I Warned You_Welcome to Fall River

by Shawn Underhill

  For two or three seconds he stood there, breathing deep. Still coursing with adrenalin. Thoughts racing. Rosie wasn’t moving. The pry bar was on the floor, a foot or so from the blonde’s head. She had dropped it during the fall. Or had let go when the intense pain of Sharky’s crushing bite had instantly rewired her brain and turned all her priorities upside down.

  “Back!” Ryan shouted. “Sharky, back.”

  Sharky let go, reluctantly, his throat still rumbling, chest heaving. He inched back, tense as a coiled spring, just looking up at Ryan, waiting to be told what to do next. He could go lounge on the sofa, or keep on fighting. Either way was fine with him.

  “Good boy.”

  A few more seconds. Rosie needed to be checked, and the blonde needed to be neutralized. Ryan stood there and took one very deep breath, trying to hold it in, to slow his racing heart. He exhaled slowly. The adrenalin was ebbing slightly. His mind was slowing to a fast pace rather than a blitzkrieg. Rationality was returning. He understood that time was of the essence. He had to check on Rosie, even though it was the last thing in the world he wanted to do.

  The seconds passed and he got moving again. He took a step back and opened the front door, shoving the guy on the floor out of the way. He went forward and squatted down and grabbed the blonde, still screaming and crying, and hauled her up off the floor. She weighed one-twenty tops. Nothing. He stepped back a few short paces and turned to toss her out the door.

  Then she really started fighting.

  She kicked and scratched and clawed and screamed. She hit his face and chest. Sharky started barking and growling. Ryan turned sideways to get her through the doorway. It was like a warped groom and bride scene. Going out instead of coming in over the threshold. Two people had rarely hated one another so deeply. He intended to dump her on the ground and go back in to check Rosie. But she just kept on fighting. She was small and fast, clamoring and clawing, like a little cyclone. A rabid animal. Every time he tried to drop her she just grabbed at his arms or his shirt. She was almost pulling him over with her.

  Finally he had enough. He swayed, flexing through his legs and core. He raised her up high and slammed her down onto the snowy pavement, like a wrestler.

  On her head.

  The noise ceased.

  She lay there in a contorted heap, motionless.

  He didn’t bother to check if she was breathing. Just went back inside, ignoring the guy on the floor like roadkill. He would’ve felt a lot worse for a dead squirrel in the road. He leaned over the desk and picked up the phone. Dialed. Waited for the operator.

  A woman answered and asked about his emergency. He told her between deep breaths. Told her the address and town. The woman asked where Rosie was. On the floor, not moving. She asked if Rosie was breathing. Didn’t look it. Did she have a pulse? He set down the phone and went over and knelt, trying not to step on her in the tight space. He raised Rosie’s right hand and tried to find a pulse in her wrist. Tried to hold still. Tried to will the pulse into becoming a reality.

  “Rosie,” he said, firmly, loudly.

  No reaction.

  He went back to the phone and said, “Just get somebody here. Now. Do not dispatch Chief Clare. This is his niece. Get Chuck Reynolds. Or State Police. Anyone but the chief. And make it fast.”

  “Please don’t shout, sir,” she said.

  “Hurry up.”

  “Who hit your friend?”

  “Some blonde skank.”

  “Skank?”

  “She tried to rob us at gunpoint.”

  “Where is this person now?”

  “Out of the picture. Just get somebody here.”

  “She had a gun?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is she still armed?”

  “I think she’s dead.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Outside, getting some fresh air. Get somebody here, lady.”

  “I need to ask to warn the first responders, sir.”

  “The place is secure. Now hurry up and get someone here.”

  Chapter 26

  Four long minutes passed before the first paramedic arrived in his personal vehicle, not the ambulance. Then two more minutes passed before the ambulance arrived. Then a few more passed before Chuck arrived in his cruiser.

  The first paramedic was drunk Gary Lampson, thankfully stone sober. Concerned, but cool and collected. A totally different guy when separated from his beer. Ryan ushered him past the blonde girl by the steps. He moved the guy on the floor and then helped Gary get Rosie out into the open space.

