Page 21 of No Quarter

Valerie saw that Charlie was done with the formalities. He wanted to move forward with the investigation, and so did she.

Charlie stepped forward without saying anything and moved some of the police tape so he could continue down the corridor.

He walked up to a door with the number 43 on it. Police tape had sealed up the door along its hinges and frame. Charlie pulled the tape back.

Valerie and the others looked on.

“I take it this is where the victim was found?” asked Charlie, loudly.

“I’m afraid so,” Doctor Whitmore said.

“Did you know the victim?” Valerie asked, turning to the doctor.

“As senior psychiatrist, I don’t get to spend as much time with the patients as I would like to, but I make sure to be on speaking terms with each of them, checking in every week or so. I’ve known poor Gillian for some time. This was the third time she’s been here at Elmwood.”

“A repeating pattern of breakdowns?” Will asked.

“Yes,” Doctor Whitmore replied. “We have made real progress. But she had this running delusion about people being demoniacally possessed. She used to think she would see them around her. The descriptions were quite frightening.”

“Schizophrenia?” Valerie asked.

“Indeed,” said Doctor Whitmore.

“Did she have any delusional fixations with patients?” Valerie asked.

“What do you mean?” Doctor Whitmore asked.

“Was there anyone in the hospital that she spoke of? Someone she may have labeled as a demon?” Valerie was pondering whether Gillian Pugh could have somehow engaged with the person who had killed her, perhaps even on a regular basis.

“As I said,” Doctor Whitmore answered. “I’m not as intimately familiar with each patient’s case history. You’d have to ask Doctor Winters. She oversaw most of Gillian’s treatments.”

Winters. That name sounded familiar, but Valerie couldn’t quite place it.

“It’s not a comfortable thought,” Will asked. “But is there anyoneyoususpect might be the murderer? A patient perhaps that you are worried about? Someone with a violent history or perhaps even murderous fantasies?”

“Unfortunately, we have several patients with violent histories.” He scratched his chin deep in thought. “I can ask the Board here at Elmwood to give you a list of names, and of course, we’ll give you the freedom to interview anyone you want. All I ask is that you go easy on some of the patients. Some of them have very fragile mental states, for the moment at least.”

“We’ll be careful,” Charlie said loudly from along the hall. With a tear, he finally got rid of the last of the police tape from the door. Turning the handle, Charlie stepped inside, disappearing from view.

Valerie, Will, and Doctor Whitmore walked down the hallway and soon joined him.

Entering the room, Valerie got a chill up her back.

She’d entered far too many rooms in psychiatric hospitals. This one, with its cozy armchair and bookcase and little table that sat underneath the window … all of it was too homely for Valerie to take.

It was just like Suzie’s room.

She looked at the bed. It had been stripped completely of bedclothes, straight down to the mattress.

Valerie pulled out the file Jackson had given her from her handbag. She opened it up and took out a few photographs, each one depicting the state of the victim after the killer had been done with her.

She handed out copies to Will and Charlie.

Doctor Whitmore also glanced at them, and then padded his brow. “Poor girl,” he said under his breath. “We’ve got to stop this animal.”

Valerie could feel the doctor’s pain. He was dismayed by what had happened to her. It seemed like a point of personal pride now for the killer to be caught. He wanted the killer behind bars as much as any of them.

“I will do anything to help you if I can,” he said. “I don’t normally talk this way about people with mental aberrations. But whoever did this, he’s inhuman.”

---