Bending the Paw

by Diane Kelly

  Alex came into the room, took one look at the deep gash on the man’s head, and flinched. “Ouch. What happened?”

  I stood. “The clerk said some kids hit him with a skateboard.”

  She bent down and felt for a pulse while the other paramedic rolled a gurney inside. “Do you know his name? Age?”

  I reached for the wallet sticking out of the man’s back pocket and fished out his license. “Samuel Leftwich.” Noting his birthdate, I performed some quick math. “He’s forty-one.”

  I compared the picture on the license to the man on the floor in front of me. His appearance had changed quite a bit since he’d had his driver’s license photo taken. While the guy in the photo was clean shaven with medium brown hair, the guy on the floor had cut his dark brown hair short and sported a full but nicely trimmed beard. I didn’t give the matter much thought. After all, it wasn’t unusual for people to look different in person than they did on their licenses. Hairstyles, hair colors, and facial hair changed with the times. A person’s weight could fluctuate, and lighting could make hair, eyes, and skin tone appear darker or lighter. In this case, the blood in the man’s hair might have given it a darker appearance.

  The address on his license was a local one here in Fort Worth. Why was he was staying in a hotel here in town? A glance at his left hand told me he wore a wedding ring. My eyes scanned the room for any indication of a woman staying here with him, but found none. Maybe he and his wife had an argument or were splitting up? I supposed it was none of my business and, besides, his reasons for staying here seemed to have nothing to do with the crime committed against him. I snapped a quick pic of the license with my phone, and stepped out into the hallway with Brigit to give the medical professionals room to work.

  Alex and the other EMT carefully cut off the man’s clothing to check for hidden injuries, then strapped him to the gurney, and rolled him out to the waiting ambulance. “I’ll get in touch with the next of kin,” I told them. “Where will you be taking him?”

  “John Peter Smith,” Alex said, naming the city’s primary public hospital.

  As soon as the ambulance took off, lights flashing and siren screaming, I confirmed Mr. Leftwich’s address with the clerk. He searched the guest records. “Yes. The address on the license is the one we have in our system, too. We always ask guests to verify whether the address on their license is current to make sure we’ve got accurate records.”

  “Thanks.” The address confirmed, I followed the blood trail out of the hotel to the front of the parking lot. A puddle of blood and surrounding spatter marked the site where the skateboard made contact with the man’s skull. Also on the asphalt was a crumpled brown paper bag, the tall and narrow kind they put bottles in at the liquor store. I called for backup.

  Once Summer arrived to help me, I gave Brigit the order to trail the disturbance. Summer rolled her window down and trailed Brigit and me in her squad car while we trotted along, following the scent the boys had left behind. They’d veered off into an older residential area. It wasn’t long before I saw them in a yard up ahead sitting on the hood of an oxidized Chevy sedan that had been parked on the front lawn. They were laughing and passing a bottle of Jack Daniel’s between them, rock music playing from one of their cell phones. They didn’t even have the sense to hide inside the house. Idiots. Summer and I exchanged a glance and a nod, ready to roll.

  The boys didn’t notice us until we were only a dozen feet away.

  “Shit!” The one with the bottle at his lips hurled it aside, the glass shattering as it impacted the concrete steps of the porch. The boy sprang from the hood and made it about twenty steps before Brigit brought him down on the sidewalk, his shriek filling the night air. While I rushed up and slapped cuffs on the kid, one of the others took off like a rocket. Summer leaped from her cruiser and ran after him. Luckily for us, he got tripped up in his own feet when he turned to look back at his pursuer. He fell down in the road, skidding on his hands until his face met the pavement, too. In an instant, Summer had him straddled and pulled his arms behind his back to be cuffed. The third kid was the only one of the group who appeared to have any sense. Or maybe he was just slow. He slid down the hood of the car with his hands in the air. In minutes, all three were shackled and seated in the back of Summer’s cruiser, muttering curses and sending death glares in our direction.

