by M. J. Labeff
The floors gleamed, and her shoes squeaked with each step she took. She assumed Derrick knew the way to medical files, and they weren’t blindly going toward the light. The white walls, white floor, and white ceiling created the illusion of a too-well-lit tunnel, but this was not the corridor to heaven. Hell lurked behind closed doors and stained the white walls covered in paint and disinfectant.
“Sparrow, we’re almost at the lab where they keep medical files. Tony is getting a warrant, but whatever I find I’ll be stealing on our way out. The redheaded monster didn’t ask to see the file in my hand on our way in, so let’s hope she’s as careless on our way out.”
She glanced at the enormous envelope in Derrick’s hand with X-rays given to medical students to evaluate. He’d called upon his friend who was an orthopedic surgeon for the fake X-rays. On their way to Our Lady of Sorrow they’d stopped by Cedars and picked them up from him. It was all a disguise to smuggle Dana’s CT scans out, if they weren’t too late. Derrick had worried about the possibility that Dr. Von Langley had hustled over here after Dana’s death to destroy any potential evidence.
They reached a white door with a white plaque and black letters that read Medical Records. Derrick reached for the door handle and turned it. His head fell back against his neck, and he shook it. “Damn, it’s locked.”
“Now what?” she asked, almost relieved they couldn’t get in, since she was ready to get out.
“You’ll need to go back to the redheaded monster and tell her Dr. Sloan needs the key,” he said in a hushed voice.
“What? Don’t you think she’ll realize our mistake not asking for it? Let’s just go.”
“No. We’ll have that search warrant. We can’t waste time. If she gives you a hard time, tell her Dr. Von Langley is with a patient and needs these records.”
“Fine.” She squeaked down the hall.
Now was her chance. Derrick wouldn’t know if the woman offered her the key or not. She could go back and tell him they had to leave and find another way to procure the records. Maybe Derrick would decide to go on rounds in the Mobile Health Clinic RV, and that would buy her time to go and confront her father. She wanted to ask him about her visions, about Katie, and if Dana’s claims were true. She owed it to him. He was her father. Would her father look her directly in her eyes and deny he’d killed Katie, an innocent teenage girl?
She reached for the door handle, knowing the scary redhead waited on the other side. She had less than sixty seconds to make a decision. Without looking back, she could feel Derrick’s eyes on her like those damn flowers in her father’s flowerbeds. The Barbie display for the Alternative Doll Convention popped in her mind’s eye, but was quickly suppressed by the image of her father digging a shallow grave then dragging a body through the dirt. Her hand shook and the door handle rattled, and through the small square window her eyes met the redheaded monster’s eyes. Fearless, she pulled back the door.
“I’m sorry, we’ll need the key to medical records.”
“You know, missy, Dr. Von Langley has never sent anyone over here to check on a patient. Furthermore, what are the two of you doing trying to get into Our Lady of Sorrow’s medical records?”
She pushed back from the desk and placed her thick, pale, freckled hands against her wide hips.
“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger, Mrs. Wrenfield. I’m just a medical student trying to make it through rounds.”
The woman’s eyes showed she doubted Sparrow’s story.
“Uh-huh. Have you been here before?”
“No.”
The woman glanced down at her bosoms then back at Sparrow.
“How’d you know my name is Wrenfield? I’m not wearing my nametag. My shift ended just before you walked through the door.”
She picked the name badge up from the desk and held it between her pudgy fingers.
“You must have had it on when we came in. I’m sure I saw it,” Sparrow said. “It’s a habit. You know, trying to remember all the doctors’ and nurses’ names. I’m always looking at name badges and trying to commit them to memory.”
The look on the woman’s face softened. She smiled at Sparrow through closed lips. The fib seemed to smooth things over with Wrenfield, whom Sparrow suddenly remembered meeting when her father brought her here. Her past continued to erupt since the hypnotherapy session she’d had with Violet Crosby. She patted herself on the back for the quick save, and said a silent prayer the woman wouldn’t recognize her.
