by Hulden Morse
“You speaking of Charles?”
Hamilton hesitated. She didn’t know why she wasn’t more forward with Moreau. Maybe she felt that people were frustrated with her constant questioning. Multiple times she had been told to stop asking the same questions because the answers weren’t going to change. A fair point on their part, but she needed to feel like she was doing something to find him. Reaching Dreams was nothing without Charles.
“Yeah. I may have a lead, and I’m working it out right now.”
“You think you found something?” Hamilton could hear his voice change. He was more interested, more committed to the conversation.
“Just found out that a lot of shelters have noticed groups of homeless people disappearing. They just stop coming in.”
“So?”
“That’s not normal! At least I don’t think it is. I confirmed with a reliable source in San Diego, and he said that it’d at least cause them to question where those people had gone.”
“Homeless people move around all the time, Paula. They’re homeless. They go from shelter to shelter. You can’t expect them to live in the same place their entire life.”
“Yeah. I get that. But a group of them? All at once? Especially when they’re loyal to that place? That’s weird.”
Moreau sighed heavily. Hamilton could hear the disappointment in his voice. He clearly did not believe that she had any new information.
“Maybe it’s not a thing in San Diego, but it happens here. Always has, always will. I’m sorry, Paula. But I don’t want you wasting your time.”
“Well, I’m going to this place anyways. I need to find out for myself.”
“Paula. Please. I’m worried that you’re getting your hopes up over nothing.”
“I’m not. I’m just trying to help. I’ll call you if I find anything.”
She hung up and then stared through the car window at the passing buildings. She had spent so much time in this city, so much time wandering around Chicago, yet she did not feel like she knew the area at all. Nothing seemed familiar. Nothing seemed comfortable. It was all foreign.
Within minutes, the taxi pulled against the curb just outside a bare building with a single entrance that read “Father Brown’s” over it. She paid the driver and then exited the car, heading straight into the building without wasting any time.
Chapter 15
Their blue scrubs were like costumes to signify their role, and their main part to play was wheeling in expensive equipment to line the surgical room. Their steps were so seamless it was like advanced choreography, movements rehearsed time and time again to ensure fast, flawless actions that were works of art in motion. The secret was that the flash of footwork and uniforms and gleaming machinery were a façade, nothing more than props for an audience of one. Everything on the scene was a ploy for the soul, or possibly the mind. At the climax of the act, the nurses called out vitals and retrieved items from the carts while the doctor frantically squeezed gel onto the exposed and trapped chest. Though the stage setting was merely for the show, the excitement and desperation of the players were soberingly real. That play had been performed numerous times, always ending in either wild applause or morose catharsis of witnessing, yet another, small tragedy. Dr. Raymond hoped that this moment would not fall into the latter.
“Three, two, one, clear,” he said quickly.
On command, 200 volts of electricity were delivered to the subject, creating a sharp peak in the EKG but no stabilized heart rate. CPR resumed for another couple minutes of tension. The team waited anxiously, hoping the next shock would bring the heart out of ventricular fibrillation and into a healthy rhythm.
“Charging to 200. . . . Everyone clear in three, two, one, clear.”
The man was zapped again by the defibrillator, but his status remained unchanged. The doctor was becoming increasingly concerned with every passing second. He was not prepared to lose that subject and the beautiful secrets his mind held. Another technician took over the compressions, and the defibrillator was charged again.
“Charge to 300. Okay. Stand clear. Three, two, one, clear.”
His body jolted with the shock, violently seizing with the vast electrical input, but the efforts of the practitioners did nothing for the heart.
“Shit,” Dr. Raymond said, shoving the paddles away in frustration. He then pounded on the man’s chest with all his strength, pushing down with both arms, determined to save this life.
Nurses continued to call out vitals, though the numbers were bleak. They could hear the ribs crack as the doctor pushed harder and harder, yelling to himself and to the patient not to give up.
“Come on! Dammit! Wake up, BJ! Come on!”
One of the ribs broke with a loud snap, a feeling that sent tingles up the arms of the doctor. He continued to perform chest compressions, hearing the crunch of the broken rib beneath his fingers. A minute ticked by without any blips of life. Five more minutes slipped away. Exhausted, Paul took over the efforts and pushed equally hard on the damaged chest. As he approached two minutes of violent CPR, the typical cycle length, no electrical impulses could be seen in the heart. Meredith placed a hand on her coworker’s shoulder and whispered in his ear.
“The heart’s done. He’s gone. You did your best.”
Dr. Raymond nodded in agreement and motioned for Paul to stop, wiping the sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his scrubs and looking at the clock on the wall.
“Right. Good work, everyone. We can’t save them all. Thank you for your efforts. Time of death is 8:24. Subject is Level 3. Someone call in Christof.”
