The door to the secret stairway slid open with a whoosh, and Mel stepped out into the hallway. She brandished a .45 just like the fake cop on the seventy’s melodrama Gavin had been watching last night.
“Drop it, God damn it!”
Tracy swung her pistol around and fired a wild shot. Louise pulled away from her toward Stanley’s office. Mel dropped to the floor and clicked off a wild shot of her own.
I squeezed the trigger of my gun. My shot hit Tracy in the chest, just left of center.
She slumped sideways against the wall and grabbed at the wound in her chest. Red bloomed on the front of her shirt and then blood trickled in rivulets through and over her fingers.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Louise stumble and fall in the doorway of the office.
“Louise? Jesus, what’s wrong?”
I knelt next to her.
“My leg,” she said through pain—gritted teeth.
I looked down.
There on the front of her pants was a growing red spot. The stray bullet from Mel’s gun had hit Louise in the thigh just under her hip.
“Oh God.”
I reached into my coat pocket, pulled out my cell phone, and punched speed dial nine.
“911 emergency.”
“This is Detective O’Brien with the St. Paul Police Department. Badge number one, two, two, five. I have an officer and two civilians down with gunshot wounds.
One’s been hit in the thigh, one in the chest, and the other . . ..”
I crawled over to Mel. Thank God she was still breathing.
“The other’s been hit in the shoulder. We’re at the Stanley and Forster offices at Fourth Street and Market downtown.”
The thudding of my heart in my chest reverberated up my neck to my ears and nearly drowned out what the operator was saying.
“We’ve had several calls from your location of shots fired, Officer O’Brien,” he said. “Do you need any back up?”
“No. The shooter is down.”
I took my jacket off and used it to stanch the blood oozing from Mel’s shoulder. She was conscious enough to hold it in place.
“We just need an ambulance as quick as they can get here.”
I crawled back to put direct pressure on the hole in Louise’s leg.
“An ambulance has been dispatched,” the emergency operator said.
The blood covered from the top of Louise’s pants to her knee. God, I hoped the bullet hadn’t hit an artery.
Louise took a deep breath, blinked twice, and then passed out.
“Please tell them to hurry.”
“They’re on their way.”
I threw the phone down.
“Damn it, Louise, you wake up!”
I unhooked the shoulder strap from my purse, looped it around her leg and pulled it as tight as I could to stop the bleeding. For good measure I pressed the heel of my hand to the wound.
“Louise? Louise, wake up!”
Chapter Twenty One
The sound of a snowplow rumbling in the distance, pricked at the edge of my consciousness.
A snowplow? That didn’t make any sense. It was too late in the spring for a snowplow. Wasn’t it?
The rolling growl sounded again. Was it the rumble of thunder. No it was too high pitched.
“O’Brien.”
A man’s voice hammered into my consciousness and mingled with the high—pitched thunder.
“Damn it, O’Brien, wake up.”
I rubbed my bleary eyes and the chief’s large form fuzzed into focus.
What was the chief doing in my bedroom? That’s a little inappropriate. What on earth would possess Gavin to let the chief in to wander around the house?
Harsh white walls and bright white lights blared around him.
The rumbling started again. I glanced around to see if I could identify the sound.
A man in a blue hospital uniform pushed a laundry cart down the hallway, stopping at each room. The wheels created a high—pitched rumble. There was my mysterious snowplow.
“Louise is out of surgery, O’Brien,” the chief said.
That’s right, I’m at the hospital. Louise was shot.
I swallowed a wave of nausea.
“Are you coming?” he asked and walked away from me, down the hall.
I stumbled after him as best I could. My legs had turned to spaghetti after falling asleep, stretched out on the hard hospital waiting room chairs.
As I trailed behind the chief, I realized for the first time, that he had the gait of an old man.
How old was he anyway? Was he close to retiring? I couldn’t picture it—he was too goddamned stubborn to retire.
“Pick it up, O’Brien,” he called over his shoulder. “Visiting hours will be over in an hour.”
I jogged up next to him. We finally stopped outside one of the doors that lined the sterile white hallway.
“After you,” he said.
Another wave of nausea rolled over me. Maybe the antiseptic smell was making me sick, or maybe it was the guilt I felt and was trying to deny.
I should have done something sooner. If I had taken the first shot, Louise wouldn’t have been shot. Or so said my guilt riddled mind.
“What are you waiting for, O’Brien?”
“Nothing.”
I cracked the door, then hesitated.
“Well, go in,” he said.
I was frozen.
“Go.” He pushed me inside.
The first thing I noticed was that Louise’s braids were snarled up and some of her hair had been pulled free and matted to her face. Funny—I think it’s the first time I’d ever seen her hair out of place.
For some reason, I think that if I had seen Louise stark naked, I would have been less shocked than seeing her with her hair messed up.
The hospital bed overwhelmed her thin, pallid frame. She looked like a child in her parents’ bed.
I stood next to her, put my hand on hers, and squeezed.
