Raney & Levine

by J. A. Schneider

  The nylon curtains parted, and Charlie Ortega stuck his head in. “MacIntyre called again. Checking on Jill’s status.”

  “I told him she was okay,” David said, sounding drained.

  Ramu looked in too. “He’s got a woman dilated to seven centimeters. Mackey’s got one ready to pop.”

  “You should go up,” David told them. “Thanks. Where’s Phipps?”

  “Already with Mackey. Sends his love.”

  Jill tried to pull herself up and sent them a little wave. Her hip ached as if she’d been hit by a truck.

  “Oww.” She dropped her head back on the pillow.

  “Your hip?” Holloway rose and palpated the area.

  Jill groaned.

  “I saw this. You’re all black and blue there. Strained muscles,” he said, poking.

  “Stop that or die,” Jill hissed.

  Holloway grinned. The others cracked smiles too.

  Tricia asked, “Did you grow a new sense of humor?”

  Jill locked eyes with her. “Something like that basement? You either learn to laugh like a loon or go stark raving.”

  Holloway’s cell phone buzzed. Another woman was just brought in in premature labor, try to stop it. He, Woody, and Trish had to go.

  Hugs that hurt. Jill reached her hand out, and Trish squeezed it hard. Woody did too, and Holloway gave her a gentle shoulder punch.

  The curtains had barely closed behind them when they swished open again.

  Pappas, Alex, and Keri came in.

  “Oh, pale!” Keri said, coming to Jill’s side.

  Alex came up on Jill’s other side, smiled fondly at her, and compared head bandages with her. David didn’t look thrilled with that fond smile. He felt worse than he had minutes ago. Gave Pappas his seat and stood with his arms folded, back to the wall and the unused IV.

  Pappas patted Jill’s arm. “Déjà vu all over again, huh? Three months.”

  “Three and a half.”

  “Okay, okay.” He looked tired and frustrated as he got out his notes. Then met Jill’s eyes. “We’ve gone over the recordings from your medallion, and one thing stands out.”

  He inhaled. “In the church Nash thought he really had you. Was ready to kill you, strangle you, but first he wanted to brag. And what did he say?”

  Pappas glanced at his notes, then read. “’Wasn’t I smart to leave my church’s door unbolted? So I could come and go as I pleased?’”

  The detective looked up, his expression more frustrated. “Nothing about having murdered those women. Women he told you in his room that he scorned and considered hell-bound. Which is especially significant since he revealed outside, dragging you, that he had indeed recognized you.”

  Pappas looked down and read Nash’s first utterance: “’I’ll cut her. SHE is responsible for that devil child! Approach and her blood will spill AS IT SHOULD!’”

  Brand stood unhappily with his arms folded. Keri, on a stool, stared grimly at Jill’s bloody cotton swabs.

  Hearing Nash’s words repeated, Jill’s mind flared it all back again, the nightmare kaleidoscope. David saw her expression change and stepped closer to her, gripped her hand. It was cold.

  “So!” Pappas said, startling Jill back. “Do we have a confession? Nash wanted wildly to brag - and ‘I left the door unbolted’ was the most he came up with?”

  “We’re still nowhere,” Brand said gloomily. “No bragged admission when the" – he paused – “presumed killer thought he was safe. And every crime scene gave us nothing. No prints, DNA, evidence…and nothing sexual.”

  Pappas looked from Jill to David. “Especially frustrating because, thanks to you two, we’ve got both Walshes’ prints, Dara’s DNA from her sweating hands on the sweetener bowl, plus brother Brian’s jacket fibers that showed no evidence of having been in that alley - also no help legally because he could claim he visited Jenna on another occasion. She’s not alive to say otherwise. And what she told the Sutters is hearsay.”

  Jill stared at nothing, looking disappointed.

  “Now we even have Ralph Nash’s DNA,” Keri said. “He was bleeding from lacerations when they brought him here. We arrested him, read him his rights, he had no problem with our getting a blood sample, but we have nothing to match it to. He’s not in the system.”

  Jill groaned, looking so discouraged that Pappas held up a hand.

