by Keith Thomas
“She makes things up,” Janice said. “Reads a lot of books.”
“I understand that—”
“No, you don’t. She’s telling stories to impress you. And it worked, didn’t it? Ashanique likes to show off how smart she is ’cause she’s an incredibly smart girl. And the people at her school don’t get her. But I get her. Don’t doubt that for a second. I get her as clear as anyone else. And I’m telling you to forget it.”
Matilda pulled her business card from her purse.
Eyes steeled, Janice ignored her and placed her hand on the doorframe.
Matilda looked back at Ashanique.
The girl was embarrassed and scared. Janice could see it, and her face softened, though only slightly.
“We’re good,” she told her daughter. “They’re leaving now. We’re gonna be just fine.”
Matilda handed her business card to Carol and stepped into the hall.
“Don’t ever come back,” Janice threatened.
The door slammed shut hard enough to rattle the frame.
13
7:12 P.M.
NOVEMBER 13, 2018
I-90
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
“WELL, THAT WAS exciting. You okay?”
Todd looked over at Matilda as he eased the Volvo onto the interstate.
After they’d returned to the car, Matilda spent the first few minutes in silence, scrolling through websites on her phone.
“Jesus, there was something seriously unhinged about that woman. Think she was on something?”
Matilda wasn’t listening to him, despite her looking up from her phone.
She gave Todd a blank stare.
“Sorry, just . . .”
“It’s okay. Lot to process.”
“It’s all real. All of it.”
Matilda had pulled up everything she could find on the life and death of George Edwin Ellison. And everything Ashanique had said checked out—every fact about his place of birth, his regiment, his injuries, and his family. With one exception: Matilda couldn’t find any mention of a smiley face etched into the back of George’s pocket watch. The pocket watch existed—it was housed in the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa and there were even pictures of it online. But the smiley face wasn’t among them. Matilda found it curious; Ashanique had made quite a deal of the engraving, hammering it hard in her retelling of George’s life.
“Maybe the girl just read the Wikipedia entry.”
“No.” Matilda shook her head. “She wasn’t reciting— Hang on. . . .”
Matilda called the War Museum. She made her way through various museum staff before being directed to the voice mail of one of the curators. She left a detailed message asking about George Edwin Ellison’s pocket watch and a “family legend” about there being a picture on the back. She felt silly when she hung up the phone.
“Wow. You’re serious,” Todd said, looking over at her.
“I’ve never seen anyone like her.”
“Come on.” Todd laughed dismissively. “The girl’s cute; she’s got a great affect. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out she was older than she looked, you know? This sort of thing happens. The girl’s a great actress, the mom’s coaching her, and they fool a bunch of people, people like you, into getting them things. Hooking them up with meds and tests—I’ve seen it happen. Stone-cold, sociopathic, I’m not talking Munchausen by proxy or folie à deux—”
“Janice didn’t even want us there. You saw how she reacted.”
“Exactly, that’s part of the scam.”
“Todd, you’re talking crazy. I do think Janice is hiding something, but it’s not about some scam to get drugs. That’s silly. And jaded. No, something real is happening with Ashanique—maybe high-functioning savant syndrome or an odd manifestation of ideasthesia. Whatever it is, Janice knows what’s going on with her. She just doesn’t want to talk about it.”
“I think you’re spooked. Blindsided.”
“Will you just stop?”
Matilda sank back into her seat with a sigh. She wasn’t sure why she was so unnerved. Everything Ashanique had told her, all the details—like the names of the battles George had fought in—were impressive, but what Matilda couldn’t get out of her head were all the things the girl only hinted at.
“Okay, so I was being obnoxious.” Todd picked up the conversation again. “How about this: You’ve seen how many of these cases? Mostly they’re adults and mostly they’re terrible actors. So it’s not surprising that you find a kid like this, an African American girl in a low-income apartment complex, and it’s a bit shocking. That’s the trick, though. She’s using your expectations against you. Using those internal biases to put you off your game.”
