Part 41 (1/2)
The best way to cut through them? A good old-fas.h.i.+oned phone call.
a.s.suming you could get someone to call you back.
Sarah had left two messages for Lee McConnell, chief administrator at Eagle Mountain. Of course, this guy would probably sooner get a root ca.n.a.l than have to discuss a patient who escaped on his watch.
”Round three,” mumbled Sarah as she started dialing.
She couldn't be sure, but the woman who answered seemed to be different from the one she'd spoken to the previous two times. A temp, maybe? That would certainly explain her announcing chipperly that ”Mr. McConnell just walked in; let me patch you through.” What followed was easily ten seconds of dead air, during which McConnell was probably busy chewing out the poor woman for not checking with him first. Finally, he picked up.
”Agent Brubaker? Lee McConnell,” he said. ”Talk about timing. I was just about to call you back.”
Yeah, right. And I was just about to elope with Johnny Depp.
Sarah riffled through her notes, checking for the name she'd scribbled down. McConnell's patient. Or former patient, as it were.
She found it.
”So what can you tell me about Ned Sinclair?” she asked.
Chapter 64
THERE WAS A hitch in McConnell's voice. Not a stutter or stammer but, weirdly, something more like a swallow, a sort of dyspeptic reflex, as if the pastrami-on-rye sandwich he had for lunch was repeating on him. The result was that he randomly accentuated words for no reason.
Talk about a Monty Python skit, she thought. Paging John Cleese...
”Ned Sinclair, huh? What...would...you like to know about him?” he asked.
Sarah suppressed a laugh and asked her first question, a no-brainer. ”What's his race? Is he white, black, Hispanic?”
If Ned Sinclair wasn't white, this was going to be a very short conversation.
”He's white,” said McConnell. ”I'm afraid I don't have his file...in...front of me, so I can't give you height and weight, or even exactly how old he is.”
”Can you ballpark his age?”
”I'd say thirtyish, maybe a bit older. I didn't have much interaction with him; in fact, no one here...really...did. Ned Sinclair barely spoke.”
The age, thirtyish, was a possible match, but the part about his not speaking couldn't be any more different from the guy back at Canteena's. Jared Sullivan was definitely a talker, a very smooth talker.
”What else can you tell me about him?” she asked.
”The guy you'd probably want to speak with is the admitting psychiatrist. Ned was his patient for some time, but I don't know his name offhand,” he said. ”Let me actually...grab...the file. Hold on a second, okay?”
Before Sarah could even respond, she was listening to a trombone-heavy Muzak version of the Beatles' ”The Long and Winding Road.” Not an appropriate song t.i.tle when you've been put on hold.