Ghosts of Rosewood Asylum (23 page)

Her end of the line was silent a moment, but
he could almost hear her mind racing. “That name seems familiar,” she said
finally. “I can’t put my finger on where I know it from though. She sighed
again, but it contained less angst. Then, she grunted. “Okay, I’ll find out who
he was.”

“Thank you, Wendybird. Hey, Patrizia told me
you had something to tell me?” he asked.

“Yes. Remember in my opening pitch how I
mentioned that suicides had increased at Rosewood?”

“Sure.”

“Well, I hadn’t known the extent of it.
Apparently, between July of 1899 and Rosewood’s closure in 1903, there were
thirty
seven
of them.”

It sounded like a lot, but Zach didn’t have
anything to compare that number to. “Do you have the number prior to—”

“Of course I do. Between 1892, when it
opened, and July of 1899—a span twice that of the other timeframe, there were
only
eleven
suicides. Zach, that’s like a six hundred percent increase.”

“Hey Zach, can I talk to you a minute?”
Shelly asked. She approached him from the area where the tents had been set up.

“Yeah, sure. What’s up?”

Her furrowed brow and frown told Zach that
she was upset with something. Oh no, he thought, here it comes. Due to the
inclusion of the Demon Hunters, Shelly, his most trusted investigator, had been
pushed into the background of this case. He’d paired her with Patrizia, the
least-experienced partner possible, and he expected she was upset about it.

“I found something,” she said. “I found
something very...odd.”

“What? Where?”

“In the administration building. It would be
easier to show you. C’mon.” She turned back in that direction.

They trekked across the weed-strewn lawn to
the far southeastern end of the property. Zach should have known better than to
doubt Shelly’s team-first attitude. She was a terrific investigator—able to
intuitively know where to focus her efforts.

“I’ll be honest,” she said, as they
approached the outskirt building, “it looks like someone might be trying to
falsify evidence.”

Might be, Zach thought. Shelly didn’t know
the half of it. “Show me,” he said.

She led him into the building and through to
one of the small rooms that used to be an office. The prior night, all the
teams had experienced dramatic EMF fluctuations in the room. Shelly stood in
the center, not pointing anything out. “I think it’s more obvious now,” she
said. “I may have slightly discolored it while investigating it. Or maybe it
just seems more visible because I know it’s there.”

Vacant and dusty, Zach didn’t notice
anything unusual. The walls were eggshell. Perhaps they had once been white and
yellowed over the years, but Zach suspected based on the continuity of color
that they’d always been—he saw it. In the far corner of the room, just above
the baseboard, a square the size of a cocktail napkin was slightly discolored
from the rest of the wall. Zach approached it and knelt down.

“Yep, you found it.” Shelly stood behind
him.

“What is it?” Zach lightly tapped the area
with his finger. “It’s sticky.”

“Yes. Something was taped up there and
recently too, otherwise the adhesive would have attracted more dust.”

Zach peered closer. All around the outside
of the cubed area in question, tiny brush strokes blended with the wall’s
color. It even appeared that a darker layer had been applied over it to appear
dirty. “Someone painted whatever it was to match the wall so that it wouldn’t
be detected.”

“Look closely at the wall,” Shelly said. “In
the center of where the patch was, there’s an imprint.”

She was right. Something the size of a
matchbook had been pressed into the wall and had left behind very small
scratches.

“It was probably something metal.” Zach
touched it with his fingertip. That spot wasn’t sticky. “A transponder of some
sorts? A bug?”

“With all the crazy EMF activity in here
last night, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was something designed specifically
to give us false readings.” Shelly held up her EMF meter and pointed it
throughout the room. I’ve gotten no spikes at all since we’ve been here. Last
night this room was nuts with EMF fluctuations.”

“I need you to keep completely quiet about
this, Shelly. Can you do that for me?”

She nodded.

“Seriously,” Zach said, “No one can know.”

“Okay. But do you know who’s responsible?”

Zach didn’t know for certain, but he was
getting a pretty good idea.

As Zach approached the asylum, Matthew stood
outside on the Rosewood driveway. It was quickly approaching noon, but the
overcast wasn’t showing signs of dissipating. A cold wind from the north had
kept it below sixty degrees all morning, and they’d be lucky to keep the
temperatures in the fifties until nightfall. The air contained the autumn scent
of decaying leaves.

“Glorious day, huh boss?” Matthew said.

“I need to speak with you,” Zach said,
softly.

Matthew’s grin disappeared. “What’s up?”

Zach glanced back at the asylum and ventured
down the drive toward Rosewood’s main gate. Matthew obviously knew to trail
along. Once they were safely out of earshot, Zach spoke.

“There’s no easy way to say this. Angel has
betrayed us.”

Matthew almost stumbled. “What? Oh my God.”

“I know,” Zach said. “It came as a shock to
me, too.”

“What do we do? I mean, what has he done?”

Zach’s nose tingled from the cold, but he
refused to rub it. “I need you to keep an eye on him. I need you to tell me if
you see or have seen anything suspicious.”

Matthew adjusted the brim of his baseball
cap. “Okay. I will. I’m not sure I know what to look for though.”

“Keep on the lookout of anything suspicious
with the Demon Hunters. Pierre, Bryce, even Rico.”

“Sure. Did they find something suspicious
with the video review?”

“No. Not exactly,” Zach lied. “I know he’s
hiding something from me, lying to me.”

“Okay, so there is something you should
know.” Matthew rubbed his chin. “But you have to promise not to let on that I
told you.”

Zach knew in circumstances like this it was
wiser to say nothing. He nodded.

“Pierre drank too much last night and passed
out. When I went to wake him for his shift, he was just flat out. So I worked a
bit longer. Maybe another hour or so and then was ready to pass out myself.”

