The Darkest Night

by Mike Ramon

Chapter Six

  It had been three days since the meeting in the park with Frankie, and Tom didn’t know any more about the history of the former Cedar Falls Home for Orphaned Children than he had learned from Patricia that day at the café. There seemed to be a black hole on the Internet whose gravity was so powerful that it let few facts about the Home escape.

  Even slogging through a website dedicated to the history of Juniper County only produced one item mentioning the Home. There were scanned images of flyers announcing the annual bake sales at Lodge 51 of the Women’s Society for Sororal Fellowship going back 62 years, but just one brief paragraph mentioning the Home, an item about a picnic held on its grounds to which members of the public were invited, the purpose of which appeared to have been to give childless couples a chance to see all of the wonderful kids who could be theirs if they wanted them.

  He even tried searching the Review’s archives. The Review was founded in 1942, a before the Home closed its doors, and he thought he might find something there that Patricia wouldn’t have been able to find on her own. He was disappointed, however; the online archives only went back as far as 1970.

  He considered getting in touch with Patricia and telling her about Frankie and his dreams. He thought that maybe by working together they could find more info on the Home. He decided against it, however; considering how their first meeting had ended, he was probably the last person that she wanted to talk to.

  Tom decided to pay a visit to the Cedar Falls Public Library. The library had a section devoted to the history of Cedar Falls stretching back to the founding of the town in 1901, which had come in handy when Tom had done a story covering the town’s centennial during his rookie year at the Review. The Local Heritage Room also had microfiche archives of the Review going all the way back to its maiden edition.

  Grateful to have a job that allowed him to (mostly) keep his own hours Tom took off early, and headed over to the CFPL just past 6 PM. The Local Heritage section had its own room, and a person had to check in at the front desk before being allowed back. Many of the books, articles and other materials were old, delicate or irreplaceable in physical form, though the library had digitized the bulk of the collection two years before. Tom checked in with the librarian at the front desk, showing her his library card.

  “This card has expired,” she said.

  “Oh, sorry; I didn’t know that library cards could expire.”

  “They can,” she said flatly. “You can still see the collection, though. Go ahead; I’ll have a new card ready for you when you come back down.”

  He thanked her and headed for the Local Heritage Room. To get there he had to walk around the front desk to get to a flight of stairs leading up to the second floor. He climbed the stairs, coming out into a curving hallway which led to the Heritage Room itself. The room was sparsely lit by sunlight shining in through high, opaque windows in wide, slanting shafts that were swimming with dust motes. There were banks of fluorescents spaced evenly on the ceiling overhead, but they were turned off, and Tom couldn’t find a switch to turn them on.

  Rows of bookshelves took up most of the room, but there were also a few reading desks and two tables, as well as chairs set off by themselves and placed at angles to each other. There was also an old microfiche machine set in a corner. Tom walked down the rows, reading the labels at the end of each row.

  CENSUS RECORDS, 1910-1940

  A few rows over:

  PARK DISTRICT RECORDS, 1953-1978

  Several rows on:

  HISTORY OF THE CEDAR FALLS ANNUAL FESTIVAL

  He stopped when he came to a row marked:

  CEDAR FALLS REVIEW ARCHIVES, 1942-1975

  Tom headed down this row. The shelves were stacked with boxes, each containing one year’s worth of records of the Review. He stopped at the box marked:

  Cedar Falls Review--January 1, 1943-December 31, 1943.

  Tom pulled the box off the shelf and carried it out to one of the tables, where he set it down. He lifted off the top of the box and set it aside. The box was filled with cardboard sleeves, and each sleeve contained a microfiche card.

  He tried to remember if Patricia had mentioned which month in 1943 the Home had closed, but he couldn’t recall. With no other choice, he began at the beginning, pulling out the first cardboard sleeve. A piece of tape was affixed to the front of the sleeve, and someone had written on it with blue pen, faded now with time:

  Jan. 1-Jan, 3, ’43 (Vol. 2, No. 1-Vol. 2, No. 3)

  Tom pinched the edges of the sleeve and pulled out the flat microfiche card, taking care to hold it from the sides. He held it up to the dusty light coming in through the windows. They were too small to make out, but he knew that the card was filled with tiny black and white images, each one a page of this long ago issue of the Cedar Falls Review.

