Night Shift

by Annelise Ryan

  While Brenda is chatting with the ER staff and Stewart so she can write up her report, I give Roscoe a quick walk and then put him in the carrier in the back of Brenda’s cruiser. It’s cool enough outside that he should be fine in the car while we tend to our ER needs.

  Once inside, I go into Marla’s room to talk to her, hoping that maybe this time she can be convinced to stick with whatever plan we put together for her. Despite her history, I know from caring for other patients that it only takes one time, one bit of dogged determination, one moment of desperation and commitment, to turn a life like Marla’s around. You never know when that moment will come. For some, it’s never. For others, it may be the fourth or fifth or twentieth time they try to get clean. I try never to give up on anyone.

  A nurse has already started an IV and she is in the process of giving Marla some medication through it that will sedate her and keep her from going berserk again. Under the bright and somewhat harsh lights of the ER, I see a glimmer in Marla’s eyes that I’ve never seen before, and I realize with a sinking heart that she is much worse this time. That glimmer I see isn’t one of hope, it’s the too-bright spark of someone who has gone over an edge, taken one step too many and fallen into the abyss. She looks at me with a maniacal smile.

  “Hildy, we’re going to get them good this time,” she says excitedly. “We’ve got new weapons!”

  “Marla, you aren’t fighting the war anymore. You’re home now, remember?”

  “Of course, I do, silly,” she says with a tolerant smile. “That’s what’s so great about it! We’re fighting the war right here at home.” That glimmer in her eye is starting to fade, and her lids are growing heavy. “Right here in Sorenson,” she continues, but slower now. “We’re making poisons that will kill them, growing... them... right... here.”

  Her words raise the hairs on my neck and arms, and it’s as if my feet are frozen to the floor. For a moment I feel incapable of movement, but I manage to ask, “Marla, what poisons?” But the drugs Marla’s been given are doing their magic and she’s off in la-la land.

  The thoughts now running through my head kind of make me wish I could join her.

  Chapter 17

  Stewart is being treated in a different cubicle in the ER and I make my way there. I see Brenda standing by the ER desk area chatting with a nurse, and I wave her over. One look at my face must convince her that it’s serious because she comes right away.

  I enter Stewart’s room and call out. “Stewart, it’s Hildy. Can Officer Joiner and I come in?”

  “Sure.”

  I push aside the curtain surrounding his stretcher with Brenda on my heels. Stewart’s head wound has been numbed up but not sutured yet, and tiny trails of blood have tracked down one side of his head into his hair.

  “Stewart, what did Marla do in the military?” I ask him.

  “She was some kind of weapons specialist,” he says. “I don’t know the details. Whenever I try to get her to talk about her time in the military, she shuts down.”

  “Has Marla changed her behavior recently?”

  “How do you mean?” Stewart furrows his brow, triggering a fresh trickle of blood down the side of his forehead.

  “I mean, has she been leaving the house more than usual, or hanging out with people who are new in her life?”

  “Marla never used to leave the house at all,” Stewart says, eyeing me with worry. “But yes, she’s been venturing out lately, taking drives in the car. And then there’s her support group.”

  “Support group?”

  “She says there’s a support group for veterans that she attends a couple of times a week.”

  “Where?” I know about all the support groups in the immediate area and I have a suspicion that Marla hasn’t been attending any of them.

  “I don’t know,” Stewart says. He sighs and motions toward the wound on his head. “I’ve learned not to question her too hard.”

  “What are you thinking, Hildy?” Brenda asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say, a lie, but I don’t want to air my suspicions in front of Stewart, at least not yet. “Stewart, would it be okay if we looked around your house? I think I might be able to help Marla get the help she needs if I can find some information on these support groups.” This is hogwash, and most people would pick up on that immediately. But I know how utterly committed Stewart is to Marla, and the mere suggestion that I’m trying to find a way to help her is enough for him. I am trying to help her, just not in the way he thinks.

