Retirement Plan (31 page)

“What’s a little smell? We’re in the trash business.”

“Double time.”

Alonzo sighed and turned back toward the line of trucks. “I got to call the wife.”

Once Alonzo had talked to her, he was okay with the extra trip. As they drove out of town and toward the landfill, he imagined sleeping late in the morning, then going shopping with that tip money. Number Four had been out of commission with some kind of fuel-injection problem. It had died in the middle of an intersection and was towed back to the lot. All this time, the mechanic had been waiting for a part. Alonzo had been doing his route in the standby, an old truck that shook and rattled but ran fine. Certainly larger loads of trash had set longer in the winter without being dumped. But Grady was right, something in the truck smelled horrible.

After twenty-seven years on the job, Alonzo figured he’d seen about everything. The sights and smells had stopped bothering him so long ago that he could barely remember them ever getting to him. But he would allow that winter was easier. A frozen landfill didn’t reek, and often snow covered the worst of the trash.

“Smells like something died back there,” Tashaun complained.

“Sure does,” Alonzo said. “Probably somebody throwed a dead dog or cat in the garbage can.”

They were quiet for a few blocks, then CJ said, “Remember the day we found that dead guy over on the west end?”

Alonzo thought that both Tashaun and CJ might quit after that day if new jobs had been easier to come by. He’d been raised in the South Side of Chicago. Coming up, he’d walked out his door on more than one occasion and seen a dead body. People where he came from just stepped around it until someone tipped the police. Back then the police halfheartedly investigated. But even the dead man’s family didn’t ask too many questions.

Although Tashaun had been in prison, he didn’t seem to have the capacity to forget that dead man, especially when CJ had talked about nothing else for weeks. Alonzo finally told her that he wanted a new topic or quiet. When she protested, he told her he could have her transferred to another truck. She’d shut up then because she was the only woman hauler, and she knew the other drivers didn’t want her. This night Alonzo only needed one of them, but he didn’t want to decide which one, so he’d made them both come along. They rode the rest of the way from town in the cold cab of the truck silently.

Just two days past the shortest day of the year, it had been dark for over two hours when Alonzo pulled the truck up to the entrance. The old girl who worked the gatehouse was waiting for them and ready to go home. Alonzo paid her, and she swung the gate open, then jumped on the running board. “Take her back to the left, past the dead pine tree.”

“Aw, come on. I almost buried the last truck to the axle out there earlier,” Alonzo said. “That left-hand lane is narrow and rough. I don’t want to spend Christmas digging this here truck out.”

“Sorry, ’Lonzo. We got a hot spot in that new area. If you go right, the boss will see the tracks.”

Alonzo dug into his pocket and pulled out a wad of tip money. He thumbed through it looking for a five and finally settled on a ten. He held it between two fingers near the open window.

The woman grabbed the ten. “Nobody be out here till Monday, at least. Might snow again by then.”

She jumped to the ground, and Alonzo turned the steering wheel of the big truck to the right. He hadn’t gone a quarter mile before the truck’s headlights caught smoke rising from the ground, still some hundred feet or so ahead. Fires were more common in the summer, but he’d seen them going midwinter before. Snow in this area had melted and the ground would be muddy. He turned the truck and backed up.

“Go on, you two,” he said. “Get on out.”

They gave a collective sigh and opened the door. Cold air rushed into the cab as first Tashaun, then CJ jumped down and managed to slam the door shut. Alonzo reached for the control and started the back end rising. It wasn’t long before CJ was at his left, tapping on the window. She motioned that he should crank it down.

“What you want?” he asked.

“Boss, you ain’t gonna like this.”

He sighed. “I already don’t like it. Get your butt back there and help Tashaun.”

“They’s a dead body just flopped out the truck.”

Alonzo rested his elbow on the steering wheel.

“Boss?” CJ said tentatively.

“I heard you.”

*

Across the room, a baby had been crying since the weary mother sat down. Next to her, a young couple argued about the newly wrecked car. There weren’t two seats together in the entire emergency waiting room. Morgan and the child sat on the floor in the warmest spot they could find. Only then did the little girl called Lori ask, “Where are we?”

“At the hospital.”

“Why?”

“A doctor needs to look at you.”

“I ain’t sick.”

