But when she said, “You gotta help me,” he knew he would.
After a considerable amount of back and forth, he elicited her promise that if the man in the hospital wasn’t Paul she’d try to help find Aunt Anita. They climbed back on the bicycle and headed crosstown. The plan was to say they were friends of the man who was shot and ask to visit him. Ethan advised against Jubilee mentioning she was his sister, because she might then be considered an accomplice.
As fate would have it, Loretta Clemens was working at the Mercy General Hospital visitor’s desk, and she was a friend of Olivia’s. Ethan figured that to be in their favor and approached the desk with a big smile.
“Hey, there, Missus Clemens,” he said. “Mighty fine day, ain’t it?”
She eyed him suspiciously. “Ethan Allen, what are you doing way over on this side of town?”
“I’m watching out for her.” He shook a thumb toward Jubilee. “She’s here to see the guy what got shot.”
“Shot?” Loretta repeated. “She’s a friend of Sid Klaussner?”
“No, the other guy.”
Loretta raised an eyebrow. “What business has a kid got visiting a criminal?”
“He ain’t really no criminal,” Ethan said. “He’s a friend of Jubie’s brother, so she figured it would be neighborly to stop by and ask how he’s feeling.”
“Does your grandma know you’re here?”
“I can’t say exactly, but I sorta think she does.”
“Yeah, well, I sort of think she doesn’t,” Loretta said emphatically. “Now you kids get out of here and haul your butt back to the other side of town where you belong. Nobody’s seeing nobody, especially not that criminal.”
Until now Jubilee had kept quiet as Ethan told her to do, but as they turned to leave she gave Loretta a black look and said, “He’s not a criminal!”
“That’s for the law to decide, missy,” Loretta answered.
Ethan whispered something in Jubilee’s ear, and they turned as if on their way out. It was too late; Loretta had already seen the glint in his eye.
“Ethan Allen, I hope you’re not thinking you’ll sneak upstairs, because there’s a policeman standing guard and he’ll shoot your butt off the minute you step foot on that floor.”
“I wasn’t thinking no such thing,” he answered and kept walking.
“Does that mean we ain’t doing it?” Jubilee said in a too-loud whisper.
“Yeah,” Ethan answered, “it means we ain’t doing it.”
Before Ethan and Jubilee were back across Mercer Street, Loretta had telephoned Olivia and reported the incident.
Olivia
When the telephone rang, I suspected it was going to be trouble. I rather thought it would be Missus Brown telling me Ethan had skipped school or, worse yet, brought Jubilee in with him. It wasn’t. It was Loretta over at the hospital.
Loretta’s a bit of a gossip and I knew she was itching to learn more about Jubilee, so when she started hinting around I played dumb. When she came right out and asked who the girl was and why the kids were chasing after that criminal, I opened the apartment door and pushed my own doorbell. I’ve got to go, I told Loretta, somebody’s at the door. It may not have been the most honorable thing to do, but telling Loretta anything is the same as putting it on a billboard in the center of town.
At least Loretta didn’t let the kids in, which is something to be thankful for.
I’ve come to the conclusion that Paul is either in the hospital or running from the law. There simply is no other explanation for why he’d leave Jubilee and not bother coming back. I can’t for the life of me understand a boy who would carry a Bible around if he was planning to rob a store. Maybe he wasn’t planning it; maybe he just got to the point where he had no other alternative. If a person gets desperate enough, they’ll do most anything. Right now I’m feeling pretty desperate myself.
I’m fearful that without her brother’s help, I’m never going to find Jubilee’s aunt. If I could just talk to the boy I know he’d have the decency to give me Anita’s address. Even a criminal would do that for their baby sister. But if Paul is the one in the hospital and I show up asking to talk to him, somebody will put two and two together and realize I’ve got Jubilee. Once that occurs the authorities will scoop that child up and ship her off to an orphanage. I’m just not willing to let that happen.
Funny, I never thought I’d be the one taking in orphans and telling lies so they could stay safe. If Francine Burnam could see me now, she’d most likely laugh her panties off. Even I’m laughing…that is, when I’m not worrying.
