Loonies (5 page)

He stopped smiling, knowing that the longer this took, the less likely the good doctor would be to grant his request for an interview. Maybe he was just wasting his time. It was hot outside, and he wanted to go inside or go home.

The door opened and the suspicious housekeeper stood there again. She was not smiling either.

“The doctor said no visitors.”

Brian’s mouth dropped open, but he couldn’t release any words. They were stuck inside his dry throat.

She had her bags in her hands and was leaving, looking at him to step out of the way. “Excuse me please,” she said, and was polite about it, though he could tell she wished he would leave.

“But you don’t understand,” he said. “I’ve come a long way.” That was a lie, but it was all the way from the bottom of the hill.

She looked at him but said nothing.

“Please,” he said. “I can’t tell you how important this is.” That was true.

She released a sigh of exasperation and then placed her bags back down on the table.

“Wait right here,” she said, and the door closed again and the bolt thrown.

Thankfully this wait was shorter, and when she returned, she motioned for him to come inside.

His smile returned, and he thanked her. Upon entering, he was surrounded by cool air. The discomfort of the heat outside was now replaced by an equally discomforting chill along his bare arms.

The housekeeper closed the door behind him and threw the bolt. Brian had the impression that he was now locked in the asylum with the inhabitants.

His first thought was how quiet it was. He wasn’t sure what he had expected (screams, rants, and mad laughter?), but silence was not it. He was in a spacious foyer. Before him a grand staircase curled up toward the second floor. Up there, he thought. That’s where the patients’ rooms must be. If the inmates were being quiet, then so were the staff members, because there appeared to be no one about except for the housekeeper.

“This way,” she said, gesturing down a hallway.

He followed her toward a door at the end of the hall. She rapped twice on it, and he heard a muffled response from the other side. She opened the door, but he couldn’t see inside the room because her body blocked his view.

“The visitor is here,” she said.

“Yes, send him in.” The voice was deep.

“I’ll be leaving now.”

“Of course.”

She stepped aside, and Brian entered what looked to be an office. The door closed behind him, and the housekeeper was gone.

Dr. Milton Wymbs rose from behind a large mahogany desk and walked around it, hand outstretched. The doctor was short and had a bald dome surrounded by wiry tufts of brown hair. Brian guessed the man to be in his sixties, but there was not a speck of gray in his hair. He wore a brown tweed sport coat with leather patches on the elbows. He also had on a bowtie.

Brian met him halfway and grasped his small hand, shaking it firmly. The doctor returned to his padded leather chair behind the desk, leaning back in it. He motioned to one of a pair of smaller chairs before the desk, and Brian sat. He resisted pulling out his notebook just yet.

“Thank you for seeing me,” he said. “Let me introduce myself….”

“Oh, I know who you are, Mr. Keays,” the doctor interrupted. “I may not get out into town very often. Hardly at all, in fact. But I manage to keep aware of the events of the town, such as the new editor of that esteemed rag that comes out every Thursday. What I don’t know is what you expect to accomplish by coming here.”

“Well, I was thinking….”

“I’ve already spoken to the State Police,” he said, interrupting again. “As my housekeeper made you aware. That is why you are here, is it not?” His eyes locked on Brian’s.

“Yes, it is. I.…”

“I really didn’t think you were interested in doing a feature expose on the wonderful work the Wymbs Institute has been doing in treating people who suffer from various mental deficiencies, phobias, and disorders. You know I’ve been running this place for forty years and treated hundreds of patients successfully.”

“I wasn’t aware of that. I.…”

“Of course not.” The doctor stood up and strolled to the front window overlooking the parking area.

Brian took this opportunity to discreetly remove his note pad from his back pocket and a pen from his front.

“You were hoping,” the doctor continued, still staring out the window, “to find some connection between the discovery in your attic and this institute of mental disorders.” The doctor turned to face him. “That would be a scoop wouldn’t it?”

Brian didn’t get a chance to answer.

“That is what you call it, correct? A scoop? An exclusive none of the other media has?” He stepped forward. “But there is no scoop here. I am a psychiatrist and this is a medical facility. I don’t treat lunatics here. These are normal people. Just as normal as anyone in that town down there.” He pointed toward the window. “Just as normal as you and I.” The doctor was smiling.

