Oblivion - Debt Collector 13 (A Jack Winchester Thriller)

by Jon Mills

His hand extended out only to be crushed by the steel-toe boot of Jenkins.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  Seth managed to summon the strength to look up one last time before the other size twelve boot slammed into his jaw ending his pain.

  Jack and the others were in the middle of a card game on Edgar’s bed, Cowboy was accusing Albert of cheating. Laughter erupted before an ear-splitting siren blared and the strobe lights flashed. The sound of boots pounding the corridors could be heard cutting through the noise. “Oh what now,” Edgar said bouncing off the bed and approaching the door. Before he reached it he was thrust backward by staff and they were told to stay in their rooms.

  “Probably Sutton again. Guy has no off switch.”

  Edgar returned to the bed that was covered in a pile of cards. They were playing for commissary items. Cowboy was keeping score on a small pad of paper with the smallest pencil he’d ever laid eyes on. Apparently the facility didn’t give out pens unless they were the soft bendable ones, or pencils that were too short to be used as a weapon.

  The sound of distant police sirens could be heard.

  Any second now, Jack thought.

  The echo of German shepherd dogs barking put all of them on alert. It was always the same. A team of muscular police, geared up in Kevlar and helmets, stormed the facility bringing with them a couple of large German shepherds, each one wearing a padded harness to protect them. They were often used to find drugs.

  Someone could be heard yelling, “Get in your rooms.”

  Three officers entered the room and bellowed for everyone to get up against the wall. Hesitation wasn’t an option. With their batons out, the threat was very real. The hospital cops didn’t mess around and wouldn’t hesitate to strike them if they encountered any resistance. After being shoved and quickly frisked they were told to stay up against the wall while more cops streamed in and began upending beds, emptying out drawers, searching crevices, light fixtures and…

  “Here we go,” Porter said.

  Jack turned his head and saw him drop a sharpened bloody hinge into a bag.

  “Take him in!” they yelled, grabbing Edgar.

  Edgars nostrils flared. “Jack? Jack.”

  Jack turned. “What did he do?”

  “Face the wall!” a cop said.

  “I didn’t put that there,” Edgar said as they cuffed him and led him out of the room.

  “Come on. Let him go!” Cowboy yelled.

  “Jack. Jack!” Edgar screamed at the top of his voice. “I didn’t do anything.”

  A lot of yelling ensued as Cowboy, Jack and Albert came to Edgar’s defense. They demanded to know what had happened and why they were taking him. Then Jenkins appeared in the doorway. He ushered out the cops and took control of the situation. “It’s okay. I’ll handle this.” As soon as they were gone he put up a hand and told them to remain in their room.

  “Come on, boss, what’s going on?” Albert asked.

  “Seth Adams was attacked tonight by Edgar.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Jack said stepping forward.

  Jenkins eyeballed him. “You want to go back in seclusion, Winchester?”

  “He’s been with us here the whole time,” Albert added.

  “Really? So he never stepped out to use the washroom? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  None of them replied.

  “You’re to remain in your room until further notice.”

  He backed out and disappeared down the corridor. The alarm shut off and peace was soon restored except Edgar didn’t return that evening. Jack tried to speak with Nurse Cross but was told she was busy handling an incident. Little information was leaked out beyond what Jenkins had said. It would take another eleven hours before they learned the truth.

  Jack sat across from Cowboy sipping on coffee the next morning while they ate breakfast. They expected to see Edgar as anyone taken at night was usually released the next morning. Edgar never showed for breakfast. It was Albert who broke the news. He hurried into the cafeteria and threaded his way around the tables. Out of breath, it took him a few seconds to find the words. “Seth was murdered last night. They said Edgar did it.”

  Cowboy replied, “I know. It’s bullshit. Edgar liked him. They got along.”

  “Yeah, well, we know that but…” He took a swig of his coffee and looked over his shoulder nervously. “That’s not the worst of it.”

  That’s when he dropped the news that rocked both of them to the core.

  He tried to compose himself as he forced the words out. “Coming back from helping Nurse Cross this morning, I walked by the seclusion room, you know, hoping to knock on the door and let Edgar know that we had his back but it was open and a nurse was changing the sheets.”

  “So they’ve moved him,” Cowboy said, chomping on an apple.

  His eyes darted between them and then he shook his head.

  “Albert,” Jack piped up. “What did you see?”

  He squeezed his eyes shut. “They were wheeling Edgar out on a gurney. A sheet covered his body. Edgar’s dead.”

  “What?”

  “He took his own life last night.”

  “But he was in seclusion and restraint.”

  “Seems they didn’t restrain him.”

  Jack thought back to his last time inside there. They hadn’t restrained him.

  Albert continued. “I overheard one of the nurses say he hung himself.”

  Cowboy frowned. “Hung himself? The sheets are paper thin. They’re not strong enough.”

  “Maybe he did it from the bed,” Albert muttered.

  Jenkins and Porter strolled into the cafeteria and eyeballed Jack. Jenkins gave a smirk and walked over to the counter to get himself some coffee.

