Detective Reed was making his way back toward them.
Allan straightened.
Wren took a step away from him. She didn’t want Reed to think they’d been hatching a plot or discussing secrets or anything to rouse his suspicions.
The firefighters were making a valiant effort to contain the blaze.
Judith’s posture was rigid as she answered the barrage of questions put to her by Detective Torres.
Wren scanned the area, skin prickling.
Someone was lurking behind the huge trunk of one of the large oaks that stood sentry over the grounds. From a distance, it was difficult to see if it was a man or woman. The person wore dark clothes and a dark cap of some kind.
Wren frowned. Who was it? The arsonist? A curious bystander intrigued by the fire?
One thing was obvious: whoever it was didn’t want to be seen or recognized.
~*~
Allan swiped away perspiration. His hands were filthy, and he could almost feel the soot and grit under his neck.
“So, do you want to tell me what the two of you were doing trespassing on state property?” Reed asked. Although he’d addressed them both, he’d fixed his scowl upon Allan.
“Like the reporter told you, we were following up a lead,” Allan replied calmly. “You know we didn’t start the fire, Reed, so don’t even think about adding arson to our list of crimes. Someone was already in the annex when we arrived, or perhaps he followed us in. Show the detective what you found, Wren.”
She offered Reed the baby rattle, but appeared strangely preoccupied.
“What the heck is this?” The detective shook the rattle with a perplexed frown.
“Someone tried to lure us down a dark corridor where the floorboards had rotted away. That someone used this rattle. Wren fell through a hole in the floor—I pulled her out,” Allan said.
“First, you discover a baby bottle and now a baby rattle. Intriguing relics, to say the least, for a mental hospital.” The detective examined the rattle.
Thick smoke streamed out through the windows on the second and third floors of the annex. Even the boarded up windows were aflame, but the firefighters appeared to have matters well in hand.
“So the other intruder purposely lured you down that corridor, hoping one or all of you would fall through the floor?” Reed asked.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Maybe he wanted to distract us from searching for incriminating evidence in one of the offices on the third floor. Or maybe it was just some strung out meth addict pulling a prank.”
“What incriminating evidence?” Reed demanded impatiently.
Allan summarized everything Judith had shared with them regarding the illegal selling of babies born to the hospital’s female patients.
Reed listened without interruption, but when Allan was done, the detective let out a short blast of laughter. “Like I said, professor, you should be writing fiction. You’ve got the imagination for it, that’s for sure. First, it’s torture and medical experimentation and now it’s baby peddling. The next thing I know, you’ll be saying you have evidence that this—” He made a sweeping gesture toward the burning building. “—was once a school for boy wizards.”
Allan was suddenly aware of an overwhelming weariness and felt too tired to even resent the detective’s joke at his expense. “Are we free to go or are we under arrest?”
Wren stiffened, fixing those lovely brown eyes upon his face before turning to the detective.
“No, you’re not under arrest,” Reed said finally. “But don’t leave town. We’re not done with this matter—not by a long shot. I’m going to have a lot more questions after I speak with the fire marshal.”
Allan and Wren made their way back to the cemetery parking lot.
“Shouldn’t we say goodbye to Judith?” Wren asked.
“No, I’ll speak with her later. Right now, the first thing on my to-do list is to get you home safely.” He paused. “Wren, I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what?”
“You could have been killed—and it would have been my fault,” he said. “I’m done putting you at risk. This is the end of it. I think you should take some time off; go away for a while.”
Wren came to an abrupt halt. Her pale face wore a pinched expression, and she looked bone weary. “Go away where?” she asked in a toneless voice.
“I don’t know,” Allan admitted. “Can’t you visit your parents for a couple of weeks or go see out-of-town friends?”
“Pippi is in school. I just can’t take her out on a whim. Besides, I need this job. You know that. Are you trying to fire me, but don’t know how to go about it?”
“No, of course not.” Allan’s heart jolted at the thought.
