16th Seduction: (Women’s Murder Club 16) (Women's Murder Club) by James Patterson

Author:James Patterson [Patterson, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781780895192
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2017-03-09T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 50

THE TWIN BRICK towers of the Hyde Street Psychiatric Center, known to the “clients” as the Hyde and Seek Loony Bin, were vine covered, connected by the one-story administrative block and fronted by a spiked wrought-iron fence.

An alley ran along the dark side of the North Tower, ten feet wide by a block long, bounded by the blank concrete wall of the Walgreens next door—the corner of healthy and happy.

Neddie slipped into the alley and went directly to the green metal fire door leading to the Loony Bin’s garbage room.

The metal door squealed when he opened it, but he was the only one around to hear it. Commercial garbage days were Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and this being Sunday, the overflow garbage was piled high in plastic bags, with a narrow path between them leading to the tunnel door.

Neddie unlocked and cracked open the painted wooden door to the tunnel that ran between the Loony Bin and Saint Vartan’s Medical Center, the gigantic teaching hospital across the road.

Right away he heard the rattle of trolley wheels and saw the orderly pushing a food cart from the kitchen. Neddie popped inside the tunnel and closed the door behind him, hearing the solid click of the lock.

Another food cart came toward him. The orderly called out, “Hey there, Neddie! How’s our Neddie? Lookin’ good, Neddie.”

He answered in a practiced, high-pitched falsetto, “Hey there, Mr. Larry. Neddie’s good!”

He gave the orderly his bright-young-child look, then crossed the width of the fluorescent-lit tunnel and jogged up a flight of stairs to the top landing, which was the lower-level entrance to the North Tower. There was a keypad beside the doorframe, as well as a doorbell. Neddie knew the code to the keypad, but that was his secret. He pressed the button.

He waited a minute, and then the door swung open and Dr. Hoover was there.

Once, after Neddie first met Dr. Hoover, the doctor had given him a quizzical look and asked him, “You’re just fooling with me, aren’t you, Edward?”

Neddie had said, “Fool-fool-fooling with you.” He had grinned brightly, like the brain-damaged, mentally challenged dolt he pretended to be. Hoover had said, “I’ll see you in our session tomorrow, same time, okay, Edward?”

Neddie had said, “Same time!”

Dr. Hoover was smart and wary, but that was okay for now. Hoover kept Neddie on his game. If Hoover ever got onto Neddie’s act for real, he would have a surprise heart attack. What a shame. What a loss that would be.

Now Hoover said, “I was just looking for you, Edward.”

“I went down for a snack,” Neddie said, clapping his hands.

“I hear you. But it’s time for dinner now.”

As Neddie followed Dr. Hoover down the linoleumfloored corridor, past the dispensary, he sneaked the empty vial and the used syringe out of his Windbreaker pocket and dropped them into the needle disposal can outside the nurses’ station.

A second later he ran, catching up to Dr. Hoover’s longlegged stride, entering the common room and going from there to the noisy, joyful chow room that fronted on Bush Street.

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