I’d downloaded photos from Murray’s story and showed those to the technician. He was wary, thought he should call his supervisor.
“Believe me, please, I’m not interested in a lawsuit,” I said. “Lydia has been in mental torment for a number of years. We can’t get her to get help, but at least if we knew where she was, we could keep an eye on her, make sure she was warm in winter and had access to help if she was ready for it. Now, though—the city has dismantled her nest and we don’t know where she is. Please—if she was here, if she left—”
I spread my hands, pleading, distraught.
The technician and the clerk exchanged glances, minute head nods. The technician called up Lydia’s chart on his tablet. Jane Doe, brought in by ambulance at 8:03 a.m. They couldn’t recognize her from the younger pictures, but the homeless woman under the viaduct was definitely their patient. She didn’t speak, didn’t answer questions about her name, age, day of the week, but there was no obvious sign of injury or head trauma.
“We wanted to send her to Stroger for an MRI—we don’t have imaging facilities here—and we’d moved her gurney to the hall for transport, but when we came back about an hour later, she was gone.”
Stroger was the main hospital for the county system.
“Do you know what she was wearing?” I asked.
“She was in a hospital gown when we last saw her. Her clothes were foul; we threw them out and put a pair of jeans and a T from our donation chest in a bag under her gurney, but I can’t tell you what design was on the T. She had lesions on her haunches, bruises up and down her body. One of our LPNs sponged her off and put some ointment on her wounds.”
“Do you have any idea who came for her?” I asked. “I thought maybe my brother—but he says not.”
The two shook their heads. “One of the patients who was also waiting for transport said your sister got up from the gurney and wandered into the main part of the hospital, but someone would have stopped her. Unless she’d gotten dressed, I suppose. Someone else said a man came in and carried her away in his arms. I’m sorry—but we’re so short-staffed and overcrowded—” The clerk gestured at the waiting room.
The shifts were changing; her replacement needed briefing, the angry and scared crowd of patients needed attention. It was time for me to thank them and take off.
Two different stories of how Lydia had left, but my money was on the man lifting her fragile body from the gurney. Had to have been Coop. He’d come to me, vented his rage, and then raced back to the South Side. He must have a car to get around town with that big dog.
I drove over to the Forty-seventh Street viaduct, wondering if Zamir might have returned. Murray had been right, though—she’d vanished without a trace. Streets and San had made a thorough job of cleaning out her nest: they’d been through with a power hose to wash down the walls and sidewalks. Even the graffiti was gone. The only trace of Lydia’s residence was three bouquets laid on the ground where she’d played.
The evening rush hour trains had started. Most raced past, heading to the south suburbs. Whenever one stopped, I’d buttonhole the commuters to see if anyone had witnessed this morning’s event. No one who bothered to talk to me had been here for the drama, but everyone had watched it on their devices during the day.
I stayed on the platform for another hour, so I could intercept homebound commuters. Everyone knew Lydia by sight, because they’d passed her for the last year or so. The news coverage gave everyone strong opinions about her flight along the tracks, the city’s destruction of her home, and Metra’s abysmal attention to passenger safety.
Some people were focused on their screens or on getting home, but most listened to me eagerly when they realized I knew something that hadn’t been on the news, namely that Lydia had left the hospital.
A lot of people sort of knew Coop, enough to say hi when they biked or ran the lakefront. No one could tell me his last name, though, or where he lived. He sounded like a genie—when Lydia rubbed her piano, he sprang from the soundboard.
In between trains, I sat in the platform shelter, away from the sun’s glare, to answer emails and do a little work on some of my current projects. The walls were covered with the usual graffiti, as well as ads for eldercare, childcare, expert tutoring and tailoring.
There was also a notice from SLICK, announcing their next community meeting on the lakefront landfill. The type was so small that a suspicious person might think they didn’t want the public to know they were going to meet.
Bernie had wanted me to attend to help support Leo. She’d texted the meeting details to me, but I hadn’t seen any point in going and had forgotten about it. Fortuitously enough, the meeting was taking place tonight. I’d go—after all, I was already down here. And it was possible Coop would turn up.
I wandered back along Forty-seventh Street toward the bank building. I was hungry again—the tortilla soup hadn’t been that substantial. One of the new restaurants on the street, African Fusion, was bright, clean, and full. No better testimonial than that.
8
Dining Out
A harried staff member told me to take a seat anywhere. Only one table was free, and I was lucky to get it.
After a moment, as I peered at the food the people around me were eating, I realized that the trio who’d run the first SLICK meeting I’d attended was in the corner next to me. Their table was covered with so many documents that when a waitress arrived with their food, the woman gestured impatiently for her to set the dishes down on my table.
“Sorry—I don’t think you were planning on buying me dinner,” I said, startling them into looking up. Actually, in a reprise of the meeting, only the man who’d been banging the gavel and the woman looked at me—the guy who’d been bent over his notes at the meeting continued to hunch over a series of maps of the lakefront.
“Mona, isn’t it?” I said. “I was at SLICK’s last meeting. Do you think tonight will be as exciting?”
The gaveller puffed out his cheeks and growled, “Better not be,” but Mona said, “Are you new to the neighborhood? I don’t remember seeing you around here before.”
“Just someone who enjoys using the lake,” I said. “I’m trying to find the man called Coop, actually, which is why I wanted to come tonight. Do you know how to reach him?”
“Are you working with him?” Mona demanded.
“If I were, I’d know how to find him. Do you have his last name or a phone number?”
“What’s this about?” the gaveller said.
I took a piece of fried something from one of their bowls, which they’d left in front of me. Normally I don’t tell anyone my business, but I wanted help more than hostility.
“The homeless woman under the viaduct, Lydia Zamir. I’m sure you saw the news about her.”
The capillaries in Mona’s mottled face turned a deeper red. “I complained about her to the alderman and to the Metra authorities for almost a year. There are rats and raccoons in that wildlife corridor next to the embankment. Her sitting out there with open food was like an engraved invitation for them to come eat and have bigger litters. Every time someone got her into a hospital or shelter, though, she’d run back to our neighborhood. Helped by that creep Coop.”