The color blue filled the nurses’ station on the recovery floor of Southern General Hospital. It wasn’t the metaphoric color, but the literal color of the nurses’ standard issue scrubs. The hospital employed more staff nurses during the overnight hours than at any other time of the day. Their logic was that the night brought in more patients, victim to the enigma of night. Statistically, there were more car accidents, more alcohol-related injuries, and more crimes that involved violence. Something about the absence of light incited the need for medical attention and Southern General made sure the hospital was staffed accordingly. This was particularly true of the recovery floor as they received the brunt of the patients making it out of the emergency room.
There were five nurses on staff during the graveyard shift, plus a supervisor. All were female, not because of any employment prejudice, but simply because eighty percent of the hospital’s nurses were female. With this high percentage, a grouping of five females was statistically more likely. The nurses liked working the night shift on the recovery floor for the sole reason that they regarded their supervisor, Nurse Ann, as an important role model, mentor, and friend.
Things were quiet as the nurses filled out patient logs, prepared nightly drug dosages, and monitored the patients’ call buttons. Across from the nurses’ station stood a bank of elevators reflecting the light from their polished metal. Disrupting the quiet, a ding sounded. A dainty freshman nurse, Jennifer, sat directly in front of the elevators. She was compiling a list of doctors’ notes from the rounds of the day as she looked up anticipating the elevator’s occupant. Since it was past visitation hours, she figured the elevator housed one of the creepy janitors who enjoyed flirting with the nurses who fell into the eighty percent category. The doors opened as the nurse’s eyes focused on the ground. She expected to see a mop bucket, but instead she saw a pair of gleaming male dress shoes. Her eyes widened as they traveled up and saw pressed dress slacks and a dapper trench coat. Finally, her eyes landed on the handsome face of Det. Cleveland. He had a hint of stubble painting his defined face, which tickled the female nurse’s senses. She saw him sway toward her in slow motion as his alluring eyes locked with hers. The other female nurses glanced over and watched the arresting detective glide with confidence. He stopped in front of the freshman nurse and grinned.
“Hi there,” Det. Cleveland said.
His masculine voice flowed through her as she felt her nipples harden.
“Hello,” Jennifer replied with a smile.
“I’m looking for Nurse Ann.”
Nurse Ann stood in the back office organizing the nurses’ schedule for the coming week. She had heard the ding of the elevator and assumed that it was one of the peculiar janitors, but as she glanced at her staff, she knew that it wasn’t one of the grubby men. She saw all of the women staring in the same direction like sophomores eyeing the senior quarterback. Nurse Ann beheld the cool Det. Cleveland standing tall in front of the counter. Immediately, she sprang to his attention.
“There she is,” he said with a smile to the freshman nurse.
Nurse Ann walked around and met Det. Cleveland on the other side. She noticed he had a glimmer in his eye that was not present before.
“Hi. I’ve got good news,” he continued.
Nurse Ann lifted her heels off the ground.
“Our Jane Doe. Her name is Lois Belkin. She and her husband Roger were in an SUV which took the brunt of the damage in the crash.”
His words dropped her feet down to the cold floor. His seemingly simple explanation was loaded with life-changing events that took some digesting. She raised her hand to her mouth and inhaled.
“Oh, God. How did you find this out?” her voice expelled through the space between her fingers.
“Well, that’s what they pay me to do. I have my department looking for any relatives.”
Nurse Ann thought finding the answer to her burning question, Jane Doe’s identity, would provide some closure in the case. After all, the patient no longer was the mystery woman lying in the secluded room. However, naming her did the opposite; it opened up a book of new and more daunting questions. She thought about the name Lois Belkin and how many of her family members were devastated over her absence. Nurse Ann leaned her back against the wall as she took a moment to collect her thoughts. She reviewed the detective’s words and repeated them over and over again in her mind. Floating to the top, a question dominated her thoughts.
“What about her husband…Roger?”
