The Long Sleep

by Caroline Crane

  “Yes, a lot.” I supposed that meant he was alive, if his heart went on pumping.

  “It’s his head,” I told her. “I can’t put a tourniquet on his neck.”

  I heard sirens. I told her that, too. “There’s a police car.”

  It was two police cars. The operator disconnected. My throat felt like sand.

  An officer slammed out of his car and ran over to me. I turned on the engine so I could open my window. I recognized him from the two times I went to the station to get Evan off my back. He had gorgeous green eyes, greener than mine, but right now I barely noticed them.

  Falco, it said on his nametag. I told him what happened as best I could figure it out. Meanwhile the ambulance arrived. They lifted Hank onto a stretcher. I heard them say something about “vitals.” Did he have any?

  Officer Falco tried to distract me. He remembered me, too, and asked, “How are you doing?”

  “Not so well right now,” I said.

  He helped me out of the car. I tried not to get blood on his uniform. He said, “It looks like you’ll need a new windshield.”

  “Thank you.”

  I didn’t mean to be sarcastic. I just wasn’t in the mood for—well, anything.

  Falco stayed with me while the other cops looked around. The parking lot had a chain link fence. Bushes grew right outside the place where I was parked. It would’ve been easy for someone to hide there and disappear without a trace. The police couldn’t find anything, not even fibers caught on the bushes.

  I couldn’t help wondering about Cindy Belcher. She was so anti Hank’s idea. Where would she have found the time to run home and get a weapon? Unless she had it hidden and ready. She must have known what we would talk about, if they started it last week. But how could she have guessed where Hank would be?

  Maybe she didn’t, but saw him walking in this direction. Who’d have imagined she was some kind of sharpshooter? Maybe it wasn’t Cindy, but I couldn’t forget her antagonism. She was the loudest. Still, why would anybody feel they had to shoot Hank for his ideas? Falco wanted to know about Hank. I did the best I could. “He’s the editor of our school paper. He was planning a series that got some people upset, but hardly anybody knew about it except the newspaper staff.”

  “What was the series?” Falco asked.

  I knew he was trying to keep my attention away from the paramedics. The blood. The IV bag. The portable defibrillator to start his heart if it stopped. I turned away and talked about the meeting.

  I remembered Cindy putting on an orange sweater when she left. Those bushes were bare in winter. An orange sweater would show up, even in twilight. In the near dark, how could anyone, whoever it was, see to aim a gun?

  The parking lot was lit, and my interior light had been on. I’d been in the process of closing the door. That turned the light off, just as the person fired.

  Falco took my name, address, home, and cell phone numbers. Even my email address.

  “You’re a witness,” he reminded me. “So far, you’re the only one we have.”

  I stood against the car door but my legs wouldn’t hold me up. The only place to sit was inside the car. I sat sideways, with the door open and my feet out, so I could talk to him. Not that I had anything intelligent to say. Mostly it was, “I can’t believe it,” over and over. And, “How could anybody get that worked up? I mean to kill someone?”

  “Happens all the time,” Falco said. “Wars can start over a difference of opinion.”

  “That’s stupid. Why can’t people just live and let live?”

  “Sometimes,” Falco backed away as an officer photographed the windshield, “they feel their whole identity is threatened. Sometimes it can really be about something else. They don’t realize what makes them feel the way they do.”

  “How did you get so wise?” I asked.

  He hunkered down to put us on a more equal level. When he looked at me, his green eyes sparkled. “I run deep.”

  They strung yellow tape around my car and around the fence where the bushes were. They were going to keep the car for a while as evidence. I didn’t want it anyway with a broken windshield and all that blood. I could get the windshield fixed but I’d have to deal with the blood myself. Unless they had something in the Yellow Pages that said Blood removal our specialty.

  Hank’s blood. I wondered if he was still alive. Falco gave me the hospital’s number. I called, but he hadn’t gotten there yet. They said he’d be prepped for surgery and I could try calling again tomorrow.

