The Whitechapel Case
Fox-Trot-9

PG-13
Horror/Suspense/Mystery (How-Catch-'Em)
Disclaimer: I don't own Ghost Hunt or Death Note.

Part 2: The Connections
Chapter 5

Day 2—The ride to the Allenshire House for the Insane was a forty-something mile trip from King's Place that felt more like the lonely stretch on Route 50 in Nevada; it was lonely and far too quiet. At least out in the open, where barely a breeze rustled through endless fields of farmland. Noll, Lin and Bert were squeezed together in the back seat of the cabbie like the Three Stooges, because the superstitious cabdriver wouldn't have anyone sit in the front seat. He told the three when they boarded his ride that whenever someone sat in the front seat, he always had a flat tire, or an airbag deploying for no reason, or a dent in the bumper, among other things. So here they were in the back seat. Bert had just hung up, and now they were silent. No need for chit-chat now.

Noll had been thinking of Jason Pickmaster's second-hand account of Evan Moore for most of the trip. And of course, any thinking man of Noll's caliber had many questions in his mind, namely three. One: Who were the other four kids that went along with him into that cave? He didn't know, but he had a biting suspicion who one of the others might be. Two: If his theory was correct, that the enigmatic figure in a white suite had a grudge against Jacob Meiler, could this also be applied to Evan Moore's death? To Noll, it seemed... eerily plausible. And three: Besides Evan Moore, could Jacob Meiler be one of those five kids? At first, such a proposition was quite a stretch, but now it seemed it was not only plausible but inevitable. So one more question remained: Who were the other three?

As Noll sat thinking, the three in the cabbie saw the fields give way to the hamlets and private villas of the rich folks, as they entered the jurisdiction of Croydon. Ten minutes later, they reached their destination, stopping at the parking entrance that was restricted to only the employees, and got out after paying the cabdriver his dues. The asylum looked ordinary enough, just a long box of a building, painted in pale colors like your everyday walk-in clinic or hospice. Half the parking lot was occupied, and that meant most of the workers were about to clock out and head home. The entrance was paved in slabs of stone, with a lawn and garden that wrapped around the front facade of the building. Bert looked at the words over the entrance; below the name of the asylum was another word: WELCOME.

That's one hell of a welcome, thought Bert.

"Who were you calling back there?" said Noll.

"Terry Haller; he's a friend of mine that I know I can count on, besides Jake."

"So he'll be joining the case?"

"Yeah, unless you have any objections."

"I won't have any until I meet him," and off he went.

Bert looked at the kid when he said, "Hey, Lin; is that kid really your boss?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Damn, man. You have my sympathy."

"Just deal with it."

A few benches were near the entrance, one of which had two middle-aged, male nurses taking a time-out. Another bench had a wrinkled old-timer on it; he was in a hospital gown, squinting into space with his mouth open and a line of drool spilling over. The man had a cup in his hand and seemed oblivious to it and everything around him, his mind and body frozen into a stupor. A pitiful sight.

The three walked past them and through the sliding doors and saw a forty-something-year-old reception lady shifting papers at her computer station.

She looked up when she saw them. "Can I help you, sirs?"

"We are here to interview one of the patients here named Penelope Fowler."

Her eyes widened. "And your name is—?"

"Kazuya Shibuya, and this is Officer Bert Grendal to my left and Koujo Lin to my right."

The woman just nodded, barely aware of her open mouth as she was still shocked to find any visitors wanting anything to do with Penelope Fowler. "I...um... Wait here a moment, please," and she headed into a door to the right, presumably leading to an office of some kind, and stayed there for about ten minutes, then came back and said, "I'm sorry. She's not available at this time."

Noll eyed her to see if she was lying; and she was. "I'm not in the mood to play games. I'm here to see Ms. Fowler."

"But you don't understand, Mr. Shibuya; Penelope Fowler is not in her right mind. In fact, she is one of the sickest patients in our care, who poses a danger not only to the staff and the other patients but to herself. Please understand that she's not fit to answer any questions at the moment."

"I'll be the judge of that."

"But you don't understand. She's—"

Bert stopped her, mid-sentence. "Listen, Mrs..." (He read her name tag.) "Mrs. Parker, we need to see this Penelope Fowler as soon as possible, because you're delaying an investigation."

