by Daniel Kalla
I laid out what I knew of the relationship between Marcus and Emily. She accepted the news with more grace than I had. “She was hardly the only one when it came to Marcus,” Alex said calmly. “It still doesn’t give him a motive to kill her.”
“Unlike the others, he had the means to pull it off. And maybe he had the same issue with HIV exposure that I thought Maglio had.” I regretted the words the second they left my lips.
Alex stared at me blankly. “You think Marcus might have picked up HIV from her?”
“No! I just pulled that out of the air. I have no reason to think—”
“It’s okay, Ben,” she said, reaching up and resting a hand on my shoulder. “I got poked by a discarded needle in the ER two months ago. I was tested right after. I don’t have HIV.” She sighed heavily. “And I’m pretty sure I haven’t been intimate with Marcus since.”
“Alex, I was just brainstorming,” I said apologetically. “I don’t know what, if any, motive Marcus might have had. He just seems like an obvious choice with his training and access to blood storage.”
Alex lifted her hand from my shoulder. “Ten years I’ve lived with him. I’ve learned that he’s capable of far worse than I would have ever guessed.” She shook her head. “But not this.”
“Then who?”
“I don’t know, but it seems to me the answer is somewhere in Seattle, not Vancouver. Don’t you think it’s time to go back?”
“Not quite yet, Alex.”
“Why?”
“Malcolm Davies knows something. He out-and-out told me this morning that Aaron was dead. He implied he was killed by the same person who rigged the explosion at his lab.” I nodded to myself. “Malcolm knows who did it, too.”
“Even if he does and he is willing to tell you, there is nothing to indicate that Aaron’s killer is also Emily’s.”
“My gut tells me they have to be linked.” I pointed to her. “And what about the whisperer?”
Alex shrugged. “I am not following.”
“He knew that Aaron was ‘gone.’ And he knew all the details of Emily’s murder. So there is a link. And remember, his calls came from Canada, not Seattle.”
“Yeah.” She bit her lip. “I suppose.”
“It has to be connected,” I said. “And there’s someone else in Vancouver who definitely knows more than he told me.”
Alex frowned. “Who?”
I fought off a sneer. “The same son of a bitch who apparently had drinks with my brother a year after he was murdered.”
“Drew Isaacs.”
We headed out just after nine o’clock. We stopped at Malcolm Davies’s ground floor apartment, but his lights were off and there was no answer at the intercom. We waited for close to an hour in front of his apartment building, but he never showed up.
Alex drove us directly from there to Club Vertical. After circling the block twice, we pulled into the lane behind the nightclub.
When I saw Alex reaching for the door, I said, “What are you doing?”
“Coming with you.”
“I need you to stay here.”
“Look, if this is about my safety—”
“Not at all,” I said. “If Isaacs shows up, I don’t know how it will go down. It could be that I’ll need to leave in a hurry. What good does having both of us stuck inside do?”
She squinted defiantly for a moment but then her forehead smoothed. “Whatever.”
I opened the passenger door and turned around to her before getting out. “Keep the doors locked with the key in the ignition at all times, okay?”
“Got it, Dad,” she said with a forced smile.
I realized there was no rear entrance, so I hurried down the alley past a couple of Dumpsters and out to the street. I took a quick glance both ways before I turned left. At the intersection halfway down the block, I turned left again onto the street that led to Vertical’s entrance.
The same steroid-enhanced bouncer eyeballed me without a hint of recognition but granted me entry with another nod. I walked the short hallway into the bar, feeling my pulse rise with each step. Inside, the club was more crowded than on the previous night. Ten or twelve people were on the dance floor. But with two quick surveys, I didn’t spot Isaacs. I walked to the corner of the bar and staked out the same seat I’d grabbed the night before.
I didn’t recognize the tall dark-haired waitress. For appearance’s sake, I ordered a beer though I sensed that I couldn’t afford to risk even a single drink tonight. As soon as the server walked away, I looked over to the entrance. Drew Isaacs had suddenly materialized in a long brown leather coat. He waved to one of the staff before his gaze drifted across the dance floor.
