A white mid-twenties male ambulance attendant responded, “We’re not permitted to discuss anything with anyone regarding patients we bring in; it’s the HIPAA law, you know.”
The more senior female Black attendant told her partner “It’s okay, we always respond to police questions. HIPAA doesn’t apply to a police investigation. All right, Detective, let’s go over each question more slowly please.”
Pratt began with, “Where was he when you first picked him up?”
“He was in front of the door to Beth Israel Synagogue,” she answered.
“Where on his body was he hit?”
“Down in his back near the kidney, but the other bullet, there were two you know, hit the wall near the front door.”
“How badly was he hurt?”
“Can’t really tell but it looked pretty serious to me.”
“Did it look like a fatal wound?”
“No, I thought he’d pull through after surgery.” The attendant seemed confident with her answer.
“Were there any witnesses that saw what happened?”
“Wasn’t looking for any, but I’m fairly certain that there weren’t since no one came to him or to us after the shots rang out as he was laying on the ground.”
“Did he say anything to you at any time?” he asked her.
“No, he was pretty much out cold all the way to the hospital. He only uttered one word when we picked him up; he just asked ‘Why?’ I assumed he was asking why someone shot him,” conjectured the younger attendant.
“Is there any other information that you two could share with me that I haven’t asked you about?”
“I had heard that just before we got there, the synagogue’s custodian had been giving him first aid, applying pressure to his wound until the Fire Department arrived. We got there just a few minutes later,” said the senior ambulance attendant. “I think you’ve covered all the bases pretty well, Detective.”
“Thank you for your answers. I appreciate your cooperation and will tell your commanding officer how helpful you’ve been to me. I will recommend you both for a commendation,” Pratt promised.
“Gee, thanks, Detective. That certainly can’t hurt,” said the senior attendant, “especially for me as the only woman on the squad.”
Pratt now entered the hospital intent on questioning the surgeon after Green’s surgery. He went up to the second-floor nurses’ station, flashed his badge and asked to speak to the head nurse.
Marge Spalding, the head nurse on the floor, was paged and came to the station as one of the other nurses pointed her out to Pratt. He produced his badge and introduced himself in a friendly, professional manner. She too was very friendly but somewhat official in her responses to his questions. She certainly knew why he was there. After all, there was only one patient on the floor that had been shot. There would be no other reason for a police officer to be there.
The detective asked her a few questions, none of which she was able to answer since the patient hadn’t come out of surgery yet. The only thing she knew definitely was that the surgeon was Dr. Leonard Shapiro, who seemed to know Jack. She guessed they knew each other because they both attended the same synagogue.
Pratt waited until the surgeon came out of the operating room. He stood up facing Dr. Shapiro, flashed his badge and introduced himself. He told the surgeon that he needed to ask him some questions.
“Sure, as soon as I get a chance to wash up, change into my civvies and have a cup of coffee, I’ll be glad to answer whatever I can for you, Detective.”
Twenty minutes later, Shapiro joined the detective in the doctor’s lounge, sat down, offered Pratt a cup of java.
“Thanks, but I’m coffeed out just waiting for you to get out of surgery.”
“Doctor, before you gave Mr. Green anesthesia, did he have anything to say?”
“No, he was out cold. The anesthesia was used just to assure us that he wouldn’t wake up in the middle of the surgery.”
“What exactly were his injuries?” Pratt asked.
“He was hit by a bullet on his left rear side, passing through his kidney and severing his renal artery. Had there been another ten minutes after the ambulance got to him, the coroner would have been called,” answered the doctor.
“Were you able to extract a slug?”
Shapiro was ready for that question. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a bullet, handing it to the detective. “How’s that for service, Detective?”
“Excellent, Doc, better than I could have expected. That’s a .45 caliber slug. Thank you very much for holding on to it for me, I understand that you may know the victim. Is that correct, doctor?” Pratt asked.
“Yes, Detective, I know Mr. Green very well. We both belong to Beth Israel Synagogue and see each other there all the time.”
“Then do you have any idea why anyone might have wanted to shoot him?”
“Only if he cheated on his golfing partners. That’s just a joke, Detective. There is no reason in the world I can think of why anyone would want to harm him. He is the sweetest, most honorable, kindest, and funniest guy I know. There are a lot of crazy people out there though, so who’s to say?” said the surgeon.
“Would you be willing to testify in court should I need you, Doctor?”
“If I get subpoenaed, certainly. You see, with a subpoena the hospital will pay for my time,” replied the surgeon with a smile.
“I understand, Doctor,” Pratt said as he asked one last question. “Before I let you go, when will I be able to speak with the patient?”
“Not for a few more hours and only after the family has seen him,” Shapiro responded.
Pratt then remembered the EMTs. “By the way, Doctor, I promised to commend the two ambulance attendants who brought him in. They were immensely helpful to me. Please convey my praise to their manager for me.”
◆◆◆
Andre arrived home after working at the synagogue. With tremendous anxiety, he opened his front door and looked around trying to listen for unusual sounds. He didn’t want to be the next victim and wondered if anyone were inside who would try to shoot him. He didn’t see or hear anything unusual.