Mrs. Parker was beside herself. "How soon will that be?"

"As in, right now," added Lin.

The sight of three strong, intimidating men pressing on her made Mrs. Parker begin to panic. She fumbled through her papers, while she tried to come up with a good-enough explanation why these three in front of her should not see Penelope Fowler. She knew exactly what it was but didn't want to say it. "I'm sorry, sirs. You'll just have to—"

"Mrs. Parker, my patience is wearing thin," said Noll. "Either you tell me where she is, or I will go around looking for her myself, if I have to. I need to speak with Ms. Fowler, now."

"All right, all right; just... Just wait here for a moment longer. Just stay right here, okay?" and she scrambled into that door again, only to come out with a doctor not much older than she was.

The doctor put his spectacles on and read Penelope Fowler's file, as they walked toward the three. He told Mrs. Parker to stay and attend to whoever else might come through the entrance, while he took care of the ordeal for her. "Follow me, sirs; Penelope Fowler is on the second floor," and Noll and the rest followed him up the stairs. "I take it that you are Mr. Shibuya?"

"I am, but leave the formalities for later. Right now, I need to speak with Ms. Fowler."

"Is it urgent?"

"Very."

"I see. But before you talk to her," said the doctor, "I must inform you of Ms. Fowler's current state of mind. She is extremely disturbed, more so than is the norm for even an insane asylum like this place. In fact, I've recently had a few of our staff quit after Ms. Fowler attacked them." Noll looked at him; could that have anything to do with this current case? "I see you are quite interested, but mind you, and mind it well. She's exhibited several unusual symptoms that our doctors and specialists can't seem to pinpoint."

"What kind of symptoms?" said Noll.

"Nothing I've experienced in my usual field of study. Ms. Fowler has had a long history of exhibiting violence to the staff and many of the patients, since she was admitted to our care in 1989; thus, she was moved to the second floor isolating her from the staff and patients, where she stayed for the next twenty years. When I became the superintendent in 1992, most of the incidents were not too vicious. Of course, I've had several nurses come to me and say she screamed, cursed or spat at them for no obvious reasons, when they attended to her. Some of them quit, but I didn't see anything truly life-threatening. That all changed when another nurse, Angel Pearson, who is sadly not here with us today—she died of lung cancer ten years ago—, said she had her face viciously raked and scratched by Ms. Fowler's hands, as if they were the claws of a wild animal; she needed about twenty stitches to close the wounds. Several patients said she screamed at them when they happened to pass by her side of the room, one of them saying that she had something of an evil stare when she looked at you.

"Her actions have slowly escalated through the years, and some of them were quite extreme. In fact, there was one incident where my former assistant, Clement Shiroppi, and a nurse heard a scream from Ms. Fowler's room and went over to take a look; Mr. Shirroppi told me that when he and the nurse got there, they found the door lying on the ground, as if it was somehow ripped off the hinges. And what they saw was beyond anything our staff has ever experienced..." (While the doctor went on with the account, Noll looked around the second floor of the corridor; doors, open and shut, lined the corridors; above them, spaced every twenty doors or so, was a security camera.) "Do our security cameras interest you?"

"Yes, they do. When were they installed?"

"Ten years ago."

"When did that incident involving Ms. Fowler happen?"

"Eight years ago. Mr. Shibuya, if you want to see the footage of that incident, you'll need clearance of some kind. Otherwise, I'm afraid I'll have to—"

"I give him the clearance," said Bert.

"Are you the one in charge?"

"Yes, I am," he lied.

"All right, follow me." The doctor lead the trio down the corridor, turning left into one corridor and right into another, before stopping at an obscure door at the end of the hall with a sign that said: KEEP OUT. "As you can see, all patients and most of the staff are not allowed on these premises. We've had a few periodic upgrades in our security for the past twenty years, but none of them were major. That changed when an unusual occurrence, the one involving Ms. Fowler, my former assistant (Clement Shiroppi) and a nurse played out on these grounds. Since then, we've beefed up all surveillance in and around this place for the protection of staff and patients."

"Who was the nurse?" said Noll.

The doctor sighed at the question, looking down on the door before him. "She was Georgia Putnam. You all know what happened to her."