The nurses removed their scrubs, returning to their life as Trial Technicians, and quickly began to rearrange the set. Unused equipment was placed back in storage for the next Level 3 Trial, and the wires were removed from the now permanently dead subject. Christof hurried into the room with a gurney and a human-sized bag in which to place the body. Paul finished the paperwork for the deceased, while Meredith made her way into the hallway to check the schedule for their next trial.
After Christof had left the room, the doctor and Paul quickly wiped down the table and electrodes for the next subject.
“Looks like Mr. Pearson is getting a new roommate,” Dr. Raymond said as he sprayed down the table with a sanitizer.
“He’s already done one trial. You gonna pair him with another single?”
“He’s only a Level 1. We can give him a newcomer. That just means he’ll get an extra day of rest.”
“How come you put a Level 1 with a Level 3?” Paul asked. “Isn’t that against protocol?”
“Aw, this guy was crazy,” the doctor said, motioning to the door through which BJ’s body had exited. “He would never have told Pearson anything.”
“Still, roommates should go through trials at the same time. It can mess with the validity of the—”
“Yes, of course,” he said, annoyed. “It’s not something we do often, but it just so happened that we had an odd number of survivors and an opening in 42. It worked out just fine.”
“You’re the boss,” Paul said. He watched the doctor walk away and wondered how it would all turn out. The man was brilliant, but he was getting reckless. His motivation and insensitivity led him to the top, just as his impatience and audacity could lead him to ruin.
Chapter 16
She stepped through the heavy glass door into what looked like a former department store. The interior stretched into the distance with a sea of beds covering the clean, but chipped-tile floor. Every bed had sheets and a pillow on them, tucked and ready for grateful people to sleep comfortably that night.
To her left she saw a large kitchen with some volunteers chatting happily as they worked at a table chopping onions. Hamilton headed in their direction, taking the time to admire the size of the shelter, especially since she understood how little funding those places received.
>
Poking her head through the entryway to the kitchen, she waved at the three people inside and acknowledged them with a friendly, “Hello.”
“Hi there,” a man with a dark complexion said. “Can we help you with something?”
“Yeah. I’m with Reaching Dreams. I have some questions for you.”
The man’s eyes grew wide, and he nearly hopped over to her in excitement.
“My goodness. Welcome. It’s great to have you. I’m Chuck. I run this shelter.”
“Hello, Chuck. I’m Paula. I’m the Chief Administrative Assistant of RD. Do you mind if I take a couple minutes of your time?”
“Not at all. Please, let’s sit down.” The man motioned for her to follow him into a back room. It had a tiny desk with a computer and was full of filing cabinets. She assumed the entire place operated out of that office, and once more, she was impressed with how much they had done with the resources they were given.
“I know about Mr. Pearson’s disappearance. Truly bizarre and scary. Me and everyone here prayed for him when we found out.”
“Why thank you, Chuck. That is sweet of you. And that’s actually why I’m here.”
“To pray?”
“No, no. I’m doing what I can to help the police find Charles. And I just heard from someone that groups of homeless people tend to disappear from time to time in Chicago. Just stop coming to shelters, for example. Is that true?”
The two were now sitting on either side of the desk. The office was big enough for two, maybe three people to sit in comfortably, but any more than that would have been a squeeze.
She watched the man take his time with the response. Hamilton understood the predicament he was in, something common in their line of work. Chuck did not want to belittle the homeless culture by insinuating that they had no loyalty and were not reliable, and so she figured that he was searching for a way to communicate the important information without insulting the people he helped.
“Well, that certainly does happen. Happens to all the shelters. At least around here.”
“What exactly happens?”
“Well, we may have the same people coming in for a week or so. Some won’t come in for a night, but then they’re back. Maybe one or two people will stay a while and then may never come in again. It’s best not to think about it too much. And then twenty or so regulars may suddenly not come in.”
“Did you ever think to ask where they went?” Hamilton felt bad asking such a question. She sensed that it was insulting in a way, but she simply didn’t understand how a group of people for which those shelters cared and looked after, could just vanish without a single person at least questioning the cause of it, or wondering where they went.
“Sure. I did years ago when it first started happening. But the other shelters said that the same thing had happened there and that some people just like to be on the street. Especially when the weather is good. Also, when you guys came to Chicago, we assumed that Reaching Dreams was doing recruitment and those people were ending up in your apartments. Honestly, I’ve been hoping to see one of the old regulars walk through the door as a volunteer, ready to give back. Anyway, we all decided that there wasn’t much we could do. As long as our beds are full and we’re still able to help people, then we’re doing the right thing.”
“Have you talked to other cities, other shelters there, to see if they have the same issue?”
“Well, I would hardly call it an issue,” Chuck said, slightly confused. “Sometimes we don’t have enough room for everyone. I like to think that they’re somewhere else getting care. Best case scenario is that they no longer need anyone’s help because they got back on their feet again.”
“Okay. Well, in San Diego, people disappearing like that from shelters is not a normal thing. I’m going to talk to some other cities, but I think we should look into this. Charles seems to be one of those people that disappeared, and he certainly had no reason to do so.”
