Alex Delaware - 27 - Victims by Jonathan Kellerman

Author:Jonathan Kellerman
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Thriller
ISBN: 9780755374519
Published: 2012-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

24

Nice-guy Marlon Quigg had lied to his wife.

There had been no plans to close Ventura State back when he worked there.

I knew that because I’d been there weeks before the hospital had emptied, hired by a law firm representing two wards of wheelchair-bound, minimally functioning children facing a terrifyingly ambiguous future. I evaluated each patient and made detailed recommendations for the aftercare promised by the state. Some of what I advised was put into effect. Mostly the state reneged.

Several years before that, well after Quigg had already quit, I’d rotated through as an intern, augmenting my training at Langley Porter with a month of observation at the largest mental hospital west of the Mississippi.

That spring, I’d set out from San Francisco at sundown, slept on the beach in San Simeon and watched elephant seals lolling, ended up in Camarillo by midmorning where I showered and dressed in the restroom of a public beach, checked my map, and got back on the freeway.

A poorly marked road slanting east of the 101 had guided me inland over a dry creek, past empty fields, copses of native sycamore and oak, and Australian eucalyptus that had long made themselves comfortable in Southern California. For the next few miles nothing hinted at the hospital’s presence. Then a twenty-foot gate of heavy-duty iron painted red snapped into view just around a severe bend and forced me to brake hard.

A watchful guard checked my I.D., frowned, pointed to a Five MPH sign, and buzzed me through. Snailing through more twisting, shaded road, I came to a stop at the mouth of a stadium-worthy parking lot full of cars. Rising behind the auto glare were buildings sheathed in dun stucco and prettied by moldings, medallions, pediments, and arched loggias. Most of the windows were grilled in that same rusty red.

City of the Sad.

Decades before, Ventura State had gained infamy as a place where anything went if a doctor said so. A host of horrors had taken place behind its walls until World War II drew the doctors to Europe and the Pacific, and the Holocaust got people thinking harder about degradation of personal liberty: lobotomies and other untested surgeries, crude versions of shock and insulin therapy, forced commitment of those labeled a nuisance, forced sterilizations of those deemed unfit to breed. Reforms had been drastic and thorough and the hospital had gained a reputation for enlightenment and humanism; I was eager to experience a new clinical setting and to be back in Southern California.

I spent my first two days in orientation sessions delivered by a nursing supervisor, accompanied by freshly minted psychiatric residents, other psychology interns, new-hire nurses and orderlies. Once educated, we were free to explore the grounds, with the exception of the easternmost end where a compound marked Specialized Care sat. An orderly asked the training nurse what specialized meant. She said, “Unique situations, it varies,” and went on to the next topic.

With hours to go before my first assignment, I wandered the campus staggered by the dimensions and ambitions of the place.

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