Several minutes later, the gate opened very slowly and Milo drove through. He’d been unusually quiet during the trip. Now he looked uneasy.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “You’re not wearing khaki, they’ll let you out. If you don’t say too much.”
He snorted. What he was wearing was an old maroon hop-sack blazer, gray wide-wale cords, gray shirt, wrinkled black poly tie, scuffed beige desert boots with soles the color of pencil erasers. He needed a haircut. Black cowlicks danced atop his big head. The contrast with the now-white sideburns was too strong. Yesterday, he’d made some comment about being Mr. Skunk.
The road tilted upward before flattening. We came to an outdoor parking lot, nearly full. Then more chain link, broad stretches of earth, yellow-tinged and sulfurous.
Behind the fence stood a solid-looking man in a plaid sport shirt and jeans. The sound of the unmarked made him turn and study us.
Milo said, “Our welcoming party,” and began searching for a spot. “Why the hell would anyone want to work here?”
“Are you asking in general or about Dr. Argent?”
“Both. But yeah, her. What would make her choose this?”
It was the day after he’d called me, and I hadn’t yet seen the Argent file. “There’s something for everyone,” I said. “Also, managed care’s tightened things up. Could be she had no choice.”
“She had plenty of choice. She quit a research position at County General, neuro-something.”
“Maybe she was doing research here, too.”
“Maybe,” he said, “but her job title was Psychologist II, pure civil service, and the director-some guy named Swig- didn’t mention research. Why would she quit County for this?”
“You’re sure she wasn’t fired?”
“Her ex-boss at County told me she quit. Dr. Theobold.”
“Myron Theobold.”
“Him you know?”
“Met him a few times at faculty meetings. What else did he say?”
“Not much. Like he didn’t know her well. Or maybe he was holding back. Maybe you should talk to him.”
“Sure.”
He spotted an opening, swung in sharply, hit the brakes hard. Yanking off his seat belt, he looked through the windshield. The man in the plaid shirt had unlocked the second fence and come closer. He waved. Milo returned the gesture. Fifties, gray hair and mustache.
Milo pulled his jacket from the backseat and pocketed his keys. Gazed beyond the man in the plaid shirt at the chain-link desert. “She spent eight hours a day here. With deranged, murderous assholes. And now she’s dead-wouldn’t you call this place a detective’s happy hunting ground?”
4.
DOLLARD UNLOCKED THE rear gate and took us out of the yard and across a short cement path. The gray building appeared like a storm cloud-immense, flat-roofed, slab-faced. No steps, no ramp, just brown metal doors set into the block at ground level. Small sharp-edged letters said STARKWEATHER: MAIN BLDG. Rows of tiny windows checked the cement. No bars across the panes. The glass looked unusually dull, filmed over. Not glass. Plastic. Thick, shatterproof, wind-whipped nearly opaque.
Perhaps clouded minds gained nothing from a clear view.
The doors were unlocked. Dollard shoved the right one open. The reception area was cool, small, ripe with a broiled-meat smell. Pink-beige walls and black linoleum blanched under blue-white fluorescence. Overhead air-conditioning ducts emitted a sound that could have been whispering.
A heavyset, bespectacled woman in her thirties sat behind two old wooden desks arranged in an L, talking on the phone. She wore a sleeveless yellow knit top and a picture badge like Dollard’s. Two desk plaques: RULE ONE: I’M ALWAYS RIGHT. RULE
TWO: REFER TO RULE ONE. And L. SCHMITZ. Between them was a stack of brochures.
Her phone had a dozen lines. Four lights blinked. On the wall behind the desk hung a
color photo of Emil Starkweather flashing a campaign smile full of bridgework. Above that, a banner solicited employee contributions for Toys for Tots and the United
Way. To the left, a small, sagging shelf of athletic trophies and group photos trumpeted the triumphs of “The Hurlers: Starkweather Hosp. Staff Bowling Team.”
First prize for seven years out often. Off to the right stretched a long, bright hallway punctuated by bulletin boards and more brown doors.