  “Wait,” he said, looking intently at her. “Thanks to your visit down there we’ve got Nash’s computer, his emails. There were lots between him and both Walshes.” The detective’s gaze sharpened. “Dara also forwarded to Ralph the two emails you sent her. You signed yours ‘Desperate?’ Ralph might have noticed that your Christine-signed emails to him had the same address.”

  “Duh,” Jill grimaced.

  “How could you have known?” Alex consoled. “And Nash’s emails are a bonanza. They prove that all three knew each other, shared the same hatred of surrogates, and were members of that church campaign.”

  David frowned at Pappas. “And shared the same list of women? You got that photo of Jill’s I sent you of Dara showing up for her SurroMom appointment?”

  The detective nodded. “Shared the lists, yes. They were finding their victims on that web site.” He shook his head again. “So who did the killing? Doesn’t sound like it was Nash, but we have no solid proof of that either.”

  The cubicle fell into fretful silence. From adjoining ER cubicles and the wide hall outside came sounds of voices, moans, beeping monitors, and an occasional dog barking. The dog sounds had a chilling effect.

  Inside the cubicle, the silence stretched.

  Then Jill blinked and said, “I almost forgot. I’ve got more useless-for-now DNA for you.” She pointed to her wet jacket hanging from a hook. “Nash bloodied Rick Burrell’s nose. In my pocket are tissues I used to help him wipe it.”

  Keri was up fast, pulling on gloves and getting the tissues into a small plastic bag. “Couldn’t hurt,” she said; and Pappas asked Jill, “Describe Burrell. Attitude, body language.”

  “Ordinary, late thirties, bored, dissatisfied with his bowling abilities but glad to be improving.” Jill shrugged. Her head hurt. “Nash’s other nurse, Greg Clark, is more muscular than Burrell, who’s wiry. There wasn’t a whole lot going on behind either of their eyes that I could see.”

  She suddenly remembered her medallion and fingered it, looking from Alex to Keri.

  “Don’t you want this back?”

  “Keep it longer,” Alex said.

  Pappas blew air out his cheeks, patted Jill’s arm again, and rose. By the cubicle entrance, the three detectives hesitated.

  “If you see or hear anything, let us know,” Pappas said gravely. “I’m thinking the killer’s still out there, scoping his next victim or…this hospital, somehow.”

  Jill and David knew he was remembering yesterday, in the neurosurgery hall showing them the threat left on Nikki Sheehan’s pillow: “The devil’s spawn and his workshop MUST BE DESTROYED!”

  Now Pappas inhaled, fretfully bunching some of the cubicle curtain in his hand as if he could take it with him, keep it safe.

  “Stay sharp,” he said heavily, looking back. “A smart psycho is resourceful. There could be ways to sneak explosives past the dogs.”

  David squeezed Jill’s shoulder. “God forbid,” he said.

  33

  When they were alone, he got her into a new scrub top, threw her bloodied one into a bin, and helped her stiffly off the exam table.

  “Can you stand?” he asked her gently, his hands under her arms.

  He let go, and she stood, trying to be stoic. “Damned hip hurts.”

  “Percocet kicking in?”

  “Yeah.” She managed a weak smile. Lifted her arms around his neck and hugged him. “Come fly with me.”

  “Come sleep with me.” He took her in his arms and dropped his face to the crook of her neck. “I so hated this.” His voice was muffled. “Went nuts not being there, then really lost it when I he
ard about the church, an ambulance on its way – I couldn’t believe it.”

  “Ditto. Me in an ambulance, I can’t believe it either.” She squeezed him tighter. The arms worked, at least. Her eyes were closed against his warmth, but the mind started up again. She found herself frowning. “How could someone get explosives past the dogs?”

  “Dunno.” He pulled away slightly, looking down, inhaling. “Okay, you’re standing, great. Now let’s see if you can walk.”

  She did. Put one foot in front of the other, looking like she was fearfully walking a tightrope. “Oh look,” she said with weak brightness. “Two steps.”

  “Do two more. Do four.”

  She did just two, then gripped his arm. “Damned hip. Hurts a lot.”

  He bent and palpated where Jim Holloway had.

  She sucked air in under her teeth and pushed his hand away. “Yikes.”

  “I think we should get this X-rayed,” he said.

  The timing was good, because the curtains swished open, and one of the surgical interns poked in.

