Through the Fog

by Michael C. Grumley

  Mary frowned. “Yeah, it kind of is.”

  “Well,” the woman paused to think. “We do have a doctor on call tonight who’s a little older and has been around for a while. I can ask him if the name rings a bell, but unfortunately I can’t look up anything that far back for you until the records office opens in the morning.”

  “That would be great, thank you. If you could please ask the doctor, I would appreciate it. Can I give you my number?”

  Mary gave the nurse her cell number, thanked her again, and hung up. She was not all that surprised. In small towns most things were closed in the evenings. Maybe she would get lucky with the on-call doctor, but if not she’d try again in the morning. This time in person. She turned to Sue, who had just hung up her own phone.

  “That was Evelyn Sutton’s son. His mother is rather old, but he said we could come over and talk to her if we can make it there before nine.” She glanced at her watch. “That gives us twenty minutes for a thirty-minute drive.”

  They made it, thanks to Sue’s long-standing aversion to speed limits, but in the end Evelyn Sutton had no idea where Dr. Rief might be living. It had been almost twenty years since she’d seen him. She did, however, invite the women to go through some of her old records in the attic. She had managed several properties during that time but had sold them all off. The plot where Rief’s office once stood was the last one sold.

  Mary and Sue spent an hour going through the two boxes of paper but found nothing. Exasperated, they thanked the Suttons and saw their way to the door.

  When they reached the car, Sue looked across the hood to Mary. “Did anything strike you as a little odd about that?”

  “About what? The old lady?” Mary’s breath was easily visible in the cold air.

  “No. The boxes of records,” Sue said.

  “Well, it was a major letdown,” Mary said, with a shrug. “We didn’t find anything at all. We’re no closer than we were.”

  Sue shook her head and lowered her voice. “Something wasn’t right, Mary. Did you notice how clean the woman’s house was? That woman is very detailed, even at her age. I do believe that she couldn’t remember anything after all these years, but those boxes were detailed and very organized. As far as I could tell she had records for every renter she’d ever had, except one.”

  “Dr. Rief,” Mary whispered.

  Sue nodded. “And she was genuinely surprised it was not in there.”

  “So what happened to it?” Mary pondered.

  “That’s a good question.”

  The women stood looking at each other for a long moment, thinking, until they were interrupted by the ringtone from Mary’s phone. She looked at the brightly lit screen and shot a look at Sue. “It’s the hospital.”

  She accepted the call and held the phone to her ear. “Hello, this is Mary.”

  They both climbed back into the warm car while Mary spoke. The call lasted only a few minutes, but at the end, Mary pulled out a pen and paper and wrote down some information. When she hung up, Mary raised an eyebrow at Sue. “That was the on-call doctor. He remembers Dr. Rief. He said they even went fishing together a few times back then, but he hasn’t talked to him in many years. He’s not sure what happened to him.”

  Sue sighed and rested her head against the headrest. “Mary, I think we need to prepare ourselves for the possibility that Dr. Rief may be dead.”

  “Maybe,” she answered, thinking. “But there is one more thing. This doctor said that Rief had a small cabin in the mountains, which is where they’d gone fishing. He didn’t have the address, but he did tell me how to get there.”

  “Where?” At that moment Sue’s phone chirped. She held it up and peered at the screen as Mary answered her. “About two hours south, but he warned me, it was not an easy drive.”

  “Hmm.”

  “What is it?” Mary asked.

  Sue finished reading the message on her phone. “I asked one of my team members to help me with the research. He has friends at several of the large phone companies. It seems that the local phone company servicing the Butte area back then was bought out by AT&T a few years ago. Looks like he found a phone record for a Dr. Rief in 1982. The account listed two separate phone numbers with different prefixes.”

  “That probably means two different locations.”

  Sue nodded and looked back down at her phone, which was lighting her face in an eerie glow. “One of the phone numbers was disconnected in 1983. That was one year after Rief submitted the case about his patient Dan Taylor to that medical journal.”

  “It sounds like that’s about when he disappeared.”

  Sue turned and looked back at Mary. “And yet the second number on his account wasn’t disconnected for another whole year after that.”

  “The one with a different prefix?”

  “Correct.”

  “Does your friend know where that other number was located?”

  “No,” Sue shook her head.

  “Maybe the location was the cabin in the mountains.”

  Sue turned to Mary. “I guess we’re about to find out.”

  17

  As much as they hated to do it, the women decided to wait until morning before heading south. They guessed that two hours each way, and through the mountains, might be pushing the range of their rental car’s gas tank. And given that they had twenty-year-old directions, there was a good chance of getting lost. The smart thing to do was to wait until daylight to make the search easier. They were both up and in the car by 6 a.m.

  Sue eased the car south on Highway 15, while Mary spoke on the phone. When she hung up, her look of concern deepened. “Still no change with Evan.”

  Sue looked absently to her left at a passing car, the only other one on the road with them. “You realize this is a long shot.”

  “I know,” Mary acknowledged, peering out the front window.

