Evening Street Read Online Free Page B

triage: The worst cases, the children who were likely to be future victims of the most egregious examples of parental neglect, got the county’s full attention. With the others, you sent them home and you hoped for the best. That’s all you could do.
    Hinkle rubbed his chin. Bell could smell the tobacco on his hands. They were yellowy and gnarled; old as he was, he had the hands and face of a much older man. His habits had aged him. “Yeah,” he said, and Bell heard the pride in his voice. “With benefits.” He grinned, showing her the gray tooth and the broken-off tooth again. “I can take care of my boy, if that’s what you’re asking me. And I intend to.” He coughed, using the back of his hand to cover his mouth. The cough went on a long time. “So what’s the plan here? When’ll they let me have Abraham?”
    â€œThere’s usually no set timetable. They’re doing all they can for your son. They’ll keep you posted on his medical condition.” Bell didn’t traffic in false hope. In the long run, it never helped.
    That seemed to satisfy him. “Okay,” Hinkle said. “Okay, good deal.”
    â€œI know you work long hours. But next time, you’ll have to come during regular visiting hours, okay? Maybe on your day off. Tonight was an exception. A one-time thing.”
    â€œRoger that.”
    He was ready to go. At that moment, Angie Clark emerged from the storage room in the back. Her arms were filled with supplies: IV bags, boxes of gauze, lengths of tubing. Spotting Hinkle, she slowed her pace a bit.
    Hinkle hesitated, too. Something passed between the two of them, something silent but palpable.
    â€œDo you know that nurse?” Bell said.
    â€œNo,” Hinkle said. His answer came quick. Too quick. “Thought I did, but I don’t. Never saw her before.”
    It was the first time tonight that Bell sensed he was lying.
    *   *   *
    There was something about Abraham.
    Bell usually didn’t come to Evening Street two nights in a row. Her schedule was too busy for that. And she also knew she had to pace herself; she couldn’t be here too often, without a few nights in between to serve as a sort of emotional buffer. Otherwise, the sadness would start to work its way into her bones.
    But here she was, one night later, back to see the tiny boy with the big name.
    She’d once asked Lily Cupp how she managed it—being here day after day, or night after night, depending on her shift, and being in the presence of all the pain and silent suffering of these infants who had done nothing to deserve their fates. “You get used to it,” Lily had said with a shrug and a wan smile. “That’s the only answer I have for you, Bell. You have a job to do and so you do it. And anyway—it’s not like your work over at the courthouse is any bed of roses, am I right?”
    She was right.
    Bell had thought about Abraham off and on throughout the day. She had to know how the child was faring, and just making a phone call to the facility didn’t feel right. It seemed too easy, too much like a bureaucrat going over a checklist with a sharp pencil, ticking off boxes. She needed to see for herself. To be there in person.
    In the lobby, Delbert Ryerson put down his meatball sub long enough to wave her on in. The mess of beige paper wrapping on the desktop crinkled and shifted under the sudden return of the massive, dripping sandwich.
    â€œThat smells good,” Bell said. He’d spilled meat sauce on the front of his white uniform shirt. It looked like a wound.
    Ryerson grunted back at her and hit the switch that opened the security door. As she walked past, she pointed to the spill on his chest. “You’ll have to soak that,” Bell said.
    â€œDang!” Ryerson exclaimed, noticing it for the first time. He reached for a napkin and started to wipe at the