Gallows Humor

by Carolyn Elizabeth

“Thanks.” She turned her attention back to her patient as she gently palpated the back of her head. “How are you doing, Corey?” She pulled out her penlight, gently lifting her lids and shining it in each eye in turn. “Pupils are equal and reactive.”

  “Tired,” came the raspy reply as her red, irritated eyes blinked sluggishly.

  “I know, honey. It’s probably just the adrenaline crash, but you have to stay awake, okay? The neurologist is going to want to talk to you and assess for concussion.” Thayer checked her neck with firm, gentle fingers. “How’s the pain? Scale of one to ten.”

  Corey attempted a smile. “Two.”

  “Liar.” Thayer smiled. “Can you tell me what day it is?”

  “Our first date day.” Corey wheezed and coughed violently enough for Thayer to reach for the oxygen again, while she smoothed damp hair from her face.

  “I’m afraid we’re going to have to take a rain check on that.” She smiled around the tightness in her throat. “Just breathe easy, honey.”

  “Didn’t even get to see what you were wearing,” Corey whispered.

  Dana gave her arm a gentle a squeeze. “If you weren’t already here, you’d have probably had a heart attack.”

  Corey rolled her eyes to her and smiled. “I believe you.”

  “No fractures that I can feel, but CT is going to take a look and make sure you don’t have a bleed or any swelling.” She nodded to Jules, who released the brakes on the gurney with her foot and pushed from the head. “I’ll be here when you’re done.”

  Corey reached her arm out to brush Thayer’s hand. “Thank you.”

  Thayer took a deep shuddering breath, her hand going to her chest as Corey was wheeled away.

  Dana placed a hand on her arm. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” Thayer breathed deeply. “Yes. I will be.” She offered a small smile. “Thanks for your help.”

  “She won’t be back for a while. You want a cup of coffee?”

  “Yeah, thanks.” Thayer pulled out her cell from her back pocket and dropped onto a stool. “I need to make a phone call.”

  Thayer straightened from her slouch against the counter when she heard the familiar rattle of gurney wheels down the hallway. Corey was looking pale and exhausted by the time she returned an hour later, her gurney steered in by a porter. Her eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot but open. At some point she had been helped into a set of scrubs, and there was a thick bandage around her head, blood already seeping through. Her IV had been removed.

  “Hey, tough girl.” Thayer smiled, gently. “How did it go?” She picked up the report from atop the sheet across her legs.

  “Super fun times.” Corey winced as she shifted on the bed.

  “Everything looks clear.” Thayer sighed in relief and tossed the pages onto the counter. CT and the neurologist had already called but it was good to see it in writing. No swelling or hemorrhaging and no conclusive indicators of concussion. “I called plastics. They’re going to come see about getting you stitched up but it may be a while.”

  “Plastic surgery? I don’t want those butchers touching me. You can do it.”

  “Oh, Corey.” Thayer shook her head. “I’m glad you haven’t lost your sense of humor but they’ll do a much better job.”

  “It’s the back of my head, and anyway don’t chicks dig scars?”

  “Not the ones they’re responsible for.”

  Corey frowned. “You’re not responsible for this, Thayer. Now come on. My head is killing me and I need to call the police. Plus, it hurts to talk so I can’t argue with you.”

  Thayer pursed her lips before she set up a sterile tray. “I already did. Jim is downstairs with a couple of officers checking out the morgue, and environmental services is standing by to clean up when he gives the all clear. He should be up to talk to you shortly.”

  Jules slipped in through the curtain. “Hey, I heard you were back.” She moved over next to Corey and placed a hand on her leg. “Are you okay? Can I get you anything?”

  “I’m okay, thanks, Jules.” Corey managed a smile for her.

  Jules patted her leg. “Let me know if you need anything.”

  Thayer waved Jules out and turned to arch an amused brow in Corey’s direction. “You two seemed to have turned a corner.”

  “Yeah, well, I gave her a bottle of wine and she’s seen me naked.”

  “Is that so?” Thayer moved the tray over next to the bed. “I guess your relationship has gone to the next level.”

  Corey breathed a laugh. “You got to rip my shirt off.”