“It’s the rules.”

“Oh,” Lori said. “Are you going to stay with me?”

Morgan nodded. “You bet I am.”

“I’m hungry.”

Morgan eyed the Happy Meal she’d gotten on the way to the hospital. She’d promised the kid McDonald’s but couldn’t let her eat until after the exam. She wanted to embrace the kid, but training told her not to touch sexual-abuse or rape victims, especially children, so she had little comfort to offer until after the exam. Morgan said, “The doctor will examine you, and right after that you can have your dinner.”

“How long will it be?”

“Not long.”

By the nature of the case, they were called back before most other patients, and as they left the waiting room Morgan heard someone protest. A woman wearing scrubs led them into a curtained-off area and told Lori that her name was Carol. Then she laid a paper sheet on the floor and told Lori to stand on it and take off her clothes. The tiled floor gleamed and the area seemed cold and sterile. Lori obeyed, each movement slow and seemingly painful. Standing naked in the bright light she simply looked at the floor while Carol took pictures of her body with a flash camera.

Next Carol carefully lifted Lori onto a gurney and helped her put on an adult-sized paper gown. Morgan saw Lori was shivering and asked for a blanket. Carol left and then returned with a warm white hospital blanket. The overhead lights glared, but as soon as Lori was covered, she fell asleep. Morgan answered a few questions for the nurse, then sat on a stool to wait.

On television, rape victims got examined right away—in the very next scene. Nobody ever saw the waiting. And waiting with a child was a lot harder than with an adult. Morgan was tired. She’d had plenty of time to rest since her mother’s funeral, but after meeting Chelsea by the green peppers the night before, she hadn’t slept. As she’d tossed around trying to sleep, she realized how many hopes she’d hung on the woman.

Nearly forty-five minutes later the nurse returned with a woman in a white lab coat, who came toward Morgan with her hand outstretched.

Morgan shook her hand and they introduced themselves.

The doctor turned toward the gurney. “So. What do we have here?”

Morgan shrugged. “She was at a crime scene. Looks like some abuse. At the least, neglect.”

“Rape kit?”

Morgan let out her breath slowly. “Yes.”

The doctor nodded and stepped toward the sleeping child.

Awake suddenly, Lori cried out.

Morgan moved close to her and said, “I’m still here. This is the doctor. She’s going to look you over.”

Lori lay still as the doctor pulled back the blanket. As gently as she could, she probed Lori’s chest and belly. “Please sit up for me now.”

The doctor opened the oversized gown, then met Morgan’s eyes and nodded her head toward the child’s back, saying, “Pictures didn’t do this justice.” Lori’s back was crisscrossed with welts. Some were yellow bruises, others were fresher purple. The skin had been broken in several places and healed to thin, irregular scabs.

Morgan had seen physical abuse before; it sickened her nevertheless. She remembered a teenaged prostitute a few years ago, her face swollen, front teeth missing, welts everywhere. She’d been found in an alley barely alive. Homicide had been called the next morning when she died of her injuries.   

Carol came in and whispered to Morgan. “Your partner is out front.”

“Tell him to come on back. I can’t leave the kid.”

It seemed like a long time before Redick was motioning to her through an open space in the curtain. Morgan went to him. He said, “How’s it going?”

“Hard to say. There’s evidence of abuse. Looked like old belt welts. I wonder how long she’d been alone in that apartment.”

Redick shrugged. “I called Social Services. They should be here soon.”

Morgan sighed. The last thing this kid needed was to be passed off to someone else, but it was procedure.

Redick cleared his throat. “Looks like we have another sniper killing. Window over the kitchen sink has a bullet hole. Curry, or someone, must have been standing in the right place to fall through the opposite window. We found some blood spatter on the walls and more on the window frame. The fire escape is hanging loose. But there’s no sign of a body in the alleyway. If Curry went through that window, the glass would have fallen, but we didn’t find any shards of glass below the broken window.”

“Jesus.”

A static-sounding voice came from Redick’s radio. He stepped away from the curtain and answered the call, and Morgan returned to the child’s side. As Carol ran an instrument under the little girl’s fingernails and swabbed her mouth, Lori lay quietly without moving her watery eyes. They then sat her up again, and Carol cut the rubber bands from Lori’s hair, ran a comb through it, and put the comb with the other evidence.

