A Degree in Madness

I look out the window and know it’s gonna be one of those nights, already the rain is coming down like we should all start investing in the Apocalypse. Only three things you need for a night like this or rather a night when you know you are going to be up until morning, a pack of smokes, a full bottle of scotch and a mystery. Luckily or unfortunately, depending on which side of the fence you sit on I got plenty of all three.

Doctor’s log: “2 a.m. and the patient is beginning to come around I already have had the patient prepped for surgery but we have to make sure he is properly restrained; the pain will be severe” (sounds of struggle and a barely audible moan).

I could have done this work or should have done it at my office at the police station but I can’t afford any distraction tonight and besides I got everything I need here.

I open the file again that’s lying on my desk as another flash of lightning lights up the sky and take a sip of my drink as look down at the picture of her. Dr. Sarah Edmonds, 28 years old not bad looking but too young for the position she got at that hospital…that damn hospital.

I sit back down on my old chair and go through the file again. She graduated top honors and married soon after, a Donald Peterson. I talked with members of his family who described Sarah as quiet and a little stand-offish. Looking at some of the family pictures they had she always looked like she was uncomfortable, her husband had this million dollar smile and damn if he didn’t look confident. I have seen that look in some guy’s faces before, there the look of a man that is getting his cake and eating it too. It wouldn’t surprise me he had someone or someone’s on the side and it wouldn’t also surprise me considering recent events that she did something about it. I turn a page in the file to see ol’ Donald’s death certificate, I should check out the coroner’s report on him, maybe he didn’t die by accident…

Doctor’s log: “2:15 a.m. patient is now fully awake, he has already been exhibiting signs of physical distress. Accelerated heart rate and significant raised blood pressure I will administer… (voice becomes slightly static with interference)…to bring the pressure down, hopefully then he will be ready and we can begin the operation.

In fact looking at her patient record she has run into some bad luck at the last hospital she worked in before the Sanitarium. Her last patient was a Julie Andrews; looking at her patient file it says she had a bi-polar disorder. Dr. Peterson insisted despite her peers concerns to operate but it looks like she did it anyway, with tragic results. I reach over and pull a cig out of the pack and light up as I grab a video cassette marked “Mercy Hospital” and pop it in the VCR. Know one knows I got this tape and if they did my career could be in jeopardy but I had to get something.

The video shows a normal looking operating theater, everything looks on the up and up and Dr. Peterson looks like she knows what she is doing so I fast forward the tape until almost the end when the monitors and equipment next to her start beeping and whistling, probably to tell her the patient on the table is dying. I guess she is trying to get the patient’s life signs back but after a while she calls it quits. Pulling off her mask she gives the time and date of Julie Andrew’s death. I had to rewind and play that part because at first I thought that it was just the age of the cassette that may be playing tricks on my eyes but after three times I am sure. When she was giving the time and date of death she was smiling.

I take another drag of the cig before stubbing it out and pop out the tape. After all of that she still gets a transfer to San Palo Sanitarium and like the operation on the tape everything at first is on the up and up then things take a turn.

A few days ago I managed to sweet talk a nurse (see bribe $40) to get show me the file room and leave me there for 30 minutes alone. This doctor was smart, it’s hard to kill 13 people under the noses of a whole hospital staff and even harder to perform surgery on them but she did it. I could see performed at least five operations with a full surgical staff in the three months she was there, three of those surgeries ended in death. I checked another file and looked for the names of the other ten victims. It took some doing and I was almost out of time when I found it. Ten names and the words in red letters marked “TRANSFERRED” on the front of the file, but transferred to where?

Doctor’s log: 2:45 a.m. “I have… (voice goes to static)…that should keep his vitals above the margin while I begin the incisions. Patient is calmer now, he appears more in a state of shock but that will change soon with the first incision…

I pour myself another drink and then it hits me, my eyes go wide a moment and I pretty much spill most of my drink on the hardwood floor of my living room. I think I know where her transferred patients went to but I have got to see the other tape I took from the Sanitarium.

