“The dead man and this apartment have a central role in Dorset’s disappearance,” I said, rising from my chair and stuffing the rest of a slice into my mouth. “Come on. We’ve got to do a proper search. What if she’s in the closet tied up and gagged, gasping for breath?”
Everyone was silent, gestures frozen, as if someone stopped the movie. “And the room with all the collages or whatever they’re called? That back room may contain a trace of Dorset and here we sit. If we wait long enough, the clue will vanish and one maybe two days or weeks from now we’ll find her body.”
Denny rose. “Crime scene or not be damned, I’m going with you. Who’s in?”
Nodding, Willoughby put down his fourth piece of pizza and stood up, brushing crumbs from his shirt.
We piled into the living room and Denny passed out coats. Just as we were about to leave, the landline rang. Lorraine, who was staying behind with the twins, went to answer it. We could have used her with us, to say nothing of the fact that we were relegating her to staying with the kids, but she didn’t seem to mind, explaining seconds earlier that she had plenty to do. “I’m expecting a call from North Dakota, and don’t forget what I told you about the police report on Ronnie Clauson’s death. I think I might have discovered something, but it can wait.”
Jane waved a dismissive hand. We were halfway out the door when I felt Lorraine tugging the back of my jacket.
“The hospital just called. It’s your father. He’s taken a turn for the worse.”
At the Hospital
I threw on my coat and watched Denny’s back as he lumbered down the stairs. When he got to the bottom, he stood on the sidewalk, facing the street, and turned slowly toward me, the lamplight over the door illuminating his head and shoulders. If I lived to be a hundred, I’d remember him at that moment, his face, his words, all he meant to me. I was getting maudlin and hoped I wasn’t pregnant again. Oh, Gentle Mother, not again, not until we’d found Dorset and the agency was back on its feet and I’d lost the thirty or so pounds I’d gained with the twins. I’d even take on cases involving jealous spouses and their snoop requests. The agency coffers would get fat and Denny would forget about Poughkeepsie.
“What’s taking you so long?” Cookie asked.
I had to go with them; they needed me. “Be there in a second!”
“No, you won’t,” Denny said. “You’ve got to go to your dad. If only for five minutes to assess his situation. Identify yourself to the nurse on duty. Give her your name, address, cell phone. Give him a kiss and tell him how good he looks and that you’re pulling for him. Tell him he’ll be out of the hospital in no time and you’ve got work for him. Tell him you need him. Afterward you can meet us at the scene. Meanwhile I’ll text and keep you posted.”
His words echoed in my mind as I drove to Brooklyn General, screeching to a halt in front of the hospital and beeping my horn for a concierge. I wasn’t proud of my reaction to my father’s condition, but I was the only one who knew what to look for in the dead man’s apartment. And here I was in front of a hospital while they groped in the dark, overturning who knew what evidence. They needed me, needed my expertise, my intuition, and I was far away from where I needed to be, thanks to him. My father, always a troublemaker. Gone when we needed him, he’d let me and my mother starve. Now maybe he was on his deathbed and I was about to lose him. Whatever he had done or not done for me, he was my old man.
A flash and the present disappeared and for an instant I was a child on his knee, smelling his tobacco, hearing his laughter, feeling the air rush around me in the park as he swung me higher, higher, ever higher. My world secure. Perfect. And then the flash of light off his Ray-Bans as he turned and without a word walked away. He had abandoned me and Mom to fend for ourselves and it was all my fault. Now I was about to be an orphan. He was abandoning me again, but I couldn’t leave him in a sterile hospital bed to die alone. In my mind’s eye I watched the doctor pull a sheet over his head as I walked into his room a few minutes too late. I lowered my window and yelled for valet service.
“Park it yourself, lady. We’re closed. And no more horn!”
I pulled the car ahead into a dark area several feet from a beam of light streaming out of the hospital’s lobby and left it there, having just enough presence of mind to kill the motor. Mumbling an oath to the security cop’s rotating light, I flew through the doors and asked the woman at the main desk for the quickest way to the intensive care unit.
