Lady Justice and the Vet

by Robert Thornhill

  “Depends on who it is.”

  “My folks. I got an email from them this morning. They would like to fly in for a few days next week. If you don’t ---.”

  “No, it’s fine. I’d love to see them both. They’ve been very supportive.”

  “Great! They’ll catch an evening flight so that we both can meet them at the airport. Thanks, Ben. I’ve really been missing them.”

  When Ox and I got together for our clandestine rendezvous, I gave him the names Murray Schwartz and Jimmy Lingle to look up in the records room.

  If Murray had more than one colonoscopy reported and Jimmy’s record showed a heart valve replacement, we had enough for Hodges and Blackburn to launch a full investigation. When he left, my fingers were crossed, hoping I could avoid the dreaded probing of my orifices on Friday.

  I figured that I should cover my bases, so I got a handful of change out of my pocket and started practicing the tongue thing.

  I finally became fairly proficient and had only swallowed one penny. It was somewhat disconcerting thinking about Abraham Lincoln down there somewhere exploring my inner plumbing.

  Murray was right on the money. Nurse Bradley was in my room at the break of dawn with the first of my scourge pills. She watched closely as I popped them in my mouth and took a gulp of water. When she was satisfied that they were ‘down the hatch,’ she produced a cup of green Jell-o and informed me I would be on a soft diet until my procedure was over.

  I was afraid I would gag before she left the room, but I managed to hold on. I flushed the pills down the toilet and was about to dig into the Jell-o when I heard a knock on the door.

  It was Murray. Without a word of explanation, he shoved a bag in my hand that reeked of bacon and egg biscuit sandwiches from Micky D’s.

  “Get rid of the evidence before the old battle-axe comes back.”

  The door closed and he was gone. It’s good to have a friend on the inside.

  I wolfed down the sandwiches, stuffed the bag under the mattress and lit a couple of matches to hide the aroma of fresh baked bread.

  It was a beautiful morning and I decided to take a stroll, sit on one of the park benches and soak up some sunshine.

  At the far end of the lawn, a man was cutting the grass with one of those fancy mowers that can turn on a dime. I was mesmerized as he deftly steered the huge machine around the trees and shrubbery.

  Soon, he finished with that part of the lawn and headed in my direction. He made one round and stopped right in front of my bench. I didn’t recognize him because he was wearing one of those breathing masks on his face. As he approached, he took off the mask and I was shocked to see Ben Singleton.

  “Walt! What a surprise seeing you here! When I was mowing the back lawn, I thought I saw Ox carrying bags of trash to the dumpster, but then I thought, ‘what would a cop be doing carrying trash at an old folks home.’ Now here you are!”

  Oh crap! I thought. There goes our cover!

  I quickly weighed the odds and decided my best course of action would be to tell the truth. Ben didn’t actually work for Still Meadows. He worked for Empire Landscaping. He had no reason to talk to anyone that mattered. As soon as he was finished mowing, he’d be off to another job.

  I motioned for him to come closer and looked around to make sure no one was in ear shot.

  “Can you to keep a secret?”

  His face lit up. “Well sure.”

  “Ox and I are here undercover. I’m a resident and he’s an orderly.”

  He gave a knowing nod. “Covert op! I get it. Your cover is safe with me.”

  “Great! I knew I could count on you. How are you doing? I haven’t seen you since the group meeting.”

  “Doing much better. No nightmares for three days. That’s a record for me. How about you?”

  “Same for me --- no nightmares. Maybe we‘ve got this thing licked.”

  “I hope so. Well, I’d better get back to work. This lawn isn’t going to mow itself.”

  As I watched him ride off, it occurred to me that this was the third time our paths had crossed. I began to wonder if there was more going on here than pure chance. I’m not a big believer in coincidence.

  “I knew there was something off when that big guy showed up!” Dexter declared. “It’s not like we were shorthanded or anything.”

