Loonies (37 page)

Brian glanced up, curious. “What are you talking about?”

“We’re going to show you something,” Steem said. “You actually provided a lot of valuable information on this case, despite my misgivings about you.”

“Thanks,” Brian said. “I think.”

“So we’re going against protocol to show you something,” Steem said. “Chief Treece suggested you deserved it.”

The four of them went to the interrogation room. Noah turned on the video monitor and punched a couple of buttons. A picture appeared on the screen, showing the large, ugly, bald man seated in the interrogation room, hands and feet shackled. Steem sat opposite him with Wickwire standing nearby. Brian sat and watched the tape.

“What happened to the real Sister Bernice?” Steem asked on the video.

Letch hunched his shoulders. “I met her on the train on my way to Smokey Hollow,” he said in his gravelly voice that Brian should have realized all along belonged to a man, not an old woman. “We chatted the whole ride. It was a long trip. She told me all about herself and her new assignment with Father Scrimsher at St. John’s Church.” Letch kept his head lowered so Brian couldn’t see his eyes. “I got the idea of disappearing. When we left the train, I offered to carry her bags to the church. Then I took her into the woods and killed her. I chopped her body up with a fire axe I had stolen from the train and threw the remains into the pond. Then I put on her clothes and became Sister Bernice.”

“And Father Scrimsher never suspected? He didn’t realize you were a man?”

The big man shook his head. “Aren’t most nuns ugly anyway?” He laughed, a disturbed cackle. “It’s not like there’s anything feminine about them.”

Steem and Wickwire exchanged glances on the tape. The captain looked back at Letch.

“Tell us about the babies,” Steem said. “The babies that the girls up at the group home gave birth to at the institute.”

“Those girls were filthy,” Letch sneered. “They were wicked girls. The babies in them were evil.”

The devil’s spawn, Brian thought. Isn’t that what the orderly told Sherman Thurk? The orderly named Treece? He looked at Noah.

“What did you do with the babies?” Steem continued his questioning.

Letch chuckled. “I was responsible for making the arrangements for bringing the babies to the Catholic orphanage.”

“But they didn’t make it there, did they?” Steem asked.

Letch shook his head. “After delivery, I took them from the institute.” He lifted his head enough so now his eyes were visible. They were vacant, like shark eyes. “I smothered the babies and brought them back to the church and put them in the trunk.”

There was silence. On the tape, neither of the State Police detectives spoke. The four of them watching the tape were just as quiet, soaking in what they were hearing.

After a while, Steem cleared his throat and continued with the interrogation.

“Why did you have to kill the babies?”

“I wanted to protect Father Scrimsher. Those girls were rotten. And the babies evil, they needed to be disposed of.”

“How did the trunk end up at Ruth Snethen’s house on Ash Street?”

“Once the group home closed, I didn’t want to hold on to the trunk anymore.” He paused. “It frightened me.”

“How did it frighten you?”

“I could hear the babies crying at night.” Letch bit his lower lip. “I was afraid of them, afraid they might get out of the trunk. I worried Father Scrimsher would hear the cries. So I asked Nurse Snethen if I could store the trunk at her house.”

“Was that because you planned to have her house burned down and destroy the evidence?”

“Yes,” Letch said. “I threatened to expose Marshall if he didn’t torch the house. You had to talk to Marshall, you couldn’t talk to Simon. Marshall was the one who liked to start fires.”

“And you got him to burn down the institute to cover up your murder of Dr. Wymbs?”

“Yes. I was afraid the doctor would learn about what really happened to the babies. I did it to protect Father Scrimsher. And it was easy to convince Marshall. I assured him it would wipe out all the records at the institute and the personal files of its patients.”

Brian listened as the man spoke with such calculated reasoning, yet it all sounded mad.

“And you murdered Nurse Snethen and Hettie Gritton as well, because they knew you had taken the babies away?” Steem asked.

“That’s right. I had to eliminate all traces of what happened.”

“And you killed Corwin Dudle, the chimney sweep?”

“He was getting too close,” Letch said.

Brian’s heart sank as he heard this. Poor Corwin.

