Imperfect Contract (6 page)

8

A couple of hours later Ray appeared.  I was catching up on my charting and watching the phones for the charge nurse.

"Hi, Sophi."

"Hello."  The phone rang.  "Five Northeast, Sophia Burgess."  I took my time handling the call, finding the right nurse to speak with the doctor who'd called, and checking lab work on the computer. 

Ray waited.  There were no little twitches at the edges of his beard, so I assumed he was no longer angry.  Wrong.

"You got a minute for me now?"  His voice had an edge.

"What can I do for you, sir?"  I used my best sitting-at-the-charge-nurse's-place voice.  He made me mad, coming into my patient's room, not warning me, not saying hello, and taking two hours to come back.

"We need to talk.  Do you have time for a cup of coffee?"

I looked at my watch.  "Maybe."  I relented.  "Sure.  The charge nurse will be back in about five minutes.  You can wait for me in the cafeteria if you want."

"Don't be long."

"Hey, Ray, I'll do what I can." 

It took me ten minutes to get to the cafeteria.  When I joined him at a booth in the corner of the room, he had finished his beverage and was nibbling a Danish pastry.  I sat and sipped my coffee.  It was steaming hot.  He must have made a second trip to the machine to get mine.

"What do you want?"  I asked.  The coffee had a bitter aftertaste, but it was otherwise fresh and drinkable. 

"Anything new?"

"That's what I want to know.  What's the deal with Jamel?"

"He's a piece of work."  He frowned.

"I read a passage in a book describing a young African-American kid with an attitude.  He sat on a sofa surrounded by high-powered lawyers and managed to appear both above it all and insolent at the same time.  Reminds me of Jamel."

"Is he giving you a problem?"

"No.  I think he gives his parents a problem though."

"That's what the neighbors in the storefront next to the real estate office said yesterday."  He broke off a piece of Danish and pushed the plate in my direction.  "They said the kid hangs out with a rough crowd.  They work at the car wash."

"It's on Sample."

"Yeah.  Been asking questions?"

"Jamel talked a bit."

"The neighbors said that a few days before Hutchinson got popped, the kid had a screaming match with the old man.  From what they heard, they believe it was over money.  The wife denies conflict between them."

"I tend to believe the neighbors."  I repeated my conversation with Jamel.  After a moment's hesitation, I told him about Jamel playing with the tubing, too.

"He shouldn't be alone with the old man."

"I know that, but I don't have control.  I reported it to the supervisor.  Our options are limited.  We could restrict his visitors, but we'd have to explain it.  You could put a bodyguard in the room to protect him, or we could move him back to ICU.  However, the insurance won't pay for it, and the hospital won't either."

"Let me think about it."

"I think Jamel came in to say goodbye.  He won't be back much."  I broke off a piece of Danish.  It was dry and crumbled in my hand.  I ate it anyway and washed it down with a sip of coffee.  "I was surprised to find that cute little dress shop in the shopping center."

"Huh?"  Ray shook his head.  "What dress shop?"

"The one next to Hutchinson Realty."

"You've been there?"

"I went there Saturday afternoon.  I have an appointment to see property with the competition at Michael Wiley Realty on Thursday.  Art Meyer, a real talkative older guy, can't wait to show me around."

"I don't like you going out on your own and playing private eye."

"I've made the date, and I'm going to see what I can find out.  Either you'll want to know or you won't.  Whatever."  I shrugged and raised my hands, accenting my flip attitude.

"Let me know what happens."  He strolled out of the cafeteria without looking back.

I watched him go, admitting to myself that he had made a class exit.  I thought about moving back to North Dakota, picked at the stale Danish, and sipped the bitter coffee.  The whole conversation with Ray had taken about five minutes.  I spent the remainder of my break seething and remembering.