  “I wondered that myself,” Dr. Browning said, staring at the image of Ox rifling through the patient files. “I don’t argue with corporate. I figured if they wanted to send us an extra pair of hands, what the hell, why not? Good thing we have the surveillance cameras throughout the facility. We might not have known the guy was a plant until it was too late.”

  “Wait till you see this,” Nurse Bradley said, punching some buttons. Another recording flashed on the screen showing the big man slipping into room 118.

  “Son-of-a-bitch!” Browning said, doubling up his fist. “Those two came in on the same day! They must be working together.”

  “So what are we gonna do?” Dexter asked.

  “No choice,” Browning replied. “We have to get rid of them. Bradley, you’re on the old guy. A syringe full of Ketamine should take care of him. Dexter, you handle the big guy. Today is trash day. We’ll load them in the dumpster. When the trash truck comes, the compactor will take care of the rest. Before the day is over, they’ll be buried under tons of garbage in the landfill. While the two of you are eliminating our uninvited guests, I’ll clean out any files that could be problematic. Let’s get to it!”

  I had just returned to my room when Nurse Bradley knocked on the door.

  “Mr. Williams, we need to draw a vial of blood. Please come with me.”

  “Draw blood! Why?”

  “Nothing serious. Dr. Browning had taken another look at your stress test and noted a small anomaly --- nothing to be concerned about. He just wants to check your electrolytes. It won’t take minute.”

  Swell! More probing. I was beginning to feel like a lab rat.

  Nurse Bradley led me into an exam room and instructed me to roll up my sleeve. I had experienced a blood draw before and knew it wasn’t a big deal.

  She would find a vein, warn me that I would feel ‘a little pinch,’ insert a needle and attach a tube that would collect my blood.

  Everything went according to my expectations up to the point where she was to attach the tube. Instead, I saw her attach a syringe filled with a liquid.

  I was about to protest, but then she pushed the plunger and everything went black.

  An old gentleman had just filled a bedpan to the brim and Ox was lifting him off when Dexter slipped into the room.

  Dexter looked at the man in the bed and seeing that he was pretty much out of it, pulled a pistol from his belt.

  “Ox, you need to come with me.”

  Ox heard the threatening tone, turned and saw the gun pointed at his chest.

  “Dex! What’s this all about?”

  “Let’s don’t play games. We got you on video tape going through the files. What are you? FBI? OIG?”

  When he didn’t respond, Dexter waved the gun. “Get rid of that thing, put your hands in your pockets and head to the storage room. Don’t be a hero. I’ll shoot you and anyone else that gets in the way.”

  Ox had established early on that Dexter was a psycho and he had no doubts he would carry out his threat.

  A quick glance around the room confirmed that the only weapon at his disposal was in his hands. He took a deep breath and hurled the steamy, sloshy bedpan at Dexter’s head.

  “Arrrrraguh!” Dexter groaned as the pungent poo stung his eyes.

  Ox ducked and ran for the door. A few moments later, he heard Dexter thundering down the hall in pursuit, cursing and screaming.

  He had just slipped out the back door when the first shot rang out, shattering the door frame above his head.

  Once outside, he headed for the nearest cover, the big green dumpster by the kitchen door.

  He was only halfway there when Dexter
fired the second shot. He felt it whiz past his head and splatter against the dumpster. He knew there was no chance he could make it to cover before the raging maniac fired again.

  Ben Singleton had just finished mowing when he heard cursing and screaming coming from the rear of the building.

  Two figures had emerged from the back door and Ben realized immediately that one of them was Ox and that he was being pursued by a huge man waving a gun.

  It didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out that their covert op had taken a bad turn. He saw the man fire. Ox ducked and headed for cover behind the trash dumpster.

  There was no way Ox was going to make it before the man fired again, and this time, he might not miss.

  Ben revved the engine of the huge mower and threw it into gear.

  “Buhah!” he shouted and headed directly at the gunman.

  Dexter heard the outcry and turned to see the massive mower bearing down on him. He swung the pistol around and fired, but the driver jerked the controls of the big zero turn and the slug flew harmlessly by.

