Rest of Functional Inquiry: Negative.
Immunizations: Complete to date.
Surgical History: Appendectomy at age four, subsequently reported to be normal. Laparotomy at age five, for abdominal pain NYD, results negative.
Family history: No siblings. No history of allergies, diabetes, arthritis, nervous or psychiatric disorders in either mother’s or father’s family (according to the mother’s account).
Social History: Father is founder and president of a brokerage company in New York. Mother active in some charities, but looks after Kelly herself. No nanny or nurse.
Kelly initially shy, but on careful questioning reports no abdominal symptoms of any kind today.
Physical Exam:
Appearance: Well-groomed. Blond hair, blue eyes, thin physique.
CVS: Normal heart sounds. BP 85/60; P 88
Chest: Clear
Abdomen: Non-tender, normal bowel sounds, no bruit, no masses, liver and spleen normal. Surgical scars RLQ and midline below the umbilicus consistent with history of appendectomy and laparotomy.
External genitalia: Normal
Limbs and extremities: Normal
Skin: No rashes at present.
EENT: Normal.
Head and Neck: Normal
Neurological Exam: Normal
Impression: Healthy young girl. Functional GI disorders and neurodermatitis, both secondary to stress.
Plan: Prescribed fun and sun. Good nutrition. Frank discussion with Mrs. McShane stressing the absence of any physical illness in her daughter. Follow up in one month to see how child is doing, or immediately if symptoms return (which isn’t likely).
Mark started to flip the page when he saw written faintly in pencil off to one side the word Mother? He smiled. His father had obviously nailed the problem, diagnosing Kelly’s symptoms as the result of a high-strung parent.
No further entries appeared on the other side of the paper. Clearly Kelly’s mother hadn’t brought her daughter back. Probably hadn’t liked the “frank discussion.”
He shivered. The dampness down here had already penetrated his bones, but now he felt a draft around his legs. He got up and walked over to the slat door that was taking the brunt of the wind. A flow of cool air from where the bottom had warped out of the frame ran across his feet. He grabbed an old coat and stuffed it into the opening.
Seated again, he came to a sheet not so faded, but nevertheless aged. It had brief entries running from July 1, 1970, to July 3, 1974. Each one was identical. Three words: Psychiatric support therapy. Mark let out a solitary quiet chuckle. He’d been right about Kelly discussing her issues with his father. But the man had done what he, Mark, did when the material was so sensitive the patient wanted it to be kept absolutely secret, even from people authorized to look at the record – simply recorded that the session took place, not what was said.
Discouraged, he went on to the third document, a sheet of flowered stationery folded in thirds.
Opening it, he read:
July, 14, 1974
Dear Doctor R,
The salutation made him smile. Kelly had always called his father Dr. R.
You were right. I was not being candid with you when we met two weeks ago. There is a reason I’m so happy, and you are the first and only person I can tell.
I’ve met a man.
A wonderful, caring man who loves me, and I love him.
What a release to be cherished, respected, and liked. I feel as if all the other garbage has fallen away, and I’m free, with a new life ahead of me. Whether it will be with him or not, I don’t know, but I’m full of hope. I haven’t decided yet what to do about it all, and look forward to talking over possible strategies with you. But I am ecstatic!
Regarding the other two matters, we must discuss those. Whatever I plan for myself, I can’t leave and let them go unresolved.
Can we have lunch at the Plaza on Saturday, the twenty-seventh? I can’t bear to go to the estate on weekends anymore, and have pleaded hospital work as my excuse to stay in the city. Waiting to see you then.
Love,
Kelly
Mark’s pulse leapt.
The man could be the mystery person in the cab. If his father had kept the appointment with her, she’d probably told him who it was.
He quickly pulled out and unfolded the next two sets of documents in the file, hoping to see a note or follow-up letter about their meeting.
No such luck. In his hands he held photocopies of some New York City Hospital M and M reports, or Death Rounds, the conference that reviews patient morbidity and mortality.
What the hell were these doing here? Scanning through them, he saw that they were accounts of two separate cases involving digitalis toxicity. The first patient had lived, the second had died, but there were no names listed, only chart numbers, standard practice to preserve anonymity in such investigations. One was dated January 1974, the other June of the same year. They must be misfiled, he concluded, laying them aside.
The final contents were old newspaper clippings lauding the Braden family’s involvement in the community. A FAMILY AFFAIR read the headline of one. It praised the volunteer work of Mrs. Charles Braden and her daughter-in-law, Kelly McShane Braden, at a local home for unwed mothers called The Braden Foundation Clinic founded by Dr. Charles Braden III. LIKE FATHER LIKE SON ran the lead of another article featuring Chaz helping check out a newborn at another of Dad’s projects, an upscale maternity center in Saratoga Springs.
Nothing of use, Mark decided. The Bradens were renowned for lending their name to high-profile charities, as well as feeding the family fortune through commercial medical ventures such as high-priced private clinics. In fact Charles had pioneered the concept of combining the intimacy of home delivery with the latest in obstetrical technology in freestanding facilities, then franchised it through a well-known hospital chain. Mark returned the clippings to the file, having no idea why his father had stuck them here.
Still, he had Kelly’s letter. He’d contact Everett first thing in the morning and tell the detective he’d found proof that she had a lover. Chances were he might have been the mystery man in the taxi.
To which Everett would say, Who was he?
And he’d have to admit he didn’t know.
At that point Everett would probably hang up on him.
Shit!
He had another thought. Why hadn’t his father passed the letter on to the police? Obviously he kept it to himself even after she disappeared.
As Mark picked it up and read it again, it sank in just how abstract Kelly was to him. How different and tormented she must have been from his sunlit memories of her. He never caught so much as a hint of her unhappiness or that she needed to escape from it. Nor had he any specific recollection of her last days in Hampton Junction. He remembered only his father telling him that she’d had to leave without saying good-bye.
“Then I’ll say hello when she’s back,” Mark had said, accustomed to her comings and goings to medical school. But as days turned to weeks with no sign of Kelly, those few words with his dad became the landmark that stuck, not whatever laughing encounter with her that had been his last. Unlikely his take on her with the eyes of a seven-year-old would help explain anything about those final weeks anyway. Hell, he still had trouble reconciling his version of the woman he had known with the grisly remains lying in the mortuary.