by Barbara Ebel
“You know we can never overstay being there. The whole purpose of Grandma and Grandpa’s house was to be available for any and all of us. I know that’s how Mom and Dad see it and we should feel the same way.”
“I’ll see how it goes.”
Annabel carried Dakota’s ashes over to the only shelves in her bedroom and placed them at eye-level. “I should place a tennis ball here,” she chuckled. “This will be my memorial spot for him. He was so special.”
She turned around and fetched a pillow from the closet and threw it over to Nancy. “This is for your sleeping bag.”
“Thanks. So, can you tell me more about your friend Bob? Since you’re not interested in him, I’d like to get to know him better at dinner tomorrow night. Perhaps I can influence him to pay more attention to me than just being his friend’s sister. What do you think?”
Annabel shrugged. “He’s been my dearest friend since we started clinical rotations. I can’t prevent you from being attracted to him, but don’t put me in the middle of something I don’t feel comfortable with.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. I’m just saying. But, by the way, there’s somewhere I need to be tomorrow night after we all eat dinner together, but I’m not broadcasting it.”
Nancy tilted her head. “A date?”
“Yes … or something like that. I’m meeting someone for a light dinner that I couldn’t really change. Just don’t make a big deal about it with my med student friends because we give each other grief about stuff like extracurricular social events and I don’t want to be the brunt of this week’s jokes. Plus, the coming days are important since we’re all taking our first internal medicine test.”
“Okay,” Nancy said. “I’m game if you let me sit next to Bob.”
Annabel rolled her eyes. “Done. And I don’t have to jump up in the morning to leave for Saturday rounds, but I do need to go on Sunday morning for a little while.”
“I’ll leave on Sunday after you come back and maybe we can eat lunch together before I leave.”
“All right. I better buckle down again with my books.”
-----
Dustin Lowe and Edgar Banks started their 3 p.m. shift on Saturday by being called into the chief’s office. Chief Erickson was a 27-year-veteran of the Cincinnati police department who held the esteem of all his men and women officers. He was all business except for when he topped off his coffee in the department’s small kitchen and would ask fellow law enforcement how they spent their day off, or how their kid’s soccer game went, or how they were tolerating their high protein diet.
The strikingly tall chief swung to the side in his chair, crossed his legs, and told them to take a seat. He updated Banks and Lowe on several matters and then shuffled folders on his desk, found what he was looking for, and put a thin one in front of him.
“Yesterday,” he said, “our guys on internet detail tracked down a man with a previous police record masterminding a doozy of a scheme. Raking in serious cash from a scheme which put him on our radar for selling fake IDs online. We nabbed him yesterday along with a handful of his customers not much better than him. They all pick up fake IDs for all sorts of reasons.”
The chief opened the file, pulled out a photograph, and handed it to Dustin. “Here’s another customer of his that I want you both to pick up today.”
Dustin studied the picture of a twenty-seven year old with a narrow face, blue eyes, and a chin dimple indented enough to fit a pebble. He handed it to Edgar as the chief waited.
“That one,” Erickson said, “bought a fake Secret Service ID. Our guys searched social media, and this Ben Rogers shows up on dating sites flashing his false identity to impress women.”
“Damn,” Dustin said. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
“Because if young people are going to meet people by using those methods, they never know what they’re going to get.”
“But,” Edgar chimed in, “it’s not just young people and sometimes the situation works out fine. I’m aware of someone in his fifties who married his spouse after meeting her on social media.”
“Heaven forbid,” the chief said and frowned. He leaned forward and handed over the rest of the slim file.
Dustin opened it and read the top sheet. His eyes grew wide as he started to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” his partner asked.
“You won’t believe what this guy really does for a living. He better legitimately train and become a Secret Service Agent instead.”
“That won’t be possible,” the chief said. “For starters, he’s earned a few years of probation and a big, fat fine. He’ll no longer be attractive to women except for those with a record like him.”
