“The Mystery of Butterfly Heights,” I said. “Sounds like the title of a gothic romance novel.”
She grinned. “Perhaps there’ll be a tall, dark, handsome stranger there with a tortured past and a passion that is all-consuming.”
I raised an eyebrow. “A passion for what?”
“For butterflies, of course.”
We laughed. The easiness that existed between us had returned and it felt good.
“Oh, this is the place,” she said as we drove past a sign that said Welcome to Greenville, Gateway to the Moosehead Lake Region. “This is where the lodge is. Should we go there and get our keys?”
“No, we can do that later. Let’s see if we can solve the mystery of Butterfly Heights first.” The truth was, I was intrigued to see the mental health facility that had no internet presence.
“Yes, I must admit I am quite curious,” Felicity said.
We drove through Greenville and followed Route 6 north along the edge of the lake for twenty minutes until the GPS told me to make a left turn.
After I made the turn, we were on a narrow road that led away from the lake and through the woods. There had been no sign on the main road to indicate this smaller road led anywhere in particular.
Rain continued to pound the Land Rover. The trees sagged over the road, dead orange and yellow leaves so thick on the blacktop that they almost covered it completely.
“Well, this isn’t spooky at all,” Felicity said.
After twenty minutes, the road ended with no warning. It simply terminated in a roughly-circular clearing. A dozen or so vehicles were parked there.
“Destination reached,” the GPS said.
I found a space for the Land Rover and killed the engine.
Felicity grabbed her blue waterproof jacket from the back seat, opened her door and slid out, putting on the jacket and pulling up the hood against the rain. She looked at the cars and the surrounding trees. “Why have a car park in the middle of nowhere?”
I grabbed my own jacket—a black field jacket I’d picked up at an army surplus store—and got out of the Land Rover. “Maybe the place can only be reached by foot.” I shrugged the jacket on and pulled up the hood. “Anyway, this is definitely the correct parking lot.” I pointed at a small wooden sign that said Butterfly Heights. Beyond the sign, a path led into the trees.
Felicity lowered her rain-spattered glasses and looked over the top of them at the path. “Like I said, not spooky at all.” Then she pointed over the trees and said, “I think I know why the car park is here and not at the facility itself.”
I looked at where she was pointing. Maybe half a mile away, a steep hill rose up out of the woods. And on top of the hill sat a building that must be Butterfly Heights.
We’d joked about it earlier but Butterfly Heights looked as if it had actually sprung from the pages of a gothic novel. A sprawling Victorian building with high gables and arched windows, it sat imposingly atop the hill and I felt that there were many pairs of eyes behind those windows, all looking down on us malevolently.
Only the upper floors could be seen from our vantage point because a high wall surrounded Butterfly Heights, obscuring the lower part of the building and the grounds on which it stood. The path that led through the trees from the parking lot climbed the hill to a tall black iron gate, which was closed.
“Yeah, I think that’s the place,” I said. I almost expected lightning to shoot from the heavens and illuminate the building with an eerie glow but the sky remained quiet and the only glow came from the lit windows of Butterfly Heights.
Once we were on the path and beneath the sheltering trees, we removed our hoods. Rainwater dripped from branches and rustled through leaves, making the trees seem alive.
“Do you think Dr. Campbell will know anything that can help us?” Felicity asked.
“He should know the details of Ryan’s disappearance. Maybe he’ll tell us more about Ryan’s paranoia. Although, right now, I don’t think Ryan was paranoid at all.”
“Because he really was being followed by monsters?”
“It seems likely now that the creature he told his son about has turned out to be real.”
The path began to climb the hill, gently at first, then at a steeper angle. By the time we reached the large black wrought-iron gate, Felicity and I were breathing heavily. Beyond the gate, we could see the grounds of Butterfly Heights. The lawns probably looked nice in the summer but were covered with dead leaves at the moment.
“This place isn’t very welcoming,” Felicity said, leaning on the stone wall as she tried to get her breath back.
“We’ll probably find out exactly how not-welcoming it is in a minute,” I said, pressing the button on an intercom that was set into the wall beside the gate. “Robert Campbell might not want to see us at all.”
The intercom crackled and then a male voice said, “Welcome to Butterfly Heights, how can I help you today?”
“Hi, we’re here to see Dr. Robert Campbell.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No.”
“Is Dr. Campbell expecting you?”
“No, as I said, we don’t have an appointment.”
“And what is the nature of your visit?”
“We want to speak with him regarding a former patient.”
“Your name, please?”
“Alec Harbinger. I’m here with my associate, Felicity Lake. Tell Dr. Campbell we’ve come from Dearmont and our visit concerns Ryan Martin.”
“Just a moment, please.”
There was silence for a couple of minutes. We stood in the rain and cast doubtful looks at each other. If Robert Campbell didn’t want to see us, we’d be heading back down the hill and back to the car in a few minutes.
The intercom crackled again. “Dr. Campbell is with a patient at the moment but he’ll see you when he’s finished, if you don’t mind waiting.”
“We don’t mind at all,” I said.