“I wasn’t off my game.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. But I do think you’re being played. The whole thing was too good to be true. It wouldn’t surprise me if Janice was at one of your classes, maybe sat in and took a shit ton of notes. Ashanique hit all the boxes, avoided all the traps. She’s good. Really good.”
Matilda pulled a tea tree oil stick from her purse and rubbed some into her temples. The cooling effect was an instantly relaxing distraction.
“That stuff stinks. The girl said Night Doctors, right? That was weird.”
“She did. It was weird for someone her age.”
“You seemed taken aback by it.”
“I did?”
“Yeah, you did. Why?”
“I’ve heard it before. An . . . an old client.”
“Fill me in, Maddie. I don’t know what Night Doctors are.”
“I don’t know that much, honestly,” Matilda began, “but they were pretty much boogeymen from the South; 1800s legends, mostly forgotten today. At the time, they were as bad as anything. There were stories going around African American communities that if you were out late or wandered into a part of town you weren’t supposed to be in, the Night Doctors would get you. They’d perform hideous experiments, cut you up, and then use your body to train medical students.”
“Damn . . .”
“Most of those stories were actually spread by the Klan. Trying to keep the black communities living in fear. But the truth is, a lot of African Americans ended up on the autopsy slabs of medical schools. Medicine was taking off; the days of the field surgeon were in the rearview mirror. They needed bodies to train on.”
“Shit, you’re saying the stories were true?”
“There was a huge jump in grave robbery around the time the Night Doctor stories were spreading out across the South. I’m saying it’s not a big leap to suggest that sometimes being dead wasn’t a requirement. We’re talking about a culture that saw black as less than human.”
Todd mulled that over as the Volvo hit the exit ramp.
“Okay,” he said, “so maybe the folklore continued to today in some communities. But you’re not actually suggesting that Ashanique believes there are physicians in scrubs and masks stalking the streets looking for people to dissect? Like roving gangs of killer doctors.”
“I’m not suggesting anything.”
14
8:36 P.M.
NOVEMBER 13, 2018
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
AS SOON AS she got back to the office, Matilda searched her archives.
I know I’ve heard it before. . . . It’s here somewhere.
There was nothing on her walls about the Night Doctors, at least nothing out in the open. Matilda spent a few chaotic minutes combing through her file drawers. Despite the number of folders she’d stuffed into each one, they were all labeled and correctly organized. Matilda had a rule she’d learned from Clark: Never touch something more than once. It was basically a riff on the old “stitch in time” chestnut, but she saw the logic in it. With so many ongoing projects, she didn’t have time to waste relabeling files or sorting papers. But there was no file about Night Doctors.
It’ll be on your computer, Maddie.
Ugh. Great
. The computer. . . .
The department IT guy, a bearded dude with a nose ring, sighed loudly the last time he had been called in to install more RAM on Matilda’s desktop. She actually had to get special approval from the department for the procedure. Rather than just upgrade her computer, they decided to keep adding RAM until they couldn’t. When the IT guy had finished, he awkwardly mentioned one of the department’s upcoming classes on reducing digital clutter.
“You know, to streamline your machine,” he said. And added, “You have a ton—like a real ton—of stuff on here. Cleaning it up would make it function better. Move fast. It’s almost kind of a hazard.” Then he looked up at the office walls.
Matilda told him she was happy with the speed of the machine, thank you.
The IT guy left with another sigh.
Matilda’s voice mail was an example of the clutter that had him so concerned. She had 223 folders of voice messages. Each one was labeled with a date. They were downloaded automatically from the messaging system into her email in-box. Matilda didn’t save every voice message she received; that would be crazy. No, instead she “deconstructed” approximately 75 percent of them. Deconstruction—her own term—consisted of pulling important information from the message, typing it out, and then saving it as a text file before tossing the message itself.
