The Chilling Spree

by LS Sygnet

  “She has an in,” Johnny muttered and almost glared at me. I didn’t need a roadmap to guide me to the answer why.

  “Regardless, this is a dynamic that Devlin knows better than any of us,” I said. “I was only along for the ride last night. He knows more about this band and the best way to get the information than any of us –” My ringing cell phone interrupted. I stared at the screen for a moment before instant recognition of the number kicked in.

  “Eriksson.”

  “Helen, it’s Shelly Finkelstein.”

  Tension flooded my body. “Why are you calling me from the hospital?” I’d had way too much contact with Metro State University Hospital in the past six months. Seeing that number imbued me with more than unease.

  “Helen, there was an accident this morning.”

  “What kind of accident?” The muttering dissent around the table muted instantly.

  “Ned and Devlin.”

  I shot out of my chair. “I’ll be right there.”

  “Do you know where Chris Darnell is? Apparently, he’s Devlin’s next of kin according to our records at division.”

  “He’s here with me right now. Shelly, are they all right?”

  “No,” her voice cracked. “Devlin needs emergency surgery, and Ned…”

  I dropped back into the chair. “No!”

  “Will you ask Chris to call the hospital right away? It’s very bad. They need consent right away.”

  I nodded.

  “Helen?”

  “Get someone on the phone now,” I said. “He can consent over my phone.”

  They must’ve been code words that Chris understood without any kind of explanation. He pried the handheld out of my grip and identified himself while I sat numbly.

  Johnny was crouched at my side and I hadn’t even noticed that he moved. “Helen, what happened?” he asked gently.

  “An accident. I don’t know any details. Ned and Devlin were…”

  “Injured?” Crevan asked.

  “Devlin needs emergency surgery. Ned is dead. I – I have to go, Johnny. I need to be there.”

  Something dark flitted through his eyes, but he didn’t argue. “I guess we’ll talk about the case later. You and Chris should go right away.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He nodded. “We’ll handle the investigation. Don’t worry about it. I think it’s pretty clear that neither one of you will be able to keep your heads in the case right now. Go.”

  It felt more like an indictment than support. At the same time, I didn’t have the ability to dissect it. My heart pounded with fear and worry that someone who had quickly become a close friend might be dying. All the other loss of important people in my life cascaded through memory – my father, my very best friend David Levine, Johnny and now Devlin. I nodded absently.

  Chris handed me the phone. “Let’s go, Helen.” He understood it too, because I think in many ways, Chris, Ned and I were the only people that knew Devlin very well at all, and now Ned was gone.

  My heart cracked. Every memory of the case we worked together flitted through memory, our silly Christmas with convenience store gifts. Ned gently nudging me to move forward with my life regardless of whether Johnny wanted to remember me or not. The cagey bastard – had he realized that watching me move on would spark Johnny’s insane and possessive jealousy?

  He probably did. Tears welled and spilled like hot lava down my cheeks. Johnny cursed softly and looked away.

  “I can’t believe he’s gone,” I rasped. “He was such a good cop, a great man.”

  Eyes snapped into focus on me again. “Ned?”

  I nodded. “Why did this happen?”

  One calloused thumb brushed away a tear. “I don’t know, Doc. If it was something other than an accident, we’ll get to the bottom of it. I promise.”

  “You’ve already got a major headache to deal with at the amphitheater.”

  “Helen, I want to get to the hospital,” Chris said. “Are you all right to drive?”

  “No idea,” I whispered.

  Johnny rose and gently tugged me out of the chair that supported me. “Go with Chris. I’ll come over as soon as we figure out where to go from here and see how you’re doing. You’ve got to have faith that this’ll work out, Helen.”

  Southerby really had rebooted Johnny’s memory if he thought faith would offer any solace to me. I felt nothing but mind numbing worry when an arm slipped around my waist. Johnny led me out of the conference room before handing me off to Darnell.

  “Let me know if you need anything, Chris.”

  He nodded. “If you can have one of the men look into this accident and make sure it really was one –”

  “Say no more,” Johnny said.

  His hand rubbed against my lower back. “Doc, I’m really sorry. I wish I could remember what made you learn what a great guy Ned was. I wish I could remember a lot of things.”

  I gravitated toward him, not much, but it must’ve communicated more than I thought, maybe more than I wanted him to know. Johnny pulled me against his chest and let me burrow close for a few seconds of comfort. I cried softly and left wet tears in his shirt. His fingers spanned my jaw when I stepped away.

  “Helen.” The low tender voice rippled over me.

  “Promise me you’ll be careful,” I whispered.

  The direction his urges took was written all over his face. Johnny’s head dipped, but he reined it in just as quickly as it was almost expressed. “You be careful too,” he said.

  Chris wrapped a fatherly arm around my shoulder and steered me out of the state police office. “He’s young, strong, healthy. He’ll pull through this.”

  “I can’t let myself think otherwise. It’s bad enough that we lost Ned.”

  “You’re right,” Chris said. “Detective Williams was one hell of a man. This is gonna devastate Devlin when he finds out what happened.”

