Forgotten Place

by LS Sygnet

  "You can't prove a thing!"

  "Oh, but we can. Sixteen years ago, it was very difficult to prove that succinylcholine had been administered to someone as a tool for homicide. Now we know what to look for. Sadly for you, the metabolite that resulted from the dose given to Chief McNamara happens to be one of the most slowly degrading elements in the universe. At least that we're aware of. Potassium will be present in his perfectly preserved skin a lot longer than the calcium in his bones, Riley."

  His eyes widened, and the clenching fist on the table fell still.

  "Then there are the multiple access points you used to inject him with Formalin, I think it was. I believe Maya said you used the brachial, subclavian, carotid and femoral arteries. Drained out the blood while you infused the chemicals. While the man's heart continued to beat. That is probably the worst pathology I've witnessed in a serial killer."

  Hal's body started to shake. "Ask for your lawyer, you son of a bitch. I want this coming out in open court. I want the people in this city demanding the death penalty. It's still on the books. I'll volunteer to start the IV in your arm before they pump you full of poison."

  I reached across the table and flipped to the second page on the clipboard. "What do you say, Riley? Would you rather come clean with me now and waive your right to an attorney, or is Hal thinking for you? Quiet plea bargain... this goes away without the public trial."

  Hal's genuine rage helped more than I ever dreamed it would. Saying that McNamara was beloved after sixteen years of Jerry Lowe's reign of terror proved the understatement of all time.

  "Don't sign it, you fucking coward," Hal snarled when Riley picked up the ink pen.

  He scrawled his name quickly and slid the clipboard to me.

  "Did you give Jerry Lowe access to succinylcholine?"

  "Yes," he rasped. "I had no idea that he... about the other murders or rapes or what have you."

  "Who administered the drug to Harry McNamara?"

  "Jerry did it," Storm's voice trembled. "They told me he was dead, that they needed his body prepared for the funeral right away. I didn't know he was still alive until... until..."

  "He came to while you were pumping him full of chemicals."

  Riley squeezed his eyes shut and nodded. I could only imagine how those screams must've haunted him over the years.

  "How did Lowe get you to go along with keeping this quiet, Dr. Storm?"

  He shook his head. "I - I can't do this."

  "You better do it, you motherfucker," Hal snarled, "or I can promise you, what happened to Chief McNamara will pale in comparison to what we do to you!"

  "Detective Vickers," I patted Hal's arm. "Let him talk."

  "He came to me a week before McNamara died. Somehow, Jerry got my curriculum vitae from the county supervisor's office."

  "He asked for a favor to keep the embellishments quiet, didn't he?"

  Riley looked up quickly. "You know about that?"

  "Graduating from med school in Puerto Rico is nothing to be ashamed of. Sure it's not Harvard and residency at Johns Hopkins, but your work prior to becoming a cold blooded killer was exemplary."

  "I had no idea what the favor was," he rasped. "I'm a dead man now either way."

  "Because you believe Jerry Lowe can still get to you?"

  "How can you know so much and know nothing at all?"

  Now we were getting somewhere.

  "Jerry Lowe doesn't have the mind to come up with such a slick scheme, does he? But because he was part of it, when he told you that someone died of cardiac failure, you had no choice but to jump through the hoop. After all, he watched you embalm a living man. That surely trumped fudging on your medical credentials, didn't it?"

  "I really can't do this, detective."

  "I already know the man pulling all the strings, Riley."

  "If you really knew, he'd already be in a cell beside me," he spat. "You know nothing, and the only hope I have of staying alive is to keep my mouth shut about the rest of it!"

  "Tell me where Mitch Southerby is buried."

  It was the wrong question to ask. Storm's eyes hardened. "Well played Dr. Eriksson. I believe I'd like my attorney now. If you want to play head games, I'd suggest you head back to Dunhaven and dig for answers there."

  Chapter 33

  I paced and muttered curses under my breath. "Dammit."

  "Doc, you got a confession."

  "It wasn't enough. He didn't say the name we needed to hear."

