Into the Dark (9 page)

“I
JUST HATE HIM,”
Ty said.

Ingrid felt her face twisting up as though she were about to cry, but no tears came. She was all cried out. They were in Ty’s room, maybe less than two hours after Mia’s father’s one and only visit to 99 Maple Lane, a visit that had changed everything. Even Ty’s wall: There was a fist-size hole in the plaster now, and Ty’s knuckles were bloody. Just in case Ingrid tried thinking that this was some nightmare she could awake from, that hole in the wall—so undeniable—was there to stop her.

Two hours that had begun in raging noise—Mom screaming, Dad screaming back, Mom saying
words to Dad that Ingrid had never heard from her mouth, Dad banging out the door, suitcase in hand; and Grampy in the background, his skin colorless, his eyes, normally sky blue, suddenly dark, like the sky at night. Now the house was quiet: Mom in her room, door closed; Dad gone to the farm; Grampy around somewhere.

Any chance it wasn’t true, that Mr. McGreevy was just making trouble? Oh, he was making trouble, no doubt about that, but it had to be true. Dad hadn’t denied it, for one thing. Mia had probably found out somehow—which was why she’d been acting so strange lately, why she was going to New York. Had Mr. McGreevy learned the secret from her? Or maybe, seeing her mood, wormed it out of her? At that moment Ingrid realized she herself had come close to finding out much earlier, down in that parking lot by the falls. Pretty obvious now who’d been sitting on the bench with Mrs. McGreevy—and now Ingrid also remembered those quick phone calls in the TT, and Dad’s late trips back to the office, late trips that coincided twice with Ingrid’s sightings of Mrs. McGreevy driving down the street in her green hatchback, face intense under the streetlamp. And one more thing: Dad’s guilty face when Chief
Strade asked him to account for his whereabouts at the time of the murder. Dad had an alibi, way too embarrassing to use. Had he ended up using it after all? Did the chief know?

“Mom’s way prettier than that bitch,” Ty said.

“I was thinking the same thing,” Ingrid said.

“I didn’t even know he knew her.”

“Me neither.” But at that moment Ingrid remembered that when Mia and her mother were still new to Echo Falls, a tree had fallen on their lawn and Dad had gone over with the chain saw. Could it have started way back then? She got a terrible inkling of the kinds of thoughts that must be whirling around in Mom’s head.

There was a knock at the door.

“Yeah?” said Ty.

The door opened. Ingrid had expected Mom, but it was Grampy. His skin was still pale, but his eyes were back to normal.

“You kids eaten?” he said.

They shook their heads.

“Gotta eat,” he said.

“We’re not hungry,” Ty said.

“Makes no difference.” Grampy reached into his pocket, handed them each a Slim Jim. They took the
Slim Jims, peeled the tops off the wrappers. Grampy glanced at the hole in the wall, sat on the end of Ty’s bed beside Ingrid. Ty was sitting up at the head of the bed, back against the pillows. The room wasn’t big, and they were all close together, but for some reason it didn’t feel crowded.

“Grampy?” Ingrid said. “What’s going to happen?”

“Don’t know.”

“Divorce?” Ty said.

“Maybe,” said Grampy. “Eat.”

They each took a bite. It wasn’t one of those times you realized you were hungry after all, at least not for Ingrid. She had to chew and chew to get that bite down.

“Gotta eat,” Grampy said. “I’ve seen men die.”

“Huh?” said Ty.

“But never mind that,” Grampy said. “The point I’m making is you’re both good kids. Strong kids. And much closer to being adults than babies, if you see what I mean.”

Ingrid wasn’t sure. Ty said, “If you’re not gonna eat that…” He’d polished off his Slim Jim already. She handed him hers.

Grampy gave him a sharp look. “Counting on
you, son,” he said.

“To do what?”

“Be a man,” Grampy said. After a pause, he added, “Or at least act your age.”

Another pause, and then a funny thing happened: They all started laughing. Not loud, not long, but real laughing. At a time like this, with the family falling apart and Grampy on the way to pleading guilty to a crime he didn’t commit, how could they be laughing? Ingrid didn’t understand. But they were.

Grampy rose, his knees creaking, and patted Ingrid on the head.

“How could this happen, Grampy?”

Grampy replied, his eyes on Ty. “A man’s got to do his thinking with his brain,” he said.

Ingrid didn’t get that either. The brain was what did the thinking: basic anatomy, no?

Next morning was the first school day in a long time that Ingrid got up before Mom had to wake her. She showered—signs in the bathroom that Ty had been there first—dressed, and went downstairs.

