The Madman's Tale by John Katzenbach

Author:John Katzenbach [Katzenbach, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-345-47847-4
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2004-06-14T16:00:00+00:00

The man directly across from her smiled blankly but said nothing.

For the second time, Lucy asked, “Do you remember the nurse-trainee that went by the nickname Short Blond?”

The man rocked forward in the seat and moaned slightly. It was neither a yes moan, nor a no moan, simply a sound of acknowledgment. At least, Francis would have described the sound as a moan, but that was for lack of any better word, because the man didn’t seem discomfited in the slightest, either by the question, the stiff-backed chair or the woman prosecutor sitting across from him. He was a hulking, broad-shouldered man, with hair cropped short and a wide-eyed expression. A small line of spittle was collected at the corner of his mouth, and he rocked to a rhythm that played only in his own ears.

“Will you answer any questions?” Lucy Jones asked, frustration creeping into her voice.

Again, the man remained silent, except for the small creaking noise of the chair he sat upon, as he rocked back and forth. Francis looked down at the man’s hands, which were large and gnarled, almost as weathered as an old man’s hands, which wasn’t at all right, because he thought the silent man was probably not much older than he was. Sometimes Francis thought that inside the mental hospital, the ordinary rules of aging were somehow altered. Young people looked old. Old people looked ancient. Men and women who should have had vitality in every heartbeat, dragged as if the weight of years marred every step, while some who were nearly finished with life had childlike simplicity and needs. For a second, he glanced down at his own hands, as if to check that they were still more or less age appropriate. Then he looked back to the big man’s. His hands were connected to massive forearms, and knotted, muscled arms. Every vein that stood out spoke of barely restrained power.

“Is there something wrong?” Lucy asked.

The man gave out another growling, low-pitched grunt, that had little to do with any language Francis had ever heard before he’d arrived at the hospital, but one which he’d grown accustomed to hearing in the dayroom. It was an animal noise, expressing something simple, like hunger or thirst, lacking the edge that it might have, if anger was the basis of the sound.

Evans reached over and took the file away from Lucy Jones, quickly running his eyes over the pages collected inside the folder. “I don’t think interviewing this subject will be profitable,” he said with a smugness that he couldn’t hide.

Lucy, a little angry, pivoted toward Mister Evil. “And why?”

He pointed at a corner of the file. “There’s a diagnosis of profound retardation. You didn’t see that?”

“What I saw,” Lucy said coldly, “was a history of violent acts toward women. Including an incident where he was interrupted in the midst of a sexual assault on a much younger child, and a second instance where he struck someone, landing her in the hospital.”

Evans looked back down at the folder.

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