  Tom walked over to the microfiche machine in the corner and took a seat. He turned on the machine and slid the card into the projector. One of the minuscular images was blown up on the screen, and Tom found himself looking at the front page of the first issue of the Review published in 1943. He read one headline:

  Some Cedar Falls residents still grumble at the use of gasoline rationing cards, but most see it as their patriotic duty to conserve.

  He looked over the rest of the page, and then moved on to Section A/Page 2. There was more war news, and a story of a minor car crash out on Rt. 203. Page 3 had a story about the mayor of neighboring Bloomsdale being indicted on bribery charges, as well as a story about the importance of keeping your house warm in the winter (complete with some handy tips on how to do so).

  Tom scanned through the rest of the paper and started on the issue for January 2, 1943. There was more war news, an update on Bloomsdale’s embattled mayor, an item about a state legislator who had paid a visit to Cedar Falls the previous day, a story about a bank robbery in Waterton that appeared to be connected to two other robberies in the preceding months, and a warning to be on the lookout for a stray dog that had been seen wandering around town and that was believed to be infected with rabies. There was nothing about the Home.

  Tom didn’t find anything on January 3, either, so he slid the card out and walked back to the table, replacing the card to its sleeve and placing the sleeve back in the box. He took out another sleeve and turned around to walk back to the machine, but he stopped in his tracks when he heard the sound of something heavy hitting the floor. He looked around the room, trying to determine where the noise had come from.

  He set the sleeved down on the table and started walking down the rows. He found the culprit lying in one of the aisles between shelves. It was an old, worn book with a light blue cover; it was lying face down. He picked it up at turned it around to see the front cover.

  Juniper County Telephone Directory, 1956

  He found the open space on the shelf where the book belonged and slid it in between the directories for 1955 and 1957. Tom followed the line of blue spines; the directories ended after the 1968 edition.

  He left the row with the directories and retrieved the sleeve from the table, taking it over to the microfiche machine. He sat down and slipped the card (Jan. 4-Jan. 6) out of its sleeve, and slid the card into the machine.

  The process continued through January and February, and then March. The light in the high windows shifted and weakened, and finally started to drain away as the sun dipped toward the horizon. The images started to blur as Tom’s eyes grew tired of searching the blown-up newsprint for any mention of the Home’s closing. He was halfway through April before he finally found it, in the April 16 edition of the Review, under a headline reading:

  Home for Orphaned Children shuts its doors forever after horrid revelations.

  Tom was startled at the squeak of a chair moving across the floor. He turned to see who had joined him in the room, but found that he was alone. He looked at the chairs in the room, but he couldn’t tell for certain which one had been moved. A cold, tingling sensation traveled the length of his spine. He tu
rned back to the microfiche machine. There was no way to print the article, so he searched inside his jacket pockets and fished out a small notebook and a pencil. He read the article, jotting down the important facts.

  The Cedar Falls Home for Orphaned Children closed its doors for the last time yesterday after a final report was released by the Illinois Attorney General’s office, which found a longstanding pattern of abuse and neglect perpetrated by orphanage staff.

  Tom wrote in the notebook:

  Home closed April, ’43, after release of IL AG report. Pattern of abuse by staff.

  He read some more:

  There are questions still unanswered about the whereabouts of children who have gone missing from the orphanage over the years. Ryan Friehl, Director and Headmaster of the Home since 1939, reportedly told investigators that the children were transferred to other orphanages across state lines. Mr. Friehl could not produce any paperwork detailing the transfers, claiming that the records were destroyed in a fire that started in the records room of the orphanage in the spring of last year. Mr. Friehl claimed that he had no recollection even of the names of any of the orphanages that the children were sent to.

