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  “Sleep,” I thought, closing my eyes and leaning my head against the concrete at the end of the bridge. “Sleep. Then comes peace and quiet. Peace and quiet.” The thought trailing off as something began to irritate me pulling me back to consciousness.

  “Hey, Mister!” the voice said, sounding very distant. I did not want to pay attention to its nagging tone. I just wanted to be left alone in the quiet.

  “Hey, Mister! Wake up, man. Come on, wake up!” the voice continued more insistently and urgently.

  “What the hell happened to you? You’ve been in the river! Did you miss the bridge and drive over the edge?” The questions and statements rained down in my head like a thunderstorm pounding against my skull. I began to come around as hands lifted me up onto my feet and started to guide me to a waiting car.

  “Shit, man!” one of the voices said. “This guys a cop! Look at his uniform. What’s the badge say on his jacket?”

  Another voice responding said, “Chief of Pol….He’s the friggin’ Chief of Police in Sutton! Oh man! This is big! This is really big! Let’s get him out to the main road and call the Staties. They can meet us at Cumbies on Route 9.”

  The kid in the passenger’s seat pulled out his cell phone and punched in 911.

  I could feel the heat inside the car as they slid me onto the back seat, letting me fall onto my side. Hearing the excitement in their conversation but not understanding what they were saying, I managed to say Kim and Derek’s names with the words…“need help.” Somewhere between reality and the unbridled confusion in my head I was battling my way back. I had to help my officers – my friends.

  66

  Kim and Derek completed their search of the garages soon after I dropped off their coffees.

  “No white van hidden in any of the spaces covered with a tarp like you read about in the crime novels,” Derek thought to himself as they walked further down the road to search the next few buildings on their agenda.

  “Won’t be long ’til our replacements arrive,” Kim said looking down at her watch and then at the map she was using as her guide. “That hot shower will feel good tonight after rummaging through these old buildings all evening.”

  “I wonder if the Chief will send some of our people, or if he was able to get through to Ken Garber for some extra help?” Derek replied. “Why don’t you call the station and ask Todd what’s goin’ on?”

  “I think I’ll wait awhile before I do that. I don’t want the Chief thinking I’m checkingup on him, even if that is exactly what I would be doing. We’ve got some time before they should be here anyway. Let’s search these next three buildings, and if we haven’t seen anyone by then, I’ll give him a shout,” Kim said folding the map and putting it into her jacket pocket.

  The next three buildings contained doctor’s offices and their quarters. Although closed for over two years, some efforts were being taken to maintain these buildings for someprobable use in the near future. The floors were being washed and waxed; furniture anditems in the rooms were being cleaned and dusted and the windows were clean as well. Curtains in the windows all looked recently washed and ironed. “Why spend the money now to keep these buildings clean?” Kim thought. “Why not clean them just before youuse them again? Doesn’t make sense to me to spend money where you don’t need to.What the hell do I know? I’m just a common sense mother of two.” After another forty-five minutes, Kim and Derek checked these buildings off on their map as “clear.”

  There were four more buildings listed on the map that still needed to be searched. Three were on the west side of the property line and the fourth was on the north east end of the property. All four of these buildings were a considerable distance from the main facility and would require driving to get to them. Both Kim and Derek were hoping their replacements would arrive to take over the search, but as they walked back to their cruiser, no one was there to meet them.

  “I’m going to give Todd that call no,.” Kim said pulling out her cell phone and speed-dialing the police station.

  “Hey, Todd. Kim here. Have you heard from the Chief? He was supposed to get in touch with Ken Garber in Auburn to ask if the Staties would send us some help here in Westborough to finish searching these buildings.” Kim listened intently to Todd’s response. “You haven’t heard anything from him? When was the last time you talked with him?” she asked with a curious look on her face. Looking over at Derek, Kim shrugged her shoulders indicating that she had no idea what the hell was going on. “Okay, listen.

