“That’s what you meant by your note, about the secret of Smokey Hollow.”
“Yes,” Dudle said, nodding. “Sorry to be so melodramatic. Once I slipped into my role of The Silhouette, it was hard not to be. Too many years of reading bad purple-pulp prose.”
“How many?” Brian asked. “How many patients are there in town?”
Dudle scratched his chin. “Hard to say. That’s been one of my tasks all these years, documenting and tracking as many as possible. But figure this. The institute had a capacity of twenty-four patients. It was open for forty years. Of course, some patients spent many years there, but even if the average stay was around five years, that would amount to about two-hundred patients.”
“And if their stay was less than five years?”
“That number would be a lot higher.”
“Oh my god.”
“That doesn’t mean that all the patients stayed in Smokey Hollow, but many did.”
Brian remembered something. “When I met with Dr. Wymbs, he told me the patients were harmless.”
Dudle thought about this. “That’s what I meant when I said Dr. Wymbs lied. Obviously. He treated The Pillowcase, a mass murderer. He kept that secret. Who knows if his staff even knew about it. And he saw fit to release the man. How many other dangerous patients sought treatment there?”
“Have you found any others?”
“Dangerous? Some. But certainly there are others who weren’t ready to be reinserted into society, though the good doctor thought otherwise. Assistant Fire Chief Simon Runck, for example.”
“He’s an arsonist. That’s pretty dangerous.” A picture of Runck was tacked on the wall next to the spot on the map that marked the firehouse. Near it was the article Brian wrote about the firefighter’s visit to the elementary school with his ventriloquist dummy.
“And more than being a firebug, he was schizophrenic.”
Brian remembered the day he had interviewed Runck at the county jail. “He believed Marshall was alive.”
“Yes. And blames him for setting the fire at the Mustard House.”
“Who are the others?” Brian asked, looking back at the map and the photos of people he recognized.
“Jonas Fitchen,” Dudle said, pointing to the picture of the man next to the location of the taxidermy shop. “You saw what’s wrong with him at the Dump Festival.”
Brian nodded.
“He has a condition known as objective sexuality, where people become obsessed with an inanimate object. I once researched a story of a woman who married a Ferris wheel.” Dudle pointed to the Wigland shop downtown. “Ivy Mockler.” There was a photo of the woman with blond, curly hair. “You’ve probably noticed she wears the wigs from her shop.”
“I’ve seen that.”
“That’s because she’s bald. Trichotillomania, it’s called, an irresistible urge to pull the hair out of your scalp. She suffered from it so long that her hair never grew back.” Dudle stepped over to another spot on the wall. “You’ve been here.”
There was a picture of the rooming house on Cheshire Road, with small photos of several men beside it. “Yes.”
“I call this place the ‘Loony Bin,’” Dudle said, and in fact those words were scrawled above the photo of the building. “There are quite a few former Mustard House patients who live there. Sherman Thurk, who’s a sleepwalker.”
“The Somnambulist.”
“Correct. And Nyle Potash.” He pointed to the man in glasses who worked at Wibbels’ Fruit Market and Real Estate.
“Fear of heights.”
“Very good.”
Sitting at the desk, Brian felt like a student in class, demonstrating to his teacher that he knew the answers. At least some of them. There were still many more questions.
“Linley Droth, you’ve seen him buzzing around town in his wheelchair. Can you figure out what his condition is?” Dudle waited to see if he knew the answer.
“I don’t know. But it seems like he must have been in some kind of accident or something.”
Dudle shook his head, grinning. “Not quite. He has what’s known as ‘body-integrity identity disorder.’”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a relentless desire to amputate healthy limbs. He cut off his own legs, arm, and fingers. And he removed one eye with an x-acto knife and a spoon.”
Brian grimaced at the thought and his stomach squirmed. He wished he had his antacid tablets.
“People with this disorder,” Dudle continued, “have something wrong with the right parietal lobe in their brain, which maps the layout of their bodies. The dysfunction causes these people to believe that parts of their bodies don’t belong. So they try to remove them. Obviously, Droth succeeded.”
