Close Encounters

by Kitt, Sandra

  “How’re you doing?”

  “It… hurts… burns,” Carol whispered as the EM worker opened her jacket and lifted the sweater to look at her wound.

  “Yeah, I bet,” he said, ignoring the sharp intake of her breath as he probed and palpitated around her left breast. A neat little hole was visible through a small pooling of blood. The bullet had entered the top of the mound. She moaned, writhing beneath his examination.

  “Am I… dying?” Carol asked.

  The attendant, distracted by his instrument readings, pursed his lips and shook his head. “Dying? We don’t use the D word on my tour.

  “Radio that they’re going to need a trauma resuscitation. We got a gunshot. Female. ETA less than three minutes. I’m reading eighty over forty. The pulse is a fast one-twenty. Decrease breath sounds on left side…” He leaned forward to speak directly to his driver, calmly but firmly. “Come on… are we there yet?”

  In two minutes the ambulance reached the hospital, where an emergency team stood waiting in the arrival bay.

  “What have you got?”

  “Female, black. One gunshot wound to the upper chest. Internal bleeding. Her pressure’s dropping.”

  “What happened?”

  “Undercover operation. That’s all I have. There’s an officer with her waiting for news.”

  “Suspect or victim?”

  “Don’t know that either…”

  Carol realized they were trying to help her, but it felt like another attack. Gloved hands and cold metal prodded and probed. She stared up into lights and faces wearing Lucite goggles. She was beginning to feel numbingly cold. And very sleepy.

  “Can you hear me?” one of them said loudly.

  “Yes,” she slurred.

  “Are you having trouble breathing?”

  “It hurts.”

  “We’re going to fix that right now. Your name is Carol? Okay, Carol, you have a collapsed lung. We’re going to insert a chest tube and get the lung inflated again. You’re going to be fine…”

  Her coat was being cut off and the ruined leather tossed aside. And then her sweater, wet with something reddish brown. Carol twisted and groaned in protest. She raised an arm to her chest, but it was pulled down.

  “Don’t move. Do you know what happened to you?”

  She could only shake her head. There was the sharp prick of a needle being inserted into her arm, followed by the sudden warm rush of something flowing into her body. Whatever it was made her feel relaxed and safe. Her vision began to blur, and all the faces bending over her started to move in a circle above her.

  She was rolled gently to her side.

  “Here’s the exit wound. There’s internal bleeding. We got a tension pneumothorax here. Let’s get that tube in, fast.”

  Carol’s left arm was lifted, and she felt a sharp stinging sensation near her armpit. They were forcing one end of a tube into the incision, but she couldn’t really feel it. She was naked. Wet and cold. Sleepy. She closed her eyes…

  The voices began to fade. The burning in her chest suddenly didn’t seem to hurt so much. She stopped listening to the words.

  “Tube’s in…”

  “She’s forty over palp…”

  “We gotta do something…”

  “Then do it, now!”

  The pain went away completely. She felt light, no longer cold. It didn’t matter that she lay bare for all to see. She seemed to pull free of her body… gently, as if she were shedding a garment. She could hear the voices all below her now and could see everyone working frantically over her where she lay perfectly still on the table. There was a hole in her chest, just above her breast. There was a tube coming from a similar hole in her side under the arm. The other end was attached to a bag, and murky brown fluid was draining into it through the tube.

  She felt as if she was getting further and further away from what was happening. She was warmer now… above it all. Out of pain. Calm and peaceful. Something was beckoning to her. A light that drew her attention. She watched it with a sense of wonder and curiosity, feeling like a child again. It was so bright and warm. Calling her. In the middle stood a figure, silhouetted by the illumination.

  “Mommy?”

