by P J Parrish
He wore a navy blue windbreaker with a thin gold stripe and a cap embroidered with Ardmore P.D. on the front.
“I’m Chief Dan Dalum,” he said.
Dalum’s face had the pink puff of a newborn baby, but a healthy gray-blond mustache and wire-rimmed glasses set his age close to forty. His voice was deep and melodious like that of a D.J. on a classical radio station.
“Louis Kincaid,” Louis said.
“You’re the visitor,” Dalum said. He looked at Charlie.
“So that makes him the patient then, the man who carried her out here?”
“Yes.”
Dalum tapped his officer on the shoulder, then faced Charlie. “We’re going to handcuff you, Charlie,” Dalum said. “It’s for your protection and ours. Do you understand?”
Louis could tell Charlie didn’t understand, but Charlie let the officer handcuff him, his eyes searching for Alice. He saw her near the cruiser, and when the officer led him in that direction, he went easily.
Dalum looked back at the body in the grass, and then moved around her, positioning himself on the other side. His face was rigid, and Louis thought he saw him blanche slightly. Then his blue eyes came back up, settling on Louis.
“Why did you and Charlie go back there in the woods?” Dalum asked.
“I wanted to see if there was a crime scene,” Louis said. “I was hoping he might talk to me.”
Dalum’s eyes stayed steady on Louis. “You talk like a cop.”
“Ex-cop. I’m a private eye now,” Louis said.
“Here in Michigan?”
“Raised in Plymouth, live in Florida now.”
Dalum tipped up the brim of his ball cap. “And you’re here at Hidden Lake why?”
“I’m just trying to locate a former patient for a client. Alice and I were coming out of that building,” Louis said, pointing to E Building, “when we saw Charlie coming out of the trees, carrying her.”
Dalum turned to look at Charlie, but he was almost invisible in the back of the cruiser. “Charlie say anything to you back there in the woods?” Dalum asked.
There was a defensive edge in Dalum’s voice, and Louis understood why. No local cop wanted to be upstaged by an out-of-state P.I., especially on what was probably the town’s first homicide in years.
“I’m not sure,” Louis said. “It didn’t make any sense to me, but maybe when you question him you’ll hear something I didn’t. Alice may be a big help, too. She knows him.”
“Did you find a crime scene?” Dalum asked.
“No, it looks like she was killed somewhere else and just dumped there. No blood, no clothes, except for one shoe.”
Dalum was quiet for a moment, his eyes drifting back down to Rebecca. Her skin had gone even bluer, and she looked more like a toppled marble statue than a human being.
“Let me get something from the car,” Dalum said.
Louis nodded. Dalum walked back to his cruiser and leaned into an open window, picking up his radio from inside. Louis guessed he was calling the medical examiner or crime scene techs. When he was finished, Dalum walked to the trunk of the car and opened it. He returned with a green blanket that he laid over Rebecca. Then he looked at Louis.
“Show me this place you think she was dumped.”
Louis led Dalum into the trees.
“I’m going to ask for your discretion on this, Mr. Kincaid,” Dalum said.
“Of course.”
“Most people around here are damn glad to see this place go away, and this kind of murder will just bring more looky-loos out here again.”
“I understand,” Louis said.
“For years, we’ve been swatting away reporters who wanted to write about people like Donald Lee Becker.”
“Or the eyeball eater,” Louis said.
“There was never an eyeball eater. It was just a myth,” Dalum said, ducking under a branch.
“I know,” Louis said.
“Yeah, but a lot of other people don’t. They think he was real. Like the stories of torture and brain removals that were supposedly going on inside.”
Louis didn’t want to anger Dalum, but he couldn’t resist saying something. “In the early days, it was inhumane.”
Dalum took a moment before answering. “Maybe. But they did the best they could with what they had. Many of these people had nowhere else to go. Even their own mothers didn’t want them. As far as I’m concerned, this was a good place in many ways.”
Louis let it go. He stopped and scanned the trees until he saw the break of the clearing. The single white shoe stood out against the brown ground. The yellow plastic flowers lay nearby.
“The flowers are Charlie’s,” Louis said, pointing. “He said Rebecca needed them to wake up.”
Dalum stepped forward, looking at the flowers and the shoe. Then his gaze moved over the trees and he turned almost a full circle.
“Any thoughts on where she was killed?” Louis asked.
“Not a one. It’s been about thirty degrees out here the last few nights. From the looks of her body, she was kept awhile.”
“And it was probably done indoors,” Louis said.
Dalum was still looking. “Yup. And as far as I know, all the buildings are empty except one.”
“How many buildings are there?”
“Well,” Dalum said, “I know they had a P Building, so if they all had letters, that would make . . .”
“Sixteen,” Louis said.
Dalum exhaled a sigh.
Louis started to ask another question. He wanted to know how big the Ardmore Police Department was, if they had a homicide detective, and if they had the manpower for a search of this kind. But he knew it was none of his business. And a part of him didn’t want to deal with another case. But he was seeing Rebecca, lying in the grass, her skin frosted blue. Seeing her and wondering what her last name was, and who was going to miss her tonight.
