Darkness Before Dawn

by Ace Collins

  Lena Worel was a white-haired, heavyset lady, with pale skin and big blue eyes. Despite the fact that she’d been on a diet for as long as anyone could remember, her whole body shook when she walked. As a child, Meg thought Lena looked a great deal like Mrs. Santa Claus. And her cheery face and laughing voice only added to this perception. In fact, Lena was the reason that Meg had first gotten interested in nursing. She’d loved the woman’s uniforms, especially her hats, even though by the time she became a nurse the hats were gone and the uniforms were scrubs. Over time, as they worked together, Lena became more than a friend, she had somehow taken on the role of an aunt.

  “Meg, honey, what are you doing here today?” the old woman gently inquired.

  “Now Lena, I’m doing what all good nurses do—working! You know as well as I do there’s not much that can be gained by sitting at home and looking at the walls.”

  Hoping her answer would satisfy the woman, Meg began to look around the room for the most recently filled-out forms. One glance convinced her that a hurricane had struck the place. Finding something in this mess would be like finding the proverbial needle in the haystack. Yet it had to be done.

  “Lena,” Meg asked, “What in the world happened back here?”

  “Oh, child,” the big woman answered, throwing her arms into the air. “Jean, the unit secretary, got the flu last week and then Katie, her assistant, quit. And except for the really serious cases, nothing has been filed. Worse yet, we still haven’t gotten the computer system back up. Even though it’s not my job, I organized some of this mess today. I had to because I’ve had folks ask for a specific file, and I was tired of weeding through all of them to find that one.”

  Meg began checking through the layers of forms but the longer she looked the more lost she became. Lena finally cleared things up.

  “What are you looking for, maybe I can help? Believe it or not, I have created a system.”

  “I hope you can, Lena,” Meg sighed. “I guaranteed I could find the information in a flash that Dr. Mason needed.”

  “Well, Meg,” Lena asked, “what exactly does he need?”

  “A patient, who was treated and released this weekend, showed up this morning for follow-up. I came down to find out what the swing doctor had prescribed.”

  “Okay, Honey, when was this person treated? If you know that, I think we can find the information you need. I spent an hour when I first came creating some order out of this chaos.”

  “Sunday morning, about two.”

  Turning to six rows of papers stacked on a table in the back of the small room, Lena pointed to stack number six. “I’ve already taken a little time to put together at least a system for this organization. These are Sunday’s forms,” she said, pointing to a small mountain of papers. “You’ll find what you need in this pile.” The nurse seemed obviously proud of her knowledge and work and her next statement proved it. “When I came in this morning, none of this stuff was organized at all, but now we at least have it by days. What name do you want?”

  “Joe Messa.”

  “Okay, let’s see if he’s here.” As Lena’s fingers begin to sift through the stack, a voice came over the hospital’s paging system.

  “Nurse Lena Worel, you are needed in records,” the voice announced.

  Glancing up at the speaker, the older nurse wondered out loud, “What do they want now? Oh, well, the last thing I need is to keep Gertrude Johnson waiting. You know how she is.” Looking across the room at Meg, she asked, “Can you get along here without me? I know it’s in stack six.”

  Smiling, Meg replied, “Of course, now move along before Gertrude has a cat!”

  After Lena cleared the room, Meg began to sort through Sunday’s treatment forms. The fourth one from the top, a form filled out on a Jerry Bates, had been misfiled. It should have been filed on the Thursday, March 10 stack. Picking up the short form, she started to restack it in its proper place but a name on the top of the file stopped her cold as a flood of unwanted emotions flooded her mind while they weakened her knees. The name at the top was her husband’s.

  For a few minutes, she had thankfully been so involved in doing her job she had almost forgotten she had lost him. Now all the horror flooded back and she had to work to restrain the tears. “DOA” had been scribbled across the middle of the form. This was the last thing she needed to see. She knew she should set the report to one side, but instead she slowly picked it up and scanned what had been scribbled there. It was very cut-and-dried indicating that there had been no treatment necessary or taken. And that was pretty much all there was to it. He was simply dead on arrival.

