Without Her Consent

by McGarvey Black

  Angela took a deep breath and exhaled. She couldn’t afford to lose her job, especially now with all the bills piling up at home. ‘If I could just have a little more time to go over some of the visitor logs and work schedules, I might be able to pinpoint the likely suspect. Can you give me a week to figure it out?’

  ‘We can’t wait that long. We have to call the police, but I’ll give you twenty-four hours before we do,’ said Beckmann brusquely as he hung up.

  It was nearly 10pm and Angela was exhausted. First thing in the morning, she’d begin the massive undertaking of examining all records with the hopes of identifying every man that had set foot in Oceanside Manor in the past year. She started to make a list of things that needed to be checked the following day. Their security cameras wouldn’t have footage from nine months earlier. The policy was to only keep footage for thirty days—so the film wouldn’t reveal anything. She’d have to review every employee, all visitors, nurses, aides and doctors along with scrutinizing every male employee in maintenance and food services. Every single person would have to be interviewed, no exceptions.

  For an hour she worked on her time-sensitive to-do list. When she was finished, she acknowledged to herself that the project was going to require more manpower than just her and her assistant. She’d need extra hands.

  She turned to her computer and opened the Oceanside Manor employee roster and reviewed some of the nurses and aides who she might be able to move onto this project. She wanted someone smart but more importantly, someone who could work fast. Her eyes went to Lourdes Castro’s name. Too senior and she has too much responsibility to pull her off the floor.

  She continued scanning the list of names, looking over each person’s background. She opened Jenny O’Hearn’s profile. Jenny is young, energetic, and single. She’d be able to put in the long hours. She already knows about everything that happened with Eliza because she was in the room. If I use Jenny, I wouldn’t have to bring another person into the loop. The fewer who know, the better. As she read Jenny’s profile, she noticed an odd notation and clicked on it.

  ‘Would you look at that,’ Angela said out loud to herself. Two years ago, Jenny O’Hearn took three months off. I wonder why?

  Angela wrote Jenny’s name down in her notebook and decided the young nurse would be the perfect person for the project. Jenny wasn’t essential to the hospital operation, and she was energetic and efficient. She wasn’t married and didn’t have kids which meant she could work the fifteen-hour days needed for the next couple of weeks. Angela picked up her phone and called the number in Jenny’s file.

  ‘Jenny, it’s Dr. Crawford, sorry to call you so late,’ said Angela over the phone. ‘Given what’s happened today, the board has asked me to look into this terrible situation. They gave me a little time to try and figure things out before notifying the police. Bottom line, I need your help.’

  ‘I’ll help you in any way I can, Dr. Crawford.’

  ‘I mean full time,’ said Angela, ‘until we can figure out what happened, I want to pull you off the nursing floor and put you on this research project. It’s going to be long hours, are you up for it?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Come to my office tomorrow morning at eight fifteen and we’ll get you started,’ said Angela. ‘And, Jenny, not a word to anyone. Not a soul.’

  6

  At 11:30pm that night, worn out and mentally spent, Angela drove down her street lined with palms and nicely maintained Cape Cod homes that had been built in the 1930s by a prolific yet unimaginative Florida developer. She pulled onto her gravel driveway and stumbled through the front door of her house. One lamp in their blue living room had been left on. She did not stop but walked directly through the room into the kitchen, and dropped the three tote bags filled with files on the kitchen counter. She headed directly for the open wine bottle nestled in the fridge door and poured herself a large glass of sauvignon blanc. Out of habit, and maybe to distract herself, she picked up the pile of mail left on the kitchen counter, sifted through it and frowned—all bills, some with overdue notices stamped on the outside.

  ‘Doesn’t anyone write letters anymore,’ she muttered under her breath and took a gulp of her drink. Only twenty-four hours earlier, she had been stewing about something completely different. January 12th was always a difficult anniversary. Her husband knew that, which is why the day before he had been waiting for her when she came home.

