All he heard at first was a disgusted sigh from both of them.
Walker said, "Deputy Parker and I will lead and you follow us to Cold Spring. Finding places to park on the main road is going to be difficult for three cars. So we'll wait up the street somewhere and all go in at the same time.”
Everybody followed the directions, and they all walked into the tailor's shop together. The tailor merely looked at them complacently. Walker was astonished at how much he looked like Deputy Parker's drawing.
It was a shabby, dark front room with a long counter with spaces at the sides, and a few dusty tools scattered around on it. A shelf behind held disorderly bundles of ugly fabrics. Everything was dusty and smelled of cheap hair oil.
“Sir, what is your name?" Howard asked.
“What's it to you?" he said.
“We're here to arrest you. We'd like to have a name to attach to the paperwork."
“Homer Wilson.”
It wasn't the name used on any of the library checkouts and might or might not be true. Walker really didn't care what the man's name was. Just that they got him charged and jailed.
Walker walked around the right side of the counter with handcuffs in his left hand. Suddenly the tailor lunged forward with open scissors in his hand and stabbed Walker in his upper arm. Walker quickly backed away, looking down at the blood gushing over his hand and the handcuffs. Ron Parker grabbed Walker's right arm. Walker had turned pale and was about to fall over, staggering to find something to hold on to to keep himself upright.
The other men ran around the left end of the counter, knocked the man to the floor, and there were gargling yelps of pain from painful kicks.
Parker heaved the bloody handcuffs over the counter and said, "One of you use these and hold him down, the other call an ambulance.”
Then he stripped off Walker's jacket and shirt and lowered him carefully to the floor. Ripping apart a piece of his shirt he wrapped it tightly around Walker's left arm above the gaping, gushing bloody hole. Walker had turned even paler, his mouth a grimace of pain before he fainted.
“Give me something to twist this tighter," Ron said.
One of the officers, with all his weight holding down the tailor with his feet, rummaged around on the table and found a wooden mallet, while the other one was yelling at the tailor and giving him another kick. "Don't you dare try to get up, you murderer.”
Ron said to them, "Take that man to Matteawan after the ambulance comes to take my boss to the hospital in Poughkeepsie. I'm going with him. I only have two jail cells and can't deal with him. The State Hospital for the Criminally Insane can handle him.”
Parker checked Walker's pulse in his bloody left wrist. As far as Parker could gauge, it was a bit slow, but not dangerously so.
The sound of the ambulance wailing got louder and louder and a crowd had formed on the opposite side of the street as the tailor was dragged out, kicking and screaming obscenities.
Two men stopped in the middle of the road and ran inside with a gurney.
“Treat him gently. He's lost a lot of blood," Ron said, his voice firm.
“We can see that," one of them said softly.
“I'm coming with you."
“There's no need, and no room for you."
“He's my boss. He's a good man. I'm coming with you.
He didn't even notice that some part of the crowd had started seeping across the street behind the ambulance, trying to look in the back door and then moving furtively closer to the shop to see what had happened. A local officer had turned up to keep the snoops out of the shop. Parker grabbed Walker's uniform jacket, then ran into the street and climbed into the ambulance.
There was only a corner where Parker could cram himself into as the ambulance backed into a parking lot, turned around, and screamed off at a terrific speed up the steep main road.
“You did a good job with this tourniquet," the attendant shouted over the noise of the siren. "But it needs to be loosened occasionally."
“I knew that," Ron said. "I took a Red Cross First Aid course at the police college.”
It seemed to take forever to get to Poughkeepsie even though they were going almost dangerously fast on Route 9. All Ron could do was to take Howard's shoes off and massage his feet, hoping it might bring him around. Finally he felt a toe move slightly.
“He's coming around slowly," the attendant yelled.