Chills ran down Noll's spine, as it did with Lin and Bert. "I'm sorry."

"We've all been sorry for a long time, long before those horrors began on the streets months ago." Then he knocked on the door and said, "Randolf, you have a few visitors wanting to see you," and the door opened to reveal a graying middle-aged man with a beer-belly in a white shirt and tie.

"It's not everyday that someone wants to see me in my work. What's the occasion?"

"I'm here to see one of the videos in your archive," said Noll.

"This ain't a porn shop, kid."

"You misunderstand, Randolf," said the doctor. "These three are here to review the footage of the incident involving Ms. Fowler eight years ago."

Randolf's I-thought-so smirk disappeared at the mention of her name. "God, do I even wanna know why you want to see that video?"

"No; in fact it's better that you don't," said Bert. "Just show us the video, all right?"

Randolf nodded and allowed them to enter the room, a room filled with several monitors and VCR's. Three other men were looking at their set of monitors and nodded at Randolf, as he went into the back room full of tapes on a wall-shelf. He came back with the tape and popped it into the VCR on his desk.

"Now I gotta warn you about the stuff on this video; it's a bit graphic, and it gave me chills the first time I looked at it."

All four of them looked at him, then at the video that was fast-forwarding on the monitor's screen.

"What happened?" said Noll.

"You'll see soon enough, boy. Just watch."

Noll, Lin and Bert sat silent looking at the screen when Randolf hit the play button; then he turned up the volume dial, so everyone could hear what happened; the doctor, who had already watched the footage the first time, went out of the room, not willing to hear or see it again; the three coworkers looked up from their video screens and anticipated the horror that was to come. Everybody waited as if they were waiting for doomsday.

On the color screen was a view of the corridor overlooking its right side. The time on the screen was seven o'clock and counting on the night of the 14th of January. There was no movement, except the occasional worker on the night-shift making a few rounds or going to the restroom. The static was relatively low, even with the volume turned on high. They waited and waited, one minute, two minutes, and counting, for any sign of anything out of the ordinary until—

"Stop it right there," said Noll. The screen showed a blurry still. Everyone saw a fuzzy diamond shape on the screen, which was a pale purple on the outside edges and a large, black void in its center. It had just appeared literally out of no where.

"What is that?" said Bert.

"That's what baffled me for eight years," said Randolf. "I have no freaking idea what that is or what it means. I've had experts analyze this thing, and all they could offer was that it was a trick of the light or a hoax of some kind. For some reason, I don't think it is. If you want my guess, and this is just right off the top of my head, I think it's some supernatural ghost or whatever the folks from Most Haunted would like to have their audience believe, these days."

"You may be right," said Noll; Randolf looked at him. "Has this been altered in any way?"

"I swear on my mother's grave, it hasn't. Why?"

"Just making sure. Usually when so-called spirits of any kind are captured on a visual medium, they usually appear in a temperature setting that you can easily mistake a person's reflection from a smooth wall or mirror for a spirit; that usually happens from positioning the camera in the wrong angle or in the wrong place. This one has no temperature setting, and so we see exactly what the picture shows us. This camera works like our eyes, for our eyes can only see in color, meaning that visual light is reflected into the camera lens and recorded in a medium, such as video tape. This picture shows us that something is blocking the normal light coming into the lens; thus, we have an anomaly recorded on this tape."

"I already know that; just tell me what is it?"

"I won't know until I see the entire tape. Play the rest of it."

Randolf pushed the play button again and braced himself for what was to come. That diamond-shaped anomaly moved through the locked door of one of the patient's rooms, presumably that of Penelope Fowler's, and then nothing else happened. Nothing that is, until a weak female voice came on the audio loud and clear.

There was heavy breathing, someone obviously in distress. "W-w-what do you want? Dear God, why won't you leave me alone?..." (Inaudible mumbles.) "Please, go away... I don't want you here anymore... I... I..." (More inaudible mumbles, then crying.) "Please, I don't wanna die... I don't—"

There was a sharp intake of breath. Then a rasping, high-pitched scream echoed through the audio of the speakers to ear-splitting decibels; everyone covered their ears at this, while Randolf turned down the volume dial.

