Sitting down at the kitchen table, a pad of paper and pen in hand, I dialed the number for Valhalla.

"Jeanie Sample, please." I did not identify myself.

"Is she a patient, ma'am?" the desk clerk asked without pause.

"No. She's an employee…" I acted addled. "I think so, at any rate. I haven't seen Jeanie in years."

"One moment, please."

The woman came back on the line. "We have no record of anybody by that name."

Damn. How could that be? I wondered. The telephone number listed with her name on the medical examiner's report was Valhalla's number. Had Dr. Brown made a mistake? Nine years ago, I thought. A lot could happen in nine years. Miss Sample could have moved. She could have gotten married.

"I'm sorry," I said. "Sample is her maiden name."

"Do you know her married name?"

"How awful. I should know-"

"Jean Wilson?"

I paused with uncertainty.

"We have a Jean Wilson," the voice went on. "One of our occupational therapists. Can you hold, please?"

Then she was back very quickly. "Yes, her middle name is listed as Sample, ma'am. But she doesn't work on the weekend. She'll be back Monday morning at eight o'clock. Would you like to leave a message?"

"Any possibility you could tell me how to get in touch with her?"

"We're not allowed to give out home numbers."

She was beginning to sound suspicious. "If you'll give me your name and number, I can try to get hold of her and ask her to call you."

"I'm afraid I won't be at this number long."

I thought for a moment, then sounded dismally disappointed when I added, "I'll try again-next time I'm in the area. And I suppose I can write her at Valhalla, at your address."

"Yes, ma'am. You can do that."

"And that address is?"

She gave it to me.

"And her husband's name?"

A pause. "Skip, I believe."

Sometimes a nickname for Leslie, I thought. "Mrs. Skip or Leslie Wilson," I muttered, as if I were writing it down. "Thank you so much."

There was one Leslie Wilson in Charlottesville, directory assistance informed me, and one L. P. Wilson and one L. T. Wilson. I started dialing. The man who answered when I tried the number for L. T. Wilson told me "Jeanie" was running errands and would be home within the hour.

I knew that a strange voice asking questions over the phone wasn't going to work. Jeanie Wilson would insist on conferring with Dr. Masterson first, and that would end the matter. It is, however, a little more difficult to refuse someone who unexpectedly appears in the flesh at your door, expecially if this individual introduces herself as the chief medical examiner and has a badge to prove it.

Jeanie Sample Wilson didn't look a day over thirty in her jeans and red pullover sweater. She was a perky brunette with friendly eyes and a smattering of freckles over her nose, her long hair tied back in a ponytail. In the living room beyond the open door, two small boys were sitting on the carpet, watching cartoons on television.

"How long have you been working at Valhalla?" I asked.

She hesitated. "Uh, about twelve years."

I was so relieved I almost sighed out loud. Jeanie Wilson would have been employed there not only when Jim Barnes was fired nine years ago, but also when Al Hunt was a patient two years before that.

She was planted squarely in the doorway. There was one car in the drive, in addition to mine. It appeared her husband had gone out. Good.

"I'm investigating the homicides of Beryl Madison and Gary Harper," I said.

Her eyes widened. "What do you want from me? I didn't know them-"

"May I come inside?"

"Of course. I'm sorry. Please."

We sat inside her small kitchen of linoleum and white Formica and pine cabinets. It was impeccably clean, with boxes of cereal neatly lined on top of the refrigerator, and counters arranged with big glass jars filled with cookies, rice and pasta. The dishwasher was running, and I could smell a cake baking in the oven.

I intended to beat down any lingering resistance with bluntness. "Mrs. Wilson, Al Hunt was a patient at Valhalla eleven years ago, and for a while was a suspect in the cases in question. He was acquainted with Beryl Madison."

"Al Hunt?" She looked bewildered.

"Do you remember him?" I asked.

She shook her head.

"And you say you've worked at Valhalla twelve years?"

"Eleven and a half, actually."

"Al Hunt was a patient there eleven years ago, as I've already said."

"The name isn't familiar…"

"He committed suicide last week," I said.

Now she was very bewildered.

"I talked to him shortly before his death, Mrs. Wilson. His social worker died in a motor vehicle accident nine years ago. Jim Barnes. I need to ask you about him."

A flush was creeping up her neck. "Are you thinking his suicide was related, had something to do with Jim?"

