With a Vengeance

by Annette Dashofy

He spit out a string of profanities.

  “You need to chill,” Zoe said, trying to keep her voice soothing.

  “Don’t tell me to chill.” Earl, usually the epitome of calm and reason, kicked a chunk of broken concrete, sending it skittering across the sidewalk.

  She crossed her arms and waited for him to regain his composure.

  After a few moments, he shook his head. “A guy shouldn’t go to work trying to help people and have to worry about those same people taking potshots at him.”

  “Pete and his boys will catch the guy.”

  Earl met her gaze. “They damned well better.” Shoving his hands in his pockets, he retreated into the office.

  Alone in front of the open bay, Zoe eyed the fill-in ambulance. Even when Medic Two returned to service, nothing would be the same again.

  Crunching tires made her turn to see a blue Subaru Outback pulling up to the curb. Earl’s wife stepped out from behind the steering wheel.

  Zoe strode over to her. “Hey, Olivia. What are you doing here?”

  She held up a cell phone. “Earl walked off without this. I’m taking Lilly to cheerleading practice, so I thought I’d bring it to him.”

  Zoe leaned over to wave at the young girl strapped into the backseat before holding out a hand. “I can give it to him. He’s a little crabby right now.”

  Olivia held onto the phone and rolled her eyes. “Tell me about it. He’s been on edge since last night. Didn’t sleep hardly at all. I had hoped he might be in a better mood after the two of you got back from seeing Curtis, but no such luck.” She turned the phone over in her hand. “Still, I think I’d rather give it to him myself. You know?”

  “Yeah.” Zoe didn’t need the blanks filled in. Just in case. She aimed a thumb at the office door. “He’s inside. I’ll stay with Lilly.”

  Olivia smiled. “Thanks.”

  Zoe took a seat behind the Outback’s steering wheel and turned to smile at the small cheerleader. “How’re you doing, Lill?”

  “Okay.” The girl’s eyes sparkled. “Daddy says you might come stay with us.”

  “Afraid not, kiddo.”

  Lilly jutted out her lower lip. “But I hoped you’d bring your cats. I want a kitten.”

  Zoe laughed. Once again, Jade and Merlin were the welcomed guests. She was simply the human that came with the package. “I heard you want a pony too.”

  “Well, yeah.” Lilly dragged out the word to make it sound more like duh. “But Daddy won’t let me.” She perked up. “Maybe I can come to your farm and ride one of yours?”

  Her farm? The Kroll farm never had been hers, but it used to feel like it. Not that she was going to explain her homeless status to a seven-year-old. “I’ll talk to your dad.”

  “Great.” Lilly beamed as though it were a done deal.

  They chatted about Lilly’s two older brothers and about the family dog—Lilly made no bones about preferring the dog to the brothers—until Olivia returned.

  “Thanks for keeping Lilly company,” she said, reclaiming her seat from Zoe.

  “No problem.”

  Olivia turned the key, reached to close the door, and paused. She looked up at Zoe, her eyes moist and worried. “Take care of him. Okay?”

  The tremor in Olivia’s voice was as uncharacteristic as Earl’s foul mood. Zoe searched for words to comfort her partner’s frightened wife. Finding nothing adequate, she replied, “Of course.”

  Zoe watched the Subaru pull away and disappear around the bend. Within less than twenty-four hours, an unknown monster with a gun had taken one life and left another person unconscious in a hospital. But he’d also taken so much more.

  She scanned the town around her and wondered who he was and what he had planned next.

  Pete punched Wayne Baronick’s number into his cell phone as he parked in front of Sullivan’s mobile home for the second time that day. When the detective picked up, Pete asked, “What’d you find out from EOC?”

  “Nothing yet,” Baronick replied. “From the dispatchers I’ve talked to, no one has any connections with, or knowledge of, Snake Sullivan.”

  “Keep digging.” Pete eyed the mobile home. A shadow passed in front of a lamp burning inside, but with the curtains closed, he couldn’t tell if it was Snake or his mother. “And while you’re at it, find out if anyone there is friends with Lucy Livingston.”

