Ashes Beneath Her: A Northern Michigan Asylum Novel

by Erickson, J. R.

  She moaned and opened her eyes - not to darkness, but the flicker of a candle.

  “No, please,” she begged, cringing away and lifting her arms, shocked to find them free from their straps.

  “It’s okay,” Ben’s voice rose from beside her. “It’s me.”

  He stepped into her line of sight, his face lit by the flame.

  She blinked at him, breath still clenched in her chest, the remnants of the dream streaming away like black smoke.

  “I was dreaming,” she whispered. “Horrible. A man, and…” she trailed off.

  Ben held up a glass of water.

  “Would you like a drink?”

  She gazed at the glass, parched, but hesitated. Why had he come? Had he put something in the water?

  When she took it, her hands shook, and a low throbbing pulsed in her head.

  She drank and handed the glass back, falling heavily onto the sweaty pillow beneath her.

  “Why are you here, Ben?”

  He put the glass down and pulled a chair to her bedside.

  “I heard Dr. Crow on the phone last night. You’re scheduled for a presentation in the chamber tomorrow. The brotherhood is gathering to witness your,” he pointed at her hands, “abilities.”

  The small flame lit Ben’s dark eyes and made him appear ominous, like the dark figure in her dream.

  “What will they do?” Orla sat back up, wrapping her arms across her chest, a small comfort she’d rarely experienced since entering the asylum.

  “Crow has something special in mind, but he didn’t mention it on the phone. Afterward, he’s going to perform the electro-shock therapy, and then he plans to send you with a doctor who is the director at an asylum in Pennsylvania.”

  “Pennsylvania?” The chill of the room moved into her body and settled low in her belly. A cramp took root, and she hunched over, suddenly questioning the contents of the water glass.

  “I won’t let them,” he told her, his voice cold and hard.

  She looked at him for a long time, and the pain in her abdomen softened, drifted away.

  “What are you going to do?”

  Ben pulled at his dark shirt, as if it felt too tight.

  “I’ve got a plan,” he said.

  “Why can’t we go tonight, Ben? Right now?” Orla begged.

  He shook his head.

  “Orderlies monitor the halls at night. The hallway beyond this one,” he gestured toward her door, “is a violent men’s ward. The orderlies would never let us past without an explanation. They’d call Crow immediately, assuming a patient didn’t see us first.”

  Orla shuddered, remembering her near-escape as she plummeted down that dark hallway. What would have happened if she’d made it through the curtains into the hall beyond?

  “Crow will transfer you to the chamber first thing in the morning, when the hospital is quiet,” Ben assured her.

  “No,” she whimpered, wanting to curl into a ball on her side and weep.

  “Please, Orla. Trust me. This is the only way. The best thing you can do is go along with him tomorrow. It will make everything easier.”

  Ben strapped her arms back to the bed and slipped out the door.

  Orla stared into the black room and knew she would not sleep.

  44

  Hazel

  “What are we going to say? Excuse me, Mrs. Crow, can we take a quick peek in your garage?” Hazel asked, pulling her knees up on the passenger seat and wrapping her arms over her shins. She was nervous and already wishing she’d kept her mouth shut when Abe mentioned his spy mission to the Crow and Crow residences. She could have stayed home, finished her book, and waited for his phone call.

  He looked at her sidelong.

  “I don’t plan to say a word to her. I want to get a look at the other cars, that’s it. I tipped Spencer off about sightings of his gold car, and guess what? A guy jogging near Fountain Park where Amber was abducted saw a blue Lincoln Continental. Virginia Crow drives a black Eldorado. I’d like to know if there’s a Continental in the driveway.”

  “I thought you were afraid he’d destroy evidence?”

  “I am, but I needed to push him and see what he’d do.”

  “And have you considered, what he did was abduct another girl?”

  Abe cringed away as if she’d spit at him. He didn’t respond, and she regretted her words.