“I wasn’t suggesting.…”

“No, of course you weren’t.” He returned to his seat and plopped into it. “As I told the State Police, Nurse Snethen retired a couple years ago. I have no idea why she had that trunk and the…contents, but it has nothing to do with the Wymbs Institute. I can assure you of that. And you can even put that in your little notepad you’ve been trying to hide.”

Brian swallowed, but did scribble down the comment from Dr. Wymbs. “Have you heard from Ruth Snethen lately?”

The doctor shook his head. “Not since the day she retired. We had cake and coffee and bid her farewell.”

“We?”

“The staff.”

“And how many staff do you have here?”

The doctor glared back at him. “Why is that any of your business?”

“I just thought maybe one of Ms. Snethen’s co-workers might still be in touch with her. Though I haven’t seen too many staff members about here. Do you have a lot of patients? It’s such a big facility.”

The doctor leaned forward and placed his elbows on the desk. “The number of patients at this facility is only of importance to me and nobody else. As are the members of my staff.” He leaned back in the chair again. “As you would hopefully comprehend, the privacy of everyone in this institute is highly regarded. People wouldn’t come here if they couldn’t expect privacy.”

“So people come here voluntarily?”

“Yes, of course. They come here seeking treatment, and I provide it. People are not brought here under restraint. Like I stated earlier, they are normal people seeking treatment. Just like anyone would do for any kind of ailment. Their ailments just happen to be of the mental variety.”

“And you cure them?” Brian asked, almost wishing he hadn’t, judging from the flushness in the doctor’s face upon hearing it.

“Cure?” The doctor loosened his bow tie but left it draped around his neck. “These people don’t have gonorrhea or athlete’s foot. They need to learn a way to cope with the mental functions that trouble them. There is no cure. There is adjustment.”

“So you adjust them?” Brian knew he was trying the doctor’s patience, but he also knew he would get nothing helpful from this interview.

“You mean like a chiropractor?” The doctor rose from his seat. “I think that is all.” He came around to the front of the desk. “I will show you out.”

Brian snapped his note pad shut and stood. The doctor led the way out of his office and down the hallway to the front door. Brian turned to the doctor.

“I didn’t catch your housekeeper’s name,” he said.

“That’s because I didn’t throw it.” Dr. Wymbs opened the door, and Brian felt the blast from the heat outside. “Good day, Mr. Keays. I look forward to the next issue of
The Hollow News
. I can’t wait to see how the garden tour went.”

“Thank you,” Brian said and left. When the door closed behind him with a loud thud, he heard the bolt thrown in place.

On the drive down the ridge, cool air blew in the open car windows, lifting the sweat from his face and arms. But inside he boiled. Dr. Wymbs had made him feel like some cub reporter. Had those few months away from his city beat in Boston softened him already? Damn. He had let the doctor intimidate him and sidetrack him. He had accomplished nothing by going up there. He wondered if Steem and Wickwire had the same problem with the good doctor. No, probably not as bad as he had. And, of course, he would get no information from the two State Police detectives.

If only Noah would take a more active involvement in the case. Brian thought maybe he should push the police chief a little bit in that direction. It was the only way he’d likely get any helpful information.

Back in town he pulled into his driveway, getting out of his car and calling Noah on his cell phone. While the phone was ringing, he glanced across the street, drawn by the sound of whistling. It came from a chimney sweep perched on the roof of the house opposite his. The man was dressed in a top hat and black coat with tails and was pushing a brush down the chimney. His face was obscured by soot and a thick black mustache. Brian remembered during his home inspection that it was recommended he get his chimney cleaned. He saw the sweep’s van in the driveway, a silhouette of a chimney and sweep painted in black on the side. Brian made a mental note to jot down the phone number on the side of the van for future reference.

“Hello.”

“Noah,” Brian said. “Not much luck with Dr. Wymbs.”

“That’s a shame,” the chief said. “Not surprised, though. I don’t think Steem and Wickwire got much out of their visit either.”

