Raining Tears, page 11
Claire rarely drove her old hatchback car, but Olde Bend Hospital was too far away to walk. Ever since the accident she hated driving and began walking, then running. But she could never run fast enough or far enough to escape the haunting memories of the night Danny died.
They had gone out to dinner to celebrate their wedding anniversary. Five years that had destroyed all her hopes and dreams nurtured by a childhood of princess stories. How had she ended up married to an ogre instead of a prince?
He was so drunk by the time they left the restaurant to head to the theater in Olde Bend he could barely walk to the truck. After he knocked her to the ground to keep her from taking the driver’s seat, she crawled into the passenger side and secured her seat belt. Danny had the music cranked to a full blast to avoid any conversation. He tapped the beat on the steering wheel before moving to her thigh and giving her a wolfish grin. He wanted to get lucky.
She was familiar with marital rape in all its variations. He wasn’t going to be denied his rights, and she was too exhausted to fight back or care. She couldn’t report his abuse. She didn’t want anyone to know she was a battered wife. Admitting she had been a fool was too embarrassing.
Claire turned onto the steep winding road where the accident had taken her husband’s life. She slowed, looking for the turn he had missed.
The sky was clear today, but that fateful night the rain had been steady, and the darkness blended the road into the ditch and woods that bordered on each side. He ran off the asphalt pavement more than once and struggled to pull the speeding truck back onto the roadway. She’d told him to slow down, knowing he would hit the accelerator in spite.
Claire braked as she approached a familiar turn in the road. This was the place. The tree had been fractured into a splintered web the night of the accident, but during the last three years the top had broken off and was rotting on the ground. Time had passed, but that night still haunted her. She had been prescribed pain pills for her injuries, but no one understood the need for a cure to the joy of being rid of a parasite and the emotional guilt it caused.
Danny had taken the previous turn too fast, nearly losing control. The plan had formed suddenly and clearly in that scary moment. Claire pulled latex gloves from her pocket. She always had a pair handy. She slipped her fingers inside, keeping them low and out of Danny’s view so as not to alert him to danger.
She waited until the next turn in the road, took a deep breath, and moved in a fluid motion as if she were watching the action from afar. She hit Danny’s seat belt lock with her left hand to release it and yanked the steering wheel hard with her right, sending the truck off the road and into a steep ravine on her side. The heavy vehicle barreled into the tree. She braced for impact, and the seat belt tugged on her chest with a painful jerk. She hit her head, and her right arm smacked against the truck’s metal frame as she was thrown toward the side window. She cried out in pain, stunned but alive.
Danny had disconnected the airbags after buying the truck. Too bad for him. He had flown forward, hitting his head against the windshield full force. The safety glass held except for the hole his head had created upon impact. His chest had smacked against the steering wheel, and he fell back against the seat, dazed and bleeding. It should have killed him, but he grunted in pain. How had he managed to survive? Claire felt his pulse with her left hand. Fast. His breathing was labored. Her touch woke him.
He looked at her through dazed and confused eyes. “What happened?”
“You ran off the road.”
He frowned, blood dripping from a long gash in his forehead. “You grabbed the wheel.”
“You lost control. I was trying to save us.”
He patted his coat. “Call 9-1-1, bitch.”
“I already did,” she lied. “Remember, I’m a nurse.” She showed her gloved hands. Her right arm ached, but she could move her fingers. “Let me check you for injuries.”
He relaxed back against his seat. The fool trusted her. He had used terror to keep her in line, but fear had turned to hate.
“Where does it hurt?”
“I can’t breathe.” He coughed and spat out blood along with a piece of broken tooth. She pressed against his chest. He screamed. His ribs were cracked or broken, and he likely was bleeding internally. Even if his injuries were fatal, he was dying too slowly. Doctors might be able to save him. That would never do. She needed him dead to escape his abuse.