Our eyes locked. Without breaking the eye contact, I slowly rose to my feet.
Isaacs twirled and sprinted for the entrance.
I took off after him. Halfway across the dance floor, I slammed into a young man gyrating on the dance floor. I landed on top of him and rolled off.
“What’s your problem, asshole?” he growled.
“Sorry, man.” I scrambled to my feet and ran for the door.
I burst onto the street just in time to catch sight of the hem of Isaacs’s jacket rounding the corner to my right. Ignoring the yell of the bouncer, I sprinted after.
I turned the corner, but Isaacs had already disappeared. Paralyzed with indecision, I wondered which way he’d gone. Then I heard a series of honks from the lane.
Alex! She must have seen him.
I sprinted up the street to the lane’s entrance. I didn’t see Isaacs, but the headlights of Alex’s car flashed at me. I ran toward them. As I passed the first Dumpster, I was suddenly hurled to the pavement. The pain shot through my shoulder like a thunderclap. I rolled over just in time to see the wooden club smash into my chest, knocking every molecule of air out of me.
Breathless, I slithered to my left and Isaacs just missed me with the next swing of his club.
Gasping for air, I shot out my hand and caught his wrist in midswing. I grabbed it with the other hand and grappled for the weapon. I’d almost freed it from his fingers when his boot slammed into the other side of my chest. I yelped and lost grip of the club as he yanked it loose from me.
Helplessly, I gaped at the hovering figure of Drew Isaacs outlined by the glow of the headlights. “You should have left it alone,” he grunted.
He raised the heavy club above his head. I brought my hands up to my face, to protect my face and to shade my eyes from the blinding high beams that suddenly hit us.
Alex laid on her horn as she brought the car to a screeching halt a few feet behind Isaacs.
He hesitated a second, then dropped his arm and raced past the car in the opposite direction, heading for the far end of the lane.
I lay on the ground, fighting to breathe as Alex ran out of her car and crouched beside me. “Ben! Are you okay?”
“Isaacs!” I panted. “We have to…get him.”
I struggled to rise, but Alex gently pushed me back to the ground. “Later! For God’s sake, Ben, you’re not moving until I’ve cleared your cervical spine and chest.”
Alex’s hands expertly palpated my neck. I felt no pain along my spine. When her thumb pressed into the right side of my chest, I heard the grinding sound of cracked ribs moving against each other. The pain ripped through me as if Alex had taken a swing with the same club.
“There’s no time,” I gasped. “Help me up, Alex. I have to find Isaacs!”
Chapter 33
Loading myself into the car, the searing pain in my chest almost brought tears to my eyes. Each barely perceptible gearshift change or slight bump delivered another jolt of pain, but breathing was even worse. I couldn’t understand why I felt so winded minutes after taking the beating. I had to breathe in rapid, shallow gasps because anything more felt like a knife sticking out of the right side of my chest.
Alex turned to me with concern. “Ben?”
Suddenly, the symptoms clicked in my brain and I made
the diagnosis. “Alex, I think a broken rib might have collapsed my lung on the right.”
“A traumatic pneumothorax?” Alex said. “I’m taking you to the ER.”
“No, Alex!”
“If this develops into a tension pneumothorax…” She didn’t need to finish her warning. Without treatment, I would most likely die from a tension pneumothorax—the rarer form of collapsed lung where air leaks out of the lung with every exhalation but not back in with inhalation, forming a deadly one-way valve.
“If you take me to the ER…I’m as good as done.”
“What choice do we have?”
“Call Joe Janacek,” I panted.
“He’s a family doctor,” she said. “What can he do for this?”
“Get supplies from the hospital,” I said in the longest sentence I could squeeze out in one breath. “You can decompress my lung.”
“Me?” she said.
“Or hold a mirror up.” I laughed, and regretted it immediately. “And I’ll do it myself.”
“This is beyond craziness,” Alex said, but she reached for her cell phone in her glove box.
