Esther entered from the kitchen door, way too wide-eyed and wary. She was shown a chair about three from the mayor’s left. For as long as she’d been working on this we-need-a-good-medical-facility project, years, they ought to sit her at the mayor’s immediate right. Or hand her the gavel. She seemed really squirrelly, but then that’s how Ben felt, too.
“There you are!” A terribly cheery female voice. “I knew you’d be somewhere around here tonight.”
Ben cringed. “Hello, Amber.”
She pouted. Like a high schooler. “You don’t sound happy to see me.”
“I’m happy to see you. I’m happy to see everyone here. It’s a very important meeting.”
“That’s what everybody says. So what are you doing afterward?”
She would ask that. His mind raced, looking for an excuse. Finally, “Sorry. I have plans already.”
“What are they?” She pressed in close, and she was wearing a flowery sort of perfume.
He surprised himself by realizing that she was embarrassing him in public like this, and that was pretty high schoolish, too. Mildly embarrassed, but embarrassed all the same. He glanced over at Esther. If she was watching Amber and him, the embarrassment wouldn’t be mild.
But she was just sitting there, apparently looking at nothing in particular. Suddenly her eyes opened wider and her jaw dropped open. She was staring toward the door.
Ben turned to look. Here came Dr. Livingston from the military clinic, and with him Dr. Ho from Grand Forks! No wonder her mouth dropped open. “’Scuse me.” He brushed past Amber and headed for the door. Was he too abrupt with her? Who cared?
Pushing through the crowd, he reached them six feet inside the door. “Gentlemen?” He extended his hand.
“Good to see you again.” Dr. Livingston shook. He wore his class A dress uniform tonight. The only reason to wear class A’s was to impress folks that you were brass.
Dr. Ho, in a well-tailored suit and tie, extended his hand. “Good evening, Mr. James. Quite a crowd.”
“Quite an important meeting. Good evening.” He started for the head table, and they followed.
Esther stood and shook with them. She smiled, but the smile didn’t appear genuine. She looked confused, same as Ben felt. Kindred souls, Ben and Esther.
“Lars?” Lars was talking to an older lady Ben knew by sight but not by name.
Lars glanced toward him with a look of relief. One would think he wasn’t eager to stand around yakking with this woman.
Ben flashed a smile at the lady, a sort of apology. “Lars, I want you to meet Dr. Livingston from the base and Dr. Ho from the hospital in Grand Forks. Dr. Ho is Esther’s supervising physician. Gentlemen, this is our mayor, Lars Benson. His day job is banking.”
And then he backed off and let them chat, before the lady decided to talk to him instead. Because he now remembered her if not her name; she talked to people in grocery aisles, in the pharmacy line, on the street, waiting for the bus, on the bus, anywhere she found an ear. She told the world about a son who was an important lawyer in Davenport and a daughter who was going to transform the world of social sciences. Ben had Googled the daughter once, out of curiosity. She had her own website, and from what Ben could tell, she was unemployed.
Now Lars was bumping Esther down two chairs farther away from him. Wrong move! And now he was seating the two doctors between him and Esther. Right move. Ben glanced at his watch. A few minutes past time to get started.
A moment later Lars rapped his gavel and called for people to be seated. Ben glanced at Esther. Her face was white and she was gripping the table edge. He looked at the two doctors. They had noticed. The question now was, how much had they noticed?
The hubbub dissipated from loud roar to gentle roar to general titter. Lars stood sternly watching. The titter quieted. “Ladies and gentlemen, I believe you all know the subject of tonight’s town meeting. If we can get moving on a medical facility in ninety days, we will be a million dollars richer. But before we get into that, even to decide whether to do that, I would like to introduce two guests.
“Because their time is limited, I will ask them to speak first so they can go. Understand they are not outsiders simply being brought in to push one side. They are a crucial part of this community, and of the matter of our medical readiness. Let me introduce Dr. George Livingston from the air force base. Many of you met him during our storms, when he came in from the base hospital to help us in the clinic and handle air transport. Dr. Livingston?” He sat down.
