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The Center for BioChimera was part of a strip of high-end biotech research centers, hospitals, and the University of California, San Diego, in an area of La Jolla known as Biotech Mesa. Grace took 5 North to Genesee and Torrey Pines Road and made the familiar climb.
The view sweeping to the Pacific didn’t engage her; Grace was preoccupied with what she’d learned. Eddie Loud was mentally ill. How did a mentally ill outpatient at the Center for BioChimera driving a taco van get her name? What did Eddie Loud have to do with her?
The Center slanted in two wings facing the ocean, its back in a V toward the road. Three stories low to the ground, it resembled a Frank Lloyd Wright structure hewn out of the side of the ridge. Research labs and administrative offices fanned out in one wing; the other wing was a hospital specializing in transplants and immunological disorders.
The entrance to New Life was tucked behind Emergency in the hospital wing and faced out over a damp lawn, a tangle of trees, and the high Plexiglass fence closing off the steep drop leading to the waves smashing four hundred feet below. Grace wondered if they had jumpers.
She parked the car and entered the New Life waiting room, giving the receptionist her name. No, no appointment. Yes, she’d wait.
Pastel plaid chairs faced a coffee table covered with magazines. Grace read the bulletin board, a crammed assortment of admonishments to take meds, numbers to call if a client fell apart, a map of the hospital with an ‘X: You Are Here,’ and tips on ‘How to Put Your Best Foot Forward’ when going after that special minimum-wage job.
She sat. Five minutes later, a short man in his forties with glasses and a crew cut came through the door from the back rooms, face pink with exertion. ‘Grace Descanso?’
She stood up and extended her hand. ‘Yes, and you’re …’
‘Curtis Crumwald.’ A hard grip for a soft man. ‘Sorry for the wait. Had to drive my wife to a hair appointment. We’re down to one car.’
Crumwald made a face and motioned her through the door to the back. He wore neatly pressed Dockers and a shirt under a Stanford sweater pushed up his freckled arms. They passed a room set for a group – chairs in a circle, a second room with a copier, ratty sofa, and a Mr. Coffee. Tossed newspapers and Styrofoam cartons littered the laminated coffee table.
‘Harriet said you were interested in our program. Have job opportunities?’
‘No. Just questions.’
Crumwald stopped walking. ‘Are you a reporter?’ His voice was flat.
‘I was the forensic biologist Eddie Loud tried to kill.’ It hung there. So I killed him.
Crumwald took off his glasses and wiped them on his shirt. ‘Come in. Close the door.’
Client photos covered a large bulletin board in his office: grinning McDonald’s workers, a city employee stabbing trash at Shelter Island, a singing telegram dressed as a hot dog.
‘Where’s Eddie? I want to see his face.’
Crumwald pointed him out. Eddie Loud stood stiffly in front of the sparkling taco van, hair combed, pride and anxiety blazing across his face. He was wearing a pair of blue pants and a pressed shirt. He was gripping a bag of tacos, but gently, it appeared, so they wouldn’t crush.
‘Believe it or not, he was a kind man. Not violent. His poor parents.’
Grace shot him a measured look. ‘He killed a DEA chemist, a detective sergeant, and a uniformed police officer yesterday. Good men. And he did this to me.’ She raked down her turtleneck so he could see the purple mark left when Eddie had grabbed her.
Crumwald blinked. ‘I’m sorry. Please. Have a seat.’
She took one across from the desk, and he sat heavily in his chair and placed his hands flat on the desk as if to compose himself.
‘I was hired on faith, understand? To cobble together a program assisting those the world has no interest in helping. And now –’
‘He was in a halfway house. And this program for work. Was he in rehab?’
‘I can’t answer that. That’s confidential.’
‘He’d dead, Mr. Crumwald. It’s going to come out.’
‘When you … saw him. Did it look like Eddie was on some kind of drug?’
‘He was amped like a light show. Cranked so high his brain was frying. I’d bet money.’
The air went out of him and Crumwald slumped in his chair. He had a squishball stress reliever next to a photo of a placidly smiling woman. He picked up the ball and squeezed. He looked defeated.
‘That’s so unbelievable. He knew if he tried that he’d be gone. He really wanted to stay.’
‘Did Eddie ever bring up anybody called the Spikeman?’
Crumwald shook his head. ‘But I’m not the one he talked to. When he did talk. He didn’t do too much talking when he was medded properly.’ Crumwald looked up, still back on what she’d said about drugs. ‘He could have just stopped taking his meds.’
‘I don’t know what was wrong with him, Mr. Crumwald, but if not taking meds is enough to get him to hack up three men with a butcher knife and start on me, then sure, stick with that.’
‘They feed off each other energywise. Yesterday he was agitated in group and later, another client fell apart. Not as spectacularly but … big mess we’re still cleaning up.’
Jazz Studio.
‘Did Eddie Loud say anything in group that would have alerted you?’
‘You mean, so I could have stopped it?’ Crumwald sounded defensive and aggrieved and he squished the ball harder. It made a squelching sound like a trapped mouse.
‘No, just –’
‘Just what, Ms. Descanso? I run this place on a shoestring and a prayer, and if I stopped every client from going out that door who thought sometimes he was God or the next Bill Gates – or Bill Gates himself – I’d never have confidence to send any of them out. They’re trying. Beset by demons, but trying. They haven’t given up. Where are you going with this?’
‘Is there any reason Eddie should have known who I was?’
‘None that I know of.’
‘Because he did. Right before he tried to kill me, he said my name and warned me about somebody he called the Spikeman.’ She couldn’t keep the tremor out of her voice.
Crumwald looked genuinely shocked. ‘He said your name? I don’t understand.’
‘That makes two of us. If you have anything, anything at all, I need to know it now.’
Crumwald stood heavily and looked out the window. ‘Anything else needs to come from higher up the food chain, if you know what I mean. Warren Pendrell is the head of this place.’
He said the name as if that should scare her.
‘Warren Pendrell,’ he repeated.
Talking to Warren Pendrell was the last thing she wanted. It’s what she’d been trying to avoid by going to Crumwald first, and already she could feel the familiar constriction in her throat.
She walked out of the outpatient facility and got in her car, driving across the parking lots that connected the research and hospital sides and reparking so she could make a speedy