Ignoring any pain, she clamped her gloved hands over his mouth and pinched his nose. Another bruise wouldn’t be noticed. He grabbed at her fingers to free her grasp, but his palms were covered in blood and slipped on the smooth surface of her gloves. It took all her strength to hold tight until he slumped forward against the steering wheel. She checked his pulse. Nothing. He was finally gone.
Headlights lit up the truck as a car slowed and stopped. “Hold on!” someone shouted from the road above.
Claire pulled her gloves off and stuffed them deep into her coat pocket. Then she slumped against the side window and waited to be rescued. She had only hastened Danny’s death, not caused it. She had risked her own life to bring about the accident, but God had spared her. That had to mean something. But most importantly, she was free of him.
The paramedics and medical staff treated her kindly. They waited to tell her Danny was dead after she was admitted to Olde Bend Hospital for a broken arm and concussion. She cried and played the hysterical young widow to perfection.
People who had once been friends knew she was better off without Danny, but they offered polite condolences anyway. But her late husband had claimed the last laugh. He had let the insurance on his truck lapse and left her with a huge loan to pay off on a pile of junk metal. The drugs had made her forget her past until Jack Lawson crossed her path and caused a plethora of new problems in her life.
The wooded hillside disappeared, and a sign welcomed her to the town of Olde Bend. She was getting close to the hospital and needed to look the part. She stopped at a gas station with a convenience store. The man behind the counter glanced in her direction and went back to reading his magazine. She searched the aisles until the only other customer left. She sauntered up to the counter and paid for a big fountain drink. She glanced back and saw him watching her strut out the door in her short skirt with her purse hanging off her left shoulder and her cup in her right.
The concrete sidewalk dropped off at least six inches to the asphalt parking lot. Claire turned her head as if distracted and took the tumble as naturally as a stunt double. She hit hard, and her injured arm took the blow as her cup exploded across the pavement in a puddle of bubbling soda. Her bare legs skidded across the dirty asphalt, and her skirt rode up to expose her butt cheeks. No one reacted immediately. That was insulting.
A man pumping gas into his car replaced the nozzle and crossed the lot to help her to her feet.
“My arm.” Her reaction was sincere. Her injured arm had taken the brunt of the fall, and she spasmed with renewed pain. She let the tears fall.
The clerk made an appearance and offered to replace her pop. She accepted. She asked for ice in a bag for her injuries. The two men saw to her needs. It was nice to be waited on for a change.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to call the paramedics?” the clerk asked.
“No.” Too many paramedics delivered patients to the Newtown ER. One of them might recognize her and wonder about her altered appearance. “I can drive to the hospital. It’s not far.”
She lowered the visor and stared at her reflection in the vanity mirror. Her eyes were circled in black with mascara smeared down her cheeks. The blue eye shadow added a clownish distraction to her appearance. It was the perfect disguise.
She drove with one hand, her right arm too tender to raise. She took every turn at a crawl. Her body screamed at the abuse it had suffered when she moved her legs and exited the car. She looked every inch the victim of a recent accident with brutal scrapes and a streak of blood streaming from an open cut on her knee cap.
She cradled her right arm and sobbed fresh tears as a nurse greeted her in the emergency room lobby.
“Take a seat here. We’ll get you registered and cleaned up.”
Claire sniffled into a tissue but was careful not to wipe away the streaks of makeup smeared across her face. Because her injuries weren’t life-threatening, she had to endure registration. She wailed and complained as the elderly woman processed Abby’s identification and insurance card. She couldn’t work fast enough to get Claire out of her booth.
An orderly helped her into a wheelchair and pushed her into an empty ER bay. A nurse brought in a package of bandages and antiseptic. “You took a nasty fall. What happened?”
“I wasn’t paying attention and missed a big drop-off from the curb.”
She grimaced in sympathy. “This is going to burn.” She wiped off the blood and dirt with the antiseptic and gently blew on it.
