Max sagged against the building. “Did you call the cops?”
Jordan sneered. “The pigs? Fuck no. The only thing the pigs ever did for me was throw me in foster care. And they’d do it again.”
“Jordan, did you see anything in the van? Anything that would help identify the people who took you?”
Jordan had returned to his barbed wire. He clicked the end of the pen and stuck it back in his pocket.
“Yeah. There was a little plastic card hanging from a metal string thing. The guy who’d grabbed me wore it around his neck. I ripped it off. It said Dr. Lance and under that the Northern Michigan Ass.”
“Northern Michigan Ass?” Max asked skeptically. It was far-fetched enough the man was wearing a badge identifying him as a doctor, but Northern Michigan Ass.
Jordan shook his head. “A-S, not ass. It was an abbrevi-what’sit. You know where you shorten the word.”
“Abbreviation.”
“Yeah.”
“Where do you live right now, Jordan?” Max asked, glancing at his watch.
“Here and there.”
Max lifted an eyebrow. “Where’s your dad?”
“Not here. Can’t say I blame him.”
“And your mom lives at Ellie’s House?”
Jordan narrowed his eyes. “Don’t even try to pull that ‘save the kid’ shit, man. I see how you’re looking at me, and the only thing I ever get for that look is trouble. I’ll see ya around.”
Max walked to his motorcycle. Halfway there, he made the connection.
“Northern Michigan Asylum,” he said aloud.
36
Max opened his door to find a vaguely familiar woman standing on his stoop. It took a moment to place her.
“Martha,” he said, remembering the director from Ellie’s house.
“Hello, Mr. Wolfenstein. Do you mind if I come in for a few minutes?”
The woman’s face looked haggard beneath a layer of powder a shade darker than her skin. She sat at Max’s table and folded her hands in front of her.
From the other room, Max heard a light thud.
Martha glanced toward the doorway. “Is someone else here?”
He shook his head.
“I haven’t slept well since Kim was taken,” she confided. “I’ve lost other women at the house. It’s the burden we accept when we work with survivors of domestic violence. A burden I know all too well.”
She pulled up her sleeve to reveal puckered white and pink flesh.
“My ex-husband tried to burn me alive. He threw gasoline on me and held his cigarette to my blouse.” Martha stared at the scar, tracing her finger over the raised flesh. “One of the women at the house once asked if I’d ever considered plastic surgery to remove this scar. I told her no, never. This was mine, all mine, my emblem of survival, a reminder of what I had endured, and why I do what I do.”
Max held his mug of coffee, staring at the woman’s arm and remembering Kim’s scars. A white pucker of flesh on her back that looked like a cigarette burn. A ring of half-moons near her left breast that had resembled teeth marks. He shuddered.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I wish I could have done more. I think I screwed everything up the day I went to Kim’s apartment. I put her in the path of death.”
Martha shook her head. “Survivor’s guilt. She married death when she was eighteen years old. When a man commits to killing his wife, only fate can intervene. My fate,” she shook her wrist at him, came in the form of a neighbor with a wet blanket and a golf club. “I believe in God, Mr. Wolfenstein. God saw fit to take our Kim, but before he did, he let her live one last time, love one last time.”
Martha bent over and pulled a plastic grocery sack from her purse.
“She didn’t have much. There’s more in her apartment, but of course that’s evidence for the state until Denny Watts is prosecuted. She received a letter after her death from a woman in Washington. You knew Kim. You were helping her with Nicholas. I want to give you her things in the hope you will continue her search. There’s no one else now. You understand?”
He nodded, his coffee suddenly cold beneath his fingers. He looked at the mug and lifted it to his lips to be sure, and yes, the coffee had gone from piping hot to frigid in seconds.
He glanced toward the living room where the copy of Heart of Darkness lay on the floor.
“This letter came for her today. I read it, but I’m afraid I don’t understand the implications. I thought you might.” Martha handed him an envelope.
Max took the letter from the envelop and read it silently.
Dear Joan,
Thank you for reaching out. Yes, Percy is my brother, my only sibling, and I regret that I could not see him more in the two years he has been institutionalized. After he returned from South America, he was a different man. He started to write and call me about a terrible conspiracy. He claimed a doctor at the asylum was kidnapping children and performing experiments with them. As you can imagine, I was immediately concerned for my brother’s mental health. I was unable to see him before he was institutionalized after appearing at the hospital with a gun.
I have visited him several times in the two years since. He is highly sedated due to paranoid delusions. The doctors believe he suffered a psychotic break during his time in the Amazon.
I believe there is no merit to his claims. He is merely a sick man.
Best of luck in finding your son,
Jody Hobbs
Max folded the letter and looked at the return address on the envelope.
“Washington State?” he wondered.
Martha nodded.
“There’s a phone number for the woman in Kim’s notebook. I do hope you can help, Max. And thank you.”
Martha stood and patted Max’s arm before leaving.
Max opened Kim’s notebook. She’d filled the pages with dates, musings, and little notes about groceries. Twice he saw his own name. The date he first met Kim was listed next to the words Saved by Max.
He studied the words until they blurred.
“Saved by Max. No, doomed, not saved, but how could she have known that at the time?” he asked no one.
He picked up the phone and dialed the number listed next to Jody’s name in Kim’s book.
A woman answered.
“Hi, is this Jody Hobbs?”
“Speaking.” She spoke in a high, clear voice.
“My name is Max Wolfenstein. I’m a good friend of Kim Phillips. I believe you were corresponding with her?”
“Yes, though corresponding implies a long communication and in fact I only spoke with her on the phone once and received a single letter. I wrote back to her as well, but haven’t heard back.”
“That’s because she’s deceased,” Max told her, staring at the hairline cracks in the plaster beside his phone.
“Oh dear, I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Jody, I’m curious to know why Kim reached out to you. Her son has been missing for several months. I’m assuming from your letter that Kim came across something pertaining to Nicholas.”
“Yes, well, she described it as chasing white rabbits, unfortunately. She knew I was likely a dead end, but wanted to follow every lead that came her way. She found an article published two years ago by Abe Levett, a journalist for Up North News. He interviewed my brother about a trip he took to the Amazonian jungle. My brother unfortunately suffered a mental breakdown of sorts and started down a delusional path, which culminated in his appearance at the Northern Michigan Asylum for the Insane. He was in the possession of a pistol and threatening a doctor there. Percy is a very sick man.”