Dying to Tell (35 page)

Sadie pressed a hand to her racing heart. “What happened?”

“He shot himself in the head.”

“Oh, my God,” Sadie whispered. “Why did he do it?”

“He said he’d hurt too many people. I’m not sure what he meant by that, but I found an arsenal of guns in his garage. One, specifically, was a sniper rifle.

“Sadie, that makes three of Sanderson’s patients that are dead.”

“Did you find drugs at his place?”

“No, but the ME will run a tox screen, so we’ll see.”

Sadie folded her hands. “Jake, there’s something I need to tell you.”

“What?”

“Walk me to the car, and I’ll show you,” Sadie said. “It’s something I found at home, in my grandfather’s room.”

Jake nodded. After he walked her to her car, Sadie reached inside the briefcase in the backseat and retrieved the file. “This may be the connection we’ve been looking for between all these deaths.”

Jake opened the file and read the first page, then began skimming. The notes described Amelia’s treatment and her symptoms, starting at age three, when she’d attended the free clinic.

Then he noted the reference to “Subject #3.”

“What is this?” he muttered.

Sadie’s face was pale. “Read on and see what they did to Amelia when they hospitalized her.”

Jake read the notations about giving Amelia LSD, using sensory deprivation and ECT on her, then saw references to the experimental drug and the effects it had had.

“Amelia always talked about the monsters,” Sadie said. “Now I know who they were. The doctors who were taking care of her.”

Jake jerked his head up toward her. “You found this in your grandfather’s room?”

Sadie nodded. “It was hidden between some of his
National Geographic
s.”

“Do you think he agreed to Amelia being used as a subject?”

Sadie shrugged. “I don’t know. He could have thought it was a legitimate study, and that this new drug they were using could cure her.”

“That makes sense,” Jake said.

“But what if later he realized that it wasn’t?” Sadie asked. “Maybe he told Amelia that night, and they fought about it.”

“What is this drug, Paxolomine?”

“That’s the experimental one Brenda’s source must have been talking about.”

“What does it do?”

“I don’t know for sure, but if you look toward the end of the file, it says it was believed to be a cross between Paxil, which is used for panic attacks and depression, and chlorpromazine. But the dosage they gave Amelia is twice what a doctor might order for the other drugs. And as you see from the doctor’s notes, it causes seizures and hallucinations.”

Jake focused on one section of the notes. “It mentions that the drug was used in conjunction with studying mind-control techniques, that they tried to create different personalities so they could use them in the military.”

“I don’t understand why they would conduct this experiment on children,” Sadie said.

The breeze blew her hair into a tangle around her face, and she pushed it back. “But according to this file, they did. And my sister was subject number three, which means there are others.”

Jake nodded. “Giogardi, Bertrice Folsom, Joe Swoony, and Grace—they all might have been part of it.”

Sadie glanced back at the grave, then at him. “Your father was the hospital administrator. Do you think he knew what was going on?”

Anger slammed into Jake. “No. He would never have let this happen.” An image of the two of them hiking flashed back, and pain hit him.

But he had to consider the possibility that his father had discovered what was happening. “Maybe, though, he found out, and someone killed him to cover up what they were doing.”

Sadie’s heart stuttered. Jake wanted to see his father as a hero, but she didn’t think he was.

But what if he was right? What if Blackwood hadn’t known about the experiments? What if he’d found out, and come to talk to Amelia about it? In her confused mental state, she could have seen him as one of the monsters.

Oh, God, she felt sick just thinking about it.

Jake’s phone buzzed, and he said he had to go, so she climbed in her car and drove back to her grandfather’s.

She had to pack up his things. After discovering that file, she wondered what else she might find.

She spent the afternoon sorting through her grandfather’s clothes—his well-worn overalls, flannel shirts, the pair of work boots he’d had since she was a little girl.

Nostalgia washed over her as she touched the cigar box where he kept his loose change. The pocket watch his own father
had given him. The picture of him and her grandmother on their wedding day.

She packed the pictures she wanted to keep in a separate box, desperately needing to hold on to what little she had left of her family.

His clothes, socks, underwear, shirts, and ties all went into a box for Goodwill. She stripped the bed where he’d slept and threw the bedding into the wash. She’d give that to Goodwill as well.

But when she removed the fitted sheet, a journal fell from beneath the mattress. She’d almost forgotten that her grandfather liked to write down his thoughts when he was troubled. He’d encouraged Amelia to do the same, just as the doctors had.

She sat down on the bed and thumbed through the first few entries. There were notations from when she and Amelia were little, when they first came to live with him and Gran. Tears blurred her eyes as she read how much he’d worried about them losing their parents at such a young age.