This tape was unmarked and the quality was grainy to say the least, no operating staff with her and that’s not surprising considering this was the tape of the last victim she worked on. Her voice is cool and calm as she describes what she is doing but what she is doing isn’t cool or calm, unless stabbing into a patient repeatedly with a scalpel and pulling out organs is considered the norms these days. I can hear thudding noises on the tape, which would be some of the San Paro hospital staff trying to get in. She looks up a moment and even though the rest of her face is covered behind a bloody mask I know she looks confused as if unaware just exactly where she is. One hands holds a scalpel, the other holds…I don’t know if it’s a liver or kidney but it’s a red mass of something. She stands there looking at the door a moment before letting the scalpel and the bloody mass of flesh fall to the floor with a clatter and plop. She calmly announces the time and place of death as though the sounds of the pounding and the muffled yelling behind the door don’t exist. The mask is off and there’s that smile again, so serene and lovely that you would think this is the smile she put on for her late husband as she walked down the aisle to get married. She goes to another door, this one obviously leading outside of the hospital and away from the screaming noises. I catch a flash of the parking lot and I see the station wagon. This was victim number 13 but now I know what happened to the other nine the station wagon is the clue…

Doctor’s log: (lots of screaming and tearing noises) “3 a.m. the patient has exhibited extreme stress after the fourth incision, I am considering in removing the subject’s vocal cords in an effort to reduce distractions” (more tearing and gurgling sounds but no screaming now).

I check the file again, we found her car a few days ago when she pulled her magic disappearing act. It was spotless, not a trace of any evidence anywhere on the car and not so much as a hair follicle but what I needed wasn’t that kind of evidence. I checked the registration as I took another gulp from the near empty glass. The registration had most of the information that I already knew, her date of birth, name and make of the car but the address on it…

I looked at her personal file at the hospital…the address was different. We searched the address on the personal file but not the one on the registration. Lightning flashed outside and I looked at the window a moment thinking of all those patient transfers. She would have had to transfer them herself, kill them and then return them to the hospital but why the hospital? I grabbed my jacket and my gun time to check this other address…

Doctor’s Log: “3:15 am patient is pronounced deceased March 15, 2010” (distinct sounds of whistling low and melodious as well as sounds of metal clattering).

The warehouse on the address looks like it hasn’t been used in years and inside it isn’t much better. Everything is dark and my flashlight and only gives me five or six feet of good vision. I walk past a bunch of rusty leaking pipes in the dark, the rain outside a distant patter as I go trough one dusty disused room after another. So far I’m not turning up anything and I’m about to call it a night. Looking down at my watch I see the digital display say 1:45 am, it’s too late for this shit and to be honest I am getting a little spooked here. I pass one room and I think there was some painting accident, at least I hope it is but as I get closer to the splash on the wall I can smell it.

It isn’t paint…its blood.

I take out my gun and scan the room, on another wall I see newspapers that were either tacked or glued on in a haphazard fashion. I get closer and read and finally the hairs on the back of my neck start to stand up. Some of the articles were before the time Dr. Peterson transferred to San Palo Sanitarium all were homicide pieces including one of a Mr. Donald Peterson., so it’s a good bet she wasted him as well. I turn to head out and then notice the exit is blocked, the flashlight goes up a little and the there’s a shape there. Some man with long hair and a face that looks damned moves toward me fast, I don’t have time my gun comes up too slow and I hear a metallic clang and bright pain on the side of my face. My legs give out and I got time to look up hazily in time to see the metal pipe coming down at me and then I see black…

This room isn’t as dark, it’s dimly lit but most of the light is on me. I can’t move my arms or legs but I know why, they tied my ankles and wrists to the gurney. I turn my head to side and see the man that attacked me. He looks at me disinterested but what’s behind him has to be an illusion, no way could that other guy with the gas mask be so pale. I look away and I see her, I see her smile as she looks down at me. Such a beautiful smile and I expect her to say “I do” at any moment but her words are so much different. She looks across from me, presumably at the other two to say “This subject will do, we get underway at 2 a.m., ok with you?” I wonder what she means by “getting underway but then I feel a bolt of terror when I hear one of the others say “Just save the eyes for me” and then I don’t have to wonder about anything else except how long it will take for me to die…

ONE WEEK LATER

A pretty young woman steps into a diner and sits in a booth, she wears sunglasses and a small baseball cap. She looked like just some young woman who just went jogging in the park a few blocks back. She ordered an ice tea and a tuna salad and then she saw the TV go on by the counter, it looked like the news was on.

“Police are still searching for Detective Charles Miller who was heading up the San Palo Sanitarium massacre. Detective Miller was last seen…”

She smiles softly and waits for her meal…