“I’ll have to call in the state police,” Dalum said.
Dalum didn’t sound happy. Louis could guess why. Five years ago, Louis had his own experience with the Michigan State Police. It had ended his law enforcement career in Michigan.
“Maybe Charlie will just tell you where he killed her,” Louis said.
Dalum’s gaze swung quickly back to Louis. “You think Charlie Oberon killed that nurse?”
“I’m leaning that way,” Louis said.
“Why?” Dalum asked. “Because he’s a crazy man?”
Louis started to say no, but maybe Dalum was right. He had made a quick assumption, something no investigator should do. And he had made it because of what Charlie was. And, maybe even, where he was.
“Damn,” Dalum said softly.
Louis glanced over at him. He was looking back toward the red brick buildings.
“I was really hoping they’d just let this place die peacefully,” he said as if to himself.
He reached in his pocket and pulled out a white handkerchief. He tied it to a bare limb above the nurse’s shoe. “I’ll need you and Miss Cooper to come down to the station for a statement,” Dalum said, starting back toward E Building.
“Of course,” Louis said.
“Might take a couple hours.”
“No problem.”
Louis glanced at his watch. He knew Frances expected him back for dinner, but things at home had been so tense, he was dreading another evening with Phillip hidden behind a newspaper and Frances folding laundry.
But now there was something else, too. He had to explain to Phillip that the search for Claudia had come to a dead end, that they would probably never find her remains.
“So, your work finished here, Mr. Kincaid?” Dalum asked as they walked back to the cruiser.
“I think so,” Louis said.
“Then you’ve really got no reason to come back here to Hidden Lake, do you?”
“No.”
“Just as well,” Dalum said.
Louis didn’t answer. He stopped and looked back at the empty windows
of E Building. As much as he wanted to help Phillip, he hoped he’d never have to come back to this place again.
CHAPTER 10
It was dark by the time Louis walked out of the Ardmore Police Station. Alice had asked for a ride back to the hospital, so he waited near the door, out of the wind, watching the street.
The shops were dark, CLOSED FOR THANKSGIVING signs on the doors. Christmas lights twinkled in the window of O’Malley’s Hardware. A single car made its way slowly up the street, a faint sprinkle of rain shimmering in its headlights.
“Thanks for waiting.”
Louis turned to look at Alice. He hadn’t had much of a chance to talk to her once Chief Dalum had shown up and he wondered how she was doing. Her eyes were red-rimmed from crying, but there was something else in them, too—disbelief. The same disbelief he had seen in the eyes of so many other people whose quiet lives collided with catastrophe.
“You okay?” Louis asked.
Alice nodded, stuffing her hands in her pockets. “I just want to go home.”
“You want me to drive you home?”
She shook her head. “No, just back to the hospital is fine. I need to get my car and lock up.”
Louis led her to Phillip’s Impala and helped her inside. She was quiet as he backed out of the space and flipped up the heater.
“Did you know her well?” Louis asked.
Alice sighed, folding her hands in her lap. “Pretty well, but we weren’t close. Rebecca came to Hidden Lake before me.”
Louis slowed for a stop sign, then drove on through, leaving the soft glimmer of Ardmore behind them as they headed out into the empty farmlands.
“Her last name was Gruber,” Alice said.
Louis didn’t reply, knowing nothing he could say would make this any better. But he did have some questions, ones he knew he shouldn’t be asking because this wasn’t his case. But he couldn’t help it.
“Can you tell me more about Charlie Oberon?” Louis asked.
Alice didn’t answer immediately, but her eyes were on him, looking for some level of trust. “I’ve known Charlie for six years,” she started slowly. “And I’ve never known him to be violent.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Louis asked.
“We’re not sure. He’s been diagnosed as several things. Schizophrenia, mild retardation as a result of possible fetal alcohol syndrome or drug addiction. Maybe brain damage due to physical abuse as an infant. No one seems to be able nail it down since we have no history on him.”
“Who brought him here?”
“The state. They found him wandering the streets of Jackson in the summer of seventy-four. He seemed to function on the level of about an eight-year-old. Things haven’t changed all that much really.”
She made a sniffling sound and Louis glanced over at her. But she wasn’t crying, just reaching into her purse for a Kleenex so she could blow her nose.
They fell into a silence that was broken only when Alice had to give him some directions. Out here, in the emptiness of the hills and fields, with no streetlights to relieve the darkness, Louis wasn’t quite sure where he was.
The blue and red bubble lights of a cruiser were visible well before they pulled up to the Hidden Lake entrance. Louis produced the pass Dalum had given him, and the two cops at the guardhouse waved him through. Beyond the administration building, he saw a flurry of lights—small jerking ones, like flashlights. The Ardmore Police Department didn’t have any floodlights, so Dalum was waiting for the state to bring some. The few cops here were protecting the scene and walking the grounds.
Louis swung the Impala in next to a cruiser, but didn’t switch off the engine. He turned toward Alice. She was watching the flashlights, the Kleenex balled in her hand.
“It’s going to be hard to go back in there,” she said softly.
“Maybe you shouldn’t,” Louis said.
