"Looks like one transverse cut," he said. "Has anyone moved him?"

"No," said Swig. "Nothing's been touched."

"Who found him?"

Swig pointed to one of the three techs. "Bart did." The man stepped forward. Young, Chinese, delicately built, but with the oversized arms of a bodybuilder. His badge photo was that of a stunned child. B.L. Quan, Tech II.

"Tell me about it," Milo told him.

"We were in lockdown," said Quan. "Not because of any problems; we do it during staff meetings."

"How frequent are staff meetings?"

"Twice a week for each shift."

"What days?"

"It depends on the shift," said Quan. "Tonight was for the eleven-to-seven. Six-thirty. Friday night, the weekly summary. The patients go in lockdown and the staff goes in there." He pointed to the TV room.

"No staff on the ward?" said Milo.

"One tech stays outside. We rotate. There's never been any problem, the patients are all locked up tight."

Milo looked at the body.

Quan shrugged.

"And Dollard was scheduled to be the outside guy tonight."

Quan nodded.

"But your beeper never went off."

"Right."

"So what made you look for him?" said Milo.

"The meeting was over, I was doing a double, and Frank was supposed to talk to me about some patients. Give me the transfer data-meds, things to watch out for, that kind of thing. He didn't show up, I thought he forgot."

"Was that typical?" said Milo. "Frank forgetting?"

Quan looked uncomfortable. He glanced at Swig.

"Don't worry," said Milo. "You can't embarrass him anymore."

Quan said, "Sometimes."

"Sometimes what?"

Quan shifted his feet. Milo turned to Swig.

"Tell him anything you know," said Swig. His voice had turned hoarse. He rolled his fingers, rubbed another mole.

"Sometimes Frank forgot things," said Quan. "That's why I didn't make any big deal out of it. But then, when I went to get the charts I couldn't find one of them-Peake's. So I checked out Peake's room."

"You ever find the chart?"

"No."

"What else?" said Milo.

"That's it. I saw Frank, Peake was gone, I locked the door, put out a Code Three alert. Easy, we were already in lock-down. Mr. Swig came in, we brought outside guards onto the wards, and a bunch of us searched everywhere. He's got to be somewhere, it makes no sense."

"What doesn't?" said Milo.

"Peake disappearing like that. You don't just disappear at Starkweather."

Milo asked for a key to Peake's room, got Swig's, closed the door and locked it, then moved out of earshot and used his cell phone to call the sheriff. He talked for a long time. None of the guards or techs budged.

The silence seemed to amplify. Then it began to falter- with sporadic knocks from behind some of the brown doors; muffled scuffs, faint as mouse steps. Cries, moans, escalating gradually but steadily into ragged shards of noise that could only be human voices in distress.