  Her voice sounded younger and frightened. She wanted to walk toward the light, that person, to find out for herself who was there. And then… she began to sink. She tried to reach out to the receding figure…

  “Mommy…”

  The light grew dimmer and dimmer, and disappeared. She began dropping swiftly. The voices surrounded her again. The cold returned. The pain was back with a throbbing intensity. She wanted to plead with them to please make it stop, but she couldn’t talk or open her eyes. She took a shuddering breath and groaned softly.

  “She’s back. I have a reading. Pressure’s going up.”

  “That was close…” someone muttered.

  “Carol, can you hear me?”

  “Pulse is one-ten. She’s looking good.”

  Carol slowly nodded her response.

  “We’re in business again.”

  “All right, let’s get her stabilized.” A young doctor leaned over her and patted her arm. “You’re going to be okay.”

  “When was the last time you had to see a shrink?”

  Lee glanced toward the window. His eyes burned. He rubbed them briefly and shrugged. “Probably not since my second or third year.”

  “What happened? Did you shoot someone? Kill someone?”

  “No. My partner was shot. He was paralyzed after that.”

  The man behind the desk slowly took a Hershey’s Kiss from a crystal dish on his bookcase and carefully peeled the paper. He chucked a second one across the desk to Lee, who deftly caught it.

  “How did you feel about that?”

  “That he took a bullet? Angry. He was a good cop. A good friend. The guy that brought him down was out of jail in under four years. He’s dead now. The shooter, I mean.”

  “But it doesn’t make you feel any better, does it?”

  “I got over it. Shit happens.”

  The man behind the desk rocked gently in his executive-style chair. He made a tiny silver ball of the candy foil and tossed it into an ashtray that was already filled with similar balls. “Is that how you feel about what happened yesterday morning? It was just so much shit?”

  Lee’s brows drew together and his jaw clenched. Once again he experienced that odd, tingling heat on his skin, just like he had for a few seconds after the shooting had stopped.

  He shrugged; his voice was tired and hoarse. “Occupational hazard.”

  Silence followed as Dr. Amos waited him out. Finally he asked, “Are you prepared to tell the woman who got shot that it was an occupational hazard? Do you think she and her family, or 99.9 percent of New York’s black population, are going to accept that? Can you handle the fallout?” He watched closely as Lee shifted restlessly in his chair. “How did you sleep last night?”

  “Look, it could have been a white woman. It could have been someone old. No one was out to get her.”

  “Well, as long as you’re satisfied with that…”

  “Of course I’m not,” Lee cut in, incredulous. He stopped and clamped his mouth shut.

  There was another long silence.

  “How about guilt?” the doctor asked him. “Did you ever feel guilty when your first partner got shot?”

  Lee stared at him. “What for? ’Cause it wasn’t me? No, never. I felt… helpless because I couldn’t do anything about what happened. Then I was pissed off because I knew I’d have to break in someone new.”

  “Detective Peña?”

  Lee shook his head. “There was someone else before her.”

  “What happened to him? Her?”

  “Him. He quit the force after about six… seven years.” A wry grin lifted the corner of his mouth. “And became a priest.” Dr. Amos chuckled in appreciation. Then both men sobered.

  Lee was remembering all the times he’d seen people shot,
all the times he’d felt the righteousness of being the good guy. None of those other incidents had mattered… except for when his former partner had been hit.

  And except for Carol Taggart the morning before.

  “Lieutenant?”

  The voice shattered the peace Lee was trying to build for himself. He looked blankly at the doctor.

  “Want to tell me what you’re thinking right now?”

  Lee pulled himself together. He cleared his throat. He couldn’t say because he didn’t know. He only knew he was seriously confused. And angry. He shrugged. “Not much.” The doctor waited patiently. “I was just wondering… is this going to go on my record? That I was here to see you?”

  “Worried about what others will think?”

  “Worried about ruining my record.”

  “Since this is a required visit, I don’t think that will be a problem. These sessions are confidential.” He glanced at a wall clock and stood up. “We’ll have to end here. Time’s up.”

  Lee also stood and followed him to the door.

