Crescent City Detective

by Vito Zuppardo

  “If you are looking for Howard, we haven’t seen him,” Zack said, knowing where Mario was heading with his questioning.

  “They let the doctor go, but they want to talk to Howard? Hell, if he had anything to do with the shooting—hell, he’s a hero. He saved Zack’s life,” Dave said, making sure Mario remembered all the details. “Who cares who killed the bad guys?”

  “The chief just wants to talk to Howard, that’s all,” Mario said.

  Truman cut the tension and interjected, “Just give me a call if you hear from Howard.”

  They ended their conversation in grumpiness, but that was not unusual when bringing bad news to Zack. Mario and Truman returned to their unmarked police car parked at the front entrance to Riverside Inn on Dumaine Street.

  It wasn’t long into the drive back to police headquarters when dispatch released a call for all available police units to respond to Charity Hospital emergency entrance. It wasn’t a request for detectives, but Mario did anyway. Quickly turning onto Orleans Avenue, he headed towards the hospital. His interest was not only to help fellow officers but to check on Kate.

  CHAPTER 3

  A white van pulled up to the emergency ramp at Charity Hospital. Black letters identified it as the Orleans Parish Prison on each door and across the entire back of the van. The doctors and nurses knew the drill: they stayed clear of the prisoner until they were secured inside the hospital. Soon another van pulled up with more inmates and a third van with several New Orleans police armed with riot gear and shotguns. The police lined the emergency entrance to the hospital.

  “It was a prison fight. Just what I need. I’ll never get out of here on time tonight,” Kate said to her fellow nurses and doctors waiting for security to bring the first inmate to them.

  Most of the doctors knew the drill. One at a time, the prisoners would be disconnected from the chain connecting all of them together and escorted to a physician based on the severity of the injury. Kate had only seen this situation once since she became the primary trauma nurse.

  “This must have been a yard fight for so many inmates to be involved,” Kate said to the hospital's newest interns that already looked to be nervous.

  The admitting area had become chaos. The typical wait time at Charity Hospital emergency area was one to two hours based on the severity of your problem. You had residents with broken bones, older adults with no insurance, auto-accident people, and your daily visit of local drug users wanting some meds to help them get through the day. With a prison riot adding to the workload, the emergency room would be backed up until the next morning. To add to the noise of so many people talking and rushing around the waiting area, an old man and frequent visitor to the emergency room nicknamed “Tom Jones” after the singer was sitting in the corner, looking like a bath would help start the process for whatever medical treatment he needed. Silently he sat, and every minute or so he would burst out with his rendition of a song Tom Jones made famous. He stood up and shouted lyrics. “What's new, pussycat? Whoa, whoa. What's new, pussycat? Whoa, whoa.” Then he sat down.

  “Oh God, no! Not tonight,” Kate said to one of the doctors.

  “What?” he asked.

  “You didn’t hear? With all the chaos we have Tom Jones showing up tonight?”

  “I’ve learned to block him out,” the doctor said.

  The first prisoner was brought in with handcuffs attached to a chain around his waist and shackled. It was evident the bleeding from his side was caused by a blunt object that was filed down and had uneven points but served the purpose of producing a lot of damage.

  The doctor did a quick check on the prisoner. “Get him on the table. Clean the entry and sew him up. There is no rib or organ damage,” the doctor told Kate.

  With assistance, she followed the doctor's instructions and quickly patched him up and turned him back to the guard for the next prisoner.

  Mario arrived at the hospital—knowing his way around, he found Kate. He gave a nod of his head to the guard at the door of the operating room. Seeing his name tag identifying him as Willard Smith, Mario flashed his detective badge fastened to his belt. He was allowed in and found Kate working her medical talent on another scumbag that he felt should have been left to die in the prison yard. “Are you okay?” Mario said, touching Kate gently on her arm.

  Kate was happy to see him and gave a little smile. “The prisoners were not hurt as bad as we first thought. I should get out of this madhouse on time for our date tonight,” she said with a smile, giving him a wink.

