Asylum Lake Read online

  After a short while something began to happen. The caterpillar began to change. Two brightly colored wings sprang forth from its body and the caterpillar became a beautiful butterfly. It never imagined that this could have happened. The caterpillar had believed its journey along the valley floor and then to the heights of the giant Oak were all that awaited him in life. It thought it would remain a caterpillar forever.

  Spreading its wings, it flew back and forth above the valley. It could see the other caterpillars in the tall grass below but the bright sun and clouds above kept him from their view. The butterfly realized there was no way it could return to its brethren in the grass and that those below would never recognize such a beautiful creature as ever having been one of them.

  Like the beautiful butterfly that flutters in the breeze above its brethren on the valley floor, those that the Lord Our God has called to his bosom patiently wait and watch over us until the day we, too, ascend to the heavens upon wings of our own.

  A short while later with the words of Reverend Collins warming their fragile spirits, those gathered to celebrate the lives of the recently departed Reed family filed out of the small church and into the crisp November air. Their tears and condolences would continue at the cemetery. Among the mourners, and nearly unrecognizable without his uniform, stood Acting Sheriff, Frank Griggs.

  He had spent the better part of the funeral service looking for guilt, as if the word murderer would be tattooed on somebody’s forehead. But instead, he found himself struck by an odd little man in a black suit and his apparent fascination with the one person who held the answers, yet for now remained silent.

  Sheriff Buck Tanner had nothing but time on his hands and found himself putting it to use contemplating one of life’s greatest mysteries; why do bad things happen to good people? While he wasn’t what you would call a religious man, he did believe in a certain natural order to the universe, good things happened to good people and so on. That’s what made it so difficult for him to wrap his head around why such a sleepy little town, by and large comprised of honest law-abiding citizens, could be such a magnet for brutality.

  Long before his days in law enforcement, Tanner had seen his share of violence and death. As a young seaman he had watched from the deck of the USS Nevada as the Japanese pummeled the unsuspecting US fleet at Pearl Harbor. The battleship had been struck by at least one torpedo and six bombs before being beached shortly after it got underway to join the battle. The site of the charred bodies floating on the blood-red sea amid the twisted wreckage of the Pacific Fleet still haunted him.

  And now, just under a month shy from the thirty-year anniversary of that fateful day, the cold hand of death had reached for him once again. The doctors had told him how lucky he was both then and now. He survived Pearl Harbor with two broken and badly burned legs, among a variety of other less serious injuries, and would surely have drowned if not for the actions of his shipmates. As for the recent events and his bandaged head; the pain only reminded him that he was alive. If this is what it meant to be lucky then he could only hope that some of it had rubbed off on his son.

  The good news; Johnny’s condition had greatly improved. Of the twenty-three stab wounds throughout his upper body and face, the vast majority were shallow punctures. The most severe of them, however, had proven almost lethal, missing his heart by mere centimeters. According to the doctors, the viciousness of that initial attack probably saved John’s life. The wound was very deep and its location and angle caused the blade to wedge between his ribs. Although it had punctured his left lung, the fact that the blade had broken off during the attack had actually helped prevent major blood loss.

  The bad news; the tumble down the basement stairs had left the young deputy with, among a variety of other injuries, a fractured skull. Doctors will tell you that the first twenty-four hours after any type of serious head injury are the most critical. Based on how a patient responds to certain stimuli doctors can place fairly accurate percentages on their chances for recovery. Some patients, however, remain completely unpredictable. Deputy John Tanner fell squarely into the latter category.

  Buck wasn’t a patient man, but the doctors and nurses had assured him that time was indeed his son’s best friend. As the hours slipped into days, the guilt of arriving too late, at what they were now referring to as “the death house” weighed heavily on him. His broad shoulders slumped beneath the burden as he kept his bedside vigil.