As she spoke his name, she realized that Roger might actually be a patient of hers. The name didn’t sound familiar, but Jennifer at the floor’s computer could check the database.
“Jen, can you look to see if we have a Roger Belkin?”
Before anyone could act, Det. Cleveland interjected. “He’s not here. He was admitted to Saint Peters North Hospital, but unexpectedly checked himself out. He suffered some bad head trauma, and he’s been doing some strange things around the city. We’re trying to track him down.”
“Oh, dear,” Nurse Ann let out. She felt a strange feeling of remorse overwhelm her. The thought of the man wandering the streets in search of his wife hit her harder than a truck in a car wreck. She knew that Saint Peters North Hospital was more than ten miles away across the breadth of the city. Nurse Ann pondered Det. Cleveland’s choice of words in describing Roger Belkin and his actions, namely the word “strange.” She knew head trauma was a menacing handicap. The mind was a powerful object when used to its potential with the ability to function, to reason, and to understand the very essence of life. It stored our memories, collected our thoughts, and provided a myriad of functions that defined our unique being. The mind, however, provided life a disservice when a devastating injury had afflicted it. Unlike a broken bone or laceration, the mind’s damage had no concrete healing pattern. A seemingly innocuous image or idea could trigger an amplification of the injury or mend the damage altogether. With this stark truth, Nurse Ann hoped she could help Roger.
“Is he in trouble?” she asked.
Det. Cleveland remained mute. She knew his silence was a nice way of saying “yes.”
“How is Lois doing?” he finally asked.
Nurse Ann’s focus returned to the unconscious woman down the hall. Det. Cleveland’s question was something she could answer and the best way she figured to reply was to bring the man to her room. Nurse Ann gestured for him to follow her. As she walked, she realized something powerful from his simple, four-word query. It was something that was not outwardly present and even the eavesdropping nurses hadn’t recognized it. It was the fact that Det. Cleveland used the word “Lois” to describe the unconscious patient. He didn’t refer to her as the “subject” or the “woman.” He acknowledged her as a living and breathing human being with a name, and his question showed a chink in his otherwise impenetrable emotional armor.
The duo walked down the dimly lit west wing of the recovery floor. The hospital lowered the light output on its floors after ten o’clock in order to save energy and to provide a more tranquil setting for the less traveled floors. It took Det. Cleveland’s eyes a moment to adjust. His footsteps echoed off the hard floors, but as Nurse Ann stopped near the door to Lois’ room, he could make out the heartbeat monitor through the thick oak.
Nurse Ann pushed open the door as the cool air tickled Det. Cleveland’s nostrils. Both softly slid into the room. Det. Cleveland studied Lois. The sheets covered her petite body perfectly and were folded down just above her chest. Her breaths were rhythmic and slower than the electronic beats. Her left arm rested on her stomach, and her fingers were slightly curled. A white cast propped up by a sling wrapped Lois’ right arm. Det. Cleveland looked at her emotionless face resting like a pure and innocent baby. She was much more beautiful than he remembered in the photograph at the Belkin home. This was the “dynamite” in Roger’s life, and her current presence was quite the opposite than the literal meaning of the noun. This woman added life to the house that Det. Cleveland had analyzed earl
ier that night, but just as her house lie dormant, so did Lois Belkin.
“Well, unfortunately, her condition is unchanged. She is stabilized. Her arm was set and should heal correctly. The coma is her only obstacle now,” Nurse Ann explained as she placed her warm hand on Lois’ cheek.
Det. Cleveland felt his stomach clench as he thought of Roger lost on his voyage.
“I hope she—” he began to say, but his phone cut him off before he could finish the sentence. “Excuse me,” he said as he stepped into the hallway.
The door shut behind him.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Ray. Bad news,” Charlie said.
Det. Cleveland swallowed, nervous about his right hand man’s loaded response.
