Gun Shy

by Lori L. Lake

  “Do you keep them if they’re sliced open like that?” The nurse pointed to Dez’s left breast. Dez looked down, surprised to see an eight-inch gash. “It’s easier to cut it away,” the nurse said, a question in her voice. “Otherwise I might hurt you.”

  Dez shrugged. “You won’t hurt me. Don’t worry.”

  The nurse put down the shears and ripped at the Velcro straps on the vest as Dez looked around, ignoring the pain in her hand and arm. The emergency room wasn’t all that big, with six bays, three on either side of an aisle that ran up the middle of the area. Her overall impression was of a room filled with a lot of pipes and tubes and contraptions, and the dominant colors were white or dull silver. She thought it smelled like some sort of cleaning fluid. Dez sat on the exam table closest to the door. In the back corner, farthest from the door, an elderly lady lay hooked up to oxygen and strands of other tubes. With eyes closed, her hands fluttered across the chest of her pink robe as a technician fussed over her. Heart attack, Dez thought. That’s what that looks like.

  The nurse managed to get the vest loosened and off. She tugged at Dez’s T-shirt.

  “It’s just my arm. No need to strip naked is there?”

  “I need to be sure you’re not hurt anywhere else.” The nurse pulled the curtain around the bay.

  Dez frowned. If she hadn’t noticed her vest was shredded, then the nurse probably thought she might not know about other injuries. “Here, check me over.” Dez lifted her shirt with her left arm and the nurse ran her hand across her back, down her abdomen. “I think I’m fine. Really. I’d tell you if I was hurt anywhere else.”

  The nurse nodded as she helped resituate the T-shirt. “Can’t help it, Officer. They’d have my head if I missed anything.” She leaned down and untied Dez’s black work boots and slipped them off. “Step out of the slacks, too. Stand up. Here, I’ll help you.” She laid the blue pants over the exam table and checked the big cop over, then handed her a nearly translucent sheet to put over her bare legs. “Just sit back up there.” Once she was situated, the nurse got out a blood pressure cuff and strapped it on Dez’s arm, checked her pulse and blood pressure, and shone a light in her eyes. Dez bore the exam patiently.

  “Okay, you’re doing fine,” the nurse said as she removed the cuff. “Let’s go ahead and get you dressed again, and I’ll have the doctor come in as soon as possible.” They worked together to get her re-dressed as Dez cautiously held her right arm.

  The nurse whipped open the curtain around the area and tried to catch the attending physician’s eye. When that failed, she sighed and her brown eyes looked tired.

  Dez asked, “Been a long shift, huh?”

  “Yes, and I’ve only been here four hours. It’s been quite a night. As soon as he checks you over, we’ll get you across the hall to radiology.”

  From outside the tiny box of a room where the x-ray machine was kept, Dez sat on a bench and observed the arrival of the victims of the evening’s melee. Paramedics rolled a weeping Sara into the ER, followed closely by the red-haired man who stutter-stepped alongside the gurney in order to hold the hand of the woman. Moments later, Jaylynn came running in, Officer Milton at her heels. Not long after, a middle-aged woman appeared in the doorway and was ushered over to the partly curtained area.

  When the x-rays were done, the nurse gave Dez an ice pack for her forearm, and she was led back into the emergency room where she eased herself onto the exam table.

  “Hey, Milton,” Dez called out to her fellow officer as he finished talking to the young woman on the gurney and flipped his notebook closed.

  He looked up and strode toward her, smiling. “Reilly. You’re hurt, huh?”

  “Arm. Guy hit me here.” She lifted the ice bag and gestured toward the middle of her forearm. “Think it’s busted—maybe I’ll get lucky and it’ll just be a bad bruise, but I have a hunch it’s cracked.”

  “Tough luck, but hey, you did good tonight.”

  “Yeah, I’m glad for them.”

  Their backs were to Dez, but she saw a red-haired man with his arm around the feisty blonde woman. Dez’s face took on a puzzled look as she stared at her. Where have I seen her before? She surveyed the lean legs and khaki shorts, the hot pink tank top and the well-rounded hips and shoulders. Short white-blonde hair topped a long, regal neck. Dez wished the woman would turn around so she could study her more closely.

