by Freya Barker
“Sure you did,” he agrees teasingly, before approaching and dropping a file on my desk. “New customer. Dave Williams, fifty-two, history of alcohol abuse, and has been on the street for approximately three years. He’s a vet. Did several tours in Afghanistan. Got hurt his last round and lost vision in one eye.”
“Other than that, any known diagnoses?”
“Not according to him.”
It’s sad, yet we see it so often. Strong people dedicating their life to fighting on the front lines for their country, only to return home and find so much of themselves was left on the battlefield. They have trouble adjusting to civilian life, often too proud to look for help, resorting to alternate ways of coping, and so many of them end up disenfranchised.
“Where is he?”
“Having breakfast in the dining room while we get a bed ready.”
I follow Ron to the common dining room where only a few breakfast stragglers are left. He points out the large man sitting at a table by himself, shoveling down a plate piled high with food. I pour myself a coffee—which is made fresh every couple of hours—say good morning to Brad Carey, one of our residents who has volunteered to help in the kitchen, and head over to the solitary man.
His head comes up when I approach and a familiar suspicious look slips over his face. I get this look often.
“Mind if I sit?” I ask while already sitting down. “You good for coffee?” He nods but doesn’t take his eyes off me. “I thought I’d come say hello. My name is Willa and I’m the social worker here at the South Avenue Shelter. You’re Dave, right?”
He grunts what I assume is affirmatively to his name, but then immediately narrows his bloodshot eyes.
“Don’t need no shrink.”
His voice sounds growly like Henry Cavill’s in this new Netflix series I’ve gotten hooked on. Unfortunately, Dave isn’t exactly blessed with Henry’s looks. His nose looks like it’s been broken, more than a few times, has mushroomed out of proportion, and has an almost blue hue. I’m sure the alcohol abuse hasn’t helped. Dirt is crusted in the strained wrinkles on his face, making him look much older than his years.
“Good thing I’m not a shrink then,” I counter with an easy smile. “Think of me as part of the welcoming committee. I try to make new residents welcome. I know Ron has likely already told you about what we can offer you here and what the rules are, so I won’t bother with those. What I’d like to add is my office is right down that hall, third door on the right, and unless I’m already in with someone, it’s always open.” I pull a laminated card out of my pocket and slide it across the table. It’s an emergency card I hand out to all new residents. It lists my name, and a direct line to my office. If I don’t answer after three rings, the call is automatically forwarded to my cell phone. I ended up getting them laminated because people are more likely to hold on to them that way. “That’s my direct line. No one else picks it up or has access to the voicemail. You don’t have to come to me—or call—but I hope if you find yourself needing a listening ear, or facing a crisis, you’ll use that number or walk through my door.”
He pulls the card toward him with a dirty finger, studying it closely before his eyes come back to mine. A slight nod is all the answer I get, but I don’t really expect more than that. A lot of these guys have learned not to trust. Such is life on the streets.
“Now, as I know Ron told you, we expect residents to attend one group meeting a week,” I tell him as I stand up. “We have three a week: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at noon. What he probably failed to mention is I bring a couple of dozen donuts from Home Style Bakery for every meeting.” That earns me a sardonic raised eyebrow and I shrug. “What can I say? Food is a great motivator.” I indicate his eggs. “Well, I’ll let you get back to breakfast. Hope to see you around.”
With a wave at Brad, I head back to my office, but my ass has barely sat down when a police officer walks in.
“Ms. Smith?”
“That would be me.”
Behind him I spot Rosie mouthing, “I’m sorry,” from the hallway.
“Can I come in?” he asks with feigned politeness, since he’s already inside and closing the door on my boss.
“By all means. Have a seat.” I indicate a chair on the other side of my desk. “What can I do for you? Officer…?”
“Officer Bergland,” he clips, as if it pains him to share that information.
“Ms. Smith, I have a few questions around an investigation the police are conducting.”
