by Lissa Pelzer
For an hour after breakfast, she sat with a therapist and basically played games. There was one in which she had to recreate the patterns on the picture from the red and white blocks and another needing a missing word filled into a sentence. The neurologist only came by occasionally and always said the same thing, the swelling was gone, recovery would begin, and she had to tell someone if she felt unwell.
Fifty different nurses came in and out during the days and sometimes in the nights and she remembered them too. She remembered them saying her casts would come off in a few days. There were also the cops. She saw their faces at the door and recognized them.
Lauren, the candy striper, had told her early on that they wanted to interview her, but that there was no point them doing so because she still had retrograde amnesia. Lauren had assured her, she had done nothing wrong. She was only the victim. But Janine didn’t feel this to be true and she asked her what had happened.
‘Janine,’ Lauren said, because everyone always said her name, as if it would stick if they said it often enough. ‘I’m sorry, but your therapist says, I can’t tell you anything about it in case you form false memories. Your brain is in recovery. It’s searching for memories. But one day those memories will come back and you’ll be able to tell those guys what happened yourself.’
After her hip stabilized and the first cast came off, she could walk around as long as she went slowly. She started going out into the garden, a patch of grass within a courtyard of the hospital, filled with half dead flowers and a single, weak, sapling tree. She was meant to be there to try some meditation. She was meant to sit on the bench and close her eyes and think intensely of things she knew nothing about. No one else ever came into the garden, but whenever she looked up, she met the glance of someone looking down from one of the rooms above.
‘I feel like they’re watching me,’ she said to Lauren.
And Lauren explained that many of the people who looked down on her did so because they had to look somewhere.
‘Some people are here because their loved ones are dying,’ she said. ‘They can’t leave the room or go outside until the person has passed away. They don’t know where that person is going, to heaven or...the other place.’ Lauren lowered her chin. ‘Or to nowhere at all. In their hearts, they are desperate for them to live, but in their minds, the passing can’t come soon enough.’
‘I think,’ Janine said. ‘When I get my memory back, it’ll be like someone has died. This me, the one who knows nothing, she’ll be gone. Then there’ll be another me, who knows her name...’
Lauren lowered her phone for a moment, she was always on her phone when she came by, and nodded slowly as if Janine had said something deep.
‘Don’t you worry. You will always be you! Even if you never...’ She shook her head. ‘It’s okay. It will be okay.’
About three weeks after the accident, Janine got a caseworker. He was forty-five. He told her that straight out. His name was Bryan and he was from Florida.
‘I bet you’ve never met anyone born in Florida before,’ he said and he leaned in and whispered, ‘People go to Florida to die. They’re not usually born there.’
He was weird, but overall, Bryan was okay. He told her about herself, spouting random facts out that meant nothing at all.
‘Janine,’ he said. ‘You’re an only child.’
‘Okay.’
‘That means, you don’t have any brothers or sisters.’
‘Okay.’
‘When you first woke up, someone might have asked you to recall the names of your brothers and sisters, but of course, that wouldn’t have been possible, because you don’t have any…’
Sometimes he’d call Lauren in and she would be there when he told her things. It was as if he thought she might pass out from surprise, but she never did.
‘Your mom and pop, well, we don’t know where they are,’ Bryan said. ‘Your mom had to give you up when you were still a baby.’
And he and Lauren would look at her and wait for a reaction, but honestly, she had none to give. It was just like hearing a story. They weren’t talking about her. When they said, ‘Janine’ she answered, but only because that’s what they called her, not because it was her name. This was just the same.
‘That’s sucks,’ she said.
Lauren leaned in and squeezed her hand.
‘You were living with a foster family for some time, but it didn’t work out. After that, you stayed at a facility with a bunch of other kids and a little while later, you left... I mean, you ran away. We contacted the home and they said you ran away in April and now it’s August.’
‘So, is that where I’ll go after here?’ she asked. ‘Back there?’
‘Janine, you turned eighteen while you were in the coma. So strictly speaking, you’re an adult now and you can’t go back there.’
‘So where will I go?’
‘That will be in your hands,’ Bryan said and moved his fingers around like a magician. ‘But don’t be scared.’
‘Why would I be scared?’
And Bryan shook his head. ‘No reason.’
Chad
He had a copy of the forensics report in his hand. His lawyer, Arnie Schmidt had asked him to hold it while he explained what it said.
‘See here, this is what the guys found on Officer Randal’s car concerning blood and hair, essentially the DNA of Janine Kenny.’ He ran his finger along the line until the end where it said in capital letters, NIL. ‘NIL means nada,’ he said, like that would clear things up. ‘And down here, this is your Toyota pickup.’ And he ran his finger along the line to the end where it said, PRESENT.
‘Oh.’
‘Yeah. A big... Oh!’
Chad carried on reading.
‘That’s pretty much all I need you to know.’ Schmidt pulled the sheets away. ‘The forensic evidence has Janine Kenny’s blood and hair on your truck. This is what you need to be aware of, going forward with your guilty plea.’
‘But where is this blood and hair?’