  She couldn’t see the girl who had been attacked, though she did see an older lady leaning over her whom she assumed was the young woman’s mother. Dez heard a soft murmur of reassuring words being spoken to the girl. The doctor and another nurse swept past Milton and headed for the bay where the brown-haired girl lay. The nurse stopped for a brief moment and waved the two onlookers away. Clearly the two friends tried to protest, but the doctor reached up and encircled the bay with the curtain to shut them out. They stepped back and Milton called out, “C’mon, people. Let her mom handle this for a bit. They’ll take good care of her. Come out and wait with me.”

  They headed toward the door, both focusing on Milton. The woman glanced briefly at Dez and did a double take. “You! It’s you.” She stopped in front of Dez, close enough to put her hand on the injured cop’s knee. “What happened?” Behind her the red-haired man stepped up to peer over his friend’s shoulder.

  Dez shrugged as she felt herself blush. She lifted the ice bag again to display her swollen arm, which was also beginning to show the pale outline of a wide bruise.

  “How did you . . . how did that happen?”

  “Little guy hit me with the bat when I first came in the room.”

  “But—but, how did you do that then—stop them, I mean—with your arm like that?”

  Dez shrugged again and knew her face was fully crimson.

  The woman went on. “Wow, that was totally exhilarating. Amazing to see! You were incredible.”

  Dez mumbled, “Not really. Actually, you did half of it. If you hadn’t kicked them a few times, I would’ve been in worse trouble.”

  The nurse returned. “All right, all right. Enough with the visiting. I’ve got work to do. Out. Out into the waiting area.” She shooed them out, waving at Milton, too.

  Dez put her hand on Milton’s sleeve to hold him back. “Before you go, what are their names?”

  “Don’t know the man’s yet, but I’m gonna question them now.” He flipped open his memo book and thumbed down a few pages. “Her name’s Jaylynn Savage, and that one over there,” he nodded toward the bay in the corner, “she’s Sara Wright.”

  “Thanks,” she said, and turned away when the nurse demanded her attention to tell her the doctor would be in shortly to set her arm and have it casted. It’s broken, Dez thought. That’s just great. Three or four weeks of desk duty. Just what I need. Shit.

  Jaylynn and Tim settled into the waiting room among a conglomeration of sickly and unhappy people either waiting to be seen or waiting for some loved one.

  “She didn’t look so good, did she, Tim?”

  More sharply than she thought he intended he said, “She just survived a beating and a near rape. What do you expect?”

  “No, I don’t mean Sara. The cop. I meant the cop.”

  “Oh, yeah, her, too.” He reached into his back pocket and removed a comb to nervously style his hair.

  Jaylynn winced, remembering the cop’s battered arm. And to think I didn’t even notice what happened! How could I have been so blind? I remember him hitting her with the bat . . . but now that I think about it, of course she wouldn’t escape unscathed. In bat versus arm, the bat always wins.

  Tim put his comb back in his pocket. “I don’t know what would have happened if I’d come home and found you both being raped. Or dead. Oh, God.” Shaking, he took a deep breath and put his head between his knees, messing up his hair.

  Jaylynn draped her arm across his back and leaned down to speak in his ear. “That didn’t happen, so don’t even think about it. It’s all right, Tim.”

  He sat bac
k up and shivered. “Keep reminding me, okay?” He got his comb back out and repeated the styling, his hands shaking.

  It took almost an hour before they learned the hospital would keep Sara overnight for observation. Until then, they sat in the waiting room watching wounded people being hauled in and scores of cops coming and going through the ER entrance. Jaylynn wondered if every cop in Saint Paul had stopped by the hospital to check on Officer Reilly.

  She turned the events of the night over and over in her head. What if she hadn’t come home when she did? What if Sara had been killed? She shuddered. What if both of them had been killed? What if the cop hadn’t shown up when she did? Too many “what-ifs.” Jaylynn looked over at Tim. His head was tipped back against the wall and he was asleep, his hand in hers. The glass door leading to the exam rooms opened and the woman cop, Reilly, emerged, followed by a nurse. She carried her blue uniform shirt and a gray vest in her good hand. In the thin tank T-shirt her broad shoulders were nearly as white as the cast covering her right arm from knuckles to elbow. She and the nurse went to the main desk and spoke briefly with the clerk who handed her a white prescription bag. Jaylynn watched her try to sign something with her right hand in a cast, then give up and switch to her left hand, which she held awkwardly above the paper on the high counter.

