“Dad didn’t go off because he’s sad. He would never . . . You don’t know what you’re . . .”
“I’m not trying to hurt you, Immy. I just don’t want to keep anything from you. Not about your dad.” She sighs again and squints into the mirror. “We’re in this together.”
I turn and see big tears bunched in the corners of her eyes. Also very un-Lindy-like.
“Whatever,” I mutter, blinking wetly. I crank on the radio, not caring enough to switch the station when an NPR drone fusses over the tech boom in California.
Dad’s searching. I have the stone heart to prove it. He didn’t leave it for Lindy because she doesn’t know him like I do. I’ve had Dad for seventeen years. They’ve been together barely four. She wouldn’t know where to look for him, how to find him. I realize now that Lindy never expected anything to come of Victory Island; she drove us two and a half hours round-trip to trap me and ask me about my feelings. Which proves that, unlike me, she has no idea which questions to ask. If Dad had left the heart in her dresser drawer, she wouldn’t have the faintest clue what it meant. She wouldn’t listen if I told her.
We ride home without another word until Lindy pulls back into our driveway, and so gently it’s obnoxious, says, “Immy, if there’s anything you ever need to talk about—”
“Nope. I’m good. I’m fine,” I say briskly. “In fact, I’m going shopping with Jessa tomorrow.”
Lindy looks over at me, surprised. “Oh. Okay. I think that’s a good idea.”
“I’m not doing it because it’s a good idea.”
She holds her hands up in surrender. Her fancy gold watch slips down her wrist, spinning around her perfectly tanned and sculpted arm. Who is this person, I wonder, this woman who lived a whole life before I knew her? Then, before I can feel sorry for my stepmother, I gather up my bag and hurry from the car. I slam the front door and shut Lindy out behind me.
What do I need her for when I’ve got big shoulders?
FIVE
As I slide across the backseat of Dr. Van Tassel’s cherry-red Solstice early Saturday afternoon, she blasts me with a big smile in the rearview mirror and says, “Imogene, honey, how are you? How wonderful to see you!”
This is how I find out she knows exactly what’s going on. Dr. Van Tassel is nice, but not gushingly, welcome-to-my-Solstice nice.
“I’m good, Dr. Van Tassel. How are you?”
Jessa cranks around in her seat to grin at me. “She’s great. Dad came back from France last night and brought super-fancy champagne, and guess who’s been guzzling it since?”
Dr. Van Tassel swats at her daughter’s shoulder, hidden under glossy red-gold hair that matches her own, though hers is chopped short around her plump chin. “That was a mimosa, and it’s a breakfast drink.” She eyes me again in the mirror. “And it was two hours ago.”
“Mmkay, Dr. Denial.” Jessa snickers.
Dr. Van Tassel adjusts her glasses—huge, round, red frames like twin stop signs. Jessa thinks they’re hipster-chic, but Dr. Van Tassel doesn’t care about that. She doesn’t know the difference between pearl gray and heather gray, between boot-cut and straight-leg trousers, not the way Lindy does. Her walk-in closet is only a quarter filled, and mostly with jeans, T-shirts, and patterned scrubs. And while their house is perfectly decorated by a professional, all chrome and leather, slick wall sculptures, it’s only because Dr. Van Tassel had no desire to decorate herself, which seems the best reason to do a dumb thing like hiring an interior designer.
“How are things, Immy? How’s school? It’s been a little while, hasn’t it?” Translation: I know your dad is missing.
“School’s good.”
“That’s wonderful. And how’s your stepmother?” Translation: I know your dad is missing.
“She’s good too.”
“Wonderful. I’m so glad to hear it, honey.” Translation: I know your dad is missing, you poor, poor unfortunate waif.
The ride into the city isn’t too long. After half an hour on the highway, the skyscrapers of downtown Boston rear up in front of us, then the brownstones. On the west side off the highway, the sun catches and halos the coppery glass complex of Good Shepherd Hospital. Not the biggest hospital in town, but it is the shiniest. “Okay, girls,” Dr. Van Tassel says as she pulls into the employee parking lot. “You have everything? T passes? Jessa, you have your cell phone?” It’s obvious she does; it’s still in front of her face.
