Nickel City Crossfire

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Nickel City Crossfire Page 13

by Gary Earl Ross


  “Stepmother?” I said, shrugging. “Married to a much older man.”

  She laughed at that, as did Oscar, Phoenix, and, finally, Winslow. Seconds later I tried to estimate how much of that moment of broken tension Dr. Felton Markham had witnessed when he walked through the automatic doors of the ER and I wondered what he had made of it. In any case, the instant he reached us, he began to extract the oxygen from the room.

  His brilliant smile only fleeting, he gave momentary hugs to Oscar and Louisa and embraced Winslow for a long time. Eyes skyward, he called upon God to grant us courage, especially Brother Simpkins, as we struggled on the patch of ground that stretched between good and evil. Then he insisted we all hold hands for a more formal prayer I’d have found too long and too loud on a busier day in the ER. He prayed for more strength, understanding, and God’s forgiveness for all our transgressions. He requested everlasting grace be showered upon Mona’s soul and the hands of the surgeons striving to save her life. My own hands could have used a drop of grace right about then—at least my left, which Louisa squeezed as if it were the last rung on a helicopter ladder rising away from a burning building. Phoenix’s grip on my right was gentler but there was still enough tension to betray her own fear.

  When it was over, and blood began to return to my hand, Dr. Markham sat beside Winslow and put an arm around his shoulders. Oscar sat on Win’s left, and Louisa took a chair perpendicular to her husband. Phoenix and I sat on a bench directly across from her.

  Trying to sound more curious than interrogational, I asked Dr. Markham how he had learned of the shooting.

  “We got a phone call—or my wife did.” He turned to Winslow. “A neighbor lady of yours heard shots and called nine-one-one. She waited for sirens before looking out the window and seeing police cars stopped in front of your house. When the ambulance came and yellow tape started going up, she called Mother Brody. She said the person put in the ambulance looked a lot like Sister Simpkins, so Mother Brody called us.” The minister turned back to me. “Didn’t need the scanner in my car to find the nearest emergency room.”

  Word hadn’t come from television or radio, but I was no less relieved. The nameless neighbor and Mother Brody from the church were likely still making phone calls, as were the various people they must have told by now. That meant Keisha would hear before the night was over and would almost certainly come to her mother’s bedside. As Dr. Markham shifted his attention to something Louisa mentioned, I whispered to Phoenix, “Bobby and Kayla are coming in on Jet Blue around six-thirty but I need to be here, maybe all night. Can you get them?”

  “Of course. But we came in your car. You want me to take it or should I go home and get my own?”

  I thought a moment. “I may need my car.”

  Phoenix nodded. “I can get an Uber.”

  “Or she can drop you off.” I angled my head a bit toward Louisa, not wanting her low threshold for hearing her name to draw her out of her conversation with the minister. Nor did I mention Oscar, for the same reason. “He’s gonna stay too.”

  Phoenix hesitated before speaking, looking at Winslow and realizing that however softly we were speaking, one’s threshold for the name of a loved one was only slightly higher than for the sound of one’s own. “You think she might come here?”

  “I do.”

  “You think others could too. Looking—”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you—”

  “I will. I promise.”

  Phoenix squeezed my hand and rested her head against my shoulder. We sat like that for the next twenty minutes or so, mostly quiet and our breathing in synch as Dr. Markham alternated between listening to his congregants and trying to reassure them of the power of God’s love.

  But everyone was quiet by the time the doctors came out.

  Phoenix and I knew them both from my recent stay in Buffalo General. Dr. VanBeek, a prominent trauma surgeon, was a tall man with pouched eyes and blond hair going to gray. The foot-shorter attending physician was Ayodele Ibazebo, a Nigerian woman and former student of Bobby’s who had stitched up my head nearly two months ago after a SWAT cop hit me with his rifle stock. Both had been part of the surgical team that extracted the bullet from my shoulder.

