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“You were part of a rebel group?” It was hard to picture, but the more time I spent around him, the more he surprised me.
“Yes, I was. I signed on for a lark. It turned out to be a grueling battle, and hundreds on both sides died. I was maimed—my leg is twisted, but I survived. That was enough war for me. I was quite happy to retire back to my desk.”
He snapped his fingers. “Here we go. I found something of the history of that area. I’ve never done much research into it, just documented what came past my inbox. By the number of entries I’ve logged, a great many evil deeds have occurred there in the past ten years. However, when we look back to the beginnings of the city, the district was…let me see…”
“If you say it was a graveyard, I’m going to break your computer.” I grinned at him.
He raised his eyebrows and then winked at me. “Why, Menolly, you underestimate my loyalty to my technology. I’d have you down and pinned in no time.”
I gaped at him, not sure what to say.
Carter chuckled. “A joke. I’d never threaten to stake you—I do not threaten death lightly. However, I do warn you. Never underestimate me.”
“I won’t.” It was all I could think of to say.
“Good. Well, here we go. While yes, there was—and is—a graveyard there, that’s not what I was going to say. The district was the site of one of the first mental institutions in the area. An asylum, really. This was back in the day when the insane and disturbed were treated cruelly. We’re talking electroshock therapy, starvation therapy, and—because the owner was a thoroughly demented prick—plenty of abuse, rape, and murder made out to be accidental.”
Holy shit. That would be enough to stir up unsettled spirits, all right. “How come this isn’t common knowledge? The little I’ve read about the district doesn’t mention a word about it.”
“You think that sort of knowledge would be encouraged by the tourism council, or by residents looking to buck up their property values? No, the asylum—and it was an asylum, not a hospital—operated for fifty years before it burned to the ground one cold, blustery night.” He gave me a smug look and began leafing through his scrapbooks.
“Fifty years of debauchery. Were operations all under the original owner?”
“No, the son took over about thirty years in. Like father, like son, so it seems.” He paused, then turned the scrapbook so I could see the articles. “Here, it says that the hospital was in the center of the district, and the administrator owned five hundred acres buttressed up to the left of the asylum.”
I stared at the pictures of the building. It loomed in black and white, stark and cruel and twisted. I could see that much through the photos.
“How did it burn down?”
Carter let me look at the article while he opened the other scrapbook. After a moment, he pushed it back.
“A group of patients managed to overpower their guards. They killed the administrator—the son—and went on to massacre a number of their fellow patients. Some escaped, but so many were killed. They took control of the asylum. At that point, things aren’t too clear, but it looks like one of their worst patients—Silas Johanson, who was incarcerated for being criminally insane—went down to the boiler room. They aren’t sure what he did, but the boiler exploded and a gas main burst, and the building went up in a massive explosion.”
I stared at the outside of the asylum. Even the pictures dripped with fury and hatred and fear, and it was hard to be sorry the place had burned to the ground, except for the people who had been caught inside the inferno.
“How many died?”
“Three hundred fifty-seven patients, twenty-five guards, and two dozen nurses and doctors.” Carter leaned forward and stared at me from across his desk. “They said Silas complained about voices telling him to harm the other patients. However, he was in there for killing his mother, father, wife, and three children. He swore the devil made him do it, and so they tossed him in there.”
“Yeah, the devil gets blamed a lot for what people do.”
“We demons get a bad rap. Occasionally you get a demon who can control others through mind tricks, but we’re not Jedi and we don’t go around forcing our will on others. Not usually.” His nostrils flared.
“But a ghost…a ghost can drive someone nuts, can’t they?” I thumbed through the pages recording all the activity at the Greenbelt Asylum. Time and again, I saw records saying that patients complained about voices ordering them to do things against their will.
“Perhaps, if the person is prone to control.” One of Carter’s cats jumped on the desk and he absently stroked her long, fluffy fur.
“Aegean, right? Delilah and Camille told me.”
“Yes, they are Aegean. This one is Roxy. The other is Lara, and the third—a newcomer—I named Zhivago.” He paused to remove the cream-colored cat from his desk, then returned to musing over the clippings. “I don’t think this was the beginning of the hauntings in that district, though it certainly contributed to it. But there has to be more. I will research and let you know what I can find.”>“And it happened.” I leaned my head against the seat and closed my eyes. “Chase, you’re all right. You know that, I hope.”
He laughed. “Menolly, anytime you pay me a compliment, I pay attention. I know you don’t bullshit, so I listen.”
And with that, he fell silent and so did I. All the way to the FH-CSI building, the only sounds that passed were those of his breath, his still-beating heart, and the whir of the wheels eating up the road.
Chapter 10
After I made sure Abby and Fritz were okay, I glanced at the clock. I couldn’t believe it, but it was still only around ten P.M., so I decided to pay a visit to Carter. He’d confirmed that Gulakah—the Lord of Ghosts—was definitely back in Seattle, but I wanted to know more about the Greenbelt Park District. And Carter would know its history.
