Lifeblood

by Penny Rudolph

  No! Rachel’s head wouldn’t stop shaking. This can’t be happening. It was too much to take in all at once. Not now. Not when she had finally made a life for herself, had got her head above water and was able to pay her bills and have a little left over.

  Morris had telephoned the police. The two women had sat stiffly with her in that dreadful office with the naked desk between them and Morris at the door, everyone utterly silent.

  “I don’t know where it came from.” Voice gone dull, Rachel was saying the seven words for the third time since the two cops had arrived. “I didn’t take it. I know it’s a drug, but I don’t even know what it’s for.”

  The cops said nothing. They barely looked at her. She wondered if they thought she was such a low life form it would be a waste of time to notice her. A drug thief. Stealing from a hospital.

  From somewhere on another planet, she helplessly watched the scene play out. Thank God for Miranda. In her frenzied state, she might have tried to answer their questions without an attorney.

  Sister Mary Frances touched her arm and said quietly, “Would you like me to find someone for you?”

  “Someone?” Rachel pronounced the word dumbly.

  “A lawyer, dear?”

  “Yes,” Rachel gulped. She wasn’t sure she could marshal enough rational thought on her own to do that. “Please.” Her thoughts were jumping about like drops of water on a hot griddle. She couldn’t focus on what all this meant.

  After a short, miserable ride to the police station, locked behind a grill in the back seat of a squad car, she was led into a room. A scarred metal file cabinet stood in the corner, and a cheap table, three folding chairs, and a pad of yellow paper were just about dead center of the remaining space, which seemed large enough to echo.

  A bright overhead light showed the room’s countless dingy smudges. One wall had a hairline crack from the ceiling down, and bits of fallen plaster were still on the floor—the effect of the last earthquake, maybe, or, judging from the look of the rest of the room, the last six earthquakes.

  Left there alone, Rachel gazed at the wall trying to collect the mass of fragments that had been her mind.

  Finally she began to wonder why. Why had someone planted the bottle of OxyContin on her? And who?

  Sitting in that appalling room with its ugly table, she was feeling kicked in the gut all over again. Like she had once before—was it four years ago now, or five? Only that time she was guilty.

  A short, stocky cop with a big brush of a mustache appeared. His blue shirt was starched and ironed, with creases that looked sharp enough to be used as weapons. His shoes were like black mirrors.

  Rachel looked up at him. “May I use the phone?” Someone, she wasn’t sure who, had taken her handbag and her cell phone.

  He nodded toward an ancient avocado-colored phone on top of the army green file cabinet in the corner. Perhaps back in the sixties the cops had thought the color combination stylish.

  “How long are you going to keep me here?”

  The man just grunted and stationed himself against the wall, arms folded, staring straight ahead, apparently waiting to monitor her phone call.

  Not sure she could walk without falling over, Rachel moved slowly to the phone, dialed the garage, and told Irene she had been delayed, might in fact not be back for the rest of the day.

  “Not to worry, luv,” Irene said blithely. “Everything is in hand here. Not to worry at all.”

  Right.

  When Rachel hung up, the cop, without glancing at her, left the room.

  The clock on the dirty yellow wall was missing the minute hand. The hour hand was stealthily creeping up on noon. Could it possibly be six hours since she left the garage that morning?

  Maybe the cops were waiting for an attorney to show up. Would the nun be able to find someone good? Does a successful attorney actually come down to a police station when someone they’ve never even met is arrested? Most likely it would be someone just out of law school, looking to cut his or her teeth in criminal law.

  Or were they waiting for Rachel to get so stressed out and exhausted that she couldn’t think at all? They probably would prefer to question her while her defenses were numbed out. In that case, it wouldn’t be long.

  999

  Edgar Harrison was wearing golf shoes, a bright green golf shirt, and about the eyes, a bland, neutral look that must have had a lot of practice.

  He introduced himself as her attorney. Rachel was relieved the sister had sent her someone who was at least forty and could afford to play golf. He seemed competent and assured, and for the first time, she began to feel she might have a chance.