  “Well, there’s always the County Recorder when we get back.” She tried to sound encouraging, but Mary said nothing.

  It took longer than two hours to locate the small county road they were looking for. It appeared very old, with a surface so rough they felt it was trying to beat their car to death. When it became a dirt road, driving got even worse.

  Sue watched the gas gauge carefully as they drove farther and farther in. Once they got down to half a tank they would have to turn back; which, judging from the car’s display, would not be long.

  Next to her, Mary read her notes again. “I think,” she said reluctantly after several minutes, “we should have seen it by now.”

  Sue grimaced and glanced at the paper.

  “He said a small road that connects at a tight angle on the right,” Mary repeated. “But I don’t see . . .”

  She was silenced when Sue slammed on the brakes. They both peered searchingly out the side window at what looked like a small double path, barely big enough for a car. There was an old iron gate in front.

  “I don’t remember him saying anything about a gate,” Mary murmured. “But that is a tight angle. Do you think we should try it?”

  Sue looked at her phone. No signal. They were both becoming nervous. Two women in the middle of nowhere, with four sentences of scribbled directions and no way to call for help. In hindsight, this was not looking like their best decision.

  They each took a deep breath and reminded one another why they were there. Mary got out and examined the gate. It wasn’t locked but it wasn’t easy to open either. When it did open, the gate made a terrible groan and shuddered as she pushed it all the way back past the post.

  The road, if anyone could call it that, was shrouded by a dense canopy of juniper trees overhead. After a quarter mile of inching slowly down the narrow, bumpy road and dodging mud holes made by nearby melting snow, they spotted the outline of a modest log cabin near the top of a small hill. As they approached, they
could see chairs on the porch and curtains in the windows, but no cars.

  Sue brought the car to a stop and looked around, her eyes coming back to the cabin. “Think anyone’s home?”

  “There’s only one way to find out.”

  Both women got out of the car and approached the cabin, the gravel beneath their feet crunching loudly with every step. They reached the wooden steps and climbed up to the large porch. After one more look around, Mary reached forward and knocked on the door’s small, glass window.

  They froze when they heard the unmistakable slide action of a shotgun behind them.

  “Turn around slowly,” growled a deep voice.

  Instinctively the two women raised their hands in front of them and turned around to face the frightening end of a shotgun barrel. Behind it was the obscured face of someone who looked very dangerous. They remained still, not daring to move any further.

  The man kept the barrel pointed at them but said nothing. Instead, he waited, listening. After several long seconds, he took a small step forward. “What are you doing here?”

  Neither of the women spoke immediately. They were petrified; the man had his finger on the trigger, and he looked like he was about to pull it.

  “W-we’re looking for someone,” Mary stammered.

  “Who?” He demanded.

  “A doctor.”

  The man studied both women. One was shorter with a blonde ponytail and glasses, while the other was a tall, lean woman with red hair and a lighter complexion. Their postures and mannerisms appeared genuine. “Who are you?”

  “We’re nurses,” Mary replied. “From Los Angeles.”

  “So what the hell are you doing all the way up here, on my property?”

  “We’re looking for a doctor,” Sue repeated. “We’re not really sure where he lives. Or lived,” she said, correcting herself. When the man didn’t answer, she added, “He used to live up here in the ’80s.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You talking about Rief?”

  “Yes,” Mary said, with a trace of excitement. “Dr. Rief. Do you know where he lives?”

  The man shook his head slightly. “He’s been gone a long time.” He took aim at them again. “Now get the hell out of here.”

  Mary turned nervously to Sue, then back toward the man at the base of the steps. “D-do you know where we can find him?”

  “You can’t,” he said, his tone a deep growl. “He’s dead.”

  Their fearful expressions were instantly replaced by those of shock.

  “Dead? Are you sure?”

  “Yes!” he said angrily. “Now get off my porch and off of my property!”

  “Okay, okay!” They jumped, keeping their hands raised, and quickly descended the stairs, passing him as he stepped back and followed them with his gun.

  As they walked slowly away from the cabin, Sue suddenly stopped and turned around. He was still pointing the shotgun at them but had relaxed a bit. She looked up and curiously followed the roofline of the small house.

  “What are you doing?” Mary whispered.

  “Look at the roof,” she replied, motioning upwards.

  Irritated, the man took a few steps forward. “I said leave!”

  Sue studied him for several seconds. “Are you sure you don’t know where Dr. Rief is?”

  “I said he’s dead.”

  Sue tried to stay calm. “I notice you don’t have any wires running to your cabin roof. For example, like a phone line.”

  He didn’t reply, nor did he follow her gaze up to the roof. Instead, he glared at her.

  “You also remembered the doctor’s name awfully quickly. I suspect after twenty years most people would’ve had to stop and think about it.” She continued studying the man. “Mary,” she finally whispered, “I don’t think we’re lost.”

  They watched as the man looked past them and then scanned the area on either side.

  Mary whispered back, “Do you think he knows where the doctor is?”