  Tom wondered if the fire mentioned here was the same fire that Patricia had mentioned when they met. He wrote in the notebook:

  Missing kids. Dir. Ryan Friehl said kids were sent to orphanages in other states, but couldn’t recall names or produce records. Said recs were destroyed in fire.

  Tom read more:

  The investigation by the state AG’s office started late last year when three children who ran away from the orphanage were found by a Juniper County Sherriff’s Department deputy as they were wandering about on Rural Road 10, three miles outside of town. The children displayed visible signs of beatings. One of the children, an unnamed young girl said to be nine years of age, also had what appeared to be cigarette burns on her legs.

  Many residents have voiced anger at the delay in the release of the AG’s report, and the resulting delay in the shuttering of the Home, as the orphanage was allowed to continue operating and caring for children until the report’s release. Some believe that the delay was due to the fact that state AG George F. Barrett had a close, personal friendship with Clyde Forsythe, the director of the orphanage from 1928 until his death in 1939, whereupon he was replace with Mr. Friehl. Mr. Barrett has denied the charge.

  Deputies from the Juniper County Sherriff’s Office escorted all children remaining at the Home to two other orphanages, St. Mary’s Children’s Home in Cicero, and the Our Lady of Peace Orphanage in Berwyn.

  Tom wrote down the relevant points. His pencil slipped, scrawling a long, jagged line across the page, when he heard a scraping, squealing sound, like wheels turning under great duress. He turned in his seat to see that one of the bookshelves had been moved, and it was standing askew. The thing was big, and weighted down with books and boxes, and Tom didn’t want to contemplate how much strength it would take to move the thing on its wheels, which looked too small to begin with. The room was dark now, with just a little purplish light still filtering in through the windows. A perfectly still silence settled over the room.

  Tom stowed the notebook and pencil in his pocket as he turned back to the machine, switched it off and pulled out the card. He slipped the card back in its sleeve, stood up and returned to the table, put the sleeve back in the box and replaced the top.

  The bookshelf that had been moved was several rows over from the shelves that held the Review archives. Tom moved quickly, putting the box back where it belonged and headed for the entrance of the curving hall. A he reached the entrance the room was filled with a cacophony noise as books, boxes and magazines fell from their shelves as if they had been swept aside by some giant, invisible hand. Tom froze for a moment, staring into the dark corners of the room. He couldn’t explain it, but he was filled with a dreadful certainty that he was being watched by strange eyes. He was stuck with the sudden certainty that he didn’t want to be in that room anymore, and that wild horses couldn’t ever drag him back to it.

  So he ran. He bombed through the curved hallway, and then started down the stairs. The librarian was standing at the foot of the steps, watching him as he descended. He slowed his pace, fighting every muscle and nerve in his body that wanted to continue running until he couldn’t run anymore.

  “What was all that racket?” the woman asked.

  “What? I didn’t hear anything.”

  It was a stupid lie, almost comical, but the woman had a look of self-doubt on her face, as if she thought it entirely possible that she had imagined all of the noise. Tom walked passed her, heading for the door.

  “Wait, mister,” the librarian called to him.

  Tom stopped and turned to her, his heart beating wildly in his chest.

  “Yes?” he said, struggling to keep his voice even.

  “You forgot your new card.”

  She walked behind the desk to get the card, and held it out to him. Tom thought about it for a moment, and decided that a step closer to the desk was a step closer to the staircase, and he didn’t want to go any nearer to that staircase than he had to.

  “I’m sorry, I’m late,” he said. “I’ll pick it up the next time I’m here.”

  He turned and pushed the front door open, letting in a breath of cool night air.

  “But…” the librarian started.

  Tom didn’t catch the rest as the door closed and cut off the woman’s voice. He hurried down the library’s front steps and to his car. He didn’t feel safe until he had gotten into his car and shut the door. He sat there for five minutes, allowing his heart so slow its thudding, staring up at the dark windows on the second floor of the library. He started the car and drove home.