The Diapered Detective – Chapter One
~Prologue~
An Escaped Wolfe
“I’m not going back.”
Keating couldn’t resist a grin as he took a seat across from his favorite, yet most frustrating patient.
“When I authorized your shoelaces, I hardly expected you to stick around.”
The intense gaze and cool composure dropped for just a second. The boy seemed taken aback, or possibly disappointed that Keating wasn’t going to try to drag him back to the hospital kicking and screaming. Well, in so far as the dragging would have occurred before the kicking and screaming began.
It was getting harder not to laugh. Keating kept it under control while he pulled a folded document from his pocket.
“They were the only thing holding you back, Mister Wolfe,” he said, placing piece of paper on the table and gently pushing it towards Aiden. “Logically, you couldn’t get very far without your shoes. Although you didn’t have to assault Jerry on the way out.”
Aiden shrugged.
“Apparently you talked him out of pressing charges,” he said. “Since you obviously knew where to find me, you could have told the police where I was.”
Keating lost it at that moment. Aiden raised an eyebrow but said nothing as he waited for Keating to compose himself. Many of the cafe’s patrons seemed to be puzzled by the outburst of laughter and Aiden was tempted to make some comment on his doctor’s behalf.
When Keating managed to get himself under some control, he removed his glasses and took a couple of napkins from the holder. “Oh, Aiden, you will have a special place in my heart, always.” He said, gently drying the tears. “Finding you wasn’t exactly challenging.”
“Really?” Aiden seemed genuinely puzzled this time. He had memorized the layout of the hospital and was certain to only make his way through the corridors and staircases where there was no surveillance or alarms. When he left the hospital he immediately took to the woods, expertly navigating the forest, until he found this sleepy little town where he was certain no one would be looking for him. He had even managed to scrape together enough change and a few dollar bills to purchase a small coffee, so he could sit in the town’s only coffee shop for a little while without drawing any attention. “What did I miss?”
Keating could only point. Aiden saw his reflection in the wall length mirror at the far end of the sitting area and frowned.
“I really did expect you to gain something from our sessions.” Keating said. “Like realizing that you were still wearing a hospital johnny.”
Aiden was silent. The stares from customers made more sense now that he saw the red polka dots and the flimsy sash closing the opening in the back. The pale blue pajama bottoms were the only things really protecting his modesty. Suddenly the odd stares from the customers made more sense.
“I missed a few things,” he admitted.
“Apparently.” Keating said, drawing the word out as he unfolded the piece of paper. “I had already signed your release the night before. It was easy to convince Doctor Willard to cosign.”
“Then Jerry did come clean?”
“Thanks to your note. Going forward, I’d be careful what you write on a piece of paper when a psychiatrist asks you to write a statement about the weather.”
It was Aiden’s turn to grin.
“’Doctor Willard stole a patient’s watch and the head of security, Jerry Gilbert, sold it at a pawnshop on a sunny day.’ I fit the weather in somewhere.”
Keating shook his head, pushing the matter aside. While Aiden took a closer look at the release form, Keating pulled a backpack out from behind him and placed it by Aiden’s feet.
“Go change in the bathroom. We have to talk about what’s happening next.”
“Next?”
Aiden looked up from the document. Keating simply gestured to the bathroom with an expression he only reserved for when Aiden absolutely needed to shut up and do as he was told. Aiden shrugged, tossed the paper back on the table and grabbed the backpack.
He knew he could easily run. Even on his best day, Keating wasn’t the healthiest individual. Not obese but not likely to take the stairs when an elevator was an option either. But realistically, there was only so far he could get and Aiden was mentally and physically tired. He went into the restroom and closed the door behind him.
Only when he saw himself in the mirror again did he really kick himself for overlooking the hospital johnny. It was only the most recognizable piece of clothing in the history of hospitals, down from the stethoscope and those cute little hats nurse’s use to wear. He tried to shrug it off, telling himself that he couldn’t wait any longer or the orderlies would notice his change in behavior and watch him more closely. But once he had his shoes it would only stand to reason he would want his normal clothes back.
He shook his head and kicked off his shoes. Quickly he tore off the johnny and slipped out of the hospital issue pajamas, stuffing them in the trash before opening the backpack. The clothes he was wearing the night they admitted him were clean, ironed and folded. There was also something else that the “Good Doctor” must have put in there himself: A pull up.
Aiden had been lucky so far. He was able to get a shower in this morning before he put the final phase of his escape plan into motion. But he took the risk of not wearing another absorbent product, knowing he would be in the woods most of the time. He didn’t even touch his coffee and it had gone tepid long before Keating arrived.
“Probably a good idea,” he muttered, pulling off the boxer shorts and stepping into the pull up. It was the standard hospital issue Attends pull up. The crinkling sound was audible even under his boxers and khakis which was why he didn’t want to wear them while he was on the run.
He flushed the toilet and washed his hands, more to make an appropriate amount of noise than anything. Then he zipped up the backpack and left the bathroom.