  After tossing Brigit three liver treats and giving her an ear rub and a “good girl!”, I turned to Summer. Rather than liver treats and ear rubs, I gave my friend a grateful smile to acknowledge a job well done. “Thanks for your help, Summer.”

  “Any time.”

  Congratulations complete, Summer opened her trunk to retrieve evidence-collection gear. We donned latex gloves and looked around for items that would definitively link these boys to the attack on Mr. Leftwich. While Summer carefully picked up the pieces of the broken whiskey bottle and bagged them, I looked around for the wheeled weapon. Three skateboards were scattered about. The first two were relatively clean, bearing only the expected road dirt and traces of motor oil on the wheels, but the third had a smear of what looked like blood on the bottom. Though I had no idea whether the blood was type A, B, AB, or O, the skateboard would no doubt be Exhibit A in the boys’ assault trial.

  Once the evidence had been secured, I rushed to the address on Leftwich’s license to notify his family that he’d been taken to the emergency room. Leaving Brigit in the car with the windows down, I hurried up to the porch of the single-story brick home and rang the bell. A moment later, a man pulled the door open. He looked remarkably like the photo on Mr. Leftwich’s license. A brother perhaps? Maybe even a twin? In the living room behind him, three young children sat on the floor in their pajamas, playing video games on the television.

  “Hello,” I said. “I’m looking for the next of kin of Samuel Leftwich. Are you related to him?”

  “I can do you one better,” the guy said. “I am Samuel Leftwich.” He lifted his palms and turned side to side as if modeling for me.

  My mind whirled. I whipped out my phone and pulled up the pic I’d taken of his license. “I just handled an incident involving a man with this license in his wallet.”

  Leftwich leaned in and eyed my screen. “That’s my license. My old one, at least. I lost it on Thanksgiving along with the rest of my wallet. The man you mentioned must have found it. Wish he’d returned it to me. I had to wait in line for three hours at the DMV to get a replacement.”

  The man who’d been attacked had been hiding out under Mr. Leftwich’s alias. Why? My mind began to twitch as it realized the who might be the answer to the why. “Any idea where you might have lost your license?”

  “I thought it might have fallen out of my pocket when I took my kids to see a movie, but when I called the theater, the manager said nobody had turned it in.”

  Movie theater. Thanksgiving. Manager. Could it be? “By any chance did you see the movie at the Take Two Theaters?”

  “That’s the one. How did you know?”

  “A hunch,” I said, having no time or inclination to explain, at least not until I verified my hunch. “I’ve got to get going. I’ll be back in touch about the license.”

  I turned and rushed back to my car, putting the pedal to the medal as I sped to the hospital. I brought Brigit into the ER with me. The place smelled of antiseptic and stale coffee. Several people sat waiting in the chairs that lined the walls, all with pensive expressions on their faces. One man held his side and groaned. A kidney stone, probably. The sheen of sweat on his grimacing face said that, on a scale of one to ten, his pain was a 33.

  I explained to the woman tending the reception desk that I needed to see the patient who’d been brought in under the name Samuel Leftwich. She called a nurse over to assist me.

  “How is he?” I asked the woman.

  “He’s still unconscious,” she said. “The doctors ran a CT scan to check for a skull fracture or brain bleed. We’re waiting on the results. In the meantime, they st
itched up his wound and put him on monitors and pain meds. We’re checking in on him every few minutes.”

  “Where is he now?”

  She pointed down a row of gurneys, some of which were closed off with curtains. “Last bed on the left.”

  “Thanks.” I passed by several curtained-off spaces in which people sat or lay on gurneys, some alone, others with a loved one beside them. I’d nearly reached a back door marked with a sign that read AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY when I came to the last bed. The man with the head injury lay on the gurney, still unconscious. A large white bandage was wrapped around his head, holding gauze padding in place over his wound. He’d been loosely dressed in a medical gown. The back of the gown was untied, the strings hanging about his shoulders. He was covered from the lower chest down by a blue blanket, his bare arms resting on either side of his torso. Clear tubing taped to the back of his left hand connected him to an IV bag hanging on a shiny metal stand next to him. Wires led from various parts of him to machines that monitored his vital signs. The soft beep-beep-beep of the heart monitor said he had a slow but steady pulse.