  “Sure,” Stewart says. “I don’t know how much longer I’ll be here, though. And I kind of want to stay by Marla until we figure out a plan for her.”

  “She’s going to be out of it for a while,” I tell him. “The doctor gave her something that knocked her out.”

  “And I’m thinking of putting a legal hold on her so that she can’t leave the hospital unless she’s in police custody,” Brenda says. “That’s assuming you press charges against her for assault.”

  I see the reticence on Stewart’s face and sigh. He always threatens to file charges against Marla but to date he has never gone through with it. It’s a common occurrence in domestic abuse cases. But if what I’m starting to suspect about Marla is right, we won’t need Stewart to file charges. If I’m right, will he still be championing her cause, I wonder?

  “Stewart, something has to change,” I say. “You two can’t keep going on the way you have been. Marla needs help and she doesn’t seem to be able to commit to getting it voluntarily. Every time she enters a program she quits before it can do her any good. If you really want to help her, and help yourself, it’s time for the tough love. She’s shown she can’t do this on her own.”

  Stewart doesn’t look convinced, and I decide I need to show a couple of my cards.

  “I don’t think she’s been attending any support groups,” I tell him. “At least not now. She might have gone to one or two meetings in the past, but I don’t think that’s what she’s doing now. I suspect she’s fallen in with a group of people who aren’t doing her any good, people who don’t have her best interests in mind.”

  Stewart is frowning at me, and he still looks skeptical, so I up the ante.

  “I think she’s in danger, Stewart.”

  Stewart sits up straighter. “Danger? What kind of danger?” Judging from the look Brenda’s giving me, I gather she’s wondering the same thing.

  Time to show my hand. “The kind that might get her killed. Her and a lot of other people.” Brenda and Stewart are both staring at me with confused expressions, momentarily speechless. The silence is darned near perfect. All I can hear is the three of us breathing. Then a nurse bursts into the room carrying a suture kit.

  “Are you numbed?” she asks Stewart in a cheery voice. “The doctor is coming in to sew you up.”

  As the nurse goes about setting up the suture materials on a stand in the room, Brenda grabs me by the elbow and tugs me toward the door. Stewart looks at us anxiously and I tell him, “Get fixed up and we’ll be back to talk some more.” Then I let Brenda steer me from the room and down a hallway to an area where there are no potential eavesdroppers.

  “Hildy, what the heck were you talking about in there?”

  “I think Marla might be involved in that business out at the Fletcher farm,” I tell her. “Think about it. She was a trained weapons specialist in the military and she’s vulnerable from her PTSD and her drinking problem. How hard would it be for someone to turn her, to get her to help them in developing the kind of deadly weapons that can be made from those plants we found out there at the farm?”

  Brenda contemplates this, her brow furrowing. “Kind of a wild leap, isn’t it?”

  “You didn’t hear what Marla said to me right before she passed out from whatever medication they gave her. She said, We’ve got new weapons we can use. I tried to reorient her to the fact that she isn’t fighting the war anymore, that she’s safe at home now, but then she said, We’re fighting the war at home, r
ight here in Sorenson.”

  “So, she’s having flashbacks or something like that and thinks the enemy is here,” Brenda says.

  I shake my head. “She was happy, gleeful even, not fearful or angry. And then she said that they’re making poisons that will kill them, making them right here in Sorenson. Except she used the pronoun we. We’re making poisons.”

  Brenda’s scowl deepens. “I don’t know, Hildy,” she says.

  “Stewart said she was going to some support groups, but I know the people that run the veteran support groups in the area, and I contacted them a year or so ago and told them about Marla because I was encouraging her to go to one of them. I asked the group leaders to let me know if she showed up so I could reinforce the behavior on my end given how often I was seeing her and/or Stewart here in the ER. The guy who runs the veteran’s support group here in town told me she came to his group twice last year, but then she stopped showing up and never came back. He said there were some troublemakers in the group, some guys who showed up on occasion and tried to peel off some of the other attendees to come to a group of their own making. This other group is reported to be an offshoot of a radical anarchist type militia that promotes violence, racism, and the like.”

