A Heartbeat Away

by Harry Kraus

  Christian shrugged. “A lot of people die around here.”

  “It’s a hospital, Chris. We don’t win every time.”

  “It’s not a game you win or lose. Die and you face eternal judgment, right? That’s what you taught me.”

  “True.”

  “I can’t stand the thought of people on fire.”

  His father took a step toward the front door. “Maybe it’s a reality that Christians need to think about more often.” He paused. “But don’t let it paralyze you. Let it motivate you to love people.”

  Christian pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to block out an image of fire. Voices calling for mercy.

  “Harness it, son.” His father left, and Christian watched him disappear up the path.

  He sat back down at the kitchen table, covered his ears, and started to cry.

  Tori and Phin stood on a downtown Baltimore sidewalk. Phin looked toward a stretch of yellow crime-scene tape. “You can’t just go in there.”

  “That tape isn’t intimidating me.” Tori looked past a series of sawhorses and yellow tape around the perimeter of an apartment building. “The doorway isn’t exactly barred.”

  Phin MacGrath squinted down the street. Opposite them, an Asian couple entered a small grocery store. On the next block, a half dozen teens played basketball on an asphalt court behind a chain-link fence. An elderly man with a gray beard and a heavy winter coat wheeled a shopping cart beneath the summer sun.

  “Worried about them?” Tori shook her head. “They couldn’t care less what we do.”

  Phin followed as Tori walked down an alley between two apartment buildings. A stray dog ran ahead of them and disappeared behind the building. Halfway down the alley, a boy leaned against a green city dumpster.

  Tori paused a few feet from the boy. There was something strangely familiar about him. He was black, with skin the color of mahogany. His hair was a short Afro, and his T-shirt and jeans couldn’t disguise his stick-like build.

  The boy looked up. “Don’t tell me,” he said. “You’re lawyers. You want to know about the jumpers.”

  Tori and Phin exchanged a look. “No,” she answered. “We’re not lawyers.” She folded her hands in front of her. “You know about the jumpers?”

  “You’re lawyers.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “Because after the first few days, the only people to come around here are wanting to sue the landlord.”

  Tori knelt in front of the boy, who appeared to be about ten years old. “I’m a doctor. Did you know the—” She hesitated. “The people who jumped?”

  “You mean Dakota. I know her. She’s my mom’s friend.”

  Tori reached out her hand. “I’m Tori Taylor.”

  He shook her hand. “I’m Mike.”

  He pointed to a broken window high up on the side of the apartment bordering the alley. “That’s where she jumped.”

  Tori followed his gaze, then examined the alley below the window. The concrete was stained to be sure. Whether it was old blood, dirt, or something else, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

  “The man landed there,” he said, pointing. “Dakota hit the top of the dumpster.”

  She looked up at the building and back to Phin. “I want to go up there.”

  “The elevator don’t work ’cause the electricity’s off. But you can still go up the stairs.”

  “You’ve been in there?”

  He nodded. “My mom won’t let me go again.”

  “How do I get in?”

  “That door leads to the stairs.”

  She looked at Phin. “You in?”

  He shrugged. “This is a bad idea. You can’t climb five flights of steps.” He shook his head. “Besides, it may not be safe.”

  “It’s dark, but nothing is burned except on the fifth floor.” The boy rubbed his right leg. “You friends of Dakota’s?”

  Tori smiled. “Not exactly.” She hesitated. “But I’m interested in finding out about her.”

  “Did you know that doctor?” The boy stood and scuffed his foot against the alley. “The man that was with her.”

  Tori shook her head.

  “He was a good doctor, but I think he was in trouble. I heard them arguing.”

  “Really? When was this?”

  “A day before the accident.” He squinted at them. “You sure you’re not lawyers?”

  “No.”

  “Police?”

  “Of course not. Why?”

  “My mama doesn’t want me talkin’ to police.”

  “Mike, how old are you?”

  “Thirteen.”

  Evidently, Tori’s expression revealed her doubt.

  “Okay, I’m twelve.” He put his hands on his hips. “But I’m small for my age.”

  “The man that jumped was named Christian Mitchell. Did you know him, too?”

  “I met him at the clinic. Dakota took me to see him.”

  “You said he was in trouble. Do you think he wanted to hurt Dakota?”

  “I don’t know. She sounded mad at him. I saw them in the grocery store across the street.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She was crying, telling him to leave her alone, that he had her confused with someone else.”

  “Dakota took you to a clinic?”

  “On Sixth Street. That’s where she met Dr. Mitchell.”

  Tori looked back up at the windows.

  “I think he was dealing some drugs.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “’Cause I heard Dakota and my mom talking about the clinic helping some addicts get drugs.”

  “Mike, do you think your mother would talk to me?”

  “She might. She sleeps a lot during the day.”

  “Where do you live?”

  He pointed to the next building across the alley. “We live there, just across the alley from Dakota’s place. My mom used to talk to her through the window.”

