The Witness Protection Nurse: A Novel

By Beverlee Renouf Gillette

Debra Livingston was an operating room nurse who became a witness in the witness protection program through no fault of her own.

She walked in on a heated conversation between a surgeon and a scrub nurse after the death of a senator's daughter who died on the operating table.

Debra was warned about what she heard by the scrub nurse who was also her roommate and friend.

Sally was killed an hour later in a hit-and-run accident as she was running for her life. The surgeon had died just moments after the confrontation in the operating room.

Debra knew she needed to run for her life, or she would end up the same; however, the police got to her first before the mob could kill her.

The corruption went all the way to the White House and the Castelleri mob of Chicago.

The story takes Debra on her journey to stay alive with the assistance of Sam Jacobson of the Reno Police Homicide Division and Daniel Williams, part-time agent for the Department of Homeland Security through the witness protection program.

The rules and regulations she had to follow, the many times she had to drop everything and run again.

How do you give up everything and everyone you know, everything you worked too hard to attain? That's the question she had to face before she was accepted in the WPP. What would her life be like? Where would she be placed? Would the nightmare ever end?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098054816

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The Witness Protection Nurse

A Novel

Beverlee Renouf Gillette

Copyright © 2020 by Beverlee Renouf Gillette

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Place names, factual and historic information may be authentic.

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Looking Back

Don’t Call Me Mickey Mouse

A part-time Eraser

Why the Shovel?

A Young Woman’s Dream

Going North

Cabin in the Hills

Once Upon a Time

Someday, Maybe Someday

Cold Turkey Calling Hot Shot

On the Road Again

Go with God

Lake Meirs Restaurant and Resort

This is Lake Meirs Church

Preface:

The Adventure Begins

The person on the cover of this story is a man who has shown me the beauty that surrounds us every day if we were to only open our eyes and see the magnificence of God’s love for us.

He has shown us every day by the photographs taken. He captures the beauty of life around us, from the icy glaciers of Alaska to the flowering beauty of the low and high desert in the lower forty-eight states.

With each flower he photographs from budding to opening, it tells a story—a story of love, God’s love for us all to enjoy, if we will only let it.

The lakes and mountains with their scenic beauty, brilliant colors in shades so spectacular it takes your breath away. With his photos, it gives you a chance to visit these places over and over again. Recapping the joy of seeing these places, if not in person for the first time, then in his beautiful pictures of places one can only see through the eyes of a camera.

I was able to see some of these spectacular places firsthand, which, at my stage in life, never thought it would ever happen to me.

The scenic beauty, the adventure firsthand, all captured in the glorious photos he has taken and then presented me with photo albums of each, so I can see and remember some of the wonderful times I had—a once in a lifetime adventure. He captured the living as well as the dead, of days gone by and the history that went with them, just waiting quietly for someone to come along and bring them to life again in the eyes of generations to follow.

His love of history and adventure makes for a very in-depth look at the world around us.

The beauty for example of churches old and new, the stories they have to tell, from a very old church in Lake Meiers, Alaska, which lays across the way from the Meiers Lake Roadhouse, with its green trees and shrubs; this little log church is nestled among them, with a white steeple, a bell tower, and a pull cord dropping down the side of the church so that the bell could be rung to announce a Sunday service or a tourist wanting to visit the one-hundred-plus-year-old church. The elegant, stained glass window in the door displayed a beautiful peacock in all its splendor. Inside was a tiny table with paper and writing utensils on it.

On the corner of the table was a white statue. It was a Catholic Church in the beginning, but at this writing, it was a collage of other faiths depicted by Baptist hymnals and Gideon bibles.

The little log church had something out of the ordinary. It had two wooden pews and four chairs, one of which had something out of the ordinary: a five-eighth-inch crescent wrench sitting on it. No electricity, nothing ornate, and very plain.

Linda Fraley, one of the roadhouse owners, saw Paul looking over at the church and asked him if he would like to look inside. She told Paul that she still goes to church there. What a great adventure he would have on that summer solstice day.

Later down the line, Paul would visit the very ornate St. Mary of the Mountain Catholic Church, built in a small town called Virginia City, Nevada, which was a booming metropolis during the gold rush days in the mid-1800s. St. Mary’s, with its tall cathedral ceilings, echoes out the sounds of music so beautiful from its antique pump pipe organ.

St. Mary’s of the Mountain Catholic Church, Virginia City, Nev.

The stained glass windows tell a story all in itself, and the pictures that this man has taken of them are wonderful. They tell a story filled with questions from people who want to see more. They come from all over the world to the Comstock, which Virginia City, Gold Hill, and Carson City are famous for.

Gold Hill has pretty much gone by the wayside except for a wonderful hotel there that current people of the town have kept, true to its conception.

