Now I got the complete support from both of the detectives. I felt optimistic, enough to let my body relax in my seat at last. But, that respite had such a short lifespan, as Mary gave a few pulls at my sleeve.
The color of misgiving remained strong in her gaze. Her lips moved, mouthing something.
"What?" I said. "I can't hear you."
She bit her lip. She brought her mouth close to my ear, with her hand hiding the mouth from the front seat. "Do you have the knife with you?" she asked.
At once, as though at the flick of a switch, my internal peace vanished. My mind became blank. I pulled away, and gawked at her. "Shit," I said.
But there was no way out. I might as well have put handcuffs on myself on my own volition. As the car drove past Louise's, one of the officers signaled Barren to stop. In his hand, the edge of the knife gave an uncanny gleam. I did not pray for myself. I just wished to get this over with.
Barren rolled down his window. "What is it?"
The officer came near. "A kitchen knife, sir. It was in the backseat, naked like this."
The gaze of Castelo, as he turned around, immediately found me. Although it didn't feel all accusatory, it made my breathing difficult enough.
"Could you explain why you have a bare knife in your car?" he said.
I felt Mary squirm next to me, mumbling under her breath.
"I went to a cutler yesterday," I said, in the calmest tone of my voice. "I forgot to bring it back in the house."
No doubt any of them bought this spontaneous bullshit. But they had no proof of it being a lie, either.
A crease reappeared between his brows. He slid a contemplative glance at Barren, and receiving a shrug as a response, he chewed the inside of his cheek. Even then, he seemed reluctant to kick us out.
"Do you have any other weapons with you that we should know of?" he said.
I said no.
"And you, Miss McKee?"
As soon as Mary's eyes met his, she straightened her back, and shook her head. Her cheeks grew red at once.
"I trust both of you on that," Castelo said.
Then, with no further interrogation, he got off the car, walked across the street, to the officer. I pressed my cheek against the window for a better view, as he put a distance between us. The two officers and Castelo now stood by Louise's car. The distance and the rumble of the idling engine made their voices inaudible. Castelo had his back facing us, too, shielding his face from me. I kept staring nonetheless. I saw him shake his head a couple of times, and hold his hand up to make one of the officers stop talking. Disapproving grimaces grew more apparent on the faces of the officers. They looked more menacing, as they gestured at Louise's car, and at me behind the window.
In contrast to the eternal throbbing of my heart, though, their disagreement didn't last long. Castelo gave each of them amicable pads on their shoulder. The facial muscles, as he returned to the car, seemed less tense.
Back in his seat, he let loose a sharp breath of relief. "Well, this has been an unexpected adventure already." His voice had a tinge of calmness. "Now, let's go take care of the real business."
With that cue, at last, the car hit the road. In the last several minutes, the sky had darkened without mercy. Only a thin streak of orange light glimmered along the mountain ridges. The window next to Barren remained wide open, the crispy air whooshing through each strand of my hair.
I studied the profile of Castelo, his chiseled cheek and well-shaved chin. Something about him didn't click, my gut told me. As grateful as I felt for his help, I couldn't shake off an eerie feeling, couldn't help allowing doubt to gnaw at me. Those uniformed officers obviously wanted to get me to go through the proper procedure, or at least to take us to the station. It should've been a perfect opportunity for Castelo to get rid of us. But on the contrary, he bothered to persuade them. His enthusiasm began to trouble me, then.
This is one of the saddest things about life, to harbor a mistrust towards people who do not think twice to help others and ask for nothing in return. The embodiment of self-sacrifice. They deserve the utmost respect. And yet, the truth is almost the opposite, always. As you grow older, you learn that such people are a rare species. Most of them only pretend to be so kind, waiting for the perfect moment, like a tiger in the bushes. So, even when you meet a genuine one, a compulsive uneasiness overwhelms you instead of respect. You suspect they might have an ulterior motive. And you regard them with more caution than your obvious enemy.
Was Castelo's passion authentic, without any sinister intentions? Or were we his prey, oblivious to the danger until the last minute?
I didn't ask. I felt like the moment I dared to utter those doubts, everything would turn into mist. However, the answer presented itself quite soon.
Castelo reached for the case file on the dashboard. He switched on the light above his head, and started to read something.
