Chapter 34
She was beautiful back then. I gasped, looking at the attention given to her made-up face, the long slender legs, the hourglass figure. A slight gap between her top two teeth even added a hint of natural, easy beauty to her smiling face.
Ms. Marta knew this woman, Frankie Jean.
From the way they stood close to each other in the picture, grinning, it was obvious they had been good friends. I thought about what Sister Agnes said about Marta's friends: up to no good, foolishness, and trouble. She said that this woman, Francesca Dupree, was a smoker, drinker, and cusser, all evil vices from where Sister Agnes came from.
She said that everyone seemed to be a little afraid of this Francesca, too.
Amber had been afraid. I remembered how she alternated between trying to give me information about her and wanting nothing more to do with her.
Why would anyone be afraid of this woman, whether looking like a 1970s supermodel, or wandering the streets homeless, and, well, a little off? And how did she end up in that predicament anyway? And where had she been for the past few decades and why had she suddenly returned? Ms. Marta had said that she'd been there for just a week or so when I called her that first night at the ED.
The more answers I got, the more questions I had, but, I realized, the tightening in my stomach had eased up a little. I looked over at the IV. Whatever that nurse put in me was working.
I was also beginning to feel drowsy. Must be some kind of muscle relaxant, I realized, noting that even the baby's kicks, though still present, had slightly lessened in intensity. I began fighting to stay awake to keep figuring out Sweet Violet's past. I felt my eyes closing despite my best attempt to keep them open, my head nodding though I kept snapping it back into an attentive position. The picture, the questions, the easing contractions became a mixed muddle in my head.
And then a loud, piercing bell.
I jolted up in the hospital bed trying to make sense of what I was hearing.
The fire alarm.
I watched as the heavy door to my room automatically swung shut, sealing me alone in the room.
“Code red,” an operator announced over the intercom system. “Fifth floor, rear stairwell. Code red, fifth floor, rear stairwell,” the operator repeated, her voice calm, steady over the clanging alarm.
If it's a fire drill, she'll announce that the code red is cancelled in a few moments. If it's a real fire, somebody will come in here and direct me to safety.
I settled back in the bed, knowing there was nothing really for me to do but wait.
But nobody came.
I checked the wall clock and six minutes had passed. The alarm had not stopped and no one had come to check on me or offer directions. I pressed the nurse's call button. It seemed dead.
Where are Leon and Roman?
I wondered.
They should be here with me.
They'd gotten carried away with a call, I remembered.
I got out of the bed, stared at the IV in my arm. I took a deep breath and pulled it out using a couple of nearby tissues to hold back any bleeding. I guessed volunteering in the ED had done me some good. Any other time in my life, I would have been too afraid to mess with the IV, but I'd seen it removed enough times that I barely hesitated to pull it out myself. I yanked my shirt over my head, making the hospital gown look like a billowing skirt underneath it before slipping on my shoes. I walked over to the closed door, touching it, making sure it wasn't hot.
Lessons learned from fire safety classes back in elementary school.
The door was cool to the touch and I didn't smell smoke. I opened it, peered out into the hallway.
Fire alarms throughout the corridor flashed a brilliant white. That was the only action I saw. Nobody, not a nurse, a tech, a wandering soul was in the hallway.
Odd.
I walked back to the bed, grabbed my phone and then headed out the room to find Leon, somebody.
“Hello?” I called out, my words drowned out by the clanging noise. I headed down the hallway, turned a corner, saw the nurses' station.
Nobody was there either.
I turned back toward the room, but just before I rounded the corner, I saw movement near my room.
The cab driver.
I watched him open the door to the room I'd just vacated. He stepped in, clearly not seeing that I was down the hallway, just beyond the bend.
He was here to protect us; Leon had said. If that was the case, then it made sense that he'd be going into my room.
But what if that's not the case?
I thought of the numbers 511, the flowers, the questions I had, the answers I didn't. What if he had pulled the fire alarm and managed to empty the hallways? What if he wasn't here to watch over us, but to hurt us?
I closed my eyes, hearing in my memory the shots breaking through Leon's bakery window, the rain of glass, the ricochet of bullets.
Someone meant to kill us, the full weight of that realization settling anew on me.
I had to get out of there. I wasn't going to chance that the cab driver was here for my good, especially with Leon and Roman nowhere to be found.
Someone had been calling Leon when he left the room with Roman. Someone had called Alisa Billy when she rushed me out of this very hospital yesterday, only to be met with death.
Murder.
I dialed Leon's number.
No answer.
“Leon, where are you?” I huffed and puffed into his voice mailbox as I ran toward a green exit sign marking a staircase. That cab driver would immediately see that I wasn't in the room, and my gut told me he was going to come looking for me, regardless of whether his intentions were good or evil. I rushed through the door, not knowing if this was the front stairwell, the rear stairwell, if there really was a fire or if it all was a false alarm.
All I knew was that I wanted to get away as fast as I could and find Leon and my son.
I entered the stairwell, and the door shut behind me, locking. That's right, I recalled, the labor and delivery unit had automatic locks on everything to prevent infant theft; only a staff badge would give me access back onto that floor.
I'd stopped volunteering for Metro Community months ago, but I still had a badge, the social work director wanting me to stay on their files in case she was absolutely desperate for coverage, though I'd assured her in no uncertain words that I was never returning to work or volunteer there again.
Now I was wishing I had that badge on me. It was in my purse, back in the room. If that driver was up to no good, he could find it in there and have access to the whole hospital.
Not a comforting thought, and not one that gave me any direction, other than to get moving out of there.