  “Is this one free yet?” she asked. “We’ve got a gunshot coming.”

  After a brief semi-dispute - “What are you going to do? Hop up there on one foot?” – David got Jill looking peeved into a wheelchair. And into the mostly empty staff elevator, and up to Radiology on the fourth floor.

  He had called ahead, requesting stat. The X-ray tech was waiting in her green, heavy lead apron by the table, and they got Jill onto it, on her back.

  “Shield my ovaries!” Jill said; David and the tech both said, yes, yes, as the tech laid a rectangular, heavy lead drape over Jill’s lower abdomen.

  “Don’t you worry honey,” the tech soothed, sliding the conical X-ray tube along its ceiling track. Her nametag read Sherry Burke.

  David told her, “I want to screen for a fracture or fragment dislocation,” and filled out the requisition form while Sherry, smiling encouragingly, X-rayed first a frontal view of Jill’s hip, then bent to change the cassette.

  “Next part’s going to hurt a little,” Sherry said, sweetly apologetic as she got Jill to roll onto her side, injured side down, closest to the film.

  Jill gritted her teeth; held her breath until the second film was taken. Seconds later she was on her back again, then David helped her into a sitting position with her head down, feet hanging off the edge.

  “You okay?” he asked, bending to her slightly and trying to catch her eye.

  “Yeah, peachy.” She seemed suddenly abstracted; was fiddling with the rectangular lead drape.

  “Amazing,” she said, hefting it. “This is the smallest drape and it’s so heavy. It’s only, what? Twelve by thirty inches, roughly? Seems like it weighs a ton.”

  “For radiation protection. It’s made of lead.” David looked up to greet a radiology resident named Andy Chow who’d just come trotting in, apologizing for being late, his running shoe laces flopping. The X-rays were ready and both of them clipped the films into the viewer box to examine them.

  Sherry, seeing Jill still fiddling with the drape, stuck a thumb into her thick green apron. It covered from her chest to her knees, like long, weighty overalls. “You think that’s heavy?” she said. “This damn thing weighs twenty pounds.”

  “Twenty pounds!”

  “Feels more like fifty. It’s pure lead filaments inside and I gotta wear it all day. Well, it beats getting radiated.”

  By the viewer box, Andy Chow turned. “Hey Jill, good news. You’ve got maybe a hairline fracture in the shaft of your femur. It’s so thin I can barely see it.”

  She looked at him, relieved. David scowled at the film and Andy pointed to it. “You can walk on it,” he said. “Just don’t run or ice skate and take it easy for a few days. No plaster or brace needed, maybe a crutch if you get extra achy. Use pain reliever if needed, and no more falling through floors, okay? Deal?”

  Jill promised not to fall through any more floors.

  They thanked him. Andy gave a cheery wave back, and off he jogged.

  As David helped Jill limp out, Sherry nudged her arm. “Pain reliever if needed?” she scoffed. “You give yourself good stuff, hear?”

  “Already am.” Jill gave a goofy grin and jerked her thumb to David. “He started me on Percocet.”

  “Give her more,” Sherry told him sternly.

  They both needed to see Jesse.

  The little guy was sleeping, his curled fist to his face, under his blue blanket in his isolette. Jill settled in the rocking chair and cradled him. After long, nightmare hours it felt so good to hold him; Jesse was comforting her. David pulled his chair close, and ran a gentle finger down the baby’s cheek. The nursery was softly lit, a place of innocence with pictures of lambs and puppies on the wall.

  A nurse just leaving smiled at them. “He’s all fed and changed,” she said. “Hoovered his formula and just went back to sleep. He’s so easy.”

  Then the nurse remembered. It had been on TV and all over the hospital and the media. “Oh!” She looked at Jill. “How are you?”

  “Achy,” Jill told her. “Really achy.”

  “Been there,” the nurse said. “Fell off the garage roof trying to get my kid’s Wiffle ball. Not too smart, huh? Well, feel better fast. I think it feels better to move. That’s what I did.”

  She smiled and left.

  Silence again, long, blessed moments of it. “Wiffle balls,” David said finally. Inhaled. “Can you picture Jesse old enough to start flinging balls around?”

  “I so want to.”

