In New England, in the late spring, there is an evening murkiness, as if the world is unsure about the state of change from the dark winter months into summer. Warm southern breezes pushed up by upper currents of air, mingle freely with shafts of cold that tumble down from Canada. Both sensations were like unwelcome immigrants, searching for a new home. Around her, she became aware of the shadows that crept forward across the hospital grounds, moving inexorably toward each of the housing units. She felt both hot and cold, a little like being caught up in a fever, sweating hard, but pulling a blanket tight to the chin.

She had more than 250 possible suspects on the succession of lists she had made in each building, and she worried that there were a hundred names that she'd rejected perhaps too quickly. She guessed that there would be another twenty-five or thirty possible suspects among the staff, as well, but she wasn't prepared to head in that direction yet, because she knew it would alienate the medical director, whose help she still needed.

As the two of them approached the Amherst Building, she realized with a start that she hadn't heard any catcalls, or shouts, from the housing buildings they had walked past. Or, perhaps, she had heard them, but failed to react. She took note of this inwardly, and thought how quickly the world of the hospital made the odd become routine.

"I have done a little reading about the sort of man you are pursuing," Dr. Gulptilil said, as they crossed the quadrangle. Their footsteps clicked against the black macadam of the walkway, and Lucy looked up and saw that the iron gates of the hospital were being rolled shut for the night by a security guard. "It is interesting how little medical literature is devoted to this murderous phenomena. Very few true studies, alas. There are some profiling efforts under way by police authorities, but in general, the psychological ramifications, diagnosis and treatment plans for the sort of person you are seeking have been generally ignored. In the psychiatric community, you must understand, Miss Jones, we do not like to waste our time with psychopaths."

"Why is that, Doctor?"

"Because they cannot be treated."

"At all?"

"No. Not at all. At least, not the classic psychopath. He does not respond to antipsychotic medication, the way a schizophrenic does. Nor, for that matter, a bipolar personality, an obsessive-compulsive, a clinical depressive or any number of diagnoses that we have developed medications for. Ah, now, that is not to say that the psychopath doesn't have identifiable medically recognizable illnesses. Far from it. But their lack of humanity, I suppose that's the best way to put it, places them in a different category, and one that is not well understood. They defy treatment plans, Miss Jones. They are dishonest, manipulative, often dramatically grandiose, and extremely seductive. Their impulses are their own and unchecked by the ordinary conventions of life and morality. Frightening, I must add. Very unsettling individuals when one comes into clinical contact with them. The astute psychiatrist Hervey Cleckley has an interesting book of case studies, which I would be more than happy to lend to you. It is perhaps the definitive work on these sorts of people. But it will make for most distressing reading, Miss Jones, because the conclusions drawn suggest there is little we can do. Clinically speaking, that is."

Lucy stopped outside the Amherst Building, and the small doctor turned eagerly toward her, bending his head slightly, as if to improve his hearing. A single high-pitched shout creased the air, emanating from one of the adjacent buildings, but they both ignored it.

"How many patients here have been diagnosed as psychopaths?" she asked abruptly.

He shook his head. "Ah, a question I have anticipated," he said.

"And the answer is?"

"Someone diagnosed as a psychopath would not be suitable for the treatment plans we have here. They are also not aided by long-term residential care, lengthy courses of psychotropic medication, even some of the more radical programs which we, upon occasion, administer, such as electrical convulsive therapy. Nor are they capable of other traditional forms of treatment, such as psychotherapy or even" and with this, he giggled slightly in the self-assured manner that he had, which Lucy had already determined to be irritating "a course of traditional psychoanalysis. No, Miss Jones, a psychopath does not belong in the Western State Hospital. They do, perhaps, belong in prison, which is generally where you will find them."

She hesitated, then asked, "But you're not saying there are none here, are you?"

Doctor Gulptilil smiled, Cheshire catlike, before responding. "There is no one here with that diagnosis written clearly and unequivocally on their admitting jacket, Miss Jones. There are some where some possible psychopathological tendencies are noted, but these are secondary to a more profound mental illness."

Lucy grimaced, more than a little angry at the doctor's evasiveness.

Doctor Gulptilil coughed. "But, of course, Miss Jones, if what you suspect is true, and your visit here is not rooted in error, as so many seem to think, then clearly there is one patient who has been significantly misdiagnosed."

He reached up, unlocked the front door to Amherst with a key, and then held the door open for her with a small bow and slightly forced gallantry.

Chapter 14

Lucy headed to her small room on the second floor of the nurse-trainees' dormitory late that evening, darkness surrounding her every step. It was one of the more obscure buildings on the hospital grounds, isolated in a shadowy corner, not far from the power plant with its constant hum and smoke plume, and overlooking the small hospital graveyard. It was as if the dead, haphazardly buried nearby, helped hush the sounds around the building. It was a stiff and square, three-storied, ivy-covered, federal-styled brick house with some imposing white Doric columns outside the front portico, that had been converted fifty years earlier and then reconfigured again in the late Forties and early Sixties, so that whatever remained of its first incarnation as someone's fine and grand hillside home was now merely memory. In two hands, she carried a brown cardboard box jammed with perhaps three dozen patient files, a group with a loosely defined potential, that she had selected from the list of names she was steadily compiling. Included in her selection were the files belonging to both Peter the Fireman and Francis, which she had taken when Mister Evans wasn't paying as much attention as perhaps he should have been. These were to satisfy, she hoped, some lingering curiosity about what had landed her two partners in the mental hospital.

Her overall idea was to start in familiarizing herself with what generally went into the dossiers, and then she would begin to interview patients once she had a firm grasp of what sort of information was already available. She couldn't really immediately see any other approach. There was no physical evidence in her possession that could be pursued although she was well aware that there was significant physical evidence somewhere. A knife, or some other highly sharpened weapon, like a prison shank or a set of razor-sharp box cutters, she thought. That was carefully hidden. There had to be some other bloody clothes, and perhaps a shoe with its sole still rimmed with the nurse's blood. And somewhere there were the four missing fingertips.

She had telephoned the detectives who had taken Lanky into custody and asked about these. They had been singularly unhelpful. One believed that he had sliced them off, then flushed them down a toilet. A lot of effort to no discernible reason, she thought. The other, without stating it clearly, danced around the suggestion that Lanky had perhaps ingested them. "After all," the detective said, "the guy's crazy as a loon."