Shadow of Death

by Patricia Gussin

  The whole world came apart around them as Snake and Johnny threaded their way to City Hospital. Sniper bullets rang out. Fire hoses clogged the streets. Sirens came from every direction. Smoke clogged the air so they could hardly breathe. Buses poured in with hundreds of soldiers, armed with bayonets. Snake was scared shitless and he knew Johnny was too ’cause he puked right there in the parking lot. Then, before Snake even realized it, Johnny grabbed a white coat from an ambulance and disappeared inside the emergency room.

  Snake tried to follow, but a cop held out a rifle, barring his way. Then Snake disappeared into the smoke-filled chaos to hook back up with Lonnie and Willie.

  Now looking for Johnny to come out of City Hospital, Snake circled the gray concrete building to avoid the pigs. He loitered for as long as he dared by the parking lot where Johnny had puked. Johnny, so tough on the streets, but bleeding inside. So torn up about his brother. Where was Johnny now? To cheer Johnny up, the gang was taking him to Baker’s Keyboard to listen to the Doozy Blues. His mother had said he’d left, hadn’t she? Snake flipped on the Mustang’s wipers; it was starting to rain.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Miss Nelson?” Laura jumped at a familiar voice. She felt her knees buckle. Dr. Monroe, the chief of surgery. What was he doing here? Had he seen what had happened?

  “Are you all right?” Keys in hand, he was standing next to a dark Cadillac.

  Stunned, she said nothing, realizing that she had retraced her steps and was standing in the Doctor’s Parking Lot.

  “Are you all right?” he repeated, staring straight at her.

  “Yes, uh, Dr. Monroe,” she heard her voice shake. Out of nowhere came, “I’m studying at the library tonight. I was just going back in.”

  “That’s good. You’d better get out of the rain.”

  She hadn’t even noticed that the drizzle was now a light rain. Her hand went to her hair as if validating the dampness. She’d worn it down, shoulder length. Dampness always made it frizzy and wouldn’t it be full of dirt? Is that why he was staring? Or was it the cut on her lip? She still tasted the blood as she bit down on it purposefully. Gripping her handbag tightly, she simply said, “Yes.” Then a fresh wave of panic turned her stomach inside out as she felt warm liquid dribble down her left leg.

  “Very well. See you at patient presentations tomorrow,” he said in that tinge of a southern accent, which had mesmerized her at freshman orientation. And she wasn’t alone, the whole class seemed to hang on his every word as he eloquently, and with great pride, expounded on the world-class trauma care they’d see during their training at City Hospital. Charismatic, that’s what Susan had called him.

  Had Dr. Monroe seen what happened? According to her watch, it was fifteen minutes past seven. About a half hour since she had fired that shot.

  Running into Dr. Monroe had interrupted the cycling mantra in her brain. A mindless mantra, “Must not find out.” As he climbed into his car and started the engine, Laura realized that she had to do something, go somewhere.

  She knew she must look like a wreck. She’d been dragged across the ground and thrown down into the dirt and debris. Her legs were cut, but her skirt was probably long enough to cover most of the damage. Maybe nobody would notice that she didn’t have stockings. Miraculously, her clothes were not torn and the red cotton sweater and full skirt would hide any stains.

  A wave of nausea hit as she felt that warmish discharge dripping down her leg. She needed soap and hot water, a thorough scrubbing inside and out. Groping in her purse for a dime, she headed for the ladies’ room off of the hospital lobby. In the mirror, she checked her face for scratches or bruises around her mouth. He hadn’t hit her and Laura didn’t see much damage except for the small cut on her lower lip.

  With a ripple of repulsion, she forced herself to check her lower body. First she pulled a handful of paper towels from the dispenser, wet them under the faucet, and rushed into one of the stalls. Pulling up her skirt, she dabbed at herself, ignoring the pain as she ran her fingers over her bruised labia, noting the slight bloody discharge. A wave of dizziness caused her to slump against the metal wall of the stall. Her head cleared and she checked out her knees. Abrasions on both, but nothing more serious than a fall on a sidewalk. Two small, jagged pieces of glass protruded from her left thigh. She got them out with the edge of her fingernail.

