Of Guilt and Innocence: Institute at the Criminally Insane (Virgil McLendon Thrillers Book 3)

by catt dahman

  “Sure,” said Donte as he beamed but looked to Dr. Becket for a nod of approval.

  “Whatever you need is fine. Donte is very observant and dependable.”

  “What a shame,” Virgil said, “Hoyt was a pleasant man, despite his circumstances.” They saw Hoyt down one line of shelves, lying in blood.

  Many rows of shelves were in the center and on left side of the huge room, but another room was open to the right, having been made a part of the library with a librarian’s desk, a few other desks and chairs, and big overstuffed chairs with ottomans. In the front were rows of file cabinets.

  The floor was wooden, as were the old shelves and furniture, the walls were painted ivory, and all the chairs were covered in pale green fabric. Behind the desk was an enormous tapestry of a farm, a cottage, and woods around a lake, the greens and blues vivid. Other places were organized for sitting and reading with a few sofas of a more modern style, covered in a pale blue and green swirled design. Windows, albeit with heavy iron bars covering them, lined almost the entire back wall, making the library light and sunny in the day. Right now, tall standing lamps and table lamps lit the room softly.

  Donte quickly turned on more of the lights and flipped on the harsh over head lights that were seldom used. Everything went from classic coziness to a nightmarish, garish murder scene. Donte groaned.

  Leland Hoyt lay on his belly: his pants and shirt disheveled, one shoe kicked off, and blood pooled beneath his head. A thick trail of blood marred the floor, and Virgil noted it. “He was pulled backwards by his feet, moved here at least ten feet. Why would he be moved after he was dead? Or was dying? He wasn’t hidden. Odd. Yes, Donte, that’s it; make a little note that he was moved approximately ten feet.” Virgil leaned over the corpse and felt under Hoyt’s armpit.

  “Dead less than an hour I would say, but I can’t be sure without taking his temperature since in this environment, he would cool at about one degree drop per hour. I doubt the police would approve of my inserting a thermometer into his liver or messing up his clothing for a rectal check.”

  “Probably not a good idea to poke things in his liver,” said Donte as he agreed and went a little green. He didn’t know if Virgil were making a joke to alleviate anxiety or if meant it.

  “And there is the cause of death, I am supposing. If you will mark it, Donte, and mark it with a question mark: wire used as a garrote? Wire. In here? This is strange to find wire used as a weapon. This can’t be common in an institute for the criminally insane.”

  “We don’t have wire lying around, Virgil. Look at the ends.”

  “Very observant. A tiny screw. I know where this came from, well the general source.”

  Donte frowned, “We don’t leave broken pictures lying around, and there’s none I can think of. Where’s the frame, glass, and the picture itself?” He was a little angry that not only were they caught with such a dangerous weapon as wire, but also the wire was available to a patient. This screamed of impropriety.

  Virgil grinned despite the grim circumstances and said, “You already know.”

  Donte squinted his eyes closed, nodded, and then said, “In the closet. You found the glass and the other screw but no wire for hanging the picture. Yep, but there wasn’t a picture there.” His anger receded a little.

  “Exactly. Where is the missing picture? We don’t know, but there is one somewhere, and I have no idea what it means, but it’s important.” Virgil knelt again and gently raised Leland Hoyt’s face but was unable to suppress a groan. He shuddered as he gently allowed the dead man’s head to slip back to the floor without a thump. It was something he had to do, and he was sorry for that.

  Donte’s creamy caramel complexion paled. He hiccupped.

  “Don’t vomit on the scene. Step out if you feel the need,” Virgil suggested kindly with a caring voice, but he was as shocked and horrified as Donte. Virgil’s hands shook with the trauma he felt.

  Hoyt’s eyes were carved from the sockets which were mashed into his skin, destroyed. Empty, bloody holes were all that was left. The orbits looked as if someone had used his fingers to dig the eyes out and squish them, as opposed to having used a sharp blade. This was more personal and brutal than the other murders.

  “He must have hated Leland,” Donte suggested. He swallowed hard several times.