A buzzer sounded and the gate began to swing open. “Please come directly to the door marked Reception,” the voice said.
We walked through the gate and followed a gravel pathway that bisected the huge, leaf-strewn lawn and led to the building.
The gate swung shut behind us and the lock clicked into place.
Now that we were within the grounds, I could see that the building had four levels. It was a big place, sitting out here in the middle of nowhere. And the entire building seemed to be the original Victorian-era structure.
In fact, the only modern thing about Butterfly Heights was the security system, which consisted of the electronic gate and a dozen cameras bolted onto the house and the walls. As we approached a large weathered wooden door that bore a small plaque reading Reception, I noticed the camera closest to us swivel slightly to follow our progress. Above the door, the year 1894 had been engraved on one of the bricks.
There was a click and the door opened before we reached it. For some reason, the opening line of an old children’s poem crept into my head.
“Will you walk into my parlor?” said the spider to the fly.
8
We stepped through the doorway and into a large reception area that was furnished with a half dozen plastic chairs, the magazine-strewn table that was obligatory in all waiting areas, and a hatch in the wall through which could be seen an office. The exterior of the building may have been untouched by time but the interior had been updated.
Sitting at the desk in the office was a man in his thirties dressed in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a dark blue tie. He was in the process of getting up out of his chair as I approached the hatch. There was a control panel and five monitors on his desk, showing various views from the cameras outside.
At a second desk, a similar control panel and a bank of monitors showed images from cameras within the building. I could see a room with people sitting at tables, playing card games and chess. Another monitor showed what I assumed to be a group therapy session
with a group of people who were sitting in a circle, deep in discussion.
The receptionist, whose name badge simply said Steve, with no last name, smiled thinly and passed me a clipboard with a sheet of paper attached to it. “If you could just sign in, Dr. Campbell will see you shortly.” I scanned the form attached to the clipboard and wrote my own and Felicity’s names under the Visitors section. Under the heading Company, I wrote Harbinger P.I. Then I signed my name.
Steve no-last-name looked at what I’d written and said, “You’re a P.I. Is that private investigator?”
“No, it’s preternatural.”
He raised a questioning eyebrow. “A preternatural investigator?”
I nodded. “Is that a problem?”
“Does Dr. Campbell know you’re a preternatural investigator?”
“Not unless he’s psychic.”
He hesitated, staring at the words I’d written as if they were going to jump off the page and bite him. Then he put the clipboard away quickly and said, “Please, take a seat.”
I went over to the seating area where Felicity was already sitting in one of the plastic chairs and reading a magazine.
“That didn’t go well,” she said, not looking up from the magazine as I sat beside her.
I peered through the hatch and saw Steve on the phone. I couldn’t hear what he was saying but I assumed he was informing Dr. Campbell of my profession. “He doesn’t like the fact that I’m a P.I.”
“Most people don’t,” Felicity said. “The sheriff has a bee in his butt about it, his daughter has a problem with you—although I think that’s because she secretly fancies you—and those two deputies we met in the storm drain think the whole thing is a joke.”
“It comes with the job,” I said. “I’m used to it.”
“The question is, why does the receptionist think it’s such a big deal that a preternatural investigator has come to talk to Dr. Campbell? Is there some preternatural activity here?”
“Maybe they just hate P.I.s like everyone else,” I suggested.
“Not everyone hates P.I.s,” she said, flashing a smile at me.
A door opened and a tall, dark-haired man dressed in jeans and a dark blue sweater came into the room. He was maybe fifty years old but he looked slim and fit. He looked at me through wire-rimmed glasses and said, “Mr. Harbinger?”
I got up and saw a name badge hanging on a lanyard around his neck. “Dr. Campbell. Thanks for agreeing to see us. This is my associate, Felicity Lake.”
“Nice to meet both of you,” he said, shaking our hands. His grip was strong and firm. I gave him my card and he put it into his back pocket. “Come with me to my office and we can talk.”
He led us through the door and along a corridor to a door that bore his name. He opened it and gestured us inside. “Please, after you. Take a seat.”
The office was dimly-lit by weak daylight creeping in through an arched window high above a large desk. Campbell turned on a floor lamp near the desk but it did little to illuminate the room and gave off a pale, sickly glow.
The only other furnishings in the room were two wooden-framed, upholstered chairs on this side of the desk and a large leather chair on the other. A computer sat on the desk but other than that, the room was empty. I got the feeling Dr. Campbell didn’t spend a lot of time in here. Or maybe this wasn’t his main office, despite his name being on the door.
Felicity and I sat in the pair of chairs and Campbell went to the opposite side of the desk. But instead of sitting in the leather chair, he remained standing. This was psychology 101; seat your guests and remain standing yourself so you appear more dominant, more in control of the meeting.
“What can I do for you?” he asked. “Our receptionist tells me you’re here to talk about Ryan Martin. Has he been found? Or—God forbid—did they find his body?”
“We’re here to ask you some questions about Ryan,” I told him.
He looked confused for a moment. “I thought you were here because you knew something about his disappearance. I don’t see how I can help you. I told the police everything I know two years ago.”
“We’re looking at the case from a different perspective,” I said.