I met Ray when I was rookie police officer.  My partner, Ralph, and I were the first to arrive at the scene of a brutal homicide.  A neighbor had heard fighting, the sound of breaking glass, and the woman yelling, "No, no, please don't."  The woman's boyfriend was prone to violence, so the man didn't check.  He called us instead.  It was a good move on his part.  The boyfriend carved the woman with the jagged edge of a broken booze bottle, then finished the job with a kitchen knife.  When we arrived, he had fled. 

We secured the scene, roping off the entrance, outside walk, and part of the yard with yellow crime scene tape.  A crowd formed.  The media monitored the call on police scanners, so we had a TV crew to deal with, too.  That kept us occupied until the sergeant and the detectives arrived.  Ralph entered the apartment to see if the victim was alive.  It was a one-room studio.  I saw everything from the door.

After the detectives took control of the scene, we collected names and apartment numbers from the neighbors, asking what they had seen or heard.  We had plenty of help and finished in a couple hours.  Later I leaned against our patrol car, remembering the scene and trying not to lose my dinner.  Ray approached me and said supportive things, helping me come to grips with my feelings. 

He called me the next day to check on how I was doing.  His compassion impressed me.  One thing led to another, and soon we were an item.  After about six months, we started to talk about marriage. 

Then Ralph and I stopped a speeder going west on Sample Road.  Departmental regulations didn't allow us to give chase, but it was late and the sergeant gave permission.  The creep killed Ralph and shot me.  I was luckier than Ralph.  The shaft of my right femur shattered at the point it bends to become the greater trocanter—the thighbone part of the hip joint.  My pelvis broke when I fell, and I had a belly wound.  The result was a lot of my blood in the street, making the perpetrator think I was as dead as Ralph, whom he shot between the eyes.

Ray stuck by me when I was a patient in ICU, while I fought a raging infection, and as I struggled with an extended rehab.  When I left the hospital to go back to North Dakota to recover my strength, he said he was moving on.  He didn't offer an explanation, and I didn't ask for one.  I had sensed it was coming, but I've wondered a lot about it.  What seemed clear during the aftermath of the trauma didn't seem clear any longer. 

I opted for nursing school rather than returning to the police force.  On occasion, we drifted together then drifted apart again.  The reconnection always centered on a case relating to the hospital or something medical.  As a nurse, I was in a position to access behind-the-scenes people and events.  When I was on the force, he respected my judgment despite my inexperience.  I sometimes worried a problem to its solution—a cop's genes, or a nurse's.

The last time we cooperated on a case, the guard injured the fish in the mall.  He got a kick out of picking things for me to try on and then seeing me wear them, so we'd gone shopping.  After he split, my wardrobe suffered as much as I did.  I missed the closeness we once shared.

I threw the last of the Danish in the trash, followed by my half-full coffee cup, arriving on Five East in time to see Jamel and his friends shuffling into Hutchinson's room.  I retrieved some medication from the Pyxis, a medication cabinet resembling a computerized cash register, and followed them.

Amelia sat in the corner near the window with an open book on her lap, glaring at her son.  "You should have come alone," she said.

"I did.  Early.  I came back."  Jamel approached his mother while his friends hung back.  He appeared sullen, his eyes downcast.

"I thought you were working."

"I didn't have to.  I showed up late, and they had already called someone else in.  Me and the boys came back here.  I need some money."

Amelia's eyes seemed to survey the small group.  "I didn't know you were so concerned about my husband."

The three young men were about twenty-two or three.  Jamel-clones in baggy pants and huge shirts, they needed baths, deodorant, and a harsh shampoo and conditioning of their dreadlocks.  At least Jamel smelled clean. 

I was amused watching the young men take small steps backward until they lined up against the wall, as if trying to dissolve into the woodwork.  They each stood over six feet.  Even with slouching posture, they weren't effective in looking inconspicuous.  One of them, the tallest one with the floppy cloth hat pulled over his eyes, took the hint and shuffled out of the room.  The other two followed.  I exited after them.

Once outside, I stayed close to the room, rechecking my patient's medications and straining to hear the conversation.

"Jamel," Amelia said, "you need to keep your job.  I don't have extra cash to give you."