  Virgil, understanding, took a little tin box from his trouser pockets, popped a lemon drop into his mouth, and offered one to Donte. The sugar faded quickly and a sour, lemony tasting candy was left. Both men’s faces relaxed a little, and the candy helped sooth their nausea.

  “Do you really see hatred? Look again as someone who didn’t know him or who has never been here before. Remove your preconceptions.”

  “You sound like a head doctor searching my brain.”

  Virgil smiled and said, “They search in the head, and I search over everything. We all probe and look. Try, for me.”

  Donte scowled, thinking hard and drawing back so he could look and tilt his head. Taking a deep breath and wondering what Virgil wanted from him, he began speaking slowly, “He’s here in the library and doing something, and someone attacks him. The fight is quiet because no one heard a word. He choked him with wire from a picture frame. The killer was already carrying that as a weapon. He was prepared to kill, and then before Leland died, the asshole dug his fingers into Leland’s eyes, smashed them, and enjoyed it because it wasn’t quick and methodical. Whoever the murderer, he liked seeing Leland suffer. He liked the pain and the destruction. Is that it?”

  “I think so. I think it was all about hurting Mr. Hoyt. It wasn’t anger. It was pleasure after the garrote. But Mr. Hoyt was moved in order to distract us. The killer had to rush. Not very smart,” said Virgil as he stepped back to where the blood began and then moved another foot. Looking at the books, he scanned the titles. It was a big library, and this section was history. At slightly above head level were a few tomes that were set slightly forward of the other books as if they had been examined.

  Virgil looked around again but found no books on the floor, and none were missing from the lines of literature. But obviously, someone had been looking at the titles, perhaps not discovering the book that was wanted. On the other side, nothing was disturbed. “Melvil Dewey designed his system in the late 1800s, around 1875ish, I think. Here, you use the Library of Congress method of filing books. Section E.”

  Donte made notes.

  “This section wasn’t looked over. Because no book is missing and none are on the floor, we can assume that Mr. Hoyt was going to look in this area next. And to answer your curiosity, he had dust on his fingertips, and some of the books have been touched recently, removing their dust. I would like these numbers 456 to 489 carefully boxed and taken to my room. My room should then be locked, please. Please wait until the police finish their photos, and be sure we get copies for my files, if you will.”

  “He was killed over a book?” Donte asked, unsure if he agreed.

  “We don’t know, but he was killed on this time line, so we have to investigate the possibility. There has to be some reason, no matter how trivial, that mattered to our killer. If you recall, the other murder was a woman reading a book. There are both no coincidences and all coincidences in life, and everything is always linked, no matter how obscure the link is.”

  “I don’t know….”

  Virgil smiled again and responded, “Your doubt is refreshing and good in an investigation. Do you know that with some thought and a few questions about your life, I could link you to…say Jack the Ripper or Marie Curie. Everything has degrees of separation. Sometimes it takes many leaps, and sometimes it takes only a few jumps. It is far more common to have close links than to have to figure out far separations.”

  “That’s strange.”

  “Let me share something: my great uncle’s best friend was Archibald Gracie who was aboard the Titanic when it sank in 1912. Long story short, Mr. Gracie worked with the ship’s officers to load the lifeboats and se
cure extra blankets and coats for the ladies. He stayed until the end and heard the last of the band’s music. The ship was almost gone. He watched as his friends leapt into the water, and he joined them, saved only by his life preserver. He swam to an over turned boat and survived because of the diligence and stubbornness of First Officer Hightoller.

  Years later, my great uncle Herman McLendon was in a boating accident and recalled what his friend went through, so he clung to the over turned boat in the same way, climbing onto it and staying alert. The boat that he was passenger on was named Titan’s Waltz.”

  Vigil took a breath and continued, “The Titanic ran into an iceberg. The last song the poor band played was a waltz. Titan is like Titanic. The boat my uncle was on ran into an unseen spar of rocks during the night. The boating accident wasn’t on the anniversary of the ship’s sinking, but it was in April. Uncle Herman survived that and died when he was older: he fell into a weak spot on his frozen lake and drown in the ice water. His friend Mr. Gracie died the very same day on December 13, 1937 of natural causes.”

  “That’s kind of weird.”