“You’ll make an excellent doctor, especially if you call the nurses by their names and not ‘hey you.’ I know. I’ve been a nurse too long,” she said, slouching down and reaching into a desk drawer. “Here.”
Nurse Wrenfield handed Sparrow the key to her father’s demise with a smile.
“Thank you.” It didn’t seem like the appropriate thing to say, but she had said it anyway.
“When you leave, Nurse Leighton will be on duty. Give my regards to Dr. Von Langley.”
Sparrow nodded and turned her back on Nurse Wrenfield. She pulled open the door and made her way back down the sterile hall toward Derrick, clutching the key in her sweaty hand.
“You okay?” he asked her, and opened his hand. He waited for her to deposit the key in his palm. He turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door, ushering her in front of him. “Sparrow, what’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
She hesitated, trying to push back the tears threatening to fall from her eyes.
“I know where he buried her.”
“What?” He dropped the key on the linoleum floor with a ping that seemed to explode across the silent room. Her body started to shake, and she wrapped her arms across her chest to hold herself together. Derrick came to her, gently cupping his hands over her shoulders. “Where?”
“In the flowerbeds near the potting shed.”
“My God,” he muttered, wrapping her in his arms. “How can you be certain?”
“Another memory surfaced, and it flashed like a picture in my mind. You know the Barbie display for the Alternative Doll Convention I’ve been working on?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I think my repressed memories are coming out in that project. Actually, I think being here is triggering my memory too.” His hands slid down her arms, and he squeezed her hands. His courage and strength fortified her. “When I went to get the key, I called Nurse Wrenfield by her name. Suddenly, I remembered who she was from the trips I made here with my father. I nearly blew our cover.”
“I’m sorry. I should have never put that much pressure on you.”
He squeezed her hands again.
“Come on, let’s just find what we’re looking for and get out of here. We’ve got to make it past Nurse Leighton on the way out.”
* * *
“Right.”
He let go of her hands and picked up the key from the floor and then went to the alphabetically ordered file cabinets, searching for the set labeled S. He rolled open the middle drawer, searching for a file with the last name Sloan. If Dr. Von Langley conducted a research study using brain scans to discover deformations and then performed surgery to sever or remove the abnormality, odds were in Derrick’s favor he’d kept the CT scans. He would bet money Dr. Von Langley stored his research notes in his home office.
He pulled the file from the cabinet, slammed it down on the counter next to him, and yanked the CT scans from the interior. “This is it.” He illuminated the X-ray light and hung the black-and-white films next to each other. “There is nothing wrong with this brain scan. She was normal. Normal!” His voice had jumped several octaves, and he waited for some hospital official to bust through the door and question his shouting. No one did. He ripped down the X-ray and shoved it back into the folder.
He slammed the file shut and pulled open the top drawer of the file cabinet labeled S and started digging through the records for a file labeled “Sargent, D.” His fingers flipped through the tabbed files from front to back, searchin
g and searching. He needed to find that file. Sweat trickled at his temples. He didn’t like the anxious ripples cascading over him. His cell phone vibrated in his pocket, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. “Damn.” He took the phone from his pocket and looked at the message display. Where are you? He texted back, Our Lady of Sorrow, meet at Sparrow’s in one hour.
Sparrow came closer to him, trying to read the text messages. “Tony will meet us at your place in an hour.” He slipped his phone back into his pocket and continued looking for Dana’s file. Within minutes he had it, and illuminated the black-and-white film. He studied the scans carefully. He took a deep breath. “This doesn’t look good. There’s a thinning in the frontal lobe.” Derrick removed Katie’s CT scan from the file and held it up next to Dana’s. “See the front part of the brain on hers? It’s fuller, whereas Dana’s is narrow.” He pointed to the differences with a pencil. “Dana’s accusations might not hold up in court. A good defense attorney can probably argue this to your dad’s advantage, considering Dana continued to seek treatment from your dad. Until, and this is according to Dana, your dad cut him off from the women, sex, and drugs.”