  Try to raise him on the dispatch radio. If you can’t get in touch with him, give Ken Garber a call to see if the Chief has been in touch with him. Derek and I will stay put until we hear back from you. Put a hustle on it Todd, my woman’s intuition alarm is starting to go off.”

  “It’s not like the Chief to just drop out like this,” Kim said looking at Derek as they leaned against the cruiser, the chill of the winter’s night creeping into their uniforms. “It should only have taken him twenty minutes to get back to the station after he left us. Even if he went home first to take a shower, he would have put that call into Garber over in Auburn.”

  “I think we’re worrying too much, Kim. The Chief can take care of himself. He probably got caught up doing something else and hasn’t had time to make the call. He has Christine’s and Jerry’s services on his mind, too; don’t forget. He’ll be calling us back in a few apologizing for screwing up.”

  “You’re probably right. Well, how do you want to handle this? We have four buildings on this map left to search, and naturally, they are all located on the farthest ends of the property. What do you say? Let’s drive over to that one on the northeast corner and check it out. By the time Todd calls us back, we can be over there and cross that one off of our list too.”

  “O.K.. Let’s get it done.”

  Kim walked around to the passenger’s door and they both got into the cruiser. Derek pulled out onto Route 9 and drove east about three quarters of a mile before cutting across traffic onto the secondary road leading to the northern boundary of the hospital’s property.

  It only took three or four minutes to drive to the access road leading to the lone building they needed to search. If they tried to walk across the property it would have taken them twenty to thirty minutes, not including time spent falling on the slippery, icy grass. Once they were onto the actual access road, Kim said, “Holy Shit Derek. Can you imagine being out here all the time? This place is scary as hell! There’s no freakin’ lights out here! Great place to go parkin’ if you’re a teenager though” she laughed a little, but still felt un- easy trying to see into the impenetrable darkness through the window of the cruiser’s door.

  The cruiser’s headlights picked up the partially hidden doors of the garage as they pulled up in front of the subterranean building. Off to the left of the garage doors was the main door to the building proper. Derek used the probe light on the cruiser to look the area over before shutting off the engine and opening the door. Kim’s door opened at the same time and both officers stood with one foot on the ground and one foot still inside the cruiser. Neither wanted to commit fully to searching this building, but both knew that this is exactly what they were there to do.

  Kim was just about to tell Derek they needed to get a move on when her cell phone started to ring. Looking at the phone’s screen she saw it was Todd returning her call.

  “Todd, what’s up, what did you find out?” Kim asked hoping for a positive response.

  “The Chief never called Ken Garber. He said there was no request called in by anyone asking for help to search the hospital over in Westborough. I’ve tried calling him on his cell phone, on his two-way and on the dispatch radio. No response, Kim, nothing at all.”

  “Okay, Todd. Derek and I have to spend the next few minutes searching a building over here at the hospital. We really can’t leave here until all of these buildings have been searched. I
f Marty McMaster is here, we have to try to find her before it’s too late. Listen. Call the Chief’s wife and ask her if she has heard anything from him. See if she can give us a lead on his whereabouts. This is getting strange, very strange. Call us back right away after you have talked with Peggy.”

  She put her phone in her pocket, looked at Derek, and motioned for him to use the master key to unlock the door so they could begin their search. The door made no sound as it rotated on its heavy duty hinges, hinges designed to prevent vandalism and break-ins.

  Derek stepped into the building first, using his flashlight to locate the wall switch for the overhead lights. Finding the switch, he reached over and flipped it upward expecting the lights to go on and illuminate the building. The lights did not go on. Turning to Kim, he asked, “They did say there was electricity being used in this building, didn’t they?”

  “Yeah. The building is circled on the map as one of the nine using power. Must be a circuit breaker that popped,” She replied. “Let’s see if we can find the main box and get these damned lights on. It’s creepy as hell in here.”

