As she spoke Jill subtly texted David again: Nash has been under-medicated. Doctor visits sparse, erratic.
Gary Clark looked in to say Nash was asleep.
“You’re sure he’s asleep?” Sister Meg asked.
“Yes, yes.” He’d heard most of what she had said. “Oh, the church. I had to accompany Ralph there once, just to walk around outside.” Clark looked at Burrell. “You too, huh?”
Burrell nodded in frustration. “Oh, yeah. He couldn’t go in, it’s all boarded up. That got him crazy, but there was that save-the-church bunch he met with there, on the sidewalk. They seemed to know him and calmed him down a little. I think he was emailing some of them.” Burrell grimaced. “They got my email address too. Next thing I knew I was getting bombarded with pleas to help paint posters, come to meetings, make calls to organize, that sort of thing.”
“Did you?” Jill asked.
Another frustrated gesture. “A bit. It just seemed like a losing cause. That church, I’m sorry Sister, but you can practically smell the tree rot from outside.”
Gary Clark was leaning on the doorjamb. “I hadda give one of those people my email too. Helped once, that was it. Ralph kept begging me to take him back to the church, but I said no. He got crazy-mad, said he’d go himself if Rick and I wouldn’t go with him.” Clark looked in annoyance at Burrell. “I didn’t take him seriously. His window was supposed to be cemented closed, right?”
Burrell shook his head in self-reproach. “Yes! I sealed it good and hard. Never thought to look again. Got so busy …” He shook his head again. “This is scary. Who knows how many times he was in and out that window?”
So Ralph was obsessed with the church too. Alex and Keri traded looks. Let’s go check out that rally.
They gave Sister Meg their cards and thanked her. Jill did too and headed with them down the steps.
“God bless you,” Sister Meg called, smiling sadly and waving from the front door.
The time was 4:05.
The CDC guy sounded surprised. They’d called and gotten the damned menu, been switched from one department to another until they got some double-PhD who’d just gotten back from a meeting.
Gregson explained about the mosquito. They were calling from Pathology’s office where they’d dislodged a secretary. Peter had flipped on the speakerphone while David paced.
“A vet called us, like, just two days ago,” the virologist continued. He sounded young and chatty. “Some lady’s dog had it. He was sharp, that vet, knew some animals besides horses get it. So he researched it, and yeah, it was EEE all right, he sent us his report and virus image. We’re trying to get a team together to go up and spray, drain the water. Can’t aerial spray of course ‘cause it’s in the city, also because it’s under some building…waitaminnit” – sound of papers riffling – “Here it is. There’s water exposed at the site of some church rectory just demolished, and water unexposed under the closed church in front of it. In the basement, probably, judging by the new water table the demolition’s created. Jeez, we don’t even have this online, yet. How’d you guys find this?”
David, pacing, felt his phone vibrate. Two texts from Jill: Nash’s nurse, named Rick Burrell, is that same corduroy jacket guy we saw watching Nash with his megaphone; and, Nash has been under-medicated. Doctor visits sparse, erratic.
Peter on the phone was sympathizing with the virologist about their budget cuts. “I know,” he was saying. “It’s the same here. Budget cuts everywhere.”
“Well, we’ve gotta get somebody up there to evaluate, arrange for drainage and spraying. They’re spread so thin! There are two teams out now investigating dengue outbreaks, another’s doing a bird flu place - this late in the season, can you imagine? Three others finally got funding to drain and treat no end of water-born places mosquitoes love, it’s gotta be done before everything ices over, because – wham! – it’s spring before you know it and the damned skeeters start to party again. Humans getting EEE is rare, thank goodness-”
David tore off a piece of lab sheet and scribbled thanks, I’ll call. Patted Gregson on the shoulder as Peter looked up, rolling his eyes hearing about changed water tables since Hurricane Sandy, reports still pouring in – ha! no pun! – and Staten Island already icing over…
Seconds later David was back in the stairwell, texting Jill. Avoid the church. DON’T GO THERE!
He sent, and ran down the rest of the way.
The time was 4:14.
31
RALLY! JOIN US! SAVE OUR HISTORY!