  Gingerly easing Steven’s form back onto the proper stack, she placed the Bates form on top of it in an effort to eradicate all thoughts of her husband’s death. Forcing herself to go back to Sunday’s stack, she sorted through until she found Joe Messa’s file. Noting his medication, she replaced the paperwork in the stack and turned to leave the room, but as she opened the door, a simple realization froze her in her tracks. She likely was in the room with the information she needed and it was all so easy and so readily available.

  Turning, she quickly walked back to the table, her heart racing as she looked down at the stacks of papers. A cold sweat broke out on her forehead and a chill ran down the back of her neck. Using all the courage she possessed, she forced her hands back to the Thursday stack. Taking the pile of forms in her hands, she walked across the room, sat down in a chair behind the desk and began to look at them. She passed over Jerry Bates’s form without so much as a glance. She stopped at Steve’s for a brief instant, took a painful look at her wedding ring, and then moved on. The third admit, a six-year-old girl named Amy, didn’t interest the nurse at all. The fourth, a stroke victim, and the fifth, a heart attack, didn’t cause Meg to pause more than a few seconds. She passed by the next three admits just as quickly. But when she got to number ten, a man named Kenneth James, she immediately stopped to carefully study the report.

  James had been injured in a car wreck. He’d received stitches above his right eye and then he had been sent home. “It’s him,” Meg whispered, but then her heart sank. Come on dummy. Look at the age, this guy’s fifty-two. Putting the report at the back of the stack, she continued her search.

  Meg scanned form after form, occasionally glancing down the hall to check if Lena had appeared. Then, just as she was about to give up, James A. Thomas’s file appeared. She checked the admit time. It fit. She checked his age. Seventeen, perfect! She then checked the cause of his injuries and discovered they had resulted from an automobile accident. Her heart surged to full race mode. He’d been patched up and released, and further more, he had had blood taken for an alcohol level check. The numbers clearly indicated he had been drunk. The test showed he’d hit 1.4.

  Taking out her pen and finding a scratch pad on Lena’s desk, she wrote down the name James A. Thomas and followed it with 1034 East Walnut Street. Finally, after gleaning all she could from the paperwork, she scanned the remainder of that night’s forms to see if any of those patients also could have fit the profile of Steve’s murderer. None did. Restacking the papers on the table, she went to her station, checked in, and paged Paul. Once she’d given the doctor the information he needed, she headed directly back to her post and tried to go about her duties. Yet for the rest of the shift, she could do nothing more than go through the motions. Her mind was a thousand miles away from her job. A name, an address, and a vow of revenge tumbled over and through her thoughts and nothing short of a patient going code red could have changed that focus.

  11

  MEG COULDN’T WAIT TO GO HOME. AND WHEN THE TIME CAME, SHE HUR-riedly set about the routine that all nurses have to do before checking out. It was time for inventory.

  Earlier in her shift, Heather had been swung to another wing to cover for a sick nurse. Meg hadn’t seen her since ten.

  “Meg!” Startled by Heather’s voice, the nurse paused in her counting. Seeing that she had her attenti
on, Heather continued. “How’s your day?”

  “Fine,” Meg sighed. “Just like any other.” She went back to her count.

  “How about we grab a bite to eat at Pizza Hut tonight?” Heather asked. Countless times over the last four years she and Meg had hit Pizza Hut on nights when Steve was either working late or out of town. “Eating with me might be better than being by yourself tonight.”

  Waiting a few seconds to conclude her count and sign out, Meg shook her head. “Not tonight, Heather, I’ve got something to do.” Without so much as a wave, she headed down the hall. From the corner of her eye, she saw Heather grab her coat from her locker and reach behind the desk for her purse.

  “Are you sure, Meg?” Heather pleaded as she caught her in the parking lot. “I hate to eat alone. I mean . . .”