  Ox had heard the commotion too. When he saw that Dexter’s attention had been drawn to the advancing mower, he lowered his head and barreled into Dexter’s backside knocking him to the ground.

  Ben hopped off the mower and the two of them wrestled Dexter into submission.

  After Dexter was securely tied, Ox turned to Ben. “That’s twice you’ve saved my ass! What are you, my fairy godmother?”

  “Just in the right place at the right time,” Ben said, grinning. “Where’s Walt. I talked to him earlier.”

  “Oh geez, Walt! If they found out about me, they must know about him too. I haven’t seen him.”

  Suddenly, they felt the pavement quiver as a huge trash truck came around the corner.

  “We’d better get this piece of trash out of the way so they can get to the dumpster,” Ox said, kicking Dexter in the butt.

  They rolled the big man to the edge of the lot and watched as the truck speared the dumpster and lifted it toward the compactor.

  Ox heard a muffled ‘thump, thump, thump’.

  “Did you hear that?”

  “Sounds like it’s coming from inside the dumpster!” Ben replied.

  “Oh good Lord,” Ox said jumping to his feet and sprinting toward the trash truck. “STOP!”

  As consciousness slowly returned, I realized my hands and feet were bound and there was duct tape across my mouth, but even more distressing was the total darkness that engulfed me.

  It was hard to breathe. The air was hot, steamy and foul and there was the faint aroma of the goulash from our supper the night before.

  By the time I was fully awake and had my wits about me, it didn’t take long to realize I was in a trash dumpster --- probably the very one where I had hidden our contraband pizza boxes.

  I was trying to free my hands when I heard shouting and something that sounded like a gunshot.

  A few moments later, more shouting and another gunshot followed by a ‘crash’ that set my ears ringing.

  Then I heard a shout from a different direction, the sound of an engine revving up and another gunshot.

  My mind was spinning as I tried to make sense of everything while buried in the foul darkness.

  For a few moments, everything was quiet. Then I felt the dumpster quiver and heard the sound of another, even bigger engine.

  A moment later, the dumpster shook violently and I felt myself rising into the air.

  Then it dawned on me. Trash truck! I was being lifted toward the gaping hole in the roof of the truck and would soon be dumped into the black abyss where I would be crushed by the powerful jaws of the compactor.

  I had actually seen the remains of a homeless person that had spent the night in a dumpster and experienced a similar fate. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

  I wriggled my body until my foot touched the side of the dumpster and began kicking with all my strength. “Thump, thump, thump!”

  The dumpster continued to rise. Then I heard a familiar voice, “STOP!”

  Slowly I felt myself being lowered and heard the ‘clunk’ on the pavement.

  Immediately, the lid flew open and I saw the astonished faces of Ox and Ben Singleton peering down on me.

  I felt a rush of relief and realized once again that there is really no such thing as coincidence.

  CHAPTER 7

  No one was more surprised than Murray Schwartz. “You’re a cop! Well I’ll be damned! You had me fooled! So no more Battle Axe Bradley, the Incredible Hulk or Dr. Frankenstein?”

  “Nope! They’ll be spending a very long time in a Federal prison for fraud. The corporate office of Still Meadows will be sending kinder and gentler replacements.”

  Then I noticed a worried look come over Murray’s face. “Oh, oh! You’re a cop! You know stuff.”

  “Not to worry, Murray,” I assured him. “The pizza run, tounging pills, Mr. Blues --- your secrets are safe with me. We old timers have to watch each other’s backs.”

  His worried look turned into a grin. “Thanks. I’m just sorry you can’t hang around for the wheelchair races!”

  The news of my latest brush with death was not as well received at home. I thought about sparing Maggie the gory details, but then thought better of it. Somehow she always finds out and I’ve discovered that it’s better to just come clean from the get-go.

  “I thought you were going to be sitting around playing bingo with a room full of old spinsters and you’re telling me that you were nearly crushed to death in a trash compactor!”