Mom, Ty, and Grampy were in the kitchen. Mom wore her nicest business suit, the gray flannel skirt
and jacket. Her face was puffy, and she was wearing more makeup than usual, and where she’d missed with the makeup, her skin was like ashes, but she looked okay.

“Morning, Ingrid,” she said.

“Hi, Mom. Hi, everybody.”

Ty made some noise, his mouth full of French toast. French toast? Wasn’t that a weekend thing? Grampy, drinking coffee beside Ty, said, “Hi, kid.”

They had a quick breakfast, all of them at the table, also unusual on a weekday. Dad’s chair was empty, of course. And Mom didn’t eat a thing.

“All set, Ty?” she said, meaning she was planning to drop him off at school and go to work, like normal. He got right up, maple syrup on his chin. Everyone was going to make normal things happen in the normal order. But at that moment the phone rang.

They all gazed at it. Grampy was the first to make a move, but Mom said, “I’ll get it.”

She answered the phone, listened for a moment, then covered the receiver with her hand. “Mr. Tulkinghorn,” she said.

For a second or two Grampy seemed to shrink, actually grow smaller. Then he balled his hands
into fists and straightened his spine, a great physical effort Ingrid could see on his face. “I’ll take it in the other room, please, Carol,” he said.

After he left, Ingrid said, “Is that about the plea deal?”

“I don’t know,” Mom said. “Here’s some lunch money.” She kissed Ingrid’s forehead—not having to bend down much anymore—very quick, hardly touching. Ingrid caught a glimpse of Mom’s eyes from close up; not good. “See you after school,” Mom said.

Ingrid walked out of the kitchen but didn’t head upstairs for her backpack. Instead she cut right, into the dining room. Grampy was on the phone, his back to her.

“Deadline?” he said.

Ingrid moved around the table, stood in front of him. He was listening so hard, she wasn’t sure he saw her. Ingrid shook her head. Grampy noticed, covered the mouthpiece.

“What?” he said.

Ingrid just blurted it out. “Don’t take the plea deal.”

Grampy gazed down at her. “You don’t understand,” he said, his voice soft.

“Yes, I do,” said Ingrid. “You’re saving the farm,
but it’s not worth it.”

Grampy’s mood changed completely, and in an instant. He gave her that slit-eyed look—the one she’d hoped never to see again—and waved her away with the back of his hand.

Ingrid went to her room, found she was shaking. She started stuffing things into her backpack, hardly aware of what she was doing. Where was that stupid history packet, all about the War of 1812 or some other long-ago event that seemed meaningless right now? She opened the top desk drawer, rooted around. No sign of the packet, but here was the envelope with Grampy’s parking garage stub. She took it out, gazed at it again. Then, as if to prove that nonbrain parts of the body could indeed sometimes take over the thinking department, her other hand reached in for her passbook from Central State Savings and Loan; reached in and took it out of the drawer. Her hands were telling her,
Get busy, Griddie. Fix what can be fixed. At least try.

Ingrid opened the passbook. She had a balance of $316.72, mostly saved from babysitting and birthday money. The passbook and the parking stub went into the Velcro pocket in her backpack, almost by themselves, Ingrid more or less a spectator.

She took the bus to school. Getting off, she saw Mr. Samuels coming the other way, camera in hand.

“Hi, Mr. Samuels.”

“Oh,” he said, stopping short. “Ingrid.” He looked a little embarrassed. Oh, no. Was it possible he’d heard this latest news already? Did that kind of personal stuff get printed in the paper? “I thought a picture of Mr. Sidney standing in front of the school bus would be nice.”

“For the series?”

“That’s right—he’s next.” Mr. Samuels moved toward the bus.

“What number is my grandfather going to be?”

Mr. Samuels turned. “Number?”

“In the series,” Ingrid said. “When are you going to interview him?”

Again that embarrassed look, this time beyond doubt: so strange on Mr. Samuels’s honest face, changing it from homely to ugly. “That’s on hold now, I’m afraid,” said Mr. Samuels.

“But he was a war hero. You said so yourself.”

Mr. Samuels licked his lips; thin, colorless lips and a dry, colorless tongue. “Maybe after things get sorted out,” he said.

Ingrid’s voice rose, all by itself. “He didn’t do it.”

Mr. Samuels’s eyes shifted to her, then away. “I’m sorry, Ingrid.” He turned and knocked on the bus door.

Ingrid joined the line shuffling into Ferrand Middle. For some reason she was shuffling much slower than anyone else and soon found herself at the end of the line, and then even farther back, with space between her and the next kid. She came to a stop. Now her feet were doing the thinking. They turned her around, led her out of the parking lot, down the hill, and onto the street.