  “That’s why nothing surprises me,” Virgil said, “accept oddities. Eliminate the impossible. Accept the answer, no matter how strange. The brain likes patterns and connections.”

  “The police have arrived,” Dr. Becket called.

  “I’m finished. I have given Donte certain instructions and hope that you will be sure no one removes a thing from this room?”

  Dr. Becket wasn’t cheerful; in fact, he looked haggard. He nodded and said, “We have a random murderer and dozens of suspects. What can we do? We have to find out who is killing people,” Becket said, “I know you are aware of that….”

  “Doctor, this is not a random murder, any more than the other three were. Your killer is disorganized and doesn’t plan the murders but is committing them because he or she wishes to hide a deep, important secret or motive. Your killer is not delusional nor acting out based on an illness. There is something very vicious and serious going on here; you’ll find the killer is one of the most sane people in this institution.”

  Becket and Donte traded glances but believed Virgil.

  “What can we do? Are you positive?”

  “I am very sure, Dr. Becket, and tomorrow I will step up my interviews with the patients, speak to a certain party, and see if that person has noticed anything of value. Then, I will sort through the notes, crime photos, and the books I am having delivered to my room. I’m sorry I can’t do this more quickly, but I am trying because….” Virgil lowered his voice more, “whoever is killing…for whatever reason…has developed a taste for it and because we don’t know the motive or have a suspect; everyone in Fordham is in danger.”

  In the halls, nurses struggled to keep patients calm and in their own rooms. As police officers appeared, the buzz of voices grew louder. Dr. Becket, Nurses Curtis and Brighton, and Dr. Kenshaw looked like alien beings in a range of pajamas, hastily donned on clothing, hands full of pill bottles, and syringes. Donte said he would help if Virgil would direct the police because many patients needed additional medicines or injections of sedatives.

  “One thing, Donte, is it protocol not to lock down the facility?”

  “I know it seems so, but the place is locked so that no one gets inside or outside unless we allow it. As far as inside and patients using forks and wandering around, I know it looks like a catastrophe waiting to happen, but remember the families are paying a fortune for this type setting. And nothing like this has ever happened. Before this, we never had a murder, had only one suicide, and no escapes. We have better averages than any hospital or prison in the United States.”

  “I would be horrified and yank my son or father or daughter out of here immediately with people being killed. If people remove their family members, the hospital will lose all that money and go broke!”

  “Virgil, Sir, I need to remind you of the circumstances,” Donte said with a sigh, formally, and in his role of a professional. “They are paying to ensure this sort of environment. You know the type of patients we have here: the criminally insane.” He shivered, and his throat almost locked up as he said, “Would you truly want to remove your family member and deal with him after he killed and cooked a child? Or slaughtered families? These people…the families don’t even visit. Trust me, no one really cares if the patients here live or die or if they’re killed. Well, that’s just a savings of the yearly fee, isn’t it? No. One. Cares.”

  Virgil gulped.

  Chapter Five: A Fungus Among Us

  Breakfast was with Vivian, Naomi Hathcock, Matty Goldstein, Bobby Andrews, and Patricia Springsteen at a nice table covered in a white cloth. Plates of bright yellow were stacked, napkins of yellow dotted with white flowers were folded, and shiny silverware were all in place for the meal. In the center was a beautiful, fragrant bouquet, large and with stems slant cut and set into a long vase. White roses dominated, but there were simple yellow daises, parts of coral azaleas, and tiny blue flowers that Virgil couldn’t identify, but their petals looked like an artichoke. Platters of sausages; chorizo; bacon; eggs scrambled, boiled, and fried; thin steaks with onions and tomatoes; hash browns; and pitchers of both apple juice and orange juice added to the beauty of the table.

  “The doctors say a good breakfast of proteins and fruit and fats give us more energy so we go outside and participate in whatever activity they have for us,” Naomi said, dragging a third of the bacon onto her plate.

  “What are you in here for?” Virgil asked as he scooped sunny-side up eggs and hash browns into a heap before adding salt, a lot of black pepper, and a few dashes of hot sauce. Vivian made a face at him

  Naomi Hathcock laughed and said, “I killed my husband.”

  “On purpose?” Vivian had to ask.