  “Like I said, at least two days off is my recommendation,” Dr. Amos said. “You’re not sure what happened last night, but shots were fired in the line of duty. That doesn’t mean you’re not a little traumatized by how things went down. There could be a delayed response… maybe not. Give it a rest and let’s see, okay? And call me if you feel the need to. If anything changes.”

  Like if she dies, Lee thought to himself.

  He nodded politely. “Thanks, Dr. Amos,” he said, shaking the man’s hand.

  “No problem. You did all the right things, Lieutenant. Go home. Get some sleep.”

  Lee turned away with a brief nod of acceptance. He headed back to the reception desk, reviewing all the doctor’s questions about intent and control, reflexes and knee-jerk reactions. Shock, anger, doubt… guilt.

  “How did it go?”

  Lee blinked at Barbara, keeping his expression blank. She held a Styrofoam cup of coffee in one hand and the early edition of the daily paper in the other. There was something so routine about her appearance that Lee felt disoriented. For him the last twenty-four hours had been anything but routine. Barbara obviously had not created any personal baggage of the episode. Lee didn’t understand why it mattered to him.

  “Fine,” Lee responded succinctly. “This for me?” He took the cup of coffee from her and helped himself to a generous swallow. It was laced with too much sugar and he handed the cup back to her.

  “What did he say?” she persisted.

  “Probably the same things he said to you. You know… you were doing your job, this is what you’ve been trained for, et cetera, et cetera.”

  “Well, this is the third time I’ve had to go in, and I still don’t see the point,” Barbara said as they turned to leave. “I mean, what are the options when someone is trying to kill you? Stop and think about whether you’ll feel bad in the morning ’cause you took some asshole out?”

  Lee ran a hand restlessly over his bristled hair. They headed toward the elevators. “This was different, Barb. This was…” He pursed his lips and shook his head. “Something went wrong.”

  “Yeah. So what are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. The captain’s probably going to—”

  “No, I mean right now.”

  “Go home, like the doc said.”

  Barbara finished the rest of her coffee and tossed the cup into a handy trash bin as they boarded the elevator. “I can’t. I’m too on.”

  “Well, the coffee certainly isn’t going to help.”

  “It’s too early for beer,” she quipped. “Look… let’s go get some breakfast and talk, okay? Then we gotta find Mario. Where the fuck is he?”

  They got off the elevator and continued toward the ER exit, where their car was parked in the emergency bay. Lee was only half listening to Barbara’s complaints. He slowed his steps and finally stopped in the middle of the hallway. “Barb, slow down. We can’t do anything for at least another twenty-four hours. We’ve got a blown cover for one of our guys, suspects loose, and a gunshot victim we can’t explain. Even if you don’t care about any of that, we can’t get our Glocks back until the ballistics report is in.”

  “We have to do something.”

  “You want to do something? Go home and have breakfast with your kid. Walk her to school and help her with her homework. Tell her you love her, and don’t ever encourage her to become a cop.”

  Lee stopped suddenly and patted his pockets. “You know, I think I left those department forms with the doc. I better go back.”

  “I’ll wait here.”

  “Don’t bother. I’ll hop a ride back to the station with one of the guys. I’ll check with you later.”

  Without giving Barbara a chance to protest, Lee jogged back down the corridor to the elevators. It took just a few minutes to retrieve the claim forms from the receptionist.

  Back on the first floor, he found himself at the ER duty station. He walked past it, then retraced his steps. He had changed his mind once again and started to walk away when one of the women behind the desk asked, “Can I help you?”

  He showed his ID and badge. “I’d like to see a list of admissions for the past fifteen hours.”

  There had been only two. One white male heart attack, and one black female gunshot.

  He thanked the assistant and turned to take the elevator to the ninth floor and the critical-care ward. Lee didn’t have to ask which room Carol Taggart was in. At the extreme end of the ward a young uniformed officer was stationed outside the door. Lee again showed ID, this time to the staff at the nursing station.

