“Then we start searching other places. Which makes your nana taking over hospital duty with Paula a good thing.”
“Besides keeping her butt in the bed? Because, trust me, if the doctors want your friend in bed getting medicine, Nana ain’t gonna let her feet hit the floor except to pis…er go to the bathroom,” Kirk F said with a sheepish grin towards Brianna.
She grinned back at him. After having him underfoot in her apartment for six months, she’d gotten to know him quite well and still the kid guarded his language in her presence. Something she was sure came from his nana’s influence. Speaking of which, she narrowed her eyes at Kirk F. “This is Wednesday. Isn’t Nana supposed to be going to bingo tonight?”
“That’s what I asked her when she got all grandma ninja on me. She said when a body in need needs healing, bingo can wait.” He grinned at them both. “And usually nothing comes between Nana and her bingo nights.”
“Having her stay with Paula is a bonus for us,” Aaron said, grabbing his coat and sliding out of the booth. “If we strike out at the morgue, then we’ll divide and conquer.”
“Divide up how?” Brianna said, scooting out of the booth and pulling on her coat. Then she took Stanley’s leash from Kirk F, grabbed Nana’s hot chocolate, and headed to the exit, the two men following in her wake.
“We’ll make copies of the sketch you made of Art. Then Kirk F can hit the local hospital emergency rooms while you, Stanley and I visit some of the shelters. There’s too many to hit them all in one night.”
“Damn, bro. Why you be dragging me to the morgue then? I don’t like dead bodies,” Kirk F groused, suddenly sounding like a young nineteen-year-old.
“If you’re gonna be a cop, you’re gonna see dead bodies.” Aaron said as they walked through the parking lot. “And you might as well start with finding a body in the morgue. Besides. If Art isn’t there, we won’t be seeing any dead bodies.”
At her car he opened the passenger’s side door for her, deposited Stanley in the back next to Kirk F and took the driver’s seat.
As she buckled into her seat, Brianna realized she’d automatically given the control of not only her car, but the situation to Aaron. “You know I’m capable of driving own my car.”
Aaron nodded as he pulled out of the parking lot onto Prospect. “I’m sure you are, but this time you’re just gonna have to let me do the driving.”
“Why?” she asked, suddenly feeling very irritated. Since the kidnapping and torture three years ago, she’d given up depending on and manipulating men to get things done. “Because, I’m a woman and you assume I can’t drive? I’m an excellent driver,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man.
Kirk F snorted in the back seat but had the good sense to keep his mouth shut.
“No, I don’t assume things about people, men or women. But in this situation, it makes sense for me to drive.” Aaron said with a raised eyebrow glance her way and the hint of a smile.
Brianna crossed her arms over her chest. “Why is that?”
“Because I know the short cut to the morgue. To both of them.”
Turns out the restaurant they’d gone to was only a few blocks from the downtown county morgue. It didn’t take them long to chat with the clerk manning the evening shift and learn that no body matching Art’s image was currently on the premises. She saved them a trip to the Medical Examiner’s office on the far east side of town by faxing the sketch over. Again, they got the reply that no one matching Art’s description was there, either.
“I’m glad they didn’t have Art,” Brianna said as they walked across the street to where they’d parked.
“For your friend and Stanley’s sake, I am, too. But honestly, it would’ve been the simplest solution.” Aaron, who’d been holding Stanley while they were inside, deposited the scraggly-haired pup on the ground, keeping a tight hold on his leash, then handed the car keys back to Brianna. “You two go ahead and start the car. I’ll take Stanley over to that tree. Poor guy’s been holding it for a while.”
“What did he mean it would’ve been the simplest solution?” Kirk F asked from the backseat.
Brianna shifted in the driver’s seat to face her young friend. “As sad as it would be, finding Art in the morgue would mean we didn’t have to search for him. We’d have some sort of explanation as to what happened to him and then Paula wouldn’t have to worry about her friend.”
“And because he isn’t in the morgues—” Kirk F stopped as Aaron opened the door, climbed into the front passenger seat and handed him Stanley once more.
