The Last Word

by Lee Goldberg

  He palpitated her belly, the one she’d kept flat and firm with diet and exercise, checking for internal injuries and unusual masses. It was clear.

  “I need blood gases, CBC, SMA-seven, and type and cross for four units of blood in case we have to do some surgery.” Jesse rattled off the orders to the nurses while he tapped Corinne’s right elbow and knees with a tiny rubber hammer, checking her reflexes. She didn’t have any. “Get me a skull X-ray, cross-table lateral C-spine, and a CT of the head. Make it fast.”

  One of the nurses hurried out. Susan looked across Corinne’s body to Jesse, who was preparing to intubate the patient and put her on a ventilator that would take over her breathing.

  “What do you think?” Susan asked.

  “Check her driver’s license,” Jesse said. “We need to find out if she’s an organ donor.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The parked cars along the south side of the 2300 block of Messmer Avenue in Canoga Park were riddled with bullet holes. Shattered glass sprinkled the sidewalks and glittered in the light cast by the streetlamps, headlights, and the multicolored light bars atop the police cruisers. There was something magical about the glimmer of the glass shards that made Lieutenant Steve Sloan think of Christmas trees, the Las Vegas Strip, and pirate treasure.

  He stepped carefully over the sidewalk to the manicured lawn in front of one of the nearly identical ranch-style homes that lined the San Fernando Valley street.

  There were three bullet holes in the living room window of the house. One of the bullets had hit the big-screen TV that dominated the room. Another bullet had traveled clear through the house, out the kitchen window, and into the back fence, where several crime scene techs were digging out the slug and taking pictures. The remaining bullet had passed through the neck of Wilbur C. Gant and become entangled in the springs and stuffing of the recliner he was sitting in.

  Wilbur C. Gant was a thirty-seven-year-old accountant who lived in his childhood home, which he had bought from his mother so she could fulfill her dream of retiring to a mobile home in Twentynine Palms. He was single, wore suspenders because he liked the look of them, and bled to death watching a rerun of CSI.

  Steve peered in the window but didn’t bother going inside the house. He could see Dr. Amanda Bentley, chief pathologist at Community General, leaning over the body in her blue MEDICAL EXAMINER Windbreaker. Her path lab did double duty as an extension of the county morgue, and so did she—as an adjunct county medical examiner. She was African American and a few years younger than Steve, whom she treated like her older brother.

  He already knew that Gant wasn’t the intended target of the bullets. That honor belonged to LaShonda Wilkes, who was sitting on the curb across the street with her two children, three-year-old LaTisha and five-year-old Chase. The hairstylist and unwed mother had been driving home from work with her children when her estranged boyfriend, Teeg Cantrell, pulled up alongside her in his pickup truck. When she turned to look at him, he pointed an automatic weapon at her. LaShonda slammed on her brakes at the same moment he started firing.

  Teeg missed her and the children but managed to spray half the block and Wilbur C. Gant’s living room with bullets before speeding off, sideswiping a car in the intersection on his way.

  Fearing that Teeg would come back to finish what he’d started, LaShonda shifted her car into reverse and floored it without looking back, immediately colliding with the minivan right behind her and injuring the driver, a gardener named Julio Martinez.

  Julio, who didn’t speak much English, was less concerned about the damage to his van and the nasty cut on his forehead than he was about being arrested for driving without a license, insurance, or U.S. citizenship.

  All in all, the situation had the makings of a long, miserable night for Steve.

  He called out to Amanda. “Any surprises?”

  “Yeah, there’s a big one.” She looked up at him with a perplexed expression on her face. “This man was already dead when the bullet hit him.”

  Steve felt a stab of anxiety in his chest. “What do you mean, he was already dead?”

  “As in no longer living,” she said. “That kind of dead.”

  “Then how did he die?”

  “He was killed by a rattlesnake bite,” she said.

  “Oh hell,” Steve said. “Are you sure?”

  “I think I know a rattlesnake bite when I see one,” she said. “You may want to bring Mark in on this.”

  “I’m perfectly capable of figuring out what happened here myself,” Steve said.

