Dr. Monica Albertson opened the door of the patient room and let herself in. She took no notice of the little boy sitting cross-legged in the corner as she sat down at the table by the window, opened her backpack and extracted a file. She read the contents carefully even though she knew it by heart.
The file was everything the hospital knew about Harold Evans, age 7, the youngest son of Eliza, 43, and Joseph, 45, Evans, both recently deceased. The file recorded quite dispassionately: parents and two siblings, Jacob 15, and Amelia, 12 DOA at time of Harold’s current admission to ED. He was transported to the hospital asleep and remained asleep despite efforts by the ED staff to rouse him. He slept for two days throughout the examination in the ED and the transfer to the ward bed. There was not a scratch on him, only the light trace of the blood on the soles of his feet and his hands which corresponded with the small bloody footprints they found throughout the house and a single handprint on the inside of the linen closet in which he was found.
The next paper in the file was a newspaper clipping of the incident: “Entire Family Slaughtered by Home Invaders” read the headline. Police responded to a 911 call from Harold who only said: “Help my family,” before the line went blank but remained open. When they arrived at the house the front door was ajar and there were scenes of total carnage and four dead bodies in the downstairs. Anything easily moveable and worth stealing had also been removed from both floors of the home.
Police forensic investigators found Harold by tracing a very light set of bloody footprints around the house that ended at the doors of a linen closet in the upstairs hallway. Harold was hidden behind a stack of folded sheets still clutching the telephone that was connected to the 911 dispatch operator. He was fast asleep but showing no signs of distress. Paramedics transported him to the hospital sleeping and monitored with no other treatment recorded.
Next was the observation report of the days since Harold had been at the hospital. He did not interact with anyone, never made eye contact or acknowledged their presence in any way. The intern on duty noted: “ Harold appears to think no one can see him. Might this be his way of rationalizing the fact that he was the only member of his family to survive? Perhaps he walked around the house while the intruders were stealing things from other rooms, and they did not notice him which has fed this illusion in his psyche.“
The hospital administrator had him placed in pediatric psych where each child had a private room. He was kept away from the other children. Staff were specifically told to bring his meals and clean as if no one was in the room. For the present, maintaining his perception that he was invisible to the staff seemed to be the least injurious path until Harold could be handed off to a qualified child psychologist.
Monica stretched, reaching her arms toward the light coming through the window. She pulled a notebook and pen from her backpack and began to write an action plan. She would need to find out as much as she could about little Harold’s life before the tragedy. This, unfortunately would mean a trip to the Evans house. Then she would need to figure out a way to initially connect with the little guy who seemed so cut off. She had no clue how that would look yet, but maybe something she found at the house would help.
As she packed everything into her backpack, she noticed a small pair of piercing grey eyes watching her intently from the corner. She took extra time meticulously placing everything in her pack, and then looked around the room, letting her eyes rest on a spot just above his head.
“I’m so glad no one is using this room. It’s a nice place to work. I might be back here tomorrow.” She shouldered her pack and walked out of the room.
The next morning, she drove to the Evans home, a modest split-level in an upscale suburb. She planned to have Detective Dan Carmody, lead investigator on the case meet her at the house and let her in the front entrance. She didn’t have to wait long. Just after she stopped in front of the house a late model sedan pulled into the driveway. A tall, rather striking man stepped out pulling a St Louis Cardinals baseball cap over a shock of bright red hair. She walked up the driveway to where he stood.
Holding up her Hospital ID, she introduced herself. “Hi, my name is Dr. Monica Albertson, we spoke on the phone. I am treating the son, Harold.”
“Oh yeah, poor kid. How’s he doing? Dan Carmody, Chief Investigator, Central Division Homicide,” said the young policeman looking carefully at her ID card.
“Not so well, he has not said a word since he got to the hospital. I really need to get in the house for a few moments. I promise not to disturb the crime scene, and to only take what I find absolutely essential to Harold’s treatment. I will itemize everything I take.”
Detective Carmody shook his head, “Look Doc, forensics are done with the place, but I’m going to have to escort you through to preserve the evidence, and as to taking anything, even from rooms not part of the actual crime scene areas, well that’ll be at my discretion. If we can agree to those terms, I’ll let you in.”