  Thayer pulled a stool over and sat down. “Yes, well, that wasn’t really the scenario in which I had imagined that happening.”

  Corey blinked at her. “Oh, really?”

  Thayer felt her face flush but was saved from answering.

  “Everyone decent?” Collier announced himself before pulling the curtain aside. “Holy Mary, mother of God. Curtis, you look like shit.”

  “Yeah, being brained with a pipe will do that.”

  “A brick,” he corrected. “We found it by the loading dock door. Feel up to telling me what happened?”

  “Yeah, okay.” Corey’s eyes flicked to Thayer. “Can you work while we talk?”

  “I’m good.” Thayer loaded a syringe with lidocaine. “This is just a local. I’m going to hit you with something stronger after you give your statement. Then I’ll take you home.” Thayer encouraged her to roll onto her right side and unwrapped the bandage. “You’re not squeamish are you, Jim?”

  Collier barked a laugh. “Please, I’ve been a cop for twenty-five years and I was married with two kids.”

  Thayer pushed a few drops of fluid through the tip of the syringe. “This is going to hurt, Corey. Last chance to wait for plastics.”

  She gritted her teeth. “Just do it.” She clutched the edge of the gurney. “Please.”

  Thayer injected anesthetic into three different spots in the angry, tender tissue around the wound. She felt Corey tense beneath her gloved hands and heard her hiss a breath. “Okay, all done. We’ll just give that a minute.” She rubbed Corey’s shoulder. “You doing okay?”

  “Yep,” Corey grunted.

  Thayer uncapped a sterile razor and gently shaved around the wound. It wasn’t long, two inches at most but it was deep and jagged and head wounds bleed a lot. “I’m going to start with some subcutaneous sutures. They’ll dissolve on their own.” She flushed the wound with saline. “Ready?”

  “Go.” Corey tensed as Thayer reapproximated the edges of the wound with her left hand and got to work suturing. “Not so bad.” Corey exhaled. “Go ahead, Collier, hit me. Figuratively speaking.”

  “Just tell me what happened and we can go from there.”

  “Um, I left my phone on my desk, and as I was badging myself in from the outside door, I heard movement behind me. I turned, got hit from behind and went down. I tried to get up but he grabbed my arm and dragged me into the morgue. Nothing seemed to work right and my vision was all messed up.”

  Thayer’s hands stilled and she sucked in a sharp breath. “Jesus.”

  “You’re not messing up my head back there, are you?”

  Thayer refocused. “Don’t you worry about me. The back of your head was the first thing about you I noticed. I’ll take good care of it.”

  Collier snorted a laugh. “Did you see him?”

  “No. He may have been wearing something over his face. A bandana maybe. I looked at him, I think, but I didn’t see his face.” Her voice grew tense. “I felt really sick and I tried to move but I couldn’t make anything work.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  “Yeah, um…” Corey paused. “He said, ‘Stay down.’ And then later, ‘Where is it?’ or something like that.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s pretty clear he was looking for something. Any idea what?”

  “No.” Corey’s voice sounded fatigued. “No, I don’t have anything.”

  “You don’t keep drugs or anything in ther
e?”

  “My patients are way past treatment.”

  “All right. We’ll work on that.” He jotted a quick note in his book. “Then he just left?”

  Corey shook her head.

  “No, honey, don’t move.” Thayer stilled her with a hand to her back.

  “Sorry.” Corey took a breath. “I think he would have stayed longer but he dumped the formalin. Didn’t know what it was. It was everywhere and pooling around me. He started coughing. We both did. Then he took off. I knew I needed to get up. I stopped the spill and threw down both spill kits. That’s when Thayer found me.”

  “Yeah, the doc already filled me on that. Anything else you can think of?”

  “He smelled bad.”

  “Bad how?”

  “Like booze and BO and stale smoke.”

  Collier scribbled some more. “That’s good, Curtis.”

  There were a couple snips of scissors in the quiet that followed. “I’m all done,” Thayer said softly as she bandaged the neatly closed wound. “Do you have everything you need from her?”

  “For now, yeah.” He snapped his notebook closed. “I don’t want you going home, Curtis. This is probably random but if this asshole thinks you have something he wants, he could come looking for you again. You have somewhere you can go?”