  “He’s really good at this stuff,” she said.

  “So am I,” Steve said. “I’m sure there’s a simple explanation for everything.”

  “Really? What do you figure the odds are of a guy getting bitten by a rattlesnake and then getting hit by a stray bullet in a drive-by shooting?” Amanda asked. “Doesn’t that sound a little unbelievable to you?”

  It did.

  And his father had a special ability to make sense of unbelievable situations like this.

  He groaned and reluctantly fished around in his jacket pocket for his cell phone. There was no doubt that Mark would end up insinuating himself into the investigation anyway, so Steve figured he might as well bring his father into it now. It meant Steve would get a lot of grief from his superiors, who felt that every time Mark was brought in on a case it made the LAPD look incompetent.

  He was about to speed-dial his father’s number when Amanda burst out laughing. So did her two assistants, who were standing off to one side waiting with a gurney and a body bag.

  Steve glared at her. “You were kidding.”

  “I told you it was unbelievable and you still bought it,” she said, a big smile on her face. “I really have to play poker with you again. I could use the money.”

  Steve shoved his cell phone back into his pocket. “You took advantage of my trust.”

  “I took advantage of your gullibility,” she said. “It’s a wonder to me that you catch any bad guys at all.”

  “It was the context of the conversation. You’re at a crime scene, engaging in your official duties,” Steve said. “I naturally assumed you were behaving in a professional manner. Obviously, I was wrong.”

  “Oh, Steve, don’t get all grouchy on me. A girl is allowed to have a little fun. Besides, you didn’t need me to tell you how this man died. Isn’t it obvious? He was shot in the neck.”

  Steve turned his back on Amanda, furious with himself for letting her fool him again. She loved to tease him, which he wouldn’t mind if she wasn’t always doing it in front of other people. He’d told her that. But she didn’t think there was much fun in teasing him if there wasn’t some potential for embarrassing him, too.

  At least only her assistants and a couple of crime scene techs had heard her. He never would have lived it down if any other cops had witnessed it.

  He strode over to question LaShonda Wilkes, but she held up her hand to stop him as he approached. She was busy yelling at someone on her cell phone, using some inventive combinations of profanity that Steve hadn’t heard before, and she didn’t want to be interrupted.

  Steve nodded, said a few words to a uniformed cop, and was jotting down some of LaShonda’s more colorful phrases for future reference when an unmarked LAPD Crown Vic drove up and a Hispanic woman got out, a badge and a gun clipped to her belt.

  She strode over to him. He liked the way she strode. She was in her thirties, had black hair, dark skin, and even darker eyes. She introduced herself as Detective Olivia Morales, West Valley Homicide. They shook hands. She had a handshake firm enough to crack walnuts.

  “Do you speak Spanish?” Steve asked.

  “You think just because my name is Morales that I speak fluent Spanish.”

  “Yeah,” Steve said, “I do.”

  “That’s racial stereotyping, Lieutenant.”

  “No, it’s not,” he said.

  “Just because you’re Nordic, I don’t immediately assume yo
u speak Norwegian.”

  “You think I’m Nordic?” Steve asked.

  “You’re tall, blond, and look like you’d be comfortable wearing a Viking helmet.” She shrugged. “That’s Nordic to me.”

  “Do Nordics speak Norwegian?”

  She shrugged again. “How the hell would I know what Nordics speak? I was trying to make a point. So, why do you want to know if I speak Spanish?”

  Steve gestured to Julio Martinez. “Could you tell him that he’s free to go after he gives us his statement and that we aren’t going to arrest him or turn him over to immigration?”

  She nodded. “I’ll get around to it when I’m finished here. I’m surprised you didn’t ask me to take care of those two kids, seeing as how I have a uterus and you’re Nordic and all.”

  “That was going to be my next request,” Steve said.

  “Aren’t you curious why I’m here?”

  “I thought it was to talk to the gardener and keep an eye on those kids,” Steve said, smiling. “Was there something else?”

  Olivia gestured to LaShonda. “Her boyfriend, Teeg Cantrell, is a wanted fugitive.”