  “Well, it sure wasn’t an accident his running into my butcher knife twenty- eight times. And he didn’t run into the axe a dozen times and cut off his own legs, arms, head, and peenywhacker.”

  “Peenywhacker?”

  “His doo-dad. His baby-maker. His cock-a-doodle-do. His trouser snake.”

  “His penis,” Vivian said.

  “Oh, yeah, you can call it that, too.”

  Virgil approached this carefully and asked, “What did he do to deserve that?”

  Naomi narrowed her eyes and lips and said, “He was steppin’ out on me. Cheating. He said he got a fungus infection on his feet and on his bat and two balls, but I didn’t believe that. Ha. He had the Sci-Phyllis. Or the Gone-reas,” she explained.

  Virgil and Vivian translated that the man had athlete’s foot fungus and jock-itch which was common, but she thought he had syphilis and gonorrhea.

  “The doctors told me he didn’t have that, but men stick together. I knew he was cheating with that young secretary he hired, that one with them fancy manners and perfect clothing, her hair all braided and curled and set in combs. She had them white, perfect teeth like a movie star. Enough to make ya sick.”

  Doctor Lynn Redding slid onto a seat and said, “Mr. Hackworth was a very wealthy man involved in manufacturing steel for ships, he was well educated and from a fine family and had an enormous mansion of his own, filled with servants.

  He was on a trip and met her. She lived in a shack with her family in the hills, ten of them in two rooms with barely enough to eat. I love this story, Naomi.”

  “Well, tell it then. I sure don’t like it,” she cackled, “you make it sound better than I do ‘cause I only like the part about cutting on his peeneywacker.”

  Lynn Redding went on, “Naomi was in town with her father and two of her brothers to sell hogs. They had come to town in a wagon pulled by two mules. Naomi was young, the age to want to look pretty, so she had gussied up for the trip: she took a bath and washed her hair, quite excited to be away. Her family wasn’t much for looks, as she will tell you.”

  “Ugly bunch. Ugly as lye soap,” Naomi added, “big noses and stringy hair, coarse features, and little pigg
y eyes: they was family, but they was ugly family.”

  Lynn Redding went on soothingly, “Ugly, but genetics are funny things. From her maternal grandmother, Naomi inherited porcelain skin, peaches and cream complexion, and she, of course, never wore a bit of make-up. From her maternal grandfather’s ancestors, she inherited her light blue eyes, so pale and clear blue that they were considered a rarity. All of her family had muddy brown- colored hair, but from her paternal grandfather came thick, white blond hair that fell to her buttocks in curls and waves. Naomi and her mother both prized that pretty hair, brushing it and protecting it from the sun and rubbing good oils into her scalp. From her paternal grandmother, she inherited a tall, slim but curvy figure and delicate features, while the rest were dumpy and short.”

  Virgil nodded. He had noted that the woman was once a beauty. He could see that long ago she must have looked out of place, like an angel among that bunch.

  Naomi said, “I weren’t but fifteen and wearing an old pair of my brother’s trousers because I hadn’t a real dress, just some scuffed boots, a tight white shirt that used to my brother’s church shirt, and Mama’s ear bobs. My hair was soft and floated on the breeze that day.

  Right in the middle of the street, I met him: Mr. Hathcock who was twice my age, and he stared until I felt red-faced. He made his introductions, and then he asked to sit and talk to me. Well, I didn’t understand half the fancy words he used, so I chattered on about hogs, pickin’ greens, how I hated dirt daubers, and about the best worms to catch fish with. Ha ha. He talked about book and plays; I had no notion of what he was going on about.”

  Virgil smiled and said, “That sounds like a conversation I would enjoy.”

  Lynn Redding added, “Hathcock was smitten at once with her innocence, absolute beauty, and purity. Right then within an hour, he had asked to marry Naomi and reminded Naomi’s father he would be entitled to a generous dowry. She didn’t go home with her family but went with Hathcock, and they were married within a few days. Hathcock had an artist paint a portrait of her in her wedding gown, and everyone declared she was the most beautiful bride they’d ever seen. I might add her family suddenly had a saw mill, a nice large home with running water, and a car”