  Brenda nods. “I’ve heard about them from the county guys. There are some rumors that they were behind that bombing in Milwaukee last year, but no one could prove it.”

  “If Marla got hooked up with them, she could also be involved with whatever was going on out at the farm. If we look around her house, we might be able to find something that connects her to them.”

  Brenda nods. “She would be an asset to that militia group with her weapons background.”

  “And with her drinking issues and her PTSD, she’s also prone to manipulation. It wouldn’t take much.”

  Brenda sighs. “I need to call Bob Richmond and run this by him. I want to make sure we do everything by the book.” She takes out her cell phone and punches a number. “I hate calling him in the middle of the night,” she says as she puts the phone to her ear. “It always takes him a little while to wake up fully and remember where he is.”

  Before I can comment on this intriguing glimpse into Bob Richmond’s life, Brenda says, “Hey, Bob,” into the phone. “I need to run something by you, and it’s important. So, I need you to get out of bed and walk around.”

  In my mind’s eye I envision Bob doing as instructed, hair mussed, eyes puffy with sleep, feet shuffling around a bed, though I didn’t get to see the bedrooms when I was there, so my imagination fills in the picture. Then Brenda shatters my imagined image.

  “Oh, you are? I figured you’d be asleep this time of night.” She listens a moment and then says, “Oh, right. She lives in California now, doesn’t she? Two hours behind us.”

  I know from rumors I’ve heard and things that Bob himself has told me that he was dating a divorcee here in Stoughton last year until the woman moved to California. I feel a jealous twinge as I realize he was probably talking to this woman and that’s why he is awake at nearly two in the morning.

  “Yeah, it’s about the case at the Fletcher farm. We may have discovered another connection here in town. Hildy figured it out.”

  I listen as Brenda explains the situation with Marla and Stewart, and the things we’ve discovered, surmised, and hypothesized. When she’s done, she listens for a few seconds and then says, “Stewart seems agreeable to letting us look around the house but he’s also very protective of Marla.” Another brief period of silence as Brenda listens, and then, “I know, I know. I don’t get it either, but we see it all the time.”

  I gather from this that Bob has expressed confusion over Stewart’s undying devotion to the spouse who keeps abusing him physically, mentally, and emotionally. It’s an area of frustration to those of us who see it on a regular basis because we don’t understand and are often helpless to do much about it. Even if the perpetrators get arrested, the charges often get dropped and the abused parties frequently return to the relationship, convinced by the perpetrator’s vows to do better, the profuse apologies, and a perverse, underlying sense that even though they are the victims of the abuse, they are also somehow guilty of provoking it.

  Brenda says, “Okay,” into the phone and then disconnects her call. “Bob is going to meet us at Stewart’s house. I’ll send him a text when we’re ready to leave here. In the meantime, he’s going to try to get a search warrant to make our look around the house a legal one, but he’s not hopeful that he’ll get one at this hour since it’s Judge McAllister on duty this weekend and he’s a tough nut to crack. Plus, we’re basically acting on little more than speculation and supposition.”

  “And my gut,” I say. “It’s proven to be quite reliable over the years.”

  Brenda gives me a conciliatory smile. “I think your gut is as reliable as anyone else’s but I don’t think it will sway the judge.”

  She’s right, of course, so I gear myself up to be the Great Convincer for Stewart, cajoling him, reassuring him, and maybe even stretching the truth a tad to make sure he has no misgivings about letting us search his house. Because I feel certain that if he fully understands what it will mean for Marla if we find anything that convincingly ties her to the stuff at the Fletcher farm, he wouldn’t let us touch his house with a ten-foot pole.