The Gold Hill Hotel boasts of its haunted rooms, and people clamor to sleep in them and hear the sounds of ghosts that roam the night in their rooms. I, for one, had the chance to visit this hotel and Rosie’s room. The pictures that were taken depict the times in all its glory.

The restaurant was great and placed you back in time as well as the saloon, which boasts of an occasional gunslinger at the bar.

This is the Gold Hill Saloon

Gunslinger

These photos continue to tell a story to people who will never be able to visit such places—to those lucky enough to have been there and enjoy a great adventure will never forget it.

Well, back to Virginia City and its many places to see. Some photos depict the Bucket of Blood Saloon, the Virginia and Truckee Railroad, museums, and many others places in the Old West.

The photos of the desert with its many beauties can be enjoyed over and over again and when asked, What’s so beautiful about the desert? one can look at these beautiful photographs and show the splendor of the clouds, the tones of browns, blues, purples, and greens flowing together to form wonderful visions that most people have not experienced.

Paul has been all over the world, experiencing the beauty to be taken in by those so blessed that they can reach out and touch it; but for the rest of us, we can live in the photographs he takes along the way. Some would call him photo happy, but I for one see a man who finds great love capturing the beauty of the Big Blue Marble known as earth.

He’s crossed the oceans, went from pole to pole, north and south, thereby being given the nickname Bi Pole Paul. This is Paul Eckman, one of the nicest men I have ever met. A man who is always giving of himself, always ready to help those in need, and yet to have found time to have worked the Alaskan Pipeline for over forty years, raise a family, and still seek out adventure at every turn.

There are so many adventures for him to see and joys of finding them. So many people asking him, When are you going to slow down and enjoy the rest of your life? His answer to them is, I am enjoying my life. Every day is a new adventure. I think I am the luckiest man on earth.

Looking through the wonderful photographs I have, I feel I have lived a lifetime in the past two and a half years. I will always be able to look back at those photos and enjoy them even in the future when my vision is starting to get blurry; the beauty of the photos will always be there to enjoy and share with others and for that I am truly grateful. Grateful to God for giving me the time and to Paul for showing me the beauties of this country.

Paul keeps telling me that every day is an adventure to be had, if we were to slow down and look around us.

Chapter 1

Looking Back

Alaska, who in their wildest dreams would have thought that I, Debra Livingston, would be sitting on a fallen tree trunk, freezing my backside off, looking at the most beautiful sky I’ve ever seen.

The northern lights flowing one color into another—greens, purples, and yellows—all blending into each other against the dark sky. As I sat there, my mind was wondering, Why, why here?

Then reality set in, and I remembered all the ugliness that brought me dashing for the first plane out of Nevada, and as far away from that horrible scene, I walked in on.

And so, I continue with my story…

Rushing as usual, the operating room was busy being turned over for the next scheduled case. I had forgotten my stethoscope and was hurrying to retrieve it when I swung open the door to room 3, finding Sally (the scrub nurse) and Dr. James Decker yelling at each other. Sally, Dr. Decker was saying, you can’t do this to me, I’ve worked so long and hard to have it all thrown away by a blackmailing little bitch like you.

Killer, killer, she kept saying. You killed that girl just as sure as you shot her with a gun! Why, why? She screamed with tears welling in her eyes, running down her cheeks, and the knot in her stomach growing greater.

You don’t understand, just try to hear me out. They have my family, Dr. Decker was pleading and sobbing all in one breath. Who, Doc, who? Tell me!

I can’t say or they all will be killed! Dr. Jim was sweating and grabbing Sally by the arm.

Call the police, Sally yelled.

I can’t, I can’t, Dr. Jim stammered, I just can’t.

When Dr. Jim looked up and saw me standing in the doorway, he looked at Sally, then at me, and started to tremble. See what you two have done, see what you’ve done? Then he ran terrified out of the room. Sally looked over at me and said, Deb, we’re in a world of trouble. Her face was ashen, and her scrubs soaked in sweat.

What’s going on? What on earth got Doc Jim so riled up? I asked.

The patient that just died on the table was US Senator Donald Barkley’s daughter, Denise, she cried. She had been viciously beaten. And, she was eight weeks pregnant, too!

Where does Doc Jim come into that? I asked, looking up and down the hallway for any sign of someone coming. They took his family and are holding them to make sure Dr. Decker did what they asked. To make sure he did, three of the bodyguards were in the observation room watching the procedure with the students. Dr. Jim had to make it look like she died of her injuries and never to mention the pregnancy, just throw the tissue out with the dirty sponges.

That’s where I came in. Sally sobbed. I was asked to put the ruptured appendix in a specimen jar and leave the fetus out. The beating had ruptured her appendix and lacerated her colon, not to mention her spleen.

