Cimarron, Denver Cereal Volume 4 (22 page)

The technician pressed on Sandy’s belly.

“
Come on baby, let us take
a look,” the technician said. The baby shifted away from the wand.
“Aden, why don’t you put your hand here? Nestle the head and
maybe…”

Aden put his hand on Sandy’s belly. He tried
to imagine he was holding his baby’s head. Sandy put her hand over
his and he interlaced their fingers.

“
The baby is looking up at
you, Aden,” the technician said. “Keep moving… Keep
moving…

Sandy looked up at Aden. Feeling her gaze,
he looked into her eyes.

“
There we go,” the
technician said. “Whatever you’re doing keep doing it.”

Sandy smiled at him.

“
Well, hello!” the
technician said.

~~~~~~~~

Thursday morning — 11:35 A.M.

“
Que? De donde?” Jacob
said.

He was standing in near the edge of what had
been the Castle chapel. The explosion had ripped through the
flooring exposing the chapel’s foundation, or really lack of
foundation. He’d spent the last week trying to stabilize the area.
Every time he thought it was secure, something else collapsed.

Running out of options, he’d decided to
create a foundation down here. They had built a wooden support
structure for the entire second floor. He’d been working on a form
for a stabilizing retaining wall and deep pillars when one of his
men came over. The man gestured wildly. In his panic, he was
speaking in rapid Spanish.

“
Mas despacio,” he asked
the man to speak more slowly. “What happened?”

The man shook his head and pointed to where
he and a few men had been digging a trench for the new foundation.
The other men looked equally panicked. Jacob walked over to the
area where the altar once stood.

“
Que pasa?” he
asked.

The men shook their head and looked away.
The first man pointed to something in the dirt. A human skull stuck
out from the red clay. Jacob dropped to a crouch. Pulling off his
glove, he reached out to touch the skull. His hand hovered over it
for a moment.

“
It’s real,” one of the men
said. “I touched it.”

Jacob nodded. He sighed with relief. One
touch would have shown him the last moments of that person’s life.
He didn’t want to do that in front of these men.

“
What do we do?” another
man said.

“
We call the police,” Jacob
said.

“
No more work
today?”

“
We won’t work here for a
while.” Jacob shook his head.

~~~~~~~~

Thursday afternoon — 3:15 P.M.

“
JILL!”

On her way home, Jill stepped into Pete’s
Kitchen. She wasn’t really sure why she was here. She hadn’t been
in since she stopped working at Pete’s. After four days of
hostility and ridicule at school, she had wandered through her day.
Somehow, her wanderings led her to Pete’s.

The entire staff came up front to say hello.
Jill found herself hugging one person after another. Everyone
seemed so happy to see her. Overwhelmed, Jill began to tear up.

“
Give her some room,” the
manager said. “Are you done with your semester? Like to pick up a
shift?”

Jill nodded.

“
Great! You’re always
welcome here,” the manager said.

“
We heard about what that
tramp is saying,” a waitress said.

“
Everyone is saying the
most awful thing,” Jill said.

“
They don’t know you,” a
waitress said as she passed by with a hamburger and a Mexican
special. “They don’t know Jacob.”

“
Not like us,” the manager
said.

“
We were here when you and
Jacob got together,” another waitress said. “We saw the whole
thing.”

“
And we went to the
wedding,” Risto the cook said. “We don’t believe a word that hooker
says. We know her kind.”

“
When can you start?” the
manager said.

“
I can pick up a shift now.
Jacob’s not working at Lipson so our schedules have
changed.”

“
Great,” the manager said.
“I’ll check the schedule and call you.”

“
How about a cinnamon roll
for Katy?” A waitress took Jill’s arm and walked her back to the
bar. “We take care of our own, Jill. You know that. No matter where
you go or what you do, you’ll always be one of us.”

“
Why?” Jill
asked.

“
Because you’re real,” The
waitress laughed. “Nice people stick together.”

For the first time in almost a week, Jill
felt her feet under her. She nodded. She would always be one of
these hard working people. She was a nice person. She belonged
around nice people.

Jill smiled. She was home.

~~~~~~~~

Thursday afternoon — 4:11 P.M.

Delphie came up behind Jacob and put her
hand on his back. They watched six uniformed police officers with
shovels carefully poke around in the dirt where the chapel had
stood. The coroner and her assistant were working in the site where
they found the skeleton. Jacob looked over at her.

“
There’s nothing you could
have done,” Delphie said.

“
Did you know they were
there?” he asked.

“
They?”

“
A man and a woman or I
should say a boy and a girl. They were about eighteen. The coroner
thinks they died somewhere else and were buried here. They’re lying
in each other’s arms.”

“
Romantic,” Delphie said.
“I knew there were unhappy souls down in those tunnels but I always
thought they had more to do with the moving of bodies from
Cheesman. Did you know they were here?”

“
No,” Jacob said. “I have
this feeling like if I wanted to know, I would have
known.”

“
I feel the same thing,”
Delphie said. “Did they find the rest?”

“
The rest?” Jacob said.
“What rest?”

“
I don’t know,” Delphie
said. “I just said that. I don’t know why.”

They watched a police officer yell. Another
police officer came over to the first.

“
We have another one,” the
second police officer indicated to the coroner. “It’s a
child.”

“
It’s a nightmare,” Jacob
said.

“
We have to find out what
happened to these people,” Delphie said.

Jacob turned to look into her face.

“
We have no choice,”
Delphie said.

“
We always have a choice,”
Jacob said.

“
Not this time,” Delphie
said.

Delphie nodded and Jacob shrugged.

“
I’ll do it myself then,”
Delphie said.

“
Do what?” Seth O’Malley
said. He held his hand out and Jacob shook it. “Nice to see you
folks again.”

“
Sandy’s at her studio,”
Delphie said to Sandy’s godfather. “Did she tell you they found out
the baby’s gender?”

“
She called me after Aden
dropped her off,” Seth said. “I’m thrilled.”

Delphie nodded.

“
I need to know what you
know about this mess,” Seth said.

“
Nothing,” Jacob said. “We
just found them.”

“
Them,” Seth said. “Yes.
Well, I’ve been assigned to this case. My partner and I are going
to be around a lot until we get this worked out.”

Delphie and Jacob nodded.

“
You going to help me?”
Seth asked. He leaned in so only they could hear, “I know all about
the psychic thing. I could really use your help. The coroner is
saying the kids have been here since the 1970s…”

“
Found another one,” a
kneeling police officer said. “This one has flesh.”

“
That’s four,” Seth said.
“Any thoughts?”

“
Nothing good,” Jacob
said.

“
Thank you, Mr.
Understatement,” Seth said. “This is not good.”

Delphie nodded her agreement.

