Darkness Before Dawn (8 page)

Gingerly easing Steven’s form back onto the proper stack, she placed the Bates form
on top of it in an effort to eradicate all thoughts of her husband’s death. Forcing
herself to go back to Sunday’s stack, she sorted through until she found Joe Messa’s
file. Noting his medication, she replaced the paperwork in the stack and turned to
leave the room, but as she opened the door, a simple realization froze her in her
tracks. She likely was in the room with the information she needed and it was all
so easy and so readily available.

Turning, she quickly walked back to the table, her heart racing as she looked down
at the stacks of papers. A cold sweat broke out on her forehead and a chill ran down
the back of her neck. Using all the courage she possessed, she forced her
hands back to the Thursday stack. Taking the pile of forms in her hands, she walked
across the room, sat down in a chair behind the desk and began to look at them. She
passed over Jerry Bates’s form without so much as a glance. She stopped at Steve’s
for a brief instant, took a painful look at her wedding ring, and then moved on. The
third admit, a six-year-old girl named Amy, didn’t interest the nurse at all. The
fourth, a stroke victim, and the fifth, a heart attack, didn’t cause Meg to pause
more than a few seconds. She passed by the next three admits just as quickly. But
when she got to number ten, a man named Kenneth James, she immediately stopped to
carefully study the report.

James had been injured in a car wreck. He’d received stitches above his right eye
and then he had been sent home. “It’s him,” Meg whispered, but then her heart sank.
Come on dummy. Look at the age, this guy’s fifty-two
. Putting the report at the back of the stack, she continued her search.

Meg scanned form after form, occasionally glancing down the hall to check if Lena
had appeared. Then, just as she was about to give up, James A. Thomas’s file appeared.
She checked the admit time. It fit. She checked his age. Seventeen, perfect! She then
checked the cause of his injuries and discovered they had resulted from an automobile
accident. Her heart surged to full race mode. He’d been patched up and released, and
further more, he had had blood taken for an alcohol level check. The numbers clearly
indicated he had been drunk. The test showed he’d hit 1.4.

Taking out her pen and finding a scratch pad on Lena’s desk, she wrote down the name
James A. Thomas and followed it with 1034 East Walnut Street. Finally, after gleaning
all she could from the paperwork, she scanned the remainder of that night’s forms
to see if any of those patients also could have fit the profile of Steve’s murderer.
None did. Restacking the
papers on the table, she went to her station, checked in, and paged Paul. Once she’d
given the doctor the information he needed, she headed directly back to her post and
tried to go about her duties. Yet for the rest of the shift, she could do nothing
more than go through the motions. Her mind was a thousand miles away from her job.
A name, an address, and a vow of revenge tumbled over and through her thoughts and
nothing short of a patient going code red could have changed that focus.

M
EG COULDN
’
T WAIT TO GO HOME
. A
ND WHEN THE TIME CAME, SHE HUR
-riedly set about the routine that all nurses have to do before checking out. It was
time for inventory.

Earlier in her shift, Heather had been swung to another wing to cover for a sick nurse.
Meg hadn’t seen her since ten.

“Meg!” Startled by Heather’s voice, the nurse paused in her counting. Seeing that
she had her attention, Heather continued. “How’s your day?”

“Fine,” Meg sighed. “Just like any other.” She went back to her count.

“How about we grab a bite to eat at Pizza Hut tonight?” Heather asked. Countless times
over the last four years she and Meg had hit Pizza Hut on nights when Steve was either
working late or out of town. “Eating with me might be better than being by yourself
tonight.”

Waiting a few seconds to conclude her count and sign out, Meg shook her head. “Not
tonight, Heather, I’ve got something to do.” Without so much as a wave, she headed
down the hall. From the corner of her eye, she saw Heather grab her coat from her
locker and reach behind the desk for her purse.

“Are you sure, Meg?” Heather pleaded as she caught her in the parking lot. “I hate
to eat alone. I mean . . .”

“I know what you mean,” Meg replied. Her tone revealed she fully understood exactly
why Heather really wanted her to spend some time with her. She was trying to be a
good friend and on another night she might need a friend. But not tonight! “Heather,
listen, I really do have something to do, and I’m not going home to be alone. Honest!”