But, Sally, that’s enough to cause her to die, I said quietly. Why try to kill her?

I didn’t, and Dr. Jim didn’t either, but the senator’s bodyguards thought Dr. Decker followed their instructions.

Then why call him a killer? I asked. Why go through the yelling and confrontation?

It was for show, but that would lead to an investigation, Sally said. It was easier to do that than have his family killed, and I wasn’t willing to lose my license or my job either.

Wow, now what? I asked. We’re both in this mess now. We’re witnesses.

But for whom? I injected quickly. Deb, I’ve got to get out of here. I’m so scared.

You had better to, her voice quivering.

A few seconds later, Code Blue Surgeons’ Lounge, Code Blue Surgeons’ Lounge, came over the hospital intercom system.

See, I told you, Deb, I’m out of here, Sally nervously said. Before I’m the next code blue. You’d better get out, too.

As Sally ran for the elevator, the doors opened, and there were three large men intimidatingly dressed in black. She looked up with tears in her eyes, heart racing, and perspiration streaming down her face mixed with tears. Sally hadn’t taken time to change out of her soiled scrubs.

As Big Jake reached for her, she stomped his foot and kneed his groin, then she turned about and ran for the stairs, knocking down a medicine cart that was in the hallway. Sally reached the stairs with three huge men hot on her trail. Down the stairs she flew, much more agile than them; she was a small, 110-pound girl and very nimble.

Running out the basement door, she ran for her car. Suddenly, in her haste, she realized she left her purse and car keys in her locker upstairs. Looking back, she saw only two of the bodyguards chasing her. She kept running, getting more and more terrified with each step. With her head aching and her heart pounding, she reached the street outside the hospital. For a brief moment, she felt safe. Suddenly, the roar of a truck blasted her into awareness as it struck her, throwing her several feet into the air, landing on a parked car twenty feet away. The impact of her body hitting the windows and hood made a cracking sound like that of crushing walnuts at a holiday baking session she had heard so often from her mother’s kitchen.

Screams were heard from several different people, women and men alike. You could hear one man yelling, Get a gurney, Get a doctor!

Moments later, three people emerge from the ER. Get an OR ready, one trauma nurse yelled.

Forget the OR and get her to the morgue, and call Reno PD, homicide, the young attending ER doctor said.

Sally was dead! Just as she had said to Deb minutes before. Was Deb next? What had she actually overheard? What did it mean? Was it worth two lives? No, make it three, adding Senator Barkley’s daughter.

Were they really related, and how? Sally’s conversation kept going round and round in Deb’s head. Should she report it? Should she stay quiet? Her life may be next. Several thoughts came to her. If she said something she could put other people’s lives at risk.

It only took a split second for her to make the decision to get the heck out of there just as fast as she could. She knew they would miss her in the OR, but it was still abuzz with the happenings a short time earlier and the sudden obvious killing of Sally. Was it murder, or just a coincidental hit and run that Sally ended up the unfortunate victim?

Deb wasn’t going to be the next if she could help it. She quickly moved down the hall to the nurses’ lounge to retrieve her street clothes and purse. She grabbed her backpack that hung there with the usual change of clothes (needed now and then) for meetings outside the facility. Today, she didn’t take the time to get her customary end-of-shift shower and street clothes. She just moved like the wind to get away before anyone knew she was gone.

But where to, where would she go? Pulling into the airport, she looked around and spotted the Alaska Airways line shorter than the others. But how would she pay for it? Who carries that much cash with them? Not in a hospital you don’t.

No paper trail, she kept thinking, no paper trail. How would she do that? She made an abrupt turn and headed out the automatic doors of the Reno Tahoe Airport and out to her car. She ended up on Mill Street in the midst of the usual traffic congestion. Now what? she thought.

Before she could get through the second light, waiting, waiting, her head racing and throbbing at the same time, red and blue lights were flashing, an SUV pulled up beside her. The officer motioned for her to pull over. She was trapped now. What would she say?

Miss Livingston, the officer questioned. We have had an APB (all-points bulletin) out for you. We didn’t know what had happened to you, if you were kidnapped by those men, or if you just panicked and ran. You need to come with me to the station and speak to one of our homicide detectives.

Homicide, Deb said in a quivering voice. You said homicide? She had hopes that the statement would not tip off the officer that she had heard or seen more than she wanted to let on.

As they pulled up to the Reno main station, a myriad of reporters were hovering about the doors both front and sides. I’m taking you in a different way, miss. If you wish to speak to the press, it is up to you and the lieutenant.

Waiting in a room that reminded her of a cell, she came face-to-face with Detective Lieutenant Samuel Jacobson and Detective Sergeant Allan Palmer, both of the Reno Homicide Division.

Miss Livingston, Detective Lieutenant Jacobson said in a quiet manner,