  “How did it happen?” I couldn’t stop wondering aloud. The cloud of perpetual ground cover that shrouded Darkwater Bay hit us the second we stepped out of the building. “Damned fog.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  In less than an hour, Darnell and I found ourselves waiting outside surgery, drinking toxic coffee, understanding too well why the carpeting in the waiting room was threadbare. We added to its destruction with nonstop pacing.

  At the marker of hour two in surgery, the physician from the emergency department who treated Devlin came up to talk to us.

  “I’m not sure if anyone explained more than I told you over the phone, Commander Darnell.”

  “Some sort of abdominal injury,” he said. “Exploratory surgery.”

  The doctor started talking about things like tears to the liver or the aorta, the gross amount of bleeding in Dev’s abdomen when he arrived at the hospital, complications and risks involved with every type of abdominal injury known to man. I thought about our dead victim, Kyle Goddard. His aorta hadn’t withstood the trauma it endured for very long.

  My mind’s eye saw Dev’s belly slowly filling with blood without the wound Goddard’s had that let his blood drain into an amplification speaker.

  “Because it was closed trauma,” I interrupted, “would that enhance Devlin’s chance of survival if the aorta was torn?”

  The doctor frowned. “I’m not sure I understand.”

  Chris knew exactly where I was going with the question. I felt a wave of panic. What if he didn’t understand why I asked such a question while our friend’s life hung in the balance?

  “We had a murder victim with an injury to the aorta,” Chris explained. “I think Helen’s trying to think about something other than Devlin possibly meeting the same fate.”

  “I seriously doubt that his aorta was damaged,” he said.

  My confidence in trusting the words of MSUH’s emergency physicians was nil after one of them promised me that Johnny’s memory loss would be minimal. My lips rolled between my teeth, an attempt to quell the derision I fel
t.

  “In injuries where we see immediate bruising from abdominal impact like your colleague suffered –”

  “How much do you know about the accident?” Chris cut off the presumptive blather this time.

  “I believe that the driver’s side of the vehicle was hit. The vehicle Detective Mackenzie was rescued from rolled several times before it came to rest on the passenger side.”

  “Hit by what exactly?” Chris asked.

  “Some sort of commercial transportation vehicle. A truck maybe? Produce, I think the paramedics said.”

  “Did he commit a traffic violation?”

  The doctor glanced back at me and shrugged. “I’m afraid we don’t get that kind of information, detective. In any case, your friend is in the best hands possible. If you’d like me to go in and see if I can get an update on the surgery, I’d be happy to do that for you.”

  “Please,” I said.

  “He’s gonna pull through this, Helen,” Chris said. “He’s got to.”

  It felt like eternity had dragged on for several eons by the time the doctor came through the doors from the surgical suites. “Good news,” he said. “Your friend dodged a real bullet. His spleen was lacerated. His surgeon successfully removed it, and he’s being closed even as we speak. Detective Mackenzie should be in recovery in less than an hour.”

  Chris wrapped his arms around me shortly after good news. He hugged me tightly and spoke to the doctor over my shoulder. “When can we see him?”

  “Not until he’s out of recovery and on the surgical floor. It could be a couple more hours. You two look like you could use some rest and a hot meal.”

  Sour coffee churned in my belly. No arm twisting was necessary for a good meal. The last thing I wanted was to lose the weight I struggled to regain after Johnny’s brutal intervention after I was shot. “Let’s go to the cafeteria, Chris.”

  He agreed. Over eggs benedict, Chris started talking about his history with Devlin.

  “He was nineteen, barely,” Chris shook his head and chuckled. “Nineteen going on 30. Devlin wasn’t like the other kids in his unit. He was quiet, not one little bit cocky , and really was the kind of soldier that made me nervous.”

  “In what way?”

  “We were an expeditionary unit,” Chris explained, “you know, we’d go in and pave the way for those behind us.”

  “Devlin saw combat?”

  Chris nodded, “Although the world at large thought we were on some sort of peace keeping mission. Let me tell you, there were no campfires with the natives where we exchanged versions of Kumbaya. This is oftentimes what happens when the UN talks about peace. Those of us on the ground know there’s nothing peaceful about it. Anyway, civil war is bloody, and it was our job to try to quell some of the genocide and torture going on while the heads of state battled out the terms of two emerging countries.”

  My mind calculated Dev’s age, counted back the requisite number of years to his youth. I remembered the peace keeping mission in question. “And his behavior worried you?”

  Chris chewed thoughtfully. “It wasn’t so much what he did, Helen. It was what he didn’t do. I remember one instance specifically. We’d come through this village really, so small I doubt it would’ve classified as a town. There was a house that had been gutted by fire. Family all dead in their beds. Most of the guys got sick, a few were crying. Dev stoically went about business. There were burned remnants of rope that had been used to tie children into their beds before the house was set ablaze.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Still haunts me to this day. So what I was accustomed to these kids falling apart. Not Devlin. He showed no emotion. Frankly, it worried me more than you could possibly know.”

  “Chris, I think of all people, I understand what you’re saying. Devlin’s lack of emotion at seeing such horrors could mean a lot of things, the least of which is some sort of emotionally dissociative state.”