  He found a very weak pulse.

  He said she was barely breathing.

  From then on Ryan and Sharky stayed back, well out of the way as the other medics arrived and went straight to work. Man and dog paced amid the snow flurries and Ryan smoked and answered questions as concerned neighbors began showing up.

  The worst was when Rosie’s dad arrived, jolted from his routine at the wire factory on the northern town line.

  Then his brother arrived, Chief Clare.

  Then Rosie’s mom.

  Everyone was frantic, full of questions.

  Kerry and Clay rushed over. Clay looked white as a ghost, on the verge of passing out.

  State officers arrived. Soon the driveway was lined with vehicles with flashing lights. Traffic moved by slowly on Main, everyone rubbernecking, wondering what had happened.

  At last they got Rosie into the ambulance.

  Ryan didn’t stick around while the two thieves were dealt with.

  Both were dead.

  By then other rescue people from neighboring towns had arrived to lend a hand.

  Chuck Reynolds assured Ryan that lethal force was justified. Rosie had been attacked. A gun had been fired at him. There was a hole in the wall to prove it. Thankfully the bullet had missed his trucks and instead burrowed into the trunk of a young maple tree. That was the silver lining of the afternoon.

  Even Sharky was upset. He didn’t know everything, of course. But he understood that there was trouble. He knew Rosie had been on the floor. He kept on whining, looking all around. Searching for Rosie. Ryan had to give him cookies to help settle him down.

  As for Ryan, he felt sick with worry. He had no appetite and ended up asking Clay to get him a cold ginger ale from the market.

  ***

  Around four it was getting dark. The sky halfway cleared, the flurries relented, and the temperature dropped. Ryan went out for a smoke after giving Sharky some supper. Then went back in and sprawled in the recliner. The TV was showing a screensaver. He didn’t care about Alexander or anything else. All he could think of was Rosie in the hospital. Stuck in an ICU room, with tubes and wires and monitors. Nurses in and out. Her family crowding around.

  From there his mind jumped ahead to the worst case scenario. He pictured an alarm sounding and a doctor rushing into the room and saying they had lost her. He pictured Chief Clare hugging his little brother and sister-in-law. Trying to console them.

  Then it got worse.

  He pictured the funeral at the church. Everyone dressed in black, milling around after a sad service, downcast and puffy-eyed. The funeral procession moving along Main Street, crawling along from the church to the cemetery. The hearse with Rosie loaded in back, the sagging suspension under the polished coffin. Followed by the cars of the whole Clare clan, all with their lights on, the sagging suspension under all the weight.

  Then there would be a terrible moment at the graveside, when everyone was supposed to walk away and let the funeral people do their job and finish burying Rosie. But they’d be right there, just off Main Street. People wouldn’t want to leave. They’d want to loiter and drive by, hoping somehow it wasn’t real.

  From there everyone would go to a gathering. Probably at the town hall. Everyone would speak in subdued voices. They’d have coffee and comfort foods and mill around in little clusters, trying to find something positive to focus on. The Clare family, all of them huge. Trying to comfo
rt themselves by shoveling in all that comfort food. Getting bigger. Trying to drown their sorrows. Trying to kill that awful feeling. Just eating more and more. Not knowing what else to do.

  And Ryan would be right there with them. As long as he was welcome. As long as the family was still refusing to blame him. He’d be right there with them, shoveling in all that food. Miserable. Too sad to even sit up straight. Leaning over a table, eating like a hog. Not really enjoying it, but unable to stop.

  And then the cigarettes. He knew he’d end up chain smoking for days. Maybe weeks. Coffee and cigarettes. One right after the other. Never getting high enough.

  Then sleeplessness, insomnia. Listening to depressing music. Bad moods. Impatience. Edginess. Snapping at random people over nothing.

