by Hugh Macnab
‘But it didn’t?’
‘No, detective. It didn’t.’
After that we finish the drive in silence, each deep in our own thoughts. I suspect he is reliving his nightmare; I’m trying to decide if I believe him or not. I come up with, possibly. It’s the best I can offer.
The school is a complex of red-brick rectangular structures with a central walkway leading to the reception hall. From there, different corridors lead to the various departments. I can see Media Services, PE, Math and many others all signposted. He explains that first, we’re making for the common-room. A fellow coffee-addict needs his fix, and that’s just fine with me.
I always pay attention to how people treat others. I guess I credit most other folk at being better than me at recognizing a good guy. As a detective, I recognize bad guys.
The fellow staff members that speak to him are friendly and seem supportive. A few ask how he’s coping, while eyeing me suspiciously as if I’m the root of his problem, rather than a protector.
I take a moment aside to check the radio I’m carrying is working. We have a patrol car out front, another round at the rear entrance, and officers stationed at both checking faces against our artist’s impression. The radio works fine.
As we move on, he explains that the Principal has altered the daily routine of his classes to allow him to lecture in one theater all day long. This is a sign of how supportive the school is being. I know this must mean changing not just other teachers’ schedules, but also that of a significant number of students. I’m impressed.
I estimate the theater we arrive in will hold around a hundred-fifty. It has banked rows of seats with an unobstructed view of the platform at the front where Jon Smith is already preparing his notes.
I look around for the best place to spend my time, and decide that there’s no point in hiding my presence as all the students already know what’s going on, so I elect to pull up a single plastic chair to the edge of the platform where I can get to Smith quickly if required.
Knowing that I’ll likely spend a lot of time sitting, I stand and wait until the last minute before sitting down.
The double-doors behind me swing open and students start arriving and taking their seats. I’m not sure whether they have pre-arranged seating, but the back rows seemed to fill up quickly, so I guess not. I remember always wanting to be as far back as possible. Out of sight, out of mind. That was my motto.
Nine on the dot, and Jon Smith starts his class. I’m impressed that there’s not a single student late for class, and I think that tells me something else about him as a lecturer.
I’ve taken some Social Science classes at University, so realize that what I’m about to hear could come from a very wide range of topics. Economics, history, public health and many others. This day, the topic is jurisprudence. I wonder if Jon Smith has chosen this deliberately.
He talks. I listen.
He explains jurisprudence as being the science or philosophy of law. Then starts a debate by asking the class why they think there are so many lawmakers, attorneys, courts and judges in the country.
He’s skilful with the class; I have to give him that. He coaxes students to voice their opinions, and encourages active debate between students to run without his interference, before bringing them back to his crucial point of principle - of how facts should be the basis for all judgements.
Again, he asks the room what they think might be the problem with his premise, and another active discussion starts.
If the entire day is going to be like this, I’m in for a treat. I’ve forgotten how infectious a learning environment can be. This is fun.
Eventually, he throws out a few simple examples, and discusses how facts are often not as black or white as they might at first seem. That the world in which we live is very much a gray world, where black and white merely represent the extreme ends of a broad spectrum of behaviors.
I’m almost at the point of joining in when my radio squawks and I tune in. A male voice is shouting that ‘she’s in the basement. Down by the generators.’
Within seconds, I’m out of the door and rushing down the empty corridor, shouting in my radio that one of the front-door officers should take my place in the conference room Jon Smith is in.
By the time I’m at the end, I’m out of breath. I turn past the doors to the gymnasium and head along another corridor, following the signs for the kitchen. Having studied the detailed plans the previous week, I know access to the boiler room is from the landing bays at the rear of the kitchen.
I barge my way through the kitchen, past confused staff already preparing the lunches, through another set of double doors and into the loading bay. A truck is there with more people busily unloading the day’s supplies. I turn right and run to the door straight up ahead, marked Maintenance.
Moments later, I stop halfway down the metal staircase to look ahead into the gloom. Kicking myself, I realize I’ve missed the light switches at the top of the stairs. I take a moment to decide. Go back, or go on. Although dim, I can still see fine, so I descend to the bottom, my Glock leading the way.
I stand stock-still and shout.
‘Armed police. If there’s anyone down here, show yourselves and come out with your arms raised above your head.’
Nothing. No sound. Nada.
I start cautiously checking around, keeping my Glock up. My eyes have adjusted, so I’m seeing everything clearly.
The basement area is vast. Not the size of the entire school or anything, but it sprawls under the majority. I pass the two generators themselves. Massive things. One always in use, the other prepared to kick in automatically if the first fails, or if there’s a major power outage.
I swear someone with a twisted sense of space and time planned the basement, and I’m losing patience with the search when a voice speaks behind me. It isn’t a young girl. It’s a man.
‘Gun on the ground, detective.’
It isn’t a request.
Parting with my gun is a big deal. It’s a big deal to any police officer, but a tremendous deal to me. My gun and my badge make me who I am.