  “Knox’s girlfriend?”

  “Ex-girlfriend.” Pete gave Baronick a quick rundown of what Zoe and Hector had told him.

  “I’ll ask around and get back to you.”

  Pete ended the call and shoved the phone back in his pocket before climbing out of the Explorer. Deep gray clouds had taken over the sky, and the air smelled of rain.

  He was being watched. Not only by whoever was inside the Sullivan home, but probably by every other resident of the trailer park. He knocked on the door and noticed a lack of heavy footsteps from inside.

  The door swung open to Mrs. Sullivan’s battle-weary face. “Eli’s not here. For real this time. He left an hour ago.”

  “All right.” Pete took off his ball cap. “Could I talk to you for a few minutes?”

  She gave the request a moment of thought before nodding and stepping clear.

  The place hadn’t changed since Pete’s earlier visit. “I understand Eli used to date Lucy Livingston.”

  Mrs. Sullivan’s eye twitched. “Yeah.”

  “What can you tell me about the relationship?”

  The woman gave a tired sigh. “I’m not sure what you want to know. They dated for a few months. But he hasn’t seen her in quite a while.”

  “Who ended it?”

  “The girl did. Eli talked about asking her to marry him.” Mrs. Sullivan laughed without a hint of humor. “Like he could afford a wife. He probably would’ve wanted to move her here and let me pay their bills.”

  “Was he upset when Lucy broke up with him?”

  “You could say that.” Mrs. Sullivan wandered over to a battered recliner and sank into it as if her legs couldn’t hold her any longer. “He was a brute for a while. Busted a bunch of my stuff. Most of the time he was out getting drunk.” She shot a glance at Pete. “Or high. Frankly, I didn’t care as long as he wasn’t here. I know that’s horrible for a mother to say. But I can’t control him. He’s got a mean streak. Got it from his father.”

  Pete felt sorry for the woman. Hauling her son off to prison might be the best thing for her. “Does your son have any friends who work at the 911 center in Brunswick?”

  The question seemed to startle her. “I don’t think so. I doubt it. To be honest, I don’t know Eli’s friends, but I seriously doubt any of them can hold down a real job.”

  Pete had to agree. “Do you have any idea when Eli will be home?”

  She laughed, again without humor. “Probably not until morning, after he’s drunk himself into a stupor and needs to sleep it off.”

  “When he does come back, could you ask him to come down to the station first thing tomorrow? I’d like to ask him a few questions.”

  “I doubt he’ll talk to you.”

  “Tell him life will be easier for him if he does.”

  “He’ll just have me call my brother-in-law.”

  The attorney. “Fine. Have him come along too.” Pete didn’t really expect to get any direct answers from the kid, with or without Uncle Andy present. But one or the other might just let something slip. Like where Snake was between seven fifteen and eight thirty last night.

  “I’ll tell him, but I ain’t making any promises.”

  Pete tugged on his ball cap and thanked the woman.

  As he made his way down the rickety steps, his cell phone rang. Caller ID showed the station’s number.

  “Chief,” Nancy said when he answered, “I was about to leave for the day when Wanda Knox call
ed. Curtis is awake.”

  Pete stopped, one hand on the door of his SUV. “That’s great.” He might finally catch a break in this case.

  “Do you want me to ask Kevin or Nate to drive into Pittsburgh to talk to him?”

  “No.” Pete checked the time. It was already after five. “I’ll go. Is Kevin there?”

  “Yeah. He rolled in a half hour ago.”

  Pete slid behind the wheel and slammed the door. “Patch him through.”

  The television in the crew lounge blared some sporting event that no one was watching. Zoe thumbed through a tattered magazine from a pile somebody had brought in from home. Two years out of date, the smiling celebrity couple on the cover had long since divorced. Not that it mattered. The words could have been written in Greek for all she comprehended.

  Earl and the other guys on the crew stared at the TV, their faces blank. Zoe wondered if they would even be able to tell her the score if she asked. She doubted it.

  Tossing the magazine aside, Zoe hoisted herself out of the too-soft, too-worn armchair and headed for the office.