  “They wouldn’t do surgery if he was dead, would they?” I asked Falco.

  “Seems unlikely. But that’s not to say he’s out of danger.”

  Just what I didn’t want to hear. I wished I could erase the whole thing. Go back in time and start over. There had to be some way to do that. I couldn’t help feeling just a tiny bit responsible. I knew it wasn’t my fault, but it was my car. And I’d gotten him into it. I tried to call my family. No one answered. Falco said, “I’ll take you home.”

  “Are you allowed to?” I asked. “I mean, leave the scene of the crime?”

  “Far as I know, this is it for now. We’ll be back when it’s daylight. Getting a witness home is part of the deal.” He smiled. Something about that smile cheered me a little.

  “It’s kind of far,” I warned him.

  “I know where Lake Road is.”

  I had given him my address. He probably knew the whole area. All of Southbridge and environs.

  I looked up at the sky. “It’s pitch dark already.”

  “Yup. It does that in November.”

  “Cold, too. I wonder how long that shooter had to wait. And why. It just seems so crazy.”

  “A lot of people are,” he said. “It could even be a case of mistaken identity.”

  That got me angry. “They shouldn’t have been shooting at anybody. If they absolutely had to, for their own stupid reason, they should watch what they’re doing.”

  “Like I said...”

  “A lot of people are crazy,” I finished for him.

  “And careless,” he added. For which, I thought, read stupid. I supposed people couldn’t help their IQ, but then they should be extra careful.

  We drove through the center of town. Past the music store. Past CVS Pharmacy and Burger King. All the places where I hung out with my friends, Glynis Goode from Lakeside and Cree Penny from Southbridge. It looked different already. Nothing would ever be the same again, after this.

  “How can you stand being a cop?” I asked. “With the human race so annoying?”

  “We prefer the term ‘police officer.’”

  “Sorry. But how can you stand it?”

  “I do the best I can.”

  I thought how maddening it would be if they never found the shooter. Once they got the person in custody, I would feel a little better.

  But then they would have to deal with defense attorneys and stupid jurors. Why did the law have to be so frustrating?

  We came to a narrow bridge, the original South Bridge. It crossed the Vanorden Kill, a wide, shallow creek, “kill” being the Dutch word for creek or stream. The bridge was narrow and bumpy. It had to be taken slowly. Right after it, the road turned left and began a very steep climb. I really did live way out of town.

  The road leveled, we made a right turn, and a minute later I pointed out my house. All the lights were on. Now my folks decided to be home.

  Falco came around to open my door. “Would you like me to go in with you and tell them what happened?”

  “I’d love it.” He could explain it much better than I could. I tried to imagine my mom’s expression, seeing me come home in a police car.

  I took him in through the front door even though I knew they’d all be in the kitchen. They came out fast enough when they heard me. First my mom, who I called Rhoda because that was her name. Her hair, the same color as mine, was still growing out from chemotherapy. Then my dad, who I called Daddy. And my brother Ben, who was barely a ye
ar older than I was. They adopted him, and not much later, I was born.

  And the two lab retrievers, Petey and Pumpkin, who had saved my life the time Evan broke into our house.

  Rhoda gaped at Officer Falco. Then at me. I introduced him and he explained. “Your daughter’s car is out of commission.”

  “What happened?” Rhoda must have been thinking I wrecked it.

  I said, “I tried calling but nobody answered.”

  “What happened to the car?” Daddy asked.

  “It’s impounded for further investigation,” Falco told them. “And it needs a new windshield.”

  That brought a flurry of exclamations and questions. Falco gave them the whole story.

  “No!” Rhoda said. “Were you hurt? Are you all right? What happened?”

  He had just told them what happened. She meant who did it and why, but nobody had those answers yet. Falco said, “She’s okay.” Then he had to add, “Just barely. It missed her by inches.”

  Rhoda sat down on the sofa, holding her head. “I don’t believe this. In Southbridge? What’s the world coming to?”

