Shutter Island

The guard helps Chuck and Teddy drop the patient off in an empty room. The guard then explains that one of the patients has a key and keeps reopening the secured rooms. The guard needs to find the patient before the patient with the key makes his way to the basement and starts releasing Ward C’s most dangerous residents.

With the guard gone, Teddy and Chuck decide to split up. Chuck goes to look for patient files while Teddy searches for Laeddis. It is not long before Teddy hears a voice whispering Laeddis’ name from the dark. Teddy pulls out his box of matches and lights them one by one as he follows the voice to another cell, and it takes him a few minutes to realize the man speaking to him is none other than George Noyce. Noyce accuses Teddy of lying to him, saying “‘you told me I’d be free of this place. You promised’” (235). When Teddy tells him that he is here searching for the truth, Noyce snaps, “‘this is about you. And Laeddis…I was incidental. I was a way in’” (236).

Noyce tells Teddy that this whole situation is a set-up and a “‘handsomely mounted stage play’” just for Teddy (238). When Teddy denies it, Noyce asks him if he has ever been alone on the island. Teddy realizes he has not, and Noyce starts talking about Chuck, asking “You’ve never worked with him before, have you?” (239). Teddy tries to ignore Noyce’s questioning by reassuring him that he will get Noyce out of Ashecliffe. Noyce knows that he has no hope for escape, and he tells Teddy that the only way Teddy can get off Shutter Island is to forget his vendetta with Laeddis and let Dolores go. Teddy tells Noyce he cannot and asks where he can find Laeddis. Noyce tells him to check the lighthouse, and as Teddy leaves Noyce behind, Noyce shouts one thing after him: “God help you” (243). 

Teddy leaves Noyce behind, but Noyce’s words stay with him. Teddy mulls over Chuck’s actions; he wants to trust his new partner, but a voice in the back of his head keeps asking, “How do you know?” (246). When Teddy and Chuck reunite, Chuck tells him that Cawley and the warden are in Ward C. They make a quick escape into the nearby woods, where Teddy tells Chuck about meeting Noyce, giving him all the details except Noyce’s suggestion that Chuck is working for Cawley.

Teddy cannot shake his suspicions and starts asking Chuck about his time in the U.S. Marshals’ Portland office. Chuck tells Teddy he was in Seattle, so Teddy asks whether Chuck knew another marshal named Joe Fairfield. Chuck says no, but Teddy notices Chuck is now checking his pockets nervously. It reminds Teddy of their first day on the island. Chuck had struggled to unholster his gun, which is “‘not something your average marshal had trouble with’” (254). When Chuck tries to hand Teddy a paper he found, Teddy tells Chuck to keep it as he realizes “‘he was now completely alone on this’” mission (257).

Instead of returning to Ashecliffe, Teddy leads Chuck toward the lighthouse. He wants to see if Noyce is right about the lighthouse being a top-secret surgical laboratory, and the walk there is tense with Teddy’s suspicions. He and Chuck emerge from the woods and find themselves on the edge of a rocky cliff, and Teddy sees piles of rocks on the scrub plain below. Chuck stays behind as Teddy climbs down to the beach to see if the rocks are another of Rachel’s messages. He counts each rock pile and writes the code in his notebook:

13(M)–21(U)–25(Y)–18(R)–1(A)–5(E)–8(H)–15(O)–9(I) (258).

As Teddy makes his way back up the cliff face, he wonders if there is any more he can do. He tells Dolores that while Laeddis and Ashecliffe might live on, they will content themselves “‘knowing we’ve begun a process, a process [that] could, ultimately, bring the whole thing tumbling down’” (259). But Teddy’s satisfaction is short-lived: when he returns to the clifftop, Chuck is gone.