“Now our work really begins,” Aaron finished. “We’ll go back to the hospital first. Get some copies made of the sketch Brianna made, check on your Nana and Paula.”
“Knowing Nana, she’s got everyone busting their butts to care for your friend,” Kirk F said with a chuckle. “Course she brought her secret weapon.”
“What’s that?” Brianna asked as she moved into the thinning late-night traffic back to St. Vincent’s hospital.
“You know those two bags she had with her?”
“Her knitting bags?”
“One was full of yarn and knitting stuff. The other was the cookies she always takes to bingo night. Nana says, Feed the nursing staff and you’ll get extra good care.”
At the hospital Aaron took Stanley once more and handed Kirk F the sketch of Art as they walked inside. “Start in the ER here. Use that natural charm of yours and see if anyone has seen Art or treated him in the past week.”
“I do have charm,” he said and sauntered towards the triage nurse’s desk.
“And see if you can get someone to make you copies of that sketch,” Aaron called out after him.
“Yes, sir.” Kirk F gave him a salute and a wicked grin.
“Why do I feel like you just sent the fox into the hen house?” Brianna said as they went through the double doors separating the waiting area from the patient care bays, where they’d left Paula and Nana. The door to the private care room they’d been in was open with no sign of either woman.
“Where did they go?” Brianna asked, looking around and suddenly afraid Paula had bolted.
“They’ve moved your friend to a room,” the middle-aged nurse who seemed to be in charge said from the desk behind them. She held up a chocolate chip cookie and smiled. “Ms. Patrick was awful kind to give us a tin of cookies before they went up to the fifth floor.”
Glancing at the other staff seated or milling in the nurse’s station, Brianna fought the urge to laugh. Almost everyone seemed to be eating one of Nana’s home-baked goods. “Apparently, Kirk F’s Nana was right.”
“I wonder if that’s how your friend got moved to her room so quickly,” Aaron said with a conspiratorial wink then turned to get the room number from the nurse.
When they arrived at Paula’s new room, she was sitting up about forty-five degrees, plastic oxygen tubes with the little nose prongs in her nares and the IV machine keeping her hydrated. Eyes closed, she appeared to be dozing despite all the beeps of the monitors and the television playing reruns of a game show.
“She was awake until they moved her up here and did all their business getting her settled,” Nana said from the big visitors chair beside the bed, her fingers moving quickly as she weaved her knitting needles back and forth with a string of yarn from a multi-shades-of-blue ball, even while looking up over the rims of her glasses at Brianna and Aaron. “Then she passed out. I think all the nurse’s fussin’ and the move just wore her plum out.”
“Good. I hate that she’s run herself ragged. .” Brianna set the travel cup near the other woman then moved over to pull the sheet and thermal blanket up around Paula a little more. She glanced at the monitors, not really knowing if the numbers were good or bad, but seeing the waving patterns and the spikey patterns moving in regular rhythm reassured her. When she’d been in the hospital three years ago, she’d once asked if all the numbers constantly changing was a bad thing. The nurse had smil
ed and said, “No, we expect to see them move around. In medicine, a straight line is never a good thing.”
“Any luck finding whoever you’re looking for? And where did you leave my grandson?” The clicking of Nana’s needles stopped, and she directed her attention to Aaron as she reached for the hot chocolate.
He set Stanley on the edge of Paula’s bed where the pup curled in beside her and shoved his hands in his coat pockets. “Left him downstairs getting copies of Art’s sketch and information from the nurses.”
Nana harrumphed, shaking her head and going back to her knitting. “That boy will probably forget the pictures and come back with only phone numbers for those nurses.”
“We were hoping to get some more information from Paula before heading out again,” Aaron said, glancing at the bed then at Brianna. “Hate to wake her though.”
“I’m awake,” Paula mumbled from the bed, her eyes drifting open as she smoothed her hand over Stanley’s fur. “You didn’t find Art?”
“No,” Brianna said, taking her other hand. “But that’s a good thing. We started at the morgue and no one matching Art’s description has been brought to either one.”
