Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-Four
St. John’s Psychiatric Hospital
Seattle, Washington
Jason and Allie displayed their badges at the front entrance of St. John’s Psychiatric Hospital and asked for the administrator.
A receptionist led them down a corridor with epoxy floors polished to a dull shine, past a common area where a handful of residents sat in chairs arranged in a loose circle.
A television mounted high on the wall played the local news to no one in particular.
Patricia Collins met them in her office on the second floor. She was a compact woman in her fifties with a broad face and reading glasses pushed up into her graying hair. She shook their hands and settled into her chair, pulling her keyboard closer.
“Arthur Pym,” she repeated, typing the name into her system. Her eyes tracked across the screen. “Yes, here he is. Mr. Pym was a patient here for approximately four years.” She paused, scrolling. “He was discharged three months ago.”
Allie exchanged a glance with Jason. “Discharged to where?”
Collins read from the file. “His discharge address is listed as Maple View Transitional Housing, here in Seattle. He was given prescriptions for OCD and anxiety medications at the time of release.” Her mouth tightened as she scrolled further.
“It looks like he never showed up for any of his follow-up appointments. We flagged it in the system, but once a patient is discharged, our ability to make sure they comply is limited.”
“We need to speak with whoever treated him,” Jason said. “His psychiatrist, therapist, anyone who spent significant time with him.”
Collins picked up her desk phone and made a call. After a short exchange, she hung up and told them Dr. Eleanor Marsh had been Pym’s primary psychiatrist during his entire stay and was available to speak with them now. She walked them down the hall to a small consultation room and left them there.
Dr. Marsh arrived a few minutes later carrying a thin file folder and sat across from them at a small table. “Patricia tells me you’re here about Arthur Pym.”
“We’re investigating a series of homicides,” Allie explained. “Pym’s name has come up in connection with the case. We need to understand his mental state, his history here, and what he was like when he was discharged.”
Dr. Marsh nodded slowly as she folded her hands over the closed file. “Arthur was quiet and cooperative, but there was an intensity to him that the staff found unsettling. There were no outbursts or anything like that. He simply watched everything very closely.”
“Did you notice any patterns?” Jason asked.
“Yes. Repetitive behaviors, recitation. He would murmur under his breath, sometimes for hours. He avoided certain surfaces and objects, and he kept meticulous track of specific numbers, including anytime he’d see them on receipts, addresses, and even license plates."
“Numbers,” Jason repeated.
“Did you happen to note which ones?” Allie asked, trying to maintain a neutral tone even as she felt a rush of adrenaline.
Marsh opened the file and glanced at a page. “Yes. Here they are. Let’s see… Fourteen. Twenty-two. Thirty-five. Forty-eight. He repeated them in that order, over and over. We eventually diagnosed him with severe Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and acute anxiety with obsessive features.”
Allie felt the hair on the back of her neck rise. Jason picked up the thread. “Do you remember anything else about those numbers? What kind of significance did they have for him?”
“It took a few sessions, but I finally learned they were exhibit numbers from a federal case he'd been involved with.”
Allie almost held her breath. “Did he ever mention which case?”
“Torrino. I remember because it had been all over the news and was a huge win. I followed it like it was a reality show. Which, in essence, I suppose it was. It almost felt like the closest thing we would ever have around here to seeing someone like Vito Corleone going to prison.”
Allie watched Jason’s posture shift beside her. Fourteen branded on Sterling. Thirty-five burned into Vance. Twenty-two seared across Halloway’s back. And forty-eight, the last number in Pym’s tortured sequence, still waiting.
Arthur Pym was their killer.
Allie steadied her breathing and pressed forward. “Did he show any improvement over time?”
“Yes, his treatment involved a combination of cognitive behavioral therapy and medication,” Dr. Marsh said.
“Over the course of several years, his compulsive behaviors diminished. The intrusive thoughts became less frequent, or at least he reported them as such. By early this year, his treatment team determined he was stable enough for outpatient care. He was discharged with a structured plan for continued therapy and medication management.”
“Do you believe he truly let go of the obsession?” Allie asked.
Dr. Marsh considered the question. “I believe he learned to manage it. Whether he found peace is another matter entirely.” She removed her glasses and cleaned them on the hem of her coat before settling them back on her nose.
“Sometimes patients tell their doctors what they want to hear, Agent Bishop. Arthur was intelligent and perceptive. He understood what progress was supposed to look like, and he was capable of performing it convincingly.”