That made Brian feel better for a second, until he realized that the two State Police detectives probably weren’t too forthcoming with information for the chief.

“He has a housekeeper,” Brian said. “Do you know her name?”

“No, but I’ll do some checking. Why?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I can get the names of some of the other staff members and talk to some of them. But the housekeeper seemed pretty protective of the doctor.”

“I’ll let you know if I find anything out.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it.”

“I can let you know tonight if I find out.”

“Tonight?”

“Yes. The Boston Post Cane presentation? At the Odd Fellows Hall. Have you forgotten?”

“Oh shit.” Brian had. “No, of course not. I’ll see you there.” He was so caught up in the trunk case that he forgot all about the trivial events he had to cover for the newspaper. The kind of things the Picklesmeirs of the town expected to read about. Tonight, the Boston Post Cane was being passed on to the current oldest resident of the town. That was something he had to attend.

As he walked to his front door, he looked across the street again. The chimney sweep waved. Brian waved back and entered his house, forgetting to jot down the sweep’s phone number.

Darcie greeted him with a tight hug. Her eyes looked red. She seemed tired.

“I’m so glad you’re home.” Her grip tightened.

“What’s the matter?” he said, stroking the back of her hair.

“People have been calling all day.”

“People?”

“Well, first it was friends and family, hearing the news about our discovery. That wasn’t too bad. But then news people were calling. How’d they get our number?”

“News people?” Damn, he thought. “If you’re resourceful enough, a number is not hard to get. Did you tell them anything?”

“No, not really.”

“Well, which is it. No or not really?”

She pulled away from his grip. “No. Of course.”

“Good,” he said. He didn’t want to hand out information to the competition. Pesky reporters. Now he kind of understood how Dr. Wymbs felt. Ironic.

“A TV news van even stopped out front. They filmed the house.”

“Wow,” Brian said, though he shouldn’t be surprised that the story had attracted that much attention. There was only one local TV news station in the state, and they were bound to jump on something this unusual. “Don’t worry,” he told Darcie. “They’ll move on to something else pretty quick.” Especially if nothing more developed with the case, he thought. And it looked like that’s what would happen.

The Odd Fellows Hall was on Main Street across from Picklesmeir’s Flower Shop. Like most private social clubs, until recently it had been exempt from the no-smoking ban for public buildings. The scent of stale smoke had seeped into the woodwork of the dark paneled walls. The slow-turning ceiling fans in the second-floor function room pushed the hot air around but never came close to cooling anything. The windows facing Main Street were open, as were the ones in the back.

Brian Keays sat in one of the hard folding chairs in the front row of the hall, with Chief Noah Treece beside him. Brian had his notebook out and his camera ready. The Board of Selectmen Chairman Eldon Winch stood at the podium. Winch had thinning gray hair and a thick white mustache. He started by talking about the previous recipient of the Boston Post Cane. She had passed away recently at the age of 102.

Brian was lazily jotting notes and had missed the woman’s name. He’d have to make sure to ask for it later. It was hard to concentrate. All he could think of was his talk with Dr. Wymbs at the Mustard House. He glanced around the room, which was only half full. He spied Mrs. Picklesmeir, a large, top-heavy older woman with heavy rouged cheeks, and she glared back at him. She was probably mad he had time for this event, even though he had scrapped her garden tour preview. He would have to make sure to stop by that damn event this weekend to at least snap a stupid photo. Brian winked at her and she looked away in a huff.

Next to her was Leo Wibbels, who owned Wibbels Real Estate and Fruit Market. He was the broker through whom Brian had bought his house from Ruth Snethen. Maybe he would have some idea where the retired nurse had moved. He jotted a note to remind himself to ask the man later.

The guest of honor was seated in a high-back, throne-like chair to the left of the podium. Though he was the oldest resident in town, he still had a full head of puffy white hair. His name was Rolfe Krimmer, and Brian made sure to jot it down. Chairman Winch pointed out that Rolfe had been an upstanding citizen of Smokey Hollow for the past thirty years. After Chairman Winch’s speech, Krimmer rose out of his throne on sturdy but thin legs, a grin showing few teeth.