  “I know what you mean,” Meg replied. Her tone revealed she fully understood exactly why Heather really wanted her to spend some time with her. She was trying to be a good friend and on another night she might need a friend. But not tonight! “Heather, listen, I really do have something to do, and I’m not going home to be alone. Honest!”

  When Meg stopped beside her Mustang to dig through her purse for her keys, Heather gave it one more try. “Are you going over to your mom’s? I haven’t really visited with her in months and I’d love to . . .”

  Raising her voice so she could be heard above the biting north wind, Meg said, “Heather, if you want to visit with Mom, that would be great.” After finding her keys and unlocking her car door, she turned to face her friend. “But you’ll have to go by yourself because I don’t plan on seeing Mom tonight.”

  Meg eased into the driver’s seat, jammed the key into the ignition, and started the car. Looking back at Heather, she smiled. “Maybe we can do it tomorrow. I really appreciate you being there for me. But right now I have to do something very important. So please forgive me. You have a good evening and try not to worry about me.” She closed the door and shoved the shifter into reverse.

  Meg, out of habit, pushed her favorite American Idol CD into the player. Yet as the music played, she was oblivious to the song or the singer. The only thing on her mind was the address of a teenager who lived on the other side of town. She couldn’t believe she had found him. As she pulled off the parking lot, she smiled. This was what she needed. She was sure just seeing where he lived would somehow ease her pain.

  Walnut Street was well off the main drag, over five miles from downtown and the hospital, and just a stone’s throw from the country club. Meg had been to a few parties at the club during high school, but her family had never had the money to join the social elite on a regular basis. Still, the area was not foreign to her. She had often driven down the broad streets of this neighborhood admiring the houses and beautiful, rolling, tree-covered lots. She and Steve had even dreamed of someday owning one of these large brick homes set on such finely landscaped grounds. But dream homes and notions of wealth now seemed unreal, especially when placed against the reason for her trip today.

  She crossed Elm and then Maple, hardly noticing the homes that had once so enthralled her on those streets. Then, when she came to Walnut, she made a sharp right and began to look much more closely at the addresses so proudly displayed on each ornate door. For three blocks, she eased the Mustang by house after house, each seeming larger and more impressive than the former. And then, the one she sought came into view.

  It was immediately obvious that the Thomas’s house was the most impressive on the block. A two-story red brick, with paned glass windows and a four-car garage, the home itself must have included more than seven thousand square feet. Over the privacy fence surrounding the backyard, she saw a slide and diving board indicating a swimming pool. On the far side of the home was a private tennis court. This wasn’t a residence; it was an estate!

  Passing the ten-hundred block of Walnut, Meg made a U-turn and parked her Mustang directly across the street from the house. After turning the car’s engine off, she examined every facet of what could only be called a mansion.

  The roofline reached more than fifty feet at the highest point. There was no wooden or vinyl trim work; the brick went clear to the roof. Many of the windows were rounded at the top. Three reached more than thirty feet up the house. The walks were made of polished stone. A new Mercedes and Lincoln set in the driveway. If they were sitting out in the weather, what was in the garage?

  Here were people who obviously had everything money could buy. These were folks that the community always considered important and influential. And these people, this family, were the ones she’d be fighting in order to gain some kind of justice. Suddenly, her simple little plan to extract personal punishment and satisfaction from James Thomas had taken on David and Goliath proportions. And because of these overwhelming odds, hopelessness pushed its way into the car, squeezing her wounded heart like a vice as she lingered and studied an enemy that now seemed unbeatable.

  As the car began to lose its heat, Meg pulled her coat a little tighter around her body. Searching through her pockets, she found her gloves. Still, even as it grew later and colder, even after she had looked over the house from top to bottom a dozen times, memorizing even the minutest details, she waited. She didn’t understand why, but for some reason, just being at the place where her husband’s killer lived gave her some purpose, some identity. And maybe, if he somehow came out of the house, she could put a face to her pain. How she needed that face!

