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dimensions.”
    â€œFine. Then wait until he dies—really dies.”
    â€œ
Wait.
That is a word, Dr. Mitchell, that has no place in our work, our search for answers to insanity. This man is clearly doomed to spend the rest of his life, no matter its length, in this institution as an incurable lunatic. I would remind you, also, that he is alive now only because he was adjudged to be insane. Otherwise, he would most surely have already expired unaturally at the end of a rope, hanging from a gallows in a public square.”
    Will didn’t know about any of that. But whatever the consequences, he was going to prevent Joshua Lancaster’s death on this day, at this time, by this method.
    â€œI’m taking him out of here,” said Will. Using a rubber sheet, he covered Josh up and pulled him off the autopsy table on to a wheeled wooden gurney.
    Was Mayfield or Ruth Jensen going to make a move to stop him?
    No. In what Will could only conclude was a sudden flash of sanity, Mayfield said, “All right, Dr. Mitchell. The patient is yours. For now, at least.”
    And Will wheeled Josh out of the room and back up the hall to the treatment room, where he began the work of saving a life.

VI
    RANDY
    KANSAS CITY
    1997

    Janice Leona Larson Higgins, former Harvey Girl. Randy knew from her write-up in “The Harvey Girls Menu” that Larson was her maiden name and Higgins came from Billy Higgins, a traveling book salesman she was married to for forty-five years. He died two years ago of prostate cancer. They had two married daughters and five grandchildren, all of whom lived in and around Kansas City.
    It was with the help of an old railroad friend of his own family that Randy had located Janice through the Kansas City chapter of the Harvey Girls alumni club. There was a Janice with employment dates that seemed to match. So, after getting her address as well as her life story from the “Menu,” the club’s membership roster and newsletter, he went to see her.
    â€œI’d like to talk to you about Birdie Carlucci,” Randy said to the elderly woman after introducing himself—but only by name, no title. Nor did he say he was a police officer or show her a badge, justifying the omissions on grounds that he was not really on official police business.
    She had answered his knock at the door of a small green-shingled house in the 6500 block of Holmes Avenue, in an old neighborhood off Troost in south Kansas City that once, to Randy’s memory, was near the southwest limits of the city. Now, with its suburbs and interstates, the Kansas City metropolitan area sprawled hundreds of blocks—and miles— farther south, as well as way westward, over the line into Kansas.
    â€œBirdie Carlucci? I’m not sure I know anybody—”
    â€œFrom Union Station. He was at Union Station when you were a Harvey Girl.”
    â€œBirdie! Oh, yes. I never knew his last name,” she said. “Birdie Carlucci. I never figured he was Italian. I’ve seen that name Carlucci somewhere, but not . . . oh, never mind.” Her words were accompanied by a beaming smile.
    Janice Higgins was very old but very well cared for. Her face was cracked and wrinkled but powdered almost white, her lips colored dark pink with precisely placed lipstick. Her white hair was cut short, perfectly combed, and held behind her ears with a dark blue ribbon. She was wearing a light-green housedress that was not only freshly pressed but also starched. She had had no idea Randy was coming to see her this morning. This was a woman who still lived her life in accordance with her training and habits as a Harvey Girl. Randy loved that—and her—as he had all Harvey Girls.
    Janice Higgins invited him to come in, and he stepped into what was clearly her living room. There was no entrance hall or vestibule. It was a small house, probably built in the 1920s.
    The cop in Randy wanted to warn this little old