Loonies (30 page)

“I thought you might have some insight into the Mustard House.”

“Because I was there?” Droth’s mouth was rigid, his eye still.

Brian cracked a nervous smile. He wished he could light up a cigarette now. It was hard not to look at the man’s missing limbs without thinking of what Dudle told him. A mental image arose of the man binding his upper leg and then taking a tree saw to it.  “There’s been talk.”

“Who’s been talking?” Droth asked.

Brian shrugged. “Is that important? I was just wondering if there was someone at the institute who might be a bit over the edge.”

“More so than any of us who were there?” Droth’s tone thickened.

“Oh, I don’t mean to cast any aspersions,” Brian said. He wished Droth’s other eye would look his way. “I mean no offense. I understand Dr. Wymbs did a wonderful job with most of the patients he treated. But maybe some slipped through the cracks, so to speak.”

“Like Simon Runck?” Droth said.

“That’s a very good example. His treatments obviously didn’t work. And he proved to be a danger to the community.”

Rolfe Krimmer had grown curiously silent. Brian wondered if he too had been at the Mustard House as a patient. He hoped not. He liked the old coot. He seemed to remember the man retiring to Smokey Hollow after his career as a train conductor, so it seemed doubtful.

“And are you wondering if my treatments were successful?” Droth asked.

“No. Nothing like that. I’m just trying to find people to talk to who spent some time up there to see if they knew of anyone who might be capable of committing these acts.” Brian wanted to go ahead and mention The Pillowcase, but he agreed with Capt. Steem to keep that aspect of the killings under wraps, and he didn’t want to impede the State Police investigation.

“There wasn’t a lot of integration of the patients at the institute,” Droth said. “And people came and went.” He paused, staring at Brian with his good eye. “We didn’t get too chummy.”

“I see,” Brian said, staring at Droth’s eye.

“Do you?”

“I’m sorry if I’ve disturbed you.”

“No harm done,” Krimmer piped in. “Right, Doc?” He looked at Droth. Krimmer stood, tapping his cane on the floorboards. “Now if you don’t mind, we have plans to go to the cinema this afternoon.” He picked up the dominoes and deposited them into a small bag, leaving it on the table.

Brian watched as Droth motored his way down the wheelchair ramp. Krimmer descended the front steps, not really needing the assistance of his cane. Brian thought the old man just liked it because it was such an honor. He rarely saw the man without it since it had been awarded. Krimmer met Droth in the walkway.

“Where are you going to the movies?” Brian asked.

“Why, downtown, of course,” Krimmer said, looking back. “At the theater.”

This confused Brian. “But it’s closed.”

“Yes,” Krimmer said. “But I still have a key and know how to run the projector. I often watch a flick there, sometimes with a friend. Of course, there’s only the last movie that played there which we never returned, so there isn’t much of a variety. But luckily it’s a good one.” The two men turned to go.

“Do you want a lift?” Brian asked. Even though Main Street wasn’t far, he thought he should ask since one man was ninety-six and one was in a wheelchair. Besides, it was so damn hot.

“No thank you,” Droth yelled back. “We can do fine on our own.”

That was obvious, Brian thought, watching the two men head down the walkway to the sidewalk. After they were gone, he realized he should have asked Krimmer what the movie was. He had seen the “YC” on the marquee for the past few months and still wondered about the title of the last movie that had played at the cinema.

A chime sounded as Brian entered Wigland. Ivy Mockler looked up from behind the counter. She smiled, adding to the creases on her face. She wore a jet-black wig, the hair straight and chin-length. Brian tried to picture the woman bald, and it wasn’t a pretty image.

“Good afternoon,” she said. Her lips were heavy with red lipstick. She wore long, black, curled, false eyelashes.

“Hello,” Brian said, approaching the counter with caution. He felt ill at ease, knowing what he knew.

“Can I help you with something?” Mockler asked.

The grin with the red lips and the fake hair made him feel like he was being addressed by a clown. He looked around at the wigs perched on white Styrofoam heads with no faces. He felt surrounded by an army of decapitated faceless women. He cleared his throat.

“My name is Brian Keays,” he said. “From
The Hollow News
.”

