Roses Are Red (Alex Cross 6)

We quickly agreed that Sampson and I would return to Hazelwood in the morning. In the meantime, she tried to gather all the information she could on a patient named Frederic Szabo. Goddamn nerdy Frederic Szabo!

It was possible that Szabo wasn’t connected, but it didn’t seem likely. Szabo had been the head of security at First Union Bank. He was a tall, bearded patient at Hazelwood. He fit Brian Macdougall’s description. His psychiatric profile included recurring paranoid fantasies against many prominent authority figures, including several Fortune 500 companies. He’d just seemed too withdrawn and helpless to be the Mastermind.

The most telling evidence was that the hospital’s records didn’t show that he had worked at First Union. Supposedly, Szabo had been an out-of-work drifter since Vietnam. Of course, we now knew that he’d been lying about those years.

According to his psychiatric profile, Szabo had a paranoid personality disorder. He had a severe distrust of people, especially businesspeople, and believed that they were exploiting and trying to deceive him. He was sure that if he confided in someone, the information would be used against him. During a two-year marriage, from ’70 through ’71, Szabo had been pathologically hypersensitive and jealous of his wife. When the marriage broke up, he supposedly hit the road. He eventually showed up at Hazelwood, seeking help three years before the robberies and a year after he’d been let go at First Union. During his frequent stays at Hazelwood he was always cold and aloof. He cut himself off from everyone at the hospital, both patients and staff. He never made a friend, but he basically seemed harmless to others; and he had grounds and town privileges most of the time.

After I read the profile again, it struck me that Szabo’s job at the bank had been a perfect fit for his disorder. Like a lot of functioning paranoids, Szabo had sought out work in which he could operate in a punitive and moralistic style that would be socially acceptable. As head of security at the bank, he could focus on his need to prevent attacks from anyone at any time. By protecting the perimeters of the banks, he was unconsciously protecting himself.

It was ironic that by setting up a series of successful bank robberies he had proven, at least symbolically, that there was no way to protect himself from attack by others. Maybe that was his point.

His mistrustfulness made treatment at the hospital difficult, if not impossible. He had been in and out of Hazelwood four times in the past eighteen months. Had the veterans hospital been a front for his other activities? Had he chosen Hazelwood as his hideout?

And, most puzzling of all, why was he still there?

Chapter 110

ON MONDAY MORNING I went to work at Hazelwood again. I was outfitted in an overhanging white shirt and corduroy pants that were loose enough to hide the holster strapped onto my leg. An FBI agent named Jack Waterhouse had been added to the staff as an aide. Sampson continued as a porter, but he was working only on Five now.

Frederic Szabo proceeded to do nothing to attract suspicion or reveal himself in any way. For three days straight, he never left the ward. He slept a lot in his room. He occasionally worked on an old Apple laptop.

What the hell was he doing? Did he know we were watching him?

Late on Wednesday, after the work shift, I met up with Betsey in the hospital’s administration building. She had on a navy blue suit and blue slingback heels, and she was all business again. She almost seemed like another person at times, preoccupied and distant.

She was clearly as frustrated as I was. “He worked on his master plan for at least four years, right? Presumably, he has fifteen million dollars stashed somewhere. He’s killed a lot of people to get it. Now he’s sitting on his ass at Hazelwood? Give me a break!”

I told her what I thought about Szabo. “He’s extremely paranoid. He’s psychopathic. He may even know we’re here. Maybe we should pull back from the hospital. Do surveillance from the outside. He has his full grounds and town privileges back from Dr. Cioffi. Szabo can come and go as he likes.”

While I talked, Betsey kept pulling at the lapels of her blazer. I was afraid she might start pulling out her hair next.

“But he doesn’t go anywhere! He’s a fifty-year-old slacker! He’s a total loser!”

“Betsey, I know. I’ve been watching Szabo sleep and play games on the Internet for three days.”

She snorted out a laugh. “So he’s pulled off five perfect crimes — that we know of. And now he’s retiring to the farm.”

“Yeah. The funny farm,” I said.

“Want to hear about my day?” she finally asked.

I nodded.

“Well, I visited First Union and I talked with everyone I could find who was there when Szabo was at the bank. He was considered very ‘dedicated,’ actually. But he was wound tight about efficiency and doing the right thing in exactly the right way. Some of the others used it to mock him.”

“Mock him in what way?” I asked.

“Szabo had a nickname, Alex. Get this — it was the Mastermind! The name was a joke. It was supposed to be a joke on Szabo.”

“Well, I guess he’s turned the joke around. Now the joke is on us.”

Chapter 111

THE STRANGEST THING happened the following morning. As Szabo was passing me in the hall, he rubbed against me. He managed to look flustered and he apologized for supposedly “losing his balance,” but I was almost certain he had done it on purpose. Why? What the hell was that all about?

About an hour later, I saw him leaving the ward. I was pretty sure he knew I was watching him go. As soon as he was out, I hurried to the door.

“Where’s Szabo going?” I asked the aide who’d just let him out.