Shutter Island(9)

They climbed to the second floor and turned into a corridor that smelled of wood soap, the oak floor gleaming underfoot and bathed in a white light from the large window at the far end.

“Lot of security,” Teddy said.

McPherson said, “We take every precaution.”

Chuck said, “To the thanks of a grateful public, Mr. McPherson, I’m sure.”

“You have to understand,” McPherson said, turning back to Teddy as they walked past several offices, doors all closed and bearing the names of doctors on small silver plates. “There is no facility like this in the United States. We take only the most damaged patients. We take the ones no other facility can manage.”

“Gryce is here, right?” Teddy said.

McPherson nodded. “Vincent Gryce, yes. In Ward C.”

Chuck said to Teddy, “Gryce was the one…?”

Teddy nodded. “Killed all his relatives, scalped them, made himself hats.”

Chuck was nodding fast. “And wore them into town, right?”

“According to the papers.”

They had stopped outside a set of double doors. A brass plate affixed in the center of the right door read CHIEF OF STAFF, DR. J. CAWLEY.

McPherson turned to them, one hand on the knob, and looked at them with an unreadable intensity.

McPherson said, “In a less enlightened age, a patient like Gryce would have been put to death. But here they can study him, define a pathology, maybe isolate the abnormality in his brain that caused him to disengage so completely from acceptable patterns of behavior. If they can do that, maybe we can reach a day where that kind of disengagement can be rooted out of society entirely.”

He seemed to be waiting for a response, his hand stiff against the doorknob.

“It’s good to have dreams,” Chuck said. “Don’t you think?”





3


DR. CAWLEY WAS thin to the point of emaciation. Not quite the swimming bones and cartilage Teddy had seen at Dachau, but definitely in need of several good meals. His small dark eyes sat far back in their sockets, and the shadows that leaked from them bled across the rest of his face. His cheeks were so sunken they appeared collapsed, and the flesh around them was pitted with aged acne. His lips and nose were as thin as the rest of him, and his chin appeared squared off to the point of nonexistence. What remained of his hair was as dark as his eyes and the shadows underneath.

He had an explosive smile, however, bright and bulging with a confidence that lightened his irises, and he used it now as he came around the desk to greet them, his hand outstretched.

“Marshal Daniels and Marshal Aule,” he said, “glad you could come so quickly.”

His hand was dry and statue smooth in Teddy’s, and his grip was a shocker, squeezing the bones in Teddy’s hand until Teddy could feel the press of it straight up his forearm. Cawley’s eyes glittered for a moment, as if to say, Didn’t expect that, did you? and then he moved on to Chuck.

He shook Chuck’s hand with a “Pleased to meet you, sir,” and then the smile shot off his face and he said to McPherson, “That’ll be all for now, Deputy Warden. Thank you.”

McPherson said, “Yes, sir. A pleasure, gentlemen,” and backed out of the room.

Cawley’s smile returned, but it was a more viscous version, and it reminded Teddy of the film that formed over soup.

“He’s a good man, McPherson. Eager.”

“For?” Teddy said, taking a seat in front of the desk.

Cawley’s smile morphed again, curling up one side of his face and freezing there for a moment. “I’m sorry?”

“He’s eager,” Teddy said. “But for what?”

Cawley sat behind the teak desk, spread his arms. “For the work. A moral fusion between law and order and clinical care. Just half a century ago, even less in some cases, the thinking on the kind of patients we deal with here was that they should, at best, be shackled and left in their own filth and waste. They were systematically beaten, as if that could drive the psychosis out. We demonized them. We tortured them. Spread them on racks, yes. Drove screws into their brains. Even drowned them on occasion.”

“And now?” Chuck said.

“Now we treat them. Morally. We try to heal, to cure. And if that fails, we at least provide them with a measure of calm in their lives.”

“And their victims?” Teddy said.

Cawley raised his eyebrows, waiting.

“These are all violent offenders,” Teddy said. “Right?”

Cawley nodded. “Quite violent, actually.”

“So they’ve hurt people,” Teddy said. “Murdered them in many cases.”

“Oh, in most.”

“So why does their sense of calm matter in relation to their victims’?”

Cawley said, “Because my job is to treat them, not their victims. I can’t help their victims. It’s the nature of any life’s work that it have limits. That’s mine. I can only concern myself with my patients.” He smiled. “Did the senator explain the situation?”

Teddy and Chuck shot each other glances as they sat.

Teddy said, “We don’t know anything about a senator, Doctor. We were assigned by the state field office.”

Cawley propped his elbows on a green desk blotter and clasped his hands together, placed his chin on top of them, and stared at them over the rim of his glasses.