“They’ve all moved on.”
“Where’d they go?”
“This isn’t the kind of place where people stay in touch,” he says. “Most of the people here are straight out of prison. They get jobs flipping burgers and scraping dead animals off the street barely making minimum wage. People don’t want to make friends here.”
“Any of the Grover Hills patients stand out?”
“Nobody stands out here.” He reaches back out for the cash. I keep hold of it.
“That’s not exactly worth a thousand dollars,” I tell him. “Give me something else.”
“I guess there’s one guy you could talk to,” he says. “One of the patients. He seemed to get on well enough with most of them.”
“What? He’s here?”
“Yeah. He’s here.”
“Thought you said they’d all moved on.”
He shrugs. “I just remembered,” he says, and money does help people remember. “His name’s Ritchie Munroe.”
“He here right now?”
He reaches out for the cash. I hand it over. I figure if I really wanted to I could take it back off him in about five seconds. He takes another draw on his cigarette. “Upstairs. Last door on the right.”
I head into the hallway and take the stairs. They groan with every footstep and the handrail is worn and wobbly. The windows upstairs lining the hallway are streaked with a thicker layer of dirt than their counterparts downstairs. The view outside isn’t pretty, rusting roofs of neighboring houses, gutters chock full of leaves and sludge, backyards with burned lawns and car parts scattered in the sun. I knock on the end doorway and a guy calls out for me to wait a moment before opening it half a minute later. Ritchie Munroe has a nose that’s too big for him and a mouth that’s too small, it’s like somebody gave him the wrong-sized parts in the baby factory. His eyes look too small for the sockets, as if a tap to the head would spin them around like dollar signs in a slot machine. His hair has been dyed black, and he hasn’t done a great job because there’s dye on his forehead too. He must be in his midfifties, maybe even sixty. He could be the man in the sketch but he could just as easily not be. He’s wearing only underwear and a T-shirt and the front of his underwear is bulging out. Behind him is a small TV set playing a porn movie with the sound turned down. The hot air rushing past him from the room seems happy to escape.
“Who are you?” he asks, and he sounds nervous.
“Detective Inspector Schroder,” I say, figuring Carl won’t mind. Well, more figuring he’ll never know. “I need to ask you some questions about Grover Hills.”
He shakes his head. “I’ve never heard of it,” he says, and he tries to close the door.
I put my hand on it. “That’s funny, considering you spent some time there. You mind turning that off?” I ask, nodding toward the TV.
“Why? It embarrassing you?”
“Guess that means you don’t want to put any pants on either.”
“Just ask your questions and leave,” he says. “Please.”
“Preacher says you were friends with a bunch of Grover Hills patients.”
“Preacher tell you that?”
“He did.”
“You have to pay him?”
I smile. “I did.”
“You hold back anything for me?” he asks, not sounding so nervous now.
I show him the remaining cash.
“What do you want to know?”
“Somebody set fire to Nurse Deans.”
He pulls back a little as his face tightens, but then it loosens off again as he comes to terms with the news. “Can’t say I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Any idea who would do a thing like that?”
“None.”
“Heard of Emma Green?”
“Nope.”
“Cooper Riley?”
“Nope.”
“Not even from the news?”
“Why would I watch the news?”
“Who else wouldn’t be upset at hearing Nurse Deans was dead?”
He shrugs. “Everybody who ever stayed at the Grove. Nobody really liked anybody out there. Mental institutions are like that.”
“And what about you?”
“I’m easy to like.”
“I meant did you want to kill her?”
“I’m a lover not a fighter,” he says.
“You an arsonist?”
“What?”
“Where were you yesterday?”
“Why?”
“Just answer the question.”
“Here. With Melina. All day.”
“Melina?”
“Yeah. She’s my girl.”
“She here?”
“Where else would she be?”
“Can I talk to her?”
“She doesn’t like strangers.”
I wave the cash in front of his face and remind him why he’s talking to me. He sees it and figures talking to strangers isn’t such a bad thing. “Make it quick,” he says.
He swings the door the rest of the way open. The light coming into the hallway through the upstairs windows makes no effort to enter his room, it’s as though the spoiled air and smell of sex is scaring it away. Melina is lying in bed facing the TV set. The curtains are closed so most of the light coming into the room is from the TV. Ritchie takes a few steps backward and his movement creates a draft, which ripens the stench. I almost gag.
“Melina?” I say, stepping toward her, but then I don’t say anything else.
“Ask her your questions,” Ritchie says.
I turn back toward him. “She your alibi?”
“Why you asking me?” he asks. “She’s the one telling you we were here.”
I look back down at Melina, but Melina is still looking at the TV, completely ignoring me as she stares at it with glazed-over eyes made from plastic. Her entire body is made from rubber and plastic and must weigh around fifty or sixty kilograms. As far as companion dolls go, she certainly looks like a high-end model. I bet that makes her high maintenance.
“See?” Ritchie says.
“What?”
“See, I told you I was here all day yesterday,” he says, looking at me. He looks down at Melina. “I know,” he says. “I’m sorry, but it isn’t my fault. He just showed up. He has money.”
He turns back toward me. “I told you she doesn’t like strangers. You’ve got what you came for and, like the lady said, it’s time you leave.” He looks back down at her. “I know, honey, I know.”
He leads me to the door and I’m happy to be led. “Sorry about that,” he says, in a conspiratorial whisper.
“It’s hard to find the perfect woman,” I say. “You know, with a thousand bucks you could buy her a few nice dresses.”
“I guess I could.”
“But there are a few things you need to tell me.”
“Like what?”
“Tell me about the Scream Room.”
“Who told you about that?”
“Another patient. You ever have to spend time down there?”
“What, me? No, never. But I never. . never, you know, hurt anybody. That room was for the bad people and I’m not a bad people. Money?”
“Not yet. What about the Twins?”
He looks down. “Why do you have to talk about them,” he whispers. “I’m a better person now. I don’t want nothing to do with them.” He sniffs loudly and starts to cry.
“I’m sorry, I really am,” I say, and it’s true. “Listen, are any of your friends from Grover Hills in the habit of killing cats and digging them back up?”
“I have to go,” he says, and starts to close the door. “You can keep the money.”
I push my hand against it. “Ritchie. .”
“But Melina. .”
“Melina can wait. Give me a name, Ritchie.”
“I can’t. He’s my friend. My best friend.”
“Who?”
“Nobody.”
“He killed my cat,” I say. “And he killed Nurse Deans.”
“She was a hard woman,” he says.
“What’s his name?”
“I can’t,” he says.
I hold the money back up. “You can spend this on Melina,” I say. “You going to choose friendship over love? Is that it? You’re going to choose to protect a killer instead of buying your girl something she deserves?”
He looks down and starts opening and closing his lips like a goldfish, no sound coming out.
“Ritchie. .”
“His name is Adrian Loaner, but he doesn’t live here anymore. He used to, but then I taught him to drive and he left. He was young when he went to the Grove, real young, and he was there for twenty years maybe.”