Ghouls of the Miskatonic (The Dark Waters Trilogy) (24 page)

Kate ran toward the iron door and mashed the locking button that released the magnetic catches that secured it. Nothing happened for a maddening second, but at last the light above the door flashed and she hauled it open. Another sound wave battered her, hurling her through the door and sending her sprawling to the tiled floor.

She rolled onto her back as incandescent radiance spilled from the door, bathing the corridor in bleaching white light. The noise was incredible, a repeating sound wave of low frequency energy almost beyond the threshold of hearing. Kate scrambled to her feet and hauled the iron door to the laboratory shut as a final pulse surged from the device and destroyed the laboratory.

* * *

“You heard from Stone?” asked Minnie, placing a sheaf of photographs on Rex’s desk and pulling up a chair to sit next to him. Rex looked up from his typewriter and nodded.

“Yeah,” he said, aware that he still had to tread carefully around Minnie. “He says he’ll meet us tomorrow at Lucy’s, fill us in on what he got from the archives.”

Rex rubbed the heel of his palm against his forehead as a sudden spike of pain filled his head. He still felt rough from their trip to the Commercial, far worse than if he’d been drunk, and he was feeling the after effects even now.

“What about your source? You get anything from your guy in the cops?” he asked.

“Nope,” she said. “I’ve not heard squat. Face it, Rex: we’ve hit dead ends all round, and you know Harvey’s going to be looking for something juicy or our backsides are out the door.”

Rex lit a cigarette and gestured to his typewriter. “I know. There’s only so many ways I can spin this to read like I got something to say.”

“How you pitching it?”

“Moral high ground stuff, public outrage. You know, good girls undone by drink and drugs,” said Rex. “I don’t know what Rufus is putting in his drinks, but it’s crazy stuff. Get girls drunk like that and who knows what’s going to happen.”

“Still think he spiked you?” said Minnie with a sly grin.

“You’re damn right I do,” said Rex. “Sure I like a drink, who doesn’t in this town? But no way would I get that messed up after a few martinis.”

“Oh I don’t know, I’ve seen you pretty drunk. Remember that time you tried to prove you could jump the fence around Independence Square and caught your pants on the spikes? I wish I’d had my camera on me that night to catch your full moon.”

“Very funny, doll face,” said Rex. “I would have made it if I’d had a better run up.”

“Regardless of your lack of athletic prowess, I’ve just got these back from the lab,” said Minnie, tapping the photos. “Not much, but maybe enough to keep Harvey off our back.”

Rex flipped through the pictures noting images of the original crime scene, the Commercial (including one of his face), and the university campus. One showed a professor-type in front of a modern-fronted brick building talking to some lowlife with a cloth bundle held out before him. Rex didn’t know them, but it looked pretty shady.

“Who are these guys?” he asked.

“The guy in the suit is Professor Oliver Grayson,” said Minnie.

Rex looked up and nodded appreciatively. “Good work, girlie. And the other guy? He doesn’t look like someone a professor ought to be hanging around with.”

Minnie smiled. “He isn’t. I showed his mug around to some people I know in low places and I got a name. Finn Edwards.”

“Never heard of him,” said Rex. “Should I have?”

Minnie shook her head and rubbed her temple, like she too was suffering from a mild headache. “Not unless you’re involved in bootlegging. He’s low-level, a foot soldier for one of the Arkham gangs. Basically, he’s a goon for hire who’s handy with a pistol and fists, and none too shy about using them. Not too smart, but not too dumb either, I’m told.”

“He got a record?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” said Minnie, dropping a carbon-stained arrest sheet in Rex’s lap. “Mostly misdemeanors: petty theft, assault, disorderly conduct, drug possession, and one count of public indecency where he pulled his pants down on St. Patrick’s Day.”

“Sounds like a character, right enough,” said Rex. “What’s he doing with Grayson?”

“I don’t know, but Grayson looked like a spooked deer when Edwards spoke to him.”

“Like he’s got something to hide?”

“Could be,” agreed Minnie.

Rex leaned over and planted a kiss on Minnie’s cheek. “Damn, you’re good.”

“I know,” said Minnie, reaching up to touch her face. “Remember to tell Harvey that when we talk pay raise.”