  Smiling as he moved toward us, the lead surgeon showed no recognition of me, a man he had saved and later spoken to for only a minute. His colleague, however, had told me to change my line of work for the sake of one of her favorite professors. Dr. VanBeek, the residue of a Dutch accent in his voice, explained to Winslow that Mona had survived the removal of the bullet and a wedge resection from her right lung and was now in recovery. But Dr. Ibazebo glared at me the entire time with bright amber eyes that would have reduced me to ash if they had been lasers.

  22

  The doctors expected Mona to be in recovery for three or four hours.

  Winslow and Dr. Markham were allowed to see her for fifteen minutes. After they returned to the waiting room and the minister took his leave, a still worried Winslow sat down and described the tubes and machines connected to his wife. She was groggy and unable to speak with a mask and tube, he said, but perked up at the sound of Dr. Markham’s prayer. She was still being monitored and nurses needed to get her up for short walks. It would be a while before anyone could go back and sit with her again.

  At five Louisa announced she was ready to drop Phoenix home and take Winslow to Walmart. Phoenix pecked me on the lips and followed the others to the exit. When the doors slid shut behind them, I texted Ileana and Cassidy to say that if they were free, it was a good time to make stops at their assigned shelters. In a separate text, I asked Yvonne to sit on the address I’d given her. Trying to sound urgent but saying nothing of the shooting, I told them to call me at once if they saw Keisha.

  An hour after Louisa and Winslow got back with KFC dinners, Bobby sent me a text. His long weekend of shows, museums, and walking around Manhattan had exhausted him, so he would see me tomorrow—maybe for lunch. I replied Yes. Phoenix called to say she was going to watch Netflix but her phone would be right on the coffee table if I needed her. Two hours in, Winslow was permitted to return to recovery to spend the rest of the time there with his wife. Louisa drifted off to sleep with her head against her husband’s shoulder. Oscar and I chatted in whispers to keep from waking her.

  Around eight Mona was moved to the surgical ICU on the fourth floor.

  ICU staff was diligent about limiting the number of visitors to two. Winslow was disappointed to learn he wouldn’t be allowed to sleep beside his wife, so he sat at her bedside until visiting hours ended. Oscar, Louisa, and I rotated in and out of the other visitor’s chair.

  When it was my turn to step past the sliding glass doors, I put a hand on Winslow’s shoulder before I sat down next to him. Despite being a combat veteran and having been shot myself, I was stunned at how diminished Mona looked in an elevated hospital bed, with an NG tube in her nose and a trach tube in her mouth. In addition to the susurrating ventilator near her head, there was a ton of other machinery and more wires and tubes than I could count. I remembered that the only other time I had seen this woman, I’d been struck by the contrast between the warmth of her smile and the grief in her eyes. Her smile compromised, her eyes now held an undiluted mixture of grief, pain, and fear that made me silently promise to find the person who had done this to her. She saw I was there and blinked at me. Minutes later, when I stood and shook Winslow’s outstretched hand, she blinked at me again. I left Mona’s room wanting to believe she had read my mind and given me permission to do whatever I must to get justice for her family.

  In the softly lighted waiting room, Louisa was in the recliner we took turns saving for Winslow so he could sleep there through the night. Oscar was on a padded bench seat beside her, their overcoats piled beside him. The only others in the waiting room were three men who had taken turns saving the other recliner—an elderly man now nodding off in it and his two middle-aged sons. They were on a death watch for their wife
and mother, two rooms away from Mona. Volume inaudibly low, CNN played on the wall-mounted flat-screen TV.

  “Visiting hours are almost over,” Oscar said.

  “Let him spend his last minutes alone with her,” Louisa said to her husband. “Then we can say goodbye and you can get him in the morning. He’ll want a real bed by then.”

  Eyes tired and shoulders slumped, Oscar looked at me.

  I said, “Walk with me. I need some coffee. Louisa, you want anything?”

  “Lord, no. It’s been a long day, and I’m going straight to bed.”

