First, she would have to admit the rape. Would she have to tell the police? If so, would they tie it to Johnny Diggs’ murder? Then what? She could go to jail. She could lose Mikey and Kevin. And who would take care of the new baby? She couldn’t expect Steve to do it. Certainly his parents wouldn’t. What about her own parents?
She moved through the familiar, frustrating traffic, crying openly now. Hot tears blurred her vision as she pulled into the school parking lot. She sat for a moment, dabbing at her eyes, careful not to dislodge her contacts. As she set the parking brake, her stomach lurched as if the car were still in motion. Before she went into school, she had to focus on the morning’s alarming call. She turned off the engine and closed her eyes.
She picked up the phone just as she was about to leave the house.
“Hello?” she’d answered, thinking the caller to be Susan, saying that she’d changed her plans and needed a ride. “What happened?”
“Mrs. Laura Nelson?” A male voice. “Detective Reynolds here.”
“Uhh…. good morning.”
“Happy New Year to you and your family.”
“The same to you, detective,” Laura said quickly. “Does Susan want me to pick her up?”
“No, I’m not calling about Susan,” he said. “I have a few more questions about that night back in September we spoke about. Nothing really.”
“Shoot.” Laura froze. Had she really said, “shoot”?
“Well, I wanted to go over that afternoon. About how you were in the hospital to examine a patient late in the day. I know it’s a while ago, but does that ring a bell?”
Laura’s mind raced as her heart pounded. Where was he going with this? “Yes. Physical diagnosis.” She’d tried to keep her voice steady. “We saw our first patient that day.”
“Mrs. Nelson, do you remember your first patient? ”
Laura swallowed. “A young man with a gunshot wound to the head.”
“Named?”
Should she tell him? Of course, he’s a detective.
“Anthony Diggs.”
“That’s right. And the boy killed was Johnny Diggs. Brothers. You knew that?”
“How awful,” Laura said, after holding her breath so long she felt faint. “Yes, I did know.”
“Strange coincidence?” Susan’s father asked.
Without waiting for a response, he asked, “Now, the question that keeps coming to my mind is: why were you in that parking lot, not once, but twice that night?”
“What?” Laura held her breath, struggling to formulate a response, a response consistent with everything she’d told him months ago. “Detective, as you know, I went out into the hospital parking lot with Susan where you picked her up. Then I went back inside to the library. Later, I left by the student parking lot. I was escorted by security. But I’ve already told you that.”
“Sure, sure. But bear with me, Mrs. Nelson, something’s not adding up. You said you’d seen Dr. Monroe, out there. Right?”
“Yes.” Laura felt lightheaded. She tried to remember. She told Detective Reynolds that she’d seen Dr. Monroe in the hospital lot. Right?
“Then why didn’t I see him? That’s what leads me to believe that you were out in the hospital parking lot at least twice that night. Once when I saw you. Once when he saw you. You follow?”
“I don’t know what to tell you, detective.” Laura could feel the tremble in her voice as she spoke more rapidly than she could think. “I follow what you’re saying, but I think you’re making a mountain out of a molehill. Apparently, Dr. Monroe was leaving the hospital just after you pulled away. That explains it, don’t you think?” she said quickly. “Detective, I was just on my way out for school.”
The call had rattled Laura terribly. What had precipitated it? Why now, when she was beginning to feel a little more secure that no one knew about that night?
At school, Laura became gratefully distracted. First on today’s schedule was gross anatomy. As she swung open the double doors of the lab, the pungent odor of Harry and his colleagues nearly suffocated her after the holiday break. The stench was even more appalling than she’d remembered. The partially dissected cadavers, soaked in formaldehyde and covered with heavy plastic sheets, had definitely ripened. The odor and the unpleasant task triggered a surge of nausea. To make matters worse, Laura began to wonder if there could be some kind of toxic effect on her poor baby.