“And I wanted to kill that damn reporter, too.”

Even though Brian was watching it on the screen, it gave him a chill to hear those words. The monster could have come after Darcie.

“Did you kill Timmy Birtch?” Steem asked.

Brian glanced at Noah, who stared intently at the screen. Even though the chief had already seen this, his eyes seemed fascinated by what was unfolding before him.

“No,” Letch said. “Father Scrimsher told me that he thought Timmy was his child. That Timmy’s mother had seduced him even though it was against God’s will. So I spoke to an orderly at the institute who had helped with the deliveries of the babies. He always wanted to have one of the babies. He kept asking if he could keep one, but I told him they were evil. So I went to him and said he could save Timmy if he took him away from his damned mother. The child could escape the evil with his help.”

Brian saw Noah bow his head.

“I didn’t want to hurt the boy,” Letch said. “He wasn’t like the others. He was Father Scrimsher’s offspring, so he had to be good.”

Steem got up and shut the tape off. Wickwire turned the lights on.

“That’s the meat of the matter,” Steem said. “The interrogation goes on for quite a while, but nothing important came up during the rest. The man is quite insane.”

Brian exhaled, his insides unsettled after watching the tape. But something bothered him. Something was missing.

He looked up at Steem. “Did he confess to The Pillowcase murders from long ago?”

Steem looked from Wickwire to Treece, and then back at Brian. “Letch used a pillowcase in these murders because he knew The Pillowcase had been released from the Wymbs Institute, and it was a convenient way to place blame.”

“What are you saying?”

Wickwire opened the folder in his hand again. “We got a hold of Letch’s birth certificate from Pennsylvania,” Wickwire said. “When The Pillowcase murders occurred in New England, Mathias Letch was only around five years old.”

Brian’s mouth dropped open. “So that means The Pillowcase is still out there.”

The following Wednesday, Brian kissed Darcie before leaving for work to put the finishing touches on what would be his best issue yet as editor of
The Hollow News
. As he looked at his wife, he could see all the tension gone from her face. She looked relaxed. And once this issue was put to bed, he would feel the same. Sure, there were still the court proceedings and trials to come, but after that he was actually looking forward to the mundane pace the weekly paper usually offered before that day they opened the trunk.

“I promise,” he said to Darcie as he held her in his arms at the front door. “Things will be back to normal, and I will be around whenever you need me.”

“Once I have this baby,” she said smiling. “Things will never be normal again.”

He laughed, kissing her again before heading down the front steps. At the bottom, he turned to face her. He was still grinning.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“I’ve been thinking. After all the work the State Police, Noah, The Silhouette, and myself did during this whole case, you were the one who held the key that put the final piece of the puzzle in place.”

She laughed at that. “Not bad for a pregnant, out-of-work teacher.”

As he headed for his car, she called out to him and he stopped.

“And now that this is over,” she said. “You need to quit smoking.”

Once he got over the surprise, he laughed again. “I promise.”

After deadline at the office that afternoon, Brian leaned back in his chair, grateful the work of the past few days was on its way to the printers. It was a gratifying feeling.

What still bothered him was the knowledge that the real Pillowcase was still out there somewhere, not accountable for the grisly crimes he committed. Sure, Steem had said the man might be long dead after all these years. But Brian thought it was just as possible he was still walking around, maybe still here in Smokey Hollow, living a normal life. Could such a killer lead a normal life? Apparently Dr. Wymbs believed so. He thought the man was normal enough to release him into society, and for all anyone knew, the man hadn’t killed again. Maybe there was some method to Wymbs’ madness.

Brian gazed out the window onto Main Street, at the people milling about downtown.
How many?
he wondered. How many people out there walking around were former patients at the Mustard House? And were any others dangerous, like Mathias Letch and The Pillowcase? It gave him a chill just thinking about it.

Treece came to visit Brian in the afternoon. He had a feeling he knew what the chief wanted. He had agreed to keep quiet about Noah’s true identity until after this week’s edition was out and they had a chance to talk.

“Thank you,” Noah said when he entered Brian’s office.

“How did you find out who you were?”