  He did find comfort in the fact that Laura wasn’t here to see their son bandaged and broken. Just this past summer Buck had come home for a quick bite at lunch to find his bride of more than twenty-five years stretched out in the garden beneath her rose bushes. For most of that afternoon he sat in the garden, holding her in his arms for what would be the last time, and cried. He imagined her singing Patsy Kline beneath her wide brimmed gardening hat with the late morning sun warming her arthritic bones when the clot finally made its way to her brain. Stroke, the doctors had explained, all completely painless and quite sudden. His luck, it seemed, hadn’t rubbed off on Laura.

  Making his way from his bedside roost, he moved to the window and looked out across the city. Under any other circumstance the view of dawn breaking over the skyline of Michigan’s second largest city would be worth noting, yet Buck paid little attention. His quarry wasn’t on the streets of Grand Rapids; of that he was sure. Beyond that certainty, however, were endless unanswered questions.

  As he retraced the events of the past several days, his tired mind kept returning to a solitary word scrawled in blood and the realization that within those six letters was the answer.

  After re-cataloging his thoughts for the thousandth time, the dots finally connected and a cold fist of fear closed itself around his insides. Buck struggled to remember the details, closing his eyes to the searing pain in his temples.

  It was 1958 and he was still fairly new to the department. He was at home when the call came in from the Sheriff. “Grab your camera and get your ass out to the Lake Hospital.”

  Buck had retrieved his Kodak Brownie and all the film he had from the hall closet and raced to the asylum, leaving an untouched meatloaf and his wife and young son at the dinner table. Although frustrated by the sound of his growling stomach, its emptiness would soon prove to be a blessing.

  The faded memory flared to life inside his head in a series of black and white crime scene photos. From the lifeless bodies that littered the hallways and rooms to the blood-spattered walls and floors, each image was more grotesque than the last. With a final lurch, his racing mind settled on the final image. Traced in blood on a cinder-block wall deep in the bowels of the building, was a single word - REPENT. Was it a plea for forgiveness or a call for revenge?

  Two brutal crimes, separated by less than ten miles but occurring more than a decade apart were connected by a single word written in blood. Standing at the hospital window, awash in the warmth of the morning sun, Sheriff Buck Tanner turned his gaze from the streets below to the bed that cradled his injured son and worried at the possibilities.

  Only two minutes into the press conference and Acting Sheriff Frank Griggs already needed to change his shirt. The harsh lighting from the assembled cameras was searing, leaving the rattled deputy slick with sweat. It ran down his back and legs, leaving a soggy mess inside his steel-toed boots.

  “Deputy Griggs, Ken Ritz from KATV-41 in Lansing; what can you tell us about the wounds inflicted on the victims? Were they, as some are reporting, consistent with satanic rituals?”Ritz was tall and handsome with perfectly coiffed hair and a near blinding smile that positively gleamed beneath the lights and flashbulbs.

  The question, although not unexpected, seemed to catch everyone more than a little off-guard. It was greeted with an uncomfortable silence as Griggs glared from behind the small wooden podium.

  “Contrary to certain reports, there is no evidence of occult activity.” Griggs delivered the answer exactly as he had practiced and just as Sheriff Tanner instruct
ed. It was clear to everyone present just what the local law enforcement thought of KATV’s unconfirmed reports of devil worshippers running amuck in the backwoods of northern Michigan.

  Ritz countered quickly. “With all due respect deputy…what would you call the dismemberment and mutilation of the victim’s bodies, removal of their organs, and,” Ritz paused for dramatic effect, “the inscription of religious symbols in blood; if not evidence of something satanic in nature?”

  The reporter’s smile widened in satisfaction as the reality of the bombshell he had just dropped settled over the room. The blood-scrawled message was one of the details not released by police. Someone, it seemed, was talking out of school.

