by Lesley Kagen
Originally designed to allow staff to see to the needs of the Broadhurst family, the staircase was now used by nurses and orderlies when they came to pick up trays of food for ailing patients, or when they themselves needed to use the bathroom adjacent to the kitchen the way Viv so often had to. But the handyman used the staircase, too, when he made repairs in the rooms. Even under the best of circumstances, the staircase gave me the creeps because it always smelled like stale food, the green walls were cracked and the paint was peeling, and the only source of light was a single bare bulb in the high ceiling. I also hated that the steps were spiraled, so you couldn’t see who was coming down them until they were practically on top of you.
That night, I thought I’d heard something, but I was so wound up that I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it, so when Viv came through the Greer door after me, I put my finger up to my lips, nodded at the staircase, and whispered, “Ya hear that?”
Frankie came up behind Viv and said, “What?”
“I think somebody’s comin’ down,” I said. “From the third floor.”
We stuck our heads in, listened for a second, and nodded.
“It might be Bigger, but maybe the sheriff didn’t tell the deputies he sent over here to go to the Withers’ farm to look for Leo, Harry, and Ernie, like I thought he would,” Frankie whispered. “Quick. Hide in the cooler.”
She grabbed Viv and turned around so fast that she knocked me sideways. I was still scrambling to get my balance when someone appeared at the bottom of the stairs, took the scene in, and said, “Why, hello there, small fries. What are you doin’ here?”
Only one person ever called us that, and Frankie spun around and said, “Mayor?”
To explain our presence, Viv was quick to say, “We’re still playin’ that detective game we told you about at the park. What are you doin’ here?”
Bud Kibler’s hair was mussed, his shirt untucked, and he seemed more confused than usual when he replied, “I came to speak to the sheriff about the escaped patients, but …” He swayed and even under the kitchen’s cruddy overhead lights, I could see the blood drain from his face. “There’s nobody here except for the orderly on the third floor. Poor guy had accidentally locked himself in, so I let him out with the keys I found on the floor.”
Eddie King had told the sheriff that he’d call Mitch Washington to come watch the third-floor patients, but accidentally locking himself in a cell didn’t sound like something Mitch would do. He had worked at Broadhurst longer than anyone else, and I couldn’t picture him making a bonehead move like that. But he did have a colicky new baby, so he’d probably not slept very much for the past few weeks. He must’ve gone into one of the empty cells to take a nap and the door swung shut behind him.
Frankie was thinking that, too, because she asked the mayor, “Mitch Washington locked himself in a cell?” like she couldn’t believe it.
“I don’t think he told me his name.” Mayor Bud rubbed his hand against the back of his head and winced. “It’s really dark up there and I must’ve tripped on something. I got an awful bump and … do you know the way out?”
When his knees buckled, I got him by the elbow. “You need to sit down, sir. Viv, grab a stool.”
She set her flashlight down on the prep table and pulled out one of the tall, wooden ones we’d sit on when we came to help Bigger. I was discombobulated when we arrived and hadn’t noticed that the ice chest she’d had at the park was sitting in the middle of the table, until the flashlight shined on it. So Viv was probably right. Bigger must’ve gotten tired of waiting and gone down to the Chamber of Horrors without us. It was on the opposite end of the basement, so she wouldn’t have heard us in the kitchen.
I lowered my hands into the ice chest, lifted out the lemon meringue pie, carefully pulled out the sharp knife she’d used at the park to cut it with, and scooped up a handful of watery ice. “I’ll get something to wrap this in so you can hold it on your bump,” I told the mayor. “Then one of us can go find our friend Bigger. She can take you home.”
I took a few steps toward the drawer next to the sink that Bigger kept her embroidered dish towels in, before I slipped on something and had to reach out for the sharp edge of the prep table to keep myself from sliding into the splits. I thought some of the melted ice must’ve leaked out of the chest, but when I grabbed Viv’s flashlight off the table and aimed it at the floor, I could see that’s not what I’d stepped in. It was blood, and it was leaking from a head that was poking out from the other side of the steel table. When I took a tiny step forward, moved the flashlight across the body, and saw who it was, I screamed, “Bigger!”