  Rushing from the stall back to the sink, beginning to run on adrenaline, Laura gathered additional paper towels, constantly listening for the sounds of anyone entering the restroom. She was lucky. No one interrupted her makeshift bathing procedure. She tried to urinate, but the attempt was too painful. She bought a Kotex from the machine, but cringed. The clean pad would feel so good, but she’d have to put it against the soiled panties. She pulled them out of her purse and with a shudder, shoved them back inside. She’d risk wearing nothing rather than put them back on. She tossed the sanitary pad and wadding up her torn pantyhose, pushed them to the bottom of a wastebasket. Finally, she washed her face with cool water.

  What else? Her hair. She reached into her bag for her brush and moved it, trancelike, through the tangles, dislodging bits of gritty sand.

  The wall clock read 7:40 p.m. What should she do? Go to a pay phone and call the police? Call her husband to come pick her up? Slinking against the wall by the hand-drier, she heard the mantra again, “Must never know!” She’d been raped. It wasn’t her fault. Yes, but you killed a man, was the response. Who would believe that he threatened to kill you? Would he have killed her? How would she ever know? Maybe he would have just walked away. If only he had just taken my purse.

  “I will lose my children,” she said abruptly as she leaned her head against the restroom wall.

  Suddenly Laura knew what she had to do. Not for her, but for her young sons. They needed her. She could not go to jail. She would tell no one, not even Steve. But was she strong enough to get through this? She prayed she was. Prayed harder than she ever had. Harder than she thought she could. Praying for strength and forgiveness.

  Walking into the library, she approached Mrs. Oberly, the librarian in charge of the evening shift, a kindly, rotund woman in her sixties with graying hair. One of the few members of the university support staff with a penchant for assisting the female students, she did everything she could to give the few women in the med school an extra edge. In response to Laura’s request, Mrs. Oberly was able to quickly pinpoint the precise reference texts Laura would need to prepare for her presentation tomorrow. Laura’s survival plan: to establish that she was in the library preparing for class tomorrow. That was, of course, if she made it to tomorrow.

  But first she had to call Steve. The thought of her family made her weak with terror. She should be home with her babies. Maybe she should drop the whole idea of being a doctor? Just stay home. Steve would like that, so would his parents. No, Laura gripped the edge of the table, fighting to resist the collapsing feeling inside as she formulated her story: simply explain to Steve that she was going to be late. Straightening up in her study carrel, she started to sweat as her mind raced. Where to concentrate? Steve’s reaction? The murder kept reappearing in her mind. Then she slumped back, nearly breaking into a sob. What to do about the gun? How to get rid of the filthy panties? All of these demands competed for attention as she left the library for the bank of pay phones across the hall.

  She dialed home. “Steve, hi, it’s me.” She knew that she talked too fast when she was excited so she spoke deliberately, not wanting to arouse Steve’s suspicions. Steve could always tell when she was lying. Could Steve ever accept that she’d been raped? Or was it her own shame that terrified her? Was this about Steve? Or about her own pride? She didn’t know and she was terrified to think it through.

  “Hey, where are you?” Laura heard the concern in her husband’s voice. “It’s past dinnertime. Are you okay?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “You sure? You don’t sound it.”

  “Sorry, honey. Something came u
p very suddenly, and I absolutely have to stay. No choice. We got a patient assignment, and I have to give a report first thing in the morning. I need to do some research in the library.”

  “They sprung it on you just like that? Great. Well, the boys are hungry so we’ll go ahead and eat. I’ll make my special hot dogs. We’ll be fine.”

  “There’s enough formula for the baby in the fridge and chips for Mikey in the cabinet. Don’t let him eat them all. I’m sorry—” Laura couldn’t go on. She’d crossed the line. She could never go back.

  “We’ll miss you,” Steve said, “Tiger’s aren’t on, so it’ll have to be boxing.” He hesitated. “Laura, they’ve lifted the curfew, but you’re still in a dangerous neighborhood. Remember that, okay?”

  “I’ll be careful, honey,” she said on the verge of tears. How could she be saying this when she wanted to just fall into Steve’s arms and tell him everything? Why couldn’t she just do that?