“Oh yes,” she said. “I used to like reading the paper.” Her eyes fluttered. “But now it’s just filled with the most dreadful news. I can’t read that kind of stuff. It makes me ill.” Her smile never faded.

“I was hoping I could talk to you about something.” As with Droth, he wasn’t sure how to approach the subject.

“And what is that, young man?” She was brushing the blonde hair of a wig on a mannequin head on the countertop.

“Forgive me if I sound a bit intrusive, but I understand you spent some time being treated at the Mus—” He caught himself and corrected his query. “The Wymbs Institute.”

Her smile dropped but she didn’t break stride with the hairbrush. Her eyelashes fluttered. He wasn’t sure she was going to answer him.

“I know this sounds like it’s none of my business, but –”

“That’s right,” she finally said. “It is none of your business.” She continued stroking the hair. Her knuckles were white.

“I don’t mean to be a pest. It’s just that I’m writing about the doctor and all the wonderful work he did up at the institute.” He thought that was the best approach. “That is, until his unfortunate demise.”

“He was a wonderful man,” Mockler said, her smile inching back.

“I’m sure he was,” Brian said. “So you were there?”

“Yes,” she conceded. “That was a very long time ago.” Her eyes steeled and bore into his. “I wasn’t crazy, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Oh no, of course not. That’s the furthest thing from my thoughts. I was just wondering if you knew some of the other patients.”

The smile disappeared again. “I thought you wanted to talk about the doctor?”

“But how can you talk about a doctor, without talking about his patients?”

She looked him up and down, as if assessing whether to trust him. “We’re not supposed to talk about other patients. It was a very private institution.”

“Of course,” he said. “And I want to assure you I would never divulge anyone’s names in the paper.  That’s not what this is about.”

“I knew some of the people there. There was some interaction with other…guests of the facility.”

“Were any of them dangerous?”

“Dangerous? How so?”

“Anyone at the institute with violent tendencies or behavior?”

She thought for a minute. “Not that I recall.”

“Well, I suppose anyone like that would be kept away from the general population.”

“Probably,” she said.

“But maybe there was talk, among the other patients or staff, about someone like that. Maybe someone who shouldn’t really be there.”

She stopped brushing and put the hairbrush on the counter. “I remember there was this one young man who was kind of odd. He was barely out of his teens. Not a very attractive young man. He seemed pleasant enough at first, but then it kind of spooked me when I found out why he was there.”

“And why was that?”

“He liked to kill little animals. Puppies, kittens. Dreadful to think of. So I tried to keep my distance from him.”

Brian remembered Hester Pigott telling him about murdered animals found around town. “Do you remember his name?”

She looked down, grasping the hairbrush again. “No. I don’t recall. He wasn’t there long.”

“And you never heard of him again?”

“There was talk about him coming back. One of the orderlies mentioned that he was returning to the institute. He must not have fared too well on the outside.”

“What did the orderly say about him?”

“Just that he was a bad man. He said a bad man was coming back on the train. That he really didn’t belong. The orderly said he wasn’t looking forward to the man returning.”

“But he did return?”

“Oh no,” she said, shaking her head, her black hair swooshing from side to side. “The orderly told me the bad man never showed up on the train.”

“He didn’t?”

“No. No one seemed to know why. But none of us cared.”

Brian wasn’t sure that was any help at all. “Were there any other, um, bad men there?”

She took her time to think this over and then shook her head.

“Maybe someone else who scared you a little bit,” he said, prodding. “Made you nervous to be around.”

“No,” she said. “The only thing that was kind of creepy was the crying.”

“Crying?”

“Oh yes,” she said. “On several occasions, I could hear babies crying.”

Corwin Dudle stood on the edge of a roof looking down at Brian, who, after leaving Wigland, had tracked the chimney sweep to a house on Willow Street. He squatted on his haunches, broom over his shoulder, his face a mask of soot as he listened while Brian told him of his conversation with Ivy Mockler.

“Babies crying?” Dudle said, rubbing his chin with his free hand. The man had great balance, like a pigeon, while perched on the precipice of the roof assimilating this new information.

