointing to the ancient blueprints on the back of the police car. "We're getting readings here." He was pointing to the fourth floor of the central building, the one with the evil-looking spires. "We're sending three teams in, here, here and here. I think this is the best bet," he said, tapping his finger on one of the staircases. "And I'm leading that group in myself."

  "I'm going with you," Dirk said.

  "Okay," Kunsa said.

  "I'm coming, too," Will said.

  "Forget it," Kunsa said. "No argument, Rafferty. Dirk and I have done this before." He waved the policemen on. "Okay, let's hit it, guys. Who's got the keys, where's the tech?"

  It had been silent for quite a while now. Jessica, nearly zoned out on the pain in her hand, was lying on her side in the dark, the only light in the hallway coming from the crack beneath the parlor door.

  "Jessica," Leopold said through the door in a slightly sing-songy voice. "Guess what? I've got company."

  "Yeah, right," Jessica said. "You and Jack the Ripper, ya friggin' psycho."

  "You better unlock this door."

  Then there was a cry at once so horrible and familiar it wrenched her heart. It was Hurt Guy.

  "Oops!" Leopold called. "Oh my, I seem to have broken his wrist."

  There was another cry.

  "Oops! And I just stepped on it by accident!" There was a hideous chuckle. "Oh my, it seems the poor fellow has passed out." A moment later, "I can only assume that you have some sort of attachment to this fellow, Jessica. You certainly have gone to a great deal of trouble to keep him alive." He laughed a high, whining laugh. "You broke down the wall, you silly girl! You amazing girl!"

  Jessica groaned, "Leave him alone."

  "I'm sorry," Leopold said, ''but I cannot do that, Jessica. In fact, if you do not unlock this door and come in here now, I am afraid I will have to kill him."

  Jessica didn't answer.

  "Look at it this way, darling," he continued, "if you don't come in here, you will die out there and he will die in here, and I will eventually get out and go away and will live, I assure you, happily ever after. And nobody will ever know what happened to you."

  She was struggling to her feet. "You have thirty seconds before I spike my knife through his eye socket," Leopold said.

  "I'm coming, I'm coming," she said dejectedly. "Hold your horses." She staggered over to the door, felt with her left hand for the bolt, slid it across and threw the door open. "Okay, I'm here, asshole," she said defiantly, tottering in the doorway. "Leave him alone and pick on someone your own size."

  The look of horror on Leopold's face was genuine as he staggered back. "Your beautiful hair."

  "And I don't color it, jerk-off," she muttered, kneeling to look at Hurt Guy. "Some stalker you are. You son of a bitch," she said in the next breath, looking up. "You did break his wrist."

  "Your hand," Leopold said softly.

  Jessica could scarcely see at this point, the haze over her eyes was so heavy, but she managed to get back on her feet to face him. "Stop staring at me, asshole. How the hell would you look if you'd been electrocuted?"

  "The-the-the-there must be a mal-fu-fun, uh, function," he stammered. "The-the-th—“

  "Fine, whatever, Leopold, you didn't electrocute me," she said, waving her good hand at him in dismissal and weaving past him toward the bedroom. "Just stay the hell out of my way, I've got work to do."

  "Come back here!" Leopold demanded.

  "I need a splint and some bandages and some penicillin.”

  "Come back here!" Leopold yelled again, stamping his foot.

  "Get a life," Jessica growled, yanking the velvet curtains down with a crash and starting to work the steel curtain rod out of the material.

  "I will kill him!" Leopold declared from the doorway, his voice squeaking high. "I will! I will! If you do not bed me, I will kill him!"

  Jessica turned around, squinting against the light. "You are so fucking crazy I can't deal with you anymore." He stood there, blinking, evidently stunned by this pronouncement.

  She got the steel rod separated from the curtain and· turned around. "Now, bandages," she said matter-of-factly, heading for the bathroom.

  "I'll kill him!" he raged, running back to the parlor.

  Jessica went after him, dragging the steel rod in her left hand behind her. As Leopold crouched over Hurt Guy and brought up the knife in his hand, Jessica transferred the rod to her right hand and forcibly clamped her burnt fingers around it. "Hey, Leopold!" she yelled, taking a running start.