  Griggs’s gaze moved from the smiling reporter and settled on the face of Lieutenant Jim Bowling of the Michigan State Police. Dressed in the standard issue blue uniform and cap, the trooper leaned casually against the wall chewing on the stub of a very fat cigar. Bowling’s views on Bedlam’s finest were well known and the fact that Buck Tanner had retained jurisdiction had caused quite the shit storm between here and the state capital. He smiled at Griggs from beneath his mirrored sunglasses, dropped the still smoking cigar at his feet, and walked from the room, leaving the deputy with yet another mess to clean up.

  Griggs turned his attention back to Ritz and continued. “This investigation goes where the evidence leads. And right now, there is no evidence of any occult or religious intent to these murders.” Griggs paused to collect his thoughts, his thick knuckles whitening as he gripped the podium. “As for what the wounds tell me about these crimes…it tells me there’s a sick son of a bitch out there somewhere and with all due respect, I’ve got work to do.”

  Griggs stepped from the podium amidst a chorus of shouts and questions and made his way through the sea of reporters. Ritz moved forward to block the deputy’s retreat. “You can’t run from the truth, deputy. Your sick son of a bitch theory, while quaint, isn’t getting anybody any closer to catching those responsible; and more importantly, might just end up getting more people hurt!”

  And then, smirking one last time at the sweating deputy, Ritz turned to the rolling cameras, “In the meantime, rest assured KATV’s investigation will continue. Tune in tonight at 11:00 for the latest.”

  Twenty minutes later, and with a fresh shirt neatly tucked into his brown uniform pants, Griggs was back at work sifting through the latest reports from the lab. The boys from the state had done a fairly thorough job with the crime-scene, and now, less than a week later, had everything organized into a tabbed three-ring binder complete with glossy photos

  As much as the reports revealed, at just over 1,100 neatly typed pages it was quite a lot, and investigators were still left with far more questions than answers. The chief among them was how and why did young Lionel Collins was able to escape from that house of horrors unscathed?

  However, the techs had come through with a handful of interesting details. Joanna Reed was very much alive when the hacksaw took her limbs. Thankfully, the twin’s gruesome injuries were all post-mortem, having both been suffocated in their sleep before being dismembered in their cribs. And, finally, the suspect was small in stature, as evidenced by the angle of the wounds inflicted on Ken Reed, yet also strong enough to drag the lifeless body of Deputy Tanner from one end of the house to the other. Most assuredly, however, the devil was buried somewhere in the details.

  Griggs tossed the binder on the desk where it landed atop a pile of newspapers. Press coverage of the investigation hadn't been kind. Although not all the reporting had labeled the acting Sheriff as Barney Fife revisited. Most, if not all, were questioning the lack of any sort of official progress by law enforcement.

  This investigative paralysis was more about where the evidence was leading than not having any evidence to work with The house was thick with prints, footprints, blood spatter, and other items which lay neatly presented in that damn binder; two reams of paper, at nearly five pounds in weight and all pointing in the one direction that nobody dared to look. Griggs’s stare burned through its cover.

  The ringing phone on the other side of the door reminded him of what a shitty day he had to look forward to. As if the torture of the press conference weren’t enough, everybody and their brother was now calling to share suspicions, ask questions, and basically make the acting Sheriff’s life a living hell. Fortunately, Maggie was doing her best to run interference. There was a small list of names that had access to him now. Frank considered scratching Jim Bowling’s name from it but thought better of the idea.

  “Frank,” Maggie’s voice echoed through the tinny-sounding intercom on his desk, “Sheriff’s on the line.”

  “Thanks, love.” The couple had dropped the formalities with both of the Tanner men out of the office. It would prove interesting once the Sheriff returned. Frank was hopeful for good news when he continued. “Put him right through.”

  Their conversation was brief and somewhat confusing for the young deputy. Using a dull pencil, Frank scratched notes onto a nearby piece of paper. A few short minutes later, Frank replaced the telephone receiver onto its cradle knowing little more than he had before picking it up. He scanned his chicken scratched notes trying to piece together some kind of meaning. Johnny’s prognosis hadn’t changed. Buck hadn’t shared whether this was a good sign or bad, and, as usual, Buck was limited with details and Frank knew from experience not to pepper the Sheriff with questions; simple “yes” and “no” responses were the elder law-man’s preference.