  “You need to know two things,” she told him. “First, I didn’t steal that drug. I’ve never taken OxyContin in my life. I’ve heard of it, but that’s about all.”

  “All right,” Harrison said stoically. “And second?”

  “I have a prior drug arrest.”

  “Where? When?”

  “Up north. Alameda County. That time I was guilty. This time I’m not.”

  Judge Annette Garcia obviously didn’t believe that. She set bail at a hundred and twenty-five thousand and lectured Rachel about finding a rehab program for herself and that she was despicable beyond words if she was selling drugs to others. At least that’s how it sounded.

  Harrison pulled a cell phone from his briefcase and called a bail bondsman.

  When he was through, Rachel borrowed the phone and called Marty. “I need your help, Pop.”

  “What’s wrong?” Marty sounded cautious.

  “Are you in a game?”

  “I’m at the club,” he said noncommittally. He was in a game.

  “I’ve been arrested.” She listened to his sharp intake of breath and went on before he could comment, “Someone planted drugs on me. At the hospital.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  “No. Wait. I need you to bring me the deed to the garage.” She knew how he hated to leave a poker game and his willingness to do so in response to her urgency made her eyes suddenly sting.

  “I’ve still got most of that pot I won.”

  “No, Pop. I don’t want it. Besides, it wouldn’t be enough.”

  “But you can’t risk the garage.”

  “I have to. I’ll try to arrange a mortgage later. But right now, I need that deed. And the appraisal I had done when the deed transferred from Gramps. You remember where the papers are?”

  “I remember,” Marty said grimly. They both had keys to the safe deposit box.

  “Thanks, Pop.” She hesitated, then said again, “Thanks.”

  It took all the rest of the day to post bond with what was basically her entire life as collateral. Harrison gave her his card and a pep talk he probably gave all clients. Marty drove her back to the garage. As they pulled up at the curb, the moon was launching itself above the high-rise office buildings.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Rachel had forgotten the medical record papers until she was undressing that night. She barely glanced at them before slipping them under a pile of turtlenecks in the bottom drawer of her dresser. She wasn’t sure why she was hiding them, except that unlike the bottle in her jacket pocket, she had stolen the papers. But her interest in them had waned. She now had bigger things on her mind.

  It was mid-afternoon a week after her arrest and she was getting a headache. She had devoted hours every day to searching for a company that would give her a mortgage at a decent interest rate. So far, no luck.

  Leaving her booth to get a breath of fresh air she saw Emma Johnson at the street door.

  Rachel stopped in mid stride. There was no avoiding coming face-to-face with the doctor. Had Emma heard about the supposed OxyContin theft? She must have.

  “Hello, Emma.” Rachel wondered why she felt guilty when she knew better than anyone that she wasn’t. Even her voice sounded guilty.

  The doctor nodded, took a few evasive steps, then looked back at Rachel and shook her head sadly.


  No need to wonder anymore whether she had heard.

  999

  “Reasonable and finance company are contradictions in terms,” she told Marty when he stopped by to see how it was going. They were eating green enchiladas at the counter of Rachel’s tiny kitchen.

  “I can’t find a single loan where the company doesn’t want a big chunk of money just to give you the loan. Then they hit you with an interest rate so high you can’t imagine ever paying it off. Then there are clauses that say I have to get permission to do anything to the mortgaged property, even to make a repair. And the loan officers treat me like I’m trying to rob them at gunpoint. I hate to think what they’d do if they knew why I need the loan. I’m afraid to tell them and scared to death they’ll find out. Doesn’t anyone get arrested for something they didn’t do?”

  Marty gave her a worried look. “Why won’t you let me stake you?”

  “It’s not that I don’t appreciate your offer, Pop. But if you really want to do me a favor, put that money in a CD.”

  “Okay. It’s your life. But the offer stands.” He pointed to the enchiladas. “You make these?”