I bend and carefully drop my Glock the last few inches to the ground, then stand up again.
‘Kick it, man.’
I do as he asks, wondering why the voice sounds so familiar.
‘Now turn your sorry ass round.’
I know who it is before I see him. Chico Vegas. This time, he doesn’t look so friendly. Nor does the gun he holds in his hand. I try humor as a first approach.
‘Hi, Chico. Missed our chats.’
‘Not a problem I see you suffering again, bitch.’
‘Hey, I let you go Chico. What’s your beef?’
‘My beef, is you fucked up my complete business, man. Now Miami are after my ass, and if I’m goin’ down, I’m sure as hell takin’ you with me.’
‘Maybe I can help with your problem, Chico. You know. Bring down the Miami mob with your help?’
‘The only thing you’re getting from me is lead.’
With that, a loud explosion echoes round the basement, repeating time and again. I feel a searing pain in my chest and just have time to regret wearing a stab vest that morning, and not armor-plating. Then everything goes dark.
46
I hear noises, but they’re fuddled and confusing. Someone is speaking, but I can’t make out what they’re saying.
Everything is quiet again, and dark. Nothing can hurt me here. I doubt anyone can find me here. I’m safe.
Then there’s some light, but it’s blurry and indistinct. The noises are back. There’s someone talking to me. I still can’t make it out. Wait, yes I can. Someone’s saying my name. Just my first name, over and over, disturbing my peace. I don’t want my peace disturbed, I’m safe here. I want to shout. To tell whoever it is to go away and leave me alone. I can’t.
Why can’t I shout?
At last, it’s quiet again. I can relax. I wonder who was saying my name. It was a man’s vo
ice, I’m almost sure. He sounded worried.
I’m having trouble understanding something, but don’t know what. Time seems to pass, but nothing is happening. The confusing lights come and go. The voice returns, repeating my name over and over. I need it to stop. I need to tell him to stop. I HAVE TO TELL HIM TO STOP!
Suddenly, I’m blinded by a blaze of light. Everywhere is so bright, I can’t see. I’m only dimly aware of the paradox. I close my eyes, and the brightness recedes. Almost immediately my need to look once more takes over.
This time, as bright as the light is, I can make out vague shapes around me. Some moving, others not.
I’m no longer feeling safe. I can feel anxiety coursing through my veins. I’m scared of what’s happening to me.
Slowly, one of the shapes takes form. It’s a face. It looks familiar, but I can’t quite place it.
There’s another face looking closely into mine now. I don’t know this person. They’re looking in my eyes. Fuck, they’re shining more light. What are they doing?
Then the extra light’s gone, and the details of a room slowly come into shape. I struggle to speak. My mouth’s dry. My lips are stuck together,
The face I recognize uses a small cotton bud to wet my lips, then offers me a straw to drink from.
I take a couple of sips and struggle to swallow.
I close my eyes and try to remember. What happened? Where am I? But don’t come up with any answers that make sense. I open my eyes a second time. This time the room is in focus straight away. Concealed lighting covers the entire ceiling. I reckon that’s what I saw before. The familiar voice speaks my name, and I turn and recognize Dan Weissman. He’s speaking to me.
‘Sammy.’
I mumble his name, but even I don’t understand it. He helps me take a few more sips from a straw. This time, I manage to swallow.
‘Dan?’
‘Who did you expect? The Great White Spirit?’
I attempt to smile. My cheek muscles fail to respond.
‘Welcome back, Sammy. We’ve been a little worried for a while.’
‘Me too.’ My attempt at humor. ‘Where am I?’
‘You’re in Recovery at NCH. You’ve been shot, but the surgery went well and you’re expected to make a full recovery.’
‘That’s good. I mean, that I recover, not that someone shot me.’
Dan smiled. ‘If your crazy sense of humor is coming back, I would agree with your surgeon. Why don’t you rest for a while? I’ll come back later and we can talk a little.’
The next time I open my eyes, Dan’s sitting at my bedside flicking through a magazine. I’m much more awake this time. I raise my hand to attract attention, and he stands up and leans over.
‘How you doing now?’
‘Better. Can I have some water?’
He let me sip from a straw again, then lays the cup aside and asks if I want to know what happened.
I nod.
‘All I can tell you, Sammy, is what we have pieced together. Chico Vegas somehow figured out where you would be. He used a police radio to get you down into the basement where he shot you. Unfortunately for him, the very person you were there to catch killed him. She slit his throat and left him to bleed out.’
‘Charlie?’
‘Charline Ellis. Probably saved your life. If Vegas had seen that you were still alive, he would probably have shot you a second time.’
‘How did I survive?’
‘It seems a student saw you slipping into the Maintenance doorway, and wondered what you were doing, so followed you into the basement. She didn’t realize you were a detective.’
‘Is she okay? Did Charlie hurt her?’
‘No, she’s fine. I think Kathy wants to bring her in to meet you, so I’ll leave the rest of the story for them to tell you.’