Ferrand Middle School stood on Park Road. Ingrid, who’d been trying to learn Echo Falls the way Holmes knew London, was sure that Park met High Street and that High met Spring and that Central State Savings and Loan was on Spring. She just wasn’t clear on the very next step, right or left. She checked her compass ring.

Compass ring?
So you always know the directions:
Dad’s words. Ingrid took off the compass ring and ground it under her heel. Then she turned left for no reason at all and started walking fast. Not long after, she came to Park. Yes. And not long after that—the wind behind her all the way—she was stepping up to the teller’s counter at Central State Savings and
Loan, withdrawal slip in hand.

She laid it on the counter.

“Why, Ingrid,” said the teller, looking down. Oh, God, of course: Sylvia Breen, witch in
Hansel and Gretel
but in real life assistant head teller at Central State Savings and Loan. “No school today?”

“Um, well, the thing is,” Ingrid began. “Research project!” She repeated it at normal volume. “Research project.”

“That sounds exciting,” said Mrs. Breen. She lowered her voice. “Can I tell you something in confidence?”

Ingrid nodded, getting ready for trouble.

“I’m having problems with my motivation.”

Was it boring being a teller? Lots of people probably had boring jobs, and school wasn’t so great either, but—

“I mean, for the life of me,” said Mrs. Breen. “Why is she so set on pushing those two poor kids into the oven? She has plenty to eat—her whole house is made of candy.”

“She is a witch, after all,” Ingrid said.

“You think that’s it?”

Ingrid nodded.

“Makes sense, I guess,” said Mrs. Breen. “How would you like this?”

“This what?” said Ingrid.

Mrs. Breen tapped the withdrawal slip. “Your hundred dollars.”

A lot of money, but New York was expensive; everyone knew that. “Twenties?” she said. But what if she needed something smaller? “Maybe a ten. And some fives.” Would there be tipping? “And a few ones.”

Mrs. Breen counted three twenties, a ten, five fives and five ones, snapping out the bills in an expert way. “Good luck on the project,” she said.

Next: the train station. A potential problem, the train station being in the Flats, a run-down part of town pretty far from Central Savings and Loan. But Ingrid caught a break, the kind of break that said
Keep doing what you’re doing.
There, parked on the other side of Spring Street, was a taxi. And the driver, chewing on a toothpick and reading a book: Murad, who’d driven her once before, and also ended up being one of the heroes of the Cracked-Up Katie case.

She crossed the street, tapped on his window. It slid down. “Ingrid, is it not?”

“Hi,” said Ingrid. “The station, please.”

“No schooling today?”

Ingrid tried that project thing again.

“Ah,” said Murad. “American education—the standard of gold.”

Ingrid got in the cab and off they went.

“I myself am experiencing American education at first hand,” Murad said over his shoulder.

“You are?”

“Oh my yes. At the University of Hartford Extension.”

Murad held up his book:
Principles of Accounting.
“Numbers, numbers, numbers—the fun I am having!”

“You like math?”

“Most certainly,” said Murad. “Where else in this earthly life is everything clicking so beautifully into place?”

“G
RAND
C
ENTRAL
T
ERMINAL.”

Despite everything, Ingrid felt some excitement when the conductor spoke those words, excitement to be all by herself in the Big Apple. She walked off the train with the other passengers, upstairs to the main concourse, huge and magnificent—the ceiling, all green and gold with stars, so high above. A realization struck Ingrid at that moment, unrelated to the mess her family was in or to Grampy’s case: She would live in this city one day.

Someone bumped into her, almost knocking her down. Ingrid took her eyes off the ceiling. Everyone else’s eyes were boring straight ahead, and they were
all moving so fast. Lesson one on how to be a New Yorker. Ingrid spotted an elegant old lady carrying a tiny, pointy-faced dog and followed her onto the street.

Cold outside, with steam rising from vents here and there. The hard-edged shadow of a tall building angled down, dividing everything neatly into sun and shadow. The elegant old lady stepped into the sunny part, raised her hand, and called, “Taxi!”

A yellow taxi swerved over to the curb. The lady got in. She said, “Tiffany’s, driver.” The door closed and the taxi drove off, the dog gazing out the window looking snobby. Lesson two.

Ingrid stepped into the sunlight, raised her hand, and called, “Taxi!”

She barely got the word out before one screeched to a halt beside her. She was going to make a great old lady; although a dog like that was out of the question, no matter how elegant she ended up being.

“New York City Mercy Hospital, driver,” she said, getting in.