  "It's like you said," Johnny murmured. "This was the first run at him. Let him have his lawyer. When he's advised to cooperate because he already confessed, we can do a deal he won't be able to resist."

  My expression conveyed horror at the idea of rewarding Storm for his part in what had been going on in Darkwater Bay all these years.

  "Listen, we'll do what we have to do to get the man most responsible. Don't lose sight of that."

  "Taking another run at Lowe would be an exercise in utmost futility."

  Johnny frowned. "You are not going back out to Dunhaven, Helen."

  "Didn't I say it would be a waste of time?"

  "Yet it was the only thing Storm said that pointed you to someone who might be stupid enough to spill his guts."

  I shook my head and tasted bitterness in the laughter that bubbled from my throat. "Jerry Lowe might be a lot of things, but stupid? He played Riley like a fiddle when he sucked him into this mess."

  "We'll take another run at him in the morning, Doc. Let's go home."

  "I want OSI guarding Storm. Can you make arrangements to see to the transfer before we leave here? Recent history has underscored that it's too easy to breech Darkwater's divisions, Johnny. We cannot risk anything happening to Riley before he's persuaded to make a full confession."

  He dug in his pocket for the cell phone, tossed the keys to my Expedition on the desk to remove the device.

  I stared at them, mind slowly churning everything that Riley Storm said. Why had he become so uncooperative when I asked where Mitch Southerby was buried? Why did he tell me that I needed to go back to Dunhaven and start digging around? Odd choice of words. Digging around.

  A jiggle of the mouse on Crevan's desk woke the computer. Johnny drifted away, engrossed in his conversation with Darnell, who was still likely at the party out on Hennessey Island. I opened the browser window and searched for information on Dunhaven Hospital.

  It was built in 1919 to house insane inmates. Lovely. The documented history proved quite interesting. I was right in my initial assumption that the location had been poorly chosen on the marshy lowland south of the bay. The hospital had a complex drainage system installed prior to construction, which was quite a feat of engineering for the time, to siphon away the water and keep the foundation from crumbling. I read the next phrase of the sentence: and keep the basement dry. Treatment rooms were built and finished in the cavernous sub level where in the 1930s, electroconvulsive therapy began, followed later by hydrotherapy, insulin shock therapy and other modalities that were no longer used after the advent of psychotropic medications in the 1950s.

  I read a blurb with great interest. Dunhaven was pleased to announce to the public by 1965, that all patients were treated with antipsychotic medications except for the most severe and violent cases of schizophrenia which continued to receive older therapies as an adjunct to pharmacology. Dunhaven installed a state of the art pharmacy in the basement of the hospital by the end of 1955, which continues to operate today.

  Digging around at Dunhaven. Storm provided Lowe with access to succinylcholine, a drug that I had completely forgotten was used early in the treatment in electroconvulsive therapy.

  The hairs on the back of my neck rose. "Shit." Jerry Lowe's mother had been a chronic patient at Dunhaven for most of his life.

  Johnny still had my cell phone. Did he have it in his pocket?

  I closed the browser and slipped the keys to the Expedition into my purse. What would a little peek out at Dunhaven hurt? The plac
e was locked up tighter than Fort Knox. It wasn't like I could actually do anything. Unless... maybe Zack could get me a search warrant.

  I picked up the phone on Crevan's desk, eyes on Johnny to make sure he remained engrossed in his conversation with Darnell.

  Zack answered immediately.

  "I don't have much time. What are the odds of getting a warrant for me to search Dunhaven?" I explained the parts of Riley Storm's confession that seemed relevant. "He said the answers are at Dunhaven, Zack. Dig around at Dunhaven. The pharmacy is in the basement. Surely they have records of when succinylcholine is dispensed. If I can link what was used to Lowe and Storm, it'll convict both of them for McNamara's murder."

  "And Johnny's on board with this?"

  "Yes, of course. He's on the phone with Chris Darnell arranging to transfer Dr. Storm to OSI. We don't want anyone slipping inside Downey and killing him before he can be prosecuted."

