Silent Pledge

by Hannah Alexander

  Lukas didn’t have any trouble imagining that. “I heard enough when you brought Mr. Powell in a couple of weeks ago,” he said. “Do you remember Mrs. Ramey, who worked in the ambulance office for a while? Were she and Quinn friends?”

  “Yes.” She sounded surprised at the question. “They really hit it off, not that their relationship was anything romantic. She’s old enough to be his mother.”

  “Did they spend time together after hours?”

  “Dr. Bower, are you conducting some kind of an investigation? I don’t want to get anybody in trouble. I just don’t want to work with him anymore.”

  “Don’t you think the people in this town deserve good, caring paramedics?”

  “Well…yes.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not doing this in an official capacity. In fact, tomorrow is my last day at Herald Hospital. I’m going back home to southern Missouri. Could you tell me a little more about Quinn and Ramey? This is really important to me, Sandra. Believe me, I’m not trying to hurt anyone.”

  She hesitated a few seconds longer, then seemed to relax. “Well, okay. They went riverboat gambling together a few times up in Kansas City. They’d come in laughing and talking about it the next day, and since he spent the whole night gambling, I could barely keep him awake for runs.”

  “Gambling? Did Quinn ever say anything about how much money he lost?”

  There was another hesitation. “Yes. How did you know? He tried to borrow money from me a couple of times, but I told him he made more money than I did, and he’d just have to learn to spend more wisely.”

  Lukas smiled at the thought of timid, soft-spoken Sandra making Quinn back down. She might be shy, but she was no pushover. “Did Quinn and Ramey stay in contact after Ramey was fired?”

  “Yes, I saw them together a couple of times, and once we stopped at her house on our way back to the ambulance barn after a run. That was just a little over a week ago, so I know they’re still friends.” Sandra paused, then said, “I’m surprised he’s still around.”

  “Why? Did you turn in a complaint?”

  “No. I just didn’t think he was planning to stay in town very long. All the time we worked together, he kept bragging to me about how he was going to quit his job and get out of here.”

  “If he didn’t have any money, how was he going to do that?”

  She gave a soft laugh. “Oh, he was always talking about how he would strike it rich on a riverboat someday.” She paused. “He didn’t though. All he did was lose money there. A couple of weeks ago, he must have lost big-time. He was a real grumphead on one run, muttering about how he’d be stuck here for the rest of his life if he didn’t do something drastic. He was real morose.”

  “Drastic? What do you think he meant by that?”

  “How should I know? Hitch a ride on a freight train? Rob a bank? We’re talking about Quinn, here. Anything’s possible. Dr. Bower, can’t you tell me what’s going on? Why all the questions? Is Quinn in some kind of trouble?”

  “I don’t know yet, Sandra. You say anything’s possible…. Do you think Quinn might have participated in Jerod Moore’s kidnapping?”

  There was a quick gasp and then a long, shocked silence. “I don’t know.” She nearly whispered the words.

  “If there was a police investigation, would you tell them what you’ve told me?”

  “Of course…I know I should…it’s the truth.”

  “How well do you remember the night Marla Moore died?”

  “I’ll never forget that night. That was so horrible. I noticed that Quinn was upset, but since all of us were, I didn’t think much about it. After all, it looked like he’d messed up the intubation.”

  “How upset was he? Can you remember what he said?”

  There was a short silence over the line, then a gentle sigh. “He was really nervous, couldn’t sit still. He made me drive back to Marla’s apartment, and the police were all over the place. He acted worried about the baby, asking everybody if they’d seen him. When he got back into the van, he kept saying, ‘What have I done, what have I done…what have we done?’ I felt pretty guilty myself. I mean, we should have realized earlier that there was a baby, but Marla was in such bad shape…I didn’t even consider that it might be…Dr. Bower, he might have taken the baby!”

  After Lukas ended his call to Sandra, he telephoned the police.