Confusion registered on the girls’ faces because they couldn’t see what I was seeing, but Frankie rushed to my side. When she saw Bigger, she said, “Sweet Jesus,” and bent down next to her. “She’s still breathing but that gash above her eye is really deep, and she’s lost a lot of blood.
“We need to call an ambulance,” I said.
Frankie straightened up and made a move for the wall phone, but a man emerged from the darkened hallway that led to the hospital reception area and stood in her way. “Good evening,” he said.
“Thank goodness, you’re still here,” the mayor said. “A lady has been seriously injured, and we need your help.” He seemed to know the man, but didn’t realize who he was. “Girls, this is the orderly I was telling you about. The one who got accidentally locked in a cell.”
But he wasn’t an orderly, and he hadn’t gotten himself accidentally locked in a cell. He’d been put there after he was judged to be criminally insane. Our kind, addled mayor had been tricked into freeing the most dangerous patient at Broadhurst—Wally Hopper.
Aunt Jane May had told us that morning at the breakfast table that the child killer looked like something a cat dragged out from under the porch after a flood, and he did. But what the newspaper photo had failed to capture was his powerful stature. He was tall—taller than Doc—and his upper body was so disproportionately muscled and his arms so freakishly long that he looked like he’d stepped out of a monster movie.
“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you girls,” Wally Hopper said, but he was looking directly at me when he added, “I’ve enjoyed watching you from my window.”
I thought about how he’d watched the Gimble sisters, too, before he’d strangled them and left their defiled bodies in front of St. Sebastian’s church. Because he was pretending to be a priest that rainy afternoon, I thought that’s why the little Catholic sisters had gotten into his car, but it might’ve been his hypnotic voice and warm smile that had convinced them. I was thinking that I might’ve done whatever he told me, too, when Frankie shouted, “Run!”
Hopper was blocking her way, so she tried to push him, but she was no match for him.
One of his long arms shot out and grabbed Frankie by the shoulder, and when he threw her against the cupboard next to the sink the kitchen filled with the sound of her cracking bones before she slid down to the floor and went still.
When Viv screamed, Hopper reached across the prep table and hit her across the face so hard that she flew backward and landed in front of the Greer door in an unmoving heap.
Obviously confused, the mayor yelled at Hopper, “What are you doing? Stop!” because he still didn’t understand what was happening until I told him, “He lied to you. He’s not an orderly. He’s the child killer!”
When Hopper came at me, I went to snatch Bigger’s knife off the steel table to fend him off, but Mayor Kibler beat me to it. He picked it up and staggered toward the killer, who easily ripped the knife out of his elderly hand and slid it between his ribs.
After Bud collapsed to the kitchen floor next to Bigger, the only ones left standing were Hopper and me and he seemed very pleased about that.
“You are such a beautiful child,” he said, “and I thank the Lord and the Archangel for giving you to me.” He was about ten feet away, but I could smell the stink coming off him when he opened his arms. “Co
me.”
I was paralyzed with fear and when I didn’t do as he’d asked, he cooed, “Are you playing hard to get?” He giggled. “How fun.”
I knew that behind the windows to his soul there would be nothing but a bottomless blackness that wanted to swallow me up, so I closed my eyes and didn’t see the mayor pull Bigger’s knife from his side and plunge into the child killer’s calf. It wasn’t until Hopper yowled in pain that I saw what Bud Kibler had done in an attempt to save me.
Viv was sprawled out in front of the Greer door, and I didn’t think I could make it past Hopper and reach the front door of the hospital, but there was one other way out. The basement door was right behind me, and when Hopper turned to pull the knife out of his leg, I took a few steps backward and slipped through it.