Ron thought the attendant sounded as if he was smiling. They suddenly took a turn so sharp that Ron bumped his shoulder hard against the framework of the vehicle. With a subsequent slowing and stopping, the siren died and the back door was jerked open. Two other men in white were waiting. They pulled out the gurney and locked the collapsing structure with the wheels in place. Ron stayed where he was until the process was completed and the men started running through the open doors of the hospital. Then Ron jumped out the back, clutching Walker's uniform jacket and his shoes, and ran after them.
A police officer guarding the door grabbed Ron's arm. "You can't go with him."
“I must!"
“They'll let you sit outside while they're working on him, if you behave. Is he a cop, too?"
“He's Howard Walker, the chief of police of Voorburg. My boss."
“I know him," the man said. `A good man.”
Releasing his grip slightly, he added, "Come along. I'll show you where you can wash up. There's blood all over your hands and you'll scare patients and their visitors. Then I'll show you where you can sit and wait. I'll get a message through to the surgery room and tell them who he is, and to treat him well and that you're waiting to know how he is. Do you need me to sit with you? I could call somebody else to guard the emergency entrance."
“No. I'll be fine after I clean up. But please try to make somebody come tell me how he's doing."
“For Walker's sake, I'll do that."Deputy Parker, sitting with Walker's shoes and jacket on the chair beside him, waited a full two hours and fifteen minutes before a middle-aged man with a bloody face mask pulled back over the top of his head sat down on the other side of Parker and turned toward him.
“You're Walker's deputy, aren't you?"
“I am. Is he alive?"
“He is. By the way, I'm Dr. McCoy and I did the surgery. Chief Walker has a good chance of recovering completely if an infection doesn't set in. And I'm told that a piece of his shirt and the mallet are your work."
“They were," Ron said and told him about the Red Cross lessons. "Would you explain what you did in there?" Parker asked, gesturing toward the room where the surgery had taken place.
Dr. McCoy said, "It's like this—there is an artery that goes down the outside of your arm. For a short while, it's fairly close to the surface, then it ducks under muscles and goes down the rest of your arm. It isn't the main artery, but you need both. His attacker only cut halfway through it. If he'd cut clear through it, we couldn't have found both ends of it and your boss would have had to have half of his arm amputated, even if he didn't exsanguinate."
“What does that word mean?"
“Bleed to death before he got here. Oh dear, put your head down between your knees. I don't want you fainting on me," Dr. McCoy said.
Ron did so for a few minutes, then sat back up. "Sorry. I shouldn't have asked."
“You're entitled to ask. You're the hero here. We put him out, pulled back the skin and fat, let it bleed out a little to wash out any germs. Then we put our own tourniquet back on, to stop the blood flow. Blotted the blood all out, sewed up the cut in the artery with lots of little stitches, shook sulfa into the wound, sewed back the skin, and put gauze around it."
“When can I see him?"
“Not until tomorrow at least. He won't completely awaken until morning. Go home and get some rest."
“I have no way to go home. I came in the ambulance."
“In that case, I'll write up an order to give you a room here tonight and a chit for the hospital cafeteria. It's not very good, but it's healthy.
I'll have a nurse show you to a room. There's a shower room on each wing with towels, soap, and robes. I'll walk you to the desk to find a nurse if you're ready."
“I'm fine now."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
WHEN THEY GOT TO THE NURSING STATION, Dr. McCoy introduced Deputy Ron Parker to the head nurse. "He's a hero. He saved Chief of Police Howard Walker's life."
“No, I didn't. God and you did, Dr. McCoy."
“Don't be so modest."
“Deputy Parker," the nurse said. "I've had four calls for you from a Jack Summer, desperately asking to speak to you as soon as I could find you.”
She looked around furtively for a moment. "You can call him from back here if you make it a very short call.”
“I will.”
He asked for the Voorburg exchange and was answered by one of the operators who never listened in. "Connect me to Jack Summer, please," he said.
Jack picked up on the first ring. "Ron! I've heard from Colling's officers that Howard Walker's been stabbed and you're with him. Is he alive?"