  "Hurry it up!" Kunsa urged at the entrance to the stairwell. Kunsa, Dirk and the local police all had their night scopes on.

  "I can't hurry it up until they shut down the power!" the cop complained. "The meter says there's over five hundred volts in this door."

  "Get that power shut off!" Kunsa screamed into the walkie-talkie.

  "We're working on it," the walkie-talkie squawked back. "They have to trace the feed—Wait, hang on. Hang on, we're almost there. Hold on, hold on—"

  "Damn it, there's not time!" Kunsa seethed. "Come on! Come on!"

  Nothing from the walkie-talkie.

  "What the hell?" Kunsa said.

  "Easy," Dirk said. "They'll get it."

  "Found it!" squawked the walkie talkie. "We're disconnecting the power line now." Kunsa poised himself at the door. "Come on, come on—"

  She aimed for the soft underside of his skull, but Leopold ducked and the steel rod glanced off the side of his head. Still, the blow sent him crashing forward into the wall and sent Jessica sprawling. Then the lights went out.

  Kunsa didn't wait for confirmation and shoved the door open, charging up the four flights of stairs to the top. The door on the fourth-floor landing was locked, but Dirk used the master key and it worked.

  "Copter six-one—we've got a man on the roof, East Tower," the walkie-talkie said. "Can somebody let him in?"

  "No go, he's too high," Kunsa said into the walkie-talkie. "He's got to get down to the gables."

  "Negative. He says the gable windows are bricked in."

  "This is command-one going silent," Kunsa said, turning the walkie-talkie off. "All quiet," he instructed the group. He opened the door and waved them to follow. Silently they made their way down a large hallway.

  Kunsa looked at the screen the police technician offered him; it indicated the body heat of three figures some twenty yards ahead, to the right.

  Kunsa led them to a set of double doors. Wordlessly, the tech approached it. Then he quickly put an arm out to prevent Kunsa from touching it. "It's hot," the tech whispered. "Must be on a power pack."

  Kunsa gestured.

  With one of his heavily gloved hands, the tech extended something to the door. There was a spark, a sizzle sound, a small flash of orange light and then—nothing. He stepped back to let Kunsa lead the way into a large central foyer.

  Jessica heard Leopold moving around by the door. She scooted over
to the sofa and slipped her left hand under the cushion, looking for the steak knife. Found it.

  She put the knife in her left hand and lay down flat on the floor, making her way along the floor on her elbows, pulling her body up behind her. "Hey, Leopold," she whispered. "Come and get me, darling." There was a bumping sound ahead and she continued crawling toward the sound.

  Then there was an explosion in the building, somewhere near, for the very floor beneath her tremored.

  "What the hell was that?" Dirk whispered.

  "Don't tell me he's blowing up the building," Kunsa muttered. The tech grabbed him just as the agent reached for the next set of double doors. The tech checked his meter and then gave the okay sign.

  The agent slid the strap of his rifle off his shoulder and slowly pushed the door open with it. There was the sickening smell of burnt hair and human flesh. He took a step forward in the darkness and listened. His companions came silently forward, fanning out across the long arched hallway. There was sound coming from somewhere down the hall. To the right. There was an open door.

  Kunsa stole silently to the side of it. He leveled his rifle then whirled himself into the doorway, and then stopped in his tracks. He was looking down the barrel of his rifle to see Jessica Wright, with all of her hair burnt off, sitting on the floor, cradling the battered head of a man in her lap, slashing a steak knife blindly through the air at him with her left hand. "You touch him and I'll kill you!" she cried.

  "Jessica," Kunsa said. ''I'm Agent Norman Kunsa of the FBI. You're safe now. We're here to help you."

  "Get away from us, you fucking psycho!" she cried, continuing to slash at the air.

  Kunsa backed off and turned to Dirk. "Get Alexandra up here."

  Less than two minutes later, Alexandra appeared, huffing and puffing in the doorway. Jessica was still holding on to the injured man, jerking her knife around at every sound.

  "Jessica," Alexandra said softly, trying to stabilize her breath. Slowly she came in. "Shine your light on me, would you please?" she asked Kunsa. He did so. "Jessica, look, it's me, Alexandra. We've found you, Jessica. We're here to take you home."