by Chris Mooney
'We don't know much,' Darby said.
'You want, I can tell you about the history. Might help pass the time. We got a lot of walking to do.'
'Sounds good.'
Reed walked through the dining room, his footsteps crunching over the snow and ice. 'When the hospital was first built back in the late eighteenth century, it was called the State Lunatic Hospital,' he said. 'The place was known for its humane treatment of patients. Dr Dale Linus – that would be the first hospital director – he believed in a humanistic approach to treating mental illness – fresh air, healthy food and exercise. It was a pretty radical idea at the time. Linus kept the number of patients to five hundred, making sure each patient got the help and treatment they deserved. In the beginning, they treated all types of people, not just criminals. A lot of the patients came here from all over the world because of the progressive therapies Linus invented.'
'What sort of progressive therapies?'
'Let's see… Well, there were the water therapies where they'd dunk patients into freezing cold water to try and cure their schizophrenia. Then they tried something called insulin comas. That was supposed to help calm patients down. Sinclair was the first hospital in the country to perform a lobotomy.'
'I don't know if that's necessarily progressive.'
'It was at the time. Now it seems barbaric, given the fact that you can pretty much pop a pill to treat almost any mental disorder. Sinclair was so successful, so revolutionary in its approaches to treating the mind, two buildings were devoted strictly to teaching doctors who came in from all over the world – they had to build a dormitory to house them all.'
Darby followed Reed into a cold corridor – same concrete, same chipped paint. A lot of the walls were covered in graffiti. One hallway was sunken in with debris.
'When did the hospital name change over to Sinclair?' Darby asked.
'Dr Phinneus Sinclair became the hospital director back in, oh, sixty-two, I think. That was around the time they started taking in only criminals. The more normal patients, for lack of a better term, went over to the McLean Hospital, which was gaining a reputation for treating the rich, rock stars and weirdo writers and poets, people like that. McLean was the place to go if you had money. Sinclair became the place to come to if you wanted to pursue studying the criminal mind. Dr Sinclair was trying to discover the origins of violent behaviour. He did a lot of studies involving children who came from broken homes.'
Darby had never come across Sinclair's name during her doctorate work. Maybe the studies were considered radical at one time. Now, in the twenty-first century, finding the origins of violent and deviant behaviour rooted in childhood trauma seemed commonplace.
Reed ducked underneath a beam and took them down a long corridor that opened up into a large, rectangular area with doors on both sides. Darby moved the beam of her flashlight through the rooms of broken windows. The rooms were various sizes. All of them were empty.
'These are the doctors' offices,' Reed said. 'Man, you should have seen the furniture in there. All antiques. Some guy bid on all of it, hauled it away and made a small fortune.'
He paused in front of a big room holding an ornate stained-glass window. 'This was the hospital director's office. Your cop friend stopped here for a moment, just stared for a bit like he was reminiscing or something. He didn't say anything but…'
'What?' Darby prompted.
'It's not important, really, just sort of odd. I just remembered he didn't take off his sunglasses. I mentioned he might want to take them off, given where we were heading, and he just ignored me and walked off like he knew where he was going.'
Darby followed Reed down three flights of dusty stairs, the ancient building creaking and moaning around her. Ten minutes later, Reed stopped in front of an old steel door and shined his light on the faded red lettering: ward c.
'This is where they did the prefrontal lobotomies,' Reed said, opening the door. 'Watch your step in here. Moisture collects on the tiles, even in the winter. Place is sealed tighter than a flea's ass. It's slippery as hell.'
No windows, just pitch-black darkness. The cold room reeked of mildew. Mounted against the wall was an old General Electric clock covered in rust. Darby spotted several spigots. They probably hooked up hoses to them to wash away the blood. She wondered how many patients had undergone what was considered, at one point in time, to be a progressive medical solution to treating mental illness.
Reed's boots squeaked across the tiles. 'When I first took the job, the steel tables with the leather restraints were still in here. They used to do shock treatments in here, too.'
A creaking sound as he opened the door at the far end. The adjoining hallway was in a state of partial ruin. Darby followed the man through another hallway and then it opened into a wide space full of two floors that reminded her of a prison. Cells were on either side, each steel door equipped with locks and a grating so doctors could look in on their patients. The doors were rusted, the small rooms stripped clean.
'This here's C wing,' Reed said. 'The cop walked over to this room here.'
Reed moved the beam of his flashlight inside and jumped back from the door. Darby moved past the man and looked into the cell.
Thumb-tacked to the wall underneath a windowsill was a photograph, a headshot of a woman with long blonde hair parted in the middle and feathered. She had piercing blue eyes in a deeply tanned face and wore a white collared shirt.
'That wasn't here this afternoon,' Reed said. 'I'll swear on a stack of bibles.'
Darby's attention was on the windowsill. Standing above the photograph was a statue of the Virgin Mary – the same statue that had been sewn inside Emma Hale and Judith Chen's pockets.
She turned to Bryson, who was staring at the statue, mesmerized.
'Do you know this woman?'
Bryson shook his head.
