Asylum (Asylum, #1)(55)
The pastor was staring off into the middle distance, recalling these details from a long-forgotten place.
“The mechanic, Bill, had a wife who’d just had a baby boy when the asylum was closed. That would have been in, let’s see, ’72? Wasn’t long after that before all the Crawfords left Camford, run out of town in shame.”
“Why?”
“Oh, it was a regular witch hunt. Daniel was put on trial, of course, and the more details that came out during the case, the more people were calling for all the Crawfords to leave. Like they had bad blood or something.”
“And what happened to—to Daniel?”
“Well, he tried to plead insanity there for a while. And he had a compelling case, too—some of the things he did in that dungeon, some of the reasons he gave . . . People were outraged, of course. But in the end it never came to a verdict. One of the other inmates got into his cell and killed him. Sounded like the locks on those cells weren’t as tight as they could have been.”
Dan was stunned. “Wow” was all he managed to say.
“Terrible thing,” the pastor said. He still stood barring the entrance to the sanctuary, so that Dan started to get the feeling that the preacher wanted him to leave. “Anyway, I can tell you right now you’re not going to find any of the Crawfords on our baptism registry. They were crossed off our records long before I became pastor here.”
“I guess I can see why,” Dan said, though he found it curious that the pastor already knew that information. “Well, I guess I’d better go, but do you mind if I ask you one more question first?”
“Not at all.”
“It’s about Dennis Heimline. The Sc-the Sculptor,” Dan stammered. “I’ve heard some people say that he died the year Brookline shut down, but Mr. Weathers said that no one knows for sure what happened to him.”
“I’m afraid Mr. Weathers is technically correct there. We all assume Dennis Heimline died, of course, given the nature of the things he must have endured at the asylum. But while all the other patients were eventually accounted for, Heimline’s body was never found.”
Dan shuddered. Then, with a mutter of thanks, he turned to leave.
“Oh, and Mr. Crawford?” the pastor said, catching Dan by the elbow. “I hope you won’t blame Sal for any grief he caused you. I think you can see why he would’ve gotten upset talking about all this.”
“I definitely can. Thank you for all your help, Mr. . . . ?”
“It’s Bittle,” the pastor said, and his eyes looked grim. “Ted Bittle.”
Dan left the church feeling more distraught than when he’d arrived. He’d gone there for proof, a confirmation, but all he had now were more possibilities. His grandfather had possibly been an auto mechanic. Warden Crawford, who was possibly his great-uncle, had died in prison, while the Sculptor was possibly still alive. And if Dan wasn’t totally imagining the patient card Jordan had found in the basement, the Camford Baptist pastor was possibly related to another of Brookline’s homicidal patients.
He was only too happy to leave the church behind.
But if it was raining before, it was absolutely pouring now. The gravel road outside the church was slushy and treacherous. Dan tried to point his flashlight ahead of him and run at the same time, but he kept twisting and slipping on loose rocks. He’d barely made it to the main path when he decided it was foolish trying to get all the way back in this weather. He ran off the side of the road to the dense protection of the forest. Two steps in, and already the deluge was reduced to a few scattered drops that found their way through the limbs overhead, which crowded together like a tangle of fingers. Now Dan just had to wait for a break in the downpour.
A branch snapped behind him, loud even over the sound of heavy rain.
Dan turned just in time to see a deer darting through the maze of trees not ten feet away. He let out a heavy sigh.
Just a deer, Dan. Calm down.
But when he aimed his flashlight at where the deer had been, Dan saw a glint in the darkness, like a reflection on steel. At first he thought it could be some kind of animal trap or a path marker . . . until he saw the rope tied around it, pulled taut and stretching into the shadows, and realized that it was a metal stake driven into the tree.
“Hello?” Dan called, imagining a hunter who’d been stranded in the rain. But that was ridiculous—who would be hunting this close to the school?
“Anyone there?”
Dan pulled out the pair of scissors from his pocket. They hardly made him feel any safer. Carefully, he stepped over fallen limbs and riots of underbrush. He reached the tree with the stake in it, then shined his flashlight down the length of the rope.
He still expected to find a net at the end, waiting to catch an unsuspecting animal.
Instead, he found a human hand.
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” he jabbered, shaking uncontrollably as he tried to take in what he was seeing in the careening beam of his flashlight.
It was a man, his hands connected by ropes to two neighboring trees, pulled slightly behind him so that he was forced into a forward bow at the waist.
“Are you all right?” Dan called, though he was already sure of the answer.
He got up as close to the man as he dared. He was afraid to touch him, so sure that he would spring up and grab him or bite him like some zombie. But he forced two shivering fingers onto the man’s neck. He waited for a pulse. Nothing.