  “I’m sorry. That was out of line.”

  “If Spencer’s the guy, he was already hunting. He didn’t abduct someone because I pushed him. He drove a different car, changed his M.O. to reduce his chance of getting caught,” Abe told her, glaring through the windshield.

  “Why would they have three cars?”

  “Because they’re the type, believe me.”

  “Okay, let’s say they do. What if they park the third car in the garage?”

  “Then I check out the garage. You sit in the car as the lookout. Somebody comes along, honk the horn.”

  Abe parked down the road from Spencer’s house.

  He disappeared into the woods, and Hazel craned backwards in her seat watching the road, counting the minutes, and wondering what she’d do if he didn’t return.

  When someone tapped on the window, she screamed and dove toward the driver’s seat.

  Abe gazed at her, an amused expression on his face.

  He walked around and climbed in.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to spook you. It was satisfying, but I genuinely didn’t intend it.”

  “Maybe I deserved it,” she grumbled. “No Continental?”

  “No third car in the garage at all,” he admitted.

  “Now what?” she asked.

  “Ben’s house.”

  “Is this legal? Or ethical?” she asked.

  “Legal? No. Ethical…?” Abe considered as they turned onto Misty Lane. “It depends. If the guy is involved, then we’re under a moral obligation. Plus, she could be there, this newest girl, Amber. She could be there right now. And if that car is there, it confirms we’re on the right track.”

  “I want to go too,” Hazel murmured. “You said they’re both working at the asylum, right? Ben and the doctor?”

  “They were an hour ago,” he said.

  He drove past the house on Misty Lane. Like the house at 311 Sapphire, trees surrounded Dr. Crow’s home. Abe pulled onto the shoulder, and they got out.

  Hazel took a deep breath and stuffed the paranoia trying to overwhelm her. She followed Abe through the woods, lifting her long skirt to avoid branches poking up from the dense foliage.

  “Watch out for the nettles,” she told him as they neared a spiky green plant.

  He dodged around them, and they waded through high grass into a clearing.

  A large Tudor-style house sat in the center of a vibrant green lawn. A circular driveway curved in front of the house. Behind it, Hazel saw a large garage.

  They walked the exterior of the house, peeking in windows and rattling doorknobs, but they found every door locked. When they reached the garage, Abe looked in the window.

  “Gotcha,” he whispered.

  “What?” Hazel ran to the window and looked in. A dark blue Lincoln Continental filled one side of the garage.

  They found an open door and slipped inside.

  “Whatever you do, don’t touch the car. Here.” He pulled a pair of disposable gloves from his pocket and handed her one, sliding the other over his left hand.

  “You brought these with you?”

  “If you’re going to think like the bad guys, you have to act like them sometimes too,” he murmured, drawing back a curtain that ran down the center of the garage.

  The other half of the garage contained a bedroom of sorts.

  “Do you think he lives here?” Hazel murmured, trying not to imagine what the room felt like in February when snow piled to the little prison-like windows encased in the concrete walls.

  A thin mattress sat on a plain, metal frame covered by a threadbare brown blanket. A scarred woo
den desk stood along a cement wall, stacked with books. Clothes hung from hangers attached to a metal beam in the ceiling, and a stack of clean laundry sat on top of an over-turned crate.

  “I figured as much,” Abe confessed.

  “What?” Hazel whispered.

  “I assumed Ben didn’t live in the doctor’s house.”

  “Why?” Hazel asked.

  “Because the guy looks like an outsider, like he’s been rejected most of his life.”

  “But if he’s the older son, why would Virginia Crow allow this?”

  Abe bent down to examine a pair of hiking boots near the back door to the garage. He kicked them, and fresh mud broke off in clumps.

  “I told you what the midwife said about the older son. She saw an abused kid. For all we know, the doctor offered him a room in his garage because it was safer than living with his mother.”

  Abe wandered to a closed door.