  Oscar and I rode the elevator to the first floor, where there was a 24/7 Tim Horton’s in the corridor that linked the medical center to the vascular institute. As we took our places in a mercifully short coffee line, I said to him, “You’re whipped. Go home. Get some rest. I’ll stay here tonight. In the morning bring Win a change of clothes and I’ll take off. But keep him here till two or so. Then I’ll come back to stay with him till you get him in the evening.”

  “Win’ll be safe with us tomorrow night but what about Mona?”

  “I’m working on it.” I thought again of Jimmy. His motorized wheelchair offered mobility and a chance to blend into the hospital environment. Peggy Ann was a retired nurse practitioner. Both could help monitor the comings and goings of ICU visitors. Also, I thought of Jen Spina. I had no idea how much juice she had with fellow officers, but maybe she could coax a few to spend a pro bono off-hour or two sitting on the ICU. I would have to trust her judgment when it came to officer selection. Or maybe I should wait on calling Jen till Mona was in a regular room. She would be more vulnerable there than in the ICU.

  “Gotta tell Louisa why we’re doing this,” Oscar said after a moment.

  “Yeah, she needs to know.”

  “Think I will go home tonight. Last thing my bladder needs is caffeine.”

  I bought myself a large coffee and Oscar a glazed sour cream donut he said was calling to him. Then I noticed Ayodele Ibazebo seated at a corner table, coffee in hand and reading the same Sunday paper Phoenix and I had finished earlier. Her glasses were low on her nose and her hair, though short, looked mussed. How long had her day been? I told Oscar to start back, that I would catch up with him. As he left, I went over to her table.

  She looked up before I reached her and pushed her glasses up.

  “Dr. Ibazebo, thanks again for saving my friend’s wife.” I sat across from her without asking. “Her husband was so afraid he would lose her.”

  She took a deep breath. “Mr. Rimes, I apologize if I seemed rude earlier.” Her faintly British accent suggested the history of her upbringing and education. “I was just surprised to see you here. I should not have been.” Her eyes moistened, and she wiped them. “Sometimes what I face in this ER is so dispiriting. Not just shooting—often children shooting children—but stabbings and beatings and rapes and husbands hurting wives. It is all part of this country, this culture. I can accept that. But most of the people close to me are so seldom touched by it that it is foreign to my life outside this place. But here you are, three times in two months.” She hesitated and bit her lip. “It follows you, violence does. It is part of what you do and who you are, even though your father, Dr. Chance, is one of the gentlest men I have ever known. It is difficult for me to accept that he raised you. He is such a good man.”

  “He is,” I said. “He taught me right from wrong and also taught me to be fearless. The three times you’ve seen me? I was the one beaten and then the one shot. Now an older couple I know are in some trouble.” I shook my head. “My godfather understands that the work I do requires the fearlessness he instilled in me.” For a long beat, I looked straight into her amber eyes. “I’m not afraid to do what must be done.”

  She broke eye contact and glanced down at the newspaper. “I usually get to the news late. After your surgery, I read an article from the day before. It said you caught a murderer.” She smiled, sadly. “I know you are some kind of cop, a private cop who tries to help people.”

  “Yes. Right now I’m trying to help the couple up in the ICU.”

  “Was that woman shot because of you?”

  I drew in a breath to answer but let it out before I spoke. “I don’t know.”

  “Someone must do these things, I know, act as a wall between violence and the rest of us. But the smell of it sticks to you in a way it does not stick to me. When you carry that stink everywhere, you can’t help but transfer it to others.” She downed the last of her coffee.

  “I know you’re worried about Dr. Chance, about what will happen because of me.”

  She turned the now empty cup in her hands and rolled up the rim to see if she had won one of the prizes offered in the current promotional cycle. Her sigh told me the printing on the lip of the cup said PLEASE TRY AGAIN. “I worry about you,” she said finally. “You are a good man too. I don’t wish to be the one to tell your father you died on the table.”

  When I got back upstairs, Winslow was already asleep in the recliner, covered by a light blanket and softly snoring. Oscar stood beside the chair, holding his wife’s coat for her.