  “Something like that.”

  “Oh Walt! What am I going to do with you? I just can’t lose you!”

  I could see that she was experiencing the same feelings that had spawned my recurring nightmares. We both had forgotten the words of Helen Foster, the wife of the man whose life was in jeopardy on the campaign trail.

  I gently reminded her.

  “I know my husband and I know he is a passionate man. Sure, I could protest and he would quit because he loves me, but to what end? Life is meaningless without passion and purpose. Nursing homes are full of people our age who have lost their passion for life, and for me and Ben, that is worse than death. Besides, the old coot could wander into the street tomorrow and be whacked by a bus. If he’s going to die, it might as well count for something.”

  As the words sunk in, she breathed a sigh of resignation. “You are a passionate man.”

  “I’d like to think so.”

  She took my hand and led me to the bedroom.

  “Then come and show me.”

  Word of our latest adventure had spread throughout the precinct and I dreaded our first day back. My fellow officers, led by the irascible Officer Dooley, never let a good deed go unpunished.

  When we arrived at squad meeting, every officer was sporting a clothes pin on his nose and addressed me as ‘Stinky.’ As if that wasn’t enough, I was given a cardboard badge bearing the words, ‘Detective Dumpster Diver.’

  One bright spot in the whole affair was that my personal goal of never having to experience a colonoscopy was still intact.

  Ben and Tracy Singleton were outside the Delta Airlines gate waiting for the arrival of Tracy’s parents.

  “I’m so anxious to see them,” Tracy said. “It’s been three months.”

  Lawrence and Claudia Bishop lived in Boston, where Lawrence was CEO of a large brokerage firm. He had been instrumental in getting Ben his position at the Kansas City brokerage company before his tour in Afghanistan. Lawrence Bishop was having a great deal of difficulty understanding why his son-in-law insisted on staying with his menial job at the landscape company when a brilliant career awaited him in the world of high finance.

  “There’s the plane,” Tracy said, pointing to the big 747 pulling up to the gangway.

  Moments later, passengers began filing through the gate, heading to the baggage claim carousel.

  “There they are!” Tracy exclaimed, waving her arms.

&nb
sp; Ben fell in line behind his wife who was pushing through the crowd to greet her parents.

  Then he saw her.

  A woman covered from head to toe in a burqa. Only her eyes were visible through the slit in the flowing garment that fell loosely around her body.

  Suddenly, he was no longer in the airport, but in the dusty street of the village in Zad Valley.

  His mind flashed to the day when a woman, dressed exactly like this one, approached their advancing squad and took the lives of four of his comrades-in arms in a blinding explosion.

  Sensing the danger, he reacted instinctually.

  “Suicide bomber!” he shouted, sprinting toward his wife.

  He grabbed Tracy, threw her to the floor and covered her with his body.

  Like so many others before him that had fallen on grenades to save the lives of their fellow soldiers, Ben Singleton was prepared to give his life to protect the one he loved most dearly.

  Immediately, two members of the Airport Police rushed to the scene, pulled Ben from Tracy, threw him to the ground and cuffed him.

  “Ben!” Tracy wailed.

  Lawrence and Claudia Bishop watched in horror as their daughter lay weeping on the airport floor and their son-in-law was led away in handcuffs.

  Ox and I had pulled a rare evening shift and were cruising Grand Avenue when I heard some chatter over the radio that caught my attention.

  “Disturbance at KCI airport. The subject, a Benjamin Singleton, will be transported to downtown lock up by Airport Police.”

  “Could that be our Ben?” Ox asked.

  “I’ll check.”

  I called dispatch and sure enough, the man’s description fit Ben to a T.

  “We gotta do something,” Ox declared. “We owe him.”

  I called the captain and explained the situation.

  “I don’t know what happened at the airport, but whatever it is, Ben doesn’t belong in lock up. He should be taken to the V.A. Hospital. I know it’s not protocol, but can Ox and I pick him up. He’s saved our lives twice.”