by JA Schneider
Jenna Walsh was now in a smock raised to just under her breasts, and was sheeted from the hips down. Her exposed belly was horribly bruised, each black-and-blue splotch looking as if she’d been viciously, repeatedly kicked.
Jill closed her eyes for a second and David said bitterly, “Someone wanted her baby dead.”
The snake guy, Jill thought, and knew David was thinking the same.
She watched him grimly palpate Jenna’s wrecked belly, then step past Woody emotionally swabbing blood from Jenna’s head to palpate the matted hair above her ear. “Depressed skull fracture. Where’s-”
“Oh God, look at this,” Ruthie said, sounding truly sick. From the snake? Maybe, but she was so professional.
Biting her lip, Ruthie raised Jenna’s smock to her clavicle and pointed to her religious necklace. “Here" – her voice cracked - “a big safety pin attached near her cross. It’s got bloody flesh on it.”
Tight-faced, David took a sterile forceps from the instrument tray, prodded, saw scales. “From the snake.” His voice was low, revolted. “Someone pinned a live snake to her cross.”
Jill put her hands on the bed to steady herself. Remembered Hutch’s Afraid a real one would’ve climbed out. The cadaver had been there all night. Whereas Jenna Walsh had just been attacked. A snake pinned to her was likely to be seen.
“Jeezus,” said MacIntyre, coming to peer at the bloodied flesh on the safety pin. Woody forceps-poked the reddened, scaly skin too, grimacing like a child. “Sick, oh sick. Thought I’d seen everything.”
“Means her attacker knew her,” David said. “Knew she wore the cross and sent us a message. Probably followed her into the alley.”
“Definitely planned it,” MacIntyre said, watching Woody. “Brought his pin and snake.”
The nylon curtains whisked open and a neurosurgical resident stepped in. Squeezed past the others to check out Jenna’s head fracture. “Whoa,” he said. “Get her up for a CAT scan.”
David shook his head. “Gotta transfuse her first.”
He looked relieved when the curtains parted again and the second nurse ran back in with the four units of blood. “The cops outside said detectives are coming,” she said, breathing hard.
Seconds, it took them, to switch the patient’s IV drip from the clear dextrose and saline in water to the first unit of whole blood. The cubicle was crowded, the usual seeming chaos when treating a seriously injured person with multiple injuries.
“BP’s down to 80 over 40,” Woody said, nervously eyeing the monitor.
David said, “Open the clamp.”
“How far?” Jill moved to the IV pole.
“All the way.”
A foot below the hanging, red-filled bag, she turned a small clamp counter-clockwise on the plastic tubing. Help her, help her, she prayed, watching red blood flow faster down the tube. She felt sick. Was imagining the snake writhing and snapping against Jenna’s chest. Couldn’t blot it out. Actually felt Jenna’s terror…
The neurosurgeon resident, done checking Jenna’s pupils, was now sticking her fingertip with a sterile needle. Though unconscious, her hand jerked away. A good sign. He moved to the foot of the table (“s’cuse”…“s’cuse”) wiped his needle with an alcohol sponge, swabbed her ankle, and stuck her lightly again. Her foot pulled away.
“No sign of neuro damage yet,” he said. “If there’s a subdural, you have time.”
“Hey!” Woody piped. “BP’s back up to 85 over 45!”
“From pushing blood in fast,” David said. “Okay, she can continue stabilizing during transport.”
A uniformed cop looked in to say detectives had arrived.
David thanked him as Sam and Woody helped him start moving out the bed. To Jill, at the rear by the IV pole he said, “Would you stay? Give the cops her clothes, tell ‘em about both snakes?”
His glance went to the bag of Jenna’s things, and the punched-with-holes plastic bag on top of it.
Ruthie looked at the second bag too and sent Jill a grimace.
“It’s moving,” she said.
7
A hundred years ago, a lovely stream was here. I close my eyes and see it rippling through green-dappled light to the marshes, just beyond.
But the city was growing. Overnight teeming with millions. So the marshes were filled by greedy landfill, and greedy building, and more building…
Now, with neglect, the world as God willed it is trying to come back.