Running a search, she found the voice message she was looking for in a folder named T. V. #2449-293. The message (kept whole rather than being deconstructed) had been left for her approximately sixteen months ago, around eleven on a Tuesday night. It was labeled T. V. 8-21(1). Matilda had listened to the message the following morning and returned the call. But she got no answer.
She found out why a few days later.
Matilda got up, closed the door to her office, and put on headphones. Plugging them into her desktop, she leaned back in her chair and listened to the wounded voice of a ghost.
Hearing Vang again was unnerving and deeply painful.
Hi, Dr. Deacon, it’s me. I know I said I wouldn’t call again for a while but . . . kinda clichéd to say, but things are getting worse again. I know. I, uh, I started smoking again, and, well, no surprise here, but I got sick. Went into the hospital and— You got that, right? I mean, they sent over those medical records? They should have. Anyway, that was bad enough but what made it worse was the fact that they had me in a psych hold. I was really, really out of it. Like real bad. I couldn’t talk, so they didn’t know about the fact that I had a head injury when I was a kid. I wish I could have at least told them that. It explains why I can’t remember worth shit.
Being in the hospital and being off the drugs, the memories just came barreling on back. Total knockdown. Like being hit by a tsunami. They must have thought I was totally insane, hearing me howling and shit— It was bad, Doc. The usual ones came back. I, uh, had the memories about being on a fishing boat. That’s actually a calming one. He had six children by two different women, which is kind of nuts but . . . So I also had the one about the Native American woman who got attacked by wolves. Memories like that are exactly why I smoke, you know? Shit, I keep calling them memories, and I’m sure you’re shaking your head listening to this. They’re not memories, okay? Visions is what I need to call them. I’ll get there, Doc. Serious, I will.
Anyway, I’m calling ’cause I seriously need your help. I had this moment of enlightenment. I don’t know what triggered it. Maybe it was something I heard or something I saw but . . . I honestly think it’s a real memory from my childhood, Doc. Like from before the accident or whatever damaged me. And it’s really fucked-up. I don’t know who else to tell about it, so, sorry, I’m putting it on you. Don’t listen to this before you go to bed, okay? It’s like the—
The voice recording was cut short. Matilda assumed Vang had been cut off by the messaging system, but she didn’t actually know how long a message someone could leave. Regardless, he called back about two minutes later and left a second message. In her files, it was titled T. V. 8-21(2). Matilda pressed play and closed her eyes. Readying herself for the shock to come.
Got cut off there. Not sure where I stopped but, um, I was saying that this memory is from me. Like the actual me, only as a kid—a little kid. Before the foster homes and shit. I’m this little scruffy Hmong kid running around the streets of . . . Damn, I don’t actually know what town, but it’s maybe Mexico or Puerto Rico. Words are in Spanish. There are palm trees and beaches. I don’t know what I’m up to but it’s clear that I’ve got no one. Ha! That shit didn’t change much, did it? I’m totally a street kid. An urchin or whatever. Living with a bunch of other street kids, stealing things and begging for change. That’s me. And I’m maybe like six years old. This is in the seventies. It feels like the seventies. I see really old cars and people wear super-lame clothes.
I’m running around these streets when I get hit by a fucking car! Some asshole totally hits me. I’m not that messed up by the accident. I don’t have anything more than some scrapes and some nasty bruises. But this car just totally drives off. Asshole. That’s not even the part I was warning you about, Doc. It’s what comes after that. Most people, they get run over somewhere—especially a little kid—and the police show up. Sure enough, a crowd gathers around me. Then an ambulance comes. This nasty old ambulance. I’m actually psyched, ’cause going to the hospital means getting a bed to sleep in, and I’ve been sleeping on the streets up until this point, and it means getting an actual, bona fide hot meal.
The thing is I don’t go to the hospital. The ambulance takes some really funky turns and winds up outside the city. I’m strapped down in the back, but I get one arm free and sit up enough to see that we’re in the countryside—farms and everything on either side of the road. But it isn’t until we pull off the street and into the driveway of this little house that I really start getting scared. And there’s just this one phrase that’s rattling around in my head: Night Doctors. Beware of the Night Doctors.