“Sounds like you’re making a case for him.”
“I’m trying to anticipate what we’ll need to do to convict him. Let’s go. We need to find Tony and turn over what we know to the police. Someone with a neuroscience background needs to look at these scans.”
“Derrick, maybe I should go to my father and try to talk to him? I can’t believe he would have done these things. He loves helping kids.”
He expected her denial and that she would want to go to him. She didn’t want to believe her father was the inhumane monster he was. Could he blame her? If someone accused his father of something, he would feel the same way. He shut off the light and removed the CT scans, placing them in their respective folders.
“Let’s talk to Tony first.”
He crammed the files into the fictitious folder he had carried in and shoved them under his arm. She opened the door, and they made the long walk down the too bright, too white corridor. They slipped past Nurse Leighton, who only smiled at them when they left.
Derrick didn’t know if the authorities would need to exhume Dana’s body to have a medical examiner evaluate his brain for any potential surgical procedures Dr. Von Langley could have performed, or if justice could be served using the CT scans. He still worried that Sparrow’s repressed memories, even with testimony from Violet Crosby, would not suffice in a request to authorities to excavate the Von Langley estate in search of his sister’s body. The ping-ponging in his stomach started again. Would they find more bodies? Considering the potential death and destruction of other innocent teenagers, Derrick wouldn’t mind seeing the entire estate turned inside out and then razed.
Chapter 31
Sparrow braced herself for impact. Derrick took a sharp turn into the parking lot and slammed into a parking space in front of her condo. She breathed a sigh of relief and exited the car.
Tony was leaning against his car with his head in a small notebook. He looked up at them with annoyance in his glowering blue eyes.
“I wish you would have called me sooner before you started to play detective,” he said.
Sparrow pulled back her shoulders and held her head high to meet his serious-looking eyes.
“I know this can’t be easy for you. Finding out the things I have about Dana in the last couple of days hasn’t been easy for me either,” she said.
“We both have been dealt a crappy hand,” he said, smacked his hand to the back of his neck, and rubbed at the fatigue showing on his face and in his eyes. “I want you to know, I don’t blame you for what your father has allegedly done. It’s obvious he hurt you, too. I can’t believe he didn’t stop you from dating Dana. I mean…” He paused. “Knowing what he knew about him.”
Was she supposed to feel comforted by that?
“What do you mean you don’t blame me for the things my father has allegedly done?”
“I had forensics unlock Dana’s computer. They found out that he had a blog he called ‘psychodoc.’”
Derrick raised his hand, alerting Tony that he had something to add to the conversation.
“Don’t forget that your brother left a stack of Psychology Today magazines in that box you dropped off, and on each cover he blocked out the title so it reads Psycho Today. Can you legally invade a persons’ privacy from comments made on Dana’s blog and get them to come forward?”
“It’s sketchy. I’d have to convince that person a crime has been committed against them. Dana’s blog had some weighty accusations against Dr. Von Langley, referencing some of his better-known therapy techniques, but since he doesn’t come right out with Dr. Von Langley’s name, a judge wouldn’t issue me a search warrant. That’s changed. I have a patient of his who will testify in a judge’s private chambers. She has asked to remain anonymous. We should talk inside.”
Sparrow fumbled in her purse for her house key, and with a shaky hand opened the door. Derrick stood at her side. The brain scans remained tightly secured under his right arm. His left hand cupped the top of her shoulder.
“This isn’t going to get any easier. Do you want Tony to come in?” he asked.
She craned her neck and looked into his kind eyes. His hand pushed open the door, taking her with it. Her head snapped forward, and she let go of the door handle. They stumbled into her home. Derrick’s left hand pushed at the small of her back, keeping her upright. Tony nipped at his heels.
“I can’t go, Sparrow. This is an official police investigation now. I’ll need to talk to you and Derrick and collect the magazines and other stuff Dana left in that box for you. Assistant District Attorney Belinda Henriquez is already processing the search warrant for your parents’ estate. My team is assembling.”