  Ben said, “It’s been that way all along.” My brother had Asperger’s syndrome. It gave him a lot of problems with the world, so he took a cynical view of it.

  Patiently Falco answered all their questions until they got every detail. He checked the whole house, making sure I’d be safe. Then he took off.

  Falco had met Evan, my ex. His thoroughness in checking the house made me wonder if he thought Evan could be the shooter. I wondered about that myself, but I wasn’t ready to deal with that idea yet.

  Daddy and Ben must have thought so, too. They went through the house again, re-checking doors and windows, and closing all the blinds. Rhododendron bushes that kept their thick leathery leaves all winter surrounded the house. Nobody could see through them even with the blinds open. With everything closed, I felt cut off from the world. As if I was in prison.

  Even though I knew their thinking, I said, “Why would anybody want to shoot me?”

  They looked at me as if I were crazy. Even the dogs. All because of Evan and the things he had done.

  Daddy said, “Until they catch the perpetrator and lock him up without bail, we will take every precaution.”

  Daddy was an attorney. He often used words like “perpetrator.”

  The whole thing was only now beginning to hit me. I mean really hit. Rhoda insisted I eat dinner even though I didn’t feel like it. I begged off for a couple of minutes while I called the hospital.

  The switchboard told me Hank was in surgery. It meant he was still among the living. I said, “Can you give me any information? Like a prognosis or something?”

  “All I know is, he’s in surgery,” the operator repeated. She suggested I try again later, but couldn’t predict when the surgery would be finished.

  He had been so alive just before the shot. So full of plans and ideas. All in an instant, it was gone. As Falco said, there were a lot of crazy people in the world. But why? What made people try to force their ideas on other people? Especially with violence.

  “It’s just not right,” I told Pumpkin, who poked her beige nose into my room. She was a blond lab. Petey was black.

  I wished it wasn’t Thursday. I needed a weekend before I could face school again. After a trauma like that I felt entitled to a day off, but under the circumstances my parents wouldn’t want me staying alone.

  School was where the shooting took place. Was it any better than home?

  What if the shooter decided he had to eliminate me, the only witness? Even though I didn’t see a thing.

  Chapter Three

  Just as I figured, they didn’t want me home alone. Not after last night. Evan might be out there. They had convinced themselves it must have been Evan. I wasn’t convinced. They hadn’t heard Cindy Belcher’s ranting. Or it could have been someone else who felt as she did but kept quiet.

  Since I had no car, I couldn’t fake going to school. I had to ride with Ben and that meant leaving before our parents did.

  Ben’s truck had both a front and a back seat. I moved to the back when we picked up my friend Cree, of the long reddish hair and the hourglass figure. She and Ben were really into each other, so she got to sit in front. This time she mostly stayed turned around, plying me with questions about last night.

  Not long ago Cree had been through a trauma of her own and almost lost her life. All because she was twenty minutes late for her babysitting job. During the course of its unraveling, she and Ben got hot and heavy. Neither of them explained how that happened. All I knew was she didn’t mind his Asperger’s syndrome the way most people did. She just thought he was delightfully unusual, as well as frank and honest. I was glad for both of them but couldn’t help envying them their closeness. Especially when they kissed each other after we got to school. It was their last time together before lunch. Ben was a senior and not in any of our classes.

  Before going to homeroom, I found a quiet corner and called the hospital. Hank had made it through surgery but was still in a coma. That was all they could tell me. It made me frantic that I didn’t have my car. I thought of calling a taxi. But that would be expensive, with the hospital five miles away in another town. My only hope was Ben. Sometimes he could be obliging, if he happened to feel like it.

  I tried it after school when the three of us met at his truck for the ride home. “Ben? Would you mind dropping me off at the hospital?”

  “What hospital?”

  He knew perfectly well. There was only one in the whole area.

  “The. Hospital.”

  “What for? You hardly know the guy.”