Somehow I made it up to the eighth floor. Panting, I surveyed the scene, a long hallway filled with equipment and nurses and aides. I began walking down each corridor, looking for numbers on doorways, turning the corner and walking down another long hall, realizing I was far from intensive care. Lost, I finally stopped at the nurses’ station for directions.
“Through those double doors, make a left and another right.”
Finally I arrived. Panting, I asked for his room.
“Two doors down on the left, but you can’t go in, miss. Only one visitor at a time.”
“I’m his daughter.”
The nurse stiffened. “Wait right here.”
“Just give me the room number,” I said to her back, but she didn’t turn around. She disappeared.
I stood there for what seemed like hours, wondering what was taking so long, but then realized this was a hospital and maybe doctors were in with him or it was time to give him his pill or an enema or maybe he wanted his robe or a covering over his hospital gown. I should have followed her. Instead I looked at my phone. Close to thirty minutes had elapsed since I’d watched Denny’s Jeep disappear. Sweating, I pulled off my jacket but noticed a stain on my blouse from the pizza, so I put my jacket on again and was about to go into his room when the nurse came bustling out, her shoes squishing on the industrial tile, her head down.
“Your father is Padric Fitzgibbons? Called Paddy?”
I nodded. What was her problem? “About five eight, wears a leather jacket and a white scarf as if he were a World War II bomber?”
She nodded.
“Hair like mine and eyes the color of a harbor on a cloudy day?” Why was I having to prove my father’s identity? This was taking too long.
The nurse smiled, but only with her mouth. Hard to tell in the dim light, but I’d say she was a kind woman, professional, but maybe right now a little baffled. Or worried. There was something wrong with my father and she wasn’t telling me everything she knew. Maybe he was dying and a priest was in there giving him the last rites.
“He’s going to live, isn’t he?” Maybe he was breathing his last. He’d asked for me of course; otherwise the hospital would not have phoned.
She hesitated, then gave me a slight nod. So this was close to the end, but she wasn’t going to be the one to tell me. She couldn’t, could she? She’d have to wait for the doctor to give me the news. My heart was racing and a large bubble shot up from my stomach and hit my throat. He was going to die. Maybe he was already dead.
“I need to see him now, at least to say goodbye.”
She held my sleeve. “I can’t let you go in there. And I couldn’t vouch for the color of his eyes. As I recall they were gray, but now they’re closed, and if it helps, his whole face looked like a storm cloud when he arrived. I could tell we had a stroke victim on our hands. But his vitals are stabilized now and we think he’s going to be … all right.”
She was stalling. First they called me to tell me he’d taken a turn for the worse. Now she was holding me off. I didn’t understand.
“He’s resting now, so peaceful, holding his wife’s hand. I don’t want to disturb them.”
“His wife is dead.” I heard myself talking as if from a far distance. “Do you mean a girlfriend? His wife died five years ago.” All right if he had someone special, but she was no relation. I sounded like a shrew. But I didn’t care.
“Would you like to sit in the waiting room?”
I shook my head. “He’s my father. I should be by his side when
he wakes up.”
The nurse looked at the floor. “I’m afraid that’s impossible. Would you like to sit in the waiting room? Your sister’s in there. She’s upset, just like you. Keep her company and we’ll call both of you in when he wakes up.”
“There must be a mistake. I’m his only daughter.”
“Really? I see such a resemblance.”
My head was pounding. Any minute my dinner was going to backfire all over the hospital floor. I tried to steady myself. There was something I was missing and the nurse seemed so distant. Matter of fact, everything seemed distant except for the walls, which began to close in. A strange light gleamed at the end of the corridor. I felt my stomach churn. Could the man be a different Paddy Fitzgibbons and I’d wasted an hour while Dorset’s life depended on me and I wasn’t at the scene?