“But I haven’t even given you my statement,” Sparrow said, glancing up at Derrick.
She hated the helpless look her eyes no doubt conveyed to him. Obviously, he couldn’t stop a police investigation, and she wouldn’t get a chance to confront her father for answers first.
“That’s why I’m here. We’ve got to act quickly. Another young girl’s life is in jeopardy.”
“She’s with my father. He’s not going to hurt her knowing we could point fingers at him.”
“That might be true, but I don’t want this to turn into a hostage situation.” His eyes moved from hers to Derrick’s. “I’m going to ask Derrick to go in and get Angel before we arrest Dr. Von Langley.”
Sparrow couldn’t believe this was happening. Her father would be arrested tonight. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to hear the charges, but knew Tony would make a triumphant announcement soon enough. She knew in her heart what her father had done was wrong, but that didn’t change the fact that he was her dad. She loved him the way any daughter would affectionately care for a parent.
“No problem, but I’m going in with my gun,” Derrick said.
Her heartfelt sentiment about her dad was broken. Derrick’s threat to take a gun into her parents’ home nearly brought her to her knees. Someone could end up dead.
Tony spread his legs and shifted his weight back and forth.
“Not a good idea,” he said, folding his arms across his chest. “No, and I don’t care if you’ve got a permit.”
“What if he suspects something? I’m not taking any chances. You said it yourself—what if he holds Angel hostage?”
Tony remained stoic. The look on his face told her he wasn’t backing down. He would not allow Derrick to go into her parents’ home armed.
“Derrick, you know how to defend yourself. No one else in their right mind would risk his life driving around some of LA’s toughest neighborhoods if he couldn’t protect himself. You’re smart. Grab the girl quick and get the hell out. No gun. You’ll be wearing a wire, so my team will know if something goes wrong. We’ll be carrying the guns.”
“Fine. Fine,” Derrick said, tossing the CT scans onto her
dining room table. He dragged both of his hands through his hair. Sparrow could tell from the frustrated look on his face that the day’s events were getting to him. “What do you want first, the evidence we’ve pieced together or Sparrow’s statement?”
Tony relaxed his crossed arms for a moment and then reached across his chest and flipped up the flap of his pocket. He pulled out a small notepad and pen.
“Let’s have a seat in the living room, and I’ll tell you everything,” Sparrow said, feeling like she needed to gain some control of the situation. She followed behind Derrick and Tony and plunked herself down on the floor in front of the mess of magazine articles. She looked up at Tony and asked, “Do I need to be read my Miranda rights?”
“No. I’m not arresting you. I’m taking your statement. Whenever you’re ready, I’ll need you to start at the beginning.”
“Would you believe me if I told you my brain had been hijacked by my father, Dr. Theodore Von Langley?”
She explained how Violet Crosby had confirmed her visions were repressed memories slowly coming back to the surface of her long-term memory. Her father had suppressed her memories from the time she was a child by locking her in a dark closet. He had told her the blackness would erase her mind of the things he suggested she forget. She became conditioned to the dark isolation stimulus and intentionally voided certain memories from her mind.
“I’ve been able to remember more and more because I practice deep meditation, and Violet thinks my memories were on the verge of erupting from my brain.”
Tony shifted on the couch. “What do you know about my brother’s suicide?”
“I’ve been practicing deep meditation since I was a little. This has never happened to me before, and I’m not sure how to explain it other than it seems like there’s a wavelength that I can access to connect to people I care about. I believe your brother was trying to reach out to me that day, and that’s when I saw his hand come down and pluck me out of the lotus position—not literally, but that’s how I saw it in my vision. I wanted to stop him, Tony, but something went wrong and these bad thoughts filtered into my brain, and I couldn’t even force myself to calm with a simple Om. I looked at him and repeated, ‘You know what you must do.’” Her voice faltered; tears simmered and boiled over her eyelids. “I’m sorry.” She mumbled, “Excuse me, I need a tissue.”