Speaking In Tongues

He floored the accelerator, splattering the squad car with gravel and dirt. As he drove over a crest in the road, the tach nosing into the red crescent of the warning zone, he caught a glimpse of Bett in the rearview mirror, crouching beside the prone trooper, undoubtedly apologizing earnestly. Still, the pistol that was gripped in both her hands was pointed steadily at his face.

She couldn’t take it anymore.

Crazy Megan was gone, dead and sleeping with the fishes.

The depleted air suffocated her. The smells-the rot and the sweet scent from embalmed skin-wrapped themselves around her throat and squeezed.

Which was bad enough. But then the panic started to sizzle through her body like electricity. The claustrophobia.

“No, no, no,” she said, or maybe she just thought it. “No, no… Let me out, let me out, let me out.

Suddenly she wasn’t even worried that Matthews was outside the casket, waiting for her. It didn’t matter; she couldn’t stay inside a moment longer.

Megan pushed against the lid of the coffin.

It didn’t move.

She tried again, with all her strength. Nothing.

“Ah,” she gasped. “Oh please, God, no…

He’d locked her in! She pounded on the lid then heard a wild laugh outside. Words she couldn’t distinguish. More laughter.

More words, louder: “… two having fun together… likes you… Peter likes you.

“Let me out, let me out!”

Her voice rose to a wild keening, her whole body shivered in violent spasms.

“You fucker you fuck let me outoutoutout!” With both her fists Megan pounded on the lid until they bled, banged it with her head, feeling with horror Peter’s cold face against her neck, his cold penis against her thigh.

From outside Aaron Matthews beat on the lid too, responding to her pounding. Then more laughter. And finally more tapping, like a drummer, keeping perfect time with the rhythm of her raw screams.

No subtlety, no nuance…

Tate Collier came to the end of Palmer Road and saw the mental hospital in front of him. He aimed Bett’s car directly toward the gate, got his speed up to about forty and bounded over logs and potholes in the neglected surface. He saw the infamous gray Mercedes parked in the staff-only carport. He saw a faint light in one of the windows.

He had no plan other than the obvious and as he skidded around a fallen pine and straightened for the final assault on the gate he pressed the accelerator down harder, sealing his resolve.

He pressed his hands into the steering wheel, pi

Tate leapt out of the car and ran to the first door he could find. Gripping his pistol hard, he flung all his weight against the double panels.

He was expecting them to be locked. But the doors swung open with virtually no resistance and he stumbled headfirst into a large, dim lobby.

He saw shadows, shapes of furniture, angles of walls, unlit lamps, dust motes circling in the air.

He saw faint shafts of predawn blue light bleeding in through the windows.

But he never saw the bat or tire iron or whatever it was that hummed through the air behind him and caught him with a glancing blow just above the ear.

IV. THE SILENCE OF THE DEED

29

A hand stroked his hair.

Lying on his side, on a cold floor, Tate slowly opened his eyes, which stung fiercely from his own sweat. He tried to focus on the face before him. He believed momentarily that the soft fingers were Bett’s; she’d been the first person in his thoughts as he came to consciousness.

But he found that the blue eyes he gazed into were Megan’s.

“Hey, honey,” he wheezed.

“Dad.” Her face was pale, her hair pasted to her head with sweat, her hands bloody.

They were in the lobby of the decrepit hospital. His hands were bound behind him with scratchy rope. His vision was blurry. He got up and nearly fainted from the pain that roared in his temple.

Aaron Matthews was sitting on a chair nearby watching them both like the helpless prisoners that they were.

What astonishing black eyes he has, Tate thought. Like dark lasers. They turned to you as if you were the only person in the universe. Why, patients would tell him anything. He understood why Bett had been powerless to resist him earlier that night when he’d come to her house. Ko

Then he saw that Matthews was hurt. A large patch of blood covered the side of his shirt and he was sweating. His nose too was bloody. Tate glanced at Megan. She gave a weak smile and nodded, answering his tacit question if she was responsible for the wound. He lowered his head to the girl’s shoulder. A moment later Tate looked up. “You’ve lost those five pounds you wanted to,” he said to her. “You’re lean and mean.”

“It was ten,” she joked.

Matthews finally said, “Well, Tate Collier. Well.

Such a smooth, baritone voice, Tate reflected. But not phony or slick. So natural, so comforting. Patients would cling to every word he uttered.

“I was just doing my job,” Tate finally said to him. “Peter’s trial, I mean. The evidence was there. The jury believed it.”

Megan frowned and Tate explained about the trial and the boy’s murder in prison.

The girl scowled, said to Matthews, “I knew you’d never worked with him on cases. Those were just more lies.”

Matthews didn’t even notice her. He crossed his arms. “You probably don’t know it, Collier, but I used to watch you in court. After Pete died I’d go to your trials. I’d sit in the back of the gallery for hours and hours. You know what struck me? You reminded me of myself in therapy sessions. Talking to the patients. Leading them where they didn’t want to go. You did exactly the same with the witnesses and the juries.”

Tate said nothing.

Matthews smiled briefly. “And I learned some things about the law. Mens rea. The state of a killer’s mind-he has to intend the death in order to be guilty of murder. Well, that was you, all right, at Pete’s trial. You murdered Pete. You intended him to die.”

“My job was to prosecute cases as best I could.”

“If” Matthews pounced, “that was true then why did you quit prosecuting? Why did you turn tail and run?”

“Because I regretted what happened to your son,” Tate answered.

Matthews lowered his sweaty, stubbly face. “You looked at my boy and said, ‘You’re dead.’ You stood up in court and felt the power flowing through you. And you liked it.”

Tate looked around the room. “You did all this? And you went after all the others-Ko

“Mom?” Megan whispered.

“No, she’s okay,” Tate reassured her.

“I had to stop you,” Matthews said. “You kept coming. You wouldn’t listen to reason. You wouldn’t do what you were supposed to.”

“This is where you were committed, right?”

“Him?” Megan asked. “I thought he’d worked here.”

“I thought so too,” Tate said, “but then I remembered testimony at Peter’s trial. No. He was a therapist but he was the one committed here.” Nodding at Matthews. “Not Peter.” Tate recalled the trial:

Mr. Bogan: Now, Dr Rothstein, could you give an opinion of the source and nature of Peter’s difficulties?

Dr. Rothstein: Yes sir. Peter displays socialization problems. He is more comfortable with inanimate creations-stories and books and cartoons and the like-than with people. He also suffers from what I call affect deficit. The reason, from reviewing his medical records, appears to be that his father would lock him in his room for long periods of time-weeks, even months-and the only contact the boy would have with anyone was with his father, Aaron. He wouldn’t even let the boy’s mother see him, Peter withdrew into his books and television. Apparently the only time the boy spent with his mother and others was when his fat her was committed in mental hospitals for bipolar depression and delusional behavior