The car slowed again. The window came down, I heard Detective Dodge give his name, hand over his badge. Then the larger background rumble of gathered voices crying out for recognition, a question, a comment.
The window came up. The car started to drive again, engine downshifting as the vehicle ground its way up a hill.
"Ready or not," Detective Dodge said.
Beneath the blanket, I once again wiped my face.
For Dori, I told myself, for Dori.
But mostly I was thinking of my father and how much I hated him.
DODGE HAD TO let me out of the backseat. Turns out, back doors in police sedans do have some differences from ordinary cars—they only open from the outside. His face was unreadable as he assisted me, hooded gray eyes peering at a spot just beyond my right shoulder. I followed his gaze to a second car, already parked beneath the skeletal umbrella of a massive oak tree. Sergeant Warren stood beside it, shoulders hunched within her caramel-colored leather jacket, expression as annoyed as I remembered.
"She's lead officer," Detective Dodge murmured low, for my ears only "Can't very well visit her crime scene without her permission. Don't worry, she's only pissed off at me. You're just an easy target."
Being labeled a target offended me. I straightened up, shoulders squaring, balance shifting. Dodge nodded approvingly, and immediately I wondered if that hadn't been his intention. The thought left me more off balance than Sergeant Warren's perpetually sour look.
Dodge headed over to the sergeant. I followed in his wake, arms hugging my body for warmth. The afternoon was gray and chilly. Leaf-peeping season, easily the most beautiful time to be living in New England, had peaked two weeks ago. Now the brilliant crimsons, bright oranges, and cheerful yellows had succumbed to muddy browns and dreary grays. The air smelled damp and moldy. I sniffed again, caught the faint odor of decay.
I had read about the Boston State Mental Hospital site online. I knew it started as the Boston Lunatic Hospital in 1839, before becoming the Boston State Hospital in 1908. Originally, the compound had housed a few hundred patients and operated more like a self-sustaining farm than a role model for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
By 1950, however, the patient population had ballooned to over three thousand patients, with the compound adding two maximum-security buildings and an enormous wrought-iron security fence. Not such a tranquil place anymore. When deinstitutionalization finally closed the hospital in 1980, the community was grateful.
I expected to feel an eerie chill as I entered the grounds, maybe goose bumps rippling down my arms as I sensed the presence of a lingering evil. I would gaze upon some spookily Gothic structure, like the abandoned Danvers mental hospital that still towers over I-95, spotting—just for an instant—a pale, haunted face peering from a shattered window
Actually, from this vantage point, I didn't see the two remaining buildings at all. Instead, I gazed upon a thicket of snarled bushes, capped by an enormous hundred-year-old oak tree. When Sergeant Warren followed a narrow trail through the shrubs, we entered a yawning expanse of drying marsh grass that winked gold and silver in the rippling wind. The view was lovely, more of a nature hike than an impending crime scene.
The ground firmed up. A clearing appeared on our right. I saw what appeared to be some sort of refuse pile. Warren halted abruptly, gestured toward the overgrown heap of debris.
"Botanist started poking through that," she commented to Dodge. "Found the remains of a metal shelving unit similar to what we saw in the chamber. Sounds like the hospital had a lot of those kinds of shelves. I've got an officer combing through archive photos now."
"You think the supplies came from the hospital itself?" Detective Dodge asked sharply.
"Don't know, but the clear plastic bags… word is, they were commonly used in government institutions in the seventies."
Sergeant Warren started walking again, Detective Dodge falling in step behind her. I brought up the rear, puzzling through their exchange.
Suddenly, we passed through another copse of trees, burst into a clearing, and a brilliant blue awning rose up before me.
For the first time, I paused. Was it my imagination, or did it seem quieter here? No birds chirping, leaves rustling, or squirrels squawking. I couldn't feel the light wind anymore. Everything seemed frozen, waiting.
Sergeant Warren marched ahead, her movements determined. She didn't want to be here, I realized. And that started to unnerve me. What kind of crime scene scared even the cops?
Underneath the blue awning were two large plastic bins. Warren removed the gray lids, revealing white coveralls made of a thin, papery fabric. I recognized the Tyvek suits from all the true-crime shows on Court TV.