Force of Habit: A Falcone & Driscoll Investigation

by Alice Loweecey

“They’re right behind me. What did you—”

  “Coming through. Excuse me.” Paul Bunyan in uniform ducked the doorjamb and walked into the bedroom. He looked at Giulia, then Sandra’s body, then Urnu still unconscious at Hogarth’s feet. “Who’s urgent?”

  “Right here.” Frank stepped aside. “I did what I could with towels.”

  “All right, miss, let’s have a look.” He untied Giulia’s bathrobe and pulled away a bloody yellow-checked dishtowel from her ribs. “Doug, water and gauze.”

  Giulia hadn’t noticed Little Richard behind Paul Bunyan. Rock stars didn’t moonlight as EMTs. I’m tired. How can I be tired? It’s not even seven o’clock... is it?

  Water-soaked gauze squelched against her. “Whoa—cold.”

  Paul Bunyan pressed the bandage against the injury and wiped along its length. “Sorry, miss, gotta assess the damage.” He removed it and wound fresh, damp gauze around her. “Not deep, just long. They’ll glue you together at the ER in a snap.”

  He had the gentlest touch, even through the squeaky rubber gloves. She stopped tensing every muscle. “I did a number on my hands, too.”

  The smaller technician repeated the water-and-gauze treatment. “Stitches for these, miss. But they’re not that bad. In a couple weeks you’ll be playing the violin again.”

  Giulia blinked. “I play the flute.”

  The tall one laughed. “She got you, Doug! Miss, no one’s ever called him on that lame joke. Congratulations.”

  “But I do play the flute.”

  Doug laughed, too. “Ted, I think the lady is still shook up. Come on, miss. Let’s get you and your friend on the floor to the hospital.”

  Giulia drew back. “Not together.”

  Frank stopped talking to Hogarth. “Jimmy’ll ride with you, Giulia. You’ll be safe.”

  A uniformed cop rolled a groaning Urnu face up. The cop whistled. “Helluva nose job on this one. Rise and shine, emo-boy.” He pushed Urnu into a sitting position and handcuffed him.

  “Let’s have a look.” Ted squatted in front of him and probed his mashed face.

  Urnu said, “Bitch broke my nose.” He glared at Ted. “Get your hands off me, asshole.”

  Ted snapped a chemical cold pack into life. “She sure did. Bleeding’s pretty much stopped, Russ. Just let me strap this on him and he’s all yours.” Doug handed Ted more gauze. Urnu yelled and cursed and tried to butt Ted with his shoulders.

  “This is why I love my job.” Ted stood and grinned. “Enjoy the trip, Russ.”

  The uniformed officer grinned back as he hauled Urnu to his feet. “Thanks for nothing, Ted. Let’s go, emo-boy.”

  “Piss off.” He spat blood at Giulia. “Gonna make you pay, bitch.”

  Giulia flinched and wanted to kick herself for it. Frank took a step after Urnu, but Hogarth’s hand fell on his shoulder and he stopped.

  The cop shoved Urnu’s back. “Shut up.” Urnu tripped over one of the broken door hinges and cursed again.

  Doug put one arm around Giulia’s shoulders and the other beneath her elbow. “Here we go, miss. Up on your feet. Dizzy?”

  “No... no. I’m okay.”

  “Good. Let me help you with this bathrobe. There you go. I’ll just tie it closed... Can your friend bring some clothes along for you?”

  “Got it.” Frank dug sweats and a T-shirt from Giulia’s closet. “Where’s your underwear, Giulia?”

  She grimaced. So much for a woman’s mystique. Like it mattered. Like she mattered. “Top dresser drawer.”

  Blake cleared his throat. “Excuse me.”

  Ted snapped on a fresh pair of gloves. “Sorry, sir, got caught up in all that blood. Let’s have a look at your neck.” Doug left Giulia’s side to hand water and gauze to Ted, then went out.

  “Not bad at all.” Ted’s cleaning sent a trail of water down Blake’s shirt. “Just needs a stitch or two.”

  Doug returned with a stretcher. It wouldn’t fit through the broken bedroom door, so he came into the room and grasped Giulia’s elbow again. “I claim the privilege of escorting the lady to her conveyance.”

  “Wait a minute.” Ted stood toe to toe with Doug and spoke to the tops of his cornrows. “You’re barely as tall as the lady. I think height trumps first dibs.”

