by Robert Bloch
Griswold didn’t reply. He merely sat there, the buzzing current throbbing through him, his rigid body pulsing ever so slightly with the force of the discharge. The electrodes were fastened into place by strips of surgical tape, but there were no sponges beneath them to shield the skin. And now, Karen realized the source of the other scent.
It was the odor of burning flesh.
CHAPTER 5
When Karen ran out of the sanatorium her only thought was to get away.
It wasn’t even a thought, merely an impulse as blind as the panic which prompted it, as blind as the fog she fought as the car careened along the winding wooded road leading back to the highway.
In a way, the difficulty of driving was a blessing; fighting the wheel somehow helped to fight the panic, and by the time she reached the fork in the road, Karen was almost calm. The dimmed fluorescence of the service station indicated that it was closed for the night, but she saw the outside phone booth and realized she must stop and make the call.
Later Karen couldn’t remember exactly what she’d told the police, but it was enough to get action. She wouldn’t give them her name, though she did promise to stay there until they arrived.
Of course she had no intention of staying; she’d made up her mind before placing the call. Once the authorities were notified, it was their problem. What had Bruce said about the service—do your duty, stay in line, and never volunteer? Well, she’d done her duty and now it was up to them. She couldn’t afford to stay because staying would mean getting involved. And involving Bruce. Not with his record and case history!
So she hung up on them in mid-sentence and walked back over to the car and climbed in, certain that by the time anyone reached the station she’d be too far away to find.
What she didn’t anticipate was that she wouldn’t be able to start the car.
It wasn’t the gas or the carburetor or the engine. The problem was simply that her fingers trembled so she couldn’t turn the key in the ignition. Karen sat there quite calmly, completely self-possessed except for the fact that she was shaking uncontrollably. There was no sensation at all, only a numbness. You’re in shock, she told herself.
If she could sob, if she could scream, then perhaps movement would be possible. But there was only the ceaseless shuddering when she fumbled with the key; the shuddering which evoked images of Griswold’s body, throbbing and pulsing. When she glanced up at the rearview mirror she could see his corpse-eyes staring out at her.
Karen closed her own eyes, clenched her hands together in her lap, and shook.
She was still sitting there when the patrol car came flashing out of the fog.
There were three men in the car, and Sergeant Cole was very polite and soft-spoken, waiting patiently until she managed to open her purse and produce her driver’s license. She still couldn’t control her fingers completely, but oddly enough her voice was firm. At first she flatly refused to accompany them back to the rest home, but Sergeant Cole said he’d have one of his men drive her in her own car, and no, she wouldn’t have to look at the bodies.
The officer who drove Karen to the sanatorium was a squat, burly middle-aged man named Montoya. His younger and slimmer companion, Hyams, rode beside her in the back seat.
Karen hadn’t expected a double escort, and at first she was a bit confused, until she realized it was a precautionary measure. The thought hit hard, jarring her out of one sort of shock and into another.
She was a suspect.
Karen tensed, shifting uneasily in her seat, waiting for one of her companions to break the silence, to start asking questions.
But there were no questions. Montoya chewed gum and concentrated on the road ahead, following closely behind the patrol car in the fog. Hyams seemed to be relaxing beside her, half-asleep. It was only when she reached into her purse for a handkerchief that his hand dropped instantly to the seat, only inches away from the revolver butt protruding from his holster. Karen caught his eyes and he smiled, but the hand stayed there for the remainder of the drive.
And when at last they parked in the driveway before the big house, Hyams continued to sit beside her.
“Wait here,” Cole told him, when he climbed out of the patrol car. He nodded at Montoya. “Let’s go.”
The front door was ajar—Karen realized for the first time that she hadn’t closed it on her way out—and the two men disappeared inside. Karen stared after them, twisting her handkerchief between her fingers. Hyams said nothing, but she was conscious that his eyes were following her movements.
It seemed like a long time before Sergeant Cole came out of the house again. But when he did he was moving quickly, legs scissoring a path to the patrol car. Opening the door, Cole slid across the front seat and a moment later Karen could hear the crackle of the squawk box. She couldn’t catch what he was saying, but the message was a lengthy one. She wondered if he’d located any of the other staff members or patients, and if so, what he had learned.
Finally he came around to her car and nodded at Hyams to roll down the window on his side.
“Would you come in now, please?”
The question was addressed to Karen, but it was Hyams who nodded. All very courteous, very correct. And if Karen refused, they would be equally courteous and correct as they dragged her into the house.
Or was she being unfair? It seemed so when they entered the hall, because Sergeant Cole deliberately moved before her to shield her from the sight of the reception desk beyond. He was, she realized, keeping his promise that she wouldn’t have to look at the bodies.
“This way,” he said, indicating an open doorway on the left. As Hyams led her toward it, she caught a glimpse of Montoya descending the open staircase at the far end of the hall. It seemed to Karen, even in the dim light, that his swarthy face was unnaturally pale, but perhaps she was imagining that.