And I am helping. God chose me to smite those who have given in to the devil. This afternoon, in the alley…SHE RENOUNCED HER SOUL! Made Satan dance in triumph by daring to bring MORE EVIL into the world.
But I didn’t kill her, did I? No! Because killing is still a mortal sin…isn’t it? Even if the sinner has relinquished her soul? I’m not sure. I must ask God the next time He speaks to me. I asked a priest once, and was furious at the answer he gave me. He was surely the devil in disguise.
In this place only, I am happy. October is so much better because it gets dark early. I can slip through the boarded windows and come sooner, sit on this rotten timber and look up through the broken, gaping roof to the sky, so beautiful, mauve and blue and dark blue
I’m wearing earphones. They block out the blare of traffic just yards away. Through the earphones comes the blessed sound of the Gregorian chant Benedictinos. It sounds creepy too, but it’s perfect for…what they’ve done here. Gives dignity back to the broken doors, the walls peeling paint, the moldy prayer books strewn between toppled pews…
At last my heart has slowed. My breathing has eased. I can tame my fury that they’ve already demolished the rectory. I hear these sacred Gregorian voices, and they help me forget that the devil has taken over the world. I sing softly with them... “Ave mundi spes Maria, ave mitis, ave pia, ave plena gratia. Ave virgo…”
Now I inhale. Deeply, and more deeply.
I am ready for the next sinner, and that excites me.
But my friends must be alive from here on, each time. I am ready to feed them, and to pick one...
So I reach down for my bag, rise from my rotting perch, and take a last look up through the torn roof to the sky. That first star up there, shining so bright. It is God, praising me for my brave and lonely work.
Carefully, I move through the darkening nave, past the overturned, cobwebby pulpit, to the north transept, and ah, here are the stairs.
I descend. It will be pitch black down there.
But I can already hear them! They are rustling and impatient, they know I’m coming! Cautiously, my feet hit the black floor. As I move, my feet make slight splashing sounds. The floor is wetter than before because God’s splashing little springs are leaking in. Returning! How ironic that demolishing the rectory has gouged the landfill, re-opened the old marsh!
Down here I can turn on my flashlight. No one can see…except them, slithering, writhing, coiling as I sweep my beam over them.
“Look what I’ve got for you!” I tell them out loud, and now I suspect that maybe I really am just a little crazy, because I see every pointy black head turn to me, expectant, hungry.
Onto the floor I empty my bag of frozen mice. Walk among them and scatter the almost-thawed tiny bodies among their slithering knots. Snouts poke at the mice, hideous little mouths open. They appreciate how hard I’ve worked for them. For three months catching mice in my traps, freezing them, coming now more often because the work planned since July is at last underway.
Other work too. Three months of collecting other…things.
God’s will shall prevail! Only these coiling servants of Satan will catch the world’s attention, remind all sinners of WHAT IS RIGHT!
I stoop and catch one in my gloved hand. He snaps and writhes and tries to get away, but I’ve got him, and push him into my bag, where he still snaps and lunges to get out.
He’ll be strong to wrap around my next sinner. Leave as a sign that no one will ignore.
Halfway up the stairs, I turn off my flashlight.
This visit hasn’t taken long. No one saw me leave, no one will know I was gone. I take my pills now, and return to walk, unnoticed, among the others.
Outside it has become dark, but I still pull my hood up so my face will be hidden. Good, there is no one on the sidewalk. I pass the yellow barriers and walk back quickly with my head down.
Under my hood, those blessed voices sing.
“Ave virgo singularis, quć per rubum designaris non passus incendia…”
8
The ER lounge had lumpy old armchairs, cable TV burbling low, and sagging couches usually occupied by a sleeping resident or two. You could send a train through here and it wouldn’t wake the chronically sleep-deprived.
Jill lugged in the two plastic bags, stiff-armed and slightly away from her. She greeted the two detectives and motioned them to a quiet place in the corner. Three armchairs and a coffee table, onto which she placed the bags. Dread rolled through her. Another meeting with cops. Three months ago seemed suddenly like yesterday.