Monica agreed: “can I at least take photos if I need to for my own reference?”
Carmody nodded as he removed the crime scene tape from the door and opened it so she could enter. She gave him an accommodating smile as she passed under his arm. Before he shut the door, he cleared his throat as if to get her attention.
“The crime scene cleaners haven’t been in yet, sorry about the smell.”
“I work in a hospital psych ward, smells come with the job.” she answered without turning around. She heard him laugh quietly as he closed the door behind them.
The house was beautifully decorated, or would have looked so prior to the break-in. She looked with a clinical eye at the carnage of the living room, where the parents died, together on the couch. The other part of the crime scene was the kitchen, where the brother and sister had been bound, raped, and knifed. She didn’t bother even going into that room. The entire house had an eerie air of unlived in quiet. She moved toward the stairs to get to Harold’s bedroom following the faint trail of his bloody footprints still visible on the stairs.
The wall up the main staircase was covered with family photos, only not the posed ones found in most homes, but creative photo collages constructed of unposed shots taken by someone with a great eye. Each set showed different aspects of a happy family living their best life: the family cheering on the local University Soccer team; watching the older son play in a Hockey game; the daughter’s Confirmation Mass and reception; the family enjoying a Renaissance Faire in complete costumes.
Halfway up the staircase Monica stopped at a set of photos of Harold from possibly not longer than six months ago. He was dressed as a magician performing at a family party. It made her happy to see him smiling. She took out her phone to get a photo of the collage.
Harold’s room was the last room on the left of the linen closet where Harold had hidden. The linen closet door was open. Monica could see the indentations in the carefully piled sheets at the back where Harold had hidden. The blood-stained ones had been removed by the forensic team, but there was a small red handprint visible on the edge of the door, and another on the back wall. She had seen photos of these in the crime scene files.
Harold’s bedroom door was adorned with a plaque bearing his name in different languages including Braille and ASL. She took a photo of the plaque before opening the door.
Inside she found a wonderland little boy’s dream bedroom. The bed was constructed to resemble a tree house lofted over a secret play area accessible via a knothole in the tree you climbed to reach the bed. The sides were covered by military grade camouflage curtains that made anyone outside of the play area perfectly visible to those playing inside the play area while the inside was obscured. It gave the illusion that every leaf in the forest had blown into a pile at the base of the tree.
Monica bent down to look through the knothole and realized that the entire walkway to the play area on both sides was bookshelves filled with books. At first glance they were hardly the selection one might think to find in the bedroom of child Harold’s age. The left side shelves filled with books on Astronomy, Paleontology, Geology, and she even noticed an Anatomy textbook she had used in her introductory course at university.
The right-hand side was by contrast a mixed collection of Hardy Boys, Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, The Chronicles of Narnia, and the Animorphs Series. There were even older paperback copies of the Tolkien works: The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion. She took The Hobbit off the shelf and opened the front cover. Carefully inscribed on the inside of the flyleaf was the name Eliza Henry. So, it was his mother who encouraged his love of classical literature.
She set the book back on the shelf as Detective Carmody walked through the open doorway.
“These bedrooms are something else. I shared a bedroom with three brothers on two sets of bunkbeds until I went into the army at 18. We would’ve given anything for this much private space. And this bed? Forget about it!”
“Is it okay if I go into the knothole and take a look around at his ‘inner sanctum’?” Monica asked turning back toward Carmody.
“Sure, forensics thinks he never came back in here after he left the first time. At least there were no traces of blood in here. It looks like the thieves took a TV off of the wall over there,” Carmody gestured back with his elbow toward a space on the wall where a monitor had been torn away from wall mounts. “That may have been what woke the kid up, but if he was inside the play area and not in the bed the creeps never would’ve known he was here. That tree house canopy saved his life I reckon.”
Monica carefully lifted the knothole curtain and crawled through into the play area. At five feet two inches, she could barely stand up without hitting her head on the bottom of the loft bed. What she saw was nothing like she expected. Instead of a room filled with a jumble of toys strewn all around it was neatly arranged. A desk sat under the far end of the bed, a small trunk with neatly arranged toys inside was next to the desk and there was a table on the side nearest the camouflage canopy. On top of the table were the contents of a Magic Kit: a top hat, a magic wand, linking rings, cups and balls and a deck of cards. Next to all of that was a book open to a trick: The Disappearing Animal. Monica was studying the book so intently she didn’t notice that Carmody had followed her through the knothole. He was so tall he had to kneel down to keep from bumping his head on the loft bed.