  “I’ll be out front until they load these assholes into the vans and ship them back to prison,” Mario said. He wandered off into the waiting area and watched them bring prisoners back to the doctors one at a time. Kate was right, it was mostly cuts and scrapes except for a few that required stitches. A guard had told him a fight broke out in the yard after lunch, but they got it under control quickly. With the hospital secured by the police, Mario stepped outside and made a phone call.

  “Tony, it’s Mario,” he said into the phone, knowing the owner, Tony Ricco, would be in the kitchen cooking at this time of day. Tony did most of the cooking, and that was why the Italian restaurant was always packed. Tony assured him his reservation time and the private room Mario requested. It was a special occasion, and Mario had asked for the wine room, a small room lined with wine bottles on racks from some of the best vineyards in the country. A small round table was in the middle and would accommodate up to four people. An electric cord hanging from the ceiling with a tiny light bulb attached was the only light in the room. The chairs were mismatched styles and fabric seats, but that was what brought charm to the room and throughout the restaurant. While Kate was happy about their date and had something exciting to tell Mario, she had no clue he was planning to propose marriage to her on their four-year anniversary of their first date. He could have called her to confirm the pickup time, considering the maze of people he would have to get through in the lobby and the long walk back to the operating rooms. It seemed like a good choice, but he chose the walk and to check on her one more time before leaving.

  The last two inmates were being treated, one by Kate and the other by the hospital's resident doctor.

  The doctor handed his patient to the guard. “We will send him back with some medication. I’ll get the prescription and bring it to the front desk.” The guard took the prisoner by the arms and walked him back to the chain gang.

  “Twenty-two three eighteen, what seems to be your problem?” Kate asked the prisoner standing in front of her, reading his identification numbers on the front of his shirt.

  “It’s my shoulder. I can’t lift my arm, and my name is G-man,” he said.

  “G-man? I’ll stick to prisoner twenty-two three eighteen,” she said.

  The prisoner smiled at her. “The G is for Ghost. Because they never see me coming.”

  Kate tried not to show any emotion like she didn’t hear him. It was typical prison talk wanting to make her uncomfortable. His arm restricted by the handcuffs attached to his waist stopped her from moving them around. Kate notified the guard at the doorway that his hands would have to be free for her to examine the prisoner's shoulder.

  “That’s not possible,” Willard said, keeping his back to Kate. “Parish Prison doctors can handle it where he is properly secured,” Willard said, then walked away from the entrance where he could see down the hall to the main lobby.

  Kate got a quick look at Willard’s face. Something struck her about him. She just couldn’t place where she might have seen him and hoped she wouldn’t need his assistance. He was average in height but thin, almost to the point of fragile, and his coloring was pale white.

  “Your name is Kate?” the prisoner asked very politely.

  She made an unpleasant face. “Well, it's nice to know you can read, since that is what my name tag says.”

  The prisoner smiled at her with silver-capped top teeth. “Is Kate short for Kathrine?”

  “Prisone
r! Only talk when you are asked a question,” Willard shouted from the hallway.

  “It’s not short for anything, it is just Kate,” she said as she got closer to him, trying to move his shoulder in a circular movement.

  “Kate,” the prisoner whispered into her ear.

  Kate looked surprised at his undertone of a whisper.“If I can move your shoulder without you having much pain, you seem to be okay. Might just be a bruise,” Kate said as she pushed on his shoulder with both hands, getting her face closer to his chest.

  “Kate,” he whispered again. “Tell Mario the Cornerview Gang is alive and well,” and that quickly he opened his mouth slit her neck open with the sharp edges of his top silver teeth. Then he kneed her in the stomach with his right leg. Kate tried to scream, but all that came out was a gurgling sound. Her throat had a large chunk taken out, and blood was gushing. She looked at the doorway expecting guards to rush in, but no one was standing at the door. Officer Willard of the New Orleans Parish Prison had stepped away from the door and was not visible any place for Kate to see. The prisoner stood still and just smiled at her as she struggled to stand up, balancing herself with one hand, holding her throat with blood-soaked hand and fingers as she stepped towards the hallway for help. The prisoner kicked her hard in the chest, pushing her backward into a glass cabinet. The crashing of the glass sent several police officers running down the hall towards the room.