When Meg stopped beside her Mustang to dig through her purse for her keys, Heather
gave it one more try. “Are you going over to your mom’s? I haven’t really visited
with her in months and I’d love to . . .”

Raising her voice so she could be heard above the biting north wind, Meg said, “Heather,
if you want to visit with Mom, that would be great.” After finding her keys and unlocking
her car door, she turned to face her friend. “But you’ll have to go by yourself because
I don’t plan on seeing Mom tonight.”

Meg eased into the driver’s seat, jammed the key into the ignition, and started the
car. Looking back at Heather, she smiled. “Maybe we can do it tomorrow. I really appreciate
you being there for me. But right now I have to do something very important. So please
forgive me. You have a good evening and try not to worry about me.” She closed the
door and shoved the shifter into reverse.

Meg, out of habit, pushed her favorite
American Idol
CD into the player. Yet as the music played, she was oblivious to the song or the
singer. The only thing on her mind was the address of a teenager who lived on the
other side of town. She couldn’t believe she had found him. As she pulled off the
parking lot, she smiled. This was what she needed. She was sure just seeing where
he lived would somehow ease her pain.

Walnut Street was well off the main drag, over five miles from downtown and the hospital,
and just a stone’s throw from
the country club. Meg had been to a few parties at the club during high school, but
her family had never had the money to join the social elite on a regular basis. Still,
the area was not foreign to her. She had often driven down the broad streets of this
neighborhood admiring the houses and beautiful, rolling, tree-covered lots. She and
Steve had even dreamed of someday owning one of these large brick homes set on such
finely landscaped grounds. But dream homes and notions of wealth now seemed unreal,
especially when placed against the reason for her trip today.

She crossed Elm and then Maple, hardly noticing the homes that had once so enthralled
her on those streets. Then, when she came to Walnut, she made a sharp right and began
to look much more closely at the addresses so proudly displayed on each ornate door.
For three blocks, she eased the Mustang by house after house, each seeming larger
and more impressive than the former. And then, the one she sought came into view.

It was immediately obvious that the Thomas’s house was the most impressive on the
block. A two-story red brick, with paned glass windows and a four-car garage, the
home itself must have included more than seven thousand square feet. Over the privacy
fence surrounding the backyard, she saw a slide and diving board indicating a swimming
pool. On the far side of the home was a private tennis court. This wasn’t a residence;
it was an estate!

Passing the ten-hundred block of Walnut, Meg made a U-turn and parked her Mustang
directly across the street from the house. After turning the car’s engine off, she
examined every facet of what could only be called a mansion.

The roofline reached more than fifty feet at the highest point. There was no wooden
or vinyl trim work; the brick went clear to the roof. Many of the windows were rounded
at the top. Three reached more than thirty feet up the house. The walks
were made of polished stone. A new Mercedes and Lincoln set in the driveway. If they
were sitting out in the weather, what was in the garage?

Here were people who obviously had everything money could buy. These were folks that
the community always considered important and influential. And these people, this
family, were the ones she’d be fighting in order to gain some kind of justice. Suddenly,
her simple little plan to extract personal punishment and satisfaction from James
Thomas had taken on David and Goliath proportions. And because of these overwhelming
odds, hopelessness pushed its way into the car, squeezing her wounded heart like a
vice as she lingered and studied an enemy that now seemed unbeatable.

As the car began to lose its heat, Meg pulled her coat a little tighter around her
body. Searching through her pockets, she found her gloves. Still, even as it grew
later and colder, even after she had looked over the house from top to bottom a dozen
times, memorizing even the minutest details, she waited. She didn’t understand why,
but for some reason, just being at the place where her husband’s killer lived gave
her some purpose, some identity. And maybe, if he somehow came out of the house, she
could put a face to her pain. How she needed that face!