Dr. Livingston stood. Ben admired the way he could take control of a roomful simply by standing up and looking official. Chief had had that gift as well. “Ladies and gentlemen, I have a few brief words that are pertinent to your situation. But first I want to publicly commend, with the highest accolades, Esther Hanson. She served far beyond the call of duty, saved many lives and eased the suffering of countless others, and she did it most graciously.” With an enthusiastic smile, he began the applause, and the whole crowd clapped loudly.
Pale and shaking, Esther forced a smile.
The smile left his face. Dr. Livingston cleared his throat. “In this recent emergency, just about all traffic ground to a halt. We could not get to Pineville. You could not get to us. The choppers couldn’t fly. And there will be other situations like this, with increasing frequency. As most of you know if you watch the news at all, extreme weather is happening more often, and it is more extreme. Wind, rain, heavy snow. We hope it will all settle down shortly, but we can’t depend on that. More important, you can’t depend on us. We came in on the tail end of these storms because we couldn’t come any sooner, and because the worst of the storm missed the base, so we didn’t have emergency conditions tying up our personnel there. Put plainly, we cannot promise we’ll be there for you.” He turned to the mayor. “Do you have snowplows?”
Lars looked confused. “Of course.”
“And highway crews.”
“They did a splendid job, beyond the call of duty, too. Yes.”
Dr. Livingston nodded. “Well, friends, you need a good medical facility for exactly the same reason you have snowplows and emergency crews always on the ready. Smooth service during little events, and adequate service during extreme events. Thank you for your attention.” He sat down.
Lars stood up. “Any questions?”
Burt Yakov stood up. Ben sighed. Burt was one of the world’s great contrarians. Tell him don’t eat yellow snow and he’d insist it is good for you. “How much did these people pay you to come here and say that?”
And to Ben’s delight Dr. Livingston, bless him, rose to the curmudgeon’s challenge. “To answer your question, Dr. Ho and I have been paid nothing. Rather, it is costing us money. Our travel expenses to come here will not be remunerated. Neither will our lieu costs. You see, sir, supervisors are on call twenty-four-seven. If we leave the area, we must pay someone out of our own pockets to be on call in our absence. I don’t mind adding, sir, that I consider your question insulting.”
A wave of cackles and titters rolled around the room. If there were other questions, apparently the questioners thought twice.
Lars stood. “We are grateful, Dr. Livingston. Thank you. Our other guest is Dr. Warren Ho. He supervises Esther, who is not a fully accredited doctor but rather a physician’s assistant. Dr. Ho handles outpatient resources in Grand Forks. Dr. Ho?”
The man stood. He looked very natty in his suit, not really one with most of the people here in their T-shirts and jeans. He smiled. “Good evening. I echo George’s sentiments and multiply them. Esther Hanson has done an outstanding job, just outstanding, better than anyone could ever expect of a PA. George and I apologize for having to speak and run. We are on our way down to Rochester to a symposium at Mayo on satellite and rural medicine. That is, medicine practiced outside major metro areas. There is an immense shortage of doctors who are willing to practice out in the sticks, if you will. Most want to specialize, and only major medical facilities can e
mploy specialists. At the symposium we will be discussing ways to ease that shortage. While I am there I will bring to the board at Mayo Clinic a request to help with staffing a formal medical clinic here in Pineville.”
Burt leaped to his feet. “What we have works just fine ninety-nine percent of the time. We don’t need—”
Lars slammed his gavel down. “Burt, sit down! Let the man finish and then comment.”
Burt opened his mouth and started to speak. But Ben had reached him. He laid his hand on Burt’s shoulder, squeezed just the right place. Burt sat.