A look of understanding settled in his face. He pointed at me and smiled. “Ah, I see what you’re doing. You’re a preternatural investigator, so you’re wondering if Ryan Martin was actually killed by the monsters he believed were following him. I can assure you, he was not.”
“So what do you think happened?” I asked him.
“What happened is really quite simple, Mr. Harbinger. Ryan left the hospital one night and went down to the main road. When he got there, he entered a storm drain, probably to face the monster he imagined was following him. He got lost in the tunnels and perished. The police were satisfied with that explanation.”
“You said Ryan left the hospital but how did he do that? You have a tight security system here. Locks on the gate, cameras everywhere. How could he escape into the night without being seen?”
He looked a little uncomfortable for the first time since we’d come in here. “The cameras saw him but by the time we had a chance to react, he was gone. He climbed over the gate like a monkey and by the time security got out there, Ryan was already gone, running down the trail to the road.”
“Sounds like he was determined to get out of here.”
“He was obviously experiencing a psychotic break. He probably thought everyone in the hospital was after him and he had to get away. He often suffered from extreme paranoia.”
“And then he climbed into a storm drain.”
“Yes, our security team followed him down to the road and saw him entering the drain. One of them followed Ryan into the drain but all he found were shreds of clothing. The police later found more clothing, deeper inside the tunnel.”
“So it looks like Ryan was attacked down there,” I said.
Campbell sighed. “No, it does not. Mr. Harbinger, all of our patients here at Butterfly Heights suffer from delusions similar to the ones Ryan Martin experienced. Patients with paranoid fantasies are our specialty and we know how they behave. Ryan believed there were monsters living in the sewers. So for him to have a violent episode inside a sewer and tear off his own clothing is not unusual. Not unusual at all.”
“You specialize in cases like Ryan’s?”
“Yes, all of our patients suffer from paranoid delusions. They come here from all over the country, most of them sent here from other institutions, because we have the best medical team to deal with such people.”
I wondered how many of the people here had been diagnosed with a mental illness when actually they had encountered the preternatural world and not recognized it as real, believing instead that they were losing their minds.
“I can give you the tour, if you like,” Campbell said. “Then your visit won’t have been totally in vain.”
The subtext of what he was saying was that this interview was over. “Sure, I’d like to look around,” I said. “How about you, Felicity?”
“Yes,” she said, “definitely. And, Dr. Campbell, perhaps you could tell us where the name Butterfly Heights came from.”
“I can do better than that,” he said, suddenly cheery. “I can show you. Come with me. Then you can be on your way. I’m sure you have more important business to attend to than this wild goose chase.” He stopped and turned to me. “Mr. Harbinger, I’m guessing you were hired to pursue this case by Ryan’s wife Joanna. Correct?”
“I’m afraid I can’t discuss that, it’s confidential.”
“Well, there’s no need to tell me. Who else would have hired you to follow this dead end? I suppose she didn’t mention that she was a patient here.” He resumed walking.
I said nothing.
“This is where she and Ryan met,” he said, opening a door with a keycard. “Joanna came here for therapy because she was having vivid nightmares every night of creatures chasing her through a shadowy world. After she attended ther
apy here and was prescribed medication, the nightmares went away.”
A look of concern flashed in his eyes and I couldn’t tell if it was real or fake. “But I believe she may now be experiencing a relapse. That is why she thinks her son was kidnapped by a monster. Yes, I saw the report on the news this morning. You were on there too, although you seemed to be camera-shy. It was on the TV in the day room. And speaking of the day room…”
He opened a door and we entered the room I’d seen on the monitor in the receptionist’s office. It was a large room and had probably functioned as a dining room when this building had been built.
Now, it was furnished with card tables and a large TV bolted to the wall. There was a buzz of activity at the tables where card and board games were being played. The TV droned at a low volume and there was a low hum of chatter as cards were dealt and dice were rolled. The only other sound was the constant pitter patter of the rain against the windows.
Three men in white uniforms stood discreetly at the edges of the room, arms folded, eyes alert.
“This is the day room where visitors and residents can relax,” Campbell said. We have patients who visit the hospital when they need to attend therapy sessions and others who are residents here. This is where Ryan and Joanna met. At the time, Ryan was a resident and Joanna was visiting us for therapy. They discovered that they had something in common; apparently both of their great-grandparents came from the same small village in Scotland.”
“What village is that?” Felicity asked.
Campbell closed his eyes and appeared to be searching his memory for a moment. At last, he said. “I believe it was a place called Aberfoyle.”
“Aberfoyle,” Felicity said. “I know that name from somewhere.”
“Apparently, it’s a small place,” Campbell said. “So it was quite a coincidence. And that coincidence was enough to get them to talk to each other every time Joanna visited the hospital. After Ryan left here, they began dating.”
“Against your wishes?” Felicity asked. “It sounds like you didn’t approve.”
“Miss Lake, when two paranoid people get together, they can sometimes feed each other’s paranoia. I believe that’s what Ryan and Joanna did. And then they brought their poor son into the world and kept him locked inside.”
Shadow Land Page 6