Matilda opened her eyes and stopped the message for a moment.
Just hearing those two words again was startling.
God damn it, Dr. Deacon, why weren’t you paying attention?
Matilda actually had done some reading about the Night Doctors after she first heard the message. But she was convinced Theo Vang suffered from paranoid delusions and schizoaffective personality disorder. It didn’t help that he’d had some serious head trauma as a kid and was addicted to methamphetamine. Theo was a very, very damaged man. And no one would have blamed Matilda for dismissing his memories. She had tried to help him, but his concerns were simply too unbelievable to take seriously. Of course, hearing his voice again, she regretted her judgment.
Matilda pressed play, and braced for the rest of the message.
I know it when they wheel me into the house. There’s a surgery-looking setup in there. A white room; all clinical, like a lab or something. And, crazy as it seems, there’s a big machine there. It looks like a telescope. Only the ceiling isn’t open to see the stars. It’s crammed in there, and wires and cables and things are lying all over the floors. They wheel me on this gurney, or whatever, and they strap down my one free arm. And . . . there are other kids there. Other ones they took. Shit, this is hard to talk about without . . . Anyway, it’s scary as hell. And I start screaming, ’cause I know that the Night Doctors won’t heal me, they’re gonna hurt me. And then . . . they do.
Matilda stopped the message and took off her headphones. As she did, her gaze fell on a printout half covered by Post-it Notes on the wall just over the computer. She knew what it was but needed to see it nonetheless. Matilda needed to have that moment, to feel those emotions. She needed the tears that would follow.
The printout was an obituary from the Chicago Sun-Times.
On it was a photo of a haunted-looking, fiftysomething Hmong man. His name was Theo Vang, and he had jumped off the roof of his halfway house five hours after leaving Matilda the voice messages.
15
7:48 P.M.
&n
bsp; NOVEMBER 13, 2018
CASTLETON
INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA
DIRK BOGRAD WOKE up screaming.
He was still at work, sitting behind the front desk at Sargent International Bank. He hadn’t realized he’d fallen asleep. It looked bad, the security guard bolting upright at his post—sweating, heart racing. Unfortunately, he wasn’t alone in the lobby. A woman walking past stopped and glanced over at him, concerned.
“I’m okay,” Dirk said. “Just—just the chair slipped is all. . . .”
As the woman exited the building through the revolving door, Dirk caught a distorted reflection of himself in the window opposite his desk. He was ashen. Blinking several times to pull himself together, he leaned down and opened the Velcro top of his lunch bag to remove a silver pill case. Dirk shook two yellow-and-white MetroChime capsules out. He chewed them quickly before washing them down with a sip of cold coffee.
“God damn,” he said out loud to no one, “you’re falling apart.”
Dirk had been a security guard at Sargent International for fifteen months and he’d never fallen asleep on the job before. Not once. Even with his sleep patterns and the crushing boredom of his job, he’d always maintained a professional attitude. He certainly couldn’t afford to lose another job. Not with his wife going down in her hours at the clinic and his son hoping to go to camp again.
Pull it together, Dirk, you’ve got a lot of people depending on you.
An hour later, shift over and no additional embarrassments, Dirk was ready to leave. A phone buzzed in his backpack as he packed up. Dirk was startled. He kept his cell in a case on his belt; the buzzing, however, was from the flip phone he’d gotten in the mail two months earlier, the one that had never once rung. Looking around and seeing no one nearby, Dirk pulled the flip phone from his bag. There was an encrypted message written out in a substitution cipher on the small screen. With the package had been a letter from Dr. Song. Written to resemble a friendly sales pitch, there were hidden messages embedded in the letter—it took Dirk an afternoon to decipher it using the key his brother had given him. The long and short of it was simple: he needed to keep the flip phone with him at all times. If it rang, answer. If a text came through, read it.