  “How long will you stay?”

  “Till about ten or so. I’ll be home before eleven. Kiss the kids for me. I’ll make it up to you, Steve. I promise.”

  “Sounds good, babe. I’ll hold you to that.”

  Laura hung up, feeling more and more like a criminal, like she’d lost all sense of credibility, of integrity. She was a liar and a killer. She didn’t know if she was doing the right thing, but she couldn’t risk being separated from her kids.

  Suddenly, she had an uncontrollable urge to talk to her mother. Just to hear her voice and feel her strength. She picked up the phone, cradled the receiver in her hand, then set it back. Her mother would know that something was horribly wrong and pull the truth out of her. It’s too late, Laura thought with deepening desperation. Too late to take the bullet back; too late to take the safe way back to her car.

  It was now 8:35 p.m., an hour and a half after it happened, and Laura returned to her study carrel. Her hands trembled as she fumbled through the pages of the gigantic neurosurgical text in front of her, looking for the sections on skull fractures and brain injury. The bullet in Anthony’s brain caused enough swelling and hemorrhage to destroy the brain stem, which controls breathing. Yet he was still alive. The man she shot tonight was not. The brain destruction caused by her bullet was so immediate, so irreversibly lethal. Had anyone found him yet? She almost burst into tears, so she put her face in her hands and sat for a moment as her emotions flip-flopped — one moment logical and the next on the verge of total breakdown.

  She checked her watch. It was 9:30 p.m. She had one more thing to do: look up exactly what kind of rape precautions to take. Tearing through the Merck Manual, a small handbook with all sorts of practical medical information, Laura found nothing, not one sentence. Running out of time, she found what she needed in the Manual of Current Therapy. Laura hastily scribbled some notes. There were precautions against venereal disease, prevention of pregnancy, tetanus, first aid for lacerations and abrasions, and a section on psychological stuff that she couldn’t worry about now.

  Sorting through all this, she focused on venereal disease, shocked and sobered by the high frequency of syphilis and gonorrhea. She resolved to get some penicillin, writing down the exact type and dosage. Then a lump settled in the pit of her stomach. The penicillin had to be intramuscular, she read. How would she ever get a shot? There was the risk of pregnancy, of course, but Laura dared not let herself dwell on that. It simply couldn’t happen. The cut on her lip and the abrasions would heal in a few days. Forget about tetanus, too unlikely. So the critical thing, she figured, was to inject herself with a big slug of penicillin.

  When she was in that hospital ward today, she noted the medicine cabinets right off the nursing station. Those cabinets were stocked with vials and ampules for injection, and all kinds of pills. She’d seen needles and syringes in the open drawer. Tomorrow she’d make an excuse to go back there and somehow take what she needed.

  Right now she had to pack up and leave. No way she’d retrace her earlier path out the hospital door. The terror of that burned-out stretch of buildings made her slump back into her chair. She would walk around to the med school exit and calmly request an escort to her car, an emergency service provided after hours by armed hospital security. Then she remembered the gun in her purse. What should she do with it? She kept a firm hand on her handbag as she left the building.

  It was still raining. Laura’s tall escort held an oversized umbrella over her as she unlocked the driver’s door of the black Falcon wagon. Would he notice how violently her hands trembled? Laura managed a quick wave to him as she jerked the car into gear and lurched out of the parking lot. As she did, a rusted out Mustang veered around the corner, braking hard, swerving to miss her. The angry blast of a horn cut through the rain, and Laura accelerated, never even seeing the three young men in the Mustang.

  She struggled to stay calm enough to drive, telling herself that it was an ordinary car, not the police. No flashing lights. She took a deep breath and slowed the wagon to the twenty-five mile per hour speed limit and headed toward the Chrysler Expressway, which took her to the Ford and then to the Lodge, a fifteen minute commute at this time of night.

  Rain was battering her windshield, making it difficult to see. The drive home was one of terror mingled with guilt, all mixed up. She came to a stop in front of her home. Was it too late to just go in and tell Steve, confide in him, let him help her out of this? She sat for a long moment, trembling, trying to decide. No, she had made up her mind, “No one must know,” pounded in her brain. She had to get through this on her own. Her whole future depended on it.