The girls and I had gone down the narrow steps during our quests to get inside the Chamber of Horrors and to fetch supplies for Bigger many times. I was familiar with how the basement was laid out, but it wouldn’t be easy to make my way through the maze of darkened rooms. There were a couple of wall lights, but like the ones upstairs, they were dim and wavering. But if I could feel my way along the bumpy walls and reach another set of steps at the opposite end of the basement—the ones that led up to the cellar door—I could run for help through the woods or head across the county highway to the Withers’ farm. Uncle Walt and almost every deputy in the county were over there searching for the escaped patients.
I had a head start, but it didn’t take long for Hopper to realize I’d made a break for it. I heard him pound across the kitchen floor toward the basement door, but I’d already made it to the bottom of the steps and stumbled down one of the hallways when he came limping down after me.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are, pussycat,” he sang out.
My heart was drumming so loud that I could barely hear myself think as I felt my way toward the cellar steps. I thought I knew where I was, but it was dark and disorienting and I made a wrong turn and dead-ended into a wall. When I felt my way back to where I’d gone wrong, I could vaguely make out the cellar steps in front of me. I was just moments away from freedom when I stumbled into a gurney. I made a grab for it, missed, and it clattered across the concrete floor and bounced to a stop against the Chamber of Horrors door. Light was coming out from the bottom, and when I heard someone grunt, I hollered, “Help!” but couldn’t risk slowing down.
The sound of my voice and the racket of the gurney made it easier for Hopper to home in on me. He wasn’t enjoying the chase anymore and was shouting vile curses as he came thundering my way. But the cellar steps stood just beyond the Chamber of Horrors and soon I’d be home free. It wasn’t until I reached the bottom of them that I remembered how heavy the thick, wooden door that led outside was—even Bigger struggled with it—but any second, Hopper would be on top of me and cut off all other avenues of escape. If I failed to open the door I’d be trapped, but when I looked up the steps … I saw a slice of sky and stars peeking through the door.
Sobbing in relief, I took the steps two at a time, but when I reached the top, I could see more clearly how small the opening was. I wasn’t sure I could make it through, but after some wiggling and pushing I popped out into the warm night air and belly-flopped onto the grass behind the hospital.
I didn’t know how close Hopper was because I’d been judging his proximity by the sound of his rage echoing off the basement walls, but I was thinking that I’d outsmarted him and that he wouldn’t get to do to me what he’d done to the Gimble sisters, when he shoved the cellar door open behind me and yelled, “There you are, ya little bitch.”
I tried to crawl away, but he got me by my right ankle and yanked me back down the stairs. After I hit the basement floor, he straddled me, tried to pin me down, but I was slippery with sweat and fear and squirmed out of his reach. I aimed a kick at his bleeding leg and I must’ve connected. When he bellowed and recoiled in pain, I got to my feet, struggled back up the steps, and burst through the cellar door.
My lungs and legs were on fire and I was heaving for breath. If I could make it to the front of the hospital, I could disappear into the woods or veer across the county highway, but I knew I wouldn’t get that chance when an enraged roar came from behind me.
When I looked over my shoulder and saw Hopper charging out of the darkness toward me like a wild animal hunting prey, I wanted to collapse onto the grass and give up, and maybe I would have. I was scared in a way I had never been before and had nothing left to draw on, but the girls needed help, Bigger and the mayor, too, and I believe it was my love and concern for them that drove me toward what could be their saving grace.
I wasn’t sure I could reach it before Hopper pounced on me, but I half-ran, half-stumbled toward the front door of the hospital, felt around in the bushes, and when I found what I was looking for, I pulled down the handle on the gray box.
The screech of the point-of-no-return siren piercing the night air was deafening, but it didn’t slow Hopper down. He sprang at me, wrapped his hands around my throat, lifted me until I saw the black evil in his eyes and the smile on his face before he said in that warm voice of his, “Some girls like being swept off their feet,” and began strangling the life out of me.