“Vacation is officially over,” Rosie groaned. A look of disgust crossed her perky face as she held one hand over her nose and slid the plastic off Harry with the other. “Finally, we attack Harry’s skinny abdomen. Find out what kind of surgery lies under that mysterious scar.”
Ever practical, Susan reached for her scalpel and said, “Let’s get started. Hope you all had a nice holiday, ’cause this semester’s not going to be easy, and I do mean the horrors of neuroanatomy.”
Vicky let out the breath she had been holding, thanks to Harry. “I’ve heard that the emergency room field class is like an education in itself too.”
“Yeah, I wonder what that’s going to be like,” Laura said. “I didn’t think we were going to see the inside of the ER until our third year.” Scalpel in hand, she made the first midline incision from the bottom of the sternum, right over the wide band of scar tissue to the pubis. She continued along the base of the penis and through the midline of the scrotum then paused so they could all inspect the layers of the abdominal wall. “Thank you, Harry, for being so skinny.” They were well ahead of their colleagues who had to carve through layers of greasy, lumpy fat.
“So with this new program,” Rosie responded, “we hang around the interns and see what real life is going to be like?”
“Uh huh,” Vicky nodded. “Like a real-world experience except the real world here at City Hospital is worse than the real world everywhere else.”
“It starts on a Friday night and goes through the end of classes on Monday,” Susan added. “And don’t expect to get much sleep.”
“How do you know so much? A little extra help from Dr. Will?” Laura teased, making an effort to take part in the conversation.
Susan glanced about the sea of cadavers. “Will and I are seeing each other,” she admitted. “But we can’t let on since he’s our instructor. He could get in trouble. You know?”
Rosie glanced up. “Aha, I did detect a certain glow. Our lips are sealed, as long as you give up the details at lunch. Right girls? By the way, guess who I went out with over the holidays?”
“Only one somebody?” Vicky snickered.
“Well, no, but somebody in med school … Okay, I’ll tell you. Tim Robinson. We went to another war protest.”
“The senior, red hair, always hanging around the cafeteria like he’s on the make?” Vicky laughed. “Good luck with that one.”
“Sounds like the male version of you,” Susan said. “Oops, pull that tissue out of the way will you. Better yet, cut it away.”
“Okay,” Vicky leaned in with a tiny scissors to cut the fibers of fascia that Susan held in her forceps. “Listen, girls, I’ve been dying to tell you about my Christmas Eve.” She paused for effect. “Raymond and I went to a big party at our club. Black tie and all.”
“Ooh la la,” Rosie murmured.
“And,” Vicky paused. “Guess who we ran into?”
“Not a clue,” Susan responded, looking up from Harry’s shrunken, knobby liver.
“Anybody else want to take a guess?” Vicky pressed.
“Somebody important, obviously,” Laura answered, glancing at the others. “Somebody we know?”
“Not likely that we’ll know anybody in Vick’s elite circle,” Susan said, maneuvering her hemostat to expose the common bile duct.
“Here, Laura,” Susan said, “grab the hepatic portal vein and push it aside so that I can get through all these adhesions.”
Laura pushed aside the big blue vein with a deft move. Incredibly, dissection had already become so routine it was almost mechanical.
Vicky smiled at Laura as Rosie added, “Yeah, but only after he scared the daylights out of her.”
After a dramatic pause, Vicky continued, “His wife practically attacked me.”
“What?” Rosie demanded. “You’re exaggerating, yes?”
“Not at all. When Raymond and I were being introduced, it came up that I was a student here. Well, Cynthia, that’s his wife, completely freaked. She said something like, ‘how come you’re taking up valuable space men could use’. I’ve never been so insulted. I almost gave it right back to her,” Vicky went on. “Fortunately, Raymond got me out of there but fast. Imagine two women in evening gowns going at it in the middle of the ballroom floor.”
“I heard he was married to a real snoot,” Rosie said. “Very rich and high society.”
“Yes,” said Vicky. “‘Snoot’ is an understatement for that woman.”