The weight pressing down on my chest lifted when Louise squeezed back.
“Catherine,” she whispered.
“Yes Louise, it’s me.” I tried to sound cheerful. “Chief’s here too.”
She rolled her head toward me. “Getting shot really hurts, Catherine.”
The chief let out a huge belly laugh that ended in a snort.
“You don’t have to tell O’Brien about being shot.” He pointed at me. “You have more bullet holes in you than any other officer in our department, O’Brien.”
“It happens,” I said. “It’s part of the job. Besides who’s keeping track.”
“I am.” He thumped his barrel chest. “So is the safety commission.”
Louise pushed herself back and tried to sit upright.
I put my hand on her shoulder, pushed her back down, and handed her the remote control for the bed. She raised the head of the bed.
“Well, this is a first for me.”
She winced and stopped the bed at a forty—five—degree angle.
“What happened to Tracy and Mel?” she asked.
“Mel is a few doors down,” I said. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to her yet.”
“What do you want to talk about?”
Mel rolled through the door in a wheelchair pushed by a gorgeous male nurse. I’d been shot three times and I’d never had a good—looking male nurse. I always had female nurses who wanted to bond with me about their children or their aging parents.
“Hey,” I said. “Should you be out of bed yet?”
“Oh sure, the bullet only grazed my upper arm.”
She lifted the sleeve of her gown. A large square of gauze had been taped on her bicep.
“They’re only keeping me overnight because I told them they had to. Damn hospitals are in too big of a hurry to send patients home. What if I got an infection or something?”
Her nurse rolled his eyes and shook his head. He set the break on her wheelchair and told her he’d be back in a few minutes to tak
e her back to her room.
Mel waved him away. “Now that we’re alone, what did you want to ask me?”
“How did you know what was happening in the hallway?” I asked.
“The cameras,” she said. “Remember when we saw the tape of Forster’s murder?”
Louise and I nodded.
“I’d just cracked a Diet Coke, when I saw you, O’Brien, backing up with a gun in your hand.”
She held her fingers up to mimic my stance in the hallway.
“I thought, what the hell is she up to? I couldn’t see what you were aiming at. Then Tracy stepped into the frame holding Louise at gunpoint. That’s when I knew I had to do something.”
For some reason I felt just a little rejected by the fact that she didn’t feel the need to do something when she saw me. I shoved the feeling aside, and chided myself for not having a little more perspective on the situation.
Mel leaned forward and patted Louise’s hand.
“I’m sorry I shot you, kiddo,” she said. “I didn’t think Tracy would shoot me. It really took me by surprise, and I must have pulled the trigger.”
Louise waved off the apology. “Don’t even think about it. It was an accident.”
“Thanks kiddo.” Mel smiled.
“You didn’t tell me,” Louise said. “What happened to Tracy?”
Chief cleared his throat. “She didn’t make it. She died en route. Apparently O’Brien’s shot nicked her heart. She never had a chance.”
The ache of guilt returned to my chest. I’d been so focused on what was happening to Louise, I hadn’t even bothered to ask about what had happened to Tracy.
“It was clean shooting, chief,” Louise said. “I have no doubt she would have killed all three of us if Catherine hadn’t shot her.”
Mel nodded. “She did try to kill me, and we’ve got it all on video tape if you have any doubts.”
“Settle down,” the chief said and held up both hands in a stance of surrender. “I’m sure it was justified, but there will be an investigation as a matter of procedure.”
I nodded my understanding.
“Until the investigation is over, O’Brien will be on administrative leave.”
This was the first time I had killed a suspect. I didn’t know how to feel. Tracy was a murderer after all, who would have killed me and my partner, I was sure.
Still a small ache of sadness ran through me.
“It’s too bad,” I said. “I understand why she killed Nathan Stanley. And I don’t believe she wanted to kill Forster. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Tracy was disturbed and confused, but I liked her.”
Three disbelieving faces stared back at me.
“Well, when she was normal she was a really nice person.”
Louise nodded. “She was nice. She was just unable to cope when she learned what Stanley was doing.”
“The person you killed wasn’t Tracy,” Mel said. “Tracy was a good, and decent person. The person who shot me wasn’t Tracy. At least that’s not how I will choose to remember her.”
“Well, O’Brien, we need to let these women get some rest,” Chief said. “I’ll give you a ride to the station for debriefing. Then you are on administrative leave until the investigation into the shooting is over.”
I nodded and squeezed Louise’s hand.
“You get better fast,” I said. “I don’t think he can manage without at least one of us to kick around.”
“You got it.” She pulled me close. “Any chance you could get me my phone? The nurse won’t let me have it.”
I went to the closet and rummaged through her personal belongings bag until I came up with her phone. I handed her the phone.
“Thank you.” She looked a little more like the Louise I knew in the glow of her phone.
“Yeah, well don’t say I never gave you anything.”
I pressed the button for the elevator and heard a ding. That is exactly how an elevator should sound.
