By this time, my ear was firmly implanted in the door.
“Miss Schneider, can you tell me what happened this morning in your own words?”
“Boo-hoo, sob, sob, slobber, snort.”
The interpretation being, “I know plenty, Bub, but I’m too broken up right now to talk about it.”
Through the wall I couldn’t get a feel for whether she was upset because she loved him or because she killed him. Or maybe something in between. And I didn’t know whether to feel compassion for her or antipathy. Or maybe something in between.
Despite her slobbery sobs, I heard her say that when she walked into Burns’ office with the rest of us, she was overcome with grief. She said she fell to the floor and didn’t recall anything else until “that bossy lady told Marian to take me into the hallway.”
Decisive. Decisive.
It looked like it was time for another cup of coffee.
Without glancing at B.H., I slowly ambled to the coffeepot. When Gwen continued crying, I put my mug on the counter, walked to her, and placed my hands on her shoulders. Looking in her eyes, I asked if I could help. She shook her head, but absolute misery just poured off of her. She was in so much pain. At that point it didn’t matter to me whether she’d killed him or not, she was really suffering. I let my hands slide around her and hugged her to me. She resisted for a brief second and then literally collapsed onto me. Her sobs shook her body for several minutes. I was very focused on her and didn’t notice until later that B.H. kept silent and didn’t interrupt.
When she started to regain her composure, B.H. looked at me and mouthed “Take her out of here.” I was glad to oblige and it wasn’t entirely done out of the goodness of my heart. This seemed like a good opportunity to tune in to her, ask some questions, and see what was going on.
We left the kitchen and went into my office. I guided Gwen to the loveseat and sat beside her. For a while she continued to sniff and cry into a tissue I’d given her, and then looked at me suspiciously.
“What do you want?”
“Nothing really. I saw that you were hurting and wanted to help.”
She half-smiled. “I’m surprised.”
“Well, I am a social worker. It’s kind of built in.”
She started snorting and sniffling again. “I don’t deserve your sympathy. I don’t deserve anything but jail. I didn’t mean to, but…” the snorting sound effects continued.
Aha, here was my chance. “You didn’t mean to what, Gwen?”
Before she could regain her composure to answer me, I suddenly felt someone was in the room with us. I repeated my prompting, “You didn’t mean to what, Gwen?”
Too late. She’d controlled her blubbering and wasn’t going to give me anything.
The feeling that someone was with us remained.
My footsteps were slow and quiet as I inched toward the kitchen door. I recognized the same heavy breathing on the other side that I remembered from the back seat of a ’65 Chevy during high school. With a jerk I pulled the door inward, and just like in a Charlie Chaplin movie, in fell B.H. himself. When I saw him lying there, it did wonders to temporarily appease the revenge mentality I felt. However, he didn’t even have the good sense to look embarrassed.
“Miss Schneider, I’d like you to accompany me to the police station. We need to talk some more.” He stood as if nothing had happened.
Guiltily and hastily, I blurted, “Gwen, I promise I didn’t know he was there. Besides, I know you didn’t kill Dr. Burns.”
“But…”
“It doesn’t matter how I know, I just know.” There’s no way in the world I could try to explain to this grieving woman and Detective Butthead that Gwen didn’t “feel” guilty. “Get yourself a good lawyer, and I’ll stay in touch.”
“Now, Miss Schneider, there’s no need to get a lawyer. I just want to ask you a few more questions down at the station. You are not being accused of anything and you are not under arrest.” Butthead did the best he could to intimidate me. He glared.
I glared back. He was a rank amateur. As the oldest of six kids I had the “sister look” down pat. I could silence a mortal at thirty paces. He pretended it didn’t bother him, but he didn’t fool me. I knew he was cowed.
As they left, I resolved to find out everything I could about this case. Gwen obviously knew more about the murder and certainly felt guilty about something, but I knew she wasn’t the killer. So my quest was to find the one who did the deed.