Finally, after what seemed like a long time, Morgan said, “Can we clean her up so she can eat? She’s been patiently waiting for this Happy Meal.”

“We sure can.” Carol turned to a gleaming white sink and gathered soap and a washcloth.

Lori’s face brightened.

After her hands and face were cleaned, she quietly opened her Happy Meal and ate the cookie first, then pulled out the French fries one by one. She shyly offered one to Morgan.

“You eat them all,” Morgan said.

The kid worked on the French fries hungrily. Then she opened the toy with greasy fingers. By the time she unwrapped the hamburger, she’d slowed down considerably. She took a bite of the hamburger and said, “Do I have to eat all this?”

Morgan smiled. “Wrap it back up. You might want it later. Now drink your milk.”

Obediently the little girl picked up the carton and put the straw to her lips.

Morgan looked up to see that Redick had returned. She covered Lori up again, told her to rest for a minute, and went to the curtain. “We have an Amber Alert on a Lauren Webber from over a year ago. This kid could have been snatched. They’re sending a photo over here with a uniform.”

“Looks like Ben Curry was a real sweetheart.”

“Looks like.”

Morgan glanced across the room to the child on the gurney. She looked small and frightened. “I hope the son of a bitch is dead.”

*

At 8:50 that evening, the woman from Child Services arrived. By then the doctor had started proceedings to admit Lori because she was running a fever and her lungs were congested. “I just want to keep her overnight to make sure she responds to the antibiotics.”

The Child Services worker looked relieved. She explained that she couldn’t find a place this late at night, and they had been considering a bed at the detention center while they tried to find a foster home.

A uniform arrived with the Amber Alert picture and Morgan studied it. The little girl in the picture had darker hair and looked a lot younger than Lori, but was similar enough to warrant contacting the parents.

Morgan had decided to stay with the child overnight when they got the call about a body at the town dump.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Lois Burnett had taken care of Daisy for several winters, but something had changed this last year. Daisy had grown older and the cold days were harder for her. Keeping the dog fed, watered, and exercised was no longer enough. During the worst of the cold, Lois brought Daisy inside and let her sleep on an old blanket in the mudroom. Lois had stopped hiding her involvement with the dog from Randy Harris. She figured that if he didn’t want to take care of Daisy, he shouldn’t object to someone else doing it.

For the past two weeks, the water in her bucket froze every night. Lois replaced it. Usually the new water froze too, or sometimes Daisy would knock the bucket over. One evening as Lois used a pair of pliers to unhook the dog from her frozen chain, she happened to look up and saw Randy at the window, watching her. Her temples were throbbing with anger as she changed positions so her back was to him and kept working.  Finally free, Daisy had done a little dance, then followed Lois to the gate that separated their lots. 

From the mudroom, Lois could hear Sophie working in the kitchen and could smell supper cooking. Tonight it was lemon chicken over rice. They’d been eating more meat lately. For once, money wasn’t a problem.

Lois sat on a low stool, next to the thudding clothes dryer, trimming mats from Daisy’s paws. The dog watched her tenderly clip a few hairs at a time until the mat came free. Lois stroked Daisy and said, “You’re such a good girl.” After a while, Daisy was snoring.

Leaning back against the warm clothes dryer as it thudded to a stop, Lois gazed at the family’s coats on hooks near the back door. They were draped in layers according to the season. Ruby’s down-filled parka was on the last hook, one sleeve turned inside out. Having Ruby at home had become a comfort to Lois, but trusting her was difficult. Even now she checked on her.

Lois lifted the red parka and reached inside to straighten the sleeve. Then she stopped. On the hook beneath Ruby’s coat was Matt’s peacoat. An image flashed. Two marines standing at the front door. Cowering in the kitchen, she’d refused to answer the bell. Sophie had gone and listened to them tell her that Matt had been killed in action. Sophie had been the one to wilt before the two young men. At the time it seemed that by not hearing the words, she could have Matt alive a little longer. Betty Holiday, whose funeral they’d attended only three weeks before, had been on the phone with Sophie. Only two blocks away, she was there before the marines were gone. She’d helped Sophie to a chair, then turned to the marines and said, “You can go now.”