Dying to Tell (27 page)

Bayler rocked back and forth. “What? Where did you hear that?”

“A source,” Jake said. “Did you ever hear suggestions of abuse or misconduct there?”

“Hmm, seems like someone mentioned the possibility once, but after considering the source, I didn’t see reason to look into it.” Bayler pressed his hands on his legs. “Besides, your father was the administrator. He was extremely detail-oriented and micromanaged. If something was wrong, he would have taken care of it.”

The sheriff’s comment set Jake’s teeth on edge. That was true. If his father had discovered abuse or an illegal project, he would have reported it.

Unless...what if his father had discovered some impropriety? What if he’d decided to handle it himself, and he’d been killed because it?

That would explain his sudden disappearance.

Then again, maybe he was jumping to conclusions.

“What else did this doctor say?” Bayler asked.

“Dr. Coker implied that they did things they shouldn’t. He also commented that the accident that killed the Nettleton couple wasn’t an accident.”

He watched for the sheriff’s reaction, but Bayler didn’t show one.

“You investigated their deaths?” he asked when the sheriff didn’t comment.

Bayler rubbed a hand over his leg. “Nothing to investigate that I remember. It was a cold night, sleeting. Mrs. Nettleton hit a patch of black ice and ran off the road.”

“Her husband was with her. What were they like?”

Bayler nodded. “They had been separated for a few months. Walt said she was upset, said it had to do with Amelia. She said she had to talk to the girls’ father.”

“Sadie never talked about her father.”

Bayler shrugged. “She was so little she probably didn’t remember much about him. The Nettletons had some marital problems, but I heard they were trying to work them out.” He pushed the swing back and forth, the metal creaking. “Then
we found the two of them in that car, both dead, so everyone assumed they were going to reconcile. After the funeral, the girls went to live with their grandparents.”

Jake shifted, glancing across the farm at the mountain ridges. Amelia and Sadie had been around three. Amelia hadn’t exhibited full-blown signs of mental illness at that point.

But her mother had scratches on her. She’d been upset about Amelia, had connected with her estranged husband, and had Dr. Coker’s name on a piece of paper in her hand. Had she gotten the scratches from her ex?

Or...What if she had discovered that Dr. Coker had given Amelia some kind of experimental drug? Perhaps they had argued, and she’d gotten the scratches during their altercation. Then she’d called Sadie’s father to go with her to see Sheriff Bayler.

Maybe the drug had caused Amelia’s alter Bessie to appear.

“Did you have the car examined to make sure there wasn’t a malfunction of some kind?”

Bayler shook his head. “Like I said, didn’t see any reason.”

Jake gritted his teeth. “What happened to the car?”

“Wrecker hauled it to the dump.”

It had been twenty-five years since the accident. Could it possibly still be there?

Dammit, he’d find out. Forensics had come a long way since the couple’s deaths.

If the car was still there, he’d have someone look at it and see if there was any evidence of foul play.

Sadie drifted in and out of a fog of dreams. Colors flashed in front of her eyes, imaginary creatures dancing, the drone of machines splitting the air.

She struggled to hold on to reality, but the crazy dreams wouldn’t stop.

“Amelia, dear, don’t worry, I’m here.”

Sadie blinked in confusion. Why was Ms. Lettie calling her Amelia?

Then a sliver of reality returned, and panic made her yank at the restraints. Amelia had escaped, and everyone thought she was her sister.

“Ms. Lettie,” she cried. “Help me.”

“I’m here, hon,” the kind woman’s voice murmured. “Now you really shouldn’t have tried to escape. That’s what happens when you go off your meds. You do things you shouldn’t.”

Sadie tried to talk, but her mouth was so dry she couldn’t make it work.

“The nurse said you attacked her,” Ms. Lettie said. “I assured her that you didn’t know what you were doing.”

Sadie tried to lift her head, but it was so heavy, she collapsed back on the bed. “Not me,” she said, although her voice sounded far away. Distant.

Or had she spoken out loud at all?

“Here, sugar, take your other pill.” Ms. Lettie slipped a tablet between her lips. Sadie tried to spit it out but choked.

“Take a sip of water,” Ms. Lettie said. “Then you’ll feel better. After you sleep we can talk.”

Ms. Lettie held a straw to her mouth and Sadie drank, but she felt water running down her neck. Ms. Lettie dabbed at it, drying her off.

Then the room began to spin, and Sadie slid deeper and deeper into the tunnel of darkness.

The same darkness where her sister must have lived for years.

Amelia pulled the scrub hat lower on her head, ducking her face as she passed one of the orderlies. If he recognized her, it would be all over.

They’d drag her back to that room and drug her, and she’d never remember what happened to Papaw.

The thought that she’d killed him sent a spasm of panic through her.

But Skid yelled at her to keep moving, and she did. She made her way past the section of rooms where she’d been kept. The ones that felt like prison.

Then she stopped at the corner of the next unit, trying to remember. Voices echoed from down the hall, and a cart clanked.

