by Chris LeGrow
Hovering at the first door, she asked, “Anybody need anything?”
As though on cue, each waved her on and shook his head. The second door went the same way. Nicki almost believed she was home free.
She finished her rounds, then passed George’s door en route to the nurses’ station, his soft voice drifted toward her. “Come in here, child.”
His voice sounded so much like a caring grandfather, Nicki blinked back tears. She shook her head. No time for breakdown.
“Nicki,” he said and motioned her forward.
How she ever thought she could keep anything away from these trained investigators, she had no idea. True to their roots, they could spot evasiveness in a heartbeat. Investigation was in their blood. She took a few steps into the room.
“Look at me, Nicki.”
She complied, still blinking away the emotion that threatened to spill over.
“You know I was a detective for almost nineteen years, right?” George asked.
Nicki didn’t trust her voice. She nodded.
“In domestic violence,” he said.
Nicki took a deep breath.
“I’m used to people keeping things from me after an incident,” he said conversationally. “Back in my day it was called wife beating, but it’s still the same old game with different titles.”
George motioned her forward and she complied but hovered back several steps from his bed.
“Dang,” he said. “That looks about three days old; did he hit you over the weekend?”
Nicki pulled her hair over her left ear and neck. Even through the makeup, the bruise had spread from the front of her ear, along the jaw; finger lines reached back toward her neck where Jeff had slapped her on the side of the head.
“Not unusual for a victim not to want anyone to know,” George continued. “He slapped you with his right hand, didn’t he?” Without waiting for confirmation, he kept talking. “My guess is that you have a couple bruises on your back or your back side where he either punched you or kicked you as you ran away.”
Despite her best efforts, a lone tear trickled down Nicki’s right cheek. She waved her hand and shook her head. “You don’t understand,” she said. “Things are just really difficult right now.” Nicki reined herself in and once again tamped down the twin feelings of shame and disgust simmering just below the surface.
“Please don’t say anything,” she said fixing a direct gaze on George. “My husband hasn’t worked in over six months. I’ve never seen him like this. He just doesn’t want to do anything—not even watching our daughters. We got into an argument about him needing to do a better job of that and he just snapped.”
“How many children?” George asked softly.
“Two girls,” she said slumped in a chair beside his bed. “He seems more interested in drinking beer, watching cable, and playing video games than in them.”
“Tough to lose a job,” George said. “Sorta punctures the male ego.”
Nicki smiled at him. “Yeah, but it doesn’t excuse his behavior with his daughters.”
“How old?”
“Four and five,” she said. “They kind of watch one another. I leave food they can open and easily eat just in case…”
George eyed the bruise with a growing frown.
Instinctively she put her hand to the side of her neck. “He’s never hit me before. Ever! I don’t know what got into him: drinking or depression or—I don’t know. Everything’s going wrong for him. I graduate at the end of the semester. I’ll be working and that’ll help.” She laced her fingers in front of her to keep them still.
“Help with what?” George pressed.
“With the stress,” she said. “I’m sure things will get better then.”
“Perhaps,” George said and took her hand in his.
“Don’t say anything,” Nicki whispered. “If my instructors find out, they’ll have to report it and I can’t deal with a police investigation or Child Protective Services swarming all over us to see if my girls need to be removed. Please,” she said again searching the Ol’ Blue’s countenance for a shred of empathy or compassion. “It would be more than I could bear.”
George nodded and released her hand. “Why don’t you freshen up,” he said indicating the bathroom.
When she returned, he gave her his “cop stare.” “I’ll let it go this time,” he said. “But anything else…all bets are off.”
Nicki nodded. “I understand.” She took in a steadying breath and headed to the door. “Thanks, George,” she said. “I always feel better talking to you.”
Tugging her collar and hair over the bruise so no prying eyes would discover her secret, she headed out the door.
“Come back anytime,” George called after her. He waited until he heard her one door down. He picked up his phone and punched in a number. “Hey, Sarge, this is George; I have a little operation that needs my attention. I’ll need two additional Blues to accompany me. One to push my wheelchair and the other will need a walker for my backup.”
“Okay,” the Sarge said. “Anything else?”
“Probably a doctor’s visit as my cover and transportation, of course.” George ticked off his mental list. “I think we can take care of it in an afternoon and be back within a couple of hours.”
“What’s the assignment?” the Sarge asked.
“A husband who thinks it’s all right to slap his wife around…one of the students here.”
“Awesome,” the Sarge said. “Delivering a little tuneup?”
“Yeah,” George said. “Sort of furthering his education. Shouldn’t take more than three hours.”
“Consider it done.”
“Thanks, Sarge.”
Sarge hung up the phone and yelled to nobody specific. “Hey, I need a pusher for George in C Wing and one backup.”
With no hesitation from anyone in the precinct, one hulking Blue, a Samoan named Big Al Afasa, six feet four and two hundred forty pounds nicknamed Tinkerbell or “Tink” waved his hand in the air. “I’m in. I’ll be the pusher.”