  Two patrol officers rose from the uncomfortable waiting room chairs on the other side of the room and strolled over. The male officer was young, his bleached white hair in a buzz cut, and he wore golden wire-rimmed glasses. He swaggered, his bow-legged stride confident and sure. Taking shorter paces next to him was a smaller, wide-shouldered Latino woman. Her short-cropped hair was jet-black and she was probably in her late thirties. The male cop came up behind Reilly and gave her a mock blow to the lower back. She spun around. A slow smile crossed her face and she smacked him in the stomach with the back of her good hand. The Latino officer slid her arm around Reilly’s waist and said something in her ear, which must have been serious because Reilly looked down at her cast and nodded grimly.

  That Reilly sure is tall, Jaylynn thought. She towered a good foot over the nurse and was maybe six inches taller than the other woman cop. Without the bulk of the vest she looked slimmer than she had during the fight. Jaylynn admired her lean hips and very wide shoulders. From behind, she was as broad-shouldered as a man, except that with her brunette hair French-braided so beautifully, it wasn’t likely she’d be mistaken for one. The big officer slung his arm across her shoulders, and as the three moved to leave, Jaylynn saw how tired the injured cop looked.

  “Hey,” Jaylynn said over the low din in the room. She almost didn’t expect to be heard, but Dez looked at her and gave her a quick nod.

  “Wait a minute,” Jaylynn heard her say to the two cops, and then she strolled toward her and the sleeping man. Jaylynn stared at Reilly and was captivated again by the bluest, steeliest eyes she’d ever seen, eyes that bored right through her. Her heart beat faster and she choked in a short intake of breath, tilting her head slightly to the side to try to take in the strange, almost disturbing glimpse of something familiar yet forgotten. She extricated herself from Tim and rose to face the woman in blue. She reached out for Dez’s left hand saying, “Thanks for what you did,” and squeezed the bigger hand and reluctantly let go.

  “No problem. It’s my job.”

  Jaylynn smiled and gazed up into tired but warm blue eyes. “I hardly think getting your arm broken is in the job description.”

  Dez shook her head. “Not usually.” She took a deep breath and backed up. “Good luck to your friend in there, Ms. Savage. She’s going to need a lot of support.”

  “We’ll take good care of her. Thanks again.”

  “Yup. See you around.” Dez made her way out the door as Jaylynn peered after her thoughtfully. Nice looking woman.

  Jaylynn and Tim finally got home after two in the morning. The house was a little spooky to her, but she was so tired she fell directly into bed, taking only enough time to set her clock for her nine a.m. final. If her professor asked any questions about arrests or searches and seizures, she was sure she’d have some good examples from tonight.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Dez stirred awake the next morning to the thump-thump sound of her downstairs neighbor, Luella Williams, beating a broom handle on the ceiling. She looked at her bedside clock: 6:40 a.m. She didn’t think three hours of sleep would cut it, but her landlady had given the signal, and from the warning, Dez knew she’d be on her way up the stairs. Luella lived downstairs in the two-story house, and she and Dez had grown close over the nine years Dez lived there.

  Groggy from the pain pill she took in the middle of the night, Dez rolled out of bed, barefoot, still wearing her duty slacks and a T-shirt. Her arm throbbed mercilessly. She opened the apartment door just as Luella, in all her plump, elderly blackness, rounded the newel post below with newspaper in hand. Dez leaned against the doorjamb waiting for her to climb the last of the stairs.

  “Good Lord, Dez!” Luella said. “Sorry if I woke you, but you’re on the news again. What have you done to yourself now?” She shuffled toward the door with her pink bedroom slippers skiffing on the hardwood hallway floor, her flowered robe swirling around her, and her silver hair in wild disarray. What Dez liked best about Luella was the indomitable spirit that animated her deep brown eyes. Luella had a good-hearted smile, always full of love and compassion for her moody tenant.