Uh-oh. It was fun saying
driver
like that, as though she practically lived in taxis, but there was no sign that this driver had actually heard her. He was talking on a cell phone—wedged between shoulder
and chin—in a foreign language, at the same time thumbing buttons on a handheld device. With the heel of his other hand he spun the wheel, sped into traffic so fast Ingrid felt g-forces, like an astronaut. He wheeled around a corner, then another, made a screaming stop followed by another lurching takeoff, honked several times, and almost hit a bike rider, two women with huge shopping bags, and a bus. Ingrid fumbled with her seat belt. It didn’t work.

“Driver?” she said. “Sir?”

No answer. More sitting in traffic. More lurching. Then all at once a river appeared on the right, a wide river, sparkling in the sunshine. The East River? She almost asked the driver, but then he’d know what a rube she was and maybe take advantage by driving miles and miles out of the way. That had happened to the Rubinos on Thanksgiving a couple of years before, when they’d gone past Yankee Stadium three times on their way to Radio City Music Hall. Instead, Ingrid checked the map on the back of the parking stub. It showed a highway running parallel to the river—FDR Drive. She looked around for a road sign, saw a little green one coming up, but before it was close enough to read, the taxi ducked into a tunnel. The driver raised his voice above the tunnel
noise, suddenly said, “Okay, dude,” before relapsing into the foreign language. Then they popped out of the tunnel, back into bright light, and another little green sign flashed by: FDR Drive. Yes!

A few minutes later the driver parked in front of a tall brick building on a quiet street. Over the door Ingrid read:
NEW YORK CITY MERCY HOSPITAL, MAIN ENTRANCE
. She paid, adding a one-dollar tip—anything less being pretty stingy, but anything more being reckless, especially seeing how she somehow had only $32.55 left—and got out.

The main entrance had a big revolving door, but not the kind you had to push: It moved as soon as it knew you were in there; nothing like that in Echo Falls. Ingrid went through and into the lobby. There were lots of people going back and forth, an information desk, and a bank of elevators at the back. Ingrid moved toward the information desk, but slowly. What was the next step? She didn’t know; not that she hadn’t tried to think it out that far, just that she hadn’t come up with anything.

A man in a blue uniform sat behind the desk. She approached him, toying with,
Hi, I need to know the exact times my grandfather was here
or
See this parking stub? Can you tell me if—

The man at the desk turned to her. Ingrid had an instinctive reaction to his face: trouble. She swerved away, headed toward the back wall, pretended to examine the directory that hung there, listing the doctors. Then, all at once, her mind, so slow sometimes, so blind to the obvious, went back to Grampy’s farm, the day he’d taught her how to chop wood. After, they’d gone inside for a hot drink. The phone had been ringing. Ingrid had answered. What then? A man calling for Grampy.

This is Doctor Pillman.

A funny name for a doctor, that was why she’d remembered. Then she’d handed the phone to Grampy. He’d listened and said, “Wrong number.”

Ingrid scanned the directory, found six P’s, listed not alphabetically but by floor, going up: Pradath, Pearl, Parsons, Phinney, Perez, Pillman. Dr. Eli Pillman, eleventh floor.

Ingrid moved toward the elevators, casting a sideways glance at the man in the blue uniform. He was talking to a woman with a cane.

Ding.
An up arrow. Doors opened. Ingrid stepped into an empty elevator, pressed eleven, rode up. A sign above the buttons read:
PLEASE RESPECT PATIENT CONFIDENTIALITY.

Ding.
Ingrid stepped out. A woman in scrubs went by, reading from a blue folder; she didn’t even look up.
ELEVENTH FLOOR
, read a sign on the wall:
ONCOLOGY
. Ingrid didn’t know what that meant. An arrow pointed left for the ward, OR, and radiology, right for doctors’ offices. Ingrid went right, down a long corridor. Dr. Pillman’s office was at the end. The door opened as Ingrid reached for the knob.

An orderly came out, pushing a little old bald person in a wheelchair. On second look, not a little old person but a kid—a girl—of about her own age. She wore one of those double
x
Rollexxes on her wrist, red like Ingrid’s, and had a blue folder in her lap. The girl’s eyes met Ingrid’s. Ingrid tried to say hi but her throat closed up. The orderly pushed the wheelchair down the hall. Ingrid went into Dr. Pillman’s office.

She was in a waiting room, not unlike the waiting room of Dr. Binkerman, her orthodontist in Echo Falls. In fact the blond-wood furniture looked identical, and so did the paintings on the wall—all of them about Venice: palaces, canals, gondolas. No one was waiting in Dr. Pillman’s waiting room. Behind the window of the reception area at the back, a woman with her hair in a bun and glasses
halfway down her nose sat at a computer, her profile toward Ingrid. The walls of her room were lined with shelves of blue folders.