“Okay. Depending on what it’s about, I’ll do my best to answer what I can.”
I’m purposely putting that out there, right off the bat. In my profession, we deal with privileged information we are not obliged to share unless consented to by the patient. I’m sure Officer Bergland is well aware of this fact, but still seems annoyed at my statement.
Too fucking bad.
“Are you familiar with one Arthur Hicks?”
“Art? Yes, he’s a resident here.”
“Resident? Doesn’t that imply he lives here?”
I’m getting a little annoyed with the cop’s arrogant tone. I’m sure Rosie already informed him Art lives here. I lean forward with my elbows on my desk.
“I’m not implying anything, I’m stating a fact. Art Hicks is a resident at South Avenue. Why is it you are asking about Art?”
He ignores my question and asks another of me instead.
“Isn’t it true, Arthur Hicks has not been seen at the shelter in the past three days?”
I’m trying to remember if I’ve bumped into him over the past few days, but I don’t think I have. In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen him since the group meeting on Monday. Not that it’s unusual, often times the guys go out and do their thing during the day, only to return at night. We have a curfew set at eleven, which basically means the doors are locked and whoever is not inside loses out.
The objective is to try to reintegrate these people into a regular life, but only if they choose it. This isn’t a prison where we are accountable for every moment of a resident’s time.
“Not sure. I know the last time I saw him personally was Monday. I don’t know if he was here or not.”
“According to the sign-in sheets Ms. Hutchinson showed me, he didn’t sleep here after Monday night.”
“First of all, it’s Mrs. Hutchinson,” I snap, annoyed. “And if you already knew Art wasn’t here, why bother asking me?”
I’m pretty sure I’m not making any friends, but I don’t give a flying fuck. This cop is being an ass.
“Do you have any reason to be uncooperative, Ms. Smith?”
“How the hell can I be uncooperative when you haven’t even told me what this is all about?” Frustrated, I find myself raising my voice. I’m sure I can easily be heard from the hallway.
“Two days ago, a body was found with obvious signs of a severe beating. We were able to identify him by fingerprints we had on record for Arthur Hicks.”
I gasp. “Art? Oh my God…he’s dead?”
Immediately following the shock, my eyes burn with unshed tears. No fucking way in hell am I going to spill even one in front of this asswipe. It’s not the first time I’ve lost a patient, and I’m sure it won’t be the last, but Art was one of the young guys, not even forty, and he’d been doing so well. Seemed optimistic about a new job he’d found, had hopes he’d be able to afford renting his own place soon.
“Beaten to death, yes,” Bergland confirms. “And it was a card with your name on it, our officers found outside the warehouse where the body was found, that led me here.”
“Warehouse?” I’m still trying to compute Art is dead.
“Near the airport.”
“Airport? That’s on the north side of town, how would he even get there?”
“Since your card was there, we were hoping you could tell us.”
I shake my head. “I don’t know anything about a warehouse. I hand out those cards to every new resident, whether they stay a ni
ght or longer. I gave one to Art as well.”
“Ms. Smith, did Arthur mention anything to you? Did he ever mention to you what or who he might be involved with?”
I push back my chair and stand, my hands resting on my desk.
“As I’m sure you’re well aware, Officer Bergland, anything Art may or may not have shared with me falls under privileged information.”
The officer stands as well, an angry flush on his face.
“The man is dead. It’s your choice if you don’t want to share, it’s mine to bring you in for questioning.”
The door behind him swings open and Jake comes in, followed on the heels by the subject of my fantasies.
“You don’t have to say another word,” Jake barks, and I snap right back.
“It’s not like I was going to!”
Dimas
I look at my boots to hide my grin.
Damn, the woman is magnificent. Those dark eyes flashing like hot glowing coal.
The fifteen-minute drive from the office to the shelter had taken us ten minutes with an irate Jake behind the wheel.
