I could tell from the doubt in her eyes that she didn’t believe we’d still do the run and consequently felt neglected, but I didn’t have time to deal with her hurt feelings. The drunks needed me.
As I left my home, the porch light went on in my landlord’s house.
“Shit.” I tried to hurry to the garage door, hoping to avoid being spotted by the bane of my existence.
“Sam, oh Sam. What in the world are you doing leaving home at this time of the morning? Surely your new job does not require these hours?”
There she was. Loud, flower-endowed housecoat. Bright pink curlers surrounded by a garish scarf. Eyes squinting in spite of her glasses. Nose sniffing the air, trying to smell God-knows-what. My landlady. My nemesis. My Georgianne Granville.
This is not the neighborhood of my youth. I grew up about six blocks away in a decent working class neighborhood. We always walked by the “rich” section wondering what the lives of the inhabitants were like. Since my recent return, I now knew how the inhabitants lived, because I was one of them. Well, sort of. I rented one of the carriage houses in the ritzy section. It was nice, cozy, and had a great mailing address. I rented from the eccentric Georgianne Granville, one of the “grande dames” of the town. She was in her 70’s now but was still a frequent subject of the society pages in the local paper. I wondered how her husband, Gus, tolerated sharing the same house with her.
“No, Georgianne, these are not my normal working hours. I just got a call from the ER and I need to hurry. Sorry I don’t have time to chat.” Exit, Sam. Now. Hurry.
“But, Sam…”
“Bye-bye. Say ‘hi’ to Gus for me, will you?”
A narrow escape. Getting ambushed by Georgianne sometimes meant hours of entanglement, but I’ve improved in doing the “Ditch Georgianne Dance” in the short time I’ve been back in Quincy.
One of the benefits of living in a small city is that it doesn’t take much more than 15 minutes to drive anywhere. I walked into the ER less than 20 minutes after I was abruptly awakened.
I hurried to the triage area, where patients were being evaluated as to the severity of their needs. There is usually an air of excitement in the ER and my adrenaline always starts flowing when I arrive. I’ve been in emergency rooms many times, sometimes to meet Jen for lunch, sometimes when my children or I needed emergency help, or many times in Chicago because of my job with the Department of Children and Family Services. When a child was injured because of abuse and neglect, one of my duties was to meet them and the family at the emergency room and make some immediate decisions as to the placement of the child and siblings.
I waited while a secretary fetched Jen. As I looked around the ER, I thought of the many reasons I had decided to return to Quincy and change jobs. During my interview, when Dr. Burns asked me why I left DCFS after fifteen years, I found it hard to answer.
I didn’t know which answer to give him. The one that said I’d been imagining the pleasures of working with people with short term neuroses—people who had hope for the future? Having worked for DCFS in Chicago, I was a bit discouraged about my inability to make a difference in people’s lives. Should I have told him that I finally completed my master’s degree and returned to my hometown ready to change jobs?
What would he have thought if I had told him that there were times when I was almost convinced I had actually helped some folks, but that was the exception, not the rule? Or if I’d mentioned how many midnight calls I’d made to homes where kids were screaming, parents were screaming, neighbors were screaming, and I was screaming? Taking kids away from their parents, even for one night, was one of the worst jobs imaginable. Far worse, however, was interviewing families after a child had been killed through abuse or neglect.
Should I have told him I wanted to change jobs because I didn’t think it was a sin to want an easier job and make good money?
Why then did I feel guilty about this career change? It wasn’t like I was selling out or anything. I wanted to work with people with insurance. No big deal.
And I wanted to stop dreaming about those kids.
The noises of the emergency department brought me back to the present.
So much for my fantasy of dealing with patients in a nicely appointed, clinical office. I was hired yesterday and here I was…in the ER again.
I wondered why the Clinic hadn’t notified me that I was on-call. I remembered Marian Dougherty mentioning that she was the on-call therapist for the week. Resolving to clear that up later, I found my sister holding emesis basins for two different patients. She handed one to me, said something about making myself useful, and began filling me in.