“But with all due respect, Paula, Mr. Pearson vanished from the street, not a shelter.”
“Are you saying that these people are disappearing in the middle of the night? From this very building?” Hamilton asked in confusion.
“No, no. I’m sorry, Paula. I’m not explaining myself well. You see, I simply mean that we have no reason to believe that these men and women are truly missing. We figure they’ve gone somewhere else. To another shelter, to your company, or are staying somewhere on the streets.”
“But Charles is not one of those people!”
“No. You’re right. I just don’t want you confusing these two scenarios. Please trust me. I agree that something is wrong. Those homeless people went somewhere, which as far as we’re concerned is nothing out of the ordinary, but Mr. Pearson also went somewhere and that is where the issue lies.”
Hamilton nodded her head in understanding. She figured he was right, that the two occurrences were separate, though she found it impossible to subdue the thought that a possible connection existed between both cases.
“What do you think happened to him?” she asked in a quiet voice, as if it pained her to pose such a question.
“Well,” Chuck began, looking at the ceiling and then back at his guest, “I’m nervous to say my honest opinion.”
“You hiding anything is harmful to this search. Tell me.”
“Alright. Um, I’m scared that the other people found out he was undercover. If that happened, then his life would certainly be in danger. The homeless are complicated. Some of them are very proud of their lifestyle, some of them are unstable, and if they had any reason to think that he was spying on them, then that could end very badly for your boss.”
“And then they . . . ”
“Yeah. They could have done something and then fled the scene, finding a new camp to inhabit.”
“It seems like you’ve thought about this a bit,” the assistant said.
“Only because I have nothing but respect for Mr. Pearson, and I fear what may have become of him.”
After a brief moment of silence, the two shook hands and agreed to stay in contact. Chuck politely walked her to the door and thanked her for the engaging conversation. Hamilton was slightly disturbed by what had been said in the office, and she was aware that the same sensation had fallen upon her host. He wanted to help people just like she did, just like everyone at Reaching Dreams did, but they had been thrown into a situation where every piece of new information seemed suspicious, whether it related to Charles or not. She was certain that there was something sinister behind the groups disappearing from shelters, and she was not convinced that it was a different issue from homeless individuals disappearing from the streets. One could be causing the other, or the driving force behind both could be the same. But what of Chuck’s theory about her boss’s cover being blown? It made a surprising amount of sense, and that was horrifying.
She stepped onto the sidewalk and noticed that a line was beginning to form outside the building. As she watched, an increasing number of men and women with matted hair and soiled clothes gathered outside Father Brown’s. They were respectful of one another, politely stepping behind the last person in line as they waited for the shelter to open in a couple of hours. Some of them chatted lightly, and for a moment it felt as if those people were simply waiting in line for a concert, not to receive a meal and a place to lay their body down for the night.
She pulled out her wallet and checked how much cash was in there. She had a twenty-dollar bill, two fives, and a one. Hamilton wanted to give each person a little money, but there was no way she could evenly split it up without exchanging the twenty for some ones.
Just then, a family of five sauntered down the street. She watched the man, who looked to be in his mid-thirties, pull a suitcase behind him that had a broken wheel which rattled loudly on the ground. He gripped the tiny hand of a little girl, her polka-dot dress stained
with dirt and something yellow. The mother, also in her mid-thirties, held a little boy in her arms. He was probably no more than three years old, squirming and squealing as they walked. Bringing up the rear was a young teen, must have been thirteen or fourteen, struggling with a bulky plastic bag stuffed with various empty bottles and cans.
They gathered in line against the building and the husband sat himself upon the ground, defeated from another arduous day. They looked like hell, battered from what the world had thrown at them, and it broke Hamilton’s heart. She had often seen entire families that were thrust upon the street. Sometimes the parents put the children in homes so they would have a warm bed and food every day, but some people couldn’t bear to give up their daughters and sons and so they struggled to put something in those little stomachs. Which was worse? Giving up your children to complete strangers in hopes that they would have a better life? Or working day and night to provide scraps for them but keeping them near, knowing that their potential would go forever untapped?
She walked down the line of homeless people, with their sleeping bags and their jugs of water, and neared the family of five. The woman saw her approach and placed the little boy upon the ground in anticipation of a conversation.
“Please, take this,” Hamilton said, offering them the $31 from her wallet. “I wish I had more.”
The woman took the money, while the husband watched wide-eyed from the ground. The little girl clapped happily and grabbed her mother’s leg with excitement.
“Thank you. Truly, thank you,” the woman said, cradling the cash as if it were a delicate, fragile relic to be showcased in a museum.
“Of course. Please take care of yourselves. I wish you the best.”
Hamilton turned away from the family and was surprised that she managed to hold her emotions in for the entire, although brief, interaction. The other men and women in line watched her go. Some of them nodded to her in a way that said, “We understand why you gave everything to them.”