“Why’s that bag moving?” said Alex Brand, pointing at the plastic bag with the holes. She knew Alex from last July.
“There’s a snake in it,” she said tersely, thinking that she was getting to know half the NYPD. “Nice to see you, Alex. Pity such things have to bring you back.”
Alex Brand had intense, hazel eyes, was good looking, and wore a navy parka over a dark blue wool sweater. It seemed odd to see him dressed like that. From his several high-stress visits three months ago, Jill remembered him in polo shirts under light jackets. Once he’d come running over in a T-shirt.
Brand frowned at the bag for a second, then introduced Jill to the second detective. Surprise - it was Keri Blasco, the blond plainclothes cop they’d seen observing Yelling Megaphone Man. Jill barely recognized her. Soccer mom was now very cop, in dark slacks with her hair pulled back, holding an open notebook.
She greeted Jill, then leaned, grimacing, to poke at the smaller bag with her ballpoint. “A snake?”
Dry-lipped, Jill filled them in as Keri took notes. The fake garter snake in the anatomy lab. The real garter snake hideously, cruelly pinned to Jenna Walsh’s cross. She looked back at the bag with a pity that surprised her. David said he’d caught it too easily because its gut had been torn. It was moving less inside the bag now. It must be dying.
The expressions of both cops showed their revulsion.
Jill pulled in a breath. She was exhausted and hadn’t eaten, but the weird, wired feeling she recognized from last summer took over.
“The fake snake,” she went on, “had six fake baby snake heads sewn onto it, just behind the neck. That made it a seven-headed snake, which alarmed the anatomy professor, who showed us a passage in the Bible from, ah, Revelations? Something about a seven-headed serpent representing evil.”
Keri Blasco, scribbling, said “Yow, I’ve heard of that.”
Jill went on, speaking faster, nervously stumbling over her words. “The anatomy prof also saw that SPAWN OF THE DEVIL sign, and got extra alarmed since today the hospital announced about the baby. So he called us about that sign and the guy with the megaphone and we all worried about how many other people out there are like that…” She swallowed hard, unconsciously clenching her fists.
“Very scary.” Keri’s intelligent blue eyes met Jill’s, full of empathy. Jill smiled weakly back at her. So much had been exchanged between them without words.
“The guy with the megaphone was taped, we saw the pictures,” Alex Brand said, pulling on latex gloves, pulling Jenna’s larger bag of things to him. He took out her purse, cell phone and wallet, fingered Jenna’s jacket, her cut sweater.
“What a bonus,” he said. “Hospitals never do this unless it’s a rape, and even then they screw up the clothes, lose non-injury evidence.”
“Anyone touching Jenna’s things was gloved,” Jill said. “Evidence ought to be intact.” She hesitated, frowning slightly. “It looks like Jenna was hit on the head first and from behind, to bring her down. Then she was kicked and punched in the belly. The blow to her head was serious, close to lethal. Also just above her ear, as if she had started to turn-”
Brand nodded as his cell phone rang. He answered and listened, muttered, listened more.
Keri flipped a notebook page and smiled at Jill. “Alex says last July you and David Levine actually solved that case. I’ve seen him on TV and the police tape.” Her eyes beamed. “That roof scene, the fight with Arnett, and that other bad guy he shot between the eyes. Where’d he learn to shoot like that?”
Jill told her. David learned to shoot growing up in Denver, they give prizes to kids there for sharp-shooting. Then at sixteen he started getting into trouble, so to straighten him out his parents sent him to a kibbutz in Israel.
She let herself smile. “He says everyone else weeded all day. He found an army base nearby, made friends, and did target practice with them. Then two years later he was hiking with friends, and shot the head off a rattler forty feet away. I’ve seen the news clippings from The Denver Post. He only showed them to me. Actually, he doesn’t like to talk about it.”
Jill’s smile faded when she looked back to the snake bag. It had stopped moving.
Brand hung up from his call. “Connor says Jenna’s brother just arrived. Sounds like a weird guy. They’re going to interview him upstairs.”