I couldn’t pay attention to what I was doing. Watching someone vomit is not my idea of a good time. Instead, I looked at my sister. Jenny was a year younger than I and ten years more mature. She was short, blonde, and thin, and managed to look good in the ugly green scrubs. If I didn’t love her I would have hated her.
Most of my sibs were in helping professions, with the majority in the medical field. I was a notable exception to the medical sibs, based primarily on my inability to deal with anything coming out of any orifices of the body. Consequently, it was difficult for me to listen to Jenny. The gagging noises I made drowned out much of the conversation. I was able to gather that there were fourteen patients who were not only inebriated but had probably gotten into some rotten homemade elderberry wine and most of them were violently ill. I still didn’t know why she needed my help as the patients seemed much too busy throwing up to be causing any major problems. Finally, Jen asked me to step into one of the treatment rooms with her. Handing the emesis basin to a grinning EMT, I followed her into Treatment Room #3. I began to get a bit suspicious as Jen lagged behind me and pushed me into the room ahead of her.
“Surprise.” “Congratulations.” “Welcome aboard.” My eyes could barely see everyone, because of the damn tears that suddenly spilled onto my cheeks. There was Ed, Pete, Jill, and Rob. With Jen behind me, the whole family crew was there.
“I can’t believe you guys set me up like this. It’s so early in the morning that it’s practically the middle of the night.”
Jen moved into the center of the crowd. “It’s the only time we could get everyone together.”
It was a wonderful surprise and I continued to grin as I looked around at them. Most of us looked alike and were obviously siblings.
Jenny was around five feet tall, with short no-nonsense dark blonde hair. Ed was tall and rangy. He had remained a towhead, and his hair kept falling into his eyes, just as it had when he was a kid. The tallest of the six, Pete had wheat-colored hair that curled in waves around his ears. Those curls had always made me jealous when we were younger. Jill wore her ash blonde hair in a ponytail today. Most of the time she wore her long hair up on top of her head, in a misguided attempt to look older. Rob was the only non-blond. His dark brown hair shone with a hint of red in it.
And wonder of wonders—everyone was getting along. This was one for the record books.
Most of the gang worked at that very hospital, which we affectionately dubbed “Darling Memorial.” Mom and Dad had figured that we owned most of it anyway since all of us were born there.
Jen quickly poured the punch, cut the cake, and then cut out of there to get back to work. With a breezy, “Love you,” she headed back to the inebriated masses. I visited with the rest of the crew until we heard a scream coming from the waiting area. Wondering if this was the continuation of my surprise party, I led the sibs out to see what was going on.
We came upon a scene straight from “COPS.” A young man paced in the waiting room, holding a gun and waving it haphazardly—now at the ceiling, now at frantic bystanders.
“This damn place don’t care about people. All they care about is money. Nobody here gives a damn. We ought to close it down. Everybody get out; don’t give them no more money.” He started weaving as he gestured. “What happened to Dr. Burns is gonna happen to a lot more doctors ar
ound here.”
Ed, Rob and I all made a move to deal with the situation. I guess it really was Ed’s place as Director of Hospital Security. But Rob was a cop and was technically on duty all the time. I was going to intervene because I was pretty good at crisis intervention, and since I was fairly codependent I was always eager to help.
The three of us were doing our variation of a Three Stooges routine when a man walked into the waiting room, calmly approached the dude, did a modified karate chop to the wrist and grabbed the gun before it hit the floor.
I was impressed. I was more than impressed; I was staring. The hero was a giant, muscled god. Every wannabe surfer girl’s dream.
Rob identified himself as an off duty cop and took over. As he held onto the miscreant he turned and said, “We’re going to need a statement from you, Mr.—uh I didn’t catch your name.”
“O’Dear. Michael O’Dear.”
Aha. The private eye who visited Burns yesterday morning.
O’Dear glanced around the room, his eyes finally lighting on me. I managed to fluff my hair and wet my lips before I realized what I was doing.
