Blind Spot. Nancy Bush

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СКАЧАТЬ knew they wanted him as an inpatient on Side A.

      But was it the right course to take?

      The question kept her awake till nearly dawn.

      Chapter 4

      The hour-long eleven o’clock meeting started on time and ran an hour and a half late. Everyone Freeson had said would be there was there, along with Dr. Zellman, Dr. Prior, and Dr. Dayton from Side B—Dr. Jean Dayton being the only other woman in the room besides Claire.

      The meeting was to decide the fate of Mr. Heyward Marsdon III, at least within the hospital walls. There was a lot of detailed data on his psychological state of mind, garnered over the past six months, and the first hour and a half crawled by with each of the doctors from Side B’s recount. Claire was a little surprised that Dr. Jean Dayton’s views coincided so closely with her own.

      “Mr. Marsdon is a paranoid schizophrenic,” she wrapped up in her curiously flat voice. She seemed to have next to no inflection in her tone. “He suffers delusions and hallucinations. Off his meds, he believes there are alien beings trying to kill him. That has not changed in six months, nor is it likely to in the future. I believe he should stay where he is.”

      “Dr. Dayton,” Avanti answered smoothly, before Radke, whose face had grown tight and grim at her bald assessment, could try to pour oil on the situation himself. This was the first serious voice of dissent in their plan to move Heyward to Side A. “How often do you see Mr. Marsdon, professionally?”

      “Daily,” she stated.

      “How often do you see other patients?”

      “Daily,” she repeated.

      “All of them?”

      “Most of them.”

      “But isn’t Dr. Prior Mr. Marsdon’s primary psychiatrist? Isn’t he the one who should decide the right course of action?”

      “I’m Heyward Marsdon’s primary,” Prior affirmed. He was a short man with a rotund stomach that he liked to rest his clasped hands upon.

      Dayton said, “I’m one of Marsdon’s doctors as well.” Her voice took on a stubborn tone. “I think he’s a danger to himself and others. Why don’t you tell them what you said about him last week,” she challenged Dr. Prior.

      Prior sat up straight as if hit by a cattle prod.” “What?”

      “When you and I were talking about Heyward after our weekly session together.”

      “I said he was doing fine,” Prior declared.

      “Actually, you said, ‘Thank God he’s on his meds. That’s the only time he’s fine.’”

      “We all agree Heyward should stay on his meds,” Avanti broke in. “But when he’s on them, as he is now, he’s in complete control.”

      Claire glanced at Heyward’s family, his grandfather, Heyward Marsdon Senior, and his father, Heyward Marsdon Junior. Senior leaned forward, interested in the proceedings, but Junior looked like he was counting the tiny holes in the acoustical tiles on the ceiling.

      Senior said in his gravelly voice, “I’ll allow my grandson’s had a few problems. He was overtaken by chemically induced visions that have altered his reality in terrible ways.”

      Like killing Melody Stone? Claire felt her skin tingle with shock. He was trying to negate the seriousness of Heyward’s crime.

      Dayton stated flatly, “If you’re implying that his medications altered his reality, you are ignoring the facts.”

      “Dr. Dayton, we all know what happened.” This time it was Radke speaking. “And we’re not asking that he be released. What we are trying to discern is whether the more restrictive side of the hospital is the right place for Mr. Marsdon.”

      “There are some seriously psychologically disturbed criminals on that side,” Marsdon Senior pointed out.

      Of which Heyward III is one, Claire thought.

      “They’re all treated with respect,” Dr. Zellman felt compelled to put in.

      “That goes for all of our patients,” Avanti said. “Side A and Side B.”

      “All right,” Radke said, closing his leather-bound notebook and leaning his arms across its smooth, black finish. His glance touched on Claire for a moment, then he looked around the room. The other doctors gazed back at him expectantly. Avanti, whose supercilious attitude was in high gear, had a faint smile on his lips, as if he knew it was already a foregone conclusion that Marsdon would be moved to Side A. He was worse than Freeson, Claire decided. A major leaguer while Freeson was still on a farm team when it came to overinflated ego, impatience, and narcissism.

      The Marsdons, Senior and Junior, gave each other a look. Junior crossed his legs, twitched his knife-creased pant legs into place, then stared off into space as if he’d magically transported himself somewhere else. Maybe he had. He sure as hell hadn’t been in the moment once during this meeting.

      Radke said, “We’ve all had a chance to discuss the right course of action for Mr. Marsdon, and though initially it seemed prudent to house him in the high-security wing of our hospital, maybe that time has passed. The focus of Mr. Marsdon’s care is, by design, centered on detention in the high-security wing rather than individual treatment of his disease.”

      Heyward Marsdon Sr. reacted to “disease” with a jerk of tension. His white hair pulled away from his head in a wavy, Donald Sutherland style and his eyes were as blue and piercing as the actor’s as well. He was heavier; his chest was wide, his cheeks fleshy, his hands meat hooks that looked as if they might have trouble handling the delicacy of a knife and fork. Claire could easily see him picking up a turkey leg in one hand and a pewter stein of ale in the other while hunching over a plate. He had that medieval look about him. She wondered if he’d been a grade school bully.

      Marsdon Senior said, “My grandson needs help. Yes. But he is not the villain the media paints him. He does not belong with those vile killers in that part of your hospital.”

      “He did take a life,” Dr. Howard Neumann reminded them quietly. He didn’t want to go against the tide, but he had enough honor to want to keep the facts straight, regardless of the amount of money and influence sitting around the table.

      Radke, six foot two, long-faced with salt-and-pepper hair and a lean build that made him seem taller than he was, turned his attention to Neumann, who was six inches shorter, stubbier, and tended to fidget. But this time Neumann placed one hand over the other on the table and waited. He wasn’t going to let them forget what had truly happened. Claire could have kissed him.

      “We haven’t forgotten, Howard,” Radke said. Then, to Claire, “You haven’t said much, my dear.”

      “Everyone knows how I feel. He was remanded to the high-security side of the hospital. Side B,” Claire stated clearly.

      “He was remanded to the hospital,” Radke corrected her.

      “With the intention that he be monitored twenty-four seven. We don’t do that on Side A to the extent Heyward Marsdon needs.”

      “I СКАЧАТЬ