“I have to. I have to finish boxing the records.”
“You shouldn’t be alone.”
“I won’t be. The superintendent has arranged for extra security.”
“Is there anyone else still working here?” Louis asked.
She shook her head. “It was just Rebecca and me. We were the last ones here. I was packing up the last of the records that were going to the state. She was helping the salvage company.”
“There was a salvage crew here this week?” Louis asked.
“Yes, a foreman and his crew. All the buildings have been locked for months and Rebecca had to take them around so they could do inventory.”
“Who else was around?”
Alice had to think for a moment. “Three security guards, the old fellow at the guardhouse, and two others who were only here at night. One walked the grounds watching for vandals and the other was posted out in the cemetery to keep an eye on the exhumation company’s equipment.”
“Anyone else in and out?”
“Just a few people claiming remains in the last week.” Now Alice had turned toward him. “Why are you asking?”
“No reason,” Louis said.
Alice started to rummage through her purse, pulling out her gloves. “Well, thank you for the ride,” she said.
“No problem.”
Alice opened the door and started to slide out.
“Miss Cooper, wait,” Louis said.
She looked back at him.
“Why do you think Charlie put flowers on Rebecca’s eyes?”
She hesitated. “Chief Dalum asked me the same thing. You talk like a policeman.”
Louis smiled. “I used to be one. It never really goes away.”
“Do you think Charlie did it?” she asked.
“I don’t know enough about him or Rebecca to answer that, Miss Cooper,” Louis said.
She sat back in the seat, looking back out the windshield at the black hulk of the administration building. “Charlie loved Rebecca,” she said. “She was the only one who really paid any attention to him, the only one who worked with him.”
“Worked?” Louis asked. “How?”
“She figured out that he loved it when she read to him, and that he could remember things he had heard and recite them back. It didn’t really matter what she read. Charlie just seemed to like to hear the words.”
A small smile tipped her lips. “She used to read him Shakespeare.” She saw the incredulous look on Louis’s face and her smile grew. “Well, only A Midsummer Night’s Dream. There’s a character in it named Oberon. I guess he was the king of the fairies or something, and Rebecca told Charlie that’s what he was.”
When Louis said nothing, Alice went on. “She didn’t mean it cruelly, and I’m sure Charlie didn’t understand the play. He just knows his name is in it.”
Alice’s smile faded and in the faint lights of the dash, Louis could see her eyes, full of questions.
“He loved her,” she said, more fiercely this time, as if she were trying to convince herself now.
“People sometimes kill the people they love,” Louis said.
She looked away. “That’s what the chief said.”
The heater had fogged the windows, and Louis could barely make out the ghostly play of the flashlights out by E Building. Dalum had told him he didn’t expect to find anything out there tonight. Tomorrow, in the daylight, Dalum and the state police would conduct a more thorough search.
A hundred and eighty acres. He wondered what else they’d find.
“Mr. Kincaid,” Alice said.
“Yes?”
“Do you still want to see Claudia DeFoe’s medical records?”
“Of course I do.”
Alice was still for a moment, head down, her fingers working the Kleenex. “I’m going to make you an offer,” she said. “I will show you the records, even let you copy them, if you’ll do something for me.”
He knew what was coming. And it surprised him that Alice would cross that line. But then he realized that she wasn’t crossing it for him.
“You want me to prove Charlie
didn’t do this.”
“Yes,” Alice said. “Or at least prove beyond any doubt he did. So the town knows for sure. So I know for sure.”
For an instant he wondered if she really wanted the truth. He had known other people, family members of accused murderers, who said they wanted to know the truth, but most didn’t really. No one wanted to know that they were close—be it next door or by blood—to a killer. But he suspected Alice was different. She had seen the worst of things here. And in many ways, she had to be stronger than he was. Stronger than most cops he knew.
“You have a deal, Miss Cooper.”
“Call me Alice,” she said.
“When can I see the records?” Louis asked.
“We’re closed now for Thanksgiving weekend,” Alice said. “How about Monday morning? We don’t have much time after that. The hospital will be closed by December thirty-first.”
“Monday’s fine. I’ll be here early.”
Alice pushed open the door against a rush of cold air. She whispered a soft thank-you and she was gone.
Louis waited until she had climbed in her car and he saw the headlights go on before he even backed out. He followed Alice down the narrow drive and through the gate. She turned east, toward Ardmore. He sat for a moment, watching her taillights grow smaller.
His mind was already working on Charlie and Rebecca and the plastic flowers. And he was hearing Charlie’s strange, childlike voice as they stood by the single white shoe in the woods.
I got them from the cemetery.
What were you doing in the cemetery, Charlie?
I walk there every night.
Louis turned west, easing down Highway 50, trying to find the tiny road that led to the cemetery. He knew why he was going, but the thought was so absurd he almost couldn’t let it linger long in his mind: He wanted to see if he could hear the graves cry.
In the black cloak of darkness, he almost missed the road. But soon he saw the towering sentry pines that marked the entrance and he eased the car to a stop. He got out and went to the trunk, hoping Phillip had a flashlight. He didn’t, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t need light. Maybe it was better if he approached this in darkness.