The Brain Vault (Stephanie Chalice Thrillers Book 3)

by Lawrence Kelter

  Indeed, there were many ghosts here. I could feel their presence and hear them whispering all around me. There was no denying the feeling I got walking down the abandoned corridors. It was as if the wronged were calling out to me demanding justice be done. Had the blog been accurate? Had this been the place where World War II war prisoners were incarcerated and experimented upon? I doubted I’d ever know. John Doe had been tortured before he died, or should I say, was murdered. Had Kevin Lee been tortured before he was murdered and beheaded? What had Paul Liu been forced to endure? I was hoping to put it all to rest this evening, here, in this tomb of a building that had been witness to so much pain.

  “This place is a kick,” Lido said, “Like something out of a Boris Karloff movie.”

  “I know—could use a pair of curtains and coat of paint. Thank God I don’t believe in werewolves.”

  We continued to clear the building, floor by floor, working our way down until finally the basement tunnel entrance stood before us. I pushed on the heavy steel door. It opened with a deafening creak.

  Fifty-Eight

  The sound of the creaking door reverberated through the underground tunnel, setting Paul Liu’s heart to a rapid and desperate rate. He could feel his chest pounding against the concrete floor as he lay bound, gagged, and blindfolded, helpless and alone. End this for me, end it for me now, he repeated in his mind. It was his dire resolve. His last ditch effort to hang on. He’d been a prisoner so long, and wondered if there was any hope. He’d been completely isolated from the outside world, no telephone, no computer, nothing—no one to speak with and no idea if anything was going on. Were the police getting close? He only knew that his captor had become desperate. He could sense it in his voice, in the insults hurled at him as he was moved from the light into the darkness.

  He’d learned to tighten his facial muscles so that scant rays of light would penetrate a crease in the blindfold, but there was no light here, no light at all.

  The tunnel smelled musty and of animal urine. It was nauseatingly strong and was with him whenever he was conscious. He could hear the rodents scampering by in the dark. They were everywhere. They ran around him and over him. He would writhe violently to scare them away, but they always came back. Eventually, he feared, they would not flee when he contorted his body. Eventually, they would have him for their dinner.

  What Liu couldn’t see was that piled against the wall of the tunnel were broken wooden articles, painted toy soldiers, birdhouses, and pegboards. Back in the day when the hospital was operational, the inpatients prepared crafts and would sell them at a fair once a year in order to contribute revenues to the hospital. The fractured remains of their handicraft were a sad reminder of the contribution they had made to support the facility and the effort the individuals had made in an attempt to hold onto the last shred of their self-respect.

  He’d only been fed once since coming to the new location. As much as he despised his captor, he was grateful when he returned with water. Liu had begged for mercy in the few moments that his gag was removed, but his outpouring was only met with arrogance and insults, and the gag was back in place and tighter than before.

  “You’re useless, ugly, and useless.”

  He was the son of a very wealthy man, and wondered if a ransom had been requested and if it had been paid. But if it had been paid, why hadn’t he been set free? Had there been a successive request for money? Did this monster have no intention of setting him free? Uncertainty was killing him slowly, but the will to live forced him to drink when his dignity told him to refuse. He thanked God for the cool liquid running down his throat, lubricating the parched tissue of his esophagus. That was seconds before he heard the piercing sound of the creaking door. A spark of hope crackled in the darkness of his mind. Someone’s coming, he thought. They’re finally here.

  Fifty-Nine

  There was no light in the tunnel, none at all. Lido found the light switch and tried it, but the lights didn’t come on. Good sense told me we should call for backup.

  “What do you think?” Lido said.

  “You mean what do I think about exploring an underground tunnel in the dark to search for a psychopath?”

  “Yes, what do you think? Want to call for backup?”

  “Probably should.”

  Lido pulled out his phone, “Amazing, I’ve got a signal.” He phoned in our position and requested help.

  “So what now? You want to wait around like a couple of scared kids or do you want to push on?” I clicked on my battery-powered lantern. It was not a Maglite, but it would have to do. It was a utility lantern that probably had not been used in years. The light it emitted was weak and diffuse. To make matters worse, it flickered constantly.