  “No,” Jack said. “Between the ceiling and floor it’s about nine feet and there is nothing you can connect to. The steel frame bed can’t be moved and there are no light fixtures or bars. They don’t give you enough inside that room to create anything that could kill you.”

  Cowboy grimaced. “He did say he couldn’t handle being in there.”

  “Edgar wouldn’t have killed himself,” Jack said.

  Albert added, “You don’t know that. You might think you know him, Jack, but Edgar was ill just like any of us. Even you.”

  “Ill? I’m not fucking ill. I’m angry but not ill.”

  He dropped the piece of toast in his hand and took another swig of coffee.

  Cowboy turned his head towards Jenkins and Porter who looked amused. “It was them. I know it was them,” Cowboy said. “Bastards. Drinking coffee. Smiling. Fucking bastards!” He rose from the table gripping his plastic knife and gritting his teeth but Jack was quick to subdue him.

  “You want the same thing to happen to you?”

  “No but…”

  Through gritted teeth, Jack said, “This is exactly what they want, now sit down.”

  He pulled back, resisting. “But Edgar. Seth. Those bastards deserve to die for what they’ve done.”

  “They’ll get what’s coming to them but not now. Not here. Right now we need to stick together, keep our heads down, observe and play by the rules.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Cowboy said. “For what? To be next on their list.”

  Porter looked over to see what all the commotion was about then turned away when Cowboy retook his seat. Beneath his calm exterior, rage roiled in the pit of Jack’s stomach as the three of them sat in the weight of the double tragedy.

  18

  Nurse Cross made her rounds that morning in a haze. Two deaths in a matter of twenty-four hours and she knew it was time to end the madness. She couldn’t stand by any longer and turn a blind eye. How long had this been happening? The head of security, Morgan, hadn’t shown up for work that day, neither had he answered his phone, and with Seth dead, it seemed that her plan of going above Chapman’s head was looking less likely to happen. Proof. That’s what he said she needed. “You need proof! Everything
else is hearsay. You saw this. You saw that. People see all manner of things in here, Nurse Cross. Are you sure the strain and stress of working in a psychiatric hospital hasn’t got the better of you?” He twisted every word she said. He made her question her own sanity, and slapped down every accusation brought against him, threatening to have her fired. As for the accusations? Of course he denied them. A worm of a man like him wasn’t going to come out with it and say that he was pulling the strings behind the curtain. But if not him, who would allow this kind of behavior to go on, day in and day out? The truth was, as the doctor and unit supervisor, he was the only one capable of giving the order to Jenkins and Porter.

  As for Seth’s death. She found it hard to believe Edgar would do it.

  Even though Chapman had handed her a folder five inches thick detailing Edgar’s bipolar history, and abuse of drugs — none of it made sense.

  After her long-winded conversation with Chapman on the previous day she’d gone home that evening, cracked open a bottle of red wine and spent a few hours looking over news reports of misconduct and allegations against the hospital. A few lawsuits had moved forward but nothing had come of them. How could they? It was like Chapman said, staff and patients needed proof and without surveillance in the hospital it was hard to prove anything. And with Holbrook housing the mentally unstable with little security, was it any stretch of the imagination to believe that such events could happen?

  It was not like Holbrook was alone. Abuse in state mental hospitals dated as far back as the 1700s, when the first such asylum was built in Philadelphia. By the 1960s, deinstitutionalization was meant to bring an end to it but it hadn’t. Those with mental disorders were placed in the hands of regular hospitals, clinics, halfway houses, family homes and for many, simply released back onto the streets. Was it any wonder the same people ended up dead or arrested? Mental illness was the elephant in the room that no one wanted to deal with. It was easier to lock them up, throw away the key and forget about them.

  It was a wicked cycle of abuse that would never end.

  As for questioning staff, well, that conversation wasn’t even on the table.

  Men like Chapman were looked upon like modern day heroes, martyrs for America, dealing with the untouchables, the rejects, the faulty. And Chapman knew it. He and others were capitalizing on it all under the guise of treatment, therapy and a weak government budget.

  Browsing news articles and videos, it was all there.

  Hanna soon came to learn that Nurse Harvey wasn’t the first to die at Holbrook, neither were reports of abuse of patients uncommon. It was widespread, going far beyond the walls of Holbrook and affecting each and every forensic unit throughout the country. Some more than others.

  Staff abandoned orders from their superiors and made their own decisions, medication was ignored, understaffing, patient neglect, a lack of security and widespread beatings; the list went on. When some patients were too much to handle they would simply transfer them to another hospital where they would repeat the cycle. But they weren’t the only ones who were moved around. While she couldn’t find any dirt on Chapman, Jenkins or Porter, she did come across articles that reported psych techs being fired in one state only to land a job in another state hospital simply because the demand for staff was so great. Never having worked in a forensic facility like this, and only an ER in the city, this was news to her. Rampant brutality, everyday violence, it was commonplace. No wonder Chapman was so defiant. He knew her accusations would just be brushed under the rug.

  Patients thrown into walls; others tied to urine-soaked beds with unregulated restraints, others dying unexpectedly garnered no more than a snippet in a daily paper only to be forgotten. With privacy laws and protection of a patient’s personal information, many of the patients who died under unusual circumstances were not even identified.