"Barren," he said, "your handwriting looks like a snail just crawled across the paper again."
"I was listening to her—" Barren waved his cigarette to the backseat "—and writing at the same time. You can read it. What more do you want?"
It was the record of my oral statement about Wendy. Castelo must've jumped in the car, as soon as he obtained the warrant, and hadn't been able to read the paper until now. He brought the document closer to the light. The photograph of Wendy, the one I'd given Barren, came into my view. With her elbow placed on the table in the diner, she rested her cheek on her hand, looking a little beyond the camera lens. Now, her shy smile seemed dejected, trapped.
I averted my eyes. Then, in the rearview mirror, I caught Castelo glance at me. He looked down at the paper right away, and looked up at me again. His slightly parted lips and round eyes seemed to betray a mixture of curiosity and distress.
"Miss Winters," he said, in a still professional tone. "It says here that you were an inmate there once."
"I was, for two months."
He nodded, mostly to himself. "And Miss McKee used to work there." He turned his head around, then, to look directly at Mary, too. Some dark shadow crept across his features. "Right, so you two are the people Davis was talking about so passionately."
"Who's Davis?"
"The young officer at the reception desk," he said. "He seems to be obsessed with you. Not a day goes without him talking about you."
With no remnants of the enigmatic shadow, he gave a smile. Although the smile looked soft, I couldn't decide whether it should alarm us. A smile of real kindness, or a smile of mockery. I felt a knot in my stomach, my throat dry. This could be the moment his kind guise fell off, revealing his true self to us. Mary and I exchanged a look of uncertainty.
"What are you talking about?" Barren said.
Castelo looked at him, raising his brows. "Davis. Don't you know? He's been complaining for the last few weeks."
"I never understand a word that kid says."
A soft chuckle fell from Castelo's lips. He waved a dismissive hand. "Lucky you." Then, his eyes found us in the mirror again. "I apologize on behalf of Davis. We are public servants. We shouldn't decide who to help based on who they are."
Of course, this threw me off my balance. It felt like opening up a box and finding it filled with flowers, when I had expected to see a bomb. Not that my suspicion vanished to the last bit, though. I gave him a simple nod.
Castelo closed the report, as he switched off the light. With no streetlights, I could barely see the others' silhouettes in the dark.
"I should've read your complaint form," he said. "I would've known it was about Briarcliff. We can't do anything about it now without another warrant for it, but I promise, I will help you."
I leaned forward. "Really?"
"I truly believe they've wronged you, Miss Winters." He tightened his lips into a smile, compassionate and somewhat distraught. "I've been to that place several times before. I've seen what kind of place it is."
"You have?" I said.
He nodded his head. "Is the lady with Boston accent still in charge, or has anyone replaced her yet?"
"Jude? I don't think she'll ever leave her office as long as she breathes."
"That's what I thought."
Next to me, Mary looked at him with attentive air. For the first time since her return, something other than pain and anguish seemed to tug at her heartstrings— Curiosity. Inside the quiet world of her, questions seemed to emerge, bubbling. Still, she remained a passive listener.
"If you don't mind me asking," I said to Castelo. "How did you come to know Briarcliff and Jude? Have they been involved in a criminal case before?"
"Not a criminal case, no," he said. He lowered his gaze, then. "It's just that my older sister used to be an inmate."
"How long was she locked up?"
"Six years and four months." His voice sounded unwavering, as though he had the data right in front of his eyes. "And we only visited her a few times during that time." He stared out the windshield. The fragments of light from the headlights traced out the outline of his chiseled face.
"You've never told me about that, sport," Barren said.
"It's not something I'm proud of," Castelo said. Then, right away, he twisted his body at the waist, to show his distressed grimace to us. "I mean, not proud of myself and my family. We treated her like a blot on the family name, simply because she was . . . more sensitive than the rest of us."
"May I ask what happened to her?" I said. "You said she's no longer in there. Is she out now?"
He remained in the same position, facing us. "She died."
So, this was his reason, what kept pulling him to the place. I should've expected an answer like this, but it made my words stuck in the throat nonetheless.
"Inside that place?" I asked. However intrusive this might sound, it felt like a crucial question, in order to understand his story. I felt like he wanted me to ask it.
