Show of Evil

'The state hospital in Ohio. She was one of our failures.'

'Are you sure she's still there?'

'Yes.'

'Next.'

'Sidney Tribble. I'll tell you right off the top, he is from St Louis and he went back there after he got his ticket. Tribble has a sister there, they're quite close. He's got a good job making an acceptable salary. No psychological recurrences so far.'

'Why was he here?'

'Schizoid, paranoid, dissociative.'

'Why was he committed?'

'Court order. His wife left him and he began to delude. Thought she and her new boyfriend were taunting him. He stabbed a man in a shopping mall, someone he didn't even know, he just picked up a pair of shears in a hardware department and attacked him.'

'Did he kill him?'

She shook her head. 'The wounds were relatively superficial. The judge ordered confinement and treatment and his sister paid to have him committed here instead of the state hospital.'

'How long was he here?'

'A year in treatment, a little over two years as an employee and an outpatient. He worked here as our electrician. Went back to St Louis about a year ago.'

St Claire cast a glance at Vail, then made a note beside Tribble's name: 'Possible.'

'Okay, who's next?' Vail asked.

'Rene Hutchinson. She was also on the housekeeping staff. Very bright; in fact, she taught a class of ten-year-olds and was quite good at it, but she didn't want the responsibility. She worked as a housekeeper, then later she assisted in the infirmary. Pretty woman, kind of raw-boned. Pioneer stock.'

'How old was she?'

'Late thirties.'

'What was her problem?'

'She wasn't my patient,' Molly said. 'I would prefer you ask Dr Salzman. He treated her.'

Think he'll talk to us?'

'We'll find out,' she said, and went to the phone.

Orin Salzman was a small man with a greying Vandyke beard and neatly cropped black hair. His shoulders were stooped and rounded as if weighted by the burden of his patients. He wore a black turtleneck sweater, khaki slacks, and a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows and seemed a bit put out at being interrupted. He appeared at Molly's door, hands stuffed in his pockets, staring at them through thick tortoiseshell glasses. Molly offered him a drink, which he declined.

'What's this about?' he asked in a stern tone, leaning against the doorjamb.

Molly introduced Vail and St Claire and explained the situation briefly, without going into too many details. Salzman was superficially familiar with the Stampler case, which helped.

'They're interested in Rene Hutchinson's case,' Molly said.

'You know I can't divulge my work with Rene,' he said.

'Look, Doctor,' St Claire said, 'we ain't lookin' to cause this Hutchinson woman any grief. But we gotta check all these people out. If we ask anythin' that you feel is privileged, jest say so, we'll back off.'

'Hmm,' he said. He slowly eased himself into the room and sat on the opposite end of the couch from Vail. 'So I gather you're looking for people with psychopathic tendencies, that it?'

'Kinda.'

He drummed his fingers on the coffee table for a few moments, then said, 'Well, if Molly says okay, I'm willing to listen.'

'What can you tell us - off the top - about her?' Vail asked.

'Her father was an army man, sergeant as I recall. She was born out west somewhere, lived all over the world. Left home when she was fairly young. Went to college for two years. University of Colorado. Very bright woman with an extremely fragile psyche.'

'Did you ever figure out why?'

'Not really. She had suffered a nervous breakdown before she came here, which she concealed from us when she applied for the job. It came out after she'd been here about two years. She was working the night clean-up staff here and going to school in the daytime, got exhausted and almost had a relapse. Then she was arrested for shoplifting.'

'What'd she steal?'

'Something inconsequential, a cheap purse as I remember. Kleptomania is often a cry for attention.'

'And how long was she here?'

'She worked here about three years. She was in therapy for the last six months of her employment, mainly to mend a damaged ego and shaky self-image and build back her strength.'

'What's her background?'

'Well, she wasn't particularly anxious to discuss her past.'

'Isn't that why she came to you?'

'She came to me because she had to. The judge ordered her to get psychiatric help.'

'For how long?'

'Six months.'

'Did she resent these sessions with you?'

'No. She was in pain, and believe me, mental disorders are as painful as your pain would be if you broke a leg. It's not the kind of pain you can take an aspirin for or rub away, and you can't take antibiotics to cure it, but the hurt is very real to those who are suffering.'

'How did she deal with her past?'

'She didn't. I never did really connect with her. The re-experiencing process is the most painful of all. It requires the individual to deal with their darkest side, examine motives and actions they'd rather forget.'

'And Rene resisted it?'

'Wasn't really interested. I strongly suspect she was sexually abused by her father although she never admitted that. She did tell me once that her father was physically and mentally abusive, but that was as far as she took it.'

'So she was uncooperative?'

'No, she was friendly and talkative, she just didn't want to deal with the past, and six months wasn't enough time to earn her trust.'

'You liked her, then?'

'I didn't dislike her. She was a patient I saw for three hours a week. We never got beyond her shielding, which is not uncommon at all.'

'Did you ever consider her dangerous?'

'No - well, to herself, perhaps, when she first came to me. She was verging on manic-depression, there's always a danger of suicide in depression cases. But I never considered her capable of purposely hurting someone else.'

'So you feel she was cured?'

'Let's just say we stopped the problem before it got too bad. She was never an inpatient, she just met with me for three hours a week and I had her on some antidepressant medication.'

'Worked at night, you say?' asked Vail.

He nodded. 'Five nights a week for four hours and eight hours on the weekends. She was the night housekeeping staff, cleaned the offices and meeting rooms.'

'So she would have had access to keys to the offices, for clean-up purposes?' said Vail.

'Uh-huh…'

'You say she was goin''t'school. Remember what she was studyin'?'

'Data processing. The wave of the future, she called it.'

'Where was that, here in Winthrop?' Vail asked.

Salzman chuckled. 'Obviously you've never seen Winthrop. It's about the size of your hand. She commuted to Shelbyville, about fifteen miles up the Indy highway. Drove an old Pontiac Firebird.'

'Do you know where she went when she left here?'

'Sorry. We lost track of her after she left. You might check with Jean in Personnel on the off-chance somebody asked for a reference.' Molly excused herself and went into her office. They could hear her talking to someone on the phone.

'One more thing,' said St Claire to Salzman. 'Did ya ever get any indication that Rene Hutchinson might have been psychotic, or have psychotic tendencies?'

'No, but that doesn't mean she wasn't. Psychopaths are consummate liars, among other things. She was aloof and could be very guarded at times. And she had mood swings, but then, who doesn't.'

'Anything else you can think of?'

'Well, no, not really. She was excellent with young people, particularly in the eight-to-fifteen age range. They seemed to relate to her, if that means anything.'

'Did she ever mention Aaron Stampler or a fella named Vulpes? Raymond Vulpes?' St Claire asked.

'Not that I recall.'

Vail gave Salzman his card. 'If you think of anything else, would you give me a call?' he asked.