  "I'll call the judge. Stay by the fax. This could come through quickly."

  "Thanks, Zack. This isn't the outcome I'd hoped for, but I think that if Dr. Storm feels sufficiently boxed into a conviction, he'll cave and tell us the name of the man who's been pulling the strings all along."

  Johnny's profile entered the periphery of my vision. I disconnected the call.

  "You told Carpenter that Storm confessed?"

  I nodded.

  "I'm going to keep eyes on the good doctor until Chris gets a team over here. It shouldn't take long. Half hour at best, probably a little more. Are you all right hanging around until the transfer is done?"

  I rose and slid my hands up his chest. "Do you have my cell phone with you?"

  "Why?"

  I pointed to the phone list on the border of Crevan's desktop calendar. "He's got business numbers, but I wanted to call Maya, and I don't remember her cell number. It's programmed into my phone." Okay, Mr. Human Lie Detector. See through this whopper. One hand slipped behind his neck and carded through the hair at the nape. "I thought maybe having a chat with her might make the time pass faster... until we can go home and decompress."

  His eyes glazed with genuine emotion, sort of distant and wistful at the same time. "What you said to Riley when you first talked to him –"

  "Johnny, I warned you that I'd say or do anything to keep him off balance. I love you." His stubborn resolve not to let me move at my own pace on the investigation seemed justification enough for bending the truth a little bit. We could get evidence that would force Storm to finger Datello in a matter of hours. I wasn't willing to wait any longer.

  Never underestimate the power of words people want to hear. Johnny crumbled before my eyes. "It's in my coat," he murmured. "I'll make sure this happens as quickly as possible."

  "Make sure he's transferred safely, Johnny. We can't afford to lose him."

  He nibbled at my lips. "Don't worry, honey. I know what's at stake here."

  Probably my soul, and he certainly wasn't aware of it. If I could find evidence and make Storm more afraid of the law than he was Danny Datello, I could be on a flight to Hawaii with an arrest warrant by sunrise. The thought tantalized more than I realized. I moved out of the embrace and retrieved the much missed iPhone.

  Instead of calling Maya, I waited for Johnny to go down to the tombs and stand guard over Storm. I took post at the fax machine and counted double heartbeats for every second until the paper tray hummed to life.

  I snatched the warrant off the fax and shoved it into my purse. Next stop Dunhaven.

  Chapter 34

  On the way to Fielding, I called the hospital and requested that Administrator Sykes be summoned to meet me when I arrived, after a terse explanation that I would be serving a search warrant for pharmacy records.

  "Ma'am, our pharmacy is closed at this hour, and I really doubt that –"

  "Which part of warrant and cooperation not optional was unclear to you? Get Administrator Sykes out to the hospital. I'll be there in thirty minutes."

  The tires of the Expedition crunched over the white rock driveway at Dunhaven. I anticipated Lowe inside, frothing at the mouth to make his way into the pharmacy and start destroying records.

  When armed security met me at the front door of the hospital and demanded to see the warrant before I would be allowed to enter, I was a little surprised at the hostility. Then again, I hadn't put forth my friendliest, least accusatory approach on the phone with whomever I'd spoken to.

  He scanned the document quickly. "It seems to be in order, detective. Sorry to be abrupt. Dunhaven is sensitive about being forced to open our records for any purpose, but since this is limited to the pharmacy, Administrator Sykes said we should be cooperative. He's not calling the hospital's legal team."

  "Sykes isn't here yet?"

  "No, ma'am. He told me I should take you through the exterior entrance to the pharmacy where he'll join you as soon as he arrives."

  That was more like it. I nodded curtly and followed him outside the hospital. We made the long trek around the building to the rear entrance. Several doors granted entrance to the building. The guard chose and old metal door without a window and shoved a key into a key-only deadbolt. There was no knob on the door. He jerked it open and flicked a switch inside the door.

  "After you, detective. Pardon the mess. This entrance is seldom used, but opens to a tunnel that leads directly to the section of the basement where the pharmacy is located." He gestured for me to enter.