“Well, I haven’t been able to pull up any info on our Jane…er Lois Belkin. Our database has no other Belkins in the county. But if she was treated like a missing person, we could probably get more visibility with the media,” Charlie explained.
Det. Cleveland licked his lips. He was surprised by Charlie’s suggestion. This was the perfect example of a moment where his protégé stepped up and rolled with the punches. While Lois was not a missing person, following the same channels would open up new possibilities of finding one of her family members. The ultimate outcome would be to locate the most important relative, her husband.
“Let’s get her face out there. Put it out on the news wire and attach a story looking for next of kin. Have any callers contact the watch down at the station,” Det. Cleveland directed.
“Check,” Charlie replied.
He was glad Det. Cleveland agreed with his clever suggestion. The easy part of his conversation was over as Charlie leaned deep into the towering papers on his desk for privacy.
“Hey, by the way, her husband Roger is really digging himself a grave. He was spotted at a gas station skipping out from paying. He was with some trucker headed toward the downtown. I don’t know what this guy is planning, but the front line down here is getting pretty uneasy. The captain wants him picked up ASAP,” Charlie whispered.
“Don’t worry about him, I got it covered.”
“I don’t know if that’s what the captain—”
“I don’t give a damn what the captain wants! I was assigned to the Jane Doe case and now we know her name is Lois Belkin. But I need to talk to her husband to close this all out. I will take care of it!”
Charlie held the phone away from his ear to lessen the punch. He was trying to be diplomatic with the detective, but Charlie knew when to stop and accept Det. Cleveland’s guidance.
“Okay, but just know the front line has him on their radar,” Charlie added.
“Charlie, please just patch any updates to me personally. I could really use your help on this,” the detective responded as he slammed his cell phone closed.
Det. Cleveland took a moment to digest his conversation with Charlie and realized his right hand man was just doing his job of relaying information. His anger was really focused on the belligerent captain and the front line of first responders who were more like puppets than a free-thinking force. None of them experienced the direct knowledge of the Belkin family, split apart by the destructive accident. The detective was given privileged information into the lives of this divided couple and, with this information, he had a duty to serve and protect.
Det. Cleveland turned and looked at Lois through the small glass window. Nurse Ann was sitting on a chair near her side and was softly stroking her hair like a mother cuddling her sleeping child. The sight made him grin with contentment, as he had finally named the woman lying through the door. The larger and more pressing piece of the puzzle, however, transcended the room in front of him. It rested somewhere outside in the darkness of night. The man who shared the photograph with Lois was lost in his own world, a world contorted into something unthinkable.
“Roger, where are you?” Det. Cleveland murmured.
He realized he had no strong leads in finding the lost man. His only crutch now was logic, and it told him to trace the known course of the unknown traveler. Det. Cleveland looked around and understood what he needed in order to begin his search—a city map.
As the detective marched to the facility’s engineer to track down his city’s guide, the lobby of Southern General Hospital was surprisingly busy for the clock passing eleven p.m. A janitor sloshed a mop back and forth in front of an information desk staffed with two college interns. Although the administrative functions were sparse at this hour, the doctors and nurses assigned to the emergency room flurried with activity. Just like the nursing staff, the hospital employed more doctors during the graveyard shift than at any other time of the day due to the increase in emergency related admissions. The lobby was the central hub for the pathway between the emergency room and the cafeteria, which explained the bustle of activity.
The elevator bank in the back of the lobby stood closed as most of the activity revolved around the main floor. Then, a ding sounded, breaking the silence. The door opened as Det. Cleveland walked toward the main hospital doors. A city map was rolled under his arm marked with a search plan to cover the potential pathways Roger could be traveling. They included the assumption of Roger’s journey on foot, but the detective realized that hitching a ride was a real possibility and could yield a much larger search radius. Either way, Det. Cleveland knew what he had to do.