“Good,” she said, and resumed walking toward the parking lot. “I might as well tell you that Deb and Charlie are already worried about me. If I pull Pippi out of school and go to Ohio, they’ll want to know why.”
“All right, do what you have to do, but from now on your historical research will be confined to the library and my office, going through files and online materials.” When she started to protest, Allan raised a hand. “No, Wren. I mean it. No arguments. And I intend to speak with your in-laws.”
“What?” Her brow wrinkled with surprise. “Why?”
He paused before opening the car door for her. “You wouldn’t ask me that if you could see yourself now. Your sister-in-law will want to know what you’ve been doing. I feel I owe her an explanation and an apology.”
Wren appeared slightly dumbfounded. “I left my car on campus.”
“Then we’ll stop by and get it. I’ll follow you to your sister-in-law’s home.” Allan opened the car door and she slid inside without a word. They remained silent all the way back to the campus. He pulled up next to her vehicle in the faculty parking lot.
“What are you going to do about the index card you found with your mother’s name on it?” she asked.
“I don’t know what I can do. I promised Judith she could rummage through the files on loan from Dr. Leadill. After she does so, I may ask her to return the favor and let me—or you—go through her files, looking for connections, if there are any.”
“Was your mother a believer?” Wren asked, her voice soft and tentative.
Astonished, Allan stared at her. No one had ever asked about his mother’s faith. After a moment, he replied, “I suppose she was a Christian. She took me to church and Sunday school when I was little, while she still lived at home, of course. She taught me to pray. That all came to an end when she was sent away to the state mental hospital. My father couldn’t be bothered with that sort of thing.”
Wren’s eyes glistened with unshed tears.
Allan felt strangely touched by her pity, her concern—whatever it was. Why should she care about a woman she’d never met before? God hadn’t cared. The Lord hadn’t answered his youthful prayers to bring his mother safely home again.
God hadn’t answered his mother’s prayers either. She’d been so afraid and wanted desperately to come home. Instead, she’d died at the hospital, leaving Allan to grow up with a cold, remote father, who’d cared only that his young son did nothing to disgrace the family name.
Allan found Wren’s compassion slightly unsettling. “I wish…” he began, and then dismissed the thought. “If God exists, he has a lot of explaining to do. There is too much cruelty and pain in the world.” He spoke in a disdainful tone.
“God does exist, and that’s why there’s any good in the world at all. Love and joy, gentleness and kindness, goodness and patience—if there is no God, how do we explain those precious and amazing virtues? The daily acts of courage, self-sacrifice and compassion? You’re looking at the whole thing backwards, you know.”
Allan changed the topic, which he found embarrassingly uncomfortable. “Back at the annex, when we were speaking to Reed, you seemed preoccupied. You were looking around the grounds as though you were searching for someone.”
�
�You probably won’t believe me, but I thought we were being watched. I saw someone dressed all in black, trying to conceal himself behind a tree.”
Ignoring the hairs that prickled on the back of his neck, Allan replied, “I suppose it was someone watching the building burn and trying to stay out of the way.”
“I don’t think so,” Wren insisted. “Why hide behind a tree? He could have watched the firefighters out in the open. He was far enough away from the building not to be in the way. This guy acted liked he didn’t want to be noticed.”
“It was a man?” Allan pressed.
“I couldn’t tell for sure, but I think so.”
“You should have pointed him out before we left Reed,” Allan said. “He might have been the arsonist.”
“He was gone by then, whoever it was,” Wren told him. “Like I said, he seemed pretty intent on not being noticed. And I don’t think it was the person who started the fire. An arsonist would want to make a quick escape, wouldn’t he?”
Allan’s stomach clenched. “Was he…was he carrying a rifle?” Allan’s unexpected question caused her head to snap upward.
“I don’t know. I guess he could have had a rifle propped up behind the tree.” She frowned, intent on the scene in her mind’s eye. “I wouldn’t have been able to see it from where we were standing.”
“God help us,” he muttered. It wasn’t until much later that he recognized the irony of his reaction.
