P. Parrish - An Unquiet Grave

Dr. Seraphin stood near the door, arms crossed. She looked amused.

“You should have told me it was bricked off,” Louis said.

“And what good would it have done?” she asked. “You still would have gone down there to see for yourself.”

He pulled the door closed as far as it would come. He couldn’t believe the state police hadn’t sealed it back up. The killer could easily smash away a few of the blocks, giving him access to other tunnels to hide in.

“Are all the buildings connected by these tunnels?” he asked Dr. Seraphin.

She nodded.

“Are they all bricked off like this?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Is there any way into the tunnels other than from the buildings?”

Dr. Seraphin had her hand on her chin, one finger pressed into her cheek. “Your mind is interesting. There’s always another question to be answered, isn’t there?”

“Yes, ma’am. And you haven’t answered it.”

“No, the only entrances are from the buildings,” she said. She ran a hand over her cropped gray hair. “Mr. Kincaid, if you have no more need of me, I really need to get going.”

Louis’s eyes went to Oliver standing vigil behind her. “Thanks for your time, Doctor.”

She smiled slightly, picking up on his irritation with her. She headed back down the hall toward the entrance, Oliver trailing.

He waited until they had left; then he backtracked to the records room. He picked up the police case files for Rebecca Gruber and Sharon Stottlemeyer, then paused.

The folders of the four men Dr. Seraphin had singled out were sitting alone near the stool. He already had their names in his notebook, but he needed more information. History, addresses, relatives, release dates. Anything that could help him find them.

Taking the files was illegal. But no more illegal than what Dr. Seraphin had already done. And he would never be able to reveal how he got the names anyway.

He picked up the four folders and his umbrella. Tucking the folders in his jacket, he went outside.

There was no sign of Zeke, the security guard. He’d been gone for more than two hours. Probably still on break in the administration building. Louis hurried to his car, dumped the folders in the backseat, and trotted to the administration building.

He stopped inside the door to shake the water from the umbrella. He needed to call the state police to tell them about the corn can and to convince them to come back and weld the tunnel doors closed.

There was a small room off the lobby that the security guards had commandeered as their break room, and when Louis went to the door, there were two guards sitting at a table sharing a thermos of coffee. He put in a call to the state police. The guy who took his message promised it would get to the right person, but as he hung up the phone Louis doubted it would. He made a mental note to call Dalum and tell him to put on some pressure.

Louis turned to the two guards at the table.

“You guys seen Zeke?” Louis asked.

“He was here about an hour ago when I came in,” one of the men said. “I think he went back out.”

Louis pulled Zeke’s keys from his pocket. He was about to hand them over to the guard when the thought hit him. It could take days for the state police to get back down here to close the tunnels back up. The killer could have already found his way back in. Maybe the guy was down there now. And if they acted quickly, they could have him trapped.

Louis pocketed the keys and went back outside. At the Impala, he grabbed a flashlight he had stowed in the trunk yesterday and the diagram of the hospital grounds from the backseat.

Then he popped the glove box and took out his Glock. He hooked it on his belt and started off toward the nearest building.

He was only going to check to make sure the cinder-block walls in the tunnels had not been compromised. That was all.

It was logical that the administration building would be connected to the tunnels, so that is where he would begin.

He didn’t tell anyone what he was doing. He just walked the ground floor, looking for steel doors with no handles. Finally, he found one, painted green like the one in E Building, with PASSAGE 2 stenciled on it. Also like the one in E Building, it had been pried open and had yellow tape on it.

Louis pulled it open, flicked on his flashlight, and went down the sloping ramp. The tunnel had the same damp smell as the other one, and about twenty feet in Louis came to an intact cinder-block wall. Making sure it was secure, he backtracked. At the back of the building, he found a second tunnel door marked PASSAGE 1. It, too, was taped and securely bricked off. After he was positive there were no other tunnel entries in the building, Louis went outside.

He unfolded Spera’s map and pulled a pen from his jacket. He made marks on the administration building outline where he had found the tunnel doors, numbering them 1 and 2.

There were seventeen buildings on the map. He looked around, trying to get the lay of the grounds. To his right was a large red brick dormitory-like building. The map identified it as Employee Housing. He decided he would start there and work his way around the grounds counterclockwise.

Luckily, the keys on the big ring Zeke had given him were all marked. He unlocked the main door and went in. Like most of the buildings, it had already been stripped inside by the salvage crews, the doors, office furniture, and anything of even remote value carted away. Louis noticed all the windows were secure as he made his way through the first floor of the large, L-shaped dormitory.

Finally, at the back north end, he found a steel door stenciled PASSAGE 3, pried open with the yellow tape lying on the floor. He shouldered the door open and went down the slope, flicking on the flashlight. About twenty feet in, he came to the cinder-block wall. No sign that it had been compromised.

After searching the rest of the building, he was confident there was only one tunnel door. He marked the door “3” on the map and went back out the front, locking up behind him.

To the east was a small plain building that the map said was the police and fire headquarters. A quick tour told him there were no tunnel doors in it. He found the same thing true of the small one-story cafeteria behind the housing building, but it was connected to the dormitory by a walkway, so he suspected the employees hadn’t needed a tunnel to go back and forth for meals.

He headed north, toward the commissary. It was another small one-story building, but it was made of wood and looked to be much newer than the red brick buildings. Inside, the shelves and counters were bare. There were no other doors except the one he had entered.

Outside again, he trudged across the ice-crusted grass, heading north toward the mammoth, spired infirmary. He couldn’t remember if he had seen any of the numbered passage doors when he had been down in the mortuary before. He didn’t really want to go back in there, but he had no choice.

Unlocking the double front doors, he entered the gloom of the old infirmary’s lobby. Down in the basement, he went slowly along the tiled corridor, searching for passage doors. Finally, he spotted the telltale heavy steel door. It was stenciled PASSAGE 9. That meant there had to be others in here. He found the cinder-block secure and came back out.

It took him a good half hour to find passage 8, which was also blocked off. It was so dark in the maze of basement corridors, he had to use his flashlight. Finally, he found himself in front of the door with MORTUARY stenciled on the glass. He went in, his footsteps echoing loudly in his ears as he ran the flashlight beam over the empty rooms.

The light came to a stop on the plain door. The columbarium. He hesitated. He knew Spera had taken all the cremation cans out, but he couldn’t remember if there were any doors in the small room or not. He took a deep breath and pushed the door open.