When She Was Bad: A Thriller by Jonathan Nasaw Read Free Book Online Page B

at the end of a short allée of pine trees were an older woman with helmet-shaped, reddish-blond hair, and a dark-haired girl in jeans and an oversize leather bomber jacket, huddled with her knees together and her elbows pressed against her sides, as if she were waiting for a bus in the cold. Lyssy’s heart went out to her—he would, he thought, have recognized her as a new patient even if Wally the psych tech hadn’t already clued him in in the elevator on their way down.
    Dr. Al performed the introductions. Lyssy stuck out his hand, palm down to hide the scars, shook hands with each woman in turn, and asked them how they were. They both said they were fine; the girl asked him how he was in return.
    “Just fine,” he replied, glancing over to Dr. Al to see how he was doing, phatically speaking.
    Dr. Al gave him a circled-thumb-and-forefinger okay sign and an encouraging nod. “Lyssy knows the arboretum like the back of his hand,” he told Lily. “Perhaps he’d, ah, be willing to show you around.”
    “My pleasure,” said Lyssy, crooking his arm the way he’d seen men do it in old movies. But Lily made no effort to take it, leaving him standing there with one elbow awkwardly akimbo for a few seconds, before he turned and limped away up the gravel path. After a frightened-doe backward glance toward Dr. Cogan, who gave her an encouraging nod, Lily followed Lyssy. Wally started after them, but Corder caught his arm.
    “Let’s give them a little time to get to know each other, Walter,” he said.
     

    “It’s not so bad here, really,” Lyssy explained, when Lily had caught up to him. “Everybody on the staff is nice—the mean ones don’t last long. And the patients on 1-East aren’t even very crazy. Dr. Al calls them the Desperate Housewives—some of them come here more for a rest than anything else. If they have enough money, of course.
    “Then there’s the ODDs and CODs—those are teenagers with oppositional defiant disorder or conduct disorder. Dr. Al says their parents send ’em here either as a voluntary alternative to military school or an involuntary alternative to reform school. They’re mostly on 2-East, where the game room is. He treats ’em with behavior mod—he says the smart ones usually figure it out pretty quick.”
    He was interrupted by maniacal laughter from somewhere overhead. They looked up, saw a bird with a round red cap clinging vertically to the trunk of the oak. “That’s an acorn woodpecker,” Lyssy explained. “The other day I saw one of ’em fly into a wire—”
    Lily flinched.
    “No, no, it didn’t hurt itself,” he added quickly. “Just clipped it with a wing, caught itself in midair, then it was all like—” He puffed out his chest, darted his head around stiffly—a dead-on imitation of an embarrassed woodpecker: “‘I meant to do that, really I did.’”
    “That’s pretty good,” said Lily, smiling tentatively.
    “Want to hear my imitation of Dr. Al?”
    “Sure.”
    He glanced around to make sure the other three were out of earshot, then drew his chin back against his chest to double it. “‘Perhaps, ah, Lyssy would be willing to, ah, show you around.’”
    Lily’s smile faded as a tall, unshaven man shuffled toward them wearing a seersucker bathrobe over pajamas and slippers. Instinctively she dropped back and ducked behind Lyssy. “Don’t sweat it,” he whispered, proud at how she’d sought his protection. “That’s Colonel Lamp. He’s a schizo. Completely harmless—they keep him medicated to the gills. Here, watch this.” As he passed the old fellow, Lyssy snapped off a salute.
    Stiffly, the colonel drew himself up to his full height to return the salute, but missed his forehead by a few inches, hitting himself in the side of the jaw instead. “Carry on,” he said thickly, spittle flying.
    “Boo-yah,” replied Lyssy.
    The path looped and forked and curled in on itself so many times that after walking for a few minutes, they were