  Tori pulled out a notepad and a pen. “Can you write down your mother’s name and number?”

  Mike wrote the number and his mother’s name: Kesha.

  She looked up at the windows again. “If I wanted to get to Dakota’s apartment, how would I get there?”

  “Go up the stairs. On the fifth floor go straight down the hall. Second door on the right.”

  The boy limped toward the yellow-taped door. “This is the way. Mama would be mad if I showed you.”

  Phin tried the door. “Shouldn’t this be boarded up?”

  “It was, but some dudes broke the door so they could sleep in there.”

  Phin peered into the darkness. “I’ve got a flashlight in my car.”

  “I’ll wait,” Tori said.

  While she waited, she studied her new young friend. What was it about him that seemed so familiar? Tori pushed back a feeling that was becoming all too familiar: déjà vu.

  “Can I ask you a question about Dakota?”

  The kid shrugged.

  “Do you know if she had a tattoo?”

  “Everyone around here has tattoos.”

  “How about Dakota’s? What was it?”

  He wrinkled his nose. “Two little hearts.” He pointed to his back, over the right shoulder. “There.”

  Tori knew it. She’d seen it. She remembered it.

  Two minutes later, Tori followed Phin into the darkened stairwell. “You set the pace,” he said.

  She did. Slowly, step by step, waiting for her new heart to get the message to speed up and deliver more oxygen. This was something she needed to get used to. It seemed to take more time for her heart to respond when she exerted herself.

  Their progress wa
s methodical. Six steps, rest, another six, rest again. Midway up, Tori noticed a definite aching pain in her left ankle. She paused, rotating the joint and pushing back images of falling from a similar set of stairs. After another five minutes, they arrived on the fifth floor. The smell of burned wood seemed to permeate everything.

  Tori stepped into the hallway, shining the light a few feet in front of her. The wall on the right of the hallway was essentially gone. Ahead, she could see light from windows facing the alley. Somewhere in the distance, she heard her name.

  “Dr. Taylor! Dr. Taylor!”

  It sounded like the boy. She walked toward the sound, eventually discovering that it came from an open window across from the room where she now stood. Mike was waving his arms.

  “Run, Dr. Taylor!”

  She heard footsteps behind her. She turned to see a uniformed officer.

  “Are you Dr. Tori Taylor?”

  She nodded, startled.

  The officer shook his head. “You shouldn’t be here.” He spoke into his radio. “It’s her. It’s Taylor.” He looked back at the duo standing in the room. “Ma’am, you’re under arrest.”

  19

  Standing outside a Baltimore high-rise apartment, with the Miranda warning statement still fresh in her mind, Tori vented her frustration at her arresting officer. “I don’t understand. How did you know I would be in there? Why were you looking for me?”

  The officer was pleasant, a twentysomething patrolman, fit, with a perfect uniform. “Dispatch warned me to look for you, to bring you in. That’s all I know.”

  He opened the backseat to the police car.

  “Why just me? Why not him?” She asked, tilting her head toward Phin.

  Phin’s mouth fell open.

  “Whose idea was it to enter a condemned building?”

  Tori put her hands on her hips. “Mine.”

  “Exactly.” He shrugged. “I have my orders. They were to arrest you and bring you back to the station for questioning.”

  “No one knew I would be here.”

  The officer adjusted his hat. The name clipped to the front pocket of his uniform said “Robins.” “Evidently someone thought you would. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been alerted.”

  She looked at Phin. “Do something.”

  He held up his hands. “There’s nothing to do. Go with him. I’ll follow in my car.”

  She sat in the backseat.

  “Put your seatbelt on.”

  She looked at the young officer in his rearview mirror through the Plexiglas that separated them. Make me. She grumbled and complied.

  “What were you doing in there?”

  “Whatever happened to ‘whatever you say can be used against you in a court of law’?”

  “It applies. I just thought you might like to tell me the story.”

  “I wanted to see, that’s all.”

  “You could get hurt. The building is condemned for a reason. What did you want to see?”

  “I wanted to remember.”

  “You lived there?”

  “Not exactly.” She shifted in her seat, noting that there didn’t seem to be any way to get out of the backseat. The door didn’t have a handle. “What happens now?”

  “You’ll be allowed to give a statement if you wish.”

  “Do I need an attorney?”

  “I can’t imagine why you’d want one. This is a simple thing. You were trespassing.”

  “So why make a deal of it?”

  “Someone at the district office wants to talk to you. That’s all I know.”

  As they drove, Tori’s mind spun ahead, thinking of the consequences if anyone back at VCU learned of her activities. This is crazy. A disaster.

  A few minutes later, Officer Robins led her into the station she’d left earlier that day. Some of the same faces still populated the waiting area. As she walked, she avoided looking at their eyes. She didn’t want to think about their plight. She didn’t want to feel their pain.

