The Voice of the Night

33

Thursday morning, Colin returned to the library and continued his search through the microfilm files of the local newspaper. He studied only two parts of each edition: the front page and the list of hospital admissions and discharges. Nevertheless, he needed more than six hours to find what he was looking for.

One year to the day after his baby sister’s death, Roy Borden was admitted to the Santa Leona General Hospital. The one-line notice in the May 1 edition of the News Register didn’t mention the nature of his illness; however, Colin was certain that it had to do with the strange accident that Roy had refused to discuss, the injury that had left such a great deal of terrible scar tissue on his back.

The name immediately below Roy’s on the admissions roster was Helen Borden. His mother. Colin stared at that line for a long time, wondering. Because of the scars he had seen, he had expected to find Roy’s name sooner or later, but the mother’s appearance surprised him. Had she and her son been hurt in the same mishap?

Colin rolled the film back and carefully scanned every page of the April 30 and May 1 editions of the newspaper. He was looking for a story about an automobile wreck, or an explosion, or a fire, some sort of accident in which the Bordens had been involved. He found nothing.

He wound the film forward again, finished that spool and a few more, but uncovered only two additional bits of useful information, the first of which was rather puzzling. Two days after being admitted to Santa Leona General, Mrs. Borden was transferred to a larger hospital, St. Joseph‘s, over at the county seat. Colin wondered why she had been moved, and he could think of only one reason. She must have been so badly injured that she required very special care, something exotic that the smaller Santa Leona General could not provide.

He didn’t discover anything more about Mrs. Borden, but he did learn that Roy had spent exactly three weeks in the local hospital. Whatever the source of the wounds on his back, they clearly had been quite serious.

At a quarter till five, Colin finished with the microfilm and went to Mrs. Larkin’s desk.

“That new Arthur C. Clarke novel was just returned,” she said before Colin could speak. “I’ve already checked it out for you.”

He didn’t really want the novel right now, but he didn’t want to appear ungrateful. He took it, looked at the jacket, front and back. “Thanks a lot, Mrs. Larkin.”

“Let me know what you think of it.”

“I was wondering if you could help me find a couple of books on psychology.”

“What kind of psychology?”

He blinked. “There’s more than one kind?”

“Well,” she said, “under the general topic, we’ve got books on animal psychology, educational psychology, popular psychology, industrial psychology, political psychology, the psychology of the aged, of the young, Freudian psychology, Jungian psychology, general psychology, abnormal psychology-”

“Abnormal psychology,” Colin said. “Yeah. That’s what I’ve got to learn all about. But I also want a couple of general books that tell me how the mind works. I mean, I want to know why people do the things they do. I want something that covers the basics. Something easy, for beginners.”

“I think we can find what you need,” she said.

“I’d really appreciate it.”

As he followed her toward the stacks at the far end of the room, she said, “Is this another idea for school?”

“Yeah.”

“Isn’t abnormal psychology a rather heavy subject for a tenth-grade project?”

“It sure is,” he said.