Sergeant Cole nodded at Montoya as he approached. “They’re on the way now. When they get here, I want them to go ahead, S.O.P., the works. I’ll be with them as soon as I can. But unless you run into something we’ve missed, tell them I’m not to be disturbed.”
“Right,” said Montoya.
Cole stepped aside, gesturing Karen through the doorway, then followed her with Hyams.
The room beyond was obviously a study, with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves built into two of the walls. Drawn drapes covered the windows of the third wall, and the fourth—at the far end—held a grouping of diplomas and medical certificates in ornate frames. Karen glanced at the desk and the two heavy, old-fashioned leather armchairs before it, realizing she’d seen this setting before. She’d been in this room, with Bruce, at the interview preceding his commitment.
But now Sergeant Cole was moving to sit behind the desk, and it was Hyams who stood beside her, not Bruce. Because Dr. Griswold was dead, and Bruce was—
Where is he? Where is he now? She closed her eyes against a silent scream.
“Are you all right, Mrs. Raymond?” Cole’s voice was softly solicitous.
Karen blinked and met his glance.
“Please sit down.”
She took her place in the chair nearest the desk, conscious of Hyams’ close presence.
And while Cole’s smile was casual and relaxed, Karen saw that he now held a ballpoint pen poised over an open note pad on the desk. Every movement was unobtrusive, but these men knew exactly what they were doing; Karen remembered how deftly Hyams’ hand had descended to poise behind the holster of his revolver in the car.
S.O.P. Standard Operating Procedure. Interrogation of the witness. Witness—or suspect? She’d have to be careful, very careful.
“Now, Mrs. Raymond, we’d like you to tell us what happened—”
The odd part of it was that Karen, as she talked, found herself relaxing. She’d anticipated Cole’s asking why Bruce was in the sanatorium, and framed her answer in advance, but she hadn’t anticipated there’d be no further questions about his “nervous breakdown.” Once Karen realized her explanation
was accepted, she had no difficulty continuing.
She told about Griswold’s call at the office, and, at Sergeant Cole’s request, established the time. She also furnished the approximate time for her visit with Rita—and, when Cole interrupted, furnished him with Rita’s address and home telephone number.
So far, so good. But now there was the matter of reporting her conversation with Bruce’s sister. Rita’s warning about the visit, about Bruce’s not being ready for release—these were subjects to be avoided at all cost.
But how?
Rescue came from outside, in the form of loudly wailing sirens. And then, from beyond the door, she heard the clatter of footsteps in the hall and the deep murmur of many voices.
Sergeant Cole frowned and gestured to Hyams. “Tell them to hold it down,” he said.
Hyams rose and went to the door. He opened it on bedlam, stepped outside. A moment later, the noise subsided noticeably, and Hyams came back into the room. As he closed the door and moved up to seat himself again, Cole glanced at Karen.
“You were saying—?”
It was easy to pick up her story again at the point where she’d left Rita and driven south, easy to provide Cole with a timetable of her movements to jot down on his note pad. The stop for gas, the sandwich, the drive through the fog, her arrival here at the sanatorium.
“Nine o’clock, you said?”
“Approximately. Maybe a few minutes after.”
Muffled footsteps again, this time overhead. Cole glanced quickly towards the ceiling, but said nothing. He nodded at Karen to continue.
Now Karen found herself faltering, not because of any necessity to conceal, but with the painfulness of revelation.
Cole’s questions guided her step by step through her drive, bringing her to the front door of the house. What happened after she rang the bell?—how did she discover the door was unlocked?—what was the first thing she noticed when she came in?
His questions led her into the house itself. When did she see the nurse?—what was her reaction when she realized the nurse was dead?—did she consider trying to locate a telephone in another room to call the police?
It was symbiosis, she told herself. He fed her the questions and she fed him the answers. But the questions were increasingly difficult to absorb, and she wondered if her answers were coherent.
Karen told him about the smoke, and he wanted to know what she’d noticed first—was it something she saw or something she smelled? She mentioned her surprise at the sight of Griswold’s office, and Cole carefully drew from her a complete description of the room and its contents.
Then came the worst part: the venture into the other room beyond and the discovery of Griswold’s body. Karen couldn’t stay in that room for long, not even in memory. The evocation of image and odor made her want to run away, and she rushed through her account so that she could reach the point where she did run away.
Cole lifted his pen from the note pad and gestured her flow of words to a halt.
“Excuse me, Mrs. Raymond. You say you turned and ran back through Dr. Griswold’s office to the hall?”
“Yes.”
“What did you do next?”
“I went to the front door.”
“Directly?”
“That’s right.”
Cole’s pen halted its progress across the page. He smiled at Karen. “You were quite upset by this time—is that correct?”
“Upset? I was terrified—”
Cole nodded. “Stop and think for a moment. Perhaps there’s something you haven’t remembered, something else that happened.”
Karen shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Did you go upstairs?” Cole murmured.
“No.”
“You say you were in a state of panic, almost shock. Isn’t it possible you might have done something without full awareness of your actions at the time?”
Karen frowned. “I ran out of the house,” she said.
“You’re sure you didn’t go upstairs earlier—or at any time before you left?”