"Too late.  I'm fired."  Jamel challenged his mother, his words insolent.

"Why?"  She sounded breathy, strained.

"It's the pig Stone's fault.  I told him I had to go to work."

"I asked you to call the detective.  I asked you three times.  You didn't have to wait for him to find you.  You should have gone to the police station like he asked and answered his questions."

"I didn't hear you."

"You said you heard me.  You even repeated it."

"I don't remember."

Amelia's reply was inaudible. 

Jamel spoke again, his voice louder and sharper.  "What right does that pig have to talk to me?  I didn't put a hit on the old man."

"They have to check out every possibility.  You know that.  We talked about that, too."

"Just give me some cash.  I'm comin' up short.

"So am I.  You'd better find another job."

"When I get time.  The boys and I have something to do."

"When do you have class?"

Jamel mumbled.

"What did you say?"  Amelia persisted.  It sounded like familiar territory for them.

"I don't.  I dropped them."

"Again?"  There was a long pause.  "When will you be home?"  Amelia sounded exhausted.

"When I get there."  I heard his voice sharpen.  Emerging from the room, he folded a twenty and a five and shoved them into his pocket.  He'd been successful bullying his mother.  Had he done the same with his father? I wondered.

9

The next day was Tuesday.  I offered to take Hutchinson, accepted report from the off-going shift, and headed down the hall.  I anticipated a better day.  We had plenty of help, and I'd be able to spend a lot of time in Hutchinson's room.  Since he was my sickest patient, I stopped in to see him first.

Hutchinson was alone.  After the scene the day before, I didn't think Jamel would be around much. 

Hutchinson showed no signs of waking—his overall condition hadn't changed.  The antibiotics were having an effect, and the smell from the dressings was less intense.  The treatment and the ventilator kept him alive.  I held his hand, feeling sorry he should have to endure such a fate and knowing I had come close to the same predicament myself.

Amelia Hutchinson showed up at three in the afternoon, late for her.  I had most of my work done, so I gave her a few minutes to settle in.

"Do you have time to sit with me?" she said when I entered the room. 

I smiled and nodded but went to the other side of Hutchinson's bed with the fresh dressings Central Sterile had delivered.  I put them in the drawer of the bedside cabinet, checked Hutchinson's pump and ventilator settings, then pulled a chair next to her. 

She looked tired.  Rather than being dressed in her usual business clothes, she appeared rumpled and casual in a pair of loose fitting cotton slacks and an oversized tee shirt with a metallic appliqué of fish and palm trees.  I doubted she had been selling real estate.

"What's on your mind?"  I said, holding her hand.

"Did I tell you we have a small family—my husband, my son, and I?"  She stared out the window.  For a few moments, the only sounds in the room were the rhythmic whooshing of the vent and the soft hum of the feeding pump.

I looked outside as well.  The parking lot appeared smoldering though the temperature was only in the mid-eighties. 

"I didn't realize there were no brothers or sisters for either you or Barry.  It must be hard for you."

"Barry has a brother up north, but we seldom hear from him.  I called about the shooting, but he didn't say much and hasn't called to find out how Barry's doing."

"A lot on his plate perhaps."

"We haven't gotten along in years.  The men had a falling out over the inheritance when their mother died."

"That's too bad."

"Yes.  Maybe that's why I had second thoughts about the divorce."  She continued to stare out the window.  Her eyes were glossy, and tears pooled in the corners.  "I'm afraid of ending up a lonely old woman.  I always thought Barry would be an abandoned, friendless old man.  I found out . . . out . . . he's had a girlfriend for a long time."

That took me by surprise.  Looking at Hutchinson, he wasn't the kind of man you pictured having a girlfriend.  He was, no doubt, more vibrant in life than in a coma, but he was old-looking, soft, with droopy skin along the jaw line and lots of excess tissue around his neck.  Even in his current state, I saw the years had taken their toll.  "How do you know he had a girlfriend?"  I asked, recovering from the revelation.