“Jesus, help me,” I prayed as I scurried down the steps, the fire alarm an echoing clang through the wide, bright stairwell. I made it down to the next floor, the postpartum unit.
Those doors were locked too as this unit also tended to vulnerable newborns. Thinking of all those babies being disturbed by this loud, menacing alarm, I thought of my own baby, aware now that I was off of the IV, the medicine to stop my contractions no longer being pumped into my system.
I could tell.
The tightening in my stomach was back.
This is ridiculous.
“Help me, Jesus,” I prayed again.
I wanted to pause, catch my breath, give the tightening in my abdomen a chance to settle down, but I heard a door open somewhere in the stairwell. I had no idea what floor, and I knew that it could be anyone coming up or down; but I was operating in a place beyond logic.
I wasn't taking any chances.
I huffed my way down another landing, dialed Leon's number.
No signal.
I heard footsteps, fast and heavy footsteps, echoing through the stairwell, sounding as if coming from above.
At the next landing, I pushed the door to the main corridor, and it gave. Second floor. An administrative wing under renovation, from the looks of it.
“Hello?” I called out to the row of cubicles and closed office doors. A paint bucket and some scraps of lumber lined the nearest wall. The door to the stairwell had a lock on this side. I locked it and then circled the wing, looking for an exit out. On my way to another doorway, I noted a cubicle with a computer powered on. I checked behind me, didn't hear anything, and logged on with my old staff credentials to gain access to the Internet.
Francesca Dupree.
I typed the name into a search engine box.
No results jumped out at me.
“What am I missing? What can I do?” I tapped my fingers on the keyboard, determined to get answers that I didn't think anyone else was looking for.
I tried dialing Leon's number again. No answer. “Where are you?” I left a message. Hung up. New idea for a search.
“Marta Jefferson.” I said the worker's name out loud as I typed it in for a new search. Of course the articles and links that came up were tied to her tragic death, the court case. Heck, even my name made it into some of the articles, I noted as I browsed the summaries.
The
Baltimore Sun
had posted her obituary, I also noted.
Born and raised in Baltimore. Douglass High School. Housekeeper at Provident Hospital before embarking in a short career as a backup singer. Performances at The Sphinx, The Royal Theatre on Pennsylvania Avenue. Began working as a shelter worker in the seventies and never left.
“What am I missing? What am I missing?” I glanced over the obituary again.
Her name.
Kandace Marta Jefferson, her birth name, was written at the top of the posting. Marta was her middle name, not her first. I did a new search with just her first name and last.
“Okay, now what?” I exhaled, trying to ignore the tightening sensations increasing in my stomach as several links of archived articles from the Baltimore-based
Afro
-
American
newspaper appeared on the screen. The links were mostly black-and-white pictures of show performances, Kandace Jefferson mentioned as a background singer and/or dancer on nearly all of old Pennsylvania Avenue's night clubs and stages. Picture after picture, costume after costume.
And then a reference to a search warrant.
I stopped at this article, seeing something about a federal investigation. No picture, no mention of Kandace, oddly, I observed as I skimmed the article.
Why would this show up in a search result for her if she's not in the article?
I looked over it again to ensure I hadn't missed anything. The only name that jumped out at me was a man's name, Samuel Otis King. The article was dated November, 1971. I made a mental note of the name and the date and returned to the search results for Kandace Jefferson.
Nothing else looked relevant.
What had happened to Marta? I wondered. From a celebrated performer to a homeless shelter resident in a matter of months based on the time line offered by the articles and Sister Agnes's report.
I did a Google search of Samuel Otis King. Nothing of significance came up. I checked Maryland Case Search as the old
Afro
-
American
article had mentioned something about an investigation, but again, nothing. His name didn't appear in the database of court cases or trials. I wasn't sure if there was a public record of federal court cases, and I felt like I didn't have time to figure it out.
Francesca Dupree.
I held my breath and pressed search after typing her name again, adding the name Kandace Jefferson in the same search box. I didn't expect anything to come up, and I was right.
Except for the same article referencing Samuel Otis King.
I scrolled through it, but again noted that no mention was made of a Francesca, Frankie, or Sweet Violet. I moved the mouse to exit it, before seeing that the grainy archived copy of the article had something else.
A couple of paragraphs and a picture caption had been blacked out. Maybe their names had been part of the article, the only conclusion I could make.
A sharp, deep, long contraction started from one end of my stomach, circled around my back, came back to my waist, and radiated downward. I doubled over, gasped for air.
What am I doing down here?
I became aware of my surroundings again, realized that the fire alarm had stopped, that I was alone in an unfinished part of the hospital, and that my pregnancy was not cooperating with any of it all.
Trying to get information about Sweet Violet had only led to problems in my life, and yet, here I was again, endangering myself, and my child, to prove my gut feelings right.
But what were my gut feelings anyway? What had led me on this tangent? That the cab driver was . . . Was what? I groaned, half out of disgust with myself, half out of pain and fear of why I was having pain.
I logged off, shut down the computer. “I'm sorry, Leon,” I whispered as I reached for my phone, trying to figure out what I was even supposed to tell him when we finally connected.
A jiggling sound caught my ear.
The door of the stairwell, which I had locked, was shaking, as if someone was trying it, pulling at it, loosening it from its hinges. I heard a metallic rattling sound. That was no key in the knob, I concluded as the door continued shaking.
And then I heard it open.
Still in the cubicle, I could see an exit sign to another corridor just beyond where I sat, but getting up would mean going out to the main aisle which I knew was visible from the stairwell door. I felt safer in the cubicle where I could at least hide under the desk or next to a file cabinet, though the pains shooting through my belly felt like fire and I wondered how I would even stand up to get to either place.