  Mario had just turned the corner when he saw the officers running—knowing that wasn’t a good sign, he rushed to the room with his gun drawn. The officers got to the area first, and they both shouted for a doctor. Restraining the prisoner against the wall, two doctors rushed over to Kate as Mario came into the room.

  “Clear the room,” one doctor shouted.

  Two officers held the prisoner by the arms, and Mario put his gun under the prisoner's chin. “What did you do?”

  “Cornerview Gang is alive and well! You killed two of ours, and we’re not finished with you,” the prisoner said, and spat in Mario’s face.

  Mario pushed the gun deep into the prisoner's neck and slightly squeezed the trigger. He could envision the bullet going through the inmate's jawbone and out the back of his head. Splattering his brains all over the wall. He was snapped back to reality when he heard an officer shout, “Put the weapon down! Mario, drop the gun,” knowing Mario was close to blowing the guy’s head off. Mario slowly lowered the gun and placed it in his holster, and watched them remove the prisoner from the room. Several doctors and nurses flooded the area to assist. Police rushed the prisoner out of the area and escorted him to the lobby, where he was shackled and taken to the prison van.

  Mario stood in the hallway screaming, “Where is Officer Willard? How could he allow this to happen?” He roamed the lobby looking for him.

  He found a police officer he had worked with a few years back. “We need to find Officer Willard. His prisoner attacked a nurse.” They both ran around asking for Willard. Finally, they found the prison sergeant in charge.

  “Sergeant, we need to find your Officer Willard,” Mario said, breathing heavily.

  “Who?” the sergeant asked.

  “Willard, the officer that was watching the prisoner in operating room two,” Mario said with his eyes roaming the hospital hallways scanning for Willard.

  Two doctors rushed Kate on a gurney with a nurse holding her hand running on the side. “She is in bad shape and losing a lot of blood. We will be in the third floor operating room,” one doctor shouted, rushing with the gurney. “Someone let Mario know,” he said as the elevator door closed.

  The prisoners were all chained together as they walked to the van. Prisoner 22318, whose real name was Gordon Gross, aka G-Man, was now handcuffed and placed in a police car heading back to central lockup.

  Mario had to compose himself. This was when his professionalism had to shine. His emotions couldn’t stand in his way of being a good detective. Doing something stupid like blowing the prisoner’s head off would have given him satisfaction but would have cost him the rest of his life behind bars.

  Mario stood with the sergeant and a few New Orleans police, who were now pouring into the hospital lobby due to the attack on Kate.

  The sergeant called Parish Prison office on his two-way radio. “I’ll see if they know Willard’s whereabouts. They could have sent him back to the prison,” he said.

  “In the middle of a watch? Where is his replacement?” Mario shouted.

  “I don’t know, okay! I’m checking into it now. I have over seventy-five officers under me, and I can’t even envision what Willard looks like,” the sergeant shot back to Mario.

  “Sergeant?” a voice coming over his radio said.

  “Go ahead,” he said.

  “Sir, we have checked on Willard. The business office said we don’t have a Willard working for the Parish Prison.”

  Mario’s eyes widened. He was speechless. Then he managed to say, “What the hell is going on?”

  CHAPTER 4

  Zack and Emma Lou rushed to the hospital, and Dave and Pearl Ann soon followed. They all sat in the family waiting room of the hospital while Mario paced the floor talking on his radio to people in the know. He called both his and her parents and her closest friend for them to spread the word of Kate’s attack. Her parents live on St. Charles Avenue in the Garden District and were on their way to the hospital.

