Shotgun, Wedding, Bells

by Joanna Campbell Slan

  “I'm here, love.” I leaned past the orderly to give Detweiler a quick kiss. His skin was clammy and his color gray.

  “Something told me to double check. None of the monitors went off, but his color is wrong. I didn't even get the chance to speak to him, when he mentioned the pain between his shoulder blades.”

  “But the bullet hit him lower.”

  “It's what we call referred pain.” Elva put two fingers on Detweiler's wrist to keep track of his pulse. “The discomfort shows up in a location other than where the trauma took place. We don't know exactly why it happens.”

  “But between his shoulder blades?”

  The orderly nodded at me. “Could indicate that he's bleeding from the spleen.” The floor indicator dinged and the doors rolled open.

  “Please? Can I come with you?”

  “Let us do our jobs,” said Elva, as the elevator doors closed behind her

  My feet were glued to the floor. I couldn't force myself to move.

  I wondered if I'd ever see my husband alive again.

  “Come sit down.” Laurel tugged on my arm. We turned back toward the visitors' lounge. Louis held his wife, as she cried into this chest. Joe joined Laurel in getting me back to the sofa. When I felt the cushions behind my knees, my legs went out from under me. I collapsed in sobs. This had gone too far. I was going to track down that second shooter and make him pay.

  CHAPTER 28

  The next few hours were the longest of my life. At some point, I nodded off, only to sit bolt upright, crying out for Detweiler.

  Laurel kept an arm around me as she stroked my hair. “Shh. He's still in surgery.”

  With her help, I got up to use the restroom. Every muscle in my body felt stiff from my fall into the snowbank, followed by crawling around on the floor of the shed.

  At home, my nightly ritual included rubbing coconut butter into the stretched out skin of my belly. Without the lubricant, I felt itchy. My eyes were swollen and red. My throat hurt, and my head ached from clenching my jaws and grinding my teeth. What a mess I was.

  Then I caught a glimmer of my wedding ring.

  I was married to the man I loved. Finally.

  However, I'd gladly give up my new status if it would put Detweiler back on his feet.

  I sighed at my sad reflection. Unfortunately, turning back time wasn't an option. God doesn't make bargains with people, as much as we might wish that he would. And what if he did? We'd probably make a mess of our requests. Better that he keep his authority, and we accept his governance.

  Laurel was waiting for me outside the john. She linked her arm through mine and walked me back to the sofa.

  Louis and Thelma each occupied an overstuffed chair. Joe was pacing. I realized that he'd been checking on all of us during the night. Vaguely, I recalled him tucking in the blanket that covered me. The coffee table was full of half-eaten donuts, cookies, slices of cake, and cooling cups of coffee. Joe followed the direction of my eyes. “One of my parishioners works in the cafeteria. He heard I was spending the night here, so he's been sending up treats for us.”

  “What a kind gesture.” Normally, I would have been all over those sweets. Right now, the thought of eating made me sick. “Any word on what's happening? Is Detweiler still in surgery?”

  “I asked earlier,” said Joe. “The bullet nicked his spleen. A wound like that is often overlooked. They're doing a splenectomy on him. The operation itself is fairly routine, Kiki. He's lost a lot of blood, but we should all be thankful they caught it when they did.”

  Laurel smiled at me. “An angel was watching over your husband. Elva came on duty earlier. She had no reason to go check on him when she did. Another nurse had just been into Detweiler's room, and he seemed fine to her. But Elva had this premonition, if you will. She decided to see for herself. One look at Detweiler and she knew something was wrong. When she told Dr. Fizzio on duty that there was a problem, she took her word for it. They prepped the operating theatre immediately. From what I'm told, a wound like this is very, very hard to diagnose. If things hadn't moved so fast, Detweiler's heart could have stopped.”

  I didn't feel particularly grateful, although I knew I should be.

  I was angry they'd missed this the first time.

  Angrier still that my husband wasn't beside me. That he'd been cut down in our back yard on our wedding day.