  Loud snores greeted Laura as she crept in the front door and through the living room. She tiptoed directly to the children’s room, hoping that Steve wouldn’t wake up. Mikey was sleeping, curled up with “Ginky,” his beloved tattered blanket. Kevin was asleep in his crib, wrapped snugly in a light blue receiving blanket. She leaned over each child to kiss them softly before creeping off to her bedroom. No, she couldn’t risk losing them no matter how many lies she had to tell.

  She needed a shower desperately, a very hot and very soapy one. A hot bath would be better, but it would take more time and she needed time to get into bed and wrap herself up, to think about what she’d done, to plan what to do next. But first she had to scrub from head to toe. Then she’d call her mother even if it was late, just to hear her voice. She searched her drawers for a long, heavy nightgown to cover her body, to hide any bruises and the puncture wounds from the shards of glass. She couldn’t take the chance that Steve would be interested in sex tonight. Just the thought of it was repugnant. Certainly for now. Maybe forever.

  After her shower, Laura slipped quietly into bed. She decided not to rouse Steve from the couch. She’d tell him tomorrow that she had tried to get him to come to bed but he hadn’t budged. She wondered how many more lies she would tell. As the events of the night replayed continuously in her mind, she recalculated the chances that no one would ever find out. The “yes” answer chased the “no” around and around her mind. It was past midnight, but she called her mother, who she knew would be reading in bed. Laura didn’t tell her what had happened and knew she never would. Instead she asked a couple of open-ended questions and let her mother prattle in that comforting way of hers.

  She was still awake at 3:00 A.M. when Steve stumbled into the bedroom, still in jeans and a T-shirt. He headed into the bathroom, then flopped into bed and fell immediately back to sleep. All night long she tossed and turned. What were the repercussions of what she’d done? What would happen if she went to the police? Would they believe her? Or would they make her a poster child? A white woman killing a black man? She hadn’t reported the rape to the police. Why not? Was it shame? She didn’t really know and that kept her throwing question after question at herself.

  When it came to Steve, she felt shame and guilt. She wanted desperately to tell him so he could help her shoulder this horror, but deep-down she knew it would ruin her marriage. He’d resisted her going to med school i
n the first place, but she had convinced him that she could be a good mom and a good doctor, and she knew she could. Finally, he’d given in. Then she’d pressured him to move to Detroit, arguing that University Medical School offered the real-life clinical training she wanted. That had been before the riots.

  Moving to Detroit had been a mistake. Wasn’t that clear after the horror of tonight? If only she’d given in to Steve. But no, she’d been bull headed and self centered and risked everything. One thing was certain, if Steve found out she’d been raped, he’d force her to leave school. That would be his justification to deprive her of her dream. When it came to careers, things were different with her and Steve. For him, social work was a job. For her, being a doctor was like a vocation. Something so much a part of her. Something too important to risk losing.

  For the rest of the night, these impossible questions flipped back and forth, interrupted only by Steve’s sporadic snoring until Kevin’s 5:00 A.M. hunger cries.

  “I’ll get the baby, Steve,” Laura whispered, slipping out of bed. Laura and Steve alternated getting up for the early morning bottle. Though it was Steve’s turn, he murmured assent.

  As Laura sank into the rocking chair in the children’s room with her baby in her arms, a miraculous feeling of satisfaction flooded through her. During that brief interlude, everything seemed all right. After Kevin finished half of the bottle, Laura stood and lifted the baby over her shoulder to burp him. As she stood, the serenity dissipated. Pacing, she tried to stave off surges of panic. Mostly about the gun. If they found the gun, what then? She carried the baby into her bedroom. In the dark she reached for her purse, extracted the gun, and returned to the children’s room. Juggling Kevin on one shoulder, she found the box of baby clothes stored on the top shelf in the small closet — clothes too small for Mikey and still too big for Kevin. Nobody would think to look for a gun in a box of baby clothes. She’d get rid of the gun later and make up an explanation for Steve. She maneuvered the revolver to the center of the box, walked quietly back to the living room sofa, and fed Kevin the rest of his bottle. Calmer now, as was the rain, gently tapping against the window.