A car door slammed-twice. Witnesses. Help. She tried to scream for help but was pushed to the ground, her face held hard in the grass for five seconds. . ten. . Then he was off her after one last knee in her ribs, and running away.
She staggered to her feet, almost blinded by pain, but ran after him, watching him run past parked cars, down the street, and turn up another street before she could resist the pain no more.
Help. She needed to find help. She stayed in the light and made her way, stumbling, holding her arms tightly folded across her stomach, back to her apartment building.
She made it to the door. Climbing the stairs, trying to get to her apartment, she realized her keys were in her purse and it was gone. Damn that son of a bitch. Her cell phone was gone with it. She stepped, half stumbling, back down the stairs to the first floor and banged on the landlady’s door.
“I’m coming, I’m coming. Keep your pants on,” came a muffled voice inside. The door opened tentatively. “Oh, it’s you, Ms. Fallon. My, what happened?”
“Someone mugged me outside the building. My purse is gone, and my keys. I have an extra set. Would you let me in my apartment, please?”
“Why, sure.” She went away for a moment and came back with a master key. As she closed the door, Diane thought she saw the tail of a cat swishing. At least she solved one mystery.
“Someone attacked you here?” said the landlady. “I don’t like that one bit. I’ve asked the police to drive by once in a while, but do they listen to me? No, they get on the television and talk about what a good police department the mayor is putting together. Well, I don’t see it.” Diane followed her upstairs. “I’ve been afraid something like this would happen. I was telling Dorothy-she’s a friend at the beauty shop-I was telling her that it’s just a matter of time, with all the growing Rosewood’s been doing the past few years and all the young people moving in from Atlanta, that we’ll start having crime. I supported the mayor in the beginning when he was talking about us having a professional police force, but I haven’t seen it. I see the talk, and they sure take out the taxes. Do you want me to call the police?”
“I’ll call them from the hospital. I just need to get in my apartment and get my keys.”
“The hospital? You are hurt, aren’t you? Well, this just won’t do.” She opened Diane’s door and followed her in. “Do you want me to drive you? I can do that, or I can call my nephew.”
Diane found her keys and started back out the door. “No. But thank you. I can drive myself. I just need to make sure I don’t have any broken ribs.”
As she closed the door she heard movement in the apartment across from hers. She hurried down the stairs as quickly as the pain would allow. The last thing she wanted was to get into a conversation with Mrs. Odell about Marvin and his allergies. The landlady followed, streams of conversation still flowing from her. Diane thanked her again when she was able to get a word in. She made it to her car, got inside, locked the door and sat in the driver’s seat, trying to breathe normally. After a moment she put the key in the ignition. She knew she was hurt more than she wanted to believe.
As Diane drove the distance to the hospital, she wondered several times if she should have let the landlady drive her. But after what seemed like too long, the lights of the hospital finally came into sight. She left her car in the emergency room parking and made it to the intake desk. In gasps, she told the nurse what had happened. After giving her name, address and insurance carrier, Diane sat in the waiting room. She wanted to call Frank, but he had too much on him already. She didn’t want to bring him more worry.
She watched the other people waiting. A man with a bloody rag around his hand, a child with a cough, a woman with an ice pack on her ankle, others she couldn’t tell what was wrong. Some watched her too, and she wondered what she looked like. If she looked like she felt, she looked awful. Her back was killing her. She had some serious throbbing pains in her stomach and ribs.
Who attacked her? she wondered. A mugger? Or did it have to do with the bones she was excavating? She lay her head back against the wall.
She jerked awake and noticed some of the people had switched out with newcomers. The child was gone, and so was the man with the bleeding hand. She jumped when she felt a hand on her shoulder.
“Diane Fallon? Come with me, please. Can you walk, or do you need a wheelchair?”
“I can walk.”
She followed a nurse into the examining room, where another nurse asked her to remove her shirt. There were broken blood vessels, welts and bruises in perhaps a dozen places she could see.
“You were attacked?” The nurse listened to her heart and took her blood pressure.
“Yes. Hit in the stomach and kicked in the ribs and the back. That’s all I remember right now.”
“Um-hmm. Somebody worked you over good. What kind of pain are you in?”
“I hurt pretty bad.”
“We need to get some X rays for the doctor, and the police will want to talk to you. You can put your shirt back on right now.”
“Okay.” Diane started to put her shirt back on. Her locket was missing. “My locket, it’s gone. I’ve got to go look for it.”
“The police will take care of that.”
“No, you don’t understand. My daughter gave it to me. It was a surprise. She worked sweeping out the schoolroom when I was away and got the nuns to order it for her. She picked it out from a catalog.” Diane started crying.
“She was only six years old. I have to find it. You don’t understand, she. . she died, and she gave it to me.” Out of context, she knew her story didn’t make much sense, but she couldn’t find the words to explain it any better. The woman probably thought she was crazy.
“I’m sure the police will find it.” The nurse’s voice was calm and soothing.
After almost an hour and a half, she was taken to be x-rayed; she waited another half hour to see the doctor. The doctor on call told her nothing was broken but he was concerned about her right kidney. He thought it was only bruised, but would like to keep her overnight.
“Fine,” Diane told him, and after another hour she was taken to a private room. Coincidentally, on the same floor as Star. All during that time, no policeman showed up.
The floor nurse gave her one of the nightgowns with no back, and as she removed her bra, the locket fell to the floor. She snatched it up and cried. The fastener was broken, but it could be fixed. When she got in bed she put it under her pillow in the small case that held her driver’s license.
In about an hour, another nurse came in to take her blood pressure. It was Loraine Washington, the nurse who had helped Star.
“Didn’t I just see you in here visiting a while ago?”
Diane explained what had happened.
“Right after you left here? That’s terrible. Right at your own front door?”
“Thanks for taking good care of Star. A lot of people are pretty down on her right now.”
“I always say a person is innocent until proven guilty, and if they do turn out to be proven guilty, then how you treated them is about the kind of person you are, not the kind of person they are.”
“Those are nice sentiments. Can I quote you?”
“Certainly.” She handed Diane a couple of pills and a glass of water. “These will help with the pain and help you sleep.”
Diane swallowed the pills and lay back on the pillows. “I could use a good night’s sleep.”
She expected nightmares, but as far as she remembered, she didn’t even dream. She woke up in the morning almost too sore to move, but she managed to make it to the bathroom. She took a quick shower but had to put back on yesterday’s underwear. If she’d been thinking, she’d have grabbed a change of clothes while she was at her apartment. But they’d probably release her today.
Breakfast arrived while she was showering. Cereal, eggs, toast, orange juice and coffee. She ate the cereal and drank the juice. As she finished, a policeman, Izzy Wallace, arrived with his partner. He walked in the door looking sheepish.
“I wanted to apologize, Dr. Fallon, for the misunderstanding. Frank told me. . well, about your experience.