  ‘You’re finally home,’ he had said, smiling encouragingly as he stood in the kitchen with a plate of Swiss chocolates in one hand and a glass of cabernet in the other—her favorites.

  ‘Wine and chocolate, you always remember,’ she said as he handed her the glass.

  Every January 12th, on the anniversary of her brother Michael’s death, Angela and her husband, David, danced the same macabre waltz. She was only fourteen when her sixteen-year-old brother had died and it had been nearly thirty years, but the shock and pain was still there. After getting through the anniversary, now, one day later, January 13th had brought unimaginable new problems for Angela to cope with.

  ‘Hello, my love,’ David said, coming down the stairs in his bathrobe. He pecked her on the cheek and gave her a quick hug. ‘You look exhausted. It’s nearly midnight. I was about to send out the cavalry. I’ve kept a dinner plate warm for you.’

  ‘I’m not really hungry. I think I’ll just drink my dinner tonight.’

  Angela turned her attention back to the mail.

  ‘I’ve actually had a very good day,’ said David, trying to lighten his wife’s obviously gloomy mood. ‘Want to hear about it?’

  Angela forced a smile and nodded, happy for a distraction.

  ‘I had a breakthrough on my third chapter today. You remember how I was stuck for the longest time. This morning, the creative log jam miraculously unclogged and I wrote four whole pages. I’m on a roll, Angie. I think I’m going to go all the way this time.’

  Angela forced another smile as she gazed at her husband, so different now from the person she thought she married twenty years ago. The strong memory of her original intense attraction to him had stayed with her all these years and kept her love intact, despite his many disappointments. She still saw that handsome, clever, rising literary star she met when she was in college.

  They met on the first day of the fall semester of her senior year. She was in an English class seated next to her best friend, Faye, while listening to her new professor, David Crawford, give a lecture on Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth. While he talked, Faye reached over and scribbled something in Angela’s notebook.

  Dr. C is hot

  Tell me about it!

  He’s old.

  Who cares??? He’s smokin’.

  Angela turned her eyes back to the handsome young teacher. With long wavy reddish-brown hair and a beard, he looked more like a country-and-western singer than an English professor. She checked his hand for a wedding ring and smiled when she saw his fingers were bare. David Crawford was charming and eloquent and had an easy breezy way about him. She noticed his robin’s egg blue eyes seemed to sparkle whenever he got excited about something.

  At the end of that first class, Angela hung back as the other students left the room. Pretending to organize her notebooks while the others cleared out, she waited until she and her teacher were the only two left in the cavernous lecture hall.

  ‘Professor Crawford, I’m Angela Asmodeo. I wanted to introduce myself. This is actually my first college English class.’

  ‘Hello, Angela Asmodeo. What year are you in?’

  ‘Senior.’

  ‘And this is your first English class?’

  ‘I’m pre-med. Been taking mainly science, math and psychology. English is an elective for me. I saved up all my electives for senior year. So, here I am.’

  ‘You’re going to be a doctor. Impressive.’

  ‘I still have to take the MCATs. But that’s my goal.’

  ‘What area of medicine do you plan t
o go into?’

  ‘It’s between obstetrics and psychology.’

  ‘Those are very different fields.’

  ‘I’m interested in neuroscience so that’s what draws me to psychology but I also like the idea of working with women and bringing a new life into the world. I think it would be amazing to deliver babies. A lot depends on if and what program I get accepted into.’

  ‘I’m honored to have a future physician in my class.’

  Angela felt herself smiling from ear to ear as she drank in her teacher’s intensely blue eyes.

  ‘I heard from some other kids that you wrote a novel and that the critics gave you really good reviews,’ Angela said, trying to keep the conversation going. ‘They said you could be the next great American author, the writer for the new millennium.’

  David bowed his head and feigned modesty but Angela detected he enjoyed the recognition. ‘It was a first effort, my debut novel. You’re only as good as your last book, Angela, always remember that.’

