Irish Eyes (26 page)

I unlocked the front door and let the sisters go in before me. Ruth Matthews had a passion for pink. Or, as Edna put it, “She got hit upside the head with the pink stick.”

Plush pink carpet stretched wall to wall throughout the house. The walls were painted pale pink, and the living room had a shocking-pink sofa and matching club chairs. Somebody had taken a fancy French provincial dining room suite and painted it pink with gold trim. Even the kitchen was pink—pink linoleum, pink stove, even a pink refrigerator.

Baby loved it all. She walked from room to room, marveling at Ruth Matthews’s decorating taste.

“This is the prettiest house I have ever seen,” she declared, running her hand over the pink satin quilted bedspread in the master bedroom.

While Baby was declaring her love, I did a quick survey of the house. It was already spotless. There were vacuum cleaner tracks in the living room, and I detected telltale scouring powder residue in the kitchen sink.

I called Edna from the cell phone. “You sure this was the week Ruth wanted us? This place is immaculate. You could do brain surgery on her kitchen floor.”

Edna sighed. “That’s Ruth. Always worried somebody will have something to say about her house. I’ll bet she had her cleaning lady come in before you got there.”

“Her cleaning lady?” I said. “I thought we were her cleaning lady.”

“Oh no,” Edna said. “Ruth is kinda ticky about cleanliness. She’s had a colored lady working for her for years. I just assumed Ava had retired. I guess she had Ava come over and
clean before you got there, so you wouldn’t think she was a big old slob.”

“She has her house cleaned to impress the cleaning lady? I thought she was kinda whacked out, Ma, but that really is crazy.”

“That’s just Ruth,” Edna said. “She does the same thing with her hairdresser’s. Her older sister Inez does her hair every week, but Inez is going on ninety and can’t see a thing. But Ruth doesn’t want to hurt her feelings by going somewhere else. So every Monday Inez gives Ruth her regular wash, set, and comb-out, and then Ruth goes right over to the Salon de Beauté to have Frank wash it and start all over again.”

“And this makes sense to you?”

“Wait until you get old,” Edna said. “By the way, I forgot to put the phone on call forward. A man just called you. He wouldn’t leave his name, so I gave him your cell phone number. You better hang up so he can call you.”

I hung up on her and prowled around the house, phone in hand, waiting for the call to come in.

In the meantime, I got Baby and Sister set up at the kitchen table with a jar of Wright’s silver polish and Ruth Matthews’s already gleaming tea set.

“Just give it a light buffing,” I instructed.

Ruth Matthews’s house was a cleaning woman’s worst nightmare; it should have had a big Sani-Strip pasted from wall to wall. I searched all the normal trouble spots: baseboards, doorjambs, the refrigerator vent, even the narrow space between the base of the commode and the bathroom wall. Each time I was stymied. No speck of grime. I didn’t know who this Ava was, but I did know the woman could have won the gold medal if they ever held a housecleaning event in the Olympics.

I was peering inside the oven—lined with foil, the metal racks polished mirror bright, when the cell phone buzzed.

I caught it on the first beep.

“This Callahan Garrity?”

It was Deecie’s boyfriend.

“William?”

“You find out about that reward?” he asked.

“I talked to the head man,” I said. “He won’t make any deals until he sees the videotape from the liquor store.”

“Damn,” William said. “Look here. Faheem’s bad sick. Deecie’s scared. She thinks he might need to go to the hospital, get an I.V. and some medicine. The thing is, I can’t leave work. And she don’t have a car.”

“I’ll take him to the hospital,” I said quickly. “Tell me where she is. I’ll come right now.”

“We don’t got any money,” William said, his voice edged in misery. “And Deecie’s scared to take him to Grady, with those cops all over the place.”

She was right about that. Her picture had been all over the newspapers and the television, “Woman Wanted for Questioning in Cop Shooting.” She’d be picked up in a minute if she went to Grady, which was still crawling with cops keeping vigil over Bucky.

“Wait,” I said. “My sister is a nurse. She works at a couple different hospitals around town. I’ll call her. Maybe she could get Faheem seen at another hospital. Let me call her and see what she can do. Can you call me back in about fifteen minutes?”

“I’m out of change,” William said.

“Give me the number where you’re at, and I’ll call you,” I said.

He hesitated.

“I’m not going to turn you in,” I said. “I just want to get Faheem to a doctor.”

“All right,” he said.