Coughing hit Paula as her eyes filled with tears. Brianna handed her a tissue to spit in and then moved the trash can beside the bed within easy pitching range.
“Want a drink of water?” she asked, lifting the big plastic mug with a reusable straw that all hospitals give their patients. She still used hers at home on exercise days to be sure she hydrated well afterwards.
Paula nodded and sipped on the straw, her hand shaking. After a moment, she moved her head and Brianna set the mug on the table. Paula gave her a whisper of a smile. “I’m glad…you didn’t find Art there. Have you…looked at the shelters?”
Brianna shook her head. “That’s why we came back here, Aaron and I are going to take Stanley to Art’s usual places, but we need to know which ones. Can you tell us?”
“I’ve been to the…City Mission… since they have some emergency…beds for those men in need. I do my volunteer work…at a church near there…that’s where I met Art and Stanley. But he hasn’t been there.” The wheezing had decreased, probably due to the medicine and oxygen, but Brianna could see the worry still in her friend’s eyes and the dark circles beneath them. “He wasn’t at…any of the other one-night shelters nearby, either.”
“Did you stay in this general area?” Aaron asked. He’d pulled his phone out of his pocket and seemed to be making notes.
Paula nodded from the bed. “Art usually stays…east of the Innerbelt and west…of Seventy-ninth.”
“Is there anywhere outside of the shelters Art usually haunts?”
Paula closed her eyes a moment and Brianna thought perhaps she’d fallen asleep again, but then she opened them. “There’s an old abandoned…factory building not too far from the City Mission. The Salvation Army’s…food canteen drives nearby most nights and he can get…a hot meal for him and Stanley. He hasn’t been there this past week.”
“You know because that’s where you’ve been every night in the rain and cold,” Nana said, never looking up from the clicking of her knitting needles.
Brianna fought the urge to grin at the older woman’s scolding, then she saw Aaron’s shoulders shaking as he stood near the foot of the bed.
“She’s been bossy…since you left me…alone with her,” Paula whispered from the bed.
“Just coz I’m old doesn’t mean I can’t hear y’all whispering over there.” Nana said, peering at them over the rims of her glasses. “And someone needs to take charge of things. Those nurses were gonna let you just lay in that cart all night, which I told them I wasn’t sitting in that old hard chair that long. Course when I gave them that tin of cookies they certainly moved you up on the list.”
“You’re right, Nana. She was making herself sick being out in this nasty Cleveland spring weather because of carelessness. She was doing it to help a friend,” Brianna said with a wink at Paula to take the sting out of her words.
“Well, she might have a good heart, but if her friend is homeless and missing, that’s the policeman’s job, not a little bit of a thing like Paula.” Again, she looked over the rim of her glasses, this time directly at Aaron. She didn’t say, it but they could all tell she was thinking, And where were you when this girl was walking the streets all alone except for that little dog?
“You’re right, Mrs. Patrick, ma’am. It is my job to be looking for Paula’s friend, Art,” Aaron said, his face stone cold sober as he met her eye-to-eye then glanced at the clock on the wall. “But the best time to find a homeless man like Art is after dark when the shelters are filling up or he’s found a place to shelter for the night. It’s just almost ten. Would it be possible for you to stay with Paula—”
“I don’t…need a…sitter,” Paula muttered, then started coughing.
Nana set aside the knitting and slowly rose from her seat. She handed Paula a tissue, then lifted the big water pitcher for her. “No, you don’t. You need to rest. And I’m smart enough to know you won’t do that if you’re worrying about being alone in a hospital and worrying about your friend on the street. So, I’m gonna make you another bowl of my chicken soup and you’re gonna eat it all up.”
“It was really…good soup,” Paula said to Brianna after she took a long drink of the water.
“That’s coz I’m a good cook and not a babysitter. But I am gonna stay in this nice reclining chair the nurses got for me while you get some sleep. These two are gonna take that scrawny pup out and do your searching.” She tucked the blankets up around Paula then waved Brianna and Aaron, with Stanley in his arms out the door. “You tell that grandson of mine to be careful with my Caddy and I’ll see him in the morning when he comes pick me up.”