  With nothing new to see, time passed slowly, and as the temperature continued to drop, it became more uncomfortable. By 7:30, it had become so cold she could now see her breath. Just about the time Meg was going to give up and head to her apartment, a car drove up to the front curb of 1034 East Walnut. It was a late model sports utility and when it stopped, and the passenger door opened causing the interior light to come on, Meg could clearly see it was filled with teenagers—two boys and two girls.

  For a while, the car just sat there, motor running while the kids remained in the vehicle. Then after a few minutes, a boy eased out the rear passenger door. He was tall, about six-foot-two and wore a letter jacket and jeans; his sandy-colored hair was uncovered and blowing in the wind. And in the dim light, Meg spotted a large Band-Aid on his forehead. This had to be him! She strained to get a better look at James Thomas. It only took a few seconds for her to realize this was the kid who had held the ER door for her after she’d viewed Steve’s body. How she wished she’d known that then!

  As she anxiously took in the scene playing out just across the street, she turned on the keys and eased the window of her car door down in order to catch the kids’ conversation. She first heard the driver’s voice.

  “So, Jim. Your dad say anything about getting you another car?”

  “He will,” the blond youth answered. “After all, he did the last time I totaled one.”

  “Yeah, but last time nobody got hurt,” the other boy replied.

  “Well,” Thomas’s tone was casual. It was as if the accident was just an insignificant inconvenience that had dropped into his life. As he explained his father’s reaction, the boy even smiled. “Dad was pretty steamed about that. He informed me that next time I got drunk, it’d probably be me that cashed it in. Still, I think the fact that I was hurt a little got me off the hook. You know as well as I do, he can spring me from the charges. He’s always been able to. Besides, it’s not like I haven’t had to pay already. You know the coach isn’t even going to let me play in the basketball playoffs until I get these stitches out. I’ve been looking forward to that all year.”

  Meg was amazed by the boy’s tone. His selfishness shocked and enraged her. He obviously felt no sense of remorse. He actually claimed abuse because he wasn’t going to get to play in a basketball game.

  A girl, now left alone in the back seat, handed Thomas a gym bag. Reaching back into the car to pull it out, the boy gave the young, giggly blonde a long kiss, smiled at the other two kids, and then whirled and ambled up the walk to the
front door. Within seconds, he found his way inside and the others had driven off.

  Even though she was once again alone, Meg continued to stare at the house. She’d been expecting James Thomas, Jim as his friends called him, to be a punk rocker or a redneck. She had expected green hair, earrings, weird clothes, and a kind of drugged-out look on his face, but James Thomas wasn’t like that at all. He was good-looking, clean cut, an athlete, and probably popular with the kids who mattered in the school. The only thing he seemed to have in common with her previous vision was his selfishness. He seemed completely unconcerned about anyone but himself.

  Having seen all there was to see, Meg restarted her car and began to drive off. Yet, as she eased her car past the boy’s home one last time and turned her head for one final look, a name on a mailbox, now lit by her car’s headlights, jumped out and hit her like a hammer—Alfred E. Thomas.

  Meg knew that name well. Alfred E. Thomas. Judge Alfred E. Thomas. Judge Thomas was a deacon in her church. He and his wife always sat in the same pew every Sunday. He had given countless prayers, served on numerous boards, and had always sent Steve and her a Christmas card. They’d even voted for him in the last election. Yet, for the two years they’d sponsored the high school youth group on Sunday night, she had never seen his son. As a matter of fact, she hadn’t even known that the judge had any children. Jim Thomas must have never been to church. What a revelation!

  As she drove home Meg felt shaken to the core. The knowledge that she’d be fighting not just a rich kid but a judge’s kid—the kid of someone whom she thought she’d known and someone whom she had respected; someone her own church respected—caused Meg to plunge deeper and deeper into a reeling depression. If it had been some poor kid or some punk, someone from the wrong side of town or from a family she hadn’t known, then she figured she would’ve had a chance to see justice done. But now it seemed like there would be little hope of ever seeing Steve’s killer made to pay. She had nothing compared to the power this family wielded. And besides, she didn’t figure the district attorney would ever want to challenge the Thomas family in court. No wonder the kid didn’t seem concerned about the charges.