  Chapman’s words came back to haunt her. “The government doesn’t have the budget to give us adequate security; do you really think they have the time or money to throw at investigating allegations or deaths? Hell, it’s just one more mouth they don’t need to feed. All they will request is staff retraining, and more focus placed on incident reports. And who reads those? Me. Not them. No one cares, Nurse Cross. The sooner you accept that, the better.”

  No one cares?

  It seemed so. That night she pored over complaints, reports, and it all seemed to back up what Chapman said. Allegations only led to the closure of forensic hospitals and patients being reintegrated into the community. Did the government want that? No. The public certainly didn’t. Besides the prison system, they were the last defense against crazies flooding the streets.

  Just when she was about to close her laptop, she happened to come across an article detailing a death in a psychiatric hospital in Utah. A patient had been strangled by a psych tech. A full investigation led to multiple transfers, one firing and the resignation of the unit doctor after an inquiry had turned up allegations of financial improprieties. Before charges could be brought against the doctor, he fled. While the article withheld the name, something about it caught her attention enough that she placed a call to the hospital in question. After experiencing two dropped calls, being routed through numerous departments and given the runaround, she ended up speaking to a very apologetic director. Not only did she give her a window into the process they had to go through and how it differed with each state, but when asked what happened to the doctor, she dropped a name that sent a chill through her.

  “Dr. Chapman. That was a long time ago. Before my time but I do recall the article.”

  “Do you know what happened to him?”

  “I believe he surrendered his license and didn’t return to work.”

  It wasn’t uncommon for doctors found responsible for malpractice to simply move to another state and continue after a long period of time. But was that the case here?

  Was it the same Dr. Chapman? She was no private investigator and certainly wasn’t in the position to know his career history but the director of the hospital might be. One black mark against his record might not carry weight but two?

  That’s what brought her to the office of the senior director of patient care services at Holbrook. Amanda Sterling was in her mid-fifties, blacker than black hair pinned back, crow’s feet at the edges of her eyes and a permanent frown from daily stress. All that faded as her secretary told Hanna she was ready to see her.

  Her office was bigger than Chapman’s, a nice cozy corner office with a beautiful view of the surrounding forest. On her desk were framed photos of her family, a personalized mug and an oversized digital clock that made Hanna feel she was under pressure.

  “Ms. Cross, good to see you again. How’s Holbrook treating you?”

  “Well that’s why I’m here.”

  “Please.” With a wave of the hand she motioned to the seat across from her.

  Hanna had given the matter a lot of thought. She knew very well it could jeopardize her position but after all that happened she couldn’t continue in good faith without at least trying. As she brought the director up to speed on the incidents, the recent deaths and Chapman’s involvement in what she considered abuse and malpractice, the director took off her glasses and leaned back in her seat.

  “Those are some serious allegations.”

  Hanna nodded.

  “Obviously I can’t discuss Dr. Chapman’s previous work history but I can reassure you that we take these matters very seriously and that’s why I asked Dr. Chapman to join us.”

  “What?”

  “Well when I got your phone call last night, I assumed that matters related to the unit should be discussed with the unit doctor and supervisor. There would have been no point in me having two meetings.” She reached over and pressed a button. “Is Dr. Chapman here, Liz?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Let me know when he is.”

  Hanna couldn’t believe it. “I really don’t feel comfortable having this conversation with him in the room.” />
  “I understand and you are more than welcome to step out, however, as the head nurse of the unit, these kinds of matters are usually resolved between you and the doctor.”

  “And I said I spoke with him but didn’t make any headway.”

  “Well, I can appreciate that, however at Holbrook we are a team and if there is a problem it should be discussed together, not separately, as that only leads to issues later.”

  There was a knock at the door. “Come in.”

  Chapman walked in with a smile on his face. It soon faded when he saw her.

  “Please. David. Take a seat.”

  “Ms. Cross.”

  “Mr. Chapman,” Hanna replied.

  Over the course of the next ten minutes, the director outlined the situation and the allegations. Hanna studied his reaction when the mention of the hospital in Utah came up. If she wasn’t mistaken, it was a look of shock. As if he’d been found out. After relaying it all, she asked for feedback.

  “I will admit to having previously worked in Utah but that situation was out of my hands. A lot of people lost their job, I was only one of them. What the media didn’t accurately portray was what actually happened. But as for what has occurred here, I will be damned if I will take the blame for that. And as for allegations of drug distribution,” he narrowed his eyes at her, “I have a good mind to sue you for defamation.”

  Amanda raised a hand. “Okay, David. Okay. Let’s not jump the gun. Obviously everyone’s emotions are running high right now. Today hasn’t been a walk in the park for me either but let’s withhold blame for now and continue this conversation at a later date. Next week, perhaps? Let’s get the next few days out of the way, shall we?” Her eyes bounced between them. “Would that be okay?”

  Chapman nodded.

  She knew matters would not be handled immediately. Nothing ever was. That’s why so many accusations in workplaces never came to anything. Unions, meetings, paperwork, grievances against superiors — it was a tangled mess that was easier to walk away from than fight. Chapman knew that, that’s why he was wearing that smug grin.