“Actually, Dr. Van Tassel, do you think it’d be okay if I talked to you inside? For a minute?”
Jessa looks up. “What? Why?”
Dr. Van Tassel’s eyes meet mine in the mirror, and I give my best look of secret sadness. Translation: I am a poor, poor unfortunate waif whose dad is missing. “Right. Okay, honey. Sure thing.”
“Just for a minute.”
“Of course, Imogene, of course.”
“Seriously? Aren’t we shopping?”
Dr. Van Tassel grits her teeth. “How about you hang out in the waiting room for a bit, Jessa?”
Jessa sighs. “What am I supposed to do in a hospital?” Then she pulls out her phone and plays Fruit Ninja while we walk. I’m shocked her thumbs aren’t worn down to nubs.
The ER entrance by the ambulance bay is dotted with squat, frosted shrubbery. A cluster of hospital workers smokes off the path, arms crossed against the wind that tugs at their scrubs and white coats. In the waiting room, the plastic chairs are half-full, though no one seems on the verge of death. A middle-aged woman in a stained sweater cradles her bandaged left hand and blinks at the television mounted to the wall, while a young gray-faced guy hunches down in the corner, sniffling miserably. Jessa grimaces and picks a seat as far across the room from him as possible. Her mom waves to a cop and a paramedic as we pass, and they toast her with Styrofoam cups of coffee.
Dr. Van Tassel’s office is on the fourth floor, in the pediatrics department. She sits at her desk and offers me a seat; there are grown-up-size chairs and miniature child-size chairs lined up against a wall papered with crayon and color pencil drawings, and photos of adorable kids in varying shades of sick. I pull over a grown-up chair and sit, cross my legs, then uncross them and grip the sides of the seat.
“Tell me what you want to talk about, Imogene,” she says, leaning in across her desk.
After yesterday’s debacle with Lindy, I’ve been thinking about how to play this smartly. “Okay. Okay, so . . . I was hoping you could tell me how to look at some medical records.”
She winces. “You mean your father’s? Honey, I don’t think that’s for you to worry about.”
“My mother’s, actually.” Dr. Van Tassel’s eyebrows shoot up over her glasses frames, so I push forward. “I mean, she hasn’t been at Good Shepherd since I was born—at least I don’t think so—but Dad said you keep the old records around.”
This is sort of true, though he never meant to tell me. What he did was write a series of medical mysteries set in Violet Hill Hospital, described as a skyscraper of copper glass and bricks, surrounded by fat shrubbery. When Dad wrote A Time to Chill, he’d been away from Good Shepherd for only a year or two, and I’m pretty sure if I were a new writer making up a hospital, I’d use the one I knew by heart. And at Violet Hill Hospital, they moved the old records into the basement. So said handsome forensic pathologist Miles Faye, while investigating a mysterious violent death (spoiler alert: a sleepwalking man clubbed his father-in-law to death, then dumped the old guy in the Charles River when he woke and found a murder most foul). What Miles didn’t say was how long they kept the old records for.
“Imogene, that was a long time ago. If the file was around, you would have to go to the HIS department and get a Release of Information form. The hospital can’t release anything without it. After that, it would take two to four weeks for the health records manager to send them to you.”
Two to four weeks? My heart sinks into my stomach. Who can wait that long? “But I was hoping maybe you can help me. I mean, I don’t
need them to send me the files. I can just look at them here. . . .”
Dr. Van Tassel presses her lips together. “If I could help, I would. But I have to tell you, honey, they might not want to release the records. Not if . . . your mother . . . didn’t leave you signed authorization. Maybe if you needed them for some reason, a medical concern?” She stares me down until I look away, toward the photos on the wall. “You know, I thought you might want to tell me how you’re doing. It can’t be easy for you, with your father—”
“I’m sad,” I cut in.
She nods. “I think that’s understandable. But Lindy says the police are doing everything they can.”
“No, I mean I’ve been sad. Lately. Like before my dad . . . went off.” In my lap where Dr. Van Tassel can’t see, I crack my knuckles. “I have trouble sleeping. I know my mom was . . . sad. Dad told me. So I thought if I could see her records? Maybe it would be helpful.”
