Dollard blinked, pocketed the keys. Gazing back at the yard, he clicked his teeth together. "These guys are like trained animals, you can't vary the stimulus-response too much. Your coming in here is disruptive. Top of that, it's pointless. No one here had anything to do with Dr. Argent."

"Because no one gets out."

"Among other things."

"WendellPelleygotout."

Dollard blinked again. His tongue rolled under his lower lip. "What does that have to do with the price of eggs?"

"A nutcase gets out, a few weeks later one of his shrinks is dead?"

"Dr. Argent was never one of Pelley's shrinks. I doubt she ever ran into him."

"Why was Pelley released?"

"You'd have to ask one of the doctors."

"You have no idea, Frank?"

"I don't get paid to have ideas," said Dollard.

"So you said the first time," said Milo. "But we both know that's crap. What'd Pelley do to get out?"

Dollard's leathery skin reddened and his shoulders rose. Suddenly, he chuckled. "More like what he didn't do. Act crazy. He hadn't been crazy for a long time."

"Medical miracle?" said Milo.

"My opinion, the guy was never really psychotic in the first place, just a drunk. I'm not saying he faked anyone out. People who knew him when he was first committed said he was all over the place-hallucinating, acting wild, at one point they had to put him in restraints. But then a month or two later, that all stopped, even without meds. So, my opinion, it was severe alcohol poisoning and he got detoxed."

"Then why wasn't he sent back to trial?"

"Because when he got arrested we were still doing not guilty by reason. He was off the hook."

"Lucky him," said Milo.

"Not so lucky-he still got cooped up here for twenty-odd years. Longer than he would've been in prison. Maybe it wasn't just alcohol. Pelley'd been mining for years; he could've got some kind of heavy-metal poisoning in his system. Or he was just a short-term crazy, freaked out and got better. Whatever, he never needed any neuroleptics, just some antidepressants. Year after year, he's hanging around, no symptoms, guess they thought it didn't make sense."

"Antidepressants," said Milo. "Sad sack?"

"Why all the interest? He cause problems on the outside?"

"Only for himself, Frank. Starved himself to death."

Dollard's mouth twitched. "He never liked to eat.... So where'd they find him?"

"In a garbage dump."

"Garbage dump," said Dollard, as if visualizing it. "This is gonna sound bleeding-heart, but he wasn't really that bad of a guy. At least when I talked to him, he really felt remorse for what he'd done to his girlfriend and those kids. Didn't even wanna get out. Which don't excuse what he did, but..." He shrugged. "What the hell, we all have to go sometime."

"Who was his doctor?" I said.

"Aldrich. Not Argent."

"You're sure he had no contact with Dr. Argent?"