The door slid open and Digs stepped out. In his hands he carried a huge bouquet of multi—colored wild flowers, wrapped in purple tissue paper. Purple just happens to be Louise’s favorite color.
“Oh, chief,” he said.
Red crept up his neck and disappeared into his hairline.
“I didn’t realize you were still here.
“Hey Digs,” I said.
He lowered the flowers, and peered at me over the top, with his glasses—enlarged eyes. “Oh, O’Brien I didn’t see you. I’m a . . .”
“Nice flowers,” I said and took a whiff of a pink one I couldn’t identify, but what the hell did I know about flowers?
“Um, yeah, thanks, O’Brien.”
He examined the oversized pink bow that wrapped around the tissue paper holding it in place. Digs fussed with and fluffed the loops so they stood at attention.
Chief and I stepped into the elevator. Digs just stood there fiddling with the damned bow.
“Hey, Digs.”
He looked up at me.
“Room three fourteen.”
As the doors closed, I saw him head in the direction of Louise’s room.
Stranger things had happened. Though he might have more luck if he’d brought her a cell phone charger. Still, I couldn’t wait to see where this relationship would go.
Chapter Twenty Two
Six hours of debriefing waited for me back at the office. Debriefing was too kind of a word for what I was subjected to. It was more like six hours of Soviet cold war era interrogation.
My “interviewers” demanded to know if I thought there was anything I could have done different to prevent the shooting.
I understood that the debriefing had to be done, but I was dog—assed tired. All I wanted was to go home, hold my husband, and cry. It was my way of decompressing.
They asked the same questions repeatedly, changing the wording in a careful calculated method each time. A sly attempt to trip me up, to make me slip and admit that the shooting was avoidable.
I don’t know why they couldn’t just watch the video and make the decision of my guilt or innocents for themselves. In the end, that’s what they were going to do anyway. It wouldn’t matter what I had to say.
They must have finally come to the conclusion that, at least in my mind, I was telling them the truth. After the last recounting of the events at Stanley and Forster, my interrogators let me go home.
On my drive home the only thing I could think of was a long, hot shower, and a long night snuggled up next to Gavin.
Gavin. He was going to be so upset to find out I was involved in a shooting. There would be no way to get away with not telling him. He’d figure out something was up when I didn’t go to work in the morning, or the next morning, or the morning after that.
The next few days would be filled with more arguments about me leaving the force or worse yet, taking a desk job. I mentally prepared myself for the battle ahead.
I pulled up and slowed to a stop in front of the house. All the lights were blazing upstairs and down. The old Victorian looked like a float in the Holidazzle Parade.
“What the hell is going on?”
I parked the Charger on the street out front, instead of taking the time to drive around through the alley to our garage behind the house.
“Do we own electric company stock or something?”
I stalked up the sidewalk to the front door. I found my key, unlocked the door, and swung it open into the entryway.
Boxes littered every inch of the foyer, like a minefield.
“Gavin?”
No one answered.
“Gavin, honey?” I called louder and slammed the door.
If he didn’t hear me, he’d at least know I was home. Our heavy oak front door shook the whole house, and rattled the photos on every wall when you slammed it hard enough.
“I’m upstairs, honey.”
I wove my way through the boxes and jogged up the steps to the second floor landing.
“Honey, are
we moving?” I called. “And did you forget to tell me?”
“I’m in the bedroom,” he yelled.
I tripped over another little box sitting outside the bedroom door.
“What the hell is all this stuff, Gavin? Oh, God. My mother isn’t having a garage sale again is she?”
Gavin was a fiend when anyone mentioned having a garage sale. He cleared out everything he considered to be useless, which sometimes included things I found very useful indeed.
The last time he had packed up a purse that still had money and lipstick tucked into a pocket. Thank God my mother found it before someone bought the purse or it was carted off to the Goodwill.
I turned the corner into our bedroom and stopped in my tracks.
Gavin stood in the middle of the bedroom floor in hip waders. He held a fishing rod in each hand, and on his head sat a floppy hat with lures sticking out all over the place.
“You are out of your damn mind.”
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“No one really dresses like that, do they? You look stupid.”
“The fish won’t think I look stupid.”
He walked toward me, and the waders made a weird rubber farting sound.
“What fish?” I said. “And why are you dressed like a field and stream nightmare?”
“I called the station to find out where you were, because you weren’t answering your cell phone.”
I’d turned it off at the hospital and forgotten to turn it back on.
Gavin stepped over a suitcase on the floor and kissed my forehead.
“I’m glad you’re okay, by the way.”
“Thanks for the heart—felt concern, dear.”
“Anyway, they told me you were being debriefed and that afterwards you would be on administrative leave, beginning immediately.”
I felt more than a mild case of annoyance that he wasn’t about to argue with me about quitting my job. After I had prepared myself and everything.
He stomped back over the suitcase with his rubber—farting pants and threw a pair of my jeans and a few of my t—shirts into the case.
A Grand Murder Page 18