Rosie called Jake the moment Officer Bergland showed up and asked to see her. She’d dealt with the officer last year when she’d been witness to a hit-and-run, and the experience hadn’t exactly been a good one. So while she had him wait outside her office, she immediately got on the phone with Jake. All he had to do was say there was trouble at the shelter, and I hustled outside after him.
Rosie had been waiting in the lobby and in a few words filled us in with what she knew, which hadn’t been much.
“I’m investigating a homicide,” Bergland explains. “Ms. Smith may have information.”
“What I just managed to hear from the hallway was you threatening Ms. Smith with a trip to the station, even after she explained the rules of privileged information. Something I’m sure you were already well aware of.”
Jake folds his arms over his chest and I take over.
“Badgering seems to be your method of choice, isn’t it, Officer Bergland?”
The cop’s eyes flit back and forth between us, and wisely deciding he wasn’t getting anywhere, he tries to move to the door. Except, I’m in the way.
“I will see you again,” he shoots over his shoulder at Willa.
“I can hardly wait,” she sneers back at him, not in the slightest intimidated.
Magnificent.
Even as I’m grinning at her, I step aside to let the weasel pass.
“What was that all about?”
Rosie squeezes in beside me and immediately moves to her friend’s side.
“He didn’t tell you?”
“Only that he was working on an investigation.”
“They found Art dead,” she says, emotion coloring her voice.
“Our Art? What? How?”
“All he said was he was found in a warehouse, badly beaten, and they had to identify him by his fingerprints.” Rosie gasps softly, and I share a look with Jake. That’s the body they found down the street from the office. “Apparently they found my card nearby.”
“Your card?” I ask Willa, but Rosie answers for her.
“Willa hands a laminated card to all of our residents. So they can call her if they need someone to listen.”
“With your phone number?”
I may have been a little loud with my question, but it’s better than the, “What the hell were you thinking?” that had been on the tip of my tongue.
“How else are they going to get hold of me if not with my phone number?” she asks sarcastically.
“Please tell me not your personal number?”
She narrows her eyes at me. “I’m not an idiot. I have a separate office line that gets rerouted to my cell after-hours.”
“So everyone who comes in here gets a card?” Jake wants to know and successfully draws the woman’s attention.
“Everyone,” she confirms. “A lot of these guys struggle but think it looks weak if they ask for help. I want to give them a more anonymous way to talk. A large percentage of our residents are veterans who have seen and experienced more than their share of the lack of humanity. Sometimes it helps to talk to someone who understands with the safety of a phone line between.” My snort slips out and her eyes sharply turn on me. “I don’t see what’s funny.”
“Someone who understands?” I ask angrily.
It’s a sore point with me, health professionals claiming to know how we feel, what it’s like, what we’ve dealt with over there, but they don’t have a fucking clue. Pretty placating words and pats on the head don’t do shit to erase the memories of waking up in a sweat in the middle of the night, too scared to take a fucking piss because we can’t remember where we are. Or dreading the fucking Fourth of July because with every goddamn firework that goes off, we have to resist hitting the ground when our brain instinctively sends out those signals on hearing a loud bang. Or the flashes of your brothers who’d never come home, blown apart and bleeding all over the goddamn eternal sand. Or your own leg, nothing but a ragged, bloody stump, and someone collecting your foot from the other side of the road before laying it on your chest for transportation. Then spending hours staring at the bottom of your own fucking boot.
Like some fucking diploma gives you an understanding of any of that.
“Dimi,” Rosie tries to intervene, but Willa holds up her hand.
“Yes, I understand some. I’m a veteran myself.”
I admit, that takes me aback, and you can call me a sexist pig because I probably am.
“Combat?”
“No,” she admits, and I’m about to blow her off when she adds, “but I spent eight years at Landstuhl and whatever was left to pick up from the battlefields came to us to put back together, both physically and mentally. So I’ve seen my share.”
I nod and look down at my boots. She may not feel the need to duck at every exhaust backfiring, but I have no doubt watching torn up bodies come in day after day after day, for eight fucking years, gives you some right to speak to understanding.