Maureen didn’t sound happy to hear from me. “What did you do with my scrubs?” she shrieked. “And my Grady I.D.? I know you took them, Jules. Maura told me you were playing dress-up in Mommy’s clothes.”

The damn kid was too smart for her own good.

“It was just for one day,” I said. “I’ve already washed them. I’ll bring them over there today. But I really need help now, sis. There’s this little boy. He’s got sickle cell anemia, and he’s having a, what do you call it?”

“Crisis,” Maureen said. “What’s that got to do with your stealing my scrubs and I.D.? If you’ve been parading around in that, sneaking around Grady, Jules, I’ll kill you, I swear it. I could get fired if anybody found out.”

“Nobody found out,” I said. “What about it, could you get him seen at Egleston?”

“What’s wrong with Grady?” she asked. “They’ve got a sickle cell clinic, she could take him there and he’d be seen immediately.”

“Won’t work,” I said. “She’s in trouble. She’s afraid she’ll be arrested if she goes anywhere near there.”

“You want me to treat a criminal?”

“I want you to treat a sick little boy,” I said. “Isn’t that what doctors and nurses are supposed to do? She’s a nice woman. Her kid is sick and she doesn’t have any money or friends, and she’s scared witless. Now. Can you help or not?”

“My friend Maeve works triage in Egleston’s emergency room,” she said slowly. “I could call her. See if she could get him seen. What’s the little boy’s name?”

“Faheem. I’m not sure about the last name. I guess maybe it’s Styles.”

“What number are you at?” she asked. “I’ll call Maeve and call you right back.”

“Thanks, Maureen,” I said. “Really. That’s great. I mean it. I owe you big-time.”

“You better get those scrubs and I.D. back to me by five o’clock today,” she said. “Or I’ll come over there and jerk a knot in your tail like I used to do when we were kids.”

I hung up. “In your dreams,” I said.

True to her word, Maureen called back ten minutes later.

“Jules? Okay, here’s what you need to do. Take him right over to the emergency room at Egleston. Ask for Maeve Hewlett. She’s got dark shoulder-length hair and a butterfly tattoo on the back of her right hand. She’s expecting you. But you’ve got to get him over there now, because she goes off shift at noon.”

I called William back. “Tell me where to find Deecie,” I said. “I’ll pick her up and take her to Henrietta Egleston Children’s
Hospital. My sister has a friend who works in the emergency room. She’s expecting us.”

“You know that dry cleaner’s you met us at? It’s around back of that building. There’s a sign on the door says ‘Groceria Mexicali.’ She’ll be waiting for you. You think Faheem will be all right?”

“It’s supposed to be the best children’s hospital in the South,” I said. “They won’t turn away a sick child.”

B
aby and Sister wouldn’t hear of being left behind at Ruth Matthews’s house, and I couldn’t reach Edna to get her to come fetch them.

“Now listen, girls,” I said, shaking my finger at the two of them. “We’ve got to go get a young girl and her little boy and take them over to Egleston. She’s scared and he’s sick, so no fighting, please. And I’m afraid neither of you gets to ride shotgun this time.”

“What’s wrong with the baby?” Sister wanted to know.

“He has sickle cell anemia.”

“Ooh, my goddaughter’s baby got sick as hell anemia,” Baby said. “Poor little thing all the time in the hospital.”

“How you come to know this girl?” Sister asked, letting Baby guide her into the backseat of the van.

I took a deep breath. “This is the girl we were looking for at Memorial Oaks the other day. She was working at the liquor store last week, when my friend Bucky was shot. She was the only witness, and she ran away because she was afraid. I’m trying to help her, but I want her to tell me the truth about what she saw that night.”

“The truth shall set you free,” Baby said serenely.

“I hope you’re right about that,” I said.

“Somebody living here?” Baby asked, incredulous at the sight of the little grocery store. “In a grocery store? With a sick baby?”

I parked in back of the dry cleaner’s and left the motor running. Deecie threw the storeroom door open as soon as I knocked. She had Faheem cradled close against his chest. The lusty screams of the week before had been lulled to a pathetic whimper. He gave short little gasps in between the whimpers. His eyes were half closed, his arms and legs hung limply from the knit blanket Deecie had wrapped around him.

“He’s real bad,” Deecie said.

I led her over to the van, and Baby opened the back door. “Let me hold that little one,” she said plaintively.

Deecie shook her head no and shied away.