  She was fingerprinted and photographed, then placed in another nondescript room with a table and two chairs. There she waited, patiently at first. But after what seemed like an hour, she started pacing the little room, back and forth, until finally, another officer entered. This one had more stripes on his uniform. Gray salted his short hair. “I’m Captain Ellis,” he said. “You must be Dr. Taylor.”

  She nodded. “Look, all I did was trespass.” She held up her hands toward her surroundings. “I’m being treated like a criminal.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about all this.” He paused and sat, gesturing toward the opposite chair.

  “Don’t worry? I’ve never been arrested before.” She sat.

  “Dr. Taylor, I’m sure my department can move beyond that. We can overlook a simple trespass as long as you are willing to cooperate with us.”

  She leaned forward, resting her hands on the table. “I don’t understand.”

  He rotated a silver pen through his fingers, rolling it around first one and then the other, cartwheeling the pen forward and backward over his knuckles. “I had an interesting conversation with Officer Bundrick this morning,” he began. “Your information may be useful to us.”

  Tori nodded. “I’m glad someone thinks so.”

  “Mr. Bundrick tells me you think Dakota Jones was murdered.”

  “The short answer is yes.”

  “Why don’t you give me the long answer?”

  Tori explained how she’d received Dakota Jones’s heart, gave a brief report on cellular-memory transplant, and the new nightmares and memories she’d had since her surgery.

  The captain felt the surface of his flattop gray hair. Evidently satisfied with its smoothness, he smiled. “What do you make of the numbers?”

  “I’m not sure. I just think it’s a clue somehow to unlocking information that Dakota had. I think she knew of something bad going down and she was silenced because of it.”

  “And you know this because—”

  “Because I feel it.”

  Captain Ellis tapped the silver pen against the table. “How committed to finding the truth are you?”

  She paused, searching the captain’s face. “I feel like I owe Dakota this.”

  “Fair enough. Would you be willing to talk to a psychiatrist? I have a consultant who may be able to help bring to light any information you have.”

  “Repressed memories.”

  He nodded. “Are you okay with that?” He slid his chair away from the table. “Because if you just want to forget the whole thing, I can have the deputies give you a court date to discuss your trespassing before a judge.”

  “And if I talk to this psychiatrist?”

  “I’ll tell my staff to ignore the trespass.”

  “You’re threatening me?”

  “Let’s say I am more inclined to show favor toward those who are helping us. Call it a plea bargain.”

  “And you want this information for what reason?”

  “Look at this from my viewpoint. Wouldn’t you want to know if someone was murdered? It wouldn’t look good if we just ignored that, would it?”

  “Why didn’t you look into it before now?”

  “We weren’t aware that there was anything to investigate. Officer Bundrick was first on the scene and didn’t find anything suspicious.”

  Tori sighed. “I can talk to your psychiatrist.” She shook her head. “Anything to stop these nightmares.”

  The captain nodded and smiled. “That a girl.”

  She glanced at him quickly before looking away. The whole thing felt a little … well, greasy was the only word she could find. “I’d like some information as well,” she said.

  He shrugged. “Like what?”

  “Who was
Dakota Jones?”

  “Who was she?” He stared above Tori’s head and seemed to be seeing something in his mind. “A drifter. A druggie. Single. No family.” He looked back at Tori. “Probably not what you wanted to know about your transplant, huh?”

  “I was one of the lucky ones. Some people don’t get a match from anyone.”

  “I wouldn’t want a woman’s heart,” he said. “No disrespect to you, of course.”

  She ignored his comment. “What do you know about Christian Mitchell? I talked to a boy who knew Dakota Jones down at the apartment this afternoon. He said he heard Dakota arguing with this guy. Maybe he’s the one who wanted her dead.”

  “He was a doctor, some sort of resident physician at Johns Hopkins. I can look into it, but at first glance, he seems pretty clean.”

  “Just check him out.”

  “Very well,” he said. “You’re free to go. Just stay away from that apartment building. You’ll be hearing from Dr. Mary Jaworski. She’s the psychiatrist I mentioned.”

  “So I can leave? Just like that? What about the arrest?”

  “What arrest?” he said.

  She walked out, shaking her head in disbelief.

  Behind her, she could hear the captain laughing, first almost under his breath, and then rising to a crescendo.

  She saw Phin in the waiting room. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “What gives?”

  She didn’t explain until they were in the car. “I don’t get it,” she added. “When I talked to Officer Bundrick, he barely acted interested. Now, I get brought in under the pretense that I was being arrested only to talk to this captain who tells me my arrest will be forgotten as long as I talk to a psychiatrist.”

  Phin pulled into traffic.

  “It was like the whole thing was orchestrated to scare me.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “For one thing, why didn’t they arrest you? We were both trespassing.”

  “It does seem strange.” Phin patted her hand. “Why don’t you relax? I’m sure they will check into things now that you’ve started the ball rolling.” He let his hand rest on hers and gave her another gentle squeeze. “And maybe an interview with this psychiatrist will help you sort out your memories. It could help you know the truth.”