12
When Wren introduced Allan to Deb a short while later, her sister-in-law’s eyes went wide with appreciation. Trying not to smile, Wren had to admit the man was drop-dead gorgeous.
Allan shook hands politely with Deb and then greeted her young daughters and Pippi with easy charm.
Deb stared at Allan’s and Wren’s disheveled appearance with a frowning, wary interest. When the girls darted out the back door to play in the yard, she said, “Another eventful day, I see.”
“You could call it that,” Wren acknowledged. Her cheeks warmed under Deb’s discerning gaze.
Folding her arms across her chest, Deb quirked an eyebrow. “Would it have anything to do with the sirens I heard earlier this afternoon?”
“There was a fire in the annex next to the old mental hospital,” Allan answered, fixing Deb with a frank gaze. His blue eyes held no humor or condescension, and he appeared contrite.
Deb, on the other hand, gave in to her emotions at once. “Enough is enough, Professor!” She vented all the frustrated anger she’d apparently been holding inside for quite a while. Her usual friendly face appeared stern, her eyes flashed, and her cheeks grew red with an angry flush. “I’m tired of you dragging Wren into one dangerous situation after another. I’m tired of it! Do you hear me? You hired her to be your research assistant, not some sort of sidekick or partner in crime or whatever you want to call it.”
“It’s not his fault,” Wren quickly interjected.
“No, Wren, she’s right,” Allan said, touching her gently on the arm.
Wren felt that unexpected tingle of pleasure.
Allan turned to Deb. “I don’t know how much Wren has told you about the book project and what has happened during the course of our research, but I promise you, I’ll not allow Wren to put herself at risk any longer. As you’ve just said, enough is enough.”
“I intend to see that you keep your promise,” Deb challenged him. “It’s bad enough she’s received an anonymous note since starting to work for you, but it has gone from that to a near fatal shooting and now a building fire. Arson maybe. I’m tired of worrying about her being in possible danger all the time. I can’t take it anymore.”
“I certainly understand your concern.” Allan assured her with such sincerity that Wren regarded him with a pensive, sidelong glance. He didn’t even try to disarm Deb by coaxing her out of her angry temper with his good-humored and well-practiced charm. What had come over the man? It was almost as if—never mind. Wren dismissed the unsettling and impossible thought that slowly crept into her mind.
Her cell phone rang. Wren, grateful for the distraction, excused herself as she retrieved the phone from an outside pocket of her purse. Wren didn’t recognize the number as she walked to the den, leaving Deb and Allan standing alone together in the living room.
“Wren, this is Bea Cormeny.”
“Thanks for getting back to me so quickly, Bea,” Wren greeted her.
“I’m afraid I have bad news,” Bea replied. “The professor won’t be able to meet Mr. Grizzard after all. He died in the night. I’m so sorry. I know you’d hoped to set up an interview, to help with the professor’s research for his book.”
It was so quiet in the den that she could hear the ticking of the old cuckoo clock that Peter and Charlie’s grandfather had brought home from Germany following World War II. She pushed aside suspicious thoughts. Freddy Grizzard had been in his nineties. He had outlived his friends and family. He could hardly go on living forever. But still, a faint doubt flickered at the back of her mind. It seemed so convenient—for somebody—that Grizzard should die now, just when he might have shed some light on Mrs. Partner’s time at the asylum.
“How did he die?” Wren wanted to know.
“He died in his sleep. They found him this morning,” Bea told her. “I guess his old heart finally gave out. He was old, Wren, and not in the best of health.”
“So, it didn’t happen on your shift?” Wren pressed.
“No, I got off at 11:00 last night, but I did check on him about an hour or so before that. He was having another one of his bad dreams. Remember, I told you about his nightmares?”
“I remember,” Wren said. “He mentioned something to me about…about corpses.” She hesitated, practically holding her breath, aware of the silence on the other end of the line.