Ingrid sat in one of the blond-wood chairs. She picked up a
National Geographic
with a volcano on the cover. A phone rang softly behind the glass. The woman answered. Ingrid couldn’t hear what she was saying, just saw how she shook her head no, a decisive head shake that meant no for sure.

Ingrid gazed at a page of
National Geographic
, unseeing. She tried and tried to think of what to say to the woman behind the glass partition. Nothing she came up with—whether she started right off the top with the murder of Harris Thatcher or left it out completely, led to any response from the woman other than “Does your grandfather know you’re here?”

And then what? A call to Grampy? A call home to Mom? Downward spiral, essence of.

She heard a little squeak and glanced up. The receptionist’s window slid open a foot or two and the woman looked out at her. Uh-oh.

“You must be Libby’s sister,” the woman said. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“Uh,” said Ingrid.

“She should be back soon,” the woman said. “These tests don’t take long.”

Ingrid nodded, stared down at her
National Geographic
, open, she now saw, at a bright color photograph of a Latin American bride trying on her wedding gown. Then the side door of the reception room opened and the woman came out, walking quickly. She stopped right in front of Ingrid; a tall woman with sharp features. Ingrid got ready to make a full confession.

“I’m going to grab a quick sandwich,” the woman said. “Get you anything?”

“No, thanks,” said Ingrid.

The woman gazed down at her for a moment. “You do look alike,” she said. Then she turned and left the office, closing the door behind her.

A quick sandwich: How quick? From where? And Libby, the girl in the wheelchair, would be back soon, back from some test. Ingrid felt sleazy, a brand-new feeling that disgusted her. She wanted to jump up, run out the door, get far, far away. But: Grampy was about to cut a deal for something he didn’t do, and the proof might be in one of those blue folders she could see through the receptionist’s window.
Fix what can be fixed. At least try.

The next thing Ingrid knew, she was on her feet. The air seemed to be buzzing, like a scary soundtrack. This was a time for speed, but for some reason she couldn’t have been slower—crossing the waiting room, opening the receptionist’s door, going inside, all of that like a sleepwalker.

There were hundreds of blue folders, maybe thousands. The shelves lined the entire back wall, floor to ceiling, and parts of both side walls. How would she ever—

Whoa. What were those? Letter stickers here and there on the edges of the shelves,
A
to
Z
.
H
was along the back wall, second shelf from the bottom. Ingrid grabbed a file, read the name tag: Heller. She pawed through. Henley, Hersheiser, Hester, Hibbs, Hill. She pulled it out. Alice.

But the next one was Hill, Aylmer. She opened the folder. Grampy’s file was thinner than most of them, just five or six pages inside. Ingrid scanned them; now, when slowing down was important, she was going much too fast, didn’t understand a thing. She forced herself to put on the brakes, go back, even mouth some of the words. There were lots she didn’t understand—like
unresectable
,
metastasis
,
palliative
—but lots she did. Like dates, for
example. Dr. Pillman had signed a form admitting Grampy to New York City Mercy Hospital at 11:57
A.M.
on Tuesday, February 11, three minutes before the beginning of the three-hour period when Mr. Thatcher was murdered. He’d spent four nights on the eleventh-floor ward—there were notes in the chart for every one, signed by various doctors and nurses—and then Dr. Pillman had discharged him at 9:30
A.M.
, Saturday, February 15. Grampy was innocent and could prove it, even prove it easily. That was a fact, beyond all possible doubt.

Also beyond all possible doubt: He had cancer—and not just cancer, but inoperable cancer. Ingrid formed and re-formed that word
inoperable
in her mind, hoping she could make it mean something else.

And one more thing: bottom of the last page—it was shaking in her hand—a note signed
Eli Pillman, MD
:
The patient has repeatedly and adamantly forbidden any and all contact by Mercy staff with his family, friends, or associates. An offer to confer with a Mercy psychologist or clergyperson was refused in unqualified terms. Patient also referred to the certainty of legal action if his wishes were not “obeyed to the letter.”

Ingrid closed the folder, slid it back into place on
the shelf next to Hill, Alice. The buzzing had grown louder in her ears, was becoming unbearable. She hurried from the receptionist’s office, crossed the waiting room, slung on her backpack, her movements all jerky now. Then: out the door, down the hall to the elevators, trying not to run.

Ding.
Going down. Ingrid got in the elevator. The doors started to close. Across the hall the doors of another elevator opened. Dr. Pillman’s receptionist stepped out, coffee cup in hand. She saw Ingrid. The expression on her face began to change.