  I stepped up close and stared at the man’s face for a long moment. Is he Greg Olsen? It was impossible for me to be certain. I’d never met the man in person and could only go on the photographs I’d seen. This guy was Greg’s approximate height and weight as best I could tell. His eyes were closed, so I couldn’t verify their color without lifting a lid, but I wasn’t about to touch his injured head and risk hurting him further. How could I know?

  Then it hit me. On Valentine’s, when Detective Jackson had asked Shelby whether Greg had any identifying physical characteristics, Shelby mentioned two—Greg’s appendix scar and his outie belly button. Fortunately, I could verify those traits without having to touch his body.

  While I couldn’t pull the blanket down from his chest without lifting his arms, I could lift it from the bottom without disturbing him. I reached out and eased the blue blanket upward. One of his knees was turning purple with a whopper of a bruise. He must have landed on it when the delinquents attacked him. The dressing gown still covered his thighs and abdomen, so I reached out a second time to lift the gown up, too. Standing on her hind legs, Brigit put her front paws on the bed to see what I was doing. Yikes! They’d removed the man’s underwear. I got a full frontal view of his genitals in all their glory.

  Not satisfied with just a look, Brigit extended her snout to take a sniff. “No, girl!” I pushed her back before raising the gown farther. Sure enough, an appendix scar ran across the right side of his abdomen. As I continued to lift the fabric, his belly button came into view. An outie. “Whoa.”

  “Whoa, indeed,” snapped the stealthy nurse, who’d stepped up unheard behind me. “What are you doing?”

  I had no choice but to lay the gown to the side, leaving Greg exposed from the navel down. As a medical professional, she’d surely seen plenty of naked men. What was one more? “I’m trying to identify this man,” I told the nurse. “He was carrying someone else’s driver’s license in his wallet. I have a sneaking suspicion he might be a missing person we’ve been looking for.”

  She arched a skeptical brow. “And you can identify the missing person by his privates?”

  “No. I had no idea he wouldn’t be wearing underwear. I was hoping to ID him by his outie belly button and appendix scar.”

  “Oh. I see.” The nurse tilted her head to take a gander at the man’s surgical scar and navel. “Well, he’s got both. Does that mean he’s the man you’re after?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe. Do you have any idea about the percentage of people who have had their appendix removed?”

  “I don’t know the statistics,” she said, turning to check the man’s IV drip. “But it’s a very common surgery. We see appendicitis patients all the time here in the ER.”

  When in doubt, Google. I ran a quick search on my phone. The Internet shared its infinite wisdom, informing me that approximately seven to nine percent of the population had undergone an appendectomy, a higher percentage than I would have thought. Data showed that children aged ten to nineteen were the most likely to suffer appendicitis, that males had a slighter higher risk than females of coming down with the affliction, and that appendicitis tended to be more common in the summer months, just in time for bathing-suit season.

  I performed a statistical analysis. Taking into consideration that around ten percent of the population sported outie belly buttons, and assuming conservatively that seven percent of the population had lost their appendix to appendicitis, only 0.7 percent of people would have both a protruding navel and an appendectomy scar—less than one in a hundred. Given that such a small portion of the population would have both of these characteristics, plus the fact that this man appeared to be in the same general age range as Greg Olsen, I had both an inkling and statistical evidence that this guy could very well be the missing man.

  I whipped out my phone. “I need to get photos so his next of kin can ID him. Mind covering his privates?”

  She yanked a poofy blue disposable cap from a box on the rolling table next to the bed and situated it over the man’s gonads. Once it was in place, I snapped a photo that showed his appendicitis scar and his navel. I also took a close-up photo of his face, which was bruised, swollen, and partially covered by the white bandage around his head.

  As the nurse left our curtained-off quarters to check on another patient, I called the Studio Suites Hotel and identified myself to the clerk. “I’m the cop who was just there. Can you tell me when Mr. Leftwich checked into the hotel?”