A shadow fell over the pair of them and Rex looked up to see Harvey Gedney looking down at them. For a moment, Rex feared Harvey had learned of Stone’s intrusion to the building to search the back issues, but one look at the anger in the editor’s face told him this was something far worse.

“Hey, Harvey,” said Rex, keeping his tone light. “What’s the good word?”

“Good word?” thundered Harvey. The editor-in-chief of the
Advertiser
was a florid-faced forty-two-year-old, with a face forever pulled in a grimace like he was passing a continuous string of kidney stones. His suit was permanently rumpled, and he liked to project an aggressive image that was reflected in the inquisitive nature of his reporters.

Harvey slammed a folded newspaper down on the desk, scattering Minnie’s pictures and spilling some of Rex’s coffee. “How in the hell did Peck get the jump on you? I thought you were all over this? Damn it, Rex, I let you run with this one, but by God, if Peck’s humbugged us, I’ll throw your ass out the door so fast your head will spin.”

Rex picked up the paper. It was a copy of the
Arkham Gazette
, the
Advertiser
’s only rival for news in this town. Where the
Advertiser
was bullish and asked awkward questions, the
Gazette
was a local newspaper in every sense of the term. Its managing editor, Willard Peck, usually only ever printed items filed by county correspondents concerning town and valley events. The
Gazette
did little to ruffle local feathers and hardly ever reported international events.

Which made the front page of tomorrow’s edition all the more surprising.

Rex took one look at the headline and his mouth fell open with a shocked gasp.

“Peck printed this?” he said.

“He will,” snapped Harvey. “It’s tomorrow’s first edition.”

“What’s it say?” asked Minnie, alternating between looking at Rex and Harvey.

Rex laid the paper out on his desk for Minnie to read the headline:

GRUESOME DISCOVERY UNDER GARRISON STREET BRIDGE HORRIFIES ARKHAM!

Anonymous Tipster Leads Police to Charnel House of Dead Bodies Beneath Bridge.

Garrison Street Sealed Off as Hunt for Savage Killer Intensifies.

At Least Ten Bodies Found.

Terror Seizes the Streets of Arkham!

“Tell me you have something on this,” said Harvey. “I’ll not have that odious little shit, Peck, trumping me on something this big.”

“We got some leads, yeah,” said Rex, stalling for time. “We’re working with an outside informant that looks promising.”

“Looks promising?” barked Harvey. “I don’t care about promising, I want results! You’ve been working that dead girl on the athletics field for days now, and you’ve got nothing to show for it. Now get your asses up there and find an angle on this or so help me God, you’ll never work in Massachusetts again. By the time I’m done with you, you’ll be lucky to wind up covering county fairs for the
Weekly Iowegian
.”

Rex held his hands up, as if to ward off Harvey’s anger.

“I know this looks bad, but you got to trust me, Harvey. We’re on to something big.”

“Your ‘informant’ tell you that?” demanded Harvey. “Who is he anyway?”

Rex looked at Minnie, who gave him an almost imperceptible nod. She was right, there was a time for cleverness, and this was most definitely not it.

“It’s a Pinkerton agent,” said Rex. “The girl at the athletics field was his daughter.”

“A Pinkerton’s daughter?” said Harvey. “That’s a good angle. And you say there are leads? What kind of leads?”

“We need to do a bit more digging, but it could be big, Harvey,” said Rex, tapping the front page of the
Gazette
. “Bigger than this. Turns out there might be a lot more bodies than even the cops know about under the bridge. There are links to the university and one of its professors, and we’ve just gotten word that there’s a link to illegal bootlegging, too. Just give us a little longer and I swear we can break this wide open.”

Rex hated giving away his story before he’d even written it or, for that matter, figured out if there even was a story. He was taking a big gamble by pitching to Harvey like this, but he had a gut feeling that this was going to be the big one, the one that got him a Pulitzer.

He could see it was working. The idea that the
Advertiser
might break a story even bigger than the one in tomorrow’s
Gazette
appealed to Harvey’s one-upmanship with Willard Peck.

Harvey tapped the newspaper on the desk and locked his gaze with Rex.

“Break it open in the next week, or you’re history,” said Harvey.