  Crew Chief Tony DeLuca sat at the desk doing paperwork. A police scanner on the shelf above him squawked with activity from an assortment of emergency response departments around the county.

  Zoe crossed to the closed door leading to the ambulance bays. On a warm summer evening, both the outside bay doors and the office door would have stood open to catch a breeze. But the sky had grown dark and ominous.

  Through the window, Zoe noticed the wind kicking up, fluttering the awning on the flower shop across the street and sending dust devils scurrying along the sidewalks.

  “The weather suits the mood around here, doesn’t it?” Tony said.

  Zoe spun to see the crew chief watching her. “I guess it does.”

  He tapped the report in front of him with his pen. “I read the same line four times and still can’t tell you what it says.”

  “A lot of that going on.”

  The Monongahela County EMS radio on the desk crackled to life. “Phillipsburg, this is Control. Medical response requested to two-five-five Franklin Run Road. Seventy-five-year-old male complaining of chest pains.”

  Tony snatched the mic. “Ten-four, Control.” He jotted the address down on a slip of paper and aimed a thumb at the doorway to the crew lounge with his free hand. “Zoe, tell Mike and Tracy they’re up.”

  A moment later, Medic One roared out of the garage. Zoe and Tony watched from the window.

  “I really hate this,” he said. “After last night, I wonder what I’m sending them into.”

  Zoe hugged herself against a sudden chill. “I was thinking the same thing.”

  Behind them, the phone rang. At the same time, the scanner on the shelf above the desk emitted a series of tones on the county fire channel. Tony blew out a noisy breath. “Sheesh. Is it going to be that kind of night?”

  The crew chief reached up to silence the scanner and answer the phone. Zoe watched a woman step out of the flower shop carrying a bundle wrapped in green tissue and duck her head against the breeze as she hurried to her car. Just another day. For some people.

  “Thank God,” Tony exclaimed into the receiver. “That’s great news. Thanks for letting us know.”

  Zoe turned away from the window as Tony hung up. “What’s great news?”

  The crew chief lowered his head, his eyes closed for a moment. When he lifted his head again, he was smiling through tears. “Come on. I’ll tell all of you at once.”

  Zoe followed him into the lounge. Earl looked up from the TV.

  “Curtis’s mom just called,” Tony said. “He’s awake. His vitals are stable and everything looks like he’s gonna be fine.”

  Earl let out a whoop. Zoe slumped against the doorway in relief.

  “We should all go see him tomorrow,” Earl said.

  Tony chuckled. “We could take him a six-pack and a pizza.”

  Earl heartily agreed.

  “I hate to burst your bubble,” Zoe said, “but I doubt they’ll allow him to have beer when he’s been on morphine.”

  “Curtis can have the pizza,” Tony said. “We’ll take care of the beer.”

  The shrill ring of the phone pierced their raucous laughter.

  Zoe waved off Tony. “I’ll get it.” She left them to planning their hospital keg party and retreated to the office.

  “Monongahela EMS. May I help you?” she said into the phone.

  Sirens blasted through the earpiece, drowning out the gruff voice on the other end.

  The back of Zoe’s neck prickled. “I’m sorry, can you repeat that?”

  “I said, this is Deputy Fire Chief Onderick. We need a medic unit out here, now.”

  Zoe grabbed a pen and paper. “Give me your address and the nature of the medical emergency.”

  “The old Carl Loomis farm,” Onderick shouted above the din. “Shots fired.”

  Zoe’s fingers froze on the pen.

  Through the receiver, the deputy chief’s voice bordered on hysterical as he added, “We have two men down.”

  Eight

  “How are you doing?”

  Curtis Knox had always been as thin as a marathon runner, but in the hospital bed plugged into IVs and oxygen, he looked frail, almost skeletal. “I’ve been better.”

  Pete had sent Wanda down to the cafeteria with orders not to return until she’d had a good meal. He hoped the paramedic might be more willing to share the horrors of his experience without his mother present. “Are you up to answering some questions?”

