HODGE
1. HODGE
It was early June and Hodge Gibson found himself running down the hallway at Waterfront Family Hospital at four-thirty on a Thursday afternoon. He was searching for his brother, Gordon Gibson, after receiving a call that Gordon’s wife Evelyn was in the hospital for a suicide attempt.
This was not the first time Evelyn had tried to take her own life. In fact, this was the third attempt Hodge had heard about in the past eighteen months.
Evelyn suffered from severe post-traumatic stress disorder and she and Gordon had been having serious problems in their marriage for the past five years. When Gordon got a call this morning that Evelyn hadn’t shown up for work, he knew something was wrong. He had driven out to her apartment (they were not currently living together) and found her unconscious on the floor.
Hodge saw Gordon sitting in a chair at the end of the hall with his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor. It wasn’t a large hospital. At maximum capacity it could hold about seventy-five people and the hallway was only about one-hundred feet from end to end, with four doors on either side. Still, it seemed to Hodge to take forever to reach his brother.
“How is she?” Hodge asked as he approached Gordon.
“I don’t know. It’s not looking good, Hodge.”
“What can I do?”
“I need you to go to the house and check on Heather. She’s by herself. She’s waiting to hear from me about how her mother is doing.”
“I’m on my way.”
Gordon lived sixteen miles from the hospital. It was a twenty-minute drive going the speed limit. Hodge climbed into his large, black pickup and turned the key.
Hodge Gibson was tall, fit, forty-eight years old with jet black hair and was most often found with a stern look on his face. He was younger than Gordon by two years and had never been married. He was currently serving as the chief of police for the Metropolitan Police Department of Washington D.C. He also held a degree in law and was just two weeks shy of retirement.
Hodge and his niece Heather were extremely close. In fact, he often treated her as more of a daughter than he did a niece. His relationship with Heather had grown substantially over the past few years as her parents’ marriage had begun to deteriorate more and more rapidly.
Almost there. Just a few more miles to go and he would be in the driveway. He had driven the entire way in complete silence. Thinking. Worrying. He felt terrible about what his brother must be going through at this moment, but, more than anything, he was worried about how his niece would handle the news were anything to happen to her mother. The past few years of her parents’ relationship had been difficult enough without an even more severe tragedy in play.
His train of thought was interrupted by a high-pitched noise. He was confused for a moment and then realized his cell phone was ringing. It was Gordon.
“Gordon? How’s she doing?”
There was silence.
“Gordon?”
“Hodge. She uh … she didn’t make it.” Gordon’s voice broke as he spoke.
“Oh no. Gordon, I … I’m so sorry.”
No one spoke for a moment. Neither of them seemed to have the right words to say.
“Listen, Hodge. Are you almost at the house? Are you close?”
“Yeah. I’m close. I’m sixty seconds out.”
“Okay. I’ll be calling Heather as soon as I hang up the phone with you. I just need to know that you’ll be there when I do.”
“I’m turning down your street right now.”