  ‘What was it called?’

  ‘Where the Falcons Go. It’s an allegory on the eroding moral compass of civilized societies.’

  ‘It sounds complex. And, where do the falcons go?’ she said, laughing.

  ‘They don’t go anywhere. That’s the whole point of the story. The characters can’t find their way. They’re lost in their own self-imposed exile.’

  ‘That sounds very highbrow but I think I’d like to read it.’

  ‘I’ll bring in a copy for you. I was about to do a coffee run, want to join me? I can tell you all about it, if you’re interested.’

  That’s the way it had started. Coffee led to dinner. Dinner became weekends. By the time Angela graduated, David Crawford had asked her to be his wife. The future looked so bright for both of them. She was planning a career in medicine and he was an up-and-coming novelist. Life was sweet and full of surprises. He was intuitive, creative and brilliant. She was practical, pragmatic and sensible. He could be silly and involved in a million projects while she was focused and driven but made sure the bills got paid. They complemented each other and were madly in love. She didn’t see his flaws. It was as if she had a blind spot when it came to him. Hard as nails with other people, when it came to David, she always forgave him and made up excuses for his shortcomings.

  Angela went on to medical school and sailed through her residency in obstetrics, while David’s literary career gradually dried up. His second book was an unmitigated flop and eventually, his agent dropped him. Trying to stem the tide, he stopped teaching to write full time which proved to be a financially and emotionally disastrous decision.

  During those early years, they had also tried over and over to have a baby but nothing ever gelled. After six failed IVF treatments, they were left only with incredible disappointment, an empty bank account and plenty of bills. Later, when Angela had further complications, a hysterectomy had been recommended. At that point, David had suggested adoption but Angela wanted no part of it.

  ‘I’ve delivered too many sick babies from drug addict mothers and women who were drinking all through their pregnancy. When you adopt, David, you don’t know what you’re getting,’ she had said. ‘I’m not going to put myself in that position.’

  ‘We could thoroughly vet the birth mother,’ David argued.

  ‘Look what happened to my family,’ said Angela. ‘My parents adopted my brother Michael and me and by the time Michael was fifteen, his schizophrenia had kicked in and he started using drugs. I found him, remember?’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘My mother’s life was hell.’

  ‘You’re not your mother.’

  ‘I won’t put myself in that situation.’

  ‘Not every adopted kid has problems,’ her husband said. ‘Look at you. You turned out fine.’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘You’re being overly dramatic, my love. Come here,’ he said as he put his arms around his wife to soothe her. They had similar conversations many times over the years and it had always ended the same way.

  It was shortly after their last IVF, while looking for a pen in David’s old cherry wood writing desk, Angela found a pile of receipts from local casinos in one of the desk drawers.

  ‘I thought you were writing while I was at work?’ she demanded when her husband walked into the room.

  ‘I am writing, love. What’s making you so unhappy?’

  She held up a wad of receipts from the Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, Florida. There was a long pause as David took a moment to process what the papers in her hand were. When he realized, he blushed.

  ‘Just a little fun, love, that’s all. No big deal. Helps take the edge off.’

  ‘The edge off?’ said Angela, her voice getting louder. ‘I’m trying to keep us afloat financially and you’re out blowing our money at a craps table.’

  ‘It’s blackjack. Sometimes, I just need a little release after being cooped up here all day staring at a blank page.’

  ‘I get up in the middle of the night and deliver babies and you’re pissing away our money on a card game? I thought you were done with that after those disastrous junkets you took to Vegas where you lost practically everything we had. You know I’m still trying to pay off my medical school loans. Every step forward I take, you pull us back two.’

  ‘You’re making too much of it. Besides, I won this week. I’m up a hundred.’