With nothing new to see, time passed slowly, and as the temperature continued to drop,
it became more uncomfortable. By 7:30, it had become so cold she could now see her
breath. Just about the time Meg was going to give up and head to her apartment, a
car drove up to the front curb of 1034 East Walnut. It was a late model sports utility
and when it stopped, and the passenger door opened causing the interior light to come
on, Meg could clearly see it was filled with teenagers—two boys and two girls.

For a while, the car just sat there, motor running while the kids remained in the
vehicle. Then after a few minutes, a boy eased out the rear passenger door. He was
tall, about six-foot-two and wore a letter jacket and jeans; his sandy-colored hair
was uncovered and blowing in the wind. And in the dim light, Meg spotted a large Band-Aid
on his forehead. This had to be him! She strained to get a better look at James Thomas.
It only took a few seconds for her to realize this was the kid who had held the ER
door for her after she’d viewed Steve’s body. How she wished she’d known that then!

As she anxiously took in the scene playing out just across the street, she turned
on the keys and eased the window of her car door down in order to catch the kids’
conversation. She first heard the driver’s voice.

“So, Jim. Your dad say anything about getting you another car?”

“He will,” the blond youth answered. “After all, he did the last time I totaled one.”

“Yeah, but last time nobody got hurt,” the other boy replied.

“Well,” Thomas’s tone was casual. It was as if the accident was just an insignificant
inconvenience that had dropped into his life. As he explained his father’s reaction,
the boy even smiled. “Dad was pretty steamed about that. He informed me that next
time I got drunk, it’d probably be me that cashed it in. Still, I think the fact that
I was hurt a little got me off the hook. You know as well as I do, he can spring me
from the charges. He’s always been able to. Besides, it’s not like I haven’t had to
pay already. You know the coach isn’t even going to let me play in the basketball
playoffs until I get these stitches out. I’ve been looking forward to that all year.”

Meg was amazed by the boy’s tone. His selfishness shocked and enraged her. He obviously
felt no sense of remorse. He
actually claimed abuse because he wasn’t going to get to play in a basketball game.

A girl, now left alone in the back seat, handed Thomas a gym bag. Reaching back into
the car to pull it out, the boy gave the young, giggly blonde a long kiss, smiled
at the other two kids, and then whirled and ambled up the walk to the front door.
Within seconds, he found his way inside and the others had driven off.

Even though she was once again alone, Meg continued to stare at the house. She’d been
expecting James Thomas, Jim as his friends called him, to be a punk rocker or a redneck.
She had expected green hair, earrings, weird clothes, and a kind of drugged-out look
on his face, but James Thomas wasn’t like that at all. He was good-looking, clean
cut, an athlete, and probably popular with the kids who mattered in the school. The
only thing he seemed to have in common with her previous vision was his selfishness.
He seemed completely unconcerned about anyone but himself.

Having seen all there was to see, Meg restarted her car and began to drive off. Yet,
as she eased her car past the boy’s home one last time and turned her head for one
final look, a name on a mailbox, now lit by her car’s headlights, jumped out and hit
her like a hammer—Alfred E. Thomas.

Meg knew that name well. Alfred E. Thomas.
Judge
Alfred E. Thomas. Judge Thomas was a deacon in her church. He and his wife always
sat in the same pew every Sunday. He had given countless prayers, served on numerous
boards, and had always sent Steve and her a Christmas card. They’d even voted for
him in the last election. Yet, for the two years they’d sponsored the high school
youth group on Sunday night, she had never seen his son. As a matter of fact, she
hadn’t even known that the judge had any children. Jim Thomas must have never been
to church. What a revelation!

As she drove home Meg felt shaken to the core. The knowledge that she’d be fighting
not just a rich kid but a judge’s kid—the kid of someone whom she thought she’d known
and someone whom she had respected; someone her own church respected—caused Meg to
plunge deeper and deeper into a reeling depression. If it had been some poor kid or
some punk, someone from the wrong side of town or from a family she hadn’t known,
then she figured she would’ve had a chance to see justice done. But now it seemed
like there would be little hope of ever seeing Steve’s killer made to pay. She had
nothing compared to the power this family wielded. And besides, she didn’t figure
the district attorney would ever want to challenge the Thomas family in court. No
wonder the kid didn’t seem concerned about the charges.