"I'm sure you're right," said Milo. "But if he was receiving mail or sending it, no one on the staff would be monitoring it. Same with his phone calls-"

"No one would officially be monitoring content unless Peake acted out, but-" Swig held up a finger, punched four digits on his phone. "Arturo? Mr. Swig. Are you aware of any mail-letters, packages, postcards-anything arriving recently for Patient Three Eight Four Four Three? Peake, Ardis. Even junk mail... You're sure? Anything at all since you can remember? Keep an eye out, okay, Arturo? No, no authority for that, just let me know if anything shows up. Thanks."

He put the phone down. "Arturo's been here three years. Peake doesn't get mail. In terms of phone calls, I can't prove it to you, but believe me, nothing. He never comes out of his room. Doesn't talk."

"Pretty low-functioning."

"Subterranean."

"Any idea why Dr. Argent chose to work with Peake?"

"Dr. Argent worked with lots of patients. I don't believe she gave Peake any special attention." His finger rose again. Springing up, he left the office, closing the door hard.

Milo said, "Helpful fellow, even though it kills him."

"As Heidi said, he thinks publicity's the kiss of death."

"I was wondering how such a young guy got to be in charge. Now I know. Uncle Senator may not approve of this place, but how much you wanna bet he had something to do with nephew getting the gig."

The door swung open and Swig bounded in, carrying a brown cardboard folder. Bypassing Milo, he handed it to me and sat down.

Peake's clinical chart. Thinner than I'd have predicted. Twelve pages, mostly medication notes signed by various psychiatrists, a few notations about the tardive dyskinesia: "T.D., no change."

"T.D. intensifies, more lingual thrust."

"T.D. Unsteady gait." Immediately after arriving at Starkweather, Peake had been placed on Thorazine, and for fifteen years he'd been kept on die drug. He'd also received several medications for the side effects: lithium carbonate, trypto-phan, Narcan. "No change."

"No behav. change." Everything but Thorazine had been phased out.

The test two pages bore four months of nearly identical weekly entries written in a small, neat hand:

Indiv. sess. to monitor verb., soc., assess beh. plan. H. Ott assist. C. Argent, Ph.D.

I passed the chart to Milo.

"As you can see, Dr. Argent was monitoring his speech, not treating him," said Swig. "Probably measuring his response to medication, or something like that."

"How many other patients was she monitoring?" said Milo.

Swig said, "I don't know her total load, nor could I give you specific names without going through extensive review procedures." He held out his hand for the folder. Milo flipped pages for a second and returned it.

Milo said, "Did Dr. Argent seek out severely deteriorated patients?"

Swig rolled forward, placed his elbows on the desk, expelled a short, pufflike laugh. "As opposed to? We don't house mild neurotics here."