Dr. Ho continued, “A plan using rotating residencies has been working in other parts of the country. I want to put you on the list early, so you’re near the top if you decide to expand your medical facility. Grand Forks is ready to help, and we can take a fair number of emergency cases. If the roads are open. When you can’t reach us, you have to have something here that will meet your immediate needs. You have a real need here, and there will never be a better chance to meet it.” He glanced down at his watch. “I’m sorry; we have to get to the airport. I wish you the very best as you deliberate.” He backed away from the table as Dr. Livingston stood up. They headed for the kitchen door, where, Ben noticed, a driver in air force fatigues was waiting at parade rest.
Lars rose and led the applause. “To expand on their answer to Burt’s question, we did not know they would be coming.”
“Now it’s my turn.” The frail and spidery Mr. Aptos stood up in the front row, doddered over to the head table, and laid a check on it. The check was an enlarged version of an ordinary check, a good three feet wide, with the lettering writ large, ONE MILLION DOLLARS. $1,000,000.00, over his signature. It was postdated ninety days. “Break ground by then and it’s yours.”
Ben happened to know that as long as it was a legitimate check, you could make it any size you want. This one was valid. He’d never seen that much in one place, let alone on one piece of paper. And he would bet there weren’t half a dozen people here who could see that much on their bank statement.
Gladys Applegate barked but did not stand. “You think you can get away with bribing us, Bill?”
“Ain’t a bribe. It’s a threat. Diddle away the time and you face a lawsuit. And you notice, I’ll have a million dollars to pay for that lawsuit. I’ll do it, too. You ready to plunk down that kind of money to fight it?”
Walt Jackson stood up. “So he’s saying we don’t have time to waste. I move we take a straw vote right off the bat, see how much discussion we need.”
Ben called, “I second.”
Lars nodded. “Straw vote moved and seconded. Show of hands. In favor?”
A sea of hands went up.
“Against?”
A sea of hands went up.
Lars sat down. “I didn’t count, but it looks pretty even. Gonna be a long night. Who’s taking notes?” He glanced around. “Amy? Good. Since Bill Aptos is mounting the challenge, let him tell us exactly what the challenge is. We’ll go from there.”
Ben should have been paying better attention, but Esther seized his interest and held it. It was obvious to him that she was fighting valiantly to maintain her composure. They should let her present whatever she was going to say and then leave, but of course, that sure wasn’t going to happen. How long could she hold on?
He left Burt and worked his way back to the coffee station. Mrs. Peterson was putting out more cookies. He murmured “Bless you!” and snatched up another peanut butter cookie. The arguments raged behind him.
“I’m the township treasurer and I can tell you, we don’t have anywhere near the kind of money a lawsuit would cost us—or a hospital. Either one.”
“But lots of money to waste, right? Lawyers don’t come free.”
Mr. Rustvold’s voice roared, “Well, mine does. She’s so sure it’s a critical need she’s working pro bono. Now, Mr. Bigmouth, where’s your money?”
The yelling was getting hostile, personal, raucous. He was getting sick of this whole mess, and it was the shortsighted yokels mouthing off loudest. Why hadn’t Perowsky assigned a couple of officers to the meeting, just to prevent this sort of escalation? Ben poured himself another mug of coffee. There were rational reasons both pro and con. Why wasn’t anyone voicing the real reasons instead of all this fulminating?
That’s what it was. Fulminating. He had had to learn the word for a high school English spelling test. When he missed it, scoring a ninety-six instead of one hundred, he protested that he would never ever use it, so why must he learn to spell it?
Well, he just used it. He owed his old English teacher, Mrs. McElhenny, an apology.
He wondered what had happened to the woman. Someone claimed she was widowed and remarried. He could not imagine that harpy finding one husband, let alone two.
The person he was most worried about in all this was Esther. In the last few weeks, she’d been slammed with lots of work, stress, sorrow. That would tip a stable person over, and she wasn’t stable. Barbara said it: how is she doing, not what is she is doing.
What kind of family did Esther come out of, he wondered. Someone who taught her good manners. She was a people pleaser, polite, gracious. Yearned to be liked. Sometimes too much so for her own good. Esther.