  She handed the baby to him. He grinned, cradling him, adjusting the little blue blanket. Jesse squirmed, and a tiny fist came out. David held it, and smiled down at the sleeping little face as if he’d never held a newborn before.

  Like a new dad.

  Jill leaned closer. Said yearningly, “I so want to adopt him.”

  David said nothing, still holding the warm bundle, the tiny fist.

  “Others are clamoring for him. If we don’t speak up…”

  Conflicting emotions crossed David’s face. He swallowed hard. “I cannot imagine someone else going off with him,” he said softly. “Walking away with him.” A troubled hesitation. “But-”

  “I know. We’re targets for every weirdo. With us, he gets recognized, targeted, maybe bullied as he grows up.” Jill raised her hands helplessly. “But maybe less as the world gets used to…him, to this thing that Cliff Arnett did. You heard that patient Kim the Lawyer ask if this could be done for her?”

  “It’ll be ages before they figure how Arnett did it.”

  “Who ever believed man would walk on the moon?”

  David’s cell phone chirped. He twisted so Jill could get it out of his pocket.

  She listened, her features suddenly dropping to beyond exhaustion. “Emergency,” she sighed, giving David his phone back. “Urgent.”

  Their respite had lasted barely twenty minutes. Reluctantly, they put Jesse back in his isolette, and hurried past the uniformed nursery guard and the young cop seated just outside with his sleeping Shepherd.

  The dog was instantly awake, eyeing them warily.

  “It’s okay, Maverick,” the cop told him, giving them a little wave. Maverick put his head back down.

  Overhead in the hall, the PA was softly calling their names. Urgent, urgent…

  Adrenalin spiked, and Jill moved fast by favoring her good leg. It created a lurching effect.

  The elevator got them speedier than usual to the teeming ER. Jill lurched stoically behind David. He glanced back and couldn’t restrain a little snicker.

  “You look like Quasimodo.”

  “It feels better to move. It’s not like I rolled off a garage.”

  34

  The wrenching scene they never got used to: red and blue lights flashing, beep beep as the ambulance backed up to the ER dock. EMTs opened the ambulance doors and rushed in to a gurney laden with someone suffering, bleeding, maybe dying.

  “Wait here,” David said, rushi
ng out to help get the gurney through Emergency’s double sliding doors. One EMT, holding up the IV, yelled, “Abdominal stab wound, patient female, airway open, pulse 140, blood pressure 150/90, respiration 26, head trauma.”

  Abdominal stab wound and head trauma? David reached Jill and they traded looks.

  She lurched alongside as they got the gurney into a cubicle. The woman was semi-conscious, her face smeared with blood from a gash to her head. With the IV in place and her vitals known, David ordered two tubes of blood drawn: one for the hemoglobin and hematocrit, the other for type and cross match.

  “Any I.D.?” he said through his mask, his gloved hands examining the stabbed belly, moving his stethoscope carefully over it. His breath caught. “She’s about three months pregnant. There’s still a fetal heartbeat.”

  Another tense glance to Jill, swabbing blood from the woman’s face.

  Her expression had turned to dread.

  “What’s this?” David again.

  He was running his gloved fingertips over the belly’s bloody surface. “I’m feeling some sort of particles in the blood.”

  Fast, he yanked the needle off a syringe, drew up three cc’s of blood, emptied the syringe into a test tube, and ordered it sent up to the Hematology lab. “Determine nature of granules found in blood,” he dictated to a nurse, who filled out the tube’s label and ran out with it.

  Jaw clenched, he asked the second nurse to carefully collect the woman’s clothes, shoes, and her purse the EMTs had brought in.

  Jill suddenly stopped what she was doing.

  “David,” she breathed.

  He raised his eyes to her.

  She was blinking down at the woman, a gauze pad bright with blood in her hand.

  “It’s…” She looked at him, her eyes wide, incredulous. “Dara Walsh.”

  He stepped closer, removing his stethoscope.

  “Dara?” he said, stunned. “What in hell-”

  The curtains flew open and Sam MacIntrye ran in. “Got your call, we just finished upstairs,” he said in a rush. Then frowned, read their expressions. “What?”

  They told him, and his jaw dropped. “Dara Walsh?”