  “Um, maybe Rachel’s, I guess. Or I can call Cin.” Her voice was fading.

  “I’ll take her home with me,” Thayer said, casually as she loaded a fresh syringe.

  “You will?” Corey and Jim blurted at the same time.

  “Yes, I will.” Thayer eased Corey’s scrub pants down and swiped her hip with an alcohol swab. “Hold still.” She stuck her fast, injecting the contents.

  “Jesus, Thayer,” Corey yelped. “Buy a girl a drink first. Oh, shit, what did you do to me?” She sighed, her voice growing thick and slow.

  Thayer pulled her pants back up and patted her thigh. “Shot you full of Demerol.”

  “Whoa.” Corey rolled gracelessly onto her back, her head lolling drunkenly to the side.

  “Best first date ever, huh, Curtis?” Collier asked.

  Her eyes rolled toward him but couldn’t maintain contact. She smiled, sloppily. “Yeah.”

  Thayer poked her head out of the curtain. “Jules, can you bring us a wheelchair and the kit I packed?”

  Jules showed up within a minute and helped load their nearly insensible patient into the chair. “Take care, Corey.” She bent to kiss her cheek.

  “Bye, Jules.” Corey grinned, crookedly. “You are very cute.”

  Collier laughed out loud.

  “Come on, tough girl.” Thayer pushed her toward the door.

  “We’re going to your place?” Corey tried to drop her head back to look at her. “But I have clean sheets.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Corey was dragged from her unnaturally heavy sleep by the maddening prickling sensation of the skin on her left side and the urgent need to pee. She blinked slowly as the room swam into view. She was in a large, four-poster bed with intricate scrollwork, under soft, worn sheets and an old floral quilt. There were matching bedside tables and a dresser with a mirror on the wall opposite the bed. Not at all how she would have imagined Thayer’s house.

  Thayer’s house. She remembered that much with hazy, dreamlike memories of a soft voice and gentle touch against her cheek, encouraging her to open her eyes several times overnight.

  She sat up with a groan, her stomach turning over as her head pounded and vision swirled for a moment before clearing. The room was dim but a light to her right let her know she didn’t have to go far for the bathroom. She lurched to her feet, swaying slightly, as she made her way over.

  She read the note Thayer had left on the sink, instructing her to help herself to whatever she needed, not to get her sutures wet, and if she was not already back from her errands, she would be shortly. She left her cell number and told Corey where she could find her phone, recovered from the morgue last night.

  Corey leaned against the sink, noticing the new toothbrush, bar of soap, and toothpaste arranged on top of a fresh towel, loose cotton pants, and a T-shirt she assumed was Thayer’s.

  She plucked at her scrubs, feeling like she still smelled of formalin and thinking a long hot shower would relieve the discomfort on her skin. She pulled her scrub top off carefully and stripped out of her pants.

  Thayer was sitting on the bed waiting for her when she emerged half an hour later, steam billowing out behind her, as she gently ran a towel over her head. “Hi,” Corey rasped, her voice still gravelly.

  “Feel better?” Thayer smiled at her.

  “Much. I think I could—” Corey froze, her expression clouding before a painful cough rattled from her chest. Her hand went to her chest, her eyes going wide, feeling like iron bands had tightened around her.

  “Whoa. Whoa.” Thayer was up like a shot, gripping her around the waist and guiding her to sit on the bed.

  “I…can’t…bre…” Corey gasped, her panic intensifying the tightness in her chest.

  “Easy. Easy.” Thayer jerked up a bag that was on the floor, ripping out an albuterol inhaler from its box. “Just relax. I got you.” She shook the inhaler, popped the cap off and held it to Corey’s lips, her hand on the back of her neck. “Deep breath. Deep as you can.” She depressed the medication as Corey’s mouth closed around it and she wheezed. “Again.”

  Corey’s eyes rolled wildly as she continued to struggle, her vision graying out, her arms dropping to her sides.

  “It’s okay. Don’t be afraid. The meds will work.” Thayer guided her back against the pillows, lifting her legs to the bed as her breathing slowly began to deepen and even out.

