Free Dear Digby by Carol Muske-Dukes

seminal purposes! His job was just to give out the pills at night—I didn’t know that. I thought he was supposed to give me that hypo. He told me it was vitamin serum. He was an orderly!” she shrieked, and the arm shot up by itself, spread into a claw. She got it under control in the nick of time, then pointed one of the fingers at me.
    “I trusted him. But he was no orderly, he was disorderly by night. But you, Willis, you were right. You put me on to him in your letter to me … and I can’t thank you enough.” The hand fluttered to rest on my knee. Relief flooded through my body.
    “He would come in, pretending to give me a little goodnight pill, and then take out this spike, which he had appropriated from Third Floor Diagnostic. He’d stick two hundred cc’s of chloral hydrate into my arm, and then … and then …”
    The fingers clutched my knee.
    “Seminal fluid!” I cried, like a cheerleader.
    “Yes. Seminal fluid. I found it in the morning, every morning in my panties. But I just never thought it could be Basil. He was my friend.”
    The eyes rolled pathetically, and instantly I felt it. What it must be like to live inside that body—to have to distrust every reaction: the false pity, the horror, the embarrassment—till the eyes of the possible friend could see beyond the sutured flesh, the crooked eyes, the ripped mouth.
    “Jesus. Will anyone prosecute? Isn’t this a scandal for the state? I mean, for your place of residence?”
    “For Brookheart State Hospital—yes. It’s a shame, but it will never be a scandal—not if they can help it. They just want it hushed up. They fired Basil Schrantz, of course—then they asked me for the needle—but I wouldn’t give it to them. I know what happens to important evidence when they get hold of it. They say they’re going to hold it for the official investigation—and then, mysteriously, it disappears! Just like that.” She actually snapped two of the plastic fingers—the sound was like a beaded curtain shaking.
    “Therefore”—she rolled the syringe back up in a piece of cheesecloth—“I’m keeping it for myself. Keeping the fingerprints fresh—for the FBI—or the president.”
    I couldn’t help myself; I had to wonder how much of all this was true. “How did you get … When did you arrive here?
    “I just left the hospital. It’s easy enough to do. There are guards, but they’re not very smart. The grounds have no real fences or barred gates.”
    An eye cocked at me. “Do you doubt my story, Willis?”
    “Oh, no. No. I just wondered how you managed to get down here so quickly.”
    “Train. God told me to take the train. She said, ‘Iris, take the train to SIS.’”
    “Sure,” I said. “Sure, He would. He never cared much about transportation.”
    “And now I can thank you face to face.”
    “You’re welcome. But you did it all yourself, it’s your story. And … after this … what are your plans?”
    What if she wants to stay here, to work here, to see me every day?
    “To go back to Brookheart, of course. I love it there,” she said, with a little frown of surprise. “I’m crazy. I’ll go now, now that I’ve met you and spoken to you.”
    “Well, thank you. I meant what I said in the letter, I’d like to keep in touch, Iris. I feel there’s a reason for us to be regular correspondents, you know?”
    “Yes … I think so. We do have similarities. I mean, finally I believe that all this happened to me because of my looks.”
    I stared at her. Poor woman. Jesus, were there weirdos in this world who specialized in Ugly Love, who preyed on the deformed?
    “Yeah?”
    “Oh, yes. A woman of my looks has to be very careful. I mean, I almost don’t blame Basil Schrantz, as horrible as all this is, for falling for me like that; it happens to me all the time. At first I was going to kill him—as I said in the letter, it would have given me great satisfaction. In fact, I was standing over him with a letter opener, after I