Enigma

by Leslie Drennan

  Once we had our visitor badges, we started heading back down the same way we had been five minutes before, trying to look as though we weren’t over eager to get where we were going. I wasn’t sure why I always felt as if everyone knew what I was up to when I was trying to be sneaky, when in reality the only one who really knew what I was always up to was Avan. This time, it just so happened that he was my partner in crime.

  As we passed a large wall of windows that looked into a waiting room filled with teal and mauve vinyl-covered chairs full of friends and family members waiting to hear news about the conditions of their loved ones, I caught our reflection walking side by side and couldn’t help being distracted by the thought of how good of a couple we made and how great we looked together.

  “I couldn’t agree more!” Avan said out loud as he took my hand without missing a beat.

  We rounded a corner of the seemingly endless hallway, following the dark brown signs on the wall that pointed us in the direction of the hospital’s medical records department. As I put my hand on the doorknob, I took a deep, nervous breath, hoping that our plan would work. Avan placed his hand on the small of my back, giving the ends of my hair a playful tug to let me know it was going to be okay.

  As I exhaled, I turned the knob and pushed the door open to enter a rather small area in front of a counter that was in the front of a room with several computers sitting on desks.

  I found a clipboard on top of the counter and scribbled my name, the reason for my visit, and the time I arrived then joined Avan in one of the chairs along the wall about four feet behind me.

  Being that we were the only two in the office, I did not think it would take long for them to call my name. I was wrong. We sat for fifteen minutes until the short, robust woman who sat behind the front counter called out my name lazily.

  “Holland, Matalyn?” she said in a nasally voice.

  “Yes ma’am. I’m Matalyn Holland.”

  “I need to see your I.D., Ms. Holland,” she stated in a monotone nasal tone that clearly told me she was bored with her life.

  Her name badge said her name was Rhoda Feltman. I pulled out my driver’s license and slid it to Rhoda’s side of the counter, where she then took it and made a copy.

  “Fill out this form,” she said sliding my license back to me on top of a piece of paper.

  I hated excess paperwork. All I needed were some old medical records. Was all this necessary? I took the paper after putting my license back into my purse and sat back down to fill it out. Same old questions as on every other lame document that every other office used for legal privacy purposes. I just wanted to hurry up and get out of here. The last thing I wanted to do was leave a paper trail in the event someone really was trying to find out information on me. Knowing I would never succeed in getting any records if I refused, I filled in all the blanks and handed the paper back to Rhoda, who started gazing over it.

  “You need records for you and your parents?” she asked, as if she was confused about my request.

  “Yes, they passed away, and I’ve had some medical issues come up, so I can’t ask them about their past medical history. I’m working while I go to school, so it’s hard to make ends meet. I need the records to make sure I continue to make the right medical decisions for this situation.”

  “I’m not supposed to give out anything to anybody whose name doesn’t match the record, unless it’s to another doctor, for treatment purposes, if I think they’ll injure themselves or someone else, or unless there’s written consent to release,” Rhoda stated matter of factly.

  “Considering their death was ruled a murder-suicide, I’m sure that’s going to be hard to attain.”

  “Ms. Holland, the only way I can give you the copies you’re wanting is if it were pertinent to a medical emergency or medical necessity.”

  “It is,” Avan said, walking up behind me.

  “What kind of medical emergency are we talking about?” Rhoda asked with a look of doubt written all over her face.

  “I really didn’t want to have to admit this due to embarrassment, but I will if you’re going to make me. I don’t guess I have any other choice in the matter,” I retorted.

  “I’m gonna have to have a darn good reason to give you any records other than your own, so shoot,” Rhoda said sarcastically.

  I knew this was going to take a lot more than the story Avan and I had come up with about recently being diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder and needing to see from which one of my parents I could have gotten it. Rhoda seemed like a tough cookie, so I was going to have to stun her into giving me what I wanted. Avan had opened his mouth to go with our original script we made up in the car when I cut him off, shocking all three of us.

  “Look, Rhoda, I’m pregnant and in high school, my parents died in a murder-suicide, and if that isn’t bad enough, my dad, Kitrick Holland, was cheating on my mom, Evana Holland, with his mom, Sharon Mumford. We need to get those three medical records to see if we are related in order to decide if we need to consider the options here. I don’t want to kill our baby, but we had no idea we could be siblings until I was looking through my dad’s old files containing documents that suggested it could be a possibility after he died. We had only moved a few years before they died, so I had no idea my parents knew anyone in our town previously. If our child is at risk of having severe mental or physical impairments due to incest we need to know! No child deserves that kind of existence! We had no idea—”

  “Stop right there, Ms. Holland,” Rhoda stated in a serious tone that made me feel like she caught onto my lie until she reached up, grabbed a tissue, and began wiping her eyes.

  Avan was looking down at the floor shuffling his shoes with his left hand over his mouth and his right hand tucked into his pocket, clearly unaware of what to make of my little spectacle.