Claire winced and whimpered at every little touch for her role as Abby. Her knees were skinned enough to keep her from running for a few days. She’d miss the exercise. It was part of her daily routine to escape the voice of Danny as he haunted her, accusing her of ending his life too soon.
The nurse bandaged her knee and examined her arm. Claire yelped.
“Did you hurt your arm in the fall?”
Claire nodded, sniffling back tears. “I think it might be broken.”
“I’m going to be as gentle as I can, but I need to clean it up. Then we’ll take you to radiology and have it x-rayed. Is that all right?”
Claire nodded. She talked the same way to her patients, explaining what she was doing and asking for their permission. She liked this nurse and thanked her before an orderly wheeled her to radiology.
The technician introduced herself as Lydia and asked if she was pregnant.
“No.” She didn’t want a pregnancy test or anything that could lead to her true identity. The less information they gathered, the better.
“We’ll take precautions in case.”
She put a lead vest on her, placed her arm on the x-ray table, and told her not to move. Lydia left the area to stand behind a protective screen, and the buzzing of the machine echoed in her ears. She took another x-ray and then sent them to the radiologist.
Dr. Viola Parks explained that the radius was fractured along with a bone in her wrist. She planned to put a cast on her arm to keep the bones in place while they healed.
A cast would be too noticeable, and she didn’t have the tools to cut through plaster. “Can you put on a removable cast?”
It took convincing, but the doctor put her in a plastic removable cast. She told her to follow up with her regular physician. She raised three fingers on her left hand and swore to obey. When she returned home, she’d cut off the hand section and hide the plastic cast beneath a long sleeve. No one would be able to detect her injury and report it to the police.
The doctor gave her orders and a prescription for pain medicine. She filled the script at a drive-through pharmacy using Abby’s insurance card and paid the ten-dollar deductible. But buying pain medicine legitimately wasn’t as much fun as stealing it.
Chapter Nineteen
Beth put on her uniform. Her belt felt skewed without the familiar weight of her revolver. She stared at her reflection in the mirror. She’d been so proud when she graduated from the academy. She was going to make her life count for something other than shortcuts and excuses, the tenets of her family. Now her dream was in jeopardy.
All her life she’d had to endure the apathetic dismissal of her parents, Fred and Alice, who belittled every effort she made from getting straight As to making the field hockey team. Lacking any evidence of maternal feelings, Alice had laughed at her sensitivity and told her to toughen up like a real Moreno. Her older siblings, Bubba and Angel, had teased and tormented her at every opportunity. She was the least important member of the Moreno family and the scapegoat. No one would come to her defense if she ever was in trouble.
No matter what she achieved, she couldn’t be around her family without feeling small and worthless. That’s why she had moved out on her own as soon as she finished high school. Making ends meet had been difficult, but she had done it. She’d worked odd jobs before training as a paramedic technician. When she was old enough, she had applied to the police academy and been accepted.
She hadn’t chosen her family, but she had chosen not to be close to them and their toxic environment. If they heard about this shooting, their criticism would be nonstop. How was she going to keep her name out of the news?
The decision to shoot Jack Lawson had seemed to be the right choice at the moment. Rick had shouted, “Gun,” and she had heard a shot, firing at the target. Only the male suspect in a robbery had turned out to be an innocent victim.
She would have to testify at the hearing today and justify her actions. She had to be confident. If they detected any sense of error, it could doom the outcome. The hearing board would decide if she would continue her career as a cop. It had been her dream job, a Moreno on the right side of the law.
Beth grabbed her equipment bag and headed for her car. She turned the key and heard the grinding noise that meant it was dead. The old compact automobile had given up the ghost. Now what? She called the police station to let them know she would be late.
A woman spoke in the background, and then her voice came over the line. “This is Sydney Harrison. I can pick you up and bring you to the station.”
Beth was dumbstruck. She wasn’t used to acts of kindness, especially from someone who barely knew her.
“Where do you live?”