Dustin passed the information to Edgar. His partner suppressed a chuckle and rolled his eyes. “You can’t make this up.”
“We’ll pick Ben Rogers up later,” Dustin said and tapped on the open file. “Is this his current address?”
“Far as we can tell.” He uncrossed his legs and rotated them back under his desk. “Next, I’ll fill you in on the Bureau of Criminal Investigation’s matter on that Darlene Pratt case.”
“I was wondering about that Parkinson’s patient,” Dustin said, “especially after we talked to the caretaker. She ended up a surprise … a mellow woman without a mean bone in her body.”
“Good thing enough suspicion popped up in this case because the medical examiner went ahead and did an autopsy.” He paused, making eye contact with each one of them. “He found poisoning with ethylene glycol.”
“Antifreeze,” Dustin said. “Damn. I saw a bottle underneath the sink. Who’s responsible? The caretaker, the daughter, a boyfriend of the daughter, or who else comes and goes in that house?”
“They’re investigating and we’re lending a hand if the need arises. Turns out the daughter, Gloria, is a model for sainthood. The mother was recently hospitalized at the government hospital and then seen as an outpatient. A nurse at the clinic said the daughter and mother came in recently and was seen by a medical school student and resident. No new medical problems with the patient and the staff there sang praises of the daughter’s home care.
“They’re looking at the home situation more carefully the way they found it and what you reported. They found antifreeze residue inside the paper cups and the outsides had traces of ethyl alcohol.”
“Ethyl alcohol?” Edgar asked as he stood with the file.
“Hand sanitizer.”
Edgar nodded and Dustin rose. As they made it to the door, the chief said one more thing.
“The BCI will probably be pulling more people in the next two days to question.” The chief picked up the phone as they both slipped out the door.
“I’ve got a stash of paperwork on my desk,” Edgar said.
“Me too,” Dustin said. “At least the BCI is handling the Pratt case. Otherwise, we’d be wrapped up with it.”
“Yeah,” Edgar said and veered away from sitting at his desk. He needed an afternoon cup of coffee to start the shift off right.
-----
Late Saturday morning, Annabel took a study break, the two sisters dressed warmly, and headed out for a jog. Annabel led the way down the street to the neighborhood park benches and dormant garden and then led the way over the highway on a walkway overpass. They both hustled down one hundred plus steps to the path between the road and Ohio River. The cold air plus sunshine invigorated both girls but Annabel found herself huffing and puffing more than usual.
Annabel stopped. “You’re in better shape than I am,” she said after leaning over to take a deep breath. “Medical school is taking a toll on my body. Maybe that will keep you from considering it as an option in the future.”
Nancy kept jogging in place. “Lots of jobs can do that to you.”
“Valid point. Let’s walk some. What are you wearing later?”
“A rust blouse with a matching casual vest and faded jeans. Plus, date shoes.”
“D
ate shoes? What are those?”
“Anything other than tennis shoes and with some height.”
“I hope you like my group. You already met Bob; Stuart is extremely smart, quiet, and a little bit nerdy; and Jordan’s okay but a bit of a know-it-all. They are all decent-looking, but Bob’s probably the best all around. He’s thoughtful and has a sense of humor.”
“I gathered that. But who are you going out with after that?”
“I’ll tell you about it later tonight if you’re still up, or in the morning.”
“You mean you don’t really know him?”
Annabel shrugged. “Not too much but, like I said, don’t say a word to my friends or I’ll take grief about it forever.”
“It’s a deal, especially if the other two leave and I can spend more time with Bob.”
Annabel exhaled into her hands. “I guess we better start running again to keep warm. Let’s head back.”
The girls turned. The muddy Ohio’s current was swift and several birds flew above the middle of the channel. The traffic on the bridge between the two states was lighter than during the work week and Annabel wished it was already springtime when everything would appear more cheery. She wondered about her sister’s preoccupation with Bob. Would she like him as much if he wasn’t a medical student?