Finally, Bea said, “It’s strange, but he said something about corpses to me once, too, when I went in to check on him. He groaned so pitifully, I thought he might be in pain or something.”
“What did he say exactly?” Wren asked, holding her breath again.
“Something about them being all dead and there was nothing he could have done for them, anyway. You know, he was in the war, the Second World War, that is. I don’t think he ever quite got over it.”
Wren wasn’t convinced that Freddy Grizzard had been plagued with thoughts about the war. What if he knew about corpses from someplace else? The image of those hydro baths and what Ichabod Gorse had told her loomed in her mind. Two short weeks ago, she’d have dismissed the very idea of torture and death occurring at a state facility as outlandish. Now, considering the tiny skeleton found in the old tin and the deliberately started fire in the annex, perhaps the idea wasn’t so outlandish after all. But it didn’t matter now. Freddy was dead. They’d never know what he’d meant. They’d never know if he’d once met Leah Partner.
“Wren, do you still want the dates Mr. Grizzard resided at the state hospital?” Bea asked softly, interrupting her troubled thoughts.
“Are you calling from the nursing home?” Wren wanted to know, hoping the kind nurse wouldn’t get in trouble for helping her and Allan with their research.
“I’m on my break. I’m standing out in the parking lot,” Bea told her. “It says in his chart that he was admitted in 1948, diagnosed with severe shell shock. They call it PTSD now—post traumatic stress disorder.” With a sigh the nurse added, “Apparently, the war was never over for that poor man.”
“Thanks, Bea. I appreciate your help more than I can say,” Wren assured her warmly.
“Sure, no problem. I am just sorry that he died before you and the professor had the opportunity to speak with him,” Bea put in. “But the old fellow is at peace now.”
“I hope so,” Wren murmured. “You said he had no relatives, right?”
“Well, yes, that’s what I told you,” Bea said. “But when I was flipping through his patient file, I discovered that he actually has a niece living in town. I was surprised, frankly. She never came to s
ee him. Not that I know of, anyway. Of course, she might be elderly too, so maybe she’s been unable to visit him over the years.”
Wren’s heart leapt. “Is there an address for the niece?”
“Yes, I wrote it down for you, in case your professor wanted to speak with her in place of Freddy.”
“Bea, you’re an angel!” Wren exclaimed. As she scrambled around the den, searching for a scrap of paper and a pen, she added, “Give me the address, would you? I might even get a raise for this. Then I’ll be taking you out to lunch to celebrate. In fact, I’ll take you out to lunch, anyway!”
The nurse’s throaty laugh rumbled through the phone. Bea repeated the address and then said, “But remember, Wren, you didn’t get this from me. It could jeopardize my job. Not a word, OK?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die,” Wren quipped, repeating a childish phrase Pippi often used. When she realized what she’d said and just how possible that might be, the smile slipped from Wren’s face, and she shuddered.
~*~
Allan was hardly surprised by the news about Grizzard’s death. Freddy Grizzard had been an old, old man. He had to die sometime. And yet…
“First thing tomorrow morning, after I drop Pippi off at school, I’m going over to interview Freddy Grizzard’s niece. Her name is Maude Gentry. She lives not too far from the salad dressing factory,” Wren told him. “Maybe she knows something about her uncle’s years at the mental hospital. She might even know something about your mother or about…other things…what we found.” Wren glanced back at her daughter.
“I can’t let you do that, Wren.” Allan ran a hand through his hair. “I just promised your sister-in-law I wouldn’t put you at further risk. That’s a promise I intend to keep.”
“What sort of danger do you think I’m going to encounter while visiting a senior citizen in her own home?”
“I’ll go with you, then. I don’t have classes in the morning.”
“Many research assistants routinely conduct interviews with experts and other individuals,” she reminded him. “We mustn’t spend too much time considering old patient records and going over Dr. Leadill’s notes. We should be speaking with former hospital employees, instead. Gorse told us that thousands of people worked in various capacities at the asylum through the years. These people represent an untapped resource we haven’t even tackled yet.”
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