The operator for Joe’s clinic patched her through to his house. Alex gave Joe a quick rundown on what had happened. “Joe, I need supplies from the hospital,” she said. “A chest tube kit and a Heimlich valve.”
He must have agreed, because her next words were: “Thanks, Joe. We’re in suite 2905 at the Sheraton.”
By the time we reached the parking lot, my breathing had worsened. I tried to hide it from Alex, but she was too astute not to notice my panting. Pain aside, each step toward the elevator felt the same as a sprint up the steepest of hills on my bike.
“Ben, are you sure?” she asked. “There’s a hospital across the street.”
“I’m okay. Just need to lie down.” I reached for the wall by the elevator for support. I was seeing stars and my legs felt as if they would buckle at any moment. I knew the lightheadedness was proof of an evolving tension pneumothorax, but I kept it to myself and held on to the elevator wall.
By the time the elevator doors opened, I was so air-hungry that the pain had receded and a warm swimming feeling replaced it. I had to lean on Alex as I stumbled my way down the hallway to the room.
Alex fumbled with the key at the door while I leaned against the wall. I couldn’t hold myself up and ended up sliding to the floor. The door opened, and Alex turned to me. “Come on, Ben, let’s get you into the bed.” Her voice echoed as if heard through a megaphone.
She knelt beside me, leaned me forward, and tucked an arm underneath each armpit. Despite our size mismatch, she was able to hoist me to my feet, while I focused every shred of energy on getting air to my lungs.
She dragged me to the bed. I collapsed on top of the covers. After rolling me onto my back, she stood over me and felt the pulse at my neck. A halo of light outlined her, as my visual field began to tunnel. Unable to speak a word, I merely stared vacantly at her angelic-looking form.
“Ben?” she pleaded in her underwater voice. “Your pulse is so thready. Your blood pressure must be collapsing. I can’t wait for Joe. I have a needle and syringe in my bag. Just hang on a few more seconds.”
She let go of my wrist, and I felt the world begin to drift away like a departing ship.
The room darkened.
I heard a faint ruffled, ripping noise and thought I saw her tearing my shirt with a knife. Then I had a fuzzy vision of Alex bringing a syringe to my chest. At that moment, the room went pitch black.
I have no idea how much time passed, but I felt Alex’s soft fingers at my neck and heard her welcome voice before I could see her. “Ben, talk to me.”
I opened my eyes to see Alex standing over me with the same focus etched on her brow. “Alex,” I said, surprised I could talk.
“How’s the breathing?”
“Not normal, but easier.”
I heard a hissing noise nearby and looked down to see a sixteen-gauge needle buried to its hub in my right chest a few inches above my nipple. I understood immediately. Alex had stuck the needle into my chest—a procedure called needle thoracostomy—to convert the tension pneumothorax into the regular kind. I knew she hadn’t fixed the air leak, but she had converted the one-way valve in my chest into a two-way valve. And by doing so, she had decompressed my lung and saved my life.
A firm knock at the door drew our attention. Alex hopped to her feet. “Who is it?” she asked at the door.
“A very tired, very old doctor,” Jozef Janacek replied, and Alex opened the door.
Carrying a plastic bag in one hand and a black doctor’s satchel in the other, Joe barged past Alex and hurried over to where I lay. He squinted at the needle in my chest. Without a word, he laid the bags on the floor and pulled a stethoscope out of the black one. He leaned forward and listened to my chest as he felt my pulse at the wrist. Pulling the nubs out of his ear, he turned to Alex. “Tension pneumothorax?”
“Yes,” Alex said. “I decompressed him temporarily but he needs a chest tube now.”
Joe lifted the white plastic bag off the floor. “This isn’t cat food and toilet paper,” he said, passing it to Alex.
She laid the bag on the bed and pulled the items out one at a time, sorting them beside me.
Joe turned to me with a concerned smile. “You didn’t try to blow up a tank, did you?”
I laughed and winced at the same time as the sharp end of the needle dug into my lung.
“What happened?” he asked.
