Abandoned. John Schlarbaum
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to the ground floor,” Luke chirped as he guided Helga’s stretcher down the O.R. corridor. “You know ... if you’re feeling up to it, I can pop in to talk with you later. Would that be all right?”
Helga had zoned Luke out, as she stared at the cold and heartless hallway before them. This wasn’t her first rodeo, as her young nurse had commented, but it was very different. The card attached to the flowers in her room made certain of that. The same message had been sent with another bouquet to her house the previous year, on the morning of a traumatic and life changing meeting. Its meaning wasn’t intended to bring a smile to her face then, or now.
All the best, Helga! See you soon!
As Luke tried to keep her mind off the surgery, when she’d be unconscious and defenceless against a perceived attack, Helga scanned the faces of the people in the various waiting rooms they passed, as well as anyone in scrubs.
She knew they were here.
“I present to you: Ms. Helga,” Luke announced to two nurses, as he positioned the stretcher against the wall and applied the brake. “She’s all yours.”
“Thanks, Luke,” one of the nurses said as she took the medical chart from him. “We’ll take good care of her.”
“Excellent,” he replied, stepping to the foot of the stretcher. “Now just relax. I hope I’ll be the one dispatched to take you back to your room.”
Helga held Luke’s warm gaze, ignoring the nurses as they began to fuss with her in preparation for her surgery.
“Remember what I said, Luke,” Helga whispered, “because you’re the only one who’ll know later on.”
Luke gave Helga a quizzical look, the way you respond to a child learning how to talk, or in this case, a crazy elderly patient hopped up on drugs to combat the pain of a broken hip. “I will, don’t worry. You’ll be fine.”
Luke walked out of the room and called the Admitting department on his radio. “Luke here. That patient from eight is down in O.R.”
“Okay, thanks,” came the bored reply of the female clerk. “There’s nothing on the board.”
Luke put the radio in the front pocket of his scrub top and simultaneously pulled out his cell phone to check his email. As he passed the O.R. Family Waiting Room, he heard a man with a thick accent say, “She just went in. What do you want me to do?” Luke slowed to see who was talking, thinking one of Helga’s relatives or friends had shown up in her time of need. Unfortunately, his eyes were greeted with the backs of three men, one at the payphone and the others on their cell phones in conversation. He would occasionally stop and say a few words to reassure the waiting party, but not knowing which of the men he’d overheard, or if they were even discussing Helga, Luke returned his attention to a new message from his girlfriend with the subject line: You!
“Hi, Luke?” his work radio squawked. “Can you get some labs on 4 West and then you can go on break?”
“I can, thanks.”
Making his way to the elevator he again wandered by the waiting room and noticed that two of the men he’d seen previously were watching the television hanging on the wall. The third man, an older grey-haired gentleman wearing an overcoat, was no longer present.
Probably went for a coffee, he assumed.
Luke unlocked the express elevator and the door opened obediently. Inside, he pressed the “4” button.
“And here we go,” he said to the walls, “another action filled adventure starts now.”
As if on cue, the elevator doors closed and sent the happy-go-lucky employee on his way, unaware that within the hour Helga would be dead.
TWO
“Malone!” Mitch Carson called out into the newsroom bullpen. “When you’re done gossiping about the new Liam Neeson movie with Cassie, can you give me an update on the Mayville story?”
Jennifer Malone gave a dismissive wave of her hand in the direction of her boss. “Give me a minute, Dad. This is like very important girl talk time,” she said, continuing her discussion with the paper’s Lifestyle section editor, who doubled as the relationship columnist under the penname Ms. Love.
Also ignoring Carson’s intrusion, Cassie Hendricks leaned forward and asked Jennifer in a low tone, “So that was the end of the date?”
“Not exactly,” Jennifer smiled. “A girl’s gotta eat, right?”
“You let him buy you dinner, knowing he wasn’t the one?”
“He was the one, just not the long-term one.” Jennifer gave Cassie a little wink and grabbed a manila folder off the desk marked Mayville. “It was fun while it lasted, trust me.”
Cassie laughed. “When you do find true love you won’t know what to do with yourself – let alone him.”
“I’ll know what to do. He’ll be the one needing to catch up.”
Jennifer stood and made her way into Carson’s office. He was giving her a strange look as she entered.
“Boy trouble again, Malone?”
Jennifer took a seat across from the desk, crossed her legs and folded her hands over the file folder. “What do you mean by ‘again’?”
“Oh sorry – I meant still.”
“That’s more like it,” Jennifer said. “There are simply no quality men in this city for me.”
Carson relaxed back in his chair and put both hands behind his head. “What was this last sap’s fatal flaw? Wasn’t he a stock broker – someone smart?”
“He was, although I don’t know how he achieved such a brainy position with his limited musical background.”
There was a pause as Carson shifted and began to shake his head, closing his eyes as in disbelief. “Are you for real?”
“Seriously, who doesn’t like The Beatles?” Jennifer replied, exasperated.
Carson opened his eyes. “Did he come out and say, ‘I hate The Beatles’ or was it along the lines of, ‘I’m a Rolling Stones fan’?”
“Had he said that, he wouldn’t have got to first base.”
Carson cracked a smile. “Why are the Fab Four your litmus test for finding Mr. Perfect? Their final album was released in 1970 – a full decade and a half before you were born. Shouldn’t you be asking if he likes Def Leppard or Nirvana instead? Pearl Jam, maybe? What about Phil Collins?”
Jennifer gave her superior a withering look. “It’s a sign of respect to be familiar with such things, Mitch. You should know – you lived through that era ... cause, well ... you’re old.”
“No comment.”
“You need further proof? This guy thought Eleanor Rigby was Jude’s mother.”
Carson burst out laughing. “Enough said. He’s not a good fit for anyone.”
“Thank you. I knew you’d eventually see it my way.”
Carson sat straight and shuffled through papers on top of his desk. “Returning to planet Earth ... what’s happening with the Honey Mayville story? Have you tracked her down?”
Jennifer opened the folder on her lap and reviewed its contents. Twenty-three-year-old Becky Mayville, aka Honey, aka Hot Beckster, aka Councilman Roger Tilley’s whore mistress, was on the lam from the media and Mrs. Tilley. “I’ve got a few feelers out on the street that I hope will pan out. When the price is right, she won’t stop talking, even if you want her to. Word is a ‘classy dame’ she’s not, though the term ‘gold digger’ comes up a lot.”
Carson looked disappointed. “Splendid.” He handed Jennifer a piece of