  “No updates on this Willard guy,” Mario said to the group, turning his radio off.

  Zack sat staring at the wall without a sound; it was his way of processing the crime. He was trying to put all the pieces together, but this Willard guy made no sense.

  A doctor came into the waiting room, and everyone's heart skipped a beat. Much like anyone would do if you ever sat in a hospital operating waiting room. Sometimes the information flowed quickly, and other times you sat for hours without any news. It was nerve-racking, to say the least. The doctor made eye contact with a young couple seated in the back of the room and walked directly to them. While you felt relief that the physician wasn’t delivering bad news to you, it was only for seconds before the anxiety set back in your entire body.

  The nearby elevator door opened, and Zack’s eyes widened. Out walked Howard the limousine driver, dressed neatly as always.

  “I didn’t call you to come here,” Zack said, walking up to him.

  “It’s okay,” Howard assured Zack.

  “So much for you not knowing the whereabouts of Howard,” Mario said to Zack.

  Howard, who was relatively taller than all of them, towered over Mario and put his hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry to hear about Kate.”

  “Thank you,” Mario said, lightly tugging at Howard’s arm.

  “Let’s get through this ordeal, and in a few days I’ll come down to the station, and we’ll talk. I know you have been trying to contact me,” Howard said.

  “Mario, the doctor is coming,” Zack said, seeing a physician with green scrubs headed towards them as the elevator doors closed behind him.

  Mario turned around, and his heart stopped for a second. “Doc, how is she?”

  The doctor was a seasoned trauma doctor of twenty years. You didn’t beat around the bush, no unnecessary frowns or smiles. You got to the point. “She will be okay. It will be a long recovery, and she may never recover from the trauma.”

  With those words, Mario felt his heart go back into rhythm and the anxiety melt from his body. Knowing she was alive meant everything to him.

  “She will need another surgery in a few months for a skin graft on the right side of her neck. All in all, she is lucky to be alive,” the doctor said, taking both of Mario’s hands and holding them. “Mario, she lost the baby.”

  “Oh my God,” Emma Lou spurted out.

  Mario was in a daze. “Baby?”

  “Yes, she was about seven weeks along,” the doctor said.

  “My God, that is why she kept saying she had a surprise for me. She held the news of the baby until our four-ye
ar anniversary dinner.” Mario’s sympathy for Kate went directly to rage. “I will find this son of a bitch, and he will pay. He will pay!” he shouted, turning heads in the waiting room.

  Zack quickly tried to calm him down before he said anything further. The retired detective knew people under stress could say things that they might regret later. Zack walked Mario down the hall. “Mario, we will get to the bottom of this. We will find these scumbags, and they will pay. We just don’t need a bunch of witnesses, okay? ”

  Mario couldn’t hold back his feelings, and the tough cop cleared the tears from his eyes. He walked to the water fountain to get a drink and returned to the group, trying to keep his composure.

  The doctor allowed them to visit Kate in ICU but only for a short time. They went as a group and mostly to support Mario. The doctor explained that Kate would move in a few days from the Intensive Care Unit to a hospital room where she would stay until released. They were buzzed into the secured ICU area, and stationed outside were two New Orleans policewomen. They acknowledged Mario and allowed him into the room.

  Mario was stunned when he saw Kate. The entire side of her face was black and blue with a large bandage around her neck. He could only imagine what the rest of her body must look like from being kicked and pushed around during the struggle. For what she had gone through, Kate seemed to be in good spirits with the help of a lot of drugs.

  “I’m sorry, Mario,” she said as tears ran down her face.

  He held her hand close to his chest. “Nothing to be sorry about.” His rage came back, and all he could think was I should have pulled the trigger and blown his head off. Mario bent down and gave her a kiss on the forehead. “I have no idea what it must feel like for you to lose a baby. I assure you whoever did this will pay for their actions, and so will everyone that helped pull this off.” He gently let her hand down and gave her one more kiss on the forehead.