“The medical examiner is finished.”

“And?”

The woman looked left and then right, as though someone might be eavesdropping. “Please follow me,” she said. “The medical examiner is ready to speak to you.”

Chapter 3

“Thank you for your patience. I’m Dr. Botnick.”

I expected the medical examiner to look ghoulish or creepy or something. Think about it. Medical examiners deal with dead people all day. They slice them open and try to figure out what killed them.

But Dr. Botnick was a tiny woman with an inappropriately happy smile and the kind of red hair that borders on orange. Her office had been completely stripped of any sort of personality. There was nothing personal in the entire room—no family photographs, for example, but then again, in a room filled with so much death, did people want to stare at images of her loved ones? Her desk was bare except for a brown leather desk pad with matching letter tray (empty), memo holder, pencil cup (two pens and one pencil), and a letter opener. The walls had diplomas, and nothing else.

She kept smiling at us. I looked at Myron. He looked lost.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m not very good with people. Then again, none of my patients complain.” She started laughing. I didn’t join in. Neither did Uncle Myron. She cleared her throat and said, “Get it?”

“Got it,” I said.

“Because my patients, well, they’re dead.”

“Got it,” I said again.

“Inappropriate, right? My bad. Truth? I’m a little nervous. This is an unusual situation.”

I felt my pulse pick up speed.

Dr. Botnick looked over at Myron. “Who are you?”

“Myron Bolitar.”

“So you’d be Brad Bolitar’s brother?”

“Yes.”

Her eyes found mine. “And you must be his son?”

“That’s right,” I said.

She wrote something down on a sheet of paper. “Could you tell me the cause of death?”

“Car accident,” I said.

“I see.” She jotted another note. “Usually when people request we exhume a body, it is because they wish to move burial grounds. That isn’t the case here, is it?”

Myron and I both said no.

“Where is Kitty Hammer Bolitar?” Dr. Botnick asked.

Kitty Hammer Bolitar was my mother.

“She’s not here,” Myron said.

“Well, yes, I can see that. Where is she?”

“She’s indisposed,” Myron said.

Dr. Botnick frowned. “Like in the bathroom?”

“No.”

“Kitty Hammer Bolitar is listed as the wife and thus the next of kin,” Dr. Botnick continued. “Where is she? She should be part of this.”

I finally said, “She’s in a drug rehabilitation center in New Jersey.”

Again she met my eye. I saw kindness there and maybe a little bit of pity. “There was a famous tennis player named Kitty Hammer. I saw her in the US Open when she was only fifteen years old.”

A rock formed in my chest.

“That’s not relevant,” Myron snapped.

Yes, that was my mother. At one point Kitty Hammer Bolitar had a chance of being one of the greatest female tennis players of all time, up there with Billie Jean King and the Williams sisters. Then something happened that eventually ended her career: She got pregnant.

With me.

“You’re right,” Dr. Botnick said. “My apologies.”

“Look,” Uncle Myron said, “is his body in there or not?”

I watched her face for some kind of sign, but there was nothing. Dr. Botnick would have made a great poker player. She turned her attention to me. “Is that why you’re here?”

“Yes,” I said.

“To find out if your father is in the right casket?”

I said yes again.

“Why do you think your father wouldn’t be in there?”

How could I possibly explain it?

Dr. Botnick looked at me as though she really wanted to help. But even in my own head it sounded insane. I couldn’t tell her about the Bat Lady, who may be Lizzy Sobek, the Holocaust hero everyone thought had died in World War II. I couldn’t tell her about the Abeona Shelter, the secret society that rescued children, and how Ema, Spoon, Rachel, and I had risked our lives in its service. I couldn’t tell her about that creepy paramedic with the sandy hair and green eyes, the one who took my father away and then, eight months later, tried to kill me.

Who would believe such crazy talk?

Uncle Myron saw me squirm in my seat. “The reasons are confidential,” he said, trying to come to my rescue. “Would you please just tell us what you found in the casket?”

Dr. Botnick started chewing on the end of her pen. We waited.

Finally, Myron tried again: “Is my brother in the casket, yes or no?”

She put the pen down on her desk and stood.

“Why don’t you come with me and see for yourself?”

Chapter 4

We headed down the long corridor.

Dr. Botnick led the way. The corridor seemed to narrow as we walked, as though the tiled walls were closing in on us. I was about to move behind Myron, walking single file, when she stopped in front of a window.

“Wait here, please.” Dr. Botnick poked her head in the door. “Ready?”

From inside, a voice said, “Give me two seconds.”

Dr. Botnick closed the door. The window was thick. Wires crisscrossed inside of it, forming diamonds. There was a shade blocking our view.

“Are you ready?” Dr. Botnick asked.

I was shaking. We were here. This was it. I nodded. Myron said yes.

The shade rose slowly, like a curtain at a show. When it was all the way up—when I could see clearly into the room—it felt as though seashells had been pressed against my ears. For a moment, no one moved. No one spoke. We just stood there.

“What the—?”

The voice belonged to Uncle Myron. There, in front of us, was a gurney. And resting on the gurney was a silver urn.

Dr. Botnick put a hand on my shoulder. “Your father was cremated. His ashes were put in that urn and buried. It isn’t customary, but it’s not all that unusual either.”

I shook my head.

Myron said, “Are you telling us that there were only ashes in that casket?”

“Yes.”

“DNA,” I said.

“Pardon?”

“Can you run a DNA test on the ashes?”

“I don’t understand. Why would I do that?”