  “I’ve been working on the recipe. For starters, it’s Mesilla Valley chile. From New Mexico. Supposed to be the best in the country.”

  “It comes in cans?”

  “Good God no. After a little experimenting I realized there’s no such thing as good chile from a can. What kind of Mexican are you?”

  “We didn’t eat enchiladas.”

  “In Mexico? You didn’t eat enchiladas?”

  “My father—and maybe my mother, I’m not sure—regarded enchiladas, burritos, tacos, stuff like that, as peasant food, unworthy of the upper classes. My father wouldn’t have a taco in the house.”

  “What the heck did you eat?”

  “Mostly French. My brother and I used to buy tamales on the street, but we had to hide them.”

  “No burritos?”

  “Not until I got to San Francisco. Then, after I met your mom, well, she ate a taco now and again, but I still remember the look she gave me when she saw a plate of flat enchiladas.”

  Rachel remembered the looks her mother could give and they both laughed.

  “She would have tried them if you had made them,” Marty said. “These are very good.”

  “They’re a job to make, but fun to see how different kinds of chile, and even how long you cook the sauce, change the flavor.”

  “So what are you going to do if you can’t find a loan?” Marty asked when they had finished eating and Rachel was clearing the plates.

  She sighed. “I don’t know. The fine print, the points, the fees, the processing expenses just about drive me over the edge. It’s like applying to be robbed. To say nothing of finding and gathering all the papers they insist on seeing. I’m three months shy of being formally in business the acceptable number of years, which I suspect is an arbitrary number they use as an excuse to charge me higher rates.” She bit her lower lip. “There are so many hidden ‘gotchas,’ it scares me silly.”

  “I could call El Jefe.” Marty had earned the man’s appreciation because El Jefe’s son had lost a lot of money to Marty and Marty had given it back when he learned it was the boy’s college money.

  “He’s a criminal, Pop.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “He reeks of gangster. You can’t be that naive.”

  “He loves his son. He’s sending him to a good college. He’s repaid the debt in more ways than money, which seems pretty honorable to me,” Marty said. “For that matter, I don’t think he hides any gotchas. He seems very up-front, which is more than you’re saying about the loan people. And I’m sure he has a lot of connections.”

  “Okay, what sort of business is he in?”

  “I think he owns three or four companies. Maybe more.”

  “What kind of companies, Pop?”

  Marty shrugged. “I never asked.”

  “He’s a criminal.”

  “Rachel, I don’t like to put it this way, but at the moment, some people think you are, too.”

  She groaned, and after a long moment, asked, “You don’t think I did this thing, do you?”

  “Not if you say you didn’t. But the evidence is pretty strong. You’ll have to prove someone planted it on you. And why would anyone do that?”

  Rachel shook her head back and forth. “God only knows. I sure don’t.”

  Marty’s eyes searched hers and she knew there was at least ten percent of him that didn’t believe her. When he looked away, he asked, “How do you feel about that attorney?”

  “I don’t know. This guy Edgar whatever his last name is, seems okay. But maybe I should try to get Aaron to come down.” Aaron had gotten her out of jail several years ago when she had been guilty of possession.

  “El Jefe might know a good attorney, too.”

  Twelve thousand five hundred dollars of the bail bond was forfeit regardless of her guilt or innocence. That was bad enough. But she also had to pay her attorney.

  “Okay, Pop,” Rachel said dully. “My back’s against the wall. If you think he can get me a good mortgage on the garage, ask him.”

  An hour after Marty left, the banging on one of the pedestrian garage doors began.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Rachel ran down the ramps and called through the door, “What’s all the ruckus?”

  Goldie’s voice yelled back, “I want to know what the hell is going on!”

  “Okay, okay.” Rachel unlocked the door and opened it. “Nothing’s going on. What’s got you madder than a wet hornet?”

  Goldie gave her a hard stare. “Since when is getting arrested nothing?”

  “How’d you find out?”

  “Irene told me. I need a sit-down explanation.” Goldie nodded her head toward the sidewalk behind her.