  ***

  His phone rang, jolting him from that train of thought. He spoke with his parents for about fifteen minutes. His mother closed the conversation by urging him to stay calm. Not to give in to the anger.

  He told her he would try.

  ***

  Kerry knocked on the door around five-thirty. She came in with a dozen donuts and a medium regular. She saw the leftover brownies on the counter. And the leftover donuts from the night before. She just shrugged and added the new box to the collection. Handed Ryan the coffee. Then sat down on one of the kitchen chairs.

  “I talked to Chuck,” she said after the initial greetings. “No one is blaming you, Matt.”

  “I hope not,” he said. “But they’d be justified. This is my place. I kept the money. I could have turned it over to Chuck. That’s what Rosie wanted me to do.”

  “And the news media would have found out,” Kerry said. “Then the same people would have eventually seen it. They would have wanted revenge, be it here, or elsewhere. They might have tried to break into the police station.”

  Ryan said, “Or pulled up beside Chuck at two in the morning and executed him in his cruiser. That shit happens.”

  Kerry nodded.

  “I’m still responsible, ultimately,” Ryan said. “I should’ve sat out front in a lawn chair with a rifle. Force is the only thing people like that understand. I should have made this place look like a nightmare from hell so no one would dare come near it.”

  Kerry kept quiet. She knew he was venting. And she knew there was no point trying to tickle his ears. Soft approaches never worked with Matt Ryan. She’d known him since kindergarten. He would get through it his own way.

  “How’s Clay?” Ryan asked after a while

  “Very upset.”

  “Not to be a jerk, but this is why I’m against making him into a pansy. He’ll never be able to handle anything.”

  Kerry said nothing. Maintained a neutral expression.

  “How’s the new dog?”

  “Tank’s doing well,” she said. “Hopefully in a few days his skin will start looking better.”

  “Someone will want him.”

  “No question. He’s got a great temperament.”

  They were quiet for a minute.

  “So,” Kerry said. “I have to ask.”

  “Don’t bother.”

  “I have to.”

  “I’m fine, Kerry. Thank you. I’d rather talk about the weather. Anything other than about what happened. My guilt is all with Rosie, not those other two. They got exactly what they were ready to give.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll leave you alone about it. But if you change your mind, and want to talk, please let me know.”

  He nodded and said, “Sharky tried to warn me. It was subtle, but he did. That’s the part that’s bothering me most. If I had responded to his warning right away, I might have been in the office before Rosie got hit. I guess I expected the worst to happen after dark, not the middle of the day.”

  Kerry didn’t say anything about not being able to second guess every moment, every decision. Again, she knew better. She just let him say it and get it off his chest.

  They visited for a while and then when Kerry went home Ryan went into the office and put a strip of duct tape over the hole in the wall. Then he just stood there in the dark, with the light from the apartment at his back. Looking around. It was more Rosie’s office than his. It had a woman’s touch.

  He went over everything in his mind. The entire scenario, start to finish. Wondering if he could have played it differently. If he could have stopped it in time. He knew it was futile thinking. Life didn’t work that way. What was done was done. Scrambled eggs stayed scrambled. That’s why it was always better to stay on top of things. Preventative maintenance was always favorable to reconstruction. But he thought about it anyway, to keep his mind occupied. If he stopped thinking, he would keep on picturing Rosie unconscious in a hospital bed. And he would get angrier and angrier.

  And then, he didn’t know what might happen.

  Chapter 27

  Chief Clare was the next visitor.

  He came in and shook Ryan’s hand and they had a similar conversation as he and Kerry had shared. No one blamed him. Everyone was very upset, certainly. But no one in the family believed that Ryan would ever intentionally put Rosie in harm’s way. Not for a second.

  In a way Ryan was glad to hear it. But it really didn’t make him feel much better. It didn’t change the basic facts. Rosie was still in the hospital.

  Chief Clare sat on a kitchen chair. He took off his hat and said, “Matt, I mean every word I say.”

  “I know. You’re a straight shooter.”

  “Well, our family knows how much you care about Rosie. We appreciate everything you’ve done for her.”