As he looked at the automatic sliding doors, they suddenly opened, triggered by two moving bodies on the other side. Det. Cleveland expected to see white lab coats or an ambulance driver strolling inside, but he saw the badges of two individuals dressed in black, standard-issue uniforms. Even though he was several yards away, he recognized the distinct shape of the badges. They were issued by one, and only one, specific entity—the city police department. After determining their origin, the detective looked up at their faces, and then squinted his eyes in thought. Both looked bizarrely familiar not because they were cops, but because he had met the two recently. One was a scrawny man with oversized clothes who was sporting a trite mustache on his boyish face. The other was a husky individual with a plump belly that probably held his stash of donuts. They were the two officers mucking around earlier in the night in the Belkin’s liquor cabinet. Both had coy expressions and, as Det. Cleveland neared them, they obviously were clowning around…again.
“Hey, guys. What’s going on?” Det. Cleveland asked as both stopped and straightened up.
“Oh, hi, sir. We’re on our way upstairs. The captain wants a stake-out on the Jane Doe,” the burly patrolman said.
Det. Cleveland’s expression remained emotionless, but his blood was boiling. He knew the captain had the wrong idea of Roger; thinking the man was a threat to anyone was outrageous. Det. Cleveland was on top of the situation, but as he was a man who separated himself from the mainstream, so did his superiors. He was outraged that the captain had required a stake-out for Lois’ room, and it was even more appalling that he sent two fools, no less, to perform the task.
“Her name is Lois Belkin,” Det. Cleveland responded.
“Sorry, yes. Well, we’re here just in case hubby Belkin shows up. He’s been upgraded on our priority list,” the hefty patrolman replied.
“Grand Theft Auto. Retail Theft. Evading Arrest,” his skinny counterpart listed.
Det. Cleveland couldn’t believe what he heard. These nitwits were actually serious with thinking this man, this victim, this husband, was actually an evil outlaw preying in the city. While on paper these crimes were indeed flagrant, a simple glance at the complete details of the situation would prove the series of events as circumstantial and unfortunate. Det. Cleveland was surprised at his own compassion for the case; in the past, he would have sided with the by-the-book captain, but this case was different. He was somehow given the privilege to see into the lives of Roger and Lois Belkin, to understand them, to empathize with them. It was ironic, however, that he had never actually met either of them, but that didn’t hamper the conviction he had for doin
g the right thing.
Both patrolmen snickered from the laundry list of Roger’s offenses, which only added to Det. Cleveland’s disgust.
“So, we’ll be upstairs baby-sitting,” the burly patrolman chuckled. He turned to his comrade. “Why do we always get the shit jobs?”
“No. Why do you always get the shit jobs?” the scrawny man replied.
Both men resembled schoolboys clowning around when they should have been focusing on work. The main difference between schoolboys and patrolmen was that the latter carried a weapon, which made clowning around a deadly game.
Det. Cleveland had enough. “Hey, well just don’t go jerking around up there! And keep me up to date if you see any sign of Mr. Belkin.”
Both patrolmen jolted from Det. Cleveland’s burst of energy. Both felt intimidated by his commands, the scrawny one in particular, but the burly patrolman thought of his conversation with the captain. It was actually more like a lecture by the potent man and, while Det. Cleveland and the captain were both above him in rank, the higher positioned always trumped when orders barked. The captain’s boisterous voice still rattled inside his head, “I want this Belkin now!”
“Well, we have specific orders to only go through the captain’s office,” the husky patrolman responded.
“I don’t believe this! Just don’t go playing Robocop!” Det. Cleveland yelled as he stared at the door. He knew he was up against the wall on this one; he was now a lion isolated from the pack, a position that required killer instinct and determination to survive.
Det. Cleveland charged past the two patrolmen toward the door. At this point, the whole lobby focused their attention on the detective. The interns behind the information desk were wide awake from their normally dismal night, and the janitor stopped his work to watch the striking man march with conviction. He thought to himself, Now that looks like a man on a mission.
Chapter 17