by Scott Cook
“Full charge!” The woman shouted. “This is it, Trey…”
The male EMT, a young slim black man wearing gold rimmed specs scowled and clenched his fists.
“Clear!”
Sheila nearly leapt off the stretcher, her body jumping so much from the electrical current slamming through her that I actually saw light beneath her torso. The heart monitor beeped once, twice, three times… and a fourth. Then a fifth…
“Come on, baby girl…” The woman encouraged. “Come on, stay with me…”
Another beat, and then another, and then… flat line.
“Dammit!” The woman exclaimed, slamming her fist onto the edge of the gurney. She began to remove the paddles. “Let’s go, Trey!”
“I’m sorry,” the man wearing the cheaters said as he turned to jump into the driver’s seat. “We’re headed for the ER… there’s still a chance…”
Somehow I wasn’t comforted. It was a bad sign that Sheila hadn’t responded to CPR. It was an even worse sign that after defib, she was still flat lined. The woman began compressions again as Stew slammed the back doors closed.
I glanced dazedly at my dive watch. Ten fourteen… we’d just left my house ten minutes before…
“Ten minutes…” I muttered. “Ten fuckin’ minutes…”
Lisa was holding onto my left arm, shaking with her sobs. I simply stood there, numb and dripping on the grass. I watched in disbelief as the ambulance pulled away. Inside, the body of a vibrant, beautiful and cheerful young woman was being carted away to the emergency room on the slim hope that she could still be resuscitated. Fifteen minutes ago, we’d been joking in my kitchen and now Sheila Clarence, a warm, caring and invaluable part of all our lives was facing death before she’d even seen her twenty-seventh birthday.
My vision blurred as tears began to stream down my face. I don’t think I even noticed them. My eyes just watered silently, spilling warm salty water down my face, off my chin and onto my soaked clothing. I felt them, but there was no sound coming from me. Only the sound of Lisa’s crying.
The other ambulance drove by, heading north on Chickasaw toward the Lake Underhill and Chickasaw Trail branch of Florida hospital. Suddenly Stu Davage was in front of me, “Scott… you okay?”
I blinked and stared at him. Somewhere behind me I heard the sound of a car speeding very quickly toward us. Stu looked past my shoulder and nodded.
“Wayne?” I managed to croak.
“He’s stable and they’re taking him to FH, too,” Stu said gently, laying a hand on my shoulder. “He’s slipped into a coma but the EMTs think it’s temporary. Just his body’s way to focus its healing. Here comes Sharon.”
A car screeched to a halt a little behind me and a door slammed. Sharon Nolen appeared in front of Lisa and me and the two women clutched each other.
“You guys okay?” Sharon asked. “I heard the report over my scanner and… what the hell happened?”
“Wayne’s car,” I said in a voice that sounded odd to me. It was sort of slow and flat and distant. Like somebody else’s voice. “Some kind of IED kicked the car off course. He went up on two wheels and careened into the water over there… I managed to drag him and Sheila out.”
“Holy fuck!” Sharon exclaimed.
“They just took them to the hospital,” Lisa said through her sniffles.
“Are they okay?” Sharon asked softly.
“Wayne should b…” I muttered, “but Sheila… she’s not gonna make it.”
“Don’t say that!” Sharon exclaimed.
I knew I should’ve been more optimistic, but at the moment I couldn’t find it in myself. Lisa explained what had happened.i
“She could still make it,” Stu said solemnly although with little conviction.
“What…?” Sharon asked in a stunned and quiet tone.
“She’s… non-responsive,” I said, my numbness starting to fade out now and being rapidly replaced with fury.
“Oh my God…” Sharon said, wiping her eyes.
“Murdered…” I muttered and then repeated it in a harsher, far angrier tone. “Murdered!”
“By who?” Stu asked.
I speared him with my red hot glare, “Shade, who else? You… you cops. You find him, you hear me now… you find him, because if I find him first… you’re gonna have another murder on your hands.”