“What about his wife?” Keri asked.
“They’re trying to reach her. Left a voice mail.”
Brand went back to going through Jenna’s wallet, pulled out a slip of paper and read it. “Interesting,” he said. “Jenna was headed here. She had a four o’clock appointment in your OB clinic.”
He handed the slip to Jill. She read it, frowning. “With Jim Holloway,” she said faintly. “He’s a second-year resident.”
“She was attacked in an alley off Second Avenue and Thirty-ninth. That’s four blocks from here. Whoever did this brought his snake and big pin with him, which means he planned, probably knew her, even knew about the OB appointment-”
A pinging sound startled them. The tune to “Good Morning, Sunshine.” It was the ring tone for Jenna’s cell phone, which Brand answered.
“Hello?”
He listened. Said no, this wasn’t a wrong number, and identified himself. The female voice on the other end grew frantic, loud enough to make out as Jill and Keri leaned closer.
“Where’s Jenna? Where’s Jenna?”
Brand explained very briefly. The voice on the other end grew silent, then burst into tears. And a torrent of something Brand’s expression said he could barely make out.
“Yes,” he said gently. “We’ll need to talk to you anyway.” He told the woman to come to the surgical floor, and hung up.
He looked from Keri clutching her ballpoint to Jill, and inhaled heavily. “Jenna Walsh was the surrogate mother for this couple, named Sutter. It was the wife who called. They’d planned to meet her after her appointment.”
“They’re coming to the surgical floor,” Jill echoed, to be sure.
“Yes.”
“I’d like to meet them.”
Brand didn’t get the chance to answer. Jill’s phone rang. She was needed for a delivery, fast.
She rose and explained.
“Will you fill me in?” she asked. “I’d like to know about this surrogate couple; ditto Jenna’s brother and sister-in-law.”
Both detectives agreed readily. Doctors can do things that cops need warrants and court orders to do. If only more were like Jill and David…
Keri gave Jill her card, and Brand checked that she still had him on speed dial.
She did. “Still near the top,” she told him.
9
In the OR, the anesthesiologist had taken off Jenna’s nasal oxygen mask from the E.R. and intubated her, sending oxygen directly into her trachea. He was checking her vital signs when the others, re-scrubbed, capped and masked, came in to be helped into their gloves and surgical gowns by a circulating nurse.
“Rea
dy?” David asked, approaching the surgical table.
“Vitals still look okay,” the anesthesiologist said through his mask. “Have to keep an eye on her neuro signs.”
“I’m on it.” Woody gently lifted Jenna’s right eye open, used his penlight to check her pupil, then checked her left eye.
A nurse grimly hung a new unit of blood. Some cases threw her more than others. Hearing about this one upset her terribly.
The ventilator whooshed as David made a long, mid-line incision of the abdomen. He reached in and, with Sam, their gloved hands together carefully pulled apart the abdominal muscles. Sam got in the retractors to keep the opening open, then suctioned blood out so they could see better.
At seven months the uterus looked like a big, upside-down pear with the small end ending in the cervix.
“No damage to liver or spleen,” David said, gently inspecting the organs.
“She’s lucky.”
“Hope so. There’s still her brain to worry about.” He didn’t look up. “Woody?”
“Babinski reflexes okay.” Greenberg was at the foot of the table now. Had just run his thumb up the soles of Jenna’s feet; both big toes had tipped down, which was good. “How much else can you do when she’s out?”
“Just the pupils and Babinski. Keep checking.”
The scrub nurse handed David a new sterile scalpel. Now he made a vertical incision into the uterus, opened it, and blinked at the fetus. A little life that never had a chance, dusky-colored and awash in blood.
Sam suctioned the uterine blood out with a gurgling, whooshing sound, muttering, “Son of a bitch who did this, I wanna kill him.”
“Get in line.” David waited seconds until he got a clearer field. “Bleeding’s stopping,” he said.
MacIntyre finished suctioning and looked back in. The torn blood vessels between the placenta and uterine wall had contracted and clotted.