Darby examined the picture. It was printed on thick, glossy paper. There was no writing on the back, no date or time-stamp anywhere on the paper. Darby wondered if this picture had been printed on a computer. Every photography and drug store had kiosks where you could slip in a memory card and print out digital pictures in a matter of minutes.
'Mr Reed, would you excuse us for a moment?'
The caretaker nodded. He stepped away from the cell and joined the other men who were wandering around the vast room, beams of light crisscrossing over one another as they searched the cells on the two floors. Darby turned to Bryson.
'I've got evidence bags in the trunk, along with a spare kit. I can process this room myself, and you can be the witness to anything we find. It will be quicker than having to get people from the lab in here.'
'What about a camera?'
'I've got a Polaroid and a digital.'
Darby's cell phone vibrated against her hip.
'What do you think of Sinclair?' Malcolm Fletcher asked. 'It's like walking through purgatory, isn't it?'
31
'I wouldn't know,' Darby said, motioning to Bryson. 'I've never been to purgatory.'
'Haven't you read Dante?' Fletcher asked. 'Or don't they teach that in class any more?'
'I've read Paradiso.'
'Yes. The good Catholic girls always learn about heaven first, don't they?'
Fletcher laughed. Bryson stood behind Darby. She held the phone an inch from her ear so Bryson could listen.
'The nuns should have made you read Purgatorio,' Fletcher said. 'It's where Dante describes purgatory as a place where suffering has a real purpose that can lead you to redemption, if you're willing to go the distance. Are you willing to go the distance?'
'I found the room with the photograph.'
'Do you recognize the woman?'
'No. Who is she?'
'What do you think of the Virgin Mary statue?'
'Is it supposed to have some sort of meaning?'
'Now is not the time to be coy, Darby. The moment of revelation is at hand.'
'Let's talk about the woman in the photogr
aph. Why did you leave it here?'
'I'd be more inclined to answer your question if you answer one of mine,' Fletcher said. 'Is the statue on the windowsill the same one you found on Emma Hale and Judith Chen?'
Darby wasn't about to give the former profiler any specifics about the case. 'Why did you place it here?' she asked. 'Why did you want me to find it?'
'Tell me about the statues and I'll give you the name of the woman in the photograph.'
Bryson shook his head.
'I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about,' Darby said.
'Why don't you ask Detective Bryson? Or would you rather put him on the phone?'
How did Fletcher know Bryson was in the room?
He must be watching.
Bryson moved away, drawing his weapon, and ushered Reed inside the cell. Darby covered the phone's mouthpiece.
'Don't tell him a goddamn thing,' Bryson said, and then signalled his men.
Darby's gloved hand gripped the SIG and slid it from the shoulder holster. She looked past the door, into the dark, decaying room cut with blades of light and steaming breath, wondering where the former profiler was hiding.
Darby pressed the phone back to her ear. 'Tell me about the woman in the photograph.'
'You can't find this woman alone,' Malcolm Fletcher said. 'But if you're willing to take the journey, I'll be your guide.'
If this was some sort of trap, why would Fletcher stage it in an abandoned mental hospital with a room full of cops? It was too elaborate a setup. Could the man possibly be telling her the truth?
'I think you need to explain your agenda,' Darby said.
'There's no reason to fear me. We're both after the same goal.'
'Which is?'
'The truth,' Fletcher said. 'I'll lead you to the woman in the photograph, but once you open Pandora's Box, there's no turning back. You may want to give that some thought.'
'And you're going to guide me to her out of the goodness of your heart.'
'Think of me as the boatman Charon guiding you across the river of hate.'
'Where is she?'
'She's waiting for you downstairs.'
Darby's breath caught. It took her a moment to regroup.
'She's here,' she said.
'Yes. Are you ready to meet her?'
There was no menace in Fletcher's voice, none of that jovial taunting from the previous conversations. What Darby heard was a cool, neutral tone that conjured a memory from her childhood – ten years old and taking a shortcut through the Belham woods and seeing three boys from her class. They had found a dead coyote. One of the boys, Ricky something, the fat one with the mean eyes, asked her if she wanted to see it. Darby said no. They called her a chicken, a frightened little girl.
To prove them wrong, she marched down the embankment, tripped and fell. She came to a hard stop, dimly aware of the buzzing sound of flies behind the boys' laughter, and when she pushed herself up, she felt something hot and alive squirming between her fingers. Maggots, hundreds of them, roiled inside the carcass. Darby screamed and the boys laughed harder. When she started to cry, the fat one, laughing, said, 'Hey, don't get mad at us. You're the one who decided to go down there.'
The memory vanished when Fletcher said, 'I don't mean to be rude, but I'm pressed for time. I need your answer now.'
Why was Fletcher doing this? Was this a ruse in order for him to try to get information about the case? Or did the former profiler actually know something?
Darby's attention shifted to the Virgin Mary statue on the windowsill. Where the hell did you get it?
Don't tell him a goddamn thing, Bryson had said.
Stay or go? Call it.
'Call me when you're ready to share,' Darby said and hung up. She turned to Reed, who appeared visibly shaken. 'How many floors are below us?'
The old caretaker took off his glove and wiped his face with a liver-spotted hand. 'Four,' he said, 'and that's not including the basement level.'