‘What about Charlie? Did we catch her?’
‘No, she escaped before anyone else arrived. Jon Smith’s fine too. We don’t know why, but she seems to have changed her mind about him. We have an alert out on her, but I suspect she’s long gone.’
‘But she saved me?’
‘Looks that way.’
I close my eyes for a moment to consider what Dan has told me. I can’t think why she would do that. Why would she save the person who is trying to hunt her down? It doesn’t make any sense.
When I open my eyes again, time must have passed. Dan’s no longer there, and they’ve dimmed the lights. I assume it’s night-time.
I try to sit up, but have no strength in my arms. I find a cable with a button attached and try pressing it. The head of the bed begins to rise. I stop when I’m high enough up to look around.
Judging from the number of tubes and wires that connect me to various machines, I’m still in recovery.
My head is slowly clearing now. I can see someone else in a similar bed in another area opposite me. She’s still unconscious. There’s a man with a worried frown pacing back and forth just outside the door. I assume it will be her partner or spouse. I’m watching him go back and forward when a nurse enters and comes across to check on me. She lifts my chart and asks me how I’m feeling.
I tell her I have a headache, but other than that I’m fine. She says she’ll get me something for that. Checks my blood pressure and temperature, scribbles details onto my chart, fiddles with the ECG monitor, then leaves, telling me she’ll be right back.
Two minutes later, she’s true to her word. She watches me swallow a couple of tablets, then tells me there are visitors to see me, but because there are two of them, they can only stay five minutes. Not six, she tells me. Five.
Moments later, Kathy comes to the bedside with a young girl in tow. ‘Glad to see you awake, Sammy. We all thought we had lost you.’
I nod. My eyes riveted on the girl.
She would be in her late teens somewhere. Medium height, skinny as a rake. She’s wearing her dark hair cut in one of those fashionable styles, shaved at the sides and combed across to the one side on top. An amateur job. Her eyes are bright and intelligent, but her skin is pallid and drawn a little too tight. She looks like she could do with a good meal. She dresses like hundreds of teenagers with jeans and a gray hoodie.
‘This is the girl who saved your life,’ said Kathy. ‘She followed you down into the basement, staying in the shadows, and was there when Vegas shot you. Before she could react, another girl sprang out of the darkness and sliced a knife across his throat, then ran for the stairs.
She knew you were in trouble when she saw the blood pumping from your chest, so stuck her finger into the bullet hole and sealed the leak. Something she had seen in a tv program.
She was still there when our officers found you and called for paramedics. They all agreed that it would be best if she keep her finger in place, so she traveled here to the hospital with you, never once removing her finger. All the way.
Only when you were in the Accident unit was she allowed to remove it. The doctor explained that the bullet had nicked a major artery close to your heart and if she hadn’t acted when she did, you would have died in the basement.’
All the time Kathy is telling me this, I can’t take my eyes off the girl. In particular, the nose pin she’s wearing. It’s silver with a skull on the end. I’ve seen the skull before.
The girl stares mostly at the floor, only occasionally glancing my way.
‘I thought you might like to thank her, Sammy?’ Kathy prompts.
I look at Kathy and find her expression hard to read. Nervous? Apprehensive? I feel like she’s asking my approval, but I’m not sure for what. I turn back to the young girl.
Still not sure what to make of either Kathy or the girl, I can’t somehow give the words the depth of feeling they should probably have when thanking someone for saving my life. But I thank her anyway.
At that point, true to her word, the nurse returns and shepherds my visitors away, with Kathy promising to return the following day.
After they leave I try to make sense of what
I’ve just seen and heard. Quite a few details are bothering me, but most of all, it’s Kathy’s discomfort.
Then there’s the nose pin.
Unable to make any progress, I’m about to lower my bed when I hear my cell vibrate. The noise is coming from a drawer in the unit by the bed. I stretch out and tug it towards me, open the drawer and remove my cell.
I realize then, when I see there are dozens of unanswered calls, that I’ve no idea how long I’ve been in here. Scanning through them, I quickly realize they’re mostly from one number. If I were able, I would kick myself. They’re all from Trace. She must be in a state of complete panic by now.
I’m about to call her when I stop to think about what I’m going to say. Health wise, I can say I’ve been shot but am recovering and will be fine. That bit’s easy. But how will she manage without me? She’ll need cash and food.
I need help. But no-one knows about Trace. It would need to be someone I can trust. My first thought is Kathy, but I still haven’t figured out what exactly her involvement is with the girl from the High School. That whole visit left me feeling really uncomfortable. Something was going on there and I don’t know what. Until I do, I’m no longer as certain about her.
The only other choice I have is my parents. Only when I have that thought, do I realize that they probably don’t even know I’ve been shot either. I call them first.
47
Two days later, they move me to a small private room, and I’m doing something I hardly ever make time for; I’m reading a book. A crime thriller, naturally. I reckon I have it solved by the second chapter, but will have to read on if only to prove myself correct.