  “With resources like that…okay, let’s move on. At least we’ll go out together.”

  “You’re such a romantic.”

  We slowly descended into the darkened tunnel that connected Pilgrim State Hospital to the Edgewood Mental Facility, the deteriorated facility that time had long since forgotten. Debris crunched under my feet as I walked.

  After a moment, we came upon the skeleton of a large dog, its rib cage exposed beneath its dusty, matted pelt. A few steps later I heard water dripping. Above me, water seeped from a rusted supply pipefitting. At my feet, the concrete walkway disappeared beneath the unintentionally formed manmade pool. I lifted my cuffs and carefully trudged through the stagnant water. With each step, I decided more and more that the stories I had read about Edgewood had been true.

  Thirty feet into the tunnel, we came upon dozens of rusted mattress frames, stacked against the walls, which I assumed had once been the beds of tuberculosis patients. I had studied the building from the outside before entering it—thirteen stories of red brick. The building had a decidedly ominous appearance. By contrast, I’d read that the inner quarters had been bright and cheerful. I imagined the large wards filled with these beds. I could hear the telltale hacking of the patients echoing in my ears; patients fully aware of their short life expectancy. So much sad history here—I couldn’t prevent the terrible images from flooding into my mind. World War II war criminals had purportedly been brought to Edgewood for experimental purposes. I wanted to understand what had truly taken place here without allowing my imagination to play havoc with the facts. I saw the faces of those that science had maligned and left broken. Experimentation had turned proud human beings into helpless, drooling zombies. They were the early lobotomy experiments, vestiges of semi-primitive medicine from an era when almost nothing was really known about the human brain.

  Stay focused. Somewhere in this darkness might wait a desperate murderer, a mentally disturbed killer—I tightened my grip on the LDA and pushed forward.

  Do you believe in psychic phenomena? I do, and in accordance with my eccentric beliefs, the lantern flickered and went dark.

  “That’s not good,” Lido said.

  I panicked for an instant, feeling ill equipped to handle an unexpected attack in the dark. I took comfort in the fact that I was not alone. “Backup will be here soon.”

  “I guess we should stay put until they get here.”

  “I suppose.” I keyed my Palm Treo. It threw off enough light for me to see Lido.

  “You sound disappointed.”

  “And you’re not?” I heard a noise off in the distance and knew immediately that it wasn’t the sound of a rodent or the old structure settling. It was the sound of the man we was looking for. I could see that Lido had heard it too. I nodded to him and he nodded back. All our years of training went out the window. We turned to pursue our perp.

  Sixty

  With the phone off, the tunnel was once again completely black. I felt exposed in the darkness. I didn’t know if the perp was carrying a weapon. I only knew that he was deranged and dangerous. In the dark, my hand brushed against the rusted iron members and springs that made up a bed frame. They were stacked several deep against the wall. Many rows of bed frames separated me from the man I was af
ter. I moved quickly and quietly, taking cover behind the old frames.

  I had never been in a situation like this and wasn’t sure how to proceed. I could sense that Lido was close by and could just make out his shadow in the darkness. Don’t ask me why, but I closed my eyes. With my eyes closed, my other senses grew dominant. I could sense those present in the tunnel, almost feel their heart’s beating. I could sense a minor pulsing in the distance. I opened my eyes and saw the intermittent flash of a light emitting diode, an LED. It was a red LED barely noticeable, as red is the most difficult color to see in the absence of light. I could hear the sound of strained breathing, nervous breathing.

  And then he spoke. “I have a knife against his throat. One move and he’ll die.”

  “The tunnel is surrounded. There are dozens of law enforcement officers just outside, waiting for my signal,” Lido said.

  I was listening for a response when it occurred to me, the man holding a knife to Paul Liu’s throat knew these tunnels inside and out. There might be several exits. In the dark, he might easily escape. I was considering my options when he forced my hand.