  “This door is locked,” he mumbled.

  He shook the handle a second time.

  “Here.” Hazel pulled a credit card from the bag slung over her shoulder. She slid it along the door frame, and after a bit of wiggling, they heard a pop.

  He cocked an eyebrow.

  Hazel shrugged. “You’re not the only one with bad guy skills.”

  Abe pushed open the door.

  “It’s a records room,” he exclaimed, striding to a series of tall, gray filing cabinets.

  “And it would take a century to sift through it,” Hazel said.

  “It’s labeled.” Abe pointed at the little cardboard face cards with dates.

  Hazel gazed in overwhelm at the records. She couldn’t imagine gleaning anything important in the short time they had.

  “Go watch the driveway,” Abe told her.

  Hazel moved to the door of the garage, surveying the quiet yard. When a crow burst from the trees, she sprang back, letting out a shaky laugh when she spotted the bird.

  “They’re both at work,” she reminded herself.

  Hazel walked along the perimeter of the sparse room. A few odds and ends had been stacked on the cement ledge beneath the window. As her eyes roved over the contents, she stopped cold.

  One of Orla’s yellow crystal earrings lay on the gray block. Hazel’s fingers trembled as she reached for the piece of jewelry. They were distinctive earrings with a bronze cone base. Orla wore them often, and Hazel was sure she had been wearing them the day she disappeared.

  “Abe,” Hazel whispered.

  He didn’t respond.

  “Abe,” she shouted.

  “What? Is somebody coming?” He peeked his head from the doorway, his arms filled with folders.

  “This is Orla’s earring.”

  He walked across the room and squinted at the earring, oddly placed amongst the other items. A pencil also lay on the shelf, along with a small glass figure of a bear, a set of reading glasses, two keys, and a vanilla-flavored Charleston Chew.

  Hazel reached up to take the earring.

  “A souvenir,” Abe breathed. “No, don’t touch it. I’m going to take a picture. Let me grab my camera.”

  He started toward the door, but stopped.

  Hazel heard tires in the gravel driveway.

  “Shit,” he whispered. “Out the back.”

  They hurried through the back door, Abe’s arms stuffed with folders.

  “But she might still be alive. We have to confront him,” Hazel whispered.

  “Quiet,” he hissed.

  They stood with their backs against the garage, listening.

  A door opened, and then closed. Minutes ticked by. The late July sun beat down on Hazel’s face, and she grew lightheaded. She wanted to slide down the brick and sit in the grass.

  Dense forest stretched behind the garage, so thick in the peak of summer that some areas were impenetrable.

  After several minutes, the truck started, and they heard it backing down the driveway.

  Hazel started around the garage, but Abe shook his head.

  Moments later the truck returned, the engine idling as a door again slammed as if the person had left something behind.

  When it left the second time, they waited several minutes before hurrying around the house and running to the road.

  * * *

  Abe

  Abe sat on Hazel’s porch, reading, long after dusk. Hazel had gone to bed, but his eyes devoured the pages of notes.

  Crow had been conducting strange experiments at the Northern Michigan Asylum for more than twenty-five years. Some of the material seemed standard - potential diagnoses coupled with the varying amounts of medicine, and then notes on the perceived response. Crow had written about drug interactions, effective versus non-effective therapies, and interesting results regarding placebo affect.

  But other folders contained bizarre case studies of patients who predicted the future or read minds. These patients were subjected to a range of disturbing treatments including psychedelic drugs, isolation, and even torture.

  In Crow’s garage, Abe had spotted a cabinet drawer labelled Spencer Crow, and he taken several of the folders. He expected standard stuff - birth records, hospital visits, and the like. Instead, he discovered detailed notes about experimentation on the child.

  Abe read:

  After an extensive inquiry, including detailed case studies highlighted in the Enchiridion, and personal interactions with patients exhibiting psychic abilities and enhanced sensory abilities, it is my hypothesis that individuals develop psychic abilities after extreme trauma or illness during the postnatal years. Experiences of near death have been reported by more than seventy-five percent of patients with heightened psychic capacities.

