Asylum (32 page)

            “He
don’t have a phone,” the old man said.

            “Well,
maybe you could tell us where he lives and we could…” Chloe trailed off
watching the little shopkeeper shake his head.

            “Now
look,” he explained.  “Most of the things I find for Reginald all come from the
same source.  If I just told you who it was and where you can find him, that’d
just cut me out entirely, wouldn’t it?  I’m trying to earn a living here young
lady.”

            “If
you told us,” Chloe said quickly, “we’d get it from him and come right back
here and pay you…what do they call it?  A finder’s fee?  And it’ll just be this
one time, Dr. Willard will still do business with you same as ever.  It’s just
this once…it’s really important…for…for his research.  We really need those
letters.”

            The
old man studied her over the wire rims of his glasses.  His eyes were watery
and still blue.  They were kind eyes, Chloe thought.

            “You
probably won’t be able to find him anyways,” he decided.  “Will isn’t easy to
find, less he wants to be found.”

            “Will…”
Chloe mused, almost dreamlike, “not…Will Gannon?”

            The
shopkeeper started and slapped his hand against the counter.

            “Now…you
see?  Reginald probably already knows and is doing business with him, and I’ll
bet it’s my own fault!  Seems like I must have mentioned his name a time or two
before,” he complained dejectedly.

            “No!”
Chloe said.  “No I’ve just…I mean we’ve seen his name before, somewhere in Dr.
Willard’s files, I think.”

            “Well,
you probably already know how he comes across so many of those old papers
then,” the old man said.  “He used to be a patient there, up at the old
asylum.  Will was there when they closed up shop.”

            “When
they closed the asylum?” Sam clarified.

            “Sure,”
the old man continued.  “Back in ‘89 I think.  They just shooed the last of the
patients out and locked the doors behind them.  Most of ‘em wandered into town
and have been homeless ever since.”

            “Will
Gannon is homeless?” Chloe asked, “Where could we look for him?  Are there
homeless shelters?”

            “Sure,”
the old man answered, “but you won’t find Will in one.  If you were going to
look for him, I’d say check the woods around the old asylum.  Still a few of
them out there, living in tents and under trees, and last I heard, that’s where
Will was.”

            “Can
we get directions to the asylum?” Seth asked sensibly.

            “The
Commons they call it now,” the old man clarified.  “Get out on Front Street,
take that to Elwood.  Make a left, take that to 11
^th
street, Can’t
miss it, big old buildings.  You’ll want to check the woods west of there for
Will.”

            Chloe
was already headed towards the door, pulling Seth along behind her.  Sam
dropped a jointed wooden doll she had been studying and followed.

            “Wow! 
Can you imagine?” Sam asked.  “They just let all the mental patients go and
locked up behind them!  That seems like it should be illegal or something,
doesn’t it?  What do you think it’ll look like now?  If there are homeless
people living in the woods, why do you think they haven’t moved into the
building?  I mean, if it’s deserted and falling apart, don’t you think it’d
beat living outside?  Maybe it’s haunted!!”

            “I
don’t know,” Chloe answered, as Seth slid into place behind the wheel.  “That
was twenty years ago.  It doesn’t make sense that a bunch of patients have just
been hanging around for twenty years, homeless.  Why wouldn’t they just go back
to where they came from…to their families?”

            Seth
started the truck and turned in his seat to fix them both with a dark scowl.

            “So
let me get this straight,” he began.  “You want me to take you out to an
abandoned asylum so that you can walk around in the woods looking for homeless
mental patients?”

            “Yes,
please,” Sam and Chloe answered.

            “Okay…can
you understand why that might give me some pause?” he asked cautiously.

            “No,”
Sam smiled brightly.  “We have a big, strong, hockey player type guy to protect
us, so I don’t really see the problem.”

            Chloe
shrugged, trying to avoid eye contact.

            “I
just want to go on record as having said that I don’t think this is a good
idea,” Seth continued.

            “Duly
noted,” agreed Sam.

            “Clo?”
Seth asked.

            “His
name was on the wall,” Chloe said, “Will Gannon…it was just above mine.  His
name was on the list too.  Even if he didn’t have the letters I’d try to find
him.  I want to know what he knows.”

            Seth
looked miserable as he pulled out on the street.

            “Then
can you wait in the car, and let me look for him?” he asked softly.  “It
doesn’t make sense for us all to-”

            “No,
no noooo!” Sam interrupted, and Chloe was secretly glad, because she would not
have been able to wait in the car.  “I’ve got this feeling…like we’re on to
something big…like we’re about to figure it all out.  We’ve been dealing with
this since we came to Birch Harbor and it’s not fair to tell us to just sit it
out now, when we’re so close.  It’s not fair!”

            Seth
still looked miserable, but he didn’t argue.  He followed the old man’s
directions.  Driving at the pace of a blind, geriatric turtle seemed to be his
only means of protesting.  Sam was practically bouncing in the seat next to
her.
            The asylum rose above the trees as they approached, reminding Chloe
of their own dormitory.  Still, it was nothing like she expected.

            For
the briefest moment, Chloe wondered if they had gone back in time.  The asylum
looked new.  The massive yellow-bricked face of the building gleamed as though
it was freshly scrubbed.  The white wooden trim around the roofline looked
bright and freshly painted, higher still, the roofs of several small spires
glowed cherry red against a blue sky.  The grounds were immaculate, fresh and
green with the perfect straight lines of a newly mown lawn.  It was the people
walking around outside that brought Chloe back from her fantasy.  They wore
modern clothes, chatted gaily with one another, rode bicycles, walked dogs.

            “They…they
renovated it?” Sam asked.