She also thought about the man she was meeting later that night. Pictures in profiles sometimes were better representations than the actual person. She was prepared for that, but he still looked decent. Being a Secret Service Agent, however, meant he could be trusted, and he must have a respectable background. With those three things in his favor, she hoped more than anything that they ended up in the sack. She was overdue for salacious sex and imagined strong biceps wrapping around her in a passionate embrace.
However, she thought, whatever happened to Robby Burk? He never called after their three failed attempts at dating and for that she was disheartened. Her gut instinct told her to not call him at all. She had to give him the benefit of the doubt that something else might have materialized in the hectic life of a chief resident, or he was holding off on dating for the time being, or he had changed his mind about her and was no longer interested. He was the one most responsible for ramping up her hormones and he was the one who she would sleep with in a flash. The sad lesson, however, was that she could not control other people’s feelings or actions. If he didn’t want to call her, there was nothing she could do about it.
“Annabel, did you hear a word I said?”
Annabel shook her head. “Sorry, I wandered off into thoughts about men.”
“At least being in medical school hasn’t stripped you of being a normal female who wants to date and have a good time.”
“More than that.”
Nancy’s mouth flew open. “I can’t believe you said that to me if it means what I think it means.”
Annabel didn’t respond as her heart rate quickened mounting the steep steps back up to her neighborhood.
-----
Back in Annabel’s apartment, Nancy showered and dressed first while Annabel read the highlights about acute lung infections and sepsis. Her sister put her vest on over her blouse and moved sideways and frontal in the full length mirror. She rubbed a gel into her hair, which added a shine and she made sure it covered her ears which, for her whole life, she considered too prominent. She always wished her parents had taken her to a plastic surgeon specialist when she was young to have them altered. Ear jobs were as important as nose jobs!
“You look fine,” Annabel said, getting up from her bed and heading to the bathroom. She showered and put on a denim skirt, a white turtleneck sleeveless top, and a dark pink overhead sweater. She topped it all off with a pair of boots from Nashville.
With a little bit of makeup, and the long waves in her hair taking on a shine from the same hair gel as Nancy, she grabbed a purse and her phone. “Ready?” she asked.
Nancy nodded, they grabbed their jackets, and strolled up the block to Pete’s Café.
CHAPTER 29
The overhead bells jingled as Annabel and Nancy entered Pete’s. Half the tables were occupied and on the right side against the wall, Jordan and Stuart sat at a bench and dipped pita chips into hummus.
“Hey, guys,” Annabel said. “This is my sister, Nancy.”
Jordan rose and shook Nancy’s hand. “I’m Jordan. Have a seat and welcome to our only party for four months.” He pointed next to him and Nancy sat down. “And that guy across from you is Stuart.”
“Pleased to meet you, Nancy. Any friend or relative of Annabel’s is a friend of ours too. We share long days and bizarre situations; our cases are more dramatic than those in medical shows.”
“You must be the smart one,” Nancy said.
“Hey, I take offense to that,” Jordan said. “Which one am I?”
“Hmm. Let me think about that over this appetizer, which I’m sure you’re going to share.” She gave him a second glance.
Bob strolled in, flung his coat on the jacket pile-up, and filled their ears with a gregarious laugh. “I guess I’m the late one. It won’t be the last time either. Hi, Nancy, did you have a nice drive? We’re glad you could make it.” He pulled out a chair across from her and sat next to Annabel. Stuart was planted at the end of the table.
Nancy grinned, annoyed already that the seating had not worked out the way she wanted. “Thanks, Bob. The drive was boring, which is a good thing. I caught up with NPR shows and country music.”
“A college girl listening to NPR?” Jordan asked. “Aren’t you supposed to listen to the top ten count down?”
“Please, I can do without six hours of monotonous electronic music.”
“Wow, you are a Nashville girl.”