“I’ve heard people refer to him as Doc. Does he have medical training?”
Dudle laughed. “No. He was an arborist. They call him Doc because he was a tree surgeon. When he was let out, he still had both hands and two eyes. It doesn’t look like his treatment went well. In fact, I was cleaning the ventilation ductwork at the Loony Bin when Dr. Wymbs paid Linley a visit shortly after one of his latest amputations. He threatened to bring Doc back to the Mustard House for further treatment if he continued to damage his body.”
A thought excited Brian. “Was Mrs. Picklesmeir a former patient?” He wanted that to be the case. If anyone was a loony, he wanted her to be one.
“No,” Dudle said, much to Brian’s dismay.
The whole thing amazed Brian. “Why would Dr. Wymbs release these people if they weren’t quite right?”
“I’m not positive, but I’ve developed a theory.”
“What is it?” Brian was fascinated by all the information the chimney sweep had gathered.
“Do you know who owns the Loony Bin?” Dudle asked, pointing to the rooming house on Cheshire Street.
“Eldon Winch,” he answered, almost calling the former town official by his title.
“Yes. He’s a commercial real-estate developer. He got into that business after the shoe factory closed.” He stepped toward the middle of the town map, pointing to downtown. “Winch helped develop many of the vacant downtown businesses. Wigland, the taxidermist shop, Cully’s Pub.”
“Hale Cullumber, was he at the Mustard House?”
“Yes,” Dudle said. “Severe alcoholic. Which is ironic since he owns the only drinking establishment in town. With the help of Eldon Winch, of course.”
Brian sat upright. “And Winch was behind the ordinance to allow businesses to serve alcohol.”
Dudle smiled. “You’re catching on. That’s right. This was a dry town for many years till Eldon led the push for the selectmen to repeal the ban.”
“So are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
Dudle folded his arms on his chest. “The economy has been hurting this town for decades. The storefronts were mostly empty. There are still quite a few vacant spots, like the former cinema, which by the way, Winch bought. Things were bad, especially when the shoe factory shut down.” He moved toward the spot near the Mustard House. “The Wymbs Institute was private. It wasn’t cheap for patients to be institutionalized there. The patients had money, or as was more often the case, came from families with money, trust funds, inheritances.”
“And you think Eldon Winch found a way to tap into that money?”
Dudle shrugged. “It’s just a theory. But Wymbs releases these people, and they establish themselves in town, some of them opening businesses in Smokey Hollow. With the help of Eldon Winch, a developer and Board of Selectmen chairman, and real-estate agent Leo Wibbels, who sells homes to most of these people.”
“So their money stays in town.”
“Adds tax revenues to the town coffers. And speaking of tax revenues. The Wymbs Institute was behind on its business tax payments. About thirty years behind.”
Brian’s eyes widened. He could use someone like Corwin Dudle working as a reporter on his newspaper.
“Check the record
s at Town Hall,” Dudle said. “It’s public information.”
“This is amazing.”
Dudle shrugged. “A lot of it is speculation, but it seems to fit. I call it the Triple W pact. Wymbs, Winch, and Wibbels.”
“And Winch hired Simon Runck for the Fire Department.”
“And Sherman Thurk for the Sanitation Department.”
“And Nyle Potash works for Wibbels.” Brian thought about the people at the rooming house. “Is everyone at the Loony Bin a former Mustard House patient?” He was thinking of the old man, Rolfe Krimmer. He didn’t want that to be true.
“No, I don’t believe so. There are still people in town I’m trying to figure out. See those notebooks?”
Brian looked at stacks of spiral-bound books.
“I’ve been documenting as many residents as I can, writing down whatever information I can uncover. It’s been a life-long mission.”
There was something Brian didn’t understand. “Why haven’t you come forward to the authorities with all this?”