  “What is he wanted for?”

  “He went into a 7-Eleven in West Hills last Friday night. He bought a six-pack of beer, three Milky Way bars, and a box of donuts. The cashier rang him up, but Teeg was two dollars short. When the cashier wouldn’t give him the stuff anyway, Teeg shot him twice and walked out.”

  “The cashier still alive?”

  “Would the hottest Latina homicide detective in the San Fernando Valley be standing here if he was?”

  “Teeg sounds like a terrific guy,” Steve said. “I wonder why LaShonda let him go.”

  “We could ask her,” Olivia said.

  “She’s talking on the phone and doesn’t want to be interrupted.”

  “And you’re waiting?”

  “Actually, judging by her use of language, I’m guessing she’s talking to her ex-boyfriend right now.”

  “What kind of language?”

  Steve showed her his notes. One of Olivia’s thin, etched eyebrows arched. He liked the way it arched.

  “Yeah,” she said. “She’s talking to her boyfriend. Are we tracing the call?”

  “We are,” Steve said. “But it’s only going to give us the general area.”

  “If he’s on the move,” Olivia said, “maybe we can get a chopper up and spot his car.”

  “That’s the idea,” Steve said.

  LaShonda abruptly snapped her phone shut and stomped over to the two detectives.

  “How much longer do I have to stick around here?” LaShonda said irritably, her hands on her wide hips. “We haven’t had dinner yet.”

  “We’ll get you and the kids some burgers in a few minutes,” Steve said, then introduced himself and Olivia to her.

  “I know who she is,” LaShonda said, glaring at Olivia. “I told you before I don’t know where Teeg is. Ask one of his sluts.”

  “I’ve been talking to his sluts,” Olivia said. “They send their regards. You want to tell us what happened here?”

  “What’s it look like to you?” LaShonda asked. “Teeg tried to smoke me.”

  “Why did he want to do that?” Steve asked.

  “Because I threw his sorry ass out of the house for partying with sluts,” LaShonda said. “And then I told him he couldn’t see his kids until he started paying me some support.”

  “Was that your boyfriend you were just talking to?” Steve motioned to her phone.

  “Teeg isn’t my man no more and never will be again,” LaShonda said. “Nobody shoots at me and gets back into my bed.”

  “I have the same policy,” Steve said. “Did he call you or did you call him?”

  “He called me. He said he was gonna come after me again and he wasn’t going to miss this time. I laughed at him. I told him he can’t even hit the toilet when he aims his—”

  Steve interrupted her before she could finish that lovely thought, but he got the image anyway. “Could I see your phone, please?”

  She gave it to him. Steve flipped it open and scrolled through the menu to see if he could find the number of the last call received. He could.

  He turned the phone towards Olivia so she could see the number on the screen.

  “We call this police work,” he said.

  “Impressive,” Olivia said. “You’ve been watching Law and Order, haven’t you?”

  “I have to do something while I’m shining my Viking helmet.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Mark got back to Community General shortly after eleven p.m. No one was expecting to see him there, least of all Jesse, who was reviewing Corinne’s X-rays and CT scans with Ramin Akhavan, the radiologist.

  “What are you doing here?” Jesse asked Mark.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” Mark said.

  It wasn’t exactly a lie. On the drive down from Sunrise Valley, alone in the car, all he could think about was Carter Sweeney. Mark knew that if he went back to his empty beach house in Malibu and tried to go to bed, he’d be up all night, churning over the events of the day and the nightmares of the past. So he chose distraction. And the absence of a homicide to solve left the hospital as his only salvation from his thoughts.

  “So you get up, get dressed, and drive to work,” Ramin said. “Haven’t you heard of the Internet? Television? A good book?”

  “I’m a people person,” Mark said.

  “That’s what chat rooms are for,” Ramin said. “You don’t even have to get dressed.”

  The idea of sitting naked at a computer talking to strangers didn’t strike Mark as very appealing under any circumstances.

  “How is it going tonight?” Mark asked Jesse.