"After I asked for the divorce, I had second thoughts, like I said.  We hadn't made love for a few years, even though we shared the same bed.  He would stay out at night, drinking and partying.  I worried about catching some disease, so I refused to have sex with him.  I got used to it and put it out of my mind. 

"I expected him to have a girlfriend.  I even suggested he get one.  He said he wouldn't.  He'd learn to live with it."  She frowned. 

I nodded periodically and let her talk. 

"I thought it was a moot point.  He's had blood pressure trouble for years, started a long time ago, and he was impotent.  At first, he was angry about the problem.  Quit taking his pills."

"There's a whole thing about a man's sexual performance defining his masculinity and his value," I said.

"He said life without sex wasn't worth living.  Then he had a slight stroke.  He was in his late forties, and it scared him.  Living became more important to him than sex."

"Amelia, you're not making a lot of sense.  First you tell me he had a girlfriend, then you tell me he had a performance problem."

She stared at me, then bent and rummaged through her pocketbook, retrieving a crumpled package of spearmint gum.  She took a piece and offered me some.  I'm not a gum chewer, but the minty smell was enticing.  It tasted as good as it smelled, fresh and clean. 

After a moment, she continued.  It was as if she were talking to herself rather than to me.  "I thought maybe I could rejuvenate our marriage with sex, so I made a pass at him one night.  He responded, and we fooled around.  He couldn't do much, but he always was able to please me.  He had his ways."

"What did he say about the divorce?  You told me he waited for you to ask for it.  You said he wanted out as much as you did."

She looked me in the eye.  "He didn't say anything, never did.  He did comment that he couldn't turn down an old piece when it was thrown at him.  I should have taken the hint and what was left of my self-respect and left, but I didn't.  It became a habit.  When he was home, we'd fool around.  But he didn't come home very often."

"I thought you were afraid of catching something from his running around."

"Oh, I was," she said, "but I was more afraid of being alone.  Alone and broke."

"I don't understand," I said, thinking about their business.

"I knew he'd never give me anything, then I found out he'd cleaned out the savings account.  There isn't anything left."

I didn't know what to say.

"That's why they called me to the police station today."

"Excuse me?"  Now I knew the reason she came late. 

Ray was covering the bases.  I agreed with him.  A person familiar to the victim is often the killer, and there was a lot of trouble in this family.  But I wondered what was behind Ray's enthusiasm.  Hutchinson wasn't dead, might not be for a long time.  Ray was spending an unusual amount of time on an attempted homicide when there were plenty of successful murders to work.

"It was terrible," she said.  Tears filled her eyes and ran in rivulets down her lustrous brown cheeks.  I offered her a tissue, and she dabbed at the tears before blowing her nose.  "The phone rang about eight.  I was getting up.  I showed some property late last night, then met with Michael Wiley.  When I went to bed, I couldn't sleep.  I keep thinking about being sixty years old, destitute, and selling real estate for that creep Wiley.  He won't pay me anything significant for the business.  He wants to take over the contracts and give me a job.  I bet he fires me the first chance he gets."

"What did Detective Stone want?"

"He wasn't the one who called me.  It was some woman.  A clerk or something.  When I dragged myself into the police station, Stone was there.  He asked someone to put me into a conference room."  She shifted her weight in the chair then stared at her husband's ventilator.  "It wasn't a conference room.  It was an interrogation room like the ones on television—table and chairs, nothing else.  It didn't even have a window."

"Go on," I said.  On one hand, I wanted to rise to the defense of my patient's wife.  The poor woman.  On the other hand, I understood she was a suspect.  But why call her in now, today?

"They left me there a long time.  Stone came in with another officer, a young man, and they offered me coffee.  They questioned me about the business, how it was going, and how it was doing before Barry was shot.  I told them things were on a wing and prayer as far as I could tell.  I even volunteered the information about the lack of cash flow and the fact I was having trouble making payroll."