“Yes, and likely to recover. I'm trapped here. Could you drive down around noon tomorrow? Someone has to be at the jail office while I'm gone."
“That's already taken care of," Jack replied. "One of Colling's men who was there is here now. I'll run over to the jail to tell him Walker's alive. He'll be relieved to hear it.”
Ron said, "I have to hang up fast. I'm long distance against the rules. Be here at noon. Maybe we can both see him. And I can explain a lot more.”
He hung up quickly and the nurse thanked him for being so fast. "I'll claim I had to make that call when the bill comes.”
Dr. McCoy said, "Nurse Hawkin, brave Deputy Parker has no way to get back to Voorburg today, and he's exhausted. I'm authorizing a room with a private bath for him and a free dinner and breakfast here."
“The room will be a good one. I have two of the private ones available. But the food here is awful," Nurse Hawkin said.
“But nourishing," Dr. McCoy reminded her. Then he said to Parker, "Get a good long hot shower and even a nap if you can manage it. I'll eat here with you at six if you think of more questions you want to ask. Now follow Nurse Hawkin.”
Ron did as he was told. Nurse Hawkin wanted to show him both available rooms, but Parker said she should choose. Either one would be fine with him.
She complimented him on being such a good young man and said to ring down to her if he needed anything. "I could find you some magazines to read if you want."
“I couldn't read anything right now. I just need to get clean and into a bed to think about today.”
She shook his hand and went away, closing the door behind herself.
Parker threw off all his clothes and took the long hot shower the doctor had prescribed. He dried off, put on the robe that was hanging on the back of the bathroom door, and tested out the bed. It was nice and hard the way he liked beds. And had nice soft sheets. He'd always been told that hospital sheets were starched into boards you had to make bend.
The shower had eased the ache in his shoulder, and in spite of himself he fell fast asleep for almost two hours.
He hated getting dressed in his slightly bloodstained uniform, but there was nothing he could do about it. At least the uniform was dark blue and the dry blood hardly showed. He did call Nurse Hawkin and asked if he could have a toothbrush and a clothing brush if he came down to her desk.
“I'll have them sent up to you. You need to rest all you can.”
Moments later a cute young nurse knocked on his door. "Nurse Hawkin said you needed these. But that she could do a better job than any man at getting blood out of clothing if you want to send yours down. They'll be back in an hour. Please let me take your jacket and trousers to her. Your shirt, too, if you need it cleaned."
“I probably do. I got blood all over myself.”
He gathered up his pile of outwear and bundled it up for her. No reason to send his underwear along with such a pretty young girl. He'd be able to change it tomorrow when he got home.
True to her promise, she was back in an hour with the uniform jacket, trousers, and shirt on hangers, smelling fresh and still warm from an iron. He thanked her and hung them in the closet.
“Are you married, Deputy Parker, if you don't mind my asking?"
“No, I'm not," he said, fearing that he was blushing slightly.
“Neither am I." And with that she smiled and slipped out of the room, rattling slightly in her starchy nurse clothing.
Deputy Parker met Dr. McCoy at the door of the hospital cafeteria at six, as planned.
“How's my boss doing?"
“Very well. He's still not fully awake but his blood pressure is good, his temperature is normal. We're still giving him some drugs for the pain. But I think it's likely he'll come through fIne. Let's go through the line and you can ask the rest of your questions while we eat.”
Parker chose macaroni and cheese, two slices of meat loaf, green beans, and a roll. The macaroni was undercooked and tasteless. The meat loaf was overcooked and also tasteless. The green beans were old and tough. The roll was delicious.
“Sorry I suggested this," Dr. McCoy said. "We should have gone to the restaurant across the street. It's slightly better." Both of them pushed their plates away and Dr. McCoy said, "Have you thought of more questions?"
“A few. How long will you have to keep Chief Walker here?"