I spun on my heel and began walking up the sidewalk.
“Where you going?” Sharon called and then to Lisa more softly. “Where’s he going?”
“I’m all wet.” Was all I said as I snatched the keys out of the Jeep’s ignition.
I thought I heard Lisa say, “He doesn’t want to drive the Jeep back wet, I guess…”
“Scott, I still need to get your statement!” Stu called after me.
“I’ve already given it to you,” I called over my shoulder and walked away.
It was only a few minutes’ walk back to my house. There I stripped out of my wet clothes, jumped in the shower and dressed again. Then I walked back up to the accident scene… yeah, accident… and found that Sharon and Lisa were still there. Davage had been dismissed, I guess.
I handed Lisa my bathrobe and a towel, “Here.”
“You okay?” She asked as she went around the other side of the jeep to strip off her own wet clothes.
“Certainly not,” I said.
Sharon came into my arms and I held her tightly. I know Lisa had already done this, but I think Sharon needed it from me too.
“Jesus Christ, Scott…” She wept. “I can’t believe Sheila… why would somebody do this!”
“Hatred,” I said. “Evil.”
“Maybe it was an accident,” Sharon offered.
I shrugged, “Well, if this was only meant to scare Wayne or something… it was most definitely a mistake. A mistake that will be paid for, that I promise.”
Lisa came back over wearing my robe and joined the hug, “We’ll get him.”
“You guys know that the police department is gonna demand you stay out of this,” Sharon stated glumly.
I snorted. It was a sound drenched in bitterness, sorrow and anger,, “Let em’ try to fuckin’ stop me.”
“Whatever I can do, I will,” Sharon promised.
“Have that car hauled out,” I said. “There must be something that can be recovered. Some evidence of some kind. This bastid isn’t a ghost! There must be a trail somewhere…!”
I’m sorry to say that my gloomy prediction had proven correct. Sharon was notified only a few minutes later that Sheila had been officially pronounced dead at ten forty-two p.m.
A half hour later, showered and fortified with four fingers of Jameson, I slipped into bed beside Lisa. She snuggled up to me and held me tight, “Are you gonna be okay?”
I sighed, “Not really. I can’t stop thinking about Sheila lying on that gurney… her body jumping with the shocks… and then that God awful line… running straight and flat and that ominous continuous death tone…”
“This is way more serious now,” Lisa commented. “If it was Shade, and I think that it had to be, then he’s upped his game. Sheila was such a sweetheart… I can’t believe…”
“No,” I said softly. “I’ve known her as long as I’ve known Wayne. It’s not fair, Lisa… it’s just not fuckin’ fair. Then there’s Wayne, too… he’s not out of the woods yet. And should he recover…”
Lisa sniffed again, tears brimming in her eyes, “But why? Why would somebody do that to Wayne?”
I sighed, “I don’t know. He didn’t leave a goddamned note this time. Maybe it wasn’t intentional. Maybe Shade just intended for this to be another close call but things went awry. Doesn’t much matter what his intent was. It’s results that count.”
“I hope this results in him roasting in hell,” Lisa said vehemently.
“If I have anything to say about it, he will,” I stated matter-of-factly.
We were silent for a long time. Finally, Lisa lifted herself up on an elbow and hal
f laid her naked body across mine. She kissed me tenderly, “make love to me.”
I looked at her silhouette and her eyes that shone in the faint moonlight from the bedroom window, “Lisa…”
“I know,” She said softly, easing herself astride me and kissing me again. “It seems wrong to even think about it… but… but I don’t want to think about it anymore. I don’t want to close my eyes and see you diving into that lake and… and when we make love, well… it drives all higher thoughts from my mind.”
I smiled thinly, “I know what you mean.”
She kissed me again, more passionately this time. Then, to my surprise, she reached down, took hold of me and guided me into her, gasping with pleasure. Further to my surprise, though, she didn’t move. She only pressed her breasts to my chest and wrapped her arms under my back and neck and held me tight. Everything from her fingertips to her toes was gripping me tightly and yet she didn’t move.