  “Actually,” Sue replied loud enough for him to hear their conversation. “I think the doctor is standing right in front of us.”

  18

  Evan’s mother felt the fluttering in his finger first and she quickly raised her head off the hospital bed to find Evan looking at her with tired eyes.

  “Evan!” Connie Nash gasped, jumping to her feet and wrapping her arms around him. She squeezed him briefly before pushing back and looking down into his gray-blue eyes. Her chin trembled as she started to cry.

  A weak grin spread across Evan’s dry lips. “Hi, Mom.” After a pause, he wrinkled his brow and looked around the room. “Where am I?”

  His mother quickly wiped the tears from her eyes and cleared her throat. “You’re at the hospital.”

  Evan stared at her, processing the answer. “The hospital?” he replied quietly. “What happened?”

  She held back an impulse to roll her eyes. Where was she supposed to start? She decided to keep it simple. “You had another episode.”

  He blinked several times, trying to remember. He looked down at his hand and turned it over to reveal the tape and the IV line on the other side. “How long have I been here?”

  “About a day and a half,” she said.

  “What day is it?”

  “Tuesday.” Connie brushed some hair away from his eyes.

  Evan glimpsed a look of nervousness on his mother’s face. He closed his eyes, trying to think, and then promptly opened them again. “How did I get here?”

  Connie frowned. She knew this was coming but still struggled with the answer. The simplest answer, she thought, was usually the first one.

  She moved her hand down and placed it on his. “Your episode was in Dr. Mayer’s office. She called an ambulance.”

  Over Evan’s head, the heart rate monitor suddenly showed an increase in tempo. All at once, it came rushing back to him. He’d had another episode, and it was on her couch. That’s why she called an ambulance. Something must have gone wrong, which meant he hadn’t controlled it after all.

  Evan’s eyes widened. “Where’s Dr. Mayer?”

  His mother squeezed his hand. “Easy,” she said. “Don’t worry about any of this right now. You just need to get better.”

  He shook his head. “Mom, she needs to know I’m okay.”

  “Honey, she’ll find out,” she replied soothingly. “Right now you need to be resting, not worrying about that woman.”

  “That woman?” Evan asked, with a puzzled expression. “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing, I just meant . . . she’ll find out.”

  Evan blinked again, watching his mother. Something was wrong. “Mom, tell me what happened.”

  “Nothing,” she said, trying to quiet him.

  “Something happened. I can see it. What happened? What happened to Dr. Mayer?”

  This time his mother did roll her eyes. She and her son knew each other too well. “If you have to know, I asked her to leave,” she explained with a firm voice.

  Evan raised his eyebrows. “She was here and you made her leave? Why?”

  His mother sat on the edge of his bed and stared at him. Finally, she took a deep breath. “Evan, your episodes have been getting worse. You know that, right?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Well, she did too. And she continued helping facilitate them while knowing they were getting worse. She kept doing it, knowing you were getting worse.”

  “Mom, she was trying to help me,” Evan replied, shaking his head.

  “No, Evan,” her voice grew louder, “she was trying to help herself and at your expense.” She continued in response to Evan’s confused expression. “She admitted it all to her sister. She didn’t know I was standing behind her when she admitted she was helping you with the hope that whatever you were seeing could somehow
tell her something about her daughter. She was using you, Evan. She was using you the whole time!”

  Evan remained silent, watching the anger grow in his mother. He let the weight of his head fall back into his thick pillow. “I know that.”

  Connie looked at her son incredulously. “What!”

  “I said I know. I know she was using me.”

  “You knew?” She stared at her son, confused. “How?”

  “Because it was my idea.”

  “What?”

  “It was my idea, mom.”

  His mother was stunned. She looked at her son, trying to comprehend what he had just said. “I don’t . . . why?”

  Evan’s eyes softened, and he shrugged. “You’ve always told me we’re supposed to help people.”

  His mother’s eyes widened with surprise. “My God, Evan, not when it risks your own life!” She leaned forward and squeezed his hand. “Why on earth would you do something so dangerous?”

  He lowered his gaze to the bed and his covered legs. He wasn’t about to bring up his sister. “Do you remember when I was little, and Uncle Rick took us to Disneyland?”

  “Yes.”

  “Remember when I got lost?”

  She remembered it vividly. He was five and had gotten mixed up after going into the men’s restroom. He ended up coming out through the door on the opposite side, where she couldn’t see him. “Yes,” she nodded.

  This time Evan gave her a weak squeeze of his own. “Do you remember how scared you were when you couldn’t find me?”

  How could she ever forget? “I do.”

  “How would you have felt if you’d never found me that day? If you never knew what happened.” He watched his mother slowly close her eyes and lower her head. “I think that’s how Dr. Mayer feels,” he whispered.

  His mother opened her eyes with tears in them. She placed her second hand on top of her son’s and squeezed it harder.

  “She cries every day, Mom. Every day.”

  Connie Nash looked back up to her son, pressing her lips firmly together, fighting back the tears. “We all cry, Evan.”