The Dead Man: Ring of Knives

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To get into Admin, Maloria led him through a back door that led to the facility's kitchen.

'All kinda nasty get cooked up in here,' Maloria said as Matt looked around.

The kitchen had clearly seen better days. In his brief transit, Matt counted at least four thumb-sized roaches exploring the stove and cabinets. He also noticed that while there was no smoke alarm in sight, the kitchen was well equipped with cutlery: four large wooden grids held dozens of serrated steak knives and cleavers, as well as two huge butcher's knives that were at least twelve inches long.

What the hell? Matt didn't know much about mental health, but he doubted that the residents were getting sirloin every night. So why was the kitchen outfitted like an Outback Steakhouse?

Even weirder, from a ceiling rack hung a row of headless spatulas and meat forks with missing tines, as well as an unconnected extension cord and an odd set of cuffs.

Curious, Matt reached out and touched the cuffs as he walked by. They seemed to be wooden wrist braces, five inches thick, covered in leather buckles. Each one had a deep groove cut into the wood, but their purpose wasn't clear.

'What're these?' he asked Maloria.

'Unless you the Board of Health,' she said, not looking back, 'keep ya damn hands to yourself.'

With that, she shoved through two swinging double doors, leading Matt out of the kitchen and into a large hallway. 'Hold on.' Maloria stopped suddenly, peering ahead at a half-open door marked 'Control.' 'Gotta see if someone's in there, first. Shouldn't be, since it's my post tonight, but you never know where them skanks is hookin' up.' She took him by the elbow. 'So here: you go clean the FA's office while I find out what up.' And she hurriedly pushed Matt through a door marked 'Facility Administrator.'

It was an office that probably counted as fancy in this place: a window looking out onto the quad, a heavy oak desk (with a blotter, no less), a leather chair, a brass lamp, some cherry bookshelves full of books on mental health and team leadership techniques.

That is, it would have looked fancy if the chair hadn't been knocked over and papers strewn all over the floor. Behind the chair, a large cork bulletin board covered in lists and photographs had been knocked off its left screw and hung diagonally from the right.

Apparently, the only things that hadn't been trashed were three tribal masks hung on the wall opposite the door. They looked Ojibwe to Matt. Two were deer masks and had long, tapering snouts and antlers. The third was a triangle of tanned leather, with a single eye slit in the center, and at the bottom tip, a serrated cluster of shark's teeth. The mask gave Matt a queasy feeling. He forced himself to look away from it, to focus on the surrounding mess.

Matt gathered up a handful of papers and laid them on the desk. Under the papers were pieces of shattered glass and a broken picture frame. He picked that up, too. In it was a photo of a smiling, bookish man with bifocals and a silver beard, flanked on either side by two girls of about ten and thirteen, giving bracey smiles.

Matt dropped the broken glass into a garbage bag and set the picture on the stacked papers he'd put on the desk—then took it off again. The top sheet had caught his eye. He picked it up, held it under the light.

It was a form marked Incident Report. It had been dated five days earlier in bright blue ink, and under Reporter a hand had written in hasty, scrawled cursive, Thomas Sterns, FA. Under Incident, it said

At approximately 12:15 AM on March 1, 2011, this writer was working late in preparation for the annual audit when he became aware of a loud commotion outside. Looking through the window in his office, he saw what seemed to be three therapy aides roughly escorting an unidentified, protesting individual past the quad towards the meditation path. This writer immediately proceeded to the back entrance, only to find it blocked by Therapy Aides Holtz and Pfister, who—in this writer's view—intentionally delayed his exit by pretending to be 'fixing' the door, and repeatedly demonstrated insubordination by refusing to let him pass. After several minutes of argument, this writer was finally allowed to go outside, whereupon he proceeded to the meditation path but found no trace of the individuals previously sighted.

No clarification was gained from talking to the lead workers, one of whom (Aide II Mendez) this writer found sleeping. It should be mentioned that Module One was in complete disarray, and the common room of Module Two was filled with the stench of decomposing meat, although Aide II Hirotashi insisted that there was no spoiled food in the refrigerator.

This writer believes that poor morale, lack of supervision, total absence of accountability, along with the unexplained departure of Dr. Kingsley and Head Nurse Reich, have had a deleterious effect upon the operations of this facility to the point where the residents are actually becoming endangered. This writer is requesting that the instant matter be fully investigated, and further recommends that Aides Holtz and Pfister be disciplined for insubo

The report left off there, halfway down the page. A four-inch line of blue ink extended from the o in insubordination to the edge of the page.

Matt reread it from the beginning, and then set it carefully down on the desk, beneath the broken picture frame.

Moving behind the desk, Matt righted the tipped-over leather chair. He got ahold of the fallen end of the cork bulletin board and slid it up the wall to reattach the left-hand hook to its screw.

Again, he stopped.

Stared.

Revealed on the drywall behind the hanging board was a black smear. It was roughly the shape of the Nike swoosh, and the thin end tapered off into a long spatter. The thick end had several thin silver strands embedded in it. Matt leaned closer, pinched one, pulled it free of the black crust. Held it up to the light.

A silver hair.

Matt looked back to the photo on the desk. The smiling, bookish graybeard with his two bracey daughters.

What the hell is going on here?

CHAPTER THREE

'C'mon, you!'

Matt jumped about a foot when Maloria stuck her head in the doorway and waved him out. He followed her quickly.

'So where's the FA nowadays?' Matt asked as he trailed her down the hall.

'Quit like the rest of 'em, I guess. Jus' get fed up an' don't come back, like I'm 'a 'bout to do in three weeks, when I make forty.'

'But did he, like, give a resignation letter, or farewell speech, or anything?'

She snorted. 'Nah, he just never come back one day, no call, no nothin'. Just like them two.' She gestured towards two framed photos on the wall. One said 'Dr. Kingsley—Chief Health Officer,' and showed a dignified black man with a white mustache. The other said 'RN Janice Reich—Nurse Manager,' and showed a stressed-looking woman in her fifties with short blond hair.

Matt couldn't believe what he had just heard. 'Wait a minute. You're saying all three have just vanished?'

'Mm-hmm.'

'But . . . someone's got to be in charge. Hasn't someone been sent down to replace them by the . . . the head office in Olympia or wherever?'

Again she snorted. 'What with two furloughs a week, we can't get no one to pick up the goddamn phone, last I hear.'