'Have you been down there recently?'
'Nobody's been down there in years.'
'We may need to search the hospital. I'll need you and your men to help us.'
'You want us to help you search the entire hospital? I can't allow that, Miss McCormick. There are too many areas that are unstable. It's not safe.'
Darby was staring at the photograph of the young woman. Was she somewhere inside the hospital? Was she alive? Was she hurt or injured?
'Please stay inside this room, Mr Reed, until I come back.'
Darby, her pistol drawn, stuck close to the walls. Above her and across the room, Bryson's men slammed back cell doors, searching for Malcolm Fletcher. She doubted they would find him. The former federal agent was too skilled at hiding. He had eluded capture for decades.
Tim Bryson stood at the end of the hallway, breath steaming in the cold air above the beam of the tactical flashlight mounted underneath his handgun, a 9mm Beretta. She got Bryson's attention and nodded to an empty room. The window had bars on it, the broken glass protected by a mesh grille. Snow had collected on the sill.
'I think we need to organize a search party,' Darby told Bryson.
'You think the woman in the picture is waiting for us somewhere in here?'
'He wanted to lead us downstairs. I think we need to take a look.'
Bryson thought it over for a moment. He was sweating.
'You may be right,' he said. 'I'll organize the search. Process the room, and get back to the lab. I want to know what the son of a bitch is up to.'
32
With the aid of a flashlight, Malcolm Fletcher carefully made his way down a hallway with rotted floorboards, far away from the Boston police.
Fletcher had an excellent visual memory. He remembered the layout of the hospital, having roamed through its corridors lives and lives ago when he was employed as a special agent for the FBI's newly formed Behavioral Science Unit.
In 1954, Hurricane Edna had ripped one of the massive oaks in front of the hospital and sent the tree crashing into the roof, the falling debris crushing most of the floors. Given the exorbitant cost of fixing the floors, the board of directors decided to seal off the passages.
When an electrical fire gutted a good portion of the Mason wing in 1982, the hospital was already under state care. Lawmakers, sensing a potentially lucrative payday, put the land up for sale. A historical society looking to save the hospital, considered by many to be an architectural landmark, the last of its kind, filed petitions and injunctions. Potential buyers were scared off by the threat of significant legal costs and a long, protracted court fight.
For twenty-odd years the hospital had been abandoned, and during that time, the long New England winters had caused significant rot and water damage to the walls and floors. It had taken a considerable amount of patience and skill to find a safe passage to the top floor; the amount of decay and ruin was severe.
Fletcher slid into a room with broken windows. He removed his cell phone, found a signal and called Jonathan Hale.
'I believe I know the man who killed your daughter,' Fletcher said. Darby had left her car unlocked. Her kit was in the trunk. Reed radioed Kevin, the young man parked in the pickup at the end of the road, and asked him to bring the orange box in the trunk to the C wing, which he did, half an hour later.
She took pictures then decided she wanted help processing the hospital room. She bagged the photograph and statue and called Coop from the road.
'Fletcher left us two gifts,' Darby said. 'A photograph and – get this – a Virgin Mary statue. I'm pretty sure the statue is the same one we found with Hale and Chen.'
'Do we know where or how Special Agent Creepy found the statue?'
'We do not.'
'Why lead you to an abandoned hospital, though? What's the point? He could have dropped the photograph and statue in the mail.'
'It's not as dramatic.'
'True.'
'And maybe Fletcher wants us to discover something about that particul
ar room. He deliberately left the statue and photograph inside a patient room that housed violent offenders – the same room he had been to earlier in the day.'
'How long did you say the hospital has been closed?'
'At least twenty years,' Darby said. 'Probably more like thirty.'
'And you think you're going to find the name of the patient or patients who occupied that particular room? Good luck with that.'
'I'll see you in an hour.'
As Darby drove, she thought about Coop's parting words.
When Sinclair closed, the truly violent offenders were most likely transferred to other psychiatric hospitals. The schizophrenics, the patients who were bipolar or manic depressive, would be evaluated and then, thanks to the ever constant squeeze of mental health dollars, treated on an outpatient basis and pushed back into the street. The files had been floating through the state's mental health system for decades. Trying to track down a patient file, even with a specific name, was tantamount to finding the proverbial needle in the haystack. ? Coop was waiting for her inside their office.
'Where's Keith?' Darby asked.
'He went home to have dinner with the wife and kids and then is coming back to the lab to help us process the room. Let's take a look at the photograph first.'
After taking pictures, Coop examined the paper. It didn't contain any marks or distinguishing characteristics.
'The woman in the picture, with the hairstyle and clothes, I'm guessing it was taken in the early eighties,' Darby said. 'What are you going to use to treat the paper?'
'Ninhydrin mixed with heptane,' Coop said, flicking the switch for the ventilation unit.
Darby put on the safety goggles and a breathing mask. Coop, wearing a pair of nitrile gloves, sprayed the back of the paper. It turned purple. They both examined the paper, waiting for the ninhydrin to react with the amino acids left by the human hand.
There were no fingerprints.
Coop sprayed the side holding the photograph.
'No prints,' Coop said. 'Lucky for us we already know who he is.'