I smiled and stuttered, “Sam Darling.”
His smile drew me a step closer. “My name’s Michael, but you can call me ‘darling’ if you want.” He handed me a business card.
“No, my name is Sam Darling.” Why couldn’t I wipe the idiotic grin off my face?
I tore my gaze away from him and decided to do my bit to help. I started to gather the witnesses in order to interview them.
“Sam, if you want to be a cop, why don’t you be one?” Ed said. “And if you don’t want to be a cop, then let us handle it. I’ll take care of the details here. Go home and get some rest.”
I agreed but without much spirit. It’s really hard to be the bossy older sister when your brothers keep insisting on taking over.
I discreetly turned my eyes to O’Dear and found that he was still looking at me. My mirror often lied to me and told me I didn’t look my age and that my smile and eyes were gorgeous. I didn’t believe my mirror. However the way the god looked at me made me think he believed it.
Oh, God, please let him be single. Please let him be straight. Please let him like me. Please let him carry me off to his villa in Spain. Oh, God, please let him…
His smile broadened. His easy confidence when he winked and grinned made me feel like a country bumpkin. As he walked away, his smile seemed to linger. Not in a Cheshire Cat kind of way, but in a Prince Charming kind of way. I imagined him climbing into a chariot with a surfboard attached and heading for the nearest beach. That would be Hogback Island in Quincy Bay, which diminished the romance of my fantasy.
He intrigued me. Then I glanced at his business card and was reminded of his name.
Yeah right. We’ll fall in love, get married, and my name will be Sam Darling O’Dear. Not on your life.
“Hi ya, Sam.”
Oh, shit. Why would B.H. be the cop to show up? Doesn’t he ever go home?
I greeted him. It wasn’t a frosty greeting; after all, Michael was still within hearing distance and I wanted to make a good impression on him. At the sound of the detective’s voice, Michael walked back to our area.
“Michael, this is B.H. Lansing, a detective with Quincy Police Department. B.H., this is Michael O’Dear.”
B.H. shot a confused look at me as he shook Michael’s hand. “The name’s George Lansing.”
I shrugged as they talked for a few minutes, mostly about Burns’ murder. B.H. ended their short conversation with, “I understand you were meeting with Doctor Burns shortly before he died. I’d like to speak to you about that later this morning.”
They agreed on a meeting time and place, then B.H. wandered off, following Rob and the guy who provided such cheap entertainment for the ER.
My curiosity, as usual, got the better of me. “I do have a question before you leave.” Michael arched his eyebrows and nodded. “What are you doing in the emergency room this early in the morning?”
Chuckling, he said, “I was about to ask you the same question. Maybe we could get together some time and talk about it.”
“Okay.” The stupid grin on my face was probably going to stay there for a long time. I tried to get rid of it, but no such luck. I was stuck with it.
I couldn’t help but think that the guy who stood me up just met the guy who’s gonna take me out. There’s a certain symmetry to that.
FOUR
When I got home from the hospital there wasn’t time to do the things I’d planned: take a leisurely shower, eat breakfast, and pick up my junk scattered around the house. Those chores could wait. There was one task I couldn’t put off. The first thing I saw when I walked in the door was Clancy, standing by the couch with her leash in her mouth, holding me to my part of the bargain. When the kids and I brought her home as a puppy, she promised to be faithful, protect us, be there when we were lonely, and in general, just be cool. In return I promised to walk her and feed her, things she reminded me to do on a daily basis.
The morning walk was always a special time for me. Clancy knew where we were going and led the way to the park down the street. I didn’t have to think about any of the details. She stopped at every street corner and looked both ways and then pulled me across when it was safe.
The scenery along the route was beautiful. Much of this neighborhood was on the National Historic Register and rightly so. Today Clancy and I walked by the Clinic. At this time of day it really looked like the mansion that it was. Built by one of the trade barons in 1880 when most of the town was making money hand over fist, it was one of the masterpieces on this street. The builder of the mansion, Jeremiah Woodson, one of the founding fathers of Quincy, started out in poverty, but through judicious use of a boat he owned, eventually parlayed a small nest egg into a remarkable fortune. In those days, there were many like him, and most of them built their homes on Maine Street and those surrounding it. The Clinic was the diamond among many jewels.