"Sorry about that, fellas," he said.

Everyone looked at the screen, giddy for what will happen next. The screaming died down and silent static took over, followed by something truly unexpected. The locked door shook in its door jamb as if it was being rattled by an earthquake, the hinges and door handles coming loose, until the door just flew off like a pack of cards thrown against the wall. Then an old woman in a hospital gown ran out into the hall.

Then Noll saw it in slow motion, appearing as a blur on the screen. He was the only one who saw it this way, because it played out too fast for the others to notice. In this slow motion, he saw what looked like the blur of a man in a white suit enter the small of the woman's back; for a moment, he even thought he saw a grimace of pain on the old woman's face in the screen when it did this. Then the woman crashed to her knees and fell face down on the linoleum floor, where she lay twitching uncontrollably like a rag doll tied to an electric chair. Two others appeared on the screen, presumably the doctor's assistant, Clement Shiroppi, and nurse Georgia Putnam, both struggling to restrain Ms. Fowler on the ground. The old woman even managed to swipe her nails into Mr. Shiroppi's face. More help came over in the form of security guards to restrain her.

"Stop the video," said Noll.

"Don't tell me that I didn't warn you," said the doctor. "Are you still up to interviewing Ms. Penelope Fowler after seeing that?"

"Now I'm even more interested to see her." Everybody except Lin looked at him like he had gone insane; no one in their right minds would dare see her after seeing that tape. "But before I do, I need a copy of that tape."

"You're freaking kidding, right?" said Randolf.

The boy shook his head; he wasn't letting this possible clue to solving this case go, that's for damn sure. In fact, Noll felt the giddiness that always followed from the mere prospect of uncovering a valuable clue build inside of him, though he never showed it.

"All right, all right, I'll make a copy. You want it in a disc?"

"Yes, that's preferable."

Randolf went to the back room to make the copy, mumbling to himself how the kid had lost his freaking marbles.

"Mr. Shibuya, I'll ask you one more time," said the doctor. "Are you sure you want to go through with this? I've never been a religious or superstitious man, but if that incident and the horrors of recent events have anything valuable to tell, it would be that Evil itself truly exists in this world."

"You think I don't already know that?" A pause; Noll thought about his words before saying more. "Is your assistant, Clement Shiroppi, still alive?"

"I'm afraid not. He died just two years later of a stroke." He sighed. "It seems everyone is dying unnatural deaths, these days."

"Who else was acquainted with Ms. Fowler?"

"No one, not even her family would contact us. But there was one person, Father Antonio Carmyne, who has seen Penelope Fowler during her stay here. Three times, in fact..." (The name struck a bell in Noll; he's seen that last name before in his father's summary sheet. Maple Carmyne from the 1977 case and Alice Carmyne from the current case. Could this Antonio Carmyne be related to these two murder victims? And if so, could this Antonio Carmyne be one of the kids Jason Pickmasters was talking about back in King's Place? Noll barely managed to keep his stoic front.) "The first time was in 1995, when we contacted Mr. Carmyne to do an exorcism on Ms. Fowler when none of our medications or prescriptions did anything to temper her fits of rage. I'll have you know that it worked the first time with flying colors. Done in two days' time. After the exorcism, Ms. Fowler was no longer prone to her violent fits, like she used to be. Father Carmyne did another blessing in and around the grounds of this asylum for good measure, and we didn't have anything from Ms. Fowler for the next seven years."

He sighed, then continued, "That is, until the incident you've just seen happened. We contacted him barely a week afterward, and he arrived within the next five days. He did the same procedures as he did before and managed to quell the rage in Ms. Fowler, but it took him much longer to do it. About eighteen days. And I could tell Father Carmyne was much worse for wear when he was done; he suffered a minor concussion during the ordeal but still managed it. On the other hand, the room where the exorcism took place was disheveled; the hospital beds were tipped over, the curtains were ripped, the window looking into Ms. Fowler's room was cracked, and the door leading into the room had to be replaced again. It looked as if a tornado had gone through the place. Father Carmyne even asked us to upgrade our security in light of such events, which we took seriously to heart. That was eight years ago.