  “It was slow until this patient came in,” Jesse said, referring to the X-rays. “Her name is Corinne Adams. She fell down a flight of stairs at UCLA.”

  One glance at the X-rays and CT scans showed Mark what Jesse was dealing with, but he didn’t say anything. He’d let Ramin go through the formality of explaining the results. He knew how much experts enjoyed the opportunity to show their expertise.

  “What’s the prognosis?” Mark asked Ramin.

  “Not good. As you can see, she has a skull fracture here.” Ramin pointed to a long crack on the left side of the head. “And massive bleeding.”

  “I don’t see a subdural hematoma,” Jesse said.

  “All the bleeding is inside the brain,” Ramin said.

  “What’s her EEG look like?” Mark asked.

  “What you’d expect with these test results,” Jesse replied. “There are no sparks at all. Her pupils are blown, her reflexes are shot. We’ve got her on a ventilator in the ICU.”

  Mark nodded. There was nothing more that could be done for her. She was brain-dead, with no hope of recovery.

  “Is she a good candidate for organ donation?”

  “One of the best I’ve ever seen. Young, fit. She didn’t smoke or drink. She’s even got a donor card,” Jesse said. “It’s like her whole life was leading up to this.”

  “Maybe it was,” Ramin said. “Maybe she was put on this earth for the sole purpose of saving the lives of a dozen other people.”

  The actual number of sick and injured people who could receive organs or other parts of her body, like corneas, tendons, and bones, was far higher than a dozen. Both Mark and Jesse knew there could easily be three times that many people whose lives could be saved or made markedly better by recycling Corinne Adams.

  “I believe in fate,” Ramin said.

  “Does she have a family?” Mark asked Jesse.

  “She was single, no husband or kids, if that’s what you mean,” Jesse said. “Not even a boyfriend.”

  “Fate,” Ramin repeated to himself.

  “Her sister Lurline is downstairs,” Jesse said. “I spoke briefly with her. I didn’t have much to say at the time.”

  He still didn’t. The situation was pretty simple, just painful to share with a loved o
ne.

  She had a donor card, so at least that spared him the uncomfortable task of convincing her grief-stricken sister to let him harvest her organs. Corinne had already given her consent.

  Over the next twenty-four hours, Jesse would have a lot of work to do. First, he’d have to find out who was next in line for each organ and work with the pathology lab to oversee the battery of tests to determine their compatibility with the donor. At the same time, he’d have to schedule the operating rooms and recruit surgical teams, as well as keep the brain-dead patient’s body alive and healthy until the operation.

  “Would you like me to talk to the sister?” Mark asked Jesse.

  Grateful and relieved, Jesse nodded. “That would free me up to start making calls.”

  Mark could have offered to take over all the other work, too, so Jesse could return to the ER. But he knew how much Jesse wanted to coordinate the complex organ transplantations.

  It wasn’t Jesse’s first time. In fact, he’d harvested kidneys and a liver from a donor only a week earlier. But each new experience further honed his skills, both administratively and surgically. Even so, Mark would keep his eye on the process, helping out where he could and smoothing over any wrinkles that emerged.

  The first wrinkle was the grieving family. Although they didn’t need the sister’s permission to proceed, Lurline could make things a lot harder than they had to be if she disapproved of the procedure.

  Mark found Lurline in the cafeteria, eating a piece of banana cream pie. Eating was clearly how Lurline dealt with stress and, judging by her obesity, there was a lot of it in her life. He introduced himself and sat down across from her. She was silent for a moment, shoveling more pie into her mouth. Her cheeks were big, round, and red.

  “It’s bad, isn’t it?” she asked him.

  Mark nodded. “She cracked her skull and there’s bleeding in her brain.”

  “Can’t you stop the bleeding and put a plate in her head or something?”

  “I’m afraid not. If the bleeding had been around her brain, we could have relieved the pressure by drilling a hole in her skull.”

  Which is exactly what Jesse did to Mark only a few months ago. Mark rubbed the spot on his head where a piece of bone from the cadaver of an organ donor had been used to plug the hole.