  Louisa slipped her arms into the sleeves. “Win needs to be right here, right now, till Mona’s out of the woods.” Then she yawned. “Oscar will be back in the morning.” She looked at her husband, who nodded and gestured toward the door. “Good to see you again, Mr. Rimes.”

  When Oscar and Louisa were gone, I took a seat opposite Winslow, near the door-less entryway, positioning myself so I could keep an eye on the corridor that led to the high-tech nursing pod. Luckily, Mona’s room also was visible from where I sat. If some man came up claiming he just got word of his mother’s condition and wanted to see her for only a moment, I would have plenty of time to reach him before an unsuspecting staffer led him to her room.

  Someone had turned on the TV captions, probably at the request of either Louisa or one of the sons of the man in the other recliner. I quickly fell into a routine of watching the pod and corridor, sipping coffee, and catching snatches of the current mess in Washington. After fifteen or twenty minutes, my phone buzzed in my jacket pocket. The call was from Yvonne, and I stepped into the corridor to take it.

  “I never saw any lights over the garage,” she said, almost breathless. “All the times I’ve been here, never. But I just saw Keisha! I saw her come out and get in the van—”

  “The flower shop van?”

  “Yes! The flower lady is driving.”

  I had been right about Fatimah sheltering Keisha in the apartment above her garage but the absence of light in the windows meant I hadn’t anticipated Keisha was smart enough to cover them. Damn it! Now I was angry I hadn’t played the hunch myself, days ago. Maybe I could have avoided all this, spared Mona the bullet. Maybe—

  “They’re heading up Kensington toward Main,” Yvonne continued. “Should I try to catch them?”

  “No,” I said. “They’re coming to me.”

  I broke off and stepped back into the waiting room just in time to hear a nurse speaking softly to the elderly man and his sons: “If you want to say goodbye, it’s time.”

  I stepped out and moved a respectful distance away from the doorway as the three men, one son awkwardly embracing the father and the other carrying their coats, followed the nurse to their loved one’s room. If Dr. Markham had been here, he might have tried to pray with them, or at least to send up a prayer in their wake. But I had been agnostic since being orphaned in childhood. Raised by agnostic godparents—now that was a term full of irony—I had long believed prayer was unnecessary if an all-knowing God knew your thoughts. So I thought about the men, and the journey of loss that lay ahead, and wished them well. Then I glanced at Winslow, who seemed comfortable in the recliner after all. Sitting, I picked up my coffee cup from the small table where I’d left it and took a hefty swallow.

  Keisha was on her way, and I needed to be alert.

  23

  Having already seen a larger one on Isaiah Kelly
, I recognized the Flowers by Fatimah work uniform at once.

  About twenty minutes after my phone call from Yvonne, a khaki-clad woman slipped inside the doors at the far end of the corridor that led to the ICU. Carrying a large bouquet whose green cellophane covering obscured her face, she stopped and looked about for a few seconds before tentatively moving forward. I looked long enough to determine it was Fatimah, not Keisha. Then I leaned forward and took a People magazine off the table. I began to page through a story about the British Royal Family, absorbing none of it because I forced all my attention to my peripheral vision. How she had got past the security desk was a question I would have to remember to ask—if I didn’t spook her into running. As she drew closer to the waiting room doorway, I leaned back and raised the magazine to hide my face. After she moved past where I sat, I stood in the doorway and watched her.

  An after-hours flower delivery on a Sunday night to an ICU that barred flowers was certain to get the attention of staff in the nursing pod. Two nurses, a heavyset middle-aged woman and a thinner youngish man, looked up from their computer screens simultaneously and rose to intercept the obviously confused delivery person. They reached Fatimah before she got to the pod and took turns explaining how there must be some mistake. As if short-listed for a Tony Award, Fatimah fiddled with a delivery slip and mumbled something about a special delivery for Mrs. Simpkins. I couldn’t see her face but her trembling shoulders and the flutter in her voice made me think maybe she wasn’t acting at all.

 

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