And he gave a nod. "Three years ago. All of a sudden. They said they didn't know what happened." A strand of his dark hair fell into his face, as he bowed his head.
"I'm sorry," I said. "Jude has your sister's blood on her hands."
"Olga," he said.
"I'm sorry?"
"Her name is Olga. The best older sister anyone could have. I've never met anyone with a kinder soul. I'm now as old as she was when she died, but I'm not even half as good."
The air became chilling, as the silence resounded in my ears. I felt Mary's hand slip out of mine.
Castelo's eyes sought Mary in the rearview mirror, as if he knew. "Miss McKee, how long were you a staff member there?"
Mary truly looked like a deer in the headlights, wide-eyed, frozen in fear. The paleness of her face seemed to float in the dark, and only added morbidity to the image. She opened her mouth, but struggled to speak. "For five years, sir," she said at last.
"Do you remember her?" Castelo said. "Black hair, grey eyes, like me?"
"Yes, I do." She sounded vulnerable, ready to disappear. "She was gentle."
"I want to find out what really happened to her," he said. "I didn't care about it at that time. But I do now. The truth might be lost forever, but at least, if I could bring to light the injustice that's still taking place there . . . As much as I want to say I'm here as a public servant, I can't deny I'm doing for my family. I want justice for my sister, and redemption for myself."
Mary hung her head, her face twisted in emotion. Behind the engine sound, I heard her shell thicken, as she retreated into it.
.
Under the thick shroud of night, we drove past the abominable motel, where the bear-looking man slept. The parking lot had a couple of cars, parked near the door to the reception room. Their electric sign remained broken. I had no reason to believe they'd gotten the payphone fixed, either. The room at the far end of the building seemed to have nobody in it. The place with a shoe print in the ceiling. The place where Wendy and Mary had met for the first time.
It was only a couple of weeks ago. All of the calamities had happened in such a short period of time. But such defining moments happen in a blink most of the time, and we only give them eternity afterwards, in our minds, in excitement and sorrow.
The car took a turn to the right. Trees began to appear on either side of the road. In the headlights, the grove seemed to undulate, luring us into another world. Goosebumps covered my skin.
"We are almost there," Barren said.
Mary and I ducked our heads, and looked out the windshield. Beyond the beams of light from the headlights, columns and rows of little orange dots twinkled in the dark, growing bigger and more vivid by the second. Then, soon, these dots began to have the shape of windows. Briarcliff, in its night form. Mary's frame shivered. Through our connected shoulders, the tremor travelled to me, down my spine. I gave her hand a tight squeeze.
After nearly an hour drive, at last, the car stopped in front of the closed gate of Briarcliff Manor. The headlights reflected off the metal bars. The doubled brightness blinded my eyes that had gotten accustomed to darkness.
The detectives showed the guard their police badges and the warrant. Barren gave him a brief account of their objective, in the flattest tone. The guard took the warrant for examination, mumbling something. The only source of light around him was a little lamp inside the guardhouse. I couldn't see his face. But it was most likely a skeptical frown.
"I have to ask Sister Jude," the guard said. "She's in charge here."
"She doesn't have a say in this." Barren sounded extra aloof. "It's a court order. If you refuse to let us in, you'll be arrested for obstruction of justice, my fellow."
Castelo bent towards the driver's seat, towards the guardhouse. "And please be advised that two more officers will join us later. They are taking care of something else at the moment."
The guard leaned out of the plain hut, then. "Who's in the backseat? I can't see."
I scooted back, and hid Mary and myself in the shadow. I couldn't explain why I did it. He couldn't have done anything to us, had he seen our faces. But shadow has a certain element to it, that draws people in. No matter how innocent or strong we may be, in blazing light, our instinct kicks in, and we retreat into the dark, to feel a sense of security.
"They are our helpers," Castelo said. "Our investigation team members."
A short moment of reluctance filled the blank. The guard examined the warrant once again. The engine rumbled, too loudly under the open sky. Castelo slid a glance at us, shot a reassuring smile.
At last, the guard gave back the warrant to them, came out of the guardhouse, and opened the gate. Barren parked the car near the front steps of the building. Mary's hand sought mine, as she looked out the window. The whole building seemed even more menacing, more malicious, than I remembered.