  Both Kim and Derek entered the first room of the underground building. Nothinglooked out of the ordinary, for a maintenance and storage building. An old, metal, graydesk was placed against one of the walls, with another one of those wooden oak chairs oncasters standing guard over its contents. A few filing cabinets lined the adjacent wall, anda cork board hung empty on the third wall opposite the entrance to the room. There wasno electrical box in this room. Kim, along with Derek, moved down a corridor to the nextroom, the only light being given off by the two flashlights. Everything else was pitch-black, and it seemed to Kim she could almost reach out and feel the darkness.

  Perhaps it was the fact that neither Kim nor Derek really expected to find anything at the old, closed, state hospital. Having searched from building to building finding nothing, maybe it was the mundane nature of their search thus far that had worn down their awareness and dulled their responsiveness. Whatever it was that diminished their resolve, it would cost them dearly.

  Kim entered the next room a few steps ahead of Derek. This room immediately stood out in stark difference to any of the other rooms they had searched that night. In one corner of the room was a neatly made twin bed with two white pillows sitting against a wooden head board. “That’s not a hospital bed,” Kim thought as her eyes scanned the rest of the room. There was a refrigerator, table and two chairs, counter top with a deep, kitchen sink, television set with disc player, and, the most intriguing item in the room, a surveillance monitor on the desk top. The screen was separated into eight different pictorials. Six of the pictorials monitored the outside approaches to this building, the main hallway, and the inside of the garage. The last two pictorials showed a young, naked girl sitting on a military type bed. Kim’s heart pounded in her chest with the realization she was looking at Marty McMaster, still alive and in a room very close to where she and Derek now stood. Her excitement continued to grow as she turned toward the doorway to the room looking for Derek.

  “Derek, get your ass in here!” Kim said in a whispering voice. The surveillance system: putting to put her on full alert. Whoever was living in this room could watch anyone or anything approach this building with plenty of time to be forewarned and therefore forearmed.

  Derek, hearing Kim’s whisper, never got the opportunity to respond to her request.

  Kim caught the glint in her peripheal vision. The hunting knife appeared out of the darkness of the hallway, the light from her flashlight reflecting off of it’s blade. In her mind, she knew that her friend was already dead. She watched in frantic helplessness as blood began to gush from Derek’s neck, soaking his coat, and spraying onto the floor. As the knife finished its kill, Derek fell forward into the room. Kim saw the initial shock of the attack in his eyes change to the detached look of death. She instinctively reached out to her mortally wounded friend.

  Kim knelt on the floor, holding onto Derek’s arm. She braced herself for the attack that was sure to follow. She was distracted by the assault on Derek and had left herself vulver- able and exposed. A voice inside her head said, “You’re dead.” But, Derek’s killer did not come through the doorway. There was only the silence of death hanging in the air, and the sound of Kim’s heart pounding under her Kevlar vest.

  Kim’s training took over as her attention turned from Derek to Marty. Was Willingsby rushing to kill Marty, or had he taken these seconds to escape? The shock of Derek’s death had momentarily crippled her, but the more she focused on Marty, the clearer her thoughts became. Kim moved to the doorway in a half-crouched position, and cautiously looked in each direction of the corridor. No sign of Willingsby. She eased herself into the hallway holding her Glock in one hand, while using her other hand as balance against the wall.

  Moving deeper into the building, she listened intently for sounds that might lead her to Marty. With each step she took, she braced herself for that instant when Willingsby would jump out of the darkness and attempt to kill her, too.

  The old, discolored, cast-iron piping attached to the ceiling took on an eerie, haunting look in the Shadowed corridor. Kim’s eyes moved constantly, watching for movement, ears straining to hear the faintest sound. Thoughts in her mind swarmed like bees around a hive.

  Thoughts of Derek, thoughts of Marty, and thoughts of her dying. Sweat beaded on her face. “Focus,” she thought. “Come on girl. Focus.”

  Kim could see that the corridor ended about seventy-five feet ahead. Moving forward, she saw three doors, one directly in front of her at the end of the corridor, and two doors opposite each other on the adjacent walls. She paused on the left side of the corridor trying to decide which door to open first. She decided to open the door on her left, holding her Glock ready in her right hand, while keeping the remaining two doors in sight.