Dr. Van Tassel’s eyes are big and moony. I get it; I sound pathetic. “Are you talking to someone, Imogene?”
“I’m . . . talking to Lindy about it.” Yeah, right.
She sighs. “I suppose her medical records might be around. We move the inactive patient’s records out after seven years. That’s the legal time limit, but we keep them for another decade or so until we shred them. There’s a possibility it’s here, but I can’t promise.”
“Okay, so where do you keep them?”
“Imogene. . .” She presses her lips together again, her nervous habit. “What you need to do is go to HIS on the second floor and get a form, explain things to them. I can walk you over, if you like.”
“No, that’s cool.” I stand. “I know you have to work. I can find it.”
She walks me to her office door anyway, and with the same googly look that makes me feel bad for lying—and hugely uncomfortable, besides—says, “Come and visit us, huh? Have dinner with us? Mike and I are visiting his parents tomorrow night, but maybe Monday?”
“Sure.” A quick wave and I duck out, resolutely not looking back, not down the hallway painted with colorful hot-air balloons, not when I reach the elevator, where I punch the down button and wait, though I imagine Dr. Van Tassel’s concerned stare drilling through me from behind. Not something I enjoy, but I think it was worth it. Now I know there’s a good chance my mom’s file is sitting down in the basement still, a toilet for mice and dust mites, and that I can likely get to it even if the HIS office won’t help me. And they probably won’t. I don’t have two to four weeks to burn.
There are two nurses in the elevator, heading for the lobby. I don’t want to press B until they get off, lest they think I’m going somewhere I shouldn’t. When the elevator pings open, there’s Jessa, hands in the pockets of her canary-yellow leather jacket, mouth twisting. “I was coming to find you. That took, like, forever. Can we go?”
A cluster of people are walking toward the elevator, so I make a fast, dumb decision. I reach out and pull Jessa into the elevator and punch the button for the basement and Close Doors, and we float downward.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” she protests.
“Just, shh.”
When we get to the basement the elevator opens on empty white halls and low ceilings and fluorescent lights.
“We can’t be down here. This is where they keep bodies.”
“I know.” A good thing, because the morgue is in the basement of Violet Hill Hospital as well, and that means I’m on track. “Wait, how do you know?”
“My mom makes me volunteer here a bunch in the summer, remember? Candy-striping and filing and stuff.”
“So you’d know where the old records are?”
She pauses. “Why?”
Our feet squeaking softly on the blue-gray tile floor, I’m already tugging her down the hallway so we’re not standing in front of the elevator like a pair of morons waiting to be found. It’s not like I don’t trust her with my secrets. Okay, it is exactly like that, but who do I trust? I mean, there are girls who invite me to their pool parties (which I sometimes attend, though Dad usually helps me brainstorm excuses; some useful, like dentist appointments, some unhelpful, like hair transplants. We’re on the same page as far as parties go. Too much to worry about, too many uncontrolled variables). There are girls I sit with in the cafeteria, and I call them all my friends. We talk about our crushes, and when we run out of crushes we make up new ones on the spot. We have petty fights in homeroom so we can feel the warm thrill of making up in history via passed notes. We do the things friends do.
But I have better friends, who I know all about—Daphne du Maurier, Agatha Christie, Caroline B. Cooney, Graham Greene. Is it really so weird to feel closer to them than anyone else? I can count on them, in the end. And of course, I always have my dad.
But now I don’t have a choice. We round the corner and I shoulder open the first door, a big closet of cleaning supplies and those yellow mop buckets on wheels. I take a deep breath and go for it. “I’m looking for my mom’s old medical records.”