In the chill, fading light they chanted, carried signs, and marched before the venerable old church. Some cried to onlookers, “My grandparents were married here!” …“It’s heartbreaking! … “Three generations of my family worshipped here!”
Some from the crowd watching joined in. There was a police barricade before the church, but they marched in front of the yellow barriers and the rally was mostly peaceful. Except for one moment when a woman gripping a rosary ran up to a uniformed cop and cried, “They’re killing me! They’re erasing my past!”
“Mine too,” he told her gently. “I took a lot of pictures.”
Squad cars lined the curb. Against the back of one parked twenty yards away, Jill leaned and watched with the two detectives.
“Come back with us in one of these,” Alex said to her. He was taping the rally with his phone. Had made a call, and had other plainclothes people taping too. Every angle counted.
“Thanks,” Jill said, studying faces in the crowd, the rally, absently fingering her medallion. “Is this still working?”
“Yep, I’ve got it turned down. Don’t take it off yet.”
“Okay.” Her breath caught. “Yeow, look who’s there.”
Just rounding the long, oval circle demonstrating were Brian and Dara Walsh.
Alex nodded without surprise. “I had Dara followed. She joined this group as it formed behind the demolished rectory.”
Keri said, “Hubby must have been waiting. Huh? They didn’t seem to like each other.”
“So they’ve got this in common.”
Both Walshes carried placards. Dara’s read GREED - Jill pictured her stealing Splenda packets – and Brian’s read DON’T DEMOLISH GOD! They were chanting with the others, “Join us! Join us! Save our history!”
“Nash must have known them,” Keri whispered fiercely. “Burrell said there were emails going back and forth, meetings even – Nash had broken his window lock-”
Her phone rang. She answered, and stiffened. “Sister Meg,” she whispered, holding the phone so Alex and Jill could hear. Through the noise, high, thin crying at the other end.
“…bashed Greg with his crucifix….then took his…and stabbed him!”
Jill’s phone vibrated a second later. She reached for it, and running sounded behind her. Too late, they saw her head yanked back and two white-shirted arms pulling her backward, one practically strangling her, the other holding something glinting at her throat.
Bandage scissors. Opened, curved bandage scissors, the sharper blade over Jill’s carotid.
Both cops froze. Jill’s eyes were squeezed tight; she looked like she’d stopped breathing, hadn’t even screamed.
“My transistor!” Nash’s dark eyes raged. “Give me back my transistor!”
“Okay,” Alex said placatingly, stepping closer. Keri reached for her gun. Nash saw and yanked Jill further back, her feet dragging, her body too close to his.
She got off a thin cry; rammed an elbow to his solar plexus, raised her knee and stomp-kicked hard his foot with her man boot. Nash screamed and his knees buckled.
“Did I break a metatarsal or two?” she yelled at him, jerking away, seeing stunned faces in the crowd as she lost her balance, fell and rolled away; saw both Walshes worriedly watching Nash. Alex lunged, punched him and grabbed for the scissors, but Nash’s arm swung wildly, slashing Alex’s temple. Keri kicked out Nash’s feet; he fell, scrabbled wildly and grabbed Jill again, got his scissors back to
her throat, got them both back up.
Uniformed cops were holding people back; others had come running, weapons drawn, but Nash was lurching backward fast on one foot, dragging Jill into the near alley. “I’ll cut her!” he screamed, craning his head right and left. “SHE is responsible for that devil child! Approach and her blood will spill AS IT SHOULD!”
Jill whimpered and struggled. Keri went to Alex, slumped, as uniforms barked into their shoulder phones, “…side alley! Circle building and approach from rear!”
Nash had Jill hard, crushing her throat. Her heart rocketed as she felt herself dragged, her feet having to help or the crushing got worse. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t pull in air; slid down and heard him scream at her, saw the scissors threatening her face and got going again, her feet struggling.
Then he stopped, dropped her. She heard a heavy, rusty scrape of metal; tried to get up and run but he grabbed her again.
Cops cutting at the alley’s rear iron gate burst it open, ran toward her as Nash dragged her through a door into chill dimness. EXIT, she saw in blurred red letters above her.