“I’ll be backup,” Harry called out. “I’ve been waiting to use that new walker.”
“Done and done!” The Sarge barked. “Get to supply for the clothes and any special equipment for that walker. I hear they have some new Taser darts; no wires!”
The Blues exchanged a glance and pretended to punch each other in the chest. “Let’s go!”
“Oh yeah. I’m all over that.” Both men headed out of the precinct.
“Wait!” the Sarge barked. “Almost forgot.” He shoved two sheets of paper in the air. “Requisitions for the equipment and clothes.”
Tink grabbed the paper. “How could you forget?” he asked. “You recruited those two sticklers.”
“Don’t I know it,” the Sarge said with a chuckle.
In the supply room, Paps and Jerry checked over the papers and the two Blues. “Who gets the wheelchair?” Paps asked. “I see you’re both walking just fine.”
“George in C wing,” Henry said. “Looks like a student nurse who got smacked around by her husband. George wants to have a little chat with him.”
“Great,” Jerry said with a smile.
“This walker is equipped with the wireless Tasers,” Paps said. “Why do you need it?”
“I’m backup,” Harry responded.
“You’re Taser happy from what I hear,” Paps said. “One of these days you’re going to hit somebody and fry their pacemaker.”
“Look, Paps,” Harry said, “can’t we just get our clothes and gear and get outta here?”
Paps threw Jerry a you-want-to-take-this-one look.
Jerry glanced over his reading glasses at the two Blues and picked up the phone. “Need confirmation on the walker.”
Everyone could hear the Sarge’s bark through the phone. “I filled out both forms, yeah, clothes, wheelchair, and specially equipped walker. Yeah wireless Tasers—and don’t forget transportation. Oh, and have the boys in the lab put
a doctor’s visit in the nurse’s computer schedule.”
“Clear,” Jerry said and hung up the phone. “Rig ’em up, Paps.”
Harry and Tink exchanged an are-these-guys-for-real look and got dressed. The best part of the job was through the special exit, past the phony electrical box and into the lab where the techs outfitted them with the latest equipment.
“Now where, Tink?” Harry asked.
“Down here,” he said and motioned his partner forward. “It’s a special tunnel that’ll take us to a specially outfitted van. You’ve never done this before?”
“Nope; I usually go out the front.”
“Then you’ve got a treat in store,” Tink said with a nod to the driver and aide. “They’ll take us out a special underground route that opens into a fake garage. We and the equipment will stay in the back here.” He knocked on a false wall that concealed them from any probing eyes. “Between that and the tinted windows, no one will ever notice us.”
“That’s one way to keep Boss Nurse out of our hair,” Harry said in obvious admiration. “Pretty cool.”
“Exactly the point.”
The driver and aide, brothers Chris and Andy, both trusted employees, had worked for Ben Mitchell since they were sixteen and seventeen years old. They looked outside the maintenance building and determined the coast was clear, opened the garage door, and drove out. Even if someone had seen them, their rig looked like every other vehicle stored on the premises. They pulled up to the front of the retirement home to pick up George.
The aide hopped out and ran the paperwork to the nurse’s station. Betsy’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “What do you mean a doctor’s appointment? This is the first I heard of it.”
“Check it out,” Andy said. “Should be on the schedule.”
She turned to her computer and clicked a number of keys.
“There it is,” Andy said from behind her shoulder. He pointed at the screen.
“Hmmmph!” she said, “I didn’t see that this morning.”
“Guess if you’re around these old guys long enough,” Andy said, “you start forgetting things like they do.”
Betsy glanced at the computer again and shook her head. “He’s in C wing.”
“Yeah, we know; we’ve gotten him before.”
“Need someone to take you to his room?” she asked.
“Nope, we’ll take it from here, thanks,” came the reply.
George was dressed and ready to go. Once he was secured in the van, they hit the open road, the third row seats electronically retracted. Tink and Harry gave him a smile and thumbs-up.
George smiled and eyeballed his partners. “In this operation,” he said after a few minutes, “we have a young couple going through tough times. Husband lost his job and is starting to hit the booze pretty hard. He stays at home with their two girls but seems to be drowning in self-pity. Over the weekend, he slapped his wife during an argument. She’s one of our nursing students—Nicki.”
“I know Nicki,” both said in unison.
“Exactly,” George said. “She’s got the human touch—something a lot of the others haven’t learned yet. She works harder than anyone else and she takes the time to actually talk with us.”
“Maybe because she’s older,” Tink said.
“She carries a big burden if she’s expected to be the breadwinner,” Harry said. “We gonna slap the hubby back?”
George smiled. “It pisses me off too,” he said, “but Nicki says he’s a good man, and I believe her. We’re just gonna have a little talk and see if we can bring him back around to being a decent husband and father. You follow?”
Harry and Tink nodded their agreement. “Does this mean I don’t get to use the new Tasers?” Harry asked.
“We’ll see,” George said with a half smile. “Pull over by that apartment,” he said to the driver and pointed across the street a block down. “At the playground.”
The driver pulled to the curb and parked; the aide helped George out and into his wheelchair.