  “Then all is lost.”

  I heard a muted guttural scream, and knew I had to act. Holding the Palm Treo against my jacket to block the screen’s light, I retrieved a name from the address book. I pushed Send and dropped the phone into my jacket pocket. I put both hands on the LDA and focused the best I could on the flashing red diode. As I watched, the red LED turned to a bright turquoise and the message display illuminated. My eyes were well adjusted to the dark—for the brief second that the pager flashed, I could see a bound man with a knife being held to his throat. At that instant, I squeezed off a single round, aimed at the pager of Dr. John Maiguay.

  Sixty-One

  The shot did not prove fatal.

  I watched as the paramedics carried Maiguay to the ambulance on a stretcher. The single shot I had fired had shattered his ilium, just missing the femoral artery. Had I aimed a few inches higher, the .45 would have severed the superficially running blood vessel, and Maiguay would have lapsed into shock and bled out before the paramedics had reached them. My aim and the LDA had once again proven reliable. The round had pierced the pager first before continuing into Maiguay’s body.

  I was able to get my searchlight back on. I gave it a few whacks and the sputtering light came back on just enough to see Paul Liu lying gagged and bound on the tunnel floor, next to the injured man who had long pretended to be the deceased John Maiguay. I remembered the first time I’d met Maiguay, noting that his facial features were a blend of Asian and occidental. I remembered his mustache and the thin surgical scar it attempted to conceal, which I had thought to be the scar from a repaired cleft lip. Seeing Maiguay writhing in pain on the tunnel floor confirmed my initial observation. A palatal appliance had been dislodged when he hit the floor. I could hear his unnatural breathing as he gasped for air. With the appliance out of place, there was nothing to stop air from resonating between the oral and nasal cavity. As a result, his breathing sounded adenoid. He sounded just like Rat, the deformed man we’d found lurking behind the wall in the Nine Circles Restaurant. I suspected that there was a connection between those two, a connection that far surpassed that of two psychopathic coconspirators. Paul Liu was safe, but many questions still remained unanswered.

  Lido stayed back in the tunnel, waiting for backup to arrive while I helped Paul Liu get to his feet and walk to freedom.

  An army of law enforcement officers rushed toward me the second they saw me emerge from Edgewood, struggling to support Paul Liu.

  Liu was weak and frightened. I knew that a traumatic ordeal like the one he had been through would not be easily forgotten. He would however have the best care that money could buy. As I watched, a police chopper descended toward the ground. The first person out of the chopper was the Chinese ambassador, R. C. Liu. The dignitary broke into a wind sprint at the sight of his son. He threw his arms around Paul and wept without uttering a word. Emergency services were already on the scene. R. C. Liu reluctantly relinquished his son to their care. He turned to me as his son was being led toward the ambulance. He was attempting to become the rock again, to toughen himself up into the higher-powered man the world knew him to be, but he couldn’t. He walked toward me slowly, put his arms around me, and continued to weep.

  “Paul’s okay now. Everything’s going to be alright.”

  Liu pulled back for a second. He nodded and then hugged me again.

  I saw the press running across the hospital’s quadrangle. “The media is here.”

  Liu wiped away his tears and pulled himself back into shape before the first camera flashed. “This act of bravery will never be forgotten, Detective. You have made a friend for life.” He straightened his suit and joined his son at the ambulance as darkness turned to artificial daylight from dozens of flashing camera strobes.

  I watched the joyful reunion for a moment before noticing that I too was being observed. I had never met the woman staring at me, but knew her instantly. It was in her posture and the way she carried herself—the confidence in her smile. By the way, she was wearing an absolutely amazing man-tailored suit.

  “Detective Chalice.” She approached me with her hand extended. “Pamela Shearson.” She had the poise of a seasoned politician. “I’m so glad to finally meet you.”