  Seldom used was apt. Cobwebs dipped from the ceilings and frosted the walls of the narrow staircase of uneven stone steps that led to pitch blackness below. A single light bulb dangled from ancient wiring in the stairwell ceiling.

  "I'm right behind you, ma'am. There's another switch at the bottom of the stairs that will illuminate the tunnel. If you'll just proceed, I'll close this door."

  I moved quickly down the stairs in search of the light switch and tried not to imagine a host of disturbed spiders descending on me in the meantime. As my foot hit the final step, and I landed on mossy soil, the stairwell plunged into darkness, and the door behind me slammed shut.

  "Son of a... Sir?" I called out. The muffled sound didn't echo. "What the hell," I muttered. I pulled out the iPhone and used the screen to illuminate the darkness around me, hopefully finding this elusive light switch.

  A beam of light appeared in my face. I squinted and lifted one hand to shield my eyes. "Mr. Sykes, is that you?"

  "Drop the phone," the voice rasped.

  My mind searched for anything familiar about it, but came up empty. My heart pounded. Not Lowe. Not Sykes. Not the lying bastard security guard who had locked me into this boggy basement. Oh, most definitely not Danny Datello either.

  "I said, drop the phone." The business end of a semi-automatic pistol poked into the beam of light.

  I swallowed the fear that uncurled in my belly, started strangling its way upward and dropped the phone to the floor. A splash of water accompanied the thud when it hit the dirt floor.

  "Are you armed?"

  "No," I said.

  "Very stupid move, Dr. Eriksson. Step this way," he swung the flashlight down a long, dank corridor. Light bounced off the irregular smattering of puddles.

  "You'll never get away with this," I said. My voice trembled. "People know where I am."

  "Like they did in October? I can assure you, doctor, the cavalry will not arrive in time. As we speak, your vehicle is being moved."

  I patted my pocket and felt the keys. Liar.

  "You think nobody knows how to hot-wire a new car? Wrong. This hospital is a veritable institution of higher learning – of the criminal variety," he sneered.

  "Who are you?"

  "They call me Painless Carl," he said, "because if you stay on my good side, what I do doesn't have to hurt one little bit."

  It was hard to remember why I sneaked off without backup with Painless Carl's gun pressed between my shoulder blades.

  My mind started racing. Surely Johnny had figured out I'd gone off and done
something supremely stupid by now. He'd probably kill me for breaking my word and lying to him again, but if it advanced the case, got us closer to arresting Datello, surely he'd forgive me. If not forgive, understand my impatience.

  "I'll make a deal with you, Eriksson. You cooperate with the game plan, and you won't feel a thing. I won't fuck up your poor shoulder before I kill you. I won't even hook you up to the machine before it's over."

  "You can kill me, Carl, but you'll never get away with this. An Assistant District Attorney obtained the warrant I served. Even if you lie and tell them I didn't show up, they'll go through this place brick by brick until they find the truth. Are you so clever that you can hide all forensic evidence that will show what happened to me?"

  "Nice thing about fire," he tapped his flashlight against the blackened stone wall. "Wouldn't be the first time it damaged part of this old girl, and it has a hell of an effect on DNA and hair and even fibers from that fancy sweater you're wearing."

  I took another tactic. "If I'm going to die anyway, why not tell me the truth? Who's the man controlling this scheme? Are you taking your orders from Jerry Lowe, Carl?"

  "Lowe?" he scoffed. "Lowe ain't in control of jack shit. Hurry up. I don't have all night." The barrel propelled me to pick up my pace.

  "You need to finish me off before Administrator Sykes arrives, right?"

  He chuckled. "Uh, sure, detective. Whatever you say."

  Thoughts raced in another direction. Could Sykes be part of this? Why hadn't I thought to do a background search on him before I decided to serve the warrant?

  Painless Carl reached around me and twisted an ancient doorknob. The cast iron appliance swung inward. A musty odor gagged me before he shoved me roughly over the threshold. A light overhead, not all that dissimilar to the one in the stairwell illuminated the room.