“I feel complete when we’re like this,” She whispered to me. “It makes the world seem all right… now take me.”
In one quick motion, I rolled us over so that I was above her. I began to move slowly at first and then more frantically. I stole deep and tender kisses in between her moans and screams of pleasure. And then, for a time that was all too short amidst the chaos, everything seemed all right.
We both felt a little guilty afterward, but it kept the nightmares away.
At least for that night.
Chapter 9
Drawn from the case file of Gonzalez and What’s his nuts
Lisa’s journal entry 2
It was very rare that I got up before Scott. It seemed like no matter how late we stayed up, he was always up at or before the ass crack of dawn.
Today, though, it was me. I’m not sure if it was that he was really tired after jumping in that lake or that maybe unconsciously, he just didn’t want to face the day just yet. I could understand that, I wasn’t happy about it myself.
I slipped on a pair of sweat pants and one of his T-shirts. It was way too big for me and kind of felt like PJs. I also grabbed my Glock and kept it in the pocket of the sweats. After last night, I didn’t want to be without it.
I went out back with the dogs and let them do their thing. It was just starting to get light and the neighborhood, both Scott’s and the section of Newport behind him was quiet and peaceful.
Yeah, peaceful…
Something was bothering me. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it at the time, but some little detail was nagging me. I’d tell Scott about it when he got up and maybe something would occur to him. He has an amazing ability to solve puzzles. I’m a pretty smart chica, but that guy… his mind is just so fast.
It’s like… you’re trying to figure out how to fix something. First, you have to get the cover off and then figure out how to remove the old part and replace it or whatever. For us regular people, it might get frustrating and we give up.
Then along comes Scotty and he’s like, “Oh, just turn it like this… move the doohickey to the left… pull on the kanifflin pin… and voila! All fixed.”
I’ve asked him about it before. He only shrugs and says that his mind is just geared toward solving puzzles. I personally think it’s deeper than that. I think that he just doesn’t believe he can fail. To Scott, there’s no such thing as giving in or giving up. If he can’t immediately solve a problem, he knows without doubt that he’ll uncover the solution.
I think that’s a big part of it. The unshakable belief that he’ll figure it out that actually helps him do it faster. I hope that’s true, especially when it comes to this Shade asshole.
I’m also a little worried about Scott. I haven’t known Wayne or Sheila for as long as he has. And there’s a nine month gap in the time that I have known them. Yet I quickly came to like and love them both when we first met.
Sheila was a sweet soul and it’s just wrong that she’s gone. Wayne, for all his joking around and ball busting that he does with Scott is one of the truest friends anybody could have. He’s fiercely loyal and kind. He’s funny and always makes you glad to be around him.
Now she’s dead and Wayne is teetering on the fence. It really effected Scott last night. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him cry before. That and the weird sort of… I don’t know… numbness that seemed to come over him. That’s one reason I wanted to make love last night. I wanted to take that pain away for a little while, anyway.
“You gonna stand out here till the birds come and cover you with leaves?” He asked softly from behind me.
I jumped a little and turned to see him smiling at me, “Geez! How can you be so quiet?”
“It’s one of my powers,” Scott said. “How you doing this morning?”
I came into his arms and held him tightly, “Oh, just ducky. How about you?”
He snorted, “Swell.”
“What do we do now?” I asked.
He sighed, “Have coffee and figure that out. I’ll call the hospital this morning and find out how Wayne’s doing. Then I want to talk to the cops. I’m also concerned about the Francos.”
“Since Shade already targeted them… and since he may have turned up the juice, they could be in real danger?” I asked.
He nodded, “Exactly. Maybe not… Shade seems to exercise some restraint… or did until last night.”
I looked up into his pain-filled blue eyes, “Baby… something’s bothering me.”
“Oh, come on,” He joked, although his heart clearly wasn’t in it. “It wasn’t that bad last night, was it?”