Feeling a whirlwind of emotions, he bellowed as loud as his lungs would permit with a trembling voice, “Olivia? Pablito? Olivia, where are you? Pablito, are you here?”
Pablito, his teenage son, was running down the stairs from his bedroom and Olivia, his wife, came running from the kitchen and saw her husband perspiring and trembling.
“Honey, what’s the matter?” asked Olivia.
“What’s up, Dad, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. Why are you yelling so loud and sweating?”
Andre’s mouth was as dry as if he had survived a desert dust storm. “Pablito, please get me a glass of water while I try and calm down and I’ll tell you both what happened.”
“You didn’t lose your job, did you, Honey?” Olivia asked nervously.
“No, I didn’t lose my job. Let me just drink the water Pablito brought me and I’ll be able to tell you.” He gulped down the entire glass full of cold water and sat down in his chair in the living room. Olivia and Pablito joined him and sat on the couch across from him and observed his rapid breathing begin to slow down.
“Mr. Green was shot today!” Andre declared.
Olivia, not believing her ears, said, “What did you just say?”
“Mom, he said that Mr. Green, whoever that is, was shot today.”
“Mr. Green is that nice man dad told us about, who comes and has lunch with the Rabbi a few times a week,” Olivia explained.
“Andre, what happened? Why would anyone shoot Mr. Green?” she asked.
“I don’t know, Olivia, and that’s not the whole story,” he said.
“He was shot in front of the synagogue and I found him on the ground bleeding from his backside. There were no people in there on Tuesday. The only person in the building was me, because the Rabbi and three boys he gave lessons to had gone home already
. I leaned down close to Mr. Green’s mouth to see if he was still breathing and when I felt his breath, I called 911 for help and then ran into the building to get a couple of clean rags. Then I rushed back out to put them on his wound and pressed down hard to try and stop the bleeding, but it just wouldn’t stop.”
“You mean he died?” asked Olivia.
“No, no, I forgot to tell you that the ambulance arrived. The paramedics took over, placed him into the ambulance, and took him to the hospital. Then I left the synagogue to come home.”
“Well, praise the Lord you weren’t hurt, my sweetheart,” cried Olivia.
Pablito asked, “Why are you crying Mom? Dad’s okay.”
“Thank you, Jesus, for saving my husband,” She looked at Pablito. “I’m still scared for Daddy, that’s why I’m crying. It’s not that easy to hear that someone was shooting where he works.”
“But mom, Dad didn’t say that he was being shot at, only that he found this guy outside the church where he works.”
“It’s not a church, Pablito,” corrected his mother. “After all of the years your dad has worked there, you should know by now that it’s called a synagogue. It’s like our church except its where Jewish people go to pray. So, I thank Jesus for protecting Daddy.”
Seven
Jack suffered excruciating pain after the anesthesia wore off. He was given Demerol, Oxycodone and sometime during the night, when it was at its worst, a Morphine drip. Because the surgeon had to go through the kidney to reach the renal artery, Green’s healing process after surgery forced him to do the only thing he could do at this juncture, groan loudly with intractable pain. Even when he was asleep, the pain still reached his thalamus which sent it to the cerebral cortex, the part of the brain that interpreted the messages. And shit, did he get messages all day and night for two weeks before the pain began to subside. He was even beginning to miss those annoying robo calls he often got at home.
Nurse James Hall, who preferred being called Jimmy, wheeled Jack from the surgery on a gurney, which eventually became his bed. He placed him in an antiseptically clean room, painted a dull olive green with two overhead fluorescent lights and a rather large window facing the parking lot, which he shared with another patient. Green was not high enough in the hierarchy of the town to merit a private room, though he did get the window bed.
Jack’s wife, Brenda, and sixteen-year-old identical twin girls, Julie and Andie, didn’t leave the waiting room until a doctor told them of their dad’s condition. It had three two-seater sofas and three single easy chairs. On the top right corner was a TV set tuned to CNN, but no remote control was available to keep waiting room relatives and visitors from arguing about which channel to turn to or to increase or decrease the volume. Brenda sat on one chair while the girls sat on one of the sofas. There were other people sitting there waiting to hear from their family member’s doctor.
Jack’s surgeon, Dr. Shapiro, came into the waiting room with a broad smile and the three ladies stood up. The doctor grabbed Brenda by her shoulders because she was shaking so hard, looked down at her and told her the surgery went extremely well, and that her husband would be fine. Brenda and the twins were partially calmed by the doctor’s words, but not until they got to see Jack for themselves would they be satisfied.
They were finally called into the consultation room by a volunteer surgery department attendant at a desk near where the relatives were waiting for word. Seeing him alive was all they needed to have their lives returned to them as before. Naturally, he would need weeks to heal and afterwards more time at home, but he would heal if someone didn’t try and shoot him again. Andie, the older of the twins by two minutes, cried intensely as she ran to her mom; Brenda didn’t even care that her young teenager’s eye makeup was running down her cheeks and onto her blouse. Mom grabbed both Andie and Julie tightly and asked the volunteer, “When will we be able to see Jack?”
“Give him about two hours to come out of the anesthesia and you’ll be called in when he knows where and who he is,” he replied.