  The paper listed a dozen examples of patients with psychic abilities and their so-called near-death experiences.

  To test this hypothesis, we have chosen Subject X (Spencer Arnold Crow) as the focus of analysis.

  As Abe read, he sat up straighter, his eyes boring into the words, shaking his head at the cruelty detailed.

  The doctor had been experimenting on Subject X - beginning at only six weeks old. The trials included immersion in water until he turned blue, long periods of blackout confinement with no extrasensory sights or sounds of any kind, and a list of drugs.

  Each trial listed Subject X’s before and after blood pressure, heart rate, body temperature, and observed physical, mental, and emotional changes in the days following the experimentation.

  As Abe read, he witnessed the downslide of young Crow’s health. His skin, noted at the start of the experiments as pink, was later recorded as yellow, and finally gray. The whites of his eyes were documented as bloodshot and cloudy. His behavior shifted from alert and playful to subdued and lethargic.

  In a second file, Abe found a letter addressed to Byron Crow.

  Byron,

  I thought it prudent to write you a letter, as Hector’s increasing suspicions finds him home more and more, monitoring the telephone and my comings and goings. He is preoccupied with Spencer’s ill health and angry at my refusal to take him to a physician. I fear, my darling, that the time has come to take the next steps. How can I explain to my small-minded husband, the gravity of your work, our work? I leave it to you to secure the appropriate remedy. I shall do my best to bring Spencer to the sanitarium by week’s end, but I fear Hector will become inflamed and refuse my use of the car. If so, I will prepare Hector’s favorite meal for our family dinner on Sunday. I will rely on you to bring the special ingredient.

  All my love,

  V.C.

  Abe studied the initials.

  “Virginia Crow,” he murmured.

  In the same file, Abe found a prescription for arsenic. A hand written note taped to the page stated: Lethal dose: 180 mg.

  “Why is that in this file?” he asked, setting the paper aside, but as he gazed at the prescription, he understood.

  Arsenic was the special ingredient for Virginia Crow’s family dinner.

  45

 
; Abe

  “She killed her husband, and experimented on her own son?” Hazel repeated the story back to Abe, her mouth hanging open.

  “It appears that way,” he admitted.

  “Let’s call the police,” Hazel insisted. “We found Orla’s earring. The Continental was in the garage. Ben is the guy. Maybe the Crows are in on it. What are we waiting for?”

  Abe paced around the kitchen. He’d slept less than two hours the previous night, falling asleep at one a.m. only to awaken at three-eleven.

  “It’s not enough.”

  “Jesus, Abe! What do you need? A body in the back of Ben’s truck? I’m calling the police.”

  “Wait,” Abe held up a hand. “I saw a shovel in Ben’s truck, and muddy boots in his room. I want to go to Elder Park and look around.”

  “What? Why? You’ve already searched Elder Park, you-”

  But he cut her off.

  “When I saw that shovel, I knew he buried something there, Hazel. I knew it. We need something tangible for the police. That earring is not proof, and guess what? We found it by breaking and entering. In court, it would be inadmissible. The cops can’t pick Ben up based on an earring that might not be Orla’s, and a car one person spotted near the last abduction sight. Get it? We need more.”

  “Fine!” Hazel huffed.

  Calvin sat at the table, drinking his coffee and watching his angry girlfriend. Smartly, he didn’t intervene.

  Bethany, too, watched the scene unfold from the doorway.

  “You found Orla’s earring?” she asked in a small voice.

  “I think so,” Hazel murmured.

  “Exactly,” Abe exclaimed. “You think so. I’m going.”

  Hazel started to follow him. Calvin stood and grabbed Hazel in a hug.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t, honey.”

  Hazel hugged Calvin hard, tucking her head beneath his chin.