“There must be a huge mistake. Your patient must not be my father. I have a picture of him someplace.” I got out my wallet and, fingers shaking, rooted in the back for his photo. It had to be there somewhere, shoved way behind my Bloomie’s and Macy’s cards, someplace where I wouldn’t come across it on an ordinary riffle through my things, all the pieces of paper that collectively reflected my soul. Or whatever. My hands were sweating.
“You’d better sit down, dear. You’re trembling.”
“I’ll be fine.”
She shook her head and walked me over to the nurses’ station and gave me a seat.
“I know his picture’s here somewhere. Give me a second.” I pulled out a snap of Denny in his uniform; a picture of me pregnant in my wedding dress, standing beside Denny, who was wearing black tie and tails; several photos of the twins; a fistful of my cards. I was going to faint if I didn’t take care. The room started to spin.
“Put your head down,” the nurse was saying from far away. I felt her hand on the nape of my neck and next thing there were volunteers on either side of me. I shook them off and assured them I was fine. I opened my wallet. Killing time, I showed her my ID and she looked at it while I hunted in the slot in back of my driver’s license and there it was, a picture of my father, creased and battered.
She took it over to the light and examined it. “Features are the same as the patient’s, I think.”
Maybe he was a distant relative. My father once told me all Fitzgibbons people are related.
“There’s something you’re not telling me. Would you be quick about it? If your patient is resting and you won’t let me see him to check that he’s my father, I need to leave. I’m in the middle of an important case, the kidnapping of a ten-year-old girl, and every minute is critical now. As soon as I can, I’ll be back.” I pocketed my father’s photo.
The nurse looked at me then with her soft eyes. “I wouldn’t say anything to him tonight. It happens more often than you can imagine.”
What happens more often than I can imagine—strokes? “I know my father is old and has a drinking problem. But he seemed fine the last time I talked to him.”
Which was when? At that moment, I couldn’t remember. He’d been over to the house a couple of weeks ago, or was that last month? No, Christmas, that was it. I pictured him that day after dinner, cradling the twins, one in each crook of his arm and singing some kind of haunting Irish tune to them. The first time in ages I’d actually liked him.
But the truth was beginning to be clear. I mean, his marital situation: All those years ago, my father had left us for someone else. He had abandoned me and my mother for another family. And all the while he was swinging me and watching me grow, eating my mother’s food, sleeping in her bed. And all the while he was leading a double life.
But no, it couldn’t be. My father drank too much. He’d disappear for days at a time, weeks. But that was part of his job—he was an undercover agent. He couldn’t have, wouldn’t have married another woman. Fathered another child. Lived a total lie. My mind was running on empty, going round and round a truth I was struggling to reject. And I was where I shouldn’t be, in the hospital while I tried to understand. And all the while, no one was leading the search for Dorset Clauson.
“Come this way.” The nurse took my arm. No pressure, just her gentle fingers wrapped around my elbow. “No time like the present to meet your sister.”
I stared at the woman, who rose when we entered the waiting room. She was asking the nurse when she could see her father.
The nurse smiled and shook her head. “But I think you ought to meet someone.” She turned to me. “Your half sister, Fina Fitzgibbons.” Then she closed the door and disappeared.
The woman standing in front of me looked to be about my age. Her hair had the same red kink to it, but whereas mine was ginger, hers was more the color of a fox. And she was taller and thinner than me. Much thinner. I looked for a ring. None. Single, that was it. Her eyes, though, were like my father’s, the color of dark stones washed in a blue sea. My gran once told me that gesture and laughter are part of inheritance. And something about the way she covered her mouth and stepped back while she shook her head, something so familiar about that hunching gesture as she listened to news she rejected, something about the emphatic shake of her head, reminded me of me. She wore leggings and an Irish sweater. No ring on her finger. Laugh lines around her mouth and eyes and my freckles. My freckles. I looked away. This wasn’t happening.
Echoing the way I felt, she shook her head rapidly and backed away. “You are mistaken.”
I reached in my pocket and pulled out the photo. “This is my father.” I held it out to her and she took it, shaking her head.