It was a question impossible to answer. "Apparently, Jim Barnes was fired from Valhalla just hours before his death," I went on. "Your name - or at least your maiden name - is listed on the medical examiner's report, Mrs. Wilson."

"There was- Well, there was some question," she stammered. "You know, whether it was a suicide or an accident. I was questioned. A doctor, coroner, I don't remember. But some man called me."

"Dr. Brown?"

"I don't remember his name," she said.

"Why did he want to talk to you, Mrs. Wilson?"

"I suppose because I was one of the last people to see Jim alive. I guess the doctor called the front desk, and Betty referred him to me."

"Betty?"

"She was the receptionist back then."

"I need you to tell me everything you can remember about Jim Barnes's being fired," I said as she got up to check on the cake.

When she returned, she was a little more composed. She no longer looked unnerved. Instead, she looked angry.

She said, "Maybe it's not right to say bad things about the dead, Dr. Scarpetta, but Jim was not a nice person. He was a very big problem at Valhalla, and he should have been fired long before he was."

"Exactly how was he a problem?"

"Patients say a lot of things. They're often not very, well, credible. It's hard to know what's true and what isn't. Dr. Masterson, other therapists, would get complaints from time to time, but nothing could be proven until there was a witnessed event one morning, the morning of that day. The day Jim was fired and had the accident."

"This event was something you witnessed?" I asked.

"Yes." She stared off across the kitchen, her mouth firmly set.

"What happened?"

"I was walking through the lobby, on my way to see Dr. Masterson about something, when Betty called out to me. She was working the front desk, the switchboard, like I said - Tommy, Clay, now you keep it down in there!"

The shrieking in the other room only got louder, television channels switching like mad.

Mrs. Wilson got up wearily to see about her sons. I heard muffled smacks of hand against bottoms, after which the channel stayed put. Cartoon characters were shooting each other with what sounded like machine guns.

"Where was I?" she asked, returning to the kitchen table.

"You were talking about Betty," I reminded her.

"Oh, yes. She motioned me over and said Jim's mother was on the line, long distance, and it seemed important. I never did know what it was about, the call. But Betty asked if I could find Jim. He was in psychodrama, which is held in the ballroom. You know, Valhalla has a ballroom we use for various functions. The Saturday night dances, parties. There's a stage, an orchestra stage. From when Valhalla was a hotel. I slipped into the back, and when I saw what was going on, I couldn't believe it."

Jeanie Wilson's eyes were bright with anger. She started fidgeting with the edge of a place mat. "I just stood there and watched. Jim's back was to me, and he was up on the stage with, I don't know, five or six patients. They were in chairs turned in such a way that they couldn't see what he was doing with this one patient. A young girl. Her name was Rita. Rita was maybe thirteen. Rita had been raped by her stepfather. She never talked, was functionally mute. Jim was forcing her to reenact it."

"The rape?" I asked calmly.

"The damn bastard. Excuse me. But it still upsets me."

"Understandably."

"He later claimed he wasn't doing anything inappropriate. Damn, he was such a liar. He denied everything. But I'd seen it. I knew exactly what he was doing. He was playing the role of the stepfather, and Rita was so terrified she didn't move. She was frozen in the chair. He was in her face, leaning over her, talking in a low voice. Sound carries inside the ballroom. I could hear everything. Rita was very mature, developed, for thirteen. Jim was asking her, 'Is this what he did, Rita?' He kept asking her that as he touched her. Fondled her, just as her stepfather had done, I suppose. I slipped out. He never knew I'd seen it until both Dr. Masterson and I confronted him minutes later."

I was beginning to understand why Dr. Masterson had refused to discuss Jim Barnes with me, and possibly why pages of Al Hunt's case file were absent. If something like this was ever made public, even though it had happened long ago, the hospital's reputation would take it on the nose.

"And you were suspicious Jim Barnes had done this before?" I asked.

"Some of the early complaints would indicate he had," Jeanie Wilson replied, her eyes flashing.

"Always females?"

"Not always."

"You received complaints from male patients?"

"From one of the young men. Yes. But no one took it seriously at the time. He had sexual problems anyway, supposedly had been molested or something. The very type someone like Jim would fix on because who would believe anything the poor kid said?"

"Do you remember this patient's name?"

"God."

She frowned. "It was so long ago."

She thought. "Frank… Frankie. That's it. I remember some of the patients called him Frankie. I don't recall his last name."