“Hey, I had that same basic magic kit when I was a kid.” He reached for the balls on the table and began to juggle them expertly. She nodded her approval. He shrugged and put them down exactly where they had been. “I’m a man of many talents.”
Monica took a photo of the table of magic supplies. And another of the book pages. Then she went over to the desk and pulled out the chair to sit down. She took out her notebook and began to scribble notes into it.
Carmody watched her with great interest. She was so engrossed again that she didn’t seem to notice that he was in the same room. He liked the way she ran her fingers through her hair with her left hand as she wrote with her right hand. As if massaging her scalp was helping her concentrate.
Carmody finally cleared his throat to get her attention. She jumped almost imperceptibly, then stopped writing and looked up at him.
“You know Doc, if the kid was awake when the creeps were in this room, he might be able to give us a description of what at least one of them looks like. I could really use the help. How soon do you think it’ll be before I can talk to him?”
“Right now, he thinks he is invisible. It’s his defense mechanism. The only way he could have survived what the men did in this house that night was if they didn’t see him, so either he must have been invisible or the more likely scenario from the evidence here is that he made himself disappear,” She pointed over to the open magic book.
A look of shock, then recognition crossed the detective’s face. He scrubbed it with his hand. “Poor kid. He must have heard them screaming from downstairs. Those animals raped the mother, the daughter, and the son. No wonder he’s not talking. Is there any hope of bringing him around?”
”That depends, we might be able to make him reappear if he feels he’s in a safe place again. I am not sure I know how to do that yet.”
Monica gave Carmody a quizzical glance, “Two questions: Can I have some of the things from this room? And just how good of a magician do you think you are?”
Over the next few weeks Monica visited Harold’s hospital room daily. She brought in a few items from his bedroom: the comforter from his bed, books from his bookshelf, his trunk of carefully curated toys, the magic kit and table. She hoped some of his own things might make him feel more relaxed. Even with everything placed as close to the same orientation as they were in the knothole play area, without the tree bed and camouflage screen it still looked like a sterile hospital room.
Harold ignored everything Monica brought into his room except the comforter. He slept wrapped up in it from the first night she put it on his bed. Victory number one.
He had particular interest in playing with a bucket of green plastic army men. In fact, Monica found them all around the room, like tiny green sentinels. Each morning when Monica arrived the tiny army men would be arranged differently around the room as if they had received marching orders in the night. Monica noted this in her patient notes. Was Harold using the tiny army men as protection she wondered? She noted exactly where the men were placed every day.
Once a week, on Wednesday, detective Carmody came to visit while Monica was working in Harold's room. Carmody usually brought coffee, and they had pleasant conversation not related to the Evans case. Monica hoped Harold would become comfortable seeing Dan around.
The next Wednesday morning there was a distinct change in Harold’s routine. When Monica came in, he was swaddled in the comforter on his bed as if he were in a cocoon. All she could see of him were two tiny grey eyes that looked as if they had not slept a wink in days. Monica noted that the green army men had again been moved to new placement around the room. There were a line of sharp shooters along the length of the windowsill. Monica remembered that yesterday Harold spent most of the afternoon looking out the window. She made a note of that in the clinical file.
When Dan arrived Monica chided him for not bringing coffee, which gave her an opening to get Dan away from the room for a coffee run. As they were walking down to the coffee shop on the main floor, she filled him in on the troop movements.
“So you think Harry is communicating using the army men?”
“That is the most rational explanation. If you look through my notes you notice that the troop movements correlate with any change in routine or perceived threat. When the cafeteria aide went out with the flu, there were medics and stretcher bearers on the bed tray every morning for a week until he came back. The day you started visiting the signalmen started showing up next to my computer.
“This though is different, He spent yesterday afternoon looking out the window, and this morning there are sharpshooters posted along the windowsill. Something he saw out that window yesterday scared him. He hasn’t left his bed today and I doubt he slept a wink last night. I’ll ask the night nurse just to be sure. His comforter is the closest thing to security he has.”