When all of the air had left my lungs and a velvety darkness came closing in, the fear left me. In its place came thoughts of a reunion with my mother, and how much I would miss Aunt Jane May and Doc and Uncle Walt, but most of all my precious and dearly loved blood sisters. Then there were miles of stars and from far away, so far away, I thought I heard shouting and gunfire. I was hoping someone had come to save me, but as I fell into the final nothingness, I was pretty sure that was just me being a dumb chump one last time.
Chapter Twenty-Three
As you might expect, Jane May Mathews, RN, wouldn’t let the girls and me out of her sight the entire time we were in the Port Washington Hospital. After she received the approval of Dell and Viv’s parents to oversee our care, she was everywhere. Demanding to know the doctors’ treatment plans, examining our stitches and assorted bruises, and yes, cross-examining us and promising that as soon as we got better she was going to cook our gooses beyond recognition and bury us beneath the willow tree out back.
Frankie had been hurt the worst. When Hopper had thrown her against the cupboard in the Broadhurst kitchen, her femur cracked in two. She had to have surgery, and afterward—traction and a cast.
When Hopper smacked Viv in the face, she got two black eyes and a broken nose. Probably sensing how important Viv’s profile would be to her someday, gifted Aunt Jane May made sure a specialist was called in from Milwaukee so she wouldn’t have an unattractive bump in the posters that years from now would adorn the lobby of the Rivoli and movie theatres across the world.
I came away with the least amount of damage. But only if you didn’t count my crushed windpipe, dislocated shoulder, and the rainbow of bruises I received when Hopper dragged me down the cellar steps and dropped me on the front stoop of the hospital.
Thankfully, the sheriff had not told the two deputies he’d initially sent to Broadhurst to search for the escaped patients to head over to the Withers’ farm, the way Frankie thought he would. They were in the woods when they heard the point-of-no-return siren and they came running with their weapons drawn. They had to shoot the child killer seven times before he crashed down next to me like a diseased oak.
In a ceremony in front of the court house, Deputies Jack Halston and Rob Brody received commendations from Governor Gaylord Nelson for rescuing me, and catching Albie in the act. He confessed that in order to pay back the money he owed Chummy Adler, he’d agreed to haul away evidence of the surgeries Dr. Cruikshank was performing against patients’ will in the Chamber of Horrors. That’s why that gurney was down there and the heavy cellar door open the night Hopper almost killed me. The girls and I never did like Albie, but we were grateful to him and his gambling ways because if hadn’t been in the basement that night, I wouldn’t have survive
d to tell this tale.
Viv and I could have gone home from the hospital sooner, but Frankie had to stay for the rest of July and some of August. Because we couldn’t bear to be separated from her, Doc got special permission for us to sleep in cots on either side of her bed. During the day, Viv would run over to Whitcomb’s Drugstore, belly up to the fountain counter, and give the other kids in town a progress report while she waited for the soda jerk to make a brown cow to go. My job was to keep the brains of our operation’s mind engaged. I wrote and read stories to her about a girl lawyer who was even slicker than Perry Mason and I let her teach me how to play chess.
Aunt Jane May had decided it was important that we concentrate on healing, so the girls and I were kept sequestered and only heard dribs and drabs at first about what’d happened at Broadhurst. It wasn’t until the sheriff paid a visit that we got a few more of our questions answered.
He pulled a feather bouquet out from behind his back, gave Frankie and me boxes of Good and Plenty, and handed a sleeve of chocolate mint Girl Scout cookies to Viv. But after he fingered the star on his chest and slid the red notebook from his back pocket, he was all business.
“First things first,” the sheriff said. “Do you know how Hopper got out of his cell?”
The girls and I had talked about whether or not we should tell the truth, and we’d decided that it didn’t really matter how the child killer got out. We didn’t want anyone to think ill of Mayor Bud Kibler, so Viv shrugged and answered the sheriff, “Nope. No clue.”
I asked him, “Is Eddie King all right? The new nurse? Mitch Washington? The mayor told us that he couldn’t find anyone when he came looking for you to talk about the escaped patients. Did Hopper get them?”