I was fortunate that I lived on such a street and that I had Clancy as a tour guide.
When I first saw Clancy at the Humane Society, I felt her sadness in a physical way. I found it hard to explain, but her pain was palpable. She was lonely and she was scared. I chose her immediately, with no objection from my kids.
Since the moment Clancy came into our lives, she has been my closest confidante. She understands me better than anyone else in my life. She also accepts none of my bullshit.
I didn’t fear the snow and ice because Clancy took care of the mechanics of the walk. All I had to do was go along. This was my thinking time. I solved many of the world’s problems during these morning walks. Too bad I wasn’t so successful in solving my own problems. They weren’t monumental, but they were constant. Clancy’s heard them all. “You know, Clancy, social workers don’t earn huge salaries, but things are really looking up now that I’m at the clinic. And the cost of living is a lot less here in Quincy than it was in Chicago. I think things will improve in the money department. Maybe I’ll be able to buy you the gourmet dog food.” Clancy responded positively to that idea; her tail went crazy. I wished all of my problems could be solved so easily.
My other problem was a lousy love life. Lousy, hell, it was nonexistent. I’d been divorced from Alan since the kids were small and had a few relationships over the years, none very serious. But there had been a long dry spell over the last several years. Clancy stopped and looked at me. “Okay, Clancy, I didn’t realize I said that out loud. One of these days I’ll find Mr. Right. Heaven knows I’ve been successful at finding Mr. Wrong. Maybe I’ll just reverse my tactics. That ought to work. Yeah, I know I’m just talking; this is Fantasy Island. Right?” I felt embarrassed verbalizing this stuff. I was a feminist before the word was invented, but when I fantasize, there is always a Mr. Right. This morning he looked alarmingly like Mr. O’Dear.
During this walk, however, my thoughts drifted mostly toward THE MURDER. In my mind, it was always capitali
zed. THE MURDER. My first. I was intrigued.
“I know I should be sadder about Burns’ death. Hell, I’m a social worker. I almost feel guilty that I don’t feel bad enough. I didn’t know him though, and when I met him last week for my interview there was something about him that gave me the creeps. Even though he was smart enough to hire me, I couldn’t make myself like him.”
We crossed a busy street. It only momentarily stopped my babbling.
“Well, I don’t know why I didn’t like him, but his eyes were cold. When he noticed me staring, they got warm again. It was weird. So I’m sad that a human being is dead, but I feel no real loss of Dr. Burns. Does that make sense?”
Clancy nodded, then headed back to her job of leading the trek.
There was one good thing about this murder investigation. It would take my mind off the empty nest at my house. “God, I miss the kids. They’re growing up so fast and pretty soon they’ll be gone for good, instead of just away at school.” Clancy looked at me with empathy. I stooped and patted her as I continued, “Well, I’ll never really be alone. I’ve got you and the rest of the clan. Even though I live by myself…” A low growl emanated from Clancy, “Oh, sorry, girl. Even though you and I live by ourselves, we’re never really alone. Relatives are always stopping by, and we get invited over to their homes a lot. Moving back here was definitely the right thing to do.”
I’d missed the support of the family over the years, especially when Alan left me. I loved Chicago, but Quincy was still home. Besides the sibs and their spouses and kids, there were myriad aunts, uncles, and cousins. Sometimes they got on my nerves, but it was neat to be a member of this club. Even though the membership list was so long it appeared that anyone could be a member.
I also told Clancy about the “John Doe” from the ER. “What do you think is going on with him? What possible reason could he have had for threatening people like that? Did I tell you that he said other doctors might die like Burns?” She pondered that one for a bit. “Hell, why am I so worried about him? It’s not like I’ll ever see him again.”
Who Killed My Boss? (Sam Darling Mystery #1) Page 3