  ‘This week! What about last week or next week?’ said a furious Angela as she walked out of the room. After all the years of marriage, she had realized that her once perfect husband had a gambling problem and to make matters worse, he wasn’t very good at it. They had quarreled that night and few words were spoken over the next several days. Then, he did something sweet and she forgave him. She always did.

  This night, after everything that had happened that day with Eliza Stern and the baby, seeing her smiling husband standing in front of her made her feel better. He still knew how to make her laugh and she couldn’t resist him when he laid on the charm.

  ‘What do you think about my news?’ said David, filling her wine glass again.

  ‘What?’

  ‘My writing breakthrough.’

  ‘That’s great, babe. I’m happy for you,’ said a distracted Angela, her mind elsewhere.

  ‘Enough about me. Tell me what was the situation at the hospital that kept you so late,’ said David. ‘What was today’s nightmare?’

  For the next fifteen minutes Angela told her husband all the details about the baby, Eliza Stern and the terrible behavior of the board on her conference call.

  ‘The woman who had the baby has been a patient at Oceanside Manor since she was ten-years-old?’ said David. ‘My writer’s brain is going to all sorts of dark places. Do you have any idea how it happened?’

  Angela shook her head and sighed.

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, taking another big gulp of wine. ‘Honestly, I haven’t had time to think. Everything was moving so fast today.’

  ‘Did you call the police?’

  ‘I had to talk with the board first. They don’t want any bad publicity and it was so late in the day. I’ll call the police tomorrow or the day after at the latest.’

  ‘This has National Enquirer written all over it,’ said David.

  ‘We need to do our own internal investigating before we bring the police in or the press gets wind of it. Once the cops are involved, it will be out of my hands. The board gave me permission to take a day to look into it quietly before I reach out to the authorities.’

  ‘How are the baby and the mother doing?’

  ‘The baby is just fine,’ Angela said, smiling. ‘He’s gorgeous, actually. I’ve got registered nurses taking care of him round the clock. In fact, they’re fighting over who gets to hold him next. Our staff is used to monitoring lifeless bodies with brain injuries. Having a cherubic baby boy on the floor is like giving them a new puppy. That baby will get pl
enty of attention, I’m not worried about that. Odds are that child will never be put down.’

  ‘You said the mother has no relatives. What’s going to happen to the baby?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘How do you think this happened?’

  ‘I don’t know, David,’ said Angela, slightly irritated. ‘Stop asking me so many questions. If I knew how it happened, we wouldn’t be in such a mess.’

  ‘It’s totally sick, that’s what it is. What kind of person would do something like this? Why would someone get pleasure from having sex with an unconscious woman connected to feeding tubes?’ said David. ‘You’ve got to have a serious defect to do something like that.’

  ‘I took a few psych courses in medical school. I don’t think it’s pleasure, it’s more about control. A man having sex with a woman who can’t fight back, that’s a total power play. I’ve got one of the psychiatrists from Oceanside Medical coming in tomorrow morning for a consult. I’m hoping to get a profile from him on the type of person who would do something like this.’

  ‘Any way you slice it, it’s a terrible story. Obviously, someone raped that poor girl,’ said David. ‘The press is going to go nuts.’

  ‘I know, and I’m dreading it,’ said Angela. ‘Until we sort things out, I’m hoping we can just keep the baby safe and sound at Oceanside Manor. I intend to get to the bottom of this starting tomorrow.’

  ‘Why don’t you call Frank Farwell and get some advice? He’s been doing this a lot longer than you. He might have some insight.’

  ‘Already did. He told me it was my problem and mine to clean up.’

  ‘I always said he was a weasel,’ said David. ‘Angie, I’m sorry you’re in the middle of this thing. It can’t be fun.’

  ‘That girl was impregnated anywhere from seven to nine months ago,’ said Angela through clenched teeth. ‘The fact is, Frank Farwell could still have been in charge of Oceanside Manor when it happened. He was so quick to palm it off onto my watch when it could have happened while he was still here.’