Noah sat down. “My father,” he began, and then halted. “I mean, the man I grew up thinking was my father, was a heavy drinker and abused prescription meds. When I was a teenager, he blurted something one night in a drunken stupor. He had always told me my mother was dead, but I had my doubts. He would never talk about her, or her family, if she even had any. So one night when he was drunk, I took a blood sample from him and had his DNA tested, along with a sample of my own blood.” He took off his chief’s hat and held it in his hands, looking at Brian with sad eyes. “That’s how I found out he wasn’t my real father. It was then I decided to become a policeman. I wanted to find out who I was and where I came from and how I got to be where I was. When I was a cop I did a lot of research in my spare time.” He laughed. “If you thought Corwin Dudle was obsessed, you should have seen me. I eventually traced my supposed father to his days as an orderly at the Wymbs Institute, and I was determined to get a job on the Police Department here.” He laughed again. “I didn’t think it would be as police chief, but hell, it worked out.”

Brian thought about how many times he had doubted Noah’s ability as a detective. He couldn’t have been more wrong about the man. He had proven to be more of an investigator than Brian had ever imagined.

“What happened to Treece, the orderly?”

Noah dipped his head. “He died, drowned in a bathtub, all messed up on booze and drugs.” He looked at Brian. “I didn’t feel sorry for him. My mother literally died from the heartbreak caused by my disappearance. My one regret is I didn’t find my way back here in time to save her.”

“And that’s why you bring flowers to her grave,” Brian said, his heart touched.

“And always will.”

“Now comes the big question,” Brian said. “When do you let the world know that Timmy Birtch is alive and well?”

Noah was silent for a moment, fidgeting with the hat in his hands. “Before I do anything, I need to take a trip.”

“A trip?”

“To Florida to see Chief Pfefferkorn. I told you how my unsolved disappearance haunted his whole career. When he trained me as his replacement, I couldn’t tell you how many times I wanted to reveal the truth to him, to ease his anguish. It tore me apart to keep it secret, but it was necessary for me to accomplish what I needed to do.” He smiled. “So I’m going to fly down there and visit him, and tell him everything. He deserves it. God knows I could use some time off. And when I come back, I promise to let you have the exclusive on the story.”

That pleased Brian. “And will you become Timmy Birtch again, and change your name back?”

Noah stood up. “Yes, I will. To honor my mother.” He placed the hat back on his head. “Chief Birtch. Has a good ring to it.”

“Yes it does,” Brian said.

“I think you’re going to miss the excitement this case brought.”

Brian laughed. “In time, maybe. Right now, I look forward to things quieting down. And who knows, I’ve been thinking I could write a book about it. There’s a huge market for true-crime books these days.”

“Do you think anyone would believe a story like this is true?” The chief smiled.

“It’s certainly not your everyday case.”

“Well, I wouldn’t mind seeing myself as the hero.”

Now it was Brian’s turn to smile. “You know who I think is the real hero here?”

“Don’t say Capt. Steem.”

“Oh no,” Brian said. “I think Corwin Dudle would be the hero in my book. He really pieced the puzzle together. He dedicated his whole life to it. That wall in his basement had almost the whole picture. It’s what eventually helped solve the case. He was just missing a piece or two.”

“Well, there’s something that Capt. Steem found out that might change your mind.”

“What’s that?”

“It turns out Corwin Dudle spent some time as a patient at the Wymbs Institute.”

Brian’s mouth fell open. He couldn’t believe it. He mulled this over and a thought popped into his head.

“What if Corwin had himself committed there in order to further his research?”

Noah shrugged. “I suppose that’s possible.”

“The lengths that man went to as The Silhouette, it wouldn’t surprise me at all. That’s the angle I’d like to approach if I write my book. I like him as my hero.”

“Speaking of heroes, there’s another reason I stopped by today,” Noah said. “I came to deliver a bit of sad news.”

This town has had enough of that, Brian thought. It didn’t need any more.

“Rolfe Krimmer passed away during the night.”

Oh no, Brian thought. He really liked the old man, and he had saved Brian’s life at the theater.