I felt up to it. The odds were that no one would fire me or lay me off until well after the funeral when the business affairs were settled. Until then, no one would realize that I didn’t have any work to do.
Heck, half the office probably didn’t even know I was hired. Still, I’d heard that Dr. Burns liked to assign patients to new staff members himself, so I didn’t have to worry about being asked to do any actual work for at least a few days. I thought I could earn my salary by looking for who killed the boss. Maybe people would be so impressed that I could keep the job. Who knows? But as my son would say, “Yeah, and maybe pigs will fly out of my butt.”
On that note, I set to work. At least I thought about setting to work. It was quitting time.
My first day on the job was certainly eventful. My main concern now was to solve this case, prove to be indispensable and keep my job.
THREE
“N
o, no, Paolo. I
can’t stay with you. I belong to the world.”
“Cara mia, stay. I will treat you like the queen that you are. The world will survive without you, but I will not.” He began kissing my fingers and slowly and deliciously moved up my arm until he got tantalizingly close to my open lips.
I was torn between pretending hesitancy and following my heart…and my body.
Brrng, brrng.
“Shit!” The phone jolted me awake, and I was not in a good mood. Giving up Paolo wasn’t fun; he was the best dream man in a long time. Before I picked up the phone I glanced at the sturdy athletic watch on my wrist.
Six A.M.? What in the hell…?
“Yeah.” It wasn’t my most clever opening line, but it would have to do.
“Sam, this is Jenny. We got a problem in the ER and need a counselor. I see that you’re on call. Rise and shine.”
“Is this your idea of a joke? I just got hired yesterday. Couldn’t be on call yet.”
“Get in here, sis. We need you. You know I wouldn’t lie to you. The on-call sheet says you are the designated hitter, so come on.”
“Yeah sure.” Clever retort. When it came to my younger sister, I was always quick with the witty dialogue. “Okay. What do you need?”
Jen was actually Jennifer Darling Vu, Director of Emergency Services at Bay General, the local hospital, and married to Dr. Manh Vu, a pediatrician, originally from Vietnam. We were happy to have him in the family for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was that he provided free pediatric care to the growing family.
Being the oldest of six was both a gift and a curse. I loved the gang and their assorted spouses, significant others, and kids. I also resented the hell out of the fact that I’d had to get a divorce in order to have a bedroom to myself.
Jen interrupted my ruminations. “We have an ER full of drunks and I think we need a crisis intervention specialist, rather than calling the police. Can you come in and help?”
“Sure, be there in a few minutes.” As I hung up, I actually felt pretty good. Jen asked me for help very infrequently and I was glad to oblige. Before I had applied at the clinic, Jen told me that Doctor Burns negotiated a nice little contractual relationship with the hospital, so that the psychiatric division of the clinic provided emergency crisis intervention and therapeutic intervention on an as-needed basis. The on-call therapist did the initial assessment and determined if the psychiatrist needed to be called. Illinois was one of the states where licensed clinical social workers were allowed to practice independently and even receive insurance payments.
I dressed in jeans, T-shirt and wool sweater. Quincy was cold in January, especially this damn early. I put on boots and a parka, grabbed my phone and keys and started to leave. It felt odd that there was no one to tell that I was going out. My divorce was a thing of the distant past, but I was used to having my children around. Their departure was too recent for my solitude to be very comfortable. Adam was a junior at the University of Illinois, and Sarah was in her first year at the same school. After the holidays, they had both gone back to school early because of their commitments, and, I suspected, because of their respective love interests.
As I left, I made sure the answering machine was plugged in. Then I realized I did have someone to notify. Clancy had been following me around ever since the phone rang. She had been sleeping on my bed, and when the phone rang she raised her regal head and gave me her “get off your butt” look.
I crouched down to her level. “I need to go to the ER. I promise I’ll be back in time for your morning run. And remind me to tell you about my dream. It was a corker.”
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.