Dudle’s face soured. “I told you, I wanted to be a pulp detective. It was a fantasy of mine, and I got to act it out.” He looked over his shoulder at the map. “Besides, we don’t exactly have the best law enforcement officials in this town. Chief Pfefferkorn was kind of a joke. About thirty years ago, there was a rumor about a prostitution ring. You can imagine what effect something like that had in a small town like this. It supposedly was run out of a cosmetology school in town.” He looked back at Brian. “Developed by Eldon Winch, of course. But one day, the school shut down, and the rumor died. Nothing ever came of it. So Pfefferkorn wasn’t much of an option, and this new young chief, heck, he’s just a kid.”
Brian understood. He liked Noah, but the man wasn’t a motivated investigator. “So you’ve been trying to solve this by yourself. Trying to figure out who The Pillowcase is?”
“Yes, among other things.” He pointed to another spot on the map, Walnut Street, which ran behind Brian’s house. There was a picture of a blond-haired boy next to where a house was marked in black. “Seven years after I heard that conversation between Father Scrimsher and Dr. Wymbs, another mystery emerged. Little Timmy Birtch went missing. That became another case I wanted to solve.” His mouth turned down and his voice grew weak. “That one became more important.” He looked at Brian with moist eyes. “And much more frustrating. No clues. Nothing. The kid just vanished.”
“Do you think it’s connected to The Pillowcase?”
Dudle bowed his head, slowly shaking it. The man seemed exhausted. Maybe the frustrations of all these fruitless years spent on his private project had sapped his vitality. “I haven’t been able to make any connections. When those bones were found in Thrasher Pond, I hoped it would lead to some resolution.”
“But Pfefferkorn said they belonged to a pig.”
Dudle nodded. “Yes. And I should have known better and looked into it myself. But until your article about the Knackerman came out, I didn’t know they were human.”
“Hester Pigott said they belonged to an adult woman.”
“Yes,” Dudle said. “Another mystery for The Silhouette.”
Brian stood. “You can’t expect to solve this yourself.”
“All the great pulp heroes did.”
“That’s fiction. This isn’t.” Brian wondered if Corwin Dudle had spent time in the Mustard House as well. His behavior couldn’t exactly be considered normal. He seemed to know a lot about the patients at the institute.
“I’ve spent my adult life working on this,” Dudle said, stepping back and looking at the wall. “No time for friends or companionship.” He extended his palm toward the wall. “Just this.” He paused and Brian didn’t know what to say. “I often wondered if The Pillowcase was even alive and in Smokey Hollow.”
“And then the murders began,” Brian said, finishing his thought.
“Yes,” Dudle said. “Right after you opened that trunk full of baby skeletons. One more mystery.”
Brian scanned the wall, looking at the faces pinned to it. Was he looking at the face of The Pillowcase among this collection of loonies? “Do you think the trunk’s connected to The Pillowcase?”
“Seems to be,” Dudle said. “The murders started right after the trunk was discovered. It’s no coincidence that the trunk was in the home that used to belong to a former nurse at the Mustard House.”
“Who was silenced.” Brian stepped toward the wall. Something was bugging him. He saw the article on Ruth Snethen near the spot where his house was marked. He looked at the article on Hettie Gritton’s murder at the Town Pound. “You’ve explained the missing patients at the Mustard House,” he said. “But what about the staff? What happened to them?”
Dudle shrugged. “Funny thing is, they’ve been harder to track than the patients. I imagine as the patient population dwindled at the institute, staff members were let go and moved away to find other employment. I just can’t find any records of them. Snethen and Gritton were the only ones I knew of.”
“And we can’t talk to them.”
“No. The Pillowcase made sure of that.”
Now Brian stepped back to get a full look at the wall. It was amazing what Dudle had done. “This is quite some work. I’m glad you shared it with me.”
“It’s taken a lot of my time. It feels good to share it.” Dudle stepped back and stood beside Brian, the two of them looking at the wall. “It’s been frustrating, especially when the murders started. I felt some sense of urgency. I think that’s why I left you those notes. From your articles, you seemed like the kind of person I could trust. I saw a little of myself in you, I think.”