  Doug pushed Ted away with one finger. “I provide balance and security. Out of the way, overbearing one.”

  Giulia smiled. “Jack the giant-killer.”

  Doug laughed. Giulia avoided Frank’s eyes as she passed him. Why hadn’t he sneered at her yet?

  “I feel like you’re making too much of this—ow.” Giulia clutched at her side as Doug eased her onto the stretcher.

  “It’s our job to get you to the hospital no worse than when you left here. Ever drive over the potholes on the east side? You don’t want to bounce around the passenger seat of a car with that rib injury.” He pushed the stretcher into the hall. “All right, folks, let us through here.”

  Blanket tucked around her, Giulia rode past two dozen whispering adults. The twins were there, too, mouths open and water cannons dripping. She closed her eyes. Urnu might not be her biggest problem after all. Mrs. Bleeker already had Mr. Colombo by the arm, talking faster than humans ought to be able to. By tonight the story would grow into a wilder tale than anything on primetime TV. Maybe she’d get evicted because of all the damage. I’ll lose my security deposit for sure when the landlord sees my bedroom.

  The stretcher bumped out the street door. She could ask Ming-

  mei to get her clothes and books. That way she wouldn’t have to face anyone here again. There were cheaper apartment buildings. Someplace anonymous, in a different part of town... Her ribs burned... Where was her friend with the marijuana stash when she needed him?

  Ted appeared on her other side, and he and Doug lifted the stretcher into the ambulance.

  “Well, well. I get to be near you again.” Urnu’s voice, twanging and muffled from the cold pack strapped to his face.

  Giulia’s eyes snapped open.

  Captain Hogarth’s arm slammed Urnu against the opposite wall of the ambulance. “Let’s rehearse this again, Falke. You are under arrest. Anything you say can be used against you. That includes every word aimed at Ms. Falcone.”

  Urnu kept his green-gold eyes on Giulia. “All I have to do is wait, bitch. You won’t have protection forever.”

  Hogarth pulled Urnu’s head around by his long hair and put his nose right against Urnu’s lumpy gauze. “You’re only sitting up so you don’t choke on your own blood and I don’t have to fill out a pile of reports on why you died on the way to the hospital. If I had my way, you’d be cuffed facedown on this cot.”

  “I dare you, pig. I’ll come after you for attempted murder.”

  “You don’t have the balls, Falke. Listen up: if you say one more word to Ms. Falcone, our helpful EMTs can tape your mouth closed and you can figure out how to breathe through your ears. Or you can shut the hell up. Your choice.”

  Urnu flipped off Hogarth despite his manacled wrists and slumped against the wall.

  Hogarth smiled at Giulia. She closed her eyes and tried to drift, but Ted and Doug turned on the siren and she understood why Quasimodo went deaf. When she opened her eyes, Urnu was still staring at her, so she focused on Hogarth’s teddy-bear face.

  “Where’s Frank?” It hurt to yell.

  “Behind us. Your client needs stitches, too. Frank’s driving him.” Hogarth’s deep voice carried much easier than hers.

  “Oh... I forgot about him.” Self-pity tears formed in her eyes. “Not my client. Frank’s looking for a new partner.” Grow up, Giulia. Tough broads take their severance pay and find a new job. They don’t snivel over ex-bosses.

  Hogarth’s eyebrows merged over his nose. “Frank didn’t say anything about that.”

  Giulia tried to smile. “We had a disagreement. Parted ways and all those euphemisms.”

  The ambulance bumped over a pothole, then over several in a row. Giulia bounced and pr
essed her lips together. At least the siren was louder than her reflexive whimpers.

  They slowed and turned left. Hogarth peered between Ted’s and Doug’s heads. “Just pulling in the emergency entrance.”

  The siren stopped. Giulia’s ears rang from that aftermath now, rather than the gunshot.

  “You’re not—” Hogarth stopped and spoke at normal volume. “You’re not working for Frank anymore? Really? Call me tomorrow and we’ll schedule an interview. His loss is definitely Precinct 8’s gain.”

  The back doors opened.

  “Amazing, Ted. You still haven’t killed a patient with your driving.” Doug climbed in and unlocked Giulia’s gurney. “Here we go, miss. Doctor’s waiting inside.”

  Ted hefted the other end of the gurney. “Don’t listen to him, miss. Everyone applauds my driving.”