  It was nearly three a.m. when the surgeon, Dr. Fizzio stepped out of the elevator with Elva at her side. Mert would have said that the doctor looked like “five miles of bad road.” The woman's color was a sickly gray, her eyes were ringed with wide black circles, and her hair was matted to her head. But her eyes zoomed right in on me. “Mrs. Detweiler? I removed your husband's spleen. That should take care of the bleeding. Except for the blood loss, he's doing fine.”

  Biting my tongue, I nodded, but I also fumed silently. How could Dr. Fizzio have missed the wound the first time? Yes, I'd heard Joe say it was easy to overlook, but I was still angry. Two voices inside me argued. One was grateful; the other was furious. While I weighed the merits of the two opposing emotions, Laurel squeezed my shoulder. “See? He'll be up and around in no time.”

  Just then the elevator doors dinged. When they opened, Robbie Holmes staggered toward us. His clothes were rumpled, and his face was dark with day old stubble.

  “I figured you'd still be awake,” he said, speaking directly to me. “You heard about Detweiler's spleen?”

  I nodded.

  “He's going to be okay, Kiki.” Robbie tried to send me an encouraging smile. Turning to Dr. Fizzio, the police chief added, “Thanks again, doc.”

  Dr. Fizzio stepped backwards, a prelude to leaving us. I couldn't find the energy to thank her. So Laurel spoke up on my behalf. “Thank you, doctor.”

  All I could do was bob my head.

  Robbie ran a nervous hand through his hair. “Kiki? May I have a word?”

  We walked a few feet away from the family lounge.

  “Couple of things. Number one, you have permission from the admin staff to visit with Hadcho. Second, I made a decision last night. The addiction counselor talked to Sheila. We staged a sort of an intervention. We finally got her to agree to go to a rehab center, but she thinks that's happening sometime in the future. I've been calling around. There's a place outside of Palm Springs that'll take her ASAP. I tried to get a flight, but they're all booked. Prices for a last-minute seat are outrageous, so I'm going to run home, pack a few clothes, and drive us there.”

  “You what?” I couldn't believe I'd heard him right.

  “I'm going to drive us to Palm Springs, California. I've already called Prescott. He's taking over the department.”

  Prescott Gallaway was the brother of Robbie's first wife, Nadine. He was also the second highest ranking officer in the St. Louis County Police Department by virtue of his seniority, not because he had good sense or talent. As Sheila put it, Prescott was a “nebbish.” That's Yiddish for “an idiot.” I wished I knew the Yiddish word for “jerk.”

  “Prescott is a twit! A turkey. A creep. He hates Detweiler and Hadcho, because they're loyal to you, Robbie. He won't lift a finger to find out who shot them, and you know it. He'll say the crime falls under the jurisdiction of the Webster Groves Police Department and leave it at that.”

  Robbie stiffened. His eyes flashed with anger. “I am aware that Prescott is not an ideal replacement. And I regret the timing of all this, but given the circumstances, this is my only option. Hadcho and Chad are both safe. I've ordered a guard posted here twenty-four/seven. Sheila, my wife, is not safe. Her life is at risk. I've done all I can for them, and now I have to do what's best for her.”

  “You're leaving these men in a defenseless position with their shooter on the loose!”

  “I am leaving two highly capable officers in a secure location with a guard outside their rooms. Seeing that I've given most of my life to the St. Louis County Police Department, I believe I have the right to make a choice—for once—
that puts my personal concerns first. I've accrued two-years-worth of vacation. I plan to use several weeks of it, if necessary, to save my wife's life.”

  I started to protest, but Robbie had heard enough.

  He stomped over to the elevator and stepped into the open car. Without bothering to say goodbye, he hit the down button and left me standing there with my mouth wide open.

  CHAPTER 29

  It all came down to Sheila.

  In retrospect, I shouldn't have been surprised. Robbie had fallen in love with her when they were in high school. Back then their religious differences guaranteed they could never marry. As expected of them, they chose spouses from within their faiths. Robbie married Nadine in a Roman Catholic Church, while Sheila married Harry Lowenstein under a chuppah. Over the years, they would bump into each other at social events. These brief encounters would fan the flames of hidden embers, but they never acted on their feelings for each other. But they couldn't exactly keep their love a secret, either. Their attraction was too obvious.