Brian wasn’t sure if he should be flattered or not. Most reporters Brian knew were loners like Dudle. If he hadn’t been lucky enough to find Darcie, he might very well be in those same shoes. His work consumed him twenty-four/seven, and he was surprised he had found the time to carve out a life with Darcie.
“You’d make a hell of a reporter,” Brian said.
Dudle laughed. “It’s a detective I want to be.”
Brian stared at the map. A lot of detection that had taken place to construct this. The whole wall was like a gigantic jigsaw puzzle. It was just a matter of finding the missing pieces to finish it.
Chapter 21
A TRIP TO THE LOONY BIN
Brian strolled up the long walkway to the rooming house on Cheshire Street. The afternoon was steamy, and there was not a cloud in the sky to provide any relief from the heat. The week’s edition of The Hollow News was out and Eldon Winch’s arrest for the murder of Leo Wibbels ran across the top of the paper, not that anyone in town didn’t already know about it. Word of mouth traveled fast in Smokey Hollow. Of course, Corwin Dudle had shed new light on the story. The only problem was that Brian couldn’t print anything about it. A lot of the Wymbs-Winch-Wibbels connection was speculation. But the one thing that wasn’t speculation, at least according to Dudle—or rather, The Silhouette—was that the patients of the Mustard House had been re-introduced into society over the years, for better or worse.
At least in the case of The Pillowcase, there was no doubt it was for the worse.
Brian wished he could have gone to Noah Treece with some of this stuff, but he was obligated to protect his source. But Dudle had given him a direction to go in, and now he could try to corroborate the stuff laid out on the chimney sweep’s wall. And the Loony Bin was as good a place to start as any.
He figured most of the residents would be at work, but he was hoping there was a good chance Linley Droth would be there. The man couldn’t get too far.
As he approached the rooming house, he wasn’t disappointed. Linley was there on the first-floor porch in his wheelchair. In a wicker chair next to him sat Rolfe Krimmer, his Boston Post Cane resting across his lap. The two men were playing dominoes again.
“Hello, gentlemen,” Brian said as he ascended the steps. “Another hot day.”
“Indeed,” Krimmer said.
Brian hopped up onto the porch railing. He looked out upon the wide lawn, swathes of brown grass streaking the yard. “Lawn’s not looking too good.”
“Lack of rain will do that,” Krimmer said.
“I’m surprised your landlord doesn’t make sure it gets watered.” Brian turned his attention back to the duo.
“Kind of hard since he’s in jail,” Krimmer said.
“Oh yeah,” Brian pretended to remember. “Winch owns this place, doesn’t he?”
“That’s right,” Krimmer said.
Droth was silent, still fanning his face, flushed from the heat.
“Kind of crazy, isn’t it?” Brian said, watching the two men’s faces.
“Lot of crazy things in town,” Krimmer said. “Sad to see something like this happen to two upstanding men in the community.”
“They seemed very close,” Brian said. “I just wonder what drove Winch to the point of lunacy.”
Droth looked at Brian with his one good eye. The other looked off to the right, almost as if it were keeping an eye on Rolfe Krimmer. The old man licked his dry, chapped lips.
“Who’s to say what’s crazy,” Krimmer said.
“Not me,” Brian confessed. “I’ve seen so much in the short time I’ve been in this town. It’s all been very mysterious.”
Droth placed his hat back on his head. “So what mystery brings you here, Mr. Keays?” the wheelchair bound man finally said, his lisp so prominent it prompted Brian to wonder if maybe the man had snipped the tip of his tongue off as well.
What was he doing here? Brian asked himself. What did he hope to ascertain from Linley Droth?
“I’m just trying to find answers,” he finally said. “Like everyone else in town.”
“Isn’t that a job for the police?” Krimmer said. “They just made an arrest, so they seem to be making progress.”
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