  Curtis shifted in the bed with a pained grimace. “I’ll try.”

  Pete pulled a chair closer to the bedside, sat down, and took out his notepad. “What can you tell me about last night’s call?”

  Curtis’s eyes clouded with the memory. “It happened so fast.”

  “Just do your best.” Pete started for him, “You responded to a report of an ATV accident?”

  “Back in the cuts. Yeah. We—me and Barry—” Curtis’s voice cracked.

  “Take your time,” Pete said gently.

  The paramedic rubbed his nose then readjusted the nasal cannula. “We found an overturned quad on the access road. I should have suspected something was off. The thing was right there on the road. On the level. No reason for it to be tipped over like that.”

  Pete waved away his concerns. “You had no reason to expect trouble. Did you see anyone?”

  “No. Nobody was near the thing. At least we didn’t see anybody. I radioed in that we were on scene. Barry and I got out…” Curtis’s voice again grew ragged. “We got out and were gonna walk over to the quad.” He fingered the IV tubing. “Then, I don’t know. Things went sideways. There was a crack. Like you hear during hunting season.”

  “A rifle,” Pete prompted.

  “Yeah. Boom. And—Barry went down. For a second, I didn’t know what was going on. I ran around the front of the ambulance. Or started to.” Curtis paused, twisting a handful of sheet into a knot.

  Pete remained silent, giving him time. On his notepad, he jotted, Dickson hit first.

  “Next thing I know, I’m on the ground. I don’t really remember hearing the second shot. And I don’t remember realizing what had happened for a second or two. Then…man, everything hurt. Burned like fire.” He touched the bandage on the upper right of his chest.

  “Did you see anything? Anyone?”

  “No.” Curtis lowered his hand to rest, clenched on the sheet covering him. “I just laid there. Afraid whoever it was would shoot again. So I played dead.” He met Pete’s gaze, his eyes wide with pain and sorrow. “I played dead. Because I was scared. I let Barry die because I was too scared to move.”

  Pete reached over to place a comforting hand on Curtis’s uninjured shoulder. “According to the coroner, he bled out fast. T
he bullet tore him up so bad inside, nothing you could’ve done would have made a difference.”

  “I could have kept him from dying alone, lying in the dirt.”

  “Or you could have died with him.”

  Curtis turned his head away. “Right now, I don’t care.”

  Pete withdrew his hand. Survivor’s guilt was a powerful thing. “Okay, but you didn’t die. You’re still here. Help me catch the son of a bitch who did this.”

  “I would if I could.” Curtis met Pete’s gaze again. “But I didn’t see shit.”

  “Did you hear anything?”

  “Things got fuzzy pretty quick. I must have passed out from blood loss.” Curtis rubbed his head as if trying to massage away the fog. “But…now that you mention it, yeah. Far off. I remember thinking someone was revving up a chainsaw to cut wood.”

  “A chainsaw?”

  “I don’t know. Could’ve been a weed whacker. Or a dirt bike.”

  “How about another quad?”

  “A quad? Yeah.” Curtis nodded. “Yeah. Could be.”

  “Anything else?”

  He thought for a long moment. “No. Sorry.”

  Pete jotted in his notebook. “Can you think of anyone who might’ve wanted to kill you or Barry or anyone else on the ambulance service?”

  The question appeared to puzzle him. “No.”

  “Has anyone made any threats?”

  Curtis shook his head.

  “Any disgruntled patients or patients’ families?”

  “No.”

  “Can you think of any patients you or anyone else with the county EMS lost that maybe you shouldn’t have lost? Or that the family members felt you shouldn’t have lost?”

  Curtis’s brow furrowed as he pondered the question. “I can’t think of anyone.”

  Pete paused for a moment before asking the next one. “What can you tell me about Snake Sullivan?”

  The paramedic stiffened. “Snake?”

  Before Curtis could say more, Pete’s cell phone rang. He jerked it from his pocket. Caller ID showed the call was coming from his station. Probably one of the men reporting in with lab results. He pressed ignore. “Yeah. Snake,” he said, pocketing the phone.