“What did Dr. Monroe do?” Laura asked quietly.
“Well, I’m not sure,” Vicky replied, relishing her words. “No one saw him for the rest of the evening.”
“How embarrassing,” Laura murmured.
“I was pissed,” said Vicky. “I think that Dr. Monroe was mortified.”
“What does his wife look like?” Laura ventured.
“God, Laura, she looks sensational. Older than us, of course. Like somebody who spends close to a hundred percent of her time making herself look gorgeous. Probably shops in Paris. But frankly, she’s a bitch if I ever saw one.”
Rosie snorted with pleasure.
“Yeah, I’ve seen her picture a few times in the Detroit Free Press society page,” Susan confirmed. “She always looks great. That is, great, as in rich.”
Everyone nodded.
“Interesting, but let’s get back to work. Okay?” Laura said.
Vicky smiled with obvious pleasure at her report. “You’re right, Laura. We have to kick butt this semester now that we’ve got a reputation to maintain.” She reached for the six-inch tissue forceps. “So,” Vicky continued, “let’s hear about the Nelson’s Christmas, hmm? Did Santa Claus make it? Susan, hand me the scalpel. I’ll dissect the hepatic artery while you retract the rib cage.”
“Yes,” Laura answered Vicky, “We were at Steve’s parents in Traverse City so we had lots of snow. Oh, oh, here come the predators.”
Over vacation, word had spread that the ladies had taken more than their fair share of class honors. Now a group of men walked over to their dissection table. Although the banter was light, the women grinned at each other. The men in the class were going to treat them with a different mix of resentment and respect. As they approached, they began to fan out, revealing none other than a redheaded student named Tim Robinson in their center, who added another obvious element to this mix, romance. He tucked a cluster of bright flowers into Rosie’s lab coat.
At that moment, poor Harry was forgotten by everyone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
After her first week at St. Mary-of-the-Woods Academy, it was plainly evident that Stacy Jones was unhappy. Now, watching Stacy’s belligerent face, Sr. Portia wondered whether it had been a mistake to take her away from home. But hadn’t the events of Christmas Eve made it clear that something had to be done? She couldn’t just stand by and let this bright young girl be lured into a life of self-destruction. On the other hand, Portia cringed at the emotional struggle of this fourteen-year-old, whisked away from her home in the middle of the school year. One of only five black students among four hundred girls. Sr. Portia could only hope that she was doing more good than harm.
The nun had summoned Stacy into the small parlor off the spacious reception area where the girls received visitors on weekends and holidays. The room was cozy and comfortable with a blazing fire in the stone fireplace. Stacy sat across from Sister Portia on a large overstuffed sofa, glaring at the fire as she fidgeted with the strap of her book bag.
“How are things going?” Sister Portia began, knowing this would be difficult. Stacy had little in common with the wealthy, rather spoiled young ladies at the academy. For the nun, meeting the Jones family on Christmas Eve had renewed a passion for her vocation. If she could make a difference with this one girl, she kept thinking.
“I hate it here. I don’t belong here.”
“Yes, you do, Stacy. You know that your mother wants you here and you know why,” the nun said softly. “Everything will work out just fine. You’ve got to give it more time is all.”
“I miss Mama so much. She needs me.” Stacy’s brown eyes filled with tears. “I promise if you let me go home, I’ll be perfect. No more trouble. Please, just let me go back.” The tears began to trickle down her cheeks, and Sister Portia handed her a large white handkerchief from the pocket of her habit.
“I’ve just got to get out of here,” Stacy went on. “Everybody’s white. All the girls hate me.”
“They don’t hate you,” reasoned Sister Portia. “They just don’t know you that well yet. There are some other black girls, and I’ll make a point of introducing you.”
“Don’t. They’re just as snobby as everyone else,” Stacy insisted as she blew her nose and dabbed at the tears.
“Stacy, you’ve been sullen and unfriendly since you arrived. You haven’t even talked to anyone.”
“That’s not true.”