Pete appeared at the empty end of the table. “Just wanted to come over and say hi. Glad you brought a group tonight, Annabel.”
“Thanks, Pete. Meet my classmates, my sister, and you know Bob already.”
“Welcome to the neighborhood hangout. Feel free to order a killer specialty coffee to start off your night. I don’t mind making them any time of the day. And when you come up to place your orders, the special today is a grilled pastrami with cheese and a side.”
“He makes huge sandwiches,” Annabel said. “How about splitting one with me, Nancy?”
“Okay, and if I need more, I’ll order afterwards. I understand your reasoning for half.”
Bob scrunched his eyes. “Annabel, I’ve never seen you diet.”
“I don’t, but I’m leaving in an hour to be somewhere else.”
“You’re inviting us back to your place to study, right?”
Annabel shook her head. “We were going to all study together before the test, but this is much better.”
“But then you break our spirits by limiting us to one hour of your time?”
“All right, already, Bob,” Jordan said. “She doesn’t want to spend more time with us than she has to.”
Annabel put her hand on Bob’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s go order.”
The five of them lined up along the counter and ordered, and as they waited for their food, they dived back into Stuart and Jordan’s appetizer.
“So what’s it like living in Nashville?” Jordan asked Nancy.
“We’re on the outskirts, but downtown is amazing. It throbs with country music,” she began, “and tourists spill out of the bars at night. It’s so much fun.”
Meanwhile, Annabel, Bob, and Stuart began discussing medicine. “In a way, I missed rounds this morning,” Bob said.
Stuart gave him a double take. “You must like internal medicine a lot.”
“I develop attachments to certain patients and I wanted to see the happiness all over Mr. Hogan’s face this morning when we discharged him. Dr. Schott believed his last twenty-four hours would be stable and his going home was a done deal.”
“Funny you say that,” Annabel said, “because I liked Mr. Hogan a lot too, and also sincerely wished for his departure. At least
he lived at home and still took care of himself as much as possible, not like your poor Mr. Harty who did the final act of suicide.”
“I hope I live to be as old and as sweet as Mr. Hogan. Mr. Harty, well, he left a dent in my soul. I already had one patient commit suicide on the psychiatry rotation, so his overdose made me feel downright sad.”
Annabel leaned back to put distance between her and the chips. “We must derive pleasure from our successfully discharged patients.”
“And acing exams,” Stuart said. “After all, we won’t go anywhere if we each don’t get through each step of the way.”
“We can drink to that,” Bob said, and saluted with a cup of water.
Pete came over and put down a mocha cappuccino in front of Annabel. She picked it up and toasted with Bob and Stuart.
Across the table, Jordan had his right elbow on the table with his head resting in his hand as he focused on Nancy. “Surgery is one thing,” he said, “but cardiothoracic surgery is on a different wavelength. My future is already determined.”
“Sounds like too much responsibility to me,” Nancy said, “but what is your opinion about med school? The pros and cons?”
Jordan launched into his opinions while Nancy stole a glance at her sister. Bob had one hand resting on the back crosspiece of Annabel’s chair and, with the other, he scooped hummus on a chip and handed it to her. For a moment, her heart pattered. Bob’s smile and charm were as refreshing as a waft of honeysuckle on a breeze.
But, she realized, the reason for her trip was in vain. Clearly, Bob adored her sister. If she had sensed it before when he had accompanied Annabel home for Dakota’s death, she’d been too stupid to admit it to herself.
-----
Checking her watch, Annabel quickly startled and sprang up from her chair. “That was delicious,” she said. “I will see the three of you tomorrow morning and I’ll see you later, Nancy.”
“What’s your hurry?” Jordan asked.
“I have another engagement.” She grabbed her jacket and purse. “Thanks y’all, and, Nancy, thanks for splitting a sandwich with me.” She waved at Pete as she crossed the wooden floor and disappeared out the door.