  Corey’s eyes drifted closed as she concentrated on her breathing, trying to stay calm as she felt the tightness in her chest loosen. She coughed again and took her first full breath in what felt like hours. “Okay,” she whispered. “I’m okay.”

  Thayer exhaled. “That was kind of scary, huh?”

  “What the hell was that?” she croaked, opening her eyes.

  Thayer set the inhaler on the bedside table. “Your lungs are temporarily damaged from the formalin. You’ll be okay, but at least for a while, you’re going to be pretty sensitive. I think the steam from your shower triggered a bronchospasm. Pretty much an asthma attack.”

  “Shit.” Corey sighed and rubbed a hand over her chest. “I feel like I just ran a marathon while smoking a pack of cigarettes.”

  Thayer laughed. “Feel like letting me check you out?”

  Her eyes widened, her mouth quirking in amusement.

  “Your head,” Thayer corrected. “And your body. Your health. Shut up before you asphyxiate.”

  Corey wheezed a laugh. “Whose room is this?”

  Thayer checked her pulse and took her blood pressure. “My grandmother’s,” she answered absently as she stared at her watch.

  “Jesus.” Corey sat up with a start and hissed a breath, the movement making her head pound. “Is she here? Where is she?”

  “What?” Thayer steadied her with a hand on her shoulder. “No. She’s not here anymore.”

  “Oh.” Corey cringed. “I’m really sorry.”

  “No.” Thayer shook her head. “She’s not dead. Will you just lie still and let me do this, please?” She held up her stethoscope.

  Corey relaxed back against the pillows, her smile sheepish. “Sorry.”

  Thayer popped in the ear tips and slipped her hand beneath the neck of Corey’s T-shirt, listening to her heart and lungs.

  Corey’s heart rate leapt when Thayer’s fingers brushed across the top of her breast and she felt the heat rise in her face. Thayer raised a brow, her gaze flicking to her briefly. “Should I check your blood pressure again?”

  “Shit,” Corey mumbled, knowing Thayer could hear the pounding in her chest.

  Thayer’s face remained unreadable. “Sit up for a second.” She helped her lean forward. “I want to look at your head.”


  Corey sat forward and turned her head, feeling Thayer’s fingers gently prodding the wound.

  “Looks good. Sutures are staying put and no sign of infection.” Thayer encouraged her to recline again as she took out her penlight and checked her eyes. “Headache? Blurred vision? Nausea?”

  “Yes, no, and sometimes.”

  “Hmm.” Thayer regarded her carefully.

  “What’s the prognosis?” Corey asked when she was quiet a long time.

  “You’re going to be fine,” Thayer answered finally. “It may take a few days, though, so don’t push yourself. Carry the inhaler, drink lots of water, no exercise for a few days or really anything that’s going to elevate your breathing or heart rate and absolutely no MMA anything for a while.”

  Corey absently rubbed her right hand up and down her left arm to try and lessen the prickling sensation.

  Thayer frowned at her arm. “Is your skin burning?”

  She dropped her hand. “It’s just this uncomfortable prickling feeling.”

  Thayer reached back in the bag for a tube of topical analgesic. “This will help.” She squeezed off a generous amount into her palm and motioned for Corey to extend her arm.

  Corey hesitated, briefly, searching Thayer’s eyes for some indication of her intentions, immediate and otherwise.

  Thayer seemed to read her unease correctly. “It’s okay.” She nodded and smiled gently. “I’m a doctor.”

  She leaned forward, extending her arm, trying to breathe evenly while Thayer smoothed the cream into her skin, gently running her hands from her shoulder to her wrist.

  “Is this okay?” Thayer’s voice was smokier than usual as her fingers trailed across her neck and collarbone.

  Corey’s heart thundered in her chest at the touch, thankful Thayer wasn’t listening now with her stethoscope. Her breath quickened as she met Thayer’s gaze. “I thought this was against the rules.”

  Thayer jerked her hands away, clearly embarrassed that her treatment had so obviously turned into something else entirely. “I’m sorry.”

  She sat back, a slow smile on her lips, thankful it wasn’t her embarrassment this time. “What now?”

  Thayer shrugged. “I could tell you about my grandmother?”