  Shearson and I had only talked on the phone. The case was going full tilt and I hadn’t had the opportunity to stop by the house for a formal introduction. I felt a little shabby next to her. I was dirty and unkempt from searching the underground tunnels. “Amazing work, Detective—I read Sonellio’s assessment of you three times because he praised you so highly—looks like every word of it was true. I have to admit, I was a little concerned with your MO, exploring defunct subway tunnels and rushing into obsolete mental facilities. You’re a bit of a maverick, aren’t you?”

  “I just follow my instincts.”

  “How can I argue with success? Be more careful next time. I need you.” Shearson brushed the soot off my shoulder and then buttoned her jacket. She turned toward where the media was devouring Paul and R. C. Liu. “I sense a photo op,” she said. “Come on, Detective, let’s get noticed.” We took a few steps and then Shearson stopped. “Don’t forget, you stand behind me. I don’t want to be upstaged by your pretty face and big chest.”

  Ambler was nearby and obviously within earshot. I saw him smirk over Shearson’s orders. The woman was the consummate political animal. As sweet as she had come off, I knew she was only interested in me for what I could do for her—make her look good and facilitate her meteoric rise to the top. She may have been one hell of a polished bullshit artist, but I was an NYPD detective. It was my job to assess personality and motive. She spilled the beans when she said, “I need you.” I’d known others like her, affected personalities and lip service, empty promises and treachery. It would be a good long while before she’d earn my trust.

  So I did as instructed and stood behind her while the press snapped our pictures.

  Sixty-Two

  “Nice shooting, Kid.” Ambler threw his big paw over my shoulder. “I tell you, Chalice, you’ve got a brass pair. I thought that I was a tough guy, but you, you take the cake, running around in the tunnels beneath a defunct nut house. Man, what a great story this is going to make.” Ambler stopped short and stung me with a stare, his demeanor doing an abrupt about face, “That was incredibly brave and incredibly stupid. You and Lido pull a hair-brained maneuver like that again and I’ll strangle the two of you myself. The two of you went after a cold-blooded killer with a Five and Dime flashlight. Do you know how bad your odds were? You’re lucky that you, Lido, and Paul Liu didn’t all end up dead.”

  Ambler was not an overly emotional man, but I saw in his eyes that I had pushed him over the edge.

  “I never want to be the one that has to tell Ma and Ricky that you were killed in the line of duty.” He shook me by the shoulders. “This is no joke. I want your word y
ou’ll never do anything like that again.”

  “One day that sixth sense of yours is going to get that ass of yours in a situation you won’t be able to extricate it from.”

  “I said I’m sorry.”

  “Okay, end of speech. Hector and Marsh are waiting for us inside. Marsh knows the true identity of our suspects.”

  It was time to put emotion on the back shelf. There were so many questions. I couldn’t wait to sit down with Marsh and get the answers. My phone rang.

  “I need you and Ambler back in the tunnel,” Lido said.

  “Why, what’d you find?”

  “Stop asking questions and get down here. You won’t believe it.”

  I began to run with Ambler chasing after me, relaying Lido’s message along the way.

  Edgewood had been transformed into a crime scene and the once cavernous, pitch black tunnel was now flowing with law enforcement personnel, and was adequately lit with emergency lighting systems. It was at the far end of the tunnel, where it articulated with Pilgrim State that we found Lido. He had a pair of bolt cutters in his hand. I wasn’t sure what to expect from him, but he appeared to be jazzed over his discovery.

  “Lido was beaming. “Check it out.” A heavy metal chain and snapped padlock hung from a door handle. Lido pushed on the double doors and we walked into an old storage room not far from the tunnel entrance. Now you have to understand that this entire level had long since been abandoned. It was filthy and dilapidated—spider webs hanging from the ceiling were large enough to support a team of aerialists, I swear. But this storage room was neat and clean. It had been freshly painted a bright white, and the linoleum floor had been buffed to a clinically acceptable shine. Overhead lights had been replaced with modern operating room lamps and surgical instruments had been set out on trays. In the middle of the room were identical operating tables, surrounded by all manner of surgical gizmo and life support monitors. In short, anything and everything a madman could ever hope for—everything he might need in order to perform the surgical procedure Damien Zugg had imagined.