  Before I have a chance to gird my loins for the battle ahead, the chipper nurse approaches and informs us that Stewart is about to be discharged. Brenda and I exchange a look, and then she gives me a nod of approval. I hurry back into Stewart’s room and start preparing him for what’s to come. He’s going to know this isn’t just a quick look around his house when he sees Detective Richmond there, and my job is going to be to convince him that what we’re doing is in the best of interests of him and Marla. But is it? Just how devastated is Stewart going to be if Marla is arrested and imprisoned? It will put an end to the abuse she pours down on him, but I’m not sure it will do much to improve his state of mental health. This is going to be a delicate tightrope for me to navigate and I don’t want to mess it up. I don’t want to see anyone get hurt, but there isn’t going to be much I can do for Marla at this point, at least from a legal standpoint.

  Stewart confirms my worries when he insists on saying goodbye to Marla even though she’s essentially unresponsive at this point. Tears form in his eyes as he kisses her on the cheek and whispers something I can’t hear in her ear. I sense his reluctance to leave her and give him some gentle encouragement with a slight tug on his arm and some words I hope he finds reassuring.

  “We need to let her rest and allow the drugs to do their magic,” I tell him. “And then we need to make sure she gets the help she needs. The best thing you can do for her right now is leave her to the professionals.”

  Reluctantly, Stewart exits his wife’s room and follows us out to the parking lot. There is a chill in the night air, and I shove my hands in my jacket pockets to keep them warm. That’s when I discover two Oreo cookies in one pocket, and something hard and crinkly in the other—a fortune cookie. I frown because per usual, I have no recollection of putting anything in my pockets. I’m tempted to try and toss them, but fear that if I do it now, someone will see and that will lead to questions—questions I don’t want to answer.

  As Brenda and I watch Stewart walk to his car, I give Roscoe a scratch behind his ears, a brief, “Good boy!” and a treat from a box that is kept in the rear area of the car. As soon as Stewart gets his car started, Brenda and I climb into our seats and take off behind him.

  “Devo went by the LSD house and checked on the occupants. They all seem to be sleeping it off at this point.”

  “Good.” I hope they won’t miss one of their fortune cookies. “And the irate neighbor lady?”

  “No sign of her,” Brenda says. “Though something tells me we haven’t heard the last from that lot.”

  Both Devo and Bob are already there when we arrive at the house, and I hurry out of the car and over to Stewart, wanting t
o be near him when he sees that there is another cop and a detective present. A quick glance at Bob’s car tells me that he’s on his phone, probably still trying to get a search warrant. A quick glance toward Stewart tells me that he hasn’t seen Bob yet, so there’s time.

  Stewart gets out of the car and walks toward his house, his posture stooped. His expression is morose, and I wonder if it’s only because he had to leave Marla behind, or if he’s realized the implications of what we’re about to do.

  Bob opens his car door and gets out. The movement catches Stewart’s eye and he glances over at the detective with a momentary look of confusion. I see his wheels turning, sense the dawning realization that’s settling on him, and brace myself.

  “Stewart,” I say, placing what I hope is a reassuring hand on his arm.

  Before I can say another word, he looks down at me, his expression even sadder now. “This is getting very serious, isn’t it?” he says.

  I look up at him and nod.

  “Oh, dear,” he says. And then he collapses onto the ground.

  Chapter 18

  I squat down next to Stewart as his eyes flutter open. He looks up at me in bewilderment and says, “What happened?”

  “I think you fainted.”

  He struggles to sit up, blinking his eyes hard. “How embarrassing,” he mutters. He looks around, sees Bob Richmond standing there, and I see the dawning wash over his face. “Oh, right,” he says. He runs a hand through his hair, wincing as his palm hits his sutured wound. No doubt the local anesthetic is starting to wear off.

  “Maybe we should take you back to the hospital,” I say, and I see Brenda and Bob exchange a look.

  “Hildy, can I talk to you for a minute?” Bob says, gesturing with a sideways nod of his head to a spot several feet away. I get up and go over to him, and he leads me a few steps farther away from Stewart.