  “Metastasized…” Dr. Huffman’s gentle announcement pierced Theodore’s heart like a giant syringe. He laid his head back and closed his eyes and forced himself to remain calm. He’d prayed all morning to prepare himself. What hurt him now was not fear or pain about his own death, but regret. He could have spent so much quality time with Tedi…he could have been a good husband to Mercy. There was no way he could show Tedi how much he loved her in just a few months. The things he wanted to say would take a lifetime.

  “Theodore?” Dr. Huffman bent over him, concerned. “Are you okay?”

  “I’ll be fine,” Theodore said. And he would. These past few days, he felt as if he’d been scrambling to retain his hold on this world. It was time to let go. He needed to look forward to the next one, and he needed to trust God to take care of those he was leaving behind.

  “Do you have children, Dr. Huffman?”

  “Yes, I have a seven-year-old daughter and a five-year-old son.”

  “My daughter’s eleven.” Theodore sought Dr. Huffman’s face hovering over him and saw the compassion that drew faint lines of sadness around his eyes. “There are few things more precious than spending time with them. A career isn’t as important. Running tests on people like me…that’s not nearly as important.” He didn’t realize he was crying until he felt tears trickling down his face.

  “How about another prayer, Theodore?” Dr. Huffman asked.

  “Yes.” Theo reached out and touched the doctor’s arm. “Thank you.” Something about the human contact kept his thoughts from veering into depression or fear—kept him focused on the prayer. As Dr. Huffman appealed to God in a soft voice, Theodore closed his eyes, leaned his head back, and sent up a silent entreaty. Immediately he felt the impact of God’s presence, and the total peace and comfort that presence gave him. His nearness to death, and his acceptance of it, placed him closer, spiritually, to God’s throne. And the Spirit of God hovered near to give him comfort, assurance and a reminder that, past the pain, a promise was being fulfilled. Theodore had to keep his heart focused on that promise.

  By seven-thirty Thursday night, a blanket of clouds had moved in from the west, warming the atmosphere to a toasty thirty degrees, and Lukas was grateful as he stepped out of the hospital and walked toward his Jeep in the dark parking lot. He would load all he could tonight, and by the time he got off tomorrow he was out of here.

  Except for one detail—the police wanted to question him about Quinn. He didn’t know if they would be able to come by the E.R. tomorrow and get his statement, or if they expected him to drive all the way back later.

  “You work long shifts, Doc.” The deep voice reached him suddenly from the blackness just past his Jeep, and he stumbled to a stop. Then a big figure stepped from the shadows.

  Lukas relaxed. “Catcher.” Maybe the tension about Quinn had been a little unnerving. “Actually, twelve-hour shifts are normal for a rural emergency room.”

  “Tomorrow’s your last day?”

  “That’s right.”

  Catcher shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans and stepped over to lean against the Jeep. “Hope you have a good ride back down to Knolls.”

  “Thanks, Catcher. The weather’s supposed to…be good.” Wait a minute. “How did you know I was going to Knolls?”

  The white teeth gleamed in a sudden, broad grin. “You’ve been an employee at Knolls Community Hospital since last April, but in mid-October you started doing temp work for a company called Evans Locum Tenens after an explosion knocked you out of a job for a few months. In Knolls you’re a local hero because you went back into the burning buildi
ng after the explosion to rescue a—”

  “How do you know all this?” And why? And what else did he know?

  Catcher shrugged and gently thumped the left back tire of the Jeep with the toe of his boot. “Had to check you out.”

  “For what?”

  Catcher didn’t speak for several seconds. He cleared his throat, kicked the tire again, and watched Lukas through the darkness. “If you hadn’t followed that lead about Quinn, probably nobody would have suspected him or Ramey of taking the baby.”

  “But what do you—”

  “After you called the police today, the Missouri Special Crimes Unit dug a little deeper. Quinn and Ramey are in custody, and Mrs. Ramey’s been spilling her guts.”

  Lukas stared at him, lips parted. “So they actually took Jerod?” And why would a vacationing, booze-guzzling biker know so much about the kidnapping? Unless…

  “Ever heard about the baby black market?” Catcher asked. “There’ve been three other kids missing from central Missouri in the past couple of weeks, including Rachel Anderson, the little girl from the Herald City Park.”