“I’m not sure if we left your friend with a security blanket or a security guard,” Aaron said as the headed for the elevator.
“Is there such thing as a Pitbull granny?” Brianna answered with a grin.
“I think we just met the OG of Nanas and she’ll keep everyone in line, Kirk F, Paula, the nurses, hell, probably the head of the hospital.” Aaron tilted his head towards the opening elevator door and waited for her to enter first. He pushed the ground floor button, then gave her a grin. “I’d say we were lucky to escape with all our body parts intact.”
7
Last time I saw Art was about a ten days ago with this guy. He brings him by every Friday for a treat of sweetened milk,” Carol, the tiny little grey-haired food truck lady said as she squatted down to pet Stanley, who was happily lapping up a bowl of his favorite treat. She slowly straightened and wrapped her arms around herself, the smile dying on her face and her eyes growing worried. “I should’ve known something was wrong when I didn’t see them this past Friday. I guess I just figured they’d found a warm place for the night.”
“They?” Aaron asked.
“Art and Stanley.” A whisper of a smile crossed her face as she glanced down at the crazy-haired terrier. It fled as fast as it came. “Never saw one without the other. If you have Stanley, something bad’s happened to Art.”
Aaron exchanged a knowing look with Brianna. That was the tenth time they’d heard that comment tonight. “Well, thank you Carol. If you should see him or hear anything from anyone on the streets about him, would you give me a call?” he said as he handed her one of his business cards.
“Sure will.” She read the card, slipped into her jeans pocket then climbed onto the first step into the truck before pausing. “What’s going to happen to Stanley?”
“For now, he’s going to stay with us,” Brianna said, giving a gentle tug to the dog leash, but Stanley didn’t move, instead seemed to be looking down the street.
“He’s probably wanting to go home,” Aaron said.
“He has a home?” Brianna asked. “I thought Art was homeless?”
“I don’t mean a house or apartment where he pays rent. Like most of the people out on the streets, Art wo
uld’ve found a spot where he felt comfortable and claim it as his. A favorite bridge to sleep under. An abandoned car or alley doorway or dumpster. Safe from the elements, but where most other people would leave them alone.”
“That’s right,” Carol agreed. “I see the same people in the same neighborhoods over and over. None of them wandering off miles away or anything. This is a little south from where Art usually waits for his meal.” She pointed up the road. “His usual spot’s about three blocks north of here.”
“Thanks, again,” Aaron said, snatching the dog into his arms and heading to where they’d parked Brianna’s car halfway down the block so not to interfere with any homeless coming to the food truck for dinner. After a few of his natural strides, he realized that even with her long legs she was having to run to keep up and slowed his pace.
“Do you think we’ll find where Art and Stanley have been sleeping?” she asked as she climbed in the driver’s seat once more. While they’d maneuvered their way around town this evening, he’d gotten used to her behind the wheel. She was a very good driver, well aware of her surroundings, the speed limit and traffic.
“I don’t know. We’ll park and see what kind of buildings are in the area. Maybe Stanley can take us to the spot.”
“Are terriers good at that kind of thing?” she asked as they drove up the road and pulled into a vacant spot on the street.
Aaron shrugged. “I have no idea. But he’s a dog, so his sense of smell is acute. He knows the area. He was already trying to walk this way. Best chance we have of finding any clue about Art may be here.”
“What if…” she hesitated, a little tremor in her voice.
“Let’s focus on one step at a time. First, we see if our little friend here can show us where his home is. After that we’ll deal with what we do or don’t find. Okay?”
“Okay. I won’t buy trouble,” she said then shut off the car.
Once they were on the sidewalk, she clicked the electronic lock button on her key, setting the alarm system. She knew they weren’t in a safe neighborhood and didn’t have to be reminded. The small cannister of pepper spray attached to her keyring suggested she didn’t feel any neighborhood was safe anymore. Probably since her abduction from her own home three years ago.
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