“This is not happening.” She studied the picture under the lamp for a few seconds then slumped onto the couch, gazing at the black-and-white and up at me, the shaking of her head slowing the more her eyes widened. Her legs were long and thin and shapely. She got the legs I always wanted. She handed the photo back to me. Her nails were perfect. A single tear rolled down her cheek and she gave me a look that said this was all my fault. “You’d better go now.”
“He’s my father as much as he is yours.” I told her the date he and my mother were married, where we lived when I was growing up, the date of my birth, my marriage. I told her about my father leaving and how we were almost destitute, not hearing from him for years.
“And your mother?”
I told her in a rush about her death and then my words dried up. “You’re right. I need to leave. I have to be somewhere far more important. A child’s life depends on me.”
I wouldn’t stop to look in on my father. I never wanted to see him again. Matter of fact, best to forget him and his daughter and wife and the whole episode.
Just then a tall woman entered. Blue eyes, blond hair, tanned and Nordic looking.
She looked from me to the woman in the corner. “What’s going on, Katie?”
No time like the present. “I am Fina Fitzgibbons, the daughter of …” Only I couldn’t say it. As I ran out of the room, I heard the woman tell her mother she’d better sit down.
My head was hollow as I rode down to the lobby. In a few minutes I was outside the hospital and in my car, talking myself out of a ticket while the local cop’s yellow strobe spun slowly around and the chill strengthened my resolve.
“I’m looking for a ten-year-old girl who’s been missing for over eighteen hours,” I told him. “Closer to twenty hours if I’m being honest and there’s been no word, no sign from her. I have one lead I have to follow up and it’s critical I find her now, so then I get a call and my father’s had a stroke and what do I find when I get to his room but a second family that no one knew anything about, least of all me, and now you want to detain me while you give me a lousy ticket or a warning or whatever it is you do?” Breathing hard, I felt tears running down my cheeks. I raised my window and, jerking into gear, stepped and sped away, watching the guy in my rearview mirror as he stood there shaking his head.
Fina Returns
Trying not to think about my father or the lousy dirty rat he’d been to me and Mom for all those years, tryi
ng to forget his shapely daughter and the wife whose back I saw as she held his hand, and barely controlling the rising bile in my throat, I sped to Ellston Drugs and did a slow drive around the neighborhood. A lone squad was parked across the street, empty and dark. No sign of Denny’s Jeep or Clancy’s van or, for that matter, Jane’s department vehicle. They must have gone in, looked around, found nothing, and departed.
The streets were choked with parked cars, so it took me a while to find an empty space several blocks away. No matter, the walk to the scene cleared my head, and I no longer pictured my father lying in a hospital bed, another woman standing at his side. Not my mother. Not my mother, a refrain that would accompany my quieter moments for the next few weeks. But I must admit, his double life—for that was what he had been leading—explained a lot about the past and his mostly not showing up for my milestones. I had my appendix out without him; I graduated from high school without him; I fell in love without telling him. I went into labor without his being in the hospital. His grandchildren were three months old before he saw them. He was a no-show man, turning up only when he needed a job, and now I was beginning to understand why. He had deserted us for another family. The truth of it smacked me hard: it was like he left all over again.
I showed my ID to the policeman still on duty at the door and thrust myself up the stairs. Another cop stood blocking the entrance to the apartment, and panting while I put on gloves and booties, I showed him my card. He looked at my credentials, told me I’d just missed Jane and the others, then shot me a smile and motioned me inside. The image of my half sister, tall and thin, probably poised as hell in all situations, accompanied me. Not my sister. Meant nothing to me. A stranger. So no need to tell Denny about it; no need to tell Cookie, even.
Leaning against the wall, I caught my breath and surveyed the entryway and the apartment’s living room. No more techs. The victim’s body had been removed from the scene. I looked around, and taking a moment to absorb the mood, I felt the hopelessness of these two brothers. Then I remembered Dorset. The link with her and the men who lived here was strong, thanks to the collages Cookie, Jane, and I had found. Or was I just blinded by hope into creating a false connection?
Dorset in the Dark Page 22