King & Max01 Split Second by David Baldacci

Author:David Baldacci
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Thrillers, Fiction
ISBN: 9780759507951
Publisher: Hachette Digital, Inc.
Published: 2003-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

38

They flew via private plane to Dayton, Ohio, and then drove to a state mental facility that was about thirty minutes north. Joan had called ahead and gotten the necessary approvals to visit Sidney Morse.

“It wasn’t as difficult as I would have thought,” she told King on the drive there. “Although when I told the woman whom I wanted to see, she laughed. Said we could come if we wanted, but it wouldn’t do us much good.”

“How long has Morse been there?” King asked.

“About a year or so. He was committed by his family. Or rather his brother, Peter Morse. I guess that’s all the family he had left.”

“I thought Peter Morse was in trouble with the police. And wasn’t he a druggie?”

“‘Was’ being the operative word. He never went to prison, probably due to his brother’s influence. He apparently cleaned up his act and when his older brother went nuts, put him in the state mental hospital.”

“Why in Ohio?”

“It seems that prior to being committed, Sidney was living with his brother here. I guess he was so far gone he couldn’t live by himself.”

King shook his head. “Talk about your reversal of fortune. In less than ten years the guy goes from king of the hill to permanent residence in a nuthouse.”

A little while later King and Joan were sitting in a small room at the bleak institution. The sounds of wails and cries and sobbing filtered down the hallways. People whose minds had long since left them were hunched over in wheelchairs in the corridors. In a recreation room off the main reception area a small group of patients watched a show on TV. Nurses, doctors and attendants slowly moved up and down the halls in their scrubs, their energy seemingly sapped by the depressing surroundings.

King and Joan both stood as the man was wheeled into the room by one of the attendants. The young man nodded to them. “Okay, here’s Sid.”

The young man knelt down in front of Morse and patted him on the shoulder. “Okay, Sid, these people want to talk to you, okay, you hear me? It’s cool, just talk.” The attendant grinned when he said this.

He stood and Joan said, “Um, is there anything we should know, anything to avoid?”

The man smiled, showing a row of crooked teeth. “Not with Sid. It really doesn’t matter.”

King hadn’t been able to take his gaze off the wreck of a man who eight years ago had nearly pulled off one of the most impressive feats in American politics. Morse had lost some weight but was still chubby. His hair had been shaved off, although he had a short beard shot with gray. King had remembered his eyes being laser sharp, missing nothing. Now those eyes were clearly lifeless. It was Sidney Morse, but just barely, only the shell really.

He said, “So what’s the diagnosis?”

“That he ain’t never leaving here, that’s what,” said the attendant, who introduced himself as Carl. “His mind’s totally gone. Cracked out and ain’t coming back.

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