“Why should I?”
Just then the door opened, and Montoya entered the study. Karen turned in her chair and saw him standing there as Cole glanced past her.
“Sorry to interrupt you, Sergeant.”
Cole nodded. “What is it?”
“They’re finished with Griswold and the nurse,” Montoya said. “But before they wrap things up, they thought you might want to have another look at the other bodies upstairs.”
CHAPTER 6
The lights in the interrogation room were very bright. Karen could see the tiny droplets of perspiration forming at Sergeant Cole’s graying temples. She could see every wrinkle in the frowning face of the other officer, Lieutenant Barringer, who had joined them there.
Strange. It’s the suspect who’s supposed to squirm under questioning, but now she felt quite calm. And they were the ones who were sweating it out.
Not that she blamed them for it, under the circumstances. The nurse strangled at her desk, Griswold dead, and two more bodies found upstairs. She knew who they were, now—an orderly named Thomas and an elderly woman patient. The orderly had been stabbed to death, and the patient apparently died of a heart seizure, but of course they couldn’t be certain of that. All they knew was that four people had died; three staff members and one patient.
Five other rooms upstairs showed signs of occupancy, so there had been five other patients in the sanatorium. But they were missing.
They were missing, and all their records, all means of identifying them, had gone up in smoke in Griswold’s fireplace.
Five mentally disturbed patients gone. Vanished. Only one—Bruce—known by name. And every reason to believe that one or more of those patients was a mass murderer.
But who were they?
And where could they have gone?
No wonder Lieutenant Barringer frowned when Karen shook her head.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know their names. I never even set eyes on any of them. I told you I didn’t visit my husband while he was in the sanatorium.”
“Why not?”
“Dr. Griswold thought it best if I stayed away. Bruce seemed so disturbed—”
“Disturbed?”
Barringer picked up the word, but Karen couldn’t help that. There was no avoiding the subject, and if she didn’t speak up, they’d hear it from Rita.
“Of course. That’s why he was under treatment, it was a nervous condition. Ever since he came back from Vietnam—”
“Was he a head?”
“No. He never got into drugs.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Certainly. I’m his wife—if there was anything like that going on, I’d know.”
“Then in what way was he disturbed?”
“Just nerves—”
“Please, Mrs. Raymond. People don’t spend six months in a sanatorium unless there’s been some kind of diagnosis. Surely Dr. Griswold told you more than that. What were the symptoms? What did your husband do that prompted you to put him away—”
“I didn’t put him away! Bruce was the one who wanted to go!”
Hearing the shrill echo of her own voice, Karen realized she was close to hysterics. If she wanted to help Bruce, she would have to control herself.
Subsiding, she watched Barringer ease himself into a chair across the table from where she sat. He glanced at Cole, then turned to her again.
“Sorry, Mrs. Raymond. I know how you feel.”
“Do you?”
“Of course. You’ve had a shock, you’re tired, you don’t like all these questions.” Barringer sighed softly. “Well, neither do we. The trouble is, we’ve got to come up with some answers. And right now you’re the only one who can help us.”
“I’ve told you the truth.”
“I believe you.”
“Then what more do you want from me?”
“The rest of the truth. The part you haven’t told u
s yet.”
“But that’s all there is.”
Barringer glanced at Cole again. Cole didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to say anything, neither of them did. They’d just sit here, waiting until she broke down and gave them what they wanted. Sooner or later they’d get to her, and if they got to her, they’d get to Bruce.
Unless—
“Wait a minute.” Karen took a deep breath.
The two men looked up quickly.
“I just thought of something.”
This time it was Cole who flashed a look at Barringer, a look that said, see, I told you so, she’s ready to crack. But Barringer, playing the game, the old waiting game he knew so well, didn’t react. He leveled his stare at Karen.
“Go on.”
“I used to call the sanatorium every week for a report. Usually I talked to Dr. Griswold, but sometimes he wasn’t available, and I’d speak to his nurse instead. She was in charge of the day shift. I’m sure if you talked to her she could give you the names of the other patients.”
Barringer was leaning forward. “What’s her name?”
“Dorothy. Dorothy Anderson.”
Sergeant Cole was already scribbling on his note pad.
“Any idea where she lives?”
“I’m not sure.” Karen hesitated. “But I think I remember her saying something about moving a few months ago. That’s right—she was moving into an apartment in Sherman Oaks.”
CHAPTER 7
It is a matter of historical record that William Tecumseh Sherman never set foot in Sherman Oaks. He was much too busy marching through Georgia.
Dorothy Anderson envied him.
From what she remembered reading in school, the march through Georgia wasn’t exactly a picnic; it had probably been hot as hell, but it couldn’t have been anywhere near the temperature of her one-bedroom apartment on the first floor. And the noise the soldiers endured was surely no worse than she suffered every weekend when those two airline stewardesses held open house for their own private army of volunteers recruited from the Swinging Singles bar down on Magnolia.
Dorothy had never seen any magnolias on Magnolia Boulevard. Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen many oaks in Sherman Oaks.