So Much for My Happy Ending – Chapter 4
Detective Flynt steepled his fingers and sank his head into his hands. He was trying to make sense of the case files splayed across his desk. He couldn't figure out the connection between the man sitting outside his office and the three women staring up at him from the glossy 8x10s. Individually, sure, that was easy. The man was an orderly at the institution and the three girls had been patients there.
The escaped patient, well, she had followed her runaway kid sister out into the big bad world and landed smack dab in the middle of Lennox House for her troubles. But why would she suddenly leave, and without her sibling in tow. Where was she going?
Two more sets of doe eyes stared up at him, pleading for help.
He sighed and looked over at the frosted glass of his office door. His case was adrift on a sea of questions, and not a single answer in sight.
"So let's get some." A declaration to the empty air. He stood up and opened the door, startling his guest. "Come in and sit down, would ya?"
Blue got up out of his chair and walked into the office, looking around nervously. He still felt the bruising on his arms from where the two officers had grabbed him and dragged him out of his domain.
Flynt gestured to the chair across from him. "Have a seat."
Blue sank down into the leather upholstery and waited.
"What can you tell me about these girls?" He waved his hand across the photos.
Blue swallowed, trying to find his voice. "These are-um, patients at Lennox House."
"One of them is, as my boys tell me, since she was alone in a room with you when they picked you up. Can you explain that?"
Blue paused for a moment, thinking furiously and trying to decide what version of his story wouldn't sound too incriminating. Deny, deny, deny, and hope nothing they try to pin to you sticks. "I was trying to determine her level of awareness. We have many patients at Lennox House undergo that same operation, with different results. She was prone to dissociation and extremely violent fits, as you can see by my injury." Flynt eyed the blood stain on his shoulder. "She killed her sister in one such fit. I had hoped this procedure would help her to adjust to her surroundings better and perhaps make her more…compliant. She is an extremely difficult patient to deal with."
"'Was' you mean? Officer O'Hanlon said she could do about as much as the chair she was sitting in."
"Yes, well, that was what I was trying to determine when the Doctor and your officers barged in on me." He was getting a little cocky; since it was clear the Detective didn't have much in the way of incriminating evidence.
"Determining patients' awareness, that seems like something the Doctor would do herself, would it not?"
"The Doctor is a very busy woman, she takes great…personal interest in all the girls at the institution. I do many things for her to help alleviate her busy schedule."
"Is the Doctor so very busy these days she even needs help signing her own name?"
Shit! "Excuse me?"
"That's what we got called in on, an instance of forging official documents. When they came to follow up on the complaint, they found you alone, in a room, with the patient who just received a-" He glanced down at the notes on his desk. "A lobotomy due to the aforementioned documents. It doesn't look good for you, Mr. Jones."
"Is there any proof that the signatures on these documents are forged and not done by Dr. Gorski's hand but she simply forgot about it? This woman signs hundreds of papers a day."
The Detective looked a little uncomfortable. "That is currently under investigation."
Blue smirked. Gotcha. "Then if you're not going to slap cuffs on my wrists and throw me in the slammer, Detective, why am I here?"
Flynt turned one of the photos so that it was facing Blue. "What can you tell me about this girl?"
The familiar face surprised him and he blurted his answer, "That's Sweetp-I mean, that's Sarah. She's another patient at Lennox House. What's she got to do with this?"
"Was a patient at Lennox House, Mr. Jones. For the Head Orderly you don't seem to know what's going on at your institution very well." Now it was Flynt's turn to smirk. "She escaped last night. We've been scouring the countryside searching for her. So I'll ask again, what can you tell me about this girl?"
"She's been at the institution for years, so has her sister, they were committed together." Blue stopped, not sure of what else to tell the Detective.
"What was the reason that she was committed?"
"It was a murder, but neither one would betray the other so they both took the fall for it."
Flynt blinked in surprise, these girls didn't look like cold blooded killers. "So why did they get sent to Lennox House instead of standing trial and going to prison like the rest of humanity?"
Blue shifted from foot to foot, reluctant to answer. "There were certain…things…done to the body, either before or after the murder, no one knew which."
The Detective raised an eyebrow. "What kind of things?"
Blue shuddered. "The genital mutilation kind of things, among others…"
That got a rise out of both eyebrows. "I see…" He got back to his initial point. "So tell me, Mr. Jones, why would two sisters who were so amazingly devoted to one another decide to split up, hmmm? Why don't we have two seemingly innocent but crazed women roaming the back woods of Vermont?"
The answer was unexpected.
"Because for all intents and purposes, Detective, this girl," he tapped Rocket's mugshot, "Sarah's sister, was dead."
"Excuse me, was that a serious answer, what sort of freak show are you running at your so-called 'institution'? You claim to 'take care' of these girls and then one ends up a brainless vegetable and the other winds up dead."
Blue stood and gripped the wood frame of the chair until his knuckles turned white. "I do what is in their best interest, which is to remain at the facility and receive treatment for their illnesses. Sometimes there is a…disagreement, shall we say, and some persuasion and truth bending need to be used."
"Talk, Mr. Jones, none of this 'best interest' crap. What the hell happened to this girl?" He pushed the photo of Rocket back across his desk.
"There was…an accident. We had heard rumors of an escape plot, but we didn't know who was involved, or what the plan actually was."
"So you just started killing patients?" Flynt was incredulous.
Blue put up his hands and backpedalled. "NOnononono, nothing like that. Eventually the culprits were caught trying to steal a knife from the cook. He is not…the most even tempered of our staff."
"So he hauled off and killed this girl because she pocketed his knife? I can't believe this!"
"He didn't kill her, he just, well…"
"Jones, spit it the fuck out or I will find some infraction you have committed and put you behind bars."
Blue's eyes widened a touch at that statement. "Alright, alright, you win. He stabbed the girl. But she wasn't dead! Or at least, not for very long…we have a licensed physician on staff and he brought her back, but not before the ringleaders of the escape group had been determined. I see you've met them already." He nodded towards the photos.
The detective snorted, "Well, at least one of them made it out successfully."
"Which is what I, well, we, were trying to prevent."
"Prevent in what way? Bodily injury? Lobotomies? Come on, Jones, I know these people are mentally disturbed, but you can't treat them like animals! And what is this 'we' nonsense?"
"It was Doctor Gorski's idea. She thought that if the girls saw the eventual consequences of their actions, they'd stop trying to escape. When Raquelle came out stable, we moved her to an isolated wing of Lennox House and let the other girls think whatever they wanted to. If they saw that their actions were causing the deaths of their friends, maybe they would stop."
"Or maybe they would martyr them and use that for motivation to succeed."
Blue sighed, "Yes well, that was the other possible outcome, we had been hoping for the first."
"Never bet at the track, Mr. Jones, your horse would lose every time." Flynt put on his hat, the felt brim hugging his crown. "Get your coat, Jones, we're going to go have a chat with your precious girls."
Blue stepped back, stuttering excuses, "Sir, I really don't think that's worth anything to your investigation, I mean, one is non-responsive and the other just came from a near death experience and-"
Detective Flynt stepped out from behind his desk and moved forward until they were nose to nose. Blue cowered as he sensed his predicament. Flynt smiled. It was a cheerless, fearsome, showing of teeth, all ice and determination. "If I were you, Mr. Jones, I would stop talking and just obey for once. Why not try using the lesson you are trying so hard to teach to these girls, hmmm?"
Blue swallowed and nodded, wordlessly.
His point made, Flynt turned and gestured towards the door. Both men walked out of the office, one seeking the truth, the other weaving lies.