Truman Medical Center is on Hospital Hill at Twenty-third and Holmes, the location so named because it is a hill and because the hill has been occupied by hospitals since City Hospital was built on it in 1872. In 1908, the city built a new General Hospital on the hill, designating it for whites only, leaving the original for Blacks and Hispanics. By 1914, the General Hospital for Negroes, also known as General Hospital No. 2, though owned by the city, was run by African Americans with a staff of Black doctors and nurses. Years later, the city merged both hospitals to create the medical center named after Harry Truman.
From Hospital Hill, you can see downtown to the north, the World War I Liberty Memorial to the west, the high-end shops and high-rise condos of midtown to the south, and, to the east, the rundown homes hugging the hills in the city’s poor, Black neighborhoods. For many of them, the successor to General Hospital No. 2 remains the first and last resort for the beginning and end of life and all the aches, pains, and wounds that lie between.
Truman is a level-one trauma center, maintaining one of the busiest emergency rooms in the city. I’d been there with victims and their families as well as criminals and, sometimes, their families, watching doctors and nurses fight to turn back the clock, winning more than they lost but not often enough to satisfy them.
A volunteer at the front desk told us that Frank Crenshaw was on the fourth floor. When the elevator opened, a uniformed cop met us with a raised hand.
“I’m sorry, folks. No visitors allowed on this floor right now.”
I read the name on his badge. “Officer Fremont, tell Detective Carter that Special Agent Jack Davis is here. He’ll want to see me.”
“ID, sir?”
“He’s retired, officer,” Joy said. “He forgets sometimes. Just tell Detective Carter, please.”
“And who are you, m’am?”
“I’m Special Agent Davis’s ex-wife. I don’t have a badge, but I earned one being married to him.”
Joy slipped her arm through mine, tilted her head at me, and smiled at Fremont. Though she was hard to resist, Fremont smiled back but didn’t budge. I did a quick shimmy with my head and neck, hardening Fremont’s hesitation.
“Just call him, officer,” Joy said. “Better to let Detective Carter decide whether to let Agent Davis in than have to explain later why you made the decision for him, don’t you think?”
Fremont’s eyes flickered. He’d lost even if he didn’t know it. Joy smiled again, and this time he reached for the radio clipped to his shirt.
We waited five minutes for Carter to show, trudging toward us, his tie hung loose around his neck, a mustard stain on his white shirt. The bags under his eyes said he’d started on the day shift and was a long way from home.
“So,” he said, letting out a sigh that was all regret, “Roni Chase called you. Why am I not surprised?”
“You should have kept questioning her, not given her the chance.”
“I talked to her. Between what she told me and what the other witnesses said, I got the basics nailed down before I put her in that room. I’ll get back to her when it’s time.”
“You left her alone with her cell phone. What did you think she was going to do?”
“If she called anybody, I figured it would be a lawyer.”
“She doesn’t need a lawyer. She didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Listen to you. She told you that, and you’re convinced.”
“Not a bad place to start.”
“Get real. You’ve been off the job so long you forgot that everybody lies.”
“You haven’t arrested her, so let her go. She lives with her grandmother and her mother who’s disabled from a stroke, and she runs her own business. She isn’t going anywhere.”
“This investigation just got started, and Roni Chase is right in the middle of it. She’s not going anywhere until I say so, and I’m not about to let you help her get her story straight before I take another run at her.”
“I can have a lawyer down here in less than an hour who will make sure you arrest her or let her go. In the meantime, I already told her not to tell you a damn thing. And, if you arrest her, her lawyer will make sure she tells you even less. Let me see her and I may be able to persuade her to cooperate with you. Your call.”
One of the other elevators opened, and Brett Staley stepped out. Officer Fremont gave him the raised-hand greeting.
“No visitors.”
“I’m not visiting anyone.”
“State your business,” Fremont said.
Staley looked around, saw me, squinted, and then opened his eyes wide, remembering me.
“Dude, you get around.”
“I do my best.”
“Hey,” Carter said to me. “Who is this guy?”
“Friend of Roni’s.”
“What’d she do? Send out invitations?”
“What’s your name, son?” Carter asked.
“Brett Staley.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Meeting my girlfriend, Roni. She’s visiting Frank Crenshaw.”
“So you two have a date, or what?”
“Nah. I was just trying to catch up to her.”
“Lemme see some ID.”
“Why? What’s going on? Where’s Roni?”
Staley thrust his chest out and squared his shoulders, not intimidated by Carter and the cops that had formed a ring around him, blocking the elevator door. His mix of bravado and cool made me suspect that this wasn’t the first time he’d done this dance.
I stepped in front of Carter, keeping my voice low, facing Staley. “She’s fine. The police are trying to sort out something that happened while she was here. You can help her by cooperating with them.”
“And who the hell are you?”
He barked the question, not backing down.
“My name is Jack Davis. I was at LC’s when Roni shot Frank Crenshaw, and right now I’m the only friend she has here that can do her some good and I’m the only one standing between you and a disorderly conduct beef that will cost you a night in jail, plus bail, a fine, and the price of a lawyer, all of which I’m betting will royally piss off Roni. So save the strut for somebody who cares and show the man your ID.”