  Looking at Avan, it appeared as if he was ashamed and embarrassed not wanting to make eye contact, but I could tell he had his hand over his mouth to mask his smile because he was about to blow my cover by laughing hysterically from shock value.

  “I don’t need you to explain any further, Ms. Holland. What are the three names you need records for?”

  “Kitrick Holland, Evana Holland, and Sharon Mumford.”

  “Just a moment, and I’ll print them out for you,” Rhoda said calmly, as she was still affected by my whopper of a lie.

  Within minutes, she had laid a large, yellow, sealed envelope on the counter with my name written on top.

  “Matalyn, do you have a good doctor who can help you with all of this? We have several here at the hospital, as well as counselors, if you need someone to talk to,” Rhoda said, sounding motherly.

  “I’ve got a really good doctor in Oceanview. Thank you for all your help. I’m sorry for having to bother you and put you in between a rock and a hard place,” I apologized, more so because I felt bad for lying to her being left without any other choice.

  “God bless you both! Remember, Jesus always blesses those who put Him first, and no matter what the circumstances are God always has a plan! I will be praying for you both!” Rhoda said, so lovingly it made me want to cry and give her the real apology she deserved for lying my way into getting what I wanted.

  Avan and I exited the office, heading back the way we had come in to the main doors. Once we were outside, Avan let out his suppressed laughter, asking me when I had discovered I was part of an immaculate conception and how he had not recalled God impregnating me with his offspring or having Sharon and my dad for his parents.

  I playfully hit his arm and told him it was not funny and that I felt horrible for lying to her and making her cry because she felt sorry for me. Even though he was still laughing, he told me he never condoned lying and that angels like me were never supposed to lie, whatever that meant.

  Once we were both back in the car, I opened the envelope to find four pieces of paper with very little information on them. The first piece of paper had my dad’s name followed by the words
no information found. The next one looked exactly the same, with the exception of my mother’s name. The third sheet had Sharon Mumford’s name followed by the word unknown. The last piece of paper was one with my name that only signified my parents had used the hospital to order a birth certificate to show record of a home birth. That was it.

  No other medical records even for myself. I had no records of ever receiving immunizations or checkups after my birth. I remembered never being sick as a child and needing to go to the doctor, but every newborn had to go through a series of vaccinations during their first few years of life. Why had I never had mine? Evidently, they had entered my parents’ names into their system when they had requested the certificate for my birth, but Sharon had never been on record at all. I had heard of naturalist parents who thought vaccinations were unnecessary, but my parents were always so carful and overprotective that it made no sense. In the tiny little town of Bridgepoint, all the doctors in town worked out of the hospital, so there was nowhere else to check for medical records.

  As far as the record showed, I had never been to a doctor in my life. My mother had given birth to me at home. That was almost unheard of in modern times. On the information sheet about the request for a birth certificate, there was no name mentioned of a doctor, caretaker, or even a midwife. It appeared as though she and my dad delivered me by themselves at our old house.

  On my quest for answers, I just seemed to be developing more questions instead. We decided to go look into public records at city hall next. All residences, property ownership and transfers, census information, and court documents could be found there. I knew there was bound to be a clue somewhere, and I was going to find it. There was no way a family could be living in this town for years without any record besides a law practice, charity work, and school records.

  Someone had to know something. I had not forgotten about Sharon either. I wanted to know everything I could get my hands on about her. Sharon’s life story to the police did not add up at all in my book. The only reason they turned me over to her was to save the state money, considering there were never enough people willing to foster children to begin with. There were too many discrepancies with Sharon. I just had a funny feeling telling me there was a lot more to Sharon than met the eye. Maybe today would be my lucky day to find out.

  After the clerk showed us several filing cabinets and volumes of materials that contained the public records of the years in question, Avan and I began digging. It took us three and a half hours to find documents on the house my parents and I had lived in; they showed when they bought it, who they sold it to before we moved, documents on the tiny building my dad had bought to use for an office and sold to a man who turned it into a pest service. Then there were the countless court cases that listed my dad as the defending attorney. Of all the searching, we could not find so much as a speeding ticket for my parents or Sharon. I suppose it was obvious that I was hungry from the crabby mood I was in, as Avan suggested we grab lunch at the local diner before heading to the public library to check out any newspaper articles or anything else we could find there.

  Seeing as the diner was only two blocks from city hall, we chose to walk and get some fresh air on the way to curing our hunger problem. The cool temperatures did not even faze me as we made our way across the street.

  The diner looked like any other mom-and-pop owned diner would. There was a chalkboard that read Please Seat Yourself that served a dual purpose, as it listed the daily lunch special below. The booths along the front window had cracked vinyl, and the shiny finish the tables once had was long gone.

  A countertop with stools all the way across stretched in front of the work area left open for the waitress to cut desserts, keep condiments, and serve coffee, tea, fountain drinks, and refill water. Looking over the menu, it was easy to tell that the main ingredient for every dish was grease. Everything listed was either deep fried or grilled, but not the kind of grill you think of when you are cooking out next to the pool. Both of us decided on a burger and fries. The order came out quickly and was served in red, plastic baskets with red-and-white checked paper lining that our very greasy food sat on. Neither of us could eat more than half of our order out of fear that we would be sick if we tried.

