The Dark (A Detective Alice Madison Novel)(55)
Madison had been asking herself that very same question since she’d woken up. She hadn’t seen him since the attack on him: half of her wanted to check on him, and the other wanted to ignore him after his no-show at her last visit to KCJC. The choice was between being anxious and petulant.
“I don’t know, Carl.”
“Fair enough. Is there any news on David Quinn?”
“We still haven’t managed to get a forensic anthropologist to have a look. Do you know how many of those there are in the States? I mean, how many certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropologists?”
“A few hundred, I’d guess.”
“Ninety-two. I checked.”
“Ninety-two?”
“Yes, and David Quinn is a low priority right now.” Madison thought of the small pit in the woods and the men who had put the body of a child inside it.
Six days had passed since Quinn’s televised appeal, and still they had not spoken.
“Let me know if you decide to go,” Doyle said.
“Will do. Nothing says day off like correctional-institute coffee and a chat with Deputy Warden Thomas.”
“Glad you’re living the dream, Detective.”
After they hung up, Madison, still in her pajamas and bunny slippers, padded to the French doors, leaned her brow against the cool glass, and closed her eyes. She might as well admit it: she was both anxious and petulant. So be it. Who cares, ultimately? The man had been attacked with undiluted bleach; she had to see him. She was turning to call KCJC and book her visit when her cell started beeping.
“Madison.”
“Detective, it’s Eli Peterson from the Walters Institute.”
From the end of the conversation with Dr. Peterson, it took Madison nineteen minutes to leave the house—including a shower, another gulp of coffee, and getting her off-duty piece out of the safe. She didn’t want to call Fynn until she knew exactly what they had in their hands.
The drive felt excruciatingly slow, and it wasn’t until she pulled in at the gates that she realized it hadn’t even occurred to her to call Kelly.
Her message to the doctor had been brief and clear: Whatever it is, do not touch it until I get there.
Once again Eli Peterson was waiting for her by the reception desk.
“It’s in my office,” he said.
He didn’t attempt any small talk on the way there, and she was grateful for that.
“Can you tell me about the boxes?” she asked him.
He spoke as they strode down the corridor. “Every patient has one. If someone has a few objects that are dear to them but cannot be kept in their room for their own safety . . .”
“A necklace, a chain, a brooch—that kind of thing?”
“Exactly. They go into their box, and they can have them when they want them. It’s a comfort for them to know their things are here—”
“And knowing they won’t use those things to self-harm makes it easier for you.”
“It’s a balance between a person’s emotional well-being and their physical welfare.”
“What about Vincent’s box?”
“It’s always been empty. Until last Thursday, that is. Ronald asked my deputy to put something in it for safekeeping because it was something that belonged to their foster mother and had special meaning for Vincent.”
“Those were his exact words?”
Peterson gave her the note; the door to his office was open, and Madison saw the bundle wrapped in blue fabric on Peterson’s desk.
“Look,” he said, “maybe I asked you to come for nothing. Maybe it’s just . . .”
But Madison had already crossed the room, almost forgetting he was there, to stand behind his desk. She turned on his Anglepoise lamp and directed its cone of light straight onto the oblong swaddled in what looked like an inexpensive scarf. From her jeans she took out a pair of latex gloves and snapped them on.
It looked like a smallish box. Madison picked it up to feel its weight and contours.
“It’s a book,” she said as she started to loosen the fabric around it.
It turned out to be a volume three inches thick with yellowing pages. Madison stared at it. “It’s a Bible.”
“I’m sorry,” Dr. Peterson replied. “I thought it might have been something to do with the case.”
Madison picked up the yellow scrap she had dropped on the table.
“Your deputy wrote that Ronald gave him this to keep for Vincent,” she said, “because it had belonged to their foster mother.”
“Yes.”
Madison opened the book to the front page. “It’s a King James Bible.” She started turning pages carefully, looking down one side first and then the other.