            “The
Village at Grand Traverse Commons,” Seth read off a nearby sign.  “Condos,
shops, restaurants…looks nice.  You want to see if there’s somewhere we can go
in and look around?”

            “No,
go around behind…I think behind the building is west.  See if there’s somewhere
we can park,” Chloe decided.

            Seth
pulled around the circle drive and back down the street, making the first right
turn available.  Over the trees, and through gaps in the woods, the girls could
still see the old hospital, a massive, sprawling complex, much larger than
Kirkbride Hall.  Chloe felt very small looking at it.

            “It’s
pretty,” Sam admitted quietly.  “You can really believe that it’s what they
were trying for when you see it look all new like that.  But it’s still…there’s
still something about it…”

            “It’s
intimidating,” Chloe finished for her.  “So pretty and clean, but also so solid
and huge…like a fortress in camouflage.”

            “Yah,”
Sam agreed.

            Seth
parallel parked on the street.  They could still see the hospital through the
trees on one side.  On the other it was nothing but woods.

            “Well?”
he asked.

            “Let’s
do this,” Sam said excitedly, jumping out of the truck.

            Chloe
moved slower, being more aware of Seth’s disapproval.  It felt like a blast of
heat against her back.

            The
group crossed the street and ventured into the woods.  There were no
discernible trails at first, but after a few minutes of walking they saw signs
of recent human traffic.  An empty bottle next to one tree, a wadded up fast
food sandwich wrapper, farther on a ratty old sleeping bag rolled up and
covered by a few branches.  Still, they saw no people and heard no voices or
footsteps.  It was Chloe that found them first, found them by tripping over an
unexpected leg.

            She
screeched and smashed headfirst into a prickly scrub bush.  Next to her, the
culprit leapt up, dropping a newspaper and quickly grabbing her arm and yanking
her back to her feet.  Seth pulled her backwards, putting himself in between
her and the new person.  The young man threw his arms up defensively.

            “Thought
she saw me,” he soothed.  “Wasn’t trying to hurt her, she tripped over me!”

            From
behind Seth, Chloe got a good look at the stranger.  He was young, maybe their
age.  He crossed his arms over a coat that was dirty and frayed, but still
thick and warm.  A dark blue knit cap with long yarn ties hung down on either
side of his lean, tanned face.  When he spoke she noticed a gap or two where
teeth should be.

            “I’m
just sitting here, reading a paper, minding my own business, wasn’t doing
anybody any harm,” the young man continued.  He stopped and looked the three of
them over quickly.  “What are you all doing out here anyways?  You from the
college, or from the condos out there?”  He started to look suspicious.

            “We’re
looking for someone,” Chloe said quickly.  “Somebody named Will Gannon, we
heard he lives out here and we need to find him.”

            “What
do you need to find him for?” the young man asked, scowling now.

            “We
want to buy something he has.  He was going to sell it to an antique shop,
that’s how we heard about it, from the guy that owns the shop.  He didn’t want
it, but we do, and we want to talk to him about it.  We’re…we’re researchers,
from Birch Harbor.  We’re researching the old hospital,” Chloe explained.

            “Ohhh,”
comprehension dawned on the young man’s face, “Sure, I can find old Will.  He’s
the one you want to talk to then.  He knows more about that place than anyone. 
Used to live there.  Got lots of stuff from it too.  He went through it before
the salvage crews even.  Some people like that kind of stuff, I guess.”

            “You
can take us to him?” Sam pushed.

            “I
guess so,” the man turned to lead them on, but stopped and looked back over his
shoulder.  His expression was worried.  “You’re not lying, are you?  You
wouldn’t lie to me, would you?  Will’s sure a good guy, he’s helped me out lots
of times.  It’d be real bad for me if you’re here to get him for something.  If
you’re cops or something…I’d feel pretty bad.  But you’re not lying?”

            Chloe
looked directly into his eyes.  She stepped around Seth and held her hand out
to the young man.

            “We
wouldn’t lie to you.  My name’s Chloe, what’s yours?”

            Strange
that all of a sudden, talking should come so naturally to her, but Chloe knew
this boy.  She didn’t know him personally, of course, but she knew his fears. 
At Woodhaven there were all sorts of patients full of fidgets and quick
sidelong glances.  Mistrust fostered by years of abuse.  It was important to
speak clearly and kindly, to make eye contact, and hold it.

            “Steve,”
he said shaking her hand heartily.  The worried look evaporated as he did. 
“Steve Fleming, from Lansing originally.”

            Steve
Fleming soon forgot he ever had a concern.  Chloe walked beside him, nodding as
he launched into a detailed history of his life.  Sam and Seth followed.  Steve
talked about the people he knew, his childhood home, his dog that had died in
the summer, his problems with the government, his theory that people were all
basically pieces of the same giant field of energy, and his little brother who
played football and was going to get a scholarship and go out-of-state.  He
talked and talked, breaking only when he ran out of air.  Chloe recognized in
him a person who had spent too much time alone, thinking.  It was probably a
great relief for him to be able to siphon off some of his thoughts.  Sometimes
she was sure he was a very normal man who just seemed to wear the fact that he
was very lonely on his sleeve.  At other times, she had a feeling that he might
have seen the inside of a psych ward himself once or twice.  He was
unflinchingly honest, about everything…a fact that probably argued for the case
that he may have been mentally unstable.

            They
passed a few other people.  A couple of older men sitting on battered wooden
lawn chairs near a tent, and a wizened middle-aged woman who glanced
distrustfully in their direction as she made repairs with cardboard to
something that looked like a teepee made out of scrap metal, salvaged wood and
sticks.

            During
one of Steve’s short breaks for air, Sam took an opportunity to pipe up.