Jason leaned forward. “What about personal connections? Family, friends, anyone who visited him?”
“Arthur had no family that we were aware of. He had no children, and he never married. For most of his stay, he had no visitors at all.” Dr. Marsh opened the file again and ran her finger down a page.
“But the first year or two, his girlfriend came to see him at regular intervals. Her name is listed here as Linda Hayes.”
“And after that?” Allie asked.
“She stopped coming. For a couple of years, there were no visits at all. Then, about six months ago, she returned.” Marsh looked up from the file.
“She came perhaps three or four times before Arthur’s release.
I tried to get him to talk about her, about the relationship and what her visits meant to him.
He refused. He could be remarkably closed off when he chose to be. ”
Jason pulled a small notebook from his jacket. “Can you describe Linda Hayes? What she looked like when she visited?”
Dr. Marsh tilted her head as she searched her memory.
“She appeared to be in her thirties. Blonde hair. She wore sunglasses even indoors, which I noticed because it struck me as unusual. I never personally spoke with her. Visitors weren’t required to check in with the treatment team unless we had specific concerns. ”
Allie read the shift in the doctor’s expression. “But you noticed something.”
“I noticed a change in Arthur after Ms. Hayes’s visits earlier this year.
Before she reappeared, he was compliant and stable, progressing through treatment in a predictable way.
After her visits began again, he became more purposeful.
More directed.” Marsh chose her next words carefully.
“He started talking about having important work to do after his release. He had never spoken that way before. In four years, Arthur had never once expressed a desire to be anywhere other than here. Suddenly, he had something to look forward to.”
Allie let that settle. A man with no family, no connections, no future beyond the walls of a psychiatric hospital, transformed by visits from a woman who wore sunglasses indoors and gave him a sense of purpose.
They thanked Dr. Marsh for her time and made their way back through the corridor toward the exit. Outside, the rain had eased to a fine mist that hung in the parking lot lights.
“Linda Hayes,” Jason said once they were clear of the building. “She stops visiting for two years, then shows up again a few months before he’s released, and suddenly he’s got important work to do.”
“Someone gave him a mission,” Allie said. “Someone took what was already broken in him and pointed it in a direction.”
“If it was her, she manipulated a mentally ill man into committing murder.” Jason’s jaw worked as they reached the Charger. “We need to find Linda Hayes.”
“We need to find Arthur Pym,” Allie said. “He’s the one holding the knife.”
Jason started the engine and pulled out of the lot, turning south toward the interstate.
Allie reached for her iPad and opened the master exhibit list from the Torrino trial.
She scrolled through the entries until she found exhibit forty-eight, and the name beside it sent a cold current down her spine.
“Exhibit forty-eight,” she said, looking up from the screen. “Witness affidavits. They were submitted by Sarah Park.”
Jason’s grip tightened on the wheel. “Call Reeves. Now. If Pym is working through these numbers, then Park is next.”
Before either of them could reach for a phone, Jason’s cell buzzed in the cupholder. He picked it up, glanced at the screen, and put it on speaker.
“This is Reeves.” The marshal’s voice was clipped, stripped of its usual professional composure. “Sarah Park is missing.”
Allie’s stomach dropped. She stared at the phone as Reeves continued.
“She went into Little Sprouts Daycare to pick up her son and never came out. One of the employees saw her go through the back door.”
Jason’s knuckles went white against the steering wheel. “You had marshals sitting right outside that building, Reeves. How the hell did you let this happen?”
“She walked away from us.” Reeves’s voice was tight but controlled.
“She went out the back door on her own, Agent King. Nobody dragged her. The daycare workers said someone came and picked up her son, Lucas, before she arrived. Then she got a phone call. Whatever was said on that call, she chose to walk out the back.”
“Chose?” Jason’s voice was sharp enough to cut. “Someone took her kid and called her with instructions. That’s not a choice.”
There was a beat of silence from Reeves.
“I’ve already partnered with Tacoma PD. We’re pulling traffic cameras, running her cell, issuing a BOLO.
I’ll find Park.” His tone shifted, becoming harder.
“But I need the two of you to find the killer. That’s where this ends.
Find whoever is doing this and put him down. ”
The line went dead.
Jason exhaled through his teeth and pressed the accelerator.
Rain streaked across the windshield in thin lines, blurring the taillights ahead of them into smears of red.
Allie stared at the iPad in her lap, at Sarah Park’s name beside exhibit forty-eight, and felt the clock ticking against them with every mile of dark highway that passed beneath them.