  “Yeah, when you stop and they escape intact.” Doug grinned upside-down at Giulia. “I’m the better driver, but he always beats me at arm wrestling. If I only had one of those robotic arms.”

  Over the hiss of the sliding glass doors into the emergency room, Giulia heard garbled PA announcements and a high female voice begging for another hit.

  “Hey, cop, where’s my sister?” Urnu kicked a green plastic chair the length of the room. “You arrest her, too?”

  “Shut up, Falke.” Hogarth wrestled Urnu into a pink plastic chair. “Doctor, please see to the lady first.”

  “Where’s my sister, dammit?” Urnu struggled under Hogarth’s grip.

  “Honey, I wish I could say I was happy to see you again.”

  Giulia recognized the fuchsia-nailed hands picking up her bandaged ones. “I wish I could, too.” She smiled. “First beer’s on me when you get off shift.”

  “Gimme a hit, dammit! I’m gettin’ the shakes. You gotta gimme some.” Two male nurses wrestled a screeching woman past the admissions desk. Giulia smelled body odor and Tabu. Only the thought of how much vomiting would hurt kept her homemade pizza in her stomach.

  The uniformed officer’s—Russ’s—voice reached her. “Ms. van Alstyne? This is Officer Colburn calling from Vandermark Memorial Hospital. Mr. Blake Parker... Please, ma’am, calm yourself. Mr. Parker is in no danger. He wondered if you’d be able to drive him home. He’s with the doctor now... Just a few stitches, ma’am. Thank you. I’ll tell—” A cell phone snapped shut. “She hung up, Mr. Parker. I bet she’s going to run every red light between her place and here.”

  “Driscoll—” Urnu grunted and another chair hit the floor. “What’d you do with my sister?”

  The nurse wheeled Giulia through the double doors into the exam room corridor.

  “Dead? No! No, she’s not! No!”

  The doors closed and spared Giulia more of Urnu’s hysteria.

  “Doctor’ll be here in a minute, honey. No, don’t sit up. What happened to your side?”

  “It’s kind of complicated.” Giulia gave her an arch look. “I refuse to say another word until I know your name. ‘Nurse Smith’ is too impersonal.”

  Nurse Smith laughed her warm belly laugh. “Mama named us all after operas. I have two sisters, Lucia and Norma. Me, I got Aida.”

  Giulia smiled. “I’m very pleased to meet you. I’m Giulia. My grandmother named her five children after the Mysteries of the Rosary.” She started to shake Aida’s hand. “Ow. Let’s treat the handshake as already done.”

  The meticulous doctor pushed through double doors at the opposite end of the corridor.

  “Room two,” Aida called to him.

  Giulia concentrated on his face as he cut through the crusty gauze on her ribs. One of her great-aunts had eyebrows that thin. Not by nature, either.

  Aida passed him water, a sponge, and disinfectant.

  Giulia hissed when the disinfectant touched her. More institutional smells. Gack.

  “Looks clean, honey.” Aida threw bloody gauze and sponges in the trash can behind her.

  “Indeed. I am always pleased when that particular team of emergency medical technicians brings in a patient. They halve my work. Glue, please, nurse.”

  Aida twisted off the cap from a small tube and handed it to him.

  Giulia raised her eyebrows. “That’s not the glue you buy at the drugstore, right?”

  “Everyone asks that, honey. This is the latest thing: surgical glue. Looks like that stuff the guy in the hard hat uses to hang from the girder, and applies the same way. But no stitches, and your body will absorb it in a few days.”

  “Steri-strips, nurse.” The doctor taped over the gash in two-inch intervals. “Now the patient’s hands, please.”

  He drenched the gauze on her right hand before removing it. “How did this injury occur?”

  Giulia had managed to put it out of her conscious mind. Now it threatened to drown her again. Sandra’s screaming face, Urnu’s curses, her arms weaker than Sandra’s, the knife closing in on her...

  “Miss?”

  She inhaled a long, shuddering breath. “Sorry. Um, a knife. Something like a switchblade.”

  “These require stitches.” He swabbed her palm with disinfectant and injected something. “A clean knife? Did you see any rust?”

  Oh, yes. Numb hand. Much better. “No, it was very shiny and scary sharp. After she got my ribs, she came at me from the front. She was a lot taller than me—ouch.”

  “I have only a few more stitches to complete, miss. However, if you desire more anesthetic I can accommodate you.”

  How could one simple sentence make her feel like such a wuss? “That’s okay. Go ahead.”