  Long before Nadine died of cancer, she'd been eaten up with bitterness, because she knew that Robbie still cared about Sheila. In fact, Nadine had poisoned their daughter Reena Marie with her suspicions, turning the young woman into a sad and twisted shell of a person. As Nadine struggled through chemo and radiation, she also enlisted the fury of her brother, Prescott, telling him that her husband had cheated on her in his heart. Meanwhile, Robbie had done everything humanly possible to help Prescott climb the promotional ladder at work.

  There's a saying, “No good deed goes unpunished,” and it certainly held true in Robbie's case. By boosting Prescott up the ranks, Robbie had aided and abetted his worst enemy. Not only was Prescott a mediocre policeman, he was also insecure and power-hungry. When Prescott's immediate supervisor decided to take early retirement last year, Prescott moved up another notch, into a position that gave him the ear of our mayor, Tom White.

  Although he wasn't good at law enforcement and he had a horrible relationship with his direct reports, Prescott had a natural bent for fomenting unrest. Whenever possible, he spoke out against Robbie, telling the sort of stories that gave the mayor reasons to push Robbie toward early retirement. Recently, Prescott had been as busy as one of Santa's elves, running to Mayor White with imagined problems that involved Robbie.

  Hadcho had told me all of this. He'd become my eyes and ears in the department, particularly after last year's departmental Fourth of July picnic. Hadcho had driven up in his antique Cutlass convertible, his personal car. The other LEOs had eyed it enviously. But it was Prescott who asked, “How about if I trade you beads and a blanket for that old car?”

  It wasn't the first time that Prescott had joked about Hadcho's heritage, nor would it be the last. Hadcho recovered from the gibe brilliantly. Without missing a beat, he mussed up a portion of Prescott's comb-over.

  “Hey! What do you think you're doing?” Prescott jerked away from Hadcho's fingers.

  “Just checking. Lucky for you, White Man, there's not enough hair there to make a good scalp.”

  Everyone except Prescott had a good laugh about that.

  You would have thought he would have learned a lesson, but he didn't. He has continued to make offensive comments about Hadcho's ethnicity. He's even poked fun at my pregnancy. More recently, Prescott has been called on the carpet for making lewd comments to a young female officer. But still, the man continues to open his mouth and say things he shouldn't.

  I couldn't help but wonder, Why is Prescott feeling so smug? So secure? Most people would be more careful.

  All these thoughts raced through my head, as I mulled over Robbie's announcement that he was taking time off to drive Sheila to a rehab facility way out west. His absence would give Prescott carte blanche to misbehave. There was only one reason he'd take such a drastic step: Robbie was scared spitless about Sheila's safety.

  That's when it hit me that Robbie and I were both facing the loss of the person we loved. Suddenly, his actions didn't seem at all rash. Wouldn't I give up my work to save Detweiler's life? You betcha. If my phone hadn't been dead, I would have texted Robbie to say, “I understand, and I support your decision.”

  Instead, all I could do was stand there, mutely, and stare at the closed elevator doors. It was too late to offer Robbie my sympathies.

  “Drink this.” Joe handed me a cup of decaf tea. “I can see you're worried about Prescott taking over. Care to talk about it? Maybe it's not as bad as it seems.”

  I stared down at the brown sludge. My stomach turned, and bile collected in my mouth. “With all due respect, Joe, I know you're trying to help, but it's actually worse than you can imagine. If you're planning to give me a pep talk, this isn't the time, and I am not in the mood.”

  “There might be—” he started, but he was interrupted by a clanking sound in the hall.

  In his faded green hospital gown, Hadcho came stumbling toward us, dragging his IV along behind him.

  CHAPTER 30

  Hadcho didn't bother with formalities. He got straight to the point. “Where's Detweiler?”

  Before I could answer, Elva jumped up from where she'd been sitting at the nurse's station. “Detective Hadcho get back in your room!” She grabbed him by one elbow.

  “I'm not going anywhere until I hear how Detweiler is doing.”

  “Is there a problem here?” The uniformed officer joined us. “Detective Hadcho? I'm under strict orders to see that you're safe. Seems to me that you're endangering yourself by wandering the hallway.”

