Roses Are Red

her about Maria, my wife, who’d been killed. I showed off pictures of Damon and Jannie from my wallet.
    I noticed that her voice got softer. “I’ve never been married. Two of my sisters are married, with kids. I love their kids. They call me Auntie Cop.”
    “Can I ask a personal question?”
    She nodded. “Fire away. I can take the heat.”
    “You ever been close to settling down?” I asked. “Auntie Cop?”
    “Is the question personal or professional, Doctor?” I already had the sense that she was incredibly guarded. Her humor was probably her best defense.
    “The question is just friendly,” I told her.
    “I know it is. I can tell, Alex. I’ve had some good friends in the past — men, a couple of boys. Whenever it got too serious, I always got out of harm’s way.
Oops.
There’s a slip.”
    “Just the truth,” I smiled, “slipping out ever so slowly.”
    She leaned in close. She kissed my forehead, then she kissed me gently on the lips. The kisses were sweet and totally irresistible.
    “I like being with you,” she said. “I like talking to you an awful lot. Are we about ready to leave?”
    She and I returned to the hotel together. I walked her to her room. We kissed outside the door and I liked it even more than the first time in Hartford.
Slow and easy wins the race.
    “You’re still not ready,” she said matter-of-factly.
    “You’re right. . . . I’m not ready.”
    “But
you’re close.
” She smiled, then entered her hotel room and shut the door. “Don’t know what you’re missing,” she called from inside.
    I smiled all the way back to my hotel room. I think I did know what I was missing.

Chapter 97
    “HERE WE GO!” John Sampson said, and clapped his hands together. “Bad boys, bad boys, where you gonna hide?”
    At 6:00 A.M. on Tuesday morning, Sampson and I climbed out of my old Porsche in the staff parking lot of the Hazelwood Veterans Hospital on North Capitol Street in D.C. The large, sprawling hospital was situated a ways south of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, just north of the Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home.
    Home of the Mastermind?
I wondered.
Could that be? According to Brian Macdougall it could — and he had a lot riding on it.
    John and I were dressed in sport shirts, baggy khaki trousers, and high-topped sneakers. We were going to work for a day or two at the hospital. So far, the FBI hadn’t been able to identify the Mastermind among the patients or staff members.
    The grounds of Hazelwood were surrounded by high fieldstone walls covered with ivy. The landscaping was sparse: a few deciduous and evergreen shrubs and trees, artificial berms that were evocative of wartime bunkers.
    “That’s the main hospital,” I said, and pointed to a nearby building that was painted pale yellow and rose six stories above us. There were a half dozen smaller, bunkerlike buildings on the grounds.
    “I’ve been here before,” Sampson said. His eyes narrowed. “Knew a couple of guys from Vietnam who wound up at Hazelwood. They didn’t heap high praise on the institution. Place always makes me think of that documentary
Titicut Follies.
You remember that scene where a patient is refusing to eat? So they force a hose down his nose?”
    I looked at Sampson and shook my head. “You
really
don’t like Hazelwood.”
    “Don’t like the system of dispensing medical care to veterans. Don’t like what happens to men and women who get hurt in foreign wars. The people who work here are mostly all right, though. They probably don’t even use nose hoses anymore.”
    “We might need to,” I told him, “if we find our guy.”
    “We find the Mastermind, sugar, we’ll definitely use nose hoses.”

Chapter 98
    WE CLIMBED STEEP STONE STAIRS, then entered the hospital’s administration building. We were shown the way to the inner office of Colonel Daniel Schofield, the director of the unit.
    Colonel Schofield was there to meet us outside a small private room. Two other men and a petite blond woman were already inside. “Let’s go right in,” Schofield said. He appeared anxious and upset. What a surprise.
    He made stiff, very formal introductions around the room, starting with Sampson and me, then going on to his staff. None of them looked happy to see us.
    “This is Ms. Kathleen McGuigan. She’s the head nurse on Four and Five, where you and Mr. Sampson will be working. This is Dr. Padraic Cioffi. Dr. Cioffi is the psychiatrist in charge of the mental health units. And