  Aida’s hand rested on Giulia’s head. Giulia smiled up at her. “I guess I grabbed at my side when she cut it and got blood all over me. When she tried to stab me, I reached for her wrists but my hands slipped and caught the knife blade instead.”

  “Yes, that explains the angle of the injury.” He walked around her to her other hand and poured water over that stiff gauze.

  “How’d you stop her, honey?” Aida applied antibiotic ointment to Giulia’s hand and wrapped the stitches in a thin layer of fresh gauze.

  Giulia looked away from the tiny needle shooting chilled liquid into her sliced palm.

  Her mother named her Aida? Well, better than my Aunt Cross-

  ifisa. That was some fast-acting anesthetic. She tried to ignore the weird curved needle and thread playing hide-and-seek with her skin.

  “My boss—ex-boss—broke in the door and shot her.” The needle hit the instrument tray, and Giulia stared at her stitched-up hands. “She fell on top of me. I couldn’t get her off because of my hands.”

  “Okay, honey. It’s okay. It’s all over now.”

  The doctor peeled off his disposable gloves. “The stitches can be removed in approximately ten days. Your primary physician’s office might be a shorter wait than returning here. If you see redness or pus on any of your injuries, return here or contact your primary immediately.” He typed into his laptop as he pushed open the door with his shoulder.

  Aida helped Giulia sit up. “How’s the ribs, honey?”

  “Ow. They burn a little, but it’s much better. My hands look useless.”

  “Not at all. Go ahead and bend them. Not too much. See? Your fingers work fine.”

  “Good thing I take the bus to work.” Giulia attempted a penitent expression. “I broke his nose. The guy they brought in with me.”

  Aida cocked her head. “You don’t look like the violent type, honey.”

  “Remember why I was in here last time? The attempted rape in the park? That was him, too.”

  The bright fuchsia lips parted, then grinned. “Honey, I’d high-five you if your hands could take it. How’d you catch him?”

  “Long story. That reminds me—I have to tell the police what happened.” Giulia looked at her blue bathrobe, splattered with dried blood. “Not like this.”

  “Did your friend bring some clothes for you?”

  “Oh—yes. Could I ask you to help me get dressed? I think my fine motor skills are
on the fritz.”

  Frank opened the door but didn’t look in. “Hey, Giulia, you done yet? Jimmy’s got our statements, and he’s ready for yours.”

  Giulia mouthed Men! to Aida. “If you could give Nurse Smith my clothes, Frank, I’ll be out there in a few minutes.”

  Frank stuck his hands through the opening, Giulia’s clothes and sneakers stacked on them.

  Aida waited until the door closed. “Here we go. Underwear first.”

  Perhaps it was Aida’s soothing presence, but Giulia wasn’t embarrassed about her nudity. She tried to help, but her awkward fingers only got in the way.

  “No bra?”

  “It’s bad enough that my boss’s hands were in my underwear drawer. I’d rather bounce a little than picture him holding my bras.” It didn’t matter, though. She didn’t matter. When Frank hears what Urnu did to me, he’ll surpass himself. He’ll ask me how much I enjoyed it. He’ll...

  “Hey, honey. Hey, Giulia.” Aida shook out Giulia’s 5K Run For AIDS Research shirt. “I worked registration for this last year. That makes us old friends, right?”

  Giulia suppressed visions of certain public embarrassment. “You bet it does.” She was sure her smile didn’t succeed. What a weak, useless female I am. I can feel my lips quivering. Well, I’m not going to cry.

  “Hold up your arms, honey, and I’ll slip this right over your head.”

  Giulia shook her tangled curls free from the neck opening. They acted stiff, like she’d doused them in hair spray. “What’s wrong with my hair?”

  “You got some blood on it, that’s all. It’ll wash right out.” Aida tugged Giulia’s socks over her blood-flecked feet and worked her sneakers over them. “You’re not going to cry, honey. You’re stronger than that.”

  Giulia made a laughter-like gurgle. “I was just trying to convince myself of that exact same thing.”

  “I thought so. Here, stand up.”

  Giulia wormed herself off the bed.

  “Listen to me.” Aida pulled the sweats over Giulia’s hips and tied the drawstring. “You’re going out into the hall and tell that wooly-bear police captain how you stopped that pig. You’re going to say it proud, and you’re going to look him in the eyes and you will see him respect you.”