“We’ll call you when we’re ready to go back,” George said. “Harry, set up a checkerboard at that table over to the right.”
Harry moved to lay the game out but kept his head down. “Looks like he’s spotted us.”
“At least he’s watching where his kids are,” George said. “Hopefully today’s little preventive measure will help him and Nicki both.”
Jeff Jensen lay on the couch and stared at the ceiling. He’d hoped when Nicki started nursing school their lives would get better. They’d worked out a plan. Jeff worked nights and during the day, he could watch the children while Nicki attended school.
Jeff opened another beer and wiped his hand across his face. It seemed as if he was always tired. It didn’t help that his company cleaned offices. It was hard work but it was at night. In the beginning he was proud of Nicki who loved school; nursing was an excellent profession. The plan was once she graduated and got a job, they could refocus and build a nice life for their children.
Everything had gone well for the past eighteen months until his company got into legal trouble for employing illegal aliens. The fines hit, the company closed up, and Jeff was out of a job. Just like that.
In a heartbeat he’d become worthless to his wife and children. With no money coming in, Nicki was forced to take out student loans. They only prayed they could pay it all off in a lifetime. Over the months, the pressures of no money and mounting bills weighed heavily on them both. When they weren’t arguing, they didn’t talk at all. Nicki just got up and went to school. The kids needed to be taken care of, but all he wanted to do was drink. Besides, the girls could take care of themselves. They watched out for one another. Once again he wondered what his place in the world really was. He took a long pull off his beer.
Speaking of the girls—Jeff stuck his head out of the apartment door and spotted them playing; three other women were out with their kids as well. “Good,” he said to himself. “They’ll help keep an eye on them too.”
Jeff left the door halfway open, just to be a good parent, and downed the last of his brew. Pulling the bottle from his lips, he noticed new people on the playground: three old men. They were talking, nothing unusual there, but Jeff had never seen them before. One pulled out a checkerboard, and they seemed to settle in at a picnic table for a friendly game. Jeff observed them a few more minutes then turned back into his apartment. The sharp spritz of a bottle opening signaled the start of another afternoon for Jeff.
“This guy seems to be content to just let the kids run around while he watches television,” Tink said.
“Good,” said George. “We’ll give him about fifteen minutes then go pay him a visit.”
Jeff set his empty bottle on the coffee table and stared from the television to the ceiling and contemplated the mess his life had become. “For crying out loud, I’m almost thirty years old! I’ve only held stupid jobs, never actually had a career. My wife has to go to school so that we can have a better life. Nice job, Jeff.”
The shadows in the living room shifted and darkened. Three men blocked the sunlight streaming through the front door.
“You sound pretty pathetic, son,” George said from the entryway.
“What the—” Startled, Jeff jumped up from the couch. The checker-playing old men from the courtyard stood at his open front door. One man walked into his living room and toward the coffee table. The man in the wheelchair appeared to be in charge. Unsure of their intention, Jeff turned the bottle upside down and grabbed the neck brandishing it like a weapon.
Phet! Phet! The two sounds flew from the walker.
The darts hit Jeff, and his arms convulsed across his body in a crisscross manner. The glass bottle skittered across the room and shattered against the wall. A strange high-pitched shriek escaped Jeff ’s lips. “Jiijee…ahhah…youghtt!”
Jeff fell face first onto the television table with an audible thud that made the three older men wince.
“Wow,” Harry s
aid. “That’s one feathery trigger.”
“What the devil is wrong with you?” George asked. “We’re in his living room, scare the wits out of the guy, then—oh, jeeze.”
“That’s gonna leave a nasty mark,” Tink said.
They stared at Jeff ’s stiff body. “Good,” said George. “It’ll match what he did to Nicki.”
“Those darts really worked good!” Harry said with giddy enthusiasm. “Did you see? Dropped him like a sack of potatoes!”
Tink chuckled. “It sure did but we gotta tell the research guys about that trigger.”
George peered from Harry to Tink. “Help the man up, will you?”
Even Tink, well known as the squad gorilla and even better known to glare down most hoodlums in his career, couldn’t lift the younger man. “This getting old is for the birds,” he said.
They tried to pick Jeff up but neither had the strength to budge him. “Grab his feet, Buddy,” Tink said. “We’ll drag him by his feet and put ’em on the couch.”
“I think his feet should be higher than his head, that’s what we did when Brittany fainted,” Harry said. “Hey, get some water. We did that too.”
“He didn’t faint,” George said, “he just clonked his head on the table. Big difference, you know.”
Harry returned with a plastic cup of water and dumped it on Jeff ’s face and chest. He sprang up, sputtering and gagging.
“Hey, it worked,” Harry said in obvious surprise. “Wait’ll I tell Sarge.”
George rested his elbow on the armrest, chin in the palm of his hand. He glanced at Harry and then Tink who were completely focused on Jeff regaining consciousness. “Can one of you push me over there? I’d like to talk to the lad.”
Tink and Harry sprang into action. “Sorry, George.”
