Then a man died while in police custody. Andrea had not known this, but soon saw it as she tried driving to their home to meet up with Curt for dinner. The highway became a parking lot, so Andrea turned the news talk radio channel and asked her Waze app for an alternate route home.
“Protests erupted last night late in the wake of the death of a black man in police custody. The violence has spread from Wisconsin across the nation. The riots in Portland and the CHAZ zone are nothing like…”
Just then her phone rang.
“Hey honey,” she answered, her phone hooked to the car’s Bluetooth.
“Hey babe, where are you at?” he asked.
“Stuck on the highway, I guess there’s some sort of protest going on ahead of me. I’m re-routing.”
“Please tell me you got your pistol?”
“I do, it’s in the center console right now,” she said cracking the lid, seeing her Baby Desert Eagle in .40 right where she left it when she went into work.
“Good, get off at the nearest exit and I’ll talk you through.”
“I have my Waze app already rerouting me. I have to get off here though, I’m only thirty minutes away if I take surface streets.”
They chatted for a couple minutes more, then Andrea had to go. Traffic was moving slowly, and half a dozen police cruisers had passed on either shoulder with their lights on. She hoped they were breaking up what was holding traffic up but decided to get off the highway anyway. Her app called out directions and she skipped half a mile of surface streets before turning down one Curt had told her was going to be out of the reported danger zones. She had to loop under the interstate before she could turn west in the general direction of their home.
Just as her car went under the overpass, something fell from above. The windshield exploded and agonizing pain exploded on her chest and left leg. In the pain and confusion, the accelerator was jammed down and her Audi plowed into the support of the underpass. Her head hit the steering wheel despite being buckled, everything went black.
She was not out long, she did not think. The doctor in her took stock of the situation. Head sore, her chest felt like she had been hit by a baseball bat and she was pretty sure her leg was broken. Something heavy was resting in her lap, but she was having a hard time wiping the blood out of her eyes. That is when her door was wrenched open. The world had been quiet until that point, but now as her hearing came back, she heard yelling and screaming. Hands reached in for her, and she hit the latch for her center console, grabbing her .40, as two screaming figures tried pulling her out despite the seat belt.
It only took half a second to realize they were not there to help.
“Bitch!”
“Cunt!”
“Basic white lady!”
“White privilege!”
“Rich bitch!”
All that and worse was being screamed at as two figures jumped on the hood and started trying to pull her through the windshield that had been damaged. Feeling like she was about to be torn apart, she moved her right arm and the hand that held the BDE. She realized she was screaming herself.
“No, no, no, no, no, no,” as somebody got a handful of her hair and started wrenching.
She did not have to aim. When she pulled the trigger, she was deafened as the shot rang out and felt a splatter on her head. There were screams outside and the people on her left were frantically trying to yank her out of the car. When somebody reached across her to try to get her seatbelt, she put the muzzle of her pistol on top of their shoulder and fired again. The body almost collapsed on top of her for a minute but was pulled out. The man or woman who was still yanking on her left arm slowed for a second when the pistol turned their way. One more trigger pull and somebody else fell without screaming.
The car started getting pelted by rocks, chunks of asphalt, signs, trash, and lengths of wood. She held her left arm in front of her face and head as best as she could, but it wasn’t working right. Nobody wanted to get close to her vehicle, but somebody started shouting that they needed to shoot her ass. She was about to give up when sirens filled the air behind her. Good thing, she was having a hard time staying…
A lucky throw had a golf ball sized rock come in the side of the car door, striking her in the left temple.
Andrea awoke slowly. Everything hurt except her right leg and her right arm. Something was wrong with her right arm though, she could not move it more than a few inches and she could not open her eyes. Mouth parched, she tried licking her lips, but her tongue was dried and swollen, just like the inside of her mouth. She tried to talk, but it came out in a croak. Something cold, wet, and hard was put against her lips and she opened her mouth a little bit. A chip of ice was worked around her lips and then put in her mouth.
She sucked on it, savoring the wetness tinged with something salty. When she was done, she opened her mouth again, silently asking for more. Another ice chip was put in her mouth and she felt somebody's hand stroking her hair slowly as they worked at what felt like tape on her temple.
The bright light both shocked and hurt her eyes, making her hiss out in pain. She tried to cover them with her right hand but heard something rattle and stop her from moving it. Instead she tried to move her head, only to feel it blocked from turning as foam or a pillow was lodged on either side.
“Shhh, baby, don’t struggle,” Curt’s voice came through the fog. Another ice chip was put on her lips and she opened her mouth to take it, greedily.
“Curt?” she asked, opening her eyes a pinch, seeing her husband swim into focus at her bedside at the hospital.
“How bad?” she asked, then coughed.
“Let me go get the doc,” Curt said, standing up. “I have to tell them you’re awake. Are you ok for me to do that?”
“Yes,” Andrea said quietly.
She watched him go out of the hospital room and looked to her right arm. She was handcuffed to the side of the bed.