  His first act was to get Maggie down into the file room in the basement. The Sheriff demanded her full attention on an odd scavenger hunt for files from a crime committed more than a decade previous. Again, Frank thought better of asking the “whys” and “what for’s” at this request.

  Frank rose to his feet and for the first time since throwing himself into the Sheriff’s cruiser a week before let out a big sigh of relief. Sheriff Buck Tanner was back. He wasn’t sure what had changed but had the gut feeling that things were about to get interesting.

  After only three minutes on the phone with the man, Griggs knew beyond a doubt that Buck Tanner sounded much more like himself; hard, determined, and pissed off at the world. And most importantly…was coming home.

  From left to right across the AM dial, news of the homicides lit up the radio. Buck listened as he drove, the high beams from his old Ford slicing through the inky blackness of the northern Michigan night.

  By day, autumn in northern Michigan was a lazy affair filled with color; trees showing and shedding their multicolored leaves for tourists, who in turn opened their wallets for eager shopkeepers. By sunset, with tourists packed safely into their cars, the warm fall colors were swapped out for long shadows that stretched eerily from the breeze-blown trees hanging over the winding roads and empty fields.

  Buck passed beneath Bedlam’s lone stoplight shortly after midnight. Snowflakes the size of quarters fell lazily across the windshield of his pickup as his tired eyes surveyed the deserted sidewalks and storefronts. He resisted the temptation to swing by the station and instead steered towards the lake…and home.

  A short while later the sound of the crushed gravel road beneath the truck’s oversized tires gave way to the dirt of his driveway. The flurries had stopped and the clearing clouds overhead brought a dramatic dip in temperatures; from just above freezing when he left Grand Rapids to down in the teens as he walked down the path towards the house. He paused briefly at the front door before dropping his bag and then continued walking down the path along the side of the house towards the lake.

  The breeze grew stronger as Buck neared the water. He kicked his way through a maze of fallen leaves and branches that littered the pathway and yard. Stopping at the enormous maple that hugged the house and marked the path to the lake, he leaned his weary frame against the tree and drew in a deep breath of cold air. The slow exhale rattled from his throat in a puff of crisp white air.

  Buck settled his gaze on the darkened asylum
in the distance. From its hilltop perch on the far shore the remote hospital seemed small and altogether unimpressive.

  Buck knew better, however. Surrounded by acres of farmland, the hospital had actually been a community onto itself. Small cottages and stately homes were spread across orchards, farms, and fields. All told, more than 5,500 unfortunate souls had passed through its doors since they first opened in 1917.

  At its prime, the Lake View Asylum for the Insane housed more than seven hundred patients and eighty staff. Together, they farmed, raised livestock, and even gave the Amish a run for their money in the furniture making business. Hell, there wasn’t a house in all of Bedlam County – or for miles beyond – that didn’t have a table, headboard or other wooden furnishing stamped with the Lake View Furniture company logo. It seemed to make people feel good to have these pieces in their homes, as if they had helped those “poor patients,” having no idea of the reality that they’d been crafted by some of the most dangerous, damaged, and genuinely sick people to ever walk the earth.

  Yet standing on the shore, Buck’s mind wasn’t racing with thoughts of farms, furniture or even his injured son. Instead, the reports of desecrated graves had him wondering about the hundreds of small wooden crosses that dotted the rolling hills surrounding the hospital. He recalled driving through the iron gates and seeing those grave-markers; even pausing to snap a few photos Upon reflection, he now could see an odd dichotomy; the serenity of the white crosses against the peaceful backdrop of the lush green hills mixed with the bloodshed he had captured on a half dozen rolls of film inside the disturbing confines of the hospital’s inner-most chambers.