access to the room?" "At that time of night? Very few would have any reason to be in the ward."
"Sure," Teddy said. "But who would have access?"
"The orderlies, of course." ooctors. Chuck said.
"Well, nurses," Cawley said.
"Doctors don't have keys for this room?" Teddy asked. "They do," Cawley said with just a hint of annoyance. "But by ten o'clock, the doctors have signed out for the night."
"And turned in their keys?"
Yes.
"And there's a record of that?" Teddy said.
"I don't follow."
Chuck said, "They have to sign in and out for the keys, Doctor - that's what we're wondering."
"Of course."
"And we could check last night's sign-in log," Teddy said.
"Yes, yes. Of course."
"And that would be kept in the cage we saw on the first floor," Chuck said. "The one with the guard inside of it and the wall of keys behind him?"
Cawley gave him a quick nod.
"And the personnel files," Teddy said, "of the medical staff and the orderlies and the guards. We'll need access to those."
Cawley peered at him as if Teddy's face were sprouting blackflies.
"Why?"
"A woman disappears from a locked room, Doctor? She escapes onto a tiny island and no one can find her? I have to at least conider that she had help."
"We'll see," Cawley said.
"We'll see?"
"Yes, Marshal. I'll have to speak with the warden and some of the other staff. We'll make a determination of your request based on - " "Doctor," Teddy said, "it wasn't a request. We're here by order of the government. This is a federal facility from which a dangerous prisoner - " "Patient."
"A dangerous patient," Teddy said, keeping his voice as even as possible, "has escaped. If you refuse to aid two U.S. marshals, Doctor, i.n the apprehension of that patient you are, unfortunately - Chuck?"
Chuck said, "Obstructing justice, Doctor."
Cawley looked at Chuck as if he'd been expecting grief from Teddy, but Chuck hadn't been on his radar.
"Yes, well," he said, his voice stripped of life, "all I can say is that I will do all that I can to accommodate your request."
Teddy and Chuck exchanged a small glance, went back to looking at the bare room. Cawley probably wasn't used to questions that continued after he'd shown displeasure with them, so they gave him a minute to catch his breath.
Teddy looked in the tiny closet, saw three white smocks, two pairs of white shoes. "How many shoes are the patients given?"
"TWO."
"She left this room barefoot?"
"Yes." He fixed the tie under his lab coat and then pointed at a large sheet of paper lying on the bed. "We found that behind the dresser. We don't know what it means. We were hoping someone could tell us."
Chapter 3
Teddy lifted the sheet of paper, turned it over to see that the other side was a hospital eye chart, the letters shrinking and descending in a pyramid. He turned it back over and held it up for Chuck:
THE LAW OF 4
I AM 47
THEY WERE 80
+YOU ARE 3
WE ARE 4
BUT
WHO IS 67?
Teddy didn't even like holding it. The edges of the paper tingled against his fingers.
Chuck said, "Fuck if I know."
Cawley stepped up beside them. "Quite similar to our clinical conclusion."
"We are three," Teddy said.
Chuck peered at the paper. "Huh?"
"We could be the three," Teddy said. "The three of us right now, standing in this room."
Chuck shook his head. "How's she going to predict that?"
Teddy shrugged. "It's a reach."
"Yeah."
Cawley said, "It is, and yet Rachel is quite brilliant in her games. Her delusions - particularly the one that allows her to believe her three children are still alive - are conceived on a very delicate but intricate architecture. To sustain the structure, she employs an elaborate narrative thread to her life that is completely fictitious." Chuck turned his head slowly, looked at Cawley. "I'd need, a degree to understand that, Doctor."
Cawley chuckled. "Think of the lies you tell your parents as a child. How elaborate they are. Instead of keeping them simple to explain why you missed school or forgot your chores, you embellish, you make them fantastical. Yes?"
Chuck thought about it and nodded.
Teddy said, "Sure. Criminals do the same thing."
"Exactly. The idea is to obfuscate. Confuse the listener until they believe out of exhaustion more than any sense of truth. Now consider those lies being told to yourself. That's what Rachel does. In four years, she never so much as acknowledged that she was in an institution. As far as she was concerned, she was back home in the Berkshires in her house, and we