No way out

Chapter Sixteen

Truman Medical Center is on Hospital Hill at Twenty-third and Holmes, the location so named because it is a hill and because the hill has been occupied by hospitals since City Hospital was built on it in 1872. In 1908, the city built a new General Hospital on the hill, designating it for whites only, leaving the original for Blacks and Hispanics. By 1914, the General Hospital for Negroes, also known as General Hospital No. 2, though owned by the city, was run by African Americans with a staff of Black doctors and nurses. Years later, the city merged both hospitals to create the medical center named after Harry Truman.

From Hospital Hill, you can see downtown to the north, the World War I Liberty Memorial to the west, the high-end shops and high-rise condos of midtown to the south, and, to the east, the rundown homes hugging the hills in the city’s poor, Black neighborhoods. For many of them, the successor to General Hospital No. 2 remains the first and last resort for the beginning and end of life and all the aches, pains, and wounds that lie between.

Truman is a level-one trauma center, maintaining one of the busiest emergency rooms in the city. I’d been there with victims and their families as well as criminals and, sometimes, their families, watching doctors and nurses fight to turn back the clock, winning more than they lost but not often enough to satisfy them.

A volunteer at the front desk told us that Frank Crenshaw was on the fourth floor. When the elevator opened, a uniformed cop met us with a raised hand.

“I’m sorry, folks. No visitors allowed on this floor right now.”

I read the name on his badge. “Officer Fremont, tell Detective Carter that Special Agent Jack Davis is here. He’ll want to see me.”

“ID, sir?”

“He’s retired, officer,” Joy said. “He forgets sometimes. Just tell Detective Carter, please.”

“And who are you, m’am?”

“I’m Special Agent Davis’s ex-wife. I don’t have a badge, but I earned one being married to him.”

Joy slipped her arm through mine, tilted her head at me, and smiled at Fremont. Though she was hard to resist, Fremont smiled back but didn’t budge. I did a quick shimmy with my head and neck, hardening Fremont’s hesitation.

“Just call him, officer,” Joy said. “Better to let Detective Carter decide whether to let Agent Davis in than have to explain later why you made the decision for him, don’t you think?”

Fremont’s eyes flickered. He’d lost even if he didn’t know it. Joy smiled again, and this time he reached for the radio clipped to his shirt.

We waited five minutes for Carter to show, trudging toward us, his tie hung loose around his neck, a mustard stain on his white shirt. The bags under his eyes said he’d started on the day shift and was a long way from home.

“So,” he said, letting out a sigh that was all regret, “Roni Chase called you. Why am I not surprised?”

“You should have kept questioning her, not given her the chance.”

“I talked to her. Between what she told me and what the other witnesses said, I got the basics nailed down before I put her in that room. I’ll get back to her when it’s time.”

“You left her alone with her cell phone. What did you think she was going to do?”

“If she called anybody, I figured it would be a lawyer.”

“She doesn’t need a lawyer. She didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Listen to you. She told you that, and you’re convinced.”

“Not a bad place to start.”

“Get real. You’ve been off the job so long you forgot that everybody lies.”

“You haven’t arrested her, so let her go. She lives with her grandmother and her mother who’s disabled from a stroke, and she runs her own business. She isn’t going anywhere.”

“This investigation just got started, and Roni Chase is right in the middle of it. She’s not going anywhere until I say so, and I’m not about to let you help her get her story straight before I take another run at her.”

“I can have a lawyer down here in less than an hour who will make sure you arrest her or let her go. In the meantime, I already told her not to tell you a damn thing. And, if you arrest her, her lawyer will make sure she tells you even less. Let me see her and I may be able to persuade her to cooperate with you. Your call.”

One of the other elevators opened, and Brett Staley stepped out. Officer Fremont gave him the raised-hand greeting.

“No visitors.”

“I’m not visiting anyone.”

“State your business,” Fremont said.

Staley looked around, saw me, squinted, and then opened his eyes wide, remembering me.

“Dude, you get around.”

“I do my best.”

“Hey,” Carter said to me. “Who is this guy?”

“Friend of Roni’s.”

“What’d she do? Send out invitations?”