* * *

Oliver wrapped his scarf around his neck and marched toward the steps of Arkham Asylum, bending against the cold wind and holding his hat tight to his head. Though it had taken him longer than he would have liked to answer Dr. Hardstrom’s summons, Oliver had finally managed to find the time to drive to the northern edge of town to meet with the institution’s senior physician.

He was admitted to the building with his customary awkwardness, the orderlies eyeing him with suspicious glances that made Oliver think they were getting ready to subdue him and carry him to his own cell. The thought had occurred to him before, of course, but in his current mental state, it seemed a much greater possibility.

Monroe gave him a particularly evil stare, one that Oliver could not return. He didn’t think he had offended the man. Or was it simply his association with Henry that engendered such hostility? Could his old friend’s behavior have become so troublesome that merely knowing him brought disapproving stares?

At length, Dr. Hardstrom appeared from one of the side corridors, accompanied by a nurse with pale skin, dark eyes, and brown hair pinned in a tight bun. She gave him a crooked glance that seemed to say
I know the things you know
…

Oliver blinked and the moment passed. The nurse was simply giving him a polite smile of welcome as she returned to the reception desk. He smiled weakly, feeling foolish for giving in to such paranoia. Dr. Hardstrom held a hand out to him, and it took Oliver a moment to recognize the gesture for what it was.

He shook Hardstrom’s hand as he fought to get a grip on his nerves. His mental stability was always threatened whenever he came to the asylum, but with all that he had recently learned, it was especially off-kilter.

“Professor Grayson,” said Dr. Hardstrom. “Good of you to come at last.”

“Yes, sorry it’s taken me so long,” said Oliver, catching the implied criticism of his delay. “Work at the university, you know how it is.”

“Of course, if you’d like to follow me,” replied Hardstrom, leading him deeper into the building. Monroe led the way, unlocking doors before them and sealing them again in their wake. Oliver had never been to this part of the asylum, its bare walls dark and pressing in like the walls of the trap chambers rumored to exist in the pyramids. Anonymous paintings hung like gallows victims in their frames and the dreary subject matter seemed calculated to drive anyone who saw them into a fit of depression.

They passed no one as they walked, and the only sound was the sharp tap-tap of their heels, the clang of metal doors closing behind them, and the wind rattling the panes of the windows. They might be all alone in this vast building for all Oliver knew.

Hardstrom stopped before a nondescript door of bare metal and gestured for Monroe to unlock it. From the nature of the keys required to open its thickness, Oliver guessed this was not the office of the good doctor.

“If you please,” said Hardstrom.

“Of course,” said Oliver, entering a good-sized room of gleaming ceramic tiles of antiseptic white. Banks of machinery stood against one wall, while a number of beds lined the other. A single nurse stood by the only occupied bed, and Oliver did a double-take as he recognized her as the one he’d seen at the reception desk, but surely it could not be her. She hadn’t accompanied them...but perhaps there was another way to this part of the asylum.

Henry Cartwright was secured to the bed by heavy leather straps, his eyes glassy and unfocused as he drooled a steady stream of saliva onto the sheets. Oliver felt monstrously guilty for having left his old friend to the none-too-tender mercies of the asylum staff.

“Good God,” said Oliver. “Is all this really necessary?”

“I am afraid it is,” said Hardstrom, moving past Oliver to stand beside Henry’s bed. “Your friend has become rather more agitated of late. He has become violent to himself and others, and raves of things I shall not repeat in the presence of a lady.”

Oliver looked into Henry’s eyes, and recoiled from the ghastly horror of their depths. Knowing now a measure of Henry’s past, he saw the anguish of too much knowledge and the fear of what lay beyond the common understanding of men. Oliver’s fear that he too might end up in the care of this institution was doubled at the sight of Henry. Secrets to which his friend had become privy during the war were now Oliver’s to bear. His sanity was already cracking under the strain. How much longer would it take before he was strapped to a bed and drooling into his pillow?

“I thought you didn’t use restraints here,” said Oliver.

“Normally we don’t,” agreed Hardstrom, “but I am afraid Henry’s physical outbursts became too violent and sustained to be adequately controlled by pharmaceutical means. This was the only way to prevent him from hurting himself.”