“That’s… good,” Chapel said. “I’m glad to hear it. Thanks.”
Clearly the man thought he had brain damage or something. Humiliated and still a little confused by what he was doing there, Chapel climbed out of the cab and looked up at the façade of Bellevue Hospital, which looked like any other glass-fronted building in New York except it had the name “Bellevue” written up one side. Having only seen the hospital in movies before, he would have expected some huge brick monolith with tiny barred windows from which the occasional scream could be heard.
Maybe he should check himself in. He was definitely feeling disoriented and confused. Julia had said he was recovering nicely from his concussion, though. “Angel, do you have any thoughts about what’s going on, here?”
“Just one, sugar. I’m starting to understand why Christina Smollett is so far off the radar. She’s been a resident here since 1979. She’s a patient in the psychiatric hospital.”
Chapel frowned. “How old was she when she checked in? Wait — I can do this one in my head. She was born in 1959 so she would have been nineteen or twenty. I don’t see how she could possibly have done any work for the CIA before that. And I seriously doubt the CIA has any undercover operatives in there.”
“You still want to go in and talk to her?” Angel asked. “I can make the arrangements.”
“Yeah, I should at least see if she can give me any new leads.” Though Chapel wondered what a woman who’d been living in a psychiatric hospital for over thirty years could possibly know about genetic freaks with extra eyelids or the inner workings of secret government facilities. Still, he was here. “I won’t take long. Can you have a helicopter ready to pick me up when I’m done?”
“There’s a helipad on the roof. It’s not open to civil aviation, but I can get you in and out before anyone knows you’re there. In the meantime… okay, you’re good. You’ve been added to the list of approved visitors for Christina Smollett. I’ve listed you as being in law enforcement.”
“Thanks,” Chapel said, and he hurried for the entrance. There was a metal detector inside and a couple of bored-looking uniformed security guards, one of whom was reading a newspaper. The other wrote down Chapel’s name on a clipboard and then waved him through to a bank of elevators.
On the way up Angel gave him directions to the correct ward. The Psychiatric Hospital was behind a series of locked doors that security guards had to open for him. The place was clean and brightly lit, but it looked old and tired all the same, the walls painted in drab institutional colors and the endless doors all the same. Following Angel’s directions, he finally reached a nurses’ station where a man in purple surgical scrubs waved him over. “You’re here to see Kristin, right?”
“Christina Smollett,” Chapel said, glad as always that he had Angel to smooth the way for him. Without her it might have taken hours to get this far.
“Christina? We have a Kristin Smollett,” the nurse told him. “Huh. Ruth? Ruth!”
An older woman in a starched white uniform came to the window of the nurses’ station and peered out with sharp eyes.
“Ruth,” the male nurse asked, “Christina Smollett. Is that the same as Kristin?”
“Yes,” Ruth told him, handing him a manila folder. “She’ll be in her room this time of day. Dinner’s in an hour; be sure to be done with your visit by then, sir.”
“It shouldn’t take that long,” Chapel assured her.
The male nurse led him down a long corridor. He leafed through the folder while they walked. It looked like it was Christina Smollett’s medical record.
“Funny,” the nurse said. “I’ve been working here six years. I always thought her name was Kristin.”
“She never corrected you?” Chapel asked.
“You haven’t visited her before, have you?” the nurse inquired. He caught Chapel trying to read over his shoulder, and he snapped the manila folder closed.
“No,” Chapel admitted.
The nurse gave him a shrewd look, but then he shrugged. “Somebody like Kristin, somebody who’s been taking antipsychotic medication for a long time, it kind of… eats away at them. It keeps them from acting out, and it makes the disturbed thoughts go away. But it doesn’t leave a whole lot else in there.” He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Looking at her medication history, it’s like reading a book on the history of nasty pills. The stuff we give here now is okay, it’s all new wonder drugs. But back in the eighties she was mainlining Thorazine, and that stuff turns you into a zombie. I’d be pretty surprised if she can even remember her name.”
MANHATTAN, NEW YORK: APRIL 12, T+12:07
The nurse unlocked a door and gestured for Chapel to head into the room beyond. “I’ll be out here when you’re done, so I can check you back out.”
Chapel thanked him and stepped inside.
The room was small but not cramped, pleasant without exactly being comfortable. There was a bed and a dresser inside, and one window that looked like it couldn’t be opened. Christina Smollett was sitting on the bed. She might have been fifty or seventy. Her hair was long and gray, and it looked like it had been carefully brushed on one side and left tangled and knotted on the other. She wore a sweat suit, and she was staring at the one piece of ornamentation in the entire room, a picture taped to the wall. The picture was of Tom Selleck, a twinkle in his eye and a cocky grin half hidden behind his famous mustache.
She didn’t move at all when Chapel came in. She didn’t seem aware of his presence. He walked over in front of her, not wanting to block her view of the picture but needing to get her attention. “Ms. Smollett?” he asked. “Christina?”
She blinked when he said her name, but didn’t move her head. Her lips were curled in a simple smile. “He always looks so nice, in his shows,” she said. “Like he would be friendly if you met him.”
She sighed happily.
Chapel took a deep breath. “Christina, my name is Chapel. I need to ask you some questions. I need to know if you’ve ever met a Dr. Helen Bryant or a Dr. William Taggart.”
She stuck out her lower lip and shook her head in the negative. “I know lots of doctors, though, and they don’t always tell me their names. I’ve known a whole bunch of doctors. Doctors like me. They say I’m a perfect patient.”
“I’m sure you are,” Chapel told her. “How about Franklin Hayes? He’s a judge. Have you ever met a judge?”
“Oh, no. There would have been a judge at my commitment hearing. But they didn’t take me to that. Mommy said they didn’t want to upset me. I used to be very easy to upset.” She looked back at the picture on the wall. “Do you think he would be nice, if you met him in person?”
“Tom Selleck?”
“Is that his name? I… I have trouble with names sometimes. I’m sorry. I’m being a terrible hostess. Can I offer you a cup of coffee? If you’re hungry, I could probably make something.”
Chapel glanced around the room by reflex, but of course there was no coffeemaker in the room, much less any kind of kitchen facilities.
This was going nowhere. Christina Smollett’s mind was mush, to be callous about it. She wasn’t there. He took the kill list from his pocket and ran down the rest of the names, but she just shook her head at the sound of each one.
What on earth did this woman have to do with chimeras and kill lists and CIA secret projects? He couldn’t see any connection at all. More to the point, why would the detainees — the chimeras, as he was coming to think of them — want to kill this woman in the first place? She was no danger to them or anybody else.
If she had ever known a secret, a secret that could damage national security, it was long gone.