‘It really doesn’t matter. What matters is that you need to be aware of this information, in order to make the right decision, to admit to the reckless driving charge and drop this idea that Officer Randal was the responsible party.’
‘I mean, is it on the outside of my truck or the inside?’
‘There were no forensic samples taken from the inside. This is a road accident.’
‘Was it on the outside or in the back of the truck bed?’ Chad drove his finger into the flecked table surface.
His lawyer frowned and came towards him. He lowered his voice. ‘My friend, you do not want them to differentiate between DNA found on the outside or the inside. Capeesh?’
‘No, not really.’ Chad reached for the report but Schmidt pulled it away.
‘You want to take the reckless driving charge and stay out of the courts.’
‘But, not if I wasn’t driving recklessly, I don’t. I’m on probation.’
‘Do you expect there to be blood and hair in the back of your truck? Do you want me to ask Forensics that question? As your legal counsel, my friend, an accidental collision resulting in serious injury, even under the influence of some unidentified substance, will look better than a young girl’s hair and blood in the back of your truck at 4 AM. Capeesh? What the hell is she doing back there, bleeding and losing hair?’
‘Okay – Okay.’ Chad pushed his trucker cap back on his head until it sat there like a halo.
They’d waited three weeks for this report. The cops had been happy to wait for what they thought would be conclusive evidence of Officer Randal’s blamelessness when they thought the girl would die, and since she hadn’t, Chad had been happy to wait too. Surely, when someone lost their memory after hitting their head, after three weeks, it came back. But that hadn’t happened, apparently.
And since Janine Kenny had lived, his charge had been lowered. This was good and it was bad, he wouldn’t end up in jail for vehicular manslaughter or homici
de, but it meant he wasn't entitled to a free lawyer anymore either. And until she did come around, he was stuck dealing with this douche bag.
‘What about Janine Kenny?’ Chad asked as Schmidt pulled his papers together. ‘She still playing dumb?’
‘I don’t appreciate talk like that. You better not be talking to other folks from around here that way either. If too many people get wind of that attitude…’
‘But she’s faking it. She’s got to be faking it. That girl…’
‘She’s not faking it. I assure you.’ He paused. ‘And what do you mean by, that girl? You said you didn’t know her.’
‘And I don’t. But come on...’ He picked at the table. He’d rather not get asked about her until she admitted that she knew him first. Chad looked at Schmidt standing there in his shiny suit and one size too big shoes. He’d never met the girl. He didn’t know what she was capable of.
But Chad knew.
He knew she was at Valley Hill Medical Center, too and he knew a girl, a friend of his sister who worked in the medical transcripts department there. It was a thought that had been going around his head for a few days.
What if he just went in there and visited her? What if he got to explain to her that he was getting into a ton of trouble over this? He was pretty sure that in there, no one had told her about Simon Snell, that the cops had arrested his boy Ryan for the shooting and were holding him on a $50,000 bail. Chad was pretty sure, hearing that and knowing she was in the clear, would improve her memory enough to say a few words to get him off.
But unfortunately, that wasn’t going to happen in the next five minutes before Schmidt left the room. Chad pulled the sheet his lawyer had prepared across the table towards him. It was basically a guilty plea for negligence based on a ran Stop sign, but really, it was permission for the cops to start loading on the other bogus charges, driving under the influence of drugs for one.
‘So, I’ll take this home, just to read it over. I’ll bring it back tomorrow.’ And he tucked it in his backpack.
Hopefully, by tomorrow, this would all be sorted out.
‘Just sign it now.’
‘All the same. I’m going to read it first. And you have to go, you said.’
Schmidt threw his hands up. ‘You do what you need to do. But if that’s not on my desk tomorrow by ten o’clock, it won’t get filed before the weekend. You don’t want to keep this police department waiting, believe me.’
‘Hey, Capeesh!’ Chad said, and he pulled his bag up on his shoulder.
His sister’s friend had said Janine Kenny was in Room 3659c. Visiting was between 3.30 and 5.00 and if he got caught and kicked out, he'd better not mention her name.
Chad put on a clean t-shirt and brushed his teeth. He rode the bus over and went in the front door, like a regular visitor, he just took the elevator up and followed the signs until he was standing right outside her door.
The door was closed. There was a square window taking up half the door, but the blind was down. He was about to knock when a plump blonde candy striper came out of the opposite door. She looked at him suspiciously and Chad felt gas bubbles popping in his stomach.
‘Who are you?’ she asked.
And he answered moronically, ‘Chad. I came to see… Janine.’
This apparently interested her. ‘You’re friend of hers?’
‘Yeah. Kind of.’
Now her big too-much-mascara-lashes started flapping. ‘Well, go on in – go on.’ She came over and opened the door without even knocking. ‘Janine,’ she called in. ‘You’ve got a visitor. Well, come on in.’
Chad stepped forward. It was just a hospital bedroom. He'd been in one before when his grandma was sick, but this one looked more like a home. Up on the wall, they’d tacked all these print-offs of photos. There was a church, a school, a restaurant and everywhere this little black and white dog. It took him a second to spot the girl.