  “And Quinn and Ramey took the other children, too?”

  Catcher looked away and shrugged. “That’s just an educated guess. No one’s confessed to that yet. Give ’em time.”

  “But they brought Jerod back.”

  Catcher didn’t reply.

  “You’re still a cop, aren’t you?” Lukas said.

  There was a long, thoughtful pause as the black-garbed biker studied Lukas in the darkness. “Can we claim doctor-patient confidentiality?”

  “Okay.”

  “Have you ever heard the term ‘officially unofficial’?”

  “Yes.”

  “I blew it big-time, man.” Catcher looked down and shook his head. He reached up and scratched at his unshaven face, and for a long moment the only sounds they heard were the voices of staff who had stepped outside the doors of the hospital to smoke. “I should have been down at the apartments in my right mind when Jerod Moore was taken that night. I let down my guard.”

  “You were supposed to be watching?”

  “Nope, but I should have been, shouldn’t I? I gathered my gang and came into town the day after little Rachel disappeared. While the rest of them went about their normal business, partying and scaring the town to death, I did some checking. Last week, after Jerod disappeared, I looked up Mrs. Ramey and asked a few pointed questions. Scared her, I could see it in her eyes. She must have told Quinn. That’s why we got Jerod back.”

  “So she really did take Rachel?”

  “The jury’s still out on that one. I think she helped set it up. Then she pretended to be upset because one of her ‘precious little darlings’ had disappeared. Made a big show of looking for the kid.”

  “What about the other children?”

  A slow grin of satisfaction spread across Catcher’s tanned face. “That’s what the police are working on now. Like I said, Ramey’s spilling her guts.”

  “Why did you come and tell me about this?”

  There came the grin once more. “Ever since I found that baby beside my bike last week, I’ve been worried what might happen to my own grandson if these creeps got away with what they’re doing. Who knows what kid would be next?” He reached forward and clapped Lukas on the arm. “I just think the good guys should know when they’ve done the right thing.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Late Friday afternoon Lukas was thinning out his paperwork and packing the personal paraphernalia that had gathered over the past couple of weeks on the call-room desk—since all the physicians used the same desk from shift to shift, there wasn’t much accumulation. He’d just completed a chart on his most recent patient when the secretary sent him a call.

  Expecting word on one of his morning’s patients from a receiving physician in Jefferson City, he picked up. “Emergency room, Dr. Bower speaking.”

  There was a hesitation. “Lukas.” The female voice was soft, wobbly, as if near tears.

  He recognized who it was immediately. “Mercy? What’s wrong?”

  She sighed. “I just got a break between patients, and I needed to call you and…and hear your voice.”

  “Why, Mercy? What’s happened?”

  “I spoke with Theodore this morning.”

  “Is he still in the hospital? Did he get the results of the tests?”

  “Yes. It’s bad, Lukas.”

  Lukas paused and braced himself. “How bad?” In spite of the emotional struggle Theodore had caused him over the past few months, in spite of everything—or perhaps, partially, because of the situations in which they’d been thrown together through a common interest in Mercy and Tedi—he felt a kinship to Theo.

  “They found spots in his lungs and adrenal glands yesterday,” she said. “They did a bone scan this morning, and there’s a spot in his ribs.”

  Lukas slumped backward in his chair. Not only had the cancer spread, it had spread to more than one place in his body. Poor Theo.

  “He’s been reading all he can about hepatocellular carcinoma,” Mercy continued. “He realizes there isn’t much time left.”

  Lukas felt a great surge of sadness, and he shook his head.

  “Tedi and I are taking him home with us this evening,” Mercy said. “He refuses to stay another night in the hospital. He won’t discuss chemotherapy.”

  “None at all?”

  “None. He knows they can do little for him.” She sounded exhausted, as if her emotions had been stretched too far to snap back. Lukas couldn’t imagine how he would react if he were in her situation…or in Theodore’s. How did it feel to face a future of intense illness and death? “How does he sound emotionally?”

  “He’s calm, but very sad. He told me he’s at peace with it. And he told me that was because of you.”

  “Me? I barely had a chance to talk with him Wednesday.”