Shortly after the accident, Amelia had started having bad nightmares. Dr. Coker had suggested she was suffering from a psychological disorder. The doctors had prescribed medication, which had helped with her nightmares, but Amelia had insisted monsters were coming for her in her bed.

Sadie frowned. Later, her grandfather had become convinced Amelia was possessed. The description of the exorcism sent a shiver up her spine, as did the page where he’d poured out his grief-stricken heart over Gran’s death.

Sadie flipped forward to their teenage years and located an entry about the night Blackwood had died.

It was another one of Amelia’s nowhere nights. Sadie heard Amelia scream and ran out to the studio to her. Then everything went wrong. Blackwood was dead, and there was so much blood. I didn’t want my granddaughter to go to jail.

I pray Amelia and Sadie never remember the details
.

But we had to bury Blackwood; I had to protect my girls.

That secret lies like a heavy burden on my soul though. I pray that one day God will forgive me...

Sadie’s chest ached. She flipped forward to the last entries, skimming.

Doc says my ticker’s about to give out, so I’ll probably be meeting my Maker soon. Going to glory. But I have to confess my sins to receive forgiveness.

My sins are many.

I pour them out at night in prayer, but God wants more from me.

He wants me to confess everything. To purge the lies I’ve told for so long.

Only doing so will hurt Sadie...

Sadie turned to the next page, searching for answers. Obviously, her grandfather had become increasingly guilt-ridden and burdened by their secret, by that night.

Amelia is starting to remember things. Asking questions. I want her to get stronger, to fend off the alters, but what if she remembers everything about the night Blackwood died?

She flipped further to see if he said anything else, but that was the last entry.

A cold knot of fear tightened Sadie’s throat.

Papaw’d written that Amelia was starting to remember details, things about that night...

According to psychologists, facing the trauma would help Amelia heal.

So why had he been so worried that she would remember?

Jake’s pulse hammered as he drove back to his office. Amelia was still on the loose, and he had a handful of other suspicious deaths.

All related to Slaughter Creek Sanitarium. And all seemingly connected to Dr. Coker and Dr. Sanderson.

Even his father’s disappearance might stem from their research experiment.

As soon as he arrived at his office, he checked the fax and found the information he’d been waiting for regarding Giogardi. He was interested in that tox screen.

He phoned Bullock.

“I’m sorry, I’m working on it,” Bullock said.

“One more thing, Doctor—I want you to compare the tox screen for Grace Granger to Giogardi’s. See if there are any similarities.”

“What are you looking for?”

“Specifically, an experimental drug called Paxolomine.”

“I’ve never heard of it,” Bullock said.

“It was a research drug,” Jake explained. “Just see what you find and let me know.”

“All right.”

Jake disconnected, then grabbed the medical files he’d requested, which were on his desk.

Grace Granger. The dates for her admission were listed; all of the notes on her treatment were reports from Dr. Tynsdale.

None from when Dr. Sanderson and Dr. Coker treated her—those files had supposedly been lost in that fire.

Dammit.

Although Walt had gotten hold of Amelia’s. What if Sanderson had had a guilty conscience and had kept copies of
some of the files at home or in a safe place, then given Amelia’s file to Walt?

But if he had, why wouldn’t he have done the same with the other patients?

Maybe Walt suspected something and had approached Sanderson...

Hell, he was just guessing now.

Tynsdale’s name was listed as the primary doctor, and Jake realized that he could have been part of the experiment. He’d taken over Sanderson’s cases, so he could be covering for the man.

Jake skimmed the file—a lot of medical jargon—but he didn’t see anything radical—nothing about the lobotomy, LSD, sensory deprivation techniques, mind control, or the experimental drug.

He checked Amelia’s and found the same—none of the information that Sadie had shown him was in the file.

That meant either that Tynsdale didn’t know about it, or that he had intentionally omitted it.

Questions churning through his head, Jake studied the ME’s report. Giogardi had definitely bled out from the gunshot wound. Powder burns and the angle of the shot supported suicide versus murder. The handwriting in the suicide note had been analyzed and was definitely Giogardi’s.

Whether or not another party had been in the room and had forced him to write the note and pull the trigger was another question.

However, there was no evidence to substantiate that theory. Again, the investigators had found no phone or computer.

That in itself fueled Jake’s curiosity.

The report listed each weapon discovered in the garage, along with notations designating which ones had been fired and which ones hadn’t.

Tissues in Giogardi’s body also hinted at long-term drug abuse.

At the age of twelve, Giogardi had spent six months at Slaughter Creek Sanitarium.

Jake stood, then crossed the room to his whiteboard, and jotted down everything he knew so far, placing the sanitarium and Coker’s and Sanderson’s names in the middle.

Next he listed the people he suspected had been subjects.

Amelia had been Subject #3. How many were there?