“At least five days. We need to watch carefully for infection. And I'll tell you a few other things. The inside stitches in the artery will be there forever. They may be uncomfortable as they stiffen up. He might want to come back in a year or so and we'll lightly sedate him and remove them when the artery is thoroughly sealed up. It will be up to him."
“You'll explain all this to him before he leaves?"
“Of course. The arm is going to be sore for a while. He might want to keep it in a sling so he doesn't accidentally use it too much."
“Is the circulation in the rest of the arm okay?"
“Amazingly so. No bruising in the hand. He's a durable man. Do you happen to know his age?"
“No. I've only been his deputy for a short time, but I met him earlier when I worked for another chief of police. I'd guess a little over thirty."
“I'll be able to ask him when he comes around," Dr. McCoy said. "But that would be my guess, too."
“Will the town reporter who's coming to fetch me tomorrow be able to talk to him?"
“I don't know why not. It's up to the patient, not me. He'll be sitting up by morning. It's not good for his circulation to be horizontal for long periods. Anything else you want to ask?"
“Will he remember any of what happened to him?”
“Probably not."
“Should I tell him?"
“Not unless he asks," Dr. McCoy said. "I have to go back to work. I suggest you have your breakfast across the street. They do a really good ham and eggs and cinnamon toast.”
They left the cafeteria and Dr. McCoy went back to work. Parker decided to go for a walk. He'd never been in Poughkeepsie before. He'd ask the nurse at the desk what there was to see within walking distance.
She gave him a couple of brochures and a map. "We keep these for out-of-towners like you who are here to visit family members who are patients.”
There didn't seem to be much close to the hospital. No museums. A couple of hotels, and a big park a mile away. He headed for the park and watched children feeding the ducks for a while. Then he followed some paths through pretty gardens. He knew nothing about flowers except that they looked pretty this time of year. Especially the many bushes that were blooming.
Bored, and aware that it would be dark in an hour or two, he strolled back to the hospital and sat on a bench outside for a while. Later, he'd go across the street and see if the restaurant Dr. McCoy told him about had good desserts.
But he couldn't take his mind away from the events of the earlier part of the day. It was the worst day of his l
ife, seeing Walker faint, and seeing all that blood running over the dirty floor.
The next day, Parker was up early. He checked with Nurse Hawkin. "Dr. McCoy is doing another surgery right now," she said. "But he checked on your boss earlier and he's doing fine. Don't you worry.”
Parker went to breakfast across the street and walked around a bit more in the other direction. When he returned, Jack Summer was already waiting for him. "Are we allowed to see Howard today?"
“Yes, close to noon. It's up to him if he wants to see either of us."
“One of Colling's guys who went with you said you saved his life."
“I helped to. But it was the doctor who really saved him." Parker went on to repeat what Dr. McCoy had told him about the artery that was nicked. And the possibility of losing his arm if it had been cut clear through.
“But he says Walker is extremely durable and barring an infection he'll survive.”
They waited near Nurse Hawkin's station. "That's a good nurse," Parker told Jack. "She even cleaned the blood off my uniform and had it pressed. I need to send her some nice flowers when I get back home. Does everybody in Voorburg know about this?"
“A lot of them asked me where you two had gone. I reported first to the people at Grace and Favor, of course. Robert was determined to come along and take Walker home in the Duesie right away," he added with a laugh. "I also told the greengrocer why you wouldn't be in your apartment until today. Oh, and Mrs. Gasset got wind of it and came in on one of her breaks to ask about what happened. I told her, truthfully, that I had no idea except that Walker had been stabbed and was still alive. You're going to have to fill me in more on the way back to Voorburg."
“The doctor also told me something else you should know," Parker said. "We're not to tell Walker anything unless he asks.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Tuesday, May 30
AT EXACTLY NOON, as Dr. McCoy had promised, he came out of Howard's hospital room and found Deputy Parker and Jack Summer waiting on a bench near the door. Both leaped to their feet.
Who's Sorry Now? Page 14