Keating was still at the table, this time with his own coffee and a plate of scones in the middle table. A tall black woman was already munching on one of them and sipping… chamomile. Aiden took a deep breath through his nostrils, savoring the smell and wishing he had thought to order that instead of his initial “coffee beard”. With the pleasant scent on his mind, he took his seat and thanked Keating for the coffee.
“Aiden Wolfe, I’d like you to meet Genessa.”
Aiden turned to Genessa. Even sitting down, he could tell she was about a foot taller than Keating. Unlike Keating, however, she obviously found some time in the day to work out, either by jogging or taking one of those Crossfit courses that you could cram between doing a load of laundry and picking up a pound of turkey at the deli.
“Pleased to meet you,” he said, offering his hand. “Must have been hard to find room in his car.”
“We had to leave some boxes behind,” Genessa said, with a light chuckle. “How do you know I came with him? I could have followed his car.”
“Oh please,” Aiden said, rolling his eyes. “Wouldn’t you be more impressed to know how I escaped from the hospital? I mean a social worker should probably know how likely her charge is to break free of whatever home she places him in, am I correct?”
To her credit, Genessa’s eyes didn’t pop out of her head when he guessed her profession. Aiden didn’t mind when people were genuinely impressed, but adding theatrics and a constant barage of “Oh, how did you guess that” was just insulting.
“I’m all ears.”
Aiden took a sip of his coffee before continuing, reaching for the sugar and cream as he spoke. “You’d be surprised how thin the walls are in a hospital, especially the psychiatric ward. So why would you risk talking about your financial difficulties with someone in the nurse’s station while there were people in line for their medication, even in a low whisper. Of course, Keating took me off the anti-depressants three weeks ago, which is what helped me become more aware of all that was going on around me. So when I heard his colleague-”
“Former colleague,” Keating interrupted.
“Former colleague, Doctor Willard worrying about an outstanding balance on a few of his credit cards I filed it away for future use.”
“Oh yes,” Keating said, turning to Genessa. “I forgot to tell you that if you sneeze in church, he won’t forget it.”
“Anyway, a week or so after that I noticed Jeremy Gilbert escorting a new patient to the ward. I couldn’t remember if he had been the the guard to escort me or not, but then I was in such a sorry state that I doubt I would have noticed if Justin Timberlake had been the orderly who pushed the wheelchair. I digress. Jeremy became a frequent fixture on the ward, even at the end of his shift. I knew it was the end of his shift because he was out of uniform when he and Doctor Willard met near the elevator in the small vestibule just beyond the locked doors of the ward.
“But how did you know what was going on?” Genessa asked. “You’d have a reason to be near the nurse’s station. But if they saw you eyeballing the exit that might make them a little suspicious.”
Aiden raised an eyebrow. “Hmm. You’re smarter than I expected.”
“Thanks, I guess.”
“You’re right. I couldn’t have guessed what they were talking about behind a soundproofed door. But the one time I definitely saw them there was a brief exchange. Jerry got right back on the elevator and when Willard reentered the ward, I had either made my way to the bathroom to shower or back to my room.” Aiden paused. The last comment was deliberate and if Genessa knew that he was referencing his little problem, she didn’t show it. “My first real clue was when one of the patients was being released. All of our belongings go into a bin that is then locked in a closet just outside of the common area. I happened to over hear the concern that a patient’s camera seemed to be missing, even though it wasn’t listed on the inventory list that gets made during every intake.”
“Jerry was kind enough to buy the camera back. As well as the watch.”
“Hey, no spoilers.” Aiden shot Keating a playful grin to show he wasn’t serious. “I was able to casually a sneak a glance at the inventory list. It took me three or four tries but it did happen. The nurse was getting annoyed with me so I remained in my room for the rest of the day, trying to find a way to see a sample of Doctor Willard’s hand writing.”
“You think he messed with the inventory lists?”
“Not all of the time. Only on the nights when he was on call and there was fewer staff on the ward. He wasn’t stupid. He only went into the closet a few times and he always had an excuse. I’m a doctor, so fuck you.”
“Doctor patient privilege,” Keating amended. “He was using doctor patient privilege to go through the patient’s bins.”
“He only took the small things. Things he could easily pocket and slip into Jerry’s waiting hands. He didn’t always do this in the vestibule, or someone would have noticed sooner. But he had plenty of access to the inventory forms just as any other employee working on the ward. It was a simple matter of writing a new list, conveniently leaving out the things he knew he was going to take, and replacing the original.”
“How did you confirm your hunch?”
“I didn’t,” He said, looking his doctor in the eye as he said it. “That’s the beauty of stealing from patients on a psychiatric ward. Everyone has it in the back of their mind that you couldn’t possibly know what you’re talking about. That what you have seen, or heard, or suspected was just a part of your delusions. Keating did the legwork after I took the risk of pointing him in the right direction. I presume everything added up, or you wouldn’t have given my shoelaces back.”
Keating nodded, but allowed Aiden to continue.
“Well I was just so excited to get to that big milestone that I had to go into the common area and enjoy the new found freedom. I was so happy with myself that when Big Peety came in to watch his morning cartoons, I gave him a big hug.”