  As Lee began walking the length of the hallway, several hospital personnel left the patient’s room and came toward him, deep in conversation. He hurried to catch up to them.

  “Doctor… you got a minute? I’m Lieutenant Grafton. You have a gunshot victim here…”

  Two of the three staffers immediately deferred to the third, indicating that they would speak with him later. The remaining man was in his early thirties, slightly built and balding.

  “Can’t you guys give it a rest? We’ve had cops in and out of here all morning.”

  “This isn’t an official visit. I just wanted to find out—”

  “There’s already someone with her. She needs to get some rest.”

  “Okay, okay,” Lee conceded. “Can you at least tell me what you know? How bad was it?”

  “The bullet passed through her upper chest. There was a lot of internal bleeding and she had a collapsed lung.”

  “Is… is that serious?”

  “Serious enough. Her chest cavity filled with liquid and she was having trouble breathing.”

  Lee frowned thoughtfully, nodding.

  “She was gone for about three minutes, but we don’t see any evidence of brain damage…”

  “Wait… what do you mean, ‘she was gone’?”

  “As in no pulse, no pressure, no life. She stopped breathing. Her blood pressure dropped very low. We had to put in a chest tube to suction her out. Look, I gotta go. Don’t worry, you guys will get a report when it’s done.”

  “And the bullet?”

  The doctor shook his head. “No bullet. Just two small holes.”

  “Is she going to live?”

  “Oh, yeah, she’ll pull through.”

  Lee watched him walk away, feeling a rush of unexpected relief.

  Carol reached out her hand to Matt. “The flowers are beautiful. But they look so expensive. A plant would have been fine, you know.”

  Matt squeezed her fingers. “Sorry but a plant don’t cut it. That would be like giving you a head of lettuce in a pot or something.”

  Carol grimaced. “I can’t laugh, Matt. It hurts.”

  “Sorry.”

  She rested her head back on the pillows. Actually it didn’t hurt nearly as much as when she’d been brought in the previous morning. The doctor had given her something so she could sleep. She wanted to sleep, but
without the nightmares she’d been having. Or the memories that had catapulted her back to her childhood. It wasn’t like her life flashing before her eyes. It was more like… a visitation. It was all somehow connected to that extraordinary moment when she was about to see her mother again, even though she had absolutely no conscious recollection of her. Odder still was her strong sense that something had changed. As if she had given birth to herself.

  She wanted to go home to her family.

  Family.

  Whenever someone said “family” to Carol the picture she got never seemed quite right. The requisite number of people materialized, but they were mismatched. A patchwork of people made up of leftovers, she used to think. Lost and found souls.

  “Do you remember what happened?” Matt’s voice interrupted her thoughts.

  “Not really. It’s all confused. It happened so fast,” Carol murmured. She shook her head. “I’m not sure how much really happened and how much I dreamed.”

  “So you don’t know who shot you?”

  “No.” At first she hadn’t realized she’d been shot. Later, she’d learned how close she’d come to dying. And Max was gone.

  Carol pushed the thought away before grief could overwhelm her.

  It was more than just losing Max, who’d been a gift from her brother. It was as if his death had in some way triggered the dissolution of her past. She felt lost. She felt the choking threat of tears but was afraid that if she began to cry, the spilling and purging might never stop.

  Carol forced her eyes open. The room was bare and institutional. Not her own. Nearly a dozen large and small floral displays brightened the otherwise spartan room. She wanted to go home. But home, where?

  She pointed to a basket of fruit that had been delivered during the doctor’s visit. “Who is that from?”

  “Wes,” Matt finally responded.

  Carol frowned at him. “How did he know? Did you call?”

  “I had no choice. The hospital needed next of kin. I’m not it anymore, remember? Besides, I did what I thought was right. I called your parents, too. I thought it was better if they heard it from me than from the police.”

  Carol had distinctly mixed feelings about that news. Of course her family had a right to know.