~~~~~~~~

Thursday evening — 7:30 P.M.

“
Today may not be the best
day,” Honey said.

“
But… Well, I’m in town and
Honey’s not working, so…” MJ said.

MJ and Honey were sitting
on the couch in Jill and Jacob’s loft living area. Jill set down a
bottle of Merlot and four glasses. After dinner, MJ and Honey has
asked them if they could talk tonight. Jill had no idea what they
wanted but they were so sincere, she was willing to change her
evening routine to give them time. Katy was already bathed and was
singing along to an ancient
Jungle
Book
videocassette in Jill’s office. Jill
sat down in a leather arm chair next to Jacob.

“
It’s nice to spend some
time with you guys,” Jill said. “We live in the same house but we
don’t see you that much.”

“
It’s hard for Honey to get
up here,” MJ said.

“
Get anywhere,” Honey said.
“I miss my cool apartment.”

“
I bet,” Jacob
said.

“
Being out of my apartment
made me more convinced…” Honey said.

Honey and MJ shared a long look.

“
Listen, Honey, if you need
to move into a condo or somewhere else, I…” Jacob
started.

“
Move out? Me?” Honey
asked. “No way. I mean, not unless you want me to move.”

“
Of course not,” Jacob
said.

“
We’re not sure what’s
going on,” Jill said. “We’ve had so much drama that… I’m glad
you’ll stay.”

Honey beamed at Jill. Jacob poured the wine
and gave a glass to MJ. He held a glass out to Honey. MJ took the
glass and helped Honey grasp the stem with her paralyzed fist.
Jacob gave a glass to Jill. For a moment, they sipped the wine in
silence.

“
Okay, I’ll start,” Honey
said. “Jake, you have an apartment building. The one you showed
us?”

Jacob nodded.

“
Have you done anything
with it?” MJ asked.

“
I’m not sure what you
mean,” Jacob said.

“
You told us that when
people move out, you tore out the old apartments. Did you do
anything with the space?”

“
I haven’t,” Jacob said.
“I’ve been a little overwhelmed with everything. That building
hasn’t had a lot of attention. The residents seem happy. That’s all
I care about really.”

“
We spent a bunch of time
there this week,” Honey said. “Did you know Mrs. Robinson needs to
be in assisted living but she can’t afford it?”

“
Oh no,” Jill said. “I knew
she was kind of old…”

“
She’s eight-four years
old,” Honey said.

“
But that’s not the point,”
MJ said. “We’d like to ask you to convert the building to a
wheelchair access building.”

“
The whole building?” Jill
asked.

“
More than wheelchair
access,” Honey said. “I talked to Steve. He says the hardest thing
about helping people like me is getting from place to place. We
figure if we created a building for people like me with some
nursing staff…”

“
Like an assisted living?”
Jacob asked. “Aren’t there big companies that run
those?”

“
They run them for old
people but not for younger people,” Honey said.

“
People who want to work
and stuff,” MJ said.

“
MJ was talking to a doc at
Walter Reed. He said the wheelchair bound soldiers coming back from
Iraq and Afghanistan don’t have places to live. They’re more like
me. They need help in the morning and at night but otherwise, they
want to work and live and…”

“
We thought maybe you could
hire people too,” MJ said.

“
You know I can’t work at
Lipson right?” Jacob asked.

“
You still own it.” Honey’s
face clouded. “This isn’t going well.”

“
Wait,” Jill said. “We’re
just trying to get what you’re saying. You’d like to convert my old
apartment building into a kind of assisted living facility for
younger people who are wheelchair bound. You talked to Steve. Is he
in?”

“
Steve says that he can
find other nurses,” MJ said. “He says it’s great work and if we do
it well, we could help a lot of people. It’s not like we’re asking
you to do it for free. There’s good money in this for everyone.
There just aren’t a lot of facilities.”

“
It seems like a good
business. The most expensive thing is…”

“
The building,” Jacob
nodded. “I have a building.”

“
And you’re already tearing
out the old stuff,” Honey said.

“
We’re just saying,” MJ
said. “Why not replace it with wheelchair accessible
apartments?”

“
I’m sorry. I’m tired and
it has been a shitty week,” Jacob said. “I think it’s a solid idea
but I’d like to spend some time running numbers. Would you run the
business?”

“
I want to keep working for
Bambi,” Honey said.

“
I’d run the business?”
Jacob asked.

“
We’d run it together,” MJ
said.

“
But we don’t have any
money to put in,” Honey said.

“
Sure you do,” Jill said.
“You have your portion of the money Jake got back when Tiffanie
divorced Sam.”