The heavy door clanged shut and Nash, limping and groaning with superhuman, drug-fighting strength, bolted it and overturned a heavy chest to block it.
They were in the darkened sanctuary. Overturned, cobwebby pews, a toppled pulpit, strewn prayer books, more pews piled on top of each other. Nash dragged Jill, cursing her, dropping his scissors with a ping. Overhead, a gaping, torn-up roof, a vault of darkening sky. Jill’s heart banged too hard; she struggled to inhale. Beneath her, moist, rotting floorboards from months of a rainy summer.
Nash crouched down and leered at her. “Wasn’t I smart to leave my church’s door unbolted? So I could come and go as I pleased?”
Heavy, rhythmic whamming from where they’d come. Cops using their battering ram to get in. More wailing sirens arriving outside.
Nash glared fearfully back at the pounding. His adrenalin had dropped; his pain was really hitting now. He seemed not to know what to do.
Through Jill’s haze and her own pain she managed, “They’ll…give you your transistor.” How ridiculous that sounded. But it’s what he’d demanded.
Breathing hard, whispery, he brought his face close again. “No they won’t. They’re the devil’s police. Why should they give me God?”
Tell a paranoid schiz he’s wrong? Forget it.
Jill’s terrified eyes darted up through the torn roof to the first stars. Faint moonlight lit ghostly forms. Her hand found a short, rotted plank. She summoned her last strength.
“They’ll give it to you because they want me. Make a…deal.”
“I don’t deal with the devil!”
Whamming, wood-splitting sounds from outside. The cops were almost in.
Nash knew he was done. His coarse hands clamped down and started to strangle Jill. “Devil spy!” he screamed, as she twisted and raised her plank two-handed and slammed his head.
He tumbled backward, screaming; hit a hulking stack of pews piled on top of each other. In pain and gibbering to himself, he grabbed the bottom pew and then the one above it, and tried to raise himself up.
The pile of heavy old wood creaked and tottered, then fell crashing to the floor.
Bang! The cops were in! Footsteps pounded the short corridor-
But the floor was moving. Caving in under Jill. The silhouetted piled pews looked like a ship going down, heavier end first.
Jill screamed. It seemed like slow motion, falling through behind the pews in their plunge. She heard them crash to the basement floor below. Couldn’t see them through the blackness but her scrabbling, struggling hands found cables, then rusty-feeling pipes, which held her for moments, then bent slowly down because of her weight. Crying, she fell the rest of the way.
Onto something that tipped, and slid her skidding to the floor. A dark, cold, wet floor; wet cracking asphalt. She lay crumpled on her side, her heart leaping out of her chest. She tasted blood. Wiped her stinging brow and lip; felt stickiness. Moving a little, she inventoried her body: pain in her hip and shoulder, but no broken bones.
Through blackness, she reached past the edge of what felt like linoleum to see what had broken her fall. Found tubular legs, like for an aluminum table, the folding kind. She yanked hard at it, heard other tables teeter. A line of them? Set up like a food kitchen?
Then came the real shock. Slithering, long writhing things crawling over her arm, her leg, her shoulder near her face. Snakes! Omigod, snakes in a rotting, cold black basement and she was in a nest of them; could hear others snapping, whipping in the dark.
Sobbing hysterically, she scrabbled through a shallow puddle. No words to describe this nightmare, nothing to do but scream and thrash in horror-
And suddenly she saw them, hideous knots of them, black and writhing by her head as light beams shown down and shouts called out: “Christ! Snakes!”….“We’re coming, hang on!”…”Basement stairs! Where the hell are the stairs?”…”Need more light here!”
Footsteps pounding down someplace. Sweeping flashlight beams and more shouts: “Fuckin’ snakes, oh Jesus!” Feet kicking and stomping the writhing things away as hands bent to get her onto a stretcher, tried to get her into a neck brace. Jill moved her head for them. “Don’t need the brace,” she shuddered, shivering wet, opening her squeezed-shut eyes.
Then shutting them again, the glaring penlight beam too strong for her. Someone’s gentle thumb pulled up her right lid, moved the beam back and forth, then checked her left eye.