His eyes darted between Carter and me. His stiff neck eased, and his quick breathing slowed.
“You sure she’s okay?”
“I’m sure. So take your wallet out real slow and hand the man your ID. And if you’re carrying anything that would make these guys nervous, now is the time for show and tell.”
“Shit, dude. I’m not stupid.”
He brokered a broad grin, slipped his hand into his back jean pocket, pulled out his wallet, and handed his driver’s license to Carter, who glanced at it before giving it to Officer Fremont and motioning Staley to a bench between the elevator doors.
“Have a seat, Brett. We’ll get back to you in a few minutes.”
“I don’t have a record,” he said, sliding onto the bench, slouching against the wall, fingers tapping a beat on his knees. “Not even a traffic ticket. You’ll see.”
“That’s real reassuring, son,” Carter said. “Your mother must be proud.”
Carter looked at Joy and then at me. “You going to introduce us?”
“Sorry. Joy Davis, say hello to Quincy Carter.”
She smiled and took the hand he offered. “Jack and I used to be married. Now we’re just roommates.”
Carter shook his head. “I don’t know whether that’s a promotion or a demotion, but do me a favor, Joy, and keep Mr. Staley company while your roommate and I have a talk.”
She joined Brett, and I followed Carter around the corner, past the nurse’s station.
“Okay,” he said. “Here’s how it is. You can talk to Roni Chase, but I’m going to be standing right next to you. Take it or leave it.”
The nurse’s station was the hub in a wheel with three spokes, each one a hallway leading to patient rooms. Activity was concentrated at the far end of one hall; cops gathered outside a room, a forensic crew shuffling in and out. An exit sign hung from the ceiling just past the door.
“You put Crenshaw in a room at the end of the hall next to a stairway? Could you have made it any easier for the shooter?”
Carter bristled. “It was the only room available when he came in, and we had no reason to think someone would try to take him out.”
“Is that the excuse the cop on the door gave for not staying put?”
Carter waved his hand at me. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Any excuse is a lousy excuse after the shit flies. Now, like I said, you can talk to Roni but not alone. Deal?”
I ignored his offer again. “Any witnesses see whoever it was went into Frank’s room?”
“No. It’s after visiting hours. The only nurse at the station was hollering at Roni, who was busy stirring up a shit storm.”
“Which let the shooter use the stairs—quick in and out. What about surveillance videos?”
“We’re checking them.”
“Anybody hear a gunshot?”
“No.”
“Are the rooms that soundproof?”
“They’re pretty quiet, and all the doors were closed. The patients in the rooms next to Crenshaw and across the hall were post-op and sleeping off anesthetic. They wouldn’t have heard a bomb go off. The other patients on his wing were sleeping or watching TV. None of them heard anything.”
“Maybe the shooter used a silencer. Or, he could have made it easy and used a pillow.”
“No pillow unless he took it with him,” Carter said.
“A contract hitter would have used a silencer and would be out of town by now.”
“You going to keep pretending you didn’t hear what I said about talking to Roni?”
“Let me finish working this through. You put Crenshaw in a room at the end of a hall next to the stairs. You got a cop on the door that screws up the one thing that should be impossible to screw up. You got a shooter who knows what room Crenshaw is in and times the hit for the exact moment Crenshaw is unprotected and anyone else who might see or hear anything is zoned out. Those are a lot of planets to line up.”
“And I’m no astronomer, but that’s too much for the shooter to count on unless he knew Roni was going to mix it up with the nurse. If he did, odds are Roni knew about the hit.”
“You swept her office this morning. You find anything that would give her reason to do something so stupid as that?”
Carter grinned. “Figure out which side you’re on and I’ll tell you.”
“You don’t have anything, because if you did, she’d be downtown by now. Which means there are at least three other possibilities. The shooter was checking out the setup, making a dry run, and saw his chance and took it. Or, he could have been planning to take the cop out too and got lucky or the cop was in on it. Which one do you like better?”
“I don’t like any of them any better than I like you.”
“I don’t blame you, but you’re stuck with them and me. One last question?”
Carter heaved. “What?”
“You ever work the gang squad?”
“Spent some time.”
“Does Nuestra Familia operate here?”
“They’ve just about got an exclusive on the drug trade in Northeast. It’s Cesar Mendez and a couple dozen of his closest friends and relatives, plus a waiting list of wannabes. Why the interest?”
“What about guns?”
“You know a gang that isn’t armed to the teeth?”
“Any chance they’re branching out from drugs, adding another line of merchandise?”
“Make your point.”
“Frank Crenshaw killed his wife with a gun that was traced to the robbery of that gun dealer last month. Maybe Mendez pulled that job. Maybe he’s arming his boys or maybe he’s filling an order from the folks back home.”
“How’s someone like Frank Crenshaw hook up with Cesar Mendez?”
“It’s the law,” I said.
“What law?”
“The law of supply and demand.”
Carter pointed toward the elevators. Joy looked at me as we waited for one of the doors to open, her eyebrows raised in a silent question I answered with a shrug. Her shoulders deflated, and her eyes lost their luster. She tired easily, no matter how much rest she got, always needing more, raising questions we couldn’t answer.