  We decided it was time to venture to the library in hopes of finding something that would make me feel like this trip was not just a waste of Avan’s work time, gas money, and a pointless amount of makeup work for both of us. We hopped in the car and headed to the other end of town.

  The other end of town was not far at all, considering it only took seven minutes to get there and we caught two red lights along the way. We pulled into a parking spot in front of a gray stucco building that had a sign in front, which let us know we made it to the right spot. Avan came around and opened my door, locked the car, and once more we were walking up another neglected Bridgepoint sidewalk. As we entered the front door of the library, there was a circular desk straight ahead where a medium-built, middle-aged woman with brown hair streaked with gray sat, looking down through her reading glasses at a book.

  As I approached the woman sitting at the desk, I almost felt rude for interrupting her, even though I knew it was her job to help me find what I needed. Leaning over the desk, I whispered softly, asking where we could find archived newspapers of the last seventeen years; I felt like I was yelling even though I could barely hear what I said. The lady reacted as if I had spoken right out loud as she smiled and told us to follow her. She led us to the back of the library, where we entered a room; she explained that they kept all the newspaper articles on microfiche.

  Before letting us dig in, she asked if we had ever used a microfiche system before, offering us a brief tutorial. We told her the school librarians had taught us and we had both used it for research in the past. Seeming satisfied with our answers, she left us to our searching as we divided up the years into halves in order to cut down on research time. Avan and I hit the materials as though someone had mentioned that there was a winning lottery ticket hidden in their midst. We went through each one that fit in the time frame to see what we could find.

  I had taken the first eight and half years, and Avan had taken the last. I had gone through a ton of articles when I found one that stood out with headlines that jolted me.

  Local Couple Suspected in Kidnapping of Popular Defense Attorney’s Only Child

  Three-month-old, Matalyn Renell Holland, daughter of Kitrick and Evana Holland, was taken from her crib in her parents’ home early Sunday morning. Police made statements confirming that the alarm system had been set off and there were signs of forced entry to the front door of the home. Mr. Kitrick Holland, the well-known CA defense attorney, received a letter at his office the following day, demanding that he not involve police any further regarding the whereabouts of his child if he wanted her to remain unharmed. Miraculously, that afternoon, a resident who wishes to remain anonymous noticed a couple who was acting peculiar at a park. The couple, Cheryl Felesky and Damron Griswol, had an infant that was inconsolable, and the couple didn’t seem to know what to do with the child. The resident then made the instrumental call to local officials that lead to the safe recovery of the child. Felesky and Griswol told police during questioning that they found the child on the park bench where they had stopped to rest while traveling and were trying to console the child before taking her to the hospital. Shortly after being questioned at the police station, the two suspects could not be located after they’d been asked not to leave town. If you have seen these two individuals, please contact local officials, as they are wanted in an ongoing kidnap investigation.

  As if the article had not said enough, there were photos of Cheryl Felesky and Damron Griswol underneath. I felt the color drain from my face as I saw the photos, recognizing both of them. I lost the ability to find my voice as I sat in shock. Avan must have sensed that something was wrong, as he stopped what he was doing to see me sitting rigid in my chair in complete disbelief; I realized the photos below
the article were none other than the people I knew as Sharon Mumford and Damien Montgomery.

  Grabbing a bottle of water from my purse and taking a drink, I noticed Avan was still staring at me with deep concern. Clearing my throat, I finally found my voice and explained to him what I had found. I moved my chair over to let him read the article and see the photos as I explained who the two people were. We copied down the information from the article, including the date of the newspaper and any other details that we would need to back up our story, and then gathered our things without even putting back the slides we had gotten out. We both started for the front door and headed to the car as quickly as possible. There is no explanation for how we both knew what the other one was thinking, but without a doubt, Avan and I both knew exactly where the next stop would be even though it had been unplanned.

  Less than five minutes later, we pulled up in front of the Bridgepoint Police Station. We ran into the building to a small area with a window where a dispatcher sat; she also answered phones and did reception work. The dispatcher had stress lines on her forehead, minimal makeup, and her hair in a ponytail. She wore regular police attire but without a gun.

  “What can I do for you?” she asked without looking up.

  “I need to speak to the lead detective who worked a kidnapping case sixteen years ago.”

  “Do you have a case number?”

  “No, but you would probably remember the case. A defense attorney, Kitrick Holland, was involved. His daughter, Matalyn Holland, was kidnapped?” I asked, hoping to jog her memory.

  “Yeah, I remember the case, it’s the only abduction we’ve ever had in Bridgepoint.”

  “Do you know who was heading up the case?”

  “Yeah, I think it was Jonesy,” she replied.

  “Is he in? I really need to speak with him. It’s pretty urgent.”

  “I think he’s back in his office. I can page him and see if he’s got a minute. Can I tell him your name?” she asked, still not raising her head from the computer screen.