“Pupils normal,” a man’s voice said, relieved. Yards away another voice said, “Found Nash. Alive. Looks a little broken.”
“Aw, leave him here,” someone snarled. It was the last thing Jill heard as she passed out.
32
“Do you know where you are?”
“In Aruba, sipping a margarita.”
“Don’t be a wise guy.” David’s voice, sounding choked. “Okay, who’s the president?”
“Herbert Hoover. Nothing but prosperity ahead.”
She heard Tricia half laugh and half stifle a sob. Squinted her eyes open in the light of the examining lamp. Dimly saw David’s gloved hand set the curved suture needle on a sterile towel, then pick up a cotton swab dipped in merthiolate. She was lying on her back with her hands gripping the edge of the exam table.
“Five sutures,” David groaned softly. Finished applying a gauze dressing to the laceration on her brow, then regarded Jill, brooding. He felt helpless and guilty, painfully guilty. Dammit, he should have been there! Not pacing and sweating a whole ten minutes for the ambulance to pull up.
Four of them had cut off her wet clothes and gotten her into scrubs, but there were new bloodstains on her scrub top, and her face was terribly pallid.
“Gee,” David said quietly. “This is the second time in three months I’ve stitched you up.”
“Three and a half,” Jill said defensively, more than passing their Mental Status test. “Argh, stop it, Woody.”
She yanked her foot back, and at the end of the table Woody held up his gloved hands. “I surrender! Don’t kick!” He’d just run his thumb up the sole of her foot from her heel to her big toe. “Bubinsky’s really normal,” he announced.
Tricia was muttering, “Pupillary reflexes and eye movements normal, neck supple, not stiff” - she squeezed Jill’s arm - and Jim Holloway said, “Yay, leg muscles normal.” He swung around the rubber hammer he’d been using to bang Jill’s knee reflexes.
It bothered Jill that they were talking to each other. And she was the patient. The top of the sterile table next to David was littered with an empty Procaine syringe, used mosquito clamps, and a pile of bloody cotton swabs.
Her blood. She took a shuddering breath.
Here she was, flat on her back again, on an exam table in an ER cubicle.
David pulled up a stool and sank down on it, staring in disbelief at the dressing on her brow. “You look like you fell through a floor.”
&nb
sp; Her expression mirrored his. “You look like you lost your puppy.” She felt so bad at putting him through this again.
But it came out funny. The other three gave in to smiles. Then light, relieved laughter. She was okay. Safe. “Praise the Lord!” Tricia said, raising both hands and doing a little boogie. Tension went out of them and they sank onto other stools and a chair pulled closer.
Jill smiled at the relieved three. What a blessing, to be safe, have friends who loved you and worried about you.
She blinked, and her eyes went back to David. “How’s Alex Brand? Nash slashed him with scissors.”
“He’s okay. Bandaged and coming with Pappas in a few minutes.”
“And Nash’s nurse Greg Clark? Nash stabbed him too.”
“Just a flesh wound and a head bashed by a crucifix. Neither serious. Probably giving his statement to the cops as we speak.”
Outside the cubicle, Charlie and Ramu were heard calming a babble of worried voices. “She’s okay. Thanks, we’ll tell her. Yeah, we saw it on TV too.”
Jill’s head cleared further and anxiety pricked. “Where’s Nash now?”
“Here,” David said. “Strapped to his bedrails in Psych with a cop keeping him company. There’s already so many cops here, Pappas figured this was the best place to have him.” David shook his head. “The creep’s practically uninjured.”
“Except,” Tricia said, grinning, squeezing Jill’s hand, “for one broken metatarsal we hear you administered above ground.”
David added, “He fell first onto an unplugged water heater, then onto a pile of cot mattresses. The basement had been a homeless shelter.”
Jill tried to move. She hurt all over. “I saw the tables. It’s like the place had been ready and suddenly abandoned.”
Holloway said, “Code violations shut it down, it’s been on the news. You’re on the news again.”
“Oh joy. I’ve so missed reporters.”
“They’re outside now, taping.” Woody made a leering grimace. “They’re baaaack.”
Raney & Levine Page 16