“That’s late. You musta been wiped. What
time was it?”

“I didn’t look at my watch, but I think it
was about 4:30. I figured that Angel had already gotten some sleep. Why not let
him take over? I figured he would wake Pierre when he needed to.”

“Angel’s the lead. You should have woken him
up as soon as you couldn’t wake Pierre.”

“I know, but I didn’t want anyone to get in
trouble, and I was still pretty amped from Spirit Hour.”

“That’s understandable,” Zach said. “So what
happened with Angel and Pierre this morning?”

“I dunno. I just know when I woke up, Angel
was still on duty...I suppose he could have gotten Pierre up at some point, but
I doubt it based on how Pierre looked this morning.”

“Agreed. Matthew, I need you to keep this
strictly between you and me. I’ll let you know the next move and I wouldn’t be
surprised that if this time next week, you’re the Tech Lead of
XPI
.”

Matthew’s face brightened and he grinned.
“Yes, sir! Although, I mean, it would come under rather awkward circumstances.”

“You let me worry about that.”

As though Zach didn’t already have enough to
worry about, he began feeling massive pangs of guilt. During the course of that
conversation, he had not been entirely truthful.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“Bless me father, for I have sinned,” Zach
said, once the confessional’s partition opened. “It’s been three days since my
last confession.”

“Zachary?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Why are you in
here
, boy?”

“There are still a few people waiting. I
figured I’d take care of business the old fashioned way and then we could talk
face-to-face after you’re done working.”

“I’m never done working, son.” Monsignor
Macginty chuckled. “Go ahead with your confession.”

Zach admitted to having had angry thoughts
about people throughout the week, especially Bryce Finman. He shared minor
infractions such as laziness for not having attended an early morning class, to
showing subtle disrespect to Mr. Winkler and others. Lastly, he confessed to
telling a major lie to a member of his team.

“And why’d you do that, son?”

“It was about someone else on the show—a
well-intentioned type of ruse. It’s kind of hard to explain—it may all be a bit
too self serving.”

“Who was this canard about now, Zachary?”

“My Technical Lead, Angel.”

Behind the partition, Macginty sighed. “So
you lied about an Angel, son?”

Zach hadn’t really thought about it that
way. Pondering it on his knees in the dark, he realized it was pretty damn
ironic.

“Yes, Father. At least I think so. It’s a
rather complicated situation, actually.”

“I see.” Macginty’s calm voice seemed
neither detached nor judgmental. “Okay son, I want ya’ta say six ‘Hail Marys’
and one ‘Our Father’ out there.”

“Yes, Father.”

“And Zach...you’re going’ta have ‘ta make things
right with this Angel fella. You’re going’ta need to be honest with him.”

“I understand, Father.”

“And Zach? Would ‘ya please stop callin’ me
‘Father?’ I’m a
Monsignor
. I work for a living.”

It was one of their running jokes.

“Of course, Father.”

Macginty mumbled a series of sacramental
words that ended in “go and sin no more,” and closed the partition. Zach exited
the confessional, knelt in a pew near the statue of the Virgin Mary and said
his prayers.

For Zach, absolution was Catholicism’s
single coolest feature. Provided he completed his penance as instructed by the
priest, the sin was no more. It wasn’t like an erasure in a ledger; it was as
if the mistake had never taken place. Still, setting things right with Angel
was likely going to be awkward, and Zach still wasn’t one-hundred percent sure
his suspicions were correct.

After reciting half a dozen Hail Marys, Zach
was breezing most of the way through the Lord’s Prayer when the ambient smell
of candles was replaced by the scent of cheap deodorant and even cheaper
aftershave. Macginty had sidled up on Zach’s left.

Zach completed the prayer aloud. “And lead
us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

“For Thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and
the Glory ferever’n ever,” Macginty added, pulling Zach into a bear hug.

Approaching seventy-years old, Macginty kept
his white hair in a short crew cut. He had not, as long as his photographs were
to be trusted, lost an ounce of muscle since he was in his thirties. He’d been
an army chaplain in Vietnam. Prior to that, as long as a priest’s word was to
be trusted, he’d been a local boxing celebrity of sorts—in the early 1960s he’d
lost the bout, but had gone the distance with Sugar Ray Robinson. Macginty
claimed the judges “robbed” him of the victory, but if they had not, he might
have gone onto a professional fighting career and missed his calling as a
priest. It had been Monsignor Macginty who first encouraged one young Ray Ross
to put on gloves and climb into the ring. When Ray threatened to take on the nickname,
“Sugar Ray,” Macginty had anointed him “The Railroad.” And that was that.

“Can I trouble you to make me some holy
water, Father?” Zach asked, holding up a couple of already full water bottles.

“I told ‘ya. Holy water is holy water, is
holy water. Help yourself whenever you need’ta, son.”

“I know, father, but it’s hard to get it out
of baptismal and besides, I think it works better when you bless it
specifically for me.”

“Aren’t you a charmer?” Macginty said.
“C’mon. Let’s us go up’ta the altar.”

From the elevated position, Saint Francis of
Assisi brought back a slew of memories for Zach. He’d been an altar boy for a
number of years, which had afforded him an excuse to spend an inordinate amount
of time with Macginty. It was in the sacristy of this church that Zach had
finally gained control of his special talent.

Macginty stood at the altar, passed his hand
over the water bottles and blessed them.

“I don’t like this particular case yer
workin’ on, son.”

 “But I haven’t told you anything about
it.”

“I know. Imagine how I’d feel about it if
‘ya did?” Macginty handed him the water bottles. “You know I don’t like lies,
Zachary, and if yer speakin’ untruths, then that means others must be doin’ the
same.”