"It sounds like pretty old territory.  Hadn't they asked you those questions before?"  The gum had lost its flavor, and I realized I was chewing too hard, like a cow with her cud.  I helped myself to a tissue and used it to remove the gum from my mouth, keeping an eye on Amelia while I disposed of it.

"I presumed they'd get around to questioning me.  Right after Barry . . .  Well, they pretty much left me out of it.  They asked me a few things, but I was distraught and not helpful.  They said they would get with me later."  Grunting, she lifted herself out of her chair, walked around her husband's bed, and stood by the window.

"What else happened?"  I decided to keep prompting her.  It would be interesting to compare what she said with Ray's version, if he discussed it with me that is.  I went to stand beside her.

"Stone said—let me see if I can get it exact—he said, 'Don't you think you could make payroll if you hadn't taken five-thousand out of the agency's money market account?'"  She looked at me.  Her face was tense, drawn in around her nose.  She spread her hand out in front of her in a motion that would have said
he's got the whole world in his hands
had the circumstances been different.  "I was speechless."

"Then?"

"I tried to explain I hadn't been included in the agency's finances.  Barry brought home a paycheck, sometimes as payroll, sometimes as corporate dividends, depending on what the tax accountant said.  I never saw the books.  I didn't have access to the money.  I remember signing cards when the accounts were opened, but I never did anything with them.  The only time I learned anything was when the taxes were done at the end of the year."

"Given your feelings about your husband, didn't it concern you?"

"Of course it did, but he evaded my questions, saying I shouldn't worry so much.  He said the agency was half in my name, and I'd get my share."

"Sounds iffy to me, if you want to know the truth."

"I thought so, too, but I didn't want to rock the boat any more than I had.  I thought there was a chance of keeping our marriage and our business together.  We're older people, and I hoped he would get tired and stay home."

"Amelia, it sounds like you beat yourself up pretty bad over the years.  Unless there was some major event, I can't see how you would expect him to change his behavior."

"Sophia . . ."

"Yes?"

She pointed to Hutchinson.  "This is a fairly major event in his life."

I shook my head, pinching my lips together, then glanced at my watch.  I could talk to her for a few more minutes.  I'd have to hurry to get a couple of blood sugars checked and the insulin injections given before the dinner trays arrived.  "Is that all the detectives wanted?  It seems you were there a long time."

"From about, maybe, nine this morning to noon.  Afterwards, I went to the bank to verify the information they gave me and then to the agency."

"You look tired.  Why don't you sit?"  I pointed to her chair and watched her walk back around the bed and settle into it.

She shivered, wrapping her arms around her chest.

"I'm confused."  I retrieved a clean blanket from the back of a chair and laid it over her legs.

"So was I.  Stone accused me of taking five thousand dollars out of the money market account.  I told him I didn't do it.  He said, "Yes you did.  We have a copy of the withdrawal slip.'"  She moved her hands, punctuating her rapid speech.  "I said, 'No, show me.'  He refused.  Said I knew what I signed. 

"He wanted to know if I'd used the money to put out a contract on Barry.  Can you believe that?  He said in South Florida it's easy to take out a contract.  Happens all the time.  He said you go into one of the slums, like where my son hangs out, and ask around. 

"I love Barry.  I didn't want him dead.  After all these years, I wanted him home with me at night.  That's not too much to ask.  Like my friends.  Their husbands are home with them.  That's all I ever wanted.  Just a normal family."

"Amelia," I said, rubbing her shoulder.  "Take a few deep breaths.  Try to relax.  The police are doing their jobs.  If they found a big withdrawal, they have to find out where the money went."

"They think I found out about Barry's girlfriend.  They said it made me mad, and I decided to kill him.  They wouldn't believe I didn't know about the girlfriend until they informed me a few hours ago.  How would I know?  Barry didn't tell me, and his behavior never changed.  Sure, I thought he had many girlfriends over the years, but nothing long-term.  What did I expect?  I wouldn't sleep with him."

"Let me get this straight.  You didn't know he had a girlfriend, but you thought he had
many
girlfriends.  That was okay?"  I held up a hand to emphasize my question.