Free Loonies by Gregory Bastianelli Page B

burn to the ground and her former boss with it?”
    “What are you suggesting?”
    Brian didn’t want to sit. He was too excited. “I’m not suggesting anything. Just look at what’s happened. I find a steamer trunk of baby skeletons in the house that I bought from Ruth Snethen, who just happens to be a retired nurse who used to work at the Wymbs Institute, which burns to the ground the very next night, and the only thing inside is the strangled body of the doctor who ran the place.”
    “Coincidence?” The chief’s brow furrowed.
    Brian looked down at him in frustration. “That’s not the feeling I get in my gut.”
    “Steem’s going to want to look at that picture of yours.”
    “Yeah,” Brian said. “But I’m going to want some mutual cooperation.”
    He thought about telling the chief about the mysterious note he had received but decided to keep it to himself. It might be important, but it came from someone who wanted to keep quiet.
    Brian thought of something. “Almost forgot, Wymbs’ housekeeper was in that crowd shot, too.”
    “Really. I was talking about her with Steem earlier. No one seems to know who she is or where she is. She’s the only other person we know who was working at the institute. She could clue us in on the other staff members and patients.”
    “And where the hell they all went.”
    “It just doesn’t make any sense,” the chief said. “They had to have some staff on duty overnight, even if it was just a skeleton crew.”
    “Ooh, bad choice of words,” Brian said, chuckling.
    The chief grinned and Brian was glad. That was the look he was used to seeing on the young man’s face, not this grim mask.
    “Any records in the place went up in flames. Who knows how many were confined there.”
    “Maybe it was a mass break out.” Brian was only half-serious.
    “The lunatics leaving the asylum?” His grin looked mad.
    “You said it.”
    “Or maybe there was just nobody there.” His gaze met Brian’s, only he wasn’t smiling.
    Brian’s house was empty when he got home, and he called Darcie to see if she was still on the garden tour.
    “I’m just heading to the supermarket,” she said. “I should be home shortly.”
    “Okay,” he said, grateful to have a few minutes home alone.
    He walked outside the back door to the small yard behind their house. He had his camera bag with him.
    An old maple at the back of the yard rose taller than the roof of his house, its limbs extending almost to the boundary of his lawn. Many of the branches were dead, devoid of bark, skeletal, creaking in the slight breeze that cooled the ending of the hot summer day. A hole in the trunk, about eye level, looked like a gaping mouth. Above it were two eyelike knots that gave the whole trunk the impression of a face, its mouth open in a scream.
    Brian approached the tree. He removed his purchase out of the camera bag—a pack of cigarettes and a book of matches. He tore open the package, glancing over his shoulder at the back of the house, making sure no one was there. He plugged a cigarette into his mouth and lit it. He took a deep drag with his eyes closed.
    It was the first one he’d had since they moved to Smokey Hollow, and it felt good. He could already feel his nerves relaxing. Darcie would be furious if she found out. When they decided to get married, she said he would have to quit smoking. It was time to be responsible, she told him, and think about the importance of being a family and having children and setting good examples for them.
    She let him do it gradually, and it hadn’t been too hard. Once he got to Smokey Hollow, he didn’t miss it at all. The pace of the city crime beat in Boston stimulated the urge to smoke. But this town had changed all that…until the events of the past few days. Now the craving had come clawing back, and he caved in to it. But he’d need to keep it hidden.
    He sucked one last drag on the butt and stamped it out on the side of the tree. He tossed the