"And then there was the third time. After a horrible relapse in the middle of September of last year, we asked for Father Carmyne to help us again, and he came in on the first day of October. Along with him, he brought an assistant to help him in the exorcism. This third exorcism was no where near as long as the last one; in fact it only took four days, but it exacted a horrible price. Far, far too horrible for any one soul, no matter how divinely fortified a mortal could be. Father Carmyne's assistant, Father Ambrose, died during the exorcism, and Father Carmyne and I attended his funeral service a week later. God, it was horrible, but if that wasn't enough-good God, if that wasn't enough, Father Carmyne also had to suffer the death of his only daughter in those heinous murders two months ago."

The mention of Alice Carmyne sent chills down everyone's spine; not even Lin hid the horror from his face. Only Noll seemed to keep his composure, though it was tenuous at that.

"You see, Mr. Shibuya," the doctor continured; Randolf (who had returned with the disc) and the rest of the security guards listened as the doctor said this. "Ms. Fowler has attained a certain... reputation among the staff and the patients in this asylum as... a jinx, to put it lightly. Everyone who works here fears to even pass by the room she's currently in, for they say she is cursed. Now I'm not one to believe in such things, but I do feel concern for the well-being of others, including Penelope Fowler who has received several death threats since the death of Father Carmyne's assistant and daughter. Though I firmly believe that Ms. Fowler has nothing to do with these deaths, either intentionally or unintentionally, I do believe that those who want to see her must mind the peril they put themselves in. Neither I nor this institution will be held responsible for anything that may happen to you during or after your meeting with Ms. Fowler. Now that I've explained to you everything that could be explained about the circumstances, I'll ask you one more time—"

"You don't have to ask me, because you already know my answer," said Noll. "We are not hear to bring any charges to you or to this asylum; we are here to solve a case."

"And what case is that?" said the doctor; that's when he realized it. "Good God! You're not investigating those heinous crimes now, are you?"

The security staff was shocked at the news.

"I'm afraid we are," said Lin. "We need to interview Penelope Fowler to solve these murders."

"Shit, I can't believe that fucking old hag!" said Randolf. "I've should've known that bitch was—!"

"We're not drawing those conclusions, man," said Bert. "We just need all the information we can get before we decide on any action, that's all."

"And wait until the next victim dies? That's fucking bullshit!"

"Randolf!" said the doctor. "That's no way to act in front of the authorities!"

Randolf tried calming his nerves. "Sorry about that, fellas; I just got... you know, carried away... Oh, and here's the copy you requested," and he handed the disc to Lin, who pocketed it.

The doctor sighed again, dreading this very moment. "All right, since I can't convince you out if it, I'll let you have your interview with Ms. Fowler, but on one condition?"

"And what's that?" said Noll.

"You must allow our security staff to accompany you during your visit with Ms. Fowler. Is that all right with you?"

"Done. May we see her now?"

"All right, all right, follow me," and the doctor lead the train of six through the halls, while the seventh held the fort in the surveillance room. They turned left and then right through the same corridors they've just passed and continued through that same corridor to the end of the hall, stopping at a door with a tinted window next to it. "This is Penelope Fowler's current room; she was moved here to further isolate her from the other patients and staff for their safety, as well as for her own. And mind you," he added when he unlocked the door, looking hard at Noll as he did so, "she is very frail, considering all the things that happened to her; I would not question her for more than an hour. She tires quickly."

Noll looked through the window and saw the disheveled, old woman strapped to her bed from her ankles and wrists to her chest. "How long will it take for her recover her strength?"

"Oh, it usually takes about four hours of rest, sometimes as little as two and as many as twenty-four. Oh, and one more thing. Before you make any hasty conclusions, Mr. Shibuya, you will see that we have taken all precautions when it comes to her safety, even though you and your colleagues might think them a bit extreme. Remember, she is a patient in our care, and nothing else."

"I know. Now will you quit stalling?"

The doctor nodded and opened the door for Noll, Lin and Bert to pass.

(To be continued...)

A/N: Sorry for not updating anything last week. I had to spend my time on writing a paper for me Polical Science class. Anyway, this is the first of two uploads I'll do today to make up for last week. If you think this is heart-pounding, then the next installment will be a slobber-knocker. Anyway, enjoy reading. And spread the word about this story. ( ^_^ )