Beth gave her address. She locked her car doors out of habit. She would consider it lucky if someone stole the junker. She should have waited outside, but a nervous bladder forced her back to her apartment and bathroom.
The phone rang, and she jumped. It was Sydney at the apartment entrance. She released the lock and shouted down the stairs. “I’ll be ready in a minute.”
“Take your time.”
Sydney was coming up the stairs. After growing up in a house where trash littered the floor and the smell of ammonia stung her eyes from cat litter boxes that were rarely emptied, she had been resolved to keep her apartment neat and tidy.
What few possessions she had were perfectly arranged from the books on the shelf to the fake silk flowers centered on the table.
“You have a nice apartment,” Sydney said after entering.
“I’ve been cleaning.” She’d scrubbed every inch of the apartment twice. She doubted a speck of dust remained on any surface.
“My son keeps everything neat and orderly. My daughter, on the other hand, thinks cleaning is a waste of time. Considering how quickly she creates a mess, she might be right.”
“My family were hoarders.” Why had she admitted that embarrassing fact? Beth shrugged as she looked around to diminish the impact of her confession. “They never threw away anything. I try not to accumulate too much because I still find it difficult to let go.”
“I kept my children’s baby teeth. My husband teases me about saving bones. This from a man who has a human skull.”
“What?” Did she say skull?
“Gordon teaches courses in forensic anthropology and facial reconstruction. He borrows skeletons and skulls from the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. They have quite a collection.”
And she thought her family was weird. Beth searched for her bag.
“Did you lose something?”
“I can’t find my bag. I had it just a minute ago.”
Sydney pointed to the floor behind the couch.
She retrieved it. “I guess I’m a little nervous.” She grabbed her bag and followed Sydney down the stairs. “Have you ever had to testify before?”
“Yes, only answer the questions asked. Don’t volunteer any information. Keep to the facts and avoid any emotions. Your decisions were based on the events you faced.”
“I’m sorry for what—”
“No,” Sydney interrupted. “You’re not sorry for doing your duty. Focus on how you felt when you arrived on the scene. Recall your training. He had a gun. You were in danger. You fired in self-defense.”
“The chief told me Jack Lawson was out picking up medicine for his baby boy. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. How can I block that out?”
“You didn’t know Jack Lawson. All you knew was a man was standing in a dark alley with a gun pointed at a woman on her knees. When he turned, your partner saw a gun and alerted you to the danger. You heard a shot and reacted.”
“I heard his gun may have gone off accidentally.” Beth paused in the lobby of her apartment. “Do you think I’m a bad cop?”
“No, you’re human. Everyone makes mistakes, but when a cop does, it can mean someone dies. Sometimes it’s a bad guy, and sometimes it’s a police officer.”
“And sometimes it’s an innocent man.”
Sydney stopped and stared. “Does your family know?”
Her family? They would be overjoyed she was kicked off the force. “No, I didn’t want to worry them.”
“I understand. People don’t realize how dangerous the job of a police officer can be. We want to protect our family from worrying every time we put on the uniform.” Sydney opened her car door. “But sometimes we have to remind them how difficult the job can be and ask for support.”
“I’m the only police officer in the Moreno family.” She was the first Moreno to graduate from high school, and the first Moreno to earn an honest paycheck. “I’ll give my mother a call after the hearing.” She delivered the lie with a smile.
“Did you grow up around here?”
She couldn’t escape small talk on the drive to the station. It was better than thinking about the hearing. She knew how to reveal some facts while hiding others. “I grew up in a small mining town in Southern Ohio. You don’t realize you’re poor when you’re surrounded by poverty until you attend school and get those looks.”
“There’s always somebody richer, someone with nicer clothes,” Sydney said. “My father was a bricklayer. We didn’t have much, but we never went hungry. We were content. Maybe that’s why I could never understand the drive to accumulate boatloads of wealth. How much money does a millionaire need?”