“Fucking perfect,” she muttered.
It did not take long, and Curt came back in with one of the newer ER docs they had poached from Dallas last year. Where were Leah and Dante? How long had she been out?
“Doctor Mallory, good to see you awake,” he said, getting out his light and shining it in one eye, then the other.
“Good to see you, Doctor Stewart,” she said, her voice raspy.
He went through his exam and asked her about pain. Everything hurt, and she told him so. He pointed to her IV and the button she could push. She knew it well, a morphine drip. Problem was, she could not move either arm.
“Push the button once for me,” she rasped.
“It’s right by… oh, yeah,” Doc said, pressing it once for her.
“How bad am I, doc?” she asked.
“Concussion, lacerations on your chest, shoulder, arm. Broken ribs, a cracked sternum, broken clavicle, dislocated shoulder, broken wrist and lastly, a broken femur. That cement block did a number on you. But, as you can see, your vision is fine, and we’ve got you taken care of. We kept you sleeping for a few days so we could perform surgery and let you have an easier recovery. I’m sorry about the handcuffs, but the police were persistent, and they’ve been outside since this happened.”
“Outside the hospital?” she asked, her voice smoothing out.
“Outside your room here. I don’t know if they’re guarding you or waiting to arrest you. The news has gone nuts.”
“Where’s Dante and Leah? Doctors Weaver?”
Doctor Stewart looked down. “They’re on administrative leave and have been banned from the hospital until a decision has been made.”
“What? What’s going on?”
Stewart turned to Curt. Curt nodded, then spoke. “Nobody saw the protest moving and spreading out as fast as it did. When the rioters tried to pull you out of the car, you shot four people. The police are holding you, because the crowd said you fired into them indiscriminately, then they tried to pull you out.”
“That’s a damned lie,” her voic
e came out in a hiss.
“I know. I told the cops where to find the SD cards for your cameras. Having front and back cameras installed last year is probably going to save you from a life in prison, or the death penalty.”
“What did Dante and Leah do?”
“One of the men you shot… you shot through the shoulder. The bullet travelled down and nicked his aorta. Dante was called in to operate. When he found out it was one of your attackers, he requested somebody else perform the surgery. The hospital refused, so Dante flat out said no. The man was basically dead already, but Dante said he would have died before he even had a chance to scrub in. Leah wouldn’t leave your side when you came in, doing a lot of the work on you right away. You know how they take care of their own,” he said, running his hands through her hair.
“Yes we do,” Doctor Stewart said, looking her in the eyes. “And when Leah found out some of the protestors and rioters were some of the ones who tried to hurt you… She said they were low priority and triaged them out to other doctors. The administrator had a conniption, his doctors and surgeons taking what cases they wanted and refusing the rest. It became political when he went to the news.”
“Dear lord.” Andrea sighed. “The meds are kicking in now. How long am I in here?”
“A couple of more days should do it,” Stewart said, “as long as it’s safe for you to go outside.”
“Safe to go outside?”
“The protests have moved to the hospital,” Curt said quietly. “Now you’re being protested on for killing three and wounding a fourth.”
“I only fired three times,” she said softly, tears starting to run down her cheeks.
“One of them passed through the man’s head and hit a woman standing behind him who was trying to yank you out.”
“How do you know?” she asked.
“Your backup phone was on the whole time, our failsafe worked. Your GoPros were recording to the cloud live. Remember the extra redundancy we put in place? I found the files on the cloud, but like Doc Stewart said, this is political now.”
“What about my Audi?” she asked, hating to ask about it, but it was her favorite possession.
“Totaled. They towed it before it could be lit on fire, thank God. I gave the police permission to search it and told them to look for the cameras and SD cards to get the real story.”
“Why not send the video from the cloud storage?” asked.
“Like I said, it was political. We’re saving it as our ace in the hole. I don’t think the police realize we have access to it.”
Andrea sipped some water and digested what they had been telling her. “Get the cops in here. I can’t use my left arm and my right is handcuffed.”
“I’m not sure you should do that without a lawyer,” Doctor Stewart said.
“Oh, I won’t, I’m just going to get them to move the cuff,” she stated.
“Your left wrist is casted…”
Sixteen
If Andrea had not been stuck in the hospital, Dante and Leah would have bugged out to the farm. The greater Memphis area was an absolute mess. Riots had erupted every night since the shooting, and the news was nonstop about the doctor who had murdered three and injured a fourth. They both agreed she had a great case against the news agencies for smearing her when she had not even been indicted yet.
“I have to go in today,” Dante said. “The hospital review board and the administrator want to talk.”
“Honey, as long as you keep your license, we can make it.”
“I know,” Dante said, kissing her before filling his travel mug. “I have a hole card to play if they get nasty.”
“I’m coming with you,” she said, grabbing her purse.
“You’re still banned,” he said, sighing.
“Let them walk me out then. I’m going to be sitting right outside of the conference room door, and I want to check on my bestie.”