Despite the pain and shortness of breath, I was able to speak easily now. While Alex silently organized her equipment, I summarized the last two days for Joe. When I mentioned Marcus, Alex didn’t comment or even look over at the procedural tray at my side. I finished with a description of Isaacs’s ambush.
Joe shook his head. “And you still won’t turn yourself in?”
I shook my head. “I’m so close. I can’t let Isaacs slip away now. If I can find him again, he will lead me to Emily’s killer. Might even be him.”
Joe pointed at my upper body. “With a needle in your chest.”
My resolve was unswerved. “Got to find him.”
Alex spread open the plastic bag and put it on the floor at her feet for garbage. Then she looked at me. “Ready?”
“Absolutely.”
“Roll on your left side,” she instructed.
While Alex and Joe slipped their hands into sterile gloves, I rolled over and lifted my right arm over my head to allow her access to the area of my chest directly below my armpit.
With my head craned into the mattress, I could see most of what was going on, albeit sideways. I smelled the rubbing alcohol and felt the cool wetness below my arm as Alex swabbed the area with cleaning solution. She brought the syringe and needle with local anesthetic to the skin. The slight pinch and burn were nothing compared to what I’d experienced with the pneumothorax.
Curious rather than apprehensive, I studied the scalpel as the blade painlessly penetrated through my frozen skin. Then Joe passed Alex the slim plastic chest tube. She stuck a small tweezers-like clamp into my chest and spread the arms. Air whooshed out of my chest in a loud rush, as Alex seamlessly slid the tube into my chest cavity like feeding a rope into a well, and then attached the stopcock and Heimlich valve to the end of it. Joe sutured the tube in place, and Alex bandaged up the side of my chest.
As soon as they finished, I sat up. All three of us watched the plastic flapper flutter inside the Heimlich valve, proving that the tube was secured in the right spot and draining my chest cavity of any air accumulated outside the lung. Joe turned to Alex and clapped her on the shoulder. “Pretty slick technique.” He grinned. “Maybe one day they’ll let women become doctors, too.”
My laugh reminded me that the chest tube hadn’t cured the pain of my broken ribs.
Alex feigned a scowl. “Would you say that to Eliska?”
Joe chuckled. “I might be brave, but I’m not suicidal.” He leaned over and dug
in his bag until he found a pill bottle. He passed the bottle to me. “Here are a few hydromorphone painkillers for your chest.”
Then Joe closed up his black satchel and stood to leave. “I think this glorified courier better go home now. If you have to reach me, call me directly at home.” He recited his home phone number, then eyed me intently. “Do you need anything else before I go?”
I smiled. “You got any pusinky in that bag?”
He smiled back. “I save those for my best patients. The ones who don’t bother me after hours.” He turned to Alex with a fatherly nod. “I know he’s an awful burden, but you take care of him, Dr. Lindquist. He might be worth the effort in the end.”
She ran the back of her fingers softly along my cheek and over my beard. “I will. Thanks, Joe.”
Alex walked Joe to the door and hugged him good-bye. After she closed the door, she climbed onto the left side of the bed and carefully nestled herself under my left arm. “What are we going to do, Ben?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
Minutes passed as we snuggled silently, lost in our own thoughts. The pain dampened, I felt myself drift toward sleep. I think I had just shut my eyes when I heard the knocks. In that void between wakefulness and sleep, I couldn’t localize the source and half wondered if I was dreaming.
The next series of bangs yanked me straight into alertness. I looked over and Alex was already sitting up in the bed. She turned me to wide-eyed and mouthed the word, Who?
“Vancouver police,” the bark came as if in response to her unspoken question. “Open the door!”
Chapter 34
I sat up gingerly in the bed, amazed by my calmness. I had lost, though I suddenly realized that I’d never stood a chance. My mood verged on relief, aware the whole ordeal was finally inching to a close.
The pounding on the door grew even louder. “Vancouver police. This is your last warning.”
I looked over to Alex with the most reassuring smile I could summon. “It’s okay, Alex. Let them in.”