Two and three-quarter hours later, they got the call from the same volunteer. “Mr. Green is awake now and you may go in and see him.”
Brenda found his room and ran over to his bed and hugged him through her crying, “Oh Jack, I was so scared. I didn’t know what I would do without you. If that shot had taken your life, I don’t think I could have gone on living without you.”
“First, I haven’t gone anywhere, yet. Secondly, you’ve been such a great wife and a super mom that if anything were to ever happen to me, you could easily continue living without me. I’m not saying you would enjoy being a widow, but you can handle anything. Seeing how beautiful you are, you’ll probably have a couple of boyfriends within six months,” he said, winking and smiling at her.
She felt like smacking him for that last part, but she knew he was just teasing her and even the smallest tap as a make-believe smack could hurt him too much. The girls sobbed just seeing him lying there, with all sorts of scary tubes running in and out of his body, and ran to Daddy. They both kissed and hugged him lightly, which caused him to tear up too.
He eased their fear by cracking one of Daddy’s quips. “Careful girls, you keep being this hysterical, it’ll cause permanent marks to your cheeks from your eye make-up and you’ll start looking like fraternal twins rather than identical as you are. If that happens then everyone will be able tell you two apart; not like today when you girls can trick your boyfriends since you look so much alike,” he teased. Brenda and the girls then left, promising to return the next day.
Jack Green, forty-three, graduated college and became a CPA for the McFarland Architectural office. He had been married to Brenda for twenty-two years. His wife, forty-five, was a kindergarten teacher and loved the company of every one of her students except when in school. The children drove her to become unglued since she had thirty-two students in her class and no aide. The ratio of boys to girls was three to one and though “boys will be boys,” no one ever told her that kindergarten-aged boys could be combative, thin-skinned bullies. She frequently referred to the boys as “little ogres” and showed distaste for their piddling antics, seeing them as inconsequential in the total scheme of things.
The girls were of slightly greater value to her, but not enough to gloat about. The parents of the girls lived in a classier neighborhood, the mothers forming a car-pooling system among themselves to keep their “precious princesses” as far from the boys as was reasonably possible, considering their age. The boys’ parents were largely blue-collar types, for whom Brenda had developed a profound revulsion. The boys came to class in school mini-vans and were dropped off by the driver on the sidewalk in front of the school.
Eight
Sedona was one of the most exquisite cities in Arizona. An easterner from a big city such as New York would have imagined Sedona, Arizona to be barren and bleak, just a small desert town with a few hundred inhabitants. To many, however, Arizona was the state to move to if you had asthma or any inhalation problems such as COPD. It was always so clean and dry, lacking dust, mites, and pollen. Allegedly, it was also very safe from crime.
That there were a few million people residing in Arizona would not surprise anyone, but it was surprising that only ten thousand residents lived in the city of Sedona itself. This was because during the prime tourist seasons it appeared to have at least a million and a half.
Its miniature Grand Canyon-like valley seemed to vibrate with all colors of the spectrum; even the surrounding mountains were striking red monoliths. Who would have believed mountains could have such bold colors, even though just made of rock. True, there was surrounding desert over the other side of the mountains, but the city’s environs defied imagination, with animals such as deer and rabbits everywhere, and more greenery and floral variations than many botanical gardens.
Shoppers and vacationers in this town wanted for nothing. The center of the city paralleled a lovely small stream called Oak Creek, well known t
o those living there. Tourists, and there were tens of thousands each year, came for many reasons. They golfed, walked, biked, and rode jeeps or horseback on the many lovely paths laid out for visitors and residents alike.
High above the valley below was The House of Apache Fires at Red Rock State Park, one of the most intriguing places of meditation and worship imaginable. Though Catholic in origin, it represented an invitation to all faiths to come and heal their souls together. It was built out of concrete in pockets of red rock mountain, giving one the impression that it could fall to the base of the canyon below, yet it was there to stay. It was truly spiritual architecture at its finest. Its outdoor promenade permitted marvelous views of the valley below. Newly married couples had their wedding photographers take more pictures of them at that location than any other spot. At night, it was a wonderful place to lie down and stargaze at all that was now so plainly visible of our brilliant galaxy.
Sedona received more than a million visitors per year. Many have referred to it as “the most beautiful place in the U.S.” And why not? Sedona was known as having a mild to moderate climate. Summers were a dry heat with no humidity, comfortable and not overwhelmingly hot, permitting one to remain outside. Winters could get down to the upper thirties and felt cold if not properly dressed, but just enough to wear a sweater or a sweatshirt.
The center of town housed shops, shops, and more shops as a hardscape Garden of Eden. Architecturally, there were many Mexican-style adobe buildings, along with old-west style storefronts of all description, largely catering to tourists with interests in art, antiques, and souvenirs. Many restaurants had outdoor seating, some of which played live music during dinner with light jazz quartets or folk singing duets and trios. In addition, there were ice cream shops if you chose not to partake of the restaurant’s dessert menu. The city left each vacationer with the warm impression that they had been to paradise and focused their attention on planning to come back, even before they left Sedona to return home.
A Hole In One Page 4