  Dez looked at the cast on her arm and shrugged. She opened the door wide, and Luella entered and dropped the folded newspaper on the tiny kitchen table. She stood looking at Dez with a frown on her face. Dez sank down into a seat at the dinette table, and Luella smoothed dark hair off her forehead and let her hand rest there for a moment. “You feel like you’ve got a fever, gal.” Dez did not respond, so Luella moved over to open a cupboard.

  “What are they saying on the news?” Dez watched Luella set the teakettle in the sink, fill it with water and put it on the stove to heat. Dez stood, reaching with her good arm, and took out a wicker basket of various teas from the top of the cupboard and set them on the table. Then both women sat and gazed at one another.

  As Luella fingered the packets of tea, she said, “Channel Five is calling you a hero. Channel Four asks why the police didn’t catch the criminals sooner. Channel Eleven, as usual, did a more in-depth story. They say you caught two rapists—in the act, too.”

  “Not exactly. I got ’em before that happened.” Dez shifted in her chair, not sure what to do with her casted arm. She set it on the table, but that felt awkward and made it throb. She moved it to her lap. It still throbbed. Oh, well. Guess I’m going to have to get used to that.

  Luella picked up the newspaper and unfolded it to the bottom of page one. “Check this out. One of them stinkers has welched on his buddy already, even told the cops that they’d done four other rapes, so it looks like this is a good collar for you. It’s a pretty decent story—see?” She handed the paper to Dez, who winced immediately upon seeing the headline: “The Life of Reilly: Tragedy and Triumph.”

  “Geez, what a stupid headline.” Dez dropped the paper onto the table and looked away.

  “You might not want to read it right now, Dez. They go into detail about, you know, about Ryan’s death and everything.” Luella hesitated when she saw the pain in Dez’s eyes. “But according to the paper, this was a great collar. You captured two very nasty guys, and since they gave each other up already, I think it’s safe to congratulate you.”

  Dez was relieved. From what she’d seen, she knew they had enough evidence to convict the two men of assault, but if they didn’t have criminal records, which she suspected might be the case, they could have gotten off easily. Of course, DNA evidence might exist from the other attacks, but sometimes that didn’t work out in court either. Much better that they’d turned against each other.

  Luella gestured toward Dez’s arm. “Is that broken?”

  Dez nodded. “One of the jerks hit me with a bat. I can’t beli
eve I didn’t feel it until later.” Which was actually a lie. She’d known something was wrong immediately because she had no grip in her hand, but she decided Luella didn’t need to hear about that. “It’ll be a good three or four weeks, I guess, before I can go back on regular duty.” She shook her head in exasperation. “Just what I need now.”

  Luella covered Dez’s good hand with her soft fingers and patted her. “A little bit of rest might be just what you need after what you’ve been through lately. You look exhausted, and you’ve been pushing yourself like there’s no tomorrow. Ever since Ryan—”

  “Yeah, I know.” Dez rose abruptly to check the teakettle, which was hardly warm yet. She leaned back against the counter and tried to cross her arms, but that sent a shooting pain up her arm, and she suddenly felt nauseated. She moved back to the chair and sat, allowing Luella to reach out again and stroke her pale arm with her soft, mahogany-colored hand and pink fingers.

  Dez said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can take you over to Vanita’s house today.”

  “Big deal. She can get off her fat butt and take a cab. You’re always running us around.”

  “That’s no way to talk about your sister,” Dez said in mock seriousness. “Look at the bright side though. You won’t have to iron for me for a couple weeks.”

  “No more chores for you for the rest of the summer either.”

  “Not much summer left. Wish I’d mowed yesterday.”

  “Oh, don’t even worry about it. I can hire out the lawn,” Luella said.

  With a sudden fierceness Dez said, “For crapsake! I suppose I won’t be able to play guitar for weeks.”

  Luella gazed at her grumpy friend and nodded. “Could be. You heal fast, though.” She clucked and frowned. “But right now you don’t look so good, little missy.” An understatement. Dark circles under Dez’s eyes paired up with lines of pain across her forehead. “You look beat. And when was the last time you ate?” Luella’s voice was full of accusation.