I smiled, “Oh, the worst… just keeps getting more and more terrible each time. You’re by far the worst lay I ever had… ass.”
He chuckled softly and held me tight, “What’s on your mind, Watsonia?”
“Its that bomb or whatever that was on Wayne’s car,” I said. “How did it get there?”
“I think you mean when did it get there,” he added. “That’s what’s really bothering you, right?”
I grinned, “Exactly. Obviously Shade put it there, but when did he do it? I mean, was it early in the day and just timed? Or was it while we were eating dinner last night?”
Scott led me into the house where I could smell coffee brewing, “Good question. The answer, whichever is right, is not comforting either. Because if he put it on while we were eating, then he clearly knows where we live… and was here. Second, if it was placed on their earlier, then it couldn’t be a timed explosive. Shade would have no idea when to set it off.”
“I see what you mean,” I pondered. “Then he’d have to set it off remotely… which means he still knows where we live and was spying on us all night. He waited until just the right moment to set it off and do the most harm… Jesus…”
Scott poured us a couple of cups of coffee and we went and sat on the porch. The boys were already there, laying under the picnic table. We sat in the two wicker rockers for a long minute or so before Scott spoke again.
“Last night… seems a little sloppy,” he said. “I don’t know why… but compared to everything else that Shade has done, this one doesn’t quite fit his MO.”
I frowned, “Well, it was an improvised explosive device, which he’s used before…”
Scott considered for a moment, “That’s true… but he’s also used more direct means, as you saw firsthand. That and up until now, Shade has made certain that some kind of message was received. Then there’s that article in the Sentinel yesterday. His sermon about justice and so on. What’s Wayne ever done wrong?”
“Well, Shade’s first victim was that Bryce prick. He’s a cop.”
“Yeah… but not a good cop. Wayne is. I don’t know… maybe I’m just reaching.”
“Don’t mistrust your instincts, baby,” I said, touching his arm. “They’re usually right.”
“What do yours say?”
I was flattered that he was asking for my opinion, “I’m not sure, exactly… but I agree that something isn’t quite right… but my instincts aren�
��t as honed as yours. Remember, I’m just a girl.”
“Ha, haa.”
I giggled, “I went to school for business. I only started on this private eye thing because of you… and what was going on in St. Louis… so I’m newer to it. I don’t have your experience or training. I’m no Scott Motherfuckin’ Jarvis, after all.”
He grinned, “For which I’m grateful.”
I reached out and touched his cheek, “me too… cuz’ that means I get to screw your socks off.”
He laughed. That was good to see, especially when I could see so much pain behind his eyes.
“So what do we do, Holmes?” I asked. “We have no suspects and no leads. There’s a lunatic out there who thinks that he’s the solution to the world’s problems. He likes bombs and violent attacks and he seems to be focused on or around you.”
“Geez… you make it sound serious,” he half-joked. Then he went into his Holmes voice: “While things do seem darkest, Watson, I believe that the dawn may not be far off. The more our foe acts, the greater the probability that he’ll lead us to him. With every act, he builds a stronger and stronger connection between us. As you know, I’ve written a monograph on the subject.”
“You have not,” I said with a giggle.
“Well, maybe I will,” he sniffed. “It’s true that we don’t’ have any leads… or maybe it’s better to say we don’t have any leads that we recognize as leads. We do, at least, have a few options open to us, though.”
“Such as?”
He looked over at me and winked. He sipped from his mug and asked: “Why don’t you tell me, Watsonette?”
“What’re you testing me?”
“Well, technically I should be testing you. It’s mostly on my recommendation and records I provide to the Florida licensing board that determines your qualification to become a real-life private dick. So yeah, I’m testing you.”
I giggled when he said private dick. I don’t know why, but that always tickles me. Guess I’m just immature, “Well… we can tail Pauli and Marie for one. For another, the cops might find some evidence on Wayne’s car when and if they pull it out of the lake.”