  The door opened quietly into a room lined with lockers and benches. The room had no other exits. Kim opened each of the lockers, finding them empty. “One door down, two to go,” she thought. Behind the door at the end of the corridor, Kim found an array of cleaning chemicals, mops, brooms, and a large utility sink. Her adrenalin level increased as she turned to the third door. She could feel an electrical energy entering her arms and legs. Sweat dripped off of her face onto the floor as a surreal excitement took control of her nervous system. If Willingsby had come this way, then he was most likely waiting for her on the other side of this last door.

  Kim turned the doorknob, took a deep breath, said a quick prayer, and pushed the door open. She was totally focused, noticing immediately that the room was well lit, but empty. Kim backed out of the room into the corridor. She stood motionless, listening. The door closed against the jam, blocking out the light from the room, her flashlight dimly lighting the area. She sensed Willingsby’s presence, could feel him. She remained still, unmoving, waiting as if suspended in time. “Here. He’s here,” she thought. “But where? Where the hell is he?”

  The large paint chip, from the overhead pipe, fell onto her shoulder at the same time Keith Willingsby’s full weight crashed on top of Kim, causing her knees to buckle, both falling to the floor. Kim’s face slammed into the tiled floor, breaking her jaw and cheekbones, Willingsby landing on top. The pain was immediate, causing light headiness and confusion. Still, she rolled to the right attempting to gain the advantage. Willingsby, anticipating her counter-attack, shifted in the opposite direction allowing her to roll freely, maintaining his position and control. “Nice of you to drop in, officer,” he said, bringing his right fist down into Kim’s already shattered jaw. The impact almost made her lose consciousness. She felt herself floating, detached from the attack. Although her mind was foggy, her hands and legs reacted by instinct, hitting and gouging at his face, kicking him in the back with her knees. “Roll me over in the clover, roll me over in the clover and do it again,” she heard him sing, his left fist punching her face.

 
The second blow ignited a fire in Kim’s brain. Willingsby, an unspoken arrogance filling his chest, felt the fingers from Kim’s left hand jab into his windpipe. It wasn’t a particularly hard blow, but enough to interrupt his breathing and cause him to choke. In that split second, she reached between his legs and grabbed his testicles. Keith’s grimacing scream echoed through the corridor. He fell off onto his side with Kim still crushing his jewels in her grasp. “Nice of You to drop by, scumbag.” she slurred through her broken face. “Now, you sick fuck, where’s the girl?” she demanded, squeezing harder.

  Kim had lost her Glock during the struggle. She saw it about ten feet away on the floor. She knew she could not hold onto Willingsby indefinitely, and would have to release her grip to retrieve her weapon. Squeezing one last time with all of her strength, Kim let go and staggered toward her Glock. The one thing Kim had not thought of since Derek’s death, came back to mind as it entered the small of her back. The hunting knife had entered just below her Kevlar vest. The impact of the knife propelled her past the Glock, onto the floor. She heard Willingsby struggling to stand as she reached for the knife. The Kevlar vest made it difficult for her to maneuver. She turned her head to look at Willingsby, saw that he already held the Glock, never hearing the shot.

  67

  As my rescuers pulled into the parking lot of the convenience store on Route 9, I was already beginning to thaw out and respond to what was being said. It only took five minutes to cover the distance from the bridge to the store. Pulling into the parking lot, I spotted a two-tone blue, State-Police cruiser waiting for us. Next to the cruiser stood two tall troopers who immediately came over to help me get out of the back seat as the young guys who helped me spoke without taking a breath, excited to be part of some evolving crime.

  “Honest, Officers, he was just sitting there leaning against the bridge when we drove up. Whap! There he was in our headlights, barely breathing, with his head bent down onto his chest. We thought he was dead! When we saw his breath in the air, we knew he was still alive. We put him into the car, called you guys, and here we are!”