“It’s safer if he rides in back with them,” I said gently. “I don’t have a car seat for him.”

Reluctantly, Deecie handed Faheem over to Baby, who cooed with delight at the touch of the child.

“A friend is expecting us at Egleston,” I said as we pulled out into traffic on Shallowford Road. “They’ll take good care of Faheem there.”

“No cops?”

“No cops.”

I pulled up to the emergency clinic entrance at the children’s hospital, and let Deecie out. She took Faheem, and I gave Baby and Sister their instructions. “Sit right here. If anybody tells you to move the van, just tell them the driver is unloading a sick baby and will be right out.”

“Nobody better tell us to move nothin’,” Sister said belligerently. “Less they want to mess with Sister Easterbrooks.”

A sweet-faced woman with dark shoulder-length hair got up from the admitting desk as soon as we walked in. “Callahan?”

I nodded yes. “This is Deecie Styles, and her son Faheem.”

Maeve held out her arms for Faheem, and Deecie handed
him over, relieved at the sight of Maeve’s brightly flowered nurse’s scrubs.

“Poor little guy,” she said, stroking his chubby hand. “How long has he been breathing like this?”

“He been sick for about two or three days,” Deecie said. “Last night he started breathing funny. Like he couldn’t catch his breath.”

Maeve handed the baby back to Deecie. “Is he running a temp?”

“He’s hot,” Deecie said. “But I didn’t have a thermometer.”

“That’s all right,” Maeve said, touching the baby’s forehead. “We’ll get his vital signs in the back, but you’re right, he does feel hot to the touch. He’s in crisis all right. You did good to bring him in.” She got a plastic bracelet out of a drawer and slipped it around Faheem’s wrist. Then she picked up a phone and spoke in a low voice. Hanging up, she reached again for the baby.

“Ms. Styles? I think Faheem’s in respiratory distress. He’s probably dehydrated too. Somebody’s coming down from the intensive care unit, and they’re going to take the baby up there, get him assessed and started on I.V. fluids and antibiotics, and something to bring down that fever and help him breathe. He’s a pretty sick little guy, but we’re going to get him some help.”

Deecie hung her head. “He gonna die?”

Maeve winced. “No, I don’t think so. But the respiratory problems are serious. You can go with him up to the ICU if you like.”

“Yeah,” she said, “that’d be good.”

A pair of swinging doors behind the desk opened and a young blond woman in green scrubs pushed a child-sized gurney through it. “Is this Faheem?” she asked, looking at Maeve.

“This is Faheem and his mama,” Maeve said. The two of them put Faheem on the stretcher, and the other woman pushed the gurney back toward the door, with Deecie following.

“Can you wait one minute, Mama?” Maeve asked, gesturing
toward the form she was filling out. “We need to get some information from you, for our records.”

“I wanna go with my baby,” Deecie said.

“It’ll just be a minute,” Maeve said soothingly. “Then you can go right up and be with him.”

Deecie gave me a pleading look.

“Can’t I fill them out for her?” I asked.

“Sorry,” Maeve said. “It has to be the parent. She needs to sign a consent form and give us some other information.” She looked over at Deecie, who had tears in her eyes. “Did you bring your Medicaid card?”

“It’s at home,” Deecie whispered.

“All right, we’ll get that taken care of later,” Maeve said, handing her a clipboard. “Just sign the consent form, and you can go on up with Faheem.”

“Deecie, I’ll be right back,” I promised. “I’m just going to move the van into the parking lot, and I’ll be right back here.”

She nodded, too numb to speak. I was halfway out the door when she called me back.

“Hey, uh, Callahan?”

“I’ll be right back. Really.”

She dug in her pocket, came out with a key, which she held out toward me. “You been so nice to me and Faheem. And I told you lies. A lot of lies. Maybe that’s why my baby sick. ‘Cause I lied. This here’s the key to where that videotape is at.”

“Ms. Styles?” The nurse with the gurney was clearly impatient. “We need to get Faheem upstairs right away.”

I took the key from Deecie. “You go on with the baby. We can talk later.”

I parked the van and shepherded Baby and Sister back down to the emergency clinic. Maeve was just leaving as I walked in.

“How is he?”

“He’s a very sick little guy,” she said. “I didn’t want to tell the mother this, but when our sickle cell kids get in respiratory trouble like he is, the prognosis isn’t good. It’s life-threatening, unfortunately.”