“No. Did you find his body?” At Felipe’s nod, Joe shuddered and pressed his hand to his face. “If this makes it into the papers, they’re going to know it was me. They’ll feed me to the wolves or worse.”
“We won’t let that happen.”
“Really? Who do you think they’ll believe? A rich, successful doctor with a charity clinic or the fairy janitor?”
“The evidence—”
“Fuck the evidence,” Joe spat. “The evidence doesn’t matter to people like them. Theymakethe evidence.”
“Joe, we want to take down the institute,” Felipe said, hoping he could take Joe’s attention off Oliver. “That is our goal, and your friend’s death might be the key to doing that. Tell us what happened, and we will make certain you are safe.”
“How?”
“After all this, I will talk to the head inspector about getting you a position with us if you want it or enough money to get far away from the city until things cool down. I’m sure this isn’t the first time you’ve changed names or careers; you can do it again with enough money in your pocket to make a clean break.” They had done it for other informants. Felipe had seen how a pocket full of money could get someone a decent life in the countryside. “My partner and I are the ones in charge of Mr. Judd’s case, and he is the medical examiner who performed Judd’s autopsy. Our word will go a long way, but we need to know what happened.”
“Then, you had better be ready to pay me a small fortune because if they realize how much I know, I’m going to conveniently disappear like the others.”
Felipe exchanged a glance with Oliver. They would come back to that, but they needed to keep him talking. “We promise we will get you somewhere safe.”
Lighting another cigarette, Joe sat back against the chipped headboard and blew a puff of smoke at the cracked ceiling. “I doubt your promises mean much, but Herman didn’t deserve the end he got.”
“Tell us about him. We tried to speak to his family, but they could tell us very little about his recent life.”
“I’m not surprised. They sounded like pieces of work, even if Herman was desperate for their approval. He started to work at the institute a few months after me. He had just gotten out of jail, and I offered to help train him.” A small smile crossed Joe’s lips. “I recognized him from an old bar I worked at, though I don’t think he remembered me. I figured he would be a kindred spirit, though he was trying to be on the straight and narrow. Initially, we would sneak food from people’s trays or palm an apple when we were bringing in deliveries. You know, joke around and have a little fun while cleaning up. Then, he bought into the program and hung on the doctors’ every word and correction. It was painful to watch. He told them everything, even though he was punished for it. He thought it was the only way he could get better. At that point, I was still staying in, but I kept my mouth shut about my own inclinations because I knew he would tell if he found out about my magic.” Joe opened his mouth but nothing came out. Swallowing hard, he stared at the smoke rising from between his fingers. “I don’t know what he did to make them kill him. He did everything they asked and more.”
“Did he die during a treatment? Or do you think it was on purpose?”
“I don’t know. All I know is, he was there in the morning during breakfast last Friday, and by lights out, I realized I hadn’t seen him all day. The next day, one of the other orderlies tells me Yates needs me todisposeof some waste. One of my duties is operating the incinerator, so I didn’t think anything of it. It’s usually sheets too fouled up to be cleaned or things from surgeries or god knows what other treatments they perform. I load whatever is in the cart into the machine and try not to think too hard or breathe. This time though, there was already something large inside the incinerator, which isn’t unusual, but I...”
Joe licked his lips and blinked hard. “I smelled his hair cream when I opened the hatch. I’d smelled the stuff day in and day out. Curiosity got the better of me, and I pulled back the sheet. It was him. I didn’t know what to do. I was the only one down there, but I knew I couldn’t just leave him in there and burn him up. He wasn’t waste. He was my friend, and someone had killed him and tried to cover it up.”
“Why didn’t you go to the police?” Ansley asked.
Felipe resisted the urge to roll his eyes as Joe retorted, “Why do you think? The moment I went to the police, his body would have disappeared, and my past would have been dredged up along with god knows what else.”
“So what did you do next?” Oliver asked over Ansley’s tart, half-formed reply.
“I pulled him out. I put everything else in the machine and turned it on. The nights I operate the incinerator are the only times I’m allowed out of my room after my shift is over. Everyone else was in bed, so I stole a steamer that was parked down the street and drove him to the cemetery. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I know I wasn’t, and I shouldn’t have done it. I was distraught. I knew the institute was up to something shady, but I didn’t know it was that bad.” Joe’s brown eyes went distant as he said, “He was so much lighter than he should have been. I used my powers to get him into the steamer and drove out to Green-Wood. It was the one thing in Herman’s past that made him happy. He kept telling me how beautiful it was, how he loved to get there early to see the sunrise over the greenery. I thought I could make amends for not stopping them or realizing what had happened by bringing him back there and giving him a proper burial.”
“Did you want him to be discovered, leaving him out there like that?” Oliver asked with a raised brow.
Joe put his head in his hands, his cigarette dangling dangerously as he groaned. “It wasn’t intentional. I thought I could bury him, and no one would be the wiser. Who would notice another grave in a giant graveyard, right? But digging was harder than I thought. I tried, but the shovel kept tearing up my hands, and my powers didn’t move the dirt very well. I couldn’t go back with palms full of blisters without Yates or his minions noticing. It wasn’t my finest moment, leaving him there naked like that, but the sheet they wrapped him in was a sooty mess and had my fingerprints all over it. If the police checked, they might tie it back to me, so I took it. I burned it the next time I was on incinerator duty. Leaving him was a risk, but I didn’t know what else to do. It was getting late. I needed to get back before they realized I was gone, and Brooklyn’s pretty far. I figured no one had seen me, and if nothing else, he would at least get a decent burial.”
“Are you the only one who works the incinerator?”
“No, I know there’s someone else, but I’m not sure who. I mostly keep to myself. It could be one of the doctors or another custodian, even one of the matrons. Anyone with a boiler room key can access it. I have one from Friday to Sunday. I have to turn it in to the head orderly on Monday morning, so I assume he hands it off to someone else on the other days.”
“Did Dr. Thorn leave before or after Mr. Judd was killed?” Ansley asked.
Joe’s dark brows furrowed in thought. “I’m not sure. It was close, within a day or two of each other, but I can’t remember whether the last time I saw Dr. Thorn was the day before Herman disappeared or after. I stayed out of Thorn’s sight as much as possible, and on Sunday, all I could think about was not getting caught and getting out as soon as I could. That’s when I started sneaking out to come here. It was the only thing I could think of to get money quickly.”
“Why did you go back? Why not just stay here?”
“Because they come to these places looking for people like me. Someone associated with the institute would have found me eventually. They have people watching the charity houses and jails. That’s where they found Herman. If I ran right after they killed Herman, they would have known I found the body. I would be a liability, and I would be as good as dead too.”
Would they have killed him? The entire time he and Oliver had been hesitant to say Herman Judd’s death was a murder rather than a cover-up of negligence, but Joe clearly seemed to think otherwise. Even if Joe had evidence to prove they were killing patients, Judd’s death would have been easy enough to explain away, and a man with aliases and a record could disappear without much fuss. Hell, they could have even blamed the deaths on him.
“Don’t look at me like that, Galvan. I’m sure the Paranormal Society would do away with inconvenient people if they had to. I can’t believe you’ve never covered up for your own.”