  “I know him a little. It won’t take more than a couple of minutes. You don’t have to wait. I’ll get myself home.” By cab if I had to.

  Cree said, “I could borrow my grandma’s car and pick you up.” She sounded so eager, but then had to retreat. “If she’s not using it.” Grandma lived with Cree and her mom and led a very social life.

  Ben surprised me. Without another word he drove me to the hospital, all five miles. But then he took me at my word and didn’t wait.

  I should have known. With his Asperger’s, he could take things very literally. He assumed you meant what you said, so you had to be careful how you worded it. But if I hadn’t added that part about not waiting, I knew I wouldn’t have gotten there at all.

  The hospital had an attractive lobby with several comfortable sofas and a piano. In one corner were a gift shop and a coin-operated dispenser where you could get flowers if you forgot to bring any.

  At the desk they looked up Hank and told me he was in Intensive Care. He wasn’t allowed any visitors except immediate family.

  It reminded me of a movie I saw once, While You Were Sleeping, about Sandra Bullock passing herself off as some guy’s fiancée so she could get in to see him. There were a lot of parallels to my situation. Too many, in fact. Other people must have seen the picture, so I couldn’t pull that one. The difference was, I knew Hank, personally, if not a lot. Sandra only had a crush from afar.

  I was wandering through the lobby, trying to find a phone book with taxis in it, when an elevator opened and Officer Falco came out.

  He stopped when he saw me. I stopped, too, embarrassed that he’d found me there. He knew I wasn’t well acquainted with Hank, and also that I had no transportation.

  “Were you upstairs?” he asked.

  “They won’t let me. I have to be immediate family. Did you see Hank? How is he?”

  “Stable, but still out of it. I was hoping he’d be awake so I could get a few words with him. As you must have seen, the shot went into his brain. They tell me—” Falco gave a little cough and looked as if he had bad news. I braced myself. “He might never wake up.”

  My knees crumpled. Falco grabbed me and led me to one of the couches.

  He sat down next to me. “I’m sorry I had to tell you that. You came all this way and they won’t let you in?”

&
nbsp; I nodded yes. “I didn’t even think of asking. Even though I saw the movie.”

  He didn’t ask what movie. He’d probably seen it on TV. “How did you get here? I’m pretty sure we still have your car.”

  “I came with my brother. I told him not to wait and he didn’t.”

  “Is he coming back for you?”

  “Uh—I might have to call him.” A little white lie seemed better than admitting how incompetent I was. Ben wouldn’t come back, I was sure of it. He hadn’t thought much of my coming here in the first place.

  “Can you wait, say, half an hour?” Falco asked. “I need to talk to some people and I’ll be right with you.”

  Still embarrassed, but desperate, I agreed. He pointed to the couch I was on and emphasized, “Right there.”

  Half an hour could be long or short, depending on what you were doing. All I could do was wait and think. About whether Hank would live or die. Or spend the rest of his life as a vegetable. About what would’ve happened if I hadn’t offered him a ride... But it had seemed like a normal thing to do at the time.

  If they were so determined to shoot him, they’d have done it anyway, right? It might have been a cleaner shot if it hadn’t had to go through my windshield. He could have died instantly. Would that have been any better?

  An elderly man in a dark red blazer nodded and smiled at me. I hadn’t noticed him before, standing near the reception desk. I supposed he was a volunteer waiting to help somebody.

  With an innocent smile, I said, “Can you give me directions to the ICU?”

  I was sure he’d tell me I couldn’t go there. He asked, “Which ICU do you want? Cardiac or the other one?”

  Gulp. It must have been the other one. I didn’t think Hank’s heart was involved. It was his head. “Second floor,” said the man. “Get off the front of the elevator, make a right. There are signs in the hallway.”

  The elevator, I discovered, opened at both ends. I tried to figure out which was front.

  What if Falco came and I wasn’t here? He would think I had found my own way home and he’d leave without me. Cree had offered to pick me up. I wished she had a cell phone.