“Could it be that the babies in the trunk originated at the Mustard House?” Brian asked, standing in the home’s front lawn. The sun was setting behind the peak of the house, leaving the side of the roof Dudle stood on in shadows. “Maybe some of the patients got pregnant? Maybe even impregnated by the staff members themselves?”

Dudle shook his head. “I would think I might have heard about something like that. You sure she wasn’t just imagining it?”

“No,” Brian said. “She seemed pretty creeped out by it.” He thought for a minute. “Maybe I need to talk to Father Scrimsher tomorrow, see if I can get him to tell me about his conversation with Dr. Wymbs.”

“I don’t think he’ll be very forthcoming,” Dudle said. “Priests are pretty adamant about their vows of confidentiality.”

“He wasn’t afraid to break it with Dr. Wymbs,” Brian said. “It’s worth a try. Something went on up at that place. There’s some reason Scrimsher talked to Wymbs. He wanted something in return for keeping quiet about The Pillowcase.”

Over dinner at home, Brian was silent. He pushed his food around on the plate with his fork, only occasionally spearing a piece of potato or pea and lifting it to his mouth. It wasn’t that he didn’t have an appetite. True, his hunger was diminished by acids churning in his stomach that no amount of antacids could help. He felt on edge. It had been a long time since these kinds of feelings had permeated his very being. It was as if his body had been in detox by the mundane news he had been covering the first few months in Smokey Hollow, until the day that trunk was opened. Now all his news nerves were stimulated, and the rest of his body had forgotten how to react. His news sensory system had been overloaded. It was like a recovering alcoholic who suddenly goes on a drinking binge.

The tutorial he had received from The Silhouette had been the catalyst; until then there didn’t seem to be any direction for all the ominous happenings in town. The wall in Dudle’s basement had refocused everything. Sure there were still many pieces missing, but a picture was beginning to emerge. All Brian had to do was step back a bit and see if he could get a better view. Or maybe he needed to get closer. Maybe he had been standing too far away.

What bothered him was keeping silent about the information Dudle had unveiled. Brian wanted more than anything to share it with Noah Treece. He could use the police chief’s perspective. Noah understood the underpinnings of the town better than he. But he wasn’t able to let the chief in on what he had discovered. It was his damn obligation to protect the source. But if he could find out a few things on his own, his conscience would be clear about contacting Noah. Not that the chief had shown much enthusiasm for probing this mystery.

But what bothered Brian even more was that he wanted to share the past couple days’ events with Darcie. She sat across from him, just as silent. He glanced up from his plate, after inserting a piece of pork into his mouth. She looked up at him and cracked a half-hearted smile. Was something bothering her as well? He knew he hadn’t been around much. He just hoped she wasn’t reaching out to her former teacher friend. Would she keep that a secret from him? There seemed to be a lot of secrets in Smokey Hollow; why should she be any different? How well did they really know each other? What the hell is wrong with you? She’s your wife. Tell her about the chimney sweep’s basement. Who would she tell?

Him? Is that what you’re afraid of, that she confides in him? You’re gone all day and often at night. Who else would she talk to? They’re still friends.

He was being stupid. Besides, she’s having your baby. What more connection could two people have? It will be a new phase of your lives. You will welcome that baby into this world. Not like those babies in the attic. Someone didn’t want them. Someone shoved them into that trunk. He started to wonder whether they were put there dead or alive. God, he hoped they were already dead when they were wrapped in those newspapers and locked away in that trunk and left to decay in the hot stuffiness of the dusty attic.

Decay. Like the bones in the Knackerman’s pot. Bones that had been dragged up from the bottom of Thrasher Pond. Who did those bones belong to? Were Timmy Birtch’s bones decaying somewhere, hidden away for more than two decades? Where had you gone, poor Timmy? Who took you and what did they do to you?

“Are you okay?” Darcie asked.

He looked up at her, a couple of loose peas dropping from the prongs of his fork held mi-air before his open mouth. They landed on his plate. He stared at her. Her eyes showed genuine concern. They comforted him. They locked onto his. Not like Linley Droth’s wandering glass eye that had avoided his gaze. No, hers sought out his and held onto him.