His mind was wandering. He must bring it back to the room here and keep tabs on what was happening.
Who was yelling now? Sounded like Burt. He turned and looked out across the room. Yep. Burt. The old guy was on his feet shaking a fist. He was hollering at Lars about not being permitted to have his say, and in the time it took him to complain, he could have just said it three times, at least. He marched up toward the head table. Might as well put a lid on this. Ben started toward him.
Burt shouted “jackanapes” or something and banged his fist on the table right in front of Lars. The whole resin table gave a little bounce and tipped a coffee mug.
Esther screamed and leaped to her feet. She stared a brief moment at Burt, wheeled, and bolted for the kitchen door.
How could Burt do that? Because he was the jackanapes! Ben rounded the end of the head table in hot pursuit of the woman who had just gotten one jolt too many. Would the scene behind him deteriorate into a free-for-all? He didn’t care. Let Perowsky worry about it, on a need-to-know basis. Instantly he squeezed one eye shut and kept it shut. He was going to need night vision in a moment.
She skirted the butcher block in the kitchen and darted out the back door without closing it. He ran out into the night thirty feet behind her and, even with one eye a few seconds closer to night vision, almost lost her. He saw movement at the far end of the parking lot and then a whup! With night vision no better than his, she had run into a car. He raced off in that direction, trying to keep in the middle of the lane between parking slots.
This was a fine time to realize that two years of hard drinking, feeling sorry for himself, and slacking off had pretty much wiped out his stamina. Border patrolmen were supposed to keep in great shape so they could run down the bad guys. He wasn’t in good enough shape to outrun a slip of a girl.
“Esther! Stop!”
“Go away!” In the glow of a streetlight she slowed and turned slightly to look his way, turned back and kept going.
Sheeze she was fast! He was keeping up, but he wasn’t closing the distance very quickly.
This was getting personal now; his pride was at stake here, and be dipped if he was going to let her outrun him! She crossed Maple against the light and Howard with the light. Was she going home or leaving town? She didn’t turn on Cherry, so she wasn’t going home.
Aha! That’s what she was doing, following the white fog line on the main route out of town. All he had to do was call for backup and—no. No, he couldn’t do that to her. Flashing lights, maybe even a siren if someone wanted to play road cowboy…no. This was a job he must do, the quieter the better. And right now he really, really needed Bo. Bo could outrun a horse, take down a person without breaking skin. Bo even had the delightful little trick of
tripping the person he was chasing.
She was flagging. Without slowing much, she called over her shoulder, “Please! No!” And she was breathless. Good news!
Of course, so was he.
Whoa! She was headed toward the river! She wasn’t going to do something stupid, was she? Like jump in or something? In this darkness he’d never find her if she jumped.
The Corps of Engineers had their floating bridge in place already, a tidy two-lane creation with great, heavy cables laced along the pontoons to keep them in place. The bridge was apparently sturdy enough to support concrete Jersey barriers on each side.
She ran out onto the span, half stumbling, half walking. He wasn’t doing much better. The hero of the border patrol finally caught up to his quarry halfway across the bridge. He flung both arms forward, wrapped around her upper arms, dragged her aside against the barrier, and then let friction keep him pinned against the wall as he gulped air that was never enough.
She screamed; she struggled. She flung her head and tried to conk him with it. But the fight was gone. He could feel it leave her.
The shrieking dissolved into sobbing. Then she screamed, “Help me! Someone help me!”
He broke into a profuse sweat. “Yell your lungs. Out. I’m not. Letting go.”
“Someone. Will. Will hear me”—gasp—“and. Rescue me.”
He breathed heavily until he could get a full sentence out. “I’ll flash my badge. Tell them it’s a takedown. You can get arrested—” Pause. “—for interfering in an arrest.” He hung on.
“Please leave me alone. Just. Let me go.” Her voice was softening. “Please.”
“No. You’re too precious to lose.”
She was sobbing in earnest now. She covered her face with both hands.
Wake the Dawn Page 21