“Sorry,” I mumble, lifting my eyes to her. There really isn’t anything else to say, I jumped to conclusions that were wrong.
“Not to worry,” she says with more grace than I would’ve mustered. “You’re not the only one.” Then she throws me for a curve when she tilts her head. “Where were you deployed?”
“Iraq.”
“How many tours?”
“Two.”
Then she blows me away when she asks, pointing at my leg, “Bomb? Grenade?”
“IED.”
Chapter Three
Willa
“Mom is so stupid.”
I glance at my sniffling niece, Brittany, sitting in the passenger seat beside me.
I just whisked her out of my parents’ house where she and her mom, my sister, Connie, had been about to launch WWIII over my mother’s birthday cake. My mother, who doesn’t do well with confrontation on the best of days, had already been near tears when I broke up the mother-daughter war about the purple hair my niece was sporting. Something she apparently managed to do at a sleepover with a friend last night.
We’re celebrating Mom’s sixty-seventh birthday today, which in our family means that my father—retired army colonel—and my brother in law, Jim—also career military—are out on the Devil’s Thumb Golf Course for their first round of the season, while the women stay at home.
Mom and Dad live in Delta, about forty-five minutes from Grand Junction, and my sister and her family are about half an hour the other way in Montrose. Getting together with the whole family is always stressful since we all seem to be from different planets, other than making an occasional appearance for a birthday or holiday. I see Mom more often since I take her to most of her doctors’ appointments. Especially during the spring and summer months, when Dad is too busy playing golf with his buddies.
“You’re twelve, kiddo,” I remind her gently. “I know you don’t like hearing it, but since you’re going
to be stuck with your parents for at least another six years, you’re going to have to deal.”
“You like my hair, though, right, Willa?”
I glance again, and smile at her.
“It looks good on you, but…” I quickly add with emphasis. “That doesn’t negate the fact you apparently went ahead with the purple dye, even after your mother apparently told you not to. That’s not smart.”
“But she’s so stuffy, she doesn’t even know what looks good. Last week, she came to school to help with pizza lunch wearing a pencil skirt and high heels. Who does that?”
I have to bite back a grin at my niece’s consternation. Britt’s not lying; my sister is stuffy. Just like my mother, Connie has morphed into this picture-perfect housewife, who wouldn’t dare leave the house without makeup or a fully coordinated outfit. Very much my opposite. I’m the odd duck in the family. Turns out, maybe my niece is too.
“Be that as it may, Britt, but going against something your parents explicitly forbade you to do isn’t going to fly without consequences. You’re smart enough to know that.”
“Dad doesn’t care.”
The softly uttered comment says more about the sudden purple hair than anything else does.
Jim, her father, is very similar to my dad. Focused on a career that takes him from home long stretches of time, and when he is home he barely pays attention to Britt. Heck, Connie had her in ballet for years, and not once had he made an appearance at one of the recitals. That had been the battle over Christmas, when Britt announced she didn’t want to dance anymore.
Poor kid just wants to be seen.
“I don’t envy you, sweetheart,” I tell her, grabbing onto one of her hands. “Twelve is a hard age. Everything around you changes so quickly, and you wanna jump ahead to catch up with everyone. I was the same way. Your grandma used to tell me I was too big for the napkin and too small for the tablecloth.”
“What does that even mean?”
I chuckle. “I’m not really sure, but I suspect it’s one of those Dutch sayings from her childhood she remembers. Something about no longer really being a child, but not a grown-up yet either.” I don’t have to see her to know she’s rolling her eyes. “Look, all I can tell you is your parents love you and want the best for you. Sometimes it’s a safety issue and then it’s up to you to trust them. Sometimes it’s about you becoming your own person, and then you’re gonna need to show them they can trust you to do that responsibly. Dyeing your hair purple may not have been the way to do that.”