Carmody turned to head back toward Harold’s room, but Monica gently touched his arm to stop him. “No, Dan we need that coffee.”
“But I know he saw them. He’s afraid that they’re coming here. Maybe he even saw something outside the hospital.”
“It looks like it.” Monica nodded keeping the warm pressure on his forearm. “But this is where we move softly, Dan. Harold may know what one or both men look like, but we must go carefully here, or we risk pushing him deeper into his delusion. He’s beginning to feel safe now. We work on my timetable, please.”
Dan sighed, shook his head and leaned against the corridor wall. “Fine, Albertson, but I bring in round the clock security outside the room.” When Monica started to object he added: “I can get plain clothes guys so they blend in.” Covering her hand with his much larger one on his arm. She agreed. “What then, besides you buying me a cup of coffee, is our next step?”
Monica smiled and winked conspiratorially as they reached the coffee kiosk: “Why don’t we try a few magic tricks?”
Monica ordered the coffees while Carmody called the station to order protection cover around Harold’s room. Monica could hear him arguing with someone about the necessity for more security than the one guard on the door. She had never heard him raise his voice. His passion impressed her. She walked back to where he was standing.
As he terminated the call she handed him a coffee. “One Policeman’s Special: Cream and two!” She shuddered, “How anyone can drink coffee with that much sugar is beyond me?”
“Hey, grease, caffeine and sugar are a Cop’s three main food groups. They have gotten me through many a long overnight stakeout.”
They both laughed and headed back to Harold’s room. By the time they got there two more plainclothes men from Dan’s precinct were already waiting in the corridor. Dan walked with one over to the Ward Nurse’s Station and pointed the other to the parent’s lounge across from Harold’s room. Monica sighed and went through into Harold’s room.
Harold was standing in front of the window again, stone still. He had what her dad used to call a thousand-yard stare on his face. She couldn’t tell if he was focused on something outside the window, or was in a trance of some kind. Carmody came through the door in exceptionally good spirits and greeted her:
“What’s Up Doc?”
She held up her palm to quiet him, then lifted her notebook from the table and scribbled a note on the page.
Exactly what he was doing yesterday. Is someone out there?
Carmody carefully moved across to the window just out of Harold’s view and looked down at the scene below of the side employee’s parking and a small park-like area where hospital staff could congregate for lunch in nice weather. He quickly scanned the scene to see if anything looked odd or out of place. There was one older model panel van that looked out of place in the parking lot. The tables of people enjoying the warmer weather were all dressed in some form of hospital approved uniform or with a lab coat over dressier clothing. He did notice two men sitting at one of the tables not eating, not dressed in hospital attire just sitting looking up at the windows and scanning the grounds. Carmody took out his phone and snapped a few photos changing the settings trying to get as close a shot of them as he could. He tapped a few messages into the phone as he looked back at Monica as nonchalantly as possible, and motioned with his head for her to take a look.
Monica moved closer to Harold, inspecting the new placement of tiny green sharpshooters on the sill. There were at least three times the number rostered along the window than there had been yesterday afternoon. She pointed to a group of grenade launchers as well. This was new. She stood as close as Harold would allow her to stand and looked out the window. Carmody pointed down toward the men at the table below them. A shiver went through her as she watched one of the men intently scanning the windows. What did he think he would see?
She backed away from the window and crashed right into the table of magic equipment. Everything toppled over, and the balls went flying onto the floor. Harold turned toward the noise. This was the first time he had ever actively attempted to recognize something happening in the room.
Carmody scooped up the errant balls and began to juggle them skillfully just as he had in Harold’s bedroom at the house. Monica shuffled the rest of the contents of the table back into place and turned to watch Carmody juggle.
“You really are quite good at that, you know, in case you are looking for a second career.”
“Yes, did you know they used to call me The Amazing Danzino back in my Magic Club days. I was a huge hit on the Nursing Home Circuit.”
He slowly walked over to the table, set down the balls and picked up the linking rings. With a few careful flourishes he linked them, separated them, then linked them together again over and over; each time linking them in more intricate patterns. Monica clapped each time the pattern changed. Dan pointed with his shoulder at Harold who was behind her. She turned sideways. Harold was watching very carefully, his hands repeating every flourish and twirl Dan made with his hands.
