Jubilee's Journey (The Wyattsville Series) (20 page)

Every instinct said run, but when Paul slid his hand toward the edge of the bed there were bars. Bars? Where was the narrow bunk he slept on? What was this place? His heart began to beat faster. He felt something thick and suffocating in his throat, something tied around his neck, tubes in his arms. Fear turned to panic and his heart started banging against his chest. No words came, but his entire being screamed,
Let me out!

Nancy Polenski was on duty at the nurse’s station. So far it had been a quiet night, and she was glad. For eight straight nights she’d worked the eleven-to-seven shift, and she was weary of it. Although there was less work to do—no bathing, few medications, and only an occasional doctor passing through—the boredom made the hours seem twice as long. Tonight she’d come prepared. Nancy was on page 76 of
Peyton Place
when she heard Paul’s monitor start beeping fast and loud.

“Holy Toledo!” she gasped and went running into his room.

Paul’s eyes were wild with fear, blinking, blinking, blinking. His head swiveled right, left, right. Beads of perspiration rose up and rolled from his forehead onto his cheeks. He blinked again and again; each time the blinking seemed more frantic.

Nancy took his hand and tried to calm him. “It’s okay,” she said, sounding like the mother of a frightened child. “It’s okay. You’re in the hospital. There was an accident. But you’re going to be fine.” She switched on the room light. “See, nothing here to hurt you.” Nancy put her fingers to his forehead and soothed his brow.

Paul grappled for the tube in his throat.

“No, no,” Nancy said. “You’ve got to leave that in. It’s a tracheostomy tube. It’s there to help you breathe.” 

Paul’s arm fell back onto the bed as he looked up with a thousand questions in his eyes. His lips mouthed a single word. “Why?”

“Why” wasn’t a question Nancy could answer. There was never an explanation of why—why one man lived, another died. Only God knew why.

“Doctor Brewster is on duty tonight. He’ll be here in a few minutes,” she said. Her voice was soft and even. Paul heard the sound of his mother speaking. Everything will be all right, she was saying. Everything will be all right.

The patrolman standing guard picked up the phone and called the station house.  “The kid’s regained consciousness. The nurse is in there right now.”

Ed Cunningham was working the station house desk and after witnessing the ugliness of the crowd at Klaussner’s store, he did not want to be even slightly involved in this particular case. 

“Talk to Gomez,” he said and patched the call through to the number Gomez had left on the desk. 

Hector Gomez was the detective assigned to the case. He’d gotten the promotion two weeks earlier and was champing at the bit to make a mark. So far it had been nothing but routine investigations—car thefts, kids running amok, break-and-enters. Then Wednesday morning there was a robbery with a near-fatal shooting at Klaussner’s. This, Gomez believed, was going to be his big break.

Before leaving the station house Gomez said to call him the moment the kid regained consciousness. He wasn’t wild about the thought of a middle-of-the-night call but couldn’t afford to take chances. Last year Mahoney, a know-it-all detective from the Northampton precinct, pushed him into believing there was no real crime in the Doyle case, and he’d regretted it ever since. That, Gomez knew, was why it took so long for him to make detective. Open-ended shootings didn’t warrant a promotion. Luckily this case had no loopholes. Everything was there; all he had to do was wrap it up and hand it over to the district attorney. 

When the telephone rang at three o’clock, Gomez said, “I’m on it.” He reached for his pants in the darkness of an unlit bedroom, then grabbed a crumpled shirt with the smell of yesterday. Less than ten minutes later the garage door rumbled up. He backed the car out and headed for the hospital.

Doctor Brewster was standing at the nurse’s station when Gomez arrived. “How’s he doing?” the detective asked and gave a nod toward Paul’s room.

Brewster answered with a
who knows
shrug.

“Is he awake? Talking?”

“He’s regained consciousness, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“So am I going to be able to talk to him?”

“Not now. He’s heavily sedated.”

“When?”

“Two, three days, maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“I’m not going to let you question him now,” Brewster said flatly. “And even if I did the boy wouldn’t be able to tell you anything. He’s too disoriented. He doesn’t understand where he is or why he’s here.”

“Brain damage?” Gomez asked.

Doctor Brewster shook his head. “The bullet fractured his skull but didn’t penetrate, so there’s no injury to the brain.” 

“Then what’s the problem?”

“My guess is shock. He’s thrown a protective wall up to keep from remembering what happened, but it’s also preventing him from remembering other things.”

“Did you get anything? His name? Where he’s from?”

The doctor shook his head again. “No, and for now I don’t think you’re going to.”

“This shock thing,” Gomez said, “how long does it last?”

“We have no way of knowing. Shock is the brain’s way of shutting down to let the body heal. Sometimes as the body starts to heal, a person’s memory returns. Other times, well…” Brewster gave another
who knows
shrug and turned away.

When the doctor left Hector Gomez walked to the vending machine down the hall and returned with two coffees. He handed one to Nancy. “You look like you could use this.”

“Thanks.” She slipped a marker in front of page 77 and closed her book.

For the next two hours they sipped lukewarm coffee and chatted.

Hector, who had a way of getting information through what seemed to be a casual conversation, learned that Sid Klaussner was still in a medically-induced coma. “Too bad. Sid’s a damn nice guy, doesn’t deserve this.”

“Nobody does,” Nancy commiserated.

Once he found out that Sid had been unable to speak, let alone provide details of the robbery, he moved on to asking about Paul. “So, the kid is still a John Doe?’”

“Yeah.” Nancy nodded. “A real shame. Doesn’t even know his name.”

Gomez was determined to move up in the ranks—this year detective, next year maybe lieutenant.

“The shame is, these punk kids think they can get away with it,” he said. When he saw the grimace on Nancy’s face, he softened his stance. “But you’ve still gotta feel sorry for them. You gotta wonder what drives them to something like this.”

“We never know,” Nancy said sadly. “We just never know.”

On the way out, Gomez stopped to talk with the patrolman standing guard outside John Doe’s room. “Has anybody been to see him?”

The patrolman shook his head.

Hector peered through the plate glass window in John Doe’s room. “Damn,” he grumbled. “Nobody’s reported him missing, nobody’s been here to see him. What kind of nut-ball family does this kid come from? You sure nobody’s been here?”

He got the same answer.
Sooner or later,
he thought.
Sooner or later somebody would show up, and when they did…

Name or no name, Gomez had already decided this one was going to be a conviction. He drove home imagining the gold bar that would one day be pinned to his chest.

On Saturday morning when Loretta reported for work, the hospital gossip line was filled with chatter about how the Klaussner’s gunman had regained consciousness. Before Loretta was fully seated behind the visitor’s desk, she’d dialed Olivia’s number.

“I understand the boy is awake,” she said in a deliciously whispery voice. “The police suspect he’s an out-of-towner, but he won’t tell them his name or where he’s from!”

Although Olivia was shaken to the core at hearing such news, she said, “Well, I’m certain that’s none of my business.”

“Oh, I think it is,” Loretta replied slyly. “Ethan Allen and that little girl were here yesterday, and they were looking to get in and see the boy.”

“Yes, you told me that yesterday,” Olivia said. “But I fail to see how—”

 “Those kids know something,” Loretta taunted. “I
know
they know something!”