How do you live when you know you are dying? Do you ignore what’s happening inside you, conceding nothing? Do you conserve your strength, spending it only on the things that matter the most? Do you do the most and best you can and not worry about the rest? Joy’s answer was yes to all of that. I didn’t know how she did it.
Staley ignored us, earbuds plugged into his phone, listening to music and texting. I leaned toward her, a hand on her shoulder, whispering, “You okay?”
“Sure,” she said. “You?”
“Marvelistic.”
“We’re both lousy liars.”
“Long as we know it. Hang in there. This won’t take long.”
“Take as long as it takes. This is the most comfortable hospital bench I’ve sat on all day.”
“You’re too good for words.”
“I know,” she said, smiling and stroking my face with her palm. “Don’t forget you said that because I won’t.”
Officer Fremont motioned to Carter from the nurse’s station, and Carter joined him. Fremont said something I couldn’t make out, but Carter’s grimace said it wasn’t what he wanted to hear.
“Bad news?” I asked when Carter returned.
Carter bent over, tying a shoelace that wasn’t untied, pretending he hadn’t heard me. The elevator arrived, and we stepped on, the doors closing, the car giving us a jolt before it began its descent. I leaned against the handrail, closing my eyes and clenching as the day rattled my cage.
“Still with the shaking,” Carter said.
I took a deep breath as the tremors passed. “Yeah.”
“Be better off home in bed.”
“Lot of ways to be better off.”
Carter nodded, watching the numbers for each floor flash by. “I get what you do. The whole protect-the-weak-and-innocent bit.”
My torso pretzled, my chin planted on my shoulder for a three count until the spasm let me go. “Keeps me busy.”
“Trouble is, you start out from the wrong place. You want people like Roni to be innocent so bad you quit thinking like a cop. You push things the way you want them to go instead of going where the evidence takes you.”
“You’re kidding yourself if you think anyone starts in neutral, not even a good cop like you. It’s not a level playing field for people like Roni. Somebody has to push back.”
“There’s a difference between pushing and getting in the way.”
“Meaning I’m still a pain in the ass?”
He smiled as the doors opened. “Big time.”
“Good to know.”
Roni was sequestered in a first-floor conference room in the administration wing of the hospital, a cop on the door, this one not going anywhere. She was sitting at a long oval table, rotating her swivel chair side to side while plugged into her phone and texting, a mirror image of Brett Staley, the two of them leaving an electronic trail for Carter to follow.
Cops believe in causation, not coincidence. If Roni Chase had intentionally caused a disturbance so someone could kill Frank Crenshaw, Brett Staley climbed to the top of the shooter short list when he showed up at the hospital, his timing too good and any alibi he may have too pat. The shooter would have to have been someone Roni trusted, and who would she trust more than the man who was saving up to buy her funeral dress? It made sense if she was guilty.
Carter and I were coming at the case from opposite directions. He suspected she was guilty, and I hoped she was innocent, the truth hidden somewhere between certainty and doubt.
She looked up when we entered the room, taking off her earbuds and sliding her phone into her jean pocket, gathering her jacket around her like a protective shield, her face brightening for an instant when she looked at me, then darkening when she focused on Carter.
“So,” she said, “can I go home now?”
“Soon, I hope,” I said. “Detective Carter says you and I can talk, but only if he gets to watch and listen.”
“Can he do that?”
“Depends on how hard he wants to play this. He can hold you for questioning here or take you downtown. He knows that if he doesn’t let you go home in the next five minutes that you’re going to call a lawyer and if you don’t know who to call that you’re going to ask me to call someone, and he knows that whoever I call is going to turn his long day into a shitty night. Either way, he knows he’s not going to get diddly-squat out of you tonight. Except for what you’ve already told him, which is that you had nothing to do with Frank Crenshaw being murdered in his unguarded hospital bed.”
Her grin split her face. “So,” she said to Carter, “am I under arrest?”
Carter, hands planted on his hips, blasted me. “That’s what you call getting her to cooperate?”
“Here’s how it is. You want anything else out of her tonight you’re going to have to give us the room. I’m not promising anything after that, but I’m sure as hell not going to serve her up to you for a midnight snack.”
Carter glared. I stared, and Roni waited, wisely swallowing her grin.
“Motherfucking pain in the ass,” Carter said, wagging his finger at me. “That’s what you are—a royal, motherfucking pain in my ass.”
“I’ll take that as a yes,” I said, pointing to the slack-jawed uniform cop standing in the door. “I’ll have him call you when we’re ready.”
Officer Fremont knocked on the conference room door. “Detective Carter, the ATF agent is waiting for you upstairs. I told him you were interrogating a witness and I didn’t know how long that would take. He said to tell you he wasn’t much interested in waiting around. Guy’s a fed through and through, thinks his shit don’t stink.”
“So that was the good news Fremont gave you,” I said. “Don’t worry about us. We can come back tomorrow if that’s more convenient for you.”
Carter aimed his finger at me again, his caramel complexion purpling. “You keep pushing and you’re gonna push too far.”