I quickly dismiss that notion, though, placing the photo back where it was. The accident when I was five is the one thing they didn’t keep from me and pretty much the only thing they were quick to talk about when I asked. It’s not a secret or a truth that I needed to figure out.
Moving around behind my father’s desk, I wonder if her mention of the photo was just a confusing way to point me in the right direction. I sit down in my father’s chair and begin pulling open drawers. For the next few minutes, I flip through every piece of paper in each drawer, finding nothing but financial paperwork about the prison, old blueprints, and other miscellaneous items that are useless to me. In frustration, I slam the last drawer closed so forcefully that it shakes the desk, knocking our family photo off the corner of the desk and onto the floor.
Getting up from the chair, I walk to the front of the desk to pick up the photo, thankful that my father has a small area rug under his desk that prevented the glass in the frame from shattering. That would’ve made it a little harder to cover my tracks so he wouldn’t know I was in here. Considering his drunken behavior, I doubt he’d even notice, but I’m not taking any chances. The less he knows about how suspicious I am of him, the better.
Lifting the frame from the rug, the cardboard backing falls off, and with it, a small slip of folded paper. Setting the frame to the side, I pick up the paper, unfolding it to find a three-digit code written in the bottom left-hand corner. Looking around the room again, I ponder what the code is for and why my father would have it hidden in such a strange place. Rising to my feet with the paper in my hand, I stand in the middle of the office, my eyes panning the room. I glance at the bookshelf on one wall, filled with encyclopedias, literary classics, and a few random objects like a coffee cup holding paperclips, a flashlight, and one empty bottle of whiskey that somehow didn’t make it outside with the rest he finished. Slowly, I turn in a circle, looking at all the old photographs in large ornate frames that hang on the walls. They are all black and white, and each one is of the prison at various times through the years. A few were taken on the outside and the rest were taken inside when the prison was still functioning, showing inmates eating in the mess hall, working out in the fields, or lined up waiting for the showers.
My eyes are quickly scanning the photos since they are all pretty much the same, when something jumps out at me and I look back, realizing I inadvertently skipped over one photo that is not like the others.
I move closer and stand right in front of it. It’s a picture of this very room, and my eyes must have skipped over it because it’s black and white like all the rest and even the same size as the others. I’m not sure when it was taken, but I’m assuming it’s from before we moved in, since the walls in the photo are completely bare and the room is empty of any furniture. The only thing in the room is a safe, built into the wall where I currently stand. Putting the slip of paper between my teeth, I grab onto the frame of the picture and lift it off of its hook. My heartbeat picks up with excitement as soon as I see the safe hiding right behind the photo. Leaning the picture against the wall at my feet, I rip the paper from my mouth and reread the numbers. Holding my breath, I turn the dial on the combination lock in the same order as written on the paper.
Right thirteen, left twenty-four, right seven.
As soon as the arrow on the dial points to the number seven, I hear a soft click and the door to the safe pops open. Letting the paper in my hand flutter to the ground, I quickly open the door all the way, a little shocked that inside such a large safe is only one single manila folder, barely visible because it’s so flat and obviously not filled with too many papers.
Even though I expected this thing to be packed full of items, I know immediately that I found what I was looking for and that my mother actually told me something important, even if it was a riddle I had to figure out.
Sliding the thin folder out of the safe, I turn around and sit down on the floor right below it, pausing for a moment to listen for any noises indicating my father has returned. When I hear nothing but silence, I look down at the folder and see our last name printed on the tab from a typewriter.
Flipping it open, I see the words Gallow’s Hill Inmate Transfer Request printed at the top, and right beneath that on the very first line, the prisoner’s name is listed as Tobias Duskin. I try to remember if I’ve ever heard that name before, but I draw a blank, which doesn’t surprise me. Still I huff out an irritated breath.
I rapidly scan the page, stopping when I get to the box that lists the prisoner’s next of kin, my mouth dropping open in shock.
Margarita Duskin, mother, deceased.
Dimitri Duskin, father, deceased.