“Are you sure this is how you want this to go?” Mark asked.
Drexel stared at him, not answering.
Finally, Mark gave up. “Okay. Come on, Ellen.”
Drexel watched as Mark an Ellen walked down the hallway.
Ellen lowered the camera and followed Mark down the hall. Mark whispered to Ellen once he was sure Drexel couldn’t hear them. “We have to find Dr. Drexel’s father. He’s the key.”
Once Dr. Drexel was sure the reporters were truly going to the receptionist, she turned and walked down the hallway. She dialed a number on her phone and held it to her ear.
Scott sat in his small office down the hallway. His feet were up on his small desk as he played a game on his phone, sound coming to him through his earphones. His thoughts kept drifting back to the previous night with Ellen, and he kept losing concentration.
“Yes,” Dr. Drexel heard the answer on her phone. She stopped walking, glancing up and down the hallway to see if anyone was near enough to hear her conversation. There were only a couple of orderlies in sight, and they were too far away to hear. “The reporters were back. They were asking about you,” she said.
Scott noticed a shadow outside his partially open door. He pulled the earplugs out of his ears. He looked furtively about, got up and moved closer to the door. He heard Dr. Drexel’s voice clearly.
“I agree. But what?” she said.
There was a brief pause.
“All right. I’ll convene the team,” she said.
Scott heard Dr. Drexel’s sharp footsteps head down the hallway.
Mark waited at a table in the Italian restaurant Alicia had recommended, nursing a scotch and water. The place was slightly crowded, but a couple of tables sat empty near him. Mark was looking over at the old streetcar, a functional decoration inside the restaurant that even held a few tables, when he saw Alicia come in.
She came straight to his table and sat down. “Hi, Mark. Have you ordered yet?”
“Just a drink,” Mark said. He held up his glass. “Do you want something?”
A server stepped up to the table. “Ms. Russo, good to see you this afternoon.”
“Hi, Randy,” Alicia said. She looked over at Mark, then back at the server. “I’ll take a diet soda. And lasagna for both of us.”
“Of course,” the server said. “I’ll put the order right in.” He walked away.
“You’ll love the lasagna,” Alicia told Mark. “I promise.”
“I’m sure I will,” Mark said as he sipped his drink.
“Rodney said you were in the archives until two this morning,” Alicia said.
Mark nodded.
“Find anything?” she asked.
Mark took another sip of his drink. “You can’t use it. Not yet, anyway.”
“Promise,” Alicia said. “We won’t print anything until your story is out.”
“Fair enough,” Mark said. He lowered his voice as a hostess led a man and woman past them to another table. “There’s a group of doctors who worked at the hospital in the fifties, sixties, and seventies. They treated combat stress. There were several lawsuits against them.”
“Medical lawsuits? That’s really not all that unusual,” Alicia said.
Mark paused as the server brought Alicia’s diet drink. He waited for the server to leave.
“No, but in the sixties it was very unusual to settle out of court, and all these were settled.”
“That’s not much to base a story on,” Alicia said.
“It’s a start. I confronted the administrator, Dr. Natalie Drexel. Her father, Dr. Hans Drexel, was one of the old doctors.”
“Did she confirm anything?”
Mark shook his head no. “Not at all. In fact, she got pretty defensive… Which tells me something is there.”
“Sounds like you have some more digging to do,” Alicia said.
“Already working on it.”
“I’m sure,” Alicia said. “Let me know if you need any help.”
The server brought their salads, briefly interrupting their conversation.
After he left, Alicia took a bite of her salad, then asked: “Are you going to visit her grave?”
Mark’s fork stopped half way to his mouth. He wondered where in the hell that came from. “Huh?”
“Your sister. You didn’t make the funeral,” Alicia said.
“How did you know about her?” Mark asked.
“I don’t let people go digging around in my archives without finding out something about them. Especially some TV reporter from Chicago who said he used to live here.”
Mark lowered his fork. “No. I’m not.”
“Why not?” Alicia asked. “She was your only relative, wasn’t she?”
“That’s true. But I hadn’t seen her since I was about seventeen. I don’t even know where she’s buried.”
Alicia dug into her purse and pulled out a piece of paper, folded in half. She slid it across to him. “That’s the obit. She’s in Valley View, near Xenia.”
Mark stared at the piece of paper, but didn’t take it.
Alicia finally quit waiting for Mark to take the paper and left it on the table. She went back to her salad. “You should visit. Close the chapter. It’d be good for you. I promise.”
Mark downed his drink. He looked across at Alicia. He could tell her heart was in the right place, though she really didn’t understand his situation… his relationship with his sister was, well, complicated. He reached forward and picked up the obituary. He unfolded it, glanced at the short paragraph. Not much there. He was mentioned as ‘left behind’. He folded the paper back up and put it into his jacket pocket. He looked over at Alicia again. “Thanks. Maybe I will.”
Young Mark peered through the bars on the door’s window. It was too dark to see inside. He tried the doorknob. It twisted easily in his hand. He pushed the door open, then tentatively stepped inside.
The short hallway was empty except for a pair of doors on the left and another pair on the right. Young Mark stepped farther in, toward the doors on the left. A strong breeze, in an otherwise calm evening, slammed the door behind him closed, dousing the short hallway in near darkness.
Guided by the dim, sunset light seeping through several tinted windows, Mark opened the door on the left and stepped through. Unlike the previous halls he had explored, doors only lined the hallway in this building on one side. Various types of complicated medical machinery sat scattered throughout the hallway, silently waiting for patients to treat, or abuse. He saw a single door down the hall was partly open. Young Mark headed for it. Slowly.
The door knob to this room was unusually high up, almost eye level. He heard noises beyond… deep breathing. Beeps. Chirps.
Mark pushed the door open and peered inside. A bright, overhead light was reflected throughout the shiny, stainless steel room. The walls, ceiling, floor… all appeared to be polished steel.
Mark looked up into the bright light hanging from the center of the room. He shaded his eyes, and the rest of the room started to come into focus. A bed with chrome rails sat in the center of the room. There was a patient on it, covered in a white sheet, eye level with Mark. The nurse, same black rimmed, cat eye glasses, was on the other side of the bed, her face hidden behind a sterile, gauze mask. She monitored some kind of breathing machine, whose bellows inflated and deflated in rhythm with the patient’s chest. A tube ran from the machine to the patient’s mouth.