She jumped behind the doorway of an empty room until they passed. Sweat soaked her hands, the rumble of the ancient furnace taking her back to when she was a child.

She closed her eyes and pictured the hallway. The stairs. The hidden entrance.

Yes, it was there. She knew it.

Her body began to tremble, her chest hurting as she struggled for air.

Just get us out of here,
Skid barked in her ear.

But Amelia wanted more than to escape. She wanted to find a way to make Sadie believe her. She wanted to remember the night Papaw died.

She had to know if she’d killed him.

J
ake phoned the local junkyard where Bayler had said the Nettletons’ car had been sent, hoping the car hadn’t been demolished in the past few years or the parts sold for cash.

“Cordelle Boone speaking, Cordelle’s Auto Parts.”

“Cordelle, this is Sheriff Blackwood. Do you still have that Chevy from the Nettletons’ crash? It happened about twenty-five years ago.”

The guy had been there for ages. If anyone could help him, it was Cordelle.

“I believe it’s still here,” Cordelle said.

“You haven’t sold off parts?”

“Naw, it was too damaged to do much with. It’s pretty rusted out now, way at the back of the junkyard.”

“I have a favor to ask.” He explained that he wanted it checked to see if anything had malfunctioned.

“What’s this about, Sheriff?”

“Just some questions that cropped up about that accident that’s related to another investigation I’m working on.”

“I don’t know what I’ll be able to tell, but I’ll give it a look-see,” Cordelle said.

Jake thanked him and disconnected, then checked the address for Bertrice Folsom’s family. Apparently the aunt who had raised her was still living in the trailer where Bertrice had grown up, down in the hollow.

Frannie Folsom would be in her late sixties now, but she might shed some light on Bertrice’s condition.

Twenty minutes later, Jake was sipping iced tea on the porch of her trailer. Given its dilapidated state, he was surprised the mobile home had survived tornado season.

“Bertrice killed herself five years ago,” Frannie said. “Why are you asking questions now?”

“Because she was in the same mental hospital as Grace Granger, and I’m looking into her death,” Jake explained. “Did you ever have any concerns about her care at the hospital?”

The ice in Frannie’s tea clinked as she took a sip. “It was a sanitarium,” Frannie said. “That place used to scare me to death. But I never understood what happened to Bertrice, why she was the way she was, so I didn’t know where else to turn.”

“Tell me about her,” Jake said.

“She seemed fine till she was about eight. Then her daddy died, God rest his soul. And she just went away herself.”

“What happened to her father?” Jake asked.

“Killed in a hunting accident.”

“Did Bertrice ever talk about what happened at the sanitarium?” Jake asked.

“She never talked about anything,” Frannie said. “After I took her there for outpatient treatment, she became sullen. The doctors said she’d work through it, but she never did.”

“Who was her doctor?”

“Dr. Sanderson,” Frannie said. “He was always so kind to us. Gave me a break on the bill.”

Jake refrained from comment. First the free clinic, then giving patients breaks on their bills at the mental hospital? Not incriminating in itself, but linked with other things, it could
mean he’d taken advantage of needy families who would be so appreciative of his help that they wouldn’t ask too many questions.

“How was she as a teenager?”

“She suffered from severe depression and anxiety disorders, paranoid delusions, then turned to drinking. Eventually to drugs.”

“Did she have ongoing treatment at the hospital?”

Frannie seemed to think about that for a moment. “I know she took some medication. Prozac and Klonopin, I believe it was. But they didn’t help that much. A few times when I tried to reach out to her, she got so angry she scared me.”

“What do you mean?”

“One time she picked up a knife and threw it at me. Another time she took one of my husband’s old rifles and shot a hole in the ceiling. That’s when I committed her.”

“How about right before she died? Was she depressed then?”

Frannie took a long drink of her tea. “Yes, she had been for weeks. Had been saying crazy things. Come to think of it, that Nettleton girl, Amelia, she had just visited Frannie in the hospital. Frannie called me that night, hysterical, talking out of her head, making all kinds of accusations.”

“What accusations?”

Frannie released a loud breath. “Said they gave them LSD. That the doctors were brainwashing them. I tried to calm her down and told her I’d come and see her the next day. But...” Her voice cracked. “They called me at six a.m. Said my little girl had slit her wrist.” Frannie knotted her skirt in her hands. “She didn’t even leave a note telling me good-bye.”

So Bertrice had died at the mental hospital, just as Grace had. And after Amelia had visited her, and after she’d made accusations against the doctors.

Of course, both Bertrice and Grace had severe mental issues, but for two of them to die in the hospital still made him wonder.
Either they had been mistreated, or the hospital was just plain negligent.

His phone rang as he climbed back in his car. He checked the number, then picked up the call when he saw it was Cordelle.

“Sheriff, I did what you asked.”

“That was fast,” Jake said.

“It’s been a slow day,” Cordelle said. “But you’re not gonna like what I found.”

Jake tensed as he turned onto the main highway. “What?”