Jessa’s crystal-blue eyes soften. The Prices never knew my mother—she left before they moved to Massachusetts and to the neighborhood—but of course they know the story. Jessa’s known since we were seven and playing kitchen on the plastic stove in her bedroom. It’s one of my first memories: rattling plastic eggs around the tiny pink skillets that came with the set. The sun was painting her hair a bright rose gold, much nicer than my uncombed brown mop, and her white dress I was always so jealous of was like a cloud. Jessa’s nanny dressed her like a mini pageant queen, while my dad brought me into Walmart and set me free, at which point I learned for myself that a girl could not make her way through kindergarten with fifteen pairs of glitter tights and one bulldog sweater. Anyway, Jessa turned to me in her perfect dress and asked why I only had a dad. I told her very sincerely that my mom was a beautiful astronaut who sometimes had to go to Texas for training. That lasted until Jessa told Dr. Van Tassel my mother was in space . . . or Texas . . . and Dr. Van Tassel had a talk with Dad.
That night, Dad told me my bedtime story for the very first time.
Twelve years later, Jessa stares at me in the janitor’s closet and tugs on her hair. “Im, why? Is this because of your mom, or because your dad’s missing?”
I figured her mom would’ve told her, but still, I feel my cheeks go cold, my fingers, and suck in a breath. “He’s not missing.”
“So where is he?”
“I’m trying to figure that out. But I need . . . I need . . .” I grab her hand, feeling a weird and unexpected rush of our old play-kitchen love.
“Your mom’s records,” she finishes. “Want to tell me why?”
I chew my lip.
“No, of course not,” she huffs.
“It’s just . . . a theory I’m working on.”
“Then why don’t you just tell the cops, and they can look up the records? We can’t get to them without the keys, anyway.”
“But you know where the keys are. And I have you.”
She sighs. “Fine. Fine! But this is a dumb idea and we’re gonna get caught and my phone’s gonna get taken away again, and just wait in the closet, all right? Security checks down here.”
“Please come back before someone pukes.”
“This place is just storage. Be quiet and you’ll be okay.” She eases out of the closet, and with a dramatic look left and right, darts away. The door swings shut behind her.
I overturn a mop bucket and sit and wait, which is fine for a few minutes but after a little while, pretty damn creepy, especially when I think of those bodies waiting for transport down some unknown corridor. Miles Faye was never creeped out by bodies, but then, Miles Faye never had to hide in a mop closet, helplessly pinning his hopes on a girl who sometimes texts Levi Cantu dirty pictures when she meant to text them to Jeremy White. And the blue-gray of the floor, which seemed harmless at first, reminds me of corpse lips, mold-spotted fruit, bruises. Maybe Dad was right: too many crime scenes and rib spreaders do make a g
irl morbid.
As the time passes and I give up on reading cleaning product labels to distract myself, I wonder how it was for my dad when he was down here. What I really want to do—though it’s the most likely place to be caught by hospital staff—is sneak down the corridor and look in the morgue, where he spent so many days, where he pried a stone heart out of my grandmother, where he met my mother. Dad once told me this place wasn’t good for him; alone except for the bodies, and under fluorescent lighting unpunctured by windows. In the winter he would enter and exit in total darkness. He said he’d forget what faces looked like in daylight for months at a time, and he was happy to be done with that. Who wouldn’t be?
Then again, I’ve caught him in his office with the shades all drawn after fifteen hours of typing and smoking, sometimes with barely a page to show for it. Before Lindy, I always made sure to knock a couple of times during his binges to remind him he wasn’t the last man on earth in some Twilight Zone scenario. And I spent those occasional nights and weekends reading, which is definitely not the same as spending it alone.
Thinking about Dad with no immediate plotting to keep me busy, I get this ache in my chest, pressure building up that curls my lungs like wet paper and makes it hard to breathe. Quickly I dig into the pocket of my puffy coat, find the stone, and hold it until the closet door rattles open.
“It’s me.” Jessa slips inside, twirling a set of keys clipped to a big plastic Minnie Mouse keychain.
“How?” I hadn’t realized how little I expected her to succeed until now.
“Mrs. Masciarelli is the health records manager. I help her file and move boxes and stuff in the summer. It’s literally the worst. But sometimes it’s okay because Mrs. Masciarelli has this thing. Incompetence? She has to go to the bathroom, like, every twenty minutes, so last summer I would file for twenty minutes and then go see Jake Elroy, who’s this really cute eighteen-year-old who had community service.”
The Mystery of Hollow Places Page 4