  Clicking sounds came through the phone as the clerk apparently tapped some keys on his computer keyboard. “February fourteenth.”

  Valentine’s Day. The same night Greg Olsen disappeared. That increased the odds that the man lying in the bed before me was Greg Olsen, didn’t it? Of course, the only way to get a positive ID would be to have the police lab run a blood test or have Shelby take a look at him. The latter would be much faster.

  “Thanks.” I ended the call with the desk clerk, returned my cell phone to my pocket, and used my radio to request an officer to come keep watch over the guy. Summer was still tied up with booking the three juveniles, unfortunately, so she couldn’t do it for me.

  Derek’s voice came across the radio. “I’ll babysit the stiff.”

  Such professional language. “He’s not a stiff,” I said. “He’s still alive.” For now, anyway. I wasn’t sure how bad his head injury was, whether his brain swelling might get worse. If this guy was indeed Greg Olsen, he just might end up dead, after all. That would be ironic, huh?

  While I waited for Derek to arrive, I reached into my pocket to retrieve my cell phone so I could call Detective Jackson with an update. To my surprise, the device vibrated and rang with an incoming call. On hearing the sound, Brigit glanced up from her place on the floor, as if wondering herself who might be calling. The readout on the screen told me it was Detective Jackson. I jabbed the button to accept the call and put the phone to my ear. “Hello, Detective. I was just about to call you myself.”

  “Give yourself a pat on the back and buy Brigit a box of her favorite treats on me. You two nailed it. Sample twenty-three showed trace amounts of an antibiotic that wasn’t found in any of the other blood samples. The other samples also varied in their glucose and potassium levels. They were obviously drawn at different times. Hollywood’s got nothing on Greg Olsen.”

  So Greg’s death was scripted, after all, a scene in a fictional live-action drama. Only in this case, the lead character had inadvertently suffered a real injury. Should’ve used a stunt double.

  “Problem is,” Jackson continued, “we can’t arrest the guy when we don’t know where he is.”

  “Maybe we do know,” I said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Just a second.” I pulled the phone from my ear and sent the pics of Greg’s face and abdomen to her. Returning to the call, I said, “I’m in the ER at John Pet
er Smith, waiting for Derek Mackey to come keep watch over the patient in the photos. The guy was attacked tonight in the parking lot of a hotel where he’s been staying since Valentine’s Day. He had a fake ID in his wallet. It belonged to a local man who confirmed he lost his wallet at the Take Two Theaters in November.”

  “Glory hallelujah!” she cried. “Looks like we’ve got a Lazarus on our hands. Back from the dead. As soon as Derek shows up, meet me at Shelby’s.”

  FORTY-FIVE

  IT’S HIM, ALL RIGHT

  Brigit

  Brigit lay on her cushion in the cruiser, facing the back window in a puppy pout. She didn’t appreciate Megan scolding her and pushing her away from that man. Sniffing privates was a natural instinct for a dog. If Megan didn’t like it, then maybe she should work with a human instead of a K-9.

  Before Megan had pushed her away, Brigit had already gotten a tell-tale whiff of the man. She knew he was the same man she’d scented outside the building where she and Megan had waited at lunchtime today, the same one she’d smelled at the house with the dog with the smushed face. She’d smelled the blood on his bandage, too. It was the same blood she’d smelled before in the man’s kitchen. Well, almost the same. Her nose had detected very small differences among the puddles, and his blood smelled slightly different tonight, too.

  Her nose detected an influx of familiar scents as the cruiser rolled to a stop and Megan cut the motor. She stood and looked out the window, flexing her nostrils for a better smell. What do you know? They were back at smushy-face’s house again.

  FORTY-SIX

  BEEP

  The Slasher

  Beep … beep … beep …

  FORTY-SEVEN

  RESURRECTION

  Megan

  Detective Jackson climbed out of her cruiser as I parked my patrol car behind her. I rounded up Brigit from the back and met Jackson on the walkway.