  He nodded, “Yeah, I suppose you would relate to that on a professional level. Anyway, I started keeping a close eye on him. I couldn’t find any fault with his performance, Helen. He volunteered for more night watches than anybody in the unit. He wasn’t inappropriate or overly interested in seeing the gore. I couldn’t figure out what his story was, and he was so quiet, he wasn’t about to confide in me or anybody else. I started worrying that we were screwing this kid’s head up. You know?”

  “Sure,” I nodded and reached for Darnell’s hand.

  “So one night I followed him out on night watch, sort of approached in stealth mode. I saw what was going on first hand.”

  “What was he doing?” I leaned forward, genuinely curious about how Devlin processed the world of war.

  “Crying,” Chris said, “and praying for the people in the countryside, that we would be able to keep peace and save them.” His eyes welled with tears. “I knew then and there that Devlin Mackenzie was no ordinary man. He had character and compassion and a wisdom that I didn’t find in a whole lot of men my age.”

  “I learned quickly that Devlin has a deep respect for the law,” I said, “and not a whole lot of patience for those who get in the way of the job being done correctly.”

  “He’s a good person, Helen.” Chris stared at his half eaten meal. “I feel strange saying this. You know how I feel about Johnny. I’ve known him and respected him for a long time, Helen. But Devlin is like a son to me.”

  “I know.” And saw where he was going before the words were uttered.

  “Devlin cares about you. In fact, I’d go so far as to say he’s got a bit of a crush. He’s too honorable to stand between you and Johnny.”

  “But.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “But Johnny can’t remember what he knew about you, and I’m pretty sure based on his behavior over the last week that his frustration level is making him look for your flaws, not the reasons that he cared about you.”

  “I see.”

  “You’re in one hell of a tough spot. I know you care about Johnny too, but I also know that you and Devlin sort of got pretty close working the Datello case.”

  “I don’t want anyone to get hurt, Chris. Not Johnny, certainly not Devlin. Perhaps it would be better if I just retreated away from both of them until things settle down a little bit.”

  “I’d like Devlin to know that you’re his friend, Helen. After losing Ned, which I’m not sure he even knows yet, he’s gonna need more than me.”

  “All right.”

  “You need to figure out if you’re gonna stick by Johnny right now, because it’s the mixed signals that are gonna hurt Devlin – if he survives.”

  “Chris, he’s strong. He’ll pull through this.”

  “I’ll feel a lot better about it when he wakes up and speaks to me,” Chris said. He glanced at his watch. “How much longer do you think it’ll be before they let us see him?”

  “Let’s at least finish breakfast before we head up to the surgical floor.” Even though my appetite was far from back to a hundred percent, niggling fear of backsliding into malnutrition propelled the fork to my mouth.

  Chapter 11

  He looked pale against the white hospital linens. I struggled with burning eyes and a leaky nose. Chris made no pretense. He cried the moment we walked into the room. A second later, he slumped into a chair beside the bed and hesitated before finding a patch of arm without a tube or cuff attached. He rested his hand lightly and started talking.

  “I don’t know if you can hear me son, but I’m here.”

  I took post on the other side of the bed. “It could be hours before he’s conscious enough to realize we’re here, Chris.”

  “I know. I’ve got to believe that part of him can understand that we’re here. I love him like the son I always wanted but never had.”

  In that moment, I realized that I knew next to nothing about Chris Darnell. He said he was married once. I presumed given his age, that there were children and grandchildren in his life. Then again, my other impression of him
was that he must sleep standing in his perfectly pressed state police uniform.

  “Chris, don’t you have children?”

  The smile was faint. “I guess I’m what you kids would consider a newlywed. My second wife and I have been married for three years. Before I finally settled down, those opportunities for kids were long gone.”

  I had a hard time imagining him as the player I was once warned Johnny was.

  “My career always came first,” he continued, oblivious to where my thoughts were headed. “You remind me a lot of myself when I was young, Helen. The job came before everything else. After I got to a certain age, it got harder to go home to an empty life, and my responsibilities became less and less as the younger guys started coming up in the ranks of the state police. I had no doubt that Governor Collangelo would tap Johnny to run the agency.”

  “He’s a very good investigator.”

  “Exactly,” Chris nodded. “With very little patience for the administrative aspects of the jobs. That was how I was coaxed out of retiring when OSI was in its early stages of development. Johnny wanted to keep doing undercover work.”

  “Was he with the state police a long time before OSI?”

  Chris grinned. “Almost from day one that he left Darkwater Bay PD, Helen. Didn’t he tell you what happened?”

  “I knew the basics, only because I was working with Central Division and as you recall, there were a number of his former peers that were out for Johnny’s blood.”

  “He was the top undercover guy with the state police for a very long time. He used that private security business as a cover from the get go. His father owned it, ran a very respectable business for years before he died. After he disappeared, Johnny took over, not in the literal sense. It was more oversight than anything else, because he was still a police detective with Downey Division at the time. When he left the department, I snapped him up in a heartbeat. He suggested that we keep it very quiet, that he use his father’s business as a cover so he could dig for information that we might not otherwise get. He sort of embraced the role of the disgraced cop.”