  “You told him about Christ soon after he came out of detox last fall, when the rest of us would have nothing to do with him. You gave him the opportunity to have his life changed forever, when he was desperate for change.”

  “That opportunity came from God, not from me.” Lukas recalled how unwilling he’d been to talk to Theodore and how resentful he had been when just a few spoken words had given Theo new life. Deep down, he’d wanted Theo to suffer longer and struggle harder, because he knew Mercy still had not come to terms with the thought of an Almighty God caring about her.

  “Are you still coming to Knolls tonight?” she asked.

  “Yes. The Jeep is packed and tanked. I’ll try to be out the doors as soon after seven as I can, but you know how undependable quitting time is in the E.R.”

  “Would you stop by my house on your way home?” Mercy asked. “Theodore wants to see you, and Tedi and I need to see you. I don’t know how Tedi’s going to take this.”

  Lukas gripped the receiver in empathy. “I’ll be there as soon as I can, Mercy.”

  Ten minutes after a meager dinner Friday evening, and for the fourth time in two days, Clarence found himself driving Ivy’s car along the quiet street past Mercy’s house. He knew Mercy and Tedi weren’t back from Springfield yet, but ever since he’d delivered Delphi to Arthur and Alma’s place yesterday, he’d felt restless. It was as if Delphi had transferred her fear of Abner to him. It hadn’t taken much, after that run-in with him at the clinic the other day. That had shaken him. Seeing him there had obviously shaken Delphi.

  What more was Abner Bell capable of doing? After Delphi arrived on the scene last week, Clarence had read a few things about domestic violence. But some of that stuff didn’t seem to hold true with Abner. Abusers supposedly put on a good show in front of other people and did the damage behind closed doors. Abner wasn’t putting on a good show.

  And what about that “old brown piece of junk,” as Delphi had called it? When Clarence thought about what she said later, he remembered Tedi talking about an old brown car driving past their house last week
. And what about the suspicious-looking cigarette butts in their front yard? Delphi had said something about Abner wasting all their money on cigarettes and booze. So Abner was a smoker.

  Clarence should have taken Tedi’s fears more seriously. He would stop and talk to Mercy as soon as she got home tonight. Meanwhile, it wouldn’t hurt to hang around the area, just in case.

  Lukas checked his watch at six-thirty, when the last patient was cleared out from the after-work rush. Now if he could just get past seven before the Friday-night party crowd descended, he was free to leave. The weather was good, so the roads would be fine except for the occasional drunk driver. If he’d asked, he believed Catcher and friends would have given him a motorcade escort all the way to Knolls. He would almost miss them.

  To his dismay, at a quarter to seven he heard the emergency-room door slide open. He stiffened and craned his neck to look over the counter. He relaxed when he caught sight of a familiar tall, muscular form with a mop of curly blond hair. It was Tex.

  “Hi, Dr. Bower!” She stepped into the E.R. proper, strolled past the unoccupied secretary’s desk, grabbed the empty chair, and pulled it over to his desk. In customary Tex fashion, she turned the chair around and sat straddled, leaning her elbows against the padded back. She wore her usual pea-green coat over jeans and a sweater. She was also wearing a warm smile that lit her face and transformed her whole appearance.

  Tex McCaffrey was, after all, as pretty as her cousin.

  “Excuse me,” Lukas teased. “Do I know you? This isn’t the same person who was bawling her eyes out in the call room just recently.”

  “I was not bawling my eyes out,” she said. “At least…not when I left here. You gave me a lot to think about. Hey, I got your message on my recorder about Quinn. Way to go, Doc!” She raised her right hand in the air for a high five.

  Lukas slapped her hand and returned the smile. “Thank you. So you’ve been doing some thinking about residency?”

  She grimaced at him and gave a dramatic sigh. “You’re like a bulldog, you know it? You sound like my mother. In fact…” She reached into the deep right pocket of her coat and pulled out a tissue-wrapped object about the size of her fist. “I think my mother would have wanted you to have this.” She held the gift out to him. “Go on, take it. I won’t have anywhere to put it where I’m going.”