“She’s awake now,” Dante said.
“Curt texted me too. The cops want to question her. Bad. They lawyered up. Honestly, the way the news is reporting it, they are going to indict her just based on the badly edited cell phone videos. None of it shows the brick going through the windshield or her crash, just her shooting into a crowd.”
“She didn’t shoot into a crowd,” Leah told him, wrapping her arms around him. “You think you did the right thing still?”
“Yeah, but I should not have said I didn’t want to work on the scumbag, and just told them he wasn’t going to make it and gone on to the next case. Me and my big mouth.”
“As long as you don’t feel guilty, I’m happy with whatever the outcome is.”
While those at the farm were waiting for the outcome of the police’s investigation and Andrea’s stay in the hospital, construction was pretty much completed on the farm. Steven had waffled on going back to the Memphis area, and instead had Luis keep running things for him. Five weeks seemed to be forever away from his crew, but they all had liked finishing off the cabins and they had had a good break after that before starting a new build.
Steven had needed to mostly organize what materials had to be delivered when and drive up once a week for payroll. Since the riots broke out, he had idled the crew, telling them it had been too dangerous for them all to drive to the jobsite. The good news was the spec house he had built had sold. For nowhere near as much money as he had hoped, but he had made a tidy profit on it. Enough that he could idle the crew for a while and not worry about them going elsewhere.
Anna and Angelica had become thick as thieves, both using the heavy equipment after a day of instruction from Steven and Rob. A place near the rocky treed area had been cleared, and the two ladies had built their own gun range. Rob knew his wife was a good shooter already, they had competed as couples, but Anna was something else. She had a gift that Rob had seen few in the military with. She was teaching Anna every other day, and on the off days, Angelica was teaching her how to box and tumble. When she was sure Anna was not going to break, she was going to start introducing Krav Maga, something both her and Rob were proficient in.
As far as the monkey stomping went, that was just the country in Angelica, not something she was sure could be taught directly, but she did show her how to do devastating knee and elbow drops. With the Wuhan Flu panic being replaced with riots and anarchy, they still felt like a timer was ticking down and did everything they could to prepare for whatever was coming.
Rob had been working with Roscoe and Ranger during this time when he was not checking on the animals, fixing equipment from the planting season, getting harvesting equipment maintained and ready for the coming grain harvest. Their own bulls had done their job and there were a lot of newborn calves. The pigs were also doing quite well, despite the heat of summer. Rob was going to have to make a run to the processor soon. Their grow outs were ready for market, and they would have some beef to sell in another month. Despite prices falling and some processors across the country shutting down, he had no problem finding smaller places who wanted high grade, non-chemically enhanced animals.
“Doctor Weaver, please, have a seat,” the administrator said, the friendly smile now gone.
“Am I going to be here long enough to have a chance to?” Dante asked, more curious than anything else. He had already come to terms that this was a political hit job, but if they pushed too hard, he would push back and, if he took the hospital to court, the hospital would lose.
“Please,” the administrator said, pointing to the chair.
The review board was there, everyone with a folder in front of them. Dante was the only one not studying a half an inch-thick packet of papers that was neatly stapled together. Somebody coughed and the moment stretched. When it became apparent everybody was afraid to say anything, Dante stood back up and headed for the door.
“We’re not finished,” the administrator squeaked.
“You never started. Are you going to, or am I supposed to just sit here for another two minutes while nobody talks a
nd avoids eye contact?”
The administrator sighed and pointed to the seat. “Your actions in refusing to treat the gunshot patient may have led to his death. As you know, this issue is politicized beyond anything the police and medical center is comfortable with.”
“Basic triage,” Dante said. “He’d lost a lot of blood and was already flatlining, and you wanted me to perform open heart surgery? You were going to have to revive him before I even scrubbed in.”
“It says here you were refusing to work on him once you found out they’d been in on attacking your friend,” one of the review board said, reading something on a page.
“I was mad and talking out loud. That was an error on my part; you know how you are in life and death situations. Hell, I remember one of you calling a patient a whoremaster while you were trying to get his heart started with a cardiac massage,” Dante said pointedly at his mentor on the board.
Everybody winced.
“The prosecutor is reviewing the case as a potential wrongful death—”
“People die all the time. Even if I had already been scrubbed up and had an ER room ready, with all the people and the tools ready to roll, he still would have died. That’s the fact. Me running at the mouth because my best friend had been mobbed and almost killed by him certainly contributed to my anger, but not his death. We have cameras in the ER for a reason. Review the footage.”
“We have, several times,” a woman said, one who had always been quiet on the board until now. “And video proof seems to collaborate what you’re saying, it’s just that—”
“It’s just that… what a good way to say, bend over, here it comes, sans lube!” Dante said with a chuckle.
There were shocked faces around the table at the crudeness, except from his mentor who hid a smile.
Behind The Curve-The Farm | Book 1 | The Farm Page 10