“Thanks for that,” Keating muttered. For Genessa’s benefit he explained, “Peter is a twenty-two year old autistic man who hates to be touched. Aiden conveniently ‘forgot’ this fact around the time Gilbert shut off the cameras in the elevator and near the elevator doors on the third floor.”
“While the ward staff were focused on Peter and a number of the other patients were beginning to wake up to see what the commotion was, I made my way for the double doors and waited while several security guards and a few other orderlies entered the ward to help with the situation. It was almost too easy to slip by them before the door slammed, but then Peety makes a lot of noise when he’s agitated.”
“Nice,” Genessa said. “Still could have planned that better.”
Aiden shrugged again.
“We live and learn. In fairness, I’m still working the industrial sedatives out of my system.” He looked to Keating. “I truly didn’t know what Gilbert was doing. My plan did take me into the third floor because there’s a door just down the hall from the staircase that leads into a storage tunnel. It was propped open when they brought me by there and I took a gamble that it might be propped open again.”
“He remembered that after six months,” Keating pointed out.
“You weren’t lying.” Genessa finished her tea. “So Willard and Gilbert are taken care of?”
Keating straightened up and took a glance around the coffee shop. Now that Aiden was less obvious and most of the morning customers had gone about their day, no one else seemed to take interest in them. Keating then said, in a low voice, “They’re both on a short leash, but because of how shaky things are with Aiden’s escape I couldn’t go to the police directly. Willard and Gilbert both have thirty days to retrieve the items they sold or to pay restitution to the patients and then they’re out of there. We’re going to keep things as hush hush as possible and hopefully we can keep the victims satisfied enough to move on with their lives. After the dust is settled those men are out of here.”
“So many gray hairs,” Aiden said, making tsk, tsk, noises. “And an ulcer eventually. You could have let me know what you found out and I wouldn’t have been so hasty.”
Keating mimicked Aiden’s shrug. “We live and we learn.”
“So what’s this ‘next’ business you were referring to,” Aiden asked, looking from Keating then to Genessa. “We’ve established you’re a social worker. The lanyard with your name badge is hanging out of your pants pocket by the way. I noticed it as I was sitting down and I could see a portion of the logo, which I recognized as the same agency that helps many of the patients at that particular hospital.”
Genessa reached to tuck the lanyard in her pocket. It was hard to tell if she was annoyed or disappointed, but the look was there so briefly that Aiden simply filed it away for future use.
“Aiden, the fact is, you’re still a minor,” she said, speaking in a firm and controlled tone. Aiden suspected she was trying to use Keating’s tone in the hopes that he would be just as receptive towards her. “At least for another year, you’re going to need some kind of supervision. We thought that emancipation might be an option, but since you did technically escape before the release was signed and you were noticed by several people, I’m afraid convincing a judge to let that happen will be harder now. Especially with everything that’s going on right now.”
Aiden sighed. He wasn’t about to apologize for breaking out there. Keating understood this, but said nothing. Aiden followed his lead and listened to Genessa.
“I’d like you to come stay at a group home for a few weeks until we find you a foster home,” she continued. “Unless you know of any relatives who would be willing to take you in until you are old enough to be on your own.”
“You already know the answer to that, or you wouldn’t be here.”
“Right, well, there it is.” Genessa said. “Doctor Keating is obviously willing to pull a lot of strings for you. I’m willing to do the same as long as you meet me half way.”
A million possibilities fired across Aiden’s mind at once. None of them particularly satisfied him because they all began with the assumption that he would have to run from this very building. He might even get to plead his case before a judge, citing Doctor Willard’s actions as the reasons he ran. Keating didn’t have nearly enough clout in that hospital to keep an investigation from happening. Then there was what could happen to Keating if Aiden did cry foul. The man basically committed blackmail to turn Aiden’s escape into the legal release of a mental patient.
Keating must have sensed Aiden’s struggle.
“Aiden, I only want to help you,” he said. “This could be a long year or a very productive year. You have skills that can be put to good use and maybe, one day, you will find someone you can trust enough not to just take off when they show you how much they care.”
“Well that was subtle,” Aiden shot back, halfheartedly. To Genessa he said, “Since the alternative his him sending me on a guilt trip, why don’t we just get this over with.”
Keating smiled. Aiden tuned out most of what was said over the next few minutes. Aiden made another trip to the restroom, but found Keating standing by door alone, while Genessa was taking care of business in the ladies. They went outside to Keating’s car. The day was nearly over, with half the street covered in shade.
“How much does she know?” Aiden asked. He shook the backpack for emphasis, feeling the weight of the extra pairs of Attends Keating had placed in there. “What will I have to explain to her?”
“Not much,” Keating said. “She won’t push you to tell her anything. I explained that you like your privacy, but you should know that going into foster care won’t be easy.”
“I was wondering when my life of ease would come to an end.”
“Could you ease up on the sarcasm just a bit?” Keating asked. “You don’t have to be Mr. Popular overnight, but it might work to your advantage to have one or two people on your side.”
“Thanks for getting me out of there,” Aiden said after a long silence. “I’ll try not to bolt again. For a year at least.”
The End of The Diapered Detective – Chapter One.
If you want to read more stories about ABDL boys you can find a list here: Diaper Boys – Index