  “Stuff it, Pinscher. I've got rank on you.” Hadcho's normally tidy hair stuck out like porcupine quills.

  Elva took one of Hadcho's arms and I tugged on the other. “Detweiler is okay, now. You should be lying down.”

  “What happened? You said, 'Now.' What's going on?” The gold flecks in Hadcho's brown eyes flashed with anger as he stared down at me.

  I let Elva explain about Detweiler's splenectomy. As she did, I listened carefully, absorbing more information than I had earlier, because now I could actually concentrate.

  “I thought I heard Robbie's voice.” Hadcho dutifully crawled back into his bed, but he winced with pain.

  “Yes, you heard Robbie.” I told him about Sheila's problem, and Robbie's decision to drive her to a rehab facility.

  “He's running off and leaving us with Prescott?” Hadcho's brown eyes widened in shock.

  I helped Elva tuck Hadcho in. “Don't forget, we were in Webster Groves when the shooting took place. It's actually their problem.”

  “Right. You know better, Kiki. That's not how it works here in St. Louis.” He spewed a stream of coarse words, which was yet another surprise to add to my list. Usually, Hadcho acted like the perfect gentleman.

  When he sputtered to a stop, he glared at me. “You realize, of course, that Prescott won't give this crime the time of day. In fact, I bet that his first action will be to call off the uniform out in the hall.”

  “Why?” Elva tilted her head in curiosity. “It's not surprising to have a guard posted when there's a shooter on the loose. Cops look out after each other.”

  “Real cops do, but Prescott is a phony. He hates Detweiler, and he hates me. Besides his personal feelings, this is a rare opportunity for him. See, he's always whining to Mayor White that Robbie wastes the department funds. Prescott keeps saying that if he was put in charge, he could slash the department budget in half. That's true, but our effectiveness would suffer as a consequence. As it is, Robbie makes do with too few officers and not enough equipment. Prescott keeps harping on Robbie's wastefulness. He's trying to convince the mayor that he could do a better job.”

  Elva immediately grasped the implications. “But if the armed guard is removed, how can we protect everyone on this floor? A shooter roaming the halls would endanger the entire hospital.”

  Hadcho used a finger to jab the air. “That's the point. Detweiler got a good look at the man we were chasing. That creep is bound to come up here a
nd try to finish what he started.”

  “Oh, my...” I felt my legs going wobbly.

  “Well, there's a guard here now, so we'll just have to keep our fingers crossed. Mrs. Detweiler?” Elva gestured toward me. “Time for you to go. This man needs his rest.”

  “First I need to—”

  “Have you forgotten that you're eight months pregnant? We can't have you going into early labor. There's a recliner in Detective Detweiler's room. You can curl up in there and try to get some sleep. You do realize, don't you, that it's the middle of the night? He should be waking up in a couple of hours. It would be good for him to know you're nearby.”

  “But Hadcho needs to tell me—”

  “Nothing,” she said firmly, as she walked over and pushed a button. “There. I just gave him another dose of painkillers. Any second and he should be—”

  I followed her gaze. Hadcho had fallen sound asleep.

  “You don't understand,” I said, through clenched teeth. “We were shot at. I need to discover who's behind all this.”

  “You're wrong. I understand perfectly. For the moment, you're safe, they're safe, and if you don't see to your health, you're the problem. Not the solution.” Elva's face hardened into an impenetrable mask. “Let them get their rest. You get yours. Everything can keep until later. You'll be able to think more clearly and so will they.”

  CHAPTER 31

  Curling up in a recliner was difficult for me. My belly gets in the way. Sleeping upright can help, sometimes, because the baby is crowding my stomach and giving me heartburn. While getting comfortable took some doing, I must have conked out in Detweiler's room. I awakened when he called my name.

  “Hello, sweetheart. You're okay,” I said, stroking his face and kissing his forehead. “Things got a little rocky.”

  “What?” He tried to focus, but he looked confused.

  “The bullet nicked your spleen.”

  As if by magic, Elva appeared at his bedside. She went into a long explanation about his emergency surgery.