She was sitting in an armchair, looking out of the window. From behind, she appeared larger than she had that night. It was like she’d been eating well for the first time in years. She turned and looked right at him, but without any sign that she knew who he was and for a moment, he thought she was a different person. For a instant, it occurred to him, that maybe this girl did get hit out on the County Road, and the one who had shot Simon Snell was, well, who-the-hell-knows-where.
Then she said, ‘Hi.’ And the voice was the same, bored and wise.
‘Hi,’ he said, lifting his hand. ‘How’s is going?’
‘Does Dr. Mathers know you’ve come to visit?’ the candy stripper asked from the door.
Chad hardly heard her and didn’t answer.
‘Well, you two just make yourselves comfortable. I’ll go and get her. I know she’ll want to meet a friend of Janine’s.’ And she came back in and pulled him down by the arm. ‘You know about the amnesia, right?’
Now he heard her. ‘Sure.’
‘So, just keep it neutral,’ she said, and she went out.
Chad looked at the girl. ‘Janine?’
‘Yes?’ She replied, still flat.
‘Is that what you want me to call you. Is that your name?’
And her eyes widened. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Chad. I’m the guy who...gave you a ride. Don’t you remember?’
‘Do you know my name?’ Her eyes were darting around his face, searching him like hands over his body.
Chad pulled back. ‘Isn’t it Janine Kenny? Isn’t that you?’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t think it is. These people in here keep calling me it, but that’s not my name. Can you help me? Can you get me out of here?’
He felt his hands tingle. Was she playing him or was she cracked, like Arnie Schmidt said?
‘Look,’ Chad got up and went and closed the door before darting back over to her chair. He grabbed her by the wrist and she didn’t pull away. ‘That doctor will be along any minute, so I’ve got to be quick. I need you to help me. I know you’re just sitting up here playing it safe, and if I were you, I would be too, but you don’t need to. They arrested someone else for shooting Simon Snell. You’re in the clear.’
‘Simon Snell?’
‘The kid in the trailer.’ How many people had she shot that she needed it clarified which one? ‘Seriously, I’ve got half the police department out to get me, I’m on probation and they think I hit you. They think you were standing on the side of the street and I was wasted.’ He stared into her eyes and she stared back without blinking. ‘I just really need you to say you remember that you were in the back of my truck, that you got in as a joke or you were drunk and needed to sleep... I don’t know. Say you are my girlfriend or that we were seeing each other in secret because you’ve got another boy. Because if you don’t, I’ll lose my license and I’ll be fucked.’
‘Kid in the trailer park?’ She was shaking her head gently. ‘I don’t know any kid in a trailer park, but you can get me out of here, can’t you? You know me, right? You’re a friend.’
And it dawned on him that she had no idea.
‘Fuck me.’ He looked her over. ‘Chrissie?’ he tried, but her eyes registered no change. He let go of her wrist and it fell into her lap. So, she really had lost her memory and a few screws along with it. ‘Okay, whatever. Sorry. I’ve got to go.’
‘But you just got here,’ she said, and she looked like she genuinely wanted him to stay. ‘When are you coming back?’
He pulled the peak of his hat down over his eyes and behind him, the door opened. The candy striper was back and she’d bought a woman with her.
‘Hello, I’m Dr.–’ the woman started, but Chad was up, his head down as he pushed past her into the hall.
No one tried to stop him, but he knew it wouldn’t be too long before they worked out who he was. He went straight home to his place and pulled the statement out of his bag. His hands shook as he read it over again. There it was in black and white, Reckless Driving and some text including Janine Ken
ny’s name. Should he really sign it and admit to something he hadn’t done, just to distance himself from what she had done? What other choice did he have? It wasn’t like she was just going to suddenly wake up and tell the cops she’d done it.
Davis
She needed to get discharged.
Earlier that morning Marquez had called up her hospital room from his personal mobile. ‘Just wanted to let you know, the forensics came back positive on the Gary Madison case. The bullet they recovered from his skull matches the bullet they pulled out of your…’ he paused. ‘It’s from the same weapon as your bullet,’ he corrected himself.
‘Is that so?’
‘Yep. You still think there’s a chance Bobby Alvin shot Gary Madison?’
She didn’t, but agreeing wasn’t going to get Alvin incarcerated.
‘I see where you’re going with that, but I still can’t picture what Carol Ann Baker’s motivation would be for shooting Madison?’
She heard Marquez clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth. ‘Ditto Alvin’s…’
‘What do Montgomery County say Baker’s motivation was?’
‘They don’t.’
‘What a surprise.’
She breathed down the phone to let Marquez hear her frustration. Davis couldn’t imagine what Carol Ann’s motivation had been either, but she had said she did it and Davis had no reason to doubt it. Still, she hoped there’d be enough doubt in Marquez’s mind to keep the ball rolling in Alvin’s direction. If he got bail before she spoke to Carol Ann he'd be in Canada by dinnertime. When you want a job doing, you better do it yourself.
‘If we’re throwing ideas around,’ Marquez said. ‘I’m still going with what I said up there. It was self-defense. Alvin wanted to pimp her out to Madison and she had other ideas.’
‘No way. I saw her with Madison before Bobby ever showed up.’
‘Saw her?’