Thank the Lord I’ve got friends willing to help. Fred McGinty said his niece works at the hospital, and he’s going to ask if she can get him to talk with Paul. George Walther is also going to help. He’s got a part-time job cleaning up at the police station, just the offices not the prison part. George said he’ll keep his eyes and ears open, but if I know George he’ll most likely do a bit of pilfering through the waste baskets before he empties them.
If neither of these things work out, there’s one more person I can call on. Of course, it’s been a while and I’m not sure Jack Mahoney will even remember me.
In the Wee Hours
When Paul’s eyes fluttered open, the room was darkened. He saw little more than a blur of sights and sounds, none of them familiar. In the distance there were lights and people—ghostly figures that moved slowly and without sound. Strange whooshes of air sounded in his ear. The feel of it was close, too close. He listened for a moment. More sounds: whirring, beeping. Green lights bouncing and jumping. Smells: harsh bitter smells, like the lye used on wash day. Paul tried to call out for his mother, but there was only a raspy whisper in a voice that was not his.
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 hous
e. “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!”
“Oh, Loretta,” Olivia said, “you know how kids are. They were just looking for adventure. Ethan Allen has been watching that Dragnet show on television, and I think it’s influencing—”
“Don’t give me that malarkey, those kids know something!”
“Well, if they do, it’s news to me.” Although Olivia cringed at giving an answer so borderline close to a lie, it was, in actuality, true. If she knew who the family was and where the boy was headed, she would deliver Jubilee Jones to the mysterious Aunt Anita and be done with the whole affair.
“Harrumph,” Loretta snorted. “If that’s your answer, then so be it. I’ve got other sources for finding what I want to know!” She paused a moment, then added, “Including the name of that girl Ethan’s been running with!” She slammed down the telephone without bothering to say goodbye.
For the first time in more than a year, Olivia’s heart began fluttering again. In an effort to calm herself she took three different cookbooks from the kitchen shelf and searched them page by page, but there was not a single recipe for okra soup. Time had not dulled the memory of those days following Charlie’s death. It was Canasta’s okra soup that had restored her will to live. The soup had magical powers, it enabled a person to look inside themselves and find a cure for the heartaches of life.
Olivia searched long and hard but there simply was no recipe for the life altering soup. Left with no other resource, she retrieved the card she’d hidden in the bottom of her jewelry box months earlier and dialed the number printed in the lower right hand corner.
Reaching Out
The telephone rang once and a voice answered, “Detective Griffin.”
“Oh,” Olivia said, “I was looking for Jack Mahoney.”
“He’s off today. Maybe I can help you.”
“I don’t think so,” Olivia replied. “It’s about Aunt Anita—”
“Gotcha, a family matter. Jack’s at
home; give him a call there.”
Without correcting the impression that Aunt Anita was Jack’s aunt, Olivia replied, “I don’t have his number handy, do you…” She made note of the numbers he rattled off.
This time the telephone rang five times before a childish voice answered, “Hello.”
“Good morning,” she said. “This is Olivia Doyle, and I’d like to speak with Jack Mahoney.”
“Big Jack or little Jack?”
“Um, big Jack, I think.”
Without any further conversation there was the clunk of a dropped telephone and the voice yelled, “Hey, Dad, it’s for you.”
Olivia didn’t count the number of heartbeats she waited but she easily could have, because each thump banged against her chest like the gong of a clock. It wasn’t long before she started wondering if the mention of her name was enough to make Jack Mahoney reluctant to answer the call. On three different occasions, she came close to hanging up but didn’t. Finally the familiar voice said, “Mahoney.”
“Good morning, Mister Mahoney,” she said. “This is Olivia Doyle, Ethan Allen’s grandmother.”
“Is something wrong?”
“With Ethan Allen? Oh, no, not at all.”
“Good,” Mahoney replied. “That’s good.” He waited to give her time to say something more, but all he got was a lengthy silence. “So,” he said cautiously, “to what do I owe the pleasure of this call?”
Olivia had planned to start the conversation by inquiring about Mahoney’s family; from there she would ask about the healing of Sam Cobb’s knee, then segue into a few comments about the coming summer. Once the pleasantries were over, she could address the issue of Jubilee’s missing aunt. But that plan was lost when Jack asked the point-blank question. Olivia’s courage failed her and she stammered, “I just wanted to say hello and once again thank you for all you did for Ethan Allen,” then hung up without asking what she’d called to ask.
Jubilee's Journey Page 10