  “Rosie deserves every dime I pay her,” Ryan said.

  “It’s not just that,” the chief said. “You didn’t really know her well before she came to work here. I’m telling you how good it has been for Rosie to work here.”

  “Today wasn’t too good.”

  “Hear me out,” the chief said. “Me, I don’t care what I look like. My whole side of the family is heavy, always have been. But Rosie did care, a little. She never said much, but at times she was a little more self-conscious than the rest of us. A tad shy. Not willing to try new things, or go off and try to meet new people. You know how timid she can be at times.”

  “I do. And I also know that nobody worth a shit cares about Rosie’s weight.”

  “Maybe so,” the chief said. “But quite honestly, being here was very good for her. Having a steady job right here in town. Being around the people she knew cared about her. She got to meet and interact with others, while still being in her comfort zone. It was good for her. You need to remember that.”

  Ryan took a breath and asked again about her status. He had already asked when the chief first arrived.

  “No real change,” Dan Clare answered. “She stirred a couple of times. Now they’re keeping her unconscious until the swelling in her brain goes down. I don’t pretend to understand it all. But I do know that she has moved her fingers since, while her mom was holding her hand and talking to her. I saw it myself.”

  “That’s good.”

  “There is hope,” the chief said. “Whatever you do, don’t stop pulling for her.”

  Ryan said, “It goes without saying that I’ll help with her bills. And Rosie will always have a place to come back to. If she wants.”

  The chief nodded and said, “Along those lines, I’ve made a decision. I’ve already spoken with Chuck.”

  “No.”

  “It’s time, Matt. I’m stepping aside a few years early. The town will appoint Chuck as chief, and start looking for a new deputy.”

  “You can’t quit.”

  He shook his head.

  “Seriously,” Ryan said.

  “It’s time,” he said. “I’m old and fat and tired, Matt. Certainly not cut out for the way things are trending lately. Chuck can handle things a lot better than me. It’s just time. Today made that clear to me.”

  “Sorry you feel that way,” Ryan said.

  “So am I. But I do.”
r />   Ryan sat there for a moment, absorbing the news, and looking ahead to the future.

  “This sucks,” he said. “Who’s gonna give me grief about squealing my tires and getting rowdy around town? You’ve been keeping me in line since I was a kid on a bike.”

  The chief cracked a smile and said, “All that will be Chuck’s problem from now on.”

  “It just won’t be the same.”

  “I know, I know. Believe me, it’ll be strange for me as well. But everyone will get used to it and move on.”

  “As of when?”

  “Oh, I’m sure it’ll be at least January before we can get a new deputy.”

  “Rosie wouldn’t want you to leave before Christmas.”

  “No, I guess she wouldn’t.”

  “Will you still dress up as Santa for the kids?”

  “Of course,” the chief said. “At least for this year. After that, we’ll see.”

  ***

  Ryan and Sharky went outside and saw the chief off. Sharky played with his tennis ball while Ryan had a smoke before going back in.

  He stepped into the bathroom and opened the closet and looked down at the dirty laundry he’d been kicking in there for nearly a week. Towels and pants and shirts and underwear and socks. Rosie wouldn’t be in tomorrow. So he bent down and gathered up the majority of the clothes and dumped the heap in the washer and fired the machine up.

  Ten minutes later he was back in his recliner when Clay Jamison pulled up, in his sister’s car. He knocked softly and Ryan told him to come in. Clay sat on one of the kitchen chairs and took a long breath.

  Ryan said, “Sad, isn’t it?”

  “Very sad,” Clay said. “Rosie wouldn’t hurt anyone. She doesn’t deserve this.”

  “Agreed.”

  “And I’m angry,” he said quietly.

  “You should be.”

  “And a little bit scared.”

  “You’re outraged.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re wicked pissed.”

  “I guess so.”

  “All decent people should be outraged by this bullshit taking over. It’s becoming normal. This is too nice of a place to just sit back and let it go to hell.”