“Well then, why did you refuse to play on the basketball team? I know you played at St. Joseph’s. Sister Mary Agnes told me so. Just give the other girls a chance, Stacy. Trust me on this.”
Stacy sniffled.
“Listen,” the nun said in a conspiratorial tone. “I’ll try to bend the rules and take you home this weekend. You can see your mom and your sisters.” She detected a flicker of hope in Stacy’s eyes. “I spoke to Sister Mary Agnes just today. She tells me everyone really misses you too. Says your classmates are eager to hear how you’re doing, to congratulate you on your scholarship. You’ve become a celebrity!”
“Well, I don’t want to be a celebrity,” Stacy responded, her eyes flashing defiantly. “Everybody here is white, except for a couple girls. It doesn’t matter — I hate them, and they hate me. I’ll stay here until next weekend, then I’m going home and I’m not coming back.” She shook her head, anger creeping back into her voice.
“My goodness, Stacy, Sister Mary Agnes is white and so am I. And I know you don’t hate us. Honey, you’ve just got to trust us. You’ll be fine. It will just take a little time.” She glanced at her watch. “But right now, why don’t you go down to the gym? The basketball team is just beginning practice. Show them what you can do.”
Usually, Portia detested sports because they distracted her students from the study and appreciation of art and music. She knew, however, that basketball in the academy’s league was competitive. If Stacy turned out to be half as good as Sister Mary Agnes had predicted, it could be her ticket to instant acceptance.
Stacy reluctantly agreed to go down to the gym. As she changed into a scratchy gym outfit, she swore to herself one thing: there was no way she was coming back after the weekend.
“Steve Nelson. I gotta talk to Steve Nelson,” Snake barged through the smudged glass door leading to the Department of Social Services in downtown Detroit. Shaved head swinging from side to side, he seemed to yell at anyone and no one.
It was just before quitting time in the middle of a hectic workweek made worse by the recent holidays. The secretary did not look up from her typing and simply pointed over her shoulder, past the counter that doubled as a privacy barrier in the cramped office.
Steve looked at his watch and frowned, but he walked forward and lifted a hinged portion of the countertop and motioned to Snake.
“I’m Steve Nelson.” He
shifted an armload of files he was returning to the battered green cabinet in the corner of the room he shared with three other social workers. “What can I do for you?”
Steve was in a hurry. He had driven Laura’s Falcon, and he needed to get his Pontiac out of the repair shop before it closed. He’d skipped lunch and arranged his day so that he could walk out the door exactly at five. If he got there in time, the mechanic had promised to help him out by driving one of the cars home for him. Save him lots of aggravation as Laura would be too busy for such mundane matters.
“It’s my mama. Somethin’ wrong with her disability situation. You gotta help straighten it out ’cause they cut her off for no good reason.” The words tumbled out of Snake’s mouth. “Somethin’ ’bout forms. They say she can’t get her money now ’cause she didn’t get the forms in when they wanted, like she don’t got nothin’ else to worry about. Mama got my little bros and groceries to worry ’bout. Who says they can take away money just like that?”
“Hold on,” Steve held up his hand. “Let’s go a little slower. Take a seat.” He gestured to a orange molded plastic chair in front of his scratched desk. After Snake threw himself into it and crossed his arms defiantly across his chest, Steve sat down, put on an “I’m listening” expression and hoped that this would not take too long.
“Who exactly is your mother, and why has her disability been terminated?”
“Leona Rogers. And like I said, she missed sendin’ in papers, and now they won’t help her out.”
Steve finally placed the young man. This was Leona’s oldest son. Roy or Ray? She had two more at home but much younger. This one didn’t go by his given name though. Leona had told him once that she hated the nickname.
“I gave him a fine name,” she complained. “Why he wants everyone calling him ‘Snake’, I’ll never know.” Leona had described how this son, a sweet, creative boy who loved to draw, had grown up into a man who spent too much time on the streets and too much time smoking pot.
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