“But you know the most spectacular trick I have always wanted to try? Making something disappear.” Dan set the rings down on the table and picked up the magic book.
“But disappearing is the easy part. The harder part of the trick is to make the thing that disappeared reappear.” Monica said, looking right at Harold. “Especially if the something that disappeared could help the police crack a big case. Now that would take some real magic.”
“I’m not sure I am that good of a magician.” Carmody said, setting the top hat on his bushy red unkempt locks of hair. Besides, this hat isn’t mine, see it doesn’t even fit me.” He shrugged as he set it back down on the table next to the wand.”
Harold looked at Carmody and then at Monica. He slowly walked toward the table, touching each of the items from his magic kit lovingly until he reached the hat. He carefully lifted the hat onto his head and set it there. It fit perfectly. He smiled right at Monica as if she could see him.
He picked up the magic wand and carried it over to his bed where he wrapped himself in his comforter. He tapped the top of his hat with the wand and intoned the words of the spell from the magic book in a soft scratchy monotone:
Alakazim, Alakzir, Make the boy reappear!
There was total silence in the room for a long time. Monica and Dan stood looking from each other to looking at Harold on the bed, waiting for him to make the first move. Harold sat silently crying, large teardrops falling from his chin onto the comforter still wrapped tightly around him. When he finally spoke it was in the same scratchy whisper as before: “Will the bad men hurt me now, like they did my parents and Jake and Melli?”
“No, of course not.” Monica and Carmody both responded at the same time.
Carmody went on: “You have your sentinels at the window, I have real live ones in the hallway. Now that you’ve helped us find them, you clever boy, I have even more of my men coming from police headquarters. You are safe here with us and here we’ll stay until they catch the bad guys.”
“I wanted to save my family.” Harold whispered from the cocoon of the comforter. Another round of soft sobs began. “I didn’t know what to do.”
Monica sat on the edge of Harold’s bed and patted his comforter. “You dialed 911. The police came as quickly as they could. You did all you could do.”
Carmody who had been standing by the window looking down took a call on his cell phone and came over to stand next to Monica. He placed his hand on Monica’s shoulder, and looked directly into Harold’s eyes. “If you hadn’t stayed alive kiddo, we never would’ve caught the bad men. Pretty soon, they’ll be on their way to jail. In a little while we’ll need your help again. Have you ever seen a police show on television?” Harold nodded, Carmody continued: “We’ll need you to come to the station and do one of those for us, two-way glass and everything. Then they’ll go on trial for what they did to you and your family. They hurt a lot of other people, too. You were brave and smart enough to not get caught by them.”
Harold’s eyes were very wide listening to Detective Carmody. He reached his hand out of the comforter and slipped it under Monica’s hand. She could see that everything that had happened was taking a toll on him.
“You look really tired. You’ve been awake for a really long time. Do you think you could sleep now?”
Harold nodded, yawned and stretched out onto the bed still holding Monica’s hand. “Will you be here when I wake up?” He asked drowsily.
“If you wake up and I am not here, I promise I’ll be somewhere in the hospital.” She put the call button next to him on the comforter “Just ring for the nurse and tell them you want me. I’ll come right back to you.”
“Will The” – Harold tried to stifle a yawn mid-sentence – “Amazing Danzino be back too?” Harold looked directly at Carmody.
Carmody’s dark eyes twinkled as he waited for a response from Monica. Her head nodded almost imperceptibly. “Why sure kid, that would be a lot of fun.” He said smiling. A lot of fun to see both of them he thought.
“Good,” Harold said, rubbing his palm over his sleep filled eyes. “I want you to teach me the way you do the linking ring trick. You do it much better than the book describes it.” Then Harold stuck his thumb in his mouth and fell asleep still holding onto Monica with his other hand.
Bio
Maggie Scheck Geene describes herself as a Catholic wife and mother of five adult children who knits and reads in her spare time. She has been a lover of the written word since she was very young. She began writing a journal in late childhood and has carried that through her entire life. She has recently begun to expand into works of fiction and non-fiction essays on spirituality and prayer. You can follow her musings about her love/hate relationship with her kitchen and life in general on Facebook at The Misadventures of Maggie