New Story: The Adjusters #56

(Sigh. To file under “better late than never,” right?)

Here is November's installment of The Adjusters, “Intermezzo: Sam O'Neill”, wherein we follow O'Neill on his visit to the Craven-Wilford Institute to look for Jennifer Hansen.

As usual, comments welcome.

I'll also remind you that we have a Speculation Thread available for general discussion. (A thread which I read but do not comment on.)


The Adjusters #56 - Intermezzo: Sam O'Neill

“Director Altman will see you now, Mister O’Neill.”

Altman’s assistant, a young man with a vampiric complexion and duvet in lieu of a beard stood by the door of the director’s office, looking disapprovingly at Sam O’Neill.

O’Neill thrust the cigar on which he was chewing back in his trench coat pocket.

The assistant gave him a wry look, and Sam had to stifle every impulse he had to not yell “booh!” to the kid. Part of him was happy that Altman did not feel the need to have a stereotypical airhead blonde bimbo as a secretary. But did he really have to pick the most annoying surly teenager this side of Caulfield?

O’Neill, while waiting for Erich Altman, director of the Craven-Wilford Institute for Mental Health—which the prospectus that littered the waiting room called the premier facility for research and care in mental disorder on the East coast—had been working over the case in his head.

Two weeks ago, he had come across an entry in the newspaper—he still read the New York Times sitting at a chair in his favorite pub, bothered only by the morning staff who cared not iota for this old man that bugged no one and consumed black coffees while reading a newspaper for half an hour. It was his routine, and he liked routine, which was ironic because being on the road so much meant that he was more often than not out of his routine.

In any case, he had come across the small column of text that described the discovery of a body in a lake in upper New York state, a body that was well on its way to decomposition, but had been identified as Richard Sanderson, last known as a nurse at the Craven-Wilford Institute in the upper Hudson Valley, a facility that specialized in treating mental disorders. The reporter had seen it fit to comment that Sanderson was working in one of the sexual neurosis wards, although she also stated that the local police did not think that whatever had befallen Mister Sanderson had anything to do with sexual deviancy. But the investigation was ongoing.

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Next month (really, January 1st): “Intermezzo: Patrick Dee”.