  Rachel pulled the door closed and followed Goldie to their much-used bench under the streetlight in front of the garage. “How could Irene know? I never told her a thing about it.”

  “Well, she does fortunes, doesn’t she? She hears things. And if there’s anyone Irene doesn’t know I can’t think who it might be.”

  “The governor, maybe.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure,” Goldie chuckled.

  “Okay. The fact is, someone planted a drug on me. OxyContin. A prescription drug,” Rachel said in the tone of someone trying to believe her own statement. “Who the hell would do that?”

  Goldie tilted her head back and gave a low whistle. “No clue, girlfriend. That’s pretty serious shit. I hear that OxyContin stuff is sort of like heroin. I think they even call it hillbilly heroin.” She looked at Rachel. “How about that guy you met?”

  “Who?”

  “The one with the pheromones.”

  “Gabe? Why would he plant a bottle of pills on me?”

  “He works at that hospital. He’s a pharmacist, isn’t he? That means he’s got the easiest access to just about any drug you could name. Legal drugs anyway. Controlled substances. That must be what OxyContin is, right?”

  “I guess he could do it, but that doesn’t mean he would. What reason would he have?”

  “Maybe he’s a pervert. Wants to see you squirm. Then when you’re feeling real bad he can get in your pants.”

  “Goldie, that’s pretty far fetched.”

  “Maybe, maybe not.”

  “I don’t think it has anything to do with Gabe. If you want the truth, I think it has to do with that closed ward on the fourth floor of the hospital.”

  “That’s what’s far fetched. You have been connecting everything with that. If there’s an earthquake tomorrow, you’ll be thinking it has something to do with that ward. Or maybe it was because of those kids you found.” Goldie nodded a couple times. “But okay, while we’re at it, let’s get them out of the way. Why would those kids have anything to do with someone planting drugs on you?”

  “Maybe because I’ve been asking questions about them.
Maybe someone doesn’t like that, doesn’t want anyone looking for them.”

  Goldie rolled her eyes. “Okay, then how about that hospital ward? Why would anyone connected with that ward plant drugs on you and have you arrested?”

  “Okay, you’re right,” Rachel said slowly. “It’s crazy.”

  At that, they sat in silence until Goldie broke it. “I can hear the gears grinding in your head.”

  Rachel looked over at her. “I do think I know when those drugs got planted.”

  Goldie’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “You said they were in a pocket, right?”

  Rachel nodded. “The left pocket of my jacket.”

  “Maybe someone behind you on a crowded elevator…?”

  “I didn’t take the elevator while I was wearing that jacket. I took the stairs.”

  “Then you got me,” Goldie said.

  “It had to have happened while I was in the O-R, or when I was up on that fourth floor.”

  “You think someone was following you or knew where you were?”

  “Had to. I’m certain that damn bottle of pills wasn’t in my pocket when I walked to the hospital. It’s cool that early in the morning. I had my hands in my pockets.”

  A car sped by, a Hummer, its windows looking absurdly small in the large body.

  “Come to think of it,” Rachel mused, “a woman called out to me, in that ward. I think she was trying to stop me. She ran after me. And she had a cell phone.”

  Goldie’s eyebrows climbed nearly to her hairline. “So where was your jacket at this time?”

  “That’s exactly the point. It was hanging in an open locker next to the dressing rooms in the O-R.”

  “So if she called someone, how would this person who wanted to plant drugs on you know that?”

  “I’m back to square one. I don’t know.”

  “Why would this person, whoever he, she, it, is, want to plant drugs on you?”

  “I don’t know that either.” Rachel gnawed her lower lip and slowly shook her head. “To keep me from nosing around that ward? Or nosing around anywhere at that hospital?”

  “Okay,” Goldie said. “So what did you see in that ward that